A Slender Thread by Katharine Davis Page A

going to be fine.”
    â€œBut you’re not fine. I want to help you.”
    Lacey shook her head and jutted her chin out resolutely. “We’ll be okay. I can manage.”
    â€œLacey, you can’t manage everything.” Some things with her sister never changed. Lacey always had to be in charge, the one in control. Margot had convinced herself that this was a good quality, this strength, this endurance. Alex was usually willing to go along with his wife. Yet during the course of the last few days, his outlook had seemed to alter, as if his determination to carry on was draining out of him, like a tire with a slow leak.
    A huge silver bus roared past them toward the bay designated for the route to Logan Airport. Other travelers got out of the waiting cars.
    â€œI don’t have to leave,” Margot said. “Let’s go home and talk to the girls together.”
    Lacey shook her head and turned to open her car door.
    Margot got out of the car and took her bag from the backseat. Lacey came around and hugged her sister. “I don’t want to go,” Margot said.
    â€œYou have to.” Lacey inhaled deeply and smiled. “I’m fine. Really.”
    Margot hesitated and then went to the bus. She was the last to board. After stumbling down the narrow aisle, she took a seat by the window at the rear. A moment later the driver backed out of the bay and circled to the far side of the terminal. Margot looked back at the parking lot. Lacey’s car was gone.
    Â 
    Saturday evening Oliver prepared to leave the apartment at five thirty to take the subway downtown. His return flight to New York had been easy. That morning Jenna had served him a bagel, as good as any in New York, and delicious strong coffee. He had been grateful for the time with his daughter. Maybe Margot would come with him on his next visit.
    Leonard Witt, a thirty-year-old British artist, was having an opening at the Gearing Gallery in Chelsea. Another young talent on the way up. Carl Van Engen, Oliver’s dealer, had told him that some important collectors might be there; he thought it would be politic for Oliver to make an appearance. This whole business of art was wearing him down. He hated parties, schmoozing, talking the talk, trying to act like some kind of personality, the famous artist who’d soared to the top in the nineties.
    Oliver particularly hated going to parties alone. Margot’s flight arrived at six and he had asked her to join him at the gallery. He wished they could just spend the evening at home, and felt bad that they had to go out. He’d kept missing her calls while in Atlanta, and realized too late that he’d forgotten to charge his cell phone.
    Tonight Hector was the doorman on duty. “Hey, Mr. Levin. Evening on the town? Senora Margot still away? Must be—I don’t see you smiling.”
    â€œMargot’s on her way, Hector. After she leaves her things here she’s joining me downtown. She may need a taxi.”
    â€œDon’t you worry. I take good care of her.”
    Oliver thanked Hector and walked to the subway. Oliver had purchased his apartment, located on Riverside Drive and 109th Street, from an elderly aunt when he first started to make money as an artist. This was not a typical artist’s address, not being in one of the edgier neighborhoods downtown or in Brooklyn. Indeed, Oliver was somewhat embarrassed by his upper-middle-class background. He didn’t advertise the fact that he lived in this upscale West Side location, though when he had bought the apartment twenty years ago it was a neighborhood in transition, inhabited by Columbia professors and students. Over the years, with the inevitable gentrification, fancier shops and restaurants had taken over the commercial blocks.
    The cold night air improved his mood somewhat. He would get back to work tomorrow. He had three canvases in progress now, each one pulling him, begging for his