Together Alone (44 page)

“Right on. There’s the flash. You don’t like that flash.”

Her eyes held his.

“Yeah?”

She tried to climb up on the seat but had neither the height nor dexterity for it. Her eyes returned to his, iridescently insistent.

“You want to try?” He sat her on the seat and waited for her to cry.

She looked at the black patch. When it didn’t do anything, she pointed. “Daddy dis.”

He pulled change from his pocket and showed it to her. “I have to put quarters in the slot. It isn’t easy. I don’t want to do it, unless you’re gonna smile. Are you?”

“Daddy
dis
.”

He hoisted her up, folded himself into the booth, onto the bench, and stood her on his lap. He waited for her to pucker up.

She wrapped an arm around his neck, pointed at the camera, and said something that he chose to believe meant, “Put in the damn quarters and get this show on the road.”

He put in the quarters. He tapped the patch. The first flash went off. “Boom! There’s one! Smile, pretty Julia—boom! There’s two! My God, we’re actually getting this right—boom! There’s three! Whoa, is Grammie going to be
psyched
—boom! There we
go!
”

• • •

Emily was in the den, listening to the strains of a mellow trombone, feeling a little lonely, a little pensive, a little unsure, when Brian opened the back door and called, “Hello?”

“In here,” she called back, but she didn’t move. She sat in the chair behind the desk, with her arms cinching her knees, waiting with a lift in her heart. When she saw them, father and daughter, the loneliness eased. “Hey.”

Brian set Julia down. She ran to Emily. “Emememem.”

“Hi, sweetie.” Emily unfolded herself, scooped Julia up, and settled her on her lap. “Whatcha been doin’?”

“This and that,” said Julia’s father.

A beautiful basket materialized on Emily’s desk. It was lined with a fabric not unlike the comforter on her bed, and filled with white lilies and Butterfingers. An envelope followed the basket down. She reached around Julia, drew out the card, and after immersing herself in the picture on the front, read what Brian had written inside. His handwriting was atrocious. Mercifully, there wasn’t much to decipher.

Two words. “We’ll wait.” That was it.

It was enough.

“You are,” she said, deeply touched, “an incredible man.”

He came to sit on the edge of the desk, his legs angled to the floor by her chair. “You know what I want.”

She did. He wanted to marry her. “Part of me wants it, too, but there’s the other part that needs to recover from all this, that needs to breathe a little, needs to think about who
I
am. Sound selfish?”

“No.”

“I love you.” She drew Julia back against her, strapping her in with her arms. “I love this one, too.”

“I saw a barn this morning.”

“Like the one on my card?”

“A little. Yeah, actually, a lot. It’s over on the hill, off Creighton Path.”

Emily knew the one. There was a farmhouse, too, a sprawling structure of wood and stone. Farmhouse, barn, meadows, and woods had belonged to the Fosseys of Grannick for generations. It had been years since the barn had housed anything but cars, years since Fossey children had returned as adults.

The senior Fosseys were packing it in. Farmhouse, barn, meadows, and woods were for sale.

Emily knew that, indeed. The property was one of the prettiest in town. The look in Brian’s eyes said that he agreed. It also said something else.

“Well, you can’t stay here,” he protested as though they had discussed it dozens of times, when in fact she hadn’t mentioned it to him once. “You can’t punish yourself for the rest of your life having to see the Balch house every day.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

Nodding, she reached for his hand. When he gave it to her, she brought it to her throat. “Think we can afford the farm?”

“If we do it together. Will you live with me?”

“Not yet.” Not until she was sure enough of herself. Not until they were married. But there were other choices. “I’ll take the barn.”

“I’m taking the barn.”

“Brian, it’s little more than a shell!”

“Exactly.”

“So, you can’t have Julia living in a shell.”

“I can’t have you living in one, either.”

“How long would it take to insulate it and put in utilities?”

“Could be livable in a month.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She imagined a large skylit space with separate areas for sleeping, eating, and writing. She imagined a loft space for Jill that could one day be used as a playroom for Julia, if things worked out. She imagined trysts in the woods and love in the meadow, and all sorts of other fun things that were as different from her past as night from day. She imagined going to the cemetery on the outskirts of town and telling Daniel about the place where she lived.

