“There’s nothing in the paperwork that requires us to reveal our plans. We’ll be meeting the standards that were set and then some. How we’re paying for the land purchase isn’t relevant to him.”
The last sentence was an out-and-out lie. How ACRE was paying was more than relevant. Isaac knew it could change the entire face of the transaction.
“You don’t plan to tell him what we’re doing?” Isaac said.
“Actually, I think he needs to know. I don’t want him finding out later and going to the press. We need to explain it carefully after all the documents are signed.” Dennis paused a heartbeat. “
You
need to explain it.”
“Me?”
“You’re the one he trusts. If you explain it carefully and objectively, get him to understand it was the only way to really protect the mountain, then we’ll short-circuit future trouble.”
Despite a powerful urge to follow in Heather’s footsteps, Isaac draped a hand over a nearby chair to keep himself tethered to the conversation. “I would rather not. I’m ambivalent about this, Dennis. And it’ll show.”
“Well, we all have ambivalence. I’d like to buy up every piece of wilderness in the whole wide world and keep it exactly the way it is. But that’s not the way things work. You know that better than anyone else on our staff.”
Isaac ignored the left-handed flattery. “My ambivalence is twofold. One, that we’re going to allow construction where there shouldn’t be any. And two, that we’re not being up front with Mr. Forsythe.”
Dennis smiled sadly. “If we don’t do it the way we’re planning, it won’t get done. Developers will move in.”
“I’d like to look for alternatives.”
“We have. They don’t exist. End of story.”
Isaac doubted this. He suspected that in the rush to please significant donors, better options had been overlooked.
“You’ll talk to Forsythe?” Dennis prompted.
Isaac gave a curt nod.
Dennis left to mingle with his guests.
Kendra lay beside her husband in the bed they had shared for so many years. Their lovemaking had been tender and fulfilling. But despite Isaac’s effort to stay in the moment, she had sensed a certain preoccupation.
Now she propped her head on her elbow and gazed down at him.
“It’s the party, isn’t it.”
“What?”
“Whatever’s on your mind.”
He tried a smile that wasn’t quite convincing. “Are you complaining?”
“Not on your life. But let me in. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
He pulled her into the crook of his arm. “What were your impressions tonight?”
“Of your performance a few minutes ago?”
He ruffled her curls in answer.
She grew serious. “People didn’t want to be there. They were just putting in time. That’s not a champagne and truffles crowd—at least, not the staff. The whole thing was an example of how disconnected Dennis is from the people he works with.”
“I think Dennis wants to see a lot of the staff move on. Apparently Heather got the hint.”
“Your Heather?”
“What a way to put it. But yes, my assistant Heather.”
“Did you hear that tonight?”
“From the man himself.”
Kendra listened as he told her what Dennis had said. She felt herself growing infuriated, until she exploded.
“What can you possibly say to Mr. Forsythe to make him think it’s fine to build estates on property he sold you specifically so you would protect it!”
“I don’t know, but I’ll have to think of something.”
She propped herself up again. “Or not.”
“Do you know any Pete Seeger songs?”
“Did I miss something?”
“Dennis said Heather will be eating beans and singing Pete Seeger at her new job. In other words, she’s taken a giant step backward.”
“Maybe she’s taking a giant step toward a feeling of self-worth.”
“Good for her. But if she wants to make a difference, then she’s made a bad decision.”
“So you’re saying that to make a difference you have to compromise your ideals, no matter how bad you feel about it? That logic trumps the heart?”
He turned to face her. “Maybe I don’t have a lot of Jesse Spurlock in me. I’m not willing to stand in front of the bulldozers when they tear into Pallatine. I understand the words ‘lost cause.’ I’ve done what I can to save most of it. Now I have to move on.”
She lay back and stared at the ceiling.
“What?” he said at last. “I can hear you thinking. I just can’t make out the words.”
“What have the past months been about, Isaac?”
“Retreat.” He said it so quickly it was clearly something he’d considered.
“For me or for you?”
“Mostly for you.”
“And what does that mean? Did I retreat to lick my wounds?”
“I feel like I’m taking a quiz I have no chance to pass.”
“I’ll tell you. I didn’t escape. I’ve never been as connected to my life as I am now.”
“Wait until you start back to work. Maybe you’ve forgotten what it’s like in a corporate environment, how you have to make decisions every minute and hope they’re right, because you have to move on to the next one whether they are or not.”
“I’m cutting my hours. I’ll have time to consider what I do. I’m not going to work full-time.”
He didn’t answer. She could feel the tension. “I’ve already broached it with my boss. I want some free time to write a book about the historical use of eminent domain and the effect it has on the lives of everyone involved. Because I can’t live for my work and still remember who I am. There are people who can, but I’m not one of them. And I don’t want to make decisions the way you claim you have to.”
She rolled over to face him. “I don’t want to be you, Isaac. Never again.”
