It was a quiet day. We didn't get cosmic about anything. We swam, and had a picnic, and walked along the beach and swam again, and had another picnic and went to the movies. Nothing exciting, and yet there was a warm, summery beauty about it. I didn't have to worry about what Leo was going to do or say next. We talked about Columbia and New York. And I told him about reading to Grandfather, and black holes, and he asked, "How does anybody's individual death fit into that enormous picture?" His eyes were bleak and I thought of Commander Rodney, and the empty space in the world his death had made.
"If a star's dying matters, so does a person's."
"To you and me. But to the universe?"
"I don't think size matters. Every death is a singularity," I said slowly. "Think of all the tiny organisms living within us. I somehow think every mitochondrion and farandola has to be just as important as a giant star."
"Well--" Leo sounded both hopeful and doubtful, and characteristically changed the subject. "I was going to major in something practical, like accounting, but I don't think I could spend my life behind a desk. I think I have to do something that will keep me by the sea."
"Marine biology, like Adam?"
"Something to do with ships, I think."
"Building them?"
"Designing, maybe. But mostly sailing them."
And then he kissed me.
I knew he was going to.
I sort of patted him like a brother and turned away.
"Why, Vicky?"
"Why what?"
"Why won't you let me kiss you?"
Zachary's kiss touched every part of my body. It made me quavery with excitement. Leo's kiss didn't do any of that. It didn't do anything. And yet I found myself liking Leo more and more. "I don't think we're ready for kissing yet."
"I am."
"I'm not."
"Okay." He drew away. "But I don't disgust you or anything?"
Not any more. "No, Leo. I like you. You're my friend."
He looked out over the ocean, but the sky was cloudy. There weren't any stars, and the air was almost chilly. "I guess I'll have to settle for that. For now."
Wednesday was still cloudy, though warm.
I thought Adam seemed a little preoccupied when I met him at the lab, but he said quickly, "Let's go see Basil, first thing."
I changed to my bathing suit behind the big rock, and we swam out, past the breakers, swam for a good ten minutes, steadily. This time Adam didn't have to call for more than a few seconds before Basil came leaping to greet us. And this time my heart was beating with anticipation and excitement, not fear.
Adam put his arms about Basil's great silvery bulk. Then Basil leapt up into the air, dislodging Adam, and dove down and surfaced by me, butting at me.
"He wants to play. He's apt to be a bit rough," Adam warned, "but he won't hurt you."
I knew he wouldn't. I began to scratch Basil's chest. He closed his eyes with pleasure. Then he went under the water and came up again, between my legs, lifting me, so that I was sitting astride him. He was slippery and I almost slid off him, but he wriggled his body in such a way that I stayed on while he swam in a slow circle around Adam. Then he went underwater again, leaving me, and I watched, treading water, as he turned toward Adam, his great body wriggling playfully. Adam seized the dorsal fin, and Basil leapt up into the air, with Adam holding on and shouting. Down Basil dove, not too deep, just deep enough so that Adam was gasping for air when they surfaced. Fascinated, I watched them play. I couldn't possibly have held on as Adam did, and the game was evidently to see how quickly Basil could dislodge him. Finally the dolphin dove down and Adam surfaced while Basil flashed up into the sunlight, giving every evidence of laughing because he'd won the game. In a funny way he reminded me of the old sailor beating Leo at chess.
Then he dove again, and I was looking for him in the direction of the horizon, when suddenly he popped up out of the water behind me, making a loud noise which startled me so that I went under and choked on a mouthful of salt water. Basil was as pleased as a child coming out from behind a tree and shouting "Boo!" He butted at me and asked me to play.
I grasped the dorsal fin in both hands the way Adam had done, and held on for dear life. Basil swam swiftly toward the horizon, towing me with him, then turned with such speed that he almost, but not quite, dislodged me, and returned to where Adam was waiting for us. Then Basil submerged and did his Boo! trick for Adam, and I knew as clearly as though Basil had spoken to me that he was trying to make us laugh because something was wrong.
What could be wrong?
