Ascension of Larks

by Rachel Linden

  Chapter Seventeen

  MAGGIE SILENTLY CREPT UP THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE that wound from Lena and Marco’s master bedroom into Marco’s drafting studio. She paused at the top, trying to steady herself. Her hands were trembling. She couldn’t hear any noise from the rest of the house although she knew the kids were watching a nature program on TV two floors below while Ellen scrubbed the kitchen floor. Maggie just needed a quiet place to hide after her disastrous call with Alistair.

  The room felt like a sanctuary of quiet, an open, airy space awash in light and solitude. Late-afternoon sunshine streamed in from huge picture windows looking out over the Strait. The room was spacious and bare except for the enormous drafting table, the filing cabinet, and Marco’s desk piled high with books and sketches. Maggie stood at the table, reverently touching the papers and pencils scattered there. In his office in New York, Marco used the most cutting-edge architectural computer programs on the market, but here on the island he reverted to the old-fashioned methods, preferring to put pen and pencil to paper and draw the buildings he dreamed of.

  The black rolling stool was pushed away from the drafting table, and with a sharp pang, Maggie realized Marco had probably been sitting here in the last moments of his life. She had been too preoccupied with finding the legal documents when she’d been up here before. She hadn’t noticed these details or understood their significance.

  In all likelihood Marco had pushed the stool away when he heard Jonah’s yell and saw the kayaker in trouble in the water below. These were some of the last things his hands had touched. Maggie brushed her fingers across the black pencils, the whisper-thin sheet where a half-finished sketch rose from the blank space. It was an impressive design, arresting even in the gray and white of graphite and paper. It would have been remarkable in real life. Tears pricked her eyes, and she bit her lip, careful not to let them fall on the sketch. Daniel’s words echoed in her head. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  And yet the truth was that the accident had hurt a great many people. Marco had risen from this stool, set down his pencil, and never picked it up again.

  Maggie sat down hard on the stool. Marco was gone. The reality hit her in the stomach like a low punch. Marco was truly gone. She blinked and blinked again. Hot tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over. She didn’t wipe them away. She hadn’t really cried until this moment, though she’d felt the pressure building inside her since she’d heard about Marco’s death. Now she let it out. She cried silently, tears streaming down her face, teeth clenched around a sob.

  As she cried, she realized she wasn’t mourning only the loss of Marco. She was crying also for her own mother, dead for more than seven years now, and for the deep loneliness that lay in the pit of her stomach, slick and black as a spill of oil. And not least of all she was crying for the Regent, for the opportunity now lost to her, for all the years she had worked and sacrificed and dreamed of what she had just given up. It cut her deeply, as deeply as any death. All her grief blended together into a silent keening wail.

  She doubled over on the stool, her body curling in upon itself, willing Marco back, willing Lena to wake up, willing her mother not to have left her so early, willing things to have turned out so very differently. She cried until her ribs ached with the strain and her throat was raw with salt.

  After a long while she calmed, wiping her face on the sleeve of her shirt. She felt exhausted and emptied out. She took a long, slow breath, once, twice, again. All was silent around her. It was peaceful in this space, almost reverent. Quieted, she closed her eyes and then opened them.

  Her gaze fell on a series of newspaper clippings in frames hung across the far wall. All were glowing articles lauding Marco’s designs or publicity pieces about architecture awards he’d received. Marco had been justifiably proud of his success. Before his death he’d been accomplishing what he set out to do, achieving the goal he shared with her when they were at Rhys together.

  A few years after graduating from Rhys, Marco had become the youngest partner at one of the top architecture firms in the country, and in the following years his designs quickly gained recognition. He developed a name for himself by blending classic and modern forms, designing remarkable buildings powerful in structure and startlingly unique in their aesthetic. At just twenty-eight years old, he’d been recognized with a prestigious American Architecture Award for a new public library design in Des Moines, Iowa.

