Above The Thunder Part 23

"I'm really worried about her, Mrs. Brinkman," Flynn's teacher had said at the first conference of the school year. "Most children brought in blenders and knitting needles and basketb.a.l.l.s." Miss Jamison paused. "Most of the students showed us how to make fruit smoothies or knit scarves. Flynn brought in some gla.s.ses from the eye doctor's office and told us how to communicate with the spirit world. The kids are picking on her without mercy." Anna said she knew this; Flynn had been telling her all along. It is always better to tell the truth. Anna remembered that long-ago game she and Flynn played, and was haunted by her words. It would have been better if she had taught Flynn to tell healthy lies.

The phone rang and rang; they were probably all in the cafeteria. Anna left money on the table and drove straight to the middle school. The children were eating lunch outside at picnic tables set around the playground. She scanned the crowd, saw the bright yellow hair of Flynn's teacher, and then the group in her charge, who flocked around her in twittery energy. She spotted Flynn sitting alone, her lunch spread out over the entire table. Anna was pulled back through every sadness she'd felt in her own life. She caught Flynn's eye and smiled, and Flynn's smile in return was the most genuine Anna had seen in nearly a year-this, then, was why she had come, for this bit of happiness she saw now in her granddaughter.

"Hi," Flynn said. "I had a feeling you'd be here."

"Did you?" Anna glanced down at Flynn's uneaten lunch. "Wanna ditch school and go to the quarry? I don't know if it's actually warm enough to swim, but we can sit by the water at least."

And then the second smile, one of surprised delight that filled Anna with relief at the thought that everything might be okay after all. Anna called Naylor's office from the car and told him that something had come up and she wouldn't be back in until tomorrow.

It was warm enough in the sun, the day windless, so she and Flynn did swim. They floated on their backs in water so smooth and perfect the trees and rocks and clouds were mirrored in its gla.s.sy dark surface. Anna tasted the granite in the water at the back of her throat.

"Do you believe in heaven and h.e.l.l?" Flynn asked.

Anna turned. Flynn was watching her intently. She was going to be beautiful, Anna saw; why hadn't she noticed that until now? Her eyes had changed-or maybe it was just the light-from a dark brown to a deeper shade, nearly black. Her features were chiseled yet lush, her lips full and curvy and deeply red. One day, Anna thought, some man was going to fall in love with her for that mouth. Flynn's hair was thick and dark and to her shoulders. She had recently had her bangs cut, and she swept them off to the side, which gave her a look of grave sophistication. She probably wouldn't be tall, Anna thought, but she was perfectly proportioned with the long, lean legs of a runner. She was going to be more beautiful than Poppy, if that were possible.

Anna turned away, watched as the shadows of birds, disturbed from the stand of trees r.i.m.m.i.n.g the quarry, moved over the water. What kind of woman would Flynn be, Anna wondered. Not like her mother, certainly, at least Anna hoped Flynn hadn't inherited her mother's streak of weakness and self-indulgence. She would be a handful, artistic like Marvin, if her highly developed imagination were any indication, her fanciful visions channeled into a creative outlet. Anna tried to visualize her granddaughter as a woman of thirty, of twenty-five, but she couldn't get past the girl she was now. Perhaps there would always be something girlish about Flynn, something ageless and childlike.

When Flynn repeated her question, Anna said, "You shouldn't be thinking of such things as heaven and h.e.l.l at your age, Flynn. It's a beautiful day. Just enjoy it."

"But there is such a thing as h.e.l.l," Flynn asked.

Anna didn't answer.

"Do you think my mother is gone for good?" Flynn said.

Anna floated beside Flynn, watched the fog gather and drift across the mountains in the distance. "I think she might be. It doesn't mean she doesn't love you, though. She just has some problems she has to work out before she can take care of you."

"You have been very good to me," Flynn said. A minute or so went by. "Is there fear in heaven?"

"I don't imagine there would be."

