I was too surprised to say anything at all.
“That’s right,” Blake said. “We’re having a baby. Good wishes appreciated.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry, Blake. Of course I’m happy for you. It’s just a lot to take in.”
He gave a small smile, nodded. “That’s okay. I had the exact same reaction, actually—stunned silence.” We stood in the wind off the lake.
“Are you happy about it?” I asked.
“Sometimes. It’s exciting, sure, but a surprise. The timing is bad for us both.”
Wind rattled the ropes on the dock, and I tried hard to remember Avery, a slight, energetic girl with dark brown eyes and hair.
“Look,” Blake said. “This thing at Dream Master, the way I see it—it’s just a job. Not a forever job, just a good-for-right-now kind of job.”
“Right, I get it. It makes sense.”
He smiled then, his charming old smile, and gave my shoulder a playful push.
“Water looks nice,” he said.
“Oh, you wouldn’t!”
“Wouldn’t I?”
He pushed me harder then, and though I could have kept my balance I grabbed his arm and let myself fall, dragging him in after me. We hit the clear, cold water and came up laughing, shaking bright droplets from our hair.
“Oh! It’s freezing!”
“It’s June—what did you expect?”
“Not to be swimming.” I skimmed my hand across the surface, sending a glittering arc of spray. Blake ducked, then sprayed me back.
“Truce!” I finally called, staggering out of the water onto the gray shale beach. Blake followed me up the lawn, catching my arm before we reached the driveway.
“Mom doesn’t know,” he said, looking at me seriously with the beautiful dark-lashed family eyes, blue irises mottled with green. “No one else knows. I promised Avery I wouldn’t say anything until she’s ready, so keep it quiet, okay?”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. I won’t say anything.”
“Thanks. Hey—it’s good to have you home, Luce.” He gave me a hug as we reached the driveway, and then headed toward his truck.
“Aren’t you even going to dry off?”
“I’ll drip dry,” he called back. “And I’ll see you later, okay? Welcome back.”
I waved, watching him pull away and disappear.
Art had gone, too. I found my mother in the kitchen making up plates with chicken salad, lettuce, and grapes, working slowly because she could use only one hand.
“Just a light supper,” she said, and then she looked up and saw my wet clothes, my hair. “Oh, the two of you,” she said, laughing, biting her lips because it hurt her ribs to laugh. I could tell she was happy, though. “There are towels on the sun porch. And could you pour us some wine? You must be tired, Lucy, but it’s so good to see you that I’m not going to let you sleep, not yet.”
After I changed we ate on the patio, weighing the napkins down with forks because the breeze was still brisk, cold in my wet hair. The setting sun had emerged below the clouds and the lake had turned from gun-metal gray to the color of sapphires, waves lapping gently at the shore. My mother’s face softened in the golden light, her silver hair glinting amber.
“So,” she said. “Here you are. And this Yoshi of yours is coming, too, I hear. That would be a first, Lucy, meeting one of your parade of boy-friends. Sounds like it might be serious?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, yes, I suppose. We’re at kind of a cross-roads, I guess.” I paused there, surprised at my own words. Was it true?
“Well, you don’t want to wait too long,” my mother said.
“Too long for what?” I regretted the words the minute I spoke them, because my tone was sharp. My mother averted her gaze, ran her finger around the rim of her glass.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, her voice mild. She looked up and smiled at me. “I don’t mean to pry. And I don’t mean that you have to find happiness in a relationship. Not at all. But I do want you to be happy. Wherever you find that happiness, I want it for you. That’s all.”
Now I had to look away, out to the tranquil waters.
“I think you’ll like Yoshi,” I said, finally. “He and Blake really hit it off. His job has been really consuming, so that’s been kind of hard, especially since I don’t have any job at all just now. It seemed like a good time for him to come, that’s all.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.”
We talked a little more about work, and then I asked about the car wreck.
“Not serious,” she said, waving her good hand. “It could have been, but I was lucky. The ribs are the worst, it hurts to laugh or take a deep breath, and there’s nothing I can do but let them heal. Still, I don’t know why everyone got quite so upset. Except maybe it reminded us,” she added. “About how quickly things can happen.”
