Summer Light: A Novel (25 page)
Read Summer Light: A Novel Online
Authors: Luanne Rice
“Don’t you believe in forgiveness?” May asked.
“Ask me that,” Martin said, looking her coldly in the eye as he opened his door, “when something bad happens to Kylie.”
He walked into the house, leaving May behind. She felt hurt and shocked beyond words, in the pit of her stomach. Following Martin into the house, she looked around. Aunt Enid had been given one of the guest rooms; she and Kylie must be asleep upstairs. Martin’s rooms were spare, arranged more like hotel rooms than a stately Boston home. Years of bachelorhood had left him with a leather recliner, a sectional sofa, and several cases full of hockey trophies.
Martin had told her to redecorate, rip the place apart, do whatever she wanted. So far, May had been so busy working at the Barn and helping Kylie get settled in her new school, she hadn’t even started, and right now she felt the room’s masculinity closing in on her.
May found him in the kitchen, pouring a glass of milk.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that about Kylie. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
“May, you can’t imagine how it feels to lose a child. I pray you never find out.”
“So do I.”
“It’s hell,” he told her. “I am not exaggerating.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“I saw her being born. I held her in the delivery room. Her favorite color was pink. She loved playing soccer. Her teachers said she was a good artist and dancer. She was beautiful…magic…
mine
. She had a whole life, May. And he took it from her.”
“He is in jail, Martin,” May said.
“But not for her death,” Martin said. “I hope he rots in there.”
“You don’t always.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t want to let him down last season. You told me yourself—you thought he might be watching you from prison.”
“
Mon Dieu
.” Martin leaned on the sink, shaking his head. “Don’t have such a good memory, will you? I’ll stop telling you things if you throw them back at me.”
May watched snow falling outside the kitchen window. She had always found peace in snow, but right now the weather was stirring her up. Martin was twisting her words, and she couldn’t figure out how to straighten them out.
“You said,” she began carefully, “that people think you’ve written him off, but—”
“Let it go at that. I have written him off, eh?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Listen, May.” Martin turned to face her. His eyes were tense and cold, his shoulders hiking up toward his ears. “Hockey and my father are linked forever. When I step out on the ice, he’s there. His voice, telling me what to do. How to skate, how to shoot. He’s just there.”
“Your first teacher?”
“The great Serge Cartier,” Martin said with hatred. “My father.”
May watched the anger building. It reminded her of last summer, and her stomach tightened. His face was red, and the tendons on his neck stood out. Looming in the kitchen doorway, he pressed his arms outward, flexing his biceps as if he wanted to knock the house down.
“Sometimes I think I want to win the Stanley Cup just to shut him up. So I can retire and get him out of my head for good. You know how many Cups he won? Three. He got rich winning them, and he threw every penny away. He gambled the money while my mother and I scrounged to get by. We were hungry and cold up on Lac Vert, with him living high in the States.”
“He didn’t send you money?”
“Money?” Martin asked, as if he’d suddenly forgotten the meaning of the word. “He sent what he had to. Not enough.”
May listened, wondering how it must have felt to see his father really living it up while he and his mother struggled. The disturbance that must have created in Martin was still in place, May thought, watching him pace.
“Gambling isn’t really about money,” Martin said, his voice getting lower. He sounded raw, and the way his voice caught reminded May of an animal. “It’s about living on the edge. Getting close, pulling back before you fall. He did it with me—” Martin touched his chest. “And he did it with Nat. But he didn’t pull her back in time. He gambled my daughter’s life!”
“Oh, Martin.” May reached out, but he wouldn’t let her touch him. He moved to the corner, hugging himself as if he was afraid he’d punch through a wall if he let go.
“He said he was sorry,” Martin said. “Afterward. That’s what he told me.”
“He must feel terrible remorse,” May said, trying to imagine.
Martin released his breath, fierce and brutal as a blast of arctic wind.
“I want him out of my life, May, not in it. When I met you and Kylie, I knew it was a blessing. Something I never thought I’d have—a wife and a little girl. Leave him where he is, where he can’t hurt us.”
May listened, hearing his voice shake. His face was still red, but she saw him lower his arms, as if he wanted to give the house another chance. May had heard his voice shaking, and she thought he sounded afraid. Her hockey-playing husband, fearless on the ice, all muscle and the first to fight, was trembling.
“He can’t hurt you, Martin. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I want to protect
you,
May. You and Kylie. You got that?”
“I don’t need protecting from him,” she said. “This is important to me! I don’t want our family to have a rift like that. I don’t want you to have that rift inside you. Won’t you at least consider—”
“Jesus Christ!” Martin exploded. “I don’t want to bring him into our lives. I won’t do it—like it or not, I think you do need protecting. And you don’t need to worry about me.” He looked at her angrily, shaking his head. Then he checked his watch. “I have to leave for St. Louis first thing in the morning. I’m going up to get some sleep. You coming?”
