by Rand, Naomi;
Sam stuck out her chin. She looked past her mother to the room, to the clusters of people still having pleasant, mindless conversations. There was Muriel, chatting amiably with Professor Price.
“Samantha.” Brooke’s hand was the weight that pulled her back.
“What?”
“I’m not good with men. You know that. I always believe they’re better than they are. I have this ridiculous optimism about them. It was never about you. Not you, or your brother. Neither of you are responsible for me being a naïve idiot. Don’t ever think that.” Brooke hugged her and wrapped her arms tightly around her.
And Sam felt odd. It was as if she were on the dock and they were calling “all aboard,” it was that kind of embrace, that kind of goodbye. Sam saw the rest, saw herself on the deck as the boat pulled free of its moorings, looking east to the world that lay ahead of her.
“My wonderful daughter,” Brooke said, releasing her, then reaching up to smooth Sam’s brow. “You’re amazing. Always believe that.”
Then she was off.
SAM STAYED TO clear away the mess, helping Kim who was already hard at work. Kim had been magnanimous when she heard about Sam winning the award, inviting her over for a toast, and raising a glass of sparkling apple cider.
“I wish we both could have won,” Sam said.
“No, you don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not possible.”
True. But baldly put.
Professor Price waved her over. He was with Professor Hartley and Professor Grayson.
“Congratulations,” Professor Hartley said.
“Well deserved,” Professor Grayson added.
Sam thanked them and they smiled beneficently. Then she and Kim gathered up all the plastic knives and forks and paper plates and dumped them into the garbage bins. They covered the remaining food with plastic wrap and folded the chairs and stacked them.
Was it well deserved? Sam wondered. Being the best was a matter of opinion. She was lucky that when she’d owned up to making a mistake, it wasn’t held against her. She was fortunate that they all liked her. They could just as easily not have. She was talented at math and science; balancing equations offered a satisfaction that was sadly lacking in much of life. There was a clear right answer. In the messy real world, logic evaporated in the face of all the vagaries and inconsistencies that made up the workings of the human heart.
“Done!” Kim exclaimed, pulling on her own jacket. “Coming?”
“I just have to find Mrs. Morrissey,” Sam said. She’d lost track of the guest of honor. She’d meant to invite her along, not that Mrs. Morrissey would necessarily want to go out to a bar with them. She was staying at the Hilton. It had been so nice of her to come down there and speak, though in truth Sam had been so nervous she only half listened.
Sam went out into the hall. It was empty. She’d left Mrs. Morrissey’s coat and bag upstairs in the office. Had someone gotten them for her? The door was locked and her things were still safely inside. Sam walked down the hall, carrying the coat with her, calling, “Mrs. Morrissey, are you here?”
21
Amelia
January 5 1981
THE STAIRS WERE quite different. No longer a curl of metal, they went straight up to the roof. The hatch was easy to push back. Amelia stepped out, shading her eyes in the bright winter sun. There were familiar landmarks, Riverside Church with its fine steeples arching into the sky and beyond it the Hudson, clots of ice choking the river traffic. Turning, she found the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. In between, the swathe of Central Park. These things remained while so much else had changed, the world spinning happily on without her. She squatted, studying her old campus. Students rushed on, oblivious, busy with their lives, imagining their futures. They were young enough to think that they could do anything they wanted, that there were no sacrifices to be made to get there.
“What a view!” The voice shocked her back. Muriel’s upper half had emerged.
“It is indeed,” Amelia agreed, reaching out a hand to help her sister.
“I tried the door. When I discovered it was open, the temptation was too much.” Muriel shivered. She had no coat. “I was escaping,” she admitted.
“From what?”
“From this pest with his charts, he’d gone back to get them to show me.” Extending her hand, she said, “I’m Muriel Morrissey.”
“I know. I enjoyed your lecture.” Amelia took Muriel’s hand in her own again. She wanted to clasp it in both of hers, to pull her close. And resisted the impulse.
