A Watershed Year

by Susan Schoenberger

  “I don’t usually do this, but I’d like to see an article ready to submit for publication on my desk by the end of the semester, or I’m afraid you’ll be looking elsewhere. If your student evaluations were outstanding, that might take the pressure off the publishing a bit, but they’re just average. Frankly, you’re still here because of your recent troubles and because we like you. You’ve got great potential, Dr. McVie, but it’s not showing. Do you read me?”

  “Very clearly. I won’t disappoint you.”

  “I hope not, Lucy. You have an original mind. Now use it.”

  nine

  * * *

  Lucy soaked in the bathtub, hoping that a research topic would offer itself to her like a gift. She couldn’t lose her job before Mat’s adoption was final, and certainly not after. But she had a full course load this semester, and she couldn’t be traipsing around in dank cathedral basements or whitewashed monasteries. She sank a little lower in the tub, letting the warm water close around her. She took her wet washcloth and laid it across her collarbone, trapping the warmth, protecting her heart.

  Searching for her research topic would be like searching for a forgotten name, something she couldn’t think about too directly, or it would elude her. She felt as though the sharp edges of her mind had been scraped dull with worry. But she knew something was there, some fragment she had come across in her reading on the granting of sainthood, something on which she could frame an argument.

  Cokie rapped loudly on the door. “Hey, are you just about done? Because I’m meeting a friend for dinner, and I’d like to take a quick shower.”

  Lucy stuck her head under the water and didn’t answer, but now she had soap in her eyes. Another knock startled her as she was rinsing shampoo from her hair.

  “I’ll be done in a minute, Cokie,” she yelled.

  “You have a visitor,” Cokie said. “I told him you were taking a bath, but he wanted to talk to you anyway.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Lucy, it’s me.”

  She sat up at the sound of Louis’s voice. Water sloshed over the side of the tub and onto the floor. Even with the closed door between them, she felt exposed, as if he could see her through the soapy water.

  “Cokie, can you give us a minute?” Lucy said.

  “Sure,” Cokie said, sounding reluctant. “I’ll go for a walk or something.”

  Lucy shivered in the tub, realizing she had left her robe in the bedroom. She could get out and wrap herself in a short towel, but she wasn’t ready for Louis to see her all pink and splotchy, hair plastered to her head. Instead, she let some water out of the drain and added a slow stream of hot water.

  “Hi, Louis,” she yelled through the door. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just want to talk to you. Preferably face-to-face.”

  “Just give me a couple minutes, okay?”

  Lucy intended to get out of the tub, but something held her there. She didn’t want to see Louis just yet, and the water was so warm, so comforting. “I had a meeting with Dean Humphrey today,” she yelled through the door again. “He says I have to hand in an article by the end of the semester. He says my tenure’s at risk.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No lie. Did you get my message?”

  “That’s why I’m here. You said you weren’t sure.”

  She slid back down into the warmer water, noticing the blue veins that ran across her skin. How could anyone be sure if starting a relationship was a good idea? This would affect Mat and her plans to be celibate and devoted. And though it shouldn’t matter, there was Harlan, who was gone but not gone. Somehow, she felt disloyal to him.

  “I just don’t know… I’m confused.”

  “Tell me one thing. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Some soap had worked its way into her eye again, and she was feeling around for the washcloth. Then she heard the phone ring and Cokie say hello.

  “I’m leaving now,” Louis said.

  She sat up in the tub. “Stay,” she whispered. He couldn’t have heard her through the door, but when the knob turned slowly, she wondered if he had changed his mind.

  It wasn’t Louis who peered around the door, though. It was Cokie, holding her palm over the phone.

  “It’s Mavis, Lucy,” she said quickly, looking down at the floor. “She’s gone.”

  Despite the warmth of the water, she went cold. It shouldn’t have shocked her that Nana Mavis was gone, but it did. “No,” Lucy said.

  “I’m so sorry, Lucy,” Cokie said. A beat of silence passed between them before Cokie turned to leave, closing the door behind her.

