Souvenir of Cold Springs by Kitty Burns Florey

they’d never seen. They should get Mom to take them out there, back to their roots. Not let Dad’s family, Teddy’s family, take over their minds.
    Lucy stood there smiling at her. She had beautiful, sad eyes. Heather tried to imagine her meeting a lover. Would she go in jeans and old sneakers? And did she know Margaret smoked pot? At fourteen? Was that why she looked so sad?
    â€œIs there anything the matter, Heather? School troubles? Romantic troubles?”
    Heather said, “Not really. Just the usual.”
    â€œHow’s your mom?” Lucy was making her voice casual. “Have you heard from her lately?”
    â€œYes, I have,” Heather said. “She’s great. Fine.” She paused. Lucy seemed to be waiting, and she felt mean not to say more. “I guess it’s kind of Dad I worry about.”
    â€œWell, I can’t say I blame you,” Lucy said. “I worry, too. But he seems in good spirits, and I think he likes teaching.”
    â€œIf he can hold the job.”
    Lucy looked sharply at her. “What makes you think he won’t hold the job?”
    Heather shrugged. “Drinking, for one thing. And—I don’t know—is he writing? Don’t they expect him to produce something at Brown? You can’t live forever on your reputation. His book came out in—what? Seventy-three?” Her father’s book, The Kingdom Is at Hand , was a work on religious cults that was considered definitive. Privately, he joked about freaks and zealots and crackpots, the Jesus, Jesus, come and squeeze us crowd, but what was remarkable in the book was his balanced sympathy with the groups he wrote about—that and what was always referred to as his limpid prose. “That sure wouldn’t be enough at Berkeley.”
    â€œWell, he comes up for renewal in the spring,” Lucy said. “We’ll see then.”
    They stood in silence, looking at one of Uncle Jamie’s paintings on the wall, a stark abstraction in blue and white that always looked to Heather like a woman in trouble, a woman at the edge. It seemed out of place in that stodgy old house: Heather could imagine it in her apartment, maybe on the wall over the teak desk. Lucy folded her arms and stared at it with her head on one side, as if she’d never seen it before. Then she sighed. “I don’t know, Heather. The book is still in print, and still being talked about—that’s something. As for his new one, I have a feeling it’s on hold. He does do articles from time to time, but teaching takes a lot of his energy.”
    Heather realized her aunt was agreeing with her, that her father’s job might be in danger, and her heart flip-flopped. It would be better to have a father like Mark, who did something boring and scientific and reliable. What would happen to Ann if Daddy lost another job, never wrote another book? What would happen to her and Peter? She imagined herself marrying Timmy so that her father could drink himself to death in the spare bedroom.
    Lucy said, “Well, let’s hope for the best.” Heather smiled weakly, and Lucy put a hand on her arm. “Heather? Really. Are you all right?” She gave a hesitant laugh. “You know, we hardly ever see you. You’re so far away out there in California. Sometimes I feel we don’t really know you anymore. But if you ever need anything, you know you can always come to us. Any of us.”
    â€œThanks, Aunt Lucy.” In spite of herself, Heather felt a lump come into her throat. She waited until it was gone. “I’m all right, though. Honestly.”
    Lucy patted her arm and smiled sadly, as if Heather had said her life was in ruins.
    Dinah was curled up on Margaret’s bed. She didn’t stir when Heather reached under the pillow for the tin box. “Hi cat,” Heather said. No response. She took the box to her own room, where she kicked her shoes off and sat on the