As glad as she was to be distracted, there was no putting off the inevitable. She didn’t have to climb any precious marble steps. There was no pretense of this being the Elysian Fields or the royal gardens, just gently sloping pasture with a pleasant view. Take away the graves, and a herd of cows would be right at home.
Instead, here were her parents, like the farmer in the old joke, out standing in a field. Like Henry’s, their headstones would always look strange to her, as if there were some mistake she was incapable of fixing. Inert and adamant, they did such a poor job of representing her mother and father. While for her own stone Emily coveted the clean simplicity of names and dates, she could see why the Egyptians topped their sarcophagi with carved likenesses, and why the Japanese put photos on their markers. A visit wasn’t simply a tribute but a way of feeling closer to a loved one, and while Emily did feel a slight vertigo, facing them, she knew, as she did with Henry, that her parents weren’t really here, and while it only made sense, in some way it was also disappointing, as if, after such a long journey, she’d arrived, finally, in the wrong place.
Why did she always want more, when this was all there was? “I’m sorry, Emmy,” her mother would say, with her teacher’s maddening patience, “but that’s not how the world works.”
She knew that now, and it still didn’t matter. Like a child, she refused to surrender to the world. She stood at the foot of their graves a moment longer, saying a prayer, then went back to the car for the watering can and a shovel.
It was just as hot as the other day, and she was careful not to overtax herself. After she dug the first hole, she took a break, sitting in the dappled shade of a honey locust and sipping iced tea from her thermos. A gray haze had settled on the far hills like fog. There was no wind, not a breath. The pile-driver was becoming annoying, making her think of Grafton Street, and Rufus, probably sacked out in her room, dead to the racket outside. She’d already started packing for Chautauqua. If she’d known they were going to tear up the whole street, she would have booked the cottage for the month. There was no reason to be in the city. From where she sat she could see Irishtown Road stretching north through the state forest toward Saint Marys, and imagined hopping in the car and following it. She could just hear herself asking Arlene to swing by and pick up Rufus.
The idea of going back home tired her. If she let herself, she could sit here all day, maybe even sleep, curled at the foot of the trunk like the fool in a tarot deck.
“Up and at ’em,” she said flatly, and slowly rose, her knees creaky.
Why was she so uninspired? It had been a good day—ideal, really. The drive had been surprisingly easy. The view of Kersey was perfect. There was no one to intrude on her solitude, and yet she felt let down, or was it natural here, that sadness? Her parents had been gone a long time; so had she. Why did she expect, after all these years, to suddenly come to some new understanding? As much as you might want to, you couldn’t change the past.
As she dug the second hole, she thought that was right. She would be judged by how she’d lived her life, not how she wished it had been. She accepted that completely. She was painfully aware of her failings. Every Sunday she confessed them, and while by no means clear, her conscience was no heavier than most, or so she hoped.
“Be a good girl and get me my sewing,” her mother asked. “Be a good girl and bring the sheets in.”
Had she been good?
She wanted to think so.
Could she have been better?
Yes.
Of everyone, she’d treated Henry the best, and even on that account she had her regrets. She and her father got along, but in the end he did her mother’s bidding, a betrayal Emily couldn’t forgive at that age, the same betrayals her own children held against her: making them do their homework before they could go out and play, refusing to let them wear ripped blue jeans to school, grounding them for sneaking beer from the basement fridge. She was sure she was even more unreasonable than Margaret as a child. She recalled sitting on the edge of her bed and screaming at her closed door, not words, just screaming to protest this latest punishment, and yet, when the children asked her mother what Emily had been like, all her mother would say was, “She had her moments.”
Her mother was a better person than she was. Not all people could say that, or admit it, but Emily knew it to be true, just as Henry was a better person than she was. They’d done their best to save her from herself. It was no revelation, and yet she’d never thought of them together until now.
“Funny,” she said, and looked out over the town, biting her lip as if the idea might lead somewhere. It didn’t have to. This was why she’d come, and rather than humbled she felt lucky, and grateful.
She finished digging and set her mother’s cosmos in the hole, tamped down the loose dirt with her toe, careful of the stem, then watered them both again. She didn’t give them much chance up here, unprotected, but for now they looked nice, a cheery burst of color. There was nothing more to do, yet she didn’t want to leave, and stood there for several minutes, drinking her iced tea while the pile-driver kept time, before she lay a hand on each stone—her father’s first, then her mother’s—and lugged everything back to the car. It took two trips, giving her ample time to say goodbye.
