A Sudden Light: A Novel (48 page)

I don’t want to disturb them, but I want to speak with my father as well. I want to tell him that I understand his promise to Serena, and his promise to himself, and his promise to the dead, and that his leaving me was not an act of abandonment, but an act of love. I want to tell him that I know. But I don’t interrupt them, because I’ve already told these things to my father. I’ve felt his presence at different times and different places in my life. I know he’s been with me to see things and hear things, to share things with me and my family.

But my mother has been so alone—and so angry—because she has never found reason to believe. I see now that everything is different. I know, because I see her with him. And if I see her with him, then she must see him, too. Which means she believes.

And my thoughts are so loud that I disturb the moment, I ruffle the energy of the universe. For everything has everything to do with everything. My father turns and looks over his shoulder at me. He smiles and nods, and then he fades into the air. He dissipates like smoke and is gone; my mother is alone in the gazebo.

I approach. She hears me and turns. She’s wearing her sunglasses, and she has such a peaceful smile on her face; she seems somehow more contented than I’ve seen her since I was a child.

She is still my mother, with her sharp features and taut skin and dark, curly hair. The way she’ll talk and talk around things until you throw up your hands and say, it’s fine, I give up, you win. But she isn’t the same mother I remember from so long ago in Connecticut. She’s not the mother who took me fishing when I was a kid because my father was obsessed with building his wooden boats so he didn’t have time for me, or the mother who loved the first apples of fall when we would go on our drives upstate—the snap and explosion in your mouth of that first, tart bite—or the mother who would cry and be unable to finish reading me
The Giving Tree
, because she was so overcome with sadness at the image of the old man sitting on the stump. That mother died in the fire with my father.

But I don’t know. As Serena would say: There’s so much we don’t know, how can we pretend to know anything at all? Serena, with her forever blue toes.

I sit down next to my mother in the gazebo. She looks over at me, takes a quick breath, and purses her lips. Through her sunglasses, I see tears welling in her eyes.

“I know,” I say.

“You know what?” she asks with forced nonchalance. “What do you know?”

“I saw him with you.”

She shakes her head quickly. The tears in her eyes bulge, and then flow down her cheeks from behind her dark glasses.

“I can’t believe it,” she says, and she leans against my shoulder, which catches me by surprise, because she has never leaned on me before.

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?” she asks. “He was here, wasn’t he? Didn’t you see him?”

“I saw him.”

“So you are my witness.”

I put my arm around her, and she folds into me, and I like the feeling of being able to comfort my mother. It’s not something I’ve felt before.

“He said he knew that one day you would bring me back here,” she says after a time.

“I would have brought you sooner, but you—”

“But I refused,” she says. “I was afraid. I didn’t know he’s been waiting here for me all along.”

“No, Mom, he hasn’t been waiting. He’s always been with you. You just haven’t been able to see him.”

“It’s The North Estate, then, isn’t it?” she asks, sitting up straight and composing herself. “I was sitting here, and I felt a breeze. It was cool and pleasing. This place is so beautiful and I could feel the magic of it, and then I heard someone say my name and I turned, and he was there. He sat with me, like you’re sitting with me. We talked, and he held my hand. Then he kissed me and told me that he will always love me and I should never be afraid.”

I rub my neck, thinking of my father and my mother together again. What I had always wanted. I finally did it; I’d accomplished my goal. Although not very conventionally, I suppose.

“The last thing he said was, ‘My peace I give unto you,’ ” she says. “I must have looked confused, because he told me you would know the significance of those words.”

My peace I give unto you.
My mother sees my reaction, and it’s her
turn to reach out to me. She holds me and rocks me back and forth like a mother should. All of the emotions about my family, my father, but also the generations before him, Elijah and Ben and Harry. Isobel and Serena. My grandfather and his fingers. Everything spills out of me until I feel purged.

