The Effects Of Light Part 3

All that wet outside her made her realize she was intensely thirsty, longing for a long draw of water down her throat. She hoped the building would have a drinking fountain. She focused on her thirst-an easy need to meet-to avoid thinking about Ruth.

Marcus Berger's office was on the third floor. He buzzed her in from the street and was waiting outside his office door when she walked up the stairs. She shook his hand and soon realized there was no drinking fountain and no Ruth. Upon Myla's request for something drinkable, Berger brought his guest a cup of lukewarm water from the men's bathroom. This left something to be desired. They settled into chairs side by side and angled toward each other. She'd expected him to be sitting behind a desk, and she was glad she'd spoken to him on the phone; otherwise the shock of his youth might have been laughable. She liked him immediately, though she wasn't about to admit it.

With no sign of Ruth, Myla felt bitter, disappointed. She hadn't let herself admit how much she'd been hoping to see Ruth again. Meanwhile, Berger crossed his legs. "If you wouldn't mind, let me explain myself. My client has hired me to transfer into your hands certain items that are rightfully yours, legally yours. My client wishes to remain anonymous, so I'll be unable to answer any questions about who or where he or she is." Myla felt a stab of sadness; perhaps Ruth simply didn't want to see her. She nodded for Berger to continue.

"In any case, my client has instructed me to transfer one item in person if at all possible-my person, I mean," he added with a nervous smile. "Which is why, of course, I asked you to come all this way. I myself am not privy to the contents of the envelope. It's been sealed for just about thirteen years." He stood and walked to a file cabinet, pulled out a file folder with a manila envelope inside, and brought the envelope back to her. He kept the folder for himself. The envelope was heavy with paper, and she could feel the metal spine of a spiral notebook inside.

"Now, before you open it," he continued, "I've been asked to read you this letter: 'I've been holding this for you. Your father asked me to wait until you were ready. Each day pa.s.ses more quickly than the last, but that doesn't mean our past gets any further away from us. Which is all to say: I don't know if you're ready, but I do know it's time. Thirteen years have pa.s.sed. Extend yourself. Perhaps you'll get some answers.'" Berger looked up and smiled. "So. Any questions?"

So many. Did this mean Ruth was alive? The note didn't necessarily sound like Ruth, but what did that mean, anyway? Myla hungered for thousands of answers, but she couldn't frame a single question. Suddenly the immensity of what she faced hit her. She was exhilarated and also exhausted: in one instant she'd left behind everything that had kept her safe for years and had headed straight back into the unknown. Was she ready for this? Obviously Ruth, or whoever was orchestrating this-it could be someone else, she reminded herself-thought she was. "Extend yourself," the letter said. She'd left the East Coast precisely because she needed to learn how to stretch beyond herself, and this letter read her mind. This made her want to touch it. "Can I see that?" Her hand reached for the paper.

"No, I'm afraid not." He drew back. "One of my client's conditions."

Myla could see through the paper that the note had been written by hand, with black ink. Berger noticed her glance and placed the paper quickly back into the file folder in his hand.

"So this is it? Whatever's in this envelope?" She fingered the package, her heart sinking a bit. Not heavy enough. Bound. Not what it could have been.

Berger shook his head. "The client's condition is that I may read you this letter"-he tapped the folder-"and you can draw any conclusions you want from that. But unfortunately, I am unable to answer that question."

In the midst of all this frustration, Myla knew the plan had worked. She was here, wasn't she? And she was tantalized. She was itching to know what was in the envelope, even if it wasn't what she'd initially hoped for. Her palms were greedy for it. She asked Berger to read the letter again. He read it twice.

She asked him, "Must I open this now?"

"You can open the envelope whenever you want to. It's just in my charge to make sure you have it in your possession. After that, you can do whatever you'd like with it." He smiled at her, obviously relieved that he could do something she wanted.

"Well, thanks." She stood. "Until we meet again?"

He shook her hand. "Let's be in touch."

The light outside was brighter than she'd remembered. Her hands trembled against the envelope. She was distracted by the world outside, by being swept up into a movement, like a Mozart piano concerto that would guide her, ineffably, toward beauty and completion. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced since walking these streets with Pru on one side and David and Ruth on the other. The envelope made a smooth bundle under her fingers. She was hugging it, she noticed, all the way to the car.

