by Julia Glass
He still called her Emily, and though she’d felt for a little while as if the name were a lie, now she liked the old-newness of it. And she liked that Fenno was the only person in her nonmedical life who called her by her very first, her original name.
Hoping it would sound innocent, Saga said, “So the children on the wall in the bathroom, whose are they?”
“My brother’s twins,” said Fenno. “Camilla and Paul. Altogether, I have five nieces and one nephew.”
The bells on the door jingled then, saving her from having to make conversation out of her nosy misunderstanding. She said good-bye to Fenno before he had finished helping his customer find a book on secret codes. Fenno looked confused at her sudden departure but called out, “Cheerio!”
On her way to the subway, Saga walked down Tenth Street instead of Eleventh. She was pleased to find that she had remembered correctly: yes, here was the baby store with the tiny rocking chairs in the window. She did not go in, but she paused to look at the silk booties displayed at the foot of the chairs and at the tiny kimonos, red and orange and blue, suspended on fishing line above them. They looked like little Japanese ghosts—happy ghosts, dwarf ghosts—hovering, looking out at the real people on the sidewalk, not longing for lives of their own but curious: about what it might be like to have tasks and homes and people to take care of. The ghosts seemed to wish Saga well.
THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING WEEKEND, Michael and Denise came to visit again. Except in summer, it was unusual for them to show up two weekends in a row, but Saga could well imagine they wanted to bask in their good family news.
At least they’d given warning so that Saga could plan for bigger meals on Saturday and Sunday. Friday night, they drove out from the city straight to Uncle Marsden’s favorite steak house.
“Dad, I gotta say, you have simple standards for dining out,” said Michael when his prime rib arrived. “This broccoli nearly matches my suit.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Come on, Dad, this place is great—I mean, I loved it when I was ten, it brings back great memories—but it’s amazing how they’ve survived without changing a thing. Like, a menu on a cutting board? Cottage cheese with pickles and breadsticks? There’s retro, and then there’s antediluvian.”
“Saga and I are happy with old-fashioned things, aren’t we?” He took Saga’s hand and started to sing. “‘We’re old-fashioned, and we don’t mind it.’”
“Dad,” groaned Michael, “your voice is as overcooked as the broccoli.”
“Ah well.” Uncle Marsden kissed Saga’s hand and dropped it.
For a moment, Michael and Denise were both smiling fondly at Saga. Had pregnancy really made them this nice? Denise started to speak to Saga, but Uncle Marsden interrupted.
“Speaking of old-fashioned, I have quite the surprise for you two when we get back to the house.” He’d had a foam mattress cut to fit the cradle; Saga had picked out sheets. “Even you might shed a little tear, my sophisticated son.”
“Oh that’ll be the day,” said Denise, but she was clasping Michael’s hand on the table. They touched so often now that you could almost imagine the teeny-tiny baby taking its earliest food from Michael as well, carried right through its mother’s skin.
Michael’s phone rang in his pocket. “Excuse me a minute,” he said, and carried his conversation out the door of the restaurant.
“Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?” Saga said to Denise.
Denise pursed her lips as if she were about to laugh, as if Saga had asked a silly question. She looked out toward the parking lot, where Michael could be seen pacing and gesturing, making some kind of deal. “Actually…” She looked at Uncle Marsden. “Well, we have a surprise for you too.”
Uncle Marsden had finished his steak and was cutting his baked potato into cubes. Onto this grid he would slather sour cream, then cottage cheese, and then he would savor one small bite at a time. The broccoli he had discarded onto his butter plate.
“Well, my girl, will you spit it out, this secret of yours, or shall we talk about the Farmer’s Almanac predictions for winter? I hear it’s to be a mild one.”
Denise ventured one more glance toward the parking lot. Her sigh was like an exclamation of pure amazement. “Well.” She blushed at her plate, then looked up at Uncle Marsden. “We found out yesterday we’re having twins. They thought so last week, but now it’s certain. We heard two separate heartbeats.”
Saga thought of the twins at the bookstore, the picture in the bathroom. Uncle Marsden gasped. “Good Lord. Will that age me double-quick?”