  “Amazing,” one reviewer stated in the national design magazine Blueprint. “From the cornfields of humble Iowa bursts an edifice of such power and audacity that those who see it find it hard to look away.”

  Another praised, “A potent concoction of whimsy and brooding intent.”

  By the time he was thirty, Marco Firelli was a power player in the architecture scene, and just a year ago he’d stepped away from the firm to work independently under the prestige of his own name. In a way his success felt inevitable. It was what he had always wanted, and he had the raw talent and the opportunity to achieve his ambitions. But it was not without a price. Marco put in long hours on weekdays and then mingled with the movers and shakers of the design world nights and weekends. On the infrequent occasions when Maggie called them, she would more often than not find Marco still working at ten o’clock in the evening, or Lena would lament that they had to attend yet another black-tie affair, talking to Maggie as she gave instructions to the babysitter and applied her mascara.

  Only on the island did they seem to find a measure of peace and calm, for three months inhabiting a world where nothing was more urgent than deciding what to make for dinner. When Maggie arrived each August, she’d find the family relaxed, carefree, and a little tan from the long, golden days. Marco still worked on his designs in his studio above the master bedroom, but he kept shorter hours. They spent weekends with the children on the rocky beaches and evenings playing board games. Lena and the kids loved the island, but the months of slower activity were harder on Marco.

  “This place makes me feel crazy sometimes,” Marco had admitted to Maggie last summer. They were sitting together by the embers of a bonfire while Lena put the kids to bed. Side by side they watched the light fade on the distant horizon in easy companionship. Marco was smoking a clove cigarette, something he still did now and then. He gestured around him.

  “There’s nothing here but air and water, but I can’t breathe. Not like in New York.” He took a deep draw on the cigarette. “I’m addicted to the city. It’s in my blood—the lights, the energy, the opportunity. I’ve had a taste and now I want more.” He slowly exhaled a thin stream of smoke. The sweet scent of the cloves hung low in the air. “Here, I feel out of the game, like the world is passing me by and I’m just standing still.” He shook his head and muttered something in Italian.

  “You can take a rest, Marco,” Maggie reminded him, leaning back in her Adirondack chair. “Your career is made. You’re where you’ve always wanted to be.”

  Marco nodded. In the darkness she could see only the outline of his face, like a charcoal sketch in broad strokes. “Yes, but for how long? You always have to keep it up. When I go back, I have to produce something more brilliant than before. And now that I’m on my own, it’s all on my shoulders. I don’t have the firm to fall back on. Each time I design something, I make or break my own career. I’m only as good as my last design.” He sounded tired.

  “That’s a lot of pressure,” she observed.

  He grinned, a flash of white in the near darkness. “You don’t feel the same way? Come on, admit it’s true. But we thrive on it, don’t we? What would we do without the thrill of the chase?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said slowly. An owl hooted in the trees, a lonely sound. “But I’m beginning to wonder if I want to find out.” She said the words aloud for the first time, voicing what was only a sliver of discontent, a faint glimmer of longing for something more.

  “What do you mean?” Marco asked, turning to her in astonishment, the gl
ow of his cigarette a tiny orange ember in the darkness. “You’re at the top of your game. Outstanding New Photographer of the Year last year from the American Photographer’s Association and two major magazine feature stories in the last twelve months. What more could you want?”

  Maggie said nothing, staring out at the shimmer of the rising moon on the water. After a moment she admitted, “I don’t know. You’re right. I have what I’ve always wanted. But I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing something.”

  “Like what?” Marco tapped his cigarette, the glowing ash falling in a trail of sparks to the ground. “You’re doing what you’ve always said you wanted. And you’re doing it extremely well.”

  “I know, and I love it,” Maggie assured him. “I do. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. But sometimes . . .” She paused. “When I come back from a trip to a closed-up apartment and a month of junk mail, I just wonder if I’m missing something. I can’t even put a name to it. Just . . . something. You have Lena and the kids. I have my work, nothing else. I love the freedom, but it can be a lonely life. All those single beds, hopping countries every few weeks. I’m always a stranger, even in my own life. Maybe I just want to be known.”

