“No. But she was always just below his surface.”
“Why did you have his ring?”
Twolly leaned back in her chair. “Razi’s father sent me a package after she died. It sat in my bedroom sealed for months. When I finally opened it, I stored a lot away without looking at what was sent. I was still too close to the grief. Mr. Nolan probably didn’t take a second glance at what he boxed up, or I’m sure he would have given it to Fin. That ring box sat in my jewelry chest for years.”
“Didn’t you try to give it to him?”
“You don’t understand, Amy. After he married Sunny, I was his sister-in-law. There were rare moments when we were the friends we had once been. And we never spoke of our past together. It was as if Razi never existed. I hated that, because we had both loved her so much. But I knew if I gave him that ring, it might destroy him. He was so fragile.”
Amy picked up the letter from Twolly’s lap. “This is the last letter she wrote to him. It relates to that ring. You mean to tell me that he never got the answer she left inside the band?”
“He got it.” Twolly looked into the distance. “A few weeks after Sunny passed, I invited your grandfather to come here. I knew I had some clothes and a few pieces of her jewelry that your mother and aunt might want to have. I didn’t remember the ring was in the chest until it was too late. He had opened every box he found in the drawers as we looked, and I couldn’t very well snatch that one from him. The second he pulled it from the velvet, he put it on his finger. That ring fit perfectly. He made Loretta find a magnifying glass so he could look inside. What does it say again?”
Amy held the circle in her hand. She had memorized the words. “Why, it beats so I can love you.”
“Yes, that’s it,” Twolly said. “The funny thing is, he started to laugh at first. A genuine laugh I hadn’t heard in so, so long, I wanted to cry. He said he remembered a special afternoon they had together, one of their many intellectual conversations. Andrew had told her that no one knew why the heart beats, and Razi, being Razi, gave a scientific explanation.
“Then he told me about her letter. That one you must have there. He puzzled over what she intended. What had she meant to answer? There was one answer he wanted more than anything but was afraid he would never hear. Then”—Twolly’s voice hitched—“he said that he had planned to ask her again, one last time, but he lost his nerve.”
“To marry him.”
“Yes.” Slow tears staggered among the soft lines in Twolly’s face. “He said the inscription meant Razi had acknowledged a sacredness between them. In her own way. He wanted her to realize this. It was something he believed very deeply. But he also understood what she was telling him about another question. A ring means the same thing to a man as it does to a woman, after all.” Twolly sniffled. “Then, I couldn’t believe it. He reached into his pocket and tossed his coins on the bed. He held up a piece of silver. It was misshapen and flat and worn. No one could tell what it was, and if he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have guessed either. It was the locket he had given Razi the day he told her he loved her. He said he’d taken it from her neck himself when he pulled her from the water.”
“That annoying habit”—Amy’s skin blanched—“how he’d jingle the change in his pocket. It’s amazing he never lost it. Did he say why he kept it so long? After so much time?”
“I wish I knew. He couldn’t explain when I asked. I guess he just couldn’t part with it. My goodness, the poor man.” Twolly wiped her cheeks. “So then, your grandfather sat on my bed with that ring on his finger and that smashed locket and cried as if every feeling he ever swallowed was tearing straight from his soul. Cried for the longest time. There’s nothing worse in this world than watching someone’s heart break.”
Amy’s eyes pooled. “Unless you have the one that’s been broken.”
“Yes, you know, don’t you?” Twolly patted Amy’s hand, then shivered violently. “A nice boy with long hair. What was his name? I’ve forgotten. I’m sorry.”
“Jem. His name was Jem.” Amy inhaled and exhaled quickly, her breath frosty. “Why didn’t Poppa keep the ring?”
“Fin—oh, goodness—Andrew—it feels good to call him Andrew again—he said it would be safe with me. He got what he needed, he said.”
Amy rubbed her hands together. “You kept your promise to him all these years. There must be a reason to talk now.”
“It would be so wonderful to talk about those times again, while I still can,” Twolly said. “Are you chilly? I swear I can see my breath before my eyes. I don’t remember a winter this cold.” Twolly pushed herself from her chair and went down the hall.
