The Effects of Light

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

  But as they got out of the car, she jolted with knowing this was a perfectly normal moment, without weight or meaning. They were just a couple returning from a day spent together. She knew that her life would be filled with more and more moments like these. Moments without significance or portent. Moments just like everyone else had. How would she order her life without a dark center? What could she orbit around? How would she recognize herself freed from the grip of anger, of terror, of the deep rawness of death? It was uncharted, this next step.

  “I’m going to call Mark,” she said as she walked up the front steps.

  “Good,” said Samuel as she opened the screen door. And then she saw the envelope.

  It was leaning against the front door, hidden for only her to find. Myla knew Steve and Jane were at work; she picked up the envelope, felt the outline of a key through the paper, felt it weigh heavy in her hand. Her name was not on the envelope, but she knew, by instinct, that it was hers.

  She opened it. Inside was the key she’d felt, a dull brass that had lost its shine; the number 24 was etched on its head. Then a card, typed: Fairview Storage Units. Now.

  Myla whirled, turned to Samuel. “I have to go.”

  “Where?” His hand on her arm asked her to invite him.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she said.

  The light sweeping over the Portland afternoon was crisp, broad. Myla saw with such clarity that she didn’t want to put on her sunglasses even though the world glared. She knew where she was going. This was the third test, the third trial, the third envelope. She knew it would be the last.

  She let herself imagine what was waiting. She wanted to laugh, knowing there was something locked away for her, waiting for her discovery. Something of David’s, perhaps. Something saved by Ruth. For with every turn she made, Myla was more and more certain this was Ruth’s doing. She wasn’t even going to speculate how Ruth had made it back to Portland without people noticing, how Ruth had read Myla’s mind after all these years of distance, how she’d known exactly which pushes and pulls Myla needed. It was Ruth’s way, and Myla realized that she was seeing the world differently. It didn’t feel so divided. Things felt possible.

  There’d been a last time she’d seen Ruth. They’d both known it would be the last time, though neither spoke a word about it.

  Pru was dead. David was dead. Myla had left Steve and Jane’s house after railing against them. And then she’d taken her first trip, in the middle of the night, to the spot where Pru had been murdered. The moon rose and set. It was two in the morning, and winter. Myla, driving back into Portland, knowing she was never coming back, had steered her car over to Ruth’s. The house was dark, but Ruth’s car was parked out front. Myla had marched across the dark lawn and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She huddled on the cold sagging steps and waited for something to happen.

  Something did. She caught Ruth’s shadow emerging from the basement with a box in her arms. Ruth walked down the driveway, moving awkwardly with the weight of the box. Myla heard Ruth opening the trunk of her car, saw her outline as it struggled to place the heavy box inside, and heard the whisper of the latch in the dark cool night. Ruth came back up the driveway, and Myla stood. Ruth stopped. They faced each other. A cold wind whipped up around them.

  There was nothing that could be said. Myla knew that now. It was impossible to say any of the millions of things each had to say. There was simply too much tangled up.

  But they knew each other. Myla knew Ruth was leaving. Ruth knew Myla was leaving. Myla didn’t blame Ruth. But how could one say that? How did one say, “You didn’t murder my sister”? How did one speak of being an orphan? How did one mourn for the newly dead? There was nothing to be done. There was nothing she could have said to Ruth that would have freed her. There was nothing Ruth could have said that would have made any difference. So they just stood in the cold dark, an arm’s length between them, and watched their breath plume out into the night. Myla remembered closing her eyes and opening them again, waiting for day to come. But it seemed it never would. And then, in a split second, she knew she was ready. To leave this life she loved. To leave this life that had already left her. She walked away. She left Ruth’s house, and then she left Portland. She’d never seen Ruth again. They were gone from each other.

  Myla parked in front of storage unit 24. She took the key out of her pocket. She straightened herself and walked to the storage door, but the padlock was already unlocked, the garage-type door halfway up. She slipped under the open door and stood in the harsh rectangle of light on the floor.