“Those words are from the book by John Muir that Ben wanted me to see,” I say when I am ready to speak again. “
The Mountains of California
. I tried to tell you about Ben’s messages when I was fourteen, but you wouldn’t believe me. Those are the words Dad said to his mother moments before he euthanized her. I saw it in a dream. Those same words are on Benjamin Riddell’s tombstone, who died in 1904.
My peace I give unto you.
”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought you were making up stories—going a little crazy in this house with your imagination and nothing to keep you occupied. I didn’t know
how
to believe you. I’m so sorry.”

“None of that matters because you believe me now.”

And so we sit silently for a time, as the minutes stretch out against Puget Sound. We indulge in the Zen of Grandpa Samuel. Until my mother finally breaks the moment.

“Your story,” she says. “I didn’t think I could stand to hear it.”

“I know.”

“I apologize for walking away like that. I shouldn’t have.”

I allow her admission to pass in silence.

“I’m ready now,” she continues with a resolve in her voice I haven’t heard since my childhood. “I’d like to hear your story now.”

I consider her request. She has never wanted to hear the story of that summer. Whenever I’ve started to tell it, she’s shut me down or walked away. But now?

“I just finished telling it to the girls,” I say. “And it’s pretty long and involved. There is no short version.”

“Tell it to me anyway.”

“I have to find them. We have to scatter Grandpa Samuel’s ashes. And we need to get some lunch—they’re going to be hungry soon.”

“Look,” she says, pointing. “Look out there to the beach. You can see the children from here. And Sophie is with them; she’s so lovely; she is the hand on your tiller, Trevor, and it is a steady hand she uses to guide you. Your father and I are very proud. They’re having fun down there, can’t you see? We have time. Tell me your story, won’t you? I believe I am meant to hear it here, in this place.”

I am conflicted, as always, by my mother. In some ways, I suppose I’ve blamed her for my father’s death: she didn’t come with us that summer, and so she failed to protect us. A childish reaction, but an honest one. But I also feel that what happened that summer was part of my journey, as it was part of hers. As it was part of my father’s. I remember Ben’s words to me, written on dozens of Post-it notes, telling me that we
are
connected, despite our need to disbelieve, our need to doubt. And I understand, finally, that I’ve been trying to tell my mother this story since it happened. All I’ve wanted was for her to know it, and for us to feel our connection again. This is why I came back here with my family, with my grandfather’s cremated remains, with my mother’s agnosticism. To see one more time if my mother could believe me. And I remember the single word that Isobel said to me when I saw her in the flash of a match struck at the top of a dark stair.

“Faith,” Isobel said.

And so I will tell my mother the story she wishes to hear, because I have that. I have faith.

“It was a long time ago,” I begin. “Before technology changed the world—”

A train blows its horn in the distance, interrupting me. The train is saluting my great-great-grandfather Elijah Riddell, and so, in a way it is saluting me. I have fulfilled the wishes of Elijah and his son Ben; I have moved on from my past, as others in my family have been unable to do. I am always looking to my future.

I catch sight of the long freighter snaking along the tracks several points down. The trains will forever salute Elijah Riddell.

“Tell me the story, Trevor. Please.”

“A man brought his son to see The North Estate for the first time,” I continue, and I reach for my mother’s hand. “The boy stood on the dusty gravel drive and looked across the meadow, and what he saw was stunning—a mansion larger than anything he had seen in his life, and it was made entirely of trees, as if it were still growing out of the forest from which it was taken. . . .”

D
avid Braun, Lisa Eeckhoudt, Kassie Eveshevski, Laurie Frankel, Joe Fugere, Gary Grenell, Derek Humphry, Molly Jaffa, Brian Juenemann, Jonathan Karp, David Katzenberg, Jeff Kleinman, Tim Kovar, David Massengill, Jim Minorchio, Kevin O’Brien, Robert Pace, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, Alan Rinzler, Jenn Risko, Bob Rogers, Marysue Rucci, Howie Sanders, Jennie Shortridge, Yolanda Stein, Deon Stonehouse, Dawn Stuart, Trish Todd, Melissa White, the Center for Wooden Boats, Folio Literary Management,
HistoryLink.org
, Seattle7Writers, Shoreline Historical Society, the wonderful people at Simon & Schuster, my team at Terra Communications, Tree Climbing Planet . . .

