by Kim Edwards
“There’s a place I’d like to take you. A place I love. If you’re up for it.”
He didn’t answer right away, and all my fears rushed into the silence.
“I think I could handle it,” he said, finally. “I think it would be okay.”
The place I had in mind was the gorge, where I’d spent so much time in my last year of high school, a place I hadn’t been since the night my father died. Yet as we were driving by the church a car pulled out of a parking place just in front of the door, and on an impulse I pulled in. I’d heard there were plans to move the Wisdom window back to its place in the chapel in the next few days—Oliver had insisted on this, arguing for the integrity of the complete collection—and I wanted Yoshi to see it.
We went in the side door and I waved to Joanna, the secretary. Then I led Yoshi through the maze of corridors. They had hung the window in the fellowship hall, and it was even more striking than I remembered. Early afternoon light poured intensely through the colors, through the patterns whose style had grown so familiar, the stems and flowers, the interlocking moons making the repeated shape of the vesica piscis, an ancient sacred geometry, the hands of the people all upraised, turning into leaves, into words, rising up.
“In the Japanese creation story there’s a moment like this,” Yoshi said. “The story tells of a time when the earth was floating on the water, and then a pair of immortals sprouted up from the earth like reeds. Some parallels, anyway—everything interwoven.”
“I like that—sprouting up like reeds. I’ll take you kayaking in the marshes while you’re here. Now that the depot is closed, we can follow the shore for miles.”
We paused outside the offices so Yoshi could use the restroom across the hall. As I waited, Suzi hurried out of the office, carrying a briefcase.
“Lucy,” she said, pausing. “What brings you here?”
“I was showing the Wisdom window to Yoshi. He just got in from Japan. Thanks, by the way. For whatever you said to Oliver Parrott. He sent me information that helped me find Iris. She’s ninety-five. She lives in Elmira.”
“That’s amazing that she’s still alive. Have you talked with her?”
“A little. Not really. She’s supposed to call me back. I’ve learned so much more about Rose. I’ll have to stop in sometime and bring you up to speed.”
“Anytime—just give me a call. I’ve got to rush off to a meeting right now.”
“Right. And Yoshi’s here.”
“Yes. You know, Lucy, I was thinking about our last conversation, your concern about Rose. Forgiveness is at the heart of the church, God’s forgiveness and love, and whatever mistakes she made—whatever mistakes we all make—they don’t cut us off from life, or from a spiritual life, unless we choose to let them.”
I felt myself flush, because it seemed that maybe she’d read through my concern about Rose to the story I’d almost told her about the night my father died, the sense that I could have made a different decision and changed everything.
“Well, thanks,” I said, sounding flip, I knew, and I was sorry about this even as I spoke. “That’s good to know.”
She nodded, smiled, started down the stairs. “Okay, then. Be well.”
By the time Yoshi emerged, she was gone.
Back in the car, driving along the road that hugged the lake, Yoshi and I didn’t speak much. I worried; his silence could hold almost anything. As we neared the end of the lake I left the main highway and drove down the narrow, curving gravel road to the parking area. It had changed over these last years, become less wild. There was now a neat signboard displaying posters of the various sorts of ferns and fossils to be found, along with warnings not to pick anything, and gravel on the path that we followed as it wove and narrowed and finally ended in the stream below the falls.
Water was pouring over the stony riverbed. I waded out into the center, up to my knees, and let it rush past, so clear my bare feet stood out pale against the dark stones below. Soon Yoshi was beside me, staggering a little on the slippery rocks. I caught his hand to steady him.
“Lucy,” he said. “If it didn’t matter, why did you even tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to have it between us. That secret. That lie.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“It’s over,” I told him. “It was over before it began. I’m sure.”
He nodded. “Okay. I believe you. I’m glad it didn’t feel right,” he said.
I smiled, and then he did. “Come on!” I shouted over the rush of the water. Slipping, laughing, we made our way to the falls. I stepped beneath the cascade, water pounding off my face, my shoulders, and lifted my arms high, my hands open like the people in the window, as if I could catch the downpour, let it fill me up. Yoshi stepped in, too, laughing out loud in the wild hard rush of water, and in that moment the uneasiness that had trailed me throughout the day washed away completely. I took a step toward Yoshi, meaning to kiss him like we were in a monsoon, but my foot slipped and I fell trying to catch my balance. I fell through the falls into a calm space behind the wall of water, a wet shale wall to my back and the water like a curtain rushing down before me. The world beyond the water was a blur of green and stone and blue. A moment later Yoshi pushed through, the water pouring down in sheets so smooth it looked like glass, and stepped into the calm. He helped me stand, and pressed his hands against my wet face, and this was the moment from the past that mattered, this was the moment I wanted to continue. We stood there kissing in the little hollow between the water and the stone, a place completely and utterly private, a place I’d never known existed.
We stayed behind the curtain of water until we grew chilled, then stepped out to sit on the warm rocks, our feet dangling in a pool hollowed out by the power of the falls. Yoshi told me the story of how he’d spoken up at the meeting, feeling the room go coldly silent around him. We talked about money, how much we had and how long it would last, and we talked about what we might do next. We both had enough experience to move easily into new jobs, but we decided that this time we’d both look for work, and we’d be more careful about what kinds of jobs we took, and where.