  Marco was quiet for a moment, and then he said contemplatively, “Do you know how much I envy you, Maggie? I love my wife and my kids, but when you call and you’re in Zambia or Iceland or some other place I’ve never been, sometimes I want more than anything to be there with you.”

  Maggie let his words hang in the air, feeling as though she were suddenly standing on dangerous ground. She thought of the wallet with his two photos tucked in her backpack upstairs in the guest room. In a way, he was always with her, even if he didn’t know it.

  “And I envy you for having all this,” she responded lightly, choosing to deflect his words. Any other response she could give felt too loaded, an emotional land mine. “Ironic, isn’t it? So maybe the moral of the story is that we don’t get everything we want.”

  Marco shrugged, grinding out his cigarette on the ground. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe the moral is that we figure out what we really want, and we get that instead.”

  In the studio so many months later, Maggie thought back to those words, eerie in the light of what had happened. She turned to the drafting table, to that unfinished building, forever caught in limbo. Marco would never pick up his pencil and bring it to life. The ending for his design, like the ending of so many things, had come too early, with a rush of icy water and a final gasp of air.

  “Maybe we were both wrong,” she murmured to herself, staring at the place where his pencil had left the paper. There was a little smudge, as though he’d been abruptly interrupted midstroke. She put her finger on the smudge, lightly, in remembrance. “Maybe the moral is just this—in the end we don’t get to decide anything at all.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  THREE . . . WHAT’S THAT WORD? KIWIS? MAGGIE frowned, pushing a cart through the grocery store on the outskirts of Friday Harbor and trying to decipher the handwritten list Ellen sent with her. The store was busy around lunchtime, filled with locals who avoided the high prices of the downtown Kings Market and shopped at this more remote and reasonably priced location on the edge of town. She picked out three kiwis and half a dozen local Golden Delicious apples, maneuvering around two gray-haired women in hiking gear. They were standing by the bananas, chatting about the weather and the resident pods of orca whales spotted heading south that morning. Maggie grabbed a gallon of whole milk and a tub of yogurt, crossing items off the list as she went.

  It was good to be out and about, doing something normal. As she navigated the store, Maggie felt a little of the tension of the last days melt away. She sensed they were in the quiet place in the eye of a storm. The storm was by no means over, but she could at least catch her breath in this brief lull.

  The children were safe for now with Maggie named as their legal guardian. The thought brought both a profound relief and paralyzing terror. She couldn’t consider her guardianship in permanent terms yet. She could take it only a day at a time. Lena was still in the hospital, unresponsive. There was no telling when, or if, she would wake.

  Maggie browsed the canned-goods aisle, scanning rows of creamed corn and sliced mushrooms. She thought uneasily of Marco and Lena’s letter to their attorney about a legal separation. What did that mean? There was no way of knowing any more, not unless Lena woke up. Her mind drifted once more to the Regent Fellowship and she winced, feeling the sharp sting of loss all over again. The Regent Fellowship was gone. She had to face the facts. Even if Lena woke up tomorrow, Maggie wouldn’t have time to put together an entry that stood a chance of winning. That door was closed to her now, but it pained her every time she thought of it.

  In the bread aisle Maggie surveyed the selection of wheat loaves, finally choosing one with honey. She added two bags of bagels to her cart and headed to the deli meats.

  Two big problems were yet unresolved. First the debt. They were safe for a few more weeks, but Maggie’s wire transfer of funds had bought them only a little time. It was not a permanent solution. And the only permanent solution she’d been able to come up with was gone now, leaving a mountain of debt and no clear way out.

  “We can’t lose the house,” Maggie murmured vehemently, resolved but unsure how to secure its future. She felt the weight of it on her shoulders, a pressing problem with no easy answer. She tossed a package of oven-roasted turkey breast and one of ham into the cart alongside a brick of Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese. Just a few more items to go.