  Lucy got out of the tub, slid on the watery floor before catching her balance, and hurried into her bedroom, her conversation with Louis now blurred into her feelings of loss.

  Cokie came in as Lucy pulled on a T-shirt and struggled into a pair of jeans. Her legs were still wet.

  “Should I go with you to see Rosalee?” Cokie asked.

  “That might be nice,” Lucy said, pulling on some socks. Her face burned, but she had a chill from staying too long in the bathtub. “Oh, by the way, I told my mother you were going away for a few days with friends. But now, I guess, you’re back.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. Let’s go.”

  THE DYING SUN colored the underside of the stratus clouds a vivid pink as they drove to the nursing home. Lucy had a hard time keeping her eyes on the road and kept glancing up through the windshield, somehow seeing Nana Mavis in that final burst of beauty at the end of a very long day.

  When they parked, Cokie refused to go inside.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I hate these places. They reek of death. I thought I could handle it, but I can’t.”

  “Fine. Stay here then, but I have no idea how long I’ll be,” Lucy said, disgusted. She wondered sometimes if Cokie’s children would grow up before she did.

  She ran through the lobby and pushed the elevator button impatiently, glancing at the front-desk nurse, who gave her a sympathetic nod. Lucy ascended one floor and made her way through the maze of wheelchairs parked in small conversational groups, mainly for looks. One woman, who might have been twenty years younger than Mavis, sat with a rolling IV line next to her wheelchair and stared at a blank white wall.

  Was that what it came down to, she couldn’t help but wonder, if you were lucky enough to live to old age? Finding paint more interesting than people? Maybe, by that time, you’d had enough of people. Or maybe you needed to empty the brain again, tabula rasa in reverse. At the end of the hall, nursing aides removed boxes from Mavis’s room. Rosalee followed them out into the hallway, her head low, carrying an armful of clothes and shoes. Lucy hugged her over the clothes.

  “Which do you think?” Rosalee asked. “The lavender slacks suit or the maroon linen dress? I’m thinking it’s spring, so maybe the lavender.”

  “I like the lavender. She wore that to Molly’s First Communion. It’s probably too big now, though; they’ll have to take it in.”

  “Help me with the jewelry,” Rosalee said, heading back into Mavis’s room and opening her jewelry box. “Find something for the funeral—maybe a necklace with some matching earrings—and tell me if there’s anything you might want.”

  Lucy picked up a few interesting pins, enameled Christmas trees and one shaped like a gardening hat. She opened an inside pocket of the jewelry box and ran her hand inside, feeling only paper—a letter, in fact, with her name on the front in crooked handwriting. Rosalee was in the closet, foraging for the lavender-dyed shoes, so she folded the letter and slid it into her back pocket.

  About ten minutes later, they had assembled the outfit Mavis would wear for the rest of time—forever in lavender because she had died in the spring. Then Paul arrived.

  “Grab a box, sweetie,” Rosalee said. “We’ve got to clear out of here by tomorrow. There’s a diabetic in assisted living who’s been waiti
ng for the corner room for two years. Where are the kids?”

  “They’re home,” he said, packing up Mavis’s pile of romance novels and her back issues of Reader’s Digest in large print. From under the bed, he pulled out a stack of old racing forms.

  “Are they okay on their own? At night?”

  “Ma, Sean’s fourteen. I put on a movie. They’ll be fine.”

  A few minutes later, Cokie arrived in the doorway.

  “I thought you were away,” Rosalee said, looking from Cokie to Paul.

  “Where are the kids, Paul?” Cokie said. “Did you get Maureen to watch them?”

  “Maureen was out. But they’re fine. They’re watching TV.”

  “You left them alone?”

  “Cokie, just help pack,” Paul said, throwing Mavis’s medications into a plastic bag.