"If there is no fear in heaven, then h.e.l.l must be very foggy." Her eyes rested on the mountain range. "Fog is just a cloud with a fear of heights."

A few weeks ago Anna had called a child psychologist and asked for a meeting. Flynn's facial expressions had been changing. "You mean a lack of affect?" the psychologist had asked, and Anna said, no, it wasn't that Flynn had stopped smiling or laughing. To prove it to herself, Anna wrote down how many expressions crossed Flynn's face in the span of two hours. Roughly the same number as Jack and Stuart each showed; Anna had counted theirs, too, as a control. No, what she meant was the manner in which Flynn's expressions and emotions transited her face-her smile moved from the outside in, instead of breaking open from the center of her face. Amus.e.m.e.nt began in her eyes instead of her chin and mouth: delight started in the lips and tongue for children, hadn't the psychologist noticed this? Adults, not children, were amused from the top down, from the eyebrows to the mouth.

The psychologist, a fiftyish man with one blue eye, one brown, studied Anna as if she were fine print. "Where does your amus.e.m.e.nt begin?" he asked.

"Maybe here," Anna had said, then walked out.

"Get your things together," Anna said now, getting out of the water. "We need to get going."

At home, Anna called to Jack and Stuart, who was still here even after Anna postponed Jack's birthday party. Jack had an unpleasant reaction to one of his medicines, but was now steadily improving, either from the recombination of his meds or Stuart's presence, or both. Anna encouraged Stuart to stay as long as he could. The cla.s.ses he taught were on Monday and Tuesday only, so presumably he could be here most of every week. Anna liked having him around. She especially appreciated his reliability. Anna could count on the fact that if she overheard Stuart holding a one-way conversation in an empty room, it was always because he was on the phone.

Anna went around back to let Flynn's dog in. He was sniffing all along the cedar fence. Anna whistled, and the dog looked over and wagged. "Hiya, fatso. Wanna come in?"

A voice spoke on the other side of the fence. "Thanks, but I best be ticking on."

"Oh," Anna said. "Violet? Is that you? I was talking to the dog."

"Okay. I do need to whittle my middle, truth be told. Getting on, you know, and picking up flesh."

Anna heard the clink of dog leashes, collars. "Do you happen to know where Jack and his friend went off to?"

"I do not. But they set off near to noon. I was having my lunch when they motored past."

Anna thanked her, and went inside. Flynn was taking a bath. Anna heard the ancient groaning of the pipes. She sat at the kitchen table in the path of the late afternoon sun, made herself a cup of tea and picked up the phone to call Greta, to whom she hadn't talked in nearly a week. "It's me," Anna said, when her friend picked up.

"Hi," Greta said. "Do you know anything about creme de ca.s.sis?"

"What is that?"

"That's what I was wondering. I'm making something that calls for creme de ca.s.sis, and I don't know if it's a spice or a liquid, or what."

"Hmm. Sounds like a seduction dinner. Who's coming over?"

Greta sighed. "It's hopeless. I've given up on dating, anyway. But even so. What's up with you?"

"Not a lot. Just haven't talked to you in a few days."

"You sound exhausted," Greta said. Anna heard the motor of a blender start up.

"I do? Well, now that you mention it, I am," Anna said.

"How's Flynn?"

"Better, I'd say. She's always going to be peculiar, but many wonderful people are strange."

"Indeed," Greta said. "Anyway, I don't think she's all that peculiar. She's twelve. Who isn't insane when they're twelve?"

"Right," Anna said.

"I remember when I was eleven or twelve, I had this obsessive-and I mean really obsessive-fantasy about a handsome man chasing my naked body around and around my bedroom. I couldn't imagine what I wanted him to do when he caught me, mind you." Greta laughed. "That's twelve for you. You half know things, and you half don't."

Anna laughed. Greta sounded as if she was in a hurry. Anna heard the rattle of pots and pans, the gush of the kitchen faucet. "Who's your date with?"

"Someone I work with. It's not that exciting. I'm already looking forward to the end of the evening when I snuggle with Lily in bed and watch her sleep."

