by Ann Warner
After the lunch with Lynne, Clare returned to the apartment and stopped to look at her surroundings. Stark walls, blank uncurtained windows, and furniture that might be comfortable but looked like it had been picked up from the curb on moving-out day. Two plants were dying quietly in the corner and the kaleidoscope was collecting a coating of dust. The overall effect was more impersonal and off-putting than a cheap motel.
“It needs color,” Rob had said. “Something like your Marblehead house. And new furniture, of course. Whatever you’d like.”
Make it a home...our home, had been the subtext.
She’d ignored both the request and the spirit behind it. She’d simply not had the energy, at least not then. But what about now? Although she could do nothing about her major sins against Rob, she could do one thing for him—make the apartment a more pleasant place for him to return to.
Clare began the apartment makeover with Rob’s study—the place he’d retreated to those last weeks whenever he was home. It featured a shabby, overstuffed chair, bookshelves full of weighty books with titles like Organic Reactions and Principles of Stereochemistry, and an old-style oak desk with a computer monitor and keyboard sitting on its marred surface. The overstuffed chair still held the imprint of Rob’s body and, seeing it, she felt a wave of loneliness wash over her.
She painted the walls burgundy, then went to Rockport to search out the gallery with the painting that caught Rob’s eye on a visit last year, one of their few good days during that time. Since she didn’t remember the gallery’s name, she wandered the streets trying to retrace the route they’d taken. She finally located the right place, and was pleased to find it open with the summer season well over.
The picture Rob liked was no longer in the window, but stepping inside Clare spotted it. It was a watercolor—painted mostly in soft greens but with random hints of sunlight glancing off trees and a deep forest pool. A dreaming, peaceful scene.
“Can I help you?” A heavyset man stood in the doorway at the back of the gallery. The room behind him appeared to be a studio, which was maybe why the shop was still open.
“This painting. I’d like to buy it.”
“I was watching you. You didn’t look at anything else. Do you mind if I ask why?”
“It’s for my husband. He saw it when we were here before.”
“Yet he didn’t buy it for himself.”
“No.”
The man and Clare examined each other.
“I’m very particular about who gets my paintings.”
“Oh. You’re the artist?”
He nodded and extended a hand as large as Beck’s. Odd to think of those huge hands painting such an ethereal scene.
“I can assure you this painting will be treasured.” At least, she hoped Rob wouldn’t hate it because she bought it for him.
“Do you want to take it with you today?”
“Oh yes, please.”
“Christmas Eve,” John Apple said. “I thought since you and I are alone...that maybe, well, you’d have dinner with me?”
“I’d like that. Very much.”
John set a time, then backed out of the room, as if afraid she would change her mind if he stuck around. And maybe she would have, because, thinking about it later, she began to worry. It was, after all, one thing to develop a friendship within the walls of Hope House, quite another to take it outside to dinner.
When John picked Clare up Christmas Eve, he gave her an approving look. “I made a reservation at Tympanies. I hope that’s okay?”
“Very okay.” The restaurant was on Boylston Street, a five-minute walk from the Prudential Center.
“You look very nice,” she told him in the restaurant, after he removed his winter jacket to reveal a perfectly ironed white shirt and blue tie.
“And you look beautiful. Green suits you.”
“You don’t need to patroni—”
“You don’t believe that, do you. I wonder why?”
“I have eyes and a mirror. Please. Can we talk about something else?” She softened the request with a smile.
“Of course. Do you drink wine?”
After the waiter poured the wine they’d chosen, John lifted his glass. “To friendship.”
She chimed her glass lightly against his, relieved at the innocuous toast. “You’re full of surprises, John. Ballet. Faulkner. Wine.”
“Not your usual janitor, you mean.”
“I very much doubt it.”
He sipped his wine, then set his glass down and stared at his clasped hands. “It helped, you know. At Thanksgiving. Telling you what happened.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “First time I’d said it out loud. I wanted to thank you.”
“How long has it been?” Clare spoke softly because his eyes were filled with pain.
“Three years.”
His grief reached out, pulling her into its familiar terrain, and she struggled to keep her voice even. “Early times.”
“Is it?”
“I think so.”
“You’re talking about your injury. You’re reinventing yourself the same way I am.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better.”
“Better than last week, last month.” He shrugged and gave her a wry smile. “What about you, Clare Eliason Chapin? Any idea where you’re going yet?”
“Not a clue.”
“At least you have good options. Making it to the top of your profession. There ought to be lots you could do behind the scenes.”
Clare shook her head, trying not to let the words touch her.
John took a sip of wine, assessing her. “Did you ever go to college?”
