A Sudden Light: A Novel (11 page)

I
came to learn much later that the life of my great-granduncle Benjamin Riddell was steeped in contradiction. The heir to a timber fortune, he wanted nothing more than to be one with the trees. Enthusiastic and able, he held an idea of “proper work” that differed greatly from his father’s. Ben understood the need to attend to business dealings and negotiations; overseeing the daily operations of such a vast conglomeration of companies demanded an endless string of meetings and tedious conversations during which people talked around their true intentions. He understood the need. He simply didn’t think
he
needed to be the one doing these things. He was much more comfortable hiking around the forests of the Olympic Peninsula and the inland forests owned by Riddell Timber, experiencing the
nature
of the trees. And so he contrived to spend a great deal of time on the coast, surveying tracts of land designated for harvest.

Ben didn’t keep a diary, as far as I know, but he did write field notes,
which he sent back to his father. These notes carried a tone of wonderment and fascination, and a belief that all things are connected in ways we can barely fathom, as if he were trying to convince Elijah of something. I know that Ben spent much of his time at Yale studying the work of the Transcendentalists—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller—and he was quite taken by the poems of Walt Whitman as well as the early writings of John Muir. This was a fashionable thing of the times: the young elite pondering nature and our connection with it.

The first forestry school in the United States was the Biltmore School of Forestry, established in 1898 under the patronage of George Vanderbilt. It was followed quickly by forestry schools at Cornell and Yale Universities, backed largely by very wealthy families, such as the Riddells. For those who made their fortunes through the exploitation of forests, the management of those forests made practical business sense. For those who saw the health of the forests as a reflection of the health of the human soul, conservation was equally important.

But Ben’s enlightenment came at a great price. He couldn’t reconcile the philosophies of the Transcendentalists and the new breed of conservationism with his father’s mission, which, as far as he could tell, was to destroy nature for profit. Ben’s relationship with his father was complex to say the least. Ben had faith that his father was a good man and loved the forest as much as he did, yet while Ben felt compelled to save nature, Elijah felt compelled to consume it. Ben’s struggle to reconcile their differences was the central conflict of his life.

“The rain has been incessant. It feeds my soul. I feel that it washes over my body, and a part of me drips into the soil with the rain, and a part of me becomes the soil and is drank into the roots of these trees and I have become one with them.”

That note was written by Ben on a ledger page that estimated 700,000 board feet would be harvested from a certain tract and sent to San Francisco to build the young city.

“All good wood,” another note said. “Finest quality possible. A person living in a house built with these trees will prosper and remain in good health, for the wood will keep him well.”

Curious, indeed, is the idea that a good tree will produce lumber that will make a house that is good, a house that will nurture its tenants. A house that does not merely serve as shelter from a passing storm but actually and
actively
promotes the good health of those who reside within its energetic realm. That the life and personality and soul of a tree continue, even beyond its felling, milling, drying, and utilization. These were the tenets of Ben’s philosophy, with which he felt he could save his father’s soul.

It only makes sense that like-minded spirits tend to find each other. Which explains why Elijah found himself attracted to J. J. Jordan, the railroad tycoon, and together they discovered more efficient ways to shake money from the trees. It explains also why Ben found himself attracted to a young cutter on the coast by the name of Harry Lindsey. For it seems that being intimate with the forest wasn’t the only reason Ben spent so much time on the coast; there was intimacy of a more carnal nature being explored as well.

The passions that inspire two young, idealistic men when they are alone in the woods do not need to be subjected to the approval or disapproval of others. But they do make the landscape a bit more complicated when decisions about love and business intersect, as was the case in this situation. For Elijah Riddell and J. J. Jordan had conspired that the best way for them to grow their empires was to form a merger. Not only of their companies but of their children as well. The timber industry of the late nineteenth century was notorious for such couplings. And so it was decided that Benjamin Riddell would marry the lovely and sophisticated Alice Jordan.

Riddell and Jordan shook on the arrangement over a cordial and a fine cigar. The deal was done.

