"Mama? It's me," Edith said, breathing through the nerves that were rattling her voice. She rarely spoke with her mother, and the task always came with anxiety no matter the subject.
"Edith? What's the matter?" Cora asked automatically. There was a distance between them, one that seemed only to grow and never to shrink, and every little comment only made it worse. Of course Mama expected Edith to call with bad news. When was Edith ever anything but a disappointment?
"Oh, sorry," Edith muttered, closing her eyes. She rolled her head, burying most of her face into her pillow as she took a moment.
"Please don't do that, Edith. You always act like we're out to get you, apologizing for every little thing like your parents are cruel people," Cora sighed.
Another silence passed and, when Edith failed to speak, Cora said, "Mary took the job at Papa's office. You might be interested to know. Mr. Jarvis finally retired, and your father thinks that she's ready."
"That's nice," Edith replied.
"What are you doing? You sound like you're talking through a cloth."
Edith turned her face back to the canopy of her bed. "Sorry. Listen, I just wanted to tell you about my plans. Keep you informed, I guess."
"How generous of you," Cora said dryly. "Well, so what is it? How's work?"
Edith wished, not for the first time in her life, that it didn't always sound like an effort when her mother enquired after her.
"Work is fine. Well it, well no, it was going really well actually, but I've quit."
"Oh, Edith…"
"No, Mama, it was with the blessing of my boss. On his advice, actually. But um, I'm thinking of visiting Grandma in New York."
"Why would you want to go all the way to New York to see Martha?"
"Because Grandma likes me, and I'm all… itchy here. I just need to get away."
"I thought London was your 'getting away," Cora countered. "You know I love you, Edith, but your father won't be pleased with all this restless wanderer business."
"I'm only twenty, Mama. I've already a degree," Edith began, but she fell short. Because no amount of pleading would justify her existence to her parents.
Sybil was gone, and Cora had lost her favorite child. Edith almost felt bad for that loss, only instead of embracing the two she had left, Cora tended to regret them. Mary had Papa to fall back on because he favored her so. Edith had herself. And Aunt Ros and Grandma Martha.
"Auntie is going over with me. She wants to go shopping and see some friends of hers. You know how she is, always busy, up for anything."
"Hmm," Cora said noncommittally.
Another chilly pause, no sympathy, nothing left to be said.
"Alright, well I just thought I'd tell you."
"Very good," Cora chirped, "Be safe, and do check in with us when you get there."
"I'll be leaving tomorrow," Edith added, hoping her mother wouldn't read too much into her sudden departure.
But of course Cora wouldn't. "Alright. Be good."
"Yes, Mama."
"I do love you Edith," Cora added.
"Okay," was the extent of Edith's reply. Because in that moment she just couldn't muster the words. She knew now what love was, what friendship and understanding felt like, and it wasn't this.
Cora released a sharp breath that sounded like static on the line before hanging up.
Edith stretched over her bed, knowing she should be packing and failing to care. She was leaving, and was almost certain it was the right thing to do, but it didn't make it easier.
"How long will we be staying, do you think?" Rosamund asked from the door, comparing and arm full of slinky silk dresses. "New York does get awfully humid in the summers." When Edith said nothing, Ros dropped to the bed beside her. "So, as much as I love a good mystery, are you going to tell me this sudden desire to go to the other side of the world?"
Working hard to control her emotions and the threatening tears, Edith breathed slowly in and out before replying. "I don't want to say."
Rosamund nodded, folding her long thin arms over one knee. "Isn't love just the worst?"
Edith rolled to her side, facing her aunt more directly. "I can't tell yet."
"Is it Anthony?"
Edith nodded.
"Well good for you."
"Good for me?"
"Getting away I mean. Edith, I know you don't want to hear this, but you are so young."
"So everyone keeps saying."
"Because it's true," Ros pointed out. "But young doesn't have to me wrong, or naïve, or incapable."
Edith sat up on one elbow. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, just that you're a lot more grounded than you have any right to be, and that if everyone needs time to believe it, then we'll give them a little bit of time."
"What if that doesn't work?"
