“Just stand still, and take a deep breath.”
I did, watching while she gathered up the pieces.
“Just one bowl,” she said, finally, and refused to let me pay. “It happens.”
I was very careful as I left, chagrined, suddenly exhausted, too. It was still a beautiful day, windy and changeable. The clouds that had threatened to gather were more scattered now, and the early afternoon was sunny. The Impala floated over the low hills, the lake flashing through the trees. I hadn’t expected to be so moved by seeing Keegan again. Maybe it was simply that things had ended so abruptly between us, with no sense of closure or any kindness on my part, but all the old stirrings from those last wild days of spring were present again, forceful and unsettling.
When I got home, the house was empty. My footsteps echoed, fading in the layers of space, above and below, and I had a moment of understanding why my mother had locked up so many rooms. I went upstairs and slept a deep, post-jet-lag kind of healing sleep, no dreams.
By the time I woke up it was late afternoon. My mother still wasn’t home. The windows were open in her narrow downstairs bedroom, fresh air flowing in through the pines. A yellow dress was tossed on the bed, half-slipping off the corner. Her closet door was open and clothes were askew on the hangers, hanging off the doorknobs, a kind of exuberant chaos that seemed completely out of character. Restless, I changed into the same bathing suit I’d used the day before, cobalt blue and still faintly damp from my last swim, then went down to the lake.
The boathouse doors swung back with a great groan, and I stepped into the cool darkness, water lapping just below the motorboat, which was in its hoist. I lifted my dark green kayak from its hooks and hauled it through the wide doors to the beach. Half in the water and half on the stony shore, it moved lightly with the waves. I waded into the lake and climbed into the boat, pushing my paddle against the rocky bottom until the water grew deep enough to stroke. There was a small breeze, and my muscles moved in a rhythm as familiar as breathing. Leaves fluttered against the vivid sky.
I skimmed across the dark blue water, traveling along the shore as it curved outward into the lake, to the place where sediment from a stream left a trail of silt and the marshes began—a stand of cattails, broken by purple flowers, songbirds flitting in and out, sharp reds and yellows and blues against the muted reeds. This was where we’d always stopped before, the invisible boundary between our land and the forbidden depot. My arms ached. I rested the paddle and let myself drift. The shadows of fish flashed below. Bass, maybe perch; my father would have smiled to see them. Wind rustled the reeds and waves lapped at the boat. On the shore trees had grown up, ending abruptly in fields that were themselves overgrown and rippling.
It happened unexpectedly, as moments of beauty so often do. As I sat quietly, adrift, piecing together the stirring discoveries of this strange day, the deer began to emerge from the trees. The legendary white deer, wild and elusive; I’d never seen them before, and I held very still. One by one, until there were five them, quivering for a moment at the edge of the trees before something startled them and they leaped high, running like swift clouds through the fields.
Chapter 5
THAT EVENING MY MOTHER CAME HOME IN A PALE GREEN Prius, laughing as she slipped her good hand through the flimsy plastic handles of the bags, standing and smiling at the car as it backed out, because one arm was in a sling and the other was full, and she couldn’t wave. The driver did, however, and stuck his head out the window to call good-bye. His face was angular and kind and he had salt-and-pepper hair, and my mother stood in the driveway until his car disappeared out of sight.
We ate our simple dinner—French bread, pitted kalamata olives, smoked Brie, and a green salad—at
I did, watching while she gathered up the pieces.
“Just one bowl,” she said, finally, and refused to let me pay. “It happens.”
I was very careful as I left, chagrined, suddenly exhausted, too. It was still a beautiful day, windy and changeable. The clouds that had threatened to gather were more scattered now, and the early afternoon was sunny. The Impala floated over the low hills, the lake flashing through the trees. I hadn’t expected to be so moved by seeing Keegan again. Maybe it was simply that things had ended so abruptly between us, with no sense of closure or any kindness on my part, but all the old stirrings from those last wild days of spring were present again, forceful and unsettling.
When I got home, the house was empty. My footsteps echoed, fading in the layers of space, above and below, and I had a moment of understanding why my mother had locked up so many rooms. I went upstairs and slept a deep, post-jet-lag kind of healing sleep, no dreams.
By the time I woke up it was late afternoon. My mother still wasn’t home. The windows were open in her narrow downstairs bedroom, fresh air flowing in through the pines. A yellow dress was tossed on the bed, half-slipping off the corner. Her closet door was open and clothes were askew on the hangers, hanging off the doorknobs, a kind of exuberant chaos that seemed completely out of character. Restless, I changed into the same bathing suit I’d used the day before, cobalt blue and still faintly damp from my last swim, then went down to the lake.
The boathouse doors swung back with a great groan, and I stepped into the cool darkness, water lapping just below the motorboat, which was in its hoist. I lifted my dark green kayak from its hooks and hauled it through the wide doors to the beach. Half in the water and half on the stony shore, it moved lightly with the waves. I waded into the lake and climbed into the boat, pushing my paddle against the rocky bottom until the water grew deep enough to stroke. There was a small breeze, and my muscles moved in a rhythm as familiar as breathing. Leaves fluttered against the vivid sky.
I skimmed across the dark blue water, traveling along the shore as it curved outward into the lake, to the place where sediment from a stream left a trail of silt and the marshes began—a stand of cattails, broken by purple flowers, songbirds flitting in and out, sharp reds and yellows and blues against the muted reeds. This was where we’d always stopped before, the invisible boundary between our land and the forbidden depot. My arms ached. I rested the paddle and let myself drift. The shadows of fish flashed below. Bass, maybe perch; my father would have smiled to see them. Wind rustled the reeds and waves lapped at the boat. On the shore trees had grown up, ending abruptly in fields that were themselves overgrown and rippling.
It happened unexpectedly, as moments of beauty so often do. As I sat quietly, adrift, piecing together the stirring discoveries of this strange day, the deer began to emerge from the trees. The legendary white deer, wild and elusive; I’d never seen them before, and I held very still. One by one, until there were five them, quivering for a moment at the edge of the trees before something startled them and they leaped high, running like swift clouds through the fields.
Chapter 5
THAT EVENING MY MOTHER CAME HOME IN A PALE GREEN Prius, laughing as she slipped her good hand through the flimsy plastic handles of the bags, standing and smiling at the car as it backed out, because one arm was in a sling and the other was full, and she couldn’t wave. The driver did, however, and stuck his head out the window to call good-bye. His face was angular and kind and he had salt-and-pepper hair, and my mother stood in the driveway until his car disappeared out of sight.
We ate our simple dinner—French bread, pitted kalamata olives, smoked Brie, and a green salad—at
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