Ascension of Larks

by Rachel Linden

  She had always wanted Marco. Her longing for him had defined her life for so many years. It had not changed or lessened with the passage of time. It was the hunger never satisfied, the ache never eased. Her longing was removed from the reality of her day-to-day life, existing alone and unabated. From the moment she’d lost him to Lena, her deepest wish had been to have him again. It was an irrefutable fact, one she didn’t question, had not questioned in all those years they’d been apart. Of course she wanted him.

  But Lena’s revelation at the hospital had changed something, Maggie realized as she sat there on the beach. If Marco had not drowned, he might have been hers, not in the abstract, but in flesh and blood. The possibility felt startlingly visceral, earthy, and immediate in a way it had never been before. Staring out across the water, she thought about his question again in the light of this reality.

  “Would you really have wanted me, if I had left them and come to you?”

  “Of course,” she’d said without hesitation. And it was true in the abstract. But as she reflected on his question, she realized she’d only answered the first half of it.

  If I had left them and come to you. Those last words echoed in her head. They highlighted an aspect she had never considered before, a kernel that held within itself the reality of their lives now. They could not turn back time, could not make different choices in retrospect and reclaim a decade of decisions. What would it really have meant for Marco to come to her after he ended his marriage to Lena and left their three children, after a divorce? He and Maggie could not rewind time, could not start fresh from the point where their paths had begun to diverge so many years before when Marco had chosen Lena over her. They could not reclaim a decade of decisions.

  So what would Maggie have gained and what would she have lost if Marco had left Lena and come to her now, after so many years of other choices?

  She had never considered the concrete reality before. She did so now, playing out the scenario in her mind. She would have lost Lena, the children, the big yellow house. The thought made her heart constrict with a sudden sorrow.

  The island house had been her home more than anywhere else after her mother’s death, but Maggie had never felt quite settled there, the longing for Marco an impossible barrier to wholly accepting the love and sense of family it embodied. For years she had been uneasy in her relationship with Lena and Marco. Her longing for a different reality had kept her a half step removed, never able to fully embrace what the Firellis could offer her. But to lose Lena and the children . . . The thought made her a little breathless. It was unimaginable.

  A series of images sprang to her mind, snapshots of her life with Lena and the children. Gabby curled up with her head against Maggie’s chest, her little fingers coiled in strands of Maggie’s hair. Lena’s expression at the hospital, the understanding and absolution in her calm blue eyes when she’d spoken to Maggie of Marco’s planned desertion. Maggie waking up in the familiar red-checkered guest room, the smell of banana pancakes drifting down the hall, bringing with it the warm contentment of knowing she was safe and loved.

  Maggie put her hand to her heart, pressing the spot where a dull ache had begun to throb. She could not imagine losing all that. But she would have gotten Marco in exchange, all she ever wanted. Wouldn’t it have been a fair trade?

  “It would have been enough,” Maggie said aloud. “We could have made it enough.” But even as she spoke the words she wondered if they were true.

  Her relationship with Marco had never been easy. Her longing for him had been simple and elemental, but the reality of their lives had been anything but straightforward. Their relationship had been defined by things unspoken, by the complexity of the past and by the different paths they had taken since that single point in time when Marco chose Lena over her.

  Maggie’s life had been held in stasis for years by the question “What if?” What if Marco had realized they belonged together before he proposed to Lena? What if he had chosen Maggie instead? She had been trapped in the longing for the path not taken, the choice unmade. But Marco was a different story entirely. He had not been trapped. He had made his choices and acted as he saw fit. He had never voiced a doubt or regret. Maggie caught her breath, seeing for the first time what she had never seen before. The truth shocked her.

  “It wouldn’t have been enough, not even if we were together,” she said in surprise, “because it was never about me, was it? It was only ever about you.”

  She pictured him sitting beside her, dark eyes sardonic, languid and sure. He ground out his cigarette and glanced away from her, out over the sea, his movements restive, his expression a little pensive.

  “I thought you wanted me as much as I wanted you,” she confessed. “Because I understood you, understood the burning need to succeed and make a name and be the best. I thought that put me on the inside, closer than anyone else, even Lena, even your own family. But it didn’t matter how close I was, how much I understood you, did it? It never would have been enough. Nothing was ever enough for you.”

  The words were a revelation, not an accusation. She understood it clearly now. Marco had loved no one as much as he loved himself. And he was willing to sacrifice them all on the altar of his ambition. She thought of what he had said to her so many years before when she confronted him about his impending wedding to Lena.

  “There’s not enough oxygen in a room for the both of us, Maggie. We’d burn each other out.” His voice had dropped, almost a caress. She shivered now to think of it. “I do love you, Maggie. But I’m not a fool. I won’t destroy the very thing that makes you who you are. Wherever you go in life—and you will go far and soar high—remember I loved you enough to let you go.”

  She did remember. He had loved her. She was sure of that. And he had been smart enough to understand that their future together would have been doomed. Not for lack of passion or talent, but because somewhere deep within himself, Marco Firelli was more dedicated to his own brilliant arc than to anyone on earth. His desire to succeed obliterated all else. No one could stand in the way of his one, grand ambition. Not even his wife and children. Not even Maggie.

