by Grace Sammon
We sit in relative silence watching the bay and the coast. Occasionally, I am aware of the commentary from the television, Ali’s prognostications for the game’s outcome. CC admitting—to Ali’s horror—that today she has to root for the Patriots. “Them there are fighting words,” Malcolm calls down from above.
The boat’s running motors slow, then stop as we come to anchor across from the Cliffs. So, so, so good to be on the water.
Everyone, with their varied levels of football enthusiasm and the very clear intent to be avid, silent fans, moves in to watch the game. By half time, with the score determined by everyone, except the loyal Ali, we move to various spots on the boat for cleanup, quiet conversations, and the enjoyment of being on the water. Everyone is very sweet about my foot, and I am shooed off, gratefully, to simply sit at the stern, as Malcolm reverses our route. I am delighted when, from behind me, I hear the deep timbre of Tobias’ voice, “May I join you?”
Once he’s settled in the other deck chair, he slides down, and places his wallet behind his head. He tells me how he used to play on the beach under the cliffs as a child and how Joan loved to take Tia and her girlfriends to play there, how Joan had been a Girl Scout leader and had campouts under the cliffs, and how Joan and Tia would walk the beach hand-in-hand, even into Tia’s adulthood.
“She’s a good woman, too, don’t you think,” he asks me, eyes closed.
I’m not sure if he’s referring to Tia or CC, but the word “girlfriends” seems to have prompted his comment. “Seems to be Tobias. Was it hard for you to, um, ‘go with the flow’?”
“Harder than I would have thought, I’d have to admit. Even now, I sometimes find it easier to think they are just good friends, rather than….” He pauses. “Lovers.”
“Hard to always understand the decisions our children make, eh, Jessica?”
I stare at him, his eyes still closed. Nothing in his serene body gives away that he is referring to my story.
“Indeed it is Tobias. Indeed.”
He wants to know how the interview with Margaret Mary went this morning and I tell him about my nervousness and that she thinks I am quite “wrongheaded.”
“That would be Margaret Mary, quick to judge, quick to share her opinion, but there is usually something in what she says to at least consider. Did she mention she taught CC in elementary school? CC remembered her as one of her favorite teachers and tracked her down on Facebook, somehow. They got in touch, next thing I knew she came here.” Straightening himself in the chair, and returning the wallet to his back pocket, he scans the cliffs.
I remember all the times I brought Ryn and Adam here. So much closer and easier than negotiating the traffic and crowds of Ocean City and Rehoboth beaches. It always seemed a magical day when we three were at the cliffs. It would be nice to know if we were ever under Tobias’ watchful eye, or if we, by chance, and without remembering, played alongside Joan and Tia.
I’m trying to trace back specific times there as if I could conjure up some memory of a Black woman and her child, trying in vain to match up the middle portrait of Joan to someone I met. I’m still thinking, staring at the cliffs when Tobias asks me, “I should have asked before now, Jessica. How many children do you have?”
Before I realize it, “Three” comes from my lips, and my heart starts to pound.
We sit in silence for a while, as I try to slow the pounding in my chest. We are almost past the cliffs when Tobias says. “My grandfather would take me out on his boat, and we’d sleep overnight about here,” he says, pointing to the cliffs. “He would wake me and my cousins up with a clang of the ship’s bell and announce ‘The cliffs are awake! The cliffs are awake!’ Then, tumbling sleepily out of our berths we’d come up top, not to watch the sunrise, but to watch the effect of it on the cliffs. Invisible in the darkness, then barely perceptible, they splendidly change colors throughout the day, but they are magnificent at sunrise. I’ve been thinking of my grandfather a lot of late. It’s nice that he gave me the gift of thinking about the cliffs waking up. Something always calls me to the water, and something always pulls me back home,” he shares.
“I can see how that happens.” I respond and keep going, “There does seem to be something very special about this part of the world, isn’t there, Tobias? Just this morning on the way down I was trying to put my finger on what keeps pulling me back here.”
