hers woven beneath a tortoiseshell clasp like a sensuous puzzle. Cam was kissing her at the kitchen sink, keeping his hand flat against her buttocks. She was wearing a tight tweed skirt, which Margaret saw as secretarial garb, and Cam was squashing the fabric. He didn’t stop for Margaret. He pressed his face closer, deeper into the kiss, hiding from his sister. The girl was pinned against the stainless-steel counter, but she still could have waved hello to Margaret. Margaret left the room without any acknowledgment.
Cam married Darcy on Kentucky Derby Day. Darcythought she was pregnant, and when it turned out not to be so, the arrangements had already been set in motion. The TV was going at Darcy’s house during the reception. All the men gathered to look at the race. Margaret edged in to see the screen. She watched how they broke from the gate, calling out the silks for her brother, who was across the room with his new bride. Margaret kept looking over her shoulder at Cam to tell him who was moving up, who got bumped, which horses broke down and missed their opportunities. He looked back at her, frowning, as if telling her to stop acting so stupid. Darcy stared at Margaret without blinking, enforcing Cam, who, without her warnings, might have given in to his sister. Margaret felt betrayed, unhappy in her sudden estrangement. She turned back to the race but the horses were finished, the jockeys lifted in their saddles, and the men around her became officious as they divided up the kitty.
Perhaps it was coincidence or a queer snag of fate, but Margaret was at the horse races at Delaware Park, to watch Kelso’s last race, the day Cam threatened to shoot himself. The sky was arid and glassy as if there were a great magnifying hoop held over the Earth. The sun intensified, taking clear aim at them. Elizabeth was complaining even before they parked the car. She would perish unless they could go up into the clubhouse restaurant. She quieted down once she was seated in the stands with a collapsible aluminum drinking cup as Richard poured gin from a flask. Margaret bought a
Baltimore Sun
from a machine and sat making hats for her parents and one for herself. She could make paper hats or paper boats.
Elizabeth refused to try hers. “I won’t wear it,” she said. “It’s silly and it will ink my hair.”
She was right to be cautious. Her hair was so porous from color treatments, its hollow red strands would have soaked up the print. The sun wobbled overhead, its heat radiating in parallel lines that jelled over the horizon, wavy, until it looked as if the field were tearing up in places.
After the fifth race, before Kelso made his farewell appearance, her father’s name was announced over the loudspeaker. He was called to the offices and put on the telephone. It was Father Cullen, Elizabeth’s priest. Cam was in his apartment with a gun. Darcy had told him she was leaving and he countered this news by pointing a gun to his head and releasing the safety. For eight hours after, Richard, the priest, and several others took turns sitting beside Cam on the sofa, but he never pulled the gun away from his temple except to rotate its chamber once or twice, begging for Darcy. She wouldn’t appear. At last, when she did come forth, it was at the request of her own parents. They might have preferred to leave it up to Cam, but they told Darcy, if anything happened, it was a mark on the family. Darcy told Cam she’d stay with him a while longer and just see.
After the suicide threat, Cam sometimes came over to the house. He must have been lonely in his own place, but he never again let on he was at a low point. He picked up a screwdriver from the kitchen drawer and tightened the metal plates over the wall switches, or he went outside and lifted the heavy whitewashed stones along the driveway and set them back straight.
He began to take Margaret out to eat.
“She’s not even cooking?” Margaret asked
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