Rosa > Recent Status Updates

It’s so great to read about historical ladies. But combine that with fashion! Winner. 🏆

It made me cry a bit. The part when she confessed to Theodore about Gilbert. Also, I was so sad when Sybil died and Theodore wrote to Hattie to tell her that her sister had died.

P262 I was irritated with him, and he said, WATCH. Watch me. Watch my dive, Mom. I wish I could remember, but here is where things go murky. I lose the trail in my memory, but one thing is clear, Theodore. Without looking up, I said, JUST GO, COLT. JUMP! It was the nickname I used for him.

P216 Thorne, Luisa with child, Henrietta -So Hattie was born in the USA?
P221Felix tells Sybil that his partner Stewart cheated on him and Felix is leaving him.
P241 He (Daan) thought I (Sybil) was wonderful, and I’ll always love him for that. - Sybil to her daughter Fiona
P242 I know you think of me as your mother only, but please remember, inside I am also just a girl. -Sybil to her daughter Fiona

P208 The fact is I (Hattie) knew Mum had a daughter before I was born, but Dec thought she'd delivered stillborn. Mum always told me the baby had died in the first few days, and I'd not had any reason to second-guess a thing like that, but it was something else you said in your first let-er, which was that your DNA showed Native American parentage. My father was half Crow. It seemed too odd a coincidence to ignore.

P207 I (Dezi) saw you (Sybil) in the window sitting at a desk. I was watching you for a long time. How tiny you are, and you had a mailbox in the shape of a fish and a wreath on the door, these nice things. I hated you for such a long time, but you were just a small old woman and I was lost. I didn't know what to do so I cut the flowers. This didn't help. - Dezi Martinelli

P203 She looked positively surprised and we faced off for another moment, but then all the air went out of it, and it seemed very funny to me all of a sudden. I don't know what on earth was happening, but I found myself trying not to smile, or rather, trying not to laugh, but my face must have broken and then we were both laughing, these two short women standing thirty feet apart, it was really very funny. -M and

P202 and nobody noticed me. (This is the trouble with being only five foot one inch, and it has always been the trouble, but you know I am tall on the inside.)
P204 Dean Melissa and Sybil meet and become friends. Sybil audits a poetry course.

P191 Sybil is upset with /Rosalie for hosting Fiona without telling Sybil. Fiona is Rosalie’s godmother and wanted some advice.
P194 Sybil’s family: sister Hattie born 10/1943, brothers by Sybil’s mom Declan, twins John and Douglas born in 1948. Father: Charles Thorne, Mother Louisa Gleason. Charlie married Susanah and had two sons, Davie and Joe.

*P187 … well liked because he only ever said the things people wanted to hear. He taught me that, too. To say what people want to hear, not necessarily the truth, because most people tell you they want to hear the truth, but they do not, and if you tell the truth it will come back to bite you like a snake finding its own tail to swallow. -Theodore to Sybil

P133 When I read it I felt frightened, really frightened, COLT. -Sybil in an unsent letter 10/1/2015
P137 Daan leaves and inheritance for Sybil.
P160 … after a quarter-century drought, at the age of 77, I find myself courted by two men at the same time! (Mick and Theodore) Sybil writing to her brother Felix.

P127 And laid him on his side on the dock. There were two moles on his back and I must have stared at them because I see his tan, wet back, the two moles. Did I scream for help? Who got him out of the lake? Was it me? In my memory, it's all silence. -Sybil writing to Rosalie about Gilbert.

P127 But I know what happened. He dove into the lake; he hit the rock shelf and snapped his neck. I have this image in my mind of his back, slick, he's lying on his side. It's his body. Beads of water on his tan back. They must have pulled him out—who? Did I?

P122 And one ought to try. An e-mail can in no way replace a written letter. It does concern me that one day all the advancement of technology will do away with the post, but I hope to be dead and gone long before then. (I used to write but got away from it due to lack of response)

*P114 I'm ready to go, but I don't think Fiona is OK. Please make sure she is OK. Dear Sybil, I do love you. The children are fortunate it's not you they're losing. You've been a wonderful mother to them. The first thing I will do is kiss Gilbert for you. … like to hear from you. Not a demand, merely a hope, but either way, until we meet again, and I believe we will—we must-with love, Daan

P112 You, Bruce and Fiona, my brother, our friends, my work, the house, our life, all of that was sitting on the sidelines, but I was in the ring wrestling, bloody, half-dead, with Gill's death. Parenting the other two, trying to help them with their own grief, was like acting. I could say what needed to be said, but I was only thinking of myself in the ring with Gill's death.

P112 I felt honored those years we were together that you entrusted me with your stones, and I still keep them. I want you to know that, even though it's not what I'm writing for. I want you to know I keep your stones as safe as ever. But here is what I'm trying to say, I am trying to get around to something, I'm not sure precisely what. Gilbert's dying. It became the whole thing.

*P112 I loved your intelligence first, that smart brightness in your eyes, the look you had when I met you-like you were ready, whatever was coming, you were ready. With you I felt formidable. You say what you mean. You are well able for the hard things, much more than I am. Your career was astounding. It makes me proud. You still occupy a large space in me.

P68 “DM” hates Sybil and is trying to scare her thru letters.
P71 Theodore Lubeck is Sybil’s neighbor and a bit of a stalker.
P105 Caroline Dobsen, a high school junior writes to S to request an interview for a paper.

P52 I did have three children, as it is in your family, but the second one passed away when he was eight years old. His name was Gilbert. I have a son Bruce, who is a lawyer in Alexandria, and a daughter, Fiona, who is an architect and lives in England, and I have two grandchildren (Hank and Violet) and one on the way next month. Divorced. -Sybil writing to child Harry Landy.

P41 Rosalie & Lars R is her lifelong friend. Lars is R’s husband and Daan’s brother. Rosalie writes that Daan has colon cancer.

P14 When I take time to think about it, you know it really is something, two orphans like us, ending up Stones, living in a house with maid service. Real life rags to riches. You look wise for nine, but grave, as you always did. -Felix to Sybil
P27 author Joan Didion writes and Gilbert is mentioned. Seasons and Reasons – it’s not only a season

Sybil Van Antwerp, Felix (S brother), Stewart (Felix’s partner), Bruce (son), Marie (B wife), Fiona (daughter), Walt (Finona’s husband), Gilbert (dead son), Daan (ex-husband), Rosalie (lifelong friend), Lars (Rosalie’s husband and Daan’s brother), Theodore Lubeck (neighbor who is in love with S), Harry Landy (young friend of S), James W Landy (Harry’s Father), Mick Watts (S friend from Texas), Hattie (Sybil’s sister)