Drops of Cerulean: A Novel
Page 33
“Yes, the expectations of a public high school teacher are grueling for anyone, and the pay is lousy. I can’t believe what society expects teachers to do with how little they are given.”
Her heart settled, relieved that she would not be cornered to defend her decision.
“But that’s not what I am getting at. I think you should teach, but at the university level. Even if you taught part-time, it would be something to fulfill you professionally and turn your attention to other things.”
“And what about Ainsley? What ‘other things’ are more important than her?”
“Ainsley will be fine, because we are her parents, and you won’t be working so much that it will be a bad situation for her. Delphina, you overthink things … your anxiety, your worry … you need more in life other than Ainsley.”
Delphina stared out the window, unable to counter. She knew he was right. As much as she longed to be home with her daughter, she knew she had more to offer. She also began to fear her attention and focus could even be a detriment. There was something to be said about having something for yourself, and she knew her daughter would benefit from seeing her fulfilled through a vocation. The anxiety she held since her childhood acted as water, ready to fill any vessel. In this stage of her life, that vessel was Ainsley.
“I don’t even know how to begin,” she admitted.
“Well, I do. I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and just this week I thought about it again as I stared out my office window.”
“And?”
“And my eyes were resting on the University of Houston Downtown. You taught a class there that summer, which gives you one foot in the door at UHD. The other foot is up to you,” he replied as he tilted his head in a playful challenge.
DELPHINA FOLLOWED THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR, Mrs. Moore, down the long hallway, her excitement building as she saw the faculty names on the office doors. It had not occurred to her that she would have an office, seeing that she was slated to teach only two classes. She remembered the astonishment of a good number of Heights High teachers when she was given a classroom her first year. Most new teachers were relegated to the life of a floater. She had landed on her feet once again, other faculty members commenting they’d had a much harder time breaking into the system.
“Here you go, Dr. Walsh,” Mrs. Moore said, opening the door to the tiny office at the end of the hall. “It’s not very large, but the view is nice.”
“Yes, it most certainly is,” Delphina said, looking out the window. “Thank you.”
Delphina rested her bags on the desk, her gaze fixed out the window at the east side of town. She looked over to see a trace of the Niels Esperson, and her heart filled with love for her husband. She felt her life coming together again just as it had at Heights High, and while she knew she had played an active role in creating it, she gave thanks to the fortuitous circumstances that continued to find their way to her.
“Dr. Walsh?” Startled from her reverie, she turned around to see Jasmine, one of her old students. She knew it was another echo that she was in the right place. “I had no idea you left Heights High!”
That greeting marked the beginning of a lovely hour of catching up on one another’s lives, Delphina’s first experience in cultivating a relationship with an adult student. Although Jasmine had only been fifteen when Delphina first met her, her street smarts dominated her book smarts at the time. Delphina’s memory painted the relationship as more of a struggle, which was contrary to Jasmine’s recollection: “You never gave up on trying to help me.” Delphina’s impact had not been tangible at the time, which made her wonder about the other times her hand would now be tipping the scales of their lives, so many years later.
“Let’s go to the cafeteria for coffee … We can get there just in time before they close,” Jasmine said.
“Sounds like just what I need,” Delphina acknowledged, locking her office door as they returned to the lobby.
As Jasmine shared her journey after high school and her foray into retail, Delphina absorbed her surroundings, noting the windows and long hallways dividing the building. Although she had taught a summer class there many years ago, she had not paid much attention to the building. As they made their way to the elevators and then the lobby, Delphina noted a sprinkling of ornate remnants of days past scattered throughout the modern space.
“I was good at accounting in high school, not that you could tell by my grades since I didn’t do much,” Jasmine offered over a rueful laugh. “But I understood it. It came easily to me, and I liked how everything had its place.”
“Yes, numbers do have black-and-white answers. Perhaps I should have taken to it more,” Delphina acknowledged as she poured coffee into her cup. “Might have helped settle my heart!”
“Well, when my mother said her accounting office, she’s a secretary there, was looking for a receptionist, I figured God was sending me a message.”
Delphina raised her eyebrows in a question as they made their way to the lobby.
“I could work during the day and attend evening classes. It’s a much better setup than the mall, especially with my baby, and it will be a better job in the end for all of us.”
“I couldn’t be happier for you, Jasmine,” Delphina beamed. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Yes, you did!” she affirmed. “And now I need to bring that it to my evening class. Mind if I stop by sometimes?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” Delphina said as the two women hugged. “Enjoy class. I’m heading to the bookstore for a few things before I head back up.”
COFFEE IN HAND, DELPHINA MADE her way around the lobby before taking the stairs to explore one floor at a time, meandering down the long hallways and envisioning what had once been. She knew very little of the building, other than that it was nearing ninety years old. A building of this scale could not have been intended as an educational institution given the time it was built and the size of the city at the time.
As she ascended to the fourth floor, the atmosphere thickened, enveloping her in silence as she traipsed down the long aisles, peeking into the handful of offices with open doors. She surmised the heaviness in her heart was due to her absence from Ainsley, knowing that her time would be better spent setting up her office and working on her syllabus rather than roaming the halls.
