The Edge of the Light (18 page)

“It's the language thing. They've decided it makes him too vulnerable.”

“But he's making progress. With language and with everything.”

“Not enough, apparently. Physically he's improving, and that looks good. As long as he doesn't live alone.”

“He's not living alone. I'm here. Celia and Jake are here. Seth's here. He's
never
alone.”

He looked regretful as he said, “Unfortunately, you guys . . . everyone but Celia and Jake? To the court, you don't count. You're all too young and none of you have medical skills.”

“As if we need them. That's so unfair!”

“Sort of like life,” Rich pointed out. “At any rate, Brenda's got what she wanted. That's what this”—he indicated the envelope—“is all about. I wanted Dad to know before she gets here. I told
him she might want to sell the house and the land, but even if she does, he's not going to assisted living. Seth and I can make changes in our place, so he can come to us. She'll go for that.”

Becca looked in the direction of the bedroom. “He can't lose this place. It's his everything.”

“There's not much we can do about it now.”

“
Why
did he say
banks
? D'you think there's some kind of money somewhere that nobody knows about?”

“The financial guardian checked every bank on the island. He dealt with banks over town, too: in Everett, Edmonds, Mukilteo, Lynnwood. There's no special account anywhere. And no paperwork here to indicate there might be.”

Jake came out of the bedroom just as the front door opened and Celia breezed into the house. She had a bakery box with her and she made an announcement of “Carrot cake all around. Who wants a piece?” but her happy invitation faded when she saw the expressions on the faces around her. “Is Mr. Darrow all right?” was her instant question.

“It depends on what you mean by all right,” was Rich Darrow's reply.

J
enn was able to offer her mom a compromise once she figured out that her dad wasn't going to intervene in their dispute. She attended church with her without complaint, and she tried to look devout. In place of Bible study on Wednesday evening, which she couldn't attend because of her G & G's job, she accepted assignments from Kate to read various and deliberately chosen sections of the Old Testament and to write essays on them afterward. Jenn hardly had time to do this
and
her homework, but she made time whenever she had five free minutes.

She de-stressed herself by regaling her regular lunch companions with tales of the Pentecostal services. It was fire and brimstone all the way, she told them, and the last time she'd been there, one of the congregants had had a bad bizarre seizure in the middle of the aisle. Mr. Sawyer called it the Holy Spirit, but someone else wisely called it an emergency needing the paramedics. They showed up and carted the victim off to the hospital.

“Swear to God,” Jenn said. “I
hate
that place. All they want to do is mess with your mind. But my mom thinks it's like having a flu shot.”

“What's that
about?” Squat offered his four chocolate chip cookies for the table's enjoyment. They were home baked by his mom. He said she'd been having an attack of domesticity lately because she'd met a guy on Match.com and she wanted him to think she was wife material, chocolate chip cookies seemingly the most obvious sign of this.

“It's about me not turning into a lesbian from working at G & G's,” Jenn said. “If I go to church with her and study the parts of the Bible that she wants me to study, I'll be safe.”

“And have you become so inclined, my friend?” Squat inquired. “Is there something in your nature that I should be aware of, since we've been engaged for something like thirteen years?”

Jenn didn't answer because Becca was saying, “Can't your dad help out?”

“No way. He likes to keep the peace and he knows that Mom will go ballistic if he says I don't have to go to church with her. It's some kind of deal they made before they got married. She wouldn't bug him about the beer brewing and he wouldn't bug her about her religion. So she doesn't have to drink his beer, and she looks away when he's selling it to people under the table. And he doesn't have to go to her church. If he brings up the rest of us having to go, she'll probably burn down the brew shed.”

“Harsh,” Squat said. Then he added, “On the other hand . . .” He gestured across the New Commons to where Cynthia and Lexie had just finished eating. They were going separate ways, but before they did, Lexie grabbed Cynthia and planted a
smacking kiss on her mouth. “That could be in your future if you don't watch out for the company you keep.”

“Don't think that's how it works,” was Derric's view.

Becca's was a monitory “Squat . . .” which, Jenn knew, was meant to tell him to stay away from the subject of Lexie and Cynthia.

