Seasons of the Fool

by Lynne Cantwell

  When they died, I thought it was God’s way of keeping you from marrying David. So when you decided to go to college after all, I didn’t see any reason to tell you their intentions.

  But I may have made a mistake. Now that I have met Lance, I am worried for you. He seems like the kind of man who could sell ice to an Eskimo and not be troubled in his spirit at all, and you seem to idolize him. I think you are still too eager to please, and I worry that it could get you into serious trouble someday.

  I still might have kept my mouth shut, but I have just come back from meeting David’s wife. She is a pistol, and he is no match for her. I feel very sorry for those poor kids of theirs. And I just could not help remembering how sweet the two of you were together.

  I believe we are all put on God’s green earth to learn something, and maybe this is the lesson I was supposed to learn. Please forgive me, Julia, and know that I did what I did out of my love and concern for you. I pray it is not too late for you and David to right the wrong that I have done you.

  All my love,

  Grandma

  Julia folded the letter carefully and put it back in its envelope. Through the open window, she could hear the waves on the lake. Wind soughed through the trees, and birds called to one another. She identified their calls reflexively: cardinal, blue jay, mourning dove.

  Ms. Elsie’s voice broke into her reverie. “Well?”

  Julia heard the suppressed excitement in her voice, and turned to them. It was another moment before she found her own voice. “Apparently it was Grandma who didn’t want me to marry Dave,” she said. “Mom and Dad were going to give me their blessing when they got here. After they died, Grandma decided their deaths were God’s will.” Her eyes unfocused. “She was right, too.”

  “Oh, no, dear,” said Ms. Elsie in dismay. “She should have said something to you.”

  “Oh, not about that,” said Julia, returning her attention to the older women. “No, Grandma was right about Dave and me.” She tapped the letter against the palm of one hand. “She had us both pegged. For that matter, she had us all pegged. She knew that Lance was a slimeball, and that Nina was trouble walking. She was right that Dave is no match for her. It’s killing him.” Her eyes unfocused again. “And I am too eager to please.” Oh, Grandma. Of course I forgive you. You did what you thought was right. That’s all any of us can do.

  “We should tell her,” Ms. Thea said.

  Julia’s head snapped up. Ms. Elsie was staring nervously at her hands, and Ms. Thea was regarding Ms. Elsie with what could only be described as love. “Tell me what?” Julia asked.

  Ms. Elsie sighed. “It might be our fault that your parents died.”

  Julia laughed in disbelief. “Your fault? How? Did you break their landing gear?”

  “Not directly,” said Ms. Thea.

  Julia looked at each of them in turn. “Then what?”

  Ms. Elsie let out a bigger sigh, and cut a glance at Ms. Thea. Then she focused on Julia. “Early in that year, Thea and I saw signs that we interpreted to mean that the two of you should be together. So we did what we could to push you in that direction. And when your parents said they were against it, we….”

  “Cast a spell,” Ms. Thea said.

  Julia stared at them. “You’re witches? For real? I mean, that’s always been the rumor. Well, that and….”

  “And we’re not just friends,” Ms. Thea interrupted. “Yes. We know. It’s true.” She moved to stand next to Ms. Elsie and slipped one arm around her shoulders. Ms. Elsie closed her eyes and sagged against her.

  Julia shrugged. “Okay. I mean, I had figured the lesbian part was true. I think Mr. Starek is the only person in the neighborhood who still cares.”

  Ms. Thea gave her a small smile.

  Ruefully, Julia went on, “Come to think of it, I guess the whole thing with the labyrinth should have clued me in. But casting a spell? Like ‘bubble, bubble, boil and’ – wait, I’ve got it wrong, haven’t I?” She laughed at herself. “Anyway, I thought that was just in the movies.”

  The women shook their heads. “It’s not,” Ms. Elsie said. “But spells don’t always work, and we thought this one hadn’t.” She looked up at Ms. Thea.

