The Widow Waltz Read Free

professional. This made me blush as well.
    “Is there some sort of hurry?” I asked.
    “Of course not,” he said. “I didn’t mean to rush you.” But the following morning someone from his firm called to arrange an appointment, which, when I awoke this morning, I was nonetheless ready to postpone. After weeks of outlying cousins and acquaintances oozing sympathy, I wanted to do nothing today but nap, walk Sadie, and spend the afternoon and evening watching Diane Keaton movies that I could now lip-synch. Then I thought of Nicola and Luey: the mother-love chip implanted in my heart was activated and I realized I had to at least try to behave like the dignified woman I never expected to be.
    What did the rabbi say of “the mourning process”? Beats me. I know we spoke for forty-five minutes but I remember nothing more than that he should clip his ear hair.
    “Mother, are you there?” Nicola says gently.
    I look up, startled. “Make sure your sister hasn’t punked out and decided to wear a nightgown.”
    “Exactly what Luey wants, another prison matron.”
    “For me, darling.” I stop short of begging. “Please.” Nicola turns to leave. I know she will do as I ask.
    Before I go public, I need a minute. Gray roots are winning against my dark blond. Buck up, Georgia, I tell the mirror with its hollow eyes and puffy lids. You’re a more fortunate woman than most. You’ve known long-lasting love. You have children. You want for little—the city apartment, the house on the beach, the trips, the cars, and an overload of possessions. And we’ve been philanthropic, though the donations are also the quid pro quo that has won me committee memberships. Pay to play, New York City’s bumper sticker.
    “Georgia!” I hear Luey yell. “You coming?”
    “I’m Mom, Mother, or Mama—I will even accept Ma,” I shout back. “Extend me that small courtesy, please.”
    “Sorry, Ma.” She sounds surprisingly contrite.
    The three of us wait, unspeaking, for the elevator. As we exit our building I link arms with my daughters and walk to the car. For better or worse, we will need one another. “Good morning,” I say as I slide into the back, after Nicola. Fred has been our driver for five years. I suspect he knows more about my private life than I do. He shuts the door after Luey.
    “Fine day, Ms. W,” he says, taking his seat. I hadn’t noticed that it’s oddly warm for this late in the fall. I picture a polar bear stranded on a dwindling iceberg. “Where to?”
    “One hundred twenty Broadway, please.”
    “Tell me again what’s happening today,” Luey says.
    “A formality,” I say, as I have, twice. “A lawyer will explain your father’s will.”
    Luey knows that Nicola came into the first third of her trust fund at twenty-one. The big bang will occur when Second Daughter discovers that I will be her guardian until she is thirty. This is what Ben and I decided three years ago when, without consulting us, she dropped out of Stanford in the middle of her first semester to go work at an elephant camp in Zimbabwe with a boyfriend, now long gone.
    Whenever I consider the august responsibility of being a solo parent, especially Luey Silver-Waltz’s, I retreat a bit more into myself. Ben weighed in on every decision for the girls. Not just Stanford or Duke, but matters most mothers and daughters resolved by themselves. Gymnastics or horseback riding? Short hair or long? Red dress or blue? Ben had a viewpoint on everything. I allowed my thirty-year friendship with my college roommate to expire when she said she couldn’t stand to see me “act like a weak cup of tea.” I never talked to Jill again until last week, one of many at Ben’s funeral, because I liked the way my marriage worked. Ben Silver had an aptitude for happiness. No matter what he said or did, he could wheedle his way back into my heart.
    “Here we are,” Fred says, pulling in front of a grand tower. “How long do you think you’ll