  “Hello?” she said. It was quiet. When her eyes adjusted, she could make out countless boxes piled in the middle of a large room. A mountain of boxes. She said it again. “Hello?”

  There was a cough. A man. A voice she knew. “It’s me, Myla.” Steve. She made him out, standing in the back of the unit, leaning against the wall.

  “Steve,” she said. “Where’s Ruth?”

  Steve was walking toward her, apologetic, his head down. “I don’t know. Not here.”

  Myla felt her heart drop. “She sent me—” She gestured in the air, and Steve shook his head.

  “Honey, that was me. Just old me trying to help you out.”

  Myla backed up. “Don’t mess with me, Steve. What’s going on?”

  He moved slowly toward her, through the dark. “I’m it.” He paused. “I’m the man behind the curtain.” He waited for her to respond, and she realized he expected her to be angry. Then he spoke again. “Myles, a million times I’ve tried to figure out where to begin. And I realize I want to tell you a story. That’s where I want to start.” She nodded, letting him begin, even as tears stung her eyes. She wanted Ruth, but she had Steve. What else could she do but listen?

  “Once, ages ago, there lived four young friends, two men, two women. They were artists and thinkers, people who had plans for the world. They had faith in art’s value. In its importance.”

  Steve’s face was shadowed, but she could hear a smile in his voice as he spoke. “One of the men and one of the women fell in love, that once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. This couple stayed awake until all hours of the night talking philosophy and theory and sharing their thoughts. The ideas that spouted from these conversations only made their love stronger.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, once the first man and woman had gotten together, the other two decided to become a couple themselves. Only this couple didn’t really know how to make it work. They spent most of their time arguing, breaking up, getting back together, and arguing again. They were too restless for the caliber of love the first couple shared.

  “Meanwhile, the first couple had a baby. One and then another. And then the woman—the mother and wife—was killed in a car accident. Sarah. She died and left you and Pru and David all alone.”

  Steve leaned his weight back and forth between his legs, swaying slightly in the darkness. “Even though we’d broken up, Ruth and I were still in our brutal cycle: fighting, all mixed up about how we really felt.”

  Myla was stunned. She said, “You and Ruth . . . ?”

  “A thousand years ago, Ruth and I were that other couple.”

  Myla said, “Wait. I always assumed David and Ruth had been lovers at some point.”

  “Seemed that way at times, didn’t it? But they weren’t. Just old friends.” He put his finger up to show he had more to say. “But in any case, long before Sarah died, Ruth and I knew things were over. I’d already met Jane; when Sarah died, Jane moved into my house, so we could take care of you girls. So your father could grieve.

  “Ruth and I had ended our affair once and for all, but we swore we’d stay in your lives, for David. I loved Jane, and Jane wanted, well, she wanted simpler things than Ruth did. Jane wanted me to be who I was. She didn’t need me to prove anything. So I married her.”

  The whites of Steve’s eyes were bright against the darkness as he looked at Myla. “I’m telling you this so you’ll understand the fi
rst reason I’m here, so you understand what I’m sure you’ve understood for a while, now that you’re an adult and have a love of your own. Things were complicated. When you were kids, we weren’t any older than you are today. Imagine yourself with small children of your own.” He shook his head. “We were idiots. We put on a good show, but we had no idea how to do anything.”

  Myla was reeling. She’d never known this. Now it all fit together so perfectly: Jane’s jealousy and disapproval of Ruth, Steve’s silent defense of Ruth’s art, the constant division of their childhood between Jane’s world and Ruth’s world. She’d thought Jane and Ruth hadn’t liked each other for political reasons.

  Steve continued. “The thing was, Jane had a very hard time with my insistence that Ruth stay in our lives. For a long time Jane didn’t understand that I loved her, that I’d chosen her, and I’m afraid that’s all my fault. Ruth was an artist, and Jane was a teacher. Jane saw herself as a consolation prize. Which is neither here nor there, except to say there were many, many things going on of which you girls were entirely unaware.”

