Lovely, Dark and Deep Read online

  There were no good-byes when she left for school.

  My phone beeps louder. I stretch across the bed and reach for it. It is a text. From my mother. LOVE AND KISSES! Excited like that, so not her. It’s probably the only non-work-related text she’s ever sent.

  I have this image of all the people around me, contorting themselves to help me, grotesque. I should probably ditch my phone, too.

  The dryer buzzes and I dump a mountain of clean clothes on my bed. Hot jeans on a snowy day. Simple things. I pull on boots and one of my dad’s huge jackets and head into town alone for the first time since I got here.

  a small

  town

  is a

  small

  town

  is a

  I KNOW I’m supposed to be over it. I wasn’t the one driving that night. I’ve been in cars since. But this is a first—driving alone. I sit in Dad’s truck and try to relax. Rest my head on the steering wheel a minute. Deep breaths. Then I start it up and back out of the shed. The snow’s no match for this ancient miracle of American engineering, and I slip and fishtail my way through the drifts and curves up to the main road.

  We’re only a few miles out of town, but as you head down in, the landscape changes. Trees and cliffs give way kind of suddenly to scrubby little rock-front beach cottages and campy fifties-era “Holiday Havens.” Everything sags a little, like it’s resigned to a future outside the action. I could love it for that.

  Main Street has the usual places meant to charm summer visitors. A lobster shack, a coffee shop with checked curtains, Uncle Kippy’s Old-Timey Candy Shoppe that sells ice cream sodas in the summer, a little wharf where visitors can book a schooner cruise, an old and rare books shop, Lenore’s Bike, Board ’n’ Skate, The Ski Outfit, a “general store” that sells scented candles and postcards, and three restaurants.

  At the end of Main, further inland, past some townies’ houses, you find the real artery of town, the strip where they hide fast food joints, gas stations, the boat shop, a liquor store, and a chain grocery. I pull in there, next to the Tire Depot, and go in.

  Like a normal person. I’m a normal person today.

  A small town is a small town is a small town. You might be able to find organic greens now, and people might not outwardly stare, but walk into any small-town grocery and expect to be inspected. I catch one of the stock guys hightailing it around to the front of the store to let the checkout girls know I’ve come in. Whatever. I push the rattly little cart up and down the aisles. Fill it high enough to restock us awhile.

  When I pay, the same guy bags my stuff. Looks average. My age, maybe. A regular guy. Probably has a very normal life.

  Finally he says, “Carry these out to your car for you, Miss Wells?”

  Miss Wells.

  He and the cashier exchange a glance. They’re on to me. Want me to know. It makes me want to do something really weird. Give them something to talk about. Maintain the family name. God knows what my dad’s given them to go on over the years.

  “Nah, that’s okay,” I say as he reaches for his parka. “I’ve got it.”

  He looks disappointed but shrugs, and I go back out the automatic doors to where my dad’s truck is already nearly buried in fresh snow. Their eyes are on me the entire time I clear the snow off the windows. I’m a sideshow. I won’t be back here anytime soon. The place is deserted. Everyone in for the storm. Either that, or this town really is just that empty.

  Back on the road. Past the gas station. Past the Movie Nook. Fishtail a little at a stop sign. More calming breaths. Past the diner with the truckers parked on the side. Past Gummer’s Pie Place with the giant rotating whoopie pie sign. At the light, a car pulls up close behind me, taps the horn.

  That Jeep.

  Nearly stops my heart. It’s Cal Owen, striped scarf, dark hair, framed in my rearview mirror, hand raised in a relaxed hello.

  At green, I step on it. Back out to the wilder parts, the good, upward geometry of trees and the punching-rock coast. My foot’s heavy on the gas. Can’t get distance between us fast enough.

  falling

  like

  snow

  BY THE TIME I’m back at the house it’s nearly one. I shove aside last night’s dinner dishes I was supposed to wash and get to work. Some tests you can’t fail. A simple lunch. Salad niçoise. Dad’s standard. Only minus the niçoise. The grocery store didn’t have any of those little bitter-brined olives, and I don’t have time or energy to do the beans or boil eggs. So it’s more like tuna and tomatoes on lettuce with vinegar and oil. Whatever. It’s the best I’ve got on short notice. I tear a few chunks off what passes for a baguette up here, pile lunch on a big teak tray thing that may or may not be a piece of sculpture, and head out.

