by Lisa Samson
“You think she just forgot this?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It was on the table in the living room, right in the open. I bet she never touched a dime.”
“She has to have spent some,” I say. “Cigarettes aren’t cheap.”
“Why do you think Walter gave her the money to begin with?”
“Mom was wondering the same thing. Honestly, I think he views her as a little sister, Finn.”
“Sometimes the most forthright explanation makes the most sense.”
“Have you known my father to be anything but?” I ask.
“Nope. Still, there’s a reason this is so upsetting to your mom, right?”
We eat breakfast indoors, not talking much. When we happen to catch each other’s eye, we look away. Guilty people act like this, or hungover drunks with regrets about last night.
“I guess I’ll shower,” I say.
“I guess I’ll head out.”
After he’s gone, I creep down the basement stairs for a look at the mess. But Aunt Bel cleaned up. The paints are all there, lined up along the table with her brushes and the sketchbook we bought her and some unused canvas. All the pages she’d filled with drawings have been ripped out, though, and I can’t find any of her attempts at painting. She didn’t just tidy the space, she removed all signs of her having been here. Realizing this, I feel cold suddenly. I go upstairs and run the shower until the mirror steams up.
I peel off the ruined shirt, inspecting the damage once more. Then I ball it up again and scrub a patch of mirror clean so I can see my face reflected. As soon as the glass clears, it begins to frost over again, but not before I see the shadows under my eyes, the puffy skin, the clogged pores. You look like hell. And I feel it too. I stare at my face until the mirror fogs, wondering what kind of person I must be to have driven Aunt Bel out knowing she has no other home. I step into the shower, sit down in the tub, and let the water sluice over my head and down my neck, shoulders, and spine.
Some things you regret after the fact, some you regret as you’re doing them, and some you regret in advance, knowing you’ll hate yourself after the fact but doing them anyway. Calling my mom falls under the third heading. Thankfully, J. D., her boss at the farm, has a phone. With each ring in my ear, a voice in my head tells me to hang up. But I don’t hang up. When he finally picks up, I ask him if I can speak to her and wait until she answers. And when she answers I tell her everything, not just that Aunt Bel has left, but why Aunt Bel has left.
“Did you know?” I ask her.
“Baby, I don’t know anything. Aunt Bel and I don’t even speak the same language anymore. You say she left the money behind? That’s strange. That’s something I don’t understand.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“She’s a big girl,” Mom says. “She knows her own mind. Look, you helped the family out of an awkward spot, which I appreciate. But I don’t see how Aunt Bel is your responsibility any longer. You can wipe your hands clean and let the Universe do its thing, baby. That seems to be what she wants anyway, right?”
“I would at least like to talk to her, though. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”
“Maybe she’s not gone for good.”
“The way she cleaned everything out, it looks pretty final.”
“If you ask me, it’s for the best. I’ll tell you something—and don’t go repeating this—if you ask me, it would have been better if she’d stayed overseas. Or at least stayed away from here. She brings too much … tension. Bad vibes. Where did you say she went afterward?”
“Romania. Where the postcard came from.”
“Okay, exactly what I’m talking about. That would have been fine. It was coming back here that caused all the drama. She got your father all puffed up, and it sounds like she did a number on you too, honey. Whatever the reasons, running away is in my sister’s blood. She left us all, she left her flock of Kazakhs, and now she’s left you. You’re taking it hard now, but give this time and you’re gonna see it’s all for the best. For everyone.”
“I don’t feel like it’s for the best. I feel guilty.”
“What do you have to feel guilty for, Sara? Guilt is the last enemy in the battle for your happiness. Get rid of your guilt and you’ll be free.”
“How do I do that, exactly?”
“Stop feeling guilty, that’s a start.”
“I’ve never been very good at not feeling what I feel. I need to just be me.”
She laughs. “Baby, that sounds very Zen, but it’s not.”
I spend the morning at the computer trying to work on the last of Holly’s projects while also answering e-mails from Ethan Lime about my schedule for the summer. He envisions a photographic road trip of several weeks’ duration, living out of suitcases and shooting portraits every day. What would I need? he wants to know. Who would I like to bring along? The way he words things, it almost seems as if he and Dora want to tag along. I can’t even imagine what a trip like that would entail. I conjure up old pictures of British nobility camping on safari in India, drinking tea out of a silver service, dining off of china.
My rumbling stomach lets me know I’ve skipped out on lunch. I’m surprised how quickly the hours have passed, and how much solitude my coworkers have allowed me. It’s almost two when I push away from the desk, my limbs stiff, circling the side of the cubicle and walking along the length of the counter separating office space from the print floor. Diana is gone, but Huey and Finn are surveying the pieces of the Iron Maiden.
“Wow,” I say.
The Iron Maiden gleams dully under the lights, a gloss of British racing green paint covering her cast-iron form. I cross the counter to admire the results up close.
“You like?” Finn asks.
“I always said I preferred the green.”