But Jenn found she didn't want to stay away. She said, “You know,
Fergus
,” and using his real name told everyone at the table that her temper was rising, “you can actually be friends with someone without having sex with them. You can even be friends with someone who gets off on people of the same gender.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Squat told her.

“Why are you so freaked by them? Or are you just freaked because no one wants to have sex with
you
?”

He looked unperturbed. He reached for half of one of the cookies. “I'm saving myself for you, beloved,” he said. “You'll cave into my charms eventually.” But Jenn knew that he'd felt the dig. His cheeks had grown ruddier as he was speaking.

• • •

JENN WAS BOTHERED
by it all: her mom's beliefs and Squat's attitude and what it meant that they thought how they thought. She kept feeling pushed and pulled when all she really wanted to do was have a job, make some money, and get herself onto the All Island Girl's Soccer team.

She did wonder all the same, because there was something about Cynthia and Lexie's free and easy relationship that she felt
drawn to. It wasn't that she wanted a relationship like theirs with another girl. It was just that she admired their openness, and she didn't find it horrifying, sickening, or anything else that they were into each other. She knew them as people first and as girls-into-other-girls second. What was the big deal?

She and Lexie were driving to G & G's after a training session when Jenn brought it up with, “Can I ask you something?”

“Can do.” Lexie leaned over and opened the glove compartment. She snagged an energy bar, which she handed to Jenn. “Let's split this,” she said. “You start, I'll finish.”

Jenn began to unwrap it. “It's sort of dumb,” she began.

“I love dumb,” Lexie told her. “I deal best with dumb. Fire away.”

“Okay. You and Cynthia . . . and you and Sara-Jane . . . ?”

“Yep.”

“How did you know?”

“You mean that I'm into girls?” Lexie glanced in her direction. They were on the highway heading up to Freeland, so it was a quick glance only, and after that, Lexie didn't look over at her again. Jenn liked this: not only that Lexie was a careful driver but also that she herself could get red in the face or uncomfortable or anything and Lexie wouldn't be examining her. “Lemme think for a sec.” Thirty seconds or more went by until Lexie finally nodded and said, “When you start liking someone—I mean liking as in more than being friends—it's because there's some kind of attraction. Maybe it's physical, maybe it's intellectual, maybe you've got the same interests . . . stuff like that. But you recognize
that there's something special in this other person that you can latch onto. Get it?”

“Sure.”

“So you start spending time with this person and you realize at some point it's really more than just being friends. It's loving instead. Not like loving your mom and dad and brothers and sisters. A different kind of loving that draws you to the other person and makes you want to act on it. You start to feel if you don't act on it, you're going to end up a knot of nerves. But in order to act, you've got to take a step and that step involves the other person and that other person might not feel the same way. But if they do . . . well, there you go.”

Jenn considered this for a moment before she said, “But that sounds just like girls and guys,” she finally said.

“Guess it is.” They'd reached Bayview Corner, one of the five traffic lights on the south end of Whidbey Island. It was red, which gave Lexie the chance to give Jenn a look that took her in from toes to head. She said, “I just think you're attracted to who you're attracted to, Jenn. For some girls, it turns out to be other girls. For some girls it turns out to be guys.”

“But what about . . . See, Giselle and Gertie . . . ? Weren't they attracted to guys in the beginning?”

“Must've been or they wouldn't've married 'em.”

Jenn was quiet. She handed over the rest of the energy bar, having eaten her part of it. Lexie's hand closed over hers. Reflexively, Jenn jerked away. Then she was embarrassed that she'd done so.

Lexie didn't seem bothered. She said, “You should check out
the Gay Straight Alliance. We meet on Fridays. At lunch. You know Ms. Primavera?”

“The counselor. Course. Everyone knows her.”

“The phony Jimmy Choos.” Lexie grinned. “That's her. Anyway, she's our sponsor.”

“Omigod! Is
she
—”

Lexie hooted. “It's the Gay
Straight
Alliance, Jenn. You should come to a meeting. If you show up, there's kids who'll answer your questions better 'n me.”

