Dreams for Stones Read online

  “I have no idea what you consider usual, querida,” Grace chided gently.

  “How about inequality? He wanted friendship. I wanted more.”

  “Oh, Kathy. I’m so sorry. I thought—”

  “Yeah, me too. Guess we were both wrong.”

  “And what about Charles? Do you think you might be serious about him?”

  Kathy pulled her lip in and chewed on it. “I don’t know. I think he wants to be more than friends. But I’m not ready yet.” The irony of that hit her, almost making her laugh. But if she started laughing, she might not be able to stop it from progressing into sobbing.

  Grace patted her arm. “Mira, Kathy, if you like, I’ll have a small dinner party. Ease the way for you and Alan to be friends again.”

  “Thanks, but no. I don’t think he’d want that.” And it would be unbearable for her as well. Too much between them was broken.

  “I think he misses you. He asked how you were doing.”

  A sudden flare of hope pulsed through Kathy. “Did you tell him I was seeing someone else?”

  Grace shook her head. “I didn’t know what to say. I just told him you were fine.”

  Yeah. Fine. That was her, all right.

  ~ ~ ~

  One night, shortly after that conversation with Grace, Kathy awoke from a dream so vivid, it took her a moment to realize she was in her bed in Denver and not in Emily’s house in Cincinnati.

  In the dream, Emily had led her out of the kitchen and down the hall to a small study. A wing chair upholstered in faded rose brocade sat in one corner with a floor lamp leaning over it like a curious stork. Across from the chair and lamp sat an old-fashioned maple desk.

  As Kathy glanced around the room, two paintings caught and held her gaze. One was of a sunset, glowing through the black tracery of fence and winter-bare trees. The second was an old-fashioned portrait of a young boy in a high-backed chair. A German shepherd sat at the boy’s side.

  Emily’s sunset and Bobby and Brad. Kathy recognized them as surely as she recognized herself.

  Eventually she drifted back to sleep, but when she awakened the next morning, it was with an emphatic statement ringing in her mind. My name is Bobby. She stretched and sat up. Then, remembering the dream and the picture of Bobby and Brad, she picked up one of the index cards she kept handy. On it she wrote: My name is Bobby. Then she added a description of her dream.

  A dream about Emily and Bobby was hardly a surprise given she’d been re-reading the diaries. What was odd though, was how coherent it had been. Not the weird jumble of people, images, and events that were her usual dream-fare.

  That evening, as Kathy helped Mrs. Costello do the dishes after dinner, the phrase from the morning kept running through her mind. My name is Bobby. My name is Bobby. Accompanying the words was an urge to write.

  It was the first time she’d felt like writing since Delia’s illness and the break with Alan. Amanda, with her ’orses and vintage dresses, had faded so completely Kathy had given no thought to the story in weeks.

  When Mrs. C went off to watch television, Kathy got a notebook and pen from upstairs and returned to the kitchen. She opened the notebook to a fresh page and sat quietly for a moment, before beginning to write.

  My name is Bobby Kowalski. When I was younger than I am now, I had a bad sickness. It was something called men-in-jeans, and I almost died. I don’t remember any of that. I just heard Mom telling the lady, who comes to help wash and feed me, all about it. She said, “Oh the poor little man.”

  I’m not a man. I’m a boy. So maybe someone else had the men-in-jeans. Still, it is most odd that I can no longer move my arms and legs or make a sound.

  Kathy’s pen flew across the page, the words flowing out of the tip as if on their own. She had no idea where they were coming from; they were just there, one following the other in a steady stream, as fast as she could write them down.

  Not an answer to her question about Alan, but a respite, because while she wrote, the unproductive spinning of her thoughts had stopped.

  “Kathy, I didn’t realize you were in here working.” Mr. Costello stood in the doorway. “Came to catch the light. Thought the missus forgot. We’re going up to bed. Don’t stay up too late.”

  “No, I won’t, Mr. C. Good night.”

  Kathy looked back at the page, but the pen remained quiescent in her hand, and her brain no longer teemed with words straining to get out. She sighed, stood up, and carrying the notebook, went to bed herself.

  In the days that followed, she continued to work on the Bobby story, and sometimes it felt like Emily was sitting with her, reading over her shoulder and smiling.

  Writing the story was giving Kathy a chance to catch her emotional breath and to ignore her problems for a time. It was an additional relief when Charles, caught up in his latest case, was unable to make time to see her. He called daily, but their conversations were brief, hurried affairs, always ending with Charles promising to find time to get together soon. Kathy, glad he was busy, didn’t push.

  Occasionally, she had a day in which no new ideas for the Bobby story came, but she felt no impatience when that happened and no fear he had deserted her as Amanda had. When it happened, she simply closed the notebook and went for a run.

  Invariably, after a short break, a fresh torrent of ideas was there to guide her the following evening.

  A quiet pattern began to emerge from those days—a mix of the hours at Calico and long runs in the late afternoon, followed by evenings spent writing—all of it acting like a gentle massage on her sore spirit, easing the tight painful knots of loss.

