The Other Shore: Two Stories of Love and Death

trying to keep themselves from crying. "I've been putting off coming here the past few weeks because it just makes me… It's sad."

  "How long have you known him?"

  "Almost four years."

  "And you've been his assistant all that time?"

  "No, he was my Ph.D adviser until I graduated last fall. That's when he broke the news to me and asked if I'd be interested in doing this."

  "What were your plans before that?"

  "I didn't have any."

  "What do you mean you didn't have any?"

  "I guess I never gave up hope that something would come up here."

  "You like it here?"

  "I love it. It feels like home to me."

  "And this job, how long is it supposed to take?"

  "I have a one-year contract with the university."

  "It's going to be a lot of work going through all this stuff."

  "This isn't it. There's something else, too."

  "I don't think I'm prepared for any more surprises," he says. "Is this also something I'm going to need to talk to him about?"

  "I suppose it could be, though I don't think it would do you much good. He's been vague about the whole thing to me," she says, grabbing two manuscript boxes from the desk and handing them to Simon.

  "What's in here?" he asks, and tries to open the top box.

  "No, don't open it. It's the box that holds the manuscript we're not supposed to see until after—" She stops herself, and he can see that the tears are coming again, but this time she doesn't even try to repress it.

  She sits on the edge of the desk and begins to cry. He approaches the desk, places the manuscript boxes back where they were, sits next to her, and puts his arm around her. She leans into him.

  "Is this alright?" he asks, worried that maybe he's become too familiar with this girl he's only just met. He wouldn't normally ask such a question. It seems perfectly natural to try and comfort someone under these circumstances, but he also cannot deny that he's intoxicated by her. Sitting this close to her, smelling her perfume—nothing too indulgent, probably just soap or lotion—is making his head swim.

  She shakes her head, smiles at him, letting him know it's alright for him to be this close. She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt like a child, and, in that moment, he believed he would take the job. For his father, he would, but, also, for this strange, beautiful woman.

  "I'm sorry," she says. "I've been a mess. I can't go thirty minutes without crying these days."

  "Were you close to him?"

  "You speak about him as if he's already gone," she says, turning toward him, staring at him with a soft accusation in her eyes. And there is a warmth and a sadness in her eyes that runs so deep, and he so empathizes with that depth of sadness that he's suddenly suppressing his own tears. He stands up, turns away from her, and moves toward the file boxes.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it," he says, absently caressing the dates written on one of the boxes to distract him from the emotional outburst that's pushing against his throat.

  "Your dad and Susannah have been my family here. They've been so kind and patient with me these past few years. And without him, I don't know where I'd be right now. He's opened so many doors in my life, and I don't just mean professionally. I mean, just… Everything. I know it sounds corny, but the world is so much larger for me because of him. He's given me a sense of direction all these years, and I'm a little scared of what I'm going to do without him here to help point the way for me."

  "Well, at least you know you'll have the work of the archives for awhile. That's something to keep you busy until you regain your bearings."

  "And what about you?" she asks.

  "What about me?"

  "I know you guys weren't close, but where are you with him now?"

  "You know about us? About our mother? The whole thing?"

  "In broad strokes—mostly from Susannah. He doesn't talk about it much. I think it's too painful for him."

  "You're right, we've never been close," he says. "It'd been an awfully long time since I'd seen him until yesterday, and I suppose I was mad at him about something. But I don't think I was mad at him for what I thought I was mad at him about. Now that I'm here, and hear you talk about your relationship with him, it helps crystallize all those things that've sustained my anger over the years. He was my father in name only. I needed his guidance. I needed that same security he seems to have been giving you. But I never got it. And since I've come back, I've learned this and can face it. I just hope I can get beyond it."

  "I hope so, too," she says. "Because I'd sure like to have you help me here."

  "That's another set of obstacles altogether."

  "Do you know why Dad asked me to go to the university today?" Simon asks Maggie, as they maneuver the road toward their dad's house in Simon's rental car.

