"We did the best we could for you. We've always loved you as much as any parent could love his or her child," she said:
"I'm not saying no. Please understand, Grandma. There are too many ghosts in this town now," I added. Fier eyes widened.
"Why don't you just do what you planned to do," my grandfather said in his calm, reasonable manner, "and if toward the end of the summer you're still of the same mind, Zipporah will register you at the high school and we'll bring up whatever else you want from the house. How's that?"
"It's just putting off the inevitable," I said with cold firmness.
My grandfather stared a moment, and then he smiled.
"She'S your granddaughter all right, Elaine. No sugarcoating permitted."
"Whatever," my grandmother said, rising. I wasn't sure if she was simply angry or simply too exhausted to argue or care. "Anyone want a piece of apple pie? I have vanilla ice cream, too."
"I would," I said.
"Let me help you get it, Mom," Aunt Zipporah said, rising. I knew what she wanted was some private moments with my grandmother, so I sat.
My grandfather leaned forward.
"I'd be the last one to put obstacles in your path, Alice. You know that. And I appreciate all that you have endured because of some mean-hearted people. Maybe what you're proposing will be the best thing for you. I just want to warn you that sometimes what we think is an escape is simply a short diversion. Sometimes, running away doesn't work because you carry so much with you. It's better to face your demons head-on where they are."
"It's not worth it, Grandpa. Except for being with you and Grandma, there's nothing here I want to win or achieve."
"I'm only saying casting yourself out isn't as promising as you might think. We're all on rafts of one sort or another, and the only thing that gives us any stability, any hope, are the lines between us and the ones we love."
"I'm not breaking them. I'm only stretching them a bit," I said, and he laughed.
"Okay."
Moments later, Aunt Zipporah and Grandma brought in our dessert. My grandmother seemed more upbeat. I was confident Aunt Zipporah would quiet her fears and smooth it over for me. I sug gested, of course, that I leave with Aunt Zipporah after lunch.
"Today? But if you're going for a longer period, your packing," my grandmother said. "And . ."
"I don't need much right away."
"She's right. We'll bring the rest of her stuff a little at a time, Elaine. We'll take a ride next
weekend," my grandfather said.
I could see the reality taking hold rapidly now in my grandmother's face. To talk about it was one thing, but to actually see it happening was another.
"I was going up there anyway within the week to work for the summer. What difference does a few more days make?" I asked.
She nodded. She knew that, but now that I had added the idea that I wouldn't be returning, she seemed frightened again.
"Don't worry about me, Grandma. I'm going to be all right," I said.
Afterward, Aunt Zipporah came up to my room to help me put my things together. My grandmother stopped in to be sure I was taking everything I would definitely need. "For a week or the rest of your life," she added, a little grumpy.
My grandfather stopped by to say he would bring up my art materials.
"I don't expect to have much free time for it," I said, but Aunt Zipporah disagreed.
"You'll have some wonderful scenic
opportunities, Alice. Both Tyler and I will want you to continue your art. Maybe you'll do one for the cafe," she suggested. "And don't forget the studio we have behind the house." Her ability to be upbeat about everything was another reason I wanted to go back with her now and stay there.
"It's not a problem for me to bring the materials," my grandfather repeated.
"Okay. Thanks, Grandpa," I said.
Everyone helped pack the car.
"She's spent two summers with us already, Mom," Aunt Zipporah told my grandmother, who looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"I know, but all I seem to be doing these days is saying good-bye to everyone."
"It's not good-bye, Grandma. It's so long for now. I'll come see you if you don't come to see me," I promised.
"I've always done the best I could for you, Alice. Both of us have."
"I know, and I don't love either of you any less today than I did yesterday or I will tomorrow."
My grandfather stepped up to her and in a whisper loud enough for me to hear said, "Let her go, Elaine. Give her a chance."
She nodded, then stepped forward to hug me. She held onto me tightly a moment.
And then she said something to me that she had never said. "You're the rainbow after the storm, Alice. Always remember that."