  “Wren—” Dad sounds happy to see me when I shoulder open the door. He takes the tray and sets it on the small table he uses for working meals.

  An enormous bronze something-or-other dominates the space. It’s curved in a way that makes me want to curl myself into it, surrender to a cool metal cradle. He watches me while I look. I say nothing. I’ve learned that much over the years.

  Then he pulls me into an unexpected hug. My dad’s a big man, but you don’t notice because he’s gentle. My face is crushed against the soft front of his shirt. I hug him back. We don’t usually do this. Something’s up. I look at him when he lets me go. It’s on his face, like scaffolding. Mom’s worry. He’s been listening to her. Listening. God. They’re united. He looks at me like he’s seeing me in some new way. Like he did in the hospital, and when I first got here, before we settled into our routine of mostly ignoring each other, doing our own thing.

  “What?” I say.

  Before he can answer, a woman—Zara, I think—and Mary come out of the back room.

  “Zara—” Mary’s traipsing after her, wiping blackened hands on a rag hanging from her belt. “If you’re coming back here later, can I catch a ride with you now to Mercy House? Then I can leave my car here. I’m kind of low on gas—” She stops when she spots me standing awkwardly next to Dad.

  “Oops! Sorry!” she says, making an apologetic face toward him. “I didn’t know you guys were already lunching.”

  Before my dad can reply, Zara swings an arm around Mary’s shoulders, and while looking right at my dad, says somewhat assertively, “Yes, I’m coming back. John, we need to work on those models a little more. Something’s not right yet, and you need to work with Mary to figure it out.”

  Some other kind of look passes between them. Zara reaches for a work jacket on one of the hooks next to my dad’s and slips it on, lifting the heavy golden rope of a braid she wears pulled to the side. Mary flashes another apologetic smile our way, like she thinks she’s interrupted us, and slips into an electric-blue-and-purple toggle-button coat.

  The studio is momentarily filled with cool air, as if it had sucked in a huge breath, before the heavy door swings shut behind them.

  Dad looks at the space where they were for a second, then turns back to me, sits, and motions for me to do the same. He uncorks a bottle of wine and fills two slightly cloudy-looking glasses with the burgundy liquid.

  “You’ll have a little?”

  He’s sending me back to the city for sure. Has to be. My mind begins a frantic racket. I won’t go. Not yet. I’ll figure something else out. Have to.

  He pushes the glass toward me before I can say yes or no. Pointing out that I’m not legal or that it’s early in the day is pointless. We’re in the studio. Dad’s fiefdom. He’s the law.

  “Your mother’s been calling me, e-mailing,” he starts.

  “My condolences.” I’m sarcastic.

  “Don’t be snide. You know what I think of false feeling.”

  There’s nothing false about my feelings, but I don’t point that out.

  “I have never asked you to be anything more than you are,” he starts.

  My heart sinks. Here it is.

  “I know what happened in May, all of it
, was terrible for you. I know you wanted time—to come sort yourself out. And you’re welcome here, you know that.”

  I force down a few bites of salad and a small sip of the wine. Tastes dusty. Strong.

  He says nothing for a minute, samples the salad. Dad knows how to keep an audience. I watch snow hit the skylights above us. I can’t eat. Not now, not until I know where this is going. Another sip of wine. It moves through me like a calm kind of heat.

  He clears his throat and sighs. “If you tell me . . .” Sets down the fork. Wipes his mouth.

  “If you tell me you’re okay, but you just need a little more time to sort yourself out, I’ll tell her to back off.”

  Folds his napkin. Lays it next to his plate like he’s enacting some kind of serious ritual. A rite of improvement.

