“Uh, hello,” Bryce said.
What had he heard? My mind raced.
“I’m sorry. Oh, Bryce, you’ve never met my cousin Travis.”
Bryce stood on the bottom step.
“Actually, I’m Lena’s nephew,” Travis clarified. He released Sam and reached down to grasp Bryce’s extended hand.
Each man gripped the other’s hand in a silent show of strength. I watched them step away from each other. Was it my imagination or had they bowed their heads as if offering the enemy respect before a battle? Then Travis turned his head, and looked directly into my eyes. I didn’t tell him.
I had never ached for anything the way I ached for Travis in that moment. His gaze held everything: our future, the house, the greenhouse, the boat, the artwork, the lake, fireworks, poetry, stories for all the generations. We would have the perfect life; I could see all the cards spread before me like a good playing hand. I swallowed hard, and then I looked at Sam who had jumped down from Travis’s hold and was running to Bryce. I looked back at Travis. His eyes continued in his silent appeal, but I just thumped my knuckles on the porch railing.
“Travis just stopped by to get the paintings that Nonna willed to him,” I said, still locked in Travis’s gaze.
Travis did not flinch, but his eyes softened, and I could see that he understood what I was telling him. I love you.
“BJ, you don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes, I do. They are yours. Nonna wanted it that way.”
Travis nodded in disbelief that masqueraded as agreement before my husband.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get them.”
I opened the door and slipped inside to the dining room. I touched the curtains as I passed the windows. They felt rough against my fingers. I heard echoes of the conversation between Bryce and Travis. Boat talk, mainly.
“Nice boat out there. Have you had her long?”
“I got the boat in my settlement. She got everything else.”
I shrugged on a hooded sweatshirt that had been draped over a chair, and the fleece soothed my skin. I zipped the sweatshirt closed and sighed.
It’s going to be okay. I can get through this.
I pulled the paintings from the walls. Small, bright squares of emptiness replaced the landscapes. I stacked the framed canvases carefully without looking at them. I’d rather not think about what I was giving away.
I was about to turn and go back outside when I remembered the picture hanging in the kitchen. I stepped lightly into the heat of the room and rested the other pictures on the table. There it hung. Brubaker Lake. I imagined it had graced that wall for at least fifty years. I reached up to remove the painting from its nail. It didn’t budge. Although I had just taken it down from the wall a few weeks earlier, it held fast this time. I tried again, and it didn’t move. Sweat dribbled down my forehead from the effort, and I fanned myself. I looked up at the image, undulating before my eyes. And then it hit me.
NO! Somewhere a voice within me screamed.
This painting belongs to me.
I didn’t care about lines of ancestry or legalities, this was my legacy. Blue Lake … the brushstrokes … the blue of a promise … the sun… the water… the reflection… Marry me, Ada… Grandma Lena … God of Mermaids … the kisses … little-girl wishes… woman prayers. All of it came swirling down upon me, and I couldn’t breathe. I leaned against the wall and hyperventilated. My head was spinning, and I groped for the table to steady myself. I tried to call for help, but words were replaced by all the images swimming in my thoughts. They were waves crashing over me, pulling me under the current. I kneeled on the chair to keep from falling. And here, under the tide of my fear and dizziness, I prayed the most important prayer of my life, a barter for my very being.
Tanginika, Goddess of the Lake, watery Mother, I need to breathe, again. Help me decide what to do.
I looked up at the painting—so blue—and drew in a full, calming breath. And as I did so, the answer came to me in the voice of my grandmother.
Daughter of my heart.
Dare to depart.
Come swim along with me.
♦ 55 ♦
TRAVIS ENTERED THE KITCHEN. I felt his presence, but I didn’t turn to look. My breath was no longer a struggle, though my heart was racing.
The frames clattered against one another as he picked up the paintings that were on the table.
“I’ll be going now,” he said quietly.
“Travis?” I was still facing the wall.
“Hmm?”
