The Angry Woman Suite
Page 35
I suddenly remembered Elyse and turned back, offering my arm, which she took. “There are all kinds of freedoms,” I said. “None perfect and all fleeting. Think about that, my girl. And think about that envelope I just gave you. Please tuck it away, will you? You’re making me nervous, waving it around.”
“I’m not waving it—what’s in it, Aidan?”
“A fine education and then some. Teach you how to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s on that thesis you’ll someday write about the Great Battle.”
Her arm slipped from mine. “You know?”
I took her arm back. “Know what? That you want to write it? Walk with me.”
She was too young—only eighteen—for sadness to be etched so deeply around her eyes. She said earnestly, “I do want to write about history. You made me love history. From the first time you told me the story of the Brandywine, in Biloxi. Do you remember?”
“Yes, of course—thank you very much.”
“So, yes, a thesis … and maybe someday a story about you and Daddy and Jamie, and the Brandywine. I’ll write that one for Bean. If she’s in a story, she’ll be forever.”
I put my hands on Elyse’s shoulders and turned her so that we were facing. “Elyse, reach inside yourself and know just this one thing.” Something made me look past her: a premonition of the woman in white—but I said to Elyse, “You can’t always get what you want.”
“I know, Aidan.”
Magdalene, shrouded in mist, had almost caught up to us, and I said quickly, “But if you aim for something, you’ll generally find what you need.” I took my eyes off Magdalene for a second and beamed at Elyse, waiting. There it was: a tentative smile, the first in weeks. Then a hand over her mouth. Then the exclamation.
“The Stones?! You know a Rolling Stones song, Aidan? Well—sort of. But, Aidan, you hate the Stones!”
Eyes back on the horizon, I murmured, “Nonetheless, theirs is music at its freest. A laudable thing, that, thank you very much.” The mist grew thicker—Magdalene had disappeared again. I turned and stumbled.
“Magdalene!” I cried. “Come back, Magdalene!”
I heard Elyse ask, “Is he okay?”
But then I heard Stella’s voice. “There you are!”
Stella had found Magdalene, and Magdalene had found me again and she wasn’t a daydream. She was real life; sincere, intelligent, and splendidly complex. She was the home, the center, the splendor … yet, were I allowed another lifetime of loving her, I’d still be unable to navigate her world without faltering. Only that one time had she allowed me anything less than perfect honesty. But she’d always pushed herself, especially with those tentative first steps, taking a peek into the murky truth surrounding what had happened at the mill house the night of the fire. Oh, I’d seen her agony about her father then—and God knows she’d never been above distancing herself when I’d disappointed. And, oh, how I’d been capable of disappointing! But Magdalene knew about snowballing. And lucky for us both, she’d invented forgiveness, because we had betrayed Jamie, and we’d failed Earl, and in the end we’d failed Francis, too—Francis, my boy. We’d failed Francis spectacularly. Everyone had failed Francis. Everyone connected with him had either been too angry or too worn out, too busy, too proud, or too disbelieving to acknowledge the truth about what Lothian had been doing to Francis.
I looked into the mist trying to make out Magdalene’s face, and I was struck by another thought and it was this: I wondered if that very moment Francis was looking at the portrait of his mother that he’d taken, searching as I was searching, working to understand the expression on that magnificent face—and I couldn’t help wondering if he’d sell the portrait, worth a fortune by now, to get the last word. Was that what he’d been thinking when he’d taken it? That he’d finally gotten the last word? Was Francis so much like his grandfather Lear, after all? Forget the colony, the brother-love. Hadn’t Lear Grayson and I, from the start, been about getting the last word?
Suddenly, I missed Francis terribly.
And then more questions. Did I have enough left to give another child? Another as complicated as Jamie and Francis? How much of the book I’d helped write could I change by simply starting a new chapter?
But as it had my entire history, Magdalene’s splendor directed me. And her answer was that we had to keep pressing. We couldn’t let our failures block other chances. Battles begin with sharp words, and then there’s the nasty bloodletting and the despair, but sometimes battles reveal nobility in people—and after a battle, there’s at least quiet; and hopefully a measure of peace. But the pendulum keeps swinging, always, and peace sooner or later turns back into bluster, then revolution again. Back and forth the pendulum goes. One of my childhood history book “friends” wrote that great battles are defined by the shape of the changing elements within them—by its people. Inconsistent, insecure, squabbling, and occasionally splendid people.
Francis had made incredible music. He’d moved people out of the mundane and into senses they’d thought forgotten, or never known, into states of splendor. He’d been occasionally splendid—and that was something—so I had to remember we’d also fostered much good. And Francis had been brave, marrying Diana and her two daughters—only a very brave or foolish man marries a widow with children.
Magdalene took my elbow, asking, “Can you see well enough?” The mist cleared as suddenly as it had formed, revealing Magdalene’s knowing smile and caressing eyes, and if I hadn’t loved her so well, so long, so intimately, I’d have wondered why she asked. She was the constant, the center; she knew better. Of course I’d keep forging ahead. I squared my shoulders.
“Well, I can’t see a thing,” Elyse said.
“Go home,” Stella said, taking Magdalene’s hand, and for once I understood her.
“I’ll see us home,” I said to Elyse. “Take my arm again, the other one. There. I can see well enough for now, thank you very much.”
And I could, too. I knew exactly where we’d been, where we were, and where we’d end up. I knew the truth. As did Elyse. No matter what she said, that girl could see straight through the darkest night, if she chose.
The music swelled, a serenade, and the splendor lighted our way.
FRANCIS
I’d slept comfortably. Band mates in adjoining rooms, seeing me through to the end—just as we’d always promised; Mother’s portrait on the floor by the foot of the bed. Not hanging over me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, Mother wasn’t hanging over me.
The portrait had been an impulse—and that’s when I saw Elyse, when I went back to get the portrait. I saw her watching us from behind a cracked door, expression inscrutable, and those big, grave eyes. And I’d been torn. Magnificently torn.
She was my daughter, the daughter of my heart. I’d loved her and believed I could make a difference in her life. I’d believed I could save both my beautiful girls, Elyse and Bean. But their fates had been cooked way before I arrived on the scene. Rose’s fault, of course. Her family had always been no good. Lording Stephen Eric over me as if he’d been perfect, never impatient, never tired, never exhausted trying to make ends meet, to stay ahead, to be a good father, to make Diana happy.
I’d never had a chance, suffering by comparison to a dead Stephen Eric. Nothing had gone my way.
In the end, though, I said nothing to Elyse.
I took the portrait and left my daughter with the last words. The winning words.
It was all I’d left to give her.
I’ve decided to start writing—like Aidan did. I think it will help my nerves.
I’m looking at Mother’s portrait while considering good opening lines. Think I’ll go with these:
I remember the exact day my destiny was sealed. It was my brother Earl’s fault, of course. He was the one who set me up, who gave root to the fantasy, this idea that I could have a life beyond Grayson House.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright P
age
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
The Narrators
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
FRANCIS-Pennsylvania 1933
AIDAN-Pennsylvania 1933
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
FRANCIS-Pennsylvania 1934–1943
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
AIDAN-Pennsylvania 1900–1916
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
AIDAN-Pennsylvania 1916–1917
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
FRANCIS- On the Road1943–1945
AIDAN-Pennsylvania 1917–1919
FRANCIS-On the Road1945
ELYSE-Sacramento 1955
FRANCIS-1945
AIDAN-Pennsylvania 1919–1928
ELYSE-San Diego 1958–1965
AIDAN-1965
ELYSE-1967
AIDAN
FRANCIS