“The boy didn’t have so much as baby aspirin in his system.”
I pulled in a great swallow of air.
“I double-checked the labs myself.”
“So did you conduct the autopsy?”
She shook her head. “Nope, wouldn’t be ethical. I know the deceased. Given the high profile, the brass wanted everything by the book with this one.”
“But the stitching—”
A shy look crossed Mary K’s face. “They usually staple up a body that’s going for cremation. I asked to close. Thought Bloom would appreciate being sewn up right, even if it will only be for a couple of days.”
This macabre act of kindness flooded me with gratitude and sorrow. I steeled myself, preparing for my friend’s answer to the next question. “Cause of death?”
Mary K looked at me, the directness of her gaze penetrating past my skin and looking deeply into me. “Massive impact to the chest,” she said. “The steering column crushed right through the sternum. He hit the bridge tower head on. Punctured the heart and lungs. I’m guessing he didn’t even have time to say oh shit.”
The moment it was lifted, I knew the weight of the worry I’d carried that Jake’s suffering had been prolonged. We sat together in silence while I absorbed the meaning of all that I’d just heard.
Mary K wiped her palms on the front of her jeans. “Kind of weird timing here, Murphy, but… you ready for some good news?” She lifted one eyebrow and gave me a slanted smile. “Looks like you’re going to be Auntie Kate. Andra’s got a baby on board. Found out today.”
Joy rose effervescent, like bubbles rising from the bottom of a deep pool. “Baby? You said baby, right? So you’re together?”
“What can I say, Murphy? She couldn’t live without me.” Mary K gave a low chuckle, then her smile faded. “Straight up? You and Bloom got me thinking. Maybe this love stuff is a pretty rare thing. You walked through hell for it. All I’ve got to do is say yes. We’re all only here for a little while, right? Who knows how long any of us has?”
I glanced around the room at the bulletin board plastered with grotesque photographs of mutilated corpses. “No kidding.”
“The tick of Andra’s biological clock just got too loud to ignore, with or without me. She went to a clinic, picked a daddy from a book, and got herself knocked up. Called me to let me know right before we went to New York. She’s kind that way. Didn’t want me to hear it through the grapevine. When I saw her… all happy and glowing, well—”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I planned to, but then things went haywire with Bloom. But things are good. She moved into my house last week. We’re fixing up a nursery. All that gooey mommy stuff.”
“Mary Louise Kowalski, in love and with a baby on the way. As I live and breathe.”
“We’ll be Mommy Squared, or something like that. I guess we’ll make like Leave It to Beaver.” Mary K’s mouth twisted into a sly grin. “But with double the beaver.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“News of my impending motherhood ought to get me disowned for good by the rest of my family. Glad I’ve got you and yours. Takes a village, right? I’m going to need the help of some great moms. You and Alice will be my first line of defense.”
It felt like my heart was being knit back together. Mary K still regarded me as a good mother after everything she’d seen, and I could think of no better mother than Alice. “And the baby? Details, Kowalski. Details.”
“Due in mid-May. Don’t know the gender yet, but I’m hoping for a shortstop with a gun for an arm. Look, Murphy. I wanted to tell you, but I just couldn’t seem to find the right time.”
“And the morgue after viewing the corpse of my husband is the perfect moment, I suppose.” Mary K’s hoarse laugh joined mine.
Finally, my strength returned. “How about we go to Murphy’s? There’s a crew of people there that could use some good news. Ryan is going to flip. Alice will never stop crocheting booties.”
Mary K grabbed her keys from her desk drawer. “I’ve had enough of this tomb. What’s say we blow this pop stand?”
