In the early days of autumn, Eric painted his wife and child’s portrait amid golden trees and withering berry vines. Usually Eric waited until Jane was drowsy, otherwise she squirmed, wishing to be set on the ground. But in fading afternoon light, she would rest quietly in her mother’s arms while her father studiously set colors to canvases at a rate that made Lynne wonder. Seth had returned home and according to Laurie, the transition was a smooth one. Yet, Eric’s pace was feverish, and after Jane had been put to bed, he tried to appease Lynne’s curiosity. He didn’t feel his frantic work habits were tied into Seth’s return to New York. Something else was inspiring him.
It could be Jane, her mobility halted only by the boundaries erected by her parents. Jane would butt her head against the French doors, then pull herself onto chubby knees, placing her small hands against the panes, crying to go outside. In thick corduroy trousers, she crawled along the patio gravel until her hands ached from the rougher stones. She wanted to tackle the stairs, but Lynne had bought a baby gate, precluding that adventure, as Eric called it. Jane wasn’t always so headstrong, but now that she had mastered crawling, walking was the next hurdle, and Renee teased that Jane would be on her feet well before Christmas.
Eric had painted her in motion, usually from behind, for Jane was never still for long. He had been captivated by her rapid growth, which hadn’t translated into a need to nurse. Now Jane breastfed in the mornings, and usually before bedtime, otherwise taking a bottle or trying to drink from a cup. She spilled far more than she drank, making a mess on the kitchen floor, but Lynne didn’t complain. She and Eric had decided to forgo birth control and see what happened next.
Yet, the couple hadn’t shared that with the Aherns, for it seemed the idea of adoption had been pushed to a back burner. Lynne brought that up with Eric; did his recent spate of creativity have something to do with that issue? Her voice wasn’t anxious, which Eric found interesting. Before, when she expressed such queries, worry edged her tone. Now she was merely inquisitive.
As Eric locked the studio for the night, he gazed into the sky, a blaze of colors in the west, which if he wasn’t already late for dinner would make him turn right around and grab some clean brushes. Lynne had called for him twice, yet the sunset seemed extraordinarily beautiful, like the painting on the Aherns’ wall. Eric wished that picture was going to a new home, but other than prayer, he had little recourse. He and Sam were back on their usual footing, as were Lynne and Renee. But none of them had broached whether or not the Aherns were going to make a family together.
Reaching the patio, Eric glanced toward the house, seeing his wife and daughter approaching. Lynne stepped briskly, a smile on her face. “We were just coming to see if bandits had taken you away.”
Her tone was light, a blissful joy all over her. She was still the gorgeous woman he had wed; the baby in her arms was some of it, but inside was from where most of Lynne’s beauty emerged, stemming from an odd but true belief growing within a part of her no one would ever see. Not even a brilliant surgeon could probe the renewal of Lynne’s soul, and Eric walked her way, wondering if that was the impetus of his work. It wasn’t merely Jane he wanted to depict, but her mother, each so precious not only to Eric, but to God.
He kissed both of them, then pointed west. “Just admiring the sunset. I could never do justice to that sky.”
“You come pretty close.” Lynne nestled against his shoulder as Jane babbled. “Dinner’s ready, but it can wait another minute or two.”
Eric nodded, feeling a rising joy with his wife and their baby so close. How many times had he dreamed of this scenario, either in sleep or while flying, noting warm relations between various members of the animal kingdom. Now a family rested in his grasp and no painting would ever denote the utter peace derived from these two people, and the faith graced to all of them. From infancy Jane was being raised with the knowledge of Christ, a realization that her parents joked wasn’t much beyond their own understandings. All three were learning at the same time, but that wasn’t bad, perhaps the best way for parents to teach their child about such a weighty reflection.
“Tomorrow no painting,” Eric said softly. “Let’s go on a hike, we haven’t done that in ages.”
Lynne pulled away, staring at him. “A hike, are you serious?”
Jane began to chuckle as Eric nodded. “Sure. I’ll carry her and….”
“And we’ll go five hundred yards and fall over from exhaustion.”
