In the years since I’d been gone the honeysuckle, forsythia, and wisteria bushes had grown much taller and thicker. Everything inside the “Honeycircle” was completely hidden from view, but I could hear a woman singing an old Cole Porter song slightly off-key. I walked through the opening. She was kneeling in a small vegetable garden with her back to me, collecting a few puny tomatoes still left on the vines. She wore green slacks and a long plaid shirt with a sweater wrapped around her waist. She had her hair piled up and under a faded red baseball cap. I stayed silent and watched her work. Ten or fifteen seconds passed. Suddenly she stopped singing. She seemed suspended, frozen like a statue holding the tomato she’d just picked. In a soft, distant voice, and without turning around, she said, “It’s you, isn’t it, Z?”
Nicholas and Owen had said it time and time again, and they were right — she was remarkable. I smiled to myself and waited another heartbeat. “Those tomatoes,” I said, “I think they might be a lost cause.”
Carolina dropped her arm and let the tomato fall away. She was on her knees, but she turned slowly in a half circle until our eyes met. Hers were wet with tears. She shook her head back and forth once, then picked up the tomato and threw it at me. I caught it easily in one hand. “I think you are the lost cause, Z!” She wiped the tears from her eyes and shook her head again. “Why did I not hear from you, not once, not one word, during the entire war? I worried constantly about you, Z. There was no way to know if you were alive or dead.”
“It was difficult to correspond from Japan.”
“Japan? What? Is that a joke, Z?”
“No.”
Her face was lined and creased from seventy-five years, yet beautiful, and inside her blue-gray eyes I could still see tiny flecks of gold. She took off her baseball cap and let her hair fall free. It was silver and just past shoulder length. Our eyes remained locked on each other. “My God, Z,” she said. “How … how did you …”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Come here, Z. Come over here now.”
She stayed on her knees and opened her arms. I walked the few steps between us and we embraced for several moments, never saying a word. If someone had been watching, they might have thought they were seeing a poignant reunion between a boy and his grandmother, or great-grandmother. It was anything but that. “You cannot do this to me again,” she whispered. “I am too old, Z. Please, tell me you will be here for … for at least a while. If Opari calls, then I will understand.”
“Has she?”
“No, I haven’t heard from her.”
“Have you heard anything from any of us?”
“Not a word, not even from Ray.”
“Well, that’s understandable. You know Ray.”
Carolina smiled. “Yes, I know Ray,” she said, then paused. “Z … will you stay?”
I smiled back. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Now, tell me about the current state of the Cardinals pitching staff.”
She laughed and I laughed with her. I grabbed the basket of puny red tomatoes and Carolina stood up, then we walked out of the “Honeycircle” and toward the big house. It was October 7, 1945. The sun was just setting over St. Louis. “What’s for dinner?” I asked.
“Whatever you want,” she said.
I had been anxious to meet Antoinette, but she was nowhere to be seen. As Carolina and Mercy were preparing dinner, Jack asked about her absence. Carolina said Antoinette had entered Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and wouldn’t be back to St. Louis until Christmas. A childhood girlfriend from Marseille was enrolled there and Antoinette wanted to be near her friend. She said it would be like old times, when they studied and played together before the war. As it turned out, Antoinette’s absence allowed Carolina and me to spend hours and hours alone together, something we had not done in years. Everyone else was busy. Within days after arriving, Jack left for Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, promising Carolina he would be home for Christmas. Mitch was starting another new business downtown, and Mercy painted obsessively in her studio, which was really a converted bedroom in the carriage house. Every day, even as the temperature began to drop, Carolina and I went for endless wandering walks through and around Forest Park. She had arthritis in her hips and knees, yet she never complained or mentioned it. Once, on a cold and windy afternoon in late November, we were walking along one of our familiar trails. Suddenly, with silver hair flying and a heavy shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders, Carolina started running, laughing, and kicking wildly, scattering a pile of golden leaves in every direction. “Come on, Z,” she yelled back. “Let’s kick the leaves while we can!”
In the following days, I adopted the general look and attitude of a post-war American kid. It was easy. The look, which I liked, was simple — white T-shirt and blue jeans — and the attitude of the American twelve-year-old seemed to never change.
I silently hoped I would hear from one of the Meq, especially Opari. It didn’t happen, although I did dream about her on five consecutive nights. They were all vivid dreams in faraway places, places I had never seen. Opari knew all the paths, trails, springs, valleys, caves, and beaches. In one of the dreams, under a broad bright night sky, she pointed out the stars and configurations of several new constellations. We held hands and whispered together, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees. Dreaming about Opari was one thing, but I also knew I could not let thoughts of her into my life on a daily basis. In my heart of hearts, I believed she was safe and would return to me eventually. The Itxaron, the Wait, deepens with the passing of time, and longing for your Ameq only makes it worse. Geaxi once told me there is an actual physical condition, a kind of paralyzing psychic ache, which the Meq can develop from excessive longing. The Wait is also a very real weight for the Meq, and it becomes heavier and heavier until we cross in the Zeharkatu. Above all, Opari and I were aware we must be present at the Remembering, wherever it was, and we must be there with our Stones. There was no option. Until that time, the Wait would continue.
Antoinette was expected to arrive by train on December 20. Carolina wanted to meet her at Union Station. She also wanted to wait for Antoinette before purchasing and decorating a Christmas tree. On the morning of the nineteenth, the temperature dropped rapidly and a cold front moved through St. Louis, bringing with it an inch or two of light snow. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to change Carolina’s mind about waiting to put up a Christmas tree. By midafternoon, Mitch and Mercy had found a suitably sized tree and by sunset the tree was decorated and lit with multicolored lights strung among the branches from top to bottom. After dinner, Carolina asked Mitch to turn on the phonograph and play some music, but not Christmas music. She said she wanted to dance and suggested a nice waltz by Strauss. Mitch picked out a few records and turned up the volume. Carolina looked at me. She removed her shoes so she could be closer to my height, then extended her hand for me to take. “I assume you know how to waltz, Z.”
I had never waltzed in my life, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “Of course,” I said, and before I knew what was happening, we were gliding and spinning in wide circles around the big living room. Mitch and Mercy joined us, laughing loudly at my awkward attempts to be graceful. Carolina and I started laughing along with them. We were all dizzy with dancing and music and Christmas lights.