“Airplane song? You mean
jet
plane, honey-child,” he teased.
“You know,” she grumbled good-naturedly at him, and he shifted his shoulders slightly and then launched into some pretty damn good Peter, Paul and Mary, and Bryce laughed, singing along with the rest of them under the stars.
Wilder was awesome. He took requests, and watching him play with so much concentration on his face made Bryce marvel at what perhaps her mother, stripped of her bitter, inexplicable demons, could look like. She fantasized for a moment that she was married to Matthew, a real part of this family, accepted completely and not just as a result of good manners as a guest for the week. Music sparked in the air, dusted her shoulders with falling notes, filled her heart. The moon had long since shifted from the circle of sky above the clearing as Wilder sang “Ob La Di, Ob La Da” with gusto, and she let her gaze slide over to Matthew, whose profile was a mere foot from her own face. He looked over at her and winked, barely a flash of his left eyelid, so quickly that no one else even bothered to notice.
Wilder and Matthew ended up carrying the twins to bed, their arms strong and reassuring around the little ones. Bryce helped Erica collect the last of the beer bottles and transfer them into the recycling bin around the far side of the porch, and Erica hugged her good-night under a sky in which the clouds had moved in, blotting out the stars. Moments later they climbed the stairs together, Evelyn on their heels.
“Thanks for everything,” Bryce said again, pausing outside her door.
“Hey, you bet,” her aunt responded, and then added, “We need to be at the church by 9:00. If for some reason I'm not up by 8:00, you girls come and pounce on me, okay?”
“K, Mom,” Evelyn said sleepily, and suddenly Matthew was coming down the hall towards them, filling it up with his huge shoulders. He ducked his head and kissed Erica's cheek, gave Evelyn a hug, and then to Bryce, softly, “âNight.”
She nodded ridiculously, caught all her hair in one hand over her shoulder and found she couldn't meet his eyes. Erica and Evelyn headed for their rooms, and Matthew could have continued back down the stairs to his own ground-level room, but he lingered a moment, which turned into a longer one as two doors clicked quietly shut, blanketing them in the quiet darkness of the hallway, lit only by a small, rose-tinted nightlight.
Bryce finally dared to lift her eyes and found herself plummeting into the dark depths of his. A sharp breath caught behind her ribs just as a gust of wind buffeted the house and the first few splatters of rain hit the window panes.
Bryce, Bryce, come with me to my room, let me make love to you all night
, he didn't say, clenching his hands once again to stop them from moving through the tiny space separating their bodies and plunging into her thick loose hair. He wanted to cup her face in his palms, run his tongue along her full bottom lipâ¦
Matthew, take me with you. Oh God, one tiny little gesture and I will fucking jump into your arms.
Her heart clubbed against her chest, trying to force her still feet forward. She swallowed hard, and finally he murmured, “See you in the morning,” and made himself turn and walk away, while her heart fell into a deep trench of disappointment.
Alone in her room a few minutes later, face scrubbed clean, she pulled Matthew's sweatshirt back over her nearly-naked body and crawled into bed. Though it was late she lay restless and sensitized, smelling the roses and aching for his touch even as she knew how truly wrong it was to want it. Wrong in the eyes of society and religion, she knew, just not in their hearts. She breathed a little faster as she rubbed the old soft material of his clothing against her skin, feeling her nipples swell up against it. Outside her window the rain gained momentum and beat against the glass like a sob. She rolled to one side and clutched her pillow tightly, shoved the other one between her bent legs and wished for what she could never again have.
***
Down the
stairs, not 20 paces from her, Matthew sank into the big couch in the living room, leaving the room in darkness. He watched the storm uncurl itself like giant malevolent fists, which furiously hurled rain at the house. His blood pounded along with the torrent, the bursts of lightning bathing his face in blinding flashes, then vanishing entirely, plunging him again and again into blackness. Thunder began in the distance, an ominous grumble that advanced steadily, until it seemed to be shattering boulders in the sky directly above. He remained motionless until he couldn't stand it another second and rose to his feet, walked shoeless onto the porch and then into the sodden grass below, tipped his head back and let the rain gush through his hair, over his eyebrows and cheekbones and lips.
The view was magnificent out here, in the fray: lightning forked over him in sizzling silver-pink, the cracks of thunder shook the air around him and came into his soul; he needed the fury of this storm for reasons he tried not to think about, and instead let his senses be plundered by natural violence. He felt for a while that the sky would split along horizontal planes and crumble to the ground all around him.