Jenn thought that the Gay Straight Alliance meeting was just about the last place where she'd want to be seen. There was knowing and liking Cynthia and Lexie, and there was mixing and mingling with the high school freaks. But she didn't want to say that, so instead she asked Lexie if her parents knew.

“That I'm into girls? Oh, yeah. I told 'em.”

“What happened?”

The light switched to green. Lexie took off. “My dad doesn't like to talk about it. My mom refuses to believe it. She keeps telling me I'm in a
stage
and as soon as I get to college and see all those buff fraternity boys, I'll be changing my colors.”

“Does she know about Sara-Jane?”

“Yep. But as far as she's concerned, SJ is ‘your little friend, Aleksandra. I don't quite like her. Please don't bring her by the house.'”

“That's rotten.”

“I c'n cope. Anyway, you should talk to Cynthia.”

Jenn wasn't sure she wanted to. There was something less
approachable about Cynthia. She was beautiful, smart, confident, talented. All that gorgeous blond hair and that perfect body. She was friendly to everyone, and Jenn figured she'd be open to talking about just about anything, but still  . . .

Lexie said, “Her parents practically told
her
she was a lesbian. When she came out to them, her dad said, ‘Oh, we've known that for years.' And her mom was like, ‘As long as you're happy, we're happy, dear.'”

“That's cool.”

“Wish it was like that in my house. But it ain't, and that's life.” Lexie shoved the rest of the energy bar into her mouth.

“Doesn't it bother you that your parents don't get it?”

“Truth? My mom would've only been happy if I'd turned out to be her clone. I figured that out when she wanted me to shave my legs when I was thirteen and I liked them just the way they were. You'd've thought I'd put a stiletto through her eyeball. She wouldn't talk to me for a week. My dad, though? He'll come around eventually.”

“Sounds like my house. Only it's not leg shaving. It's Pentecostal Christianity.”

“Ouch,” Lexie said. “Now that's a tough one.”

I
n Seth's final phone message to Prynne, he talked about Grand. Brenda, he told Prynne, was moving things forward in her attempt to get control of Ralph. Grand now had an attorney to fight Brenda's being given guardianship, one that Seth's parents had had to unearth, although no one knew how they were going to pay for it. That attorney had advised Seth's dad to work things out with his sister because “I've seen this sort of family thing before and it generally doesn't turn out well.” That was where things stood when Seth left his message.

There would be another hearing, he told Prynne. They
thought
it looked good because the family had at least two people at the house to care for Grand, but now, of course, there were only two people when Becca was there with Celia, since Jake was on his own. Seth didn't know what the judge would make of that, he said.

He knew as he added this last part that he was trying to guilt Prynne into returning. He'd tried every other approach—I love you, I miss you, I'm sorry I followed you, We can work this out,
Please
call me back—except actually going to her, and when
she didn't return
this
call about Grand's precarious position, he decided he had to appeal personally to what she'd once declared: that
she
loved
him
, Seth, too.

He waited till her next gig in Port Townsend. He was due to stay with Grand because of the weekend, but Becca said she'd do it. Derric wasn't going to be available anyway, she told him. He was spending the day up in La Conner with a fellow African from his Kampala orphanage.

In Port Townsend, Seth strode down Water Street. Early May had brought a burst of dazzling weather, so the bluebells were beginning to paint the roadsides azure, and the hillside between the lower and upper parts of the old town were ablaze with poppies, the orange of them a pleasing contrast to the wild green grass among which they grew. The spring sun had coaxed hundreds of people into the town. In the late afternoon, they were crowding the sidewalks.

The fine day lifted Seth's spirits, but he warned himself not to get cocky about the prospect of seeing Prynne. He had to make her understand how important she was to him. But he also had to realize that there was every chance he wouldn't be successful.

Her first gig started at five o'clock. He didn't want to be there when she arrived. He wanted to walk in while she was already playing because there was less chance that way that she would ask him to leave. Thus, it was five-twenty when he ducked into the coffeehouse. As usual, Prynne's appearance with her fiddle had brought in a crowd, and she was playing when Seth came through the front door.

He went to the counter, easing his way through the people. There, he ordered both an Americano and a decaf skinny vanilla latte. He bought an oatmeal raisin cookie to go with it.