* * *
Three days later, two days before Christmas, San Francisco Bay’s gray waters matched the mood of all on board the luxury yacht, Latitude. The unseasonably warm day was a kindness. The captain cut the engine and dropped anchor just south of Angel Island. The Golden Gate stood luminous, cinnamon against a moody sky. A cold breeze blew to remind us that it was winter. All of us stood in a circle on the deck of Latitude. Tully, Alice, and Dad together, as always, with Dr. Schwartz sitting in a deck chair beside them. Father Sean wore white robes of celebration as I’d requested. Mary K and Andra stood together, Andra’s lean body just beginning to soften with pregnancy. Dahlia de la Rosa gave me a small smile from across the circle. Beside her stood Dr. John Marshall and Maggie Simon, the nurse who had helped deliver Ryan, looking unfamiliar in street clothes. Burt, big as a redwood, held Ryan’s hand and she held mine. I was surrounded by a circle of friends and family that had been with me at every step, though I’d lost track of them along the way.
Father Sean spoke of God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness. “We are human,” he said, “endowed with the gifts of our humanity as well as its frailties. The God I know is big enough to understand it all and love us with all of our flaws.” He looked at me with kindness in his eyes. As he spoke on about understanding and forgiveness, I looked around the circle. These people had taught me so many lessons. They’d taught me about unconditional love. They’d taught me about devotion and generosity and gentleness. But my family had also taught me about secrecy—a lesson that, when combined with my pride, had become my worst flaw.
I let the soft warmth of the sun find my face, and with it I felt washed clean, the mistakes I’d made vanquished. I looked over to see Burt’s glowing face. I returned his smile and lifted Ryan’s hand to my lips, giving her hand a tender kiss. Burt repeated my gesture with her other hand.
Next to the urn that held Jake’s ashes sat a bundle of twisted willow branches wrapped in yellow flower petals, Ryan’s way of showing her dad that she’d forgiven him, too.
At the boat’s stern, outside the circle, stood Aaron Bloom, his gaze locked onto the bridge in the distance. As though gravity tugged harder where he stood, the distinguished man’s face was pulled downward. Despite an impeccably tailored suit and his enormous influence, this icon of a man was simply a father who had lost his only child. He appeared as destitute as anyone I’d ever seen.
Tully cleared his throat, straightened his clip-on tie, and stepped forward. “I don’t never know what to say at times like this,” he said. “But my old friend Ivan has been coaxing me to read some of his books now and then. And I read them sometimes, at least when there’s no good ball game on.”
Smiles cut through tear-stained faces. Tully cleared his throat again. “Ivan helped me out by marking some of his favorite poems to guide me along. This one might work for today. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness, but still will keep. A bower of quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.’”
Tully pulled a small white stone from his pocket. “We always leave one of these on Elyse’s grave when we go to see her.” After a gentle kiss, Tully set the stone next to the vase of willow branches.
Burt’s eyes were hooded and red. He squatted down next to Ryan and smoothed her curls as they blew around her pale face. She leaned into him and stroked his auburn beard with her long, slim fingers.
Father Sean nodded to me. I lifted the urn and held it to my chest. I expected a rush of memory, an explosion of tears. Instead, I felt only the sensations of my body: the sway of the boat; the steady beat of my own heart; the smooth inhale and exhale of air through my lungs. Jake had been a flicker of brilliance, made more vivid by how quickly it had passed, but the fog-cloaked sun reminded me that my light and Ryan’s still shone behind this veil of sadness.<
br />
Burt walked forward with Ryan. She picked up the bundle of branches. Her eyes reflected the calm of the gray sky. “Now, Mommy?”
I nodded. “Now, baby.”
One at a time she tossed the branches into the water below. We watched as the current embraced them, stripping the petals from the limbs until they became a yellow ribbon winding through the water. I tilted the urn over the bow of the boat and poured. At first the ashes were a smoky cloud, but the breeze shifted again, letting them flutter to join the petals. The ash and petals wound their way across the water’s surface toward the west—toward the Golden Gate.
* * *
After the memorial everyone returned to Murphy’s. The pool table held a feast of ham, three-bean salad, and Bundt cakes provided by the ladies of St. Anne’s. The table was covered with a clean, white cloth, decorated with embroidered lilies, roses, and ranunculus. “Blooms,” Alice explained. “I thought Jake would feel honored.”
With his topcoat neatly draped over his forearm, Aaron Bloom and I found a quiet corner.