She turned and started back to the house.
"Hey, call soon," my grandfather said and kissed me. He turned to quickly catch up with my grandmother to comfort her.
"C'mon, Miss Picasso," Aunt Zipporah said and got into her car.
I got in quickly. I wasn't going to look back at the Doral House. I was going to be strong and just keep my gaze on what was ahead, but I couldn't help it. I turned around.
They were already inside. I did feel badly for them. Aunt Zipporah was right about creating some white lies and putting hard decisions off for as long as possible, I thought. I shouldn't have been so
pigheaded about it.
"They'll be okay," she said as we continued down the road I had walked all my life. "It takes some getting used to, this living in a quieter house with just yourselves. But they've always been there for each other, so I'm sure they'll be fine."
"They've always been there for me, too."
"Sure, and for me and for Jesse. Dad was even there for your mother," she added.
When we entered the village, I looked hard at it all, and especially at the Harrisons' home. Their house was empty now, too. I gazed up at what had been Craig's room and, before that, my mother's. The curtains were closed, and it looked dark. In fact, despite the sunshine, the whole house looked imprisoned in shadows, trapped behind the bars of tragedy and sadness. No bright flower, no rich lawn and well-trimmed hedge could rescue it from what it was, what it had become and maybe would always be.
Now I truly wondered if anything could rescue me from who I was and what I was.
I gazed back as we left the village proper. Aunt Zipporah caught me saying my visual good-byes.
"It's funny how your mother and I used to make so much fun of the place. We had funny names for people and places, and she was great at imitating some of the village characters."
"Sometimes, you make it sound as if it was more fun than you thought."
"We did what we could. Your mother used to say Sandburg is so small the sign that says you're now entering Sandburg has you're now leaving Sandburg on the back," Aunt Zipporah told me and smiled.
"It's not small to me," I said. "It's been my whole world."
She nodded with understanding.
We were both silent then.
And as we drove on, I looked forward just like any explorer searching for signs of promise, for that Wonderland my name had promised.
Any college town has a unique energy about it. The school, its students and faculty become the lifeblood. So many businesses cater to their needs and profit from their existence. There's also that constant sense of rejuvenation, new students flocking in and bringing with them their excitement and high expectations. I even felt it during the past summers, when the student population was smaller but nevertheless still a major presence. It was such a dramatic contrast to quiet, sedate life back in Sandburg that I always became optimistic almost the moment we drove into the city.
Aunt Zipporah and Uncle Tyler lived in a unique, Swiss-chalet style home approximately five miles out of the city and away from their cafe. Uncle Tyler had bought the home from a well-known sculptor, who eventually returned to Switzerland. To give himself a sense of his heritage and homeland while he lived and worked here, he had the house built in the Swiss style. Behind it was a small building he had constructed to serve as his studio. It would obviously serve as an ideal location for my studio as well. It had good lighting, some long, large wooden tables, an oversized sofa and a half dozen chairs. The bathroom had a small stall shower. He even had a smaller kitchen there so when he was very involved in his work, he didn't have to leave his studio. Other than that, it was a very unimpressive, basic structure with nothing done to dress it up or cause it to give much more value to the property. The walls within looked unfinished, the windows were curtainless and the floors were cracked concrete. Some of the electrical wiring still hung loosely from the ceiling. My uncle left the studio exterior just as it had been, a basic light gray stucco.
Uncle Tyler was someone who liked to step a little to the right or left of what would be known as mainstream, whether that was how he dressed, which was usually a black leather vest, jeans and Westernstyle boots with a tight-fitting, faded T-shirt and a baseball cap on backwards, or what he drove--a restored small English car called a Morris Minor. Instead of signal lights, it had signal flags that came out of the sides when he made a right or left turn. It had a very small backseat and a floor shift. The year before, he'd had it repainted an emerald green.
