First of all, things smelled better than they did back east. Walking to her car, she could almost taste the wet in the air, the way she might hear a beehive buzzing with sound. That was the way the earth smelled, full and busy. There was no rain in the sky now, but it was always lurking, as clouds swifted over the airport, moving from the ocean inland, over Myla and over the city. She’d forgotten how quickly the weather changed here; hail one minute, brilliant sunshine the next. Or this. Quick-moving clouds.
The trees planted in the median of the parking lot were newly, scandalously green, a green that seemed plastic. But here they were, leaf buds fluorescent in their greenness. She pinched a new green curl between her fingers, and the moist rankled her taste buds as she unlocked the car door.
Once she was on the road, it was easy to hurtle toward the city, easy to see the metaphor of moving toward one’s future. She listened to the hum of tires as she turned from one highway to the next, moving into the center of what was once her life. She’d left the East Coast as Kate Scott, but she was here as Myla Wolfe. She felt the three thousand miles between her and the Kate Scott she’d left behind growing larger and larger with each inch she covered. She was moving toward hope, and the journey was quick.
Myla couldn’t stop the cry, the stab of wonder, when the road curled up a small hill, then evened out so it paralleled the Willamette River, with Portland laid out just on the other side. The buildings were beautiful and wet and glistening. This city was more alive than she’d imagined. It was smaller too, and she unrolled her window and let the fresh spring wind whip in to wet her hair and lips and hands. A stream of cool water jetted up from her tires, rooting up the damp left in the macadam by an early-morning rainstorm. She was suspended on the bridge now, driving toward the city, crossing the river. She relished this second, and it was the first honest thing she’d relished in an uncountably long time. It was delicious, this moment, a perfection. Going and not yet there. Things were getting bigger, but she wanted to hold on to now, on to this moment of plans, possibilities, unexplored ideas. Now there was a goal. She was driving into this place, she was pushing into it, she would bore into it, find what she’d buried, and carry it out into day.
WORKING WITH RUTH IS WORK, there’s no question about that. Even when we’re over at her house just to have dinner or pick up an article David wants to read, being with Ruth is still a working thing. But it’s funny too, because in the beginning we just hang out. First Myla asks Ruth about her boyfriends. I think it’s boring, but Myla always asks questions like: “So how old were you when you met John?” And then that starts it off. The two of them in the kitchen brushing each other’s hair, and talking about dates and kissing and holding hands. I usually color in the living room, where I can sit on my knees at the coffee table and be far away from their talking.
The good part is that sometimes Ruth talks about making pictures. She shows us things. Like when she let us look at the ground glass on the back of the eight-by-ten camera, where the pictures show up upside down. I saw the pictures right away, all clear. An upside-down chair and an upside-down Myla sitting in the chair. When Myla looked—after stomping around all rude because she wanted a turn—at first she couldn’t see anything because she was looking through the glass, not at it. Ruth had to get under the dark-cloth with her and show her how to see. And when she finally saw me in the ground glass, she acted like it was no big deal. I knew she was mad because she needed help to see and I didn’t. But what I wanted was to be like Ruth, who told us that even though it’s supposed to be easier to make a good picture if everything is upside down because then you just see lines and shapes and colors, she can’t do that anymore. She’s been looking at the ground glass for so long that everything on it is turned right side up.
When it’s a shoot, it’s hard work but it’s fun. Myla calls Ruth “The Queen of Inspiration” because that’s what Ruth becomes. We’ll be there in the afternoon, sitting and painting, drinking tea, listening to Mozart’s Requiem. Then all of a sudden Ruth’s eyes work a different way. She’ll be looking at my arm one minute, and I’ll know she’s thinking it’s just my arm, and then the next minute I can see her looking at the shape of it, how it moves, what muscles in it work what way. And then she says something like, “Pru. There. Don’t move.” And she goes and gets a camera, sometimes the thirty-five-millimeter, or if the light is right, it’ll be the eight-by-ten. Then it’s like her mind has power over her whole body, and she won’t get tired. She’ll work until there’s no more film. She’ll work until there’s no more light. She’ll work until Myla or I finally open our mouths and say we’re hungry or bored.
