by Karen Day
The films, selected out of more than a hundred submitted, were experimental and designed to give an audience to “up-and-coming filmmakers under the age of thirty-five.” The program was made possible by grants from several established documentary filmmakers, including Academy Award nominee Patricia Graceson.
Patricia Graceson. Of course. I looked up at my dad.
“Isn’t that something?” he asked.
“How did she make a documentary in only four years?” I asked.
“It only took your mother four years to write Listen,” he said.
“I know, but she was much older,” I said. “We’re only twenty-nine.”
“Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised. She was ambitious and although I’d never seen her work, I always had a good feeling about her.”
I felt a sudden crush of emotions—jealousy and envy and confusion and despair. Awe, too. How had she come back from Thailand, supported herself, gotten married, and made a documentary that was good enough to be selected? Maybe it wasn’t good. Maybe Patricia had to include it because she felt indebted to Lee, who dropped her entire life to go to Thailand with her. But that didn’t seem right. Other filmmakers were involved in the selection process. You had to have talent and discipline to get something like this done. You had to know what you wanted.
I turned the letter over in my hand. Maybe she wrote to tell me about her film. Maybe she wanted me to see it.
“I tell you what,” he said, adjusting his glasses on his nose. “Instead of going to the Public Gardens tomorrow, as we planned, let’s go see the film.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
And what could I say? He needed to get out of the house and I was curious and there was no way Ben would be able to go with me. And so I nodded and made plans to pick him up the next morning at ten.
CHAPTER 22
The theater, tucked into a corner in the museum, was practically empty. An older couple sat in the second row and a young guy, maybe just out of college, a few seats away. When the door opened behind us, I turned and felt my heartbeat leap. But it was only an older man who nodded to us as he walked toward the front. I settled back into my seat. I hadn’t realized until then that I was waiting for Lee. I didn’t know if I was happy or sad that she wasn’t here.
Last night I’d opened her letter when I got home.
Hi Clare,
Hope you and Ben are well. Things here are good. I got married last year, I’m not sure if you know that or not. Wallace and I met when I got back from Thailand. He’s a wonderful guy and I’m very happy.
It’s been so long since we last spoke. I feel terrible about how out of touch we are. And so I’m writing for two reasons. First, I want to tell you that I’ve learned things over the last year that have given me some peace about all that happened, and I thought it might be helpful to you to hear about it. Second, I have a favor to ask. I need your help with something. Do you think we might be able to get together to talk? I’m not interested in blaming or yelling or anything like that. I just want to talk. I can drive up to see you or maybe we could meet halfway?
I’m sorry, again, about your mom. I hope you’re okay. Did you get the card I sent after she died?
It’s been so long and I miss the good things about us. Please write back or call. This is really important for both of us.
Lee
For God’s sake, what favor did she want to ask? What could I possibly do to help her? Surely she hadn’t forgotten what I’d done. Just thinking about this again—which I tried so hard not to do anymore—caused sharp, hot stings to break out across the back of my neck. And what peace had she found?
“This is quite something.” My dad leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Not many people get to make movies and have them actually shown in a real theater.”
“I know.”
“Your mother and I liked her quite a bit,” he said.
“I know.”
My parents met Lee when she visited the Vineyard for a weekend after freshman year. My mother hadn’t wanted overnight guests. She was revising her new book and kept a strict schedule. But I’d talked so much about Lee that she and my dad were intrigued, especially when I said that there might not be another opportunity for her to visit (her aunt had a conference in Boston and Lee was driving out with her). And so it was agreed.
I met Lee in Boston and we took the ferry to the Vineyard. By the time we got to our house, my parents were asleep. The next morning, I woke late and the twin bed next to me was empty. I checked the house but couldn’t find Lee. I looked out the window and saw my mother at the picnic table, her typewriter in front of her. When Lee came around the corner of the house and stood next to her, I hurried out.
“Lee was telling me about her farm.” My mother kept her eyes on Lee as she spoke. Her opinions, her mood, her well-being, her reason for living, the affection she had for others—even Betsy, the woman in Oak Bluffs who cut her hair—depended on one thing. How she felt about her writing. And it had been a rough summer.
“Did you get some coffee, Lee?” I nodded toward the kitchen.
Lee, dressed in her Army fatigue cutoffs and white T-shirt, with a red bandana tied pirate style around her head, said, “Not yet.”
My mother frowned as she looked Lee up and down, and I felt the obvious snub rip through me. I imagined what happened. Lee interrupted her and now my mother would make her pay, make me pay, for this infraction. How unfair.
“We’re going to the beach.” I spit the words.
“I’ll change,” Lee said. My mother glanced at Lee’s shorts as she passed by the table on her way into the house.
“I told you, she doesn’t have much money,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Ah, yes, of course.” She nodded slightly.
“Don’t be so judgmental! God!” I stomped into the house.
