A Promise of Fireflies

by Susan Haught

  The lakeside vista embraced her from all sides of the panoramic windows as she entered the breakfast room; the disquiet of the morning vanished with the fog drifting across the lake. Her eyes settled on the only person in the breakfast room—same solitary man, same seat as yesterday—but he screened his face with today’s Wall Street Journal in place of yesterday’s New York Times.

  Second thoughts sprouted like weeds. A late morning hiding under the blankets of the Inn’s downy bed with a novel and crackling fire seemed more tempting, if not prudent. She’d come to investigate questions she hoped Ambrose could answer. And if he could, would he? Before doubt overpowered her courage, Ryleigh grabbed a large coffee, dressed it with the usual spoonful of creamer and packet of sweetener and snapped the lid into place. She wrapped her scarf twice around her neck and stepped into the brisk morning air. Coffee trailed down her throat as she sipped, replacing the apprehension with brief comfort.

  With Megan’s crude map etched in her memory, Ryleigh entered the outskirts of Ballston Spa and slowed. She followed Megan’s directions through the village, hands clutching the steering wheel as visible signs of civilization disappeared. One at a time she wiped clammy palms on her jeans.

  Patches of snow blanketed the ground. Overcast in shadow, the forest camouflaged splashes of sunlight that crept through dense pines, and leafless oak and maple trees. She braked hard, nearly missing a stop sign covered by overgrown limbs. Glancing in both directions, she crossed the railroad tracks.

  The road turned to dirt and the outstretched fingers of three unmarked dirt roads beckoned her. Instinct (or was it fear?) insisted she turn right. Megan had instructed her to turn left; she eased the Tahoe over a run-down swell of decomposed wooden planks to a suggestion of a road—two ghostly ruts with tufts of undisturbed brown grass covering the middle. A bridge of tangled tree limbs hovered overhead. Intruders beware. Gooseflesh pebbled across her skin as if a ghost had brushed its arctic fingers over her arms.

  She scanned the road ahead of her. “Get a grip.” She clenched her teeth, engaged the four-wheel drive, and eased onto Nightshade Path.

  The shadows deepened. Sprinkles of light seeped through the trees. Images of Fanghorn Forest and frightened hobbits in The Lord of the Rings sprang to mind. The forest seemed to have linked arms and swallowed the curve in the road ahead until she felt as small and creeped out as the little hobbits. If she had a magic ring like Frodo, the temptation to use it and disappear far outweighed any reason not to. Ents and Orcs belonged in Middle Earth. Not New York.

  As suddenly as the forest had closed itself around her, branches yawned and stretched to the sky. Sunlight trickled in. The forest opened to an expansive meadow and a rather unpretentious house on the furthermost fringes of trees. Cattails jutted from beneath the frozen surface of a pond and a lone sugar maple dressed its far bank.

  Ryleigh crossed the meadow on the left edge of the forest and pulled the Tahoe into a packed dirt driveway leading to an open garage. Parked inside was an older model wood-paneled Wagoneer covered with dirt and dried mud. The house appeared deserted with the exception of a wisp of silver-blue smoke rising from the chimney. Ryleigh took one very slow, final drink of her coffee. She turned the key and the tic, tic, tic of the cooling engine resounded in the stillness keeping time to the thumping of her heart. The urge to flee threatened to overwhelm her. She glanced around, and then stepped from the Tahoe, purse in hand. Her legs trembled. Her hands shook and it took two swipes at her satchel to grab it. She pushed aside the rising panic only to have it push back harder. She straightened, tightened her fingers around the purse strap, and then walked to the entrance.

  A porch ran the length of the house, fully enclosed in glass. A host of wind chimes dangled from the rafters, their songs silent. Dozens of prisms cast their rainbows across the porch, and the faint odor of wood smoke hung in the damp air. She stepped to the door, hesitated with two phantom knocks, and then rapped her knuckles on the door.

  Silence answered her.

  “Hello?” Taking a step backward, she nearly tripped on a wooden plank leaning against the house. The elements had rutted deep indentions in the soft grain, the handwritten letters nearly illegible. Ryleigh bent to see it more closely. “Firefly Pond,” she murmured, glancing across the meadow to the pond.