There was no place to sit, but he found a space at a narrow shelf that ran along two of the walls. He stood there and listened, and looked at Prynne. Today she was 100 percent who she'd always been. She was also dressed exactly as she'd been when he'd first seen her: jeans tucked into cowboy boots, a kind of gypsy shirt, a bunch of beaded necklaces, hair wild, eye patch.

At the end of her piece, the audience hooted, applauded, and stamped their feet. Seth whistled shrilly in approval, which was when Prynne caught sight of him. He waved and tried to look like his normal self. He held up the cookie and the latte. Her lips parted, which he tried to take as a hopeful sign, but she didn't give any other indication that she was surprised or happy to see him there. She did come over to him at her break time, though.

Seth hadn't expected to be so relieved to see her. He'd known he'd missed her, but he hadn't really understood how much until she was standing in front of him in all her . . . all her Prynne-ness. What he wanted to do then was to grab her, feel her crinkly hair beneath his fingers, and tell her exactly how much they were meant to be together.

She said, “Hey,” and when he handed her the latte and the cookie, she added, “Thanks. Didn't expect to see you here. Where's Gus? In the car?”

He said, “Becca's got him over at Grand's.” And then nothing. Nothing from her, either. He could hardly stand this, so he burst
out with, “Didn't you get my messages? Why didn't you call me back?”

She looked away from him. People were jostling as the two baristas called out completed orders. Seth knew this wasn't the right spot to have the conversation and so apparently did Prynne because she said to him, “Come with me,” and she led him toward the back.

Outside, they were on the water in the vicinity of the town's docks, where fishing boats and pleasure craft bobbed. The scents of gasoline, oil, and a barbecue somewhere filled the air. In the middle of Admiralty Inlet, a ferry was making the crossing from Whidbey, accompanied by a flock of gulls. Sunset was still three hours away. Everything was brightly lit.

Seth said, “I'm sorry, Prynne. Following you like that? It wasn't the right thing to do. I wanted to know something and I should've just asked you.”

“I guess you had your reasons.”

“It's just that when I saw you with that guy and when I heard what he was saying to you—”

She flashed him a quick look with, “What was he saying? I don't even remember.”

“I don't either.” This wasn't true. Seth remembered completely: The guy had talked about supplying her with something, not being able to get it, finding it too risky now, and all the rest. But in that moment with Prynne, Seth chose to let it all go. She was still Prynne, and he loved her. He said, “It seemed really important at the time. But alls I know now is that it doesn't matter. Nothing
matters except just you and me and being together.”

She still had her fiddle under her arm, and she placed it gently against the side of the building. She shoved part of her hair behind one ear and with her good eye she seemed to examine him. She said, “You mostly tore a hole in my heart, Seth. I don't know if it will ever get better.”

“I want to make it better,” Seth told her passionately. “I
know
that I can make it better. I was out of line. What I did . . . following you like that . . . sneaking around to check up on you . . . It's like . . . when you took that Oxy from my mom's supply, I just lost it.”

“I
said
I was sorry about it. I said I only wanted to try it. When I used it once, I didn't like what it did to me but you didn't believe that, so what's different now?”

“Now I believe you,” Seth told her. “I
totally
believe you. I want us to be together, and I'm telling you nothing like that's going to happen again.”

“Nothing like what? Me stealing your mom's pills? How're you going to check on that one?”

“Not that,” he said. “My following you and not trusting you and checking up on you. That's what.”

“How'm I supposed to believe you?” Prynne asked him, and she sounded as despairing as he felt.

“By trying it with me again. That's the only way I can prove things. Oh Prynne, please. It's like you tore a hole in
my
heart, too. Not with the Oxy, I don't mean that. But with being gone from me now.”

“You'll recover,” she said shortly.

“I don't want to recover,” Seth replied. “I want you. Whatever happened to make things bad for us, I swear it won't happen again. If you'll only give me a chance.”

She looked from him to the docked boats. He hoped she looked beyond them to Whidbey Island in the distance. There was, really, nothing more for him to say. He waited in agony.

