by Holly LeCraw
No one had sat in Zack and Celia’s old seats.
“Please do not forget. Poets do not just see. They notice. They look. It’s active. And writing poetry without looking is impossible. Decent poetry, anyway. And I would argue decent living is impossible without looking, too.
“Does anyone remember Our Town? From ninth grade?” Indulgent nods. “People, it’s not a simple play. It’s dark. The opposite of sentimental. Go reread it sometime. Anyway. Near the end. Emily says, ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?’ And the Stage Manager says, ‘The saints and the poets, maybe. They do some.’ ”
Dex’s hand was up. I nodded at him and he started flipping through his Four Quartets. “Wait a second. Wait. Okay. Yeah.” He started reading. “ ‘Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind cannot bear very much reality.’ ”
“Exactly,” I said. “Exactly. Today, Dex, you are on.”
“Mr. G.,” Minnie said. Her face deadly serious. “Will you be here when we get back?”
“Yes,” I said. “I will be here when you get back.”
Dex burst out, “They aren’t making you leave, are they? Are they firing you?”
Immediate rumblings from the chorus. Not his fault. He didn’t know. I heard. I heard. And one other undertone, seizing at fairy-tale logic: They’re only half brothers.
I held up a hand. “No one is getting fired,” I said. “One day at a time. Besides, you seem to forget you won’t be here next year. You’ll have flown the coop. You’ll be long gone.” They couldn’t really believe it. For once, neither could I. I had been through this cycle seventeen times, but still my heart twisted, and a grief that was strangely close to euphoria hit me once again. “Go,” I said. “Go. Have a wonderful break. When I see you next, it’ll be spring.”
THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING WAS already silent as a tomb. But Salter was waiting in his office, as promised. “What are you doing over break?” he said.
“Headed back south. I’m cleaning out my mother’s house.”
“Mm.” He made a regretful, clucking sound. “Never easy.”
“No,” I said. “But she wasn’t a collector. Thank God. She traveled light. Materially speaking.”
“Is Nick coming to help you?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He’s in Darfur now. At a refugee camp.”
“Holy cow.”
“Congo didn’t work out,” I said. “Or something.”
“You’ve talked to him?”
“Once.”
Salter was shaking his head. Finally he said, “So much talent, Charlie. A born teacher. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much potential. Gone.”
In the silence, I handed him my own letter.
Salter opened it and read it, unsurprised. He folded it up and put it back in the envelope. “Falling on your sword is very old-fashioned, Charlie.”
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“How about I keep this letter for a while, maybe over the break, and you think about it.”
“Whatever you want,” I said. He ran a hand, reflectively, over the stiff brush of his hair. I thought of him when Nick had disappeared and the truth had come out: his anger had been righteous and palpable, and laced with a sorrow purer than I would have expected from Adam. I’d been moved, and ashamed. “It will make things easier, Adam,” I said. “I’m surprised the Paxtons didn’t demand you throw me out.”
Salter picked up his heavy gold-banded pen, flipped it slowly between his fingers. “They did, Charlie. And we told them no. That you bore no blame. And that you were too valuable to lose.”
There was a long silence. “Well. Thank you.”
“We said you were an institution. A young one, of course.” We permitted ourselves to smile.
“Adam, that means a lot. It does. But.” I cleared my throat. “I should have known. Maybe on one level I did.”
“We talked about this, Charlie. Are you changing your story?”
“No. But I should have—”
“Brothers aren’t supposed to suspect each other.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“If it’s not,” Adam said, “then I don’t want to live in that world.” He shifted a little, awkwardly. “In the good old days, I would have offered you a drink now,” he said. “I suppose they did some things right in the good old days.”
“Some,” I said.
We let the quiet stretch. And then, together, we stood, and buttoned our jackets. “I’ll hang on to this,” he said, patting his breast pocket, where he had stowed my letter. We shook hands. And that was that.
GOING HOME, I took the long way. Through Abbottsford, that is, around the square, up and down streets. I didn’t go down Nicky’s dead-end street, only to turn around again, but I did drive by the Bankhead house, yellow now, shutters mended, tricycle in the driveway—a house belonging to the present, which we were now in, rather than the past.
During my meeting with Salter, the clouds had rolled in; outside of town it was dreary March, the light flat, the patchy snow along the state road gravel gray. The convenience store, the snowmobile place, the gun shop, the organic coffee bar with its groovy lettering. Charlie, you’ve gone native. Spring soon. This was spring. I’d already seen crocuses in the snow. No use denying them.
I wanted more, though. The near future, that was all I asked—just a week or two, or three. The time when I will be driving home, just like now, and the light, changing so fast, already will be brighter, higher; when I will bump down the long driveway, through the gloom, burst through—there is the house on the hill; and park the car; and go up the steps, the good strong front steps, the solid wood of old trees.
And I walk in the door and through the hall, into the kitchen, and out the back; and leave the door open, the air is mild and dry; and then when I come to the middle of the patio, when I face west, when I am still and no longer feel my own body moving through the air, then I finally hear the birdcalls, gentle but incessant. There are hours left of the day. May is behind me, in my house, I hear her footsteps, she is coming. The early quince, down the hill, is pink orange. And beyond that, green; a breath; a haze on the mountains.
Acknowledgments
Deepest gratitude to Henry Dunow and Jenny Jackson for their enthusiasm, skill, patience, and faith.
Thanks also to Nita Pronovost for her wisdom, and to the teams at both Doubleday and Doubleday Canada, especially Michael Goldsmith, Lauren Hesse, Will Heyward, and Nora Reichard, for their unflagging and expert support.
This book would not have been finished, and certainly would not have been any good, without the insights and deep generosity of Jaime Clarke, Dana Gioia, Susannah Howe, Bill Pierce, Dawn Tripp, Liz Rourke, and Sam Howe Verhovek. Thaddeus Howe provided crucial information about lacrosse. Carter Howe provided comic relief. Atul Gawande and Liz Rourke checked my medical details, and were touchingly concerned about my fictional patient. The legendary Richard Baker, of Noble and Greenough School, allowed me to watch him work and gave me crucial insights into the art and craft of teaching.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the extraordinary teachers who set me on my own path, in particular Kemie Nix, David Purdum, and the late Jane Lauderdale.
I borrowed the lovely phrase “the air of elsewhere” from Russell Brand, writing about the late Amy Winehouse; and the notion of not seeing but looking from John Berger, via James Wood.
My brief quotations from the Duino Elegies are A. Poulin Jr.’s translation, which is my favorite.
My husband, Peter, is the foundation of it all.
This book is dedicated to my parents, Rupert and Virginia LeCraw, and my brother, Andrew—first, best, and most beloved teachers.
A Note About the Author
Holly LeCraw is the author of The Swimming Pool. Her work has appeared in The Millions, Post Road, and various anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A native of Atlanta, she now lives outside Boston with her family.