After I changed and we packed a lunch, we walked by my mother on our way to the car. It was sunny and hot and the crushed stones on the driveway crunched beneath our flip-flops. I was still angry but Lee hadn’t seemed to let my mother’s condescension bother her. Nor did she seem intimidated. She’d talked nonstop as we made sandwiches. You have so many flowers in your garden. It’s so beautiful here! I’ve never seen anywhere like this. Why don’t people paint their houses? Where did all of the stone walls come from? How many people live here year-round?
As we put our cooler and towels into the trunk, my mother called to us. “The Donahues are coming for dinner tonight. Will you be joining us?”
No way. But Lee slowly smiled and nodded at me. I’d told her about the crazy novels that Mr. Donahue wrote, and that his wife was a painter, and of course she remembered. Of course she was intrigued.
“I thought we’d get lobsters.” Was my mother offering an apology? Because certainly she remembered that lobsters were my favorite.
“I’ve never had lobster,” Lee said.
“You’re joking,” she said. Lee shook her head. “They’ll be here at seven.”
“We’ll be back by then, right?” Lee looked at me and then at my mother. “Maybe I could help with the lobsters. You know, see how you make them.”
Not since I was little had anyone been excited to make lobsters with my mother. She kept her head tilted as she stared at Lee and then she nodded. Was she thawing? As we drove away, I wanted to stay angry. But as I watched her slump over her typewriter, her elbows on the table and her head in her hands, I felt that familiar pull toward her. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to write today. She could work in the garden or go into town. No one would take away her legacy. No one would be angry if she took another two years to finish her new novel.
We were back from the beach by five, and when we walked into the kitchen my mother, standing at the counter, turned and smiled. She’d had a good writing day, I could tell, and that meant we might have a nice evening.
I was right. The lobsters were great—Lee ha
d watched dutifully as my mother explained how to cook them—and we talked at the table for hours. My dad kept opening bottles of wine and my mother kept insisting that the Donahues stay. Lee didn’t want to leave, either. She loved the lobster. She loved the salad. She said that she hadn’t ever had that kind of wine but she loved that, too. We all felt her excitement, even my mother although she wasn’t quite won over yet.
“But don’t cornfields have their own sense of beauty?” my mother asked. We’d been talking about the stone walls along Middle Road, and Lee said it was the most beautiful stretch of road she’d ever seen. In my entire life.
Lee put her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Maybe when you grow up with something, when you’re around it every day, you don’t see it anymore.”
“Maybe you never really see it to begin with,” Mr. Donahue said. He was a lawyer who wrote crime novels on the side and was probably my dad’s closest friend. Mrs. Donahue, a landscape painter, sat across from him. She was nice but never said much, which was part of the reason why I thought my mother liked her.
“How can you not see something right in front of you?” Dad asked.
“It happens to people who aren’t paying attention,” my mother said.
“Maybe it takes something really unusual in your everyday life to get your attention,” Lee said. “I remember one time last year when the sun was going down and I looked across the cornfields and the sky was the most unusual red that I’d ever seen. It was so beautiful that it hurt to look at it. It hurt everywhere. I almost couldn’t breathe. I started to cry. I just sat there and kept crying.”
“Our natural world can do that to a person, can’t it?” Mrs. Donahue asked.
I knew for certain that I’d never felt pain or was unable to breathe when I looked at the sky or the stone walls on Middle Road or really anything in nature. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to feel that way. But then looking at the smile on Lee’s face and the way everyone was nodding, I felt as if I were missing something.
“A beautiful sunset or stone wall should make you feel good, happy. Isn’t there enough pain in our world?” I asked.
“She’s got a point.” My dad grinned. “Practical Clare!”
Everyone laughed except my mother. She stared at Lee as if trying to decide something about her. I sucked in a breath and held it.
“The question is,” my mother said to Lee as everyone turned to her, “what do you do with all that raw emotion you experienced watching the sunset?”
I looked at my mother. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her utter the words “raw” or “emotion” and certainly never in the same sentence.
“You soak it in, the good and bad, and feel it, I guess,” Lee said. “Eventually you use it in your work. Think about what you did in ‘The Confidences.’ Lieutenant McCalister and the others in the trench are great characters. They try to be brave but underneath they’re terrified of death. Right? That’s using raw emotion.”
I expected my mother to recoil at this, but instead, she sat back in her chair and nodded slightly. Maybe this was because most people didn’t talk to her about her short story, published in a literary magazine not long after Listen came out. Most people wanted to talk about her novel and how they had family members who had returned damaged from war. Or they wanted to tell her that they, too, had loved ones who had killed themselves.
I was proud, suddenly, that Lee could talk to these adults about things like raw emotion and documentaries and that we were so close. My high school friends had always been so weird around my mother. Shy. Intimidated. Or overly aggressive as they tried to impress her. Lee was none of these. She was unique and independent, the type of person people looked up to. And out of all the girls in our dorm, and at our school, she’d chosen me for a friend. Me! And this was before she even knew who my mother was. I blurted, grinning, “Lee’s going to be a filmmaker.”
“A filmmaker!” Mr. Donahue said. “Off to Hollywood, I imagine.”
Lee shook her head. “I don’t want to go to California because I don’t want to make those kinds of movies.”
I tried not to smile. If ever there was a way to get on my mother’s good side, it was to be anti-Hollywood although Lee didn’t know this.
