Sylvia

December 21, 1981

(Note: This story will be presented on stage by Vermont Stage Company, in shows at The Black Box Theater, Dec. 10-14, 2025.)

All her life Sylvia Everett Brown has had to accept things, to accept that she would be sent off to proper Boston schools, that her marriage would move her to Hiram Falls, Vermont to live with and in the house of her husband’s dreadful parents. She accepted that her father did not like her husband and, later, when he died, stipulated in his will that she was never to reveal her inherited wealth to Millard Brown who her father still did not trust.

She had to accept that she could not have children, that her husband lost interest in her and devoted all his time to running the bank and to strange night dealings in the study with men she did not know.

Then she had to accept that her father had been right.

And so she watched police haul Millard off to jail, went to Francis Lyman to arrange a quick divorce, sold the house – the monstrosity of a house Millard’s father had inherited – and moved to a small cape on Bickford Mountain, away from town, away from the whispers and stares whenever she walked through town.

She accepted the shame that came with having been married to a man who stole so much from so many. She accepted it because the shame was not, as the town conjectured, from anything she might have done to abet Millard’s schemes. No, her shame came for the fact that she had not even tried to learn what he was doing, had instead chosen to look away, ignore all of it, even Millard himself.

That was almost a decade ago. She has adapted. So has the town. No longer do they take notice of her step or point as she drives by. On the sidewalk, they nod, sometimes smile or give her a sorrowful look, as if thinking, ‘There but for the grace of god …’

She adapted. She reached out to a few acquaintances and made friends. She relishes her monthly visits with Ben Nash who takes care of her car. She often lunches with Vera or Carrie, and sometimes the three go to Jenna’s Diner where Lavender joins them even though Sylvia knows, without ever being told, that Lavender has no use for Millard Brown. Lavender has come to like Syliva, has even started poking her as only Lavender can do, one day saying: “You should have a British accent the way you hold that coffee cup. Is everyone from Boston like you?”

Sylvia laughed. “No, probably not.”

And there’s Doc and Flo and Gracie and David and even Rina Lapsa, the mysterious woman who lives on a cabin high up on Mount Riga. And she has Francis, too, her lawyer and confidant.

Sylvia accepts the solitude of her life, accepts that her aloneness is what her life has become. She is comfortable with that, though she knows something is missing and so sometimes goes for long drives, winding her way down the dirt roads, ending up at some backwoods diner where she eats an overdone hamburger and watches and listens to the other customers.

She does not fully realize why she does this. And she rarely remembers what she yearns for.

On this day, though, she remembers as she drives her electric green Rambler wagon on the snow-packed back roads, and recollects what her father told her long ago, “Sometimes, to find something, you have to stop looking.”

Sylvia takes her time on this day, even stops at the overlook on Lincoln Hill, her boots squeaking on the cold snow, to look at the panorama — the town, the river, the white-topped Adirondacks far in the distance.

She has made it back to town now. It is snowing again. She parks her car along the street and walks towards Fiengo’s Curios, watching the snow swirl on the sidewalk. She stops in front of the store and stares at the shop’s giant window, at the wooden box in front of it with its wooden lid and a bold white declaration painted on the side: Free Books.

Back when she lived in town she would sometimes walk down the hill late at night and lift the lid, comb through the books and take one to read. Sometimes she’d return it. Sometimes she’d add one of her own.

Sylvia stares at the box and does not move, does not reach out her hand to lift the lid, frozen there, maybe by the cold but not by the cold, but by the sudden realization, the oddness of which is jolting: I have never been inside his shop, she thinks. I’ve never been inside. I’ve never even met the man.

She opens the door, hears the bell on the door chime lightly. Immediately she is enveloped by the dry heat, the smell of books and books and more books — dry, dusty, pleasant, almost comforting on this winter’s day.

She looks around, her eyes trying to make order of the clutter, shelves of books everywhere, along the walls, aisles of them, some hanging from the low ceiling, shelves also crammed with records and kids’ toys and lamps. On a table in front of her are nearly empty bins of Christmas ornaments, odd-looking statues, a bust of Beethoven surrounded by copper Empire State Building replicas some tiny. She walks deeper into the store. A display of commemorative spoons. Porcelain figurines. A desk lamp with a gargoyle as a base. Stacks of old magazines. And books. Paperbacks, comic books, hardbacks some with cracked bindings by unknown authors.

