“Julie,” Carol said. “Grandma Iris asked to get the papers out of the house safe earlier. The old photos and so forth? But we couldn’t seem to get it open. Your father has forgotten the combination, and we can’t find the place where we wrote it down. I wonder, do you think you could help?”
“I can try.”
Julie opened a door in the built-in cabinets and sat down at the safe, her ear pressed to the metal, her fingers resting on the dial. She closed her eyes, and my own heart quickened. The patterns of the internal mechanism flashed into my mind like a vision, the pins moving in their quiet patterns. Slowly, slowly, she turned the dial, listening to the voice of the metal. I knew how smooth and hard the safe felt against her cheek, how softly the tumblers shifted and clicked, each one like a breath released. She held herself still, listening, and then her face relaxed, breaking open with satisfaction. The feeling of success, of completion, welled up in me, too. She opened the little metal door and reached inside.
“Look at that,” Ned said, chuckling.
“It’s a gift,” Carol agreed. “She’s been able to do that since she was five years old. I don’t know where she gets it.”
“My uncle used to do that,” Iris said, her voice far away, her eyes not quite focused on the here and now, as if she were seeing the world through the dual lenses of the present and the past—like trying to navigate the world in 3-D glasses.
“Me, too,” I said, spreading my fingers. “I can do it, too.”
They looked at me, my outstretched hands, in surprise. Then Julie pulled out a stack of papers and handed them to her father, who sorted through what looked like bonds and wills and deeds until he came to a single yellowed photograph, which my great-grandfather had given Iris on his single visit. It was a family portrait, dated August 22, 1909—the year Geoffrey Wyndham drove into the village in his Silver Ghost, a year before the comet. There were notes in pencil on the back. Rose was in the center, wearing a dark dress with a pale collar and cuffs. The other family members, also dressed in formal black, flanked her: a stern patriarch with his white beard, the older brother and three older girls who might have been cousins, their faces serious in the presence of the photographer. Rose’s mother and an aunt and a grandmother sat stiffly on chairs in front of the others.
“What was the occasion?” I wondered.
“No one knows,” Ned said. “A wedding, or a funeral, or maybe just a photographer passing through the village.”
“Here’s Joseph,” Iris added, her finger tapping beneath the boy standing next to Rose, squinting into the camera as if trying to discern the future. She paused, her voice softer. “And that girl must be Rose, I suppose. My mother.”
I looked more closely, thinking of Rose’s letters, the girl who had stood at the ship railing watching her country recede into mist. She was so young in this photograph, just fourteen, her hair still down, falling around her shoulders. She wore a ribbon around her neck and she was half-smiling, as if about to turn and make a joke; she alone of all the family—the serious older girls, standing in a row, and the careworn parents and aunts, and the grandmother, as old in the photograph as Iris was now, wearing a black bonnet and a visage like a withered plum—Rose alone looked happy.
What was she was thinking in that moment? What did she dream, and how did she imagine her life? On a summer morning, surrounded by her family, she turned, about to laugh, unaware of Edmund Halley or his comet, a chunk of ice traveling through the coldness of space, whose arrival would cast such a strange light across her life. She did not know that a door was about to open in the world and she would walk through it, terrified and hopeful, into a future she could never have imagined.
“I’m tired,” Iris said. She’d put the folder full of letters on the sofa, and her hands were resting on the blanket in her lap, her fingers working the edge of the silky fabric. “I’d like to have a rest, I think.”
Ned was on his feet at once, reaching down to help Iris stand. She took his arm. I stood, too, and clasped her hand for a second. Her fingers were cold. I told her that I had something I’d like to show her, once she’d had a chance to read the letters and digest them. I explained about Frank Westrum and the windows and Rose, though I wasn’t sure how much she was taking in. Ned was interested, though, and he paused with Iris in the hallway.
“You say there’s a whole museum, full of stained-glass windows.”
“Yes. Rose helped design them. She knew the artist. They were very close, in fact. She modeled for him.”
“I see. Well, I think we’d all be very interested in knowing more, when my mother feels up to it.”