Again, silence fell between us. I was the first to break it. “I still miss Dad,” I said.
“I know.”
“What do you think of Blake?” I asked after a moment. “Working for Art, I mean?”
She was looking out at the water with its dancing nets of light, and shook her head slightly. “I try not to get too involved, now that you two are adults. Art has been a terrific help to me, Lucy. You haven’t been here to see it, but it’s true. I guess your father’s death made a powerful impression on him. I think maybe they always imagined they’d have time to patch things up, time to find a way to get along, but then, just like that, it was too late.”
“Whatever happened between them, anyway?”
“Oh, honestly, honey, it’s hard to pinpoint. There was always tension. I remember when your father brought me here for dinner and announced that we were getting married, Art made a point of taking me aside to tell me all your father’s faults. It was strange, almost like he was jealous and wanted to keep things from working out. That didn’t really make sense, because he was already dating Austen. But anyway, I didn’t think much of Art for doing that, I can tell you. As an only child myself, I always wanted to have siblings, so I’ve never understood why they couldn’t get along. But that’s just the way it was for them, growing up, maybe because they were born so close together.”
“And Dream Master?” I asked. “That happened later?”
My mother glanced at me, her expression somewhat guarded. “It did.”
“Well?”
“You were always such a persistent child,” she observed. “No wonder you’re such a success around the world.”
Long stems of white gladioli stood in a vase on the table. I touched a petal, feeling hurt rather than complimented; my mother had argued against my living overseas, especially after 9/11 happened while I was in Sri Lanka, and it was still a sore point between us. Golden pollen coated my finger.
“These are pretty. Secret admirer?”
To my surprise my mother laughed, color rising briefly in her cheeks. “Not so secret. Someone I met in the emergency room. His name is Andrew. Andrew something or other. I was pretty spacey from the pain pills. We had a lovely conversation, of which I remember almost nothing.”
I opened the florist’s envelope and pulled out the little card.
“Yes, go ahead,” she said. “Feel free.”
Dear Evie, thank you for the good conversation on a very bad day. As discussed, these are Apollo gladioli. Hope you like them. Yours, Andrew Stewart.
“Why Apollo gladioli?” I asked, catching the envelope as it skidded across the table in a gust of wind that rattled the wind chimes and slammed waves against the shore.
“Well, we talked about the moon landing, that I do remember. Where we were in 1969, that sort of thing. I suppose I must have mentioned my old moon garden, though it all went to seed years ago. But maybe that’s why he sent these.”
“Looks like you made a big impression.” I put the card back in its envelope, suddenly very sad. My parents had met as volunteers in a community garden just as my father was about to leave for Vietnam. Over
the next year, they wrote. My mother savored his letters, the onion-skin pages in their thin envelopes filled with his slanted script. She had known my father so briefly that it was as if she had made him up to suit herself, and when she wrote back it was with a reckless freedom, telling him things she’d never shared before—her secrets, fears, and dreams.
Then one day she had looked up to see my father silhouetted against the door of the greenhouse where she worked. He was so much taller than she remembered, disconcertingly familiar and strange all at once. He crossed the room and stopped in front of her, but didn’t speak. The scent of earth gathered in her throat. Water dripped in the sink.
“I’m transplanting zinnias,” she’d finally said. As proof she held up her hands, dirt beneath her nails, her fingertips stained brown.
My father had smiled. Then he leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him back, pressing her wrists against his shoulders, her earth-stained hands lifted like wings.
I’d heard this story over and over, growing up, so I didn’t really like it, not one bit, that some man I’d never met was sending my mother flowers. Jet lag traveled through me like a wave and the world suddenly seemed vibrant and strange, as if all the colors might burst from their shapes. I put my hand on the table to steady myself.
“You okay?” my mother asked.
“Just a little tired, that’s all.”
“Of course you are, honey. I’m surprised you lasted this long. I made up the couch on the screened porch for you.”
“What about my old room, can’t I use that?”
