How the Light Gets In

by Jolina Petersheim

  “A bottle of ink and a book for each year I should’ve given you time to write your story.”

  Ruth’s throat grew tight. She swallowed her tears and murmured, “Thank you.”

  Chandler ran a hand over her back and then drew it away, as if sensing she might spook. “I’m sorry I haven’t done things like this before. You deserved better,” he said.

  She looked over at him. “So did you.”

  They were quiet for some time. Ruth trailed her fingertips over the bottles, held the inks up to the campfire light, seeing the turquoise and garnet glow like jewels.

  Ruth looked over and suddenly remembered what day it was. “I’m thirty-one?”

  Chandler laughed softly, conscious of the children asleep in the tent. “Yes,” he said. “You’re thirty-one. Happy birthday, Ruth.”

  “I was twenty-three when we met. Just a kid, really, though I didn’t know it back then.”

  “For better and for worse,” Chandler said, “I’m glad to have grown up with you.”

  Ruth touched his hand. “For better and for worse, we’ve carved out a life.”

  And even if she didn’t say, I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone other than you, she knew it was what Chandler longed to hear. But Ruth was grateful Chandler was back, that their girls would know their daddy. That, Lord willing, they could continue to grow and change together as they watched their darling daughters grow from girls to women who would marry and have children of their own. But despite everything, Ruth felt that stirring in her womb—that subtle reminder everything in her life could not line up perfectly again.

  “Chandler,” she said. “I have to tell you something.”

  At forty, Elam Albrecht was going back to school.

  It was a small music school located in Madison, which offered classes to nontraditional students. Even so, Elam was one of the least traditional of the nontraditional students and the least classically trained. And yet, when he entered the soundproof room and rested his hands on the piano’s keys, a singular, focused intensity consumed him, which, for the first time in months, allowed him to contemplate something other than Ruth.

  Elam never realized, having been a boy when he’d last studied music, how physically demanding piano playing could be. He spent hours in soundproof room 2375, so that the other students began to think of it as his—the quiet but nice “Amish” man, who’d only recently learned to drive a car and wore button-down shirts tucked into blue jeans and boots; nice boots, but boots just the same. His silver hair had grown longer, and he could feel it now—like a living thing—as he pressed the keys and pumped the pedals, experiencing a synergy of body, mind, and spirit he’d only before experienced during his most intimate moments with Ruth. It made him euphoric, this daily practice, even while it wore him into a mind-numbing fatigue.

  When he finished practicing, he wiped down the keys and the top of the piano with a small, white towel as if he were wiping down weight equipment at the gym. Walking out of the soundproof room with his backpack over his shoulder, Elam could hear his boots clicking on the polished floor. He strode past the bust of the founder and the cupola, lit from above, so that the music notes—snippets from famous compositions—glowed in front of his steps.

  Elam exited the building, feeling the tepid June air soothe his hot skin. The entire campus was dark and deserted, which was when Elam liked it best. The streetlights, white and round as a spilled string of pearls, cast an opalescent glow upon the sidewalk. He entered the apartment building within walking distance of the campus and nodded at the security guard as he went to check his mail. He sorted through the junk mail and bills, throwing everything but the latter into the trash, and then he discovered the letter.

  His palms grew slick when he read his old address at the top-left corner.

  He had only seen a few glimpses of Ruth’s handwriting, but even without seeing her name, he somehow knew it was from her.

  After months without any sort of communication, except to sign and date the annulment papers and return them to the state, Elam did not want to read in front of the security guard whatever she’d written. Sweat broke out along Elam’s hairline as he pushed the brass button for the fourth floor, where he lived. The letter burned in his hand, the skin of his palm damp around it, so that he lifted the letter up to his chest and smoothed it out. He unlocked his apartment, flicked on the lights, and entered the kitchen, the only room in the modest place where he felt at home. He used a steak knife from the stand to slice open the back of the envelope and pulled out the paper.

  Only one piece of paper after all this time.

  Elam had to swallow his disappointment, and then realized how ludicrous it was to be disappointed Ruth had written him a short letter when she was married to another man.

  Dear Elam,

  I hope you are well, but I suspect that these past five months have been as difficult for you as they have been for me. I still feel that I have made the right decision—for the girls’ sake, if not for mine—and for the most part, I have been grateful.

  I know we agreed not to be in contact, but I believe I have stumbled upon an exception to the rule. I am writing to you, Elam, because—well, I am pregnant. I’ve been to the doctor, and she said I should be due in the early fall. September. The same month we met.

  I wasn’t sure if I should write you; I wasn’t sure if this news would hurt more than heal, but I wanted you to know that, despite everything, you and I will always be connected. I honestly am at a loss on how to go from here. I would like to see you again, if possible, but I understand if it’s not. Just know that I will forever cherish the short time we had together, and I will forever cherish our child, created through the union of our love.

  Ruth

  Elam carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, as if that action could keep its information contained. He slid to the floor and sat there, on the cold tile of his air-conditioned apartment, and covered his face with his hands. He, the same as Ruth, had no idea how to go from here. In her womb, his daughter or son was being created, and yet he could not be a part of the child’s life without wrecking the lives of Ruth’s other children.