“Yes,” Iris said, and they started moving slowly back down the hallway to her room. “I would like to see them.” Yoshi and I stood for a few minutes longer, talking with Carol and Julie. I gave them the brochure I’d brought about the Westrum House, along with a description of the chapel.
“It’s just overwhelming, I think,” Carol said, as she opened the door. “I know I’m overwhelmed, so I can only imagine how Iris feels. She has to reconsider her whole life.”
She walked with us to the car, admired the Impala’s sleek golden lines, and promised they would be in touch. From the end of the long driveway, she watched us disappear into the leaves.
“I’m worn out, too,” I told Yoshi as we drove. “I’m emotionally wiped out. How about you?”
“Not so much. It’s not my family, so it’s just interesting from afar. Though, you know, my mother’s family is from southwest England, near Bristol, I think. So maybe we’re related, too.”
“Oh, don’t start.”
He laughed. “It’s incredible, though. The whole story is. And that you found her, after all these decades.”
“It really is.”
We talked about this as I drove, leaving Elmira for the blooming fields, daylilies running through the ditches like fire, the fields alive with butterflies and insects, the lakes deep blue and shimmering as we drove along their shores.
Halfway back we’d settled into a companionable sort of silence when the car began to shake and fill with a steady thump-thump-thump. I eased the Impala onto the side of the road and checked—sure enough, the front passenger tire was completely flat. Yoshi rummaged in the trunk—there was no spare—while I called my mother to see if she had a road service. She did, and I put in a call for help.
We were on the edge of a field high between the lakes, water visible in the distance. It was warm, and I was so worn out that I walked a few feet into the field and lay down, trying to ignore the buzz of insects, the cloud of dragonflies that lifted, translucent, from the edge of a nearby puddle and flew away. After a minute Yoshi came and sat down beside me; I shifted so that my head was resting on his leg. He stroked my hair, letting his fingers linger on the soft skin below my ear. Beneath me the earth felt alive, rich with growing things, and beneath his touch I felt alive as well, alive and sleepy and nearly content. I ran my hand along Yoshi’s calf, hard and muscled, thinking how good it was to be here in this sunny field with him, the deep blue lake set like a bowl into the green fields of the earth. Then we heard the truck arrive, the door slam, and we both stood up, shaking seeds and bits of grass from our clothes.
A man in a white cap had left his tow truck and was rummaging in the Impala’s huge trunk, which Yoshi had left ajar. He’d pulled out an empty red plastic gas can, a bag of tools, a folded blanket, and my father’s tackle box, and placed them carefully on the gravel shoulder. “They don’t make trunks this big anymore,” he said, looking up and smiling at us when we drew near. “Just thought I’d take a look-see, maybe there’s a compartment for the spare.” Yoshi stood close to me, his hand warm on the small of my back, as the man searched and came up empty. He cheerfully and deftly unbolted the Impala’s whitewall, leaned it against the bumper, and replaced it with a temporary spare. The lake in the distance was blue, sheened with silver. He put everything back inside the trunk and slammed it shut, and we drove off once more.
/> Chapter 18
WHEN WE GOT HOME IT WAS EARLY EVENING AND THE kitchen counters were covered with green cardboard quart containers filled with just-picked strawberries. My mother and Andy were standing side by side near the sink, their silver heads bent over the task, working and laughing. A pile of discarded stems grew high between them, and several earthenware bowls were mounded with wet berries. The air was thick with the scent of strawberries and sugar; by the stove, placed carefully on a dish towel, eight jars of jam, ruby red, were resting. One of the lids sealed with a click as Yoshi and I came inside. My mother turned, smiling and holding up one hand to quiet us. Her hair was damp, clinging to her scalp, and her cheeks were flushed with heat. There was a streak of red below her elbow and her fingers were stained red, too. We stood still, and a second later another jar clicked, and then a third. My mother laughed and let her hand fall.
“There—I’ve been counting the seals, and now they’re all done. Aren’t they beautiful? I always love this part, the jars like jewels on the counter. We’ll be so happy to have these when the snow is six feet high.”