Delphina’s mind drifted back to her thoughts from earlier and how her life’s circumstances had come to be. For an anxious heart from East Houston, she had come a long way. She knew she still had a way to go, but she felt the pieces of her life settling almost in tandem with the steps she was taking around her new workplace.
Taking a sip of coffee, she remembered the first time she saw the UHD Building when her family first drove in from Granger. She remembered the days she spent with her momma at the coffee plant and the day she discovered her love of writing as she looked at the skyline and the bronze building, the one in which her future husband would pour his heart into redesigning. She offered thanks for her struggles, realizing that had she a calm heart she would have never met Dr. Stilton, the person who gave her the opportunity to spend time in The Heights. It was the location of her first and only home apart from her parents, her first job, and her meeting of her husband.
She recalled her social isolation as a child, and with it came another wave of gratitude: The moments she spent as an observer allowed her to appreciate interconnectedness from an early age. Interconnectedness was at work again today; Jasmine’s unexpected visit had pulled her away from the grind, gifting a time for reflection that she would not have had otherwise.
By the time she made it to the sixth floor, her thoughts brought the realization that her anxiety was evolving to more of a restlessness, that perhaps each turn her life had taken was guiding her to what she was meant to do. The idea of looking ahead to the puzzle pieces left to fit in her lifetime brought more curiosity than unease, the balance on the former given the beauty of how her life continued to unfold. S
he paused at her office door; a sensation beckoned her to take a look around to see who was watching. The building felt like an old friend. Seeing an empty corridor, she continued through the door to begin the process of making the space her own.
DELPHINA SAT AT THE COMPUTER in her office, attempting to focus on grading midterm exams. Rosa was with Ainsley, which thankfully afforded her more time to work. Closing her eyes to still her mind, she looked out the window toward the east side of Houston. The late afternoons and evenings spent grading and planning in her office lulled her to another world, one where she heard the train whistles in concert with screeching of the rails. She fought off the urge to meander the halls with coffee as she did on so many nights, knowing she needed to focus on work rather than the musings of her mind.
“Of course, this place is haunted,” a colleague replied when Delphina confided that she felt a little uneasy after hours on the tenth floor that first semester. “Three hundred and fifty Union soldiers were imprisoned here. You haven’t read the history of this building?”
She asked Victor about it one night over supper.
“Architecturally, it was ahead of its time when it was constructed in 1930. Known as the Merchants and Manufacturers Building, it was meant to be a gem of the city, like a shopping mall of sorts with offices and industry,” he replied.
“What happened?” Delphina asked.
“Great Depression, flooding on the bayou. Gave people a reason to look elsewhere. And you know how fast Houston changes … newer buildings were on the way when confidences rose.”
Her initial unease evolved into feelings of warmth and comfort; Delphina was beginning to wonder if some part of her soul communed with the spirits in the building. She felt UHD was where she had belonged all along, a place where her responsibilities between home and work balanced, a place that allowed her to enjoy learning while helping students succeed. She poured love into her work, spending hours to create a flawless lesson that blended the art and science of teaching and discussions to ignite a passion in the students.
As the semester progressed, her late afternoons in the office turned to evenings, Delphina eventually taking the late classes for students who worked during the day. She had her mornings with Ainsley and time during the day to volunteer as a room parent. She was thankful for Victor’s instinct, for the serendipity that came into play when his eyes rested on UHD from his office window as he reflected on how to support her.
She knew she needed to focus. She chastised herself for the poor use of time last week, too much time spent wandering the floors after hours with coffee in hand, imagining the people that once bustled through the halls and lobby. These sojourns throughout the building brought her comfort, but she knew she had indulged too much when even Rosa failed to make eye contact after her consecutive late arrivals home.
Closing her eyes, she summoned her focus and gave a slight bow to the spirits in the M&M. It was time to focus on her work.
CADMUS
Autumn 2013
ROBERT COULD HAVE EASILY SENT Jane to the client meeting in Boston, but he knew it offered a good reason to see Genevieve. They had met once when she was in town for the Christmas holiday, and although Cadmus’ heart dipped when she confessed that her mother did not want to join her on the visit, he was pleased she remained undaunted in her decision to have dinner at their family’s home on Heights Boulevard.
During that first visit in Houston, Cadmus shared his parents’ love story as it had been told to him, but he also confided the affair and the most dreadful night at Shadyside. He told her about the letter he found from Maureen Sullivan after his mother died, as well as how Margaret filled out the rest of the sordid tale. He shared Michael’s manipulation at the reading of the will, his intense jealousy of his father and of his parents’ marriage. Cadmus spoke methodically, making every effort to convey the family history as factually as he could but admitting the bias of his own lens.