I like it. I like sitting there before the shoot, telling jokes. I like it when David leaves us there so he can get some work done. Ruth lets us eat whatever we want, even if it’s chocolate at eight in the morning. She says it’s her job to spoil us. But she doesn’t spoil us either. Because she opens us up to how big her work is, to how tired it can make you, to how good it feels to have it and the missing of it when she has to put it away for the night.
After the afternoons, she’ll make us big pasta dinners with pesto and garlic bread. David comes back from the college and has a glass of merlot. They talk and talk until Myla and I crawl out to the living room and lie on Ruth’s pillows on the floor. And then the next thing I know, David is heaving me onto his shoulder and saying, “School tomorrow.” And then I watch Ruth over his shoulder as he carries me to the car. School tomorrow means five days until the next time we come, and sometimes that seems forever.
chapter five
myla believed that if she didn’t go directly to the source, she’d find herself floating. At least someone had called her here, and even though she’d never met him, and didn’t know for certain what he held for her, she knew this lawyer, this Marcus Berger, was the place to start. So she placed a call and was surprised when Marcus Berger answered the phone, surprised at his straining vocal quality, so like a teenage boy’s, surprised at his lack of surprise when she announced she was in town. He suggested she come immediately.
The office was in a neighborhood Myla had always remembered as poised on the cusp of being cool—cool, that is, in the eyes of daughters of college professors and the girl students who took care of them. So it wasn’t such a surprise when, searching in vain for free parking, she witnessed flocks of yuppies with their strollers and cell phones herding through store after store. Stores with Italian names and designer dresses, stores with thirty-five-dollar candles in the windows, stores selling angular, uncomfortable-looking shoes (“Two pairs for $99!,” although Myla did have to remind herself that this was considered cheap these days). Was it inappropriate to feel old at the age of thirty-one? The drive up and down Northwest Twenty-third was slow. None of the pedestrians seemed to know what a crosswalk was, so she read the names of the shops: Urbino Home, Slang Bette, Mama Ro’s. Like a poem.
She found a side street with parking, a minor miracle, and backed into a space. On the opposite side of the street, nestled between two ostentatious Victorian houses patinaed with color like well-manicured toenails, she saw what looked like a halfway house. Stretching around the two monstrosities were large, white, disinfected porches, porches that disregarded dirt and the outdoors in general. The halfway house, on the other hand, was small and dark, and Myla imagined it was filled with flora and fauna. It was tropical in its promise. Two old men in flannel shirts smoked on the stoop.
Up until this moment, she hadn’t really allowed herself to contemplate the reason Marcus Berger had contacted her; or perhaps more precisely, she hadn’t let herself imagine the identity of his client. But now Myla realized that all along she’d assumed the client was Ruth. As far as Myla knew, no one had seen or heard from Ruth Handel in thirteen years. But now, here, it was thrilling to imagine that Ruth had orchestrated this. That she was the “unnamed client” who’d provided the flight coupons and summoned Myla to this meeting. It would mean she was alive. That she’d survived. It would m
ean Myla would get to see her.
Still, if Ruth were to present herself alive, there’d be all sorts of problems. Issues needing to be addressed, conversations. If Ruth were sitting upstairs . . .
Myla opened the car door then and let the Portland of her childhood rush in to greet her. It still seeped. The glorious rain, a permanent wet that thoroughly soaked into hedges and tires and sidewalk cracks, was strangely surreptitious: when she leaned down to press her hand against the sidewalk, her palm came up dry. And yet moss edged every asphalt and concrete crack, tingeing the world with green. This was seepage. It was an old wet, deeper than the surface. It made you moist inside your heart, made your insides warm as rotting, mottled wood.