  She stared out at the dark water, stunned by the truth. They couldn’t have made each other happy. No one could have made Marco happy. Perhaps they might have tried once, so many years ago. If he had chosen Maggie over Lena, their life together would have been a shooting star, arcing brilliantly across the night, burning so brightly before it burned out. Even then it ultimately would not have succeeded.

  Certainly it would not have been successful if they had tried now. Not after all these years, a thousand days spent building separate lives, a million disparate decisions. Not with the life Marco had chosen to create, with Lena and the children and so many years of history already made. Marco had chosen his path. Maggie had chosen hers. They were never meant to be together. They would have destroyed each other in the process, and Maggie would have lost everything she now held dear.

  Maggie sat there in the darkness, speechless. She could see it all so clearly now, what she had never seen before. It was strangely liberating. She took a full breath of salt air, bracing and sweet, drawing it deep into her lungs, marveling as the cold rushed through her. With each breath she peeled away a layer of illusion she’d carried for so long. She had not even noticed the weight of them. But they fluttered away one by one. Gone were the regret and disappointment, the secret, bitter longing that had been like an ache in the marrow of her bones. Underneath them was a sensation of lightness she could hardly comprehend. Who was she without Marco Firelli? She had wanted him for so long that she didn’t recognize herself now that she was set free. She was a stranger on the inside.

  She stood abruptly, feeling at a loss. Where did she go from here? She walked down to the water’s edge, her shoes crunching over shells and stones rolled smooth by the water. The tide was out, dark rocks and long strands of bull kelp making mounded shadows and twisted black ropes in the light of a half-moon. An owl hoo
ted from somewhere far away; another answered it close by. Far out in the water, on one of the islands across the Strait, tiny lights pierced the darkness from houses perched high above the sea. Maggie wrapped her arms around herself, staring out across the black expanse.

  The reality was this: Marco was dead. She would never have him now. And even if he stood before her, she would not choose him now. She had lost too much already. She wanted no more regrets. Maggie stood straighter, filled with a new, true resolve. It was time for her to stop living in a fantasy, longing for something that would never come true. Her life was before her, with Lena as she recovered and with the three children who needed stability and care. It was also in the work she loved so well and in the lives of those she had the power to affect with the click of her camera. Home was the big yellow house and the hearts of those who loved her still, had always loved her, would continue to love her.

  This life was not perfect, and until now she had not even known she wanted it. But as she stood there on the beach, free and unencumbered after so many years of blindness, she realized how much she treasured it. Nothing was as important as those now in her care. They were her family. This was her home. It was not what she thought she had wanted for so long, but it was what she had been given, and she was grateful for it.

  She thought suddenly of Daniel, of their conversation that day on the rocks, when they heard the skylarks’ song in flight. Daniel told her he lost everything when he lost his family. She had not understood him then, but she understood now. He had known the value of what had been taken from him, while Marco had been preparing to carelessly throw it all away. She had almost done the same. But it was not too late. She had seen the truth while there was still time. She had come back to the island thinking her life was over, only to discover it had been here all along.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A FEW DAYS AFTER LENA’S RETURN FROM THE hospital, Ellen drove slowly up to the house in a gently used Volvo, almost identical to the one Lena had totaled, though this one was green, not silver.

  “Figured we needed to get things settled a bit around here,” Ellen said, laying the keys on the table. She had seen it parked at the Ace Hardware store with a For Sale sign in the window that morning and called Lena, who agreed to buy it on the spot. The insurance settlement for the wrecked Volvo would just cover the cost. “Now you can return your rental car if you want to. No sense giving them any more money,” Ellen told Maggie.

  Maggie jumped at the chance to return the car to Seattle. She was being driven mad by the sheer domesticity of the house now that it was back in some semblance of order. The routines were making her feel claustrophobic, hemmed in by lunchtime and snack time and bath time and story time. She felt regulated by a giant clock called childhood, bound to a schedule not of her choosing. She had endured it for the weeks Lena was lying in the hospital because she had to. There had been little choice. But now that Lena was recovering rapidly, Maggie could sense a return to normal life. She was on the verge of no longer being needed. And she had never been more relieved.

  “I’ll return the car at SeaTac Airport in the morning and take the shuttle back to the ferry terminal in Anacortes. I’ll get a taxi from Friday Harbor and be home late afternoon or early evening,” Maggie told Ellen.

  Early the next morning Maggie sped toward the ferry line in the rental car, feeling giddy and a little nervous at the thought of returning to her old life. So much had changed, not least of all her revelation about Marco. It was so new that she had no idea what exactly it meant. She knew she wanted to see Lena and the children more than only one month in August. She wanted to be more a part of their lives but had no idea what would happen next. The future felt wide open and uncertain. The matter of the debt still loomed, closer day by day. She had not yet told Lena about the called loan, reasoning that she was still recovering and too fragile to bear such a heavy burden. Maggie knew she would have to tell Lena soon, but she was savoring the sweet moments before she had to break the latest bad news.

