Love and Gravity

by Samantha Sotto

  —

  Andrea’s gaze wandered through the intricately carved Saxon-era herringbone stonework over the chancel. The ancient design was a testament to how well stone weathered time. Whatever secret Isaac had etched into his limestone sundial, he had wanted to ensure that it would last.

  Andrea had learned that the sundial had been donated to the St. John the Baptist Church by a certain Christopher Turnor after he purchased Woolsthorpe Manor in 1733. Turnor had believed that the sundial, built by Isaac when he was nine years old, would have a better home at the church where Isaac’s family was buried than in the barn where it was found. Andrea hurried to the organ chamber where the sundial was kept.

  An effigy of an aged, though dignified, Isaac Newton peeked out from behind a large pipe organ. The artist had carved Isaac’s image posthumously, copied from heavily stylized paintings that bore no resemblance to the Isaac Andrea knew. The elderly face’s blank gaze and the wig that Isaac often wore in portraits made him a stranger. Andrea peered into the effigy’s face, searching for the passionate young man she desperately missed. Dead wood stared back at her. Her eyes escaped to the limestone sundial beneath it. The sundial, shaped like a half circle, was missing a gnomon and was mounted upside down in a frame of carved red marble. She scoured it for Isaac’s message.

  Andrea lost track of how long she searched. Her chest sank. She took a step back and released a sigh. A faded Roman numeral, as minuscule as Isaac’s handwriting, leapt at her from the bottom left corner of the stone.

  VIII

  Andrea stared at the number, uncertain if it was part of the sundial’s design or if it was the message Isaac had left for her. She laid her palm over the tiny Roman numeral. It chilled her skin. Andrea recoiled. She was in the church where Isaac had been baptized and had attended Sunday services, but he had never felt farther away. She hurried to the exit, wrestling with the number in her mind.

  A starling flew above her head. Andrea followed the bird’s path out the doorway to the graveyard on the church’s grounds. She needed air. Well-tended paths led her to rows of weathered gravestones. She accepted their invitation to linger. She was not eager to return to her hotel room empty-handed.

  Andrea took small steps, taking time to read the names on each of the old graves. Husbands lay beside their wives, fathers beside their sons, mothers beside their daughters. Death, she thought, found a way to bring families back together. She made her way through the cemetery and reached the last of its rows. A crumbling tombstone leaned to its side, propped up by the breeze and a prayer. A smaller headstone carved with a cherub rested next to it. A similar angel watched over Andrea’s infant sister Wendy’s grave. Andrea knelt by the cherub and brushed the moss from the name beneath the little angel’s wings. MARGERY.

  The rest of the name was worn away, but the date beneath it was clear enough to break her heart. The child buried beneath it had lived only for a day, shorter than the time she had been allowed to keep her sister. Andrea wondered if it made her family’s grief less or greater than her own. Tears welled in her eyes. She tore her gaze away from the child’s grave and fixed it on the lopsided tombstone beside it. A faded epitaph pierced her tears.

  HERE LYETH THE BODY OF ANDREA LOUVIERE

  WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE IN THE YEAR 1666

  AGED 23 YEARS

  Ground and logic gave way beneath her feet. Andrea clutched the side of the tombstone, her knuckles cold and white. She forced herself to read the rest of the weathered engraving. Verses from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe screamed at her from beneath the date of her death.

  ONE NIGHT SHALL DEATH TO TWO YOUNG LOVERS GIVE,

  BUT SHE DESERV’D UNNUMBER’D YEARS TO LIVE!

  ’TIS I AM GUILTY, I HAVE THEE BETRAY’D,

  WHO CAME NOT EARLY, AS MY CHARMING MAID.

  WHATEVER SLEW THEE, I THE CAUSE REMAIN,

  I NAM’D, AND FIX’D THE PLACE, WHERE THOU WAST SLAIN.

  Andrea crumpled to the grass. She pulled out the letter she had found at Woolsthorpe from her bag. She was a guest at her own funeral and did not want to be alone. She unfolded Isaac’s letter and skimmed through it, searching for the part that had confused her the night before.

