Of Bees and Mist

  Without a noise he left the baby and approached her. Although the pounding had receded to a patter, Noah did his best to avoid the man’s gaze. Going around the desk, he halted a few steps in front of his mother. He was about to speak when the words died on his lips. Her back had deceived him after all. Her face, suspended oddly over the sketches, was a sight he had not wanted or expected to see.

  She was panting and frowning, biting her lip with furious devastation. Tears dampened her cheeks, turned her eyes into dark pools of blood. Her neck was bent as if it had been snapped. Noah shuddered in horror. There it was, bared before him, all the hunger that had sustained her pacing, so raw and excruciating it seemed a kind of dying. At once his sharp intuition told him that she had reached the lowest depth of her loneliness, and he had neither the strength nor the means to lift her. Unless he gave her up, cast off the chains that bound them, she would not find her way to the surface.

  Noah raised his head and slowly retreated from the desk. Through all this his mother had not noticed him. The pounding on the window became louder. Taking this as a sign, he dashed to the front door and tore it open.

  “Papa!” he called to the man, and at last gave him substance.

  THE TOUCH ON THE nape came first. A slow, tender burn that spread to her face like a blush. For a second, she relished every drop of it, thought it the most wonderful feeling in the world, before all too quickly her mind leapt into action…She stood up in near violence and swung around to face him.

  “Don’t!” She passed a hand over her face and backed away until she had put half the room between them.

  “Please listen,” he said, with more calm than his anxious eyes betrayed. “Give me a chance to explain myself.”

  “Explain?” she challenged, retreating farther still until she reached the shadows. “What is there to explain? I know all the facts, and nothing, no excuses you say will change them. It’s done and over with. The only thing left is for you to leave—and leave at once.”

  She was determined to give her words an irrevocable tone, but a slight break in her voice undermined her intention. He seized this and took a step forward.

  “I didn’t come to make excuses,” he said. “I claim full responsibility for what I’ve done. I’ve had a lot of time thinking—”

  “You admit it then—everything?” she threw out from among the shadows.

  “Everything.”

  “If you deny nothing, then what more is there to say?”

  “Please listen. I’ve had a lot of time to think since you left, and one thing is clear to me: I must have you back at all costs.”

  Her laugh came out swift and clean, splintering his argument to pieces.

  “Have me back? At all costs? What makes you think you can afford it? I’m not for sale, you see. I never was.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  Daniel paused. There was no doubt he had aged since she last saw him, but despite his haggard and haunted appearance, he was still so much the green, dreamy-eyed youth who had stood by helplessly while Eva tossed her out of Orchard Road.

  “I’m sorry for all the terrible things I’ve done,” he began again. “I was angry and stupid and resentful. When you took your mother in over my objections, it was as if you’d turned me into a stranger in my own house. You grew distant and preoccupied, and you didn’t seem to want me or need me anymore. The house was always cold, and everywhere I turned I could only find tension and distress. I know I didn’t make it easy on you. You were concerned about your mother—rightfully so—and I should have given you my support. But I was thinking only of myself, of how angry and unhappy I was. Then when I started spending time away, you said nothing. I didn’t think you even cared or noticed. And all that time Mama was telling me all the things I wanted to hear. She convinced me I was absolutely in the right, that you had overstepped your bounds and shown me disrespect. One day, when I was feeling especially down, she introduced me to—

  “Go ahead and say it!” she suddenly spat out. “I dare you to speak her name!”

  The force of her outburst startled him, but quickly he collected himself.

  “I’m ashamed of what I’ve done. I was like a man under a spell—everything was blurry, nothing was clear, and at times it seemed my thoughts weren’t even my own. I didn’t realize what I was doing until the damage was done. I was selfish and foolish, but now I’m out of it—free clear out of it because you helped me. Please forgive me. Don’t you see that you must, so we can begin again?”