  Before she’d gathered enough courage to knock again, the inside door groaned. Her nerve wilted. A tall, lanky man stepped into the light, his stature bent with age. Copious amounts of long, unruly white hair framed a haggard face, and wiry eyebrows jutted profusely above a pair of steely blue eyes. Tiny rainbows danced across his deeply lined face.

  Ryleigh’s mouth spread into a spontaneous smile. Megan had been spot on. The man limped across the porch, wooden planks protesting under his weight. As if he had just stepped off a riverboat in a high-collared starched white shirt, pinstriped vest and overused plantation tie, Mark Twain’s mirror image opened the storm door. Though the cautious part of her remained on alert, her fear vanished.

  “Ah, yes, Miss Ryleigh. We meet at last.” Adoration spilled from the roadmap of his face. “I have anticipated your arrival for some time.” Old, spotted hands engulfed hers, and his eyes shone with a keen, elderly reverence. He led her up three short stairs and across the spongy porch, but she hesitated to enter the house.

  “Please do not be alarmed. If your mother were among the living, she would attest to the fact I bid you no harm.” Dark, heavy pillows hung below the pallid blue eyes. Though arthritis twisted his hands and his teeth bore the yellow, uneven signs of age, a bushy white mustache cloaked a genuine, boyish grin.

  “Ambrose, I assume?” She hesitated. Swallowing her apprehension, she took the last step into the house—surprised, yet pleased to discover her legs held firm. “You knew I was coming?”

  “At your service, madame,” he said, and to her befuddled surprise, he clamped one arm around his waist and bowed deeply. “For all intents and purposes, I am, indeed, the one called Ambrose. And though my eyes have paled and my ears have grown past my chin, little encroaches past me.” A faint smile curled an abundant mustache and she saw both the whimsy and cleverness hidden in his eyes. “Knew you were coming before you knew it yourself.”

  She eyed him quizzically. “I’m sorry for my rudeness,” she said with a wary smile, “but your resemblance to Samuel Clemens is uncanny.”

  “Ah, yes. So I have been told,” he said with a chuckle. “And I cannot refrain from admiring you as well. Your mother warned me your pictures do not do you the justice you so deserve. And your father’s stunning green eyes are most captivating on you,” he added. “The color of the inside of an ocean wave, as Eleanor used to say.” With a courteous nod, he closed the door behind them. A fire crackled in an antiquated cast iron woodstove, the room small but cozy and the faint redolence of old books a quiet comfort. “I told your mother the day you were born you would have his eyes.”

  “Please,” he said and motioned for her to take a seat.

  “You were there?”

  “I was indeed.” He sighed and settled himself into a worn recliner. “Ah, yes, I can see we have much to discuss.” He peered at her above skimpy half-glasses, one eye lively, the other lazy and distant. “Your mother told you very little,” he said and raked a gnarled hand through an abundant mustache.

  “I never asked about the past.” Ryleigh dipped her chin, eyes fixed on the floor. “I trusted there were things she didn’t want to talk about or didn’t think it important enough for me to know.” She took a seat on an old sofa, obviously exquisite in a previous life. “I had my family and her. That’s all I ever needed.” She shrugged. “I think what little I did know was by accident, and when she died I discovered things.”

  “Your mother warned me of your voracious curiosity,” he said through penetrating, benevolent eyes as strangely perceptive as an old seer’s.

  Her nerves quivered beneath her skin. “When?”

  “Such things are neither here nor there,”
he said, waving off the question. “She simply could not reveal any more than she did, so I allowed you to find me. So I could.”

  “Reveal what?” She tilted her head at the curious stranger. “How’d you know I would come? And what do you mean you allowed me to find you? And who are you to my mother?”

  Ambrose rose, limped to the window, and stared outside momentarily before answering. “I am Ben’s—your father’s—” he turned and said with a deliberate pause, “friend. However, I’ve known your mother for more than forty years and knew without a doubt you would come when you found the letter.”

  “Why didn’t my mother ever tell me about you?”

  His eyes sparkled. “Ah, yes,” he said with a wink and pointed a knotted finger at her, “you are an inquisitive one, indeed.”