“Your wish is my command. Now let me take you to lunch.”
Finn disappears to the restroom to scrub paint off his hands, leaving me alone with Huey. He’s wearing one of his older boiler suits, without his name embroidered, little holes opened up here and there, especially along the zipper. I sometimes imagine him sitting in front of the TV at home, a six-pack of Leinenkugel at his feet, still wearing his mechanic’s outfit. Maybe he has a fluffy one with attached footies for wearing at home.
“So I heard what happened,” he says.
“The whole story? Including what the guy yesterday had to say?”
He crosses his arms, gives a contemplative tuck of the chin. “You know where she ran off to?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you want to know?” he asks.
“Why, did she tell you?”
“Don’t get so excited,” he says, stepping back. “The woman hasn’t told me a thing. I’m just asking, are you done with her or not?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” he says. “Then there’s hope for you after all. Tell me something. You ever gotten what you wanted, only to find you didn’t want it after all? Maybe that’s what happened to her over there. The way Finn tells it, she pulled herself out of that water and decided enough was enough. She hit her limit. Me, I can relate, and I haven’t even been through that much. You hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear. It’s not that I can’t sympathize, or don’t want to. But how am I supposed to understand something if she’s not willing to explain it?”
“That’s your problem right there, thinking you’re supposed to understand.”
“Okay, maybe I’m not supposed to—but I’d like to. I want to understand.”
“Well, good,” he says. “Maybe you will someday. I just hope you don’t understand too well, ’cause the only way to do that is living through it, which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and especially not you.”
“Thanks, Huey. That’s nice to hear.”
“Hey, anything happens to you, that would make me the only sane person up in here. I can put up with a lot of crazy, but even I have my limits.”
That Friday we flip the switch on Eric Ringwald’s new website. Holly drives down for the occasion, bringing a check and a bottle of champagne. There’s a dicey moment when Finn pretends to break the bottle against the Iron Maiden’s side to celebrate her reassembly—a feat pulled off by him and Huey in tandem working into the wee hours. The neck of the bottle slips in Finn’s grasp and nearly gets away from him, skimming the edge of the press’s cast-iron arm with maybe a quarter inch to spare. The close call leaves us feeling exhilarated. We watch as Finn publishes the files, refreshes his browser to confirm that the site is live, then clink our glasses together in a toast.
“To the most inventive, creative, and talented young woman I know,” Holly says, and I feel my cheeks redden when I realize that she means me.
“I’ll drink to that,” Huey says, tapping my glass.
On her way out, still flushed and excited, Holly puts an arm around me and squeezes. “You’re coming to the gala, right? It’s all agreed. A formal night like this gives us girls an excuse for getting all dressed up. Does Finn have a tux? It’s okay if that’s not his thing—”
“He can fend for himself. What about me? I have no idea what to wear.”
“I know what,” she says. “The two of us should go shopping.” Her eyes light up, and I get this vision of having two-thousand-dollar ball gowns flounced in front of my face. “We could make a day of it, just us girls. It would be fun.”
“Okay,” I say. “But Finn’s gonna kill me if I blow that check on a dress.”
“Don’t even joke,” she says. “We’ll find something perfect.”
I experience the same discomfort I felt when the photographer at the Wedding Expo coaxed me in front of his lens. Making things beautiful is one thing. To be the subject of the making, sized up in the eyes of another—a project, basically—that makes me nervous. Self-consciousness, sure, but it’s something else too. I don’t like not having control.
Once I’ve seen Holly out, I wander back to the studio door. Through the glass, I see my husband and my two closest friends circled around the Iron Maiden, smiling, laughing, looking very much at ease with each other and with the world. All together, the Maiden doesn’t seem either as tall or as intimidating as she did at first, now that her rust has been whisked away and her new coat of paint is on. As I watch them, Finn pulls on the throw-off lever, opening the platen wide like a lion’s mouth. Huey puts some bright red ink on the disk—Dutch Fireball from the look of it—which Finn distributes by cranking the lever, the motion spinning the disk and laying an even coat of ink on the platen. Diana bounces over to the paper rack and returns with some sheets of Mohawk Superfine, stacking them on the feedboard ready for use.
“We’re gonna pull her first print,” Huey calls, motioning me inside.
Diana places the paper and Finn brings the lever down. The whole mechanism gives a clockwork lurch, then opens to reveal the pristine print. Reaching forward, Huey lifts the paper free and brings it over for me to inspect.
“Not bad, not bad,” he says, using his appraiser’s voice.
We have a tradition going back to the purchase of our first press, the Pilot, of pulling the same print for each inaugural test. Finn must have dug out the plate earlier in the day, locking up the form while I was focused on entertaining Holly. I hold the paper close for inspection. The bright red ink covers just a small portion of the page, dead center, an illustration of a couple sitting on a couch, his and hers crossed legs, each holding a book in front of their face. I designed this based on a bookplate I found in an old cookbook of my grandmother’s, thinking it would make a cute logo for our fledgling business, which at the time was just Finn and me. That plan never panned out, but we kept the plate around for good luck.
