Outside, the DJ checked the sound system.
“May is pregnant,” he said.
“Congratulations,” said Cheyenne.
“Thank you.”
Livy gave him a tight smile.
“We’re going to Singapore. As things develop, we’ll probably settle in China afterward. That’s where things are really happening.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, pressing his palms together, bringing his fingers to his lips, tapping them. Then he stopped.
“Everything,” he whispered, looking from one sister to the other, “everything feels new. It feels like this is my real first child. Not technically, I know. But in all the real ways.” He took a long breath. “And I need to allow myself this moment and fully experience it. I never had a say in being a parent. There were other choices. I’m not sorry—you both turned out well. But it’s time for me to leave the bardo and move on.”
He stood and crossed to a dresser where an envelope lay. “Tonight marks a beginning,” he picked it up, “and an end.”
He handed it to Livy. Things tilted slightly beneath her. The skin on her forearms got hot.
“I wanted to leave you something,” he said. “The obvious thing would be money, but I truly believe money will ruin the two of you.”
Cheyenne laughed sharply. “It already has.”
Cyril’s eyes sparkled at Cheyenne, as if the joke were his.
“I feel pretty comfortable letting the universe guide your fate,” he said.
Cheyenne’s stomach contracted. Livy opened the envelope. Her breath caught. Cyril pointed to it.
“I tried to anticipate any genetic questions you might have. That’s a summary of family medical history, some cancer, some hypertension, a little asthma. Not too bad. Anyway, it’s there for you.”
Livy blinked. “Thanks, Cyril. I appreciate the medical info. If I ever have decent health insurance I’ll make sure they get a copy.”
“There’s more,” he said.
Livy looked in the envelope and saw a second sheet. She unfolded it. On it was the address of a monastery in Montana and a name: Ann Radar.
* * *
—
As girls they’d been fed a fairy tale: Two women loved the same man. One wanted a baby and the other wanted to chase the North Star. Each became pregnant, so they made a plan. The one who wanted the baby would take both children and the one who wanted the North Star would continue on. The first mother was happy and the second mother was happy.
But which daughter was which? It drove Livy and Cheyenne fucking bat-shit crazy.
Kirsten had never given them a name or a way to reach the other woman. She refused to say which girl belonged to which mother, and Livy and Cheyenne had never been able to figure it out. Each sister had Kirsten’s black hair and mannerisms, her broad shoulders—but so did a lot of people. Mostly they looked like their father, Cyril, who also had black hair. Every now and then, though, one sister would see something in the other and think, that’s totally her mouth, but they could never be certain. Paperwork didn’t clarify anything either. Theirs was a home birth, and Kirsten was listed as the mother on both birth certificates.
When they finally got the real story, it didn’t help because it wasn’t much different from the fairy-tale version. Kirsten met Cyril when he was in grad school. They had an open relationship. Then Cyril fell in love with a girl who was new to town. The girl and Kirsten became friends. Not long afterward both women got pregnant. Since one was ready for a baby and one was not, they struck a deal over a bottle of wine and some tosses of the I Ching. One woman became a mother of two girls and the other became a Buddhist nun. Cyril, not as much of a polyamorous adventurer as he originally thought, didn’t stick around, and Kirsten raised the girls alone.
* * *
—
“That is the other woman I was with at the time of your conception,” Cyril said now. “I was never a part of the agreement your mothers made and don’t consider myself bound by it. Do what you like with the information.”
A chill ran through Cheyenne’s arms. They had never had a name. They’d never even had a hint. All the fights the sisters had growing up. Guessing. Over whose mother was whose. Over who had the North Star in them and who didn’t. In middle school they had both wanted to be Kirsten’s daughter. In high school neither did. Ann. That was it? Ann. Such a ridiculously plain name. Cheyenne took the paper from Livy.
A girlish voice called down the stairs, “You all need to go now. You can’t see the bride.”
“Yes, get out,” squealed a second voice, laughing.
Cyril made a face at his daughters. “I guess it’s time,” he said, standing, walking them to the kitchen door. “I’m proud of how you two turned out. You’ll find your path.” He opened the door, ushering them out. “The world won’t know what hit it.”
The door closed behind them.
They retreated to the other keeper’s house. Once inside, Cheyenne coughed and teared up.
“That was hugely fucked. I’m so angry I can’t see straight. He gets all this power. For nothing. We just give it to him.” She laughed but tears rolled down her cheeks. “What bullshit.”
She kicked the brocade corner of a sofa and paced the living room.
“I don’t even know what a bardo is,” said Livy.
“Ask Mom. She’ll tell you all about it.” Cheyenne stopped dead. “We should leave,” she said.
“No, I’m getting food and alcohol out of this. If nothing else, we get that.”
Cheyenne shivered. She was dressed for a fucking wedding and might as well stay.
Kirsten came in through the kitchen.
“I’m not ready to talk to her about this,” said Cheyenne.
They slipped out the front, standing on a strip of grass between house and water, a welcome mat for sea gods and ghosts. Cyril’s bride emerged from next door in a netting of white tulle. Hemmed in by a man-made bulkhead of rocks and driftwood, she knelt on the steps of the porch. Her thick black hair blew into her face as she tried to light a cigarette in the wind.
