He put his hand out to her, spread it flat and wide, and acknowledged Adeleine — who blushed in the uncertainty of her part in all of it — with a wink. Edith shuffled across the pavement with a certain dignity, her jaw bobbing as she looked left and right, and when they reached the passenger side of Wallace’s truck, he pressed down on the silver handle, led the door’s opening as if conducting the first note of an opera.
~ ~ ~
THOUGH EDWARD HAD PREPARED his voice, called on notes of casual competence, he answered as though being held over a fire.
“Um, hello,” she said.
“Helena! It’s Edward!” His whole body protested the moment, and he tried to compensate for anxiety with enthusiasm.
“Boy howdy and Jesus Christ. I knew I recognized the number. I just didn’t know whose it was.”
“Well.”
“Well? You called me.”
“Right. How are you?”
“As in… how have the last ten years treated me? Or, right in this moment, am I good or bad? Have I consumed any above-average fusion cuisine recently? Is the weather decent?”
“Okay — I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. But listen, I’m actually calling about an extremely important issue, one that’s keeping me up nights, and that’s — joint health.”
“What?”
“Are you taking care of your joints? Enough omega-threes in your life?”
“I’m not going to laugh. You’re very funny, but I’m not going to.”
“I’m not laughing. Do you hear me laughing? I cannot stress enough the crucial nature of knee bends. How would you like to spend your middle age? The choice is yours.”
“Where are you, Edward? What are you doing? Anything? Why are you calling?”
“I’m, uh—”
“Are you right where I left you?”
“Actually, I’m in Tennessee.”
“What?” The genuine surprise in her voice exposed a warmth previously hidden, and he was hit by the ghost of their dynamic, arriving at punch lines together at the dinner table, clutching at each other’s elbows in glee.
“Yeah. The Smoky Mountains. But specifically, the side of some road, knee-deep in all kinds of weird grass I’ve never seen before. I’m here to see — they’re called synchronous fireflies, and they only do this once a year, only here and somewhere in the Philippines, and they light up all at once, rhythmically, in a dance. It’s like the destination rave for bugs.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“No.”
“Why are you there?”
“Um, I’m here with my neighbor. Well, he’s my friend. He’s also a disabled thirty-three-year-old who plays the electronic keyboard pretty well and owns several plastic swords. He’s very generous and wants to talk to everyone, always, and has barely left my apartment in the last six months. But we’re getting evicted. Edith — you remember her?”
“She was amazing. She used to make me tea when you and I fought.”
“Really?”
“Really. I farted while crying once and she winked at me.”
“Wow. Well, she’s essentially lost it — she went from forgetful to paranoid overnight — and her son’s kicking us all out, so me and my neighbor and his sister decided to take this trip.”
“I remain amazed.”
“He wanted to come here more than I want… I don’t know. I guess more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Except you.”
She grunted with an immediate remorse, as though seeing herself lock the keys in the car. “This isn’t fair. You can’t call after years and say that, like we’re twenty-six and imagining the rest of our lives on someone else’s fire escape. I’ve built things, Edward. I have a—”
As though on cue, the sound of a child, its urgent question. It wanted her, belonged to her. He waited as she murmured sweet instruction in a voice he had never heard, her hand over the phone, and the fact of it banished anything he might have said. He thought he heard her say, “Can you show me what you did with the blue paper?” And then, “No, that’s not for eating.
“Look, Edward. It sounds like — it seems that you’ve built something pretty good yourself. Enjoy that. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m proud of you. And also, truly, I have to go. Okay?”
“All right,” he said, finally, though the electronic light that signified her had faded.
~ ~ ~
THOMAS AND SONG and all her sons had gathered to watch Wallace open the passenger side of his mottled truck. The rusted door eked forward and revealed Edith, who remained facing straight ahead, as though enjoying some film playing just beyond the windshield. Beside her in the slim middle seat, barely visible, Adeleine’s hair gave a flaxen glow. Wallace bowed and waved for Thomas to come forward, and Thomas felt his toes spread, slightly, to steady his position.
Stepping away from the others, glad to separate from the throng, he approached the cab, where he laid a hand on Edith’s knee and squeezed. Adeleine’s eyes were closed. He couldn’t reach her.
“Edith, I’m so glad you came. I’ve missed you. I’m so sorry it’s taken so long. It was so hard to find the right place, and then so difficult to recognize it once I’d gotten there.”
He placed his hand along her chin, waiting until her watery vision focused on him before he continued.
“Jenny and I have arranged everything for you: a quiet place where you can nap, and another where you can just sit and think. Everyone here knows all about you, Edith — I’ve told them who you are, how much I like you. I know it’s not the home you made but you can trust me that it’s safe, that the air is clean and the people are good. Will you — please — let me show you?”
Edith blinked and changed, as if she were waking from an introspective lull in a grim lobby, having heard her number called.
“Declan,” she said. “You’ve always been softhearted. I knew that about you from the beginning.”
“Edith, it’s me. It’s Thomas. Jenny’s here, Edith — your daughter is here and she can’t wait to see you.”
“Declan! Why didn’t you say so, you old goon!” Edith moved her face into a smile and put out her hand with a flourish, each finger proudly flexed. Thomas aligned his forearm with hers, felt them strain together as she descended the cab and began to search the crowd for the face of her child. She scrutinized each with resolve, considering faces and hairlines and postures; it was here, finally, the event she had trained for in so many dreaming hours.
When Song stepped forward, Edith’s arm left his, and Thomas noticed that everyone had grown more quiet, if possible: he could hear no one breathing or shifting, only the unseen water moving over rocks and moss, the irregular steps of Edith as she shambled towards her daughter. It had been forty-six years, Thomas knew, since Jenny had posed for that photo on the steps, had parted her painted lips and placed one light hand on her pink leather suitcase. Edith continued shuffling, stirring up sheets of red dirt, until she was close enough to reach out and tug the cloud of hair that floated down Song’s chest. Sent wild with want, delivered back to the moment she was handed the tiny life and pressed it to her paper gown, her eyes resisted blinking, and her hands grabbed at the features before her, the lobes of her daughter’s ears and the rangy length of her neck.