  The second problem was Daniel. Maggie stopped in the cereal aisle, empty at this time of day, and slipped the little carving out of her bag, staring at the porpoise in her hand. She had been carrying it around for days. In the drama with Child Protective Services and the ensuing search for guardianship papers, Maggie had pushed her encounter with Daniel to the back of her mind, but now that things were calmer she’d been thinking of it again.

  “It was an accident,” he’d said, facing her in the cool dimness of the firs. His eyes had looked so sad.

  Maggie turned the porpoise over in her hand, noting the smoothness of the wood. It had been carved with skill. Who was he? Why was he lurking in their woods, doing penance? What exactly had happened on the water that day, and why did Daniel seem to take such responsibility for it when it was an accident?

  It wasn’t so much Daniel himself she was interested in. It was the simple fact that he was the other half of the tragedy that had claimed Marco’s life. She wanted to know so much more. She felt helpless to make sense of it. She had no information and therefore nothing with which to comfort herself or to bring any sort of closure. If she could just understand what happened, why Daniel felt such responsibility, perhaps it would be easier to lay Marco to rest. Perhaps she could begin to make sense of his death.

  Maggie slipped the carving back in her bag and scanned the shelves, taken aback by the endless varieties of cereal. Traveling abroad so much, she tended to forget the number of choices available at American supermarkets. She found the variety both dazzling and a little overwhelming. Ellen’s list said Cheerios, but she saw several varieties on the shelf. Maggie grabbed a box of plain Cheerios and stuck it in the cart, hoping plain was the right one.

  She consulted the list again but couldn’t concentrate on the remaining items. She kept picturing Daniel. She needed to talk to him, to ask him the questions no one else could answer. But how could she even find him? Presumably he’d stopped lurking around in the woods, but she had no idea where he might be. Maybe he didn’t even live on the island. She could ask the police, but she was hesitant to approach them. She had no good excuse for asking for more information about Daniel. She didn’t think Ellen knew anything about Daniel. She had never mentioned him. Maybe Father Griffin would know something, but she was reluctant to bring the priest into what felt like such a personal matter. That left her with few options.

  Maggie grabbed a large package of toilet
paper, the last item on the list, and headed toward the checkout. As she waited in line, she watched the customers in front of her. The cashier, a round, grandmotherly woman wearing a bright-pink zippered fleece the exact color of a piece of Dubble Bubble gum, greeted many of them by name, asking about one woman’s bike trip, another man’s dog. Maggie narrowed her eyes, considering. If Daniel did live on the island, someone was bound to know him. San Juan was a small, tight-knit community. What she needed was an informant, a local person who had access to a lot of information and liked to share it.

  Standing behind a woman in running gear, Maggie eyed the cashier speculatively, unobtrusively eavesdropping on the conversation between the two women. The cashier leaned forward over the register, sharing a bit of gossip with her customer. “So, what do you know, but Janet says she isn’t going to have chickens wandering through her garden anymore and she set cage traps out. Well, you can imagine what Walt thought of that! So now they’ve taken it to the local authorities . . .”

  Maggie smiled, tuning out the rest of the conversation. She’d found her informant.

  The customer in front of her paid and took her leave with a “See you around, Becky,” and then it was Maggie’s turn. Maggie made eye contact and smiled in a friendly way, inviting conversation.

  “You new to Friday Harbor?” Becky asked, eyeing Maggie curiously as she started to scan the groceries on the belt. “Here on vacation?”

  “No, I’m a good friend of the Firellis, Marco and Lena. I came to help out after Marco’s accident,” Maggie told her casually, putting the milk on the belt. Though usually very reserved about personal information, Maggie knew she had to prime the pump of their conversation. If she wanted to know anything about Daniel, she’d have to provide some juicy tidbits of her own.