Dreams for Stones Page 20

  “Meg was about ten feet from the bank. I got as close to her as I could, and we talked while the team worked to free her.” He stopped speaking, trying to shut off the memories.

  Angela spoke softly. “What did you talk about?”

  I can’t do this. The words were a scream of anguish inside his head. Frantically, he tried to focus on the Vasarely. Failed. Meg, raising her face to his. The tide turning. The rescuers scrambling to get out of the way.

  Meg, turning to look at the water, and his voice. “No. No. Don’t look. Look at me. Look at me. I love you. I love you.”

  He found he was rubbing his head, hard. He had no idea how long Angela had been waiting for an answer, watching him with those clear blue eyes that seemed able to read his most private thoughts. It could have been ten seconds or ten minutes.

  “Do you ever think about your relationship with Meg before that day?”

  “I try not to.”

  “Does that work?”

  “Nights are bad sometimes.” Especially when all he could remember was how Meg had looked after they’d freed her. It was why he’d hung her picture in his bedroom. To counteract that awful image.

  “So you’ve pushed all your memories down deep inside, only they refuse to stay there,” Angela said, jerking his thoughts back again, as if he were a foal she was halter training.

  Angela let the silence stretch before speaking more briskly. “Our time is up for today, Alan. What I want you to do this week is write about Meg. Start with when, where, and how you met. Then write down whatever you remember about your time together.”

  No. He couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it.

  ~ ~ ~

  Kathy slowed to a walk, her breath coming out in pants. Cheesman was deserted this morning except for a man walking a dog in the distance. When she pulled in a deep breath, it made her chest ache. August, but the early morning air was already chilly.

  How much longer was she going to continue this way—dating one man but unable to stop thinking about another. Stuck in neutral. Kept from moving forward by regret and the feeling there had to be something she could do to help Alan.

  She knew Jade was right in saying he had to choose healing for himself. But there must be something she could do to encourage him to make that choice. It had to be right there on the tip of her mind, if she could just grab hold of it.

  Your heart needs to heal as well.

  The words were as clear in her mind as the command to write the Bobby story had been. Shaken, Kathy stepped off the path. She caught her breath, then turned toward the center of the park and started running, picking up her pace until she was sprinting as fast as she could, up and down the grass covered slopes, to the very center.

  There she stopped, bent down, and sucked deep gulps of air into her burning lungs. Then she straightened and began turning in a slow circle.

  Surrounded by a huge, modern city, yet alone in this wide, silent expanse. Still turning, she looked up at the sky, at contrails crisscrossing the blue, seeing it clearly at last.

  She’d focused on Alan and his wounds, avoiding the bruises on her own heart. Not one essential loss, but years of small losses, wearing away at her, until it had become so much easier to let go than to hang on. The pattern formed by too many goodbyes when she was still too young to notice. A pattern that had eventually distorted all her relationships.

  She’d called Greg dishonorable, and he had been. But she’d been dishonorable, as well. Doling out her love for him. Waiting to make sure it would come back to her before doling out more.

  No wonder he’d fallen in love with someone else.

  Loving Alan had changed that, changed her. She loved Alan without counting the cost, and just like Jade said she would, she had no doubts that love was wholehearted.

  She was exhausted from trying not to feel the pain of that certainty. A pain that intensified every time she thought of what she’d said to Alan the last time they talked. Words she now knew were not true.

  Which would be worse? Letting him go without a fight, or reaching out and having him turn away? Either would be painful, but they were the only choices open to her. The real question was whether she had the courage to take a chance.

  If she did, it would then be Alan’s choice—to accept her love, or to live in the past with the memory of the woman he’d already lost.

  Chapter Thirty

  Excerpt from the diaries of Emily Kowalski

  1954

  I am still trying to paint the sunset Bill and I shared so many years ago, but somehow I am never satisfied. I have also tried to paint Bobby over the years, but I can’t seem to capture his gentle spirit, with paint or pen. I’ve been more successful painting the animals, and those are the pictures I think Bobby likes best.

  Today has been a typical Cincinnati winter day. Cold, dark, somber. I took Bobby with me when I went to feed the animals, but as soon as we finished, we came back inside to warm up.

  I made us hot cocoa and settled Bobby by the fire. As a special treat, I read him once again the story that seems to be his favorite, The Little Prince.

  I often wonder what my dear Bobby thinks of this life of his, and I wish that we could talk about it. All we have, though, are looks and touches.

  It isn’t enough.

  Still, in spite of everything, he brings me so much joy. I know if I were to say that to anyone other than Jess, that person would think I was demented, but I love Bobby so very, very much.

  1956

  Once again I have been unable to write, as I struggle to find my way. When I descend too far into sorrow, language deserts me. It’s as though I’ve been set down in the middle of a vast plain of sand that sifts around my feet, holding me fixed from my attempts to run for help and silencing my cries with its vastness.