My fearless sons, Caleb, Eamon, and Dashiell, who are destined to change the world for the better . . .

And my brilliant and beautiful partner in life, without whose editorial input, criticism, ideas, passion, and unrelenting encouragement, this book would have remained forever hidden away in a secret room of my soul . . .

Drella

Reading Group Guide

A Sudden Light

Garth Stein

This reading group guide for
A Sudden Light
includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Garth Stein. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

When fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell and his bankrupt father arrive at Riddell House on Puget Sound, Trevor knows little about his father’s family or the history of the spectacular, decaying mansion. He knows only that his parents have separated and they must convince his grandfather to allow them to sell the house if there is to be any chance of reuniting his parents. But he soon learns that the Riddell family secrets are as numerous as the house’s secret rooms, and that there is something—or someone—in the house with an agenda counter to his father’s. It becomes clear to Trevor that generations of Riddells are in in need of redemption before the family can be lifted from its collective guilt. Trevor may be the only one who can save them and, in turn, save himself from this oppressive cycle.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The novel is narrated by Trevor as an adult looking back on his time at Riddell House. How does his adult point of view shape the narrative? Why do you think the author chose to frame the novel this way? How would it have been different if the story were told from Jones’s perspective?

2. Jones tells Trevor that they are going to Riddell House so they can convince Samuel to sell it. What other reasons does Jones have for returning? What does he really hope will come of their visit?

3. What sort of woman is Serena? Why do you think she never left Riddell House? In what ways does she control the family narrative? What are some of her redemptive qualities?

4. Grandpa Samuel talks about what his wife, Isobel, knew: “If you feel you don’t have enough, you hold on to things. But if you feel you have enough, you let go of things.” Do you agree? What does each character in the novel hold on to and how does it motivate their actions? Who is most willing to let go?

5.
A Sudden Light
features generations of men. Other than Serena, the women in the story play a relatively minor role yet often have a lasting impact. How did Isobel, Rachel, and Alice influence the men in their lives?

6. Consider the theme of redemption in the novel. What drives Elijah’s and Benjamin’s wish to return The North Estate to its original wild forest? What do they have to atone for? Will returning the land to wilderness redeem them?

7. Why was Benjamin so conflicted during his lifetime? Is his internal conflict a result of his upbringing or education or sexuality? How much of it is a product of the place and time in which he lived?

8. What is the significance of the carving of a hand holding a globe that Harry made for Riddell House? What does the carving symbolize to Benjamin, Isobel, Samuel, Jones, and Trevor?

9. The “eternal groaning” is one of the characteristics of Riddell House. How are Riddell House and The North Estate used as characters in the novel?

10. The beauty and power of nature deeply move Benjamin and Trevor. What do they experience while climbing the great tree near Riddell House? How is Trevor transformed by the climb? Have you felt something similar in nature?

11. Trevor tells Dickie that he chooses truth over loyalty. Do you think seeking answers makes Trevor disloyal to his family? When Trevor reveals what he has learned to his father, what happens?

12. How does the author’s portrayal of ghosts and spirits differ from other ghost stories you’ve read? Did the distinction of ghosts versus spirits make sense to you? Why were Trevor and Samuel the only ones who could see the ghosts?

13. In what way was Jones’s death an act of love? How was it a promise he had to fulfill?

14. Elijah Riddell wrote: “no man is beyond redemption as long as he acts in redeemable ways” and Ben wrote: “It is not prayer, but in deeds that we find absolution.” What burdens have Elijah, Ben, Samuel, Jones, Serena, and Trevor each carried? Was each a permanent obstacle to success in life? Were the characters able to change their fates?

15. What does “faith” mean in the context of this novel? Are faith and belief the same thing? How would you answer the question: “How do we reconcile the differences between what we see and what we know?”