“I miss my boys!” Holly said, pressing a toy train to her heart.
“You do?” Taina asked, frowning.
“Are you kidding me? This place would blow their little minds.”
“They would take us all prisoner,” Taina said.
“We should have invited Erick to come too, with the kids,” David said distractedly. “We didn’t even think of that.”
Taina sang, “Oh well, too late now.”
Holly pointed at David. “That’s a great idea, David. That would be wonderful. They could pretend they are pirates or Harry Potter or—”
“Lord of the Flies?” Taina offered.
“Do you mean it, David? Can I Julia? Oh, could we? Erick can jump-seat, so they could get here tomorrow.”
David looked at Julia, and she said, “It’s your week.”
David nodded. “They’re my nephews. They should be here.”
Holly was already halfway up the stairs before David finished the sentence. A few minutes later, they saw her wade over to the big rock, waving her hands and shouting into her cell phone.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Taina told David, shaking her head.
“Yes, I do,” he said, watching Holly from the porch. “But I’m gonna do it anyway.”
The only espresso drinkers were Ray and Adrian—and David, who couldn’t stand being left out of anything his brothers did. After dinner, they drank more sangria (except for Raymond, who had his signature seltzer and cranberry juice cocktail) and played charades for a little while. Julia abruptly ended the game and asked that they all help clean up the kitchen. When David wasn’t around, Julia leaned in between Taina and Holly, who were washing wineglasses by hand in the sink. “I didn’t mean to be rude by cutting off your game,” she said, in a low voice, “but David was getting frustrated. He wants to keep up, but we have to be careful not to over-stimulate him. When he’s tired, the aphasia gets worse and he gets pissed off. We have to make sure he rests.”
Holly said, “Man, Julia, you’re never off duty, even with two sangrias in you. It’s like being a mom.” She shook her head and looked down into the suds.
Taina held a thin, tulip-shaped glass up to the light, alternately rubbing the edge with a dishcloth and inspecting it again. “If it were me, I’d just keep on playing charades until he melted down in a puddle. He’d just have to tell me outright.”
“Well, you’re self-absorbed,” said Holly matter-of-factly.
“Being unaware is not the same as being ‘self-absorbed,’ Holly. You’re so damn judgmental.”
Holly opened her mouth to retort but David wandered into the kitchen, collapsed into a chair, and began rubbing his eyes. Julia sprung up and said, “David. Bedtime.” David smiled and put his arms out, as if he expected her to carry him up to bed. She pulled him out of the chair, almost toppling them both, then leaned down and whispered something in his ear that made him nod his head. She went to the refrigerator, handed him a glass of milk, and began dispensing an assortment of pills, which he popped into his mouth one after the other.
“I cooked,” Raymond said, carrying in a pile of dirty plates. “Where the hell is Adrian when it’s time to clean up?”
“Outside. Trying to get a signal on the rock,” Holly called from the pantry, delicately opening the cabinet to replace the wineglasses. When she returned to the kitchen, she put her arms around Raymond. “We’re always going to remember this first dinner here together. You did great, Ray.” Ray parted his lips as if he was going to say something, but then just nodded. Julia leaned out of a window and shouted, “Adrian? Would you mind helping out with the dishes? I’m gonna tuck David into bed.”
From outside they heard, “Coming.” He walked through the kitchen door a moment later.
Ray arched an eyebrow and locked eyes with Julia. “How the hell did you do that?” he said under his breath. “He never listens to anyone.”
Julia reached for David, but he made a face and pulled his hand back. “I don’t need anyone to ‘tuck me in,’ ” he said tersely. Then he turned and climbed up the stairs alone. Julia mouthed he’s exhausted, and sprinted up the stairs behind him.
Adrian was sitting on the big rock, looking back at the house, listening to the water slapping the rocks. Chirping crickets replaced the daytime cawing of birds. He could hear what he thought might be a flag snapping in the darkness and the faraway sound of ropes and hardware clinking against sailboat masts. He figured it was around eleven, the time he was normally starting his workday in Miami. The earliest he could get to sleep was one o’clock. He had finished his cigar and was drinking a finger of cognac out of a plastic cup, refusing the cut-crystal cocktail glass that Julia had offered him. The house had one lit window hiding among the black leaves of a tree. There was no moon, and except for the pub, the village had gone dark too.
He heard a screen door open and close. He saw Julia standing out on the porch. Was she looking for him? His heart knocked hard one, two, three times against his chest. He stood. “Julia?”
She turned toward his voice and walked across the lawn, then over the rocky bridge of smooth stones that connected with the big rock. He reached into the darkness and found her hand. He pulled her up to the rock. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
“What’s the matter? Is everything okay?” he whispered.
“Oh yeah,” she said softly. “David was getting ready for bed when he found my uncle Charles’s toupee in the closet and put it on. Oh . . .” Her voice got higher. “In the eighties, my Uncle Charles wanted so badly to look like Sylvester Stallone, but he was skinny and bald, and the hairpiece was too dark for his pale skin, so we hid it from him. Anyway, David just found it in a cubby hole in his room, and tried it on.” She sighed and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “Lord, I haven’t laughed that hard in so long.” She took a big gulp of air, and her teeth shone in the moonlight. Then she looked up at the sky. “I love David, you know? The way a very old couple loves each other. Without the . . .” Her hand rotated a few turns. She let the word drop.
