Chapter 1 - The Anatomy of an Asterisk
The cold that settled over the Hudson Valley on the third week of December was the sharp, quiet kind that made the glass in old windows hum. In the small kitchen of our two-story house in Kingston, the radiator clanked four times every hour like an old clock that had forgotten how to chime.
I was standing at the butcher-block counter, trying to smooth out the hem of a gold taffeta dress that had belonged to my sister’s daughter five years ago. It was a beautiful dress—dense, heavy silk with a wide velvet sash at the waist—but the lace at the cuffs had begun to fray where seven-year-old wrists usually tore things.
Travis came down the narrow pine stairs carrying his work boots by the leather laces. He was six-foot-two, built like the timber-framer he was, with broad, square shoulders that always made our small cottage look slightly too small for him. He set his boots by the back door, walked straight to the stove, and poured two mugs of black coffee before he even looked at the kitchen table.
“She’s still staring at the shoes,” he said softly, his voice low enough that it wouldn't carry up the floorboards to the tiny bedroom under the eaves.
“The Mary Janes?” I asked.
“The black ones with the buckle. She spent ten minutes polishing the toes with an old washcloth. She thinks if they’re shiny enough, your mother-in-law won't notice they’re from the consignment shop on Route 9.”
I pulled the iron away from the gold dress, letting the steam rise into the cool air between us. My hands were stiff from three hours of sewing. “Lorraine notices everything, Trav. She notices the brand of butter we bring. She notices if I wear silver instead of gold. She notices if Zia’s hair isn't parted on the exact center line.”
Travis didn't answer right away. He took a slow sip of his coffee, his dark brown eyes fixing on the frost creeping up the corner of the window pane.
“It’s not about the butter, Maya,” he said quietly. “It’s never been about the butter.”
He was right, of course.
For three years—ever since Travis and I had stood in front of a justice of the peace in the town hall with five friends and a seven-month-old girl asleep in a sling across my chest—Lorraine Vance had treated my existence as an unfortunate administrative error. I was the second wife. Worse, I was the wife who came with inventory.
My first husband, David, had died in a rollover accident on the Taconic Parkway when I was four months pregnant with Zia. He left behind a half-finished garage, three thousand dollars in a credit union account, and a daughter who carried his wide, gray eyes and his dark, curly hair.
When Travis brought me to Lorraine’s brick Georgian home in Rhinebeck six months after David’s memorial, Lorraine had greeted us on the wide slate porch holding a plate of lemon bars. She had kissed Travis on both cheeks, nodded politely at me, and then leaned down to look into the stroller where Zia was chewing on a blue plastic ring.
“Oh, isn't she a sweet little visitor,” Lorraine had whispered, her voice like cream that had been left in the sun just ten minutes too long. “How good of you, Travis, to take on someone else’s broken pieces.”
She hadn't used the word granddaughter that day. She hadn't used it the next summer at the family picnic on the river. She hadn't used it at the Thanksgiving table when she passed the turkey around the twelve-person mahogany table, making sure to skip Zia’s booster seat until everyone else had been served three times.
To Lorraine, Travis’s older brother, Mark, was the heir. Mark’s wife, Karen, was the daughter-in-law from the right family in Millbrook. Mark’s three boys—Julian, Leo, and Mason—were the Vance legacy: sturdy, blue-eyed boys who played lacrosse and had trust funds established the day their cords were cut.
Zia was an asterisk. A footnotes child. “Travis’s girl.”
“We don't have to go,” I said, setting the heavy iron down on its heel. “We can stay here. I’ll buy a small turkey breast. We’ll bake the cinnamon rolls in our own stove. We’ll watch movies in our pajamas.”
Travis walked over to where I was standing. He didn't touch my waist; he reached out and took the steam iron from my hand, placing it safely on the metal trivet near the sink. Then he took both of my cold hands in his large, warm palms. His skin was rough from cedar shingles and heavy framing hammers, but his touch was so gentle it made my throat ache.
“If we don't go, Maya,” Travis said, looking directly into my eyes, “Lorraine wins the argument she’s been having in her head for thirty-six months. She wants Zia to hide. She wants us to feel like we’re sitting at her table out of charity.”
“I don't care about winning, Travis,” I whispered. “I care about Zia not coming home with that look she gets behind her ears. That tight little look like she’s trying to shrink so nobody notices she took up space in the room.”
“She’s not going to shrink,” Travis said. His jaw tightened—the small, muscle-corded knot appearing near his ear that only showed up when he was dealing with county inspectors or his mother. “Not this year. I promised Elias before he died that I’d build things that don't fall down when the wind turns. That includes this family.”
He let go of my hands and walked toward the hall closet, pulling out his heavy oiled canvas coat.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Down to the shop,” Travis said, his voice dropping into that flat, clipped register he used when his mind was already three steps ahead of a problem. “I have to finish a box.”
“What box?”
“Just a box, Maya. Something I should have carved two years ago.”
He didn't wait for me to ask another question. He pulled his cap down over his dark hair, stepped out into the freezing Hudson Valley mist, and left me alone in the kitchen with the gold dress, the steam, and the rhythmic, hollow clanking of the old iron radiator.
Upstairs, the floorboards creaked.
A light pair of feet tapped down the hall, and then Zia appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She was wearing her flannel pajamas—the ones with the tiny polar bears holding red umbrellas—and her dark, unruly curls were pinned back on one side with a plastic yellow barrette.
She looked at the gold dress hanging from the cupboard door.
“Is it ready, Mom?” she asked softly.
“It’s ready, sweetie,” I said, forcing a bright, light tone into my chest. “Your dad steamed the ribbons twice.”
Zia walked over to the dress, reaching out one small, pale finger to touch the edge of the velvet sash. She didn't look excited. She looked careful—the way a person looks when they’re examining a glass ornament that has already been glued back together twice.
“Grandma Lorraine has a big tree this year,” Zia said to the hem of the dress. “Leo told me on the phone that it’s twelve feet tall and has real glass angels from Germany.”
“It does,” I said, pulling a wooden chair out for her. “Your grandmother spends three days decorating it.”
Zia sat down, folding her hands tightly in her lap, exactly the way she had been taught at Sunday school. “Do you think there will be an angel for me this time?”
The question was so simple, so quiet, that it felt like a small, sharp needle slipping into the space between my ribs. Last year, Lorraine had hung silver ornaments with the names of all her grandchildren on the front branches of the Douglas fir: Julian, Leo, Mason, Clara. Zia had spent twenty minutes walking around the back of the tree, parting the heavy pine boughs with her small fingers, looking for a tag that didn't exist.
“I don't know about angels, sweetie,” I said, kneeling on the cold linoleum beside her chair so I was looking directly into her wide gray eyes—David’s eyes, set in Travis’s life. “But you have the gold dress. And you have your dad and me. That’s our whole team.”
Zia looked at me for a long moment. She didn't smile, but she reached out and touched my cheek with her palm—a gesture so old and knowing that it made my heart feel eighty years old.
May you like
“Dad’s team is big,” she whispered. “Grandma Lorraine’s team is just house rules.”
She got down from the chair and walked back toward the stairs, her small black-stockinged feet making almost no sound against the wood. I sat on the cold floor by the stove for a long time, listening to the wind hit the porch rail outside, wondering how a child of seven had already learned the difference between a home and a fortress.