“You’re right,” I say. “Not bad at all.”
We pull a few more, marveling at the Iron Maiden’s steady glide, marveling that she even functions at all. Only now does Finn admit to his misgivings the first time he saw her. “I was worried I’d never finish it, and we’d have this lump of junk haunting us for the rest of our lives.”
“You weren’t the only one,” I say. “But you did it.”
Huey claps Finn on the back. “I have to admit, I thought your momma dropped you on your head. But it turned out all right … with a little help from me.”
Diana laughs and Finn takes the congratulations mixed with ribbing in stride. For the first time in weeks, I feel truly lighthearted. When I saw this thing arrive, I thought it would be another of Finn’s unending demolitions. Now that one of them has finally been seen through to completion, maybe more dominoes will fall. A patched-up floor, a finished kitchen … who knows where this new energy might lead?
My mother has her harebrained theory of happiness, and I know she’s wrong. The world doesn’t always give back what you put into it. There’s a Bible verse somewhere that says time and chance happen to us all, and I believe that is so. The world, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, is an ugly place, a broken place. And if there’s happiness to be found, I think the formula must be something like this: To take what you find, whatever it is, and to make something beautiful of it. To strip life down to the bare metal and build it back up again gleaming and fresh.
17.
The Universe Does Its Thing
We walk around the back of the Firehouse, unlocking the gallery entrance. The long, narrow space is so bathed in light that although I’m crossing from outside to in, the movement feels reversed, as if I have passed from the wide-open world into an even wider, more open space, only the volume has shifted from the horizontal to the vertical. This is the logic of ancient churches, which when you think about it are shaped like slices, up-and-down cross sections of space that concentrate our attention not on the expanse of the cosmos but on its height.
I have not entered this space since the day of Sergei’s visit and it seems neither has Finn, who is surprised to notice the painting has been removed from the wall. Startled, rushing forward, he spies it lying on the table and comes to a halt, relieved.
“That’s strange,” he says.
Then he takes the picture and, after inspecting the back, returns it to its hook on the wall. Rick arrives just then and comes alongside him, leaning forward for a better look.
“So this is it.”
“It’s weird not having her here,” Finn says. “I thought for a second she’d taken it with her. I’m glad she didn’t.”
Rick laughs. “Me too, or I would’ve had to scramble for a sermon.”
While they confer, I wander to the far side of the gallery, where the bare walls and the flood of light from overhead create the illusion of walking into negative space. In one of those ancient churches I mentioned, the empty space where I am standing would contain an altar, approached perhaps by ascending some steps. Maybe it would even be screened by some kind of gilded wall or altarpiece, I’m not sure. The focus of attention would be here, at the far side of the room. Instead, Finn has moved the center of attention toward the center of the room, which probably says something about where we want our focus to be—not ahead of us or above, but here among us, close enough to touch.
At the back of my mind, as people wander inside and I move to greet them, to say hello to those I haven’t seen all week and to be introduced to one or two I’ve never met, the sense of increasing presence in the room is counterbalanced by a si
ngle absence, Aunt Bel’s, and I find myself wishing she would walk through the door.
My advice to Finn applies as much to myself. I, too, need to learn how to let things be, how not to take relationships down to the studs by force of habit, as I’ve done with her.
Having moved from one side of the room to the other, I linger near the door, letting the chairs fill up, content to sit cross-legged on the floor. Despite Rick cautioning us not to worry about numbers, I do a head count and come up with forty-two. I am the last to sit down, waiting until Finn has propped himself on the edge of the table and begun to strum his guitar. As I move toward the edge of the crowd, someone takes me by the elbow from behind.
It’s Holly Ringwald, enveloping me in a cloud of lilac-scented perfume.
“You said I should come. So this is the place?”
“We’ll have to sit on the floor,” I whisper, apologetic. “Or I could go down to the studio and grab a chair.”
“The floor is fine.”
She teeters on her high heels a little bit on the way down, steadying herself on my arm. The others are singing already, lifting up a refrain from the psalms whose number I didn’t catch if Finn mentioned it at all:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
Now there’s a happy thought. But easily recognizable.
“ ‘I will sing to the LORD,’ ” Rick intones, reading from the Bible in his lap in between our refrains, “ ‘because He has dealt bountifully with me.’ ”
Forgotten at the beginning of the psalm, and loved by the end.
As the psalm dies off, Finn pauses before beginning another one. “The thing I like about this is the honesty. We’ve written new songs that let us pretend we don’t despair, but with the psalms, there’s no pretending. You can admit you have an open wound, because the God of the psalms is big enough to take it.”
Next to me Holly leans over.
“Goose bumps,” she says. “I love this place already.”
Would that make Finn happy or sad? I mean, Holly might actually start coming here and the Microchurch wouldn’t be so teeny anymore. He’s been complaining about how fast the church is growing.