Muriel turned away, taking in the view. They stood shoulder to shoulder.
“You must get a lot of that,” Amelia said.
“You mean that man with his pet theory? Oh yes. It’s always the men who have them. I used to wonder about that. I’ve come to the belief that they think, if they can prove where she died, they’ll finally bring her to ground and to heel.”
“A funny notion, proving themselves superior.”
“Men think they were meant to rule the earth,” Muriel said. “They still cling to that fantasy.”
“So to avoid him, you lit out for the territories?” Amelia offered slyly.
“Just like Huck.” Squinting in the sunlight. “It still is breathtaking up here.”
“Different from the way it used to look, but yes, wonderful. Still an incredible city.”
“You’ve snuck up before?”
“When I was at school here.”
“And to think, I imagined it was my own little secret.” Muriel turned to examine her.
Would she discover that inadequate impersonator who’d had the temerity to come to her door and confront her? Amelia waited, expecting that would be the result as Muriel tilted her head to the side, trying to nudge the memory to the fore. It was this very habit of cocking her head that had made Amelia nickname her Pidge. She’d always found it endearing.
Better to strike first, Amelia thought, this could be your last chance. “It was your sister who brought you up here originally, wasn’t it?”
“No.” But of course the answer was yes, and they both knew it.
“Back then you could see to Brooklyn, couldn’t you?” Muriel didn’t disagree. “No one had thought it necessary to build towers along the Palisades, they were pristine, like the White Cliffs of Dover.” This is it, Amelia told herself, and plunged ahead. “It was the first day of your visit on spring break. You’d taken the 3:14 to Grand Central from Northampton. She met you. She stood at the entrance to track 44 on the lower level. She took the portmanteau from you, though you protested, the gift Mother gave you for college. It was a marvel of workmanship, that thing, with all those odd secret pockets hidden inside. You could pack up your secrets in that old kit bag. That was the joke.”
Muriel stared. “What are you getting at?”
“I took the bag and we got into the subway. What a treat that was for you. You were amazed by the way the people dressed. You commented how New Yorkers were so different from the parochial Bostonites. How many races and ethnicities were packed together. You were so enthusiastic, so exuberant. You spoke with me about Smith and how one class stood out for you. Professor James. You idolized that woman. She was the reason you had decided to teach. Though you weren’t going to teach on the college level, you thought that too hard to manage. Besides, what was better than shaping a child? There, you had a chance to really change someone; in that small way, you could reshape the world.”
Muriel’s mouth opened, but no words emerged. Instead, she reached across and touched Amelia on the cheek. Then her hand pulled back, as if stung.
“It isn’t you,” she said, shaken. “It can’t be you.”
“Who else could know the details?”
“You’re making it up.”
“But I’m not,” Amelia insisted. “I’m telling the truth.” She had so little time to prove herself. Had we but world enough, and time. She didn’t, this was a gift. “You were t
hrilled to be invited to visit. The months we’d been separated. We’d been apart before, I’d gone to school for a while, but we were together for vacations and in Toronto. We’d always stayed faithful to each other, we’d always written, but this year I’d fallen off. You sent me letters. I left them unanswered for a week or two. And mine were all about what I’d done. You resented it, felt left out. So when I invited you, it was to make up for that, I promised you concerts, poetry readings, the museum, and, best of all, just being together, the two of us together again.
“We dropped off your bag at the rooming house on Amsterdam Avenue. The woman at the desk said, ‘Is this your famous sister?’ You were so pleased that I’d been talking about you. It took so little to make you happy. I felt sorry I’d forgotten that. I knew I should have been a better sister. So I packed the hamper, got my camera, and we went to find Louise.”
“We?” Muriel backed away. “Wait, you’re the woman who accosted me at my house. Did you follow me all the way here? You must be out of your mind.”
Amelia stepped forward, grabbed Muriel’s shoulder, and held fast.
“Let me go!”
“Not yet.”’
“I’m going to scream if you don’t.”
