Birdlane Island, page 9
“Impressive young lady,” he told Mr. Doyle.
“You knew it. You chose her work,” Eddie Doyle said. He turned to me. “And it wasn’t because of who you are and what your family is to the economy of this area. All you did was sign ‘Lisa B.’ on your picture.”
“Of course, I know who you are now,” Kyle said.
“I’m just me,” I said succinctly.
He widened his eyes. “You’re as convincing in real life as you are in your work.”
“I don’t make that distinction,” I said. “To me, art is real life.”
“Wow. I might need a bodyguard working here, Eddie.”
He laughed, and I relaxed.
“To be honest, I knew about your family, and when we started for Bar Harbor, we paused so I could look at your grandfather’s mansion. I’m sure you can get quite inspired looking out from there. You painted your picture from there?”
“Yes.”
“Pardon my skepticism. I can’t tell you how many daughters of rich people I’ve met who in the end wanted to know the best makeup for them just because I worked with colors. Maybe they thought they’d be in one of my paintings.”
“That would be just wasting your time,” I said.
“You’re kind of young to worry about wasting time,” he replied.
“If I have any talent, wasting it is a sin,” I said.
He smiled and looked at Mr. Doyle.
“You have talent. That’s why your painting is here,” Kyle said firmly.
I shrugged. “Mr. Angelo, my art teacher, told me that Picasso said, ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when he grows up.’ ”
“Very clever. Must be a good teacher.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better get going. I’ll leave you with this.”
He turned slightly so as to address the portrait again.
“What fascinates me about these old portraits is how detailed they were, to bring out the best qualities of the visage. You know, the first thing you think about when you do someone’s portrait is, how can I do it and still flatter them?”
Eddie Doyle laughed. Kyle’s smile widened.
“If you saw what half of these people in these portraits really looked like, Eddie, you’d empty the room.”
“Ah, what is an art gallery, Kyle, if not a world of illusion?”
“You agree?” he asked me.
“Maybe all life is,” I said. “I remember my mother sitting with me at our big oak tree and reciting a famous Japanese haiku poem about that.”
“Haiku?”
“Three lines, seventeen syllables in Japanese. English translation isn’t exact, but her favorite was ‘A man sat under a tree dreaming he was a butterfly, or was it a butterfly… ’ ”
“ ‘Dreaming he was a man.’ I know it.” He looked at Mr. Doyle. “I’m looking forward to working. Perhaps we’ll see each other when I return.”
“Looking forward to it, too.”
His smile widened. “Better get going. Have to pick some people up. See you in a few months.”
As I watched him walk out, I thought this was another yin-yang moment. I had just left Jamie in the darkness of his injury, holding my tears as far back as I could. Now I was feeling this surge of excitement, not only because of who Kyle was but also because of how he had looked at me and talked to me. I tried to smother the feeling, but Mr. Doyle didn’t help when he said, “He was very impressed with you, Lisa. To tell you the truth, so am I.”
“Thank you, Mr. Doyle.”
“I’ll see you soon. I’ll set up a celebration event in the near future or maybe wait for Kyle’s return.”
“Whatever works best for the gallery,” I said, when I really wanted to say, Yes, wait for Kyle Wyman.
I returned to the dock for my ride back to Birdlane. As we were pulling out, I saw the yacht Kyle was on and all the young men and women with him. I felt like sticking pins in myself for wishing I was on that yacht instead of thinking about poor Jamie and the next time I could visit him.
“That’s a Palmer Johnson classic,” Grandfather’s driver, Arthur, told me as he looked at the yacht. “Friends of yours?”
“No. I just met someone who is on it.”
“Well-to-do, for sure,” he said.
I watched the yacht leaving the area for a few more moments and then looked to Birdlane as I always did to get that sense of coming home.
I was able to visit Jamie twice more that month. He was transferred to the Coastal Breeze Therapeutic Center just outside Bar Harbor. Grandfather paid for it and paid for him to have a room as well, because he had to have physical therapy sessions four times a week, and traveling between there and Birdlane was an ordeal. After a couple of months, Grandfather told me what they were concluding about Jamie’s injury and operation.
They weren’t happy with how much he was able to bend his knee, and the injured nerves were taking longer to heal. They talked about another operation. Fortunately, part of the treatment at the center involved psychotherapy, so there was some attempt to counter Jamie’s deep depression. He didn’t know what I knew about his evaluation. The doctors included Grandfather in everything they told Jamie’s parents.
When Daddy found out how much Grandfather was doing for Jamie and his family, they had another argument.
“Who do you think you are, Father?” Daddy began one evening after dinner. “Santa Claus? There are many fishermen’s families who would like some of your charity. Who they goin’ to come to when you’re gone?”
“Not you,” Grandfather said.
“You got somethin’ right.” He glared at me as if this was all my fault and, as usual, marched angrily away.
“Let’s hope the dead can’t hear the living,” Grandfather said. “His mother would be turning in her grave.”
“Mommy would have arguments about things like that with him, but usually she’d be the one to walk away.”
