Western Wind (13 page)

Authors: Paula Fox

“I hope Stephen won't wake when I pick him up,” Elizabeth's mother said. “The wind's blowing so hard. Put that wool hat on him, will you, Charlie?”

Elizabeth, wanting to get away from her family, got out of the car, still holding the envelopes, and entered the gates.

The back doors of the hearse were open, and two men in dark suits stood beside them. Several yards away, an old man leaned on a shovel. Elizabeth saw a rectangular hole with clods of earth along its edges. She went quickly past it.

The cemetery must have covered four or five acres of the slope of the hill. Most of the gravestones looked older than the three on Pring Island.

There were people standing about, but Elizabeth kept her head down. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed goldenrod and black-eyed Susans swaying wildly in the wind amid the tall grass that grew behind the fence stakes. When, past the last graves, the slope grew so steep she could go no farther, she looked up.

Before her lay a vast landscape. Over a long reach of water, a spidery green bridge arched to an island that appeared to be traveling into the eastern sky. Its shores were ringed with rocks and, here and there, a stone-strewn beach. A thin church steeple rose high above the roofs of a village. Everywhere, clusters of trees rippled and swayed in the wind, their red and orange and yellow leaves recalling to her the shimmer of a rug from North Africa, at home in the farmhouse, when sunlight touched it.

“Elizabeth!” a familiar voice called. Turning almost reluctantly, she saw Aaron. Behind him stood his parents, and Deirdre, astonishing to see dressed in a neat plaid skirt and blue blazer, her hair short and brushed. A few feet away, Jake Holborn lounged against the fence, his cap jammed down on his head, a wrinkled brown corduroy jacket hanging from his bony shoulders.

Aaron was staring at her uncertainly.

“It's me, Elizabeth,” he said in a timid voice.

She had to speak to them. The older Herkimers murmured the words of consolation she had heard many times today. They were sorry, they said, that they had missed the service, but they'd had to pick up Jake in Molytown. Aaron touched her wrist briefly. “I wish she wasn't dead,” he said.

Then Deirdre came close to her and pulled her away from the others.

“You were really lucky,” she said in a low voice. “I told you that before. This time, I mean to have had someone like your gran who wasn't in the stew.”

“Stew?” asked Elizabeth.

“The family stew,” Deirdre said with her usual impatience, and left her side without another word.

Elizabeth took a few steps toward the Herkimers. “How is Grace?” she asked.

“Just fine,” Mrs. Herkimer said. “We're extremely competent with animals.”

“Naturally,” muttered Deirdre.

“She's getting used to us, I think,” said Mr. Herkimer.

“We must join the others,” Mrs. Herkimer commanded as she took Aaron by the hand.

They moved away and Elizabeth went to Jake. “I have something for you, Mr. Holborn,” she said. Jake nodded and straightened up. In one hand, he held an unlit, very stale-looking cigarette.

“I saw you just now looking down on Eggemoggin Reach,” he said. “That's Deer Island across the bridge, where I used to live years ago before I went to Molytown. I'm really sorry about Cora Ruth. The Herks came all the way from Orono to pick me up. That was nice of them, but she did go on about her being so charitable all the way to here. I expect you know the way she is. Nobody ever needs to give her a compliment. Cora and I used to laugh about that. I see my name on that envelope so I guess it's for me.”

Elizabeth handed it to him. He opened it, drew out a pasteboard with a drawing taped to it, and whistled softly. “I may just get this framed,” he said.

The drawing of
El SueÃ±o
with Jake standing in the bow rustled where the tape had come loose. He licked one finger and pressed down on it. “I'll fix it,” he said. “That's a strong west wind. There'll be good weather for a time.”

Elizabeth's father was motioning to her. As she climbed the slope toward the grave site, the gallery owner, the minister, the Herkimers, her parents, and a few elderly women began to form a circle. The coffin was suspended by ropes over the hole. She saw the minister's lips move, but his words were snatched away by the wind. The coffin was slowly lowered by the two men who had come with the hearse. Her father looked up at the sky, then let fall upon the coffin a handful of earth.

The grave digger continued to lean on his shovel, motionless as a statue. People stood around now, speaking in low voices. The gallery owner was making comic faces at Stephen Lindsay, who was fully awake and apparently trying to turn his head in a complete circle so he could see everything. One of the elderly women who was talking to Elizabeth's father, an earnest look on her face, suddenly burst into laughter. “So like Cora â¦” Elizabeth heard her say.

Aaron came up to her.

They stared at each other, then, as though they'd silently agreed on a plan, went a short way down the slope and sat on the ground near a small gravestone with an angel poised on top of it. One of its wings had crumbled away.

“That's your little brother?”

“Yes.”

“Do you tell him what to do?”

“I can't tell him much of anything yet,” Elizabeth said. She wasn't really paying attention to him.

Despite the wind, there was some warmth in the air, that late autumn warmth that makes you think of the hard, cold months to come. She stretched her legs out in front of her. The mystery of the land and sea spread out beyond the hillâit seemed like the whole earthâfilled her with wordless anticipation.

Gran had said you can't pursue happiness. It can strike in the middle of trouble, and it can disappear for no apparent reason, even when you think you ought to be happy.

“What's in that envelope?” Aaron's question interrupted her thoughts.

She opened it and drew out a sheaf of drawings. Every one of them was of her.

“Look!” Aaron said excitedly. “That's you washing dishes. Here you're reading with your hair falling all over your face! Your shoe's off and it's under the table. Here's one of just your back. There's Grace on your lap. I love Grace. She doesn't say anything. Look at this one! You're asleep in the chair. What were you stirring in the bowl?”

No one would ever see her exactly as Gran had seen her. A great shaft of loss went through her.

“Maybe you were making cookies for me,” Aaron said with a touch of slyness.

Elizabeth turned to look at him. She examined his face closely, his straight black eyebrows, his dark eyes, his large ears, the spiky hair. He began to smile.

“You remembered me!” he said.

About the Author

Paula Fox is a notable figure in contemporary American literature. She has earned wide acclaim for her children's books, as well as for her novels and memoirs for adults. Born in New York City on April 22, 1923, her early years were turbulent. She moved from upstate New York to Cuba to California, and from one school to another. An avid reader at a young age, her love of literature sustained her through the difficulties of an unsettled childhood. At first, Fox taught high school, writing only when occasion permitted. Soon, however, she was able to devote herself to writing full-time, but kept a foot in the classroom by teaching creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and the State University of New York.

In her novels for young readers, Fox fearlessly tackles difficult topics such as death, race, and illness. She has received many distinguished literary awards including a Newbery Medal for
The Slave Dancer
(1974), a National Book Award for
A Place Apart
(1983), and a Newbery Honor for
One-Eyed Cat
(1984). Worldwide recognition for Fox's contribution to literature for children came with the presentation of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978.

Fox's novels for adults have also been highly praised. Her 2002 memoir,
Borrowed Finery
, received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir, and in 2013 the
Paris Review
presented her with the Hadada Award, honoring her contribution to literature and the writing community. In 2011, Fox was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.

Fox lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, the writer Martin Greenberg.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3746-4

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

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