SOMETIMES I LIE IN BED ON Sat.u.r.day mornings and I watch the sun play on the ceiling, through the shadows of the branches. And it's funny when you lie like that because all sorts of thoughts come into your head, and you're not exactly asleep but you're not exactly awake either. Those are the moments I think about my mother.

Her name is Sarah, but I wouldn't call her that if she were alive. I think I'd call her Mama, because I like that better than Mommy, which is too baby. I'm five, not a baby. And I like it better than Mom, because Mom isn't soft. "Mama," I'd say, "let's go for a walk," and she'd probably take me on one. I'd hold her hand and it would be soft. And Myla would still be asleep in bed and David would be grading his papers and there'd be this whole good feeling around our house, like the smell of bread when it's baking.

She's dead, though, and I don't even remember her. I was two months old when another car crashed into hers. She was driving back from her writing group. Myla showed me the road once, but I got it all mixed up in my head, and the next time I asked her where it was, she got mad at me. The truth is, it really isn't so bad. Myla told me once that she could still see our mother's face and that made it even worse, remembering what you couldn't have. I think she might be right. On Sat.u.r.day mornings, I wish for someone I never had. But then we all wake up and suddenly there's a plan, and then my family does something together. That makes me forget all about the hollow piece inside me.

The truth is, I may not have a mother who is more than a picture, but I know I have a family. David and Myla-they're related to me, they're what people ask about when they say, "How's your sister?" or "What time is your dad picking you up?" But one day David sits me down and tells me I'm lucky because I have more family than just the people I was born to.

There's Ruth. She's nothing like a mother and she's nothing like a big sister. But that's nice because she's a third thing. She's an artist. By being that, she helps us as much as mothers who do dishes, or fathers who fix the gutter, help keep a family going. She lives in a different house, but we can always come over, anytime we want. She said so.

Then there are Emma and Jane and Steve. They live in a different house too, but not the one Ruth lives in. Emma's my best friend but she's like my sister. And Jane's like a mom, and even though she's not my mom, I let her put me in the bathtub and I let her tell me when I'm being rude and I let her tickle me until I have to pee. Steve's like a dad, but he's not my dad. He's also David's best friend, and they sit in the living room and talk for hours about pictures and ideas. Sometimes Emma and I fold them hats out of newspaper and make them wear them when they talk.

We have dinner at Emma and Jane and Steve's every single Friday night, when it's raining, and when it's heat-wave hot, and when there's snow on the ground. You could say I look forward to it, but that's a dumb way to say it. The thing about family is that you aren't supposed to look forward to them; they aren't supposed to make you excited the way a big surprise would. That would mean you don't know them very well. When David and Myla and I go over there on Friday nights, we know we belong. We can take whatever we want out of the fridge and we can wash the dishes in the sink. Emma and Jane and Steve expect us there, and when we drive up, we don't even have to knock.

I'm lucky. I'm my family and their family and Ruth's family too. And each lets me belong.

MYLA DROVE TO THE COLLEGE. Her body led her even as her mind wondered if everything was happening too fast. She hadn't been here even a day. Was she ready for what this collision with the past could do?

But then she saw the stately Georgian buildings, peeking out from behind the trees. The lawns, green-felt heavens for the college dogs playing Frisbee with their owners. The library, a stone tribute to Gothic architecture. She could dissect each spot, remember it, and in doing so, make the going back manageable. She was walking into a past time, but she was braced, and so it didn't tilt her. If anything, being on campus called up more immediate feelings of guilt about leaving Mark and the other college three thousand miles behind. Mark was probably sick with worry. She'd sent both letters Express Mail from the post office, to get them out of her hands, to get them to their destinations quickly so Samuel would know she wanted nothing to do with him, and so Mark would know, finally, who she was. As far as she was concerned, after a cross-country flight with the letters in her bag, they couldn't get back to their designated recipients fast enough. Those slim envelopes weighed too much for her, the information in them too much to handle alone. She couldn't bear to think of Samuel. She felt ashamed for running away from Mark. The sooner he got his letter, the closer he'd be to understanding what had happened, and the closer she'd be to getting him back. For in all this new strangeness, she wanted to call Mark. She needed him to root her in the world. She dreaded their coming conversation-he'd be justified in feeling terribly hurt-but that didn't keep her from longing for his presence. Especially now that this mysterious envelope was waiting like a patient but needy child in her pa.s.senger seat.