  “And what’s your full name?” Ryleigh scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Why do you go only by part of your surname?”

  “We need not rush.” Ambrose’s smile crinkled his eyes. “One question at a time, the last of which is quite an easy answer.” He sighed. “It was my misfortune being christened Wilford Langhorne D’Ambrose.” He grimaced. “Quite reprehensible, indeed. I dropped the first two names and dispensed with the futile ‘D’ and became simply Ambrose.” He steadied himself against the windowsill. “For all intents and purposes.”

  “Why’d my mother never tell me about you?”

  “You have an abundance of questions, Miss Ryleigh, and I have more answers than you are prepared for I am sure.” Ambrose started toward the doorway and pulled a jacket from the brass coat rack in the corner. With a large quantity of upraised, wiry eyebrows, he nodded for her to follow. “Come. Join me in a walk. To the pond. A most appropriate setting to begin.” Ambrose buttoned his jacket and took the steps off the porch one at a time, his limp pronounced in the cold air.

  Hesitating only a moment in the wake of his unspoken command, she tightened her scarf and followed.

  A path wound its way to the edge of a large pond. An enormous sugar maple hugged the edge, its girth easily that of several men and whose roots dove abruptly into the frozen water. Boulders staggered along the shore merged water and earth and last summer’s cattails stood frozen in their upright stances.

  Ambrose continued to the other side of the massive tree. “This way, Miss Ryleigh.” He stopped and turned to her. “There. Do you see?”

  She glanced around, puzzled. “The bench?”

  “Your mother’s bench.”

  To be excited over something so inanimate seemed curious. “Why show me this?” She shielded the sun from her eyes.

  “Oh, the fireflies, of course.”

  “Fireflies?”

  “You do not know about the fireflies?”

  She shook her head.

  “Come,” he said, rubbing his right leg, “sit with me.”

  The bench was cast of wrought iron and intricately molded with dragonflies and weathered nearly white, the black iron luster deceased for years. Ambrose patted the seat. “It is not abundantly comfortable for brittle old bones, but when I brought it here,” he said, tightening his collar and gazing thoughtfully across the pond, “your mother was younger than Evan is now. It served its purpose quite well.”

  The mention of her son startled her, but she assumed because he knew her mother (and her) surely he knew of Evan. She swallowed a growing list of questions. “What purpose?”

  As if climbing from a distant memory, Ambrose turned to her. “Hundreds of fireflies frolicked about the pond that summer,” he said, waving his hand over the expanse of frozen water. “She loved them so, and came every evening to sit and watch. To remember. To embrace your father again. To be alone with him in her dreams.”

  Ryleigh’s hand shot into the air. “Hold it,” she demanded. “She came here every evening? Where was my father? I thought they were together, passing through town when she went into labor.” An indignant laugh escaped her. “You’re mistaken.”

  “Ah, yes, indeed. It would seem so,” he said, rubbing his leg. “You must remember above all things, your mother loved you beyond life itself. She would have used any means to protect you, shelter you, and give life to your desires.”

  “She proved it every day, but I didn’t need anything but her love.” Ryleigh swallowed back a lump that threatened to pull the plug on her emotions. “But I have so many questions,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady.

  “Before I reveal what you wish to know, and most certainly things you will wish you did not, you must promise me one thing.”

  “I don’t make idle promises and I don’t care for surprises,” she replied, an unwanted edge of annoyance slipping into her words.

  “Your reluctance is certainly understandable. However, you must listen carefully and make no judgments until my story is complete.” Ambrose sighed deeply, his palms pressed to his thighs. “Life’s earthquakes rattle our lives—sometimes they are mere tremors that moderately rock your world. Sometimes they split the earth beneath your feet and swallow you into hell. Then there are tornadoes—dust devils that stir the dirt a bit,” he said, his hands twirling in the air, “then quickly die. But sometimes they pick you up, spin you around, and toss you to Oz. Life is not about how to survive, Miss Ryleigh—it is how you weather the storm and your actions in the wake of the aftermath,” he said, eyes intent. “You must learn to dance in the rain.”

  Though skeptical, Ryleigh bit her lip to control a rudimentary response.

  “Do I have your promise?”

  She nodded once.