“Katherine,” he said, his voice muted and tender. “I’m grateful to be included today. Your family has been extraordinarily kind.
I wanted to reach to him, to soothe him, but something stopped me.
In his father I could see the face that Jake would have eventually worn; his eyes the same amalgam of grays and greens. And I could also see the flecks of gold, the lion lurking behind the mossy camouflage.
“There was a great deal that Jacob and I did not understand about one another.” His lips stiffened. “But I did love him, Katherine. Perhaps I loved him as much as you did, but not nearly as well.”
A swell of pity filled me for the man the world regarded as impenetrable. In the last weeks of Jake’s life, Aaron Bloom had done what he never had before. He had been present. Burt told me that Aaron Bloom had spent every visiting hour at the hospital, flying back to Manhattan in his helicopter to handle business overnight, then returning the next morning with The New York Times and fresh bagels. He and Jake had sat in the solarium solving crossword puzzles and sharing walks surrounded first by the falling leaves and then the first snow.
In the sequestered halls of a residential psychiatric hospital, Aaron Bloom had become Jake’s father.
“Jake knew you loved him,” I said.
Aaron Bloom pulled a crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his nose. “Missing out on so much of my son’s life will be my biggest regret.”
“Jake didn’t believe in regret. Just be glad you came together.” A sudden impulse made me lunge forward to hug him. At first, the father felt as his son had—tender, open, vulnerable. Then his body stiffened and he pulled himself away. He looked around the bar with its holiday decorations and the crowds of milling loved ones.
“You’re sure you won’t reconsider my offer to get you a house. I’d like you and Ryan to have a home.”
“No. Thank you. Taking care of the debt is more than I could ever hope for. And arranging for the boat today. It was a blessing to have privacy.”
“Jake and I enjoyed a few lovely outings on boats when he was small. I don’t suppose he remembered. I thought that—” Suddenly the stately man stopped speaking. His face crumpled a bit and he pulled his handkerchief across his lips. “You’re sure you won’t reconsider. About the house?”
“Thank you, no. I rented a nice little bungalow between here and the hospital, just a few blocks from Mary K and Andra’s place. I want a place that I can manage on my own. We’ll move in after the New Year.”
He scanned the surroundings. Murphy’s Pub, with its twinkle lights and jukebox, its scuffed floors and sagging couches. His lips curved ever so slightly upward. “This reminds me a lot of a watering hole my friends and I frequented in our college days. I can see why you wouldn’t want to be far from it and your family and friends. Ryan is a fortunate girl.”
Over Aaron Bloom’s shoulder I spotted Ryan sitting across from Tully at the family table, a Shirley Temple with a half-dozen cherries in front of her and her fingers entwined with a strand of string. She held her perfectly formed Cat’s Cradle out to Tully, who fumbled until the string was in knots. Alice untangled the mess while Dad snickered into his sleeve. Tully put his hands up in surrender.
“Yes,” I said. “I think Ryan should grow up with lots of family around.”
“I’ll be on my way. I’m glad to have spent a little time with Ryan. She’s as brilliant and as lovely as her mother.”
“I hope she has a chance to get to know her other grandfather.”
“I’d like that. Thank you, Katherine.” He leaned toward me, planting a gentle kiss on my cheek. “If you ever need anything—” And then with one smooth movement he stepped away. The door of the pub swung lazily in his wake.
* * *
Burt sat at the family table. He ran his fingers through the condensation on his beer glass. I scooted into the booth across from him.
“First time today I’ve seen you without Ryan clinging onto you.”
He took a sip of his beer. “Oh, I’m not sure she was the one doing the clinging.”
“We haven’t had a minute alone since—”
“No,” he said. “That was a lovely moment. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
Even in the midst of the sadness that surrounded us, I felt a small bit of joy rising in my body. “It was lovely.” He sipped his beer again, coating his own mustache with a frosty foam.
I believed that Burt would keep his word. I would not lose his friendship whether more ever developed between us or not. I needed to be on my own for a while, to heal, to help Ryan to heal, and to see what I wanted to become without Jake as a force in my life.