She knew by his expression that she’d hurt him.
“You don’t want
me
to be me, either,” he said.
She heard the anger, but she couldn’t back off. “No, I want you to follow your heart. Look at what’s happening at ACRE. People are leaving. People are being asked to do things they know are wrong. All in the name of saving the earth? Well, the end doesn’t justify the means. I think you were given a gift when you went to the Spurlock farm and saw Pallatine in the distance. A gift, a vision. I think, if you want it badly enough, you can find a way to save it and save yourself while you’re at it.”
“And lose my job, and all hope of ever being in a position of authority where I really can make a difference.”
“Someday you’re going to be forced to look back on the
way
you made a difference. Will it be worth it?”
The anger in his voice was replaced by ice. “You know, this is beginning to sound like a lecture, or an ultimatum.”
“Not an ultimatum, a crossroads.”
He sat up and swung his legs over the side. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve changed. Maybe you and I will never have children, but we can surround ourselves with people we love. And maybe we’ll never get to the top of our career ladders, but whatever rung we stand on, we can know we got there without stepping on anybody to do it. Those are the things that are important to me. Not where I’m heading, but how I make the journey. I learned that from your grandmother.”
“Oh, some role model she was.”
“I think Leah wanted you to know her story and learn from her mistakes. She and Jesse let the removal rule their lives. They let it separate them. Being forced to leave the mountains was the first great sorrow of their young lives, and it destroyed them. They could have made peace with their future if they had just realized that it wasn’t staying on the farm that mattered most. They could have started over.
We
can start over.”
He made to stand, but she rested her fingertips on his arm to stop him. “Don’t you have to figure out what’s really important, too?”
“My job
is
important.”
“Not if it separates you from the man inside you.”
“I’m going for a walk.”
This time she didn’t try to stop him. Instead, after he dressed and the front door closed, she lay awake and thought of a night so much like this one when, in a fit of anger, she, and not Isaac, had traded the security of the condo for dark city streets.
And all the changes that simple act had wrought.
O
n Monday and Tuesday, Isaac was the perfect team player. He went through all the motions, meeting with his staff to gauge their rising stress levels, listening carefully, offering advice and pep talks that seemed to be the words of a heretofore unknown alter ego. He worked until the city was dark, editing grant proposals, answering mail and phone calls, making arrangements to speak at professional conferences. By Tuesday evening, he thought he was beginning to gain some control over his feelings of unease, some sense that he could fix what was wrong at ACRE with patience and creativity.
Then Heather walked into his office.
He was more than surprised to see her. He had expected her to return next week to clean out her desk and say goodbye, and he had decided not to discuss her reasons for moving on. Heather was an adult, an extremely competent one, and her reasons for this decision were bound to be good. The right to question her was no longer his.
“Exactly what’s going on?” he asked, as his carefully planned speech flew out the window behind him, which was open to catch the evening breeze. “You resigned without even talking to me? You went to the board without discussing that, either?”
“I’m here now. I hoped I’d catch you alone to say goodbye.”
He got to his feet and motioned to a chair; then he took the one beside her, so he would feel less like a teacher calling a student on the carpet. “I don’t know how I’m going to fill the hole you’re leaving.”
“Me, either.” She smiled, but she looked wary.
“The worst part’s that you did all this without my knowledge.”
“Isaac, I considered coming to you. In the end, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Your eye’s on the big picture. My complaints would have been a flicker.”
There was nothing to argue about. He saw that clearly. She was leaving because there was no longer room here for personal idealism. No room for the small but important actions that ACRE had been known for. No place to be heard and taken seriously. She didn’t want to work for a bureaucracy. In Heather’s mind, the big picture was made up of thousands of frames flashing by, and those mercurial images were what concerned her. The little triumphs, the sense that she had made a difference.
“Where are you going?” he asked instead.
She named a small organization that was nothing more than a blip on his radar screen. Dennis hadn’t been far off in his description.
He got to his feet, because there was really nothing else he could say. “They’ll be lucky to have you.” He stuck out his hand.
She didn’t take it. “You may not want to do that.”
He raised a brow in question.
“If you don’t go to Gary Forsythe and explain what’s happening here and what ACRE intends to do on Pallatine, I will.”
“Dennis already asked me to do it.”
“When?”
That, of course, was the sticking point. Honesty after the fact. A caboose carrying what was left of their integrity.
“You need to think this over,” she said, when the answer was clear from his silence. “But I’m willing to do the dirty work as a parting gesture of my affection. I think you want Mr. Forsythe to know, but you don’t want to jeopardize your position here.”
“And if he pulls the deal and developers move in? How will you feel?”
“I’ll feel that ACRE didn’t do enough. And I won’t blame him or the developers.”