The gra.s.s here at the college glowed nearly neon. David had always advised, "Don't roll around on that gra.s.s. Full of chemicals," and so, naturally, she'd rolled down each hill on campus when he wasn't looking. Even pulled gra.s.s stems out of the ground and chewed on their sweet white ends.

Now she turned off the idling car in the turnaround and reached for the envelope beside her. It slid across the seat, under her hand, and she gathered up its weight and guessed at all the possibilities. A diary? Whose? The envelope flap looked fused to the envelope, sealed, as Berger had explained, for just around thirteen years. The truth was, there was no proof of its being sealed that long, but she chose to believe Berger and found herself wondering whether David had breathed the air inside it, whether he'd sealed it in there before his heart attack, then given it to Ruth. Why Ruth would have a diary of David's was a mystery Myla couldn't dare consider.

Myla held the envelope up to the light and made out the clear shape of a spiral notebook, which she'd gathered anyway simply from feeling with academic fingers. The researcher in her implored her to wait longer, to see what else she could discover from the primary source of the envelope itself, but curiosity was killing her. So she opened it.

Old air pocked out into her face. She pushed away her impulse toward sentimentality and reached into the envelope, curving open the top to see inside. She latched her fingers over the rim of the notebook and pulled it out to her, into the light. It was red, obviously well loved, with scratches and bends and dents in the cardboard cover. Thinner than it should be, which meant pages had been torn out. Nothing written on either cover. She had to open it, had to see what waited inside. She slipped her nail under the front cover and flipped it open.

There was blank s.p.a.ce for most of the page. Then, written in the middle, in small brown letters, the word Lines. It was unmistakably her father's handwriting. Myla caught her breath and turned the page.

Blank s.p.a.ce, but this time three words in the middle. Linked by lines: Lines-Thought-Time.

Next page, those same words in the middle, surrounded by one circle, and then branching out from that circle, more lines to more words, making a sun of language: Industrial Revolution-death of the imagination-Vermeer-Jesus in the frescoes-elimination of self-van Gogh's paint globs-photography as realism-the burst of words stopped Myla. She was trying to make out what this was. It looked like brainstorming, the kind she'd been taught in fifth-grade history, complete with thought bubbles on the blackboard. There was no question David had written page after page, but why on earth would Ruth have had this? And if this notebook had, as Marcus Berger claimed, been sealed thirteen years ago, that would have been just around the time Ruth went missing. It hurt Myla's brain too much to think about. She flipped through the rest of the book, turning page after page of circles upon circles, words upon words, until she reached a section that seemed to be all about photography.

Technical terms abounded here, words like aperture and foreshortening. Written in the middle of the page was Camera Obscura, and branching out from it were the words invention of the real-Vermeer-Dutch masters, etc.-photography and realism. She flipped to the surrounding pages, but this was the only one about photography. Myla was surprised it held no mention of Ruth's photographs.

Myla sighed, looking at her father's handwriting. She wanted to know what it all meant. She wanted to know now.

MYLA AND I MAKE UP A GAME. It starts simple enough-I run to the table and touch it, then jump on the couch before Myla catches me. But she doesn't catch me with her body; she catches me with words. First we play that Myla has to say a rhyme like "Peter Piper" or "She sells seash.e.l.ls." She has to say the rhyme really fast, and meanwhile I'm running. I try to get to the couch before Myla finishes the rhyme. Her words race my legs.

