The Lost Wife Read Online Free

Marta’s arrival did not mean I would be replaced. I was soon holding her in my arms. I read her my favorite books and sang her the same songs that had lulled me to sleep.
    I also discovered my new sister was the perfect model for my ambitious attempts at portraiture. I used Marta’s first milestones as my inspiration. I started with her sleeping in her pram, and then moved on to her crawling at the beach during summertime. I loved to draw her in pastel. The soft blending of the pigments made it easy to create the roundness of her cheeks, and the length of her growing limbs.
    I loved to paint her as well. Marta’s skin was the opaque white of heavy cream, and her hair the deep red of paprika. Those features, which had presented themselves at birth, grew even more pronounced as her baby fat melted away. Marta had the same high forehead as Mother—along with her small straight nose and upturned mouth. As I watched Marta grow before me, it was almost as if I was able to witness my mother’s own transformation from infancy into girlhood.
    Marta became more independent with each passing day. Lucie no longer had to get on bended knee to help her with her shoes or constantly change her because she had stained her dress. Her once-chubby body grew long, and her desire to express her own opinion grew as well.
    But as Marta grew older, our relationship began to change. She was no longer a little doll that I could dress and pretend to be in charge of. We were rivals not just for my parents’ attention, but also for Lucie’s. And even though there were more than seven years between us, we still would bicker and Marta would often throw tantrums when she did not get her own way.
    Still, once Marta turned eight, there was one thing that we had in common that we both loved to discuss more than anything else: Lucie’s love life. After we returned from school, we could spend hours trying to find out if she had a boyfriend. I would pry into who had given her the small gold necklace that suddenly appeared around her neck, or the new silk scarf she tucked underneath the collar of her capelet. And Marta would ask if he was handsome and rich, before bursting into tears and begging Lucie to promise that no matter what—she’d never leave us.

CHAPTER 3
     

LENKA
     
    In the autumn of 1934, Lucie announced that she was getting married to a young man by the name of Petr whom she had known since childhood and who now had a job as a clerk at a pharmacy near her parents’ house in Kalin. Mother took the news as if it was her own daughter announcing her engagement.
    When Lucie arrived for work the next day, Mother and the seamstress, Gizela, were already waiting for her with a dozen bolts of white silk propped against the walls.
    “We’re making you a wedding dress,” Mother announced. “I will hear no words of refusal.”
    “Get undressed, down to your slip and corset,” Gizela ordered.
    She withdrew three pins from her pincushion and began wrapping the measuring tape, first around Lucie’s bustline, then her waist, and finally her hips.
    Lucie trembled as she stood silently in her underclothes.
    “Really, this isn’t necessary at all. I’ll wear the dress my sisters wore. Petr doesn’t care if it’s worn or stained!”
    “We will not hear of such a thing!” my mother said, shaking her head. She walked over to Lucie, who was quickly getting dressed. Her kiss reminded me of the way she kissed Marta and me.

     
    Lucie wore her family’s lace veil, a simple covering that fell just to her collarbone. Her garland was made from daisies and wild roses. Her bouquet was a mixture of asters and yellow leaves. She walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, the black ringlets of her hair artfully arranged beneath her headpiece, her gaze looking firmly ahead.
    We all wept when they exchanged their vows. Petr was as young as Lucie, no more than twenty-five, and I felt giddy for both of them. There was a beauty in how physically opposite