“I love Carbondale. Mom, I was brought up here!”
“Over my objections. I would have raised you in Chicago. Given you more polish, more ambition. It was your father’s doing, keeping you here.”
“Well, it’s not like you stuck around much after I was in middle school.”
“I told Ceslav I would go back to the university teaching after you were old enough. He led me to believe he’d do the same.”
“It would have been nice if you’d been around more, not just weekends and summers.”
Why was she doing this? Why have a fight now? Her mother needed her help. But Betsy couldn’t stop. “You could have been there to answer some questions, help me through—”
“Why? Adolescence is a ridiculous time in a person’s life. All we would do is fight. That’s what mothers and daughters do at that age.”
“You weren’t here enough to—”
“Your father mollycoddled you. Damped down the fire in you.”
Betsy swallowed hard. “What? What do you mean, ‘damped down the fire’?”
“Low expectations,” her mother mumbled, staring through the crystal-clear liquid in her glass. “You turned out to be too meek for my taste.”
Betsy knew it was the slivovica talking, but she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.
“But that John,” said Grace. “If you had stayed with him you would be at MIT.”
“MIT doesn’t have a graduate psychotherapy program, Mother.”
“Teaching at Boston University then,” said Grace, stretching her arm out for the slivovica bottle. She sloshed the liquor into her glass. Sticky liquid spilled over the rim, onto the hooked rug.
“Mom. That’s over fifty percent alcohol—”
“Maybe Harvard. You are smart enough. It’s not smarts you’re lacking.”
“I never wanted to teach at a university—”
“Doing empirical research. Publishing! Making a name for yourself.”
“I help people, Mom. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Like your father. Humpf!” Grace said. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She made clicking sounds. Like a dolphin, Betsy couldn’t help thinking.
“Helping people!” Grace repeated, her tongue finally unsticking. “Like they were little broken toys that he could fix. Glue them here, glue them there. He never wanted to publish his work. Do you know how well respected he was in Vienna, before we married? Then all of a sudden, it was like he wanted to hide under a rug. Disappear.”
“What’s wrong with helping people with their problems?”
“Helping people! That’s for social workers and school teachers! School crossing guards, boy scouts—”
“You know what, Mom? I think you’ve had too much slivovica. And you’re really acting out here because you’re heartbroken over Dad.”
“Don’t you psychoanalyze me, Missy!” Grace said, shaking a bony finger at her daughter. “I don’t need your advice.”
Grace’s face crumpled with grief. She began to cry.
“We could talk about Dad without it being a fight,” said Betsy, softly. “You need to talk to somebody.”
Grace closed her eyes tight, shaking her head, trying to rid herself of the words.
“I want to talk about you, not your father!” she said, tightening her grip around the stem of her glass. Betsy saw the outline of her finger bones, clutching like a perched bird.
“If you had stayed with John, he would have straightened you out. He was a practical young man. No nonsense. He would have been a damn good father, a good provider. I would have had grandchildren by now.”
Betsy suddenly couldn’t breathe. She tried to answer her mother, but no sounds came out of her mouth. She got up, grabbing her parka off the peg. She wrapped her burgundy wool scarf three times around her throat, pulled on her tasseled ski cap and gloves.
“Where are you going?” snapped Grace, leaning forward in her chair. She nearly lost her balance and toppled to the floor. “Betsy! It’s a goddamn blizzard out there!”
“I’d prefer the storm out there than the one here, Mom.”
Betsy slammed the door shut, blinking hot tears. Snowflakes melted against her eyelashes, blinding her.
Chapter 6
ČACHTICE CASTLE
NOVEMBER 28, 1610
After Janos had inspected the horses, he asked if he could be presented to the mistress of the castle.
“The Countess does not hold audience until dusk,” said Guard Kovach. “She will see you after sunset.”
Janos stared back at the gloomy castle where he had seen the shadowy movement.