The Possible World

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  * * *

  IF YOU’D ASKED me the day before, I would have expected to have trouble summoning Hugh’s face. But that was a story I was telling myself, because of course I knew him instantly when I saw him.

  “It is you,” he said, standing up. “I didn’t really believe it.” He was smoking a cigar; he dropped it to the earth and ground his heel onto it. “That farmer down there is an idiot. He said your name was Clare.”

  “How did you find me?” I stood on the path, a wary fifteen feet between us. Twenty-five years had wrought the expected changes to his face and body—less hair, more girth—but there was something else very different about him; I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “It wasn’t easy,” he said. “What is this place?”

  “This is where I live.”

  “You raised our son here? In this—hut? Where is he?”

  “No. Bradley died, Hugh. In the hurricane.”

  He sat down on the step again as though someone had pushed him. I hadn’t meant to be cruel, speaking so bluntly.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that way,” I said. “The papers published our names among the dead. Whatever made you think otherwise?”

  He spoke into his hands, which were cradling his face.

  “One of my workers brought cake with his lunch.”

  “Pardon me?”

  He lifted his head. “I work at the electrical plant now. One of the men brought in a cake. With the”—he moved his hand—“on top.”

  My mother’s cakes, the ones Mrs. Massey sold out of her shop. One of her sons worked at the electrical plant in Providence. Hugh had recognized the cherry heart on the top, my mother’s signature. What a twisted chain had led him here.

  “I knew your mother was dead. I went to her funeral.” He gave a little laugh. “It was your funeral too.” So we’d been laid to rest together; I found that oddly comforting. “Still, that cake. I knew it had to be yours. I thought I was crazy to think it.” He looked around again. “Have you been here all along then?”

  “Yes.”

  “All this time. In this little place.”

  “Yes.” I watched as he took in the message telegraphed by the stone house and the lines on my face, the calluses on my hands: I’d chosen to live without earthly comforts, rather than return to him.

  “Who is he?” I’d forgotten the dramatic transformation that anger could bring to his features.

  “There isn’t any man, Hugh. I live here alone.”

  “Nonsense. You wouldn’t be able to fend for yourself out here for one day.” He leapt up from the steps, covering the space between us in a few strides, and took my arm. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve made a bigamist of me.” His fingers dug in above the elbow. “I have children.”

  I cringed just for a moment before I realized: the hand on my arm wasn’t getting purchase. My muscle there was firm. And then I understood what the change was. It wasn’t a difference in Hugh; it was a difference in me. I shook easily out of his grasp.

  “You need to go home, Hugh.”

  He looked at his empty hand as if he’d seen a magic trick, a woman sawn in half.

  “Our marriage was a lifetime ago,” I told him. “It barely happened. We might have found a way to make it real, and we might even have found a way to be happy, if—” I stopped. “But that’s not the way it went.” I looked him in those bright blue eyes, feeling only sorrow.

  “Is everything all right?”

  It was James, coming up the path. His voice was casual and his expression pleasant, but something about his bearing spoke to Hugh, man to man.

  “This isn’t any of your business,” Hugh said to James.

  “No one has to know about me,” I told Hugh. “I can stay dead, and you can go on with your life. We don’t have to be enemies. We shared a tiny, sad bit of our lives. Just leave it in the past. Leave me here.”

  His eyes moved as I talked, to the house behind me, the tidy garden, the tall woodpile. They all spoke for me: I’m not the girl you knew. Maybe they even said the rest: I never was.

  “How did he die?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. The truth. I didn’t know what had happened to Bradley, just as I didn’t know what had happened to Leo. I had told myself a story of wind carrying the baby through the air, and that may have happened, but my clear memories stopped after the pram blew away, and I was never sure whether or not I’d dreamed the rest.

  “Just go,” I told Hugh. “I’ll never bother you, I won’t shame your wife or children. You can just pretend you never saw me today. Go back to your life, and leave me to mine.”