Downtown, little had changed since her last visit. The courthouse stood stolid in its shady square, the front walk flanked by cannons. The Clarion Hotel was long gone, and the Penn Royal, and the Woolworth’s where each spring her mother took her to choose among the new dress patterns. Once she’d known every shop on Main Street, down to the pool hall at the far end her father called the Bucket of Blood. Now the only place that looked halfway familiar was a coffee shop called the Busy Bee, and it was closed. Even the Sheetz at the stoplight where the old Sinclair used to be had turned over and was now a Get’n’Go. And yet the shape and scale—the feel—of everything was the same, including the almost total absence of people, though it was just past lunchtime.
A block into the quiet side streets, nothing had changed. Grace Methodist and the free library and the post office were all as she remembered them, and the gloomy Gothic revivals on Court Street she’d thought were haunted, hurrying by at dusk with her freshly checked-out books hugged to her chest. At Center she turned right. She realized that she was recreating the way she walked home. It wasn’t subconscious: there were only so many streets.
Seeing the old place was a tradition. The last time she’d been back, she discovered that the new owners, with no regard for the neighbors, had painted the bungalow sky-blue with lavender trim. Emily guessed it was supposed to be whimsical and different, but it came off as showy and obnoxious, a color-blind crime against the house and the town. Instantly she’d wanted to go get a can and a brush and cover it up.
As she turned her corner, she expected to see this pastel monstrosity and was puzzled, momentarily, when it didn’t leap out at her. Instead, she found that—as if they’d known she was coming—whoever owned the place now had restored it to its original white with forest-green shutters.
She pulled up in front and leaned across the passenger seat to see better, leaving the car running. Her mother’s hydrangeas were in bloom, and the porch rail was lined with window boxes full of lush petunias. At one end a white wicker glider hung from the ceiling, recalling the wooden one she and her mother shared those lazy summer afternoons, shelling peas or snapping beans as they waited for her father to come home. The roof had been redone, the chimney repointed. Emily had to quash the urge to jump out and ring the bell and thank the new owners profusely.
The idea that the house had magically returned to its natural state was like something from a fairy tale. She wished she’d brought a camera, though of course—besides Arlene, possibly—there was no one to show it to. Emily was so mesmerized that it was only when she swung into the Volkers’ driveway to turn around that she noticed the Lowerys’, a bungalow nearly identical to theirs, right across the street, was for sale.
Imme
diately—insanely—she wanted it. The strength of her hunger shocked her. She had no desire to live here again, yet the first thought that flashed through her mind was that if she sold the house on Grafton Street she could buy the Lowerys’ outright and still put away a couple hundred thousand.
What would she do here? She hardly knew a soul. There was no classical radio, and compared to Pittsburgh, the library was a joke. Plus, she argued belatedly, what would Arlene do without her?
She had no answers for these questions, yet the temptation lingered well after she took her last look at the house and made her way through downtown and out Skyline Drive. As she passed the cemetery, she glanced over to check on the cosmos, taking in the long view beyond, then broke off to concentrate on the road. Seconds later the sign for Dagus Mines slid by, and she was across the town line, gone. Outside of Challenge, Toby Creek ran sparkling beside her, dropped frothing off ledges, and as she followed it downstream—like the water itself, headed for the Allegheny and Pittsburgh—she thought of how strange her visit had been, how different from what she would have predicted, and couldn’t quite say why, though the effect was clear, and startling. Normally she was glad to leave Kersey behind. Now she was happy to think she might be back.
EXIT, STAGE LEFT
Chautauqua. The very word was a promise. All year she clung to the idea of return. Now, mercifully, it was here. She’d completed her errands. She was ready for her reward.
The car was packed, it was time to go, but as she went through the upstairs a final time, Emily couldn’t shake the feeling—with her more often than not now—that she was forgetting something important, something she’d specifically reminded herself not to forget. She’d taken the car in for an oil change and gotten gas, so that wasn’t it. She had cash and her checkbook, her credit cards and her triple-A card, just in case. Wednesday when Betty came they’d cleaned the fridge and put out all the garbage and recyclables. She’d done laundry yesterday, and the breakfast dishes were running. Marcia would water her garden, Jim would mow the lawn. She’d turned off the mail and called the paper. What else could it be, and what could it matter? She’d only be gone a week.
She thought it must be something small and essential, like toiletries, but her toothbrush holder was empty, her toothpaste missing, gaps in the shelves of the medicine cabinet where she kept her prescriptions and deodorant. She knew she had her hairbrush (she’d forgotten it too many times in the past). Shampoo, conditioner, body wash. Whatever it was, it wasn’t in here.