It started to drizzle, and she looked up and saw tiny bits of wet gleaming down on her. She felt them pattering on her hand, weightless, translucent. It could rain here for days, and you’d never feel the wet as something distinct from the whole vast dampness of the world. You were never that separated from the ground and its constant pull on sky. The sky spilled and made it all—the ground, the city, the people—deeper and greener with each passing day. She felt like a little girl again.
All that wet outside her made her realize she was intensely thirsty, longing for a long draw of water down her throat. She hoped the building would have a drinking fountain. She focused on her thirst—an easy need to meet—to avoid thinking about Ruth.
Marcus Berger’s office was on the third floor. He buzzed her in from the street and was waiting outside his office door when she walked up the stairs. She shook his hand and soon realized there was no drinking fountain and no Ruth. Upon Myla’s request for something drinkable, Berger brought his guest a cup of lukewarm water from the men’s bathroom. This left something to be desired. They settled into chairs side by side and angled toward each other. She’d expected him to be sitting behind a desk, and she was glad she’d spoken to him on the phone; otherwise the shock of his youth might have been laughable. She liked him immediately, though she wasn’t about to admit it.
With no sign of Ruth, Myla felt bitter, disappointed. She hadn’t let herself admit how much she’d been hoping to see Ruth again. Meanwhile, Berger crossed his legs. “If you wouldn’t mind, let me explain myself. My client has hired me to transfer into your hands certain items that are rightfully yours, legally yours. My client wishes to remain anonymous, so I’ll be unable to answer any questions about who or where he or she is.” Myla felt a stab of sadness; perhaps Ruth simply didn’t want to see her. She nodded for Berger to continue.
“In any case, my client has instructed me to transfer one item in person if at all possible—my person, I mean,” he added with a nervous smile. “Which is why, of course, I asked you to come all this way. I myself am not privy to the contents of the envelope. It’s been sealed for just about thirteen years.” He stood and walked to a file cabinet, pulled out a file folder with a manila envelope inside, and brought the envelope back to her. He kept the folder for himself. The envelope was heavy with paper, and she could feel the metal spine of a spiral notebook inside.
“Now, before you open it,” he continued, “I’ve been asked to read you this letter: ‘I’ve been holding this for you. Your father asked me to wait until you were ready. Each day passes more quickly than the last, but that doesn’t mean our past gets any further away from us. Which is all to say: I don’t know if you’re ready, but I do know it’s time. Thirteen years have passed. Extend yourself. Perhaps you’ll get some answers.’” Berger looked up and smiled. “So. Any questions?”
So many. Did this mean Ruth was alive? The note didn’t necessarily sound like Ruth, but what did that mean, anyway? Myla hungered for thousands of answers, but she couldn’t frame a single question. Suddenly the immensity of what she faced hit her. She was exhilarated and also exhausted: in one instant she’d left behind everything that had kept her safe for years and had headed straight back into the unknown. Was she ready for this? Obviously Ruth, or whoever was orchestrating this—it could be someone else, she reminded herself—thought she was. “Extend yourself,” the letter said. She’d left the East Coast precisely because she needed to learn how to stretch beyond herself, and this letter read her mind. This made her want to touch it. “Can I see that?” Her hand reached for the paper.
“No, I’m afraid not.” He drew back. “One of my client’s conditions.”
Myla could see through the paper that the note had been written by hand, with black ink. Berger noticed her glance and placed the paper quickly back into the file folder in his hand.
“So this is it? Whatever’s in this envelope?” She fingered the package, her heart sinking a bit. Not heavy enough. Bound. Not what it could have been.
Berger shook his head. “The client’s condition is that I may read you this letter”—he tapped the folder—“and you can draw any conclusions you want from that. But unfortunately, I am unable to answer that question.”
In the midst of all this frustration, Myla knew the plan had worked. She was here, wasn’t she? And she was tantalized. She was itching to know what was in the envelope, even if it wasn’t what she’d initially hoped for. Her palms were greedy for it. She asked Berger to read the letter again. He read it twice.
