“I’m sorry, I’m trying to reach Dr. Randall’s office.”
“This is Dr. Randall’s office.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Kate Morton.”
“Oh. Well, this is Mrs. Randall. Is Trace there?” She drew in her breath. Was this girl taking over Trace’s office or what?
“He just went out for a minute—wait, here he is.” She heard Kate say, “It’s your wife.”
“Hello? Laura?”
“Hi. I didn’t think I was going to reach you. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Just a minute.” She heard him say, “Good-bye, Kate. Let me know when you’re ready to confer again…. Thank you, yes. You, too.” He returned to the phone. “How are you?
“How are things going?”
“Fine.” She heard the reserve in her voice. Did he?
“Any thought as to when you’ll be home? I miss you.”
“Mother is doing well and I’d planned to come tomorrow, if you’re not too busy.”
“Of course not. When does your plane get in?”
“Three-twenty-seven in the afternoon.”
“Good. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll see you then. Trace…” What did she want to ask? Do you love me? Are we right for each other? What is Kate Morton to you?
“Yes?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
*
In the evening, she sat by Rachel. When it was time to go to bed, she held her mother in her arms—her body light, like a child’s.
“Wake me before you go,” Rachel said.
In the morning, bustling around the kitchen with Carlena, she ate an early breakfast. Then she woke Rachel. “I’m going, Mother. I’ll see you later.”
Rachel was confused, hardly awake. “You’ll see me later? When?”
“When I come again.” She stroked Rachel’s hair, put her cheek against her mother’s.
“They’re here,” Carlena called.
“Coming.” She kissed her mother once more and went to the front hall.
“Good-bye, dear.” She hugged Carlena, picked up her suitcase, and hurried to the car, where Ginny and Fred waited to take her to the airport.
They neared the airport. Laura, sitting in the backseat with Ginny, watched the New England countryside go by—sere and brown, though patches of snow still lingered among the roots of trees on the northern side of the hills.
They’d been engaging in small talk most of the way—about a few mutual friends Ginny had been with, that Fred would be going back to Northampton but then to Cancun. “I may get to Tennessee,” he said. “If I do, I’ll call you.”
“Please do,” she said. “We could drive to Nashville, take in the Grand Ole Opry.”
“I was there a few years ago,” he said. “If I’d known you were there…”
“Well, come back.” Their eyes met in the rearview mirror, in glad acknowledgment they’d enjoy being together again.
“And keep in mind the Iceland brochure,” he said.
“I will, as soon as I get back home.”
She took a sidelong glance at Ginny, and thought how, in a bittersweet way, the equation among the three of them had changed since her visit to Hadley last fall—her first time after Annie’s death. Then it had been Ginny she turned to, her lifeline to sanity, her most trusted and confided-in friend, and while Ginny was still a deeply cherished friend, it was more to Fred that her thoughts flew now when she was roaming her inner landscape for signs of hope, the possibilities of moderating her sadness with some kind of life-giving joy. Did Ginny know? She herself had said nothing to Ginny to indicate the depth of her friendship with Fred. She doubted that Fred had. In fact, Ginny had seemed quite puzzled when she’d called about taking Laura to the airport. “Fred wants to come along. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” she’d said, glad that Ginny couldn’t see her face. “Is he back from Northampton?” When last she’d spoken with Fred, he’d had a critical meeting at the time she’d be flying home.
“He’s changed some plans. He’ll be here. I told him I could do it myself,” Ginny said, a touch of irritation in her voice.
As they turned onto the access road, the mood in the car grew heavier, perhaps shadowed by the prospect of her leaving, the seriousness of Rachel’s condition.
“You don’t know when you’ll be back?” Ginny said.
“No. I’ll see how Mother does.”
“You’ll be glad to be home,” Ginny said.
“Yes. To see Trace.” But there was an undertow of anxiety there, too, which she did not speak of.
At the curb near the departure gate, Fred parked, turned to Ginny. “Will you wait with the car? I’ll help Laura in with her bag.”
“Sure.” Ginny stepped from the car, hugged Laura. “I’ll call your mother from time to time. Remember, I’ll be thinking of you.
“Thanks. Thanks for all your help.”
Fred picked up her suitcase and they went into the terminal.
There was a short queue at the desk. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be fine now.” But he waited, inching forward with her as the line moved. She got her boarding pass and they walked toward the departure gate.
At the gate, the boarding calls were about to begin. “Go back now,” she said. “Ginny will be waiting.”
He put his arms out and she came to him. “Thank you for everything,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice gruff against her hair.
“For what?”
“For your trust. For being with me. For letting me know you all over again. And one more thing. Last night, I wrote a letter to my daughter.”
“Oh, Fred.” She stood back and looked into his face. His eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, Fred,” she said again, “thank you,” and kissed him, and, since the flight manager was now calling her row, she went up the ramp, turning to wave, and stepped into the plane.
She found her seat next to a window and sat down. At the edge of the field, a large truck, its light whirling, was trying to position itself—kept backing and moving forward, backing again, edging forward. Finally, it got into position and drove onto the edge of the field, moved toward one of the planes. Some kind of service truck? Fuel, maybe, or food for the journey?
