He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to his body. She rested her hands against the solid wall of his chest, feeling the breath go in and out of him, the certain pulse of his heart. Her every inhale ferried some remembered smell: the clean linen of his shirt, linseed oil and turpentine, the dry must of tobacco, the powdery cast of graphite.
“Would we have been a family, do you think?”
“We might have tried.” He stroked her hair, and she tucked her head under his chin, her body automatically curling into him, a habit imprinted in the memory of her skin, her muscles, her bones.
“Natalie told you.”
His eyes were closed, and he lay so still she wondered if he really was dead, come back to her as a vision. “She made sure I found out.”
“Did you look for me?”
“I looked for both of you. But you’d already flown away.”
* * *
She woke up on the floor, the early glow of morning seeping in through the windows. Her fingers of her left hand were frozen tight around the bird, and she thought how fitting a punishment it would be if they were to stay like that, clutching at the freedom she’d longed to capture, unable to set it free, watching it die in her grasp. She pried her fingers apart with her right hand and set the bird on the dresser, then fell into bed. She had no idea what time it was and didn’t care enough to turn her head to see the blinking digits of the clock. All she could think was that she had never known such tiredness; that it was possible she was too tired to be alive. But sleep wouldn’t come, no matter where she searched for it: in the comforting, smooth tones of Phinneaus’s voice; in the clover smell she could find at the top of Frankie’s head; in the warm cup of tea Saisee poured out for her, sliding down her throat like a dull ember. It was not beneath the down blanket, or the starched sheets, or even in the feathery pillow that collapsed under the weight of her head. There was only guilt, and the repeating voice, over and over. Agnete.
She was forced to lie there for the sake of her body. She’d asked too much of it and now it was letting her know, in no uncertain terms. It was torture, trying to turn off her thoughts. She watched the sun slowly paint the walls with day, concentrating on the slow creep of it across the room. The lead weight of her limbs pinned her against the mattress; she didn’t have the energy to so much as turn over. And when she realized there was no more running from it, she ran toward it, her arms open. She ran toward Agnete and sucked her into her arms, a tornado of pent-up love and remorse. She sat down with the child in her lap and took her birding notebook out of her pocket and started at the beginning, showing her daughter every sketch, describing every bird, the curious cock of its head, the fluff of its down, the secret things woven into the fabric of its nest. She went through each page, leaving out no detail, watching her daughter’s fingers outline her drawings, watching her daughter’s head nod when she was ready for the page to be turned.
When the room turned bright enough to hurt her eyes, she tested her body, flexing first one foot, then the other, slowly moving each in turn up the mattress until her knees were bent, then sliding them back down. She drew circles on the backs of her wrists and moved her fingers as though she were halfheartedly playing the piano, tapping at invisible keys, just to test her flexibility. Tentatively rolling onto her side, she anticipated a warning flash of protest, but the pain was tolerable. She lifted the phone receiver and called for breakfast: dry toast, green tea, and one egg, scrambled. Then she sat up and reached for the robe at the end of the bed, the same spot where Thomas had sat, and held it against her face, anxious for a clue of him. But she smelled only the cedar and sage bath salts from the day before.
The breakfast was tasteless; the clothes she slipped on her body weighed nothing. When she stepped outside the air was sharp, the stair rails etched in a mosaic of frost, as if someone in authority had decided if Thursday was autumn, then Friday should be winter. The bellman called a taxi, and she gave the driver the address.
“Nice day today,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, and watched the shops and low, flat-roofed houses tumble by, a blur of adobe. She turned her body toward the window to dissuade him from additional conversation. The short blocks were lined with cars, and the driver’s turns were quick, first in one direction, then another, until she felt lost in a maze of brown walls and tall grasses. Finally he pulled half into a gravel drive and stopped.
“This is it. Eleven Calle Santa Isabel.”
They’d gotten here more quickly than she’d expected. The house was a small adobe, neat in appearance, with a low wall in the front bordered by clumps of coppery big bluestem and plume grass. Paper bags lined the top of the wall, and a wreath of cedar hung on the front door.
