Our Father Read Free

spring. You know I hate to be called Lizzie.”
    “God! Sorry! Oh god! Why didn’t you let me know? I would have come to the funeral, at least stood there with you!”
    “I didn’t go to the funeral. His children arranged it, held it in Ohio, where his parents are buried, where one of his sons lives now. Old family house. Town he grew up in. They didn’t welcome his Washington friends.”
    “Oh you must have felt terrible! You should have called! You could have come to New York and stayed with me for a while.”
    “What for?”
    “I do know what it is to lose the man you love.”
    Injured dignity incarnate, thought Elizabeth. “Several times over,” she said harshly.
    Mary’s fair skin mottled with pink.
    Elizabeth relented. “Actually, the best cure for me when I’m upset is work. I just stayed home and worked on my book.”
    Mary studied her rings.
    No one asked about the book.
    “I feel odd one out,” Alex said with a tight laugh. “Is it all right—I mean, may I ask—who was Clare?”
    Lips tight, Elizabeth said, “Clare McCormick. The economist. A great economist. On the Council of Economic Advisers. The top government economic advisory body,” she explained at Alex’s blank look. “Consultant to the Federal Reserve and the OMB.”
    Alex looked stupid.
    “The Office of Management and Budget. A government agency that sets the country’s economic policies.”
    Alex had the look of a seventh-grader trying hard to memorize a Latin declension.
    “You do know that I am an assistant secretary of the treasury, don’t you? We just don’t count the money, Alex, we set the nation’s economic policy.”
    She doesn’t know that I don’t even know what that means. What is an economic policy anyway? Don’t ask. “And you and Clare were married?” she said sympathetically.
    “They were … very good friends,” Mary explained.
    “My best friend in the world,” Elizabeth murmured.
    “I’m so sorry,” Alex breathed. “What did he die of?”
    “Pneumonia.”
    “Oh,” Alex said mournfully. “How old was he?”
    “Pneumonia?!” Mary exclaimed doubtfully.
    “Seventy,” Elizabeth said. “A young seventy.” She lighted a cigarette. “It’s what happens in middle age, people start dying,” she said brusquely. “We can expect to hear news like that daily. Death and sickness, loss on all sides. That’s all we have to look forward to.”
    “Oh, Elizabeth, you’re always so negative!” Mary snapped. “I definitely don’t feel that all I have to look forward to is death and loss!”
    “No, you’re probably looking forward to another husband.”
    “I certainly am. And why not! You’re just as nasty as ever!”
    A long silence fouled the air like musty cigar smoke.
    Alex stood abruptly. “Another drink, anyone?” she chirped, walking to the small sideboard and refilling her wineglass. She turned, began tentatively, “Do you remember me at all? I mean, I remember you both, but very—vaguely—I guess. You seemed so grown up to me. I remember your wedding,” she said to Mary. “So grand! The striped tent and the men all in cutaways and crystal stemware on the tables and all the flowers, flowers everywhere! You had six maids of honor and six ushers. You were so beautiful, like a movie star, I thought you were a goddess!”
    Mary sat silent. Elizabeth went to England, left me here alone. Desolate. “Yes,” she said finally. “That was 1955. I married Harry Burnside. You were my flower girl. You wore pale pink and carried pink lilac flown in from Canada.”
    Faraway voice, remembering. “Nineteen fifty-five: I would have been seven, eight that Christmas. I still have that dress, anyway Mom has it in the attic, I saw it a few years ago when I went up to look for a steamer trunk for Stevie when he was going to camp. But I don’t remember Harry.”
    “He died. In 1960.”
    “I remember he was much older than you.”
    Elizabeth grinned nastily. “Same age as her daddy.”
    Mary shot