Two Sisters Times Two Page 7

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  Jodie found herself wrapped upright in layers of diaphanous fabric. This is what it would be like to be in a cocoon, she thought, looking at the multiple hazy moons of the houselights through the pale white gauze. Then she grew claustrophobic and suddenly dizzy, feared she’d fall off the stepladder. She thrashed against the entangling fabric and the ladder did indeed wobble, threatening to tip over. But she managed to keep her balance, barely, as the cloth finally loosened and began to unwind from around her body. She breathed a sigh of relief as the drape fell away to one side, revealing the drab and empty theater in its normal stark desolation. Maybe the cocoon wasn’t such a bad prison after all.

  Three echoing claps from the shadows startled her and again the ladder wobbled.

  “Bravo!” a familiar voice shouted. “Maybe I’ll have to work twirling shrouds into Act Three’s climax!” It was Martine, the play’s writer, director and producer. She said she’d be stopping by to check on the set’s progress.

  “Next time knock, please,” Jodie said as Martine emerged from the entry’s shadow.

  “What? And miss your heroic birthing?”

  “I could’ve fallen.”

  “I have faith in your refined art of balance,” Martine said from the base of the ladder. She offered her hand up to Jodie.

  At first Jodie declined the help but finally accepted it as she climbed down from the ancient and decrepit wooden ladder. “When are you going to buy me a safe ladder?”

  “When your set earns me millions, ma cherie!” Martine said. By then Jodie was on the stage and Martine enfolded her in a warm hug followed by a light kiss on each cheek.

  Jodie didn’t return the hug but did brush her lips against each side of the tall and middle-aged woman’s long and horsey face. “What heroic birthing?”

  “From death’s strong bands, my little Lazarene. You thrust out this way, pushed out that way”—Martine mimicked the struggle in grand theatrical manner—“twisted hither and lo, and all without falling earthward. The outcome seemed in doubt but the heroic Jodie emerged unscathed!” She pronounced the last word in three syllables—un-scay-thed. “I really must add it to Act Three!”

  “I’m glad you don’t have a videotape.”

  “In my mind, ma cherie,” she purred with a suggestive grin. “All I need.”

  Jodie laughed. “I’m glad I give you such pleasure, Martine.”

  “Are you really?” She gazed at Jodie with a quizzical look that might have been teasing or might have been desperation.

  Jodie held her stare in a momentary pause that might have been teasing or might have been serious contemplation. Finally she laughed and said, “Sure, Martine. I’m glad.” Then she added, “Now if you want this ready for rehearsal next week, I’d better get back to work.”

  “Can I help?”

  “You comfortable on a ladder, a shaky one at that?”

  “Terrified of heights.”

  “Know how to sew?”

  “Never learned.”

  “Wire a light fixture?”

  Martine threw up her arms in surrender. “Maybe I should go to the office and collate the parts.”

  Jodie nodded. “You do your thing; I’ll do mine.”

  “Yell if you need anything.”

  “If you come out and see only my feet sticking up out of the stage and the ladder overturned, sue the producer.”

  “No blood from a stone, ma cherie,” Martine said as she walked to the office door at the end of one of the four aisles between the circular arrangement of amphitheater seating.

  The theater was housed in a metal building in an older residential neighborhood of Seattle. It had been founded and endowed twenty years ago by a fan of modern drama who had made millions in the software business, and its round stage and seating for a hundred were made available free of charge for the presentation of original plays selected by a board that included playwrights and stage actors of national stature. Martine’s play Modern Chastity had been so selected, and she in turn had hired Jodie to do set design and construction.

  The play in three acts takes place over the course of a single night as allegorical Virginity (named Britomart after the Spenserian champion of the virtue of Chastity) falls asleep at dusk and is enveloped by a series of vivid dreams of increasing erotic intensity and realism, each dream using sexual allusion and imagery from a different historical period. After her full night, sweet Britomart rouses with the unspoken question—Am I still Virginity?—and leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions.

  Jodie’s set design was simple in concept but challenging in execution, particularly given her budgetary limitations. The entire play would be watched through a circular scrim, a gauze curtain of variable density (determined by the number of layers) and color (determined by lighting). To achieve this effect she would run three parallel curtain tracks controlling three layers of translucent white curtain. The inner two layers would be simple white gauze of a lightweight and open weave; the outer layer would be lace in an Antwerp style. She would add LED lighting to the curtain track to be used in addition to the existing stage lights to create multiple effects in tandem with the layered scrim. She would also arrange several video projectors around the stage to project words and images on the scrim, to complement the actors’ performances behind the scrim. This effect would be especially useful in the climactic contemporary dream when sleeping Britomart is wooed and bedazzled not by real human figures in conjugal endeavor but by text messages and accompanying suggestive photos.

