“Our funding’s been approved.”
“How long will you be gone?” I asked, trying to hide my confusion. Because of course, I’d always thought it was all a lie.
He seemed to falter a bit at that, and it was the first and only indication that it bothered him to see me.
“Five years,” he said with a smile and a wince, as if to apologize. “We’d like to stay long enough to make it worthwhile.”
“The museum closes to the public in ten,” the guard said gently to the room, giving us a quick sideways glance.
We stood there looking at each other in awkward silence, and I was about to make my excuses to go when he smiled at me.
“Want to meet my parents?”
As you may have guessed already, Beth, probably faster than I did, his parents are famous naturalists, just like he said. He took me back into the dusty offices of the museum and introduced me. His father is short with glasses, and his mother has curly brown hair and sharp hazel eyes and looks like him. It was strange to see a version of his face without anything getting in its way.
They were both friendly, and their conversation was bright and lively. They said things like “Oh, so this is Lenore” as if they’d heard a lot about me but not anything about the falling out.
And then, though the museum had closed, James asked me if I wanted to see the exhibit his family had been working on all these years, and we went and wandered down a dimly lit hall of taxidermied rodents and rare shells and rocks.
I think a year ago I would have found it the most boring section of the museum, but with James’s enthusiasm it all looked fascinating and . . . I can’t explain it . . . like it all meant so much more than at first glance. It was like underneath all these silly little shells was this long thread of time. With James talking me through it, it felt like a story about people.
Finally it was late and I needed to get back to Mother, so he walked me to the front steps. I’ll never forget what the river looked like, how the sun was sparkling on it, and he shook my hand and then hugged me, and we said good-bye.
“So they’re not going to shoot you?” I teased, trying to make light of things.
He shook his head. “No one’s come after me yet. I don’t think anyone has the heart,” he said, waving a hand toward his face, his body. “Soon I’ll be gone anyway.”
“When?” I asked, lingering.
“Tuesday.”
“Well, I’ll think of you that day.” I shook his hand again. “I’m glad I met you, James,” I said firmly. “And good luck.”
“Good luck,” he repeated.
I wanted to thank him, and I didn’t know for what. For helping me to say good-bye to my brother in some way I still can’t understand. I couldn’t find the words.
And I walked away along the river.
I didn’t think that I’d ever see him again.
Don’t you think, Beth, that it’s easy to judge people for their sadness when it hasn’t happened to you? To see it as too strange, or too big, or not done in the right way, until you’ve felt the monster of it inside you? I think that is one thing I’ve learned, and I think it’s made me better.
And on that note, I’ve been holed up in bed with this letter all morning and have to go eat. I’ll try to write again tonight.
I left you at the Thames.
I’ll start back in Forest Row.
That night, back at home, I stayed up late reading. I’d unearthed The Blue Fairy Book and was on “The History of Jack the Giant-Killer” that you always thought was too violent . . . while I’d pretend I was Jack, slaying everyone in sight. Memories were buzzing in my head of when we were little, but not in a sad way. I had this pleasant feeling: happy those times had happened, even though they were over.
I had my window open, and I put down my book when I smelled the chimney smoke on the air. It wasn’t coming from our house. Even at that first moment, I had a tiny bit of hope.
I put on my shoes in the hall and walked outside. A few stars were out, so I gazed up for a bit, then ventured into the woods. And sure enough, there was firelight blazing deep in the woods. The smoke was coming from the cottage.
I was so scared it would be someone else—a passerby or a camper using the fireplace—but he looked up and smiled as I entered.
“I was hoping you’d see it and come,” he said. “Otherwise I was going to come throw pebbles at your window or something.” We stared at each other for a while without saying anything. Then he leaned over the table and held up a plate with a small half of a chicken on it. “I brought dinner.”
We sat on the leaf-and-twig-strewn floor and ate. At first the conversation was slow—I asked him to tell me the details of the trip, and he gave me all the formalities: the route he would take, the size of the crew, how they got the funding. The distance between us made my chest ache, but slowly we both relaxed.
He showed me a new Eveready torchlight he’d bought for the voyage, and we kept turning it on and off, lighting up the room and then watching it go dark.
“Lumbering into the woods to piss will never be the same,” he joked.
We both got quiet.
“Did she end things with you before or after . . . ?”
“After . . .” He looked down at his hands. “But it wasn’t her fault. Who could live with this?” he asked. “Who’d want to build a life with this?” By the gentle way he said it, I wondered if he was still in love with her, and I decided he probably was.
I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry, James,” I said simply. I knew I didn’t need to say why.
He looked at me long and hard. “I’m sorry too, Lenore,” he replied. “So sorry I lied to you. Sorry I wasn’t brave. I’m not one of those people who things are ever clear to, like you are. And I’m sorry for that too, I guess.”
“It’s not that great, being too decided.”
“But it’s powerful.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I think the conversation would have died there if he hadn’t suddenly widened his eyes and stood up.
“I almost forgot. I brought you something.”
He stepped outside for a moment, leaving me curious, and then came back holding something out toward me pressed carefully between his palms. He squatted before me, and I had to lean closer to see what it was he was cupping so carefully in his hands.
It was small and compact, yellow and green, pretty as a jewel. And it was moving. A tiny head shifted, a pair of tiny eyes looked around, curious.
“My parents brought her back. She’s from the Galapagos—these islands, very remote. One of the great last wildernesses on Earth. I can’t take care of her now that I’m leaving.” He held her out to me, and as I opened my hands he slid her very gently into them. Her shell was smooth, and her head tickled my hands as it darted in and out of her shell.
“I thought I might give her to you. Will you take care of her?”
I cupped the little life in my hands, and even though she was only a reptile, I liked her immediately.