My painting looked down on me from its perch, and I bowed before it. Red is often the color of courage, but this time it paraded in blue. “Will you take Sam to the lake for a couple of hours this morning?”
Travis didn’t answer immediately. At first, I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard me. I waited for his answer. The silence became palpable. I pursed my lips. In our conversational ravine, I heard my son making engine noises and whistle sounds. The noises rose and fell—crescendo, decrescendo—and I guessed that he was following Bryce as he paced the block.
“I can do that,” Travis said at last.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t wait for me to expound on the matter. If he had further questions as to my mind—and I am sure he did—he took them out with the paintings into that August morning.
I heard the low timbre of masculine voices in clipped dialogue followed by my son’s squeal of pleasure. Sam ran inside and shot past me in an effort to get to his bedroom for his swimming trunks.
“Mom, where’s my suit?”
“It’s on the top of the wash basket,” I called up the stairs after him.
He sprinted down the steps again with his green suit, inside out, the white net lining dangling over his cast like a waiter’s napkin. As he passed by me, he graced the air with a missed kiss that had been meant for my cheek.
“Well, good-bye to you, too,” I said.
“See you later, Mommy.”
“Don’t forget to wear your life jacket,” I said, wanting to assert to my motherhood—the one frontier where I had fooled myself into thinking I had control.
The sound of the truck engine had been vibrating for the entirety of Sam’s dash, and a minute after he was out the door, I heard the gears shift to signal Travis’s departure. With the sound of engine fading down the road, I mentally began to count the seconds until Bryce would appear in my kitchen. After I had counted past twenty, the realization deepened: I could not wait another second for my life to happen to me.
Ironically, I found Bryce on the porch swing waiting for me. I wasn’t the only one trying to circumvent this conversation. I dropped beside Bryce and noted the sharp, oddly pleasant, smell of his cooled perspiration. The swing moaned as he pumped it back to set it in motion. Because I didn’t echo the action, the swing twisted and bucked until Bryce put out a foot and stopped the movement.
I leaned forward and braced my weight on my arms. My legs dangled down, with only my bare toes making contact with the porch. I looked at my feet, already dirty.
Bryce clapped his hand down on my knee as it peaked out from the hem of my nightgown.
I braced myself against his touch. Dare to depart.
“Sam and I are not coming back to Michigan with you, Bryce.” I breathed in and steadied my quiet voice. “I am not in love with you anymore.”
Bryce let out an uncomfortable little laugh. “Well, I don’t have to state the obvious and ask if there is anyone else, do I?”
I felt my voice getting stronger, planted in resolve. “I think we can leave other parties out of this. This is about you and me.”
“You’re sleeping with him.” So much for removing the other parties. Bryce had chosen a statement instead of a question. His remark was meant to elicit my defenses, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Bryce, I signed your papers.”
“Forget about the papers. Let me ask you this: If he weren’t here, you’d gi
ve our marriage another try, wouldn’t you?”
“If he weren’t here, I wouldn’t know all the things that you and I lack as a couple. I require more now.”
“What do you require now that I can’t give you?”
I didn’t answer him. How could I say – I want to smile uncontrollably when you walk into a room? I want to respect your choices. I want your patience with mine. I want you to enjoy an art exhibit with me and mourn losses with me. I want fidelity, whole and untouched. I want a connection so strong it can traverse years and secrets and still hold strong. I want to love and to be loved. I want to be part of something larger than myself.
I couldn’t say those things; Bryce would see them as judgments instead of requirements. I wanted to end it with Bryce, but I didn’t want to put him down or start a fight. I scoured my mind for something positive to say.
“Bryce, I’ll always have feelings for you. You know that. We share a wonderful a son—”
“Yes, Bobbi, and we owe it to Sam—”
“We owe Sam what? Two parents who are in pain?” My tolerance snapped.
“I am willing to work through that together.”