  Jodie was proud of her concept and Martine loved it. There was only one problem—even in this small theater, it was a fifty thousand dollar set with a twenty thousand dollar budget (including Jodie’s salary). “My grant, ma cherie; my grant!” Martine would cry every time Jodie mentioned money. To work within this limited budget, Jodie called in favors from techie friends, searched every remnant rack of every fabric store in the city, and worked as Martine’s production assistant to sidestep the Guild’s high hourly rates. She also did all the cutting, hemming, and installation work herself, which was why she was here today, hanging the first of the gauze layers. She intentionally did not keep track of her hours, knowing that if she did she would discover that she was making less than the high school girl flipping burgers down the street.

  And in the end, she didn’t care about the wages. She loved stage design’s mix of creative concept and, at least at this small-scale level, hands-on application. And she didn’t need the money, as Dave Sr.’s monthly allowance paid most of her modest living expenses. Having a creative job with flexible hours mattered far more to her than saving money for future goals that were vague to invisible. None of these contemplations made their way into her thoughts as she concentrated on proper spacing and attachment of the drapery clips in the top hem of the inner curtain, working in focused blissful silence that let her forget the complexities of her life beyond this stage.

  Around dusk—but how would she know? the theater had no windows and she didn’t wear a watch and her cellphone was in her rucksack—Martine emerged from the office after rapping lightly on the door to honor Jodie’s earlier request.

  “Yes?” Jodie said in a sweet and lilting voice.

  “You must be starving,” Martine said.

  Jodie shrugged. “Now that you mention it, I am. I somehow forgot to eat lunch.”

  Martine clucked in mother-hen fashion. “You must take better care of yourself, ma cherie.”

  “Looking for a child to raise?”

  Martine frowned. “Just safeguarding the production—can’t have my set designer collapsing from malnutrition.”

  “What do you think?” Jodie slid the first layer of curtains back and forth by hand, as the motors weren’t yet wired.

  Martine stepped to the small lighting booth, cut the house lights and brought up the center stage lights in their silver-white default setting. Jodie slipped behind her curtain and dusted off a few ballerina moves from three years’ lessons in grade school. Th
e curtain’s effect was indeed dreamlike—the childhood ballerina trapped in perpetual fantasy. Martine moved the lighting from white through yellow to orange to blood red. Jodie responded with a rapid stationary twirl that ended in a quite believable collapse.

  Martine brought up the houselights and raced to the stage.

  Jodie peeked up from her heap of flesh on the floor. “Swan Lake, anyone?”

  Martine shook her head. “More like Salome.”

  Jodie stood in a graceful reversal of her spinning fall. “I’ll keep my day job.”

  “Earn more from dancing.”

  “Yeah, but no rickety ladders to climb.”

  “Suit yourself. Can I buy the rickety-ladder-climber dinner?”

  “Will it come out of my salary?”

  Martine weighed the offer. “You’re a tough negotiator. I think I can get the producer to spring for the meal—call it business entertainment and take it off on her taxes.”

  “Then lead on.”

  She did, out the door and to her Mercedes for the short drive to an unpretentious café with a southern theme. When they were seated in a booth at the back, Martine leaned forward and whispered “Make you feel right at home?” referring to the menu’s listing of southern specialties like fried green tomatoes, collard greens, chicken fried steak, and hushpuppies.

  Martine practiced the now familiar ploy of middle-aged lesbians to lure the object of their ardor into a conspiratorial public intimacy, as a prelude to hoped-for private intimacy. Originally the tactic had confused and troubled Jodie—Why is this woman whispering to me?—and had led to a few monumental blowups and one briefly broken heart (hers). But now she found the method amusing and happily played along. Though she’d eaten several times at this restaurant, as it was not far from where she lived, she feigned surprise. “Fried green tomatoes?” she exclaimed with barely suppressed glee. “I haven’t had those since I was a kid!” Manipulation could cut two ways (and she hoped the young waitress didn’t recognize her from last time).

  Martine sat back with a satisfied nod. “I thought you might like the treat. I’m surprised you haven’t ever eaten here.”

