The Book of Speculation: A Novel

“Sure, sure.” Then she’s gone. I could have told her about the money, how much I need, but I’m not there yet. Close, but not yet. I turn my computer on and dash off an email to Liz Reed, asking if the situation at North Isle’s changed at all, that part time would be fine if that’s all there is. My inbox is empty but for a lone response to an application. The interlibrary coordinator position at Commack has been filled internally. I scroll through the listserv again, looking for changes, new positions. I think of things to call myself—Information Specialist, Information Technician, Information Resource Manager—I can be anything a job wants me to be. Eventually words blur and there’s sand behind my eyelids.

I wake not with the sun but with a light in the window that pulses like a heartbeat. Doyle is in the driveway, a moving shadow except for his hands, which are lit by two forty-watt lightbulbs. He spins the bulbs, balancing them, passing them over the backs of his hands in smooth waves. The rolling incandescence illuminates small portions of the tattoo, a diver shining a lamp into darkness. Tentacles curl and ripple. A flash of light, movement, then gone. The lights roll across his chest, his face briefly visible in their glow. White teeth. Then black. The light moves, Doyle extends, dances. The undulating light passes across my sister, leaning against the car. Watching.

He’s performing. For her.

I watch until it feels like spying, then close the window shade. Light leaks through. I go back to the book, to my notebook and the names. It’s time to do a little math. Verona Bonn was born in 1935, making her twenty-seven when she drowned. Her mother, Celine Duvel, died in 1937, when Verona was two—the same age as Enola when Mom died. Celine’s obituary doesn’t list a date of birth. A short amount of digging on the computer turns up a marriage license between a Celine Trammel and Jack Duvel. Her date of birth is February 13th, 1912; that’s twenty-five years old when she died. Young, but not the same age as my mother or grandmother. No, there’s something different.

The telephone rings. It’s Churchwarry.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he says. We both know he hasn’t, but I make polite assurances.

“No, it’s fine. What’s the matter?”

“Nights and an old dog. Sheila can’t make it through a night without a walk anymore and Marie has declared that my duty. These days once I’m up, I’m up.”

I understand the feeling.

“I found a book that I think you might find useful. I was wondering what might be the best way to get it to you? It’s rather heavy.”

“Overnight it.”





10


The mermaid’s shifting woke Amos from dreamless sleep. Frayed thumping filled his chest as he recalled her frightened eyes, how he’d held her, and the deep satisfaction of touching another skin to skin. Evangeline blinked, eyes dim with sleep and morning. He brushed her hair from her shoulder and smiled, an expression that felt stretched and unfamiliar. He pressed his fingers to the curve of her collarbone then to his own.

Evangeline shrieked and scrambled from the tub, knocking Amos back and jarring his bones against the slats. She fled, skirts trailing behind.

He waited. She would come back, if only because there was nowhere to go. Though Peabody and Ryzhkova’s schooling had imparted a loosely civilized veneer, his patience remained weak. A quarter hour’s time had him searching. Finding her wasn’t difficult; humidity made the ground soft so that each step left a perfect impression, the curve of her instep, a divot from the ball of her foot. He followed her steps as he had so many deer paths.

He found her under an elm, crying and crumpled like discarded cloth. So much water from one woman, as if she held a lake inside; his animal heart knew that he and she were made of different things. He waved in greeting, but her head remained tucked against her knees. He wanted to call out, to see how her name felt on his lips. To show he meant no harm, he tipped his head and lightly touched her shoulder.

She brushed him away. “Go. Please.”

He sat beside her. She rocked, cried, and refused to face him. He wrapped his arms around her, light enough to pull away in case she struck him. She gasped and it sounded like a breaking river.

Meixel cooed to the horses after rowdy towns, Peabody sang when writing, and Benno hummed when fixing axles—Amos wanted these things for himself. He held Evangeline, pressed his forehead to her shoulder, and matched his breath to the rise and fall of her sobs. From his throat came keening like bullfrog rattling and squealing wagons; sound, but not voice. Startled, he snapped his jaw closed and hid his face.

“Is that your voice?” A soft question.

He shook his head, pressing his lips together until they hurt.

“You made a sound. I heard.”

He shook his head; it was all he could do but not nearly enough.

“From sound comes speech,” she said.

He wanted it to be true, but knew his tongue to be unwilling, and his mind unable to fathom summoning sound, or how to make it pleasing. He shut his eyes against an unfamiliar sting.

Evangeline began to extricate herself from his arms. “We can’t stay like this,” she said. “I think it best I go, lest we be seen. Neither of us need mention what happened.”