Skylight Confessions (27 page)

She had absolutely no idea what was in the envelope. It could be anything at all, a snake, a ruby, an admission of guilt, a key, a lump of coal. The letter was handwritten, dated nearly five years ago, not long after Sam's death. John Moody had kept it in his desk drawer, and then a few months before dying, he'd sent it to his lawyer's office. On his last day on earth the fact that the letter existed brought him comfort, as he'd hoped it would. He imagined it inside his head, the envelope, the thin paper within, the blue ink, the words he'd written.

There was something else inside. Blanca pulled out a photograph of her mother. The photo was faded and worn; John Moody had kept it in his wallet for thirty-seven years. Arlie was on the deck of a ferryboat, her back against the railing; she was smiling at the camera, her red hair flying out behind her, wearing a white dress. She was seventeen, young but brilliant with her huge smile. On the back of the photo, in ink, John had written
Arlie on
the ferry, the day after marrying me.

Blanca opened the letter. She felt as though she were unwrapping skin from bone. It crinkled and she thought of the sound of fire.

I should have spoken to you, but I don't think I knew how. I wanted to
tell you about George Snow.

While she was at the cemetery with Meredith, Blanca had noticed three graves beneath the tree. Her mother's, with its small square marker set into the ground, which Blanca remembered.

Sam's, with only his name and dates of birth and death, meant to be plain as well, but decorated instead with a hodgepodge of stones, as though the earth he rested in knew Sam needed more than a slab of gray granite.

Look,
Blanca had said to Meredith.
Sam would have loved this. Rock
art.

The third grave was in the rear; Blanca had quickly decided it belonged to another family, set close by circumstance. She had ignored it. Now she realized why her father had been buried elsewhere. Another man had taken his place.

Young men are stupid, and I was stupid for a long time. Your mother
turned to George Snow. He never married and had no other children. He
died three years ago — leukemia. I went to see him in the hospital and I
brought photographs of you. He asked if he could keep them.

I told him he'd be proud of you. He said he already was. He'd gone to
dance recitals and school assemblies; he'd followed your life. I didn't tell
you because I was afraid I would lose you. I'm sorry I was a terrible
father.

You seemed to have understood Sam, so maybe you will find it in your
heart to understand me, too.

Sam has a son. I saw him one time. I want to leave him what I leave to
my daughters. On the back of this letter you'll find his address.

This is something I never told anyone: I wasn't with her when she died.

I was out in the yard. The sky was blue and the weather was fine. I
couldn't believe she was really going. I refused to believe it.

George Snow was upstairs in her room and I could hear him crying. A
man I didn't even know. But when I looked up, there she was, standing in
the grass with me. In the same dress she wore in the photograph. She
didn't say a word, she never did, but I knew what she was saying to me:
Let me go.

I tried, but I couldn't. I didn't realize until that moment when I saw
her. It was her all along. She'd been the one, and I'd never known.

I tried to do what she asked, but I couldn't do it. I never let her go.

Your Father

BLANCA SAT AT THE TABLE AS THE EVENING GREW DARKER. There was a party going on inside the dining room of the inn. Someone had graduated or gotten engaged. She thought about George Snow in love with her mother. She thought about her father writing a letter and keeping it in his desk for years. She thought about Sam on the roof and John Moody standing on the lawn, lost.

When she went upstairs Blanca burned the letter in the bathroom sink; it left a pale blue film on the porcelain, which she then had to scrub. She didn't want anyone to be hurt by its contents. No wonder it had been stapled and taped: this letter was not for Cynthia's eyes. She and John had had a good marriage, and some things were better left unspoken. People had been hurt enough. Blanca kept the photograph, though. She slipped it into her wallet.

She thought she remembered George Snow sitting in the back row at the ballet school performances. A tall, blond man who applauded for her. Perhaps she should have been angry that she'd been so misled; instead, she found herself missing John Moody.

Even if he had been a terrible father, she missed him more than she ever would have imagined, here in Connecticut, a place she'd avoided for so many years.

That night as she was packing, there was a knock on her door.

Lisa. Blanca stood in the doorway, surprised.

"I would understand if you didn't want to invite me in," Lisa said.

