Writer's Corner - This is Maplecroft Part Two

One

      She found it impossible to sleep that night with Berita’s child in her sitting room. Bibi’s child (everybody called her Bibi) her flesh and her blood. She had seen it, recognized it as soon as Katarina had turned her face toward her-the girl’s mother lived in that face, that body, those eyes.
      And Katarina had known instinctively, through her pain and the drugs, that Lizzie would protect her. She had responded to Lizzie’s touch; had closed her eyes and turned toward her, comforted. When had another person last come to her for comfort? Not material comfort, she’d known her share of parasites, but the simple touch of a hand in respite from their pain? Her tender heart had swelled with compassion.
      Her excruciating love for Bibi had come flooding back then too, unchanged. Love that she thought she’d conquered and buried through Nance. Even the letter she’d received last month regarding Katarina’s visit had not entirely reopend the wound. (As Lizzie had read it, Nance was lying naked in her bed.) But her heart had leapt at the foreign postmarks and the handwriting she knew so well.
      She remembered some of its contents. “ My daughter Katarina, twenty-four, travelling to New York …Insists upon going alone…very worried about her, my dear Lizzie, could you possibly receive her for a few days? Mabe encourage her to take a travelling companion?”…And then the mysterious P.S. “You may mistake her for my son” After folding it back into its envelope, she had gone upstairs to Nance. She’d had no idea of what to expect.
      Now though, the living breathing visage of Berita in this her only child brought the old love back; stinging and blooded and worst of all, fraught with hope.
      She had Katarina carried up to her own sitting room and, to the wonderment of her staff, washed and tended to her herself. When Katarina had cried out in her drugged sleep, Lizzie heard Bibi’s voice. She hurried to her side and, unable to alleviate her anguish, had knelt down and impulsively kissed her. Breathed her in, her face lingering near.
      Beneath the light aroma of the expensive soap she’d been washed with, Lizzie recognized even the scent of her first lover, passed on through this daughter. Some primaeval part of her brain stirred and sent yet another wrenching thrill through her. .
As much as she’d loved Nance, had thrilled to the sight of her onstage and experienced others reacting likewise to her talents; they were ultimately incompatible. But she and Bibi had connected deeply. The Swede; she was even less inhibited about her proclivities than Nance! They were astrologically compatible too, Lizzie born under the sign of Cancer, Bibi a Scorpio.(She’d read everthing she could on the subject-even sending to Europe for books, once finding that they were so meant for each other)
      She had imagined living with and loving Bibi forever, a thought that she had tried very hard to forget when they parted.
      The only obstacle, she’d thought then, was this young woman who’se shoulder she now rested her head upon. This stranger who’se scent she breathed in with such heartbreaking familiarity. Katarina.
      Back then she had silently resented the unknown daughter who’d been away at school while she and Bibi had seen the sights of London and Stockholm. She’d viewed the ceilings of many a first class hotel bedroom while Bibi ravished her; threw her virginity to the four winds, brought her to the most tumultuous releases. And taught her about herself, a journey of unimaginable pleasures and pain.
      She’d wanted Bibi all to herself of course, but the daughter had a silent claim on Bibi’s affection that she knew she could never breach. And now that daughter would bring them together again.
      She would nurse her herself, lavish the love she bore for Bibi onto this, her flesh and blood. A powerful maternal instinct had been aroused, one that had been previously vented only towards her beloved pets. Silently she thanked whatever mischievious goddess had sent the accident and injured Katarina. In front of her very house! Or had she herself inadvertantly precipitated it with her inner passions? Shame flushed through her at this thought, but she was nonetheless thankful. Her hand trembled a little as she lightly traced a path down Katarina’s throat with one finger. A thin gold chain with an Irish claddagh glittered there, enhancing the soft beauty of her neck. Katarina smiled in her drugged sleep and made a tiny sound of contentment. Lizzie pressed her face closer, she couldn’t stop herself,and kissed her again tasting Bibi through her kiss.

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PART ONE