  “Excellent,” he said rising with a firm grip on the bench. “We must return to the house. The colder the days grow, the deeper the ache settles in these disintegrating old bones.”

  “Please.” Ryleigh stood. “Can you tell me about the fireflies? Here, by the pond?”

  Ambrose smiled broadly, easing himself back to the bench. “If we do so, we will have circumvented a good portion of the story.”

  “You can fill in the details later.”

  “Ah, yes. Many details, indeed.”

  Ryleigh studied him carefully. “Go on.”

  “Your mother was with child when I took her in.” Ambrose grimaced, a deep furrow appearing between tangled eyebrows, wiry silver hairs nearly meeting in the middle. “What do you recall of the Vietnam War?”

  Ryleigh shrugged, wondering what this had to do with fireflies, or anything for that matter. “Only what I learned in school. Why?”

  “Your mother and I did not learn about the war from a textbook. Our generation lived it. Your mother—a civilian—remained on the home front, but your father served, as did his best friend, Ryan. I believe you have an old photograph of the two?”

  She leaned forward. “How’d you know about that?” she asked, her brow bunched. “The other guy—he was my father’s friend?”

  “Inseparable. And I shall answer all your questions,” he said with a deliberate pause, “in good time.”

  Familiar with the bond of friendship he spoke of, her heart swelled. The desire to connect with her father’s friend stirred her interest even more and she so hoped he’d share his memories from a past she never bothered to ask about, and her mother never offered to share.

  “Continue, Ambrose. Please?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “When the boys turned eighteen, they enlisted in the Army—the buddy system—in the summer of ’66. Both were sent to Vietnam. 101st Airborne Division. 327th Infantry. So proud to serve their country.” Ambrose sat straighter, his chest puffing slightly. “Do you recall after 9-11 so many souls enlisted to help defend our freedom and the freedom of others?”

  Her chin dipped and she nodded. “Vividly.”

  “The same was true of Vietnam.” Ambrose shook his head. “The objective of the Vietnam War was to rid the country of communism. The media distorted the truth and italicized the atrocities,” he said, a solemn severity in his voice, “and not far into the campaign the cards turned and Vietnam became a most unpopular war. Yes, indee
d,” he whispered. “Freedom is never given freely, but our soldiers came home to jeers instead of cheers.” He inhaled and let the breath out slowly. “I beg your forgiveness. I become a bit impassioned when I speak of Vietnam. Or the War on Terror. I have an appreciable respect for those who serve our country.” Ambrose rubbed his hand over his face as if to wipe away the memory.

  Ryleigh allowed a pause to rebalance the disquiet. “No apology necessary.”

  Ambrose cleared his throat. “They left for war in January of 1967. How those boys remained together is quite the mystery. Same division, platoon, shared the same missions. In February, they received word Eleanor was going to have a baby. In the sixties, a pregnant unmarried young lady carried the weight of a considerable stigma. Eleanor came from a prominent family, and when her father learned she was with child, he legally disowned her. A travesty. I had the unfortunate task of reviewing the papers with her.”

  “You’re an attorney?”

  “Once upon a time.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Her family’s reaction devastated her. This is when I stepped in, quite unannounced, but welcomed nonetheless.” Ambrose smiled distantly. “Ah, yes, she told me stories of how the three of them watched the fireflies that summer in St. Louis before the boys left for war and when the fireflies appeared here that summer, their presence helped her through the isolation and loneliness.”

  Vivid pictures formed in her mind. She clutched her scarf, but made no attempt to tighten it. Instead, she dug the toe of her Asics in the frozen ground, and a smile drifted across her face.

  “The fireflies raised her spirits. She named the pond for the fireflies, you know,” he added with a breathy chuckle.

  “Firefly Pond?”

  He nodded. “Ah, yes, indeed. It seemed silly, but it made her happy. So many years ago it was.” The old man stared blankly as if in recollection. “She spread a blanket every evening and sat by the pond’s edge waiting for the fireflies to emerge. As you grew inside her, she found it difficult to rise and it was then I gave her the bench.” He leaned back, stroking his bushy mustache. “A unique summer it was. The fireflies remained into September. Never had before or any summer since. There is no doubt they returned each summer night for your mother.”