When I get too fast at touching the table, Myla says we have to make the running distance farther, and even though I know she's mad because I keep winning, I let her change the rules because it does get a little boring to win over and over again. So this time I have to run around the couch once, then touch the table, then sit down. Pretty soon she's saying the rhymes so fast that her words start to beat my legs. She decides we should go outside and make the rhododendron bush and the big tree the distance to run between. Also, she has a new idea about the words. No more rhymes, she says. "You're five and three quarters, Pru. You should really be practicing your reading on a daily basis." And she goes to the two-book dictionary with the tiny doll-size words in it and the magnifying gla.s.s. She gets the book with the end of the alphabet. She says it'll have all the hard X and Y words.

The night is cool and smells like gra.s.s. In another week we'll have to put on sweaters. But for now we can run in the same clothes we threw on that morning. It's a day when you never even bother with shoes.

First it's my turn to run. I go hold on to the smooth rhododendron leaves, and Myla puts her hand up in the air. When she drops it, I run hard to the tree bark, scratch my face against it. Then she drops her hand again and I run back into the night, toward where I think the bush might be. She squints with the magnifying gla.s.s as she sits in the light from the porch and tells into the night one definition for each round. One word and its meanings for each time her hand goes down into the night to send me out into it.

We know it's a stupid game. We know that we have to play this in the dark because the other kids in the neighborhood want to ride bikes and play Horse in the basketball hoops their dads hung on their garage doors. We'd never do this in the day when someone could catch us. But this night smells so sweet, like you could run in it forever and your legs would never get tired. You'd never even get cold. Myla's voice matches the air, and even when we know the game is over and we're tired of it, even when I come sit next to her, she keeps reading. She flips the book, points to a word, reads it. The meanings don't mean anything to us. They only make marks in the air, obovoid and obrize and obrotund flouncing themselves into the air above us and disappearing into the blue-dark sky.

Then Myla says, "Ooooh, here's one. This one's dirty, Pru." Her voice gets secret, as if David might be listening to us, even though we know he hasn't looked up from his desk all day. She says, "I'll read the word and you sound it out after me. Put your finger under the word to help you." She takes my pointer finger and puts it under the word, but my hand jabs a shadow over everything. She moves my hand away. "Forget it," she says. "Pretend your finger's under it. Okay, ready to read?" I nod yes. So we begin.

"Obscene," says Myla. So I say it after her. Then she points to the tiny words after it, in cursive and with all kinds of marks and numbers. "Don't worry about that stuff," she says. "It's just there to tell you where the word came from. No one pays attention to the origins anyway. Okay. Here's the fun part. Now you get to see everything it means. Read the number."

I read, "One."

"Good. Offensive . . ." She points to me.

I read, ". . . to the . . ."

". . . senses . . ."

". . . or to taste or . . ."

". . . refinement; disgusting, repulsive, filthy, foul, abominable, loathsome. Now somewhat 'arch.' I don't know what 'arch' means." And when Myla says all these words, she puts on her lady-in-waiting voice, fancy.

Then I read, "Two."

She looks at me. "I think these words are too hard for you, Pru. How about I just read them and you follow along with your eyes?" She knows I don't want this. She knows I want to read them too. "Fine," she says. And then quieter she says, "We'll be out here all night," but she lets us keep reading. "Where were we?"

"Two," I tell her.

"Right. Offensive . . ."

". . . to . . ."

". . . modesty or decency; expressing . . ."

". . . or . . ."

". . . suggesting unchaste or l.u.s.tful ideas: impure, indecent, lewd. Obscene parts, privy parts." Myla is giggling. She whispers, "You know, private parts, Pru?" and I get what she's saying, and I understand why it should be funny, but it doesn't make me want to laugh. I turn the page and go to definition number three.

I say, "Three." Myla's still laughing, so I look at the first part of the first word and see that I can read it. "Ill," I read.

"Good," says Myla. "Like when you're sick."

"I know," I say, "I'm not stupid." But I can't read the second part of the word no matter how hard I look at it. Finally I have to look at Myla so she'll help me.

"Ill-omened," she says, "inauspicious. That means like a bad sign, like something that shouldn't be the way it is." She shrugs. "I don't know, I can't explain. Inauspicious just means what it means, you know?"

But that's not why I'm looking at her the way I am. I'm trying to work my mind around all the meanings. Why would a word that's only about people's bodies and their private parts also be about spirits and omens and bad signs? Like if you have a body and it does the things it's made to do, then the future can only be bad?