Basil butted very gently at Adam, who reached out for the dolphin and leaned his cheek against the great grey flank.
Somehow or other Basil knew that something was wrong, knew without words far more about whatever was troubling Adam than I knew.
Adam leaned against the dolphin, his eyes closed, the lines from nose to mouth etched with pain. He leaned there till Basil submerged, and reappeared far from us, leaping against the horizon. And then another dolphin was leaping with Basil, in unison, the two together in perfect rhythm, like ballet dancers.
Adam turned to me in surprise. "That's another of the pod."
He stopped, watching in awe as the two dolphins came toward us in flashing curves, rising from the sea, gleaming through the air and seeming to brighten the cloudy sky, then diving down again, until they surfaced just in front of us, standing on their great flukes, their bodies almost entirely out of the water, smiling benignly down at us. Then they flopped down, splashing us so mightily that once again I swallowed a mouthful of sea water and choked, sputtering, which they seemed to find extremely funny. And it was as though I heard Basil telling me: A good laugh heals a lot of hurts. And I thought of Grandfather's gravity and levity.
Then the two of them swam, one on each side of Adam, as though holding him against whatever it was that was hurting him. It couldn't have been for more than a few seconds, though it seemed longer, like time out of time. Then they left us and were gone like a flash, to reappear near the horizion and vanish from our sight.
"How did Basil know?" Adam asked the vast, cloudy sky.
"That something's wrong?"
"You know, too?"
"Only that something's upsetting you."
"Have I been that obvious?"
"No. I don't think so."
"Then how--"
I trod water, looking down at the surface of the sea and away from Adam. "It sounds nuts, but I think I knew because Basil knew. Adam, what's wrong?"
"Ynid's baby is not going to live."
"Oh--Adam. Why not?"
"Jeb says the heart's not right. That's why I didn't take you to the dolphin pens. Jeb wants to be alone with Ynid and the baby and the midwives."
"Oh, Adam, Adam, I'm so sorry. Can't anything be done?"
"Jeb says not. The heart isn't pumping enough blood and the baby's dying for lack of oxygen."
"Couldn't he operate?"
"No. He says the heart's too badly damaged."
I felt as though a wave had broken over me.
"Let's go in," Adam said. "Maybe Jeb might need me. If he does--"
"I'll evaporate. Don't worry."
We swam in and dressed without waiting to dry; it would have taken too long, anyhow. The cloudy sky held the dampness of the day down on us, as though we were in an inverted bowl. We walked through air so saturated with moisture you could almost have put out your hand and squeezed it. We walked without speaking until we came to Ynid's pen. There were no cartwheels today. Adam walked as though gravity pulled him down.
Dr. Nutteley was standing, slumped, looking down into the pen, and if he saw us he gave no indication of it.
Walking softly, not to disturb him, we approached the pen.
Ynid was swimming in slow circles, carrying a tiny, motionless dolphin on her back. The two midwives swam beside her, pressing close against her as the two dolphins had swum with Adam.
I did not need to be told that Yn
id's baby was dead. Or that Ynid, swimming with the perfect little dead body on her back, was hoping against hope that the stilled heart would start to beat again.
And then she must have had a stab of hopelessness, the realization that her baby was dead, because suddenly she streaked ahead of the two midwives and began beating her body wildly against the side of the tank.
"No, Ynid!" It was Jeb who, with a great cry, plunged into the water and swam to the distraught dolphin, trying to put his arms about her without dislodging the dead baby, trying to keep her from beating herself against the side of the pen, in complete disregard of his own safety, putting himself between Ynid and the side of the pen. He was calling out to her and tears were streaming down his face.
And Ynid, perhaps because she would not hurt Jeb, stopped her wild beating. It seemed that Jeb was shedding for her the tears that she could not shed, a wild sobbing such as I had never heard from a grown man.
I slipped away and got my bike from the rack and went back to the stable.
John brought Adam home for dinner.