"Are you coming for Jack's birthday in two weeks? Stay as long as you like."

"Absolutely I'm coming. Listen, dear, I have to run, but I think maybe you need a break from Flynn. Why not send her to Boston to see her father? Or send her to me. It'll give you perspective on everything. You sound exhausted and strained."

Anna said she would think about it.

"Really," Greta said. "When was the last time you did something you wanted to do?"

Anna considered this after she hung up. What did she want to do? Mainly what she was doing. Except maybe not worry about Flynn so much.

At eleven o'clock, just as Anna was getting ready to turn in for the night, Jack and Stuart came home and wandered into her bedroom where she was watching the news. "Would it have killed you to call?" she said, but she couldn't be mad. They-in particular, Jack-looked so radiant and happy that she couldn't help but smile. Jack jumped in bed beside her and nuzzled against her neck. Stuart sat in the easy chair that had been Hugh's. "We went into Boston," Jack said.

"Were you clubbing?"

"I wish," Jack said. "I don't really feel well enough for that. We went to visit some friends. Wanna come to San Francisco with us? It won't cost you a cent."

"No thanks," Anna said automatically. And then, "What do you mean?"

"Our friend Curtis has three tickets he can't use. Why don't you come? It's only for a few days. Stuart found somebody to cover his cla.s.ses. So we thought we'd have a hurrah."

"No, I probably can't. But it sounds like fun."

From down the hall Flynn called, "Jack?"

"In here, baby girl," he called back.

Flynn, then the dog, climbed into bed with Anna and Jack.

"I thought you were asleep," Anna said, then looked down at what was fastened to Flynn's red nightgown: one of the hairpins she bought at that auction with Greta.

"Where did you get that?"

"On the floor in the downstairs closet." Flynn looked down at the fine blond hair, outlined the downy circle with her finger.

"What is that?" Jack said.

"It's a hairpin. It was a popular thing in the late eighteenth century to make brooches from the hair of your dead loved ones," Anna said.

"Gruesome," Jack said.

"This is the hair of a dead person," Flynn said, and let her eyes unfocus. "This person was just a tiny baby, who is lost, who has lost her way, and keeps turning the wrong way in the dark. She's afraid she's going to h.e.l.l where the storms are. There is no thunder in heaven. Only h.e.l.l has storms."

Anna and Jack and Stuart looked at her. Jack reached for her hand. "Come up here," he said softly, and settled her between him and Anna. "There is no such thing as h.e.l.l. Only different kinds of heavens. At least, I'm counting on that."

Stuart smiled when Jack looked over, then crept downstairs to the drafty sunroom to call David. He sat on the wicker couch, twisted the phone cord around and around his wrist while he waited for David to pick up. It was late, but Stuart knew David well enough to know that he was in bed with a book, the late show turned low so he could ignore it, and a gla.s.s of good French wine.

"It's me," he said, when David picked up.

"Hi," he said, then fell silent.

"Well, I'm still at Anna's."

"Yes. I figured. Are you coming home? I'm not haranguing, just trying to plan."

Stuart felt a pang, imagined the warm flannel sheets with his lover's musky body, his cologne fragrant on the pillows. Stuart's longing to be with him at that moment, to be surrounded by the familiar scents and textures was like an ache all along his jawbone. How could he just leave this behind? David was the man with whom he thought he wanted a future, a string of pleasant and peaceful days unfolding elegantly from his middle years to his late ones. Yet, it was strange how often Stuart's forty-two felt like old-age, stranger still that he could more easily envision their deathbed scenes than he could their next vacation.

"Stuart?"

"I'm here. I'm just thinking. I am coming home, I just don't know when." That was the truth as far as he knew it. He heard David's breathing on the other end, a sigh of anger or unhappiness-he couldn't tell-the faraway sounds of Leno's monologue, and the clink of stemware on a marble coaster.

"Why? You told me you were going to Anna's for the party, fine. Now you've done it, come home."

