“Does he work with you?” I feel silly asking questions about a person whom I haven’t seen in twenty years, who might still live three doors down from me.
“He works at Stonybrook,” the woman says, and I think of the sign at the end of the Jones’ driveway. “In summer we get our supplies from there.” She blinks her long black lashes. “Are you his friend?”
“Oh, he wouldn’t remember me.”
“Do you want me to give him a message for you?”
“Well...” Silly of me, I think, to leave a message here instead of knocking on his door or looking him up in the phonebook. But perhaps I’d rather he come and find me. “Can you just tell him Jenna Morton says hello?”
“Jenna Morton,” she repeats. She nods her head, her Aqua-net hair not stirring.
“I mean Jenna McGarry. I keep forgetting I changed it.”
“Is it McGarry?”
“McGarry.”
“Ah.” The woman squints as she smiles. “It’s difficult to lose your real name.”
Real name, I think. I’ve heard maiden name, old name, family name. Real I don’t hear too often. “Yes,” I say, even though she’s got it backwards, no fault of hers. Seth’s Morton was fine when I married, but I decided I missed McGarry and changed it back. But it’s too complicated to explain to strangers, so I won’t go into it with this stranger now.
The woman sounds out the name. “JEN-NA MC-GAR-RY.”
She may not remember it. “How about this,” I say. “Just tell him that Jenna says hello—Jenna from Cape Wood.”
“All right.”
Jenna from Cape Wood. I like the way it sounds, without the surname—with just that touch of ambiguity. Like something out of a bygone era, with only my birthplace to distinguish me.
***
My last few weeks with Hunter were spent in the backyard woods at Aunt Adeline’s digging up pieces of the past. It had become so fascinating to us that we decided it might be fun to bury things, too, so that we could come back one day and dig them up again.
We did bury things, starting with a small, smooth rock on which we have carved our initials and little smiley faces with Hunter’s pocket knife to distinguish it from other rocks that might be underground. I picked out a special rock to bury, one with painted seagulls and a lobster which I’d bought at a restaurant gift shop with Aunt Adeline. We left marbles and dice, gumball-machine treasures, even rhinestones from my beading kit. The more items we buried, the more unique they became.
Some items we couldn’t wait to dig up; we waited only a couple of weeks. But Hunter said they weren’t really treasures if we did this. He suggested we leave them for months, maybe even longer—to not touch them and hope that someone else could come along and find them. Only Hunter and I would know where our treasures were buried. Someone would be sure to come across them one day while digging for things, of course.
“Years from now,” he said, “when we’re dead.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Death didn’t seem likely for us, not ever. “My brother is dead,” he suddenly added, and I felt electricity all over my body.
He told me his brother Angus had died in a swimming accident. Hunter never even knew him; it happened before he was born. But it didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t know his brother; he missed him still.
I had only lost caterpillars, I thought—things kept in a jar. Suddenly Hunter was different to me; he was like no one else. I wanted to know what it really was like—to lose someone through death.
***
In the dark, private computer room at the library, I think of the last day I saw Hunter, just two days before Aunt Adeline died. He’d given me a special rock to bury, engraved with both of our initials and wrapped in a soft, camel-colored suede bag with leather twine. It was Angus’s, he’d said, with a tear in his eye. We placed the suede bag inside a small tin box, and beside it Hunter placed a picture of his brother. Angus was a willowy young man with dark hair and shadowy eyes, a haunting pale face. I wondered how Hunter could feel so much for someone he never knew. Maybe it was because they were brothers, or simply because Angus died such a horrible death.
As I type in the name ANGUS JONES, I can still see his face and the glint of metal as we shoveled dirt over the box.