“A little early in life for that kind of love, don’t you think?”
She snickered. “Sometimes he’s just a guy and sometimes it feels like he’s about ninety years old.” She sighed. “Those medications . . .” She shook her head. “But you’re right. It’s too early in life for me. And after this gathering, I’m going to start to let go. That’s why I pushed to get the house and to invite you guys here, Adrian, to hand over the reins. David is blessed with wonderful parents and brothers and sisters and even though I love him like an old wife, I’m not his wife, and I’m not old. I have to get on with my life.”
“Of course,” Adrian said. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“No, thank you.”
Adrian saw that someone was watching them through a darkened window on the first floor. He could see Taina’s distinctive hourglass silhouette, backlit by a light in the hall. Julia must have seen Taina too, because she immediately rubbed her elbows and said, “It’s getting buggy out here. Let’s go inside.” They turned toward the house and Taina quickly disappeared from view.
Julia was about to jump off the rock, when Adrian held her back. “Wait,” he said, “let me help you,” and he jumped off first. Once on the ground, he offered both his hands, and Julia slipped her fingers between his as she stepped down off the rock. When they separated, their hands slid away from one another slowly, reluctantly.
Chapter 25
Taina lay in an ancient bed that she swore could speak. Each creak of metal and groan of wood had a human-like tone, as if the bed coils somehow mimicked the sounds of the generations that had slept on it. When she sat, it went creep! If she got up quickly it sounded like, whoa. She amused herself by sitting up and down, and getting the bed to exclaim, whoa creep, whoa creep!
The light from the pub at the Village of Stony Creek came through the window because the curtains were too thin. Inside the
house, someone got up to flush the toilet. She could hear a wind chime come to life with a passing breeze outside in the garden, and Raymond’s thunderous snoring three rooms away. She fetched a fan from the closet and plugged it in. Four hours had passed since she had laid her head on the pillow, and yet she was still awake. It wouldn’t be long before the sun came up. She got up, threw on a bathrobe, and stepped out on the balcony. When she stood in the doorway, the edge of the balcony appeared to extend beyond the shore and created the illusion that she was standing at the bow of a ship that was sailing toward Long Island Sound.
She had to admit to herself that she would have enjoyed having Doug here tonight. For all their trouble at home, they were at their best when they could travel and enjoy the company of others. He complemented her role as the wild child; and he fit right in with the boys. She wondered what he was doing, a world away. The ribbed undershirt she was wearing to bed was Doug’s. She crossed her arms around her chest. She wondered how many times, if any, he had tried to call. She opened her cell phone. Zero messages. Then she remembered that she had to go out to the big rock to get any service. She closed the phone. Why did she care if he called? They were divorcing. She pushed against the sticky bedroom door and creaked down the hall, down the stairs, out the door and stepped into the cool night. She walked barefoot through the creaky old house, trying to remember her way through the maze of halls to find her way outside. She passed through the kitchen and stepped out the screen door onto the back porch with the rock finger jutting through the floorboards and the pothole that was always filled with cold beer. Barefoot, she wound her way around the narrow gardens, realizing too late that she had walked over the brass lettering of the uncle’s grave. The salty breeze stirred and she smelled seaweed and fish. On the rock, she sat listening to Doug’s three messages: I love you. Enjoy your time with your family. Let me know that you’re safe. She could have sent an e-mail or a text message, something brief to acknowledge or thank him for his concern, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
She went back inside to retrieve the pack of cigarettes and the lighter she had left on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, and headed back out to smoke. But she saw that a dim light had been left on in the great room. The light was coming from a floor lamp with a heavy tapestry shade and a thick, dangling silk fringe. Taina went to turn it off, and was looking for the switch when she saw them. Her eyes scanned the room for a quick first impression. Adrian and Julia had fallen asleep. They were seated opposite one another with a coffee table in between them. But when she took in the details of the room, they hinted at a new and secret connection.
Adrian’s head was supported by the scalloped edge of a wing chair, below a huge colonial painting depicting a late summer harvest. Two empty low-ball glasses and a bottle of cognac sat on the coffee table. There were books and maps and nautical instruments strewn about; there were piles of photographs and some very old-looking medals and military decorations on the table. There was a huge, footed globe at Adrian’s side. There was a map on the floor with colorful pieces of beach glass placed in a pattern that seemed to track a journey across Latin America. But what was most astonishing was that Julia had fallen asleep with one hand curled around a brownish-yellow human skull. What kind of person, Taina wondered, could curl up with a skull and fall asleep? When she looked down, Taina saw that The Griswolds of New Haven, volume eight, was open to the page that archived Julia’s birth. She remembered how Adrian had read it with admiration in his voice, as if it were a document that certified the quality of a gemstone.
