The Northern Wind Couldn't Keep Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Green Sweater

At the Holloway house Yvonne offers a check and Mamie answers the door in Siri's sweater, and Tripp says he will swear he wrote every note she ever treasured.

I went to the house on Chester Street at ten the next morning, because my notebooks were inside it.

Eight spiral notebooks, in the bottom drawer of the desk in Tripp's study.

Every draft of my novel, in pen, with the dates in the corners.

If the board wanted proof that the pages were mine, that drawer was the proof.

Yvonne Holloway opened the door before I knocked.

She wore a camel cardigan and pearls, with garden gloves tucked in one hand, and she smiled at me.

"Siri, darling," she said. "You look exhausted. Come in, come in."

Two of her friends sat on the front porch with a pot of coffee, pretending not to look.

I stayed on the doormat.

"I came for my notebooks," I said.

"Of course you did. First, let's get you out of the cold."

She took my arm and steered me into the hall.

It smelled of lilies and floor polish.

Through the arch to the living room I could see Mamie, curled on the sofa with a mug in both hands.

She was wearing my green sweater.

My mother had knitted it for me three Christmases ago, with a crooked cuff on the left sleeve.

The crooked cuff was right there, around Mamie's wrist.

Mamie looked up and her face crumpled.

"Mar," she said. "Mar, I'm so sorry. It all got so out of hand."

I looked at her and felt nothing move.

"Take off the sweater," I said.

"What?"

"It's my mother's. Take it off."

Mamie looked at Yvonne, and Yvonne gave a gentle little sigh.

"Siri, there's no need for this tone. Mamie had a chill."

"I'll wait," I said.

Mamie pulled the sweater over her head slowly, with the porch friends watching through the window.

She laid it on the arm of the sofa.

I folded it over my own arm.

Yvonne led me into her study and sat me down in a leather chair.

She slid an envelope across the desk.

"A cashier's check for fifteen thousand dollars," she said. "And a letter to a small press I've supported for years. They'd love a young voice like yours."

"What do I sign?"

"A short statement." She folded her hands. "That the pages were developed with Mamie and Tripp in a shared workshop, that you withdraw your complaint, and that you take a year to recover from your difficult spring."

"A year."

"Time to heal."

"And the fellowship goes to Mamie."

"The fellowship has gone to Mamie, dear. That's done."

I pushed the envelope back across the desk with one finger.

"Keep it," I said. "Put it toward Mamie's next tutor."

Yvonne's smile did not move, but her eyes cooled by a degree.

"I'd like my notebooks," I said. "The eight in the study desk."

"Ah."

"They have my dates in them. Every draft."

"Those are gone, I'm afraid."

My mouth went dry.

"Gone where?"

"I had the study cleared on Tuesday. It was a fire hazard, all that paper." She picked up her gloves. "We burned them in the fireplace. Such a lovely fire."

Tuesday.

Two days before the reading.

She had burned my work, and then locked me out, and then smiled at me over the coffee pot.

"You planned this," I said.

"I tidied my house." She stood. "Tripp, darling, you can come in now."

Tripp had been standing behind the door.

He came in with his hands raised, in a gray sweater, his hair still wet, looking at me with the face I had loved for three years.

"Mar," he said. "I never wanted it to go like this."

"Then how did you want it to go?"

"Mamie needed this. Her father's about to make a gift to the library, and the board's going to name the wing after him." He rubbed his neck. "It was one prize. You'll write another book."

"You filmed her," I said. "You gave her my password."

"I gave her your pages. I thought you'd be happy for her."

I stared at him.

He took a step closer, and his voice dropped, the soft voice he used when he'd forgotten my birthday.

"Don't go to the hearing. Please. You're going to lose, and you won't like what I have to say."

"What could you possibly say?"

He glanced at his mother, and she nodded.

"If you say the pages are yours, I'll tell the board about the notes," he said. "I'm North Wind, Mar. I'm the one who wrote in every margin."

"I know you are."

"Then I'll swear that every good line in that book came out of my notes. The notes are my work, and the book is built on them." His eyes were wet and sincere. "Your own proof is mine."

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