Still, Benjamin Riddell had entirely different feelings on the matter.

I
anxiously awaited my father’s return. I hadn’t seen him all day and I wanted to tell him of my mother’s phone call—that she had asked after him and cared about him and wanted to talk to him. I went downstairs at dinnertime, figuring the time change in my head. He couldn’t call her back now—it was the middle of the night in England—but he could call her first thing in the morning.

“Is my dad here?” I asked Serena.

She was busily making dinner, still dressed for work, though with bare feet.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “And I don’t know when to expect him, so I hope you don’t mind if we start without him.”

I shrugged and took my seat, relying on an air of indifference to mask my disappointment. Grandpa Samuel was already sitting docilely at the table. Serena took the medicine bottle and put three tablets in front of
him. When she saw that I had noticed the transaction, she said: “His Alzheimer’s medication.”

She shuttled plates of food to the table.

“Can I help?” I asked.

“You sit, Birthday Boy,” she said with deliberate cheer. “I have it under control.”

She presented the last of the food, a wooden bowl of salad, and took her seat.

“Do you have a car?” I asked as we served ourselves.

“We do have a car,” she replied. “It’s behind the barn. Why do you ask?”

“I never see you drive it. How do you get to work?”

“I ride my bicycle to the bus stop and then take the bus. Aren’t you the curious one?”

“Even in the winter?”

“Winters are quite mild in Seattle, and no one minds a little rain. That’s why God invented fenders for bicycles, to keep ladies like me dry.”

We ate deliberately and silently. I felt that everything was slipping apart. My parents were no closer to reconciling, and my father was more remote than ever. I was trapped in the world of Serena and Grandpa Samuel. And nobody cared. Even on my birthday.

“It is not my place to apologize for your father,” Serena began, “but I understand that you must be disappointed that he’s missing your birthday dinner.”

“Whatever,” I said. Which was a lie. It really
did
bother me. It bothered me a lot. I thought my father was a jerk for being absent on my birthday. But I didn’t think it would help to tell Serena that.

“Really? Surely it’s incumbent upon a parent to recognize the birthday of his or her child.”

“My mom called me this morning,” I said quickly, and I immediately regretted saying it. I had wanted to keep that information from Serena as a secret I shared with my mother. And here I was, pandering for my aunt’s approval.

“Did she?” Serena asked, looking impressed. “You and your mother must have a very special relationship. I’m sure you love her very much.”

“Sure,” I said.

“ ‘Sure.’ ‘Whatever,’ ” Serena mocked. “It’s cute when you speak like a teenager, but I know better, Trevor. I know you have many more feelings and emotions tucked away in that heart of yours, and you have abundant words to describe them. Tell me, how do you feel about this separation of theirs, be it temporary or not?”

“Why do you keep calling it a separation?” I asked, bristling. “They’re getting back together.”

“Are they? Perhaps they will, but perhaps not altogether happily. Would you prefer they be together and unhappy, or apart and happy?”

“Neither.”

“Umm. You’re holding out for door number three. An idealist!”

“What’s wrong with being an idealist?” I asked.

“Nothing at all,” Serena replied. “I suppose my interest in hearing your thoughts is more selfishly motivated than I have revealed. I was eleven when my mother died, and so I know what it’s like to feel lost and confused by the unraveling of a family. I thought perhaps in you I had found a comrade with whom I could commiserate. We are kindred spirits to some degree, aren’t we, Trevor? You and I aren’t afraid to speak our minds, are we?”

I scowled; I didn’t want to dwell in Serena’s world any longer.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You don’t need my permission to ask a question,” she said.

“Who was Benjamin Riddell?”

Grandpa Samuel looked up from his plate; Serena seemed startled by the question. She cleared her throat and put down her fork. She folded her hands together and looked down at the meal laid out on the table. Pork chops and applesauce and iceberg lettuce salad with cherry tomatoes, slices of red onions, and mushrooms, which I picked out because I didn’t like mushrooms. And lemonade. There was always lemonade.