  “But she’s worried.” Studies me a second. “We’re worried. She’s got it in her head that you’re not doing better up here—that you’re heading in a—wrong direction.”

  Sighs. Looks at me like he might stare a new truth out of me.

  “Your mother is afraid you’re too isolated—that you could, might, get hurt—hurt yourself.” He pauses. “Of course I know that’s not the case, and I told her that, but—”

  This is what I love about my dad. He cuts to the chase. No warming a person into an idea. The wine flushes up like a mossy wall between me and what he’s saying.

  “What do I need to do, Dad?” I ask. Ignore what he said. “I’m not going to school. Not yet and probably not to Amherst. And I don’t even know if I want to go to art school anymore. Or what I want.”

  “We’re not asking you to start school.”

  “Am I bothering you?” I say. “Being here? Is it too hard for you to work with me around?”

  His face looks sad for a second. He leans back noisily in his chair and runs a hand through his shock of white hair. It stands up when he pulls his hand away. Like a swan’s wing. He looks at the back of his hand.

  “I hardly notice you’re around,” he says softly. “You’re so quiet. And I respect your privacy. God knows I hate people telling me how to live. I trust you, that’s why I said you could come here.”

  “But . . . what?”

  “But I think she’s right. You need to do something. I don’t think you should go on spending your days sleeping and jogging in the woods. It’s not enough—”

  “But if I were working on some art project, it would be okay, right? If I said I was making notes for something, writing, or taking pictures . . . ?” I’m defensive. “You don’t want to tell me how to live, but you’re uncomfortable that I’m not living how you want me to all the same.”

  He doesn’t respond. I’m right, and he knows it. He unfolds his napkin and finishes his salad.

  I stare at my plate. Force a bite into my mouth so he can’t accuse me of not eating.

  “Dad, I don’t know what you’re saying. What do I have to do?”

  I keep my voice cool, but a panic rushes over me, makes me want to get out of here. I’d leave if I had somewhere to go. I hate being the cause of their concern. When I quit talking, they put me through a few sessions with a shrink. Made me take antidepressants. I’ve listened to everything everyone had to say on the subject of loss and bereavement. Survivors’ guilt. None of it mattered. Matters. They’re just words. Falling like snow. But I have to listen to them. Because I’m not free. My parents are still in charge, and apparently now frighteningly united. Another weight on my chest. I want to get away from weights. From the possibility that people need me not to disappoint them. But where else can I go? I have nowhere else.

  “I thought coming here would be different.” My voice wavers. “I’d be in charge of myself. Could deal with it my own way. Until I felt right again. Or didn’t. Now you’re saying I have to do something if I want to stay?”

  “Look,” he begins again. “You’re right. I’m telling you how to live. But I’m not asking much, Wren. Just do something.”

  “Like what?” I look at my lap. Stunned. This has to be the first time in my entire life he’s asked me to do something. It’s like he’s breaking a secret agreement between him and Mom. He’s the troublemaker, she’s the taskmaster. Not the other way around.

  “Lucy Shepherd—at the library. She’s a friend of mine and Zara’s. She says she can use you in there with her. A light job. Mornings. A few hours a day.”

  He drops his napkin on his plate and stretches back in his chair again. The weathered wood creaks.

  I put my face in my hands. The library. I’ll have to interact with people. This Lucy woman.

  He clears his throat. Looks at me a second, then off to the right, like he’s composing his thoughts.

  “A young man called a few times looking for you, the son of my architect. Says you met? Mary talked to him.” He coughs, takes another sip of wine. “He could use a hand from time to time at his house—says he’d hire you.”

  Cal. No way. I die inside.

  “Meet with him. Help him out. Give me something I can tell your mother so she’ll get off both our backs about this, okay?”

  I drop my hands and look up through the skylight again. Still snowing. So quiet, the snow. I’ll run away. Thumb it out on the highway. Canada, maybe.

  He reaches across the table and pushes my chin down so I have to look into his face. “I’m not asking for much, kiddo,” he says.

  I look away from him again. He has no idea.

  “Just throw us a line? Some kind of signal so we know you’re all right. Do it and I’ll find a way to call her off.”