  The sun was pricking the back of Myla’s legs, keeping her tied to the outside. “Where is Ruth?” she asked again.

  Steve stayed where he was. “No one knows, honey.”

  “I thought I was going to see her. I thought she was here,” she said, aware that she sounded like a child.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “I knew that would break your heart. I knew it would.” He choked back tears. “I’m so sorry, Myla. I’m so sorry.”

  Myla was shaking her head no.

  Steve stepped toward her. “Let me continue with my story,” he said. “Let the story do its work, and then we’ll be done.” He waited for a response from Myla, but she gave him none. Didn’t move a muscle in her face. Exhaustion was overwhelming her.

  “Jane and I started our family, and David was blessed with you girls, and Ruth, as she saw it, had no one. It wasn’t that she wanted me, she made that clear. But she wanted something to tether her the way our families tethered all of us.

  “One day—this is how it was told to me—David was talking to her, and she was describing the disappointment of her life, how she’d never have a great love, never do great things. And David objected. He told her she possessed a talent unlike any he’d seen. Which was true, if you want my opinion. He told her he’d pay for a portrait of you girls. When she scoffed, he said—and I’ll never forget the way he repeated it—‘You wouldn’t deny a widower such a simple request.’ She told him that photography wasn’t even real art; she called all those horse pictures she’d been taking hackwork. But David insisted that photography was even a greater art than painting, because a painter can always lie. A painter chooses a subject and can set that subject against the perfect background. She can paint over that first background and make a better one. But a photographer has to think fast and instinctively, has to accept what the world offers.

  “And then David told her: ‘This is what Sarah would have wanted.’ He told her that he and Sarah shared the belief that one should live one’s life as a work of art, and wouldn’t she like to be a part of that in the lives of you girls. So that’s how the photographs got started.”

  “I remember,” said Myla. “We wanted to be in them. They were our decision.”

  “Of course,” said Steve. “We know they were. If you get the impression that Jane and I didn’t approve of them, or didn’t like them, well, it was more complicated than that. Jane says her greatest regret is not having a portrait of the three of you girls. She, well, she was jealous, and at first she didn’t know exactly how to feel about the photographs. I wanted her happiness, so I backed off. Oh yes, she wanted to protect you girls, and as a schoolteacher, she knew more about the so-called real world than the rest of us, but her reservation was more fundamental than that: she didn’t want Ruth to get a part of you she couldn’t have.

  “So.” Steve sighed. “The proverbial house was divided. David and I were busy at school, and you girls spent some days at Ruth’s, taking pictures, and some days at our house, playing with Emma. ‘Being regular’ was how Pru put it—remember that?”

  Myla smiled, nodded. “Yes.”

  Steve walked the last steps to the doorway, to her. It was a relief to see him in the brighter light. “Do you want me to go on?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I need to hear it all, once and for all.”

  “Good,” he said. “I think so, too.” He continued. “So. Once and for all.

  “That’s when the pictures started attracting attention. They were hailed as masterpieces and as filth. Simultaneously. Simple as that. Jane urged David to talk to you girls about the range of opinions, but he saw it as his duty to protect you. He didn’t want to make you feel self-conscious about your choice to be photographed. He knew you loved the images. He didn’t want to take away what you loved. At about that time he started dating Helaine. As I’m sure you remember, this changed things in everybody’s life—”

  “I remember,” said Myla.

  “Yes, and the significant change for us was that Helaine and Jane, though not close friends, realized they had similar feelings about the photographs, feelings of concern. But David wanted none of it, and I, well, I’m afraid I was too much of a coward to express an opinion one way or the other.

  “Then Pru, bless her heart, came up with the idea for the interview. You girls were smarter than we thought, knew more about the world than we guessed. You knew there were people who disagreed with the pictures. Pru believed that all she needed to do was explain why she loved those photographs, why they weren’t dirty or exploitative, and people would understand. Ruth was the one who said no before David even had a chance to sort through his feelings on the matter. Pru, as you may remember, was terribly disappointed about not being able to do it.”