May stood at the foot of the stairs, breathing hard. What was Martin talking about:
protect her
? That was the biggest crock, a lame excuse to avoid facing his own feelings. If he could stay estranged from his father all this time, who was to say he wouldn’t turn against her someday? If Kylie let him down, would he shut the door in her face? Anger like that killed everything it touched, eventually. May felt wild inside, her heart pounding against her ribs, powered by bone-deep fear.
“He’s your family! Just like me and Kylie!”
she said.
Martin exhaled, shaking his head as he headed upstairs. His feet were heavy on the stairs.
“Go ahead, walk away,” May said. Outside snow blew along the brick sidewalks and cobbled alleys, sticking to the slate roofs, swirling around the smoking chimneys of Beacon Hill.
She wanted Martin to turn around, but he didn’t. She heard him go into the empty guest room.
Once again, May did something she had sworn over twenty years ago never to do: go to bed angry. In her short marriage, it had already happened more than once. Her chest felt like exploding, and as she stood in the hallway she felt tears streaming down her face.
She wanted to talk to Tobin. Picking up the phone, she dialed her friend’s number. But when Tobin answered, she hung up. Instead, she dialed a different number, one in Canada, that she hadn’t used for a long time. She heard Ben Whitpen’s voice on the answering machine.
She hung up before the beep.
Before morning, Martin walked down the hall to his and May’s bedroom. He had to travel in just a few hours, and he was wide awake and exhausted. He had wanted to make up with May, but he couldn’t. Rage had gripped him all night. Directed at May, at first, for refusing to let go of something she could never understand. But soon he directed his rage in the right place, toward his father, for abandoning him as a child, for returning to his life only to destroy his beautiful daughter.
May didn’t understand.
When Martin said he had to protect her, he meant it. He had promised to love, honor, and cherish her, and in his book, that meant keeping her away from his father—in prison or out. She was small and delicate, sensitive and idealistic. She actually thought there was a parallel between a twelve-year-old girl failing to kiss her daddy good-bye and a battle-scarred NHL veteran hating his crooked father’s guts.
If Serge died, Martin would be glad. He’d feel relieved, to have the burden lifted. Hatred and guilt were heavy loads, and Martin carried his every day. Staring at the guest room ceiling, he had wished May would accept the situation. She didn’t have to like it, but he wished she’d stop pushing him.
Thinking of her, Martin had finally gotten up the courage to go into their bedroom. He hoped she wouldn’t start in again, asking him if he’d changed his mind. Christmas was coming, and he knew she had some fantasy about visiting the old man at the prison—hell would freeze over before that happened. Still shaking, Martin walked over to the bed.
By the light of the streetlight shining through the window, he saw her facing the wall. Her shoulder looked very tense, and her breathing seemed a little short—as if she might be awake.
“May?” he whispered.
“Hi.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
He paused, touching her hair. His heart was pounding, waiting for her to ask if he’d changed his mind about his father. She didn’t ask.
Rolling over, May opened her arms. She was warm, and when Martin slid under the sheets, so was their bed. He held her hard, knowing he had to leave soon, wondering why they’d wasted their last night together for a week in a fight.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said.
“I’m just glad you came to bed.”
“The snow’s coming down. Maybe my flight’ll be canceled.”
“I hope so,” she said, her mouth hot as she kissed him hard.
Chapter 13
T
HE ALL
-
STAR GAME WAS
scheduled for February 10 in Calgary, with Martin playing right wing for the East. Kylie and May were supposed to accompany him, fly northwest into Canada, but Kylie had a sore throat that kept them home in Boston.
Bundled in the bedclothes, Kylie stared at the TV. Mommy sat in a chair across the room, cheering for Martin as if they were at the rink.
“Where’s Ray?” Kylie asked. “Where are the other Bruins?”
“Martin’s the only Bruin to be named an All-Star,” Mommy said. “This game is different from all the others.”
“Are you mad I got sick?”
“Why would I be mad?” Mommy asked, smiling over.
“Because you want to be there.”
“I want to be right here, taking care of you.”
Kylie nodded. It hurt to talk, so she was saving her voice. She wasn’t used to having two parents, and sometimes she heard angry voices coming down the hall. Martin could yell so loud it shook the house. Mommy would sometimes yell, but mostly she kept her anger inside, her arms folded tightly across her chest, her lips a thin line. Kylie picked up on their moods, and she worried that they’d stop loving each other and get a divorce, like other kids’ parents.
“Is Martin mad we’re not at the All-Star game with him?” she asked.