She looked back at the aisle, filled with boarding passengers. A flash of plaid caught her eye. In the waiting room, she had seen a brown-haired young woman in a plaid jacket—bright red, greens, yellows. Annie had had just such a jacket. This same young woman had entered the plane, was coming toward her down the aisle, checking the overhead numbers. A momentary panic seized her. The empty seat beside her—could that be the girl’s seat? And if she came here, what then?
But well in front of her, the young woman hesitated, checked her flight pass again against the number overhead, slipped into a row, dropped down in front of the high seat back, and disappeared.
Shaken, Laura looked at the space where the girl had been. In her mind, she hovered there, willing some kind of blessing on this stranger and glad, for now, for this distance between them.
*
The plane was taking off and she sat back, watching the blurred world going by.
By now, Fred and Ginny would be well on their way back to Hadley. The fact that Fred had written his daughter filled her with gladness. It had not occurred to her that she had given anything significant to him. She had taken so much—all the attention, the listening, the being with, that he could offer.
What if there on Cape Cod she had made the other choice? The body’s hunger, fed by a trust born of sharing the deep heart. Wasn’t that what made the offering of the body a natural outcome, once the possibility had really presented itself? I have told you everything else about myself. Now let me tell you this. It is my most intimate secret. Enter it with me. I trust you.
There was more. Curiosity. Who will I be with you? The shyness, I am afraid. What if you find me unlovely? Never the other anxiety: What if I find you u
nlovely? The adventure. The mystery. The play in three acts. An outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
She thought of that picture of her mother and Barney Olmstead, smiling, cheek to cheek. It was beyond her comprehension that her mother might have been unfaithful to her father. But what wanderings of mind and trip-hammers of the heart might have been part of those years when Rachel and Will and Mabel and Barney were such good friends?
And she—did she hold on to her marriage out of habit? The thought of leaving frightened her—to be without a partner, or to take on the labor and risk of finding another. Yet if the marriage was only habit, she did not want it, hard though it would be to reshape her life. As the would-be inheritor of her daughter’s courage, should she begin again altogether?
And what of Trace? Had he turned to Kate for comfort and understanding? Those evenings when she couldn’t reach him, was he with her?
Her mind flew back to her early days with Trace. Newly engaged, they had found some test in a magazine. “Is he/she the one for you?… Would you rather A. Go for a ten-mile hike? B. Attend a classical music concert? C. Work on fixing up your house?” How they had laughed at the transparency of the test, reveling in their compatibility. There would be nothing they couldn’t handle together. And so it had seemed through the years. She remembered being with Trace at a concert—she was pregnant with Annie, so it had been a long time ago—at the band shell down by the river on a summer evening, the air sweet with the smell of honeysuckle. For one number, a quintet of men stepped away from the chorus, rearranged themselves, and sang a capella, “If I fall in love, it will be forever,” and, moved to tears by the poignant truth of the words, she had reached for Trace’s hand. That was who they were—that sure of each other. Well, there were no tests to prepare you for the death of a child.
They were high above the clouds now. She dozed. When she woke up, they were readying to land. She reached for her coat, then crowded into the aisle, began to move from the plane. He’d be there, at the end of the Jetway—standing away from the wall, head slightly forward, smiling, not caring that he was making himself conspicuous in his eagerness to meet her. Brown eyes. A lift to the left eyebrow.
“Trace!” She began to walk faster.
At home, he stood by her while she flipped through the pile of mail. She came to the letter from Philip.
“I told you about that,” he said, reading it over her shoulder. She read aloud, “‘I haven’t been sleeping real well lately. I try to study and my mind wanders and nothing sinks in.’” She folded the letter. “Oh dear.”
“I got concerned and called him,” Trace said. “He’s evidently gone somewhere. Probably taken a break for a few days.”
She looked at him, surprised—he had called Philip? Usually, it was she who initiated calls to the children—unless it was some business matter or a birthday. But he had done it on his own. “Did you?” she said.
“I left a message with the school switchboard, asking him to get in touch with us. I haven’t heard. We can call again.”
They rang the number of his dorm. No one answered. Panic started in her chest and she tried to put it down. “Oh, I hope he’s all right.”
She made some tea and they sat down to talk.
“Tell me more about Hadley,” Trace said. “You were there a long time—at least it seemed a long time to me.”
She put her hands around the cup, warming them. “So much has happened. Where to begin?” With her mother? With Fred? Her own tortuous journey of discovery, rocking in that chair by the oceanside?
“Things have happened, Trace, while I’ve been gone. I’ve done a lot of thinking. It will take me awhile to absorb it—some things about my mother, Annie, me. Some things about ambivalence, not having to be perfect, just being grateful for love.” She told him about her talk with Rachel. “I guess I’d felt like a failure—that I couldn’t save Annie. Of course it was crazy, but the mind does crazy things. Anyway, the talk with my mother was like an absolution. I realized how grateful I am to her, even though it’s been hard to be a separate person. But the blessings—” She looked up to be sure he was listening.