The rain was cold, but he endured it, finally closing his eyes as the thunder lessened in severity, becoming once again a threat in the distance. The rain had slackened, too; he could hear the trees dripping but he was now standing in a mist rather than a downpour. To the east, a hint of indigo heralded the arriving day, and Matthew ran both hands roughly through his soaking hair, knuckled his eyes, and walked slowly back inside his childhood home, careful not to let the screen door bang shut behind him.
Rose Lake Lodge - Monday, December 25, 1972
“I feel
bad ditching out on Wilder and Matty,” Michelle confessed, helping Rae arrange the shrimp cocktail on the hundredth platter that night. The girls were standing hip to hip in the kitchen at the Lodge, helping Bar and Caroline with their annual Christmas party. The muffled sounds of the swanky three-piece combo in the lounge playing “White Christmas” were suddenly amplified as Bar, Jr. swung through the kitchen door and held out his hands for their tray.
“Hurry, you guys, âSanta' is about to make his big appearance, and Mom wants us out there,” he told them, lowering his dark eyebrows in annoyance. Michelle stared at him for a moment, even as her hands kept moving over the platter, wondering why someone she had found so irritating her entire life suddenly drew second glances from her; it seemed to have happened overnight.
“We're coming!” Rae insisted, handing off the shrimp, and Bar hurried away. To Michelle she added, “Daddy invited your parents.” Seeing her best friend wince slightly, she amended, “Your dad and Lydia, that is.”
“I know, but the troll wasn't in the mood,” Michelle said. “She hasn't been feeling well lately, or whatever.”
“Like Mom even knows if we're out there or not,” Rae giggled, untying her apron just as Michelle untied her own. Together they pushed open the door and peeked out into the fray. It was a typical Lodge event: classy jazz, the parquet dance floor gleaming under soft lights, martinis floating in the gloved hands of women in fancy dresses, women with upswept hair and heavy eye make-up. Men, smoking and laughing, bellied up to the long bar which was festooned with real pine garlands and sparkling white lights. Through the silver-blue haze of cigarette smoke, Michelle could see Caroline, Rae and Bar, Jr.'s mother, clad in something bright Christmas red, laughing uproariously, to the point where Michelle would not have been surprised to see her huge boobs pop right out the top of her dress. Her drink was in danger of sloshing onto the floor; of course she was smashed. Caroline was never far from her bottle of gin, after all.
“Look, here comes Daddy,” Rae said then, just as the musicians slid effortlessly into a kicky rendition of “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
Michelle looked and saw Rae's father come prancing to center stage, surely drunk as well, though his libation of choice was bourbon. He was plumped with pillows under his costume, his cheeks rosy and his furry red-and-white hat slighlty askew; Michelle could never have guessed that one of his friend's wives gave incredible head and was happy to showcase her skills for Ol' Saint Nick in the small employee bathroom. He was a huge fan of the Christmas spirit, and she an even larger one of vodka. He plunked a bulky sack onto the dance floor, amid raucous laughter and jesting, still riding out his buzz.
“
Merrrrrry
Christmas!” he heralded, and Michelle saw Caroline roll her eyes at the ceiling, then turn her back on him. “Who's been a good girl this year?” Bar, Sr. went on, raising one mittened hand to his brow and scanning the crowd like an Indian scout. “Who wants to come and sit on Santa's knee?”
“God, this is so embarrassing,” Rae muttered, but she gamely went forward in keeping with tradition. Others lined up and followed suit for a chance to dive into the gift bag and the band struck up “Deck the Halls.” Michelle was about to sneak into the kitchen and grab a coke when Jeremy Ryan, who was in her class at school, appeared out of the crowd. He caught sight of her and said, “Hey, Shelly. Finally, someone my own age.”
“Hi, Jere,” she responded, instantly on guard. His father was John Ryan. For a moment she boiled with secret knowledge, her heart clubbing. She asked quietly, “Who are you here with?”
“Oh, Uncle Tuck and Aunt Grace,” he told her, giving her a sidelong grin. “Are you kidding? Mom wouldn't set a toenail into a place that servedâ” he lowered his voice unnaturally and drew out the word like a curse, “
liiiiquor
.”
She giggled, relaxing a little.
“Speaking of the stuff,” he went on, taking a conspiritorial tone, “How'd you and Rae like to join me and Lew outside for a little?” He made a show of flashing a small silver flask at her and winking.
“Sounds good,” she told him. “Just let me get Rae and my scarf. Meet us out back in two minutes!”