“Daddy?” Serena said after a few moments. “I believe young Trevor’s question is directed toward you.”

I noticed her voice was slightly strained, and she didn’t make eye contact when she spoke.

“Ask him again, Trevor,” she said.

“I’m wondering about Benjamin Riddell. And Harry.”

“I don’t know,” Grandpa Samuel replied unsteadily.

“Yes, you do, Daddy.”

“I don’t.”

“Tell Trevor what you know.”

“The only thing I know is what my father told me,” Grandpa Samuel snapped at Serena. “And he was a liar. He lied about everything! Don’t you see? He lied about it all!”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Serena said. “Grandpa Samuel is quite sick. Alzheimer’s disease. They won’t diagnose it when he’s alive, though. They call it senile dementia; that’s the clinical diagnosis. They won’t call it Alzheimer’s until he dies and they perform an autopsy and examine what’s left of his brain, which, of course, we will happily donate to science; they say it will look as if a mouse has chewed holes in it. Terrible.”

“You think I’m crazy!”

“No, Daddy, I think you’re demented: that’s an important distinction. Try to remember it.”

“I’m not crazy,” he whined.

“No, Daddy, you’re not crazy. You’re demented.” She took a bite of her pork chop. “Go ahead and eat; there are no tendons in this.”

Grandpa Samuel studied his food; he took up his knife and fork, but he didn’t eat.

“Ben was my father’s brother,” he said under his breath. “He gave away everything we had. He ruined our lives.”

“He ruined our lives,” Serena repeated—not to me but to the table. And not loudly, but very clearly.
He ruined our lives.
“You remember,
Daddy. Benjamin Riddell ruined our lives. He convinced his father that to save his soul he had to give everything away. All of his money, all of his land. Even this house. And old Elijah, well, that’s what he said he wanted, isn’t it, Daddy? To give Riddell House to the trees. What a thought! Only someone as demented as you would take such an idea literally. Only you would cling to such a thing.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Grandpa Samuel whispered.

“I know, Daddy. We all know. You don’t want to leave, and so we’re stuck.”

Grandpa Samuel rubbed the stumps of his missing fingers, and I really didn’t know who to believe at all.

We cut and chewed our food. And we waited for my father to return home.

*  *  *

Grandpa Samuel and I were doing the dishes when my father entered through the back door, looking a little embarrassed. He apologized that his meeting had run late and he’d missed dinner, even though he smelled like alcohol and cigarettes, and I knew he was drunk. It was a pattern that had begun with my parents’ financial troubles in Connecticut—my father going missing for the evening hours and coming home drunk. Maybe I wanted to move to England after all.

“We were waiting for you,” Serena said.

She went to the refrigerator and removed a chocolate cake. We took our seats and Serena set out plates and she lit a single candle on the cake. The three of them sang a warbling, tuneless version of the happy birthday song. I wished the whole thing were already over.

Serena rummaged through a kitchen drawer in search of something.

“Ack,” she muttered. “I can never find things where I left them. Why is it when I put things back where they belong, they end up someplace else?”

She slammed the drawer shut and picked up a dinner knife.

“I’m afraid my cake server seems to have sprouted legs and walked off,” she announced. “So we’ll have to make do.”

The cake server gone. Another disappearance.

She sliced the cake with the knife and made an obvious effort out of getting the pieces onto the plates. As she struggled, my father placed two small packages on the table and pushed them toward me.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

I thought about not taking them. About rejecting them and saying, “What I’d really like for my birthday is a father who gives a shit.” But I didn’t. I took the gifts and I knew what they were already by the shapes of the boxes, one as long as my hand, narrow and rectangular, and the other broad and flat and the shape of a book. I opened them. Sure enough, a fountain pen, black with gold details. It was pretty, but he didn’t give me any ink, so it was useless. The other was a leather-bound journal.

“So you can become a famous writer and write about this fucked-up family,” my father said.