There was an awkward pause, and then Uncle Marsden stood, startling Saga. He leaned across the table, grasped both of Denise’s hands, pulled her toward him, and kissed her on the mouth. “My dear,” he said, “you must both be very happy.” When he sat down, there were curds of cheese on his necktie and tears in his eyes. Using his napkin, he wiped the tears away. As unobtrusively as she could, Saga reached over and used her own to wipe off his tie.
“Oh yes,” said Denise. “Yes, we are.”
Uncle Marsden stood abruptly again. “I am going to get that negligent son of mine. I do not care if he is trading Long Island Sound for the Caribbean.”
Alone with Denise, Saga said, “Wow. I mean, wow.”
Denise looked flustered. “You’ll have to be an honorary aunt,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Saga. “I would love that.”
Denise seemed on the verge of saying something else, but then she just kissed Saga on the cheek. Why was Denise suddenly so attentive to her? Did getting what she had wanted make her sorrier for Saga?
When father and son returned to the table, Uncle Marsden had possession of Michael’s cell phone. He grinned as he put it in his own pocket.
“I’ll pay for that,” said Michael, but cheerfully.
“Oh nonsense,” said Uncle Marsden. “The world will turn quite happily without your help.” He called the waiter and ordered cold duck, the closest thing they had to champagne.
Michael kissed Denise and said, “I want you to know, babies work as an excuse in my line of work for about fifteen minutes. And let’s not forget that now I’ll have two new mouths to feed.”
Denise kissed him back. “And a bigger apartment to find.”
Michael raised his hands in surrender. “House of cards. What can you do?”
Back at the house, Saga found that she was too exhausted to clean up the day’s dishes, a ritual she often shared with Uncle Marsden, though mostly he liked to sit nearby on a stool, drink tea, and talk.
“My dear, I will do it with the help of Mr. High Finance here. You two girls get on up to bed. Tomorrow we have our lichen expedition.”
“Oh,” said Denise, “can I go along?”
Uncle Marsden looked pleased; even Michael looked pleased. He was putting on his mother’s apron as Saga led the way upstairs, turning on lights.
In her room, she took her notebook from her knapsack. Out of it fell the picture of Fenno and Felicity. She held it, hands trembling. She remembered finding it, but she did not remember stealing it. Saga stared at it for a moment and then propped it against the lamp on her bureau. Well, she reasoned, it had been buried in a drawer beneath things that were probably never used, hadn’t it?
As she put on her nightgown, she heard the reverberations from the kitchen, carried upward along with the heat. She heard plates clattering too loudly against one another, the way they always did in the hands of men. She heard, though at first they were muffled by running water, the voices of the men manhandling the plates. And then the water stopped.
“It’s just an idea,” said Michael. “I’ve been thinking I could start my own little firm in New Haven, maybe by next year sometime. I could commute for a while before then, if I had to.”
“You’d better not expect me to babysit,” said Uncle Marsden.
Michael laughed. “One day, we might just have to babysit for you. I can see it now, the Snail Guy wand
ering up and down the beach in his mad-professor daze, hurling insults at the residents of the new condos.”
Uncle Marsden made a growling noise. “What ‘mad-professor daze’ are you referring to, young man?”
Water ran briefly again. “Listen, Dad, I called that broker we grew up with, the one who used to lifeguard at the club, and she told me there’s a small house coming up for sale in a few months, closer to the village. An old one, a gem. A captain’s house. It would be perfect for you. If I put our apartment on the market right away, I’m sure I could—” Water again.
Saga stood directly over the vent. Warm air filled her nightgown, soft and feathery up across her belly and breasts. The gown swelled like a tulip in bloom, like a pregnancy. She moved to the side and bent over. Now the warm air blew, less pleasantly, straight in her face.
When the water stopped again, she heard Uncle Marsden say, “—Saga. That would have to be a condition.”