They were huddled behind the industrial-sized garbage cans in the back parking lot 15 minutes later, giggling as they passed the flask, their breath creating a steaming cloud in the crisp night air. Michelle had just taken a long swallow when a deep voice questioned, “What is going on out here?”
Michelle jerked in fear and spit out a mouthful of booze, narrowly missing Lew Ryan's feet. Jeremy grabbed for the flask and tried with clumsy hands to hide it in his coat. But in the next second Rae yelped, “Dammit, Bar, you scared the shit out of us!” and her older brother's laughter filled the dark night.
Michelle pressed her hand to her clanging heart as the others laughed and the boys shoved at each other. Bar, Jr. punched Jeremy on the shoulder and said, “How about some of that, huh?”
He edged closer to Michelle after taking a swig and handing the flask to Rae. “You cold?” he asked her softly, noting she was wearing her scarf but had neglected to grab her coat.
She nodded, feeling a cozy contentedness inside that had nothing to do with the liquor, as Bar, Jr. unzipped his own coat and reached one arm to wrap it around her, encasing her against his warm side.
Rose Lake, Minnesota â Wednesday, June 21, 1995
T
he day dawned humid and
pearly with the lingering cloud cover, but by 8:30 the last of it had shredded away and bright sun dazzled the dripping countryside. Erica made a pancake breakfast, which Bryce and the kids nibbled at half-heartedly; Matthew and Wilder had left earlier to square things away at the Pull Inn before heading to the church. By 8:45, they were piled into Erica's car, Bryce riding shotgun, wishing she had picked a more suitable funeral outfit, feeling absurdly panicked about the idea that she had never even seen a photograph of her grandfather, her stomach ill at the thought of viewing him for the first time she could recall as he lay in a casket. Erica left the radio off, rolled the windows down to half-mast, and the kids made no sounds from the backseat, each staring out at the landscape they had known all their lives.
Bryce watched mutely, too, part of her enjoying the sun-drenched beauty of the day on her cheeks. They drove north along a quiet road, bordered on either side by lodgepole pines, which Erica had pointed out yesterday. In the middle distance, the land sloped and rose gently, creating hills and valleys of sighing grass, sparked throughout by glints of black-eyed susans and red-winged blackbirds. The sky was fresh and bright, plumped with cottony clouds that drifted lazily on a gentle breeze, captivating Bryce; she was tired and grainy-eyed, sporting a dull headache, a look she recognized on the faces of her aunt and cousins, too. But no one complained, not even Emma, and within minutes they drove past a spindly-legged water tower that resembled nothing so much as an old tin teakettle on stilts, emblazoned with the words
Rose Lake
and a fading cluster of pink roses.
They proceeded slowly down a small Main Street, decorated with both hanging and ground-level wooden barrels of flowers, flowers which crowded for room and hung over the sides in a splendor of rainbow color. There was a solo streetlight, revealing Rose Lake to be even tinier than Middleton, though far more charming, and Bryce tried to picture her mother here as a young girl, moving along these sidewalks, maybe licking an ice cream cone from the store called The Candy Kitchen, whose front window sparkled with sweets beneath a yellow-and-white striped awning.
Erica made a right-hand turn and drove down a small hill shaded by a slim white group of birch trees, and finally pulled into a small but busy church parking lot. Together they trooped up the wooden stairs and into the muted murmur of voices in the church's small vestibule. Most of the people turned and offered hands and sympathetic words to Erica and the kids; the words flowed like a restless river over Bryce and she instead focused her attention on the front of the church, where bunches of flowers surrounded a framed picture of an older man, standing with one boot braced on a shovel head. People had made their way into the chapel, and she crept in too, drawn by the photograph, leaving Erica behind. She made her way carefully down the main aisle, where a bride would walk, moving with soft steps as though over eggshells.
She did recognize him, she realized as she studied his eyes. A weathered face, shaggy silver hair, kind blue eyes the exact clear shade of both her mother's and Wilder's, a natural smile. The photograph had been taken at the Pull Inn, she could tell, a casual picture enlarged to the size of small poster, one that someone had decided best represented Daniel James Sternhagen, 1935-1995. Bryce read the name and numbers from another group of pictures on a tagboard, smaller photos, collaged together beneath his name.