  Cokie began to complain of a headache, but Paul handed her a suitcase and told her to fill it. They all worked in silence for the next half hour, sorting and folding, packing what little was left of Mavis’s life. Lucy wondered what had happened to all the merchandise any one person buys in the course of a lifetime. The cars, the furniture, the pots and pans. The books, the coats and sweaters, the rugs and the bed linens, the lighting fixtures and the kitchen appliances. The humidifiers, the drapes, the napkin rings, and the dried flower wreaths. How had a century of acquisition been reduced to one room?

  Bertie came in a few minutes later with a handful of plastic bags for the clothes that would be donated to the Salvation Army. When they were done cleaning the room, they all stood, arms crossed, at the entrance to the nursing home. The sky was dark and all was still except for the hum of a large central air-conditioning unit nearby. The lights of the parking lot cast dim halos on the cars, each in its designated slot. In this place, Lucy realized, death was all part of an orderly process. It hardly caused a ripple.

  “So when’s the funeral?” Cokie asked, breaking the silence.

  “Tuesday morning,” Rosalee said. “At ten, Saint Joseph. Lunch at my house after the cemetery.”

  “She’ll be cooking all weekend,” Bertie said, putting an arm around Rosalee, whose shoulders suddenly seemed narrower.

  “I’ll get the anise cookies,” Lucy said. “Those were her favorite.”

  “Call me, Ma,” Paul said. “Tell me what else you need.”

  He took Cokie’s hand and led her to his car, although she seemed to hesitate for a moment. Maybe they were pretending for Rosalee and Bertie’s sake, Lucy thought. Or maybe Paul would drop Cokie off at her house later. But Lucy hoped they would pull themselves together, at least until after the funeral.

  When the others drove off, she sat in her car, turned on the overhead light, and opened the letter she had found in the jewelry box. It was dated July 14, 1994.

  Dear Lucy,

  I’ve been thinking about you and the rest of the family. I will list my thoughts:

  1) You’re a special girl. Very very smart with the books.

  2) You got a lovely face. Do something with that hair.

  3) You’re too sensitive. Get over it.

  4) Tell your mother you can take care of yourself.

  5) What’s all this with the saints?

  6) Don’t hide in the library. Boys like a girl with some sun on her face.

  Love and good fortune,

  Nana Mavis

  THE NEXT MORNING, Lucy took out Mavis’s letter and read it again as she ate half a bagel at the dining-room table. Why hadn’t she sent the letter? Maybe she had decided it was too blunt… but then she had saved it. Had she hoped Lucy would find it, or had she just forgotten about it? Either way, Lucy couldn’t help but notice that she had two people communicating with her after death. How many people could say that?

  Whatever Mavis’s intentions, the letter somehow made her industrious, gave her energy. She called Yulia and arranged to meet her for lunch near her office. She also left a message for Louis, telling him she would call after the funeral. Then she called her mother, who was surprisingly upbeat.

  “Wait till you see the flowers from Uncle Stan and Aunt Velma. Gorgeous. And Cokie just stopped by with a huge box of anise cookies. The good ones from Pescatellos,” Rosalee said.

  “But I told you I’d get those when we were all standing in front of the nursing home. Cokie heard me too,” Lucy said.

  “You did, didn’t you? Well, maybe she didn’t know what to do. And she’s been having a tough time lately.”

  “And I haven’t?”

  “You’ve been telling me everything is fine,” Rosalee said. “Is everything not fine?”

  “No, I meant… forget it. I’ll pick up some napoleons, and I’ll see you at the funeral.”

  Lucy met Yulia for lunch at a small Indian restaurant in Federal Hill, a neighborhood that had the kind of carefully renovated brick row houses and charming narrow streets that made Lucy want to own real estate. They ordered after Yulia quizzed the waiter on the lactose content of every entrée on the menu. Then she spread out some papers in front of Lucy.

  “Most adoptions need two visits: first to meet child and attend court hearing; second, after approvals, to take child home. In Murmansk, only one trip with accredited agency. Two-hour flight from Moscow. Two good hotels.”

  “It all seems to be happening so fast,” Lucy said, breaking off a piece of naan. “You wait and wait and wait, and then wham! Is that how it usually works?”

