The Invisible Hour, page 11
* * *
IT WAS A TRADITION for Mia to meet with Constance and Sarah on March 16 at the bar of the Algonquin Hotel, where they would celebrate her birthday. This year a light, sparkly snow was falling on the evening of their get-together. They had taken a table by the window so they could watch as the soft flakes fell. The city was quiet and peaceful. Mia never knew what her birthday would bring, sunshine and greening trees, or ice and storms.
Sarah reached into her bag for Mia’s birthday present and threw Constance a smile.
“You don’t have to give me gifts anymore,” Mia said. “I’m not a child.” All the same, she was clearly delighted as she untied the ribbon. Constance and Sarah’s birthday gift was a tradition.
“Of course we do,” Constance scolded her. “And besides, we want to. What is a birthday without a gift?” This year it was a pair of small gold earrings. Mia had had her ears pierced, but she almost never wore jewelry. Despite herself, Mia thought of such ornaments as vanities, but Constance had always disagreed.
“How beautiful!” Mia was blinking back tears. This wasn’t vanity; it was love. “They’re perfect,” she said as she slipped on the earrings.
There were hugs and kisses and joy all around. But at dinner, Constance barely touched her food, and she soon excused herself to take the winding steps that led down to the ladies’ room. She’d seemed a bit dizzy when she stood up, which she claimed was caused by the strong martini she’d had, for they always drank martinis on Mia’s birthday and on all other happy occasions. It was only when she was walking away that Mia realized how frail Constance looked.
“What is it?” Mia asked Sarah. She knew something was wrong, but she hadn’t imagined just how wrong. Sarah told Mia that Constance had been diagnosed with an incurable form of lymphoma. She hadn’t wished to share this news on Mia’s birthday, but the truth was, there wasn’t much time left.
“We should have told you earlier,” Sarah said. “I suppose we were wishing it away, hoping beyond hope, but of course, that never works, does it?”
Mia burst into tears, then wiped her eyes with a napkin and did her best to pull herself together, apologizing for breaking down. She rarely showed her emotions, but now she couldn’t hold them back.
“You have the right to cry.” Sarah had always worried about the effects of those early years at the Community on such a sensitive girl who’d had to bottle up her true feelings and follow those unspeakable, ridiculous rules. “You’re entitled to your grief, Mia.”
When at last Constance returned, Mia realized she was wearing a wig. She hadn’t noticed before; perhaps she hadn’t wanted to see it. She understood wishing things away. Oh, that she had hold of the fern-seed and could make this sorrow invisible.
When Constance noticed Mia staring, she touched the bobbed hairdo. “What do you think of the style?” She did her best to grin. “Is it me?”
“You’re you no matter what,” Mia said. She had never said a truer thing in all her life. “You always will be the one and only Constance Allen.”
They were standing together under the awning, waiting for a cab for Mia, when she thought she saw him. At the parking lot across the street a man was sheltered from the snow. She told herself not every stranger was Joel Davis.
“Here you go,” Sarah said when the taxi pulled up.
It was snowing harder, there would be over a foot by morning, a rarity in New York City. They hugged and said their goodbyes, and when Mia turned all she saw was the snow falling. West of the moon, when the snow falls it’s made of sugar, her mother had always told her. That way it melts when the sun comes out and the only ones who know it’s ever been there are the ones who have seen it before it disappears.
* * *
MIA CAME BACK TO Concord most weekends now, and on Saturday nights they often fixed a supper of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Constance’s favorite back when she was a girl. Unfortunately, Constance seldom ate; she seemed to be subsisting on mugs of pale tea. She was fading right before their eyes. There was no more treatment possible, and the painkillers Constance had been given upset her stomach. She was sleeping more and more, so that night and day no longer made a difference to her. Each time Mia visited, she thought about the day when Constance had greeted her at her front door, waving to Mia, welcoming her home. She remembered standing on the lawn of the library when Constance had called Joel a piece of shit. Mia couldn’t stop herself from sobbing when she thought of her life here in Concord. Oh, how lucky she’d been to find herself here, in a place where she could grow up without fear. She wished Ivy could have lived this way, surrounded by people who loved her, surrounded by books. She often thought of the day when she’d seen the men carrying Ivy across the field, when her boots had fallen into the grass, when the whole world seemed silent.
On evenings when Sarah watched over Constance, Mia often left to walk through town. She had never lost her talent for seeing in the dark, and in the fading light she crossed the meadows where there were still bluebird houses tacked to the trees. No matter where Mia’s route began, it always took her to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Hawthorne’s grave was marked only with his last name, the spelling changed from the original Hathorne when he began to publish so that he could distance himself from his ancestors. His wife’s and daughter’s graves were just beside his; they had been buried in England, then disinterred and moved here to be with him. Yet he seemed alone. He seemed to be waiting for Mia. As always, his grave site was festooned with offerings. Flowers, rocks, pinecones, along with many pens and pencils, to honor his work. Mia had fallen in love with the book, and then she had fallen in love with its author. Perhaps that was why she was still alone, reluctant to have anything to do with a man who couldn’t compare to the brilliant author. You were mine.