"Then you say 'bugger off' and do what you want anyway. That's what I always do, and look how fabulous I've turned out."
Edith snorted a laugh. "You are fabulous. Thank you for coming with me."
"Believe it or not, I like spending time with you. Mary always needed affirmation and Sybil, bless her, never stopped talking. You and I understand one another, don't we? Far more companionable than the others. Only don't tell your mother I said so."
"My mother doesn't hear what I say anyway."
Ros reached out then, cupping Edith's chin in the most affectionate gesture Ros ever gave. "Oh pet, she's a grieving mother. Nothing she does will make sense for a while. We only lost Sybil a year ago. Give it time."
"Seems that's all I'll be doing for a good while. Waiting. Being patient. It sounds awful."
"Another thing we have in common my dear," Ros said wryly as she took her leave. Pausing at the door, she turned back to Edith and said, "You might start packing, love. It's a long way on nothing but a broken heart."
Edith wept the entire night. Every trip from her wardrobe to her luggage was marked by tears and sniffles. It didn't help that she put their music on. Not just the song she and Anthony had danced to, but others that brought to mind for her sharp images of blue eyes and a certain lopsided grin. "You can't listen to Al Green through an iPod," he had told her once, before giving her a record player that he 'happened to have around.' Now, as the rainy-day notes asked, How can you mend a broken heart? Edith let herself fall apart.
It wasn't goodbye, only why did it have to all be so complicated? She loved Anthony, she was sure enough of that, but Edith was far less certain about how he felt about her, where she stood in the grand scheme, what she could possibly offer him. Aunt Ros was not wrong—love is the worst, best, most frustratingly wonderful, painful thing Edith had ever encountered.
With no knowledge of true companionship before Anthony, Edith hadn't known what she was missing. But he had been everything she never knew she wanted, and now she had to go all in, risk everything, and walk away to try and keep it.
"What kind of backwards nonsense is that?" she groused to no one but herself.
A hundred times that night, Edith turned to the wall she shared with Anthony and thought about marching over there and refusing to leave his side again. And a hundred times she felt the weight of fear and insecurity and denial on her shoulders as she turned back to her packing.
The travel helped a bit, though watching Anthony's home get further and further from the cab wasn't exactly delightful. Somewhere over the Atlantic she fell asleep, and when she woke the descent into her holding place had already begun. After a lengthy drive they arrived at the Levinson estate, a large lakeside property in upstate New York.
So began the longest summer of Edith's life.
May was quiet, and Edith spent most days watching heavy, warm rain turn the sprawling green lawn into a mud field. June, likewise, passed without event. Rosamund, who had been traveling from Boston to Cape Cod to Rhode Island and everywhere in between, spent another two weeks at the Levinson estate before heading back to London.
"Someone has to keep an eye on the place, and with you gone I'll have to be the responsible one," Ros teased, kissing Edith goodbye. More softly she asked, "Do you want me to check on him? Keep you posted."
"No," Edith said. "I miss him too much. When you tell me he's not been eating or picking up the wash, which is inevitable, I'll feel guilty and want to come home. And if, by some miracle, the man has thrived like a capable adult, I'll wonder why he isn't missing me more. So no, please just make sure he's," but she stopped. "No, it's not my place. I don't want to know."
"Very well, puppet. Be good. Try to be happy, hmm? Go out, take a pottery class, I don't know. Something."
With Rosamund gone, Edith felt even further from her home, and she found herself questioning her decision quite constantly. The Fourth of July party Grandma threw was an extravaganza as only Martha could put on—fire-breathers and dancers on stilts, sparklers absolutely everywhere, enough booze to keep the Hudson flowing, and gads of people eating meat from sticks.
Edith was miserable.
She was curled up in the crook of a great oak tree, looking out over the carnival-like party. The summer sun had long since gone, but the sky was still lit blue with a seemingly endless twilight. The darker it grew the more it helped her fade away from view into her little hiding spot. Or so she thought.
"Alright, Granddaughter. Why aren't you over swimming with the other young people?" Martha Levinson asked, coming up behind Edith slowly, hands clasped behind her back.
"I don't know any of them."
"Yes, well, nobody ever knows anybody until they introduce themselves."