Myla folds the dictionary under her arm. She's bored and already wondering if there's anything good on TV. So I can't say these thoughts to her. But I know something new is in me, a question, a wondering, a thought.

chapter six.

the thrill of discovery at the college had worn off. Now Myla was flopped on the bed she'd rented in the downtown Hilton. She'd placed David's notebook squarely on the bedside table an hour before and was still staring at it. She'd flipped through the notebook over and over, but as time pa.s.sed, no hidden knowledge had revealed itself. In fact, looking at page after page had merely confirmed that her father had written down hundreds of words and connected them with lines. She didn't understand the connections, didn't know why van Gogh was linked with perspective, couldn't fathom what Jesus had to do with Vermeer.

Myla groaned. She was frustrated. Frustrated if this was all there was left. Frustrated that she'd never learn who'd given it to her. Had David set this up himself, years ago, knowing he was sick? She knew there'd been a book, what they'd all called The Book, The Masterpiece, the one he pounded onto paper every night, words flying from his hands into his typewriter. Back then she'd found him grown up and messy. She'd been irritated by the slabs of paper scattered all around the house. But now she was concerned for him, and concerned for herself. She looked at the options methodically. There were two.

The first went something like this: the notebook had nothing to do with The Book. This possibility left her with nothing. There'd been no sign of a ma.n.u.script, no notes, no acknowledgment of anything book-related in the house when she'd ransacked it after his death. She realized now that she'd come back here because, at some level, she'd allowed herself to believe Berger knew something about this final piece. Of course she'd wanted Ruth, but more than that, she'd wanted her father's voice. As the years had pa.s.sed, no matter how hard she'd pretended otherwise, she'd longed for her father's words and mind. If this notebook had nothing to do with The Book, that meant there was likely nothing left of it in the world.

But there was a second, equally frightening option. What if this notebook did have to do with The Book or, worse yet, was all there was left of it? That meant she, Myla Rose Wolfe, was the only link between David's mind and the world. And then: what if she simply couldn't decode her father's message? If she were unable to do so, that would mean she'd completely lost what she once had of her father's mind. She'd be at an ending point practically before she began.

What to do? There were two people who'd welcome her into their home, who might well have some answers. She told herself she hadn't contacted them already because she didn't want to bother them, but her silence owed itself to more than that. She felt a certain shame. Thirteen years. She'd kept herself away from them for thirteen years. Emma must be twenty-three. For a long time Myla had held firmly on to strings of residual anger, but over time, another sentiment had replaced the rage. Simply put, she was embarra.s.sed. Deeply. And she wanted to sort that out before she saw any of them. Especially sweet little Em.

Myla wanted to be able to talk to Mark about all this, to express her fear that she'd lost the pathway of her father's thinking, to mention her shame at not having contacted Steve and Jane and Emma, to describe the spongy, lung-filling air of Portland. She wanted, even believed she needed, Mark to help her navigate through this new lexicon, offering alternatives, nodding conspiratorially, challenging her with questions, as if he'd always known about these worries and this world. But she knew Mark had been Kate Scott's partner in crime in a world he'd recognized. Perhaps the revelation that she was someone else, that she'd hidden her "real" past, had lied to him, would mean he wouldn't, couldn't, know her anymore. In any case, she couldn't call him yet, since her letter had been sent only this afternoon, and he wouldn't be checking his mailbox until after tomorrow's cla.s.ses. She'd call him later, when he was informed, and then she'd just have to see what happened next.

And now, without a phone call to make, or any discernible answers in David's notebook, Myla closed her eyes. She accepted, grudgingly, that there was nothing else to do but sleep, and dreams came fast.

She knew Pru was waiting. They were in the forest and Myla was feeling brave. She knew all she had to do was find Pru. At first this seemed possible, even likely. She could hear Pru crying, crying the way she'd cried when she was new and their mother had still been alive, and she sounded close. But soon the whimpering began to move farther and farther away. Myla started to run, moving fast, pushing through the ever thickening brambles, but she was having a hard time breathing. The air was filling with the smell of pine, and what had started as subtle and sweet, a hint of forest in the air, soon turned pungent, sickening. It was asthma in her chest, this air, like rocks heavying her lungs, and even though she tried to run faster, she knew she'd have to stop running soon.

