Dreams for Stones Page 18

  “Did Elaine say how Meg died?”

  Kathy shook her head. The same question had niggled at her ever since her meeting with Elaine.

  “Maybe Alan was involved somehow,” Jade said. “You know. Like a car crash where he was driving or maybe she died in childbirth.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It sounds like he’s having trouble letting go. Sometimes, that’s because a person feels guilty.”

  “I think he just really misses her. I think she was essential.”

  Jade led the way to the swings where she and Kathy sat side by side.

  “There must be something I can do to help him.”

  Jade touched her gently on the arm. “He’s the only one who can decide to let go of the past. There may be nothing you can do.”

  It wasn’t what she expected Jade to say.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Excerpt from the diaries of Emily Kowalski

  1945

  The turn of the new year always makes me melancholy. And yet this year should be different. Everyone is saying this may be the year the war will end.

  There was great rejoicing after D-Day, and we all thought the soldiers would be home soon, but it continues. The news is not as dark, still there are boys who made it through D-Day who will not come home.

  The country has been caught up in war, and it has seemed frenzied at times. There are so many changes, but I feel in spite of that, little is happening to me. I’m like one of those flies caught in amber that I remember seeing a long time ago in a Chicago museum.

  Looking back, though, I can see I no longer feel so trapped inside myself. I think that eased when I banished the silence with music and our radio programs, and I began to paint again. Brad has been a godsend, and the wheeled chair helps. But best of all, Jess and I have found our way back to each other.

  VE Day has been declared but there is still the war in the Pacific. That seems to go on and on. Meanwhile, our lives proceed relatively untouched. I have been able to do little for the war effort because of Bobby.

  The war is over. That is the headline, the largest one I have ever seen. It fills most of the front page. We have dropped something called an atom bomb on Japan. The papers are saying it has saved many American lives, but I can’t bear to look at the pictures, and it is hard to feel joyful at this ending that has been bought at such a price.

  1947

  Yesterday was my forty-seventh birthday. When I saw Jess’s gift, I was too angry to even react at first. Four goats, for pity’s sake. What on earth was he thinking!

  They arrived with big pink bows around their necks that they immediately tried to dislodge. One goat rubbed against a tree twisting her head to pull the bow loose. Brad bounced among them, barking happily.

  I turned to Jess, who grinned at me and said, “Happy Birthday, Em.”

  It was a good thing I was speechless, because it surely wouldn’t do to say something unkind in front of either Bobby or the man who delivered the goats.

  I was turning in a circle watching the goats, when I noticed two of them approaching Bobby. My breath caught in fear, and I moved to ward them off, but Jess stopped me, putting his arm around me. Then we both watched as Brad joined in, and the three animals touched noses. Bobby’s hand moved toward the black goat, who came close and nuzzled him. Then, doggone it, I was crying, standing in the circle of Jess’s arm, feeling all sad and happy at the same time.

  Jess thought of everything. The gift of the goats, a cake a neighbor baked for him, and candles. We kept Bobby up later than usual, and for the first time in a long time, we laughed together. Then Jess tried to sing “Happy Birthday,” and it made me laugh even more, for Jess is no singer.

  The goats escaped from the yard and ate all the roses along the cemetery fence. Father Larry was fit to be tied, although he didn’t suspect the goats, thank goodness.

  Then last week, Jess had to come home from work in the middle of the day to collect them. There’s a farm stand across from the cemetery, and that’s where they were, helping themselves to the fruits and vegetables and blocking traffic.

  Jess said the owner tried to chase them away with a broom, but as he chased one, the other three circled him to get more to eat. When Jess arrived, he told them, “That’s enough, girls,” and they all fell right into line and followed him home like angels.

  Jess is the only one they pay attention to. If he can’t figure out how to keep them in the yard, we’ll have to get rid of them. I would hate to do that, as two of them seem to have a special relationship with Bobby, and that makes it worth putting up with their shenanigans.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After brief meetings with each of the therapists Elaine suggested, Alan chose Dr. Angela Taylor, both because of her age and the serenity of her manner. Although, now that he examined her more closely, he could see she was younger than the nimbus of soft white curls indicated.

  “Why don’t we begin with you telling me why you’re seeking therapy at this time,” Angela said, sitting back, her hands resting quietly in her lap.

  A reasonable question. Just not one he was prepared to answer fully quite yet. How to say straight out, I’m here because I couldn’t save my wife, and now I can’t let her go. He shut off the thought and searched for a less direct approach.

  “My way of coping isn’t working. I decided to give my sister’s a try.”

  “And your way is?”

  “Keeping busy. Trying not to think.”

  “What made you decide it wasn’t working?”

  He remembered Charles talking about Kathy, and a sick, helpless feeling took over his gut. He’d blown it with Kathy and, suddenly and surprisingly, it was too late to do anything about it.

  He shifted, trying to blank out the memory of the happy shine in Charles’s eyes and focus on where he was, sitting in a room with a woman he barely knew to whom he’d given permission to ask him the most personal questions.