Robert served as a dutiful host of The Doyle House, refreshing glasses as the stories unfolded. Genevieve confided that she wanted to try her Greek cousins’ newest place in town on her next visit. They joked at how the maître d’ would react if they declared themselves as the long-lost Petrarkis relatives and, as such, deserved the best seat in the house. Cadmus shared that his mother’s parents loved him as best they could, but his guilt over her death, as well as the fact their lives veered in differing directions, drove him to a life of seclusion.
Cadmus and Robert enjoyed their day meandering through South End, Beacon Hill, and Newberry Street, going in and out of stores and taking breaks over coffee and pastries. They would visit Cambridge with Genevieve the following day, and while Cadmus knew he would adore the university setting, he could not help but predict his favorite part of the visit would rest with their stroll down Commonwealth Avenue, the inspiration behind Heights Boulevard’s esplanade, in place before The Doyle House existed.
They planned to enjoy a round of drinks on their own at The Last Hurrah before Genevieve arrived. He imagined his parents gracing the bar had they been alive, his father’s eyes commanding attention while his mother maintained her powerful, understated presence. He beckoned back the waiter, deciding last-minute to change his usual drink order to a gimlet. He and Robert made a toast to their trip—the only trip they would ever take to see a family member.
Robert was taken aback by Genevieve’s growing resemblance to Ilona, even though he only knew his mother-in-law through stories and photographs. Genevieve walked into the bar, unassuming yet full of confidence at the same time, her brown eyes full of life.
“I’m so glad to see you both!” she cheered, the strength of her embrace rattling Cadmus. Aside from Robert, Cadmus had last had a hug full of that much love only when his mother was alive. Genevieve went around the table to offer a hug to Robert, Cadmus rising to help her into her chair.
“And what are you having, Uncle Cadmus?” she asked, giving his drink a once-over.
“A gimlet, of course. In honor of your great-grandparents, what hell-raisers they were, enjoying gimlets during Prohibition!”
“Then that’s what I’ll have. Quite fitting for the news I have to share.” Genevieve said as she licked her lips in anticipation. “The Harvard Law Review is publishing my article striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. We will see what the Supreme Court has to say soon enough!”
“Now that’s an accomplishment, indeed!” Robert bellowed. “What a progressive you are!”
“Yes, my mother tells me I’m cut from the same cloth as my great-grandmother,” she grinned, looking to Cadmus.
“Speaking of, I do have something for you,” Cadmus responded, reaching into the interior breast pocket of his jacket. “This belonged to Ilona. I know she would be thrilled for you to have it.”
Genevieve eyed the black velvet box for a moment before opening the lid, gasping when she saw the diamond bracelet Cadmus remembered his father buying the Christmas before he died.
“Uncle Cadmus, surely this should be given to someone else,” She demurred as her fingers stroked the diamonds.
“No, my dear. It belongs to a hell-raiser, to a progressive,” he replied, eyes twinkling as he sipped his gimlet. “Wear it, and think of Ilona.”
CADMUS SPENT THE MORNING IN the rose garden, thoughts of his mother coming on stronger than normal in the month after their Boston trip. The September humidity glazed his forehead. He hoped autumn weather would make a mark this year. The phone was ringing when he entered the kitchen. By the time he arrived in the library, he was winded, falling heavily into the chair as he picked up the receiver.
“Cadmus! So glad you finally answered. Is everything okay?” a voice rang out.
“Evelyn? Why, of course!” he replied, bewildered by the call.
“Well, it’s quite unusual for you to miss a class without calling. I can’t recall such a time in the past twenty years I’ve known you.”
“Missed a class? But it’s Tuesday. My first class doesn’t
start until eleven thirty.”
“Cadmus, it’s Wednesday. Your first class was at nine o’clock.”
He stared absently into space for several seconds before looking at his desk calendar.
“Oh, Good Lord, I don’t know how that happened,” he said, comparing the date on his watch. She was correct.
“Life happens. I’m just thankful you are okay.”
He hung up the phone and headed to his room to get ready for his afternoon class, deciding that he would not share this detail with Robert, just another indicator of their growing concern over his memory struggles.
Fear set in as he drove to the University. He was only a few weeks into the fall semester, and he only taught two classes. As his teaching assistant, Clementine, planned to cover most of the grading, his workload was very simple, but he did not want to lose the dignity it brought.
The small lapses peppering the past year were easier to discard, simple things like forgetfulness over where he had placed his keys or whether he had finished grading a set of papers, things that were easily identified as “normal” with a seventy-seven-year-old mind. But this morning’s episode supported a progression, as did his behavior at a dinner with a few of their friends, where he had struggled to follow the threads of conversation, unable to interject. He remembered the defensiveness that had crept over him on their drive home afterward, turning to Robert and saying, “I’m tired, that’s all. I tossed and turned much of the night.” He was not lying. He was very tired, fatigue becoming more of a daily companion.
“I am so glad you are here,” he said to Clementine when he saw her seated at his desk.
“Of course, Dr. Doyle,” she replied. He opted not to inquire about the concerned tone of her answer, which prompted him to wonder whether it was more than his forgetfulness over the morning class. He did not want to know.
“I’ll attend the afternoon session with you,” she said, moving from his desk to give him his seat.