by Wren, M. K.
But at length she left the bed, dressed herself, took up the cane, and opened the door to music. The third movement of Beethoven’s ninth. The Adagio. Shadow came trotting out of the south studio to greet her, and that made her smile. Sweet Shadow, so loving and fey. Highstrung was the old-fashioned word Rachel used to describe her. Topaz was the steady one, reserved and dependable.
Mary found Rachel in the kitchen stoking the fire in the old, iron cookstove. She shut the firebox door and looked around at Mary. “How are you?”
“I’m all right.”
Rachel studied her a moment. “Would you like some coffee?” Then at Mary’s nod: “I’ll bring it into the living room.”
Mary went into the living room, with its fireplace built of beach cobbles backed to the kitchen wall, a bamboo-framed couch facing the hearth. Two armchairs, their ochre upholstery frayed at the seams, flanked the couch. On the south wall a door opened into the greenhouse. The west wall was almost entirely glass, with a sliding door opening onto the deck. Bookshelves took up every remaining space on the walls except for a small section on the north wall left for paintings. On the small table in the northwest corner, two places were set for breakfast. Topaz lay on the Persian rug; she rose and came to Mary, waited for her to lean down and pet her. Then Mary walked to the glass doors and looked out at slow, white breakers under a clear sky. At length she turned. That’s when she saw it centered on the mantel: Aunt Jan’s Seth Thomas.
Her breath caught, and she made her way to the mantel, mouth open in silent amazement. This couldn’t be the grime-rimed clock she’d found in that ruined house. The wood gleamed like satin, the glass over its face was shining. And it was ticking steadfastly, the scrolled hands pointing the time as it was now, not a leftover hour marking the last pulse of its spent mainspring long ago. She touched the glowing wood, then looked at Rachel. She was standing by the fireplace, a mug of coffee in each hand.
“Oh, Rachel, how did you do it? How did you bring it back to life?”
“Well, it wasn’t dead, Mary.” She handed her one of the mugs. “I just gave it a little wax and oil. It’s a beautiful thing, and like they say, ‘hell for stout.’ ”
Laughing because she was so close to crying, Mary embraced her. “Thank you, Rachel. Thank you.”
Rachel returned her embrace, but with a certain awkwardness, as if she weren’t used to such physical displays. She cleared her throat and said, “Let’s have breakfast, and after that I’d like to take you for a walk.”
And now Mary watched Topaz and Shadow sniffing out pathways of scent through the tunnel at the base of the tree, and her gaze moved up the scaly, granitic bole. She heard the impatient chirking of squirrels as she stared into the rose-window pattern of green and sky blue in the black fretwork of branches. “It’s like a cathedral here.”
Rachel was looking up into the crown, too, and she seemed to find there both wonder and comfort. “Maybe cathedrals are like here,” she said. Then she turned to Mary. “This is a very special place to me.”
Mary nodded. “I’m grateful that you’d share it with me.”
“It’s my pleasure. I don’t have many friends—none left in Shiloh except Jim and Connie—so I enjoy having someone to share this with. Strangely enough, it’s Jim who loves this tree almost as much as I do.”
“Why strangely?”
“Oh . . . because he’s so thoroughly pragmatic. He’s our resident survivalist, you know.”
“Survivalist? Jim?”
“Yes. He’s a paradox, really. A liberal survivalist. He has a radiation shelter behind his house fully stocked for the end of the world.”
Mary felt a chill in the shadowed air. “I don’t think that’s something you can stock up for.”
“Maybe not.” For a while Rachel was silent. She seemed to be mulling over something, and Mary waited patiently.
Finally Rachel said, “There’s something I want you to understand.”
That had a nearly ominous cast to it. “What, Rachel?”
“Well, just that you have a home at Amarna for as long as you need or want it. What I want you to understand is that you shouldn’t feel any obligation to me. That’s probably impossible, I know. I’m just saying that if you want to stay here, you can. At least, it’s an option.”