  "I knew he had some work he wanted you to look at. 'Loose ends,' I think I remember him saying."

  "It's a one-year contract to work at the university. He's leaving them his archives and he wants me to help organize everything."

  "So, you're just supposed to quit your job back home?"

  "I don't know what else he would have in mind. I'm not sure I'm in a position where I can take a sabbatical. I've never even looked into it. I suppose I could just take a leave of absence, but I was given no notice, no warning. And the job is already under way. His assistant has an office full of material already."

  "And she's on a one-year contract as well?"

  "Yep."

  "Is this Laura?"

  "You've met her?"

  "A few times. I've seen her at Dad's a few times. She seems nice."

  "You know anything about her?"

  "Not really. I know she's close with Dad and Susannah, and she works in the English department."

  "And he never asked you to help?"

  "What? With an archive?" she asks, looking at him. "Why would he do that?"

  "He told Laura that it was important for him to have people who were close to him going through the work."

  "But I'm grossly unqualified. This is what you do. It seems natural for him to have asked you."

  "I suppose so, but it still would've been nice to get a little warning before I went there today."

  "He didn't even know what your relationship with him was going to look like until yesterday, and even then it was just a glimpse. He was probably just worried you'd turn him down."

  "I haven't agreed to anything, yet."

  "Either way, he's letting you know that he trusts you with his work. That's a good thing."

  "I guess so."

  "You always were the poet. He always wanted that for you."

  "No, he didn't. Once I got serious about writing, I became his competition. He was never anything but critical about my work."

  "Maybe he's trying to show you that he's grown."

  "But I haven't been involved in poetry for years."

  "Really?"

  "Haven't even thought about it."

  "That's sad."

  "Why?" he asks her. "It's only sad to you because you still see me as the Simon of fifteen years ago. But I'm not sure I have any poetry left in me. That's not who I am anymore."

  "I guess so, but you used to love it so much. It seemed like it made you genuinely happy. Hard for me to imagine that those kinds of fundamentals about a person really ever change."

  "What about you? Your painting? You still doing that?" he asks with a bit too much bite.

  "Simon," she says, shaking her head. "You've been in my house two days now. My paintings are all over the walls."

  "Sorry, I didn't—"

  "It's alright," Maggie says. "Yes, I'm still painting. I've even been teaching lately. I teach group lessons at the cultural center, and I teach some students privately at home, too."

  "Really?"

  "Yes, really."

  "You like it?"

  "I love it."

  "You do seem happy—happier tha
n I ever remember seeing you."

  "It is a change, isn't it?"

  "How did you do it?"

  "It sounds terrible to say, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way, but Mom's death really freed me."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Her unhappiness was so contagious. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but she seemed to want everyone to be at her level. The constant hopelessness became too heavy to handle. After all those years, I believed life was supposed to be that way. I mean, I knew happy people, but I always thought it was some sort of social pretending and that, once behind closed doors, they were as unhappy in their homes as we were in ours."

  "When did you realize that wasn't true?"

  "I think I had an idea it wasn't true all along, but I don't think I could ever afford to believe it. But once she was gone, and grieving eventually gave way to acceptance, that heaviness, that sad spell she had on me and the house, it began to lift away. And, one day, I woke up, the sun was shining in the windows, the birds were singing, and I knew things were going to be okay. It was suddenly spring, and I felt something like hope. And I've never looked back."

  "And you've been fine ever since?"

  "I go through brief spells of insecurities and frustrations like anyone else, but nothing like the life we lived while we lived with her."

  "I always worried you'd end up like her—sad all the time—like it was hereditary or something."

  "I thought the same thing about you."

  "You did?"

  "I did. Although, I always thought you would be more like Dad in the way that you had a habit of trying to outrun the things you didn't want to deal with."

  "Yeah, well, that seems about right."

  "But you're here now."

  "I am."

  "I'm happy you're here," she says, grabbing his free hand as his other hand navigates the steering wheel. "I hope we can be closer after this."

  "I