She is halfway into the store now and sees the checkout counter with two stools in front of it, sees the antique cash register and stacks of papers and behind, a door to a storeroom, halfway open. A dim light shines on a dress rack near the door, and, closest, a bright blue dress, shimmering in the light. Before she can make sense of it, the doorway is filled with a silhouette: Fiengo. Old Man Fiengo himself. Why do people call him that? she wonders as he steps into the store. Perhaps it is his hair, his salt and pepper beard. Such a pleasant face, gentle face.

“Hello. Do you sell dresses, too?” she asks.

Old Man Fiengo looks embarrassed and begins to close the door.

“I’d love to see them,” she says.

He steps aside, swinging the door open with his arm, almost beckoning her in, and, as she enters, he flips on the light. Sylvia gasps. Dress racks cover two walls. They are filled with dozens of fine dresses. She walks past each one, gently touching their fabric — satins and silks, cottons and wools — she feels their quality, notices the stitching, much of it by hand she is sure. She separates the hangers so she can see the full fronts and backs of each dress.

She asks Old Man Fiengo if she could possibly try one on, in particular the one she first saw, the cobalt one, made of silk, with a Mandarin collar and a single yellow bird embroidered above the left breast.

Old Man Fiengo backs out of the store room and gently closes the door. The dress fits Sylvia perfectly. It makes her feel beautiful, young. She takes her gray-white hair out of its bun and drapes it over her right shoulder against the bright blue and opens the storeroom door. Fiengo’s eyes widen. He grins.

“Can I buy this?” she asks. She does not wait for his answer; she gets out her checkbook and, on the counter now, writes a check for $250, peels it off and hands it to him. ”I hope that is sufficient.”

“That is way too much,” he says, still staring at her, stretching his hand and the check towards her.

“Keep it,” she says, pushing back his hand. He moves to the cash register, pulls down the handle and sets the check in the drawer.

“How do you come to have so many magnificent dresses?” she asks.

Old Man Fiengo shows his surprise, not so much by the fact that he’s actually selling one of his dresses but by the question which he assumes even Mrs. Millard Brown should know the answer to. But, at that moment, he realizes she really does not know and really does want his answer.

“They were my wife’s.”

“And you bought them in hopes of keeping her,” Sylvia says, surprising herself that she has said out loud what she was thinking. She continues, leaping, unconcerned. “But that didn’t work, did it? And one winter’s night she walked out into the darkness and left the dresses behind.”

Old Man Fiengo is shaken because in all these years no one has ever said anything to him about his wife or her departure or even asked him about it. Even at the time, all those years ago, no one consoled him in his loss even though he knew everyone in town heard about it and talked about it but never said a word to him.

“That is right,” he says.

“What was her name?”

“Geneviève. I met her in Montreal.”

“I am so sorry that happened to you,” Sylvia says, pausing. “Sometimes we marry the wrong person, don’t we? It seems right at the time, seems right for a while, but then we realize deep down that something is wrong. Yet still we hang on because it is all we have.”

Sylvia is overcome now.

She feels things she hasn’t felt in years and watches herself spread her arms, move toward the surprised man and embrace him. He hugs her back, a tight, plaintiff grip, and she returns the strength of his embrace, and it feels so good to her, to him as well, to be held, to feel someone else’s body, so close, so warm, a feeling so absent for so long.

“I am deeply sorry,” Sylvia whispers as she releases her hug, feeling, as she does so, that something is different, has changed, has made her face flush. In that moment she remembers what she had forgotten, remembers what she has been missing, remembers what her father had once said. And she wonders again why she had not come into Fiengo’s shop years ago.

“My name is Sylvia,” she says softly.

“I am Vincenté.”

“It is nice to meet you,” they say, almost at the same time, he with an embarrassed smile as his hand instinctively brushes down the scattered white hair at the back of his head, she with a smile.

They talk for hours, like leaves falling from the trees, as they sit on the stools at the counter, she in her new blue dress, he getting her some tea, two cookies to share and a napkin.

Finally, out of things to say for the moment, they welcome the silence, sip their tea and look past the books, past the clutter, out the window of the shop, at the snow coming down much harder now sparkling in the shine of the street light, a blanket on their world.