  He thought they’d ease into it, though, take it slow. Chat comfortably for a time before she asked the questions he knew he was going to have to face. He held his arm, massaging a sore spot on his biceps, trying to come up with something that would satisfy Angela, perhaps even mislead her for a time and give him breathing room.

  “I was denied tenure.”

  “On what basis?”

  “The new department head wanted all faculty writing fiction.”

  “And what do you write?”

  Suddenly on his internal video screen he pictured a quail mother frantically trying to lead a predator away from her nest. Feigning a broken wing, even. That’s what this felt like. Angela, a large cat waiting to pounce, and he the distraught bird with no defense except obfuscation. Although that made no sense since he’d chosen to be here.

  He pulled his thoughts back to focus on the question she’d asked about his writing. “Non-fiction. For education journals.” There. That was better. A calm exchange of information. If they kept it up, he’d get through this.

  The only difficulty? The main issue he was working so hard to avoid was right there beside him, as overwhelming in its power and relentlessness as a charging rhinoceros. Not that he’d ever been in a position to have a rhinoceros charge him, but very likely, if one ever did, it would feel like this.

  “Did that make you angry?”

  Angela’s quiet voice snapped him back from the African veldt. Back from the heat and the buzzing of insects and the tall, crisp, yellow grass. But the rhino came back with him.

  “No. Well, maybe.”

  “What else?” Angela said.

  He frowned. What else what? Oh, he supposed she was still asking why he knew his way wasn’t working. He shook his head, giving her what he hoped was a rueful look.

  She stared back at him. “How long have you known about the tenure decision?”

  “Month, six weeks maybe.”

  She cocked her head, waiting, and suddenly he was ten years old again, called on the carpet for racing one
of the horses and not rubbing it down afterward.

  He had no idea what more she expected him to say. Wasn’t it obvious? Denial of tenure was a huge blow to the ego. Couldn’t they simply explore that for a time instead of her dismissing it with barely a sniff?

  “If you need job counseling, I can suggest someone for you to see.”

  It was a clear challenge. One he didn’t know how to meet, because he wasn’t yet ready to tell her why he was really here. He was like a diver standing on the cliff watching the march of waves so he could time his dive when there would be deep rather than shallow water beneath him. But right now he couldn’t make sense of the wave patterns, had no idea whether to walk away or simply fling himself into space and hope for the best.

  “Alan, you know why you’re here. But we can’t get started until you share that with me.”

  He inventoried the part of the office visible over Angela’s shoulder. An aquarium sat below a framed print. He focused on the print, a Vasarely. Meg had always argued Vasarely’s paintings were merely form and color masquerading as art, but he found the mathematical precision and color choices satisfying. And right now the print, art or not, was an anchor.

  There was one other thing he could tell Angela. She probably heard it all the time anyway.

  “I had a relationship end.” There, that should do it. No tenure and unlucky in love. At least an hour’s worth of talk there.

  After a pause, Angela spoke. “Was the relationship important to you?”

  His ear began to itch. He scratched it, trying to figure out how to get out of answering. He didn’t know why he’d mentioned Kathy anyway. Well not mentioned her exactly, but mentioned that he’d had a relationship. He didn’t want to talk about anything more than the tenure decision this first time. Once Angela helped him with that, he could figure out how to handle the other issues himself.

  But she wasn’t making it easy for him, asking questions followed by long silences. Silences were meant to be shared with someone you knew well. Like Meg.

  The urge to bolt overwhelmed him, and it took all his self-control to remain seated. He shifted in the chair, but realizing that made him appear nervous, stopped moving and refocused on the print. The colors smeared together. He blinked, trying to recapture the crispness of Vasarely’s design.

  “Alan?”

  He glanced at Angela, then away, speaking quickly. “You know, it’s funny. If you tell someone standing in front of a boulder not to think about a pebble, what happens? They forget the boulder and all they can think about is the pebble.” Not that he expected her to make a bit of sense out of that. It was simply a piece of misdirection. It might even get them to the end of this hour. Then he could leave and not come back.

  “So, what’s your pebble, Alan?”

  He shrugged. “Tenure. Ended relationship. Take your pick.”

  She made a sharp movement with her head, obviously dismissing his response. He’d clenched his hands so tightly they’d begun to ache. He pulled them apart and placed them on his knees.

  This talk thing wasn’t working any better than he thought it would. They’d exchanged less than a hundred words, most of them his. Wasn’t she supposed to do part of the work? If all she was going to do was sit there, he might as well pick out a tree and talk to it.

  “Your pebble, Alan.” Her voice was firm, inflexible.

  His pebble. Meg.

  Suddenly he could bear it no longer. The guilt, the sleepless nights, the long, dreary days. Trying not to remember. Trying not to feel. It wasn’t working. Had never worked. Time. It was supposed to get easier, better with the passage of time. But it hadn’t. Instead it had become more and more difficult. But letting it out. Putting it into words. No, he couldn’t.