  He risked a few more steps and forced her to withdraw into a corner. From the way she lowered her head and clasped her hands nervously behind her back, he saw that his closeness was affecting her. But just when he thought she was softening, her answer sprang from her lips and chilled his blood.

  “You don’t seem to understand me,” she said. “The last thing I want is to start over. You can’t wake up something that’s dead and buried.”

  He stared at her, suspended halfway between shock and bewilderment. Then and there he would have given up but for the fact that her eyes had not met his since he entered the room.

  “I love you, Meridia. I have never for one moment stopped loving you. Even when I was blind and sick, I could see you and feel you as if you had never left me. My feelings have not weakened. You are my heart, the blood in my veins, and you will always be the only woman—”

  “Save it, Daniel! I’m no longer yours to make love to.”

  “But why should you give me up? Remember our time together, all the joy and happiness we had. We can have it all back, and much more. Think of our son. Do you want him to grow up without his father? If you can’t forgive me for yourself, then do it for him. Look at me. I’m still the same man you married. Don’t you recognize me? Can’t you see that I made a terrible mistake, but now I’m back—back to stay for good?”

  She lifted her eyes for the first time, and they blazed on him like drowning stars. Her face was not without tenderness, and when she spoke, he detected a hint of the old warmth in her voice.

  “No, I can’t see that. You asked me for forgiveness once, and against my father’s wish, I gave it to you, because I believed it would be the last time you would ask it from me. But now here we are again, back in the same place. You can make all the promises you want, but there are some things you can’t change. Certain ties and dispositions will remain permanent, no matter how honest and good your intentions are. In the end you are bound to follow them…I owe it to Noah and myself to stay clear of the same mistake.”

  He caught her drift instantly. “If it’s Mama you’re worried about, I swear she’s out of my life…”

  “Just like that? She’s out of your life?”

  “Yes.” He narrowed his eyes and his face went rigid with anger. “I can assure you I’ve seen the last of her. She’s no longer welcome in our house.”

  Still watching him, Meridia fell silent for a long time before replying, “You make it sound so easy. But it’s not her I’m worried about.”

  “It’s not? Then what is it?”

  Again, she fell silent and made no move.

  “What is it?” he repeated, his voice pared to a whisper. Slowly she turned to the window and unclasped her hands from behind her back.

  Bright golden light flooded the room and lit up her stricken face. At the sight his breath caught in his throat, and without pausing to think, he covered the remaining steps between them. “Meridia,” he whispered, and engulfed her in his arms. Pressing his cheek against hers, he felt the sting of her tears, and all at once the full enormity of his actions smote him like a blade. He had never seen her cry so openly, bared herself so defenselessly. Urgently he sought her mouth, and as his lips closed over hers, he felt her tremble in his arms.

  “Forgive me,” he said under his breath. “I will never again hurt you.”

  She did not resist him, but neither did she return his kiss. Her hands remained stiff at her side
s. For a minute she let him have his fill, and then firmly pushed him away. He looked at her with a wounded expression.

  “It’s you,” she said at length. “You’ve broken every part of me and I can’t put the pieces back together. It pains me to see you, to be near you, and the hurt weighs more than my love for you. Now that I know what you’re capable of, I can’t force it out of my head, no matter how hard I try. When I look at you, I see your mother staring at me, lying, scheming, cutting me down with every chance she’s got. Your words sound like her words, your promises like her lies. I used to believe you were the only person in the world who would never hide a thing from me, but now I can’t tell anymore. There’s too much of her in you…I won’t risk my heart for the third time. You’re always more your mother’s son than you were my husband.”

  “But you can’t believe that!” He fumbled for her hands, but she had again locked them behind her back. “I’ll prove myself and make it up to you. Please give me a chance—one chance, and you’ll see that I’m not the man you think I am!”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out Gabriel’s necklace. For a moment she stood without moving, mesmerized by the pure, warm glitter of the diamonds. Thinking she was giving him his chance, he stretched out the necklace toward her.