“Lots of us here feel that, Jessica. I know Malcolm does. He’s a good man, solid. He feels that tugging you describe all the time, wanting to be on the water, needing to work the land because Allison is grounded here. Good solid name for this tug of a boat, don’t you think? Most people think it’s just a descriptor.”
My blank looks shows that I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t bother to ask or notice. “The Tug,” he offers with a contented smile.
It’s almost sunset when we near the harbor and a defeated Ali calls us up for final beverages. Gentlemanly Tobias and “The Captain” help me up. The day has turned cool, but it’s still comfortable. Ali has the post-game show on low volume, ready to argue the referee calls as the re-plays are run. Tia, hand on CC’s arm, seems to be suggesting that she should be both satisfied at the Patriots win, and silent about it.
Then, sweetly, and unexpectedly, there is the trumpet. Through the large front windshield of the great room there is Roy on the sundeck, at attention, silhouetted against the fading light. Horn held high, he plays Taps.
Barley audibly, Tobias and Tia start singing. Sydney, soon, joins in.
Day is done, gone the sun.
From the lake, from the hill,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest.
God is nigh.
Thanks and praise, For our days,
‘Neath the sun, ‘Neath the stars,
‘Neath the sky,
As we go, this we know,
God is nigh.
Tears run unchecked down Tobias’ and Tia’s cheeks and she takes his hand.
Malcolm, Ali, and Roy bring the boat gently to rest in her slip. We all sit around, not wanting the evening to come to an end. Malcolm and Ali are staying on the boat for the night and invite me to do so to avoid the drive and to prolong the party.
Motivated by knowing I do need to make the hour and thirty-minute drive, I break up the party by saying I have to go. The others too move to go. Roy helps me off The Tug and to my car. I like the feel of my hand in his.
Tobias is leaning against his car as he waits for Tia and CC. He’s looking up, smiling, and pointing. “That’s Orion, the hunter constellation, largest constellation in the winter sky. My granddaddy would always ask us to find it. It’s just been visible for a few weeks, and it will be gone by spring. Always makes me feel like my granddaddy is with me during these months.”
I find the constellation easily. I used to point that one out to my own kids. Along with Tobias, I smile up at Orion.
“I know dad. That’s Orion. Let’s go,” says Tia, holding the door for him. I wince at what sounds like the harshness of it.
eve
I
t’s been a long day. When I pull into Hobart Street there are no parking spaces close to the house. My ankle is screaming from use and managing the ladders on the boat. As I hobble up the steps, I hear the beep for a text message.
“I estimate you should be home by now. All OK? – RLG.”
Smiling, I open the door, get greeted robustly by Gabler, move to the kitchen, grab one of the freezer packs Roy bought, pour a quick vodka, and head to the window seat before I text him back. “Yes, just this minute, uneventful, thank you. Ice pack on ankle, thanks for that too.” I hit send, hesitate, and text again, “U looked pretty splendid today.”
“You too. –RLG”
“”
“You left out sailor.”
“Sorry about that. Didn’t know you liked the water so much. – RLG”
“Soothes the soul.”
&
nbsp; Then, “Liked the Taps, nice touch.”
“I don’t play my horn enough. Having a drink? – RLG”
“No.” I lie.
“Busy week? – RLG”
“Finishing up with my students, packing, no more time at Grange . You?”
“Got to go to the new house, Malcolm thinks one of the eaves has a problem, some leakage at the roof line. ‘Nite. – RLG”
“Nite, sleep tight.”
Nothing back.
I sit, just enjoying the quiet of the evening and pull out my notes. Mary Margaret’s wrong-headedness comment is bothering me. I make more notes. Once they were girls, she said – they think they still are, she said. The story doesn’t end with them—it begins with them. Puzzle pieces forming the frame, not yet seeing the whole picture, but closer.
My text goes off, again. Smiling. Oh, not Roy, Erica.
“we r on our way, r u home yet”
“yes, all ok?”
“yes, want to bring you something.”
“k,” I type back, amused at how I teenage text.