  Jodie fixed her with a steady gaze. “I’ve passed by many times and always wanted to try it. Thanks so much for bringing me.”

  “A small gesture for all your hard work. I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Jodie.”

  For a split second Jodie forgot the rules of the game and blushed. Martine sounded so sincere and she was genuinely touched by her avowal. “You’ve written a wonderful play, and I’m honored to be a part of bringing it to life.”

  “First life, Jodie!” Martine said, leaning forward and laying her hand over Jodie’s resting on the thick wooden table. “We’ll see it born together.”

  Jodie left her hand under Martine’s and stared at the woman calmly. That touch had acted like a lightning rod for her briefly confused emotions, grounding them once again in a simple truth—This woman wants you naked in her bed under her tall if slightly flabby body. You can go there or not, but don’t confuse her lust for love or admiration or commitment. “So which of us will go into labor?” Jodie asked deadpan.

  Martine leaned back and laughed loud and long. “You are a little fox, ma cherie,” she said when her braying laugh subsided. “You labor now. I’ll labor later.”

  “Wouldn’t that be an equitable way to give birth.”

  Jodie ordered the vegetarian platter—those green tomatoes and collards plus hoppin’ john and fried okra—and Martine ordered the Louisiana gumbo—“My DNA attested through my love of Cajun cooking!”—and they ate their meals in quiet conversation that was surprisingly relaxed given the undercurrent of hidden purpose. Jodie described how she’d ended up in Seattle via design school and a brief stint in San Francisco before following “a friend” up here, leaving the sex of the friend and the current status of the relationship ambiguous. Martine described her marriage to a New York stage actor who decided he wanted to be gay full-time only to die of AIDS soon thereafter. “Glad he left you before the AIDS,” Jodie ventured. “Oh, we never slept together,” Martine said. “I just loved the idea of being married to such a beautiful man!” She continued to describe how she’d kicked around New York after becoming a widow in title if not in her heart, and later LA “when New York became unbearably oppressive” only to eventually wind up in Seattle because the small theater scene was so “vibrant and pristine—at least back then.”

  They suspended their idle chatter during dessert (a hot fudge sundae for Jodie, her first “in years, maybe decades”) and coffee (for Martine—“I need to watch my blood sugar”) as they silently gazed at each other across the table with unabashed curiosity. Though Martine’s expression was coyly neutral, Jodie knew she was apprising her young assistant as tonight’s possible dessert, sweet enough but without the risks of sugar (and willfully ignoring the other risks). From her side, Jodie was trying to determine how much she needed Martine—or, more accurately, if Martine could support the weight of her need. In light of this, she reevaluated the possible meaning of Martine’s steady gaze—was she asking herself if she could support the weight of this needful child, should that child choose to remain?

  Outside standing beside the car, Martine stated her case bluntly. “I’ll drive you to the home of your choice, but I’d rather it be mine than yours.”

  Jodie chuckled. “That’s the sweetest phrasing I’ve ever heard. You must be a writer!”

  Martine frowned in the streetlight’s pale glow but said nothing.

  “I meant it as a sincere compliment, Martine.” Jodie stepped forward and on her tiptoes gave Martine a hug that was far more than friendly but not quite passionate or erotic. She felt Martine’s body tense in anticipation. She immediately regretted the misinterpretation, gave Martine a light kiss on the cheek, then stepped back. “Thanks for dinner, Martine. And thanks for believing in me. I’m going to walk home from here. It’s not that far and I could use the exercise after that sundae.”

  Martine sighed, but was it in relief or regret? “You’re sure? I’ll be glad to drive you.”

  “I’m sure. Thanks again for everything.”

  “See you tomorrow at the theater?”

  “I’ll be there, quivering on the ladder!”

  “Maybe I’ll see if the producer will spring for a new one.”

  “What—and take away all my excitement?”

  “There are other avenues to excitement, ma cherie.”

  “Boulevards? Highways? Interstates?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “Maybe one day I will.” She immediately regretted that too—a shameless tease. But nothing to do except drop it and move on. “Good night, Martine.”

  “Good night, Jodie.”

  When she’d conceived her graceful and, she hoped, neutral extrication at around the second bite of that delicious sundae (the ice cream was pure decadence, not to mention the dripping fudge sauce), Jodie fully expected her walk home in the cool and damp night to be a kind of victory lap at negotiating, for the time being anyway, the tricky shoals of a professional relationship becoming too personal. Or, if not a self-satisfied stroll in the dark then at least a slow decompression from a very loaded day, a time to let more than just her meal digest.