“Do you really want to?”
She sounded reluctant, and I remembered she’d told me once that in the silence of my father’s sudden absence, the voices of the house had begun to whisper to her constantly, the trim crying out to be painted, the driveway sputtering about cracks and pits, the faucets leaking a persistent dissatisfaction. Love, said the kitchen cabinets my father had built from quarter-sawn oak. The lights in her sewing room, the slate tiles of the patio, the newly sanded floors, all of these persisted, saying love, love, love, and when the gutters clogged, when the shutters broke loose, when a windowpane cracked, she could not bear to alter the things he had last tended; nor could she stand to listen to the clamoring of the house. That was why she’d closed off the second floor, turning the glass doorknobs, clicking the metal bolts shut.
“Would you mind? I’ll make the bed and everything.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” she said, though I sensed that she did.
I found the key ring hanging inside the kitchen cupboard. The keys made soft metal sounds as I carried them to the second floor, which was warm and stuffy, the doors all closed. When I entered my old room I went from window to window, pushing up the sashes, struggling with the combination storms, letting fresh air pour in. I put a fitted sheet on the narrow bed, unfolded the flat sheet, and tucked it in, fatigue throbbing through me like a pulse.
It was faintly light still, not quite nine o’clock. I lay down without undressing, punched speed dial, and closed my eyes. Yoshi picked up on the second ring, his voice low and smooth, like river stones.
“Moshi Moshi.”
“It’s me. I got here just fine.”
“Good. I miss you, Lucy.”
“Me, too. What are you doing?”
“Walking to catch the train. It’s raining a little.”
I imagined the lane, the river he’d cross before the station. If I were there I’d be lying in bed watching rain drip from the copper eaves, planning my vocabulary lesson for the day.
“I haven’t set up the Webcam. Maybe tomorrow. My mother isn’t very high-tech.”
“How is she?”
“Okay. Fine, really. But the house is very quiet.”
“You see. I was right.”
“I do see. She’s glad you’re coming. She wants to meet you.”
“Just a few days. I want to meet her, too. How’s your brother?”
“He’s good. He says hello. He’s having a baby.”
“What?”
“It’s true. Top secret, though. I’ll be an aunt in October.”
“Congratulations. I didn’t know he’d gotten married.”
“He didn’t. Not yet. I mean, I don’t know if he will. It’s all a surprise.”
“Well, tell him hello.”
“I will. Have there been more earthquakes?”
“A few, not so bad.”
“Hey. Did you turn off the gas?”
He laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I turned off the gas. Look, I’m almost at the station now, I have to go.”
“Okay. Call me tonight?”
“I will. Send me an e-mail if you can, okay?”
“I will.”
“Love you.”
He really must miss me, I thought, startled—Yoshi wasn’t much for endearments, especially on the phone. “Love you, too,” I said.
I pressed the button and there was only space, all the miles between us filling up with darkness. I put the phone on the bedside table without opening my eyes, remembering the little concrete house we’d shared in Indonesia, its garden filled with mango trees and lush, swiftly growing plants I couldn’t name. We always met there when we got home from work, and shared a drink as the moon rose, listening to the rustling sounds of lizards in the tall grass. I wanted to reach out now and catch Yoshi’s hand in mine, to walk with him back into that tranquil life. But he was in the middle of a day and ten thousand miles away. I pulled the blankets up and fell asleep to the sounds and scent of water.
The dream began as a long and wearying journey in the rain, full of airports and frustrations, missed connections and clocks ticking, perilous deadlines. I was being followed, through corridors, first, and then through a forest. My suitcase, old-fashioned and made of leather, hit a tree and broke open, spilling everything. In panic, I started crawling through the foliage, the earth damp and loamy. I searched wildly through the velvet leaves of cyclamen, blossoms flaring around me like birds in startled flight. What I’d lost was important, somehow vital to me, life or death, and even though footsteps and voices were approaching, growing louder and more menacing, I couldn’t stop, pushing leaves away and digging in the earth with my hands, until the voices were upon me.