Rufus was waiting for her in the hallway, sitting at attention. Since yesterday he’d stuck close, hovering, afraid he might get left behind. On the stairs he crowded her going down, his shoulder bumping her knee. She pulled up, making him stop.
“Cool it,” she said, “or I will leave you here.”
He knew it was a bluff. Once she was done lecturing him, he scurried down, spinning at the foot of the stairs to face her, his tail slapping the back of the sofa.
She had his food, his bowls, his treats, his pills, his bed, even an old army blanket of Henry’s for the chilly nights.
It wasn’t anything in the fridge. Marcia had already lugged the halffilled cooler out to the car for her. Once they got there they’d have to hit the Lighthouse anyway.
She did a last, unnecessary check of the kitchen, Rufus tagging after her. She’d already turned off the computer in Henry’s office and made sure the answering machine was on. She’d locked all the windows and put the chain on the back door.
As she was testing the French doors, the grandfather clock struck the quarter hour, meaning she needed to get going. She said she’d be there at nine, and unlike Arlene, she wasn’t in the habit of making people wait.
“All right, Mr. Nervous-in-the-Service,” she said, and he bolted for the front hall.
Keys, sunglasses, gum. She clipped on his leash, and with her hand on the knob, scanned the living room as if something might come to her, then closed the door.
It was Saturday, so no one was working. Down past Farragut the bulldozers and backhoes stood idle, abandoned like toys in a sandbox. They were still tearing things up, as if they had to destroy the entire street before they could begin rebuilding any part of it. They’d be lucky to be done by fall.
It was easier to stick Rufus in the backseat. She spread Henry’s army blanket across it to protect the leather. “Upsy-daisy,” she said, and he reared, bracing his front paws on the edge of the seat. On good days he could get in by himself, but today he balked. “Hang on, Tubby.” She set her pocketbook on the sidewalk and lifted his hind end, and he flopped in awkwardly, rolling on his shoulder. “Get comfy. It’s going to be a long one.”
The morning was still and overcast, the trees laden. The radio was calling for thunderstorms; they’d probably run into some on the way up. Going over to Regent Square there was almost no traffic, only some firemen at Penn and Braddock trying to extort money from people at the light. Rufus did his job, barking as if they were carjackers.
“Good boy,” she said.
She arrived right on time, and then had to climb the stairs and ring the bell. Arlene apologized, she was running a little behind. Emily didn’t bother to ask why, just stood in the entryway while she fed the fish.
“I’m afraid I’m having one of those days,” Arlene said, as they brought her bags down. “I don’t know what it is, I keep thinking I’m forgetting something.”
“Something important.”
“Like my glasses, but I’ve got them.”
“Something you told yourself not to forget.”
Arlene gawked at her as if she’d read her mind.
“Me too,” Emily confessed. “It’s been driving me crazy all morning.”
“So it’s not just me. That’s a relief.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Okay, no, not really.”
They stowed her bags in the way-back and buckled up.
“It’s going to be strange,” Arlene said. “I’m so used to driving.”
“You can navigate.”
“Go straight till you hit Hutchinson—”
“Thank you,” Emily stopped her, turning the key.
“—then take a left.”
“Enough.”
Arlene was fiddling with her vanity mirror, and suddenly it came to Emily: her visor.
“Dammit.”
She wanted it so she could sit on the dock and read without being blinded. Last night she’d washed it in the basement sink and hung it up to dry. She could picture it down there, waiting for her in the darkness beyond Henry’s workbench.
“Do you want to go back and get it?” Arlene asked.
“No.”
“We can.”
“I’ll find one up there,” Emily said, resigned.
“I still don’t know what I’m missing,” Arlene said, as if to comfort her.
Emily leaned in and reset the trip odometer to zero. With both hands she put the car in gear, then checked over her shoulder and pulled out.
“And we’re off!” Arlene said.
“Yes,” Emily said. “We most certainly are.”
ALSO BY STEWART O’NAN
FICTION
Songs for the Missing
Last Night at the Lobster
The Good Wife
The Night Country
Wish You Were Here
Everyday People
A Prayer for the Dying
A World Away
The Speed Queen
The Names of the Dead
Snow Angels
In the Walled City
NONFICTION
Faithful (with Stephen King)
The Circus Fire
The Vietnam Reader (editor)
On Writers and Writing, by John Gardner (editor)
SCREENPLAY
Poe
or reading books on Archive.
Emily, Alone Page 26