  But she hadn’t walked a block along the empty street, Martine just now passing with a quick double-toot on her horn, before Jodie realized this solitary walk was going to be anything but self-congratulatory or soothing. The earthquake’s rumble had started with the tensing of Martine’s body. Why had she given her that kiss anyway? That had ruined the whole plan. In her visceral response to Martine’s desire, Jodie discovered she was no longer in control. She might fool Martine into thinking she was in control, play her deftly with her years of training and experience, not to mention the advantage of a lithe body twenty years younger. But she couldn’t fool herself. She needed Martine more than Martine needed her.

  But why? If she didn’t want her body—and
how could she, fleshy and overweight and wrinkled?—then what did she want? Her security? Her support? Her encouragement? She wanted all those, craved them every bit as breathlessly and irrationally and passionately as the old woman wanted her body. She wanted Martine’s approval. She needed Martine’s approval. How fucked up was that? Thirty-five years old and still a little girl after her mother’s love.

  The night closed in quickly. The solitude she’d thought she wanted was the last thing she needed. She considered calling Martine back—she had her number in her cellphone’s list. One press of a button and this would all be fixed—for tonight. But what about tomorrow and tomorrow night and next week and next month and next year? Was this her life here on out—trading sex for love, cheapening both? When did that end—with her body soft and flabby like the women she played? And how far off was that? How many times do you play the same trump card before it shows wear marks at the edges? Was that already the case? How would she know?

  She started seeing people in the dark street—first a young couple climbing out of a tiny sports car. Then three guys emerging from a duplex. Then a van disgorging a whole family—grandparents, parents, three school-aged kids. Then a small gang of teenaged street youth that weren’t usually in this neighborhood. The scattered groups coalesced into a stream of people, quietly assembling around her in the dark, all headed the same direction as she.

  Then she understood—they were headed to Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Parking at the church was limited; so people parked on the side streets, anywhere they could find a spot. And now everyone walked along in a hushed silence, as if in reverence for the event to come.

  Jodie used to go to Compline almost weekly, when the crowd she hung out with would all get high in the park or at someone’s basement apartment then descend together on the dark and cavernous sanctuary to sit, or lie, in the corners (which was permitted, since the pews were full long before the service started and the rector would not allow anyone to be turned away) and let the haunting sounds of the office of hours drift over her, descend on her, penetrate through her—or so it seemed in her varying states of fuzzy brain. She liked being disassembled by the ancient chants and texts, broken down into her constituent parts with her body pressed between the stone floor and someone else’s side. It all seemed very elemental and intoxicating in its own substance-free way. But then the chants seemed a substance, something with weight and energy and force—enough to break her apart. She’d several times been wakened by the black-robed rector standing over her in an empty sanctuary now bathed in light, her closest approach yet to Heaven.

  But tonight she was not high and there was no crowd of companions to buffer her. She’d not been to Compline in years, since shedding that crowd and their dead-end nihilist ways. She’d sometimes heard a new friend or acquaintance talk about this “haunting ancient liturgy” and invite her to come. But she’d always quietly declined or made up an excuse. She was afraid of what those chants might uncover in her—some old self she didn’t want to know, or some new self she wasn’t prepared to.

  But the crowd carried her along with it. She was powerless to resist, some part of her surrendering to any guidance except self-will. She recalled Renoir’s “leaf in a stream” fatalist view of life’s destiny and purpose. She wasn’t good at such capitulation but tonight she had little to lose—except herself, and what was that?

  Inside the cavernous sanctuary was as she remembered—dimly lit and crowded with a soft murmur that might have been human or divine in origin and was somehow more ponderous than silence, an intimation of eternity or oblivion if there was a difference. She followed her adopted family—that is, those who had coalesced around her several blocks back—until they started to fall away, a few to seats on the floor along the wall, others to individual spots that magically appeared on the pews for the elderly or children. One lecherously grinning old man caught her eye and patted a six-inch wide spot on the pew beside him. She stared blankly a second—was he the bit of flotsam where her leaf would lodge?—before nodding a thanks but turning to continue toward the front of the sanctuary, between bodies seated on the floor along a path that grew steadily narrower as she neared the chancel. Finally there was no more pathway, just bodies scattered about, eyes looking up at her.

