The Lake and the Lost Girl

by Jacquelyn Vincenta

  Lydia shook her head. She watched the young man cross the dark grass and reenter the barn, as someone’s hands came up to close the door behind him. For minutes she stared at the crack of light there. How long she had hoped for this day, and look what it was actually composed of: rejection and meanness, in equal parts to an excitement that she was excluded from. The mystery of Mary Stone Walker had corroded her husband’s mind and their marriage, and Lydia knew suddenly that although these newly discovered words had always been the point of the struggle, they would not heal either one.

  As she started to turn away from the window to retreat to her bedroom, a sharp, bright star over the barn roof caught her eye, and a vivid image of her father filled her mind. He had always thought Frank was a myopic dreamer who “does not give a damn about reality” and had even said once shortly before he died that she should always follow her own intelligence, because it was deeper and steadier than her husband’s. The star visibly flickered, and she yearned for her father’s expansive heart and the kind of generous love that was no longer part of her world.

  Frank framed his life inside little inked lines and fantasies, but her life was not so much differently framed. She had certainly had her victories, and now he seemed to be having his own. Now perhaps he had found what he’d been looking for so long. If so, she would be sincerely glad for him. But the situation that she needed to accept here and now was that they no longer shared the same values. In fact, her belief that they did was a fantasy that for years had been as seductive for her as Frank’s dreams of Mary Walker had been for him.

  When she turned from the window, she was startled to find Nicholas sitting patiently at the table.

  “Nicholas…I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “How can I go to bed, Mom? This seems like such an important night. Doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does.” She gazed into his large, blue eyes.

  “Are you glad about it?” he asked.

  “Well, sure. Cautiously glad.” She sat down at the table with him and picked up a box of matches and shook it. It sounded full, and out of a habit that extended back into the early years of unforgettable marital poverty, she felt faintly gladdened by the thought that there were at least plenty of matches in the house.

  “What do you mean, ‘cautiously’?”

  “Lilly Schmidt out there may think it’s real. People respect her. But if Carson Community College or some other institution is going to purchase the document, they’ll have to have it more thoroughly checked out.”

  “Oh,” Nicholas said as he nodded. “I was expecting Dad to just keep it. I mean, that was the point, wasn’t it? That he wanted something of hers? Something she wrote?”

  “Sure, but it wouldn’t make sense for it to sit here in his library. And if he wants to write about this new poem as part of Mary Stone Walker’s work and life, its authenticity will have to be confirmed, whether or not he sells it.” She studied Nicholas’s unsettled expression. “I could be wrong; he surprises me sometimes. I hope the library will buy it if it’s real. They have a Mary Stone Walker collection.”

  “I know.” Nicholas bit his lip, looking away from her.

  “But we shouldn’t jump the gun here and get too excited yet. Not until we know for sure. What are you worried about, Nicky?”

  “Nothing.”

  They were silent for a few moments.

  “We’ve been waiting for something like this for a long time, haven’t we?” she said, placing her hand on top of his.

  Nicholas looked up at her and found her smiling, and he returned an unconvincing smile.

  “I just hope you’re glad, too,” he said sadly.

  “Well, sure. Of course I’m glad. You’re right. Dad will come around, and he’ll bring that book in here and share it with us. Then…” She gazed blindly toward the kitchen ceiling, considering such scenes, trying to imagine how everything would unfold. Jack had asked her what Frank would do if he weren’t searching for hidden poetry. Now he would just keep searching forever—this guaranteed it. If there was one complete poem written into a book in 1940 and Frank had managed to get his hands on it, then there were bound to be more. Somewhere. And maybe a poet, too.

  “Do you think this will make him famous?” Nicholas’s face appeared oddly young, as earnest as the small, serious boy he had been at nine or ten.

  “In a certain circle.” Lydia nodded. “It will be exciting to the literary world at large. Yes, it will definitely bring him…prestige. And inspiration, which is even more important. There’s probably every reason to believe this is a significant find, but let’s not conjure up too many specific ideas about it just yet, okay?” Wearily, she stood up. “I’m going to go upstairs to check my email and then get to bed.”

  She turned at the door to look at Nicholas’s back as he stared out the window toward the barn. His uncombed hair and tense, bony shoulders wrenched her heart. Poor kid. Trying to be a strong man, and left so often lately to figure out unpleasant things on his own with a mind that was still so childlike at times that it startled her. If she and Frank could continue to live with each other—if they could make peace in the wake of his theft of their savings, and if they could get past all of the disrespect of recent days—then life in this house had to change. With or without Frank, she would construct a safe world where she and Nicholas could be happy, and where as a family, they could all accept each other without meanness. If the result was a respectful, joyless coexistence, that would be an improvement.

  In her study, Lydia struck a match, lit a candle, and set it on the windowsill. A chill ran through her body. When had Frank gotten so mean to her? How long had it been like this? If she didn’t take action, Frank’s self-absorption and obsession would become an even larger feature of their family life. For there in the barn he held evidence that every step of his expensive, absurd preoccupation had been valid. Mary Stone Walker had written more than anyone knew and survived past October 1939.