  “I redeemed this for you once. Tell me what I must do to redeem it again.”

  She said nothing for a long time. And then she returned his stare and gently shook her head.

  “It’s over between us. There’s nothing here you can claim.”

  His jaw dropped. His hand followed a moment later. A hundred arguments rose to his lips, but they withered like flowers before her gaze. If only she would let him hold her again!

  “But you don’t understand—”

  The baby began to cry. All this time they had not been alone. As he watched her hasten to the bassinet, his heart recoiled from the nearness of loss.

  She picked up the baby and calmed him. Daniel followed her across the room. He noticed that her tears had dried, her face once again closed unto itself.

  “He’s a strapping boy.” He heard himself speak without recognizing his voice.

  “Yes, he is.” She nodded. “Permony would have been proud of him.”

  And then lightly, as if the question had never occurred to her before, she asked him, “Did you know what Ahab was before they married?”

  “Of course not,” he said at once. “Had I known, I would never have consented.”

  She nodded again in such a way that he could not tell if she believed him.

  The front door opened. A woman’s voice could be heard in the hallway. Meridia put the baby down in the bassinet.

  “I’ve asked Rebecca to watch him,” she said. “Malin is expecting me at the wake. Will you take Noah?”

  “I will,” he said. “But give me a moment to play with the little fellow.”

  Their eyes met for the last time. And then suddenly she reached out her hand and touched his cheek.

  “It was a great love,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Take good care of yourself. You’ll be happy with someone else.”

  She turned and moved toward the door. He held on to the bassinet, keeping as still and silent as he could. After the door closed, he became instantly aware of two things: the necklace was still in his hand and the baby’s eyes were beaming at him. He tried to smile, but his chin dropped to his chest. He shook and shook while tears fell and blotted the world around him.

  The shop on Lotus Blossom Lane closed the following autumn. Despite the fortune-teller’s attempt to reverse misfortune, the business continued to lose money, and long before October shed its golden leaves, the bell above the door jingled for the last time. The news soon spread that Elias’s widow had lost all her wealth. The baker across the street claimed that the grand remodeling had not paid off—during the shop’s final weeks, he could count on two hands the number of customers who walked in through the door. His wife, a dressmaker, disagreed, saying that if anything was to blame, it was Eva’s extravagance. “She used to be the thriftiest of women, but shortly before the shop closed, she put in an order for three dresses in one week. All while creditors were pounding at her door!” This theory gained support from Eva’s hairdresser, who hinted that her customer had not been “right in the head” since Permony’s death. “Malin went away and cut off all contact. Daniel hasn’t spoken to her since Meridia divorced him. And we all know how Ahab disappeared so mysteriously…”

  Eva herself seldom left the house anymore. The butchers and fruit-sellers missed her haggling, and in her absence, they recounted the brazen lengths she would go to in order to get her way. The florists and storekeepers missed her sharp tongue and the vivid way she had for embellishing a story. Some said she was ill, unable to leave her bed. Others said she was succumbing to old age. Whenever they inquired at the house, a surly maid answered the door in a snobby tone, “Madam is resting and doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  Meanwhile, a steady stream of customers kept the shop on Magnolia Avenue afloat. A far cry from the days when it had dictated the taste of the town, it became the place where people went if they wanted something “safe” or “traditional,” quiet, respectable pieces that would neither lift eyebrows nor excite admiration. Daniel waited on his customers with an almost mechanical courtesy. Many men and women still found him attractive, but he paid them no heed even when they flirted with him openly. Over the past months, he had grown wan and subdued, his hair thinning and his face aging before its time. His boy sometimes kept him company, but never for long. The town had not been mistaken in thinking that Noah was more his mother’s son than his father’s.