  The pain, as Elam wrote and told her he would also like to meet, was a physical ache that made him short of breath. Once he was done—one page, a manifesto of loss—the full moon gleamed through his window. He walked toward it, the new envelope in hand, and pressed his other hand to the glass, seeing the beauty of his maimed finger and understanding that, though his life was not turning out the way he’d once imagined—the way he had once hoped—he would always have his music, and in this, he would find his life again.

  Ruth and Elam met at a state park located between Tomah and Madison. Ruth pulled up beside the kind of nondescript gray car that looked like a government vehicle, but Elam had already told her it was his. She got out, holding the parcel in front of her stomach. She sensed Elam’s eyes on her as they neared each other, his desperate search to identify any change of her anatomy that would prove her claims.

  Elam wasn’t sure how he should greet her, for his cousin’s wife had also once been his, and he could tell by Ruth’s reluctance to meet his gaze that she felt the same as he.

  “Did you . . . have a good trip?” he asked, and then hated himself for offering something so benign, but that was all he had.

  She nodded gently. “You look tired.”

  He attempted to smile. “Well, you look wonderful,” and it was true. Ruth’s skin was lustrous, red-gold hair thick, the whites of her teeth and eyes gleaming with health.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I want to give you this.”

  For the first time, Elam noted the package she was holding, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a piece of twine. A small pink rose, from the bush beside his old house, was tucked down inside it.

  “I’m writing a novel,” she said. “The first time in years I’ve written anything more than a few journal entries.”

  Elam took the p
ackage from her since she was holding it out. “It’s for me?” he asked.

  Ruth looked down. “It’s the novel cover. Don’t look too closely. It’s just a rough draft.”

  The sun slowly sank behind the earthen dam, gleaming off the flat water and blanching the cattail tips ringing the lake a vibrant white. Elam looked up at the sky and then over at the pavilion in front of the lake. Cattail wisps drifted along the edges and swirled like pulled cotton across the cement floor inside. He gestured, and they walked over and sat on one of the picnic benches, beside each other but not so close that their shoulders touched.

  Ruth glanced at the parcel in his hands. “Well?” she said. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “You want me to right now?”

  She nodded.

  Elam carefully peeled away the brown paper and saw a small canvas stretched across a wooden frame. He turned it over. The vibrant red of a flooded cranberry bog contrasted by the vibrant blue of a Wisconsin sky. A man and woman in silhouette, standing before each other, the sun shining between their bodies. But they were not touching. Much like he and Ruth now.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s . . . beautiful.”

  “I’m dedicating the novel to our daughter. I actually started writing it before I knew I’d conceived, and afterward . . . it just felt right, writing the novel as a story to her.”

  He looked over, his eyes raw. “You think it’s a girl?”

  Ruth allowed herself to take his hand. “The ultrasound shows it is.”

  Elam choked down a sob before he replied, “I love her already.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “I do too. She’ll always be a part of us, no matter what.”

  “Does Chandler know?”

  “Yes. I figured it wouldn’t take him long to figure out the baby’s not his, since we’ve not—” Ruth glanced away—“resumed all aspects of marital life.”

  Elam’s face burned. For months, he’d tried repressing the images of Ruth with Chandler, but they were there, regardless. “Was he . . . okay with the pregnancy?”

  “No. Not at first,” Ruth said. “But now he realizes we have to accept what happened if we’re to thrive.”

  Elam picked the painting up and turned it over in his hands. He studied the man and woman—that loosening spiral of sunlight between their bodies. “Maybe you should let the girls think that the child’s Chandler’s. Let the child think she is Chandler’s, too.”

  “Oh, Elam,” Ruth said, and her voice caught on his name. “We’ll make it work. I would never expect you to give up your rights as a father.”

  Elam couldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at that mound pushing against Ruth’s shirt, representing the baby he would never be able to claim as his. “I think it’d be best,” he said, “for our child to be raised as if she belonged rather than always believing a part of her was different.” He stared at the painting, wiped the moisture from his eyes. “You see how Sofie struggles, knowing she is different. I also know what it’s like growing up different. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not my child.”

  Ruth moved down the bench toward him. “Elam,” she said, “even if I agree to your wishes—and I’m not saying I do—our child will always be yours.”

  “I know that,” he said and put an arm around Ruth. She moved even closer on the bench until their hips met, and yet they continued looking straight ahead, at the setting sun on water. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for making my dream come true.”

  Ruth looked up at him and sniffed. Tears streamed from her eyes. “What dream is that?”

  “That I . . . I could have a family.” Elam reached down and tentatively placed a hand on Ruth’s stomach. The hard swell there, signaling the life inside it, made him weep. He held his hand there for a long time. “You’ve made my dream come true.”

  Ruth rested her head on Elam’s shoulder and placed her hand on his, communicating a lifetime of words she could never say. “You’re welcome,” she murmured, and the cattails stirred as the wind changed.