That thought choked her up. She figured it would, for a while.

“What do you think?” he asked, beyond the house versus the barn. The question went deep.

Emily took a breath and swallowed. She could handle deep. She had come to an abyss, crossed it, and survived. A different world was open to her now, with many of the same joys as before and then some.

She kissed his hand and returned it to her neck. “I think, I think,” when she couldn’t find the words, when her throat tightened again, for love of Brian this time, she simply sighed, smiled, and said, “Yeah.”

E
MILY SAT ALONE ON THE LOW STONE WALL. HER
elbows were on her knees, her hands linked loosely between them. She wore linen pants and a blazer from the same New York designer, a silk blouse open at the throat, and wonderfully bright gold earrings. She still looked about sixteen years old. Her hair did it to her every time. But she felt older. Better. More savvy. Successful.

Behind her were the trees that God had artfully arranged, before her the camera, reflectors, and light that the photographer had artfully arranged.

Beyond the photographer were Brian and Julia.

Julia giggled a five-year-old’s giggle. “Smile, Emmy.”

Brian didn’t have to say it. All he had to do was to look at Emily with those satisfied silver-blue eyes of his and she couldn’t have kept a smile from her face if she tried. Not that she would have. As though compensating for the sorrow she had known, life was treating her well.

Another book was about to be published, hence the need for a photograph. It wasn’t the book on Daniel; that one had hit the stands eighteen months before. This one dealt with cries for help of the kind she had seen in Grannick, though she had gone far beyond those. She had taken cases from all over the country, gleaned from weeks of travel and interviews.

The book on Daniel had been a private necessity, a summing up of the great anguish of her life, a final gift to her son. She still picked it up and read random parts when she wanted to be near him, but the need for that was diminishing. She could think and talk more freely about him now. Emancipated, she carried him with her wherever she went, a little bump on her heart that, like a beauty mark, neither disappeared nor hemmed her in.

The new book had been far more of an independent intellectual exercise. It was being touted as a must-read for those in law enforcement, social service, even education, and while no one pretended it would be a commercial bestseller, it would establish Emily’s name in the field, not to mention add to her nest egg.

Its actual publication would be anticlimactic. Far more momentous to Emily was the day she had put a period to its final sentence, printed out the manuscript, and turned off her computer. That was the day she felt whole. That was the day she had gone to Brian and, with a glowing smile, offered a softer, more confident, “Yeah.”

They had been married the weekend after that in what was to have been a small ceremony, but Grannick-style, had swelled to include not only Jill and Julia, Brian’s family, and Emily and Brian’s closest friends, but all those others whose lives theirs touched daily.

It was rich life. Emily had her career. She had Brian. She had Jill. She had Julia. She had Kay and John, who grew closer with each passing year. She had Celeste, who dated widely but more wisely.

Jill had graduated from college, was working for an advertising firm in Boston, and visited Emily and Brian often. The farm was a breather from the busy pace of her life. In turn, always, she brought Emily joy.

“That’s good,” the photographer invited. “Give me another like that.”

Emily wasn’t sure what the first one had been like, but she continued to think happy thoughts, and before long, after several shifts of pose and scene, the photographer was putting his light meter away.

“One of my family?” she asked in a rush.

Brian answered before the photographer could. “No way. This is your day, your picture. Besides, we have more than enough.”

She pictured the living room of the farmhouse with its fieldstone hearth, flanked by pine shelves that were covered with photo after framed photo. There were ones of Julia, ones of Jill, ones of Jill and Emily, Emily and Brian, and Emily, Brian, Julia, and Jill. There were ones of Jill’s college graduation, next to ones of her high school graduation. There were Halloween ones, Christmas ones, birthday ones. There were ones taken by professionals, by amateurs, and ones taken by the photo booth in town. There were, older but no less treasured, ones of Daniel.

As far as Emily was concerned, there could never be too many photos when it came to documenting the meaning of life. But she didn’t argue with Brian. This was her day. A small reprint of this picture would join the others flanking the fieldstone hearth. It would be the very first of her alone.

Alone, but not lonely. Never lonely again.

A WOMAN’S PLACE