by Dana Spiotta
Her grandmother had a tumor.
“Isn’t that some kind of cancer?” Ally said, staring at her tea.
“It is. Cancer of the soft tissues.”
“What stage is it?”
“You know so much about cancer, huh? It’s stage four.”
Ally nodded but felt oddly calm. “That’s terrible news.”
“I know it’s a shock, but I have a great doctor. I am doing some treatments to make the time I have left the best it can be. That’s all I want.”
The time I have left. Ally sipped her tea, felt the mug in her hands. “Does Mom know?”
“She knows some of it. Not all the specifics yet. I have to tell her in stages, because she gets very upset.”
“Yeah, I know how she gets.”
“She has enough to worry about right now. But I knew you could handle it.”
Ally nodded. Ally was calm partly because she was stunned, but partly because it was just how she reacted to things. That was one reason she did so well in competitions. Unflappable. The higher the stress, the calmer she became.
“We’ll talk more in the morning, okay?” They hugged and then went to bed. Ally lay on the couch under the comforter and looked up “leiomyosarcoma.” She read all the pages on the Mayo Clinic website and then stopped looking. She closed her eyes, exhausted, and thought about Lily dying. It was something she had feared her whole life. But it was also something she’d expected. Many of her friends had lost grandparents. She knew it would happen, and yet she knew this would change everything in a way she couldn’t quite imagine. She tapped her phone back on and the blue light hurt her tired eyes in the dark. She really, really wanted to call her mom. But what would she say, whispering in the dark? Plus she was still mad at her mother, wasn’t she? What about Dad? No calls—she might wake her grandmother, who needed her sleep. It never occurred to her to call or text Joe about it. She fell asleep, clutching her phone.
In the morning, Lily was cheerful. She made them bacon and eggs. Ally would stay a little longer and help Lily in the garden. They didn’t talk about the leiomyosarcoma, although Ally had continued to read all about it on her phone when she’d woken up at six.
They weeded and picked. Lily seemed fine, like nothing had changed. But for being a bit thinner, she didn’t seem sick. When they were done, she made Ally coffee for the road.
“Thanks, kiddo,” she said, her hand brushing Ally’s face. Big, long hug. They pulled apart and looked at each other.
“I love you, Grandma,” Ally said.
“And I love you. You and your mom need to come out here soon, because I’m not as keen on driving to Syracuse.”
“Of course,” Ally said.
“Your mother is having a hard time.”
“I know.”
“Ally, I need you to forgive her.”
Ally sighed.
“I’m serious. You need to take care of her for me.”
Lily took Ally’s hands in hers and made Ally look at her.
“Okay,” Ally said.
“You promise?” Lily said.
“Of course.”
“She’s my darling baby girl, you know. Just like you are to her. She needs you.”
Ally nodded.
* * *
—
She had two missed calls from Joe. Then he texted her that they should FaceTime when she got home. When she arrived, her dad wasn’t there, so she took the opportunity of privacy to call Joe back.
Before she could tell him about her trip and her grandmother, he said, “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” she said.
She guessed what was coming. She watched him as he spoke. It was a glitchy connection, but she got the gist. He wanted to “take a break.” He loved her but felt she wanted more than he could give. After Labor Day, after she’d kissed him in public, he’d realized how dangerous things were getting. So some time off to think about things, yadda yadda. He was breaking up with her.
“I agree,” she said. She was calm. She was ice.
“We’ll still be friends, of course. I hope that for us.”
After she got off the phone, she didn’t cry, but she took a long bath and delineated, out loud to the tub surround, as if she were on a podcast, all the things about Joe she didn’t like. “Let me walk you through it,” she said to the tub.
He listened to audiobooks at 1.7x speed. Not 2x or 1.5x. The precision of that and what he thought it implied really bugged her.
He tried to “zero” his inbox every day.
He rode—no, “crushed”—randonneur 400K endurance bike rides.
He followed Elon Musk’s productivity hacks.
He told her to “level up,” to “do purpose” and assess “SWOT” (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).
He spoke of “bringing things to scale”/“scaling up”/“scalability.”
He dated a girl who was still in high school.
She got out of the tub. Before she dried off, she picked up her phone and texted him:
Delete my photos.
3
After her bath, she got back in her car. Ally thought she would drive to Loomis House and surprise her mother. She texted her dad (where was he?) and then took off, listening to Patti Smith instead of fucking podcasts. She figured Patti Smith = the opposite of Joe. Patti Smith did not optimize her productivity. Ally’s mood lifted a little.
She hadn’t been to Loomis House in years. Her mother had started working there after she’d chaperoned Ally’s school field trip to the house back in sixth grade. Her mother had lamented at how run-down and unloved it was. So she’d ended up volunteering and then getting hired by the jankiest historical house in New York State.
It was even lamer than Ally remembered; all the informational plaques had a flimsy, low-budget look. All the rooms were threadbare, musty, and dull. Why was seeing someone’s house interesting? Ally didn’t have a feeling for these things, not like her mother, who seemed to channel entire lives just by looking at someone’s writing desk.