Eric laughed, taking his daughter into his arms. “Now Jane, do you hear that? Your mama has no idea how strong she is from toting you around all day. We’ll go on a short hike and take a picnic lunch. Winter’s not far away and what will the girl here think of being cooped inside all the time?” Eric tickled Jane’s chin. “You won’t like it one bit, I imagine. We’ll have to put something over the French doors so you don’t break the panes, trying to escape.”
Eric and his daughter chuckled together, but Lynne didn’t join them. She took two steps away, arms hanging limply at her sides. Jane still giggled, but Eric moved toward his wife, then tenderly stroked her face. “Oh honey, I didn’t mean to….”
“Do you feel like it’s, I mean….” Lynne’s voice cracked. “Maybe that’s why you’ve been so busy.”
Eric shook his head. “I haven’t felt a single niggle. It’s something else honey, I don’t know what, but it’s not that.”
Eric led his wife into the house, shutting the French doors behind him. He set Jane on the floor, then walked Lynne to the sofa. Yet she didn’t sit. “Dinner’s gonna get cold,” she said.
“Dinner can wait, or at least until Jane starts yapping. Lynne, let’s talk about this.”
She closed her eyes, then sighed. Opening her eyes, she gazed at the painting of the orchard on the far wall. “How many times did we walk through those trees, imagining what our lives would be like, but we were so off the mark.” Lynne turned back to Eric. “I’ve tried to not think about it, or when I do, I just say it’ll be fine. I won’t be alone and you’ll come home, I know you will, and….”
“But we’re human Lynne.” Eric had a wry smile. “Or practically human. It’s okay to wonder, to have doubts.” Now Eric chuckled, picking up Jane, who had crawled around, but returned to where her parents stood in the middle of the living room. “I’ve been amazed at how blasé you’ve been about it. That’s not quite what I mean, but….”
“Eric, honestly, not until tonight have I felt uneasy. I think it was the sunset. It looked just like the one you painted for Renee and Sam and, and….” Lynne stroked her daughter’s soft cheek, then played with Jane’s lengthy curls. “I nearly asked her a few days ago when we were having lunch together. But she’d started to blink away tears and I just couldn’t, you know? They’re happy, I know they are, but what happened in August set them back.”
“Set back Sam you mean.”
Lynne nodded. “Renee talked mostly about Jane, or about Helene. I guess she’s been going to see Frannie quite often, instead of Sam going. Not that Fran needs the help, but maybe now there’s someone who understands Renee a little bit. That’s what Renee implied, right before she started to….”
Lynne wept and Eric put his free arm around her. Jane whimpered, trying to reach for her mother’s damp face. Lynne took a deep breath, then grasped her baby. “Let’s get you some dinner sweetie. Mama and Daddy are hungry too.”
Jane clapped her hands, another new trick that she was just starting to master. Eric had read that most babies didn’t clap until they were seven or eight months old, but a week shy of seven months, Jane could already clap with gusto, rarely missing. A proud father was tempted to think his infant daughter was gifted, but Eric often pondered if his unique genes played a part in Jane’s development. As the trio headed to the kitchen, Lynne told their daughter what a smart girl she was, and so beautiful. Jane babbled as if in agreement while Eric couldn’t stop from wondering if he was the only Snyder so affected.
A week later, Eri
c was in charge of Jane while Lynne went for lunch with Renee. Father and daughter poked about the garden, Jane strapped to Eric’s chest in a hiking pack Eric had recently purchased. Lynne had thought he was ridiculous, not the time of year to consider hikes, but Eric said he would tote Jane to prep himself for next spring. In 1963, the Snyders would make family treks, reviving an old pastime that Eric had so enjoyed with only Lynne. At first Jane protested being put into the pack, preferring to roam on her own. But Eric kept up a good pace, bouncing her as he strode around the yard, talking incessantly. Jane learned that her father had always loved to draw, but gardening had been an acquired hobby, in part to make sure that he and Lynne didn’t starve to death.
Eric told his daughter how poor they had been, but that buying this property had been essential, even if the house had been in a derelict state. The studio was well constructed and if not for the ample vegetables and fruits Eric tended, the young couple had lived on love. Eric didn’t hide much of his past from his infant daughter, revealing his earliest memories of flight, but concealing his troubled background. One day Jane would learn about Howard Snyder, but not until she was much older.