  She fixed her gaze on a massive column supporting the roof and moved toward it, stepping over people to get there. When she arrived she found others leaning against the column. But on the back side in the shadow there was a narrow opening in the ring of watchers. She smiled to the street kids on either side of the gap—a teenaged boy with tattoos creeping up his neck above his hooded sweatshirt and ragged fingerless gloves, and a very young girl maybe not yet in her teens with piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose, and lips. The boy frowned at her and looked away, but the girl smiled and shimmied aside to create a little more space. And Jodie sat down. The stone floor was cold and the ridges on the carved column hit her spine at an uncomfortable spot. Someone nearby—perhaps the teenaged boy—smelled of body odor. The young girl put her hand, covered in cheap rings, on the knee of her worn jeans to give Jodie more room. But her leg pressed up against Jodie’s on that side. Jodie closed her eyes and felt like she was home, but she desperately craved a hit—of anything—to take the edge off.

  Just then the service opened with the chanted invocation and antiphonal response. And the male choir at the back of the sanctuary proceeded through their chanted readings, prayers, and canticles. Though sung a cappella in English, Jodie understood none of the words but all of the sounds, which were simultaneously familiar and utterly new. Despite being sober and too tense, those sounds slowly dissolved her consciousness into something like the old daze only without the drugs. Those sounds didn’t need chemical assistance to work on her soul, to effect transcendence. No wonder this service was always overflowing. Why hadn’t she discovered it clean before now?

  She opened her eyes late in the rite. They looked toward the massive round window at the front of the sanctuary. All parts of the window were lit from within and reflected the interior’s artificial golden light—except for the small round pane at the center, undivided amidst the larger surrounding window’s symmetrical rays. That center circle was starkly black, letting in the darkness beyond. Was that hole at the center meant to be promise or curse? Whichever it was, the sight sent a shiver through her body just as the choir sung the haunting closing canticle—“that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace”: words she understood but could not feel.

  She looked to her left. The young girl had fallen asleep, her head now lolling against Jodie’s shoulder, a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth. Jodie had not noticed when the weight had started and wondered how long the girl had been like that. She waited for the crowd, including the frowning boy, to rise and thin before brushing the girl’s cheek to wake her gently. The girl opened her eyes with a fright that only slowly faded as she recognized Jodie and began to place where she was. She smiled then stood and ran after her cohorts.

  Back at their apartment, Jodie quietly opened the door to her roommate’s bedroom. Andrea lay asleep in her wide bed, dimly visible in the hall’s light. Though she and Andrea had ended their romance years ago and settled into a comfortable and independent cohabitation, they’d agreed each to welcome the other into bed, no questions asked, as needed in moments of extreme loneliness or despair. Neither had used the option often, and not for months now. But tonight Jodie closed the door behind her, slipped her shoes and sweatshirt off, and slid under the covers, lying on her side and facing away, only her calf brushing Andrea’s shin. It was enough just to be there.

  Andrea roused at the touch, rolled sideways and lay her arm over Jodie’s shoulder to snuggle her from behind. She kissed Jodie’s neck then fell asleep again, her easy exhalations fluffing Jodie’s hair.

  In the middle of the night or wee hours of pre-dawn darkness, Jodie woke to the touch of Andrea easing off her yoga pants beneath the covers, then her pantie
s. The feel of her former lover’s panting breaths between her legs was surreal and mesmerizing and arousing and familiar and terrifying, everything except reassuring.

  4

  Leah stood on the low rise looking down toward the green line of the creek in gray fall clouds. The orange “tree-planter” truck had backed up to the surveyor’s stake marked by the blue flag in the mix of knee-high grasses and wildflowers that had gone brown since the frost last week.

  The truck’s operator climbed out of the cab and up the ladder onto the seat at the excavator’s controls. The stabilizing legs extended out to either side of the bed then the silver, cone-shaped excavator rose from its horizontal transport position to vertical suspension above the surveyor’s stake, looking all the world like an inverted spaceship destined to blast-off into the ground rather than outer space—which was basically what it did, only without the roar or smoke. The silver tines separated from a point to form a cylindrical shape then dropped toward the earth then pushed into the ground of the creek bank. As the points disappeared into the soft soil, the tines gradually came back together at the tip so that when the operator reversed the process and raised the excavator, it encased a cone-shaped mass of dirt six feet across and approximately that tall, leaving a gaping hole where field had been.

