Helen Hath No Fury by Gillian Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

make it better.”
    “I wish I could think of anything that could.”
    We did some more of the whush-whush-whush platitudes, and then Tess seemed to regain her balance a bit. “I’ll bet everybody’s as lost about this as the two of us are,” she said. “What if … it would be good if we got together—whoever wants to—to talk as soon as possible. The sooner the better. Tomorrow night seems good.”
    “Group therapy?” I wasn’t sure about this idea. It sounded too … too something. Not Helen-ish at all. Not book-club-ish.
    “We’ll talk, remember her, deal with our feelings about this horrible accident. We all feel the impulse to make contact at times like these. We could help each other.”
    I certainly shared that need to communicate, makesome kind of contact with other people who would understand. I couldn’t think of any objection to Tess’s idea, and not only agreed, but offered the loft as the meeting space. We made rudimentary decisions about time and food—everybody would bring whatever she felt like, if anything at all. Funeral food. Folding chairs. Then we, too, hung up. I had a job now—I had to phone two people with the specific plan, which I then did, commiserating and repeating that time-filling talk.
    I also had another job. I had to clean the place. It seemed frivolous and shallow to worry about such things now. But on the other hand, it beat thinking about Helen’s death.
    In fact, cleaning filled time and gave me purpose, which is, perhaps, why it used to be so popular an activity with my sex.
    I plumped pillows, ran a dust cloth across the oak table, straightened a stack of unread magazines, dry-mopped the floor, polished the bathroom.
    And then, I was out of steam and surfaces. I tried to mark papers, but couldn’t focus on anything but Helen. That hideous fall. The way everything can change in an instant.
    I tried to read a magazine. I turned pages, ripped out the cardboard inserts and ads so that the pages would lie more smoothly, and then I gave up on that, too.
    When the phone rang, I grabbed it with unwholesome eagerness. I knew it was one of us—the book group woven tightly together because of this tragedy. It might even be somebody notifying me of what I’d already notified someone else. The circle would go round and round because so were we—spinning in the absolute confusion that follows having assumptions and expectations irrevocably snap.
    This time, it was Louisa. I’d never called her, but sheknew. She sounded subdued and unlike herself. When Louisa speaks, it’s generally in overlong, staccato bursts. Luckily, most of the time, she’s silent. Louisa is Clary Oliver’s younger sister, and I think that’s the only reason she’s in the group. She’s like a dim copy of her sister, and it’s possible she’s spent her life being angry about that, because all her energy seems to go into grievance collecting and self-pity. She’d outdone her sister only once—by having three divorces to Clary’s two. But Clary was a successful and self-supporting businesswoman, and Louisa had spun through half a dozen fizzled career plans. She was currently a consultant to nonprofits, but I had heard Helen once refer to Louisa herself as a nonprofit and, another time, as a business liability. It was assumed by everyone that Clary supported her and her children, and it was further rumored that Helen resented the time, energy, and resources given over to Clary’s younger sister.
    “Did you hear?” she asked. “About Helen?”
    This was late to be asking, and I was surprised that she’d call me, consider me a possible source of comfort. “It’s dreadful.”
    “My sister is sick about this. Do you believe it, though?”
    “Believe what?”
    There was a moment’s missed beat. Then Louisa spoke again, even more slowly. “Then you didn’t hear. You don’t know.”
    She paused. She paused longer. She knew something I didn’t, and she had to be sure that was perfectly clear.