“A few courses here and there.”
“Have you ever considered getting your degree?” He was obviously undeterred by her cool tone. “You could think about getting a teaching certification. You have a gift.”
She was pleased the arrival of the waiter with the salads interrupted them.
When they were alone once again, she spoke firmly. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for suggesting the Parker books. They’ve been a real hit with the men. Especially Beck.”
“Beck?”
“He’s dyslexic. We’ve been working together.”
John acquiesced to talking about Beck, Vinnie, Anthony, and Tyrese as they ate their salads and main courses. While they waited for dessert, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, gaily wrapped package. “Merry Christmas, Clare.”
She folded her hands in her lap refusing to accept the gift. “I don’t have anything for you.”
“Please.” He held up a hand to stop her protest. “Don’t deny me the pleasure of giving you something, and don’t sweat it until you see what it is.” He pushed the package toward her.
Reluctantly, she opened it to find a small key, hand-worked from copper wire. She looked up, a question in her eyes.
“Kenny kept picking up the odd bits of wire from my electrical jobs. When I asked him why, he brought this in to show me. Drove a hard bargain. Had to buy him a whole roll of wire in trade.”
Clare fingered the tiny key. “Thank you. For being willing to part with it.”
“I thought you’d like the symbolism.”
He was right. She, along with everyone at Hope House, was searching for the key to the future, as well , in her case, for a key to lock away the past.
The Amazonian Christmas was as unremarkable as Thanksgiving, except for the fact Sam unearthed a can of mixed nuts and a bottle of red wine for their dinner.
“Leave it to women to be the celebrating influence,” Jolley said, holding out his cup. “Never occurred to me to bring along something to mark the occasion. You got something hidden away for New Year’s, Sam?”
“If I’d realized the village was going to be right by the boat landing, I would have brought more.”
“No matter. Thanks for sharing with us. Merry Christmas.”
Rob wondered how Clare was spending Christmas. She’d told his m
other she was going home. Rob had never been to Salina, so impossible to envision her there. But no matter where Clare was, in Salina or Boston, he couldn’t be more separated from her if she’d been on Mars.
“Good morning, beautiful. How you doing?”
“Why do you do that?” Clare asked Vinnie. “Call everybody beautiful.”
“You stop seeing something beautiful in a person, time you got your eyes checked.” Vinnie chuckled before her expression turned serious. “The Father made everybody beautiful. Everybody. Father don’t make junk.”
“What about murderers? Rapists?”
Vinnie snorted. “Person forgets they’re beautiful, no telling what they’ll get up to.”
“If somebody raped me, I’d be hard-pressed to see any beauty in them.”
“Better to look for the beauty than stew in anger.” Vinnie’s face, usually so animate, went still. “No matter what they do, they’re still God’s children. But ain’t easy. I give you that. Specially that person your daddy.”
No. Vinnie couldn’t mean her father... Oh, dear God.
“I was fourteen, it started. Hated that man. Hated myself. Only way you get past something like that, Father’s got to help.”
“I am so sorry that happened to you.” Clare kept her tone as calm as Vinnie’s, but she laid a hand on the other woman’s arm, seeking to both comfort and be comforted.
“Ah, well, I discovered it’s true. What don’t kill you do make you stronger.” Vinnie sighed and patted Clare’s hand.
Clare was uncertain what struck her more. The matter-of-fact telling, or the knowledge that sunny Vinnie suffered such horror.
“What about you, beautiful? Maybe you know what I mean. Sometimes you got a real sad look in those eyes.”
Clare blinked and shook her head. “Everybody has a bit of trouble now and then.”
“Trouble shared is trouble halved. You ever want to talk, I’d be happy to listen.”
But Clare wasn’t yet ready to repeat words that would make her losses real—that Rob wasn’t just on a sabbatical. Deep down, she knew. He didn’t intend to come back to her. Her fault. All of it. Even tiny, seemingly insignificant acts of kindness have consequences. The psychologist said that, and she could have added, as do acts of unkindness. And they are never insignificant.
Amends. That was the only way to undo an unkindness, and a little bit of painting wasn’t nearly enough. But how did one make amends when the person you wronged was four thousand miles away and no longer speaking to you?
“The curve of a wing allows air to move faster over the top than the bottom, producing lift,” Tyrese read, the smooth flow of words proof of how far the boy had advanced in the few months he’d been coming to Hope House. With a finger holding his place, he looked up at Clare. “You ever do that? Fly.”
She had, and not just in airplanes, but she understood what Tyrese was asking. “Yes, I have. One time, I flew to Europe.”