Mary couldn’t think of an adequate response. Rachel seemed oddly embarrassed, as if she were asking for something, not offering a gift—yet another gift—of great magnanimity. Her home wasn’t just a place where she ate and slept; it was the context of her life.
Mary said huskily, “Rachel, I can’t impose on you. . . .”
But Rachel only laughed. “It’s not a question of imposition. If it is, then it won’t work.”
Mary listened to the wind sighing in the harps of needles and remembered Rachel’s words to her just before they retreated from Aunt Jan’s house: “Mary, let’s go home.”
Home.
It was a word to make her weep. Yet she had lived too long in the city, too long among strangers who had never, with few exceptions, become friends; people whose minds she couldn’t touch and whose motives she could neither fathom nor trust.
Why? Why was Rachel offering a share in her home, in her life?
Rachel leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’m twice your age, Mary, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that loneliness can be—sometimes literally—deadly. But on the other hand, I’ve learned that just having someone else around isn’t the solution, not if you don’t have some affinity for that person. I’ve learned to live alone. It’s the price I’ve paid for certain things I value.”
Mary considered that. “What are you saying? That you don’t need me? That you’re not asking anything of me?”
“I suppose I am. And you don’t need me. Well, at the moment you need a place to stay until you’re fully recovered, but after that, you could go back to Portland, couldn’t you? Back to IDA? The government has a hard time these days finding people who can read, much less write, and with its penchant for verbosity, it’ll always need writers.”
Mary hadn’t thought about going back to Portland or IDA. That was part of the next act, the one on which she hadn’t raised the curtain. Yes, it was possible. And maybe that’s what she should do. No more dreams.
Yet Rachel was offering another dream. Rather, the old dream in another setting: a house by the sea where she could write. And a home to share with a friend. A friend.
Rachel straightened and turned to face her. “This isn’t the time for you to make any major decisions. I just wanted you to know there’s an option here. That’s all.”
Mary felt the stifling approach of tears, but she kept them in check. “Thanks, Rachel. From the bottom of my heart . . . thanks.”
Rachel smiled at her, then leaned back and contemplated her surroundings, totally absorbed, and Mary knew she would speak no more of her offer. Jim Acres called her “damned independent.” But there was more to it. Maybe it was simply courage.
“Rachel, have you always lived alone at Amarna?”
“Well, I’ve always been the only human occupant, except when . . .” She paused, as if she weren’t sure she wanted to go on. But she did. “About twenty years ago, not long after I moved to Amarna, I shared it with a young man. A lawyer.” She laughed as she added, “If you’re going to have a live-in, pick a lawyer, a doctor, or a plumber. They’re handy to have around. Anyway, that lasted two years, then Ben had a chance to join a law firm in Portland. Very prestigious and all that. So, that was the end of it.”
“He wasn’t willing to join his prestigious law firm with a live-in?”
Rachel shook her head. “That wasn’t the problem. Ben was willing to flout the stodgy mores of the firm. Or he was willing to marry me, if that’s what I wanted. The trouble was, I wasn’t willing to give up Amarna, to
give up the sea, to give up my painting. It would’ve been a disaster, really, and I guess we both knew it.”
Mary was silent, watching Rachel. The years seemed to have smoothed out the regret, leaving only a patina of melancholy. “Haven’t there been other . . . Bens in your life?”
Rachel sent her a bemused smile. “No. I guess I expected too much—or needed too little—of men. Anyway, Shiloh was always a small town, and now it’s even smaller, so my choices have been limited. Actually, Shiloh attracted some very interesting people. You get odd demographics in a coast town. But I never met that interesting man who was also interested in me. That’s one of the disadvantages of living here, and it’s something you’ll have to consider.”
Mary tried to consider it. But what had her choices been in Portland? Brief meetings and partings, firefly encounters that left her unchanged. Except for Evan. That was in her college days. Everything seemed to mean more then. And Dean. Yes, but that relationship always had its portents of disaster, however sweet it was to be so intensely in love. “It will not last the night. . . .” Dean made that his watchword. Yet it had, for them, lasted a year. Off and on.