  While she waited for the ferry, she snapped a few shots of Friday Harbor—the quaint clapboard storefronts, the boats bobbing in the harbor. She’d decided to develop a few of the photos she’d taken in the past weeks and give them to Lena as a going-away present. She just had to choose which ones to use.

  On the ferry ride back to the mainland, Maggie took more photos, leaning over the railing, enjoying the rush of the seawater the motor churned up behind it, milky and green as Chinese jade. She bought a bowl of Ivar’s clam chowder and ate it on the deck, spotting dozens of translucent jellyfish floating calmly beside the ferry. She couldn’t stop grinning. She felt as though she’d been holding her breath underwater for ages, concentrating on survival and keeping afloat. Now she’d finally come up for air. With Lena recovering and Maggie no longer guardian for the children, she had the internal space and freedom to dream and create again. She could feel the creativity beginning to bubble up in her blood with each passing minute, the thrill of new and exciting vistas just waiting around the next bend.

  After returning the rental car at the airport, Maggie rode the Link light rail into Seattle and walked to Storyville Coffee, her favorite coffee shop in Seattle, nestled near the iconic Pike Place Market. She sat in one of the comfortable leather chairs by a window and sipped an espresso, Lena’s borrowed MacBook Air open on her lap. She flipped through the shots she’d taken while Lena was in the hospital, choosing the best ones to print out. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a sip of the espresso, savoring the moment and the rich caramel and chocolate taste of the roast. This was her world—coffee shops, espresso, anonymity, and photos that told a story about people and places across the globe. It was exhilarating to be back.

  She continued browsing through the images, smiling at the antics of the children, flipping quickly past the few photos of Daniel but then returning to them, studying them with an avid, almost voyeuristic interest. She had not told Lena about the beckoning ceremony, and she didn’t think the children had either. Maggie wondered what Lena would think when she saw the shots, if she would be touched to know her children had taken such care to call her back. Who knew? Maybe it had actually worked.

  “Not soon enough,” she murmured, thinking regretfully of the Regent. Even if she flew back to Chicago tomorrow, there was no hope of creating a winning series on such short notice. She needed all the time she’d lost on the island to create a series good enough to enter. And even then it might not have been enough.

  The Regent wasn’t only about technical brilliance; it was most of all about the personal perspective of the artist, about the story being told through the photos, about the connection between photographer and subject. And as Alistair had reminded her more than once, that was Maggie’s area of weakness. She had never been able to spot it herself, never been able to put her finger on the flaw and figure out how to change it. So far it had not affected her success. Her photos’ beautiful compositions and the poignancy of their subject matter covered any flaws, her strengths masking her weakness. But the Regent . . . that was a different story entirely.

  Maybe the lost time doesn’t matter, Maggie admitted to herself. I don’t know if I could have won, even if I’d had all the time in the world. But the lost opportunity still felt bitter. She finished her espresso and flipped through the rest of the photos. Lena with the kids at her hospital bedside, Luca sneaking bits of coffee cake, Jonah’s profile as he turned away from the happy scene, his grave face lightened with relief.

  As she looked at the shots, documenting so many moments of joy and sorrow, despair and isolation, Maggie was struck by something about them, something different, an aspect of her work she’d never glimpsed before. She slowed her perusal, studying the photos, beginning to see a theme to the images, a narrative arc she hadn’t seen when she’d taken them. Her photos told a story about a family, about loss and hope and bittersweet endings. But it was more than that. The intimacy of some of the shots startled her, exhibiting an emotional
aspect she had never seen in her work before. She could feel herself in every shot. The results were warm, resonating with emotion, touching in their empathy.

  Maggie sat back, surprised. Maybe this is what Alistair’s been trying to tell me is missing, she thought, studying the photos with a growing awareness. The pictures were somehow different from anything she’d done so far, closer to her heart, more vulnerable. It’s just because you know and love these people, she argued with herself, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. These are no better than your other shots. But she couldn’t shake the sense that these photos were something special. She had a feeling Alistair might agree.

  She studied several of the shots—Lena’s still face, hands cupping the rose at her heart, tubes snaking from her wrists; a candid snapshot she’d taken of Daniel as he lit the feather for the beckoning ceremony, his profile sharp in the glow of the candles; and one of Gabby, hands raised as if in prayer, holding a piece of sea glass over the makeshift altar, her eyes shining with hope.

  Maggie stared and stared at them, a faint anticipation stirring in her breast. It was probably nothing, false hope or desperation. But what if it wasn’t? What if they really were as good as she suspected? What if she had somehow finally managed to put herself in her photos? She sat for a moment more, caught in indecision, and then she e-mailed them to Alistair.

  “You,” Alistair said without preamble when he called a few hours later as Maggie was speeding north toward the ferry dock in the back of the shuttle bus. “My dear, you are absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. I’ve just seen the photos you e-mailed me. Magdalena Henry, what in heaven’s name makes you think you can just click, click a few photos and enter the most prestigious and highly competitive photography competition in the world? No planning, no forethought, just point-and-shoot photography if I’ve ever seen it. Really, Magdalena, have you lost your mind?”