by Kim Edwards
He laughed. “I’m totally winging it,” he said. “Everyone is. What do you think? Do you still have time? Want to take that boat ride?”
Keegan took one of Max’s hands and after a minute I took the other, and we climbed into the boat Keegan kept moored by the glassworks, at the docks where barges had once pulled up to load their wares. I sat next to Keegan near the bow, and Max, bundled securely in a bright orange life jacket, sat between us. The day had brightened and there were patches of blue, but it was still mostly overcast. I hugged my arms against the wind, glad to have my ratty old sweatshirt as we traveled out across the water, spray in our faces as we hit the white-crested waves. We traveled several miles down the lake, and I recognized the point where we crossed the border of the depot land into waters that had once been forbidden.
At first the green hills, forested or covered in swaying grasses, sloped down to the wide shale beach. Soon, however, the landscape began to change, grass-covered concrete bunkers rising out of the land in evenly spaced intervals. Even covered in sod they looked unnatural, rising out of the earth like the steady sound of a machine, like identical notes in the most boring piece of music in the universe. Their hunkering shapes and monotonous regularity made them seem ominous, too. Weapons bunkers, they must be; I’d seen an editorial from 1940 describing the soil as having been “seeded with bombs instead of wheat.” They were empty now, the weapons transferred, but even so I felt uneasy looking at them, the wild, organic beauty of the landscape lost to this precise and repetitious order.
Just past the last of the bunkers Keegan cut the motor, letting us drift with the waves. A cluster of machines, the yellow and orange and vivid green of crayons, stood on the shore. They had torn grass from the earth like a scalp, discarding it on one of the artificial hills, exposing the dark, rich soil. The area they had uncovered was large, and puddles had formed across it in the recent rains, so that in the overcast light it looked barren and uninhabitable; bleak, a quagmire.
“They sure don’t love the land, do they?” Keegan asked. “That’s the first stage of the first development. Not the one your uncle and Joey and Blake want to build, but a different company. We got a court order to have construction stopped temporarily. We’re trying to prove that the sale of those parcels was invalid.”
“I hope you can. You really should look into the groundwater. Because there’s a layer of shale beneath the soil that drains this whole area, and it looks like they’re damaging that here. Plus, the kind of development you’re talking about will strain the whole fragile ecosystem of the lake, which is already under stress. And this whole watershed drains into Lake Ontario, eventually. That’s the thing with water systems. Everything’s interconnected. Everything affects everything else.”
“Really, we’ll have to put you on the committee. I mean it—I called some friends while you were with Max, and it turns out the conservation groups have filed papers about the water table. That, along with the wildlife protection, is their main issue.”
“That’s good. What do you think? Will you win?”
“I don’t know. But here’s hoping.”
He turned the motor on again and took us past the lurid machines, past a forested section of land and a cluster of buildings, to a clearing. Here, the chapel stood by itself on a hill. It was built of red stone; the paint had peeled away from the doors, leaving them a weathered gray. A small graveyard, enclosed inside an ornate iron fence, stood beside it.
“There it is,” Keegan said. “I can’t wait to see the windows all uncovered. It’s a good thing they were boarded up, or we’d have lost them. I’m glad it’s far from the airstrip, too—less chance of damage from vibrations.”
“It looks so strange, here all by itself.”
Keegan nodded. “Believe it or not, the chapel was in the center of town. There was a blacksmith, a grocer, a seamstress. More than five hundred people lived there, and they were all scattered to the winds overnight. And before they came, the Cayuga and Seneca lived here, fished and hunted here.”
“I’m hungry,” Max announced.
“Granola bars and juice in the backpack,” Keegan said. “It’s up there, under the bow.” Max lifted a curtain and scooted into the cavelike space.
“He likes it in there,” Keegan said. “He’ll stay there the rest of the ride, I bet.”
We passed more forested land, more fields, and came to the shoreline my mother owned: the boathouse and my kayak on the shale beach, the wide lawn up to the house with its porches and French doors, its cupola.