She let her breath out in a long sigh. She would miss Dean, miss the constant shots of emotional adrenaline, the physical high he brought to love and making love.
Rachel said, “You’re thinking of someone you left behind.”
“Yes. Someone who preferred it that way, I think. Rachel, don’t you miss having a family, children . . . that sort of thing?”
“No,” she replied emphatically, “not children. I’d have been a lousy mother.”
“I don’t believe that. The way you treat Shadow and Topaz—not many children get half that much love and care.”
“That may be true. Unfortunately, it probably is. But there are already too many children in this world. As for family—yes, I miss that. My parents are both dead and have been for over twenty years. Plane crash. They went down together. I was an only child, so I don’t suppose I’ll ever really understand—or miss—sibling relationships, and I have no other relations this side of the Mississippi. As for sex . . .” She glanced obliquely at Mary, a hint of irony in her eyes. “That’s what you meant by ‘that sort of thing,’ isn’t it?”
Mary had to laugh. “Yes, I guess so.”
“Well, I don’t miss that as much as you might think. It’s one part of living, but I don’t believe you can have it all. You have to consider the cost of things. I am a serious painter. Since I was a child, that’s all I ever wanted to be, and that takes more than brushes and paint.”
Mary nodded, thinking of October Flowers, of the disks of short stories and essays she’d left for safekeeping with her mother. “I understand that.”
“Yes, I know you do.” Then she turned her absorbed gaze on the tree, letting the silence move in, and Mary accepted it, savored this silence that asked nothing of her, that sustained and healed her.
A rustling in the green starbursts of sword fern. But it was only the dogs still exploring. Mary pulled in a deep breath of earth-scented air and asked, “Wasn’t it the Druids who worshiped trees?”
Rachel nodded. “I guess they thought some trees had godlike attributes or were the sites of gods. If you’re going in for divinity, it seems like a good idea, spreading it around that way. I mean, investing plants and animals and natural phenomena with godhood. I think the people who put all their divine eggs in one basket lost something.”
Mary asked dryly, “What? Other than whole pantheons to keep track of.”
“Yes, well, monotheism does simplify things. But when people conglomerated their gods into one grand old man in the sky, they lost all respect for natural processes. It’s a very dangerous philosophy, because we are not a special creation. We’re products of the natural world, and if we’re going to survive, we have to live by its rules.” She paused, looked levelly at Mary. “If you’re a good literalist Christian, don’t bother trying your evangelistic wings on me.”
The dogs had concluded their explorations. Topaz lay down at Rachel’s feet to wait with steadfast patience, while Shadow leapt up on the bench beside Mary and nudged her elbow for attention. Mary met the demand with gentle scratching behind Shadow’s ears.
“Rachel, I don’t have any evangelizing urges, and I don’t really qualify as a Christian—literalist or otherwise.”
“How do you qualify yourself?”
“Oh, I suppose as an agnostic. That’s my father’s influence.”
“And your mother’s influence?”
Mary winced, remembering her last long, futile phone call to her mother. She had been so painfully anxious, but for all the wrong reasons. “Mother was always a professed Christian, but she wasn’t really serious about it, not until Dad died. That changed her. I think she got deeper into religion after that because . . . well, she has to believe that someday she’ll be reunited with Dad. She has to believe he still exists somehow.”
“Yes,” Rachel said, the word a sigh. “That’s the real source of religions. Grief. And fear of death. Most people find their mortality so terrifying, the only way they can deal with it is to deny it.”
Mary asked quietly, “But you’ve accepted your mortality?”
“Well, I can’t see any rational alternative to acceptance.”
“No immortal soul?”
“No. Nor heaven or hell or the bureaucratic convolutions of purgatory or nirvana or whatever. They’re all human inventions designed to avoid facing reality. I will not voluntarily blind myself.”