Yoshi made it back to the house and through the early dinner my mother fixed—grilled chicken and a salad—before jet lag hit him like a train. He barely made it up to the cupola, where I’d set up a space for us, hauling up two old futons and putting on clean sheets. I’d left the windows open and the early evening twilight filled the little room.
“Nice,” Yoshi said, collapsing on the futon and closing his eyes. Within seconds, he was asleep.
I went back downstairs and chatted with my mother while we cleaned up. When I told her about Iris, she was surprised that I’d called and a little disapproving, concerned I might be stirring up histories better left hidden.
“What’s to lose?” I said. “Besides, I’m too curious not to find out what I can. If Oliver hadn’t sent the information, I never would have found her.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s one way to spin it,” she said. “By the way, I like Yoshi. He’s very charming, isn’t he? It’s so strange, he almost has a British accent. I didn’t expect that, somehow.”
“His mother’s British,” I said. “He spent some time in London, too, though they moved around the world a lot for his father’s work. Sometime I’d like to go there with him. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful city.”
“Well, I hardly know him. I mean, he just got here. But there’s something very easy and comfortable about him. You feel right away like you’ve known him a long time. Do you think he’ll be up for a trip to Niagara Falls tomorrow? Or will his jet lag be too bad?”
I said we’d have to wait and see. Then we discussed what to bring to Blake’s Fourth of July party. My phone rang and I went to get it, drying my hands, still debating between potato salad and fresh fruit.
The voice on the phone was low, unfamiliar, and rather clipped.
“I’m Ned Stone,” he said. “I’m Iris Stone’s son. I
understand you called my mother earlier today.”
I took a breath, thinking of my mother’s concerns. Who knew, really, who these people were? “Yes, hello. My name is Lucy Jarrett.”
“That’s what my mother said. She wasn’t quite clear, though, on what you wanted.”
“Oh—well, I don’t want anything, really. I’ve found some information about Rose Jarrett, about your mother’s family. Some letters that were written to your mother. So I was calling to see if she could shed some light on them. And to tell her they exist.”
He cleared his throat. I tried to imagine how old he might be. If Iris was ninety-five, he could be well into his sixties.
“I have to tell you, my mother was quite upset about your call. Unnerved is a better word. She left home when she was quite young, and it wasn’t a happy situation, though I don’t know the details. My mother hasn’t had a particularly easy life. I don’t want her to be unsettled at the end of her years by whatever you think you have to tell her. And frankly, I’m sorry to have to say this, but calling out of the blue like this, with such strange news—it makes me wonder about your intentions, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll do whatever I can to ease your mind.” I repeated the story then, my father and grandfather and great-grandfather, the letters, finding Iris. I did the genealogy in my head, even as I spoke. Ned Stone would be my father’s second cousin. When he didn’t reply right away, I went on—the church records, the windows, Frank Westrum, the letters I’d discovered in the dusty box of the Lafayette Historical Society. “It’s just that we never had this part of the story in our family, we never knew Rose or your mother even existed. I was so excited to find her. Plus, I thought she might want to see these letters.”
There was a pause then, and I tried to imagine the man on the other end of the line, who sounded careful and tailored and very precise, the sort of person who would have a home office with thick, sound-absorbing carpet and framed diplomas hanging on the wall.
“You’ve read them?”
“I have.”
“Would you find them upsetting if you were my mother?”
I hesitated. The last days had been very exciting, but they had been unsettling, too. The old story, the story I’d learned by heart all my years of growing up, had held a certain comfort, had given the world a weight and stability, and the discoveries I’d made had shaken my sense of who I was even as it altered my understanding of the world. Would I trade this knowledge? No. In fact, I wanted more, I wanted it all. Yet it hadn’t been easy knowledge, and I didn’t know how it might feel to have your world turned over when you were ninety-five years old.
“Actually, I think they might be upsetting,” I said, sitting down on the sofa, looking out the windows at the dark lake. “I guess it would depend on if you wanted to know the truth, or at least another facet of the story, or if you wanted to keep the story you’ve always believed.”
He hesitated.
“All right,” he said, finally. “Tell me what you think you know.”
So I told him that Rose was his grandmother, that his mother hadn’t known her.
There was a long silence.
“That’s very shocking,” he said. “If I believe you, that’s hard to absorb.”
“The letters are very beautiful. They tell the story better than I can.”
“Why don’t you send them?” he suggested at last. “Send copies of the letters to me. I’ll have a look, and then I’ll get back to you about this.”
“I’ll scan the first two and send them right now,” I offered, groping in my purse for a pen. I wrote his e-mail address on the back of a grocery receipt.
After I sent the letters off with a short note, I drank a glass of wine on the patio with my mother, lingering in the deepening dusk, the night. I wondered if I’d done the right thing and my mother shrugged.
“No taking it back now,” she said. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
I didn’t have to wait long, as it turned out. Within two hours, just before midnight, he called me back.