Jane gurgled in response, sometimes clapping when her father’s voice indicated an exciting occurrence, like when he met Jane’s mother, or the first time the couple had hiked in the orchard, or when they found this house, or rather, Eric chuckled, this acreage had claimed them. Both had been intrigued with the possibilities and the privacy. The seclusion was necessary, Eric said softly, because sometimes he had to go away and no one but Lynne could know.
Eric returned to the patio where he unstrapped the pack, taking Jane from the harness. Sitting in a chair, he put her on his lap, gently embracing her. “Someday Mommy might tell you that I had to go away, but I will come back sweetie, to both of you. Uncle Sam might need to look after me for a few days, but I promise you Jane, I will always come home.”
The baby stared at her father as if comprehending everything he said. Her blue eyes were wide and Eric had an immediate urge to paint her image as if the whole world’s truth rested in Jane’s enormous irises. They were exactly the color of Sam’s, which made Eric smile, then sigh. He caressed Jane’s face, then kissed her forehead. Then he cuddled her close, wondering how he had received such a tremendous blessing.
When Lynne returned, she found her husband and daughter in the sunroom, Jane in her high chair, Eric behind his easel. Lynne quietly observed them, aware that Eric knew of her presence, but not Jane. Then the baby turned around, laughing at her mother. Lynne approached them as Eric poked his head from around the canvas. “Hello Mama,” he said. “How was your lunch?”
“Fine. And how are things going here?”
“Well,” Eric began, “we chatted about the state of global politics and Jane suggested I should paint her looking so darn cute. That would usher in world peace without argument.”
Lynne kissed her baby, then her husband. “I must say, I can’t argue with that.” She smiled, but it was wan. “I’ll be back, need the ladies’ room.”
Eric followed her as far as the living room. “Everything all right?” he called.
Lynne didn’t turn back, shaking her head.
The couple waited until after Jane was asleep to talk; Lynne noted that while the Aherns weren’t ruling out adoption entirely, they had decided to wait until the new year to proceed, in part, Renee had tearfully revealed, out of respect for Simon and Andrew. Lynne had asked how long and Renee had shrugged, not providing a straight answer. Yet, Renee had implied that Sam hadn’t ruled it out, that in fact it had been the main basis for their reconciliation last month. He still wanted to adopt, but was leery of offending Fran and Louie. Renee had tried to temper her mild suspicion over that rationale, but the brassy redhead’s true feelings had spilled in her few tears and slightly bitter tone. Lynne sighed. “She doesn’t think he’ll actually go through with it. But she’s trying to keep an open mind.”
Eric gently shook his head. “I know he’s afraid of….” Eric paused, then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “He’s worried about not being a good father. He wants to give her this gift, but he doesn’t wanna….” Eric stood from the sofa, stepping to the doorway between the living room and the sunroom. He grasped the corner of the wall, staring toward the easel. “He thinks he’ll get angry, or he’ll not do it right. God, why in the hell did he ever go over there?”
Lynne joined her husband. “That’s exactly what Renee said, right before I left. She whispered it, I can’t even remember what we’d been talking about, oh Eric, her voice was so soft, like she didn’t want me to hear her, but she had to say it. All I could think about was Seth, which might seem strange, but both of them made that decision, not that they could’ve avoided it, but instead of waiting, they enlisted.” Lynne grasped her husband’s shoulders and Eric turned her way. “I’m so glad you couldn’t go.” She stared at his left foot, then into her husband’s eyes. “A blessing in disguise, but why’d they think it was necessary, why actively pursue something so violent?”
“I put my fists up that night I went over there.” Eric looked at his hands, then at his wife. “Something inside me was overruled by irrational thought, it’s crazy honey. When Sam and I talked in the studio, I told him Stanford would chew me out if he heard I’d done that. Or maybe he’d slap me himself.”
Lynne nodded. “You know what I’d have told you?”
Eric smiled. “That I’d deserved it. And I said that to Sam too.”
“Oh Eric, it just breaks my heart that Sam’s so skittish, he’d be a fantastic father.”
“You’re right, he absolutely would, and she’d make a terrific mother. But honey, something happened to him here.” Eric set his palm over Lynne’s heart. “Just like Seth, but it’s manifested differently in each. Like my father too. Why I wasn’t affected….”
Lynne put her hand over Eric’s. “You weren’t because your mother was a saint.”
