“Sylvie, oh, Sylvie, I love you.”
“I hate you, Mom. You killed the father of my baby.”
“But there never was a baby, my darling.”
We found her a new place close by, run by a young family and a good staff. Carl brought her down. She wouldn’t get in the car if I was going, too. She says she’s never coming home again. I don’t believe that. I believe she will come home again and she will throw things at me and curse and that she will lay her face against mine and kiss my eyelids. But for now, I am the destroyer of her family.
There is always a price to pay for every act we perform. The boys say all the right things, but I feel in their embraces and kind words a hesitancy, a fear of having a mother who could do such a thing.
But when Carl wraps his legs around me in the night, I feel he needs me. Last night he whispered, “Jess, I thought I didn’t tell you about my life because I thought it would be a burden to you. Now I know that it would be a burden to me, too. It was a selfish thing.” And I felt his poor back through his pajamas and wondered how he could have hung on to the underside of that brown truck for so long.
Who am I to think that I will figure it all out by writing in my notebook?
I realize that I have no idea why we act the way we do. I just know that I did what I had to do for my own sanity. I know that it happened so fast that he felt nothing. I write that down but then realize that, like Carl, I am building a case for myself.
I close the book, stare at the back cover, place the cap over the gold nib of my new pen. The place in the center of the table where the bullet went through is smooth. I can’t find the wound with my hand even when I close my eyes and trust my fingers. Then I feel the small hole in his back where the bullet entered. It’s my burden to feel that hole forever.
The turkey needs basting. I chill the white wine before I begin to peel the potatoes. Through the kitchen window, I see them returning. They stop at the boulder, lean against it as they talk. The wet flakes of snow build up on their shoulders and hair. Marte’s hat is covered. I’m grateful she agreed to come for dinner.
Charlie hangs his arm around Madeline, kisses her forehead. Sam’s new girlfriend’s name is Veronica. Isn’t that funny? It reminds me of that old cartoon. She’s studying oncology. Carl likes her. They talk about hospitals and illness and surgery. Carl laughs. I can hear him even through the falling snow and the windowpane. I haven’t heard him laugh much. Is that Sylvie’s moon? The laughter? I wave with my free hand.
Yes, this Thanksgiving will be different. I have a new family, Carl’s family, although I will never meet them. They are all dead. Or perhaps they aren’t. What about Charles, the cousin who rode into the Camargue marsh?
I have a new husband with weaknesses and sadness and guilt, whom I will learn to love all over again in a different way. Not the Carl who fixes everything, picks me up, fixes my cuts, but a Carl who is real and who needs me now. And his violin. Last week he turned over the corner of a page in the phone book, highlighted “Violins and Cellos Refurbished and Repaired.”
And Sylvie. Yes. She’s in the dark place now. Her family is destroyed. Her barn is burned down. But she will see the moon. I will help her. We will talk about her father in the camp, and Ralph, and perhaps she will emerge from the fairy darkness dancing.
Carl opens the door. Behind him are my boys with Madeline and Veronica and Marte. Carl has lost weight in the last few weeks. He walks as if it is difficult to pull his shoes from the floor. But he spreads his arms toward me. Yes. He loves me. I go to him.
“Carl? Why do the gulls face the rising sun?”
“Because they know it’s going to be a day full of fish, my pet.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks, first and foremost, to members of my stellar writing group: Annaliese Jakimides, Christopher Barstow, Paul Markosian, Kristin Britain, David Fickett, Thelma White, and Bettina Dudley, who listened, agreed, disagreed, suggested, and supported, and without whom this book would not exist.
To my supportive husband, Bill, first reader after my writing group and staunch advocate of “a room of my own.”
To my friend Linda Kimmelman, for help in interpretation of Biblical passages.
To my fabulous agent, Sandy Choron, for her faith in my work and her enduring friendship.
To my editor, Andra Olenik, for her astute editing suggestions, and her ability to hear what’s exactly right.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2005 by Cynthia Thayer. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions
and insights are based on experience, all names, characters,
places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or
should be inferred.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for a previous edition of this work.
E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-232-3
ALSO BY CYNTHIA THAYER
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