“Was it cool?” Tyrese frequently engaged her in discussions as a way to avoid his homework, and she always let him get away with it, for a while.
“Very cool. I had a window seat so I was able to see the city as we landed.”
“That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.” He nodded his head, emphatically. “A pilot. See everything that way.” His expression turned serious. “You think I can do it?”
With a swell of affection, Clare gave the boy’s arm a squeeze, knowing he’d shrug off a hug. “Yes, I do. You’re smart enough to learn whatever you need to know, in order to do whatever you decide to do.”
Tyrese looked pleased. “Yes, sir. Going to be a pilot.”
“Then you’ll need to know math and science.”
“No. Why I got to know that to fly a plane?”
“Well, you’ll need to understand how it works, and you’ll need to be able to calculate...oh, the weight and the fuel. Make sure you don’t have too much of the one and not enough of the other.”
“Computers do that.”
“Sometimes computers don’t work, so it’s a good thing to know how to do it yourself.”
“Okay. I see that.” He bent over the book and began once again to read out loud.
Clare smiled, thinking how good it felt, this chance to encourage a child to plan his future. Although it did remind her that her own future remained in limbo, and it was past time she did something about it.
Rob watched Sam suture a bad cut one of the women got when she slipped and fell on a sharp stone. Sam’s movements were quick and assured, and the woman ended up with a neat line of stitches from elbow to wrist that added weight to what Jolley had told him—that Sam was one of the finest trauma surgeons in L.A.
“So why go into the wilderness where you don’t have operating facilities?”
She glanced at him, then away. “Why did you go into the wilderness where the most challenging chemistry is a color test?”
“Touché.”
“I’m wondering if either of us is going to answer?” she said.
“I wanted the challenge of something different.”
“Me, too.” She kept her head down, concentrating on putting away her supplies.
“Clearly, something neither of us is prepared to discuss at any length.” Rob spoke lightly.
She closed her medical case and turned to put it away.
Afterward, the fact they’d been open enough to admit they weren’t being open, led to a greater ease between them.
Rob was walking across the village compound when Tatito jumped out in front of him. Rob made a quick grab and caught the youngster under the arms and swung him around. Tatito giggled happily. When Rob set the boy down, one of the girls was standing there, lifting her arms with a solemn expression. By the time Rob set her down, five children were standing in a respectful row, waiting their turns.
“Saw you getting some exercise this afternoon,” Jolley said as they finished their evening meal.
“I fear I’ve created a monster.” Rob rolled shoulders that were beginning to stiffen from the afternoon’s game.
“It’s good for you,” Sam said. “And for them. You may need to set up a lottery, though. Do only a few swings a day.”
“The two of you could pitch in.”
“No thanks. This one’s all yours.” Jolley stood and stretched.
Mostly to limit the demands for swings, Rob started thinking of other things to show the children. He came up with one idea after he happened on a length of string in his duffel. A memory surfaced of his sister and a friend sitting with a string between their hands, passing it from one to the other in complicated patterns.
He went looking for Sam. “Did you ever do that string thing when you were a kid?”
“String thing?”
“You know.” He pulled the string out of his pocket and slipped it over his two hands.
“Oh, you’re talking about Cat’s Cradle. Here, let me show you.”
He held his hands out and Sam arranged the string. Then she dipped her fingers between his and transferred it from his hands to hers in a new pattern.
“Show me again.”
Sam went through the two steps several times before he was certain he could do it.
When he showed Tatito, the little boy had it down pat in two tries. Rob turned the string over to the boy. The other children crowded around to see what Tatito had learned. Before long, all of them were adept. Sam eventually got involved, donating dental floss and showing Tatito the next steps, which the boy then taught to the other children.
Another idea came to Rob when his pen blotched a page and he crumpled up the ruined sheet. Rather than throw it away, he smoothed it out and folded it into an airplane. He didn’t know Tatito was watching until he’d launched his creation. With shining eyes, the boy ran after it and carried it reverently back to Rob.
Rob handed a second sheet of paper to the boy, who, biting his lip in concentration, began to fold it. His first attempt was clumsy, but after Rob corrected the ord
er of the folds and gave the boy a fresh sheet of paper, Tatito’s next attempt was every bit as good as Rob’s.
After that, not only did Tatito jump out at him, sometimes he remained in hiding and launched a stealth airplane at Rob.
“You’ve got quite a fan there,” Sam said.
“He’s an amazing kid. I bet he’d make a hell of an engineer.” But more than teaching Tatito and seeing how rapidly he grasped new concepts, Rob enjoyed having the small boy around.