Mia walked through the garden at the Old Manse, planted by Thoreau as a wedding gift for Nathaniel and his wife. What would she not do for a love like theirs? Anything. Everything. She looked in through the cloudy glass windows, written upon with words of love, then she walked home through the sleeping town.
* * *
SOON, THE DAYS HAD grown warm enough for them to sit out in the garden in the evenings, beneath the flowering wisteria vines, where they could watch the soft violet light fold itself over the river. Constance had rallied, insisting that she would rather be awake and in pain than dragged down into a drugged coma. She wore a blanket around her shoulders, and sometimes she seemed to be drifting off; then she would startle awake. It was the pain that drove her deep inside herself. That and the idea that each day was a gift, and soon enough she would be gone.
When Sarah went inside to get some glasses and a pitcher of water, Constance took Mia’s hand in her own. It might well be the last opportunity to have a moment alone to speak. “Will you look after her?” Constance asked, worried about leaving Sarah alone.
“Of course,” Mia assured Constance. “I always will.”
“And what about you? Who will look after you?”
“I’m fine on my own.” It had always been true, and it always would be.
“Don’t be afraid to love someone just because of that one horrible man,” Constance told her.
“I’m in love with my favorite author.” Mia smiled. “Doesn’t that count?”
“If you’re talking about one that’s already dead and buried, it won’t do you much good.” Constance knew about Mia’s visits to the gravesite, and she had come upon the first edition of The Scarlet Letter while cleaning up Mia’s room. The inscription had been especially curious, and she wondered if Mia had written it to herself, or if it was just a coincidence. Constance was in pain, and she was failing, but she was too concerned for Mia’s future to hold back. “When you love someone, look what happens,” she said.
“What happens?” Mia asked, hoping Constance wouldn’t notice that she was crying.
“This.” Constance gestured to all that was around them with a look of delight on her face. There was the river and the wisteria blooming in the falling dark. There was Sarah returning from the kitchen with a pitcher of water and three green glass tumblers. There were the birdhouses in the field, and the stone path they had put in one summer. There was all they had been to each other through the years. “You have a life,” Constance said. She was the one who was crying now.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Mia wanted to know. “Just name it.” It seemed that she did have a heart, something she’d never wanted, for as it turned out, it was breaking.
“My dear girl, you gave me back a hundred times more than anything I would ever want,” Constance told her. “We were a family. What could be better than that?”
* * *
A WEEK LATER SARAH telephoned at six in the morning. It was a workday, and Mia was stealing a little more sleep before she dressed to leave for the library. Manhattan was quiet at such an early hour, with the birds in the yard next door singing in the tree that had been there for two hundred years. Right away, Mia panicked, and as soon as she answered she could tell that Sarah had been crying. Sarah had been up all through the night, until now, when it was a decent hour to phone Mia.
“Constance waited until I was out of the room,” Sarah said. “I had just gone to get her old copy of Walden. I read it to her every night.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Mia was already packing. She didn’t need much, only her black dress, and her mother’s red boots.
* * *
MIA TOOK THE EARLY train to Boston in a dazed state, then caught the commuter train at North Station out to Concord. She walked past the library and headed toward the river, thinking about the first time she’d come to town, when they’d driven all that way from Blackwell, barely saying a word. When she reached the house, Mia found Sarah crying in the kitchen, stunned by grief.
“Don’t look at me,” Sarah said. “I’m a terrible sight.”
“What can I do to help?”
“The funeral has been arranged. I did it this morning.”
“I’ll phone everyone who should be invited,” Mia assured her.
They were both wrecks, but they hugged fiercely, and after a while they stopped crying and decided to have tea. English breakfast, Constance’s favorite. No sugar, no milk.
“I didn’t actually think she would die,” Mia found herself saying.
“Nobody ever thinks it will happen,” Sarah replied. “Real life is unbelievable. Souls are snatched away from us, flesh and blood turn to dust, people you love betray you, men go to war over nothing. It’s all preposterous. That’s why we have novels. To make sense of things.”
They chose some of Constance’s favorite passages from Thoreau for Sarah to read at the service. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. They skipped dinner, for neither had an appetite, and instead sat outside at the small wrought-iron table overlooking the river. They drank martinis, in Constance’s honor, for a martini was always her cocktail of choice.
The lilacs had begun to bloom and there was a scrim of hazy purple all through the neighboring backyards and gardens. The hedge beside the back door was wreathed with flowers in shades of dark and light violet. The peepers were going mad, and, because it was dusk, clouds of mosquitoes and mayflies arose, birds swooped over the river, the verdant field beyond the far bank turned from green to an inky black.
Sarah was watching the bluebirds soar across the field, their last flight before night fell. The stars were already beginning to prick through the darkening sky. Soon the owls would hoot in the tree-tops.
“I always think of Constance standing at the door, waiting for us to arrive,” Mia said. “She had the guest room ready for me, and she never questioned me the way someone else might have. She just took me in.” Mia laughed then, remembering how fierce Constance had been when Joel Davis had shown up at the library, and they both recalled how brave she was, even though she was tiny, not more than five two. “I think she would have hit him with a book if she had to,” Mia said. “And it was a paperback.”
