Thumbprints

by Pamela Sargent

  He stirred, then lifted his head slightly. “Don’t sit up,” Lillian said. “Can I get you anything?” He did not reply. “I may go up to the lake in a couple of days,” she went on, “just to check on things. Mom says there’s deadwood to clear, and the grass needs mowing. The ducks are probably living on our dock by now.”

  His eyes focused on her. “Don’t feed them. If you do, they’ll take over the place.”

  “I know.”

  “Laura should go up there with you.” He was silent for a while. “Tell your mother to go up with you and stay a day or two. She needs the rest. Tell her–” His face tensed for a moment. “Look out for the turtles. Tell her to see if they’re out on the stumps. You look out for them, too – check up on them while you’re up there.”

  “Sure.” Lillian’s parents owned a summer place, a tiny bungalow with four small rooms, a bathroom, and an attic; they usually stayed up there from May until the middle of September. Her father, while he still had his business, had commuted from there to his office during the summers. He had to be missing the place. Even during the separation, he had managed to spend weekends with a friend who had a cabin on the same lake.

  “Go up with your mother for a day,” he was saying, “and tell me about the turtles. Promise me that. I want to know if they’re still around.”

  “Mom won’t go,” Lillian murmured. “She’ll want to come in and look after you.”

  “Brad’s arriving tomorrow, isn’t he? Think he and Celia can take over guard duty.”

  She had forgotten that her brother and his wife were coming, and was surprised that he remembered it. She leaned closer; his brown eyes were calm and alert. Now was the time, while his mind was clear, to tell him that she had forgiven him, that all the old grudges were forgotten. But then he moaned, and his eyes slid shut.

  Lillian sat in silence, not wanting to disturb him, not moving from her chair until her mother arrived.

  The summer before, up at the lake, Lillian had noticed a change in her father. Usually he was up before dawn, to go trolling for fish or to swim in the nude before other people were out on the water, but that summer, Lillian would wake to hear her mother calling to him from the kitchen. “David, David.” After a few minutes, her mother would go to the half-open door of the other bedroom and call to him some more. “David.” Often he didn’t get up until she and her mother were finishing their second cup of coffee.

  Soon she noticed that her father’s hair was grayer, and that he had lost weight. He did not take the rowboat out for exercise, and no longer explored the shoreline in their canoe. He used only the small outboard motorboat, and went no farther than the middle of the bay, where he would sit and stare toward the cove and the tree stumps where the turtles came out.

  To spot the small turtles on the stumps, and to get as close as possible to them in a boat, had become a game. The turtles never came out in the morning, when that side of the bay was in shadow. If the sky was slightly hazy, they might come out to bask on the stumps and the large rock near them, but too many clouds or too much sunshine would keep them under water. The best time to see them was in the late afternoon, and that was when Lillian and her mother would row across to the cove, then drift toward the stumps, using the oars only to steer the rowboat.

  From a distance, the grayish-brown shells of the turtles were barely visible against the bark of the stumps, and to get close to them required stealth. At the slightest sound, the soft plop of an oar or a voice above the sound of a whisper, Lillian would hear splashes and see sudden blossoms of water where a frightened turtle had vanished below the surface. The object of the game was to get as close to the turtles as possible without startling them; a complete triumph involved maneuvering the rowboat among the stumps without scaring away any of the turtles basking in the afternoon light.

  Lillian’s father was a master of the turtle game. Whenever he rowed across the bay with Lillian or her mother, the turtles were always out, and he usually made it past the tree stumps without scaring off more than a couple of the creatures. Often he could get close enough to a stump to reach toward a turtle with one hand, bringing his fingers within a few inches of the shell before drawing back.

  That summer, he hadn’t seemed interested in looking for the turtles. Then, two days before Lillian was to leave, her father, looking drawn and tired, had asked her if she would row him across the bay.

  His request shocked her, but she said nothing as they walked down to the dock. Her father never allowed anyone else to row the boat when he was aboard; he was a reluctant passenger, the kind of man who insisted on handling the oars, steering the motorboat, driving the car. She suddenly feared that her mother had not been telling the truth about his recent brief hospital stay. “Just some small tumors – your father’ll be back on his feet in no time.”

  He had brought a drink with him. Lillian helped him into the boat, then rowed away from the dock. As they neared the middle of the bay, on water as still as glass, he said, “I never brought Jenny up to the lake. I just wanted you to know that. She never came up here when I’d stay at Stan Berger’s place.”

  “Well.” Lillian pulled at the oars. “Mom must have been glad to hear that.”

  “Truth is, Jenny didn’t much like quiet spots, especially not on weekends – she wanted to be going out to dinner, going to parties with a lot of loud music, seeing friends. When she wasn’t partying, she was networking. We didn’t have a whole lot in common, as it turned out.”

  Lillian said nothing. She did not want to hear about Jenny. She had always been careful, when calling up her father, to speak to Jenny courteously if coldly whenever she answered the phone, knowing that was the mature way to behave. Lillian would not allow Jenny to come between her and her father. But it had been easier, after a while, not to call so often. Jenny, she could not help thinking, was as much her rival as her mother’s.