Mary stared into the tunnel of shadow at the base of the tree and felt a lump of dull pain in her leg. “But reality is hard to look at sometimes.”
“Yes. At least, the reality humankind has created for itself. It’s hard to look at and hard to survive. But no living organism is guaranteed an easy life. Or death. And there’s a reality beyond what we’ve created.” She paused, studied Mary for what seemed a long time. “I’m not talking about any version of a god. The idea of a god doesn’t answer any questions for me. I’m talking about what I call the real world. We’re a very small part of it, but we’re capable of comprehending it at least enough to know that it’s magnificent. What else can a human being ask? And yes, you can assume from all this that I’m an atheist.”
Rachel didn’t seem to expect Mary to be shocked at that revelation, and if she was surprised, it was simply because she realized she’d have been more surprised to find Rachel professing any religion.
Nor did Rachel seem to expect a response. She leaned down to stroke Topaz’s head. “I never talk about religion—or my lack of it. But I think you should know where I stand.” She smiled wryly. “What you believe is your business, and I may not like what you say, but I’ll defend to the death my right to disagree with you.”
Mary laughed. “I don’t think we’ll find much to disagree about.” A bird, invisible in the patterned ranks of foliage, piped a song that ended with a plaintive trill. Mary looked up, seeking the singer. “You know, there’s a paradox about you I don’t understand, Rachel.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“You said human beings are such a small part of the real world, yet you’ve devoted yourself to a particularly human endeavor.”
“I am what I am,” Rachel replied with a shrug. “I’m a human being, and I paint because that’s an expression of my humanity. I build each painting to last for centuries. And yet . . . well, sometimes I wonder if there’ll be anyone around to enjoy those paintings in the future. But I have to hope, Mary. I have to hope people won’t be ignorant and arrogant enough to throw away thousands of years’ worth of civilization.”
The bird piped its plaintive song again, and Mary thought of the city she’d left, of the foul air where that bird would soon die, where too much had already been thrown away.
Then Rachel stretched and came to he
r feet. “We’d better start home. Connie told me not to let you get too tired, and her word is law around here. By the way, she and Jim are coming for dinner, and she’s bringing her guitar. She says she’s sure you’re a passable soprano. Topaz, Shadow, come on.” Topaz stood up and shook herself, scattering spruce needles. Shadow was already off the bench, circling in anticipation.
Mary rose stiffly, leaning on her cane, and looked up into the green reaches of the tree’s crown. “I hate to leave it.”
Rachel nodded, her gaze sweeping up the massive trunk. “It’s a microcosm, really. An archetype. To know everything there is to know about this tree, you’d have to know everything there is to know about the universe.” Then she shrugged self-consciously. “Well, you can always come back. You know the way now.”
Mary held those words in her mind as she would a hummingbird in her hand: gently, because it was fragile. And uncommonly beautiful.
Yes, she thought, I know the way.
Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to provide subsistence . . . that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.
—THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS, ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION (1798)
The tide is low. From the deck, I look down through the V of the ravine and the tall spars of spruce trees to the beach, note the color of the sand, and know that if I were walking there, I’d see the herringbone patterns of deep green and purple black on tan made by the waves as their ebb and flow sorts the heavier, dark sands, laden with microscopic crystals of magnetite and olivine, from the lighter, paler silica sands.
Shadow and I will walk those sands later this afternoon, but now I’m waiting for Stephen, and Shadow is sunning herself beside me on the deck. And while I wait, I sit with a wooden crate upended in front of me to serve as a chopping block. The cedar-root basket next to the box is nearly full of sliced bull kelp, and coiled in the grass below the deck with their bulbous heads hung over the railing, letting down their hair of shining ribbon leaves, are snakes of kelp ready for my knife. The high tide deposited them on the beach this morning, largess from the sea. Kelp makes good fertilizer and provides vital nutrients for the goats and pigs.