“Yeah, well, your father likes to lick his wounds.”
“Thank you, Grandfather, for helping Jamie.”
“Half the time, I think I’m doing it to annoy your father.” He laughed.
I wished I could get to see Jamie more at the therapy center, but between schoolwork and my effort to do a new painting, I was limited. I wasn’t sure I was helping him that much anyway. I seemed to remind him of all the hopes he’d had for our future.
“I can’t be in the boat with one good leg,” he kept saying after every hopeful thing I thought to tell him.
“There will be other things for you to do.”
“What? This is what I’ve done all my life,” he said.
“You’re young enough to start something new, Jamie.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could see he didn’t believe it. I wanted to scream at the ocean on the way home that day. All that we had came from it, but all our sadness and tragedy came from it as well. I stopped thinking about it the moment the Crest came into view. I thought about my new painting and the way the house loomed above the cliff, embraced by soft, puffy clouds. Was I doing it because I was really inspired or because Kyle Wyman had suggested it?
Even though I was cramming all I could into my days and weeks, the year seemed to move slowly. I was excited about attending the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, but my doctors continued to remind me that I had to restrict my physical activity and keep my log, checking my vitals and reporting anything unusual to them. At times I felt as restricted as Jamie was feeling.
His good news was that the doctors decided not to operate again but to have him continue his therapy with a therapist visiting him twice a week on Birdlane; again, this was something Grandfather financed. Jamie was reluctant to leave his house and be seen with his crutches, but I got him out to restaurants and up to the Crest from time to time. His mood improved, but he still felt quite lost.
I found I wasn’t thinking about Kyle Wyman only when I was working on my painting or someone mentioned something about art. His smile seemed to have imprinted itself on my mind. For no reason at all, I’d look out at the sea from the high cliff at the Crest and think of him either on that yacht or smiling at me with that look of delighted surprise.
At first, I blamed it on my restricted life. How many good-looking young men had I met? My life had been school and whatever trip Mommy had taken me on, but with her gone and my father totally absorbed in his business, I was seldom taken anywhere. I did visit shops in Bar Harbor, often accompanied by Anna, but her time was restricted with all the domestic duties she had. Most of my high school girlfriends were a little, maybe very, afraid to do vigorous things with me. I couldn’t blame them after my incident in art class. I easily imagined their parents warning them not to have me do anything that could lead to a health issue they’d be blamed for causing.
I was convinced, however, that the reason for my looking for excuses for my infatuation with Kyle Wyman was the sense of guilt it brought along with it. It was foolish, I told myself. All I’d done was discuss art with him and appreciate how he appreciated my work. Who wouldn’t think about someone like that? And look how much older than me he was… at least fifteen years.
I had never had a schoolgirl crush on anyone. Jamie had just been there all the time. And pasting pictures of rock stars on my bedroom walls wasn’t anything I wanted to do. I was usually silent when my girlfriends raved about this singer or that. Maybe I should have been more like them. Maybe I was growing up too fast. I could certainly blame that on my heart issue and how careful and sensible I was. Was it possible to be too sensible? Was I wearing raincoats in the sunshine?
In a little less than four weeks, I would be celebrating my eighteenth birthday. Most of my classmates who were looking forward to that lost some of their excitement when the national drinking age was raised to twenty-one, but with voting rights and other considerations, it was easy to think of yourself as more adult, more in charge of your life.
I couldn’t help but be jealous of them, even though they all thought that because of the family wealth, I should be the person to envy. Truth was, since my diagnosis, I always felt people were scrutinizing me more, anticipating something. To me, everyone was a few notches extra nice, almost as if they believed they had to tiptoe around me—everyone, that was, but my father, who treated illness and physical injuries as just minor annoyances, things that interrupted the flow of commerce.
“You were told what to do to take care of yourself; take care of yourself,” he said recently when I had moaned to myself about another blood test, another doctor’s visit. No matter how blue the sky, I always had that black cloud over my head.
One sunny afternoon in early May, I had come home early from school, not because of my health but because my last-period teacher was out and the class was going to be a study hall. I could get in a few extra hours at the cliff to work on my painting.
Suddenly, Grandfather’s car drove up, and he got out quickly. He was carrying an armful of bound papers and headed right for me, walking faster than usual, and not easily, either.
“Your father will be the death of me yet,” he began. “He forged my signature on a demand letter that he sent to Jamie’s parents, cutting their contract because they haven’t delivered their allotted pounds of lobster and fish. I had to spend half the day with our attorney keeping him out of jail and righting things with the Fullers. Here,” he said, handing me the bound papers. “This is a list of all our providers, distributors, et cetera, their contract information. In short, the essence of Baxter Fish Enterprises. I want you to have it, read it at your leisure. This is a family business; you’re a big part of the family,” he concluded, and then he turned and started back to the house before I could utter a sound.
He looked like he had just aged ten more years as he hobbled along. From the looks of the sky, I knew we were in for a storm soon, so I put the papers in my basket and began wrapping up my painting and supplies. I couldn’t stop thinking of the pain Jamie’s family had just endured. Their costs could easily send them into bankruptcy.