Edith blushed a little, trying to imagine walking up to a group of complete strangers, all tanned and fit and chummy. "Oh no, I could never…"
Martha nodded, patting Edith's knee. Edith was a bit surprised when Martha hopped up beside her, shoulder to shoulder with Edith, her two feet swinging a foot above the ground.
"Don't look so shocked, your old Grandma still has plenty of kick left."
Edith smiled and looked back to the bedlam. "Who are all these people, Grandma? Surely you can't know them all."
"Oh, I know some. Mostly I'm guessing they're friends of friends whose friends knew your Grandfather. I like it though. I never have liked a quiet party. Happy to give them a free meal if they keep me company."
"Are you lonely Grandma?"
"Never," Martha said happily. Then nudging Edith she said, "Unlike my pretty Granddaughter who came all the way from England just to be lonely here instead of there."
Edith lay her head on Martha's shoulder and took a deep breath.
"Well, tell me all about him."
"Him?" Edith asked, her heart racing.
"It's been almost three months, honey. It's time I know whose wound I'm nursing."
"Anthony. His name is Anthony. And I'm in love with him."
"Does he love you back?" Martha reached behind Edith to pet her hair, pushing Edith's face to rest on her soft bosom. What a marvel, Edith thought, to be held safe by a maternal figure with a gentle touch and the smell of mint and lilac and brandy.
"Yes. He might not know it yet, but he does."
"Well, then why all the tears? Hmm? You love him, he loves you…"
"It's not that simple."
"Bullshit," Martha said flatly, causing Edith to snort a laugh. "Love is always that simple. It's the dunces in it who make it complicated. So what is it, why are you here?"
"Anthony thinks he's too old for me. Thinks I'll get bored, that he's holding me back."
"How old is he?"
"Forty-one. He turns forty-two in September."
Martha hummed thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes at nothing in particular, fingers still running absently through Edith's hair.
"Forty-one isn't so bad," Martha finally said. "Not bad at all."
"Well it seems his problem has more to do with my being twenty."
"Twenty-one next month," Martha qualified, and Edith felt her cheeky grin. "So, tell me more about this Anthony, other than his trepidation about numbers."
"He's a surgeon, and he's very funny. He fixed my sink, I fixed his house. He has a terrible diet, or would if I didn't cook for him. He's beautiful and he doesn't even know it. I love the muscles in his forearms, and the hair that peaks out above his undershirts. I just, he's my best friend. He's my only friend. And he doesn't even believe I love him."
"Well maybe his not believing means he's humble, or noble, or shy."
"He's all of those things. Gentle, sweet, so smart. Except when he's being a complete moron. We got into a terrible fight because I got tired of waiting, and he got scared. And then we practically made love in a broom closet. I came here the next day."
"Not exactly Austen, is it?."
"He thinks I'll outgrow him. I'm just biding time until I can prove him wrong. I don't need Austen, I just need him." Edith peaked up at her Grandma. "Are you terribly disappointed? That I should be so…needy? Not at all independent and brave like you."
"Honey, I'm none of those things. I'm just loud. And rich. There's a difference."
Edith laughed again, sitting up and heaving a breath. "I love him, I always will. But I don't know what to do about it."
"You stay here with your Grandma, watch some fireworks, drink some tequila. And tomorrow we'll figure it out."
The fireworks were spectacular, the tequila decidedly less inspired. Edith woke the next morning to a ringing headache and still her first thought was of Anthony. When she finally managed to open her eyes, her Grandma was sitting on the other side of her bed, wearing the classic Martha Levinson smirk.
"What?" Edith asked warily.
Martha's grin only widened as she held up two boarding passes and said, "We're getting you out of here."
AN: Thank you so much for continuing to read and review. :) I decided to play with Martha and Ros because I got bored with the others (and Martha and Ros are the only ones in the family in canon who's ever really paid attention to Edith). Also, I made Gregson less of a villain because, while he was a mistake, I don't think he's evil. I wanted these characters to be a bit more grounded. Unlike my other stories where he is all villain and nothing else. :)
Thank you again, and happy Andith shipping!