Fascinated, she studied these intently, sliding her gaze over images of her grandfather caught in the important moments of his life: here he was with the woman Bryce recognized as her grandmother Margaret, a young man looking exactly like Wilder on what was obviously their wedding day; holding three different red-faced newborn babies, one swaddled in pink, the other two, blue; another wedding picture, this time a much older Daniel, standing beside a gorgeous woman with Matthew's brown eyes; Michelle as a young girl with a long blond ponytail, posing with Wilder; Daniel with the grandkids clustered all around, and then there was Matthew as a teenager, tall and lean and deeply tanned, his dark hair grown out to his shoulders, one arm hooked around his father's neck in an affectionate hug. Both Matthew and Daniel wore huge grins in the picture, snapped while laughing on some long-past summer day, and Bryce closed her eyes and drew in a deep, painful breath that lodged behind her breastbone and wouldn't quite budge.
She knew that Erica had made this, had been working on it yesterday, as a matter of fact. Daniel hadn't wanted a wake, she'd said, but Erica was adamant about displaying photos from his life. Bryce was thinking that she should have offered to help her, and jumped 10 inches as a deep voice from behind her said, “You have got to be Michelle Sternhagen's daughter.”
She whirled around, feeling absurdly exposed and vulnerable, though the man behind her had kind eyes and was standing with his right hand held out to her. She nodded, reached to shake his hand. He was tall, nearly as tall as Matthew, with dark hair shot through with gray and deep-brown eyes that reminded her of someone for a split second, but the feeling vanished as she heard herself affirming, “Yes, Michelle is my mother.”
“Bartholomew Taylor, Junior,” he replied formally, and let go her hand, smiling a little awkwardly. “Shell and I used to be good friends, back when. My little sister Raellen and her were thick as thieves growing up. I just wondered how she was doing these days.”
Bryce relaxed at the benign tone; she had been nervous about fielding nosy questions, being forced to make flimsy excuses for what was unquestionably an unforgivable insult: Daniel's own daughter refusing to make an appearance at his funeral. This man seemed mellow, though, his curiosity friendly. “She's doing pretty well,” she lied. “We live in Oklahoma.”
He nodded, rocked to his heels for a moment, studying her face.
“I'd have known you anywhere,” he added, shaking his head then, his voice lowering with an almost-wistful tone. “You look just like her, somehow. It's the way you tilt your shoulders.”
She instantly stared hard at him, her heart jittering with a monstrous possibility.
Don't
, her brain was suddenly screeching at her.
Don't even
. But Emma and Cody came running up suddenly, and the question burned away to a bitter crisp in her throat. They were with two little girls, and Emma said, “Bryce, Mom said we need to sit down, and that you'd show us where.”
Bryce cleared her throat, nodded, then shrugged helplessly at Bartholomew Taylor, Jr. He smiled gamely at her, and then he turned toaccept the outstretched hands of the two little girls.
“Daddy, where can we sit?” one of the girls asked Bar, and Bryce made herself turn away from the man who was quite possibly her father, hating Michelle with a white-hot intensity that created spikes in her throat.
She was too shook up to focus, the air around her suddenly hot and clinging; for a moment her vision scaled down to a pinpoint and she faltered. But Emma pulled her hand again. “Come
on
, we gotta sit down.” And so Bryce drew a deep breath and forced herself to snap out of it.
“Here, guys, this way,” she said inanely, then noticed Evelyn near the front and veered that direction, her stomach relaxing incremently. She guided Cody and Emma into the narrow space between one dark-wood pew and the next, and she sat between them just as her knees seemed to give out. With a sigh she curled her spine against the hardness behind her, tugged friutlessly at the hem of her jean skirt, thinking,
Shit, shit, shit. Get me out of here. I need to go now
.
I fucking hate this place
. All of the good feelings from last night while Wilder played the guitar under the moon evaporated away in the face of a dry, hot, hopeless wind that raged through her entire body. It was a feeling she knew well, though, the one that inspired drugs, alcohol, mindlessness. She hadn't considered the fact that her absent father may very well be here under the same sharply-pitched roof of the church right now, staring at the back of her head and wondering if a wayward sperm had in fact found its way through Michelle's dark interior over two decades ago.
Bryce bit her lips and concentrated on not puking. The church hummed gently with hushed voices as people filled the space around them; Erica appeared moments later, looking solemn and pretty in a sundress the pale hue of jade, her gorgeous apple-red hair loose and full over her shoulders. She smoothed the skirt over her thighs as she sat and took Emma's right hand into her left, bounced it once against her lap.
“Where's Daddy?” Cody whispered, and Evelyn tilted her head to whisper back, “He's speaking about Grandpa, remember?”
“Can I speak, too?” Cody whispered, and Emma griped, “No way, not if I can't!”
