Speaking of Ashland, I met a friend of yours there. His name's Leo. Nice fella. Say hello to him for me.
And say hello to Tommy and Ronny and Anne and everyone else. And say "hello" to Father. I find myself thinking a lot about him. I think maybe I've been too hard on him. I guess he's had things happen to him I'm just beginning to understand.
I'll try to keep in touch better, but you know how a fellow slips up.
Lots of Love,
Jack
My father handed me two faded postal money orders, for twenty American dollars each.
I looked at them. One was made out to my mother. The other was made out to Teresa Matusik.
Beauty and mystery, I thought, sensing pinpoints of light in the darkness. The twin stars in all our night skies.
3
I stayed with my father that night. I slept in my old room, which neither he nor my mother had bothered to change much in twenty-odd years. The bookcase I had built was still there. The bunk beds in which my brother and I had slept had been disassembled, though, and one of them had undoubtedly drifted into the hands of someone in the family, along with the Hudson's Bay red-and-black trapper blanket that was an integral part of each unit. But the other one was still there, complete with its heavy woolen cover.
I lay beneath it, feeling its weight, its security, placed my hands behind my head and stared up into the darkness of a time gone by, waiting for the morning, waiting for whatever would happen next.
Squeezed out of the earth, I thought. The mud, the water, the tunnels. Jack was still out there. Somewhere. Moving across America.
It was true. I believed it.
The truth was beside me, on the night table: the money orders. The letter.
It was also inside me, moving in my own subterranean tunnels, flowing in the rivers, flooding me.
My father was good enough not to phone me at work until near the end of the day. Otherwise I'd never have been able to get anything done. But at four o'clock, the call came.
"Another one, Leo."
I didn't ask anything. "I'll be by on my way home."
It was from Toledo—the same address as before: 117—17th Street. It was dated April 30, 1935.
Dear Margaret:
This one's just a short note to keep in touch. I went out with a friend for a drink today because it was my birthday. You were the only one who ever remembered. Even Father used to forget. I'm 24 today, Marg. So how come I feel like I'm about 50 years older? I guess too many things have happened, and I seem to have lost so much.
The friend I went out with was Mac. Remember I told you about him, and his new baby? Well, things are pretty tough for them now, as he is now out of work. I feel real sorry for them. Some days I just don't know what any of us are "gonna" do.
Today's Tuesday. I went to Mass on Sunday. Been missing it too much. Next thing you know, I'll have to go to confession. Don't know where I'll start my list of "sins." The priest better cancel whatever he has planned for the rest of the day, that's for sure.
I'm keeping busy. Not much work here though.
I miss everybody.
I think I'll be here awhile. Maybe you could send me Father's address. I think I might write him, when I get a chance.
Lots of Love,
Jack
It took a week for the next one to arrive. It was, as I was beginning to suspect it might be, from the Vermont Hotel, on West Columbia, in Detroit.
Jack was coming north. He was coming home.
It was dated August 21, 1935.
Dear Margaret:
Happy Birthday! I realize this won't get to you till after your birthday, but better late than never, rights Sorry to have been out of touch for so long Gee, I always seem to be apologizing for not comin' up to snuff. I guess I'll never change.
I remember telling you how much I loved being here the last time I wrote, and how it would break my heart to have to go back to Toronto. How times change, eh? Even Hartican's gone out of business. Everybody seems to be in trouble, so I guess you could say I'm in good company.
I miss Toronto more and more. Don't be surprised if I show up on your doorstep sometime real soon, hat in hand. You wouldn't turn me away, would ya?
I feel real strange, Marg. I feel like I'm looking back on things, instead of seeing them straight on. I don't know how to describe it. I miss Ashland, too, you know. But I don't see how I can ever go back. By the way, I hope you sent that money order to Teresa, like I asked, maybe from Port Dover this summer. I miss her, too. But it wasn't "gonna" work. Sometimes I feel real bad about it all and how it ended. But that's another story.
I got something surprising to tell you. I got a letter from Father. I don't know how he found me, but he did. Said he'd like me to come home. He's a man of few words, and the letter must have been quite a strain to write. I was quite touched by it, and wrote him back. There are some bridges to mend there, but I'm "gonna" try. I know it's what you've always wanted for him and me, so I wanted to tell you. Think of it as my birthday present to you.
I still like to visit the Shrine here at Royal Oak. When I get to Toronto, I'll bring you a rose from the garden there.
Take care, Marg. And say "hello" to everybody.
Hope I see you soon.
Lots of Love
Your brother,
Jack
I placed the letter on the kitchen table. My father was sitting at the other end.
"Things have to be settled," he said.
I looked at him. I felt shaky. I had to sit down. "Or they never go away," I finished, my voice a whisper.
Then I closed my eyes and saw my mother's hand open on the hospital bed, saw her fingers unfold, saw the fresh red rose from the shrine at Royal Oak fall out, and heard her voice, an echo, thinly, again, always. Jack was here. And my father.
Jack, I thought. Jack.
The river of images flowed through my brain.