  “Too much time,” Lillian’s father said.

  “What?”

  “Too much time. I shouldn’t have sold the business. Gave me too much free time to sit around feeling old and wanting more excitement. And then I find out that there isn’t enough time.”

  “You’ve got lots of time, Dad.”

  “At my age, Lilly, you see how little there is.” He sipped his drink. That was another change. “Start drinking before five,” he always said, “and pretty soon you’re checking into Betty Ford and going to AA meetings.” It was almost five now, and he had finished two bourbons before even getting into the boat. His lips drew back from his teeth and she saw that his jaws were tightly clenched, as if he were in pain.

  “Dad,” she said.

  “You may start running out of time, too. When are you going to marry Martin? What are you waiting for, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. There wasn’t any good reason for not having married him by now. They were in love, they were comfortable with each other, they had been migrating between his apartment and hers for nearly four years, and he got along with her parents, who liked him. Nothing stood in their way except her fear that marriage might change them, alter their emotional environment somehow. She knew what she had now; she might fail at marriage. The bond between her parents had been strong, but had not kept them from separating.

  “Sometimes you have to make a leap,” her father said, “without knowing where you’re going to land, or whether you can ever get back to where you were.”

  “Were you making that kind of leap when you went off with Jenny?” Lillian regretted the question immediately.

  “No. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. Coming back to your mother was a lot harder.” He sighed. “Jenny said that if I left her, it was over, and I didn’t know if Laura would want me back.”

  They were nearing the stumps where the turtles liked to bask in the sun. Lillian rested the oars on the boat’s gunwales, letting the craft drift.

  “Turtles,” he continued, “don’t take those kinds of risks.”

  Lillian smiled; her fa
ther grinned back at her. “Seems to me they do,” she said. “They risk something every time they come out of the water. Or when they jump back in.”

  “No, they don’t. They just go back and forth, out of the water and into it again. They can’t make up their minds whether to stay or go, live underwater or come out on land for good. You’re doing the same thing with Martin.”

  “You’re wrong.” He had no right to tell her how to handle her life with Martin, not after his own mistakes. “Anyway, marriage isn’t exactly a thriving institution these days.”

  “Whether you’re legally married or not doesn’t matter. You’re going back and forth, Lilly. You know Martin won’t break it off because he loves you, but you don’t want to commit yourself. You’ve got something that isn’t one thing or the other. Marry him, move in with him, or break up with him, but don’t leave him hanging. It isn’t fair.”

  She was about to retort, then saw him clench his teeth. “What’s the matter, Dad?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. They got it all – just takes time to recover.” He lifted his head and motioned with his glass. “We’re closing in on them,” he said softly.

  Lillian changed direction, pushing the oars away from herself. She had learned that approaching the tree stumps backwards, stern first, was the only way to sneak up on the turtles without disturbing them. The turtles were out basking in the hazy light, as she had known they would be; her father was with her. She narrowed her eyes and counted six, the largest one no bigger than her hand. Their heads protruded from their shells, welcoming the sun.

  She steered the boat toward the large rock that lay ahead, then slowly turned the craft until she was facing the stumps. Sometimes she almost had the feeling that the turtles knew when her father was in the boat. She and her mother could approach silently, making sure that the oars moved soundlessly, and still frighten the turtles into the water long before the boat was close to the stumps.

  They drifted closer. The water was shallow here; Lillian steered the boat away from the long tangled roots of the stumps. This bay was usually quiet; water-skiers and people with large cabin cruisers tended to keep to the more open areas of the lake. Now the bay was more peaceful than ever, the water without the hint of a ripple, the air so clear that the green of the pines seemed deeper, the bumps and markings on their trunks more sharply etched. The world had come to a stop; for a moment, Lillian felt as though the boat was embedded in the water, the oars trapped in a solid crystalline substance.

  Her father stared at the turtles, unmoving, his fine-featured face a mask. He smiled then, and lifted a hand; time started again as the boat drifted forward. They glided past the stump, watching the turtle hugging the rotting bark.

  “You’ve still got the touch,” Lillian whispered.

  “Guess so.” He held his nearly empty glass high as they left the cove.

  That was the last time she had gone to see the turtles with her father.

  Lillian thought of her father as she rowed toward the cove. She had driven to the lake alone; even with Brad and Celia in town, her mother had refused to come. Lillian had meant to clear some deadwood, chop it up, tie it in bundles, then haul it in her car to the road where it could be picked up. But the weather had grown hot, and Martin had called, staying on the phone for nearly an hour, patient as always, missing her. He would join her next week, pretending that he was just coming for a visit rather than to see her father for the last time.

  She could take care of the deadwood tomorrow. Her father would expect her to visit the turtles’ cove; he had been oddly insistent about that. She would tell him what she had seen, and pretend that he would soon be able to visit the turtles himself.