  They let their conversation rest again. Myla was winding and unwinding all of these facts, all of these stories. Then it hit her. “So you’re Marcus Berger’s mysterious client?”

  Steve nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Why? Why now? Why not be straight with me?”

  He sighed. “I’ve been getting up my nerve to contact you for two years now, since I knew where you were. It was all very detective-movie. Once we knew your new name, we knew you were still alive, which was a comfort to us both. But I had some things for you. And I knew you needed them. So I thought of a plan, and then set it in motion.”

  “But why didn’t you just contact me yourself? Why did you want me to think Ruth was behind this?”

  Steve ran his fingers through his hair and whistled. “That’s the toughie, isn’t it? And it’s not even the part I feel the worst about. Let’s put it this way: I knew Ruth would be the only reason you’d come home. But I didn’t want to lie to you. So I kept things open. If you’d never come to our house on your own, I wouldn’t be standing here. All these things—your inheritance—would have been handed to you, one by one, by our friend Marcus Berger. The final thing you’d said to us was that you never wanted to see us again. And I wanted to respect that.”

  “I never should have said those things that night,” Myla said. “I don’t even know how to apologize for them.”

  “Water under the bridge, sweetheart. And really, the way you’ve apologized is by coming home. By granting us the pleasure of your company.” Steve smiled as a tear gleamed down his cheek. “Seeing you—it’s like seeing Emma get her life back together. It’s a miracle.”

  “Oh, Steve—”

  “Enough,” he said, and his voice put him in charge. “Let me answer your question about Ruth. Here’s how I justified it to myself: I was acting in her name. Wherever she is, I know she wants you to have these things. I know she wants you to take them so you can move on.”

  Myla stepped away from the doorway into the room. “What are the things?” She could make out the boxes more clearly now, stacked floor to ceiling in the storage unit that surrounded them.

  Steve went on. “This is where I mak
e my confession. This is where I tell you something that risks all the goodwill we’ve restored.” He cleared his throat. “The day you came home, the day after your father died, I was in your house. I found your father’s manuscript in the bottom drawer of his desk. And I took it. I ran across your father’s notebook, and I took it too. Just put them in my bag and brought them to my house. I didn’t tell Jane. I hid them in a box of my own notebooks from college. Two years ago, Jane was cleaning out the attic, and she found your father’s things. Needless to say, she was quite angry at me. She told me I had to find you.”

  “Why would you do that, Steve? Why would you hide David’s things from me?”

  “You were so angry,” he said. “The second you stepped off that plane, I knew you were in no place to read your father’s book. You would have ripped it apart, no matter what it said. And I wanted to protect him from that. But I also wanted to protect you from the pain and anger you were going through. Of course, I thought I’d only be holding his things for a couple of months. I didn’t know you were going to leave forever.”

  Myla was stunned, and angry, but also relieved to know the truth. She was thirsty for it. She needed to know. “Did you read his manuscript?”

  “No,” he said. “No way. Even thinking about having taken it filled me with guilt. That’s why I hid it. I hid it from myself. Once it was clear you were gone for good, I pushed what I’d done down deep inside me.” He smiled. “Maybe that’s why I’m so fat. You can hate me for doing what I did. But you didn’t have parents anymore. I was doing my best.”

  Myla nodded. Her fingers were folding around the golden key that Steve had left her at the door. “But I don’t understand,” she said. “What does that have to do with this room? What about all these boxes? What do they have to do with anything?”

  Steve nodded. “And this is where Ruth comes into the picture. After your father’s funeral, after our argument on the front porch, after you’d left town—though we, of course, didn’t know you’d left yet—Ruth came to my house. She was sweet and solemn in a way I’d never seen her before. She handed me the storage key that’s right there in your hand. She told me she was leaving.