“Do you know what the bags are for?”
The cabbie turned and squinted at her as if she were the thickest tourist he’d ever encountered. “Farolitos. There’s sand in the bottom of each paper bag and a candle. In my great-grandfather’s time, they lit bonfires on the corners to light the way to Christmas Mass. Maybe too many places caught fire, eh? Now we use paper bags.”
“Can you wait for me, please?” She handed him twenty dollars and stepped out of the cab. “I won’t be long.”
She stood next to the car with one hand resting on its side, thinking if she could just stay in this one place, she’d be safe. The speech she’d practiced on the way over—I’m looking for the woman who used to live here. I’m a friend of her aunt’s. There’s been a death in the family and we’re trying to locate her—sounded suddenly wrong. She was in an unfamiliar land, lost, missing the words to communicate.
The driver tapped the horn and rolled down the passenger-side window far enough to yell out, “Lady! You all right?”
She nodded and kept her eyes on the front door, on the wreath, thinking it was only the first time that would be hard; once she’d done it, she could ask a hundred strangers at a hundred different houses if she had to. Her feet carried her across the slabs of the stone walk and through the wide opening in the wall, into a courtyard garden planted with desert holly and sumac, bearberry and winterfat. She stopped.
The garden was full of sculptures, modern stainless-steel pieces in varying sizes, but all of them sharing the liquid quality of movement. They might have been abstract figures or merely forms, she wasn’t sure. Sunlight bounced back and forth between them. She ran her fingers across the curve of the one nearest the walk. The metal, cool and slick, was smooth beneath her hand, the solid heft of it clear even from the slightest touch.
The front door was a deep orange, the familiar color of bittersweet. Before she knew it her hand was on the door, the small echo of her rapping drifting straight back to her heart. She listened for the sound of footsteps and half-hoped for the heavy soles of a man’s shoes, thinking a man might be less suspicious. But she didn’t hear footsteps. She didn’t hear anything, save for the taxi’s engine idling. She knocked again and waited, but there was nothing.
She started back down the walk. A movement caught the corner of her eye, and when she turned, she saw a young woman stepping around the side of the house, dressed in khakis and a denim shirt, wearing bright red gardening clogs. She was carrying a rope of cedar garland over one shoulder. Alice could smell the spicy scent of it from where she stood, a few feet away.
“I heard someone at the door, but I was working in the backyard and didn’t want to go through the house, it’s so muddy back there. Can I help you?” Her smile changed to a look of alarm as Alice began weaving on her feet, drifting down suddenly, toward the path.
He was standing in front of her. That was the arch of his brow, his long nose, his high forehead. As the woman rushed forward, Alice saw she moved like Thomas: quick, purposeful, sure of her step. Thank God, there were his beautiful, straight fingers grabbing her arm. But she saw herself mirrored in the pale eyes and freckled skin, in the intensity of the gaze, the tangled curls of hair that bounced around the shoulders, though the inky black of it was
from him.
“Let’s get you to a chair.”
But she didn’t want to sit. She didn’t want to move from this spot; didn’t want the hand firmly holding her arm to move an inch up or down. Or away.
“Agnete Sophia Kessler.” Her own rite to speak the name, not as a question, but as a baptism.
“Yes. Do we know each other?” There—her father’s tone of suspicion.
Yes, Alice wanted to say. I know you the way I know my own heart, the way I feel my own pulse. I know what your laugh will be, how you wave good-bye, the crescent of thumbnail you worry between your teeth. I have known you from the second you entered this world, and if I were to leave it now, I would know you still, were I to dust or ash.
“I came to tell you . . .”
Agnete waited, her face composed and patient. Such a false premise, thought Alice. Such a complicated story. So much explanation was going to be required. She could think of no other place to start.
“I’m your mother.”