  Tears again, a seriously annoying development. I blink them away. Make myself hard inside. I’m hot with shame. My parents are managing me. I’m pathetic.

  I try to breathe through my nose, not gulp at air like a fish on land. I’ll do what they want. Adjust. No choice. I’ll make my heart go solid stone again; work my little job, then come home and lie in bed, watch the treetops sway.

  My father leans across the table and puts his scratchy hands on my cheeks. He looks at me like he’s been watching my thoughts on a screen. “Wren,” he says, “I’m sorry.”

  nearer

  now

  I HATE EUPHEMISM. Passed on. At peace. Try dead. It’s winter, and everything’s more dead than not, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way. Everlasting snowfall. Spring’s impossible. Dad’s plow service digs us out day after day.

  Cal’s number goes up on the fridge along with a little pink “While You Were Out” note from Mary, saying he called. Again. While I was out. I like that. I am out. I look at it in the morning while I stand at the sink eating the toast and egg or whatever Mary’s left for me. Then I put on my winter running gear and head out on the trails. The only human footprints out there are mine. Snowshoes would help.

  Finally I wake up one morning and the note with Cal’s number’s taped to my bathroom mirror. Along with another note. This one in my dad’s scrawl. Library. Today. I lean against the sink a minute and imagine I can do this. Will. Time to get my act together. I run, shower, dress, and drive in to meet Lucy Shepherd. Start my job.

  The library’s a little one-story brick building on a small wedge of land in the middle of town. It’s flanked by big old trees and has tall windows on all sides, rounded at the top. Looks like a quaint small-town library right off a movie set. We all have roles to play, I guess.

  Ms. Shepherd says almost nothing. I like her. She welcomes me in a quiet voice and says I should have a look around for today. Like she knows a look around is pretty much all I can take on my first day. The place is deserted. Fine by me. I walk around the stacks, feeling stupid, like she’s watching me, but when I glance at her, she’s not. She’s working at her desk and looks like she’s actually focused on something. Other than me.

  I spend about an hour staring at a Guide to Northeastern Conifers, but then I find an old, raggedy collection of poems by Philip Larkin. I loved poetry in school. Drove Meredith mad. If I read one out loud, she’d roll her eye
s, call me Emo Girl, then go right back to her Bio homework or whatever other no-nonsense class she was acing.

  I flip through the worn pages of the slim book. There are so many good ones. Lines lift themselves off the page, exactly the kind of talk I need right now. The poems are conversational but resigned like when you and a friend sigh at the same time.

  Ms. Shepherd—“Lucy, call me Lucy”—tells me Larkin was one of the great English poets of the twentieth century. She puts her hand on my shoulder for a minute while she talks. Shows me his poem “High Windows,” which I read because she’s standing right next to me. All adults think kids will like that one because there’s swearing and sex in it. I don’t tell her I read it in junior English seminar.

  When Lucy walks away, I flip through the book, not really focusing on any one poem in particular until I spot “Aubade.”

  I read it twice.

  Then again.

  Finally someone who tells it straight. No smiles and lies. Debates with despair. What I now know about sleepless nights, hours moving us toward what’s never not there. How scarce it matters to be scared or brave. Dawn lifting itself to the window all the same.

  I lean back in the chair a little. Feel my shoulders fall. A surge of relief. Larkin gets it, got it, the lies we live just to tread through time. Too bad he’s dead.

  So, at the end of my no-work shift, I give in, ask Lucy for a library card, and check the book out. I agree to come back in a week and start a regular schedule. She smiles at me so kindly when I push open the heavy doors, I almost throw the book back in at her. I’m not going to last long in this little fake job if she gets all touchy-feely. I don’t need pity. Just some space to breathe.

  a good

  house

  ANOTHER DAMN DAY.

  Only on this one I’m going to call Cal. Because I have to. Make a friend, because I have to. Get my parents off my back. The urge to go back to bed is overpowering. Instead I dress and sit at the table with my juice, a yogurt, his number, and the phone. Like a normal person.