"Anna postponed the party. Jack wasn't doing great. The party's in two weeks."

"I won't tolerate this."

"Is that an ultimatum?" Stuart looked up, saw a flash of light outside. Somebody was moving around the perimeter of the house with a flashlight. He stood, peered through the windows but couldn't see anything.

"No. I'm not making it that easy on you. You need to figure it out. Jack continually treated you like s.h.i.t, and yet you keep going back to him, you keep setting yourself up-"

"I didn't go back to him. I came up for his birthday party."

David fell silent. "You're going to be there two more weeks? What about your cla.s.ses?"

"Someone covered for me last week. It's under control." Stuart was planning to stay with Pamela in Boston Sunday and Monday nights, then to head back up to Maine Tuesday evening.

"Anyway," David said. "I guess if you're not back here the Monday after the party, that's the information I need."

Stuart snorted. "So it is an ultimatum. You are, you know, invited."

David hung up. Stuart dialed again, but put the receiver back to go check who was outside.

It was the nutty next-door neighbor with her dogs. "Come along, come along, the dark draws nigh."

"h.e.l.lo?" Stuart called.

The light shone in his direction, and Stuart saw that it was attached to her head. "Good evening," she said. "Just out for our evening const.i.tutional. Glad to see you boys got home safely."

"Oh, goodnight," Stuart said, and headed back in. He sat in the dark, watched the neighbor's light move past the house, then recede. The sensible thing would be to pack up his things this minute and go back to Boston. David was right: Jack was who he always was and staying here only revivified what had always been. If it weren't so, why hadn't Jack come downstairs to find out what he was doing? Jack took his affection and loyalty as a given. It hadn't occurred to him that Stuart might not have made up his mind.

Stuart again heard noises outside. He went out.

"Not to be alarmed, it is still just us," she said. "My dogs are old. It can sometimes take a while for them to say their prayers. You're keeping late hours, young man."

Stuart said that he was. "Working through dilemmas, you know." He stepped outside. The woman looked ghostly in the blue halogen lamplight. Normally, Stuart found such intrusions offensive, but there was something about her he liked.

"Yes," she said. "Dilemmas, dilemmas. Of course you're working through them. The young always are." She paused. "There are many stations along the pilgrim's path. The way to Santiago is full of peril and false starts."

"What?" Stuart said.

"The truer the journey, the more obstacles you will encounter. In my experience."

Stuart didn't know what the h.e.l.l she was talking about. Santiago? Chile? But later, years from now, he'd remember this night and see how decisions made at critical junctures weren't what they seemed to be at the time. Certain choices, paths, were as inevitable and as necessary as the rhythm of a beating heart.

At the last minute Anna decided to go with them. Greta was right: she did need some time away. Besides, it was only for a few days. Greta agreed to come up for the weekend, which only left two days of Flynn's being in Violet's care-something Anna wasn't crazy about.

"Flynn is a little overly sensitive to things," Anna said, walking into Violet's house for the first time, a couple of hours before the flight to California. Flynn had come over earlier, to make sure Baby Jesus got along with Violet's dogs. Violet's house was cluttered-years worth of National Geographics stacked in the corners-but clean, Anna saw with relief. "She frightens easily. Especially about things like ghosts. And certain subjects, like death and dying, should be off-limits." Anna took the cup of tea Violet offered her, looked around. The place was actually nice. Without the excess stuff it would have been beautiful. The ceilings were vaulted and crossed with heavy beams, and the walls were the original plaster. Above the fireplace were architectural prints from buildings in ancient Rome. The temple of Mars, Anna read on one. The gathering place for Caesar and his armies.

"The la.s.s will be fine. I'll keep her close."

Anna smiled and thanked her. It would be all right. Violet was warm and wise. Her house was inviting and smelled surprisingly good. Anna had expected a doggy smell, dust and mildew, but instead there were the unmistakable scents of lavender, jasmine, and lemon furniture polish.