“Remember that night you snuck out?” Keegan asked. “I was waiting right here in the canoe, trying to stay in the shadows. You were wearing a white dress.”
“I nearly tipped the canoe trying to get in,” I said. “I got soaked.”
“It was a warm night, as I remember.”
“It was,” I said, remembering how we’d sat spooned close together, me leaning back and Keegan’s arms around my waist, and the moon floating above us.
“We were so young, weren’t we?”
“Yes, we were. We were indeed.” Keegan lingered for a moment longer before he turned the boat in a wide curve and headed back, the damp wind rushing over our faces.
We docked, and Keegan lifted Max from the boat as we talked, making tentative plans to meet at the chapel on Wednesday. We parted at the sidewalk, but I stood watching them walk, Max skipping again, his shoes flashing, as they went hand in hand back to the glassworks, back to the fire and motion.
The Impala was stifling. I opened all the windows and doors to let it cool while I took out my phone to check my e-mail. Nothing more from Yoshi, which made me a little uneasy. Maybe he was just busy. I pulled up an earlier message and then a photo of the two of us, taken by a stranger outside the hot springs. Yoshi had his arm around my shoulders, and we were both smiling, and there was nothing in the picture to reveal our languorous dance in the dark kitchen, or the little flares of anger, or the trembling earth.
There was a message from the Serling College Special Collections office confirming that they had possession of the collected papers of Vivian Branch, and saying also that they were in the process of researching my request. Last was a message I didn’t expect, from Oliver Parrott. It was very formal, inviting me to visit the museum again to go through some of the images from his archives. Stuart would be there, he assured me, though the house wasn’t officially open on Saturdays, and I was welcome to bring someone, too. He had spoken to the church, he said, and felt quite passionately about the connections that were emerging. He could not wait to see the other windows, and he had stood for a long time this morning before the window on the landing of the woman with her arms full of flowers.
Full of irises, I thought.
Yes, I wrote back. I will come.
Chapter 10
SOME DREAMS MATTER, ILLUMINATE A CRUCIAL CHOICE, OR reveal some intuition that’s trying to push its way to the surface. Others, though, are detritus, the residue of the day reassembling itself in some disjointed and chaotic way, and those were the sorts of dreams I had the night before I drove back to see Oliver Parrott—dreams of chasing after Max, whose laughter I kept hearing in the trees, floating over water; dreams of running across the depot land, trying to climb out over the fences, which kept growing higher. Yoshi was in the dreams, too, trying to help, unable to find me. Frantic dreams, they left me tired, and I woke grouchy to another rainy day, the sky so densely gray and the rain so thick that I couldn’t see the opposite shore.
I pulled on the only pair of jeans I’d brought, my last clean T-shirt, and the same dark blue Night Riders sweatshirt. In the gray light, the color made me look bleached-out and tired. I brushed my hair and teeth, collected a basket of dirty laundry, and made my way downstairs.
Though it was Saturday and she had the day off, my mother was already up and dressed, her short hair moussed into spikes. She was sitting on the floor of the living room, near the door to the sleeping porch, a cup of coffee steaming
by her side and several big boxes lined up at the edge of the rug.
“I’m taking it on,” she said. “I don’t have to work today, and so I thought I’d start digging into this mess. Want to help?”
“Oh, not really. It’s such a funky, rainy day. It’s put me in a bad mood.”
“Well, have a quick look anyway. Blake’s coming by in a few minutes to take a few things.”