  The images and pain he’d tried to hold at bay swept in and over him. Like the water had Meg that day. “I let her. . . Meg. My wife. She died.” He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Angela responded.

  “How did she die?”

  He sat breathing hard, as if he’d run up a steep hill and couldn’t quite catch his breath. In between breaths, words pushed their way out, in spite of his efforts to stop them. “Alaska. We were visiting Alaska. Meg wanted to take a picture. She climbed down to the beach. She was walking back to the car when. . . sh-she, her legs got trapped. Then. . . t-tide came in.” His voice jerked to a stop, and he sat, shivering, focusing on the Vasarely, but no longer able to see it. Seeing instead a wide expanse of water, the same blue as the sky, edged with its smooth curve of silvery-gray glacial silt. Looking nothing like something that could kill you. So beautiful it made you cry.

  “You stayed with her?”

  The calm tone of Angela’s question erased the vision, but not the pain, a roaring black hole of anguish. “They wouldn’t let me help.”

  “Who wouldn’t let you help?”

  “The rescue team.” He tried to wrench his thoughts back from their dark spiral. He had to pretend this was just a story. Not something real. But it was too late for that.

  “I have a sense you think it was in some way your fault Meg died,” Angela said.

  “They told me it wasn’t.” Mostly they’d left him alone while they waited for the tide to go back out so they could recover Meg’s body. But every once in a while one of them would come and squat beside him, offering a cup of coffee, a sandwich, a few words.

  “And do you believe that?”

  “I should have known how dangerous the tidal flat was.”

  “How would you have known?” Angela’s voice, a soft thread of sound, was his only lifeline in the deadly swirl of memory.

  “It was my idea to go to Alaska. I did all the reading, planned what we’d do. I was responsible.” For keeping Meg safe.

  Alaska hadn’t even been her first choice. They’d flipped a coin. Alaska this time, for him. Next time, the Caribbean for Meg. He scrubbed his hand across his eyes.

  “Do you think Meg blamed you for not knowing?”

  “She’s dead.” The words were harsh and too loud. In their wake, he sat panting, struggling to find his equilibrium in a world that tipped and spun around him.

  “So you have to do the blaming for her.” Angela’s voice was soft, but her words sliced into him. “Did you commit yourself to a life sentence?”

  A blazing pain started in the back of his neck and spread to his forehead. He couldn’t answer. Could barely manage to keep breathing.

  Angela waited a moment and then said, “Did you cry afterward?”

  What kind of question was that? Unable to speak, he shook his head no, his gaze focused on the Vasarely.

  There was a long beat of silence before Angela spoke again.

  “Alan, before our next meeting I want you to take a look. See if the dangers of Alaskan tidal flats are widely known.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “Facts and feelings interconnect, and sometimes facts are the easiest place to start the untangling.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Alan hadn’t told Angela the complete truth about crying. There had been that one time on the trip he’d taken to Puerto Rico with his dad six months after Meg’s death.

  It happened the last day, after they’d spent four days driving around the island, checking out horses kept in everything from sheds to fancy stables. They had bought four mares in foal and a yearling that had the makings of the stallion needed to establish a breeding program at TapDancer.

  Then to celebrate their success, they spent the last day on the beach at Bouqueron, swimming and talking about the horses and his dad’s plans for the ranch.

  In the early evening, they drove to La Parguera for dinner. Afterward they took a small boat out to the phosphorescent bay, something the horse agent had arranged for them.

  They putted along, a half mile out from the nearly invisible shore as the sky darkened and the stars appeared one by one. The waters were choppy, and a stiff breeze blew spray into their faces.

  When they entered the bay, the waves sm
oothed out, the breeze turned soft, and the wake began to glow. Looking over the side, Alan saw the glittering tracks of large fish darting away from the boat.

  In the middle of the bay, their guide cut the engine, and they drifted in the darkness watching the flashes of light in the black water. His dad stayed in the boat, but Alan slipped over the side into the water. He swam with slow, easy strokes, his body outlined with a pale halo of light. He stopped to tread water and lifted his hand. The water flowed down his arm in a sparkling stream, as though he were dipping up thousands of tiny diamonds.

  For a moment, he could almost hear Meg’s delighted laughter and see the sparkles caught in her hair.

  Ocean water had mixed with sudden, unexpected tears.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When Grace told Kathy she and Delia had been to the ranch to see Alan—that in fact Alan had come to see Delia in the hospital, but Frank had forgotten to mention it—Kathy had to steady her breathing before she could speak. “Oh. And how is he?”

  She and Grace were sitting on the Garibaldis’ back steps watching Delia play with a friend in the warmth of the summer day.

  “He’s always been quiet, verdad? But it’s a different quiet now. He seems. . . subdued. Sad.” Grace sounded thoughtful.

  Kathy, knowing the reason for that sadness, felt like crying. She blinked, trying to focus her eyes on the simple scene of Delia and her friend teeter-tottering.

  “What happened between you two?” Grace said, speaking quietly.

  Kathy knew it wouldn’t do any good to say there’d been nothing between her and Alan. “The usual, I suppose.”