Taina had never glimpsed the depth of her loneliness and insecurity until that moment. She felt herself lacking in the rootedness that Julia had in such absurd, vast quantities. Julia Griswold, she realized, was her complete opposite—blonde, with slim, athletic proportions, a cute sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and placid blue eyes that reflected a calm, nurturing spirit. But she also had a rare and impressive command of historical facts because her family had actually lived it. Who could compete with that? Their differences couldn’t be more stark. Julia was formed from cool and transparent minerals, while she, Taina, was made up of warm, dark, opaque matter. Taina suddenly recognized the perfect chemistry between Adrian and Julia, and it enraged her. She remembered what he had said the first day that they arrived, how he had sat at the piano and said, “So you finally got it tuned?” Julia had changed the subject. And David? She didn’t know how her brother fit into that scenario but he was still talking like he was going to marry Julia. Taina was jealous, but also angry for David. Was Adrian capable of messing around with the girl their brother was so clearly in love with?
The lamp bathed the sleepers in a light that suddenly reminded her of the color of urine. She ran a finger over the top edge of the Griswold family history, lifting the page and pinching it between her fingers at the point where it was sewn into the binding. She pressed the book flat with her other hand. She began to pull the page, slowly, watching Julia’s eyelids and Adrian’s peaceful sleep. Kkkk the linen paper ripped away. When she held her breath, she could feel her heart bashing itself like a bat inside its cavity. She ripped some more. Julia stirred, and let go of the skull. It rolled over and turned its huge, empty sockets away, as if it were too upset to watch. Kkkk. Taina ripped the page out, stitch by stitch, as quietly and slowly as possible. Finally, the page came detached. She closed the book quietly, slipped the page into her bathrobe, took a step back and retreated from the room. She went back out to the big rock again, sat down, and lit a cigarette with her lighter. She clamped the cigarette between her teeth and squinted against the smoke. She looked over her shoulder once. Then she lit the edge of the page on fire. She tossed the burning paper toward the water below. A breeze caught it and it floated, yellow and bright, like a butterfly with wings of fire, gliding across the darkness. It crashed into the water and faded into the dark.
When she finished the cigarette, she felt calm again. Some great imbalance in the universe had been offset, if only by the weight of a sheet of paper. She went upstairs and slept deeply and hungrily, until she woke up two hours later, gasping for air and soaked in sweat and urine.
Chapter 26
Almost immediately, the guests separated into night owls and morning people. By seven-thirty, Ray had the coffee maker puffing steam into the air and egg sandwiches waiting to be eaten. Ever-present on the table were bowls of blueberries, cherries, pomegranates and the dreaded shaker of kelp flakes.
Ray decided that morning was when the house was most beautiful and spirited. Outside, pink and white hydrangea blossoms framed the edges of the windows. A lush green lawn surrounded the house and met the rocky edge of the island. Beyond the grass was the sea, where egg-yolk-colored sunlight rolled around the surface of the water like gobs of paint.
Morning was also when the ghosts stirred. Their presence was subtle but unmistakable to Ray, especially when he was alone. They were a warm and welcoming bunch. More than once Ray had seen a lace curtain part for him when there was no wind, just in time for him to see a boat full of girls motor by. When he bathed, he heard big band music from deep inside the plumbing, and there was the zingy scent of lemonade in the shower’s mist. When he riffled through a particular lady’s cookbooks, he got a whiff of roses in bloom even though there weren’t any roses blooming in the garden.
The bedroom he was staying in had porch access with a spiral staircase leading to the yard on the side of the house where the dock was. This meant that he could get out of bed, and, in a series of quick steps reminiscent of a firehouse drill, he could be outside, with the sun bright and big in front of him. The dock, which seemed to extend into infinity, beckoned him. On the second morning at the house, the tide was high and the water was deep enough that he could dive in without a problem. At the end of the dock he raised his hands and plunged into the oblivion of silence and cold. There was the brief shock of salt to his eyes, then nothing. Above his head was the light and below was the brown murkiness and an occasiona
l gray fish. He came up for air and got to work on his swimming. He circled the entire island, and when he got tired he did a leisurely floating-and-paddling combination, watching the Victorian from every angle. He pulled himself up on the dock and lay across the wood planks, soaking in the sun.
This was the first vacation of his adult life. Ray was a cook, not a chef, as his boss was quick to remind him. He worked one job to support himself, and held a second job to pay for the extras. He had little leisure time. Taking leave for ten days represented a huge financial sacrifice to Ray. And now that he had gotten away, he didn’t want to return to life as he knew it. But what exactly, he wondered, was wrong with his life anyway? Sure he was over-worked, but he loved cooking. He was overweight and lonely, but none of that changed here. He was still himself, only happy. It could have something to do with the fact that he felt valued for once. Julia had not counted on having so much help from him, and he could tell that she really appreciated him taking over the cooking. She was beginning to hand over more and more tasks; letting him drive, allowing him to pretend that it was his house and that he was the host. He loved the compliments and the easy camaraderie.
Stay with Me Page 17