July 18, 1972
CAPE WOOD—One person is presumed dead after a swimming accident that occurred at approximately 9 P.M. on Saturday in Casco Bay, near the Mackerel Pass jetty in Cape Wood. The victim, Angus M. Jones, 19, of Rockport, Maryland, whose family was vacationing here in Maine, had presumably fallen into the waters in the vicinity of the jetty, and while attempting to swim toward the nearby docks was pulled out by a strong undertow. Several persons witnessed his struggle, and one man was said to have jumped in after him.
An overnight search by the coast guard was performed, but to no avail. No word has been given as to when the search will shift from a rescue to recovery operation.
July 25, 1972
CAPE WOOD—The search continues for a man who witnesses said was pulled out to sea on July 17, near the Mackerel Pass jetty in Cape Wood.
Nineteen year-old Angus Jones of Rockport, Maryland, fell into the waters of Casco Bay, and while attempting to swim toward shore was pulled out by a strong undertow. After a one-week search by the Coast Guard, his body still has not been recovered. “This is a terrible tragedy,” said Kyle Jones, Angus’s father. “Our lives will never be the same.”
August 12, 1972
CAPE WOOD—An ongoing search for a 19-year-old man has resulted in defeat for the Maine Coast Guard.
Angus Jones, whose swimming efforts were overcome by the strong undertow in Casco Bay, was presumed dead on the evening of July 17 earlier this summer. After a thorough search by the Coast Guard, his body still has not been recovered.
Mr. Jones, of Rockport, Maryland, whose family owns the Stonybrook Farm in Cape Wood, had been vacationing and working with his family. “Maine will never be the same for us,” said Terese Jones, Angus’s mother. “We’re not sure if we can come back here again.”
July 18, 1973
CAPE WOOD—On the one-year anniversary of a young man’s death, a small town remembers.
Angus Jones was only nineteen when he was pulled out by the fierce undertow of Casco Bay on July 17, 1972, and like many victims taken by the sea, his body never was found. After an extensive search by the Maine Coast Guard, he was declared dead nearly one month later. A candlelight vigil was held at the foot of the jetty for each night the search continued.
Mr. Jones lived in Rockport, Maryland, but spent summers in Maine with his family, living and working on the Stonybrook Farm in Cape Wood. “He was a good worker,” said Paul Hawthorne, who managed the farm and acted as caretaker for the house in the winter. “And a sweet boy. He will be missed.”
Last night a gathering of people met at the foot of the jetty, carrying lanterns and candles. “We’re waiting for Angus,” said a friend.
The Jones family was not present at the vigil, as this is the first summer they have not returned to Maine. “We may not return,” said Mrs. Jones just after her son’s death last summer. “Not for a long time.”
There is no obituary for Angus Jones, at least not here. There must have been one in his home town, or perhaps somewhere else. But when did they decide he was officially dead? Without a body, without a trace, how do they ever know?
part seven
awakening
{renee
twenty-three
Renee had picked out the rolls of wallpaper that lay in the corner of the room: a beige with blue flowers, with just that trickle of white. Adeline had wanted the green with yellow flowers— “a nice transition from the yellow in the hall”—but Renee had said no. There could be no green.
It was Renee’s favorite as a child, the color of her bicycle and her favorite blanket. Two o
f her favorite dresses were a bright, tropical aqua, almost the color of the Florida ocean she’d seen in postcards—the one with the white sand beach where dolphins come to shore. But now she knows the ocean really isn’t that color. The more she looks at it the more green it is, and just thinking about what colors could possibly lie beneath its surface make it even more so.
This reminds her of what Jenna has told her about colors and painting—about the base colors one uses when creating the human face. Skin is not peach or ivory; it is green and yellow and blue. Once these foundations are learned they are not forgotten; an artist will forever see these base colors when looking at skin.
The wallpaper in Jenna’s old bedroom will be coming down, Bill tells her. He spoke to Jenna just the other day on the telephone, and says she will be peeling it, layer by layer, starting with a yellow-speckled peach that is on top. Renee wonders how many layers are under there, who bothered to peel and who simply painted over. Maybe Jenna will reach that layer of beige and blue that Renee put up herself, or perhaps even that green Adeline put up just before she died, that green paper Renee saw on the front porch still wrapped in plastic. Why did she put up that God-awful green?