  The operator locked the excavator in its vertical position above the ground, retracted the stabilizer arms, climbed down off his perch and into the truck’s cab and drove the excavator with its load of fresh dirt out to the edge of the gravel parking lot. Without getting out of the cab, he remotely opened the excavator’s tines and deposited his mound of black loamy soil to be stockpiled for future plantings. Then he drove over to the other side of the parking area where the two twenty-foot tall weeping willows had been dropped off by the landscaper’s flatbed delivery truck the day before. The driver stopped alongside those trees with their huge root balls encased in layers of brown burlap. He turned off his truck and rolled down his window and said something to Billy Erwin, the project supervisor standing to one side in his canvas field coat.

  Billy said something back then started walking toward Leah. He could’ve waved to her or shouted across the fifty yards of mowed lawn. But he didn’t take that shortcut, instead walked all the way up to her before he tried to communicate.

  She liked that about him, the respect and patience it showed. She also wondered if he somehow knew she were once deaf, a time when she couldn’t have heard instructions shouted from far away, needed the close proximity of lip-reading or sign language. But he’d only known her since the start of the reclamation late last summer—how could he have known she was once deaf? Then she remembered—her implants. But weren’t they well-hidden by her hair? Had she ever referred to them in his presence? Had he guessed their function? Did he know someone who was deaf but now could hear?

  “Good morning, Mrs. Monroe.”

  “Hey, Billy,” she said and smiled. “How long will it be before I can get you to call me Leah?” He was only about ten years younger than she, tall and lanky and handsome with brown hair worn slightly too long and big soft eyes that always looked either pensive or sad, or maybe both—sad because they were pensive.

  Billy gave her his standard response—a sweet half-smile and the words, “When we toast the completed project.”

  “Then I’ll look forward to that day for two reasons.”

  Billy nodded. “Me, too.” Then he waved toward the parking lot. “Joe wants to know which tree you want to put in this hole and the orientation.”

  “I get to choose that?”

  “With this driver on this day, yes.”

  Leah laughed. “What an honor.”

  Billy smiled, “Least we can do for our gracious funding coordinator.”

  “Can you advise me on the choices?”

  “Sure. Come take a look.”

  Leah was here in her current role as chairperson of Green Ways, a small Atlanta non-profit that raised money to be used to “beautify urban neighborhoods through the addition of plants and greenery.” Years ago when she and Jasper had founded the group as his eighth-grade community project, they did little more than plant spindly home-improvement store remaindered trees (acquired by Jasper for free in return for a letter of thanks and a blogpost recognition) in the barren front yards of decrepit mill shacks in rundown, crime-ridden neighborhoods. At the time, Whitfield told Leah that he thought the initiative would “last about as long as one of those poor trees in the Georgia sun.” But Jasper faithfully returned weekly to all those trees to refill their watering bladders from a barrel he strapped down on the family’s weekend pick-up (driven by Leah, always in daylight). And all of those trees survived except for two—one snapped off by a car that careened off the road and through the tree before crashing into the house’s porch, and the other that was chopped down by a drunk with what must’ve been a very dull axe, or maybe a pocket knife, judging from the frayed stump.

  And Green Ways had grown steadily through Jasper’s high school years, propelled by his vision and determination and social conscience, until he served as the Board’s director his senior year, oversaw a two hundred thousand dollar annual budget and planned the reclamation of a littered and polluted seasonal creek marking the boundary between a poor neighborhood being ever so slowly restored and a hi-tech research park built over the bulldozed lots of a former slum. When he’d headed off to college, he’d handed the leadership of the company over to his mother with the explicit instructions to “make sure the Moultrie Creek restoration is done right.”

  So here she was, making sure it was “done right,” even to the point of orienting the weeping willows in the most aesthetically pleasing manner. She couldn’t help but wonder if Jasper would agree with her choices and almost sent him a photo of the process, not to ask his opinion so much as to let him know she was on the job. But she suppressed this impulse. He’d seemed distant the last few weeks, not responding to some of her text messages and being short and curt in his e-mails. He apologized once, saying he was busy with mid-terms and papers. But she knew there was more at work here than simply a full schedule. She needed to learn to let him go, and it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  Afterwards Billy walked back up from the creek bank where he’d just given instructions to the Hispanic workers mulching the freshly planted willows. Once standing beside her, he turned to survey the morning’s efforts. The two weeping willows stood tall and still with most of their leaves, presiding over the natural area bordering the clean creek with its freshly rocked banks, looking like they’d been there all along. “What do you think?”