Bryce wasn’t going for subtlety. I lifted my chin. “Maybe we could work it out and maybe we couldn’t. But I can’t sit around and wait anymore to find out if my life is going to change for the better. I have a chance to make it happen, now, and I am going to choose to be happy. Happiness, Bryce. Contentment. Love. Don’t you want that for me?” It was a trick question, and I was playing dirty by asking it.
Bryce could not answer, or would not. As an attorney, I’m sure he saw my trap. He kicked off the porch floor in reaction to me and in an attempt to move the swing again, but this time I joined him in his effort. We swung like that, in tandem, for what seemed like minutes, and then he put his arm around me and pulled me to him.
“Oh, Bobbi. I knew when I drove here that I was fooling myself. But I had to try. I just don’t want to say good-bye. You. Me. Sam… The crazy dog,” he added as Jules whimpered at the screen door.
We both laughed softly at the diversion of our canine friend looking so sorrowfully at the two of us. But though Jules’s appearance gave us levity, it also added a poignancy to the moment.
“Bryce, you are going to be okay. I promise.” I squeezed him gently.
Bryce looked out over my head to the expanse of Mulberry Street. “God, Bobbi, where do I go from here?”
I knew the answer, but I couldn’t tell him.
Home, Bryce, You go home.
I knew the answer because I had made that journey.
♦ 56 ♦
BRYCE SHOWERED AND PACKED the few things he had brought with him. He sat in the living room watching the early rounds of a PGA tournament while he waited for Travis to bring Sam home from the lake. I couldn’t stay there with him, and I wasn’t ready to face Travis, just yet. I changed into a pair of jean shorts with an embroidered shirt and started walking in a direction away from the lake. I wasn’t conscious of a destination, just the need for air, but soon I was headed along Brubaker Road, a road on which I hardly ever walked. The sidewalks stopped after the first half mile, and I tramped the weedy edge, as the road curved back along the drying cornfields. The tall stalks obscured my view, so I was surprised when the road deposited me onto Vista Street. I had a choice of turning right, along which nested a small housing development, or turning left toward Blue Lake. I looked to the left and the location of Travis’s boat. Though I couldn’t see the lake itself, I could see the trees that surrounded it along with a portion of the parking lot. Upon further scrutiny, I could distinguish the peak of the bird sanctuary in the distance. Even though I felt the pull of the water and of Travis, I ultimately chose the path to the right. Only a smattering of houses, they looked like miniatures against the landscape. Even the churchyard of Lakeside Lutheran, which was vast in comparison to the crowded Cape Cods, seemed the stuff of O-gauge train scapes. My eyes followed the short midday line of the steeple’s shadow.
All at once, I knew where I was headed; this had been my destination all along.
Stone masons were halfway finished with the renovation of a wall that surrounded the cemetery. They wouldn’t complete the work today, being a weekend. The church parking lot was strangely empty for a Sunday. I noted the sign outside: CHURCH PICNIC, THIS SUNDAY AT IO AM AT THE MEMORIAL PAVILION, BLUE LAKE, VISITORS WELCOME. I had the whole space to myself, and I felt oddly comforted by the fact that I wouldn’t be bothered. I followed the familiar path, taken only a few months previously, to Nonna’s grave, beside Charlie’s. I had no trouble finding it. A tiny flag sat in a holder next to the caramel colored stone. As I knelt down, my notice tripped on the dark 2000, freshly chiseled into Nonna’s side of the granite. It was the same stone she had chosen over fifty years earlier when Charlie had died. I thought about the corpse of a twenty-something soldier lying next to that of a lady octogenarian. Sharing a mere two years together, they hardly seemed compatible in death. But I supposed that was what made life interesting: you never know who will share your journey.
“Ah, Nonna,” I said tracing the letters on her stone. I still found it hard to believe she was here, beneath the ground. Words. Stone. Grass. Earth. Wood. I tried to summon each layer of detachment from her now that I knew the truth, but, in reality, I only felt closer. Her love had been a choice, as was my love for her.