I think it was my rage building against Daddy that made me move as quickly as I did, cursing and muttering to myself as I entered the house. After closing the door behind me, I struggled to put down my things safely so I could organize them.
The moment I felt it, I feared that Grandfather was going to blame himself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anna coming down the stairway. She was looking at me and suddenly started descending with total disregard for her own safety.
I often wondered what that moment before your death was like, that realization that in a second or two you would cross into darkness. Would you be wondering if you were going to heaven or hell or just floating out into space? Would you think at all about your body, any pain or ache, or would you somehow have stepped out of it?
I didn’t fall so much as I sank. It felt like I was melting down to my feet. Maybe Anna prevented me from hitting the floor hard. I don’t know. The sense of the world bouncing beneath me caused me to open my eyes and see long enough to realize I was being carried to a helicopter, there was an oxygen mask on my face, and Dr. Bush was at my side. I didn’t know until later that Grandfather had a helicopter on constant call to take me to Bar Harbor. It was especially important this afternoon, as the sea was already churning in anticipation of a storm.
I could feel myself being lifted toward the sky, heading to Bar Harbor, carried along like the Canada geese that flew in perfect formation, drawn by instinct to a place that was both familiar and distant. I had a presence there; I was part of the city, of the lights and the tourists jabbering on the streets, my painting on the wall in the gallery, all of it waiting to welcome me, the place where I would either live or die today.
I closed my eyes.
Or, rather, they closed themselves.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When I opened my eyes again, I recognized Dr. Knox. Grandfather was standing off to the right side. The constant beep of the heart monitor helped me focus more. Of course, I had a different oxygen mask on, but I thought we had just arrived.
“Relax, Lisa,” Dr. Knox said when he saw me try to speak. “You’ve just had a very serious operation. It went well, but your recuperation is just as important, if not more. You’re going to be in here a while and then in a private room. You’ll have to restrict your activity even when you’re able to go home. Cooperation and no resistance to it all is the best formula to return to health. Just nod if you understand me.”
I did.
“Mr. Baxter,” he said to Grandfather, who stepped up to the side of my bed.
“Where’s Daddy?” I asked Grandfather.
“He’s on a phone call in the doctor’s office. One of our trucking companies had an accident and spilled our products all over the side of the road in New Jersey. But he did wait first to hear about your operation and condition.”
“What is my condition?” I asked Dr. Knox. “What new restrictions are there?”
He smiled.
“What?”
“Once you’ve healed, you’ll have no restrictions, Lisa.”
I couldn’t believe I was not in a dream. Those were the words I had dreamed of hearing my whole life. How many times had Mommy promised me I would? Probably a thousand.
“How did this happen? The last thing I remember is sinking toward the floor.”
Dr. Knox said, “Well, it was a delicate procedure that we avoided as long as we could. It became unavoidable, and we performed it, and it went exceedingly well. Except for some follow-ups, I don’t expect I’ll need to see you—not that you’re not a nice person,” he added, laughing.
I could see how upbeat and excited everyone was. This was real; this was no dream.
“You’re okay, Lisa. Relax,” Dr. Knox said, patting my hand.
I was afraid to believe it, but the smiles were too real. I finally let it settle into me.
“Just think about all the things you wanted to do and now will.”
I didn’t wait to be alone. I started to make a list on a piece of paper of things I wanted to do but was always afraid to do. Just running up the hill to the Crest would be a wonder for me.
I couldn’t wait to share this news with Jamie and then remembered he could never run up that hill again; he might not even be able to walk it.
Dr. Knox stepped back, and he and Grandfather talked. I felt myself drifting again. I saw the images of other men, most looking like they worked in the hospital, but one stood out because he was dressed in a cable-knit white sweater and had a full, shaped head of coal-black hair.
One of the nurses told me to expect hallucinations and dreams that didn’t seem to make any sense to me. “Our chief of psychiatry told me that all the images and memories we don’t even realize we have are always alive and moving in our minds. Coming out of anesthesia or something similar lets them emerge for a moment or two. They don’t disappear forever. Could easily be something you remember from childhood,” she said.
“This felt…”
“What?” she asked, smiling.
“Now,” I said. “Not from childhood.”
She widened her eyes. “Just don’t spend any time worrying about it.”
In the beginning of my recovery, I wasn’t worrying about spending much time doing anything. I slept a lot. Daddy came and went, usually for a short visit before heading to a business meeting. Toward the end of my stay in the ICU, Grandfather brought Anna to see me. He left her with me while he met with someone on a business matter in Bar Harbor.
“You look so much better than your father described,” she began. “Not that he spent much time describing anything. He treats words like money.”
I laughed.
She held my hand and looked around. “So many flowers.”
Some of the flowers had been sent from the school, my teachers, and the class after there had obviously been a collection to buy them for me. There were roses from Jamie. Anticipating when the first dozen would fade, he had sent another with Anna.