  I carved a message into the stone this afternoon and there it will stay until your eyes fall upon it. It is not necessary that you understand what I have left for you. What matters is that you remember it. If you do, everything that lies ahead of you shall fall into place.

  She turned to the next page.

  But for now, cast your thoughts from the message I have left for you on the sundial. You must not sit in the rain. This letter has already waited awhile to be read. It can wait a little bit more.

  A fat raindrop splashed on Andrea’s cheek and slid down her neck. What had been nonsense the previous evening had turned into prophecy. A flurry of drops splattered over Isaac’s words. Andrea clambered up from the grass and ran back to the church. She settled into a pew in the back of the church, dried her hands on her jeans, and returned to Isaac’s rain-spattered letter.

  My words cannot shelter you from a storm but they can warn you of its approach. There is a storm coming and it is not the one you have just sought shelter from. Forgive me for not being able to reveal more than this. I will, however, chance this one slip. I know too well what it feels like to long for something you can never have back. So run home, Andrea. Run home now. I am so, so terribly sorry for your loss.

  Yours always,

  Isaac

  1666

  1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55

  People are slow to believe that, which if believed, would work them harm.

  —OVID

  San Francisco

  Present Day

  Andrea is twenty-two.

  Andrea ran. Tripped. Picked herself up. And ran again. The walkway of her family’s home seemed to have a grown a hundred feet while she was away. She sprinted across the stretch to the front door. Her sides burned. Isaac had told her to run home and she did. If he could predict the rain, she was not going to take any chances with storms. She banged her fist on the door.

  “Hey, I thought you were in London,” Sebastian said, pulling the door open. “What are you doing here?”

  Andrea grabbed his forearm. He had grown a foot over the summer and she needed to stand on her toes to look at his freckled face. “Bas, are you okay?”

  “Sure.” He pulled his arm away. “Why?”

  “And Dad? Sylvia?” Andrea dragged her suitcase into the foyer. “Are they okay? Where are they? Are they home?”

  “Mom’s doing laundry and Dad’s in the music room. Is something wrong?”

  Andrea ran past him and pushed the music room’s door open, breathing hard. “Dad?”

  Her dad’s bow screeched to a stop in the middle of his cello arrangement for “Hey Jude.” “Andrea? What are you doing here? Don’t you have a business trip this week?”

  Andrea searched the nooks and crannies of his face. The way his cancer used to shadow his bravest smile was as clear in her mind now as it was when she was a little girl. There were no traces of it that afternoon. She threw her arms around him. “You’re okay.”

  “Of course I am.” His shoulders stiffened. “Why wouldn’t I be? What’s going on? I thought you said you couldn’t make it back for the concert.”

  “The concert…right. I…um…wanted it to be a surprise so…” She threw her hands up in the air. “Surprise.”

  “I wish you’d told me you were coming home. I could have picked you up from the airport.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  Andrea exhaled for the first time since she’d raced out of St. John the Baptist Church. There had been no need to hurry home. Isaac had made a mistake. “Everything’s fine.”

  A smile crinkled the corners of her dad’s eyes. “Well, this is the best surprise. You won’t regret it, kiddo. I’m really happy that you changed your mind. You’ll learn your piece in no time.”

  “
My piece?” Blood drained from her face and arms. “Wait. That’s not why I’m—”

  “You’ll do great.” He massaged the muscle around the metal rod in his arm.

  “Dad, I…” Andrea shook her head. She had seen her grave and run home to face a storm that didn’t come. There shouldn’t have been any more space in her chest for other fears, but her ribs expanded to make room for a stage. She strained to breathe under the old weight. She was tired of it. She straightened her shoulders and looked her dad in the eye. “I’m willing to make a fool out of myself if you are. Do we have a deal?”

  —

  Each day that passed without any of her family suffering so much as a paper cut blunted Isaac’s warning, but the icy needles stabbing her lungs twisted each time she picked up her cello. Her house did not have enough steps to count. She tiptoed downstairs and slipped into the music room the night before the show.