“Of course not. Kylie, why do you keep asking these questions?”
“I just want us to stay together,” Kylie said, her throat burning.
“We
are
together.”
“What makes some families go apart?” Kylie asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, honey,” her mother said. “Sometimes no matter how hard people try, they just can’t make it work. Two people might want opposite things from life, or their values are too different, or they find they can’t talk to each other.”
“Can’t they pretend?”
Kylie’s question must have made Mommy sad, because her eyes filled with tears. She ducked her head for a minute, and when she came up she had a small smile on her face. “That’s never the way,” she said, holding Kylie’s hand. “ ‘To thine own self be true.’ Do you know what that means?”
“No, what?”
“It means that your feelings are as important as anyone else’s. You never have to pretend you don’t matter.”
“Even to get along?” Kylie asked. Her throat was raw, and she held her mother’s hand.
“Even then. You might compromise, but you don’t have to pretend.”
“Com-pro-mise?”
“Give a little,” Mommy said.
Kylie closed her eyes. She knew that Martin had gotten divorced once, that he had lived apart from Natalie, that he never even spoke to his own father. What if he got really mad and decided never to speak to Mommy and Kylie?
The room was dark, except for the TV. Outside, snow was falling, and Kylie heard a big snowplow passing by. Boston was noisier than Black Hall but Kylie didn’t mind. Living in a city made her feel like a girl in a storybook. Their house was big and beautiful, and last week a big truck had arrived, full of furniture Mommy had ordered, to decorate the big rooms. Martin bought Kylie toys on all his trips. The only bad thing was the fighting.
The best part was having Martin. Not because of the toys or the fancy house, but because she had always wanted a father. Sometimes he faxed messages from his hotel, and when they checked, there would be a fax for Kylie, too. Sometimes Martin would draw her a bear on skates, because he’d told her a bruin was actually a bear. Her favorite drawing had shown a mother bruin, a father bruin, and a daughter bruin with “Kylie” written on her bowl of porridge.
Although she couldn’t call him “Daddy” yet, Kylie felt as if she finally had a father. He tucked her in and told her stories when he was home. Together they dreamed of rowing the whole length of Lac Vert, someday seeing the great-granddaddy trout. When she went to school, Kylie felt proud—not because she lived with Martin Cartier, the great hockey player, but because she had a father.
“Father, father, father,” Kylie said out loud.
“What’s that, honey?” Mommy asked, glancing over from the TV.
“Oh, nothing,” Kylie mumbled. Her head felt hot, and she knew she was having a fever-dream. She drifted off into missing her old school. Kylie missed everyone, even Mickey and Eddie a little.
The kids in Boston were different. Every Saturday they all took lessons in everything: musical instruments, drawing, gymnastics, figure skating, horseback riding, art appreciation at the Museum of Fine Arts. Sometimes the mothers asked Mommy if Kylie wanted to join a class, but Kylie didn’t and Mommy didn’t make her. She understood that Kylie just wanted to play, not improve.
She didn’t get fevers often, but when she did, she sometimes drifted off into a sort of waking sleep. Things that couldn’t be real seemed
very
real. The stuff she used to talk to Dr. Whitpen about.
Like the laundry hamper across the room looking like a crouching gnome, guarding all the soiled shirts and socks and pillowcases inside as if they were a great treasure he had swallowed. And the alarm clock on Martin’s side of the bed looking like a flat-headed creature with glowing red eyes.
“Promise you’ll never leave me, Mommy,” Kylie whispered, holding her mother.
“I promise,” May said, smoothing her hair away from her sweaty forehead.
“Why do things have to change?” Kylie asked, her throat burning. “Why can’t good things just stay the same? I wish they could last forever….”
“I love you forever, Kylie,” Mommy said. “Forever and ever and ever.”
Mommy’s white nightgown on the rocking chair moved, and for an instant, Kylie thought it was Natalie. Suddenly Kylie felt a message in her heart, as if it was coming straight from Martin’s daughter: Bring them together, bring them together.
“Bring who together, Mommy?” Kylie asked.
The first day Kylie felt well enough to go to school, another postcard arrived. This one showed a city park in winter, children skating across a frozen pond. Turning it over, May saw that the picture had been taken at Estonia’s Dexter Park. The message said: “He’s playing better than ever this year. It must be because you’re rooting for him. So am I.”
Like the others, the card was unsigned. May wondered whether Serge had bought the card at the prison store, whether someone had given it to him. The man was in prison, yet he was her father-in-law. She thought of the bad things he had done to get there—the lies he had told, the people he had harmed.
Last night, May had written in the blue notebook. She had recorded everything that had happened during Kylie’s fever, the way she had called out “bring them together.” Holding the diary and staring at the postcard, May picked up the phone and called Toronto.