“Oh shit!” said Cheyenne. “She’s actually Asian.”
“We wouldn’t have to make it up if he’d cared enough to introduce us,” said Livy.
The bride, who was a few years younger than they were, lit her cigarette and sat down on the steps. The wind changed direction and a stray piece of her tulle caught fire. It flared like a wish lantern and she jumped up, clapping her hands over it until it was out, then sat back down and lit another cigarette.
Livy felt the change in barometric pressure and looked instinctively toward the west where clouds had formed several miles off.
“I’m cold. I’m going back in,” she said.
* * *
—
When Kirsten found out about the address of the monastery, she hit the roof. She screamed at the absent Cyril until Cheyenne told her the whole stupid thing was her fault in the first place.
“It’s a myth of belonging!” yelled Kirsten.
“To a goddamned star!” Cheyenne shouted.
“There are worse myths,” said Kirsten, “believe me. You could be Daphne, running from a rapist and getting turned into a tree,” which was the end of the conversation.
Ten minutes later Kirsten packed her bags and left.
Cheyenne looked at Livy. “I guess I’m riding back with you.”
Unsure of where to be, Livy and Cheyenne walked back outside. The wind kicked up. A folding chair went over. The poles holding up the canopy where the tables of gifts and banquet tables were shivered as the canopy billowed like a sail for a second, then settled.
Essex found them twenty minutes later, sheltered under a tree. Something was different but he wasn’t sure what.
“What did Cyril want?” he asked.
<
br /> “To tell us he’s moving to China and not to expect more excellent parenting,” said Livy.
“Did he give you anything?” asked Essex. “Kirsten thought he might give you something.”
“Advice on reincarnation,” said Cheyenne.
Essex looked at her but saw no bitterness in her expression.
“Nothing feels worse than shame and hope,” he said cheerfully, trying to help.
“Or the death of something you thought was dead that wasn’t. That’s good too,” said Cheyenne, but now there was an edge to her voice.
“He gave us the address of the monastery where our other birth mother went,” said Livy. “That’s why Kirsten left.”
“Kirsten left? Should we go?” he asked.
“No, she’s fine. This is all actually her fault,” said Cheyenne.
3 The Tower
THE CEREMONY was scheduled for 3:30 but nothing was happening. Chairs were on the lawn by the trellis and people congregated but the cues weren’t coming. A man in a blue suit told everyone there would be a delay. By 3:15 it was clear something was wrong.
Cyril soon made the announcement that it was still going to be a little while but they would bring more wine. Not five minutes later somebody else made a new announcement that there was no preacher coming. The man had gone to the Point Wilson lighthouse on the Olympic Peninsula instead and there was no way to get him here in time. Cyril asked people to call friends who might know someone who could come on short notice. Cell phones lit in every hand, and cupping them like vigil candles against the wind, people were beetling around and bumping into each other trying to get reception. No one was coming up with anything until someone got the bright idea that the old Coast Guard captain who came with the lighthouse could perform the ceremony if they just got far enough off land. But then somebody looked up the actual laws regarding captains marrying people and found out that it was an urban myth, which the old sea captain could have told them if they’d asked. As it turned out, though, the old Coast Guard captain was also a justice of the peace.
Within an hour, everyone was gathered on the lawn by the trellis; the retired Coast Guard captain had run home to shave and returned wearing a blazer. Nearing eighty but sharp, not drunk but just a little high, he waited at the end of the chairs now lined up in rows.
It was dusk when the bride came out of the keeper’s house with two friends following. Her white dress and torn tulle whipped around her in wind that was now strong and steady. Drops of light rain fell, guests tried not to flinch. Her bare shoulders were wet and everything was gray—the people, the clothes, the air. As she walked down the grassy aisle the sky darkened and the sun sank. A powerful gust sent empty chairs tumbling. The Coast Guard captain, who’d spent most of his career on icebreaker ships, was unfazed, but just as she arrived next to him, the bride was blown sideways into Cyril.
It started to pour and the captain began to incant, his voice cutting through the wind and rain. Cyril yelled for everyone to head for the catering tent, but no one heard him over the captain’s voice and the captain wasn’t stopping. Something about the waves, those that lift us, those that wipe us out. Finally, the bride turned and ran for cover and everyone followed. They reached the catering tent, a mob, clearing away folding tables to make room underneath it.
The captain, though, stared straight ahead, watching the mainland vanish into a descending fogbank. The tent canopy snapped in the high winds and finally tore in one long awful sound, ripping lengthwise while several people screamed, the poles collapsing sideways around them. The caterers immediately leapt to kill the propane tanks in the portable kitchen, the butane fire and Sterno under the jambalaya pots. The sky flashed with lightning.
“To the houses!” a man yelled, but he was overruled by the captain’s voice rising over the blow like a deep and terrible singing bowl. “To the tower!” he intoned in the key of the storm itself.