“Hush, babies,” Erica admonished softly as a minister climbed the shallow steps to the altar. He faced the assembled crowd with a somber face, then began in a low, gentle voice, “We are gathered here to celebrate the life of Daniel Sternhagen, a man all of us knew well, a man who called Rose Lake home his entire life.” Bryce saw the coffin then, thankfully closed, being rolled on a cot at waist height, pushed carefully by Wilder, Matthew, Riley and a man she didn't know, all four of them dressed in dark suits. Her heart caught painfully as she realized Matthew had been crying; his eyes were red, his face stricken. She curled her hands together tightly, found them icy. The men stopped at the end of the aisle and quietly took their seats, Wilder filing in first to sit by Erica, Matthew next.
The minister went on in a quiet voice for minutes, but Bryce heard not a word. She found herself transfixed by the burning colors of the stained glass above the altar, which fractured the sunlight into oblique patterns in variegated shades of red. She marveled at the monochromatic color choice; it seemed far too passionate a tone for the front of a church. She wanted to get high or drunk, and quick. She had to get out of here today, would make an excuse. Her mind drifted absurdly, flirting with images of ways she could embarrass herself just now: screaming obscenities, stripping her clothes and lying naked in the broken crimson sunlight just behind the minister.
Bryce, you're crazy
, she told herself, trying to breathe normally. To her right, Matthew's profile made her heart constrict. She wanted to shove Erica and Wilder out of the way and be at his side, take his head against her breasts and comfort him.
I'm fucking in love with him. How did this happen?
She pressed the side of one fist against her mouth. No matter what, she had to leave here today. And never come back. Maybe time and distance would serve their purposes eventually, but right now she was filled with near panic at the notion that the memory of his lips and eyes, his face, his hands, his voice, his touchâ¦
oh, God, his touch
â¦would haunt her always. No one would ever measure up to him, of that she was certain. She could remove herself from him physically, but the sense of him would never be abolished from her mind. Better to go now, make a clean, quick break.
Wilder rose then, made his way onto the platform, spoke for a few minutes about his father. His voice was warm and kind, his words geared to make people smile and even laugh, low, polite laughter reserved for this sort of occasion. He finished by speaking to his family, his eyes resting on his wife's with the kind of slow, steady look that long-married couples exchange, and Erica placed one hand over her heart, making Bryce tear a little, in a kind of self-punishing jealousy.
“I am blessed that my father was the kind of man he was, one who taught me how to raise my own kids right. I love you all, more than I can say.” And he bowed his head and rejoined them; Bryce couldn't quite meet his eyes, afraid the emotions in her own may be too sharply pointed:
What about my mother? Where did your precious father go wrong with her?
Minutes later they were heading to the cemetery, a long, somber procession led by a county sheriff's tan-and-brown car, its cherry light spinning silently. Bryce rode with Erica again, their car directly behind the hearse, and behind them Matthew, Wilder, Riley and the man who turned out to be Riley and Erica's father, Roger Christianson. Upon entering the cemetery, they drove past the enormous willow that guarded Margaret Sternhagen's grave, to a spot not far beyond, where the four men lifted the coffin from the mouth of the hunchbacked vehicle and carried it to the waiting hole in the earth. No one seemed to be speaking; Bryce found herself seated on a folding chair between Emma and Evelyn, who were tight-faced and grim, clutching the white roses that Erica had been handing out like candy. Bryce studied the shining black surface of the coffin, tracing her index fingers again and again over the tip of a thorn on her own rose.
Matthew, Matthew
, she cried to him, her throat swollen and sore as she watched him trace a hand over the casket As he turned to take his own seat, his eyes met hers in a tidal wave of sorrow, and she tipped her chin and held his gaze, the fingertip of her right hand suddenly pierced by the sharp point beneath it, drawing a pinprick of blood. He sat as close as he could to her, with Cody and Evelyn between them, as the group allowed the family to sit before claiming their own chairs.
The minister spoke a few words, again lost on Bryce, whose gaze drifted up and into the leafy green above, craving sunlight on her face, craving Matthew's hands in her hair and his chest against hers. When the symbolic handful of dirt was gently cast, Erica gave over to weeping, turning into Wilder's arms, and Matthew tipped his head and gripped the lower half of his face, his shoulders shaking. Bryce wrapped her right arm around Emma, who leaned against her, sobbing, too.
“Amen,” the minister whispered, and the air around him seemed to sigh, as people rose to their feet and hugged, or murmured softly. Emma still clung to Bryce, and she brushed the little girl's curly hair back from her face, feeling a swell of tenderness.