“I was hoping I’d hear from you again,” Ben Whitpen said.
“It’s started up again,” May said. “For a long time, I thought the dreams had stopped. But the other night—”
Dr. Whitpen was silent as she told him everything. At the end, she told him about getting postcards from Serge.
“Has Kylie seen them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Has she heard you telling Martin you want to meet his father?”
“No. He gets angry, and I’m careful not to fight in front of her.”
“You say that Kylie heard Natalie’s words when she had the fever.”
“She did.” May’s heart was pounding. “ ‘Bring them together,’ Kylie kept saying. ‘We have to bring them together, Mommy.’ ”
The doctor was silent, his computer keys clicking softly in the background.
“Did she tell you who she wants to bring together?”
“No. That was the entire message.”
“Was it Kylie’s message or Natalie’s?”
“Kylie told me Natalie said it,” May said, speaking quickly. “But there was no one else in the room!”
“To Kylie there was.”
“I was there,” May said.
“You don’t see what Kylie sees.”
“You’re saying she saw Natalie?”
He paused. “It’s not that simple.”
“That makes her sound crazy,” May began. “She’s not, though. She just imagined it, I think. She has such a big heart; she’s sensitive to people who are hurt.”
“You’re speaking of Natalie?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, I think it’s someone else…” Dr. Whitpen began, then veered into a different direction. “The metaphysical explanation centers around the arrival of those postcards. They have sparked something, Mrs. Cartier.”
“In Kylie?”
“Not in her, no.
Around
her.”
May drew a deep breath, covered her eyes.
“But I haven’t told anyone about the postcards. I don’t think Kylie has seen them.”
“She senses the emotions in the air—in you—caused by them. Perhaps she even feels the power of Serge’s longing.”
“But why?”
“Just as the shock of seeing that hanging man, Richard Perry, was the catalyst for Kylie’s gift to emerge, the postcards are now the catalyst for what she has been called to witness.”
“What are you talking about?” May asked.
“Something concerning Martin and his father, from what you tell me,” Dr. Whitpen said. “ ‘Bring them together’ was the message, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but—”
“I believe it refers to Martin and his father.”
“That’s impossible.”
“In the world of metaphysics,” Dr. Whitpen said, “many things are.”
“This is over Kylie’s head,” May said. “The troubles between Martin and Serge are too deep for her to understand.”
“Are they?” Dr. Whitpen asked softly. “It would not be the first time a youth has set about to effect change in a troubled landscape. David comes to mind. Hamlet.”
“This is crazy,” May said. “Those are figures in the Bible, in literature. I’m talking about my little girl. She had a fever; she was sick.”
“I know this is hard for you to comprehend, Mrs. Cartier. But you’re doing the right thing. Keep writing everything down.”
“I don’t have any choice,” May said. “If I didn’t, I’d go crazy myself.”
“When you’re ready, I hope you’ll bring Kylie back to see me again. I think our visits are of value to her. For children like Kylie, it helps a great deal to know that they are being understood.”
May thanked him and hung up.
That afternoon, without telling Tobin or Enid where she was going, May went to visit her parents’ graves. They were buried in a small cemetery on the bank of the Ibis River in Black Hall, surrounded by a stone wall and a circle of pine trees. All the snow had melted, and crocuses were poking up through the brown grass.
May walked up the stone path. She felt nervous, as if she were going to visit people she hardly knew. For several years, she had come here with her grandmother. Emily would tend the graves of her daughter and son-in-law, raking the leaves in autumn, planting flowers in spring, telling May stories about her parents. Sometimes Tobin had come along. But as May grew older, got busy in her own life, she had stopped coming.
This was her first visit in many years. Dead leaves had blown against the headstones, and the only plants growing were weeds. May bowed her head against the March wind and rested her palm on the headstone. It felt cold to her fingers.
Her parents’ names were chiseled, along with the dates of their births and deaths.
Samuel and Abigail Taylor
. Touching the deeply cut letters, May wished she knew why she had come. The hills and woods spread around her, silent and empty. The Ibis River, a narrow tributary of the wide Connecticut, was edged with ice. Brown leaves and dead grass, frozen together, stuck to the grave. Kneeling down, she began to clear the leaves away.
As she did, her head touched the stone. She thought of her mother and father and deep feelings of love came bubbling up in her chest. So much time had passed since she had seen her parents; she had grown up, had a child, gotten married.
The wind blew, scattering leaves.
May bowed her head and cried. She thought of the years she and her parents had missed. It seemed so cruel and unfair. They had been right here in the ground, just a few miles from the barn, while other people went on taking the days and seasons and years for granted. She thought of Martin and his father, wasting time in a fight, whatever terrible things had passed between them.