Everyone ran for the tiny lighthouse, though it was far too small to hold them all. At the door, the captain went calmly through his keys as the crowd surrounded him and Cyril and the bride shivered by his side. He opened the lighthouse door and hit a switch. Compact fluorescents shone grimly down on a room that looked like the boiler of a deep-draft ship with its layers of glossy gray industrial paint, meters, and pipes. Cyril and his bride stepped inside. Livy, Essex and his date, Cheyenne—all of whom had been spotted as family—were pushed to the fore.
“Where is the ring bearer?” shouted the captain at the shadows on the lawn.
A drenched man in a beige windbreaker made his way forward. Once he was inside, the captain led the wedding party up the red spiral staircase. Livy wanted to see the view from the lighthouse, but Cheyenne resisted. Every time she tried to step back, though, someone pushed her ahead. Essex, too big to push or pass, kept his place near Cheyenne, dragging his date along. Behind them, people crowded into the first-floor museum room, and the stairwell, and the alcove on the second floor that held the old coal stove, and up the final steps to the tower. But only a quarter of the guests made it into the lighthouse itself. The rest were left in the yard where thunder rumbled and the sky blackened and it was no longer possible to tell storm from night.
In the gloomy stairwell, Essex felt breathless. He lost the hand of his date, found it, and lost it again. The wedding party climbed up and around the final turn and into a tiny circular room at the top of the tower with windows on all sides. The captain turned on the lantern and prismatic light compressed by the Fresnel lens shot out over the point, burning like a new star.
Six of them stood around the light. Livy and the captain, Cyril and his bride, the best man and Cheyenne. Essex remained with his date on the final step watching the scene over Cheyenne’s shoulder. The rest of the guests wound down the stairs.
The captain tried to direct people. Livy looked at Cheyenne. Her sister was shading her eyes, staring into the light. Livy saw Essex whisper in Cheyenne’s ear but couldn’t read his lips.
“Is this hard for you?” Essex asked.
Cheyenne turned. “Do you mean do I look at fucking Cyril and his child bride and imagine it’s the same as me and Jackson only with millions of dollars and bad weather?”
“Yeah,” Essex said, raising his voice, “that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Quiet!” said the man on the step below Essex.
Essex leaned over her shoulder so his mouth was close to her ear. “Do you remember what you said to me the night we met?”
“No, and I don’t care,” she said.
“You said…‘Go away.’ ”
She laughed. The man behind them hissed.
“I meant it,” she said.
“I treasure the moment,” said Essex.
The wind dropped off momentarily, exposing the silence beneath it.
Cyril’s bride stared out the black windows.
Below, Cheyenne saw a few people on the ground who had been unable to fit in the tower migrating across the lawn in the downpour. Some to their cars, others to the half-collapsed catering tent. She would have traded places with any of them. Pinned into a room she had no interest in being in, her skin on fire. Everyone breathing on the stairwell behind her and in the floors below—all one animal. A few muffled coughs, a few comments meant to lighten. But after all, it only has to end in marriage to be a comedy. She could wait it out.
Two people in the stairwell left and the crowd turned clockwise as it adjusted. Now Cheyenne was directly across from the bride, who was pressed against the curved wall of windows. A blast of wind shook the tower and the panes rattled. The icebreaker captain, who, Cheyenne was starting to realize, was an utter diva, took a step forward and began the ceremony in earnest.
“We are here today,” he bellowed, “to witness this couple’s marriage in the sight of the greatest of all gods, weather.”
Something smashed against the
window near the bride’s head and everyone jumped. The captain shrugged. “Birds. These sudden storms.”
Someone in the stairwell laughed and everyone shifted a little, but not the bride. She stood perfectly straight, gazing blankly at her own reflection in the glass.
“And yet these powerful forces that drive us together,” said the captain, raising his voice again, “can also drive us apart! We must always be vigilant. These are icebergs. These are U-boats. What we see is but a little of what’s there. Never forget the great depths of this world!”
Livy glanced at Cheyenne, who would not look at her, afraid she’d laugh. Outside, a cloud turned white with hidden lightning and the rain fell sideways.
“As black as this storm is,” said the icebreaker captain, “it will pass. Rings!”
“We actually have some vows we’d like to read,” said Cyril.
“Oh yes. Vows!”
Cyril unfolded a piece of paper: “You are my fragrant morning, my spring, my light blossom, my May. Like a lotus—”
There was a huge crack as lightning struck something on another part of the island. People looked around, suddenly aware that there was a radio tower in the field a hundred yards away from them.
“—spinning in a stream, you teach me who I am. You help me, see me.”
A flash lit the sky just as another bird hit the window near the bride.
“And I know now that the roads we have walked down separately have only prepared us for being together.”
He folded his paper and waited for her. But the bride wasn’t listening. She kept staring out the windows where her own face danced, contorted and wavering as people shifted in front of the Fresnel lens.
Cheyenne saw Cyril glance at May. What was in that look? Something so naked, so desperate. The simple desire to be comforted, to be assured of what no one can ever be assured of, that it will all turn out all right. That the things which come to pass, like ghost stories, like demon lovers, will all cut a path toward home. It reminded her of the other things too, things she couldn’t put into words but which still hurt. Cyril put his hand to May’s face and she jumped, startled, and reached for her own slip of paper.
The Great Offshore Grounds Page 3