“I know. You’ll call for the police. Do what you have to do. But isn’t it true that you and I went into that science building over there? In the basement, Louise was writing up her findings on mitosis. We waited for her to finish up, and I showed you my rats. I was doing an experiment on them, but unfortunately I made the mistake of naming each and every one of them. Ironic that they were named after Santa’s reindeer, Donner, Blitzen, and all the rest of his antlered steeds when I’d ruined Christmas for you.”
Muriel tried to jerk her body away but Amelia held fast.
“I had to ask those stupid questions about Father Christmas because I always needed to prove a point. It just seemed so absurd; how could anyone believe there was some white bearded roly-poly man who was making stop after stop after stop? I told myself that it was more important to know the truth than to cling to a ridiculous myth.”
“Help!” Muriel called out.
“I’ll strike a bargain with you. I’ll let you go if you just listen for a few more minutes. Remember the Reynolds? The Christmas party they gave in Cambridge. That night when I slipped out and left you behind with Mother and Albert and Samuel.”
Muriel blinked, hard. “How on earth. . . ?”
“On heaven and earth,” Amelia corrected. “There are more things, believe you me. I met someone at that party. I fell in love with him. I never told you about him, I never said a word to you or Mother. But every weekend when I said I was away, I was really with him. All that spring I saw him.”
Muriel shook her head. “Now I understand. It’s that kind of story. What if Amelia Earhart had a secret lover? Someone no one else ever knew about? Believe me, that’s been done to death.”
“And yet it happened. His name was Winston Manning. He was a graduate student at Harvard. Handsome. Amusing. Exceptionally charming. He was a man who knew how to chart the stars, a dreamer who went into business and made a second fortune. He was, in short, a walking, talking contradiction. He was the way most of us are. Imperfect. And lovely. Unexpected. Remarkable. Always, always surprising.”
“Just stop,” Muriel insisted, trying to break loose.
“You think it’s that sort of story, don’t you, about lost love? It’s not. Remember when I visited on Christmas and you were pregnant? Remember that horrible piece of sisterly advice I offered? Put to you in your own kitchen. Said as if your older sister knew better how easy it would be to scrape away an almost child. You were right to be offended by it. Mother sent me on that fool’s errand, but that’s no excuse. I was jealous of what you had. You see, I’d made a different choice.”
Muriel stopped trying to pry herself away. That had gotten her attention. “No one knows that.”
“But me. I’d had an abortion,” Amelia said. “I never told Winston about it. I had to make a choice and I did. How could I know that everything would change? How could I understand what it would mean to me? But you can’t have everything. I knew that then, I know it now. I don’t regret what I did. It was worth it. What I regret is that I didn’t trust you and that I didn’t tell you. We were sisters. Best friends. I should have known better and trusted you more. You’ve been a far better sister to me than I ever deserved.”
She kissed Muriel on the cheek. Then, she released her.
“Is it really you?” Muriel asked, reaching out, but not quite touching her face, her hand hanging there, in midair. “It’s not possible.” Saying it to herself, reassuring herself.
“Yet, here I am,” Amelia told her.
Muriel stared hard at her, and her expression softened. “What an odd thing,” she said. “What a world.”
“What a world, indeed,” Amelia agreed.
They took each other in. Slowly. Completely. Seconds became a minute. Then two.
“Too funny.” This, from Muriel, her lips turning up at the corners, twitching into an almost smile.
Amelia smiled back, more fully. “Yes. Life has its moments.”
From down below, a voice broke in.
“Mrs. Morrissey? Are you up there?”
Muriel shook her head, then put a finger to her lips.
The voice insisted, coming closer, “Mrs. Morrissey?”
Not now. Not yet.
But what could one do?
Muriel shrugged. “You stay put, Miss Barry,” she called out. “I’ll be down directly.” Muriel moved close to Amelia then. So close their frosted breath mingled in the air. She put out her hand. Amelia took it. And they made their way slowly to the ladder.