Finally, I understood why our photos were hidden, why the letter from Tulane remained unanswered, and why our history was never told. Twolly could indeed keep a secret.
The walls knocked, the lights flickered, and the doors slammed shut. Ice crystals spread in fractals on the windowpanes. Amy was not afraid. She breathed a plume from her mouth and glanced around the room. “Quiet. Be still. Rest,” she said into the air.
Loretta drops the pills in Twolly’s hand one at a time. Twolly chases each with a sip of water and teaspoon of applesauce. After my friend is finished, Loretta leaves the bedside and switches the channel to Twolly’s four o’clock program. The volume could wake the dead.
Twolly smoothes the blanket over her chest. Her hands are transparent almost to the bone. Her hair is wispy and white as the edge of an egret’s wing. An opaque veil dulls her left eye to beige, while her right remains focused on the television. She coughs heavily and stretches her variegated arm. The box slides under her reach. She tosses the used tissue toward the wastebasket, its trajectory corrected in mid-float.
Near the bed, Loretta has moved Twolly’s table and photographs from downstairs. Behind the snapshot of us on the seesaw, there is one of me, alone, my naked back and coy profile lit by the perfect light of dusk. To the left of my figure, Andrew watches me, out of his photo, the true color of his eyes lost in sepia. Although Twolly doesn’t often glance at the photographs, she knows they are there. She talks to the images every night before she goes to sleep.
I talk to her, too. I tell her things she doesn’t know. I necked once and only once with David Kleinert, a year before her first date with him. Sometimes, just because, I didn’t wear my dainties. Her granddaughter Julie has already helped herself to the china stored in the sideboard. Amy doesn’t know she’s pregnant yet, and she will deliver in October. Once the breath stops, the blackness won’t last long. I am afraid, uncertain, but ready now. It doesn’t matter whether I converge or vanish.
Twolly drifts into a nap from which she will not awake.
I take her hand in mine.
Her pulse is a burble.
I listen to her inhale, exhale—waiting for the last one—but it is not her respiration I hear. His voice comes to me, breathing my name into him, a whisper, Razi. I know: it is imagination, memory. My head on his sternum, the rumble of blood and air and words, conversations of the heart, where they come together.
With the shape of my right hand, I trace the effluvial contours. Such a complicated sweep of sensation and substance I was. I follow the outlines, once, twice, and end at the curve of my face. Where is he in me?
My lips fold along a map of his skin. Thin as want, my flesh remembers the terrain: canyons and hills, peaks and valleys, no part of him uncharted, unexplored. The relief of him, against my own, giving where it will, firm where it cannot, a thrum below the surface, blood as magma, breath as flame. What invisible latitudes join me to him, align our cores, twine rhythms primal, celestial. I open my mouth to say his name, Andrew, and the map rolls forward. He is here, where he has always been.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several sources made all the difference in my research. New Orleans in the Twenties, by Mary Lou Widmer, provided details that would have taken weeks to find on my own. Southern women writers of the 1920s, especially Sara Haardt Mencken, provided clues ab
out the period’s culture, relationships, and conversations. The Newcomb Archives is an absolute treasure. Gary Zukav’s Dancing Wu Li Masters made the fragments snap together, an echo that still lingers in my ears.
My thanks to these special people: my family, especially my parents, Ron and Patty, and my siblings, Robbie and Jenny; my teachers, who offered guidance—Dorothy Allen, Jenny Anderson, Charlene Banna, Donald Begnaud, Flo Jakeway Courvelle, Debbie Hargrave, Richard Latiolais, Nancy Mounce, Linda Mouton, and Toni White; and a number of my history keepers—Martin Arceneaux, Jennifer Hull Decker, Laura Souther Delahoussaye, Robert Forbes, Laura Gough, Jody Dreyfus Hampton, Jenny Upchurch Thompson, and Ariana Wall.
For various acts of kindness, support, and encouragement, thank you to Jules and Linda Bourque; Nancy Sullivan Jacobs; Judy Kahn; Jeff Kleinman; Kelly McKinell, M.D., M.P.H.; Lynn Rainach; and Dorothy S. And thanks to Danny Plaisance, proprietor of Cottonwood Books, for the early enthusiasm.