Mrs. Delven was working. Her mother was off this afternoon.
“But she’s added some new things in the history and information room. You should take a look.”
Ally nodded and went into the room. There was a giant glass case. “A Cabinet of Curiosities,” it said, curated by Samantha Raymond. And a pamphlet about Syracuse history, written by her mother.
She picked one up and ran her finger over the type. What was that called, the print that you can feel on the heavy paper? Her mother had put a lot of effort into these items that no one else cared about. Ally looked at the curios cabinet, which contained objects her mother had collected and then identified with little explainer cards. Ally read them all and looked at the objects. My weirdo mom. The care and detail her mother applied to the things she loved. Her freaky enthusiasms all on display. All this work for something hardly anyone would see. As Ally read her mom’s pamphlet, she felt an unexpected rush of affection for her dear, silly mom. And at long last, Ally missed her.
She texted her.
Hi! Where r u?
I’m at freakin’ Loomis House, lol
Ally walked outside to her car and waited for her mom to text her back. Which, shockingly, did not happen instantly.
I like the exhibits u made
Maybe her phone was turned off.
Seven
Syracuse
1
Syracuse: A Pamphlet
compiled by Samantha Raymond of Loomis House
(please take one)
Why was Syracuse built?
Salt. From natural salt springs and marshes. In 1656, Jesuit missionaries first came to the area where the people of the Onondaga Nation had been living for centuries. A (brief, failed) misson was built near Onondaga Lake, which was the place w
here the Great Peacemaker brought the five original Nations of the Haudensaunee (“Iroquois”) Confederacy together. Although missionaries noted the brine water, they soon left. During the Revolutionary War, American colonists burned down Onondaga villages from the lake to what is now Nedrow. The 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix gave salt processers access rights to the land, and in 1797, the state legislature took control of the southern part of the lakeshore and named it the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation.
What else was manufactured in Syracuse?
Typewriters (Smith Corona). Lanterns (Dietz). Automobiles (Franklin). Air conditioners (Carrier). Soda ash (Solvay process). Furniture (Stickley).
What is, and has been, the crossroads of New York, the Empire State?
Syracuse. Salina Street—named for the salt flats that powered early development—crossed East Genesee Street, at the center of the new city. These streets were laid over two trails that crossed at the center of New York State, the east-west and north-south passages used by Native peoples and then the settlers who took over the Native lands. The center of the city = the center of the state.
What came after salt demand slowed and salt mining died off ?
Soda ash manufactured from local (now much less valuable) salt and limestone.
What is soda ash? How was it made and what was it for?
Soda ash is sodium carbonate, Na2CO3, accomplished by means of the Solvay process, patented and licensed from France. Soda ash is used for glass, for soap, for papermaking.
What waste does it make?
Sodium chloride, which leaches from waste beds into the ground. So began the process of turning the pristine Onondaga Lake into what would become the nation’s first Superfund site. Two decades of cleanup and it is considered “recovered,” yet you should not eat the fish from it if you are pregnant or if you are a child. Nevertheless, one can see people fishing the lake. Signs warn. An image of a black bar crosses out the fish. But the fish, it seems, will be eaten, polluted or not.
Why is Onondaga Lake still so polluted, so many years after the Superfund designation and cleanup?
“Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro) contributes 20% of the annual flow. No other lake in the United States receives as much of its inflow as treated wastewater.” (Yeah, Wiki-pedia.)
What did the city boosters call Syracuse over the years?
The Salt City, which was scotched in the 1980s for the Emerald City, which didn’t seem to convince anyone, no matter how green it became in the summer.
What else was the city known for?
Many people escaped slavery via Syracuse, where reformist and anti-slavery sentiment ran so deep Daniel Webster called the city “a laboratory of abolitionism, libel, and treason.”
What are some of the notable empty structures downtown?
—The abandoned train platform: only fully visible as you zoom by on 690 East. Statues now stand where humans used to. The train tracks have been relocated. If you look at this spot on Google Maps, it actually says “Abandoned Train Platform.” It even has Google reviews (4 out of 5 stars).
—The Carnegie Library on Montgomery Street: built in 1905 of yellow brick and white limestone, all Beaux Arts grandeur with columns and a parapet. In the 1980s a developer built another structure of cheap utility and minimal solidity and, in order to get tax breaks, included in it space for the downtown library. The books moved. The old library building remains.
—The People’s African Methodist Episcopal Church of Zion, built in 1911. Designed by Charles Colton in collaboration (perhaps) with one of the first Black architects practicing in the United States, Wallace Rayfield. In the early 1960s, the interstate overpass was built nearby, and the church building, with its poignant Gothic revival arch and three-story bell tower, has been empty since 1975.