FOURTEEN
December 2007
Finch was green. He didn’t really believe his own excuses for not flying, but repeating them often enough had evidently affected his psyche, and to his humiliation, outside the terminal he’d succumbed to a full-on panic attack, desperately trying to reinsert himself into a cab that was already departing. He and Stephen were pulled from the security line for extra screening, no doubt thanks to Stephen’s black eye, which had turned a menacing aubergine. And Stephen’s insistence on holding his boarding pass in front of his mouth while whispering instructions clearly audible to anyone within a ten-foot radius did nothing to endear them to the TSA.
“Try not to look suspicious.”
“I don’t look suspicious.”
“You’re practically panting. It makes you look guilty of something.”
Finch hissed at him through clenched teeth. “That’s because I can’t breathe.”
“Can we get some oxygen here?” Stephen asked loudly, waving in the direction of the security desk despite the jabs Finch inflicted to his rib cage.
“You’re going to get us arrested!” Other passengers had the sense to move away, leaving the two of them as an island in the security line, easily identifiable, easily tagged.
Stephen looked wounded. “I’m only trying to help you overcome what has clearly turned into a phobia.”
“Don’t help me.”
The two-hour flight to Memphis was delayed an hour and forty-two minutes. The wait practically undid him. He sat in one of the molded plastic chairs with his eyes closed, palms sweating. Claire might have helped him, but he refused to summon her. He’d devised his own set of rules for penance, chief among these being where he was allowed to talk to her. Airports, airplanes, waiting in line for Chinese takeout or to pick up prescriptions, these were not on the list. He would not use a conversation with her as an antidote for boredom or to soothe his feelings of incapacitation. He tried to limit their exchanges to those places she had loved: their ancient kitchen table with the one wobbly leg, Shakespeare Garden in Central Park, the Holiday Train Show in the Haupt Conservatory, their bedroom. Especially their bedroom. It wouldn’t be fair to break the rules and bring her here of all places, just because he was experiencing a small breakdown, especially since it was his fault she’d been alone at the airport in the first place.
“It wasn’t this one, was it?”
Stephen’s voice in his ear had the whine of a dental drill, the shiver-inducing screech of crumpled foil.
“This one what?” Finch opened one eye and saw an Indian woman in a red sari seated across from them agitatedly tapping her husband’s shoulder while giving him a look that would have sent St. Francis straight to hell.
“This airport. I thought I asked you and you said it wasn’t. You did say that, didn’t you?”
“Please stop talking,” Finch said.
By the time boarding began, Stephen nearly had to carry him onto the plane. To make matters worse, Stephen insisted on the aisle seat, telling Finch it was part of his flying ritual. Once they were airborne, Stephen downed several glasses of Bloody Mary mix and moved all three of the airsickness bags to the pouch in front of the middle seat.
“They shouldn’t provide them. It’s the power of suggestion—you see the bag, you feel ill. If you even check to see there is a bag, you’re already anticipating the worst.” He shifted closer to Finch and lowered his voice. “It’s critical to be early in the boarding process so you can move them before your seatmates arrive. For some reason it makes them uneasy. I don’t understand it. It’s not as though I’m taking theirs.” In response to his raised eyebrow, Stephen added, “Repositioning is not taking. Technically speaking.”
Finch was sure his heart must have been exiting his chest. His hands were still slick with sweat, and the lingering smell of jet fuel made his stomach lurch. At least all three airsickness bags were in front of him; he supposed he should be grateful for that. The woman in the window seat had pushed herself as far away from him as she could manage, legs tucked up, arms wrapped around her sides, her body a compressed sponge that would magically expand once they landed.
“Here.” Stephen shoved a small plastic box toward Finch before pulling a black eyeshade out of his carry-on and snapping it across his forehead.
“What’s this?”
“I’m surprised you don’t recognize them.” Stephen pushed his call button and waggled his empty glass at the flight attendant, who rolled her eyes. There must have been a description of Stephen somewhere in the training manuals of the travel and hospitality industries, denoting him as—what was the kindest way to put it?—challenging.
“And I’ll take his peanuts,” he said to the flight attendant when she returned with his fourth glass of Bloody Mary mix. “Odds would seem high he’s going to vomit.”