  She had mastered her dad’s cello arrangement for “Eleanor Rigby” on the first try, but she preferred to tremble on her own. Tuna poked her head out from behind her dad’s chair. Andrea scooped her up and stroked her back. The ridges of her spine rubbed against Andrea’s fingertips. She looked up from Tuna’s thinning fur to her dad’s concert posters. Making believe that Tuna was still the little kitten that popped her head out of a gift-wrapped box was easier if she couldn’t see the bald patches on her back.

  Her eyes drifted to the foam panel where a glowing white crack had first appeared. Though she had never heard Isaac’s voice, her heart had heard him calling her name through the wall from over three hundred years away. Every fiber in her body ached to answer him. She hugged Tuna tighter. Her watch snagged on the cat’s collar. Tuna jumped from Andrea’s arms and knocked over the music stand. Her dad’s “Let It Be” arrangement scattered over the floor. Andrea gathered up the music sheets. Notes sang from the pages. Andrea took the Beatles’ advice and pulled her cello out of its case.

  Isaac’s song flowed out of her, answering his silent call. She didn’t know what she wanted to say to Isaac if the crack opened. All she was certain of was that holding his hand was going to make her fingers shake less. Worrying about her crumbling grave could wait. Her twenty-third birthday was still a year away. The disaster waiting for her on Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall’s stage was much closer.

  Tuna’s hiss sliced a C note. Andrea raised her eyes from the strings and caught the scent of apples. A glowing crack spread below her dad’s Lisbon concert poster. A small sunlit bedroom appeared beyond it. A swallow, perched on a windowsill, was the room’s sole occupant. It hopped onto Isaac’s desk and pecked at chunks of stale bread. Tuna perked her ears. She locked her eyes on the bird, crouched, and sprung through the crack.

  “No!” Andrea leapt to the wall.

  Tuna landed on Isaac’s floor. The crack closed behind her. Bile surged up Andrea’s throat. She slumped against the wall and waited for Tuna to come home.

  A furry head nudged her hip. She cradled Tuna on her lap and pulled her sweatshirt’s sleeve over her watch. She did not want to know how much time Tuna had left. Andrea held her close and waited for the storm Isaac had predicted to arrive. She rubbed her old friend’s belly until her fingernails filled with dust.

  —

  Applause bounced off the convex acrylic panels hanging from the ceiling of the symphony hall. Her dad made his way to his seat on the stage. Andrea almost didn’t recognize him. It might have been his black tuxedo or the way the spotlight ignited the red streaks in his hair, but whatever it was, it made him a lifetime younger and a hundred feet tall. He took a bow, turned to where Andrea was standing in the wings, and winked.

  “The Magical Mystery Tour,” “The Fool on the Hill,” and “Penny Lane” seeped backstage. Icy beads of sweat dripped down Andrea’s back. The audience clapped at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Her duet with her dad was next. She walked across the stage and took her place next to him.

  Sebastian waved at Andrea from the front row. He had spent the better part of the day looking for Tuna. Andrea did not have the heart to tell him that unless he found the dust she had scattered over their backyard in the middle of the night, he was never going to see her again. Andrea turned from his smile to the music sheets in front of her. She squeezed her eyes shut and made her way down Abbey Road.

  The last note of “Eleanor Rigby” hung in the air. Applause soared over it. Her dad did not wait for it to end. He leapt out of his seat and hugged Andrea tighter than he ever had in his life.

  —

  The evening breeze kissed Andrea’s cheek. She hooked her arm around her dad’s. Andrea had waited eight years to take this walk with him. She looked up at his eyes and smiled. For the first time since she walked off Carnegie Hall’s stage, she didn’t see them twitch.

  “I told you there was nothing to be nervous about. You were great out there, kiddo.”

  “Says the man who couldn’t stop pacing his dressing room and stuffing his face with M&M’s. Do I need to remind you of how many bags you went through tonight?”