  She pulled at the oars, heedless of where she was headed until she neared the cove. The turtles probably wouldn’t be out today; the sun was too bright, and a warm breeze was rippling the surface of the lake. She knew what would happen while she was up here. Brad would go to St. Joseph’s and hound its administrators until he got their father admitted to the hospice. She would have to accept the inevitable then.

  Lillian settled the oars inside the boat and drifted, squinting as she peered at the stumps. The turtles had fooled her; two of them were on the nearest stump, their shells dark shiny spots against the wood. The boat cut closer. Other turtles were resting on the stumps, some just above the water line, others nestled against moss. She had never seen so many of them here before.

  “Haven’t lost the touch.” She heard her father’s voice clearly; he might have been in the boat with her, gazing at the turtles from the stern. “They always come out for me, Lilly.” The current carried her boat between two stumps and around another. She held her hand over a turtle as she passed, waiting for it to be startled by her shadow and to leap into the water, but the turtle did not move.

  Lillian began to count the turtles as she floated around the cove, then gave up. This would be something to tell him. He would have to get better now, if only so that he could come up to the lake and see this crowd of turtles for himself.

  The breeze suddenly died. For a moment, tears blurred her vision. She rummaged in the pocket of her shorts for a tissue and wiped at her eyes, then looked back at the tree stumps. Tiny sprays of water flew up; she caught a glimpse of one turtle as it leaped. All of the others had disappeared below the surface. She peered over the side of the boat, but the water had grown still, becoming a mirror reflecting her head against the sky and hiding what lay below.

  Her father’s voice said in memory, “Tell me if you see them,” and she suddenly knew that he was dead.

  Lillian grabbed the oars and rowed back across the bay. She was pulling the boat up alongside the dock when she heard the telephone ringing in the distance, up in the bungalow.

  Lillian was numb after her father’s death, clinging to Martin for solace when he arrived; even Brad seemed unable to handle the simplest tasks. It was their mother who arranged for the cremation and finally convinced the funeral director that her husband had wanted no service and only a simple interment with his family and close friends in attendance.

  By autumn, Lillian’s mother had closed up her house. She spent three weeks with Lillian, then flew on to Denver to stay with Brad and Celia for a while. By winter, she had returned home, deciding that she would stay in her house. Her closest friends were there, and she wanted to be in the places she had shared with her husband. She would remember him, but she had let him go, and would not dwell on her grief; he would not have wanted that. She planned to keep the bungalow, too, and to spend the summers there as she always had.

  Lillian knew that her mother was still mourning deeply, however well she concealed her sorrow. She had said her farewells, as had Brad; Lillian’s father had apparently had a few minutes of consciousness and lucidity before his sudden and quiet passing. Lillian had missed her chance.

  Her father came to her in dreams, sitting down to chat with her; she would wake up convinced that he was alive after all. Other dreams carried her home, where he greeted her and the logic of her dream revealed that his death was a misunderstanding, a false assumption on her part. He was always in a lighted place, a bright room or a sunny garden. She spoke to him, and he understood; their disagreements were past.

  She kept expecting the worst of her grief to fade, but it remained with her, washing over her in sudden waves, shocking her again and again with the reality of his death. She struggled in her dreams, moving toward the lighted places where her father was waiting, only to be pulled back once more into the darkness.

  The summer after her father’s death, Lillian took two weeks off to visit her mother. A storm broke as she was driving away from the airport in her rented car; it was still raining when she arrived at the bungalow. The turtles would not be out on the stumps this afternoon; her disappointment at having to miss them surprised her.

  Her mother looked as well as she had sounded over the phone. The hospital bills, still coming in, were even worse than expected, but their insurance
was covering most of them. She had not been to the memorial park since her husband’s interment; she felt closer to David here, at the lake.

  Lillian had been worried about her mother. Now she saw that, despite her mother’s grief, she had accepted her husband’s death. Lillian sat on the porch, watching the rain pock the wrinkled gray surface of the lake, and felt the mingled rage, regret, and sorrow that thoughts of her father often brought.

  Her mother, sitting with her, looked up from her knitting. “Is Martin going to visit us while you’re here?”

  “He won’t have time,” Lillian replied. “He’s got a layout to finish, and then a magazine illustration he’s already late on. And–” She took a breath. “He’s thinking of moving to Seattle. He might have a definite job offer there. It’s only a two-year contract to teach, but it’d be perfect for him – he’d have enough time to do his own work and maybe try some new projects without worrying about money for a while.”

  “And what would you do?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I wish I could tell you what to do, Lilly, but this is something you have to decide for yourself.”

  Maybe Martin wouldn’t get the job. Lillian hoped for that, despising herself for the wish. Even if the offer came through, she could talk Martin out of leaving, and everything would be the same.

  She knew what her father would have told her. Go with him or break it off. Don’t leave him dangling; make a leap one way or the other. For a moment, she almost expected him to appear on the porch, scowling his disapproval even while telling her she would have to make her own decisions.