Lisa didn't have her driver's license yet; she'd walked several miles to reach the inn. Now she stood scratching at her mosquito bites. She looked younger than sixteen.

"You wanted to hurt me and you did," Blanca said. "Since it's done, you might as well come in."

Blanca went back to her packing. There really wasn't much. She hadn't expected to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary.

Lisa followed her inside the room. She was cautious; she smelled like citronella and smoke. "You're leaving now?"

"I'm going to New York tonight. My plane takes off the day after tomorrow. To tell you the truth, I just want to get the hell out of Connecticut."

"Me too," Lisa said sullenly. She dropped into a wing chair and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke?"

"By all means." Blanca got a water glass from her bureau to use as an ashtray.

"He didn't love me best," Lisa said. "I think that was the meanest thing I ever said."

"No, telling me he wasn't really my father was probably meaner."

"You're right. Maybe I just wanted your attention." Blanca laughed. "You got it." Lisa took a deep drag of her cigarette.

"That's bad for you," Blanca told her. "Did Sam smoke?" "Sam did whatever was bad for him." Blanca pushed the water glass toward Lisa, who took one last drag, then stubbed out the cigarette. Lisa pulled her legs up and sat on them. She was tremendously self-conscious about being so tall. "Everybody just took off and disappeared. It was just me and the dog. Which was really supposed to be your dog. That George Snow guy gave him to you, but when you went off to college you left him so I pretended he was mine. I loved him. Do you even remember his name?"

"Of course I do," Blanca said.

"Dusty." Lisa started crying. She put her hand over her mouth so she wouldn't sob.

"I know his name. I just forgot for a minute. What happened to Dusty?" Blanca asked.

"He died eight years ago. See what I mean? You never even thought about us."

"All I was thinking about was getting out."

"I think about the same thing! I hate that house. It's like a birdcage. Thirteen months till I escape to college. And four days.

But that's only if I attend graduation. I presume Cyn would have a shit fit if I didn't go."

They both laughed. Lisa used the bottom of her T-shirt to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

"Oh, lovely," Blanca said. "Miss Snotty."

"I tried everything to get your attention when I was little. You were so uninvolved. You were so mean."

"I was heartbroken."

"Sam. You missed him." Lisa looked around the room. "Do you have a minibar?"

"Am I supposed to let you get drunk?" "You're not that kind of sister?"

"Not usually."

Blanca had bought a small bottle of vodka in town. She poured a little into two glasses.

"Oh, my god." Lisa wrinkled her nose after a tiny sip. "Don't you have some soda we can add to it?"

Blanca went to the bathroom and added tap water to Lisa's drink. She remembered wanting to be grown up, thinking it would make a difference.

"What are you going to do with your inheritance?" Lisa asked as she took tiny sips of what was now mostly water.

"Pay off my debts. Maybe buy my bookstore free and clear so I can go bankrupt all on my own. And if I have anything left over, buy as many things made out of cashmere as I can afford. You?"

"Medical school."

"Frivolous type, eh?" Blanca was done packing. She finished her drink, then zipped up the suitcase. "Sam had a son. That's who the last third is for. I didn't want you to think there was any great mystery."

"I barely remember Sam. I think I saw him twice when I was a baby. I'm glad that's who the money's for."

"Maybe I was a shitty sister," Blanca said.

"Take out the maybe."

Blanca sat down on the edge of the bed. She was more like John Moody than she ever would have imagined. "I'm sorry."

"Well, fuck you," Lisa said. "You left me and the dog. You probably wouldn't have known if I had died eight years ago, either."

They started laughing and couldn't stop. "At least I know your name," Blanca joked.

"Oh, yeah? What's my middle name?" "What's mine?"

They got hysterical over that one. "Okay," Blanca said. "I'm sorry."

"Good. I want you to be." Lisa leaned forward in her chair. "I'm sorry, too."

Lisa carried the suitcase for Blanca, who had her purse, and the damp summer dress she'd gone swimming in rolled up in a laundry bag. Blanca had paid for the night, but she was leaving anyway. She gave Lisa a ride home. They both used to fly down the same lane on their bikes, years apart.

"I like it here in the dark," Lisa said, her nose up against the window.