I wished I had brought some flowers from Lena’s garden, but I hadn’t realized I was on a pilgrimage to the family plots. I contented myself by clearing away the natural debris that accumulated around Nonna’s and Charlie’s graves. It was peaceful here, something I hadn’t noticed during the burial. I could hear the sounds of children playing in the nearby neighborhood, but the sounds were joyful. As I worked pulling weeds, I thought back to how much had changed since last I stood here with Bryce by my side. Not the least of all the changes was that I had learned to trust myself. Whatever happened from here on out, I would be okay.
“See what you gave me?” I couldn’t help but see the humor. Once again, I was doing the chore I hated the most, but doing it with a smile.
When I was satisfied with the state of the grave, I stood.
“Thank you, Nonna,” I whispered, giving the stone a final touch.
Carrying the rubbish with me, I meandered across the cemetery to a trash can and then walked upward to Lena’s grave on the hill. Lena’s headstone, carved with delicate roses, was almost identical to my mother’s grave marker in Virginia. I realized finally that it was not a coincidence. I dropped to my knees on the grass that was still morning damp. The sun had not penetrated the shade of the trees which bordered the cemetery. Sitting there, I shivered involuntarily.
“Grandma Lena,” I said and sighed. The wind turned and a sailing leaf caught in my hair. I pulled it out and felt the trifling pull at my scalp, as if Grandma Lena’s fingers were braiding my hair one last time. So I pulled at my breeze-tangled hair and coiled of few of my locks over and under, weaving and plaiting.
As I was braiding my hair, I heard footsteps on the path behind me and turned to see Travis standing there.
“You weren’t at home, and you didn’t come to the lake…”
He was alone.
“Is Sam with you?” I asked.
“I took him home to Bryce.”
“Oh.”
“Bryce’s car was packed, and he told me you’d gone out for a walk. Actually, he was very civil. I am not sure I would have been if I were in his shoes. Anyway, he said he would stay with Sam and wait to leave until you returned. I told him I’d try to find you.”
“What made you come here? I haven’t been here all summer.”
“Dumb luck, I guess. I saw you walking on the path as I drove by.”
Shyness washed over me. What should I say to him? I started tidying, pulling on the long clumps of grass that were obscuring Lena’s marker.
Travis squatted beside me and began to help, picking up the stones and twigs lying on t
he ground. He was so near to me that I could feel the cool of his body, still wet from the lake.
“Lena was my mother’s mother,” I blurted before I lost my nerve. “Those notebooks Nonna left me were to tell me that it was Lena all along.”
Travis stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “What exactly are you trying to say, BJ?”
“I am trying to tell you that you really are my cousin, Travis. I am Lena’s granddaughter.”
Travis sucked in a breath, but remained silent.
I knew he was having a hard time making the connection, so I continued my explanation. “Back when your grandfather died, Nonna and Lena knew that you and I were developing feelings for one another. Rather than telling everyone the truth, they orchestrated a fight with your mom over your granddad’s funeral. That fight was designed to keep us apart and keep our mothers from ever finding out the truth.”
Travis sat down, his back to the stone. He set the pile of twigs and rocks beside him on the grass.
“But if that’s the case, why would Anja write it all down in a letter to your mother?” Travis asked.
“My mom had cancer, and Nonna felt guilty, I guess, keeping everything from her. I think she somehow felt responsible for my mother’s condition. Though I suppose it doesn’t really matter. She never gave the letter to my mother.”
“How long have you known about this?”
“I’ve known since the day Sam came back from Michigan.”
Travis raised his eyebrows. “This has been quite a week for you, hasn’t it?”
“You could say that.” My heart was beating faster. I still couldn’t ask Travis what I wanted to ask him.
“Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody.”
Travis leaned on one arm and turned to face me.
“Nobody has to know, BJ. This doesn’t change anything for me. Does it change anything for you?”
Summers at Blue Lake Page 27