  “I was well rid of you.” His voice was bitter. “This is what you deserve.”

  In silence, James and I watched him walk back to his car and get in, navigate the turnaround on the narrow road and drive away down the hill.

  “I didn’t know about the child,” James said finally. “I’m sorry.”

  I nodded, watching the cloud of dust left by Hugh’s car twinkling as it settled back onto the road.

  “I don’t want to marry again,” I said. “I don’t want to be a wife.” I turned to James. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have a life together.”

  He didn’t follow at first.

  “We can make the rules,” I said.

  I took his hand in mine, my rough fingers between his rough fingers.

  He looked shocked. Then he smiled. Then he laughed and said, “Why not?”

  We had thirty-three years of why not after that, thirty-three years of working our side-by-each lands and going to one or the other place to sleep. Not every night together, but most. We put in a long line of fruit trees along the border of the two properties, sour cherry North Stars and sweet Pippin apples and a hardy variety of peach. In spring they littered the landscape with fallen blossoms deep as snow, making a white avenue between his house and mine. It was a good thirty-three years, the best of my life, before cancer took him and I was alone at Roscommon again.

  * * *

  SEE, GLORIA, YOU were right. It is a love story after all.

  * * *

  I FIND THE button and click the recorder off, sit for a few minutes watching the people go by. This place was never mine, just as Leo wasn’t mine. We have things for a while, and then they’re gone, and we’re lucky to have had them at all. How Gloria would smirk at that, how she would carry on in that terrible faux-southern accent she would sometimes perpetrate. Miss Clare, I do declare you are full of wisdom today.

  And then there’s a catch in my chest, and all the shadow girls in the back of my mind hesitate. All of them—naughty chou-fleur up past bedtime, arms folded on the windowsill looking over the city; the arrogant girl watching the ink bloom from the nib like a rotten flower; the skinny drudge in the weaving room; darling mouse; the sad, silent wife watching her mother’s hand hovering over the tea; the overalled Witch of Roscommon with hoe between callused palms; the awkward figure in the Second Best Dress lifting her hand to the priory door knocker; the woman walking up the stairs inside the white farmhouse, sliding the pins from her hair—all of them stand still. They stop their motion-loops, they cease what they are doing, they drop their hands to their sides and they turn toward me, in a long chain like accordioned paper-doll figures, cocking their heads as if listening.

  Another twinge in my chest. I automatically look upward, but there’s not a cloud in the sky. My eyes fall again to the crowd hurrying along the sidewalks. A woman among them, coming toward me. Thirties maybe, wearing scrubs and those clogs that all the Oak Haven doctors and nurses wear. She sees me too, and her face looks concerned. Maybe an off-duty nurse, worried about the old lady sitting alone on the bench.

  I don’t see the boy until he runs toward me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  * * *

  I’M SORRY I DIDN’T COME back,” says the boy. “I wanted to. I tried.”

  “That’s all you could do,” says the old lady, looking down into his face. “I did
hate not knowing.”

  “Were you happy anyway?” he asks.

  “Yes. Always a little bit sad, though.” She sighs, a long wind of unspoken history breathing out between them. “It was very hard sometimes, wondering how it was for you. Did you suffer?”

  “Yes. But not for very long.” He climbs right onto the bench with the old woman and puts his arms around her. “I never thanked you.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I’m sorry,” says the woman in scrubs. “Ben, get down, what are you doing? Ma’am, are you all right?”

  “I never forgot you. You should know that,” says the old lady.

  “I know,” says the boy.

  “It happened, and it mattered. We know it happened. Even though there’s nothing left.” She gestures around at the outdoor mall, then puts a hand to her chest. “Oh.”

  The woman in scrubs dials her cell phone and speaks quickly: Elderly female at the outdoor mall on Route 44. Just across from the Starbucks.

  “I’m here now,” says the boy. “I’m here.”