Isaac didn’t ask her to reconsider. He knew he ought to report Heather’s intended conversation with Forsythe to Dennis, but he wasn’t going to. He was partially relieved that the decision and the repercussions were no longer his. And some larger part wondered what kind of man thought that way.
He walked her to his office door. “The closing’s next week.”
“I have all the information.” She faced him. “You know, you’re a good man. But you’re heading somewhere you don’t want to go.” She rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek; then she disappeared into the corridor.
Jesse Spurlock had headed somewhere he didn’t want to go. In his quest to keep his home, Jesse had refused to look at anything else that was happening. Isaac wondered if tunnel vision was an inheritable trait. He supposed he might find out. Aubrey Grayling had agreed to see him.
On Wednesday morning, Isaac had awakened to the realization that he was, as Kendra had said, at a crossroads. Barely taking the time to call and cancel the day’s appointments, he began the trip to Gainesville, where Aubrey lived with his son and granddaughter Jennifer. When he had called to ask if he could visit, Jennifer hadn’t sounded surprised.
Almost as if she had been expecting his call.
The drive took a little less than an hour. Gainesville was just close enough to the city to be a bedroom community. Isaac hadn’t been in the vicinity in more than a year, but he was stunned at how quickly it had grown from sleepy country town to suburb.
He found the Graylings’ house without difficulty and was glad to discover it was still surrounded by farmland. He hoped Aubrey would not have to watch his world change for the worse yet again.
Jennifer Grayling, a perky blonde, ushered him inside. The house was tidy and probably prefabricated. Someone had built a front porch and added a sunroom, and the views of cornfields and cows were somehow reassuring.
“Paw-paw’s getting ready,” she said. “I have fresh tea.”
He followed her to the kitchen, with its yellow walls and white speckled counters adorned with ceramic vegetable canisters. One charged second passed, and he was a boy standing in one of the many kitchens of his childhood, one that had looked much like this one. He recalled, for the first time in too many years, the way his mother had always made sure there were homemade cookies waiting in a candy-apple red canister beside the kitchen door. No matter where they lived, no matter the size or state of the kitchen. Cookies had been one of the safe ways she could show her affection. And there had been others.
“You must like these silly curtains,” Jennifer said. “You’re smiling.”
He focused on the window over the sink. The curtains were fading patchwork, blocks of vegetable prints with human faces. He cleared his throat. “They’re definitely not like any I’ve seen.”
“My mother made them. She’s gone now. I can’t bear to take them down.”
Stored somewhere in a Foggy Bottom closet was a collection of china plates
his
mother had bought in their journeys around the world. She had cherished them. He resolved to find and display them wherever he and Kendra decided to live.
A noise sounded behind him, and he turned to see an old man with snow-white hair and pale blue eyes that probably saw both little and everything. Isaac took the initiative. “I’m Isaac Taylor,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “You must be Mr. Grayling.”
A trembling hand gripped his. “Aubrey. Saves time.”
Jennifer finished pouring the tea and handed Isaac both glasses. “Why don’t you use the sunporch? No one can disturb you out there.”
She took her grandfather’s arm and helped him through the kitchen and small family room, and down two steps to the sunroom. Plants filled the corners and spilled from hanging baskets. A light oak table and chairs sat along one end, a wicker sofa and chairs along the other.
Jennifer helped Aubrey settle on the sofa, bringing him a pillow to put behind his back and a coaster for his glass. “I’ll leave you two alone,” she said once both men were comfortable. “Paw-paw, you just call if you need me.”
“I wondered if you’d find your way,” Aubrey said when Jennifer had gone.
“Jennifer gave good directions.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You mean you wondered if I would come talk to you?”
“By now somebody’s told you how much you look like Jesse.”
Isaac set down his tea. More carefully than it warranted. “Etta Norton,” he said.
“I have photographs. More than a few. And some of your grandmother, too. I had Jenny put them in an album. They’re all ready to take when you leave today.”
“Mr.—Aubrey, if you wanted to talk to me all along, why didn’t you just call and say so?”
“I bet if you think about it, you’ll find that answer on your own. You might even have it now.”
“Because you wanted to be sure I really needed to hear what you’re going to say.”
“I never did meet a dumb Spurlock. Stubborn, yes. Funny? You better believe it’s true. But they also could chew every word that ever came their way and spit it back in your face when the right moment came along. Jesse was like that. When a dark mood come over him, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. And he sure couldn’t see anybody else’s.”
“Like Leah’s.”
He grew solemn. “See, the thing was, Jesse thought he ought to be giving Leah the moon and stars. And all she really wanted was him. He was as blind as I’m going to be in a year or two. The thing is, she was, too. They couldn’t find their way to each other until it was too late. And neither of them saw the danger….”
Isaac didn’t interrupt, but he knew that even if he did, nothing would stop Aubrey now. He had been waiting a large part of his life to tell this story. Isaac sat back and waited for the rest of his grandparents’ saga to unfold.