The Shadow Wife

Lisbeth didn’t help matters. She was a difficult baby, colicky and forever waking her sister with her howling and fussing. But Franklin often blamed himself for Delora’s attitude toward the little girl. He never should have named her Lisbeth, because it set up yet another negative association between the infant and something Delora loathed: his mother. He should have let Delora pick a name. Make that baby hers.

“Mr. Kling?”

Franklin turned now to see Rosa at the door to the terrace.

“Supper,” Rosa said, her voice still tinged with a Mexican accent, although she had been in this country three decades. “Come inside, girls, and get washed up.”

Dinner was served in the grand dining room, which looked out over the sea. Rosa served them, as she had served Delora’s family before Franklin had moved in. She was not the best housekeeper in the world, but she had a warmth about her that had charmed Franklin from the start. He liked that she treated the twins equally, and she had even complained to him once, with apologies for overstepping her role, that she thought it unfair that only Carlynn went to the Douglass School while Lisbeth did not.

Over dinner, Delora questioned Carlynn about her day at school, while Lisbeth nibbled her food, a small shadow in the room. When Delora stopped for breath, Franklin broke in.

“Who wants to go sailing with me tomorrow?” he asked and saw the instant sparkle in Lisbeth’s eyes. He’d asked the question just to bring that joy into her face.

“I do!” she said.

“How about you, Carlynn?” he asked his other daughter.

Carlynn shook her head. “No, thank you,” she responded, as he knew she would. Carlynn had hated the water ever since their sailboat capsized in Monterey Bay a couple of years earlier. The girls had been wearing life jackets, but the water was freezing and the whole experience had been frightening, particularly for Carlynn. Lisbeth still loved to sail, but Carlynn decided she would never go on the water again. That was fine with Franklin. Carlynn had many opportunities for adventure at school, and he wanted Lisbeth to have one for herself. A pastime she could love, at which she could learn to excel.

At the end of the meal, Delora looked across the table at Franklin, and he knew she was asking him if they should remain in the dining room to tell the girls about Presto. He mouthed the word library, and Delora stood up.

“Let’s go into the library, girls,” she said. “Your father and I want to talk with you.”

Franklin led his family across the foyer into the library, dreading the conversation he knew was coming.

Delora and Carlynn sat on the love seat near the window, while Franklin and Lisbeth opted for the wing chairs. The girls looked apprehensive. They were rarely invited to participate in family discussions such as this.

“You tell them, Franklin,” Delora said.

Franklin looked from one daughter to the other. “Presto is very sick,” he said.

Both girls glanced in the general direction of the kitchen, where they knew Presto slept by the stove. Neither of them spoke.

Clearing his voice, Franklin continued. “I’m afraid he’s going to die.”

“No!” Carlynn cried, instantly in tears, and Delora pulled her close, trying to smooth her unsmoothable hair.

“Hush, darling,” she said. “It will be all right.”

Lisbeth’s hands were locked on her lap and she sat motionless, quiet. But her eyes glistened.

“Tomorrow,” Franklin said, “we will take him to the veterinarian to have him…put down.”

“Killed?” Carlynn wailed. “Please don’t, Daddy. Mommy?” She looked at her mother with hope.

“He’s suffering, Carlynn,” Delora said. “He’s having trouble breathing, and you know how he can hardly walk these days.”

“He’s nearly blind,” Franklin added. “And we want to end his misery, Carly. It’s not fair to make him go on like this when we can help him die, so he doesn’t have to be in pain any longer.”

Carlynn nestled against her mother’s breast, sobbing quietly now, and Franklin saw the tears in Delora’s eyes. She was not an insensitive woman, just limited in her capacity to love. Lisbeth’s mouth was downturned and quivering, as though she was struggling to control her emotions, and a fat tear spilled from each of her eyes. Franklin walked over to the ottoman in front of her chair and sat down on it. Leaning forward, he covered her hands, still folded in her lap, with his own.

“Are you all right, Lizzie?” he said.

Lisbeth nodded, biting her quivering lip. She was brave. Stoic. He felt a lump in his throat. No one appreciated this child except him.

But that was not exactly true. Carlynn drew away from her mother to see the pain in her twin sister’s face. Jumping up from the love seat, she ran across the room to hug her. “I won’t let them do it, Lizzie,” she said, as though she had forgotten she was only a child.

But Lisbeth knew the limitations of a seven-year-old. She nodded, as if she was humoring her sister, but Franklin saw that the sorrow never left her eyes.