“Sure,” said Michael, but Saga could hear his reluctance, along with his agreement, ricochet all the way from two stories below. “Dad, we have to talk about Saga, not just about where she’s going to live. With Denise pregnant, I’ve been—” The dishwasher changed from a hiss to a roar.
AFTER A FINE WEEKEND OF WEATHER that yearned back toward summer, a sea of flat, monotonous clouds moved in. It rained for days.Saga spent Monday and Tuesday typing up her uncle’s notes on the lichens and mosses he had collected on their family hike. She helped him label slides and put them in the carousel. (His hands shook just enough now that this simple task was nearly impossible for him.) She felt glad to be useful, but she did not know what it meant that Uncle Marsden, through all this time they were spending together, said nothing about the proposal Michael had made that night in the kitchen. By Wednesday, she felt anxious and hurt, but what could she say? She decided to take an early train into the city, to hell with the tempest.
Fenno was opening the register. Oneeka was straightening books on the shelves, dusting the glass case that held all those odd bird-watching gizmos. “Hey, girl,” Oneeka said as Saga came in, “would you pay four hundred bucks for a picnic basket? Like get real. What’s in this thing anyway?”
“Fancy binoculars, three Sibley pocket guides, stainless flatware, and linen napkins printed with songbirds. That’s what,” said Fenno. “Hello there, Emily.”
Beside the door to the garden stood a playpen. Saga had heard about Oneeka’s baby girl but had never seen her. She was standing, clinging to the plastic rail, not quite able to get her chin that high.
“My mom couldn’t watch her today,” Oneeka explained, as if Saga had any authority at the store. “I just hope she ain’t planning like one of her cranky days. She has one-a those, boy, you are in for some wicked shit.”
Fenno gave her a parental look.
“In for some serious trouble,” amended Oneeka.
“She’ll have plenty of people eager to entertain her,” said Fenno. “Rain brings in the hordes, who love nothing better than to drip on the books. Which reminds me. Where’s the barrel for the brollies, Oneeka?”
“Oh man, will you quit with that Queen Elizabeth talk? You live here how long now?”
Fenno smiled at Oneeka. “Umbrellas,” he enunciated slowly.
“Can I help out?” asked Saga.
Fenno told her that if she stuck around a bit, he could use her help in the basement, packing up returns. Oneeka could stay upstairs.
Seeing Oneeka with the baby made her look younger than ever, thought Saga. When they’d met, she had told Saga she was living with her mother, finishing high school at night.
Saga went over to the playpen and leaned down. “Hi, baby.”
The baby looked at her with fierce attention; out of the small mouth flowed a buoyant fleet of syllables. Why were babies so intimidating to Saga? Were they so different from puppies? Just then, the baby let go of the rail with one hand and grabbed onto Saga’s hair, her grip as firm as her gaze. Oneeka rushed over and pried her daughter’s hand free. “Grab the whole world, that’s her. Get that bad old world by the butt before it gets her! Sorry.”
“Smart girl,” said Fenno. “Tiger by the tail.”
Saga looked around. “Where’s Felicity?”
“I left her home today. Miss Felicity is not keen on babies,” said Fenno. “They siphon off all the amazement and adoration.”
Siphon. A forgotten word. A circular word, caterpillar green.
Oneeka went behind the sales desk and pointed a finger at him. “Put me in charge, you are one crazy dude.”
“I aspire to be a crazy dude. The day I am an authentically crazy dude is the day I can die a happy man,” said Fenno. “Shall we?” he said to Saga.
In the basement, he lined up several open boxes. He handed Saga small stacks of books to arrange inside them, showing her which books must be packed together. She examined his graceful hands for evidence that he’d ever worn a ring. So far from being married: was that what he’d said?
“I’ve brought a funny book to show you,” said Saga.
“Have you indeed?”
“It’s a child’s book,” she said. “From my house. It’s about Scotland. I’ll show it to you when we take a break.”
“Show it to me now,” said Fenno.
Saga’s knapsack hung from the chair at the desk. She pulled out the book.
Fenno smiled warmly at the plaid dust jacket. He took his time looking at the title and copyright pages. “Nineteen thirty-eight! Oh what a bloody lot’s gone on in the world since then. I’m betting this book’s no longer in print.” He looked at Saga. “This was yours when you were a wee one?”
