Summer Light: A Novel (26 page)
Read Summer Light: A Novel Online
Authors: Luanne Rice
With her eyes closed, May tried to conjure up her father’s face. She remembered him handsome and smiling, with bright hazel eyes and a quick and brilliant smile. His face was full of love. Then she saw the look of hurt as she turned her back on him.
What had Dr. Whitpen said? That it helped children like Kylie to know they were being understood. May thought back twenty-four years and remembered how she had felt to have her father die without hearing her.
“I love you, Dad,” May whispered, touching the stone. “That’s what I want to tell you.”
He didn’t speak back. Unlike Kylie, May couldn’t see or hear through the veil. But the strange thing was, she was filled with the belief that he could hear her now. She felt a shiver down her spine, as if he had touched the top of her head.
May felt her father’s love, and she suddenly had no doubt that he was with her. He would have told her he loved her, too; he’d forgiven her a long time ago: She could almost hear his voice in the air. The March wind blew steadily through the trees, scraping branches against each other. May knelt where she was for a few more minutes, and then, feeling as if a burden had been lifted and knowing what she had to do, she drove straight home.
Chapter 14
O
NE EVENING AS WINTER TURNED
to spring, when Martin was home, they all took a walk down Beacon Hill into the Public Garden. The setting sun washed Boston’s old brick buildings with rose pink light, and the bare branches in the park interlocked like black ironwork against the sky. While Kylie ran ahead to see the ducks, May and Martin walked slowly behind.
“Martin Cartier!” a bunch of kids called, surrounding him. He autographed their notebooks, whatever they had, but when a thirty-something couple approached him, he just shook his head and shepherded May quickly away.
As they walked, he had his arm around her shoulders. Passing behind a lilac bush, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her. They stopped to kiss, and May felt how much he wanted her. Their time apart made their time together wild and passionate. He started tugging her toward the bushes, and she laughed, resisting.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“Great idea,” she said.
“I wish the season was over already, eh?”
“It almost is. You’ll definitely make the play-offs.”
“And then the Cup. I’ll win it for you.”
“I’ll take it,” May said, laughing. She found herself thinking of the conversation she and Kylie had had earlier. How she had casually asked Kylie about her dreams, whether she had dreamed of Natalie since the night when she’d been sick. Instead of answering the questions, Kylie had asked one of her own.
“Why doesn’t Martin talk to his father?” she had asked.
“He’s very mad at him,” May had answered calmly, her palms sweating as Kylie herself made the connection Dr. Whitpen had theorized.
“Sometimes he gets mad at you.”
“I know, honey, but that’s different. Married couples get angry sometimes, and then they work it out.”
“But what if he stops talking to you? What if he wants us to move out?” Kylie had asked, her face twisted with worry.
“We love each other, Kylie. I trust him not to stop talking to us, and I trust that he’ll talk to his father when he’s ready,” May said.
“I wish we could bring them back together before something terrible happens.”
“Something terrible? What do you mean?” May asked, the words “back together” ringing in her mind.
“I don’t know.”
An hour later, with Martin expected home from Toronto and Kylie playing outside, May had called Estonia. She had learned that Serge Cartier was in Unit C, Cell 62. That he could have visitors every other Monday, that she wouldn’t need special permission to show up, that she wouldn’t even have to tell him she was coming.
Now, walking through the Public Garden, May felt caught in a tangle of lies she hadn’t even told yet. She knew she should tell Martin about the call, but she couldn’t. She should show him the postcards. She should also tell him that she had gone through his dresser drawers, found an envelope full of pictures way in back.
That she had finally seen a photo of Trisha, that nothing she had heard had prepared her for the woman’s startling beauty. She looked so at ease with herself, in her clingy sleeveless dress, looking utterly California and designer and charming all at the same time. The baby was tugging at the scoop neck, trying to get to her mother’s large, perfect, half-visible breast.
He kept the picture because of Natalie, May told herself. His adorable daughter with his eyes and her mother’s mouth: How could he throw out any picture with her in it? But May’s attention was held by Trisha. Her sultry gaze, full lips, creamy skin.
There were other pictures.
