She walked down the blacktop driveway to where the three of them waited. And yes, the tall man had a pack on his back, and yes, the shorter man had a beard, but there was more red in the yellow than she had seen in her mind’s eye.
And there was such a rich aura around them, and such a good energy coming from them.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” she said. They looked at her, not sure what she meant, and she said, “I’m Sara Duskin. This is my son, his name is Thom.”
They introduced themselves. Guthrie Wagner and Jody Ledbetter.
“I’m so pleased to meet you,” she said, and held out a hand to each of them. They took her hands, and a current ran through the three of them, so strong that she almost gasped. And they could feel it, too, and she looked at each of them, looked at them in turn because her field of vision could not encompass both of them at once.
“Oh, yes, yes,” she said, holding tight with her hands and letting go deep inside herself, letting the last of her eyesight slip away forever.
And then she saw:
Saw Guthrie learning to ride a two-wheeler, biting his lip in concentration, his father steadying the frame of the bike with one hand and running along beside him, saying Yes, you’re doing it, you’ve got it now, don’t quit, yes—
Saw Jody in the womb, impatient to be born, a breech presentation trying to thrust himself ass-first into the world, and the obstetrician trying to reposition him, big hands working to shift him, and she picked up the thought of No no no, damn you, no, let me do it my way—
Saw Guthrie at Boy Scout camp, his khaki shorts down around his knees, and an older boy playing with his penis, and Guthrie wanting him to stop, but not knowing how to make him stop—
Saw Jody fighting with his older brother, and losing, and brooding over it, and coming back the next day and blind-siding his brother with an axe handle, and getting punished for it, getting the strap from their father and locked for hours in a musty attic room to think about it—
Saw Guthrie on his wedding day, standing up stiff and scared in a suit, wondering who this stranger was beside him, and then the divorce, and wondering where it had all come from, and where it had all gone—
Saw Jody in a tattoo parlor in Seattle, just out of high school, drunk, proud, excited, scared to be scared, watching the spider in its web taking form upon his arm—
Saw Guthrie at his father’s funeral, dry-eyed—
Saw Jody at his mother’s grave—
Oh, she saw their whole lives! She saw into them, she saw all the joy and all the pain and all the grief, all the rich human beauty. “Oh,” she said, her gray sightless eyes open now, her face radiant. “Oh,” she said, her heart wide open now, warmth flooding her chest, tears streaming from her eyes. “Oh, my friends,” she said, tightening her grip on their hands, transported by waves of her love for them, of their love for her, of all the love that was suddenly so abundant in the universe.
“Oh, my friends,” she said. “My friends!”
Seven
When he got off the phone Mark Adlon went to the bar in the sun room and poured two fingers of Dewar’s Ancestor into a highball glass. He took it and a matching empty glass into the kitchen, where he filled both glasses with ice cubes from the automatic ice dispenser built into the refrigerator door. He topped up the scotch with spring water and filled the other glass with lemonade, then carried them both out onto the patio where his wife was reading the latest issue of People magazine.
“Oh, thank you, dear,” she said.
“It’s plain lemonade, but if you want a little vodka in it—”
“No, I’d rather have plain.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He took a seat alongside her, set down his drink on the glass-topped coffee table, and looked out across the expanse of lawn.
“The days are really getting long,” he said.
She nodded. “Just two weeks to Midsummer Eve.”
“I never understood that,” he said. “If it’s the first day of summer, why call it Midsummer Eve? Midsummer Eve ought to come in the middle of summer, shouldn’t it?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?”
Marilee Adlon was three years older than her husband, although they had decided, around the time they moved from Topeka to Overland Park, to reduce her official age by five years. People made certain assumptions about a couple when the wife was older, they had agreed, and simply by revising her age they could avoid these assumptions.
Certainly she had no trouble passing for the forty years she admitted to. In high heels she was almost exactly the same height as her husband. Her face was a long oval, her eyes somewhere between brown and green. Her hair, a rich brown with red highlights, was shorter than she usually wore it; she’d been to the beauty parlor during the past week, and had had a styling and a permanent.
She touched her hair now, patting it with the fingertips of both hands. “I think I’m getting used to this,” she said. “Do you like it?”
“It looks fine.”
“What about the color?”
“What about it? Isn’t it the same?”
“Good, that means the difference isn’t all that noticeable. Adrian wanted to lighten it by what he called a quarter of a shade, whatever that means. It looks much lighter to me, but if it doesn’t to you—”
“I’m not the most observant man in the world, but I didn’t notice any change. I don’t see it now, not even after you’ve called it to my attention.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I don’t mind having it lighter so long as nobody notices. Now isn’t that ridiculous, what I just said? But you know what I mean.”
“Sure.”
She picked up her glass and took a long sip of lemonade, making a sound of appreciation. “That is good,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t put vodka in it, it wouldn’t taste as good.” She put the glass down. “I’d probably be completely gray by now,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Oh, I do. When I’ve been a while between touch-ups, and I get a look at the roots, all I see is gray. I’ll tell you, I’m glad I never let it get started.”
Her hair had started to show some gray in her early thirties, and she had immediately responded by coloring it. Since then, her hair color had gradually grown lighter than its original shade — this was not the first time that Adrian or one of his predecessors had worked his subtle magic — and, while her hair never appeared lighter from one month to the next, you had only to look at an old photograph to see how much lighter it had indeed become.
“I wonder what it would look like gray.”
“You could let it grow out.”
She shook her head. “No thank you. You wouldn’t like it, Mark.”
“I’d like it just fine however you wore it.”
“That’s very loyal, but you wouldn’t like the look, believe me. For one thing, I’d look ten years older. Instantly, immediately.”
“That would still leave you looking a couple of years younger than the calendar says you are.”
“Aren’t you a sweetheart,” she said, putting her hand on his. “Or is there something you want?”
He laughed. “No, but there’s something I hate to have to tell you. I’m going to miss Jennifer’s graduation.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. Have you told her yet?”
“I thought I’d wait and tell her tomorrow. I wasn’t absolutely certain until I spoke to Koenig just now.”
“Well, you couldn’t tell her now. She’s out with Carole Keller and the Parkhill girl.” She sighed. “You know, I almost should have had that vodka. I’m a little jittery tonight.”