I greatly appreciate several readers who offered helpful comments at different stages—Robin Becker, Matt Beeson, Richard Buchholz, Paulette Guerin, Kent Muhlbauer, and Laura Zuelke.
What would I have done without my brilliant and beautiful friends? Mary McMyne was there from the beginning and gave me excellent editorial input. Benjamin Lanier-Nabors noticed the connections in a way that still stuns me. Nolde Alexius shared her charming intelligence and critical eye. Tameka Cage saw blood and told me so. Jennifer Nuernberg brought a little more Carl to the table. Linda Lee offered a sincere reader’s perspective. Victoria Brockmeier gave us both the goosebumps and closed a loop. Katy Powell inspired thoughts on the construction of identity. Joe Scallorns talked me off a few ledges. Alison Aucoin gave me encouragement and a place of respite. Lori Bertman saw me through The Worst Year and always kept the faith. Truly, I’m a lucky girl.
Homage to James Wilcox, the Technical Master, and James Gordon Bennett, the Intuitive Master. They’ll simply have to balk at such titles, because that’s what they shared with me. Thank you, Jim W., my mentor in so many ways, for your support, your advice, and the critical question, “What does Razi think she is?” Thank you, Jim B., for teaching me the essence of character and for the praise that came when I needed it most.
Intuition and divine intervention worked a strange magic—and there was my agent, Jandy Nelson. Her editorial vision and gut instinct played a part in this miracle. Thank you, Jandy, with the fullness of my heart.
Sarah Branham, my bright and delightful editor, figured out how to make the final bits fall into place. Thank you, Sarah—you made a dream come true. Pos-a-lutely.
To Atria’s entire team—how I appreciate your great ideas, hard work, and pure excitement.
Last but not least, my thanks to Todd Bourque, who endured the challenge of living with me in the midst of this. I owe him a thousand bowls of homemade chocolate pudding. How much do I love you?
WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS READING GROUP GUIDE
THE MERCY OF THIN AIR
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The narrative structure of The Mercy of Thin Air alternates between the past and the present. How does this structure build suspense and pique a reader’s curiosity about what will happen next? What insight do you get into the lives of Razi and the other characters because of the way the story is told?
2. How did Razi defy the conventions of society in the 1920s? If she had lived, do you think she would have fulfilled her dream of becoming a doctor, or set aside that ambition for marriage and motherhood? Given the time period, would it have been realistic for her to have done both?
3. Although she doesn’t know it until after his death, Amy shares a pivotal experience with her grandfather. How did Amy reevaluate her life after she learned what happened to Poppa Fin? Does Amy come to better understand her grandfather after what she discovers about him?
4. Razi tells us, “Most of the ones who stayed between opted for the unknown—what was beyond—within weeks after their deaths.” Why has Razi chosen to stay between decades after her death? What makes her decide it’s finally time to go beyond?
5. Discuss Razi’s friendship with Twolly. What is significant about the novel’s ending, when Razi is at Twolly’s bedside?
6. For years, Razi followed the life of a man she assumed to be her Andrew O’Connell. On some level, did she know he was the wrong person? She says, “I had never questioned whether I tracked the right person because—in name, action, and deed—the man had led the life I expected my Andrew to have, the life he had planned.” Razi assumes that Andrew would carry along with the plans he had made before she died. Did she underestimate the impact her death would have on Andrew?
7. How have relationships between men and women changed in the last hundred years, as illustrated in this book? Is it startling to see how limiting women’s roles really were less than a century ago? Why do you suppose the author chose to set the earlier part of the story in the 1920s instead of in another time period?
8. When Andrew asks Razi if she would consider becoming a nurse instead of a doctor, is he in a sense stifling the very qualities that attracted him to her in the first place? If they had married, how do you think their relationship would have changed?
9. Neither Amy nor Scott “attempted to find the humility, or courage, to make amends. The silence, more than their physical separation, grew in its power to keep them apart for good.” Would Amy and Scott have reconciled if not for Razi’s intervention?