I still did not open my eyes. I tried to think, tried to let what I was feeling crystallize into something hard and clear. Instead I saw ghosts, time warps, delusions, madness. Jack was as much here and now as he was there and then. As he had always been. As he would be tomorrow.
He had come home, however briefly, as he had said. As my mother had said.
I put my hand to my forehead. Finally, squeezing my eyes tighter, I saw, with perfect clarity, Jack and his father at Margaret's bedside, holding her hands, touching her face, smiling, seeing past the body that was dying, staring into the enduring heart of what she had once been and dreamed of being—of what we have all once been and dreamed of being, at that moment, that single moment, when our rose is in its full, vibrant bloom.
EIGHTEEN
Memory is a transcendental function. Its objects may be physical bodies, faces . . . but these are shot with luminosity ... So though we can't perceive 'soul' or 'spirit' firsthand it seems to me that this is precisely the phenomenon we summon back by way of an exercise of memory. And why the exercise of memory at certain times in our lives is almost too powerful to be borne.
—Joyce carol Oates
Facts, Visions, Mysteries: My Father, Frederic Oates
1
Canadian Thanksgiving, I explained to Jeanne over the phone, was celebrated earlier than the American one. In 1984, it fell on Monday, October 8.
There was no direct air passage from Toronto to Ashland. I booked a flight after work on USAir from Toronto to Huntington, West Virginia, Friday, October 5.
When I landed, I made two phone calls. One was to the Scott Hotel, the other was to Jeanne. I asked her if we could keep Saturday clear for the whole day, for something special. What? she asked. Adam is included, I said. We'll take a little trip.
The phone line crackled with anticipation at both ends.
Then I drove my rented car the fifteen miles or so along the Ohio to Ashland.
It was still light when I pulled up in front of the Scott Hotel.
Emma sat beside me on the wine-colored sofa with the needlepo
int pillows at each end.
"I've got some things I think you should have." I handed her Jack's letters, all of them. Detroit, Toledo, Bucyrus. Ashland. And back again.
She held them in her hands, stared at them, set them down in her lap.
"One of them's got something in it for your mother." I pictured the money order. "But I think you should have it."
Her eyes became the eyes that I had seen in Jack's face when he had admitted to me the truth about his letters to his sister that day on the porch swing.
"I think we should leave Teresa and Stanley alone. Not stir up the ghost between them."
She looked at the letters in her lap, looked at me. "Thank you."
It seemed best. It seemed like what Jack would have wanted if he'd known he had a daughter.
"I have to go," I said.
Her hands tightened on the letters. "Will I see you again?"
"I think so. I've got friends here."
She smiled weakly.
"Family, too." I touched her arm. "The place gets into your blood."
And it was true. Family, I thought, looking at her clutching the letters. Woven together with threads of steel. Sometimes the threads bend and twist, and you have to hammer them back into shape. But they don't tear. They don't break.
Jack was in Toronto, with his father, somehow, somewhere. I had seen the rose, fresh and alive, in my mother's hand.
I stood on the sidewalk outside the Scott and gazed at the "luxury accommodations in the heart of the city" on the north side of Winchester. The Ashland Plaza Hotel had opened. Glancing back at the Scott, it was clear that its days were numbered.
I didn't know if there would be any more letters, from Ashland or anywhere else. I had no way of knowing what the future would bring.
It didn't matter.
I had no way of knowing what the past would bring either.
I felt good. Adventure wasn't in the past or the future. It was right here. Living my life. Now.
Jeanne and Adam were waiting for me on the veranda when I pulled up in front of the house. I shook hands with Adam, then put my arms around Jeanne and held her. She was wearing the perfume, the subtle Southern scent from the evening of the Chimney Corner Tea Room, and nothing that I could remember had ever smelled so good.
"Got a trip planned for tomorrow," I said. I took a swig of warm beer from the long-necked bottle of Bud and digested the look on Adam's face. We were back outside, sitting on the steps beneath a warm October sky.
"Where?" he asked.
"Got to get up early. Take us half the day to get there. We'll stay over in a motel tomorrow night, come home Sunday. My flight doesn't leave till Monday."
"Cincinnati? Baseball?"
"Nope. Not this time."
It was Jeanne's turn to become curious. She had thought she had guessed it, too. She balanced her beer bottle with a hand on her knee. "Where?" she asked.
"We'll have a picnic while we're there. We'll make sandwiches tonight."
Adam drank his Coke, eyes jumping from one to the other of us.
"I've been studying maps, brochures," I said. "Kentucky travel guides. Places to go, see. You know."
They waited. Jeanne smiled, watching Adam, her happiness evident.
"Ever been in a cave?" I asked Adam.
There was genuine surprise on his face. The expression on Jeanne's face wasn't far behind.
"No," he said.
I looked at Jeanne.
"Can't say that I have," she said with some wry amusement. Her eyes held mine warmly.
"Guess you could say they've become a bit of an interest of mine. Kentucky's shot through with some of the best anywhere. Got more than any other state. Over three thousand of them. Crystal Onyx Cave. Diamond Caverns. Just across the state line, West Virginia's got Lost World Caverns. You even got Carter Caves about thirty miles west of here."
"Is that where we're going?" Adam was smiling now, catching on.