"Sam liked the dark," Blanca said.

"Would he have liked me?"

"God, yes. Sam would have let you have that whole bottle of vodka."

Without even trying Blanca found the way; a right and a left, then past the hedge of lilacs.
They smell like our mother,
Sam used to tell her. She could smell them right now.

"Thanks," Lisa said when they got to the house. "When I walk in the dark I always walk into spiderwebs. I'm afraid of spiders."

"Afraid of spiders." Blanca took note. "I'll remember that."

"FYI, my middle name is Susan. Named for my maternal grandmother."

"I don't have a middle name. I think my mother forgot to give me one."

"How about Beatrice?" Lisa said. "I had a pet mouse named Beatrice. Then your nickname can be Beebee."

"Meredith used to call me Bee." "See, it's a perfect name."

"Cynthia let you have a mouse?" "She didn't know." They both laughed then.

"If I come to London, I'll look you up." Lisa opened the car door, but before she got out she asked, "What are you going to do tonight? By the time you get to New York it will be midnight."

Not the best time to be rapping on a stranger's door.
I'm lost.

Open the door. Tell me where I am.
"You can stay here," Lisa suggested. "No one would bother you."

Blanca was touched. Lisa was just a kid. She wasn't so bad.

"Maybe I'll just park here awhile. Take a walk around for old times'

sake."

"Okay." Lisa got out. "Bye, Beebee," she said. "Bye, Lisa Sue."

Blanca watched Lisa run up the steps and go inside. It was an especially dark night. No stars at all. Or maybe there was a cover of clouds. Blanca got out of the car and walked down the driveway, then to the lawn beyond the pool. The grass was so soft; she slipped off her flip-flops and sank down into the grass, just for a minute. Silvery clouds were moving through the dark sky.
Beebee,
she thought. Meredith would get a kick out of Lisa's nickname for Blanca.

Blanca closed her eyes. Just for a minute before she got back in the car. Without wanting to, she fell asleep quickly and deeply; she dreamed of the swan. It was beside her in the grass. In her dream, Blanca opened her eyes. This time the swan had a clutch of eggs, luminous, moon-colored. They looked at each other, and even though one was a woman and the other a swan, they could understand each other. Not through words; it was more basic, more intense than that.

Don't fly away,
Blanca thought in her dream.

But the swan rose up, her wings enormous, up into the dark night. There were the eggs, left in the grass. Blanca had no idea who they belonged to. She had a feeling of panic —
How will I take
care of them? What will I do?
But when she looked closer, she saw they were only stones. Perfect white stones. Nothing more.

Blanca awoke early, arms and legs stiff. The lawn was wet and her clothes were damp; her hair was threaded through with stray bits of grass. She stood up. Mist was rising from the ground. The sky was the color of pearls. She thought of George Snow sitting in the back row of all her dance performances. She thought of John Moody writing her a letter. She thought of James Bayliss breaking up a fight between boys he didn't even know.

It was so early there wasn't much traffic on the highway, but Blanca got lost in the city. She circled Union Square, then took Broadway downtown, before she finally made her way to Twenty-third Street. She searched for a parking space, finally finding one on Tenth Avenue, a few blocks from the address her father had written down.

She thought about what she would say to Sam's son when she met him.
My mother was a ferryboat captain's daughter. My father was
a stranger. My brother was the person I loved most in this world even
though I always knew I would lose him.

She should have needed to be buzzed into the building, but someone was coming out and Blanca managed to catch the door before it closed. The hall was black and white tile and it echoed. It was a walk-up, so Blanca started up the stairs. When she got to the fourth floor, she spied 4B, the apartment where Sam's son lived, but she kept going up. Another floor, and then another; to the very top. She wanted to see where it had happened. The door to the roof was locked, but when she pushed against it she could see a bit of blue. Maybe that was enough. It was what Sam had seen, after all. The same sky. All his life he'd been thinking about that race of people in Connecticut who could fly only when circumstances were dire. At the very last moment, when there was no hope and no possibility, they rose up from the sinking ship, the burning building. Their mother's father, the one who'd died when Arlie was only seventeen, swore he'd seen them, high above Long Island Sound. They looked like birds, but they were not. They were something else entirely.