Thirty minutes later Erica and Sonia arrive, having found a space right in front of the house. That’s good. Sonia and I can switch out spaces when they leave.
“We brought presents,” Erica announces. “Not for Christmas, I know you don’t want that. These are for your trip. We have to open them on the roof!” I give her a hug, holding her more tightly than before. I may imagine it, but it seems she returns the hug more deeply than in the past. I’m grateful for it. Then she’s gone, bounding upstairs, scooping Gabler up in the process.
As I look at Sonia with a “what’s this all about” look, she says, maybe a little exasperated, “Jessica, this was entirely her idea. I love you, but it is not my idea of something I want to do late on a Sunday evening to come into the city and climb on your roof.”
Handing me a huge thermos, she asks, “Can you manage getting upstairs with this?” To my raised eyebrows she says, “Don’t get excited, no hot toddies. It’s hot chocolate, it’s a school night. I told you this is not my idea. It is way too cold to be out there without something to warm us.”
I bump up the stairs on my bum, giving my ankle a rest, feeling the cold air blowing in from the open window in my office. Erica calls that she’s taken the blankets from Ryn and Adam’s rooms and their flashlights and that she’s also grabbed the quilt from the office. By the time I am trying, clumsily, to get through the window and out on the roof, Sonia is behind me, bottle of Baileys Irish Cream and two glasses in-hand. “For old times’ sake,” she says with a wink.
From each side of the window they help me onto the roof and help me ease into place. Leaning against the house, we snuggle together, Erica between us, seeming a bit anxious. Sonia and I sip our Baileys-laced hot chocolate. Just like years ago, almost.
We gaze at the night sky through bare and stark branches. Then we hear it. The lions! Roaring into the night! A west wind!
“Yeah!” shouts Erica jumping up from between us. “I knew it. I’ve been watching the weather. I really need snow by the end of the week to close schools so I can miss my chemistry test. I saw the winds are coming from the west. I remember what you always say about needing the west wind and preferably a crisp night. Lions!”
Sonia reaches for my hand and we sit awhile just listening and watching Erica backlit by the streetlamp. No matter how many times I’ve been up here I love when this happens. The contrast between the traffic on 16th, the occasional chatter of people walking below, and, just within the edge of our hearing there they are, roaring into the night, calling out and answering each other.
“This is for you, Aunt Jessica.” Erica bends down, handing me a package.
The first is a bright red T-shirt with a lioness roaring loudly. It’s inscribed Let us prey.
“I’ll be sure to carry this with me and put it on right away if the lions charge, Erica.”
“This one too but open the card last.”
Another T-shirt. Gray. They’ve done their homework. The front of this one has a multi-colored circle with a helix in the middle. “MtDNA!” I laugh out loud. “How nerdy did your friends think you were buying a T-shirt with this on it? I love it! Love both of you.” The shirt’s back has a series of what look like six wide, curved arcs. “Sorry, what are these?”
It is their turn to laugh. Sonia tells me that I will know when I get to Africa. Erica, mimicking exactly her mother’s voice and intonations, “Because you do not know this, Jess-cee-ka, you must now wait until Africa to open your card.”
After our laughter quiets we sit in silence for a while. Right before we are ready to go inside, I ask Erica if she sees him. She takes a minute, then looks up into the night sky and smiles her beautiful smile. She remembers! “Yes, Orion. I noticed him before. Hope he can make it snow!”
Inside, back in the heat, Erica crawls onto my bed in the parlor and falls asleep, leaving Sonia and me to talk over the two interviews and the day on the boat. I tell her about trying to set up Gene and Sydney, saying what a stunning couple they would make. “Let me guess” says Sonia, “Allison did not think this was a very good idea.”
“She didn’t, how did you know?”
“Everyone except you and Sydney would know this, Jessica. Open your eyes. Do you not see how Allison gushes over Gene? She and Gene had, or depending on the day, are having, an affair.”
There it is. The thing just beyond my seeing it. I am an idiot.