  “Oh. What’s happening?” says the old lady. There’s a tearing sensation, not totally unpleasant. It feels something like an internal itch is being scratched. Finally.

  The woman holding the phone to her ear fumbles at the old lady’s wrist, presses two fingers against her neck, then turns away to speak more quietly into the phone. “No sirens,” she says. “She’s got a No Code bracelet.”

  It’s a tiny knot of humanity on that bench, the morning crowds drifting past, no one taking notice. If they did look, it would appear to be just a family outing, three generations. A boy hugging his grandma, his mother on the phone, on the first day of April, almost spring.

  * * *

  AT FIRST IT seems that he’s sleeping. Lucy hates to disturb him, but he can’t keep embracing the dead stranger. She puts her hand on his back, and he opens his brown eyes and blinks.

  “Where’s my mom?” asks Ben, and he starts to cry.

  “It’s okay,” says Lucy. She crouches in front of him. “You’re okay.”

  He turns from the old lady on the bench and draws into himself, his legs bent up.

  “My mom died. The star man hurt her and she died,” he says.

  The star man. She immediately sees it: the star tattoo beside the murderer’s eye. So he remembers. Lucy lifts her phone again and scrolls down her contacts to find the number for the detective who’d been in charge of Karen’s case.

  “She’s not coming back,” Ben says. Lucy looks up.

  “No,” she says. “She’s not. I’m so sorry.”

  He’s crying so hard now that the snot is running onto his lips. He gives a lurching hiccup.

  The man has got to be in the hospital still, recovering from his injuries. He isn’t going anywhere. The call can wait. She drops the phone into her shirt pocket; her arms aren’t even fully raised before Ben falls into them. She gathers him against her, pulling his damp wailing head against her shoulder.

  “I know,” says Lucy. “I know.”

  He’s saying something, almost unintelligible through the sobbing. It sounds like How much?

  “How much what?” says Lucy. What is he asking?

  “How much?” he cries into her chest. “How much?”

  “So much,” she says, helpless, guessing. She feels a change in him at that; he’s still shuddering with sobs, but attentive.

  “More than what?” he says. Mandating, hopeful, like someone asking for a password.

  “More than . . .” she says, her palm against the wet curve of his head, the curling tips of his hair licking back around her hand. He smells of mud. He needs a haircut. “More than anything.”

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  THE AIRPLANE IS LIKE A tube, rows of seats all facing forward, windows set deep into the curved walls. After the roar and whine of takeoff, everything settles down into a mild vibration. No engine smell, just a stale chilly dryness with all the flavor taken out. It is only when I look out the window that I can tell we are in the air. I know I’ve been on a plane before, but I can’t remember exactly when.

  “Where are the birds?” I ask.

  “We’re too high for birds,” says Lucy, brushing at the front of my shirt. “Do you want my pretzels?”

  Too high for birds; that seems impossible. The ground, where it peeks through the fluffy white below, is incredibly far away. Pressing my face against the thick plastic over the window, looking straight down, I can see the shadow of the airplane slipping across fields before the cloud bank intervenes again.

  “If it rains,” I say, leaning back from the window, “will we be above the water?”

  She nods.

  I put my fingertip into my mouth, and then into the empty pretzel bag. Capture a dozen tiny cubes of salt, let them melt on my tongue.

  “Who will be there?” I ask.

  She has told me this already, but she tells me again. All the things that will happen. I put my head against her arm as she talks. Out the window just blue, no clouds.

  “Your new grandma and grandpa will be there,” she says. “They’re so excited to see you. You know, your grandma wasn’t my first mom. She started being my mom when I was a little bit younger than you.”

  I know now more clearly how things sort out. Here, I had Mom, and now Lucy; before, there was Mama and then Clare.

  “The house has a porch with a swing, and a big backyard. We can put in a jungle gym.”

  “We can plant things,” I murmur. “Roses.”