“They look good right now,” Yoshi said, slipping off his shoes at the door.
“Sorry we’re so late. The road service took a while.”
I crossed the room and took a strawberry from a bowl, biting through the red to its soft white heart, and offered one to Yoshi. We’d gone out early in the morning so many times when I was little, picking strawberries from their low bushes, or cherries from the trees, Blake and I eating as many as we picked. We’d come home with a car full of fruit, the kitchen growing warm and full of sweetness as the day unfolded and the jars of plump gold or red spheres or the pale sliced moons of pears lined up in rows, filling all the counters.
“Have a taste,” Andy said. He wiped his hands on a towel and offered us a bowl of dark red jam, swirled with foam. “We got some of that fresh bread of Avery’s, and some of her organic butter, too, and let me tell you, it’s out of this world.”
Yoshi and I sat down at the table, suddenly ravenous, and ate, telling the story of our day in Elmira: the beautiful drive, Yoshi’s conversations in Japanese, Julie’s familiar gift with the combination safe, and Iris’s amazing story. My mother looked up from her work, her hands resting on the berry-stained counter, when I started describing Iris, how temperamental she’d been, how deeply it had affected her to learn the truth.
“It was very moving and very sad,” I finished. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about all the way home. Ninety-five years old, and she still felt abandoned. I hope it helps her to know what really happened.”
“I hope so, too,” my mother said. “I have to tell you, I’m relieved it went well. I mean, she could have been crazy, or mean, or dishonest, couldn’t she? Or just someone you’d rather not know.”
“It’s true. You can’t choose your relatives, can you? Your mother’s been kind of worried all day,” Andy said. He stepped past her, carrying a bowl of smashed berries to the pot, and kissed her cheek as he passed. My mother glanced up at him and smiled.
“Everything was fine,” I said. “We were fine.”
While my mother and Andy finished preparing the berries, Yoshi and I made a salad and rice. We grilled salmon on the patio. It was late when we all sat down to dinner, the sky darkening to pale blue, then indigo, as we passed the food and poured wine. Distantly, boats hummed on the lake. Yoshi rested his hand on my thigh as we finished, and it seemed to contain all the heat of the field where we’d waited for the road service to arrive, the sunshine and the buzz of insects, and the scent of earth and sweat. We carried the plates back inside, admired once more the gleaming ruby jars. Then my mother and Andy left for a late movie. We watched their headlights recede, Yoshi standing behind me, pushing my hair aside, kissing my neck. He took my hand when I turned, as if we were dancing, and when we climbed up to the cupola it was like walking underwater, slow and graceful, full of forceful currents.
When I woke up hours later, I’d been dreaming. From the floor of the cupola the night sky was visible in all directions, struck with stars, as if the sky were a dark canvas flecked with holes, beyond which shone some clear white light. It was easy to understand how ancient people had imagined another world beyond, the myths of trees that would somehow grow past the limits of the sky and take them there. Easy to understand why they had not wished to name such power, too. I thought of the Wisdom window, all the people growing from the earth, being filled with breath and life, and of the Iroquois creation story Keegan had told me, how a woman, pregnant with the breath of a god, fell through a hole at the root of a great tree into the night, fell far to the sea below, where a turtle rose to catch her and the animals dived to the depths to bring back bits of mud and to make the world. You live here, the stories all said, but you are filled with the breath of the Divine, and the world in your care is full of amazements.
Yoshi slept. I turned to look at him. His mouth was slightly open and his breath faintly stale, his chest rising and falling in such a steady, gentle rhythm. I ran my hand along his arm and he twitched, then turned in his sleep and reached for me, his arm slipping around my waist. I curved against him, and we lay there at the top of the house, floating together in the night.
