The Secret Women by Sheila Williams

Author:Sheila Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Elise

Even before Owen Wade died, Elise and her mother were close. Elise was the only daughter wedged in between “two grubby boys,” as Marie referred to her sons. The birth of a girl gave her a good deal of joy and an excuse to indulge herself shopping for frilly dresses, in pastel colors, lace-trimmed anklet socks, and patent leather shoes. The baby’s nursery was a wonderland of pink gingham and ruffles. If Elise had wanted to be anything but a “girlie girl,” she would have been out of luck. Marie decided the moment after she was born that her life would be cushioned and colored in pink. She began life as her mother’s “precious darling” and moved into adulthood as her mother’s buddy.

Their father’s death at age eighty-two was devastating but expected. Once the ordeal of the funeral was over and Elise’s brother Warren returned to his home in Seattle, it was up to Elise and her remaining brother, Bill, to keep “an eye” on their mother. A habit takes about twenty-one days to form. By the time twenty-two days had passed, Elise and her mother were as thick as thieves, best friends, inseparable. If you saw one, you saw the other. And because Elise resembled Marie so much, mutual friends began calling them the Black Olsen Twins, the only set of twins in the world who were identical except for a twenty-five-year age difference. They went everywhere together: the grocery store, the movies, club meetings, even yoga class, although Marie preferred Pilates. They sat together in church, they did their part for Walk for the Cure, and they protested the protestors who were picketing the Planned Parenthood center. They sent each other emails and text messages (Marie loved texting); they spoke on the phone every day. If Marie felt smothered by the attention, she didn’t mention it. And if Elise was overwhelmed by the energy it took as she tried to fill the void of companionship left by the death of her father, she never let on. Her parents had been close, married over fifty years and soul mates, if such a relationship existed. Elise felt that she was doing her duty as a daughter to help her mother over the “hump” as she coped with being a single woman over seventy-five, maneuvering the world alone. It wasn’t a mission Elise spent much time thinking about; she just did it. She wove her mother’s life into her own, filling her planner with Marie’s appointments in an eye-catching turquoise ink next to her own meetings and obligations. She set timers to call her mother at certain moments every day, included Marie in her social activities. Elise’s day was tightly organized around Marie’s, and vice versa.

“Sweetie, I don’t want to be a third wheel,” Marie protested when Elise asked her to attend a charity gala with her and Bobby.

“Mom, don’t worry about that. You know that Bobby adores you,” Elise said.

“Are you comin’ home tonight?” Elise’s husband would say when

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