“No, or not really,” she said. Who knew how many books she’d once known and forgotten?
Fenno sat on the edge of the desk. He began to read the story. On the second page, he laughed loudly. He read, and it sounded delicious in his genuine Scottish voice, “‘His real name was Alastair Roderic Craigellachie Dalhousie Gowan Donnybristle MacMac, but that took too long to say, so everybody just called him Wee Gillis.’”
“You read it so perfectly,” she said. “Read it all.”
He gave her a wry look. “What’s a rainy day meant for?”
He read on, fluidly, musically: about the dilemma of Wee Gillis, whether to choose a life in the Highlands, hunting stag with his father’s relations, or in the Lowlands, herding cows with his mother’s kin. Fenno looked up and said, “A book about finding out where you belong. Now that’s a theme to warm my heart. Yours too?” He did not take his eyes off her.
“Yes,” she said. She’d read the book a few times, because it made her laugh and she loved the old-fashioned black-and-white drawings. She hadn’t thought about themes.
“Let me give you a book, since you’ve shared one with me,” said Fenno. He went to a bookcase by the bathroom and came back with a new pink paperback. “My favorite poet shares your name,” he said as he handed it to Saga.
Upstairs, the front door closed and someone exclaimed about the nasty weather, the adorable baby. Did they have any books on dream interpretation?
“Ah. The day begins in earnest,” said Fenno. “But keep this, read the poems as you like.” He bowed slightly before heading up to help his customer.
Emily Dickinson’s name was entirely familiar to Saga, but it was unlikely she had read one of these poems since high school. She opened the book to the middle.
I have no Life but this—
To lead it here—
Nor any Death—but lest
Dispelled from there—
Nor tie to Earths to come—
Nor Action new—
Except through this extent—
The Realm of you—
“Oh,” said Saga, as if someone had sneaked up and startled her. She should have begun sealing more boxes, but instead she sat down at the desk to read.
FOR LUNCH, THE THREE OF THEM shared Chinese food. Oneeka, though she was gracefully slim, ate twice as much as anyone else, emptyi
ng all the packets of sauce on her chicken and using the plastic fork instead of the chopsticks. Saga had to use a fork as well, but she could remember the days of chopsticks. David had loved his Chinese food spicy. Oneeka talked the most, too, telling Fenno just how ridiculous she thought most of her classes were. “Like geometry. Whoa. Talk about weird. All this proving how circles are really circles and stuff! What’s the point of this proof business anyway? I’ll show you a proof or two. Proof my baby’s daddy is like the king of losers. Proof this Al Gore dude needs like a sex-appeal transplant. Proof we live in a twisted world.”
Saga was grateful for Oneeka’s easy banter, which allowed her to look almost unguardedly at Fenno’s face lit up by amusement. You could tell from his eyes that much in his life had not amused him.
As soon as Oneeka took Topaz downstairs to nurse, Treehorn came through the door, eagerly preceding Alan by the length of her leash. What luck that Saga had chosen today to come into town.
“Oh hello, hello there, you!” she said, greeting the dog first of all.
Treehorn rolled over, inviting Saga to scratch her belly. Her tongue unfurled from the side of her mouth as she smiled.
Fenno shook Alan’s hand. “Safe travels. I have your cell number, and the San Francisco number, so hasten away. Have a lovely visit with your sister.”
“I’m so grateful. Are you sure she won’t be too much trouble?”
Fenno shrugged. “And if she were? What then?”
“Then I’d take her.” Saga wished that Alan had asked her to dog-sit—she felt almost as if she’d been passed over for the care of her own child—but then, Fenno would look more dependable to anyone than she did. And he did live right down the street from Alan.
Once she’d committed Alan’s face and name to her fickle memory, Saga had decided he was a man who looked worried too much of the time. For a psychologist, maybe that was normal. He must listen to worrying all day long; he must absorb it. Now, however, he did look relieved. “Thank you both,” he said.