  The last time I picked up a pen to record my thoughts, it was winter, and Bobby sat beside the fire, waiting for me to read to him. Now it is summer, and the flowers on Bobby’s grave bloom and dance in the breeze that cannot dry my tears.

  Brad is gone too.

  My life, which was filled with activity, is now empty and quiet, and I have no heart to play music or paint. Once again, I can hear the clock snipping the hours into little pieces.

  I didn’t want to hold on to Bobby any longer. He had been trapped in his poor, frail body so long. It was cruel to hold onto him. But I never expected to miss him so. How can it be that I miss him so?

  Even the goats have been subdued. They skipped their annual predation on the cemetery’s roses, as if they know it is where Bobby has gone.

  I look out the window and see in my memory as clear as the day it happened, the black goat dropping petals in Bobby’s lap. Only later when Father Larry came by to complain his roses had been stripped did I understand what I had seen.

  I smile as I write this, and I wonder if that is proof the darkness will eventually fade.

  As it did before.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In order to meet with Angela, Alan was spending more time in Denver that summer than he usually did. It meant that after his second therapy session, he returned to his apartment instead of the ranch, resisting the assignment Angela had given him, to write about Meg.

  After a restless night, he decided he had to at least try. That way he could tell Angela with a clear conscience he'd tried but was unable to do it. She’d just have to come up with another suggestion. That was her job, after all.

  He pulled out one of the old notebooks he’d used in the past to write down his story ideas. Without looking at what he’d written when Meg was still alive, he turned to a fresh page and picked up a pen. After a moment of hesitation, he began at the beginning.

  I met Meg Adams the first day of school when we were both six years old.

  The pen stopped moving, and he sat staring at the page, adrift in memory.

  In the beginning Meg had been like a second sister. His mom called the three of them the tootling trio, Meg’s mom called them the gruesome three
some. They’d shared everything. Bikes and braces. Horses, homework, and 4H projects.

  Without realizing it, he’d begun writing again, the words pouring out in spurts and runs, long convoluted sentences and short fragments as the memories flashed, and he grabbed at them before they could fade.

  Meg, always drawing. Everywhere they went, even out to round up calves, she’d have a small sketchbook tucked in her pocket. How many hours had he spent, watching the quick, sure movement of her pencil.

  A rabbit frozen into immobility next to a tumbleweed, one of the horses, head up, checking the wind for rain, a calf bawling for its mother. When she closed the book and smiled at him, he'd counted that full payment for his patience.

  When hunger and fatigue forced him to stop writing he closed the notebook without looking at what he’d written and went to the kitchen, opened a can of soup, and turned on the television for company.

  He ate and stared at the movements on the screen without any memory afterward of what he’d eaten or seen. When it was late enough, he went to bed.

  He stayed in Denver another day and spent it writing as well, stopping only to open a can of something when his stomach growled and going to bed when he could no longer keep his eyes open.

  At the end of those two days, looking at the filled pages, it hit him. He was writing and had been for two days, scarcely lifting his hand from the page.

  His hand ached, something he hadn’t noticed until now. He gently bent it back, stretching out his fingers and wrist to ease their stiffness—a good stiffness, a good ache.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I’ve written about Meg.”

  Sometimes Angela made no attempt to help him out by responding immediately. This was one of those times.

  “I think it’s helped.”

  Still no response.

  He sighed. “Writing about her, I’ve been able to remember some of the good times again.”

  “Do you know anything about the grief process, Alan?”

  He shook his head, relieved to let her do her share.

  “When we lose someone we love, most of us react at first by denying it’s happened. We say things like, ‘I don’t believe it’, and ‘it can’t be real.’ Then when it becomes real, we get angry. At God. The universe. Ourselves.”

  Alan sat still, letting Angela’s words fill the space between them.

  “Some people get stuck in the denial phase or the anger phase. Blocked, if you will, from moving on. Sometimes that block is guilt. It’s only after the disbelief and anger fade that we’re able to begin to accept. And it’s only after we accept, that we can live again.”

  He knew she was looking at him, but he kept his eyes on the aquarium behind her.

  “Alan, is Meg buried here in Denver?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you ever visit her grave?”

  He shook his head, still staring at the aquarium.

  “Perhaps a good place to think about your grief would be Meg’s gravesite.”

  “You’re telling me that’s what I should do?”

  “No. I’m asking you to think about difficult issues. And suggesting a place that might help you with that thinking.”

  “I can’t.”

  “This work you’re doing, Alan. To overcome grief and guilt. It’s difficult. As difficult as getting stones to float.”

  “You’re saying it’s impossible.”

  She shook her head and refused to say more. It was one of the maddening things about Angela. She never argued and rarely explained. All she did was plant these squibs that would later explode just when he thought he’d managed to forget them.

  ~ ~ ~

  He bought another notebook and spent more time in Denver writing about himself and Meg. As he wrote, Angela’s suggestion that he visit Meg’s grave hovered at the edge of his conscious thought. By the time he filled the second book, he was tense, irritable, and sleeping poorly.