  “Apparently, it had,” Ms. Thea said. “But The All had other plans for you. So it kept this knowledge from you until now.”

  “The trial,” Julia said instantly. Then a thought struck her. “You think my purpose all along has been to take Lance down?”

  “Maybe,” said Ms. Thea. “Who knows?”

  “Anyway,” Ms. Elsie said, “we’re very sorry for all the trouble we’ve caused.”

  Julia hardly heard the apology. Her brain was whirling as it processed the implications of what the women had just said.

  She had never considered herself to be a deep thinker, but she had always thought the idea that everything happens for a reason was too facile. It smacked of a clockwork universe, in which cause and effect had no moral underpinnings: if you do X, you get Y, period. No mitigating circumstances allowed. No appeals granted.

  But she had also resisted the idea that a kind and generous deity was in charge. That belief was seductive, she thought; it led to hope, and she had disavowed hope. Again and again, she had been enticed by its bright gleam, only to see everything she’d hoped for go up in flames. She refused to be tricked again.

  But what Ms. Thea and Ms. Elsie described was something else – something in between an automaton and a fickle god. A wheel, maybe? The Wheel turns, the ochre-robed hermit had told her. “What goes up, must come down,” the pessimist in her replied. But it must also come back up again. All was never lost for good.

  Maybe a web was a better analogy. Plucking one strand would have repercussions along the other strands, but it might yield something good, or at least worthwhile, in the end.

  If that were so, it would certainly explain a lot. Maybe her parents hadn’t died to keep her and Dave apart; maybe their relationship had been collateral damage in service of some larger goal. And maybe – maybe – the vibrations from that event were finally fading away.

  And if that were so, then she was off the hook for all of her lousy choices – and so was Dave, for his. They had both simply done what they thought was best.

  Was it false hope? Maybe. But both her gut and her heart told her she was right.

  At last, she smiled at the two miserable women before her. “What makes you think this is all about you?” she asked.

  Ms. Thea cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Julia said, and stopped. “I’m sorry, but the only way I can think about it is as if I were writing a story. It’s an occupational hazard.” She grinned self-consciously. “So let’s say God, or The All, or Fate or whatever, did need for Dave and me to be together. But it also needed to take care of Lance. Right? So it told you two to bring us together, while it shook the web elsewhere to keep us apart until the time was right.” She looked down at the envelope in her hand. “Why else would Grandma have sent this to such an old address?”

  “But your parents,” Ms. Elsie said.

  “And all the people Lance bilked out of their life savings,” Julia said. “And the damage Nina’s done to Ritchie and Randi that they’ll have to sort out as they get older.” She shook her head. “I know. It’s not a perfect theory. A lot of harm has come from this. But I’m not inclined to blame anyone. We’re all just doing the best we can.” She rolled her eyes. “Even Lance. There are a boatload of reasons why he is the way he is, starting with his sick relationship with his mother. I could write a master’s thesis on that family dynamic.” She stopped. “Or a novel.” A mischievous grin spread across her face. “I could, couldn’t I?”

  “Please don’t do anything you might later regret, dear,” Ms. Thea said.

  “Oh, I don’t have to write it for real,” Julia said. “But Lance doesn’t need to know that, does he?”

  ~

  A few days later, Julia was hard at work in her bedroom, st
ripping the pink floral wallpaper, when her phone rang. She stepped off the ladder and wiped sweat from her forehead while she dug in her jeans pocket for her phone.

  “Hello, Lance,” she said.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “You’re sounding awfully cheerful, Jules.”

  She refused to rise to his bait. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to think over what we discussed the other day.”

  Her lips curled into a smile. “Have I told you about the book I’m working on?”

  The seeming non sequitur made him stop for a second. Then he said, “Do I care?”

  “You might. It’s about a little boy who loves his mother so much that he allows her to sexually abuse him.” She paused for his reaction; hearing none, she kept going. “And when he finally refuses her, and she cuts him out of her generous will, he vows to get rich on his own – by any means necessary.”