That was the worst part of this dream. She'd had it for years, and the worst part, even beyond hearing her baby sister's cries, or the discomfort of the air, or the smell that made her want to retch, was the moment when she had to decide to stop. Then she'd know it was over. Then she'd lose Pru's sound, lose any sense of where she was standing. She'd be alone. The air would clear. And then she'd wake up.

JANE IS GOING ON ERRANDS SO she drops Emma over to play with us. The new babysitter is here and David isn't coming home for another two hours. After Jane leaves, Emma and I start playing Dogs, but then we see Myla running fast down the driveway. We follow her and see that Ruth just pulled up.

"Hi guys," says Ruth, and it's like there's a sparkle in the air because it's so much fun that she just came over without calling first.

Myla asks her, "Can't you stay? David's coming home at six, and you could send home the stinky babysitter. Please? Anyway, no one else in sixth grade needs someone to take care of them. I'm eleven, Ruth. It's embarra.s.sing. It's these babies who need someone to watch them."

Ruth gets out of the car. She says, "That's beside the point," and smiles at us. She never treats me like being six years old is a bad thing. Then she looks at Emma. "What do you think?" she asks her.

"Stay and play," says Emma.

So that's what Ruth does. We take her film coolers and the camera out of the car so they can stay safe in the house. The new babysitter rides her bike away and then we sit on the front porch and eat fruit pops. Myla tells us a story about this goofball, Pete, in her cla.s.s, and when she talks she stands up and acts it out for us. She makes me stand up and I pretend to be her and she pretends to be Pete and makes monkey noises and then Emma gets to be the teacher writing on the chalkboard and then turning around really slow to glare in Pete's direction. It makes Ruth laugh so we act it out again, but it isn't as funny the second time.

Then we're kind of bored. Myla asks Ruth where she was coming from, and Ruth tells us she was at a horse barn taking some more pictures of horses and their riders. "Racehorse riders are called jockeys," she says, and I like that word because it makes me think of jumping. Ruth promises she'll take us to the stables sometime.

Then Myla asks, "Did you use up all your film?"

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," says Ruth, and I can see what Myla's thinking.

"Yeah!" I say. "Let's take pictures!"

Ruth looks at Emma. "I don't know. Do you think you'd be up for it, Em?"

"Okay," says Emma. I can see that she's nervous but also excited. I hold her hand.

Myla steps close to us and puts her arm around our shoulders. "You can take pictures of the three sisters."

We go to the backyard and stand underneath the big tree that makes tiny pink flowers. We start off with just pictures of Myla and me, and then Emma wants to be in the pictures so badly. So Ruth invites her in, and we laugh and get excited every time Ruth takes a picture. We've discovered that in the pictures we can pretend anything, and pretending Emma's our sister is a great thing to imagine.

MYLA LEFT THE HOTEL AND pierced through the Portland day. She'd woken up angry, but she wasn't sure why. Part of it was that Mark wasn't answering. She'd tried at nine, after awakening from her night of dark dreams. She'd left three messages for him at his office and home, then had called back his answering machine, leaving another message that she was staying at the Hilton, mentioning her room number again. It wasn't his fault. He obviously couldn't talk to her, and she cursed herself for not being more honest with him when they were face-to-face.

In the back of her mind lurked the realization that Mark's silence wasn't the sole cause of her anger. Granted, she wanted to speak to him, but she'd walked away knowing he wouldn't understand what she'd done, and that her explanation would be even more puzzling. She found herself sitting on a bench in the middle of the Park Blocks, in front of the art museum, trying to pinpoint the exact source of her frustration.

She was afraid. She was afraid of what was to come. Initially she'd been liberated, leaving Kate Scott behind, but now she missed Kate Scott's ability to plan. Myla hadn't any idea of what to do next. A part of her had believed that just by returning to Portland and breathing the air, she would get back in touch with what she'd been hungering for: an explanation of her past, a clear road to the future. This would come to her like a revelation, honed in the manner of her father's beautifully polished mind. Hadn't she believed that if only she could remember his way of thinking, she'd be able to put Samuel Blake into perspective? Shouldn't the discovery of David's notebook give her a clear task, one to help her reclaim his life at its most hopeful? Didn't this notebook give her purpose in Portland, as well as a sensible reason for having left behind her other life?

