A Place Apart by Paula Fox Page B

I wanted to grab his arm and hold on to it so he wouldn’t disappear into the future the way Papa had disappeared into the past.
    â€œIt won’t be until next summer, Tory,” Ma said. “Not until you finish the tenth grade.”
    I knew then the whole thing had been decided. I couldn’t lie to myself, tell myself that Ma didn’t care about me, but I wished I didn’t know that she did. The truth was—there was nothing I could do to change anything.
    â€œMaybe I’ll get used to it,” I said. But I knew I wouldn’t. My mother, my father, me. We were set forever in a picture in my mind. There was a new picture now. I wasn’t in it. I could feel my mother looking at me. Once, I looked back at her. I knew she was worried; I could see the frown lines in her face. The boy with the harmonica had disappeared. The star had moved. It seemed hours ago that I had imagined it attached to Ma’s forehead.
    â€œLet’s go back to the inn,” I said. “I want to finish Wuthering Heights .”
    She nodded, and we began to walk slowly back. Neither of us spoke. Now and then I had trouble breathing. It was as if there was a lump of feeling lodged in my throat. The sense of something unfinished between us was hard for me to bear. I wanted to speak, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say. Just before we went to bed, I startled myself with an explosion of words.
    â€œMa. It’s not been a year since Papa died,” I said. I was looking out the window at the dark sea, my back to her.
    â€œI know that,” she said.
    â€œWell … it seems so soon for you to get—” but I couldn’t say the word “married.” It was her fault I felt so embarrassed and angry!
    â€œLook at me,” she demanded.
    I turned reluctantly. She was sitting on her bed, staring at me.
    â€œI can’t answer you. I can’t help what you feel,” she said. “My life could have turned out differently. I might never have married again. Or not for a few years. I don’t know … But what happened is that I met Lawrence. I know him and I like him. It’s not the way I felt about Papa. It can’t be that way again. Maybe it is too soon. Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do. We’ll have to see. It’s not really you who’s taking the chance. Lawrence and I are. Now, come to bed, dear Tory. We have an early bus to catch.”
    There was nothing more I could say. I stayed awake a long time.
    We left Edgewater the next morning and went to Uncle Philip’s apartment in Boston, where we were to spend two days, one of which was my birthday.
    Uncle Philip had made me a devil’s-food cake. It had a ribbon tied to it and a water pistol tied to the ribbon so I could defend it. Elizabeth came, too. I suppose Ma and Uncle Philip had arranged that even before we went to Edgewater. Though I was glad to see her, I felt as if everything was being done behind my back.
    My mother gave me a gold chain that had belonged to her mother. Uncle Philip gave me three short novels by Joseph Conrad, Jed gave me a scarf, and Elizabeth gave me a Mexican mirror. The frame was a tin sunburst, and it was just big enough to see your face in.
    I looked into it. There I was, Victoria Finch, fourteen years old. For a moment, my father’s old tweed hat, the ghost of it, floated just over my head; then it sailed away and I was alone in the mirror. I looked strange to myself, like someone I didn’t really know.
    Lawrence Grady arrived later, and he brought me a canvas bag I could use for traveling. I wondered what he had in mind. I watched him closely, as though by doing so I could find out what I really felt about him. I knew my mother was watching me watch him.
    Perhaps I could have liked him if he and my mother—Suddenly he took my arm and led me off to a corner of Uncle Philip’s living room.
    â€œDo you mind a lot?” he asked me.
    I thought, They