  Meridia, for her part, was causing a sensation on two fronts. First, her new shop on 175 Willow Lane was an unqualified success. Yes, she did set up business in her old house (still haunted, still smelling of cooking at all times), and against everyone’s caution had the audacity to market her own creations. Once the shop opened, however, the young could not get enough of her rosette rings and woven bangles, and the old valued the intelligence and ingenuity that went into each piece. She did not shy away from using colors, or from pairing five different stones in one bracelet. Her designs were marked by bold geometry, by clean lines and dynamic curves that seemed to capture the bright flight of some winged creature. Her business partner, the renegade dealer Samuel, gave her free rein of the shop. He had been heard to say that she was unable to lose money even if she wanted to.

  But what pumped the most grist into the town’s rumor mill were the brow-raising activities occurring inside 24 Monarch Street. For some time now, even before the divorce became finalized, someone appeared to have been living with mother and son in that commanding house of glass and steel. No one had directly laid eyes on the person in question, but there had been sightings of two grown-ups huddling in the window (so said a neighbor), three sets of footprints in the garden (this from the milkman), and extra groceries delivered to the door (direct from the grocer). Three evenings a week, a piano was heard tinkling, someone singing, laughter until dawn. Some said it was the kindly ghost from Willow Lane, lured by Meridia to fill the house with the smell of baking. Some said it was Ravenna, returned from her mysterious journey at the end of the world. Others were more practical. “It’s simple, you see. Meridia is keeping a lover…”

  IT WAS HER GOOD friends Leah and Rebecca who suggested she return to 175 Willow Lane to open the shop. “Why not? The ghost has practically been keeping it vacant for you,” said Rebecca. Meridia was doubtful at first, pained by the memory of her hard years there, and decided to pay a visit. She signed the lease as soon as she felt Patina’s spirit brush her arm. In October, she began turning the entire house into one elegant shop, sparing only the room where Noah was born and where she and Daniel had made love in happier times. This room she kept as an office, furnished with a new skylight, easy chairs, a metal vault, and family pictures crowding the expansive surface of Gabriel’s old desk. The
shop was not as big or as bright as 70 Magnolia Avenue, yet it offered plenty of warmth and intimacy. As assistants, Meridia hired two girls from the neighborhood, honest and hardworking young women who were grateful for the opportunity. When the shop opened in November, she did not think it would fail, and it did not.

  BY THE YEAR’S END Meridia had grown used to her new life. Rising early in the morning. Walking Noah to school. Off to the shop. Lunch with Samuel once a week. Back to the shop. Dinner at home, often with Leah and Rebecca. Sketches, bills, letters while Noah did homework. Bedtime with a book. On weekends the boy went to his father’s and she wandered the town alone.

  One night, she stood at her window with her pad and pencil, and the fireflies did not come. The next night, she waited again and still she did not see them. On the third night, it began to rain, warm, blood-tasting, splashing her face, pad, and nightgown. When it became clear to her that the fireflies had left for good, she shut the window but did not wipe her face. Just before sadness engulfed her, she saw it. A likeness on the rain-lashed pane, no longer creased or grimaced but smiling. The yellow eyes were spinning still, but bright now like the moon. Meridia laughed as she greeted her old friend, the ghost in the mirror from long ago. In the nights to come, it would appear to her when she felt lonely, the last unlocked and understood message from Ravenna.

  THINGS WENT ON IN this fashion until one day in late January. She was on her way back to the shop from Samuel’s office when a line of hooded nuns bearing whips and a half-clad man on a cross drew her toward Independence Plaza. The Festival of the Spirits had returned to town.

  Twelve years had passed since she first saw those same tents and colorful banners. The booths laden with relics. The pamphlets. The palmists, prophets, exorcists. Once again a giant sheepdog was barking away evil spirits. The same woman in a white turban was selling insurance for the afterlife. A small dove blue tent squatted beyond the cluster of the flagellants. The Cave of Enchantment. Slyly mounted on the roof, Meridia now saw, was a device for transmitting music to gullible maidens.