More of Trisha and Natalie, many of Natalie alone, Natalie with Martin, and one of Natalie with Serge, showing them in a rowboat. On the back was an inscription: “Dad and Nat, summer at the lake.”
May had stared at Martin’s handwriting for a long time. It was the only picture he’d written on; the handwriting was careful, precise, telling May something tender about Martin’s feelings on the subject.
Kylie had run to the pond’s edge, to feed the ducks a roll she’d brought from home. But now she trailed back, telling Martin about the birthday party she had attended last Saturday as he bent down to listen.
“It was a skating party,” she said. “Ellen Linder can skate backward.”
“Really?” Martin asked. “How old is she?”
“Seven.”
“That’s how old you’ll be your next birthday, eh? I think we should rent the same rink, plan the greatest skating party Boston has ever seen.”
“A skating party,” she said, sounding doubtful.
“
Bien sûr
,” Martin said.
“But I can’t skate like that,” Kylie said. “All Ellen’s friends are expert skaters. They take ballet on ice, and all I do is fall down.”
“Falling down is how you learn how to stand up, yes?” Martin said. “You do great when I see you on the pond.”
“When you’re with me.”
“I’ll come to the party with you.”
“Honestly?”
“If I’m in Boston.” He stopped, thinking for a minute. “When I was six, my father gave me a pair of new skates for my birthday. They were real hockey skates, my first pair, and boy, they felt different. I went out on the ice, and all I did was fall down. I was like a new colt, with wobbly legs.”
“But your father helped you?” Kylie asked.
“Maybe he did,” Martin said. “Just like I’m going to help you.”
“That’s what fathers do,” Kylie whispered, her eyes shining.
“They’re supposed to,” Martin said.
Kylie stared into Martin’s eyes for a long time, and then she put her hands on either side of his face. Her expression was troubled, as if she was trying to decide how to break bad news to him.
“Natalie’s right,” she said instead, and May’s heart began to race.
“Kylie, honey—”
“What do you mean?” Martin asked. He started to straighten up, but Kylie held onto his collar. She stared him straight in the eye and said, “People need fathers. Even fathers need fathers. Daddy.”
“What?” Martin asked.
“Daddy,” Kylie said, throwing her arms around his neck. “People need fathers so much.”
May waited for Kylie to ask more about Serge, but the child held back. This was May’s chance to tell Martin that she had called the prison and was thinking of going to visit Serge, but
she
held back, too. Kylie had just called Martin “Daddy,” and all three of them were silently overjoyed.
Once Kylie began to call Martin “Daddy,” she didn’t stop. May had been unaware that so many sentences had the word “Daddy” in them. Such as, “Yesterday my teacher wore a blue dress to school, but Martha Cole spilled red paint on the floor and when Miss Gingras knelt down to clean it up, she got it on her dress and then she had two purple knee prints right in front—Daddy!” Or, “Charlotte sent me an early birthday card, Daddy, with a picture of a canoe on the front, and she said next summer she’ll take me on an overnight canoe camping trip, but I have to wear a life vest. Right,
Daddy
?”
Martin seemed to thrive on Kylie’s exuberant affection. His face lit up every time she said the name, and every night he was on the road and called home, he asked to speak to Kylie before hanging up the phone. The Bruins had made the play-offs again, and because of the schedule, Martin would probably be away the day of her party.
“Is she upset?” he asked.
“Disappointed,” May said.
“It’s weird,” Martin told her. “I want to win, you know I do, but I want to be there almost more. I don’t want to miss her party. Is she still nervous?”
“Well, she’s a little afraid of being embarrassed,” May said. “Some of these Boston kids have been taking figure skating for two years now. They’re so much better than she is.”
“Figure skating,” Martin said, snorting. “Ballet on ice—ridiculous.”
“They’re little girls.” May smiled.
“Girls can play hockey, too,” Martin said. “Kylie’s a natural—I can tell. Nat was, and so was Genny, as a matter of fact. I’ll work with her when the season’s over. We’ll do drills, I’ll teach her to shoot. Figure skating!” He laughed.