But David's notebook didn't make any sense. This morning, as soon as Myla's eyes opened, she'd felt for the notebook, hoping that with new light would come new perspective. And yet once again all she could see was words linked by lines. In place of those lines, she knew her father had a million brilliant ideas, but these connections were invisible to the naked eye. And yet they were the only link. They were the only thing left representing the workings of her father's mind.

Myla looked above her, up at the trees. Today there was sun, and the newness of it in usually rainy Portland made her smile. She closed her eyes. She tried to be satisfied with just being alone and quiet, tried to quell the rush of her own mind. Letting her body relax, with the trees interwoven like locked lace above her, and the sun filtering onto her arms and face, she tried to summon a simple memory of her father. She couldn't read his mind about the notebook, but she could remember the things he'd shared with her. What would he have said to her just at this moment? She closed her eyes and imagined him sitting beside her. Then she remembered him in her darkened bedroom, his hand holding hers, telling her about her mother helping her learn to read.

This was one of David's favorite Myla stories, one he told her whenever she felt sad or unsure of herself. She made herself remember the clear way David had told it many times before.

When Myla was tiny, two years old, she'd wanted to read, just like her parents. So Sarah had said to David, "Why not?" She didn't want to push Myla, but this was, after all, Myla's initiative. Sarah took a red marker and sheets of paper and labeled the main objects in the house: chair, table, bed, window. That way, when Myla saw these things in her daily life, she also saw their names. Sarah felt this was an organic progression; if Myla wanted to learn to read words on her own, she could. In the evenings Sarah would gather Myla onto her lap and open up all sorts of books and read aloud, her fingers pa.s.sing under the words as her voice touched each one.

When David told this story, Myla loved hearing the way he talked about her mother. She could hear how much her father had loved her mother. He'd smile as if Sarah were still alive. What Myla didn't like about the story was the part about herself. Because yes, one day, with a new book open in front of her, she'd started reading aloud, following her mother's finger as it skipped along the page. Sarah tried a different book to make sure Myla hadn't just memorized the story, and was thrilled when she discovered that two-year-old Myla had started to read on her own. "Listen to you! You can read!" Sarah said proudly.

Here came the part that the older Myla hated hearing David recount. She didn't like what she'd done next, for it sounded too precocious, too wise, too precious. According to David, little Myla had taken the book off her lap, hurled it across the room, and cried, "I don't want to read! I don't want to!" When asked why, she'd said, "You never told me that when you read, there's only one story in every book." Only one story in every book! When David related this anecdote, he wasn't bragging about having a daughter who'd been able to read at the age of two. No, he treasured this memory because he was thrilled to have a child wise enough to recognize something so profound as the tyranny of the text. He told Myla she'd been right. Right to decide she wasn't going to learn to read for another two years, because she'd known she wasn't ready yet to lose the big picture.

Myla smiled to herself as she sat in the park. For the first time in all the hundreds of times she'd heard this story, she understood why her father had loved telling it. As a teenager, she'd rolled her eyes, embarra.s.sed by his determination to prove how well he'd always understood her, based simply on this dumb story about her brattiness. But now she saw, and it lifted her mind. This perspective was one she and David shared. He too was not willing to lose the big picture. He too was angered by the rules of text and time. That's why he loved art, because there were no words to boss him around, nothing to insist on a single meaning. There was image, there was form, and it spilled forth thought and spurred one toward new ideas.

Myla could feel her mind swelling with memory, and she knew if she were ever to understand her father or his notebook, or maybe even herself, she needed more. She needed to remember what it felt like to rise up over a page and see things in patterns. To let go of the direct line of argument, to embrace complication. To let her mind be more like her father's. She looked up to the sun, glad for its warmth, and knew what she had to do. She wouldn't be able to do it alone. No, she had to surround herself with what her father had chosen to surround himself. She had to ask for help. And she knew exactly where to start.