  “It looks wonderful, Billy. Thanks for all your work. Do you think they need watering?”

  Billy shook his head. “Not with the winter rains coming. We’ll keep an eye on them next summer.”

  Leah nodded then raised her eyes to the field on the far side of the creek, sloping up to the back side of those research labs. “You think an arched bridge would look pretty there?” She pointed to a spot halfway between the willows.

  Billy shrugged. “Might be a nice focal point, now that we have the trees. But we’re already over budget.”

  Leah grinned indulgently. “You let me worry about that.”

  He laughed. “Always glad to do that. Give me a concept when you’re ready, and I’ll price it out.”

  Leah nodded. “I will.” She turned to say goodbye then remembered something. “Can you step over to the car?”

  “Sure.” He followed to the car on the far side of the gravel parking area.

  She reached into the passenger seat and pulled out an unopened bottle of store-bought green tea and an empty bottle from the cup holder. She opened the tea and poured half of it into the other bottle, then handed him the fresh bottle.

  He looked at her with a child-like tilt of his head.

  She smiled, enjoying his momentary puzzlement. “I’m declaring this phase of the project complete—those willows did the trick.”

  He nodde
d assent and tapped her bottle. “Cheers.” He raised the bottle toward his mouth.

  “And?” Leah said with eyebrows raised in expectation.

  “And what?”

  “And what’s my name?”

  He blushed and laughed. “Cheers, Leah.” He tapped her bottle again.

  “Cheers, Billy. And thank you.”

  He nodded and drank his tea in one long draught.

  She sipped hers, letting the moment last just a little longer.

  Leah then drove across town to Pritchard Academy, the private school Jasper had attended from kindergarten on, to meet Walton Krey and see that the auditorium was properly set up for the rehearsal today and performance Saturday night of his string quartet. This was another responsibility brought on by Jasper’s extracurricular activities. He had played the violin since grade school, the last few years taking master’s class lessons from Mr. Krey himself. Some years ago, the school’s music director had asked her to serve on the committee planning special presentations in the performing arts. She’d agreed and somehow ended up as chair of that committee. But this performance of the Krey Quartet marked her last event as a member of that committee. She’d hand her three-ring notebook and a full slate of events for next year off to Jack Oliver, her successor as chair and father of a first-rate oboist who still had a couple years left at Pritchard. It was so much easier to fulfill these volunteer duties when the subject of your attention and sacrifice was still in residence.

  “How is young Jasper faring at State?” Walton Krey asked as they surveyed the empty school auditorium from the back row.

  As always, Walton was wearing a seersucker suit (only the colors changed—green, brown, wine, blue, charcoal—according to a secret schedule) with a precisely knotted bowtie and matching kerchief. Jasper had sometimes complained about Mr. Krey’s demanding standards, but Leah always found him amusing in his eccentric pomposity. “Not so young anymore, I’m afraid.”

  Walton raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “Still in touch?”

  “Oh, sure—almost every day. But they do grow up.” She stared at the stage and recalled Jasper’s crowning recital there last spring, could hear the mournful notes of his Bach concerto. The memory brought tears to her eyes.

  “Our cross to bear, Mrs. Monroe,” Walton said, almost a whisper.

  Leah blinked away her tears. “Ours?”

  Walton smiled whimsically. “Parents and teachers: always bidding farewell to our greatest achievements—with smiles on our faces!”

  “How do you manage, Mr. Krey?”

  He gazed at her with big owlish eyes. “Never stop playing, Mrs. Monroe.”

  “And if you don’t have a talent?”

  “But that wouldn’t be your problem, now, would it?” he said before heading down the aisle to check on the arrangement of the four chairs and music stands at the center of the stage.

  On her way home Leah swung by the retirement community to check on her father-in-law, Cap Monroe. His real name was Wesley but he’d been given the name Cap in his baseball playing heyday when he’d where his ball cap wherever he went, long before it was fashionable to do so. Now everyone called him Cap, even his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and everyone gave him caps for presents, though he rarely wore them.

  He’d lost his wife, Whitfield’s mother, to a stroke ten years ago, promptly moved into the retirement community and met a widow there, Laurel Jensen, and married her in a quiet ceremony though they kept their separate apartments (“Couldn’t fit all our stuff in one place no-how!”). Laurel had died of cancer this past spring and Cap, who turned eighty-nine last month, seemed to give up. Now he only left his apartment to eat, and the community’s social worker had suggested to the family it was time to think about the assisted-living facility. He could get around O.K. with his walker, but he didn’t have any interest in the social activities that used to mean so much to him.