  She wanted to believe that the discovery might motivate Frank to work hard and finally complete his book, but it seemed unlikely. Instead, Lydia suspected he would keep searching for hidden documents and never again so much as tolerate her warnings about the waste of time, money, and life. The search was where he lived now…where he had been living for years. Twenty years for one poem. On this timeline and with these methods and no standards whatsoever to meet, there would never be a conclusion to his “work.”

  Staring out the window at darkness pinned by a single streetlight, Lydia tried to order her thoughts. She would have to focus on her own writing, her own income—her own life. She would make this immersion in Mary Stone Walker benefit her instead of being merely a source of worry. She would write a novel based on all she knew about the poet, and even though using this material for fiction might be a difficult thing to get used to after so many years of framing the woman’s life and work exclusively as academic research material for Frank, that was another issue that she needed to take a hard look at.

  Because after all, the woman was not purely academic for Frank. No, she was a romantic escape no less than any other mistress would be, and Frank had chosen that preoccupation again and again over the years, without concern for any damage it was causing to his marriage, family, or career. He deserved to be described in a novel for what he was: a man using a dead woman’s life and work to give his own life meaning and make himself a hero. At this point, Frank’s dedication had come to look like nothing more than a weird and lazy sort of lust. It sickened her.

  Turning from the window, Lydia sat down at her desk with determination and turned on her computer. She would write that book. The process would be invigorating, and at least for her, it would offer a path to closure around the issue of Mary Stone Walker. The first thing on that screen that her eyes lit upon was an email from her agent.

  Lydia, you’re worrying me, my dear. If you’re going to drop The Few an
d the Proud, you must get me a proposal for your new idea. Call me immediately. Barbara

  It was going to be difficult to break away from the novels people expected of her, to create literature with an uncertain audience and possibly face criticism and even failure. But all of the skills she had honed should easily carry her through any story, and a novel about a poet inspired by Mary Walker would practically write itself, driven by so many elements Lydia found fascinating that she would hardly know where to begin.

  After a while, she slid from her chair to the recliner in her study, pulling a blanket up over herself and falling at last into sleep. But sometime in the deep stillness of the middle of the night, she startled awake. She threw back the blanket, stood up, and opened her study door. Silence. Darkness. She went into the bathroom, leaving the light off, and gazed into the backyard. The glow at the door of the barn was gone, as were the cars. Her heart began to pound. She turned and tiptoed down the stairs, listening. Nothing. She walked through the hall, and her gaze was caught by light beaming under the closed door of Frank’s study. She thought of knocking on it, but felt frozen where she was.

  “Lydia?” Frank’s voice came muffled from behind the door, then she heard him step across the floor and open it. “What are you doing up?”

  “Something woke me.”

  “Can you believe it?” he said, his voice warmed by happiness and wine. “Can you believe this is finally happening?”

  She exhaled, waiting for the right words to come to her mind, but they didn’t. “No,” she said.

  “But indeed it is happening! As I knew it would!” He raised his arms as if inviting an embrace. “Goddamn it, I was right all along!”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Oh, come on, Lydia, it’s real. Schmidt and Albert were both electrified by what they saw.” He laughed. “And the poem, Lydia… It’s indescribably exciting. Innovative. Profound and strange. Among the most provocative she’s written. So far.”

  “So far.”

  “Well, there is no earthly reason not to believe there are more out there. I’m telling you, the woman lived on after White Hill. We have proof now.”

  “Is it dated in the same hand?”

  “Thank God, yes, it is…1940.”

  She gazed off to the side, her eyes meeting an eerie, incomplete reflection of herself in a wall mirror. She turned away from it.

  Frank walked over to her and raised his hands, saying, “I’ve done it. You can be proud, Lydia.” He gave her a small smile and pulled her to his chest, and she could hear his heart pounding heavily. She pushed away.

  “I’d like to read it,” she said, one hand on his shirt.

  “In time. Lilly Schmidt has the book tonight. She’ll do what she can to analyze it for authenticity. You wouldn’t steal the book away, now, would you? When you finally see it?”

  “Why would you say that?” Lydia stared at him in shock. “I’m just as excited as anyone else. In fact, more excited than everyone else who was here tonight! Seriously, Frank…what are you thinking?”

  He laughed as if this were a question they both knew the answer to and pulled her toward his body again. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I could hug you all night.”

  His affection was oddly impersonal, Lydia observed, and she felt a simmering revulsion, even as she tried to crush it by focusing on Frank’s happiness. This might, after all, be the first step back through the wreckage to the familial peace that she had just been daydreaming about.

  27

  White Hill, Michigan—April 1999

  Why is grief.

  Grief is strange black.

  ~ Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), “Preciosilla”

  “Guess what? The woman from the Library of Congress called,” Lydia told Frank as he entered the house near dinnertime the next day. “A couple of hours ago. Nicholas and I looked all over for you before we realized your truck was gone.”

  “No kidding? Already? What’d she say?” Frank tossed his hat onto the coatrack.

  “Nick wrote out a message before he left.”

  “I hope he got the facts straight. Where is it?” As Frank passed, Lydia caught the smell of alcohol.