The woman in the window seat pulled a blanket over her head. Finch put his head in his hands.
“Open it,” Stephen said, gesturing at the box in Finch’s hand. “Acupressure bands. You helped me when we drove to the cabin. I’m returning the favor. And don’t think I’m giving you a used pair. I had to open the container to make sure there were directions, then the clerk insisted I purchase them. I would have preferred the gray to black. Black seems so militant for an acupressure band.”
Finch hated to admit it, but he was touched. Why hadn’t he thought of this himself? He pulled the bands over his hands and positioned them just below his wrists. “It was thoughtful, Stephen. Thank you.”
“I know. Please remember that when you get behind the wheel for the two-hour drive to wherever it is we’re going.”
Finch started to tell him, but Stephen held up his index finger. “I’ll get it. Just give me a minute.” He squeezed his eyes shut and started mumbling. “Thank you. Thanksgiving. Turkey. Wild turkey. Bourbon? No. Hunting wild turkey. Hunter . . .” He smiled and pulled his eyeshade down. “Orion,” he said.
Finch shook his head. “Amazing.”
* * *
While Stephen dozed, Finch worked on a plan of action. Thanks to Simon Hapsend, their search had been narrowed from fifty states to one. Guilt over Stephen’s pummeling had prompted Simon to provide the information they’d been most in need of: Natalie Kessler was in Tennessee. Whether Alice was as well, there was no way of knowing. But Natalie had taken great pains not to be found, which made Finch doubtful about the welcome they’d receive.
He was confident getting straight to the money part of the discussion with Natalie would be their most expedient route to the missing panels. As to Thomas’s daughter, that was another matter. She’d be a young woman now, only a few years older than Stephen, and he had no idea what the sisters might have told her regarding her father. Perhaps they’d made him out to be a monster or a disinterested party; maybe they’d vanished him into thin air. Regardless, that conversation was going to require delicacy. He dreaded the thought of inserting himself into family politics, especially when details surrounding the s
upposed transgressions of all parties were murky. But the daughter was no transgression. She was a living, breathing link to Thomas, and since Thomas couldn’t speak for himself, what other alternative did Finch have?
He reached into the carry-on he’d stuffed under the seat and pulled out a map of Tennessee on which he’d highlighted their route, preferring the physicality of paper to a phantom voice with a British accent, repeating the word recalculating ad nauseam. Orion was a pinpoint; he had to put on his reading glasses to distinguish it from a mark left by his pencil. How they’d settled in such a place, even found it, escaped him.
The pilot announced their descent into Memphis, and Stephen stretched in his seat, sending peanut wrappers and the empty plastic glasses he’d assigned to the four corners of his tray table into the aisle. He ignored the Fasten Seat Belt sign and collected his things from the overhead bin, jamming them beneath the seat in front of him. The flight attendant glared, and Finch was sure he’d been relegated to her same low opinion, if only by his proximity to Stephen.
“You’re like a tornado,” he said.
“Your face is a much better color than it was earlier. The bands must have done the trick.” Stephen looked pleased with himself. “Have you figured out what we’re going to do?”
“Not at all.”
* * *
They landed in a light drizzle, the airport in Memphis looking much the same as every other airport Finch had experienced. He wanted to be out of the terminal as quickly as possible and hurried to the car rental counter, queuing up with the other travel-weary passengers who had donned raincoats and held their computer printouts. Stephen looked the most road worn of the bunch, which was saying something, with his spotted rain poncho, his backpack slung over one shoulder, and his scuffed briefcase clutched in his hand.
Out of gratitude for Stephen’s earlier thoughtfulness, and because he remembered Cranston was footing the bill, Finch upgraded them to a larger vehicle. They stood in the rain waiting for the shuttle to pull up, but once he stepped onto the bus, falling into yet another plastic seat, Finch felt enormous relief, as if he’d endured a great battle and managed to come out on the other side, all his parts intact and where they should be.
The Gravity of Birds: A Novel Page 28