My dream, the one that had woken me, gradually surfaced again—not frightening, but intense, full of seeking and a sadness that lingered. I’d been fishing with my father, floating in the hour before dawn. It was still dark and he was hardly visible next to me. We cast our lines and floated, cast again. We needed better lures, he said, and I pulled the tackle box from beneath the seat and opened it. Gray-green metal, it caught the faint moonlight. Opened, it revealed rows of lures, each in their own compartment. Iridescent, made of greens and blues and deep oranges that seemed to have been drawn from the depth of a prism, richly hued, yet also somehow luminous. They were like gemstones, smooth and spherical and trailing feathers, streamers, bits of lace. Some were tiny perfect images of the earth, blue-green and wondrous, each turning slowly in a mist of white. I wanted so much to hold them, yet when I touched them they broke into pieces, and the dream energy turned urgent and frustrating as I struggled to hold the broken halves and fragments together, to wrap the beautiful lures in twine or thread them on tiny metal dowels. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and then my father showed me another box with lures that were whole, smooth and gleaming, and I despaired at those in my hands, so make-shift, seamed, and broken, held desperately together by thread and metal rods and wishing.
I stared up at the stars, concentrated on my breath and Yoshi’s in the little room. Surely this dream was connected with the windows full of women and with finding Iris, the piece of the family story that had been broken away a century ago, broken away and obscured. Yet it was connected also to the dreams I’d been having since the night I arrived, dreams that seemed to go deeper than the ripples on the surface of life, deeper even than memory. Dreams born out of the restless searching I’d been doing since I left this place so many years ago. I thought about those dreams, all the seeking of round things, hidden in leaves, spilling like mercury, and now here, spheres falling into pieces, caught in a metal box. Yoshi’s hand brushed my thigh, and I thought of how we’d sat at the edge of the sunny field while we waited for the road service, the pulse of his thigh beneath my cheek. I wanted to be there again, in the sunny field with Yoshi, the deep blue lake set like a bowl into the green fields of the earth, wanted that moment of peace before we heard the truck arrive, the door slam, and we sat up.
We had walked through the grass to meet the man in the white cap. The trunk of the Impala was still open and he pulled out a bag full of tools, an empty red plastic gas can, a folded blanket, and my father’s tackle box, placing them carefully on the gravel shoulder, looking in vain for a spare. “They don’t make trunks this big anymore,” he’d said. Yoshi stood close to me, his hand warm on the small of my back. We watched him work. The lake in the distance was blue, silvery, and the fields were alive with
dragonflies. He put my father’s things back inside the trunk and closed it.
I sat up, the bright, broken lures of my dream spilling their pieces everywhere. The air was cool and still, and the stars hadn’t moved. After my father drowned, the searchers had gone out, diving for hours, bringing back a lake-filled boot, his sodden hat, his fishing pole.
His tackle box, however, they’d never found.
His tackle box, hidden all this time in the trunk of his car.
I knew as surely as I knew my name or the rush of breath in my lungs that my father hadn’t been going out to fish the night he died. He’d gone out onto the lake to think, to float on the water in the darkness and grapple with whatever had woken him or kept him from sleep, whatever had weighed so heavily on his mind.
I slipped from beneath the sheet, careful not to wake Yoshi, and pulled my shorts and T-shirt from the tangle of clothes on the floor. We’d carried the heat of that field with us all day, brushing against each other like sun against grass, like stems pushing through the soil, and the clothes we’d discarded so quickly as we’d kissed at the top of the cupola stairs still held something of that warmth and sunshine. I went down the stairs gingerly, trying to stay at the edges so the steps wouldn’t creak, and stopped in the kitchen to collect the car keys from inside the cupboard door. Then I went out through the porch and across the lawn and driveway to the barn.
I was barefoot, the grass wet and the gravel harsh against the soles of my feet. The barn doors swung open quietly. The Impala was a shadow in the dim light. After my eyes adjusted, I groped my way to my father’s workshop, stumbling against the lawn mower and knocking over a rake with a clatter. The flashlight hanging on the wall didn’t work, the batteries long dead, but the old lantern still had an inch of kerosene at the bottom, and the matches were where they had always been, to the right of the jars of nails, above the shelf of planes. I lit the wick, and the glass globe filled up with light, casting objects back into their shapes, their shadows.