—The old entrance gate to Oakwood Cemetery (built as a “Beautiful City of the Dead” in 1859, where the living and the dead could peacefully commune in the fresh air with views of the city). The marble gate was abandoned (but not torn down or moved). I discovered it one day when I got on 1-81 North at Colvin Street and saw the stone remnants, only visible once you were on the highway. I almost crashed my car when I saw it. It had been there my whole life, but I had never noticed it before. I once tried to walk to it from the new entrance on the other side of the cemetery, but it is difficult to reach.
—The First English Lutheran Church on James Street. Every time I drive by the silhouette of its stucco tower with its iron Arts and Crafts mission-style cutouts, I think that it looks so beautiful but also ridiculous, like it should be in Santa Fe. It used to hold services that were frequented by African refugees, Congolese Christians mostly. But it also gave space to a food bank, AA meetings, Syracuse Streets, and other community organizations. Old buildings are expensive to maintain. It can’t be torn down because of historical protections, but it can be empty.
—The Syracuse Central High School on Harrison Street. A whole city block, empty for a decade. Boarded-up windows outside, but an intact wood-paneled two-story auditorium and sweeping staircase inside. Rumors have it that it will become a Tech Garden, or a Tech Hub, or a Tech Incubator in the coming future (and I tell you, the future is coming) by dint of 5G, by becoming a Smart City, by what is called the Syracuse Surge.
What is 5G? The Syracuse Surge? What is a Smart City?
Your guess is as good as mine.
What about the Erie Canal?
Sometimes, when I leave the Home Depot parking lot and pass Dunn Tire and approach the intersection of Erie Boulevard and Bridge Street (Sunoco on the southwest corner, Wendy’s on the northeast corner, a closed gas station on the southeast corner), I imagine the Erie Canal flowing by, before it was paved over. All that remains is the name, Erie, and what one tries to envision before every single thing I see was built. One thing I know is that it must have been better. No matter how much garbage was thrown into the canal, no matter the smell of a canal, with no natural sloughing or tide. No matter coal burning. Erie was made into a multilane, pedestrian-hostile boulevard, and it progressively became uglier, ruined by corporate architecture and branded plastic facades so familiar to Americans as to be almost invisible (but not, alas, invisible). I am not a snob, not precious, but the orange face of the Home Depot sign, its inoffensive letters and colors, fatigued me, made me sad and dull. What happened to us? When did progress become so ugly?
2
A Cabinet of Curiosities
a glass box containing local and historical artifacts
curated by Samantha Raymond of Loomis House
1) Syroco Wood wall hanging made from wood pulp constituted with a polymer and then injected into a mold. 1950s. Relief of two Scottish terriers frolicking among peonies.
2) Syracuse China glazed porcelain charger plate, “Millbrook” pattern, 1940s. Airbrushed shadow tone image of an aeroplane, white outlined in deep blue against light blue, with the city skyline below.
3) Heart pin cushion, 1901. Haudenosaunee. Red wool challis, velvet, green and silver glass beads, cotton backing. Stuffed with sawdust.
4) A felted orange college pep-rally flag, slightly tattered, that reads “Syracuse Orangemen.” 1900s. (Name later changed to the Orange, for obvious reasons.)
5) Silver-plate flatware, one spoon and one fork, “Tudor” style, 1890s, manufactured thirty miles outside the city of Syracuse by the Oneida Community, a financially successful Perfectionist commune that abolished private property and, notoriously, advocated complex marriage, communal child-rearing, and stirpiculture, the horticulture of children for maximum spiritual qualities. Clara Loomis lived there for two years. It was where she met her eventual husband, Henry Loomis.
6) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, illustrated, cloth-bound, with green and red lettering and an image of a bespectacled lion with a ribbon in his mane. First edition, 1900. Children’s novel written
in Chittenango, New York, ten miles east of Syracuse, which was the model for the Emerald City.
7) Small porcelain fragment with a translucent turquoise glaze and delicate incisions. Made by Adelaide Alsop Robineau in 1920.
8) The Craftsman magazine, vol. 1, no. 1, 1901. Sand-colored paper with a black ink decorative border and red letters. Gustav Stickley’s magazine to promote his utopian ideas about Arts and Crafts houses and furniture (his iconic designs were then built at his factory in East Syracuse). This first issue was dedicated to William Morris and was largely written by Irene Sargent, an art historian and eventual Syracuse University professor.
9) A political or advertising flyer (both), embossed letterpress on card stock. Printed and distributed around the city in 2017. Legend reads: “Embrace NTE.”
10) A pamphlet written by Clara Loomis, “On the Avoidance of Pregnancy and Male Continence,” for the League of Deliberate Population, 1895. Offset black type on cream-white paper, hand-bound. Although it was a medical instruction pamphlet, it was flagged as pornographic by Anthony Comstock’s New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.
Eight
Clara Loomis
1
18 October 1868
Dearest Mother,
I know that you will one day understand why I left home. I hope that you can forgive me. By the time you read this, I will be far away. I can’t tell you where I am going, but I want you to know that I will be sound and healthy. God has led me to this place, and I think I will have greater purpose than if I had stayed at home.