But years before it had been beige and blue, which Renee had picked out herself. She still can see the rolls, see herself in the bedroom on the warm wood floor, curled up in flannel. Her arms wrapping her legs, knees bunched to her chest—difficult at this time, with her growing abdomen. She sees the paper unrolling as she tries to put it up—springing back into her face, unraveling, like her life.
She remembers waiting, waiting forever it seemed, curled up on this warm wooden floor, papering this room for a baby that was coming. Then things started to happen to her mind, her body. First it was the forgetting—forgetting everything, it seemed—then the body out of control. Shaking limbs and numb fingers, the dizziness. Doctors couldn’t pinpoint the source of her illness. Stress, they said. Weakened immune system.
You’re having a baby.
She did irrational things, they told her, like put shoes in the refrigerator and cheese in the bathroom closet. She cut the leaves off the plants—her own plants and Mother’s plants, and, God forbid, Adeline’s experiments for school. After Jenna was born she walked down the street in her pajamas, leaving the baby behind. It was strange letting her body do such things, while her mind hovered outside somewhere, just on the outside of her skull. Strange for things to be fuzzy, always out of reach, whether doorknobs or flowers or her own baby. She was no longer intact or in control.
Then one day she looked for bones. Something told her they were there—some voice, some echo from the past. She wanted so much to believe it, to find evidence; she needed to know there was some truth to this memory.
She didn’t dig far; she only skimmed the surface of the lawn, looking for irregularities, little white specks. Mother would stop her from wiggling her body through the grass and dirt, saying, “What are you doing?” and with a terrified look on her face that spoke something else to her, something Renee always will remember because she didn’t have the strength to answer.
Have you lost your mind?
When Mother decided she would ask Adeline to come home from college and help, Renee begged her mother not to. She tried to convince her she could do it alone; she could get better. Anything. She could not bear to see Adeline, not after what had happened—after what she had taken from her.
jenna}
twenty-four
I first saw Seth in the back row of Physical Geology. He was all disheveled hair and papers, with deep, soulful eyes that moved curiously over the room. A quiet type, he seemed, with wrinkled clothes and untied laces, a restless manner. I managed to peek back at the clock—and at him—several times during the class, hoping he didn’t notice. Our eyes met, but did not stay.
In my second semester we shared another class, Psych 102, and again he was quiet and mysterious, at the back of the class. He wriggled nervously in his seat until the third day of a class on memory, when the professor mentioned the word genes.
“Isn’t there a theory,” Seth spoke up in a low, earthy voice, “about inheriting memory?”
The entire class turned to look at him.
“Race Memory is a theory,” Professor Mulkey replied, “that we will not be discussing within this curriculum.” Seth nodded, scratched at the back of his head, shifted in his chair. For the remainder of class he twitched his shoulders and tapped his fingers on his desk.
I thought about him when I went home, about how agitated and confined he had seemed, how his dark eyebrows moved up and down in fierce curiosity. I wished the professor had given him some encouragement; it was disappointing to think that a student might just let a thought go—that a spark of interest could be extinguished so quickly and easily. Perhaps this was how people lost passion for things.
The next day in class, Seth spoke again. “Maybe it’s true,” he said after memory segued into genes again. “Maybe we can inherit a past generation’s memory the way we inherit other genes.”
Again the professor decided to drop the subject, and Seth didn’t pursue it. He ran his fingers vigorously through his thick, dark hair, as if releasing an energy, a frustration of some sort. And for such a little thing, I thought. How odd; how passionate. I wondered if he noticed me turning around, bouncing my goofy eyes back to the clock, to his territory. When the bell rang, he stopped me outside the door.
“What do you think, Jenna?”