May, who had watched Kylie practicing pirouettes in front of the mirror, smiled. She had stood around the corner when Kylie didn’t know she was there, watching her pretend to glide across the ice as if she were dancing
Swan Lake
. Up on her toes, twirling around, skating across her bedroom. Knowing that hockey was not the stuff of Kylie’s dreams, May smiled as she asked, “Natalie liked to play hockey?”
“She was damn good at it,” Martin said.
“But she liked it?”
There was a long silence on the line. May waited for Martin to speak. She could almost see him sitting there, thinking about her, and she wished they were in the same room.
“Um,” Martin said, clearing his throat. “I guess her preference would have been figure skating. She never told me, though.”
“How did you find out?”
“Her mother let me know. She told me Natalie’s dream was to someday skate in the Ice Capades. Her idol was Michelle Kwan.”
“Trisha told you that?”
“Yes. We tried to get back together for a short while, but it would never work. She was always pointing out how far apart I was from Natalie. How I didn’t know her likes and dislikes, how I didn’t even know my own daughter.
Merde
!”
May was silent, taking in the information that Martin and Trisha had once tried to reconcile.
“Hey, don’t think anything about Trisha, okay?”
“What would I think?”
“That I wish we had stayed together. That we have any sort of bond. It was over before it really started—you know that, don’t you? This was back when my father lived in California, when I still had the idea that we should all be together, a family.”
“I think that part’s a good idea,” May said.
“Meaning?”
“Your father sent me a postcard, Martin.”
“No,” he said. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not joking, and I want to meet him.”
“Jesus Christ!” Martin said. “When will you drop that? How many times do I have to tell you—he’s never going to know you, not as long as I’m alive. Leave it alone, for Chrissakes. Burn the goddamn postcard, May. Do you want to ruin us? I swear, that’s what you’re doing.”
“Maybe it’s what
you’re
doing,” May blurted out. “My reasons for wanting to meet him are just as important as yours for not—”
He hung up on her. Shaking, May walked over to the bureau. She stared for a long time at the picture of Martin and his father. And then she went to the phone to call the airline, her daughter’s words ringing in her ears.
We have to bring them together
.
Chapter 15
I
N THE MIDDLE OF APRIL
, when Martin left for his next away game, May asked Aunt Enid to come up and stay with Kylie overnight. She flew the shuttle to New York, rented a compact car, and drove north toward the Catskills. The route to see Dr. Whitpen had taken them over these mountains many times.
Estonia was a small city filled with old, abandoned brick mills. Set above falls on a wide river, it had once been a prosperous manufacturing center. The town park boasted a band shell, a soldier’s monument carved from granite, and a reflecting pool now drained and filled with debris. Beautiful Victorian houses had fallen into disrepair, and the mansions on Main Street had been broken up into apartments and offices.
The prison crowned a western hill. May saw it from miles away. Driving up the road, she saw people trudging up the sidewalk, on their way to visiting day. She parked in the visitors’ lot, followed the flow of people to the entrance. Coils of razor wire glistened in the sun. The brick walls looked thick and impenetrable, and the dents in the gray metal door made her think of rage and frustration.
Entering the waiting room, May smelled sweat, stale cigarette smoke, and fast food. The crowd was thick, mainly women and children, talking and laughing. Jostled on all sides, May had the feeling of being in steerage, at the beginning of a voyage to an unknown country.
A guard at the front desk took her name and asked who she wanted to visit.
“Serge Cartier,” she said. “Unit C, Cell sixty-two.”
“Wait over there,” he said, without once looking into her eyes.
Sitting down beside two women who had obviously been here before, May heard them talking about their husbands’ court cases, their public defenders, chances of acquittal. Talk turned to violence, how an inmate had been stabbed over drugs last week, with a straight-edged razor, or a shank.
Twenty minutes passed. Then a different guard unlocked the double-thick inner doors and allowed the visitors to pass through. The gray corridor echoed with excited voices and the clatter of footsteps. May hung back. She felt afraid of what she was walking into. Her blood was pumping, thinking of the weapons the women had talked about. The anxiety came from knowing that she was going behind Martin’s back, that this was her last chance to turn around.