My mother was still staring at Lee but she no longer looked as if she wanted to skewer her. She asked, “What kinds of films do you like?”
“All kinds,” she said. “Sometimes my aunt and I spend weekends watching the same movie, over and over. But I want to make documentaries. Because I think it’s interesting to try to get at the real truth behind actual people and events.”
“You don’t think a Hollywood film can get at real truth?” my mother asked.
“Maybe,” Lee said. “But I think those kinds of films try to be entertaining more than anything else.”
My mother licked her bottom lip and nodded slightly and I could tell that she was thinking about this, not dismissing it as she so easily did with information she didn’t believe or care about. I grinned at Lee—wasn’t this terrific?—because I liked that she wasn’t intimidated. I liked that my mother was intrigued.
“So, where are you going to do this filmmaking?” Mr. Donahue asked.
“Well, this is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” Lee sat up, her voice high-pitched and excited. The wine and reflection from the candles had turned her cheeks shiny and red. “I can hardly take my eyes off everything, all these stone walls and the ocean. And the houses are so old. It has such a great feel! But I want to move to New York. I just think that’s the place for me. I have to do this.”
“Your joie de vivre is infectious.” My mother chuckled.
“Amen,” my dad said.
Lee grinned although I didn’t think she had any idea what my mother meant. I raised my glass to her and we both took long drinks from our wine.
After that my mother was looser, laughing at Dad’s description of the old whaling boat and Mr. Donahue’s story about his law partner. I hadn’t seen her like this in a long time and wouldn’t see her like this again for a while. It was Lee, the wine, her writing day. I wasn’t sure what else.
“Eleanor, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Mr. Donahue said. “Did you ever read that article I left for you? The interview with the South American writer?”
My mother began nodding vigorously. “Yes, yes, very interesting.”
Mr. Donahue leaned forward as he glanced around the table. “This article was about a very successful writer although I’d never read anything by her. Anyway, she told the interviewer that her ‘well of creativity’ had dried up. All gone. Vanished. Vamoose! She blamed it on her eight years in psychoanalysis.”
“Can the well really dry up or does it just go into hiding?” Dad asked.
“What happened?” Mrs. Donahue asked. “She conquered her demons?”
“That’s nonsense,” my mother said. “I never found therapy particularly helpful. The drugs they put me on made me an automaton. And what was the point of unearthing the mundane and the miserable? Wasn’t it bad enough experiencing them the first time?”
Everyone laughed. Mr. Donahue kept nodding.
My mother didn’t talk much about her childhood. The only miserable things she’d ever told me about happened to her parents and grandparents, not to her. For example, before she was born, her parents—stoic, no-nonsense New Englanders—had had a three-month-old girl who’d died in her crib, and they never spoke about it. And my mother’s grandfather had killed himself behind his barn in Vermont, of course. To this day, I still didn’t know what she meant by miserable.
I glanced at Lee, who seemed to be sitting on the edge of her seat, listening. And then she said, “Speaking of writing, can you talk about your new book?”
My mother waved her hand and laughed. She was a little drunk. “Let’s just say that I’m in Saigon tackling issues associated with the South Vietnamese in the days before the fall. It’s a bit of a love story but mostly a tragedy. My honorable American corpora
l has suffered greatly in the jungle. And that’s all I care to say.”
“Bravo!” Mrs. Donahue said.
“Your fans will expect a war story, to be sure,” Mr. Donahue said. “It’s an important subject, that troops coming home often suffer emotionally. You were the first to write about this.”
“No,” my mother said. “Crane and Vonnegut, among others, wrote about this.”
“Maugham, too,” Mrs. Donahue said.
“But you really highlight, in a different way, what happens to loved ones,” Dad said. “Because families always suffer, too.”
“Do you think you’ll ever get away from writing about war?” Lee asked.
The candles flickered and outside, I heard the steady groan of the bullfrog from the Hendersons’ pond. No one dared look at my mother except Lee, who had no idea what she’d just asked. Finally, I snuck a look. My mother was frowning, her eyebrows arched in severe half circles above her eyes. I felt a rush of heat to my cheeks and opened my mouth to say something.
“Not until our government stops meddling in places we don’t belong!” My dad pounded the table with his fist and everyone jumped. Mrs. Donahue’s wineglass teetered and would have fallen if Lee hadn’t reached for it. “It’s too important of a subject. Sorry, Lee. We get carried away by politics here.”
My dad smiled at Lee and then everyone laughed, including my mother, who raised her wineglass and said, “To Lee, the budding filmmaker, and her first time in New England. And to Clare, who’s made such an interesting friend.”
Everyone cheered with raised glasses.
Later, after the Donahues had gone and my parents were in bed, Lee and I cleaned up the kitchen. By this time, I was fairly sober although Lee was a little drunk. She must have told me a dozen times how much fun she’d had. “It was so great, you know, sitting at the table and talking about everything. Mr. and Mrs. Donahue were so nice and smart. Everyone is so smart here.”
Finally, I said, “I’m sure your parents do that when their friends are over.”