“I heard that he’s having trouble with the government. I didn’t know whether or not I should tell you.”
Mia glanced at Sarah. “I should know.”
“They’re finally investigating him,” Sarah told her. “It took them long enough.”
“Good.” Mia felt a burning in her chest. “I hope they put him in jail, where he belongs.”
“He claimed the Community was a religion, and never paid a cent in taxes, and now the town council has asked him to prove that the land is really his, and he seems to have a problem doing that. His people are losing faith, and so many have left, especially the younger ones.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mia said. “I hope they all leave.”
“There are a few holdovers, farming and tending the orchards, but I’ve heard that the buildings have all been neglected. People say the Community won’t be there much longer.”
Mia wondered what would happen to the cemetery if the Community land was taken over by the town. She thought of Ivy there, resting among the ferns. Mia could feel her heart opening and she thought of all the nights she had spent here listening to the river, and all the love Sarah and Constance had given her when they certainly didn’t have to. She wished somehow Ivy could have known she had wound up in a family after all.
“I owe you and Constance everything,” Mia said. “What would I have ever done without you?”
“My dear girl, I thought you understood,” Sarah responded. “You rescued yourself.”
* * *
CONSTANCE’S FUNERAL WAS HELD on an unusually warm day in May when the sky was cobalt blue. It was well attended, with guests that included colleagues from the library, neighbors and shopkeepers, children from the story time hours. Sarah and Constance also had a loyal circle of friends in Boston and Cambridge, many of them Wellesley alumnae, and they all were there as well. In the chapel of the big white church, Mia sat in the second row, behind Sarah, who was between Constance’s two sisters, both of whom wept for all the years they’d lost when they weren’t close.
It was a perfect day as they walked to the cemetery, following the hearse. There weren’t many spaces left in the wooded section of Sleepy Hollow, and Miss Allen had been lucky to purchase a plot in a shady glen, where the crowd now gathered in a quiet and respectful manner, although Sarah could be heard weeping and Constance’s sisters cried as well. People whispered that Constance had changed countless lives, as librarians often did, and it was true there were several people who had come to pay their respects that she likely would not have recognized, grown men and women who had found help and consolation in the library when they were small. I have just the right book for you, Miss Allen would always say, and she always did.
All around the grave were the flowers sent by those who were in attendance and those who were too far away to be in Concord. There was a wreath of white roses from a cousin, and a large display of lilacs from some of Constance’s and Sarah’s friends at Simmons. In the rear, behind all of the other bouquets, there was a glass jar of leaves. Mia felt something cold inside her chest, and she asked the funeral director’s assistant if he might take that offering away.
“I don’t care what you do with it,” Mia said. She hadn’t looked closely at the leaves, but she knew who’d delivered them. “Just get rid of it.”
At the end of the service, Mia remained at the edge of the assembled mourners who circled Sarah to offer condolences. There was to be a gathering at the inn, with martinis served along with pimento and grilled cheese canapes on crustless white bread and dishes of macaroni and cheese. As Sarah guided Constance’s sisters toward the inn, Mia remained beside the last of the rhododendron, still in bloom, with their huge purple flowers and dark, leathery leaves. She couldn’t yet bring herself to have polite conversation with people she barely knew. She was cast back to the day of her mother’s funeral, when Joel wore a black suit in the sudden stifling heat and Mia refused to leave the burying ground.
The day was growing even hotter, and Mia was wearing her long black dress and Ivy’s boots. It occurred to her that she would never have had this second life if she hadn’t run away from the Community, if Sarah hadn’t given her the key to the library and Constance hadn’t opened her heart to her, and she would be damned if she brought her bad fortune to them in the form of Joel Davis. She shivered to think that if she hadn’t found The Scarlet Letter, none of the rest of her life would have happened.
Mia opted to walk on, to find some solitude and shade, passing Cat’s Pond, simply and artfully designed by Thoreau, where the calm surface was filled with water lilies. Thoreau had written about the garden cemetery, In the midst of death we are in life. She came upon the surprisingly grand grave of Emerson, a huge boulder up on the hill, but she went on, past Thoreau’s modest grave, engraved with a simple Henry, walking until she reached Hawthorne’s headstone. She sank down in the grass and listened to the birds in the trees. She had brought her copy of The Scarlet Letter with her, to remind herself that life was still worth living, even on this dark day. She placed the book on Hawthorne’s grave. All that she was and ever would be was because of him. Without him she would not exist. She would be nothing at all, another drowned girl in a river where all the stones were black.
All around the cemetery paths there were wild plants, woodbine, raspberry, goldenrod, moss. Mia made a wish that she could go to the author who had saved her and know him, as she knew his book. Then she felt foolish, and much too grown-up for such nonsense, a woman sitting in a cemetery who still believed there might be magic in this world. She held the book to her chest. She could almost feel the words inside, as if each page had a beating heart. If it was a dream it was ours alone.