  He awakened Friday morning at five, still exhausted, but knowing he’d be unable to sleep anymore. Resigned, he got up, made coffee, and sat down to write more about Meg.

  No words came.

  He sat staring at the blank page, his vision blurring with sudden rage. It was too hard. All of it. And there wasn’t a scintilla of evidence that any of it was doing any good.

  Changing what one thought about something was easy. But changing what one felt. . . that was like trying to change the course of a river.

  Or getting stones to float.

  He threw the pen down and stumbled over to the balcony door. The trees across the street were barely visible. But as he watched, the contrast between foliage and sky grew more definite.

  Another day beginning. Another day without Meg.

  He moved automatically, showering, dressing, eating. But when he climbed in the car, instead of driving back to the ranch, he turned north and drove until he reached the entrance to I-70 west.

  It wouldn’t do any good. Going to the cemetery. But he’d paid Angela for her advice, and this was it. Visit Meg’s grave.

  At the cemetery, he parked and got out. The air was still cool, but it was going to be another hot day.

  It took him thirty minutes to find Meg’s grave. All he remembered from the day they buried her was looking up from the gravesite and seeing the small hill with its tall tree and the mountains behind, solid, eternal, aloof from earthly sorrow.

  He stood looking down at the gray granite marker.

  Margaret Adams Francini

  Meg

  1966 - 1993

  They’d asked him what to put on the stone. He told them to put whatever they pleased.

  Be not afraid.

  His breath caught in surprise.

  He and Meg had been in eighth grade, Elaine in ninth.

  “Bet you guys don’t have a clue what words appear most often in the bible,” Meg had said.

  “Of course we don’t. We’re Catholics,” Elaine said.

  “The, and, but,” Alan said. “Oh, and begat.”

  Meg had taken a playful swipe at him, which made his horse pretend to shy and Elaine’s horse to flick its ears and snort.

  “Think you’re so smart, huh?” Meg grinned at him. Then her look turned serious. ‘“Be not afraid.’ Three-hundred and sixty-five times. Just to make sure we get it. How cool is that?”

  “What’s to get?” he asked.

  Meg shook her head, giving him her boys-are-hopeless look. “That we don’t have to worry. Just do our best, and everything will turn out okay.”

  Except it hadn’t.

  Without Meg he’d lost it all—tears, words, joy. He stood, bent over Meg’s grave, and the memories slipped out, floating away like clouds laden with rain heading for the plains.

  He looked again at Meg’s marker. It was unpretentious. Just like Meg. The only decoration was an anemone, the first spring flower, carved along one side. He glanced around at the artificial flowers on several of the graves and real flowers in plastic vases, browning and dropping their petals, on others.

  Should he bring flowers to Meg? She had loved flowers, the wildflowers best of all. The anemones, columbine, buttercups, and fireweed. But pick a wildflower, and it dies within a day.

  No, this was better. This simple marker with its plain patch of grass.

  After a time, he walked back to his car and drove to the ranch, feeling lighter.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I visited the cemetery,” Alan said.

  “Did you.” Angela’s voice, as always, was calm.

  “I think. . . I no longer feel the same way about what happened to Meg.”

  “What’s different in how you feel?”

  “I feel sad. But not. . . ” He looked past Angela. Gradually, he became aware of the fish, lazily circling their tank. “I can see it wasn’t my fault.” Still easier to say than to feel.

  “Saying the words. It’s a start,” Angela said, as if she had read his mind.

  They sat quietly for a time. He watched the fish, letting the w
ords play again in his head. Not my fault. It wasn’t my fault.

  Maybe if he said it a few thousand more times. . .

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Angela rose to shake Alan’s hand as she always did at the start of their sessions. After they seated themselves, she spoke briskly.

  “Are you ready to discuss your relationship now?”

  “Relationship?”

  “Yes. The one you mentioned during our first meeting.”

  He’d forgotten he’d told Angela that. “It was no big deal.” He shifted, trying to ease the immediate tightening in his neck and shoulders.

  “Wasn’t it?” Angela’s tone was gentle. “Perhaps it ended because you were afraid. Of losing her, like you lost Meg.”

  Pain moved from his neck into his head. You think everything is about Meg. He’d said that to Charles.

  “How long ago was it, Alan? That this happened.”

  He cleared his throat and took a careful breath. “May.”

  Angela regarded him steadily, while he tried not to squirm. Finally he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, even though he knew it was a tactic on Angela’s part.

  “Kathy. Her name’s Kathy. And I couldn’t deal with. . . my feelings. For her.” He could get up and leave any time. It was his decision. So why didn’t he? Why did he sit here talking about Kathy in a voice that even to his ears sounded strained? Not that there was much to tell, except. . .

  He took a deep breath. “My best friend plans to marry her.” He glanced at Angela. For an instant he thought he saw a look of pity on her face. But no. Angela never gave any hint of what she was thinking.