“All right,” he said. “My mother is ninety-five years old, you understand, and I don’t want her distressed. If things get distressing for her, or even if she’s tired, you’ll have to leave. But she lives with me, and I’ve talked to her, and she’d like to meet you, and you can visit us on Monday afternoon if you’d like.”
“I can be there,” I said, writing the address on the back of my hand, the ballpoint digging into my skin. “That’s fine, then. I’ll be there at two o’clock on Monday.”
Chapter 17
THE NEXT DAY YOSHI WAS FEELING PRETTY RESTED, SO WE took him to see Niagara Falls. It was about a two-hour drive, so we left early in the morning, and we did it all, standing on the edge of the magnificent, roaring falls, putting on raincoats and taking a boat ride up the river into the clouds of mist at their base. We had a drink in the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower, where Yoshi toasted the day and my mother toasted Yoshi and his visit. We got back to The Lake of Dreams quite late, and my mother had to work early the next day. She was gone by the time I got up, but she left a fresh pot of coffee, and a note wishing us a wonderful day. Her handwriting was so similar to mine, a little cramped and hurried, and I was glad that things between us had eased, that somehow discovering these new facets of the past had brought us closer than we’d been in years.
When Yoshi finally came downstairs, we took our breakfast out to the dock and sat there in the sun, breaking off pieces of the olive bread I’d bought at The Green Bean and spreading them with hummus, tossing crumbs to the ducks that darted in to sweep them from the surface of the lake. The coffee was strong and I poured it over ice. We drank and talked. After a while, I got the canoe out and we paddled in an unhurried way along the shore, admiring the beauty of the undeveloped land, the chapel in the distance, red and white and gray against the greenery. We went far enough that the construction site came into view, the earth stripped down to bedrock in places, piled in bleak, ugly mounds. I thought of the walk I’d taken with Keegan, the mystery and silence of the forest and the land left untouched, a kind of wildness that was growing rarer in the world.
“I’m glad you spoke up about the bridge project,” I said. “Even if it means we’re broke. It was the right thing to do.”
Yoshi rested his paddle across the boat and shook his head. “I don’t know. It was exhilarating at the time. But later I wondered. I mean, it’s not like me, is it? So rash.”
“You thought about it. We talked about it, a little. So it wasn’t rash. Besides, I don’t care,” I said, and the strange thing was, it seemed I didn’t anymore. Whatever need to achieve had been driving me to this point in my life seemed to have dissipated, like water easing through the stones on the shore. It had to do with settling things with Keegan, I knew that. And somehow, it had to do with Rose as well, with the way she’d lived her life, so unconcerned with the things that had focused the other part of her family, the descendants of her brother—money and status, the shiny evidence of success. We hadn’t known about her, which was telling, but she’d have been considered a failure if we had: unmarried, with no visible accomplishments, a woman who’d left her child in the care of others. Yet I admired her, and knowing about her life had changed the way I thought about my own. Rose had made mistakes, to be sure, but she’d had the strength to live by her own convictions, to know what she wanted and to try to get it, even when her culture put up one obstacle after another. And her love for Iris was so present in all the letters, even though she’d had to leave her. “I don’t care about the job,” I said again. “I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time for both of us to do something new.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I was thinking about that work we did in Jakarta for the orphanage. I was thinking it would be nice to do something good in the world. Even if we have to give up some of the perks.”
We drifted, floating. The l
ake was calm, the water touching the sides of the boat and retreating in clear ripples.
“I guess we could look around,” he said. “Surely there must be some good a couple of science geeks could do.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
I pushed the paddle into the reeds, seeking to float into deeper water, and the motion startled two herons, who rose up suddenly from where they’d been hidden in the marsh, lifting on their powerful wings, their legs trailing behind them as they gained purchase on the sky. We watched them soar, and rise above the trees, and float away.
“This is such a beautiful place,” Yoshi said.
It was beautiful a few hours later, too, when we got into the Impala and drove through the countryside I knew by heart, down the low ridge between the lakes to the outskirts of Elmira, going to meet Iris. I’d expected a house something like the historical society house: nineteenth century, full of heavy furniture and antimacassars and little glass dishes with stale hard candy. It was Iris’s voice, I suppose, its querulous quality, that had me picturing this. So I was shocked, driving up, to find myself traveling down a long gravel driveway toward a contemporary house, full of windows overlooking a wooded lot. I parked beneath an ancient ginkgo tree with its fan-shaped leaves, and admired the clean lines of wood on the patio, the stone walls and endless glass.
The woman who opened the door was about my mother’s age, thin, her hair dyed a light, even brown.
“Are you Lucy?” she asked. Her hand was dry, fleeting, in mine. “Come in, please. I’m Carol, Iris’s daughter-in-law. And this is my husband, Ned.”
Ned was tall, genial, with sparse gray hair and a warm smile and no trace of the family eyes. His were brown, and shadowed.
He shook my hand, too. “I’m the oldest,” he said. “My brother, Keith, is in Florida. My mother lives here; she has a separate apartment that’s attached to the house. She spends part of the winter down south with Keith. So it works out.”
He was talking fast, nervous, I realized, and Carol put one hand on his arm, a gesture that seemed to travel through him like a wave, calming him. He looked at her and smiled.