  “How’s my big teddy bear?” Leah said as she bent over to give him a hug as he sat in his chair watching the twenty-four-hour news channel with no sound, the closed captions flashing across the bottom of the screen.

  “Send him back,” Cap said without getting up.

  “Send who back?” Leah asked as she sat in the upholstered chair that used to be Laurel’s but was now hers, at least during her frequent visits.

  “That old wrinkly teddy bear who stays in his chair all day.”

  Leah laughed. “Can’t send him back. Discontinued the model long ago.”

  “Then send him out to pasture.”

  “Might get chased by those frisky young fillies!”

  “What would they want with a wrinkly old teddy bear?”

  “The bear has charms he doesn’t even know about.”

  “Like how to growl in five different languages.”

  “Would those be bear languages or human or horse?”

  “Grizzly, Kodiak, brown, polar, and black.”

  “And what’s his native growl?”

  “With a mug like this, got to be grizzly!” He rubbed at his stubbled chin then gave her a smile—first for days.

  Leah laughed. “You growing a beard or just taken a day off from shaving?”

  “Told you—joining the grizzlies!”

  “I’ll make sure the kitchen stores their supplies in locked cabinets.”

  “Too late—already raided the pantry.” He waved toward several Styrofoam containers on his kitchenette’s counter.

  “Doesn’t have to go in the fridge, does it?”

  “Bears eat rotten food all the time—tastes better.”

  “Till it hits the stomach.” She stood to check out the containers.

  “What do I care?” Cap grumbled as she walked past. He hit the mute button on the remote and the news anchor’s voice roared out from the T.V.

  Leah sorted through the food containers, threw out the ones that smelled bad, labeled the others with a marker and stacked them in his dorm fridge. Then she walked over and gently pried the remote out of his hand and lowered the volume to a more normal level. “I’ve got my implants, Cap. Can hear just fine.”

  “But I can’t. Got any implants for me?”

  “I’ll bring them tomorrow.”

  “Don’t bother.” He raised the volume again.

  Leah walked over and switched off the T.V.

  Cap switched it on.

  She unplugged the T.V.

  “What you do that for?”

  “I came to talk to you. I can’t talk over shouting news.”

  He glowered at her. “Ain’t got nothing to talk about.”

  “Not even with me?” She gave him a childish pout as she sat back down.

  “What you wasting your time with me for?”

  “Maybe I like being with you.”

  He laughed ironically. “Not even you can make that lie believable.”

  “You’ve still got plenty of life to live, Cap.”

  He fixed her in a hard stare. “I’ve lost two wives, Leah. The first one took half my heart with her; the second, the other half. I don’t have anything left to live for, except sitting in this chair watching all the news of people worse off than me.”

  Leah looked at him with sadness and compassion.

  “And somebody has unplugged the T.V. and deprived an old man of his one consolation.” There was no humor in his voice.

  Leah sighed. She stood quickly, leaned over and kissed his forehead, then plugged in the T.V. before leaving. In her wake she thought she heard him say “Thank you,” but it may have been someone on the shouting T.V.

  Back at home she prepared the Chicken Country Captain that was one of her signature dishes. Both Jasper and Whitfield loved the dish and would always cheer upon opening the door and smelling the exotic mix of garlic, onions, curry powder, and thyme. But tonight in the empty house, those pungent scents had more the association of funereal incense than delightful cooking odors. Jasper’s cheer would not greet these odors this night; and Whitfield was late again, surely
showing a client a property on his way home from work. He kept saying he planned to cut back, had hired a vivacious young office manager with the intention of doing just that. Why then was he always late? The rice would be a ruin.

  She covered the two pots on the stove and turned off the burners. She hung her apron on the hook of the two-way swinging door into the dining room, then walked down the hall and into the dark den. She sat in her favorite chair but didn’t turn on the light. She stared at the shadows of the gas logs in their granite-framed fireplace. They would leap to life with blue-tipped flames and radiant warmth if she but tapped the remote on the end table beside her. But she left it alone, left all of it alone. As a last gesture of surrender, she reached behind her ears and switched off her microprocessors—first the right, then the left—knew again the freedom of silence.