It had rained in the afternoon, but by late afternoon the rain had stopped completely. The wind was moving from the south-east to the northwest, and the heaviness was gone from the air. As the breeze lifted, the weight that had been tightly clamped about my heart loosened just slightly.
Grandfather didn't come out for dinner. I took him his tray, and he was propped up in the hospital bed, his Bible by him, but he wasn't reading. I thought he probably knew most of it by heart.
He jerked slightly as I knocked and came in.
"Here's your dinner, Grandfather. I'm sorry if I woke you."
"You didn't wake me. I was meditating."
Mrs. Rodney had brought over a hospital table, which I swung over the bed for the tray. "What were you meditating about?" I asked, unfolding his napkin for him.
"You don't meditate about." His nicest smile twinkled at me. "You just meditate. It is, you might say, practice in dying, but it's a practice to be begun as early in life as possible."
"Sort of losing yourself?" I asked.
"It's much more finding than losing."
I wanted to stay and talk, because his mind seemed completely clear, but I knew I had to get back to the dining table.
"Vicky," Grandfather said as I turned to go, "I'll come out to the porch for the reading."
Mother'd finished Twelfth Night and we'd started on Joseph Andrews, a really funny book by Henry Fielding, who also wrote Tom Jones, but Joseph Andrews is lots shorter and, according to Grandfather, funnier, and wouldn't take us all summer.
After Mother'd read, we sang, and then she sent Rob up to bed, and Daddy went with Grandfather to help him get ready for the night. Suzy scrambled up from the floor, yawning.
I still felt that the day was somehow unfinished.
Adam looked across the porch at me. "Want to go for a walk?"
For answer I nodded and stood up.
Mother looked at her watch. "Don't be too long."
Adam also checked his watch. "We won't be. But Vicky and I have things we need to talk about."
He had talked about Ynid and the dead baby at dinner, and Suzy had demanded to know if the baby would have died if it had been born at sea rather than in captivity. And Adam had replied that there was no way of knowing, but that congenital birth defects did occasionally happen in the wild. He had not said anything about Jeb and his bitter grief.
"Better put on a sweater, Vicky," he advised.
After the heat of the past days it was hard to believe that I'd need a sweater, but I went up to the loft, where Rob was sound asleep and Suzy was getting ready for bed, and grabbed a bulky fisherman's sweater that would have fitted any of us, and pulled it over my head. It was still warm in the loft so I opened the windows wide before going down the ladder.
Mr. Rochester was waiting, his thin tail whipping back and forth in anticipation, so we took him with us. The steep path directly down to Grandfather's cove is too difficult for Rochester, in his arthritic old age, so we walked along the road toward the lighthouse, and then turned oceanward.
Not looking at me, Adam said, "I didn't stay this morning, either. Jeb didn't need me. He didn't need anyone except Ynid. I'm not sure he even knew we were there. Not that he'd have minded. He's probably one of the most free and open people I've ever known."
I thought of Jeb wiping his eyes at Commander Rodney's funeral when almost everybody else was being stoic. Then I asked, "Is Ynid all right?"
"She's going to be. She let Jeb take the baby. And she's stopped trying to beat herself to death against the side of the pen. She wouldn't eat, but that's to be expected for a day or so."
"And Jeb?" We had reached the beach, a cove or so up from Grandfather's, past the dead elm, and were walking close to the water's edge, Rochester prancing along ahead, looking for the moment like a young dog.
"Jeb lost his wife and baby in a car accident."
"When?"
"A couple of years ago. But he still isn't over it. He was driving, and that has to make it all the harder, though it wasn't his fault. The car had defective brakes." We walked a little farther, both looking down at the faint whiteness of the lacy edge of the wavelets as they lapped against the night beach. Then Adam said, "In the end I think Ynid comforted Jeb as much as the other way round, and maybe that was the best thing he could give to Ynid, his own pain."
Adam turned in from the sea and headed for a low dune which leaned against the cliff. He brushed away the damp sand on the surface, till he had cleared enough space for the two of us and Rochester to sit on warm, dry sand. The sky was covered with clouds which were moving in the wind. The cloud cover was still so thick that the only hint of starlight was a faintly luminous quality to the night, and a delicate tracery of light as the waves moved and turned. The breeze was cool and I was grateful for the warmth of the big, bulky sweater.