But she kept walking. Passing through another metal door, she entered the large visitors’ room. Many reunions were taking place, with guards standing everywhere to prevent kissing and hugging. May stood frozen in place, looking around. Just as she was about to ask a guard for assistance, she saw a man walking toward her.
He looked just like Martin. He was older and thinner, slightly stooped, but he had those brilliant blue Cartier eyes. His expression was guarded, hesitant as he approached May. Like all the other inmates, he wore a baggy orange prison jumpsuit, but the garment couldn’t hide the fact that he was a handsome, commanding man. He stopped dead still, just staring at her, and May felt pressure rapidly building inside her chest. But then his eyes lit up, and the Cartier smile took over his face.
“You got my postcards,” he said.
“I did.”
“Your pictures don’t do you justice. I’ve seen you in the papers—”
“You look exactly like Martin—you both have the same eyes.”
“I’m glad to meet you. Serge Cartier—”
“May Cartier.”
“My daughter-in-law.” May heard the emotion in his voice just before he turned away to find them a place to sit. All of the chairs were taken by other inmates and their families, but May watched Serge approach one young Hispanic man and his female visitor, say a few words, and clear two hard plastic armchairs.
“One of the benefits of being old,” he told her. “Occasionally someone decides he wants to respect his elders.”
May nodded, sitting down. She had seen the exchange of smiles and words, the way Serge spoke to the young woman as well. Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to say, what she hoped to accomplish.
“I was surprised when they said I had a visitor,” Serge said in the same French Canadian accent as Martin.
“People don’t come to see you?”
“Oh, lawyers. Reporters, sometimes. Hockey players once in a while. But no one who matters, eh? No family.”
May nodded.
“How is my son?”
“He’s fine,” May said. “The Bruins are winning. It looks like the play-offs will—”
Serge shook his head. “He’s got you thinking it’s one and the same? Life and hockey?”
“No.” May laughed. “But he tries.”
“You see through that?”
“I try to understand him,” she said slowly. “Hockey has been such a central part of his life. But I never played, never even watched it until I met him.”
“The papers say you plan weddings.”
“Yes,” May said, laughing nervously. “Slightly different from pro sports.”
“More important in the long run, eh?” Serge said. “What brought you two together?”
May found herself telling him about the plane crash, Kylie asking Martin to help them, the not-to-be-denied love that had happened so fast between them. How they’d gotten married just a month after meeting, how they had merged their lives without really even knowing each other. She left out Kylie’s visions, Dr. Whitpen, the blue diary.
“And how is it going? You are happy together?”
“Mostly,” May said, but the pressure in her chest increased. “We have some differences.”
“Everyone does,
non
?” Serge asked. “The trick is in how you handle them. Maybe that’s why this room is so full. Many, many differences of opinion. Does Martin know you are here?”
“No,” May said. “That’s one of the differences.”
“Don’t tell me I’m the cause of you two fighting.”
May swallowed hard.
“It’s hardly worth it,” he said. “Martin wrote me off long before you married him. He has his reasons.”
“I know them,” May whispered. “He’s told me.”
Serge gazed toward the door, his eyes following a young girl running in circles around her parents. “He blames me for Natalie’s death,” he said.
“I know.” May’s heart kicked over. “But you never meant to hurt her.”
“Never,” Serge said, the word forceful and passionate.
May believed him. She knew about mistakes made in a moment that shadowed all the moments to come.
“Why are you here?” he asked, his eyes glittering with tears.
“Because you’re Martin’s father,” she said. “Because you’re so important to him.” The blue notebook testified to deeper reasons, but she couldn’t tell him.
“Did he say that?”
“He doesn’t have to,” May said.
“He hates me.”
May stared at his hand. If the guards weren’t standing there, she would have taken it. She cleared her throat. “I thought I hated my father,” she said. “For a few minutes, I guess I actually did. By the time I realized I’d made a mistake, it was too late. I couldn’t see what was right there until he was gone. I don’t want that to happen to Martin.”
“What’s he missing?” Serge asked. “What doesn’t
he
see?”