Finally, she took pity on him. “Okay. We'll try it again. I love you, Seth. But you got to trust me.”

He grabbed her and kissed her. “I do,” he swore.

• • •

SHE CAME BACK
the next day. He wanted her arrival to be a forever thing. He believed the only way he could manage this was if she took the first step and gave up her escape hatch in Port Townsend: the room she still kept in that house with her fellow musicians. But now was not the time even to hint at her telling her house mates to rent the room out to someone else. He had to ease his way in that direction.

His parents seemed glad to have Prynne back. His mom's recovery from the surgery was nearly at an end and—although he hated even to think this—she'd finished up her final Oxy prescription. Seth didn't like to call those pills a temptation to Prynne, since she'd only taken one to see what it did to her. Still, not having those pills in the house removed a
minor
worry from him.

Prynne was perfect around Grand. She helped out where she
was needed, she kept an eye on how Jake Burns was handling things, she worked with Grand on language and exercising, she made lunch, did laundry, and even worked in the garden. If there was
any
problem
at all, it was weed. For she'd at last turned twenty-one, and it was legal for her to buy it at either of the two weed shops in the area. She took the opportunity to do this.

She smoked it some distance from the house, sitting on an old Adirondack chair that she dragged beyond the goat pen to a spot that gave her a pleasant view of Miller Lake across the undulating farmland. At first Seth's parents didn't mention the fact that Prynne smoked weed twice daily, both before and after dinner. He appreciated this and figured they might not mention it at all, since Prynne was, face it, not their kid. But finally his mom confronted him about it, on a late afternoon when he arrived home and Prynne was already outside on her chair with a thin cloud of smoke enveloping her.

His mom was at work in her studio. When Seth rumbled onto his parents' property, she came to the door. He got out and watched Gus go running in Prynne's direction. Before the Lab reached her, Amy called Seth's name.

“Got a minute?” she asked him.

He said sure, but when she shut the studio door behind him, he became uneasy. “Wha's happening?” he said.

She was direct. “You know it's not the marijuana itself. It's the amount that concerns me.”

“I know Prynne's spending a lot of money,” Seth said. “But that's because she's buying it legally. Black market stuff would
cost her less, but she wants it to be on the up-and-up.”

Amy waved him off. “This has nothing to do with the cost. We pay her for staying with your grandfather, and if she wants to spend the money on weed, she can. What concerns me, Seth, is the constant smoking and what that's going to do to her brain.”

“Geez, Mom, she's twenty-one. I figure her brain is already set. And she doesn't have learning disabilities anyway.”

“What I mean,” his mom went on, as if he hadn't spoken, “is that I'm concerned about what this constant smoking is going to do over time. What it's going to do to her desire to strive, to her willingness to grow, to her ability to understand herself and the world around her. If she sits in a haze every afternoon and evening . . . Don't you see what this means?”

“Far as I can tell, it means she wants to relax after being at Grand's all day.”

“Aren't you bothered? Is this what you want in a partner, Seth?”

He didn't reply. The question felt all wrong, but he wasn't sure why. He knew only that hearing it closed something off in him, so that a shell seemed to form around his heart.

“Have you talked to her about it?” his mom persisted. “You can't possibly want a partner who's high every day when you come home.” And then when he still made no reply, “Darling, I can see you love her. I
know
you love her. We love her, too, your dad and I. But we want—”

“So just
accept
her.” The words burst from him. “She is who she is and so am I.”

His mom looked at him evenly and for much too long. She was like a person trying to read his mind. His mind, however, was the last place that he wanted her to be because everything she was saying was the truth and he didn't know what to do about it. He
loved
Prynne. He
wished
she didn't get high every night. He didn't
want
to come home to someone who was blitzed. But he also didn't know how to bring this about.

So he said, “I guess you want us to find some other place to live.”

“Of course not!” Amy said. “Your place is here as long as you want to be here. I was just trying to bring something out into the open between us. We've always done that, you and I. I don't want to lose our willingness to speak openly to each other, honey.”

Seth felt miserable. He didn't know why. But he said what he knew his mom wanted to hear. “We're not going to lose that,” he declared, even though he wasn't sure he was speaking the truth.