Double Happiness by Mary-Beth Hughes Page A

morning.
    Out the high window a sliver of red warmed the black edge of the hill beyond the walnut trees. Patty listened to the knock of the kettle hitting the stove top, and remembered the sad thickness of this landscape when she’d first arrived, before she’d adjusted, and wondered how Coren would see it. But Coren saw so little. It was the secret of her startling equanimity. Patty pulled the duvet high on her chest to smother a prick of unhappiness. A cat, the old gray mother, sighed and settled at her knees.
    Their last sleepover, Patty now remembered, had been a disaster. A brownout in Manhattan, both husbands out of town, they’d watched the undulating city from Coren’s terrace. The darkness, the sounds from the streets, frightening,but from their perch of safety, fascinating, too. That’s when she’d heard the tale of Coren’s mother’s death and the part darkness played in the violent end of a young foolish woman. Coren’s mother had made her fatal telephone call from a booth with a burnt-out bulb. Surely the first thing a girl learns is to avoid the dark alone. Patty released the thought and let sleep take her over.
    Patty had a theory about sad stories, they were best left untold. Or told only once if absolutely necessary, then forgotten. So on the first day, spotting Coren wrapped in a blanket staring out unseeing from the stone veranda, she settled on an agenda of distraction. Not easily done in a place where culture had yet to recover from a war most of the world knew only as a reliable movie plot. But there were country walks to be taken, and morning markets to be shopped; she’d invite friends, foreigners who, like herself, had bought up the crumbling abandoned farmhouses and poured money, like honey, into the restorations.
    And lucky for both of them, she’d just received a knotty, mysterious letter from Brad Jr. in Vancouver. Darling, she said, letting the letter flutter from her right hand as she balanced a tray with toast and jam and fresh coffee. Help me sort this out, please! She settled the tray on the stone wall and offered Coren a pretty napkin and one of the small white porcelain plates that pleased her so. Good news? asked Coren.
    Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. And they both laughed.
    Brad’s trust was nothing he could live on, but it broke the spirit to have things too easy when young. Didn’t Coren agree?
    Well, what does he say?
    Here goes:
Dear Mama
—great, so far, said Patty, looking up, smiling—
I don’t want to bother you because I know you’ve had a hard time. The project of the house is more than just old stones. If you could be with Dad, you wouldn’t need to be out in a field clearing rocks. Right?
    Good luck with the harvest! Be careful of your back. Walnuts are small, but weight is strange the way it accumulates. Maybe that’s more about stars
.
    Anyway, things are pretty good at the Pilner-Stokes, better than at Kaplan-Kolp. The funding tanked when the newest council convened to “clean-up” fiscal slag. Our salaries were cut 10 percent. Unbelievable. But the universe is a long-term project. Anyway, do you think I could talk to Preston Boll about a bigger payout from the trust? Then I could move out of the cave with hot plate, to a studio with a stove and, you know, a shower. I love the work and wish it would pay more. I don’t know. Maybe we’re both just looking for signs of Dad in something totally mysterious and out there. Anyway, would you consider an increase? If it’s a problem, forget it. But if you say yes, you know I’ll repay you
.
    Your son, Brad
    Patty folded the letter back into its blue envelope, lifted her cup, and blew on her hot coffee, took a tentative sip.
    Very Brad, said Coren. Always so tender. Just like his father.
    You think so?
    I do! You know what I was remembering in the airport? The way he used to sit with Jorge in the doorman’s booth and play