I woke, so frightened and disoriented I could not move.
Gradually, slowly, I remembered where I was. Still, I had to take several deep breaths before I could swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stand up. In the glaring light of the bathroom I splashed water on my face, studying my pale reflection in the mirror. My eyes, like Blake’s, were large and blue, but shadowed with fatigue.
The house was still, the closed doors in the hallway like blank faces. I unlocked them all. Everything was caught in time, as if the world had stopped the summer after my father died. In my parents’ room, the bed was neatly made. Blake’s room still had its posters of the moon and the earth, our luminous blue-green planet floating in the interstellar space of his walls. In the guest room, packed boxes were stacked high against one wall, so perhaps my mother had been up here after all, starting to go through the old things. When I opened the door to the cupola, stale, hot air spilled down the narrow steps, as if nothing had stirred in it for decades. It was like a tower in a fairy tale, where the princess pricked her finger, or spun straw into gold, or lowered her thick hair to her lover below.
No breath in that tiny rooftop room. Here, too, I opened all the windows, sweeping away the dead flies that had collected in the sills. When the room was full of the lapping sounds of the lake, full of wind, I sat on one of the window seats, breathing in the fresh air. The lake was calm and smooth, almost opalescent. I watched dawn come, the sun catching on the ring of keys I’d left splayed out against the painted seat: new keys and ancient keys, formed for locks that no longer existed, kept because they were beautifully fashioned, or because no one could remember what they opened and thought they might be needed someday.
My father’s lock-picking t
ools hung from the ring, too, folded like a Swiss Army knife into a compact metal case. They were a kind of inheritance, passed down from my great-grandfather, Joseph Arthur Jarrett. I opened them, wondering when my father had used them last. As a girl I would sometimes go to his office at Dream Master after school and do my homework in the corner, happy to be near the swirl of conversation and the scents of metal and sawdust, customers coming in for nails or tools or chicken wire or a special order of tile. Sometimes they came with their secrets, too, stored in metal boxes from which the keys had been lost. My father’s expression was always intent and focused as he worked, his scalp visible beneath his cropped hair in the harsh light, his face breaking open in satisfaction, finally, as the tumblers clicked and fell into place. He charged five dollars for this service, ten dollars for house calls, and people paid happily, so eager that they almost never waited to open their boxes in private: Bonds or jewelry or wills; a few times, nothing at all.
My father had taught me what he knew, letting me sit in his chair and press my ear against the smooth wood or metal of a shuttered box on his desk, instructing me how to listen to the whisper of metal shifting, something like a wave, smooth and uninterrupted, until suddenly the frequency changed slightly, became weighted, suspenseful. What was or wasn’t inside never really mattered; it was the whisper of metal on metal that he wanted me to hear. The first time I succeeded, the box springing open beneath my touch, he’d let out a cheer of delight and lifted me up in a hug.
Beneath the lip of the window seat, almost hidden beneath layers of paint, but visible now that the cushions had been stripped away, was a little keyhole. I slid down and squatted on the floor amid the dust motes and the carcasses of flies, slipping a thin metal tool into the keyhole and pressing my ear against the wood. I closed my eyes, imagining my father on those long ago days, making the same motions I was making now, listening in this same intent way. When the last tumbler clicked into place I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, feeling a relief so intense it was almost like joy, and pulled open the cupboard door.
The space seemed empty. In the soft glow of sunrise, I reached inside and felt along the floor, worrying about dead mice or, worse, finding nothing but grit. Then my wrist grazed a stack of papers and I pulled it out. Dust streaked my hands and permeated the papers. At first I felt a rush of excitement; surely, if someone had taken such pains to hide these, they must be important. Yet aside from the mild scholarly interest they immediately evoked—they were mostly flyers and little magazines that seemed to have been written by or for suffragettes—the pamphlets were disappointing, more like insulation than a true find. I closed the cupboard, the lock clicking back into place, and carried the keys and dusty papers back to my room. I lay down on the bed, meaning to read through them, but I got caught in the mysterious tides of jet lag, and fell asleep instead.