  She still had no answers to her Alan dilemma, but it felt good to be able to stop searching for a time.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Excerpt from the diaries of Emily Kowalski

  1948

  Jess finally finished his work for his PhD, and he is now a full-time faculty member at Xavier.

  The summer has gone by so swiftly. Already, as I look out the window, I see leaves drifting down. By the pond they have formed big heaps the goats run through in joyful abandon, just like I think Bobby would if he could. Oh, there’s really no sense writing, if I’m going to get all teary.

  Bobby’s birthday. Today, he’s eighteen. Thirteen years since the meningitis. This is the hardest day of the year for me. It is one of the few times I can’t help thinking about what might have been and grieve.

  Bill told me the last time we were together that he felt good about his life, because teaching made it possible for him to change for the better the lives of so many children. It strikes me that Jess and I have done the same. A procession of youngsters, Jess’s students, have moved through our lives. Some needed extra tutoring, some needed feeding up, and some just needed loving to alleviate their homesickness.

  A few of them have been in the war. Sometimes I can tell because of the external wounds—a missing arm or a limp—but mostly I can tell from their eyes. They have the same pain and confusion I saw in Bill’s eyes when he returned from war thirty years ago. I think they need to get used to feeling safe again. The ones who have been in the war are especially gentle with Bobby.

  I enjoy the students, but Bobby is at the center of my heart. His quiet spirit infuses this house, and he is the one who has helped me find the courage to look for joy in my life.

  1953

  As I start a new year, it has become my habit to put down where I am with my life. As always, everything revolves around Bobby. I lived thirty-five years up to the day Bobby got sick. Now Bobby is twenty-three, and it has been eighteen years since that day.

  In the beginning, I was so weighed down with sorrow, I didn’t write anything at all, so the woman, who survived those first months after Bobby came home from the hospital, is a mystery to me.

  I do remember that at first I was angry about Bobby’s illness and what it did to him, to our family. Then the anger faded, and I went numb. I was numb for a very long time.

  I don’t know w
hat eventually convinced me to live once more. I didn’t just get up one day and decide, today I start living again, but I have come to realize that over a period of time, I made many small choices that have had that effect.

  I do know the music and the painting started the process, and my love for Bobby and Jess helped, and it was hard to mope surrounded by the menagerie Jess put together. Before he stopped, we had Brad and the goats, ducks, and geese for the pond, and cats, chickens, and guinea hens.

  I take Bobby outside as much as possible and let him interact with the animals while I paint. Two of the goats and one of the cats seem to be his special friends, and they come over to greet him whenever they see us.

  Brad spends most of his day at Bobby’s side, sleeping, with his gray muzzle resting up against Bobby’s chair. Brad is getting old. I wonder what we will do when he dies. He and Bobby are so attached to each other that the thought makes me very afraid.

  Still, that time has not yet come. And meanwhile, by whatever means it’s happened, I do seem to have found a way back to happiness—a very different happiness than I ever envisioned, but happiness nonetheless.

  I now believe that when something happens that brings unimaginable pain, it is essential to stop feeling for a time in order to survive.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Alan sat down at the computer a half dozen times before he finally typed “Alaskan tidal flats” in the search field. He read through the list that came up and decided on the Anchorage Daily News website. Once there, he typed in “Turnagain Arm,” the name of the inlet outside of Anchorage where Meg had died. That search brought up the headlines and first two lines of a number of stories.

  He worked his way through the list until he found himself reading Meg’s name. He stared at the screen for a long time before he followed the instructions to pay for a download of the story and printed it out. Not yet ready to read it, he put it away and went out to do chores.

  The next morning, he got up at dawn, saddled a sleepy Sonoro and calling softly to Cormac, rode out. By the time he reached the lake, the sun was well up, and the dawn’s promise of clear skies was fulfilled.

  He dismounted and walked through crunchy grass to the water’s edge where he picked up a small stone and rolled it in his hand before tossing it into the water. He watched the slow tide of ripples circle the splash until they reached the shore by his feet with a tiny sibilance.

  When the water stilled, he pulled the pages he’d printed the day before out of his pocket, then sat on a boulder near Sonoro, who was greedily cropping the dry grass.

  The article, dated two days after Meg’s death, described her accident and also reviewed a number of similar incidents. A geologist from the University of Alaska was quoted as saying the tidal flats of Turnagain Arm were treacherous because of the unique nature of the silt washed down from the surrounding glaciers. “The angular granules are surrounded by water in a delicate balance. Pressure, as from someone walking, can disrupt that balance, causing the granules to become more mobile, even liquefied, for a moment. Then they reposition themselves and lock together in a new, more compact structure, possibly trapping the person whose footstep set off the chain of events.”

  The article went on to discuss how extraordinarily difficult it was to free such an individual, and with forty-foot tides, victims had to be freed quickly.

  Two of the rescues described in the article were of locals, and the Alyeska fire chief was quoted as saying it was past time for the public works department to post additional warning signs along the Turnagain Arm road.

  It meant the danger wasn’t well-known, wasn’t something he’d missed through carelessness or inattention.