I got a cup of coffee and sat down beside her on the floor, pulling open the flaps of the box closest to me. It was full of books, children’s books. I pulled out The Little Engine that Could, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and The Cat in the Hat. They were worn from many readings, the cardboard corners dented in places, the pages soft.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” my mother said, reaching for Goodnight Moon. “I loved this one. So did you. I must have read it out loud three hundred zillion times. Anyway, I promised Blake this box of books, now that he’ll have a use for them. I’m glad you told me, Lucy, even though it was awkward at first. I mean, yes, Blake was a little upset, but I think he really wanted to talk about it, too, and when he realized I was happy about the whole thing, he relaxed. Really, I can’t wait,” she went on. “People always say how thrilling it is to know you’re going to be a grandparent, but I didn’t imagine it really would be. I’ve set another box aside for them already, filled up with old toys.”
“What about me?” I meant to say it in a kidding way, but even to my own ears I sounded a little shrill. Seeing my mother so excited made Blake and Avery’s baby seem very real, and although it was ridiculous, I felt left out, or left behind, the sweep of life moving on while I kept doing the same things over again in different places. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m in a lousy mood—I didn’t sleep well. I guess I just mean that if I ever have a baby, everything will be long gone.”
“Trust me—people will pass things on.” She looked at me then, and added softly, “But if there’s anything special you want to hold aside—you know, for some day—go ahead. Blake and Avery won’t even notice.”
“It’s okay. Maybe that mobile Dad made when I was born. I’d like to keep that.”
My mother nodded. “It’s already in a box in your closet. I put it away—oh, a couple of years ago. And the trains he made for Blake. I put those away, too.”
She reached into the box in front of her, pulling out a handful of folders.
“So—you and Yoshi have any plans?” she asked, trying to sound offhand and failing so miserably that I laughed.
“New plans every day, it seems. But no. If you’re talking about settling down and having children, no.”
She nodded and rested her hand briefly on my arm, which irritated me because I was afraid she felt sorry for me. “Just curious,” she said, pulling away.
“Need help with any of that?” I asked, glad to change the subject, as she caught a slipping folder. “How’s your arm feeling, by the way?”
“I’m fine. I saw the doctor yesterday. I’m healing nicely, he says. If all goes well, I can get rid of this Aircast next Wednesday, hooray. Oh, look at this, Lucy.”
She handed me a poem written carefully on wide blue-lined paper, back when kids still practiced cursive writing. I’d decorated the edges with dolphins and fish, waves and seashells, even though I’d never been to the ocean.
“Guess my inclinations were clear even then.”
“Guess so.” She glanced at several files full of business papers left from my father’s time at Dream Master and chucked them into the recycle bin.
“Ah, report cards.” I gave her a stack of Blake’s, and pulled one of mine out, from fourth grade. “ ‘Has strong writing skills and loves science . Needs to work on sitting still.’ That was Mrs. Blankenthorpe,” I said. “I remember her. We used to call her Mrs. Battleship.”
“That’s terrible,” my mother said, though we were both laughing.
We kept going, refilling our coffee cups one time, then again. The porch roof was leaking, and every now and then my mother went to check the bucket she’d put out to catch the drips. I suggested that she could install rain barrels, and she sighed.
“It must be hard to keep up with this place,” I said when she came back from having dumped the half-full bucket onto the lawn.
“It is.” She sat down again. “But I truly haven’t decided what to do, Lucy. Art has his ideas, but they aren’t necessarily my ideas.”
I didn’t answer; I didn’t want to argue again. Despite what she said, it felt like an understanding had already been reached, even if my mother hadn’t quite come to terms with it yet.
By the time Blake stopped by the rain had eased, but he was soaked from doing some caulking on the boat. We took a break and ate some scrambled eggs along with more leftovers from the party: tabbouleh and French bread, now a little stale, spinach hummus on crackers. Then we went back to sorting out the boxes. The phone rang; my mother reached into her pocket and smiled when she saw the caller ID.
“Back in just a second,” she said, then went into her room and closed the door.
Blake and I didn’t speak for a while, listening to our mother’s murmuring voice. Tension, either from the party or from my mistake in telling the news about the baby, was in the room, invisible but real, limning everything.
Finally, Blake asked what I was doing with my day. I told him I was going to visit Oliver Parrott and invited him to come.
