The Vagabonds by Nicholas DelBanco Read Free Book Online

what they teach you in California?”
    “Right, I forgot,” David says. “Here’s to never saying what, if anything, is on your mind.”
    “What?”
    He lifts his glass. “Here’s to Midwestern repression.”
    “Oh, please,” Joanna intervenes. “Tomorrow is when we discuss it. Tomorrow morning he reads us the will.”
    “I don’t want to argue,” says Claire. She drinks.
    “Remember,” asks Joanna, “when we learned about Dad’s death? The day he had that accident . . .”
    The soup arrives. Their waitress lights a candle.
    “So how’s Ann Arbor?” David swallows. “How’s life in the big little city?”
    “You should come visit,” says Claire.
    “Are you all right?” Joanna asks.
    Her brother shakes his head. “I miss her very much.”
    “It’s what children do.”
    Claire has been trying not to cry. “It’s what we’re
supposed
to do. Live on.”
    The music of Vivaldi gives way to Billie Holiday and Billie Holiday to Sting. They eat. The restaurant is nearly empty: a pair of women in the corner, a table of what look like businessmen dividing up the bill. They talk about the funeral home and the cost of the arrangements and how strange it is to buy a container purchased just for burning; they talk about Bill Becker and his signet ring and family of undertakers and the last time they were together in town when everyone went to their high school reunions. Joanna lights a cigarette; she is rationing herself, she says—one every other hour, one per meal. They agree on an oak coffin and three separate urns for their mother’s remains. Claire orders tiramisu. “Three spoons,” she tells the waitress, and Joanna shakes her head and, pointing to her cigarette, says “Two.” David repeats his assertion that this evening ought to matter and this reunion count; the sisters do not contravene him or argue with each other; they have made a warring truce.
    Once more, a light snow falls. They return to the cottage at nine. As if by unspoken agreement, they walk into the living room; a carpet has been rolled for storage in the corner and the space feels unlived-in, expectant. There are portraits of Alice and George at their wedding and portraits of grandparents and great-grandparents done in oil; there’s a watercolor of the cottage done by some forgotten guest and dated August 1921. Flanking the fireplace, in cabinets, stands the collection of miniature cats.
    “I’m tired,” Claire announces. “I began this day too early. I was up at dawn—before it—and tomorrow is a busy day and I need to call it quits.”
    “It’s only six o’clock,” says David. “California time. Except I didn’t sleep last night . . .”
    “Wait up with me a little,” says Joanna. “Let’s build a fire in the living room. Let’s sit up together, all right?”
    “The fireplace. You think it works?”
    “I think so,” says Claire. “Check the flue.”
    He does. It swivels easily, discharging soot, and he lights a piece of paper in order to check on the draft; the chimney is not blocked. From the walkway past the pantry he selects a pile of kindling and old newspaper and an armful of two-foot logs. The dry wood catches readily and flame crackles, rising; he and Joanna sit on the love seat and watch. She misses him, Joanna tells her brother; this man is the man she’s lived with the longest, sharing a roof, and now that they are grown-ups they don’t seem to visit at all.
    The wine has made her garrulous; she talks about living alone all these years and if it’s different for a woman and the ways it must be different for a man. Then she talks about Leah and leaving Cape Cod, how once her daughter goes away there won’t be any family for her in driving distance. It hasn’t happened yet, says Claire; that’s true, Joanna says. In
West Side Story,
she tells them, Leah has been cast as Anita, the second most important part for a woman in the musical, and it requires her dancing; the show opens in Orleans on