Mr. Rochester sat on his haunches beside me, peered intently into my face, and gave me a gentle kiss on the nose. Then he flopped down and put his heavy head on my knees. Adam sat on my other side, picking up sand and letting it trickle slowly through his fingers.
"Like an hourglass," I said.
"What?"
I indicated the softly falling sand. Sand sifting down through the hourglass of life, time irrevocably passing, passing swiftly, too swiftly ...
"Vicky--"
I turned toward him.
He was looking at the sand slipping through his fingers, not at me. It was as though he were somehow thinking my thoughts. "You're upset because Ynid lost her baby."
"Of course. Probably not as upset as you are, but sure, of course I'm upset."
"You're more upset than just of course. Why?"
"It's just--it's just--there's death everywhere--Commander Rodney--and watching Grandfather, and now Ynid's baby for no reason--it's just everywhere."
"Always has been. It's part of the price of being born."
"It just seems that lately ..." My voice trembled and I leaned forward and carefully scratched Rochester behind the ears.
"Is the price too high?" Adam asked.
I shrugged, in the way that Mother hates.
"Are you afraid?" he asked softly.
Yes. I didn't say it aloud. I didn't need to.
"Of what, Vicky?" He picked up another handful of sand, and started trickling it through his fingers. "Dying?" His voice wasn't loud, but the word seemed to explode into the night.
Mr. Rochester shifted position and I continued absentmindedly to scratch behind his ears, his short fur rough under my fingers. "Not so much of dying, if--I'm afraid of annihilation. Of not being."
Adam let all the sand fall. "I guess we all are, if it comes to that."
"Is that what you think it comes to? That Commander Rodney was just snuffed out? And Ynid's baby? And that Grandfather will be? And all of us?"
There was a long silence against which the waves moving into shore and the light wind in the grasses and Rochester'
s breathing sounded in counterpoint.
At last Adam spoke. "I'm not a churchgoer, Vicky. I hadn't darkened the doors of a church since I sang in choir at school till--till Commander Rodney's funeral. So maybe what I think is kind of heretical."
"What do you think?" I desperately wanted to know. Maybe because of Basil, I trusted Adam. The breeze lifted and blew across us, pushing my hair back from my forehead. I must have shivered, because Adam put one arm lightly across my shoulders.
"When are you most completely you, Vicky?"
It wasn't at all what I had expected him to say. I was looking for answers, not more questions.
"When?" he repeated.
Maybe because I was feeling extraordinarily tired I was thinking in scenes, rather than logical sequences, and across my mind's eye flashed a picture of the loft, with the old camp cots, and the windows overlooking the ocean, and the lighthouse at night with its friendly beam, and on the far wall the lines of the poem Grandfather had painted there, If thou could'st empty all thyself of self ...
I was not really myself when I was all replete with very me. So when was I?
"When you first took me to meet Basil," I said slowly, "and when I was petting him and scratching his chest ..."
"Who were you thinking about?"
"Basil."
"Were you thinking about you?"
"No."
"But you were really being you?"
"Yes."
"So that's contradiction, isn't it? You weren't thinking about yourself at all. You were completely thrown out of yourself in concentration on Basil. And yet you were really being really you."
I leaned my head against Adam's shoulder. "Much more than when I'm all replete with very me."
His right hand drew my head more comfortably against his shoulder. "So, when we're thinking consciously about ourselves, we're less ourselves than when we're not being self-centered."
"I suppose ..."
"Okay, here's another analogy. Where are you when you write poetry?"
"This summer I'm usually up in the loft."
"You know that's not what I mean. When you're actually writing a poem, when you're in the middle of it, where are you?"
"I'm not sure. I'm more in the poem than I am in me. I'm using my mind, really using it, and yet I'm not directing the poem or telling it where to go. It's telling me."
A Ring of Endless Light Page 13