“Jessica, even Malcolm knows this to be true. Malcolm came to me because I was one of her friends. I thought he was going to ask me to betray her secret, but he came to me already knowing. He wanted to talk through how to tell her that he knew. That he didn’t want to put her through the ordeal of owning up to it. He wanted her to know that in life you don’t always get second chances, but that he would give her a second chance.
“I think Malcolm would give Allison many ‘second chances.’ I even think Allison knows that she belongs only and always with Malcolm. This thing she is doing with Gene is just foolishness. This is why I cannot be her friend right now. She knows this. What the two of them together are doing makes no sense, and it is hurting others.
“Malcolm trusts, I think, that it will run its course, or at least change when Gene leaves the campus in the New Year. Malcolm must know that it’s just too much of a temptation for both of them when they work together. This was not my story to tell you, Jessica, but you would only make matters worse if you meddle here.”
Coming from the great meddler herself, these are powerful words. I’m so naïve. Malcolm and Allison look so happy, so at ease with each other. Feeling stupid, I switch gears and comment on the dog, Oso.
Sonia says thoughtfully. “I gave that dog his name. I think Malcolm gave her this gift to bind her more to him,”
“Of course you did! So, why ‘Oso’?” I ask, expecting a profound answer.
“You are so silly Jessica, not everything is significant. He was very small and fluffy, like a little black teddy bear. Oso means bear. Simple.
We switch out the cars, wake Erica up, and say our goodnights. I check to see Orion’s progress on his hunt across the night sky and whisper a good night to the lions and to Tobias.
Inside, as I wash up the cup and glasses. My mind swims with thoughts about the old women, of Ali and the temptations life puts in front of us, about the repairs on the eaves at the new house that Roy is doing this week, and my weird obsession with a mitochondrial Eve. Then, the text comes in. It’s Roy.
“Who is driving you to the airport? – RLG”
“Sonia, I think.”
‘OK. Why are you up so late? – RLG’
“I’m answering your text . Seriously, Sonia and Erica just left. We could hear the lions tonight. It was wonderful! I’m excited. I just got an idea for name of the new house….” I text, leaving out my idea, teasing him.
“Sonia think it up? – RLG”
“Nope. A
ll me.” I make him ask. Oh, god, I’m flirting.
“OK, tell me. What inspired you? – RLG”
“I actually started thinking about the new house as an entity, not just a house. You know, the way you do a boat. Then, thinking about the women, I realize each of them is a start to a story not the end of a story.” Not wanting to admit I was also thinking of him, I type, “I was also thinking about the house structural design and the big eaves that overhang the porch. Started thinking about how I find the place seductive, magical, a place for beginnings. What do you think about calling her The Eaves or even The Eves?”
An immediate response from Roy, “Brava! Entirely agree! Excellent! Sonia will not be happy. Both names are perfect. Hope the oldies love the names! – RLG”
“Thanks.”
“Let me take you to the airport. – RLG”
“Yes, please, thank you. ‘Nite.”
Yikes.
africa
P
acking, end of semester grade reports, getting Gabler to the pet sitter, and compiling notes for The Grange project get out of hand. I make a resolution that when I come back in the New Year, I will get organized. I have piles upon piles of paperwork throughout the dining room and parlor. My office isn’t much better. The bedroom is a disaster. I’ve left drawers open. Clothes are tossed and across the bed and on the little table and chairs at the foot of the bed. I’ve just finished packing and gotten my suitcases downstairs when Roy arrives.
As instructed by the tour company, I have the small duffel bag packed with essential items and three days’ worth of clothes for a small safari side trip. My large suitcase is packed complete with fourteen days of clothing, camera battery charger, and gifts for local children.
I’m grateful for the ride to the airport and for Roy beside me. Something about going on excursions is always a bit easier when you have someone to chatter with before getting squarely and summarily dumped at the departure curb. I miss the old days when someone could take you right to the gate and be right at the gate eager for your arrival. So many images of long good-byes and quick, excited hellos! I’m feeling decidedly not brave.