She asked him, “Must I open this now?”
“You can open the envelope whenever you want to. It’s just in my charge to make sure you have it in your possession. After that, you can do whatever you’d like with it.” He smiled at her, obviously relieved that he could do something she wanted.
“Well, thanks.” She stood. “Until we meet again?”
He shook her hand. “Let’s be in touch.”
The light outside was brighter than she’d remembered. Her hands trembled against the envelope. She was distracted by the world outside, by being swept up into a movement, like a Mozart piano concerto that would guide her, ineffably, toward beauty and completion. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced since walking these streets with Pru on one side and David and Ruth on the other. The envelope made a smooth bundle under her fingers. She was hugging it, she noticed, all the way to the car.
SOMETIMES I LIE IN BED ON Saturday mornings and I watch the sun play on the ceiling, through the shadows of the branches. And it’s funny when you lie like that because all sorts of thoughts come into your head, and you’re not exactly asleep but you’re not exactly awake either. Those are the moments I think about my mother.
Her name is Sarah, but I wouldn’t call her that if she were alive. I think I’d call her Mama, because I like that better than Mommy, which is too baby. I’m five, not a baby. And I like it better than Mom, because Mom isn’t soft. “Mama,” I’d say, “let’s go for a walk,” and she’d probably take me on one. I’d hold her hand and it would be soft. And Myla would still be asleep in bed and David would be grading his papers and there’d be this whole good feeling around our house, like the smell of bread when it’s baking.
She’s dead, though, and I don’t even remember her. I was two months old when another car crashed into hers. She was driving back from her writing group. Myla showed me the road once, but I got it all mixed up in my head, and the next time I asked her where it was, she got mad at me. The truth is, it really isn’t so bad. Myla told me once that she could still see our mother’s face and that made it even worse, remembering what you couldn’t have. I think she might be right. On Saturday mornings, I wish for someone I never had. But then we all wake up and suddenly there’s a plan, and then my family does something together. That makes me forget all about the hollow piece inside me.
The truth is, I may not have a mother who is more than a picture, but I know I have a family. David and Myla—they’re related to me, they’re what people ask about when they say, “How’s your sister?” or “What time is your dad picking you up?” But one day David sits me down and tells me I’m lucky because I have more family than just the people I was born to.
There’s Ruth. She’s nothing like a mother and she’s nothing like a big
sister. But that’s nice because she’s a third thing. She’s an artist. By being that, she helps us as much as mothers who do dishes, or fathers who fix the gutter, help keep a family going. She lives in a different house, but we can always come over, anytime we want. She said so.
Then there are Emma and Jane and Steve. They live in a different house too, but not the one Ruth lives in. Emma’s my best friend but she’s like my sister. And Jane’s like a mom, and even though she’s not my mom, I let her put me in the bathtub and I let her tell me when I’m being rude and I let her tickle me until I have to pee. Steve’s like a dad, but he’s not my dad. He’s also David’s best friend, and they sit in the living room and talk for hours about pictures and ideas. Sometimes Emma and I fold them hats out of newspaper and make them wear them when they talk.
We have dinner at Emma and Jane and Steve’s every single Friday night, when it’s raining, and when it’s heat-wave hot, and when there’s snow on the ground. You could say I look forward to it, but that’s a dumb way to say it. The thing about family is that you aren’t supposed to look forward to them; they aren’t supposed to make you excited the way a big surprise would. That would mean you don’t know them very well. When David and Myla and I go over there on Friday nights, we know we belong. We can take whatever we want out of the fridge and we can wash the dishes in the sink. Emma and Jane and Steve expect us there, and when we drive up, we don’t even have to knock.
I’m lucky. I’m my family and their family and Ruth’s family too. And each lets me belong.
MYLA DROVE TO THE COLLEGE. Her body led her even as her mind wondered if everything was happening too fast. She hadn’t been here even a day. Was she ready for what this collision with the past could do?
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