“Today?” He waved his hand, dismissive. “This may surprise you, Sis, but some of us actually have to work.”
I decided to let it pass, not to mention the work he seemed to be doing with Art and the developers. Because Blake was doing his best, probably, doing what he thought would make a good life for himself and for Avery and the baby in the midst of a rotten economy.
“Well, sometime, then—you should go see this place. Take Avery; it would be a nice drive. The stained glass is really striking, even if there turns out to be no connection to Rose. And I’m totally curious to know what Oliver Parrott thinks he’s discovered.”
“He seems a little off to me, this guy—dedicating his whole life to the study of another person, some dead ancestor.”
“Well—it’s not the person he’s dedicated to. It’s his legacy.”
“Same thing. It’s weird.”
“Well, it’s really no different than you and Art, is it?” I asked, keeping my voice pleasant even as I lashed back. “Doing everything you can to keep Dream Master alive.”
Blake didn’t answer. His jaw was set and he was staring out the window at the lake. It took a few minutes for him to speak.
“I’m just trying to make my way, Lucy—got a problem with that?”
I let the silence gather, too, trying to figure out why Blake was so upset, and why Oliver’s choices were explicable to me while Blake’s were not.
“No,” I said, finally. “I don’t have a problem with that. But it was strange—really disconcerting—to find out what kinds of deals were being cooked up with this house and all the land, all these plans you and Art and Joey are making, all those conversations happening, and I had no idea. Not that it’s any of my business.”
He gave a short, angry laugh. “It’s not. That’s the thing, Lucy, it’s not your business, at all. You seem to think we’re trying to pull a fast one, but we’re not. The deal would be good for Mom, if she decides to take it. You haven’t exactly been around to help, you know, these last years when she’s been rattling around in this old house, trying to hold it together.”
“True.” I bit my tongue then. I didn’t say what I so deeply wanted to say: I haven’t been going around in circles, either, tethered to the past. But then Blake, encouraged perhaps by my agreement, stepped things up.
“You know, Lucy, you’d do yourself a real favor if you were more willing to embrace change, not resist it.”
“Are you talking to me about change?” I asked. I put down the papers I was holding and stood up, barely able to contain myself. “Do you have any idea how many places I
’ve lived in these past years, Blake? Two states, four countries, seven different jobs. New cultures, new communities, new people, every time. You think I can’t handle change?”
“Oh, I know all that. But this is different. This is a different kind of change. A letting-go kind of change. Not a running-around kind of change.”
Was it? Yes and no. I loved my life, but I also thought about how I’d felt earlier, talking to my mother about our old books and toys.
I was still standing face-to-face with Blake, so angry I couldn’t speak immediately; I imagined taking the old swim trophy from the table and hurling it across the room to smash against the wall, I was that furious.
“That’s enough.”
We both turned, startled. My mother was standing in the doorway, her cast held close to her chest, the phone in her good hand.
“I’m just expressing some concerns,” I said.
“Right. So altruistic. Like I’m not,” Blake countered.
“Stop it! You seem to forget, the two of you, that you’re fighting over something you don’t control. I’m not an imbecile, and I’m not behaving like a teenager, either, unlike the two of you. I’ll keep my own counsel, thank you. And I will not listen to this senseless bickering in my house. My house, you understand?”
She stepped out of the doorway, strode across the room, and sat down in the overstuffed chair where she used to read to us as children.
“Now,” she said. “I’m going to continue sorting these things. Blake, I’m sure Lucy would help you carry those boxes out.”
Blake refused my help, but I walked out with him anyway. I stood there in the mist, hands in the pockets of my jeans, as he put the boxes of toys and books in the passenger side of his truck and slammed the door. Blake didn’t get angry easily, but when he did, it was hard for him to let it go. Maybe he would have said the same about me. The times we’d seen each other over these years, either here or meeting up in exotic places, we’d been on our best behavior, not admitting any tension. Now we were being our teenage selves.