“Yes. Go on,” he said.
“I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”
He nodded, thoughtful. “Some of us have the opposite problem,” he said.
“Like what?” she said.
“Independence can be overvalued. It takes a while to learn that. And sometimes it’s too late.”
She reached over and took his hand.
He drew from the sideboard a folded sheet of paper. “This is what I found in Annie’s desk one day when you were gone,” and he handed her the paper.
She read Annie’s poem, looked up. “It’s almost as though she knew.” She read through it again. “‘All the better, I believe, for you, at any rate,’” she read, and looked up. “Who do you think it’s written to? Who is the ‘you’ in the poem? Obviously someone she loved very much.”
“Maybe to both of us?” he said. “A collective ‘you’?”
It was a generous gesture, but it didn’t fit. She looked at the words again. She had been a primary person in her daughter’s life, hadn’t she? Yes, and all the more reason for this to be for Trace. Maybe inadvertently, this had been Annie’s gift to her father, since they would have no time to fix things up in person. Could she let Trace have it, even if that meant her being on the outside, once? “I think it’s for you,” she said, and folded the page and handed it back to him.
“Maybe,” he said, but the glow in his eyes spoke his gratitude.
There was something she had to know. “Your project with Kate—how is that?”
“The basic work will be done soon. It’s taken lots of time.”
“Lots of time.” Plenty of time for anything. Still, she didn’t think… “Did you talk to her—about Annie?”
“She reminds me of Annie in some ways. I told her that, so she wouldn’t be scared if I seemed to have invested more than the usual academic interest in her success.” He hesitated. “She’s talked to me some about her parents, and herself.” His color heightened. “She said I helped her a lot.”
She noted the blush. What did it mean? His pleasure in his success at helping a young woman with her life quandaries? Something else? She might never know. “Are you in love with her?” she asked.
Slowly, the implications of her question dawned on him. His face changed from incredulity to recognition. “No, I’m not, Laura. I’m very fond of Kate. And grateful to her for many reasons—not the least of which is for assuring the Committee on Faculty-Student Relationships that I’ve not exploited her in any way.”
“What!” It was Laura’s turn to be incredulous.
“One afternoon in my office, she made some gesture that reminded me so much of Annie”—he looked embarrassed—”I guess I got a bit weepy. She gave me a hug.” He smiled wryly. “She asked my permission first. Then I guess somebody reported her coming to see me one evening after the building was almost empty, most of the doors locked.”
“Who reports these things?” Laura asked, indignant.
“This campus is so alert to sexual harassment—a good thing to be alert to. Sometimes people get carried away and see offense when there is none.”
“But both of those incidents she initiated, not you.” She smiled to herself. Here she was, being defensive for him. This did not sound like a man involved in an affair.
He shrugged. “Maybe they thought I was intimidating.”
She put her arms around his neck. “Well, you are,” she said, and kissed him.
*
They were in the kitchen, clearing up their few dishes, and she said, “Something came to me while I was there.”
He put his inverted cup in the dishwasher, turned to her. “Yes?”
“I don’t suppose my mother will live much longer.” Her eyes filled with tears, telling him. “When I was at the cemetery, it occurred to me—whenever it is that my mother dies, what would you think o
f our burying Annie’s ashes next to hers?”
She could feel in her own body how the thought of it stood at the gate of his mind, and then how he stepped back to allow it to enter.
“It is a good idea,” he said. “I would be willing.”
They didn’t hear from Philip. They called Bart. No, he didn’t know anything. Laura tried to silence her anxiety, hold it in check. He had gone off on camping trips before, taken his bicycle and a backpack and gone off into the woods. Usually, he told someone he was going, and where.
Trace thought of it first. The third day after her return, he called from the office. “I wonder if Philip went to Argonne Woods.”
“Oh.” Her mind went like a lasso, swung back over Christmas. She saw the glistening page, the green-black leaves, the book spread open on Philip’s lap…. “She wrote me, begging me to get off school and come,” he’d said.
“It will soon be that time of year, won’t it?”
*
They left as soon as Trace could get home and pick her up. It was a three-hour trip. The tree limbs were still bare, but you could begin to see a few tight buds along the black stalks of winter.
“It’s very likely this could be a wild-goose chase,” Trace said, when they were within a few miles of the area.
“I suppose so.” If Philip wasn’t here, with what would they engage themselves, needing to find him?
They got to the familiar sign—the rough frame, the letters burned into varnished wood: ARGONNE WOODS. A smaller sign suspended by two small wrought-iron hooks read: Open for season March 30.
The road forked and they took the fork marked RIVER CABINS, passed the entrance to the Dogwood Trail, the road leading to the fire tower, the path going down to the boat dock, then came to the cluster of cabins set in among the tall trees.
There, against the brown-stained logs of the cabin, its wheel chained to a sapling by the door, stood a bicycle. Orange saddlebags straddled the bar.
“It’s Philip,” she said.
“Looks like it,” he said.
Such Good People Page 30