“What now? I mean, for you?”
Burt raked his fingers through his beard. “I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been holding on to the tail of Jake’s comet for almost twenty years. I’ve liked building my own artistic muscles again. I’ll still manage the publication part of the business, if you don’t mind. The books and whatnot are still a tidy business and they need minding. You and I are partners in that now, I suppose.”
“We could hire a manager, so you don’t have to—”
“No,” he sighed. “I’d like to see things through. If that’s all right with you.”
“Of course,” I said. Burt seemed like a humble giant before me: shy and awkward. He tucked in his lips and wrapped his hand around his beer mug. “I’ve been dipping the brush a lot since New York. It’s been a comfort. I’ve decided to get my own studio.”
“In New York? Sydney?”
Burt pushed his beer glass away and looked at me through his eyebrows. “I know Ryan’s got you and her family. But I was wondering if you’d mind if—well, if—I um, I’d like to still be a part of Ryan’s life. My family’s scattered around the globe. Mum’s gone and Dad won’t be long to follow. New York is… unhappy for me now. I’m thinking San Francisco might be a nice place for me. Maybe I could retire my suitcase to the attic for a bit. But perhaps having me around would bring up too many bad memories for you, so I’d understand if—”
My heart tripled in size. “Nothing would make Ryan happier than having you near us.”
Though his eyes were still filled with sadness, Burt’s lips curled into a grin. “Let’s make Ryan happy, shall we?” He sniffed and straightened his broad shoulders while I fought the urge to throw my arms around him.
“Oh!” he blurted, “I nearly forgot. I brought you a little present a while ago, and with all that happened, I just kept forgetting to give it to you. Would it be all right now? I mean—” Burt scanned the room and gave a one-shouldered shrug.
“I could use a present,” I said. “Though really, you shouldn’t have—“
He dismissed my hesitation by slipping out of the booth. I could not suppress a smile as I watched the mountain of a man actually scamper to gather a string-handled bag from behind the bar. He returned, sliding into the booth beside me. “I�
�m not one for fancy wrappings and all. Hope you don’t mind.”
I tilted my head, as if looking at this man from a different angle might tell me more about him. He was uncharacteristically giddy, and I saw in his burly expression the same look of whimsy and bubbly elation I’d seen on Ryan’s face so many times.
“I just can’t imagine,” I said, lifting the bag that felt nearly empty. As I sifted through the newspaper that filled the bag, I finally found my surprise. Pulling it from the bag, I felt my face flush. Safe from within the nest of crumpled newsprint, I pulled a perfect oval, almost as big as my head. Holding my breath, I held the orb gingerly in two palms.
“Don’t worry,” Burt said, smiling. “Ostrich eggs are good and strong.”
The shell seemed made of tempered glass rather than calcium carbonate. Its thick shell was pierced at the bottom end where the contents had been drained, and its slightly golden surface was smooth to the touch and shiny.
“I noticed you have eggs on your mantel,” Burt whispered. “Thought a specimen from Down Under might be a nice addition.”
I pulled the egg to my cheek and felt its smooth surface against my skin. “It’s a perfect addition, Burty. Just perfect.”
* * *
After the guests had left the pub, the ladies from St. Anne’s washed every dish and packaged every leftover. Finally, the gray-haired swarm of them departed.
“Can I ask you a favor?” I asked Mary K. “If Andra wouldn’t mind, would you and Welby come home with Ryan and me tonight? We’re going to say good-bye to the house. Ryan asked if we could have you there with us.”
“You know me. Always good for a slumber party.”
We spent the evening in front of the fireplace in snuggly pajamas, listening to the foghorns. Welby lay on the floor, enjoying lavish petting from the three of us at once. We rocked easily back and forth between laughter and tears. “I’m going to miss my daddy,” Ryan said.
“I know, baby. Me too.”
After she’d wept awhile, Welby licked Ryan’s salty tears and turned her crying into laughter once again.
“So will your new baby be my cousin?” Ryan asked Mary K.
Fire & Water Page 34