Eric nodded. “She nearly was, I agree. But it’s more than that, because some men come back and have very few issues. And some are irreparably damaged. Not Sam and Seth, I mean.” Eric paused. “Seth’s gonna be a work in progress and I can’t honestly promise that he won’t be getting a visit from an errant hawk. He just might.” Then Eric smiled. “But Sam gained so much peace when Jane was born, like he was reborn. Some of that ground was lost in August, but not all of it, although maybe he thinks it was more. I don’t. I know him Lynne, I was the recipient of his, well, for lack of a better word, tenderness. That man puts on a big front, but he’s got one of the softest hearts.”
“Oh Eric, he does, Renee said that too. She said that he just needs to let down his guard, that he has so much to give. It was heartbreaking to hear in her voice all she couldn’t say, and all he can’t see about himself. And the worst part was that while she’s trying to be positive, I heard this hopelessness, that no matter what he said last month when she came home, the longer he puts it off, the less are the chances that he’ll eventually do it. And she knows this Eric, but she won’t say anything about it. She feels like she can’t push it because….”
Lynne began to cry and Eric held her close. He gazed at the back of the painting as if he could see through the canvas to Jane’s half-formed image on the other side. That was how Sam was seeing fatherhood, through a veil. Yet, it wasn’t protective, but limiting. Eric had no way to break that barrier; not even a hawk could speak to that obstruction.
As October sped along, Eric painted while Lynne baked and Jane scuttled across the length of the Snyder home. Lynne and Jane visited the Canfields and Helene was overjoyed for a mobile playmate. Fran chuckled that once Jane was on her feet, Lynne and Eric would have little time for cooking and art. The mothers laughed at their girls, the two years separating them not mattering to either child. Helene thought Jane was hilarious and Jane considered Helene a wonderful teacher.
The Snyders and Aherns shared a few dinners, but conversation centered around the coming h
oliday season, hard to ignore what with Halloween decorations in the stores. Jane was far too young for a costume, but Renee wondered about next year. Fran’s kids were going to be a variety of characters, even Helene wearing an old clown outfit probably handed down from Sally. Renee mentioned those children with no trace of sadness, but Lynne had to wonder, from how Sam wouldn’t look at his wife when she spoke.
One Monday afternoon, Renee and Sam joined the Snyders, but to Lynne’s consternation, Sam wanted to watch television. Since he and Renee arrived, Sam had been yammering about something to do with the Soviets. Eric turned on their black and white set, no use getting one of those newfangled color televisions for how little they watched it.
Lynne remained in the kitchen while Renee and the men gravitated to the TV, tucked in a corner of the living room. Jane gabbed in her high chair as Lynne made coffee, then Lynne noticed how quiet was the house, aside from Jane’s jabbering. “What’s happened?” Lynne called to the adults.
She waited for seconds, but no one responded. Jane grew more vociferous, then started clapping. Lynne caressed her daughter’s head, then grasped her small active hands. “I’ll be right back,” Lynne said. She kissed Jane’s cheek, then stepped to the kitchen doorway. “All right you three, what’s up?”
Eric met her where she stood. “Honey, the president’s just announced that the Russians have placed missiles in Cuba. Nuclear missiles.”
“What, are you serious, missiles in Cuba?”
Eric nodded, gripping her hands. “He said a blockade’s been enacted to turn back any ships with hazardous cargoes. Lynne, he’s talking about an attack on….”
She shook her head, squeezing his hands. “No, oh my God Eric, don’t even think such a thing!”
But as Jane’s babbles decreased, Lynne didn’t miss the gravity of President Kennedy’s voice or the unequivocal meaning of his words. The Soviet Union had nuclear warheads in striking range of America, for what purpose Lynne couldn’t fathom. Then the reason became all too clear; did the Soviets actually intend to attack The United States?
Lynne trembled, but Eric’s embrace removed her initial worries. They were on the West Coast, safe from such desolation. But what about Stanford and Laurie, Michael and Constance, and Seth? Seth had just come home and now this? Tears burned along Lynne’s cheeks, and not even Jane’s happy gurgles could halt her mother’s weeping. Then Eric led his wife back into the kitchen, comforting her behind their daughter’s high chair as Jane waved her arms, clapping soundly for a reason known only to her.
Chapter 76