  “Well, I grease tires a bit. I also need some of your fee for next phase.”

  “For what?”

  “So paperwork goes to top of pile.”

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “Are you sure this is necessary? I don’t mind waiting a few extra days in Murmansk. I can always do some research.”

  “Very necessary,” Yulia said, starting on a samosa. “Documents get lost. Very important to pay people.”

  Lucy tried to block out sudden images of dark alleyways and back doors and envelopes of cash. It wasn’t in her nature to distrust people; she always assumed they had basically good motives, even if she couldn’t always see them. But the whole adoption process was steeped in the mist of the unknown, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t see to the bottom of the unfathomably steep hill Yulia was barreling down, pulling her along behind. She pressed her napkin to her forehead, which was damp from a combination of curry and nerves.

  “I have something to show you,” Yulia said. “This came in mail.”

  The construction-paper card had a roughly drawn blue heart on the cover. Inside were squiggles that might have been water and a sun with green rays poking out. An adult hand had written a name in Russian letters in the lower right-hand corner. Yulia handed the card to Lucy.

  “Mat made this himself?” Lucy said. “Can I keep it?”

  “Of course,” Yulia said.

  She realized Mat hadn’t made the card specifically for her, but it made him real in a way the picture, and even the video, did not. She could imagine him sitting at a low table, coloring the heart, trying to stay inside the outline, and then the sun, choosing the crayons that weren’t already broken or small nubs. And then a caregiver—some adult who was paid to keep the children occupied—would have taken it from him. Written his name. Cleaned up the crayons. No more time for coloring. Lucy would let him color for hours if he wanted to.

  Yulia spoke, bringing Lucy back to the present as their meals arrived.

  “So, you have a boyfriend, Lucy?”

  “The social worker already went over my love life during the home study.”

  “I am asking as friend. And this, of course, will affect Mat as well.”

  “Well, you have nothing to worry about. Someone very special to me died last year, though he was never my boyfriend. There might be someone new, but it’s very early, so I can’t really tell you where that’s going.”

  Yulia stopped eating her biryani, a sign that she was exceptionally interested in the topic. She rested her broad chin on
a closed fist.

  “So this man you loved who was never boyfriend? He was married?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. We just didn’t talk about how we felt. He was engaged when we met, and then he was diagnosed with cancer. I just didn’t think it was fair to tell him how I felt.”

  “So nothing?”

  “Nothing… Except for one night. But I’m not even sure that happened.”

  Yulia put another fist under her chin, as if it needed two for proper support.

  “Tell me.”

  “It was just a kiss, or at least I think it was.”

  “And you never talk about this?”

  “Never. Maybe I dreamed it.”

  “But this is not something you forget.”

  Yulia was right, of course. A kiss, you don’t forget. Her confession had taken a third seat now, in front of the plate of naan. It was a source of embarrassing intimacy, binding them together like a pilfered diary.

  “And now?” Yulia said. “Other man?”

  “He’s a little younger than I am,” she said. “I can’t see him taking on the father role just yet, so I don’t see how it’ll work out.”

  The smell of curry and the weight of the Indian food in her stomach made Lucy feel sluggish. She pulled out a twenty, said good-bye, and left Yulia to finish the naan. On the way out, she regretted running at the mouth about her love life. But as she walked down the sidewalk, slowing to let a woman with a stroller go by, she realized it had given her some clarity. She had loved Harlan in a way that never quite fit with the reality of their lives. But with Louis, the potential was there for substance, for more than just stories she told herself inside her head.

  HARLAN IS RELATING someone else’s experience, Lucy’s sure of it. The doctor is confused. They’ll find out that the test results were swapped, meant for an elderly man from Tacoma Park who had emphysema anyway. They’ll call him tomorrow with the news, and his wife will cry.

  On the off chance that Harlan’s diagnosis is accurate, she wants to mention a few saints he might consider studying for inspiration. His beliefs, she knows, are agnostic at best; he’s like most of her academic friends, too research bound to allow for the mystery of grace. But she tries anyway.