As we stood in the classroom doorway, I admired his dark hair and deep-pool eyes, the shoulders and back of an athlete. There was an awkwardness about him that was also attractive—the way his tall body hunched and his large hands waved about, expressing as he spoke. He motioned his head toward the stairs, requesting me to walk with him, and I didn’t refuse.
His stride was slow and rhythmic, rocking slightly—his body angled forward and toward me as he spoke, ignoring the outside world, gracefully avoiding other students who whizzed past and parted around him. I was entranced by the rhythm of his words and his walk, and as I spoke to him I detected a flirtatious curve to my own voice, even sense my eyebrows lift in a teasing manner. It felt strange, like it wasn’t my voice and face reacting to him. I was flirting seriously for the first time, and when he smiled back and stared down at me with his chocolate-brown eyes, I knew I couldn’t stop. Suddenly I was electrified, terrified, realizing that I would one day sleep with this man.
I had never been with anyone—only two kisses: David Marcus, in tenth grade, and Ben Freidkin in eleventh. I didn’t recall much sensation from either, only a sense of achievement, a romantic success. The feeling I had now was euphoric. And it was mutual, I could tell—by our voices, our eyes, and in our disguising metaphors, brought forth in our hallway discussion about human genes.
These were seductive words.
His room was dark and earthy, a secluded attic above an elderly couple’s garage, miles from the dormitories, far more private than my bedroom at home in Westbridge. It was here that I smelled his pine incense and sipped a rich, dry burgundy that was like velvet to my lips. And then, by his deep eyes and massive hands, I was seduced.
***
Wherever Seth and I went, he would teach me about geology—about the earth and where all things came from, whether it was the orange cliffs in Vermont where we camped, or the tall granite buildings of Boston. He helped me to understand the origins of things—all things, so that even the most pre-fabricated seemed extraordinary. I knew that Seth would soon be teaching others, too. I just hoped that when he did, he would continue to teach me.
The more I saw of Seth, the less I saw of Paula. I felt bad about it, and offered many times for the three of us to go out together. We did manage one session at the comedy club, complete with beer and nachos and many laughs, but I got the feeling that Paula was bored, hoping for a wilder and crazier time.
She had a new boyfriend
named Gerard, an accountant from Lewiston, Maine. A month was a long time for Paula to be dating someone, considering most of her boyfriends had come and gone like spring daffodils. But I couldn’t help seeing him as a sleazy man. Paula even admitted to me that Gerard was not a man full of humor or passion, nor was he blessed with any particular beauty or charm. When I asked if she loved him she simply told me he’d make a good father, that he was sure to produce sperm. “I know because he’s had kids before,” she said, as if talking about renting a U-Haul, “with his first wife.” This was all strange to me, because having a child had always been the last thing on Paula’s mind.
Then she told me she was pregnant. She had known for a month, so I wondered if the earlier comments she made about Gerard and sperm were to give herself control over the whole situation. Perhaps she needed to desire something because she didn’t have a choice. They would be getting married, she added, so I didn’t bother to ask her the love question again.
I was scared for Paula because Gerard seemed to me to be nothing more than a male chauvinist couch potato with a bachelor’s degree. He was a master at calculus, but would never hold a spatula or take a kitchen sponge in his hand. His idea of a turn-on, according to Paula, was the local Naked Jamboree. I didn’t know him very well, though. The closest I’d gotten to him was one evening I visited them, and on his way back to the refrigerator he burped beer and enchiladas in my face. Be careful of what you want, I thought at that moment.
In April Paula married Gerard and quit school, then moved back to Maine, and suddenly her wild and promiscuous college days were over. Perhaps this would be good for her; perhaps it was inevitable and she had no choice. I didn’t know what to think.
I did admire the way she’d been able to transform overnight, an instant mother-to-be. Or maybe I was just trying to convince myself there was something well and good about this because my own period was three days late.
The One True Ocean Page 13