  “We’ll plant roses,” she agrees. “Your bedroom can have constellations on the ceiling. Would you like that?” I nod. “At bedtime you’ll put on your pajamas, the green ones or the Superman, and you’ll brush your teeth.” I can hear her voice both through the air and also a deeper, lower echo through the ear that’s pressed against her arm. “I’ll read you a story. Or you’ll read to me. And we’ll talk about your mom. You’ll always remember her.” She bends toward me, puts her mouth against the hair on the top of my head. She stays there when the kiss is done, her lips against my skull. “You’ll have good dreams,” she says, and her words spread out against my scalp, raising gooseflesh.

  Before, there were so many gaps; now they are filled, right to the smallest warm corners. Nothing important is missing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  Thank you first to my agent, the tiny and inimitable Laura Gross, for your long forbearance, unwavering trust, and matchless zeal. I am very grateful to my editors, Nan Graham and Kara Watson at Scribner in New York, for taking on my rough work and wisely, patiently guiding me to make it better, and to Susan Sandon at Penguin Random House UK, a kindred spirit if ever there was one; you can’t know how much your enthusiasm has meant to me.

  Heartfelt thanks to Emily Greenwald, Katie Rizzo, Michelle Marchese, Jaya Miceli, Rosie Mahorter, and the rest of the team at Scribner; and to Emily Griffin, Laura Brooke, Celeste Ward-Best, Amber Bennett-Ford, Cara Conquest, and the rest of the team at Penguin Random House UK.

  Great appreciation goes to Will Morningstar for cluing me in to some awkward bits, to Kristina Trejo for helping me fix them, and to Kate Miciak for early encouragement.

  I am fortunate to have brilliant friends: Spike Lampros, Danielle Teller, and Emily Scott, who each blessed a struggling draft with dazzling insight; Carol Dysinger and Diana Spechler, who encountered portions of the protobook and were firm but gentle with my nonsense; Pamela Friedman, Annalee Harkins, Elizabeth Branch, and Mary Huey, my cheering section; Bobby Rogers, who walks the walk better than anyone; Ilse Jenouri, to whom I am bonded as if by war; the marvelous Alyson Denny, who sees things others don’t; the delightful Eric Friedland; and Natalie Wolcott Williams, who, with wit and poise and cheer, embodies what we all might hope to be in our next lives if we are very, very good in this one.

  It’s impossible to thank Marghi Barone Fauss enough—your spectacular generosity is not even the tenth most remarkable thing about you
. To Jillian, Jocelyn, Jonathon, and Aidan, thank you for making Aunt seem such an illustrious title. Thanks also to Tim Buckley, who really puts the brother in brother-in-law.

  I am deeply and permanently indebted to Richard Bausch, who lifted his lamp high for me and who shows us all every day how it’s done; to Catherine O’Neill Grace for taking me seriously from the very start, and to Phyllis Sidorsky, dear “Mrs. Sid,” who curated the books of my childhood.

  My very special thanks to Carla Buckley, sister and author, who’s been there for this book’s whole damned ride; you were there before the ride, urging me onto the horse. Hell, you were making horsey sounds at me when there was no horse in sight. It’s been fun to share this with you. Let’s never stop.

  And thanks to you, whoever you are, for having read this book. Perhaps you’ve gotten to this part because you’re the kind of reader who reads past the finish line; that would make you, as my mother would say, a person after my own heart.

  A Scribner Reading Group Guide

  The Possible World

  Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  This reading group guide for The Possible World includes discussion questions and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. The Possible World traces the converging lives of Lucy, Ben, and Clare. Though they are from different walks of life and belong to different generations, what do they have in common? Of the three, whom did you relate to the most?

  2. The friendship between Clare and Gloria, Oak Haven’s newest resident, takes some time to blossom. According to Gloria, what she and Clare have in common is a love of reading and possession of most of their marbles. But what other qualities or motives draw the two women together?