10. Once Razi had “learned to maneuver through the world without a body,” she felt it was her duty “to help others adjust to our translucent realm.” What motivates her to assist others in making the transition? Is it a continuation of how she acted in her previous life?
11. How do the five senses factor into the story, particularly smell and touch?
12. At the estate sale at Simon Beeker’s home, Razi is drawn to Andrew’s bookcase, which leads her to follow Amy and Scott to their home. Was it really Amy to whom Razi felt connected? In what ways are Razi and Amy alike?
13. Emmaline, Simon, and Andrew had unique relationships with one another. Why did Andrew show such concern for Emmaline and Simon? What motivated Simon to keep in touch with Andrew? What issues of race and class were revealed through these characters?
14. What stood out the most for you in this story? What, if anything, did you find yourself remembering days after you finished reading the book?
15. What are your thoughts on whether there is a between realm, a place where a spirit lingers after the body has died? Have you had experiences with paranormal phenomena?
16. The Mercy of Thin Air is Ronlyn Domingue’s first novel. What makes you interested in reading her future work? Does this book remind you of other novels you’ve read? In what ways?
A CONVERSATION WITH RONLYN DOMINGUE
Q: What sparked the idea for The Mercy of Thin Air? Did you always intend for Razi to be the narrator?
A: Years ago, I had an idea for a novel about a poltergeist who moves from house to house playing practical jokes. All I had was a series of incidents, funny ones, but the character had no name, no gender. In 1999, I imposed the short story form on this idea for a novel—which then forced me to come up with a story in the first place. There’s no question about who the narrator was going to be once I decided to focus on this piece. I have a tendency to write in my head as I drive, and one afternoon I was stopped at a light, and this, well, voice in my head told me, “My name is Raziela.” Okay, I thought, there you are. From that point on, Razi took shape with great force.
Q: The novel takes place in Louisiana, much of it in New Orleans during the 1920s. Why did you choose this as the setting?
A: In the beginning, I had no intention of setting the story in Louisiana. I liked the idea of the namelessness, placelessness, of Razi’s existence. But what ultimately forced the decision was that I needed to have Razi attend a college that admitted women in the 1920s. Originally, she was supposed to be a Newcomb girl—Newc
omb is a college within Tulane University—but because of her area of study, she had to attend Tulane. Then as I started to work on the short story, I realized how much attention Razi paid to her surroundings, especially nature, and it made sense to ground her here. I was born and raised in Louisiana, and I’ll admit that I was resistant to writing about this place. I didn’t want to contribute to portraying the South as a cliché, so I was hypervigilant about watching how Razi saw and experienced New Orleans and her world.
Q: How long did it take you to write The Mercy of Thin Air?
A: Four years. Ten years if you include the embryonic state of the idea itself.
Q: Razi and Amy have much in common. But one interest they share is activism, particularly in the realm of women’s and reproductive rights. What inspired you to make this an aspect of the novel? Is Mrs. Delacourt based on an actual historical figure?
A: When Razi first came to me, she was the daughter of a suffragette and already an advocate for birth control. These were two nonnegotiable facts about her that came just as clearly as I knew she had green eyes and blond hair. When Amy’s character started to develop, I knew that Razi had to have a reason to identify with her. I borrowed from my own life here: I was active in the reproductive rights movement in the early 1990s. That experience shaped me into seeing the world as a far more complex place, even though I held my own opinions very firmly. Still do. I wanted to include this political aspect to the novel to show that core issues don’t change, just the topics. Whether one talks about birth control, abortion, or, today, the ethics of fertility treatments and options, we’re still dealing with women’s self-determination. As for Mrs. Delacourt, no, she isn’t based on anyone. I thought about the qualities of historical figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Sanger, but I didn’t want to model the characters on specific personalities. I wanted each character to evolve on his or her own.
Q: Discuss Razi as a character who is way ahead of her time. What would she have been like if she had actually lived in the 1920s? Do you think fiction allows her to be so headstrong and modern? Or do you think she would have been able to overcome the limitations women endured during the time she lived?
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