She could hear people filing into the house. The brass bell, a family heirloom set beside the door, rang as guests came up the bluestone path, bringing casseroles and Bundt cakes to be set out on willowware platters. Soon, the family was all accounted for. Gillian and that Ben Frye, whom she never wanted to introduce to anyone, but who was always ready to perform a few magic tricks if any children were gathered. Kylie and that tall fellow Gideon Barnes, a friend of hers who had been hanging around ever since they were twelve. Antonia and her med school pals, those two handsome men, Scott Morrison and Joel McKenna. Members of the library board, and neighborhood women Jet had invited into their home, no matter the weather, at whatever hour they knocked on the door in search of a cure. Franny didn’t care to see a single one of them, so she stayed where she was, stretched out in bed.
Sally looked for Franny, who was nowhere to be found. She came upstairs to check on her aunt, passing by Maria’s portrait on the landing. She stopped at Franny’s door and called her name, but there was no answer. When Sally pushed open the door a crack and spied the rumpled figure in bed, she felt like breaking down. But as always, she pulled herself together and asked if Franny would like a sandwich or a cup of tea. Franny failed to answer; she had the blanket pulled over her head and pretended to be napping. Thankfully, Sally let her be so that she might grieve alone.
What happens next? Franny wondered. How do I walk through this world without my sister beside me?
* * *
Gillian was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a Chocolate Tipsy Cake. Ben was helping her, measuring out the rum to mix into the last of the frosting that would be piped into a decorative border. He was concentrating hard and his face was smeared with chocolate and he was still just as handsome as he’d been when Gillian first met him, which for some reason made her feel like crying. There was a chill in the house and Gillian had the shivers, caused by both the cold and her raw emotions. “Can you find me one of Jet’s sweaters?” she asked Kylie, who seemed lost and in need of an errand to run.
Kylie took the stairs up to Jet’s room, pausing before she opened the door. Jet had been the one Kylie had always turned to, in good times and bad. She forced herself to go forward, into the lovely large room with floral wallpaper and white painted furniture. Jet had been a great reader, and there were books piled everywhere, even on the bureau. Kylie found a sweater for Gillian to wear, black cashmere with pearl buttons, a cardigan so carefully stored away it looked brand-new. The windows were old, green glass, but it was possible to see the lilacs when Kylie looked out, her eyes brimming with tears. The Poems of Emily Dickinson remained open on Jet’s night table. Without thinking twice, Kylie took the volume, her aunt’s favorite, knowing it was Jet’s habit to read one of the poems each and every night, as if the words of that great poet equaled a prayer. Perhaps it was a habit that Kylie herself might acquire.
* * *
Rafael Correa had never been to Magnolia Street and he wanted to see where his darling Jet had lived. He walked through the gathering of Owens relatives and the neighbors who were indebted to Jet for the help she provided in their times of need. He noticed a blond woman in the kitchen wearing a sweater that had been a birthday gift he’d given Jet one year, long ago. Rafael remembered choosing it at Saks, something that would, in some small way, let Jet know what she meant to him. She’d worn it that very night, when they went to the Oak Bar at the Plaza Hotel. Their room was always reserved under an assumed name, often E. Dickinson but, occasionally, when Jet was feeling perverse, registered to N. Hawthorne, a distant relation.
At first, Rafael had been jealous of Levi Willard, even after Levi had been dead and buried for years. He’d wondered if Levi was the reason Jet could never fully commit herself to him, but in time, he’d come to understand it was because of a family curse that she feared. She’d been a dark-haired girl when they were first together, barely a woman, gentle and tender, yet she’d warned him to be careful on the night they’d met. “I’m dangerous,” Jet had said. It seemed far-fetched. She had a heart-shaped serious face and silver-gray eyes and she cut her own pitch-black hair so that it was always choppy. He’d been madly in love with her in no time, but he made a solemn promise to never say so, a vow he now regretted. He would say it out loud, he would shout it, but what good would it do?