  “You bitch,” he hissed. “You can’t do this to me.”

  “Can’t I?” she said. “I can do anything I want, including write a book about your sick family history. Or bring it all up on the witness stand. Or both.”

  “I’ll fuck you up if you do this,” he snarled.

  “How?” She laughed at him. “You can’t stop me from publishing this book unless you kill me, and I’m pretty sure you won’t stoop to that. Because if you were willing to go as far as murder, dear old Mom would be dead by now.”

  “Julia!”

  When she heard the note of pleading in his voice, she knew she had won. “Leave Dave and his family alone,” she said harshly. “Leave them out of this, and I won’t publish this book while your trial is underway.”

  “You won’t publish it ever,” he said, in a final, desperate grab for victory over her. “Or I’ll make sure the whole world knows about you and Dave.”

  “You’re joking, right?” she said. “This book is my insurance that you’ll leave me alone after all of this is over. We’re divorced, Lance, in case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t have to make you happy any more.”

  He hung up in her ear.

  Humming to herself, she went back to stripping wallpaper.

  ~~~~

  Summer

  ~~~~

  It was the kind of hot and sticky August day that made Julia wish her grandparents had installed air conditioning. Her grandmother had had a system for combatting the heat: she would rise with the sun and close the windows while the house was still full of cool nighttime air. The ancient trees kept the sun off the roof, for the most part; that prevented the interior from heating up until the worst of the day’s heat was past. Then her grandmother would reopen the windows, and the cycle would begin again.

  But Julia had always hated how stuffy the house got. And without a reason to rise with the sun, she always seemed to sleep too late, until the warm air made it too sticky to sleep. So while fantasizing about installing central air, she was making do with fans in every window, and escaping to the beach for a midday swim.

  She had finished her blissful dip in the lake and had stretched out on her towel to dry off. The lake water was cool, even in August, and the hot sun felt good on her body. In a few moments, the breeze had begun to lull her to sleep.

  As she dozed, she became aware that the noise level nearby had shot up. But it was only when a young voice cried out, “Julia!” that she realized she knew the people responsible for all the racket.

  She propped herself up on her elbows just in time to see Ritchie plop down on the sand next to her. “Hey there,” she said, grinning. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Is your dad here, too?” she asked, shading her eyes with one hand as she scanned the beach.

  “Yes, and Randi, too,” he said. “Mommy didn’t want to come.”

  Julia blinked. “She’s here in Michiana with you?”

  “Yeah.” He scooped up some sand and let it trail through his fingers.

  She eyed him curiously. “She must be feeling better, then. That’s good news, huh?”

  Ritchie shrugged. “I guess.” He turned and waved. “Hey, Dad!”

  “I see you, buddy,” Dave said, as he and Randi approached from the stairs. He threw Julia an apologetic look. “Sorry if he’s bothering you.”

  She sat up. “Of course not. Ritchie’s never a bother.” She grinned again at the boy, and got an answering grin.

  “Dad! I want to sit next to Julia!” he said.

  Dave raised his eyebrows at her in a silent question, and she gestured a welcome with one arm. He smiled and said to Ritchie, “Help me stretch out the blanket.”

  “Hey, Randi,” Julia said.

  “Hi,” the girl responded, her eyes on the lake. “Can I go in, Dad?”

  “Give us a hand here first,” he said. Ritchie was struggling; one corner of the blanket kept getting away from him and flapping in the breeze. Randi rolled her eyes and grabbed the errant corner. When the blanket was down, she kicked off her flip-flops and ran for the waves, with Ritchie tearing along behind her.

  “Keep an eye on him!” Dave called out. Randi waved without turning around.

  “That’s impressive,” Julia said. “I didn’t even need to see her roll her eyes that time.”

  He shook his head and took a seat on the blanket. “She’s getting quite the attitude.”