“I’m not sure yet.” May was struck by the question, reminded of something Kylie had said to Dr. Whitpen. “He won’t talk about it. Maybe this summer, when the season ends—”
“Martin keeps everything inside,” Serge said. “He always has. When he was little, he got hit in the head with a puck. Didn’t tell me, didn’t tell his mother. We found him bleeding from his ear when we tucked him in that night. Later he told us he thought we’d be mad at Ray Gardner—his best friend—for hitting him, or we wouldn’t let him play the next day.”
“Were you mad at Ray?”
Serge shook his head. “Of course not. Ray was like a brother to Martin. Still is, from what I can tell. But Martin did have a concussion.”
“A concussion?” May asked.
Serge exhaled. “The first of many. That’s hockey for you. You’ve seen his scars, the scar tissue around his eyes. From what I read about him, he’s in the line of fire every game. He nearly lost his eye a few years back, in a fight with Jorgensen. He talk about that?”
“Nils Jorgensen?” May asked. “Yes—his enemy.”
“They hate each other, those two,” Serge said. “I know how it is, eh? When Martin’s mother divorced me, I took it out on a guy who played for Boston at the time. I couldn’t wait to play the Bruins. So I could beat the hell out of their right wing. The divorce was my fault,
bien sûr,
but I couldn’t see it that way at the time.”
“Why blame anyone, right?”
“
Non!
I thought it was Agnes’s fault, her father’s fault, even Martin’s fault. Everyone’s but mine, believe me. I was a mess. The Boston player was damned easy to hit—the rest of the time I tried to prove my worth at the roulette wheel, the craps table. See, I thought if I was lucky there, I must be a good person.”
“How do you mean?”
“I believe in
le bon Dieu
, May. I believed that if I won at gambling, God was tipping the odds in my favor. He wouldn’t do that for a bad man.”
May smiled.
“I was a bad husband,” he said. “And father. I was trying to change that, though. When Natalie came along…” his voice cracked. “I promised myself I’d be the best grandfather I could. I’d be there for Martin, help him not to make the same mistakes I did. I’d baby-sit, I’d love that little girl.”
“You did love her,” May said. “I can hear that.”
“I let her die,” Serge said, his eyes washed in terrible grief and pain. “No matter what else I felt or did, that part’s true.”
“But you didn’t mean to.”
“Non,”
he said, bowing his head. “I did not.”
A bell rang, and people began to move. “Time!” a guard yelled. The crowd was restless, and tension rose. People trying to embrace were thrust apart by guards. May wanted to hold Serge’s hand, kiss his cheek. He was her father-in-law, and she could feel his love for Martin and Natalie across the space that separated them.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he said, wiping his eyes.
“I wish I didn’t, too.”
“You have a beautiful daughter,
très jolie
. I have seen her pictures. I’m certain—” he trailed off.
“What?” she asked as a guard gestured for her to leave.
“I’m sure she brings Martin joy. He loved having a daughter.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” she said, staring into his eyes. She thought of her own father, who would be just about the same age as Serge. If only she could have one last minute with him, say whatever she wanted…what would it be?
“Martin’s balance, is it okay?” Serge asked suddenly. “I watch him on TV, and sometimes it seems to me he’s off a little—that he favors his right side, as if he’s having problems with his left.”
“It seems fine to me,” May said, surprised.
“Maybe he needs glasses,” Serge said. “After all those hits to the head.”
May nodded. Her heart hurt; the guards were telling her to leave. She had his postcards, the blue notebook in her bag. She couldn’t believe the visit was over.
“Tell him something for me, will you?” Serge asked.
“Of course.”
“Tell him I love him,” Serge said.
“I will,” May promised, her voice breaking. Her father-in-law had just taken the words out of her mouth. Because she couldn’t think of anything better to say, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. A guard stepped forward to hurry her out. Serge protested loudly, but it didn’t matter.
He went back behind one thick steel door, and May, looking over her shoulder, walked freely through another. She had intended to check her notebook, look up the words Kylie had said to Dr. Whitpen last summer, but in the emotion of the moment, she forgot.
May returned home and couldn’t wait the four days for Martin to get home from his road trip. Driving down to Black Hall, she worked extra hours, helping Tobin prepare and send out a huge Bridal Barn mailing. While Aunt Enid baby-sat Kylie, they worked until midnight, watching Martin’s game on TV.