  SEPTEMBER 30, 2019

  Dear Ruth,

  Thank you for the letter and picture of Aria. Words are unable to convey what I felt when I looked at that perfect, tiny face for the first time. It’s like that image was a piece of my soul I hadn’t known was missing. I will carry it with me always and will rest in the fact that I do have a family, even if I remain grateful that you are allowing Chandler to be her father.

  I hope you’ve recovered well. (I almost scratched that out after I wrote it, because surely there are better things to write about than your health. But I don’t know how to write about such things without betraying you or Chandler. So I won’t. I will keep my letter focused on your health and the beauty of our child and my deep regret that I won’t get to raise her beside you, though everything inside of me yearns to do just that.)

  I’m going to compose a song in Aria’s honor, a melody that is as delicate as she is. Whenever I play it, I will think of her, and I will think of you, her beautiful mother, who transformed my life without realizing it.

  Sincerely yours,

  Elam

  CHAPTER 20

  TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER

  Aria Cathleen Neufeld’s wedding was held at Driftless Valley Farm at the beginning of the cranberry season, which seemed fitting, Elam thought, since the union that had formed Aria’s life took place at the beginning of the harvest season as well. Still, it was strange to drive a rental car up the lane Ruth had first driven twenty-some years ago, with two little girls in the backseat and a big white dog, Zeus, panting against the window. Elam hadn’t been back to the farm since Mabel’s funeral, where she was laid to rest beside her husband. But this was a happier occasion, as weddings always were. Happy occasion or not, Elam had dreaded this day since he learned his daughter was born. He knew he would be just another extended family member, sitting in the audience, rather than the father of the bride, walking his daughter down the aisle, the daughter whom—like her mother—he’d only allowed himself to love and cherish from afar.

  Two young Mennonite boys in matching straw hats and smiles directed Elam to park in the left side of the field. The farm had expanded since Elam sold it, but he didn’t know by how much. He really had no desire to know, since that aspect of his life felt so removed from him now, as a piano teacher at Eastern Mennonite University, where he’d started out as a transfer student after his first taste of higher education in Madison. Tim was single-handedly responsible for the farm’s continued success. Chandler had helped with the harvest when he could, but for the most part, he had spent the recent decades traveling to the Mennonite and Amish communities in the Driftless Region, playing country doctor, pediatrician, midwife, or counselor, depending on what need was at hand.

  Elam got out of the rental car and closed the door, pocketing the key and keeping his hand in his pocket to hide how his fingers shook. The wedding was supposed to be held by the lake, but a recent cold snap had forced the wedding party into the barn: the very same barn where Ruth and Elam had wed. Surely this held significance for Ruth as well.

  Laurie spotted her brother coming toward the barn, squealed, and ran across the field to meet him. “Elam!” she cried. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it!”

  Laughing, Elam leaned down and gave Laurie a hug. He murmured, “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Something in his voice made her pull back and search his face. “Wie gehts?”

  Laurie knew this day would be hard on Elam because she was one of the few people in the world who knew Aria was his. As always, Elam couldn’t keep secrets from his sister.

  “I’m fine,” Elam said and smiled to reassure her. The years hadn’t changed Laurie much. Perhaps she looked a little tired around her eyes, and her energy level had tapered off to that of a thirty-year-old, but Elam suspected similar changes could be seen in him.

  The siblings embraced again and then Laurie squeezed his hand.

  “Come,” she said. “I sa
ved a seat for you.”

  Elam wished he could sit toward the back, but he didn’t want to call more attention to himself by refusing to sit with family. So he studied the program until he had the groomsmen’s names memorized, but then Ruth came in on the arm of David, Tim and Laurie’s son. Elam didn’t expect to feel as much as he did, watching Ruth walk down that aisle she’d once walked to him. He’d thought the years would have dulled the ache. They hadn’t. The loss was as startling as that final day in the park when Elam watched his wife walk back to her car. Elam looked down, gripping the program, until Laurie nudged him. Sofie and Vi were striding down the aisle, clutching bouquets of cranberry and baby’s breath.

  Both were married women now, and Sofie was expecting her first child, but in Elam’s mind, they would always remain those little girls in matching pajamas, who would giggle while peering down at him and Ruth from the top of the stairs. It hurt to realize this, but he knew his heart was going to experience a whole lot more pain before the day was over. He braced himself for it, like a man getting a bone set without sedation.

  There was no way, really, to be prepared.

  In the back, the stringed quartet transitioned to Canon in D, and Aria strode down the aisle on Chandler’s arm. Aria was everything Elam had wanted her to be. She appeared confident and strong, as if she’d always known her place. My word. She’s beautiful, Elam thought, and he could tell Aria truly was beautiful, even though he looked at her through the biased eyes of a father. She resembled Ruth. A younger version of Ruth. The version Elam had never gotten to meet since Ruth had already survived a few hard blows before their lives so briefly intertwined.

  But Aria also had that glow, which can only come from the naive, heartwarming belief that love can conquer all. No significant pain had ever marked her young life, and though it tortured Elam not to be a part of it, he was glad to see she had lived her twenty-two years believing she was conceived because of her father’s return, not because of his absence.