"Nope," I said. "It's a surprise. Farther." I moved my hands apart the way someone does when describing a fish just caught. "Bigger."
"Man flies down from Canada, takes us on a mystery tour," said Jeanne.
"Wear walking shoes. Bring a coat." I looked at Jeanne, at Adam, smiled back at both of them, glad I was here.
2
We left at dawn and took 64 to Lexington, stopped and ate breakfast at a Bob Evans Restaurant in the city, then got onto the Blue Grass Parkway to Elizabethtown. From there we went south on 65.
"Where are we going?" asked Jeanne, finally. "Are you going to tell us?"
"Trust me," I said.
Adam giggled in the backseat.
Shortly before noon, we reached Mammoth Cave National Park, the longest cave systems ever discovered on earth.
"I've been reading about it," I told them as we pulled into the vast parking area. Buses from around the country were massed at various locations amid the sea of cars. "There's two hundred ninety-four miles, charted on five levels."
"Is it free?" asked Adam.
"Reasonable rates," I said. "I bought the tickets through a Ticketron outlet before I left Toronto."
"You're kiddin', " said Jeanne. Then she thought about it. "Like a Broadway play."
"Bigger than a Broadway play."
I stopped the car. "You got that lunch, partner?"
Adam banged his fist on the cooler on the seat beside him. Then he looked out at the picnic areas.
"I'm hungry."
"Me, too," he said.
I looked at Jeanne. She laughed.
"All cave tours are walking trips. There's seven to choose from. From half a mile to five miles, from one and a half hours to a half day."
"Jesus." Jeanne swallowed the bite of her ham-on-rye before continuing. "You're not going to make us walk five miles, are you?"
"No." I chuckled. "Sounds a bit much even for someone as incredibly fit as I am."
Adam giggled.
"Medium tour. Don't want the kid to strain himself."
He poked me in the ribs, still giggling.
Cave temperature was always fifty-four degrees, we were told. Most in the group of more than a hundred put on coats. Then we strolled through the entranceway, disappeared beneath the earth.
We went through huge rooms, winding passageways, saw towering formations, delicate onyx flowers, waterfalls, streams, pools. We went down ramps, up stairways, entered soaring caverns, inspected milky stalactites, stalagmites, flow- stone, limestone pendants, sparkling geological snowdrifts, rainbow coral.
Ever downward.
At the bottom, we entered the Mammoth Cave, the biggest, the best known.
It took my breath away.
Peering upward, I could not see its roof.
Darkness in every direction, in spite of the lighting system.
It was an opening in the earth that staggered the imagination, a space left behind millions of years ago by some dark, vanished sea, dwarfing us all.
I felt humbled, lost. I tried to imagine the first ancient discoverers of the cave, the fear, the awe.
The voice of the tour guide brought me back. "I'm going to turn the lights off," she said, "for just one minute. Don't move and don't speak. We want you to experience absolute darkness, just to see what it's like. You won't be able to see your hand in front of your face."
There was some nervous laughter.
"Ready?"
Jeanne stood on my left, Adam on my right. I placed my hand on her shoulder, left my right hand dangling.
The lights went out, and we stood there in total darkness. The seconds stretched out. Time stopped.
I could hear my heart hammering loudly in my blood. I thought of my mother. I thought of Jack, sitting in hotel rooms across America, softening his perception of his father. I thought of my grandmother, of her last years, of my brothers and sisters, of my own father, his hair impossibly white, sitting at the green arborite kitchen table with his hand in his belt, of the ancient money order made out to my mother, t
hat I would carry in my wallet from now on. I thought of Ashland, where dreams die and are born again.
In the darkness.
There were decisions to make. I had my life to live.
Toronto. Ashland. Toronto. Ashland.
Jeanne. Jeanne.
Adam. Adam. Aidan.
Then, in the lightless space of that vanished sea below the earth, in the darkness, faced with the same terror and beauty, hope and loss, as those first ancient explorers, I felt small fingers slide into my right hand, seeking comfort from the void, and for a moment, just a moment, I thought it was my stillborn son.
My life to live.
The lights came on, my hand tightened on his, and he smiled up at me, eyes dancing with wonder.
Through new tunnels of dark beauty, the light filtering through prisms of mist, wary of precipices and footing, we began the ascent up out of the earth and rock, to new places that we could only know by arriving in them, feeling the warm wind trickling down from the surface ahead of us, just ahead of us.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publishers have generously given permission to quote from the following works. From The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence. Copyright© 1974 by Margaret Laurence. Reprinted by permission of New End Inc. From The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Copyright 1939 and renewed © 1967 by John Steinbeck. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. From The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons and renewed 1953 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster. From Letters to Milena, by Franz Kafka. English translation copyright © 1990 by Schocken Books Inc. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House Inc. From Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Copyright 1932 by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall; renewed © 1960 by Laura G. Nordhoff, Margarit Nordhoff Chadwick, Sarah Nordhoff McGregor, Charles Nordhoff Jr., James Nordhoff Bunkley, Sarah M. Hall, Nancy Hall Rutgers, and Conrad Hall. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company.
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