  “I didn’t even know you’d left,” Lydia said, pointing toward the refrigerator. “Partying somewhere?”

  “I put in an appearance at Richard Albert’s house, if it’s all right with you. He had people there from the college. They’re all excited about the poem.”

  He stopped at the large yellow sheet of paper stuck to the refrigerator. Excited, jagged lines encircled the words in royal-blue marker from Nicholas.

  DAD! Judith Tomlinson from the Library of Congress called to say CONGRATULATIONS!!! Lilly Schmidt sent her a fax of the poem. Hopes you might visit with the original ASAP. She is a special fan of Mary. Please call as soon as possible. 202-555-0125.

  Lydia leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest.

  “Better detail than usual,” she said. “He’s so excited, Frank. I hope you’ll include him—”

  “He’s been there through the whole search,” Frank said absently, pushing in the phone number.

  “I haven’t seen him like this since—”

  “Shhh!” Frank held up the yellow note, then said quietly, “Damn. It’s just an answering machine. Yes, Ms. Tomlinson, this is Frank Carroll from Carson Community College in White Hill, Michigan, returning your call. I’m available at this number any time, and I will wait for your call. Until then, I do want to say that we’re impressed by the authentic nature of the document and the provocative character of the poem. I’ll do whatever I can to meet with you personally if that would be helpful. Thank you.”

  He hung up, drummed his fingers on the counter, then grabbed the phone book. “You know, Lydia…”

  After a moment she said, “Yes?”

  “We might as well have a few key supporters over. Tonight, in fact. I think we should. Lilly Schmidt, Sylvia Gilmore, Drew. Maybe a couple of Drew’s students.”

  “What for?”

  “For a little party.” He stepped close to her and smiled as he ran the tips of his fingers along her temples and gently pushed her hair back. He held her head in his hands and leaned down to kiss her forehead. She closed her eyes. He said gruffly, “You remember back when this all started, sweetheart?”

  Lydia turned her head away, but Frank nudged her cheek with a knuckle to urge her to look into his eyes. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Do you? Do you remember the two of us, before you were even publishing, before Nicholas came bounding into the world… We’d stay up all night talking. About poetry. About love.”

  Lydia shifted her weight from one foot to the other, tilting her head out of Frank’s grip. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “We heard about that candelabra, that first candelabra, the one thing left that was available from Mary’s home right here in town—”

  “I remember. That forty bucks we spent on it felt like a thousand would now.”

  “We just kept on,” Frank said, running one finger lightly over her mouth. “Determined. Nicholas isn’t here, you say?”

  “He’s at Jack Kenilworth’s,” she said. “Working late and staying overnight.”

  “Aha,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs for a minute, Lydia baby.”

  “Frank. Where is this coming from?”

  “What are you talking about?” He put his hand on her breast and gave her an expression of complete confusion.

  “One second you’re wild to make phone calls, and now you’ve got to have sex.” She stared at him. “Right? We’re talking three minutes, tops. And”—she pointed at the wall clock—“if you want guests, you’ve got to arrange it now. It’s after six. It’s really too late.”

  He leaned forward and pressed his mouth onto hers, sliding his hand down the back of her pants. Before she could either relent or prote
st, he withdrew his hand and his mouth, giving her breast a pinch as he headed for his study with the phone book. She watched him walk away and marveled at his bright mood. She had forgotten how unhappy he’d become. She really hoped she would be able to help him enjoy this hour, in spite of her hard feelings.

  After a few calls, Frank leaned into the hall and shouted Lydia’s name. “I told everyone eight o’clock!”

  An hour later, Lydia turned the chandelier light low over the dining room table. Violets in small vases surrounded by pussy willow sprigs were clustered around three tall, white candles in pewter candlesticks. She had set half a dozen different swatches of lace at angles across the table, and the wedding china dessert plates were stacked beside silver forks and a fanned stack of pink cotton napkins. In the kitchen, a pound cake sat cooling on a rack, beside a white bowl filled with chopped strawberries and a mixing bowl full of whipped cream.

  The doorbell rang, and of course it was Drew, who was consistently fifteen minutes early for everything. She helped Lydia open three bottles of wine and set wineglasses on the table as Frank searched around in the stacks of CDs.

  “Ah, one of Mary’s favorites,” he said, removing a CD from its case, and as the Chopin nocturnes played, the other guests arrived.

  Lydia watched Frank’s face as he focused on the music, his expression dreamy and joyful. Cleared of tension, his features had become more youthful looking literally overnight. Memories unfolded one after another in her mind, poignant and distant recollections of the man she’d fallen in love with and the conspiratorial alliance of passion and work they had shared. As they sat down with their champagne, cake, and all of their guests at the table, Lydia felt a warm longing for such convivial days—a longing that was part remembrance and part hope for the future.

  “I wish Nicholas could be here,” she said with quiet excitement.

  Frank waved his fork full of cake dismissively. “He’d be bored.”

  “I don’t think so.” She smiled, glancing at him. “I can’t even believe how keyed up he’s been. Wait’ll you hear him talk about it. He thinks of himself as your right-hand man in all this, you know.”