  “Girls do get them at her age,” she said.

  “You never had one.”

  She laughed. “Oh, come on. I had an attitude that wouldn’t quit.”

  He smiled, watching her. “How’ve you been, Jule?”

  “Fine,” she said. “Busy. Writing and editing, and working on the cottage. You know.” In truth, she had been trying to stay away from Dave and his family. Despite her leverage over Lance, she didn’t want to give her ex-husband any further ammunition to use against her – or against Dave.

  “The kids miss you,” he said, brushing sand off the blanket. “Actually, so do I.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a friendly smile. “I miss you guys, too.” She looked away, toward the lake. “So Nina’s home?”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked at him sidelong. “You don’t sound any happier about it than Ritchie did.”

  “He told you, huh?” Dave focused on the lake. “Yeah, she’s been home for almost a month.”

  She wasn’t sure how to phrase the next question, finally settling on, “Are things better?”

  He sidestepped the question. Instead, he said, “I’ve put in for a year-long sabbatical. I have an idea for a book about the history of the Great Lakes, and I need to publish more if I hope to gain tenure anyway. Seemed like a good time to do it.”

  “Good for you,” she said. “The break from teaching should help with a lot of things.”

  He nodded as he scanned the beach – looking for the kids, she presumed. “That’s what I’m hoping for.” He focused on her again. “Listen. I’ll need an editor. Would you have time to help me?”

  “Of course,” she said instantly. “Just copy editing and fact checking, or developmental work, too?”

  “The whole ball of wax,” he said. “I need somebody to bounce my ideas off of.”

  “Okay,” she said with an arch smile, “but it’s gonna cost you.”

  “I can handle it,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. Something told her he was talking about more than just editing his book.

  “Dad!” Ritchie said, nearly plowing into them.

  “Careful, buddy,” Dave said. “You’re kicking sand all over us.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Dad! Can we sleep over at Julia’s tonight?”

  “What?”

  “I want to sleep in her loft,” Ritchie said.

  “You’d melt,” she told him, laughing. “The loft is way too hot to sleep in right now.”

  “But you guys did it,” Ritchie argued.

  She flashed on a memory of her and Dave, making love for the first time in the stiflin
g loft while her grandparents were at the mall. Involuntarily, she glanced at Dave. He was looking at her, too, and turning the same shade of red that she was sure she was. “Um,” she said to Ritchie, who was giving them a puzzled look. “Let’s talk about it later.”

  He pouted.

  “Later, Ritchie,” his dad said.

  “Oh, fine,” he said with a sigh of frustration, and ran back to the lake.

  Dave gave her an embarrassed grin. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

  “Obviously,” she said.

  He was still looking at her, his grin fading. “You look great.”

  “So do you.” To her, anyway. His eyes still looked too tired, and she was pretty sure he would regret not putting sunscreen on the top of his head. But in the way he held his shoulders, the tilt of his head, even the line of ginger hair down the middle of his belly, she saw the boy she had lain with in her grandparents’ loft. The one she had fallen in love with. The one, God help her, she ached to lie with again.

  She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t afford the feelings those memories were stirring up – not now, with Nina back in Dave’s life, and maybe not ever. Abruptly, she got to her feet. “I should go home.”

  “Jule.” He took her hand. “Please stay. I’ll be….”

  “It’s not you, Dave. It’s me.” She squeezed his hand and let it go. “All I can think of is holding you.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “You should say goodbye to the kids, at least.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. I will.” She started toward the water, not really knowing where she was going. She only knew that she needed to put some distance between herself and Dave, or there would be no going back.

  ~

  He watched her go and cursed his luck for what must have been the ten millionth time.

  She was so beautiful. In his eyes, time hadn’t touched her at all. She had swapped her youthful bikini for a more modest one-piece suit, but her legs still went on forever. Her dark brown hair swayed against her back as she made her way down to the water’s edge.