“Since you’re here, I do have one thing I’d like to say,” Muriel said.
“Yes. Anything.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while.” That smile blown fuller, as she said, “You never fooled me. I knew you weren’t perfect. That was what I loved about you most of all.” Muriel leaned forward then and kissed her on the cheek. Then wiped at the lipstick stain. “There. Cleaned you right up.”
“Miss Morrissey, I have your coat,” the girl called out.
“What to do, what to do?” Muriel asked.
But they both knew. She had to go.
Courage. Courage is the price. The world was tugging at them, pulling them apart. Muriel stood on the top rung of the ladder.
Amelia smiled so hard it hurt.
She watched her younger sister descend and disappear from view.
It was done. Finally, done.
Amelia walked back to the edge of the roof, waiting and watching. Off they went, Muriel and the Barry girl. At the top of the marble steps, Muriel turned back and looked up, waving.
Hello.
Goodbye.
Looking east, Amelia saw the Triboro Bridge. When she flew in to meet Winston in Brooklyn that very last time, she landed at Floyd Bennett and drove a hired car inland past the barren Coney Island beaches and the shuttered boardwalk vendors, past silent houses and Olmsted’s other jewel, Prospect Park. In the hotel, she went up to their usual room, and he came to her. It was January then too, the depths of winter.
How lovely he’d been, how fervent his pleas. She’d agreed that when this last flight was over, she’d do just as he wanted. In that hotel room, it was easy to believe it was possible. Yet, long ago she’d made a different choice.
Two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and I took the one less traveled on.
THAT ROAD LED her to the cabin of the Electra. Outside, the tropical storm had raged, rain pelting on every side. The noise of the engine overwhelmed the senses. But finally, morning arrived. The rain let up, and Amelia peered through the cockpit glass, trying to find some marking point. The gas gauge was running low. They’d had to fly at a higher altitude than they’d planned to cut through the worst of the storm. Still, Howland should be just below them. She lifting the radio and tried again. �
�Calling Itasca, we must be on you but cannot see you. Gas is running low.”
Amelia strained to find a signpost in the frothing, gray green water. Where was the damn boat? The ocean was visible now as a wilderness of peaks and valleys. Glancing at the gauge, Amelia saw it was heading into the red. Just then the sun came up, piercing the horizon line, soaking everything, and making it a stunning gold. It took her breath away.
She dropped down to a thousand feet. Below her the waves bristled with whitecaps. There was no landing strip, no boat, nothing but the Pacific stretching forever.
Banking left, she reached for the radio. “We are circling but cannot hear you, go ahead on 7500 now or on the schedule time on half hour.” Holding her breath, she waited. Then, out of nowhere, the radio came to life blurting out a rapid-fire dot and dash. She had no way to reply in Morse, but the response meant they had heard her. Surely they must be close.
They would make it. Amelia let out a breath, relief flooding her.
NOW IT WAS the year of our lord, nineteen eighty-one, the end of a crisp January day. Amelia sat on the edge of the library roof, watching as the sun set over the Hudson. She knew that Muriel was nearby, seated at a long table. At the other end of it, Miss Barry, her brother Winston, their good friends, Miss Barry’s closest friend, that tall, striking blond, Lucy Westcott; all were there to celebrate her achievement. For young Samantha Barry, it was only the beginning.
In the back of the barroom, a band set up. The bass player twirled his oversized instrument with panache. The saxophonist wet his reed and blew on it, sending out a trill. Back at the table, Winston Barry lifted a glass. “To the best sister in the world.” Samantha Barry blushed at what was clearly heartfelt. Lucy sat next to her. At the far end, Muriel leaned over to speak with Katherine. Amelia wondered what common ground they’d found? It was amusing to think of the two of them together and the tricks life played on one. The hapless Professor Fabian Price and Brooke Barry were also deep in conversation, though his gaze had drifted south to her cleavage. On the bandstand, a guitarist tuned his instrument. In a second, the music would start. Perhaps she’d know the song.