  It was what the rescuers had told him afterward, but he’d been unable to believe it. He thought they were trying to comfort him, when nothing could comfort him.

  And now? Could he accept it now?

  He re-read the first part of the article, letting the words sink in and begin to overlay his previous thinking. Choosing to accept those words, would change. . . what exactly?

  Guilt. The thought gusted over him like a quick, sharp breeze.

  Guilt had been the underpinning of all his thoughts about Meg’s death—the conviction that had he been more observant, done something more, Meg wouldn’t have died.

  Letting go of that. . .

  He sat breathing slowly, staring at the scene in front of him without seeing it.

  After a time, he looked back down at the pages and continued reading the discussion of rescue options that had been considered before being rejected.

  The first: using SCUBA gear to allow the victim to continue breathing if rescuers couldn’t beat the tide. Rejected, because unless the victim could also be kept warm, they would quickly succumb to hypothermia in the frigid water.

  But as the tide came in, one of the rescuers had given Meg a length of hose. Alan had tried to believe it was going to keep her alive. It didn’t, of course. But maybe it helped. Maybe it gave her a feeling of control. To keep breathing until hypothermia set in, or to drown. He didn’t know which he would pick. Perhaps having the choice was the important part.

  The second option that had been considered and rejected was amputation of the trapped limb. Rejected because of the remoteness of the rescue site, the difficulties inherent in actually doing it, and the potential liability to the rescuer.

  Both of Meg’s legs had been trapped to mid-calf. He would have let them do it. Even that. Anything to save her.

  Cormac ambled over and put his head on Alan’s knee. Absently, Alan stroked the dog’s smooth head and soft ears as he continued to read.

  The next part described his actions. The account was provided by one Jim Little, the man who’d stopped to help them. When Alan tried to climb down to where Meg was trapped, Jim had grabbed him and told him not to be a fool. That he wouldn’t be able to do any good, and he’d bollix things up if he got stuck too.

  Jim had been big enough, in spite of his name, to make the order stick.

  And Jim had been forced to intervene a second time. When the water began to cover Meg, Alan had flung himself toward her, not thinking, simply reacting to his need to hold her, be with her. Jim had tackled him and pulled him back.

  He remembered the taste of dirt in his mouth, the pain in his ankle, the cut on his cheek. When he got back to the hotel twelve hours after they’d left, he noticed for the first time the front of his jacket was stained with mud, grass, and blood.

  How had he managed to forget all that?

  ~ ~ ~

  As Angela stood to greet him, Alan thought what a close thing it had been—his decision to return. And he’d made a further decision: to continue the therapy through to the end.

  “I looked at the information on tidal flats as you suggested,” he said, after they were seated.

  “Did it change your thinking in any way?”

  He frowned, staring at the Vasarely print. “It says the danger isn’t well-known.” Something he’d been repeating over and over to himself since reading it.

  His feelings had not yet altered, but he thought it was possible they eventually would.

  Angela waited for a moment, but when he didn’t add anything more, she said, “Tell me about Meg.”

  He didn’t want to talk about Meg, but the only way to avoid it was to walk out, and he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that.

  “She was the best and bravest person I’ve ever known.”

  “What was something brave she did?”

  They were eleven when he’d first known how brave Meg was. “There was this bully. In grade school. He picked on the little kids. Meg stood up to him.”

  “What happened when she did that?”

  “He pushed her over, kicked her.” It had seemed to happen in slow motion. As Ted’s leg moved in an arc toward Meg’s face, Alan had flung himself toward Meg, trying to take the blow himself, fear and anger blanking his vision.

  He’d only partially deflected the kick, bu
t he did manage to pull Ted to the ground. After that everything was a blur of dust, sharp pains, deep aching blows, and low guttural sounds. When Mr. Dodd ended it with a sharp blast of his whistle, Alan was hanging onto one of Ted’s arms, and Meg was right there, hanging onto the other.

  “Did you get involved?” Angela asked, speaking gently.

  “Not soon enough.”

  “Was Meg injured?”

  “She ended up with a broken tooth and a black eye.” He’d teased her that she looked like a pirate.

  “What about you? Were you injured?”

  He shook his head, rubbing the finger Ted had broken. “Some bruises, a black eye. No big deal.”

  “Meg wasn’t the only brave one.”

  He shook his head, looking from the Vasarely to the fish circling their tank. Meg had been the one to take a stand. He’d gotten involved only to save her.

  “Did you ever talk to Meg about that day?” Angela asked.

  “She claimed it wasn’t bravery. When she saw Ted push Rosita, and Rosita started to cry and no one lifted a finger to stop it, she was so angry, she didn’t even consider the consequences before she jumped in. She said bravery is when you know exactly what you’re facing, know you’re likely to get hurt, but you still choose to do it.”

  “Do you agree with that?”

  “I think she knew what could happen.” Meg simply ignored those kinds of calculations when she saw someone in trouble. But he didn’t. Except when Meg was involved, and then he too simply acted.

  “Tell me what you did, Alan. After Meg was trapped.”

  He’d known therapy would be difficult, just hadn’t realized it would be this difficult. He took one breath, then another.