  “Hey, I only ate the orange ones.” A bright and brand-new laugh tripped over his lips. “I’m really glad we—” his face contorted.

  “Dad? What’s wrong?”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I…I’m not feeling too good.”

  “Let’s go back home.”

  Her dad nodded, gripped her wrist, and fell in a twisted heap on the ground.

  Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour.

  —OVID

  San Francisco

  Present Day

  Andrea is twenty-two.

  They were espresso-colored Dansko shoes, possibly a size ten. Andrea counted the tiny creases in the oiled leather, refusing to look at the doctor’s face. She didn’t want to see the news he carried in his eyes.

  “Mrs. Louviere,” he said to Sylvia in a voice that sounded like suede.

  Sylvia gripped Sebastian’s hand. “How is my husband?”

  “He suffered a major aneurysm. I’m sorry. We did—”

  Andrea bolted out of the hospital’s waiting room. If she didn’t hear the next words the doctor said, everything was going to be okay. She was going to run home and find her dad in their music room. She was going to listen to four ice cubes clinking inside her glass of chocolate milk, he was going to drink his Earl Grey tea, and they were going to play the “Butterfly Lovers” Concerto and never stop.

  —

  When she was a little girl, Andrea prayed to God to keep her safe from monsters. Now she wished that he had sent her one. If her father had been killed in a car crash by a deadbeat drunk who hit his kids, she would have had a monster to blame for his death. But the aneurysm that had killed her father left Andrea with only one man to hate.

  Isaac had known about her father’s death, and all he had chosen to tell her was to run home in the rain. This was her last thought before she slept and the first when she woke up. She reread his letter at least a hundred times, hoping to arrive at a different conclusion. Still, she was grateful. Blame was the best balm. She slathered a thick layer over the hole in her chest.

  Sebastian did not have the same luxury. After the funeral, he sat in front of the television, drowning in the empty spot his dad had left on the couch. Andrea sat next to him and pretended to watch the local news. She tried to fill up as much space on the sofa as she could but fell a foot and a father short. The doorbell rang in the middle of the weather report.

  “I’ll get it,” Andrea said.

  Sebastian nodded and returned to staring blankly at a forecast for fog and rain.

  Andrea walked to the front door, hoping that a neighbor’s pizza had lost its way. She would have tipped the delivery guy just to see a face that wasn’t sad.

  “Hey, you.” Nate stood on the welcome mat.

  “Hey.” Andrea couldn’t decide if the glassiness in Nate’s blue eyes was his grief or a reflection of hers. He had flown in for the funeral, but they had barely spoken. It wasn’t
personal. She had avoided all their guests, not trusting her lips to keep her thoughts to herself. No one would have understood why she cursed Isaac’s name.

  “I just wanted to check in on you guys. We weren’t able to talk much at the funeral.”

  “I know. Sorry about that. There were just so many people. But thank you for coming. Bas was really glad you came.” Andrea mustered a smile. The old warmth of Nate’s voice seeped inside her and melted away the whiskey-stained memory of the last time they had spoken. He was the boy who debated about the colors of songs with her again. “I was, too.”

  “Your dad was an amazing man, Dre. I had to come. Oh, I almost forgot. I ran into this guy at your door. He asked me to give you this.” Nate handed her a letter sealed with red wax. “He said his name was…um…Wesley? No. Westin. He looked kind of familiar. Was he a friend of your dad?”

  Andrea paled. She took the letter from Nate and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. She would have ripped it apart right then and there, but that would only have made Nate ask questions she couldn’t answer. “Yes. He’s an old friend.”

  “Yeah. I figured I must have seen him around your house or something.” Nate’s arms hung at his sides as though he wasn’t sure where to put them. “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Nate lowered his head. “Good night, then.”

  “I mean…” Andrea reached for his hand, wincing from the hole Isaac’s letter burned in her jeans. “I don’t want to stay here tonight.”

  —

  Nate pushed the door of his hotel room open and groped the wall for the light switch.