The house itself, which I did adore, had a lowpitched, front-gabled roof with wide eave overhangs. There was a second-story balcony with a flat patterned cutout balustrade and trim. The exterior walls were made up of a patterned stickwood decoration. The color of the home was a dark coffee. Again, Uncle Tyler had found a house painter who could repaint the home in the unique shade.
Set on a little more than two acres with the undeveloped backyard, the house had a small front lawn and a dirt driveway. Neither the previous owner nor Uncle Tyler wanted to put down a hard driveway. Uncle Tyler liked the rustic look and thought it actually added to the value of the property because the only people who would buy such a house were people who liked that style. When it came to those sorts of things, Aunt Zipporah went along with all his decisions.
The master bedroom in the house was upstairs. It had only that bedroom and a guest bedroom toward the rear of the downstairs. That was to become my bedroom, as it had been when I had visited the previous two summers. The guest bedroom had two windows that looked out on the forest and high grass. I could see the studio off to the left as well.
When I stayed here before, I often saw deer grazing with no concern or worry, occasionally lifting their heads to look at the house and listen. One afternoon, I walked out the back door and drew as close as ten feet or a little less to a doe before she bolted and glided gracefully into the safety of the woods and shadows.
Uncle Tyler swore to me that he had seen a bear come out of those woods, and he blamed the garbage cans being disturbed and subsequent messes on bears and raccoons, whom he would say jokingly "have no respect for other people's property." That was about as angry as he became over it.
In fact, I had yet to meet anyone with as calm and gentle a demeanor as my uncle Tyler. Aunt Zipporah told me his quiet manner and seemingly stoic acceptance of anything and everything was a result of his meditation and studies of Far Eastern religion and thought. He did have that soft,
understanding smile that encompassed his light blue eyes and trickled down his cheeks to his lips.
Although he was a gentle man with a slim build who stood a shade less than five feet eleven, he did possess an inner strength and boundless energy. "You don't battle the current," he once told me. "You swim along with it and wait for your opportunity to step aside or perhaps divert it into a more favorable direction." He summed up that philosophy with the law of physics that said any action in one direction creates an action in the opposite. "Never go head-on into fights and battles." he told me. "Slip and slide around them, Alice."
He was especially like that with me, I thought-- my life coach always coming up with some philosophical advice. He never tried to tell me what to do, however. He always suggested, and if I listened, fine. If not, he had that deep faith and self-confidence that comforted him in the belief that one of these days, I'd come around to his way of thinking, just as Aunt Zipporah often did.
I had come to realize that Aunt Zipporah was attracted to him for all these reasons. He wasn't the handsomest man in the world. His nose was a little too thin and long, and his ears were slightly more extended, but his inner peace was something she longed to have herself, especially after the dramatic tragedy of her time with my mother and the deep pain it had caused between her and my grandparents. Forgiveness didn't mean forgetting. In the end it meant accepting responsibility and guilt, but stains and scars were never completely out of sight and mind. They lingered under the soft places upon which her heart rested and beat. Tyler was someone who knew how to live with disappointments and defeats and yet maintain his strength. She fell in love with that part of him first, and the rest followed.
In almost the same way and for the same reasons, I was drawn to him and to the world they had created for themselves. There were no attics here, no hovering ghosts, no mean faces full of accusations. Maybe my grandfather was right. I was fleeing from things I could never escape, but at least for a while I could live in the illusion and maybe grow as strong as I had to grow in order to return and face the demons, as my grandfather had suggested.
Aunt Zipporah drove me to their house first to settle in. I did a little unpacking, getting my bathroom things laid out in the downstairs bathroom, and then the two of us set out for the cafe.
"We closed for a month during the semester break this year to break out the wall on the left side and expand the dining area, you know," she told me as we drove along the quiet, country road spotted here and there with modest houses, trim lawns and stone walls marking their property.
"I forgot you were going to do that."
"Well, we did, and we've added another ten tables, which meant we needed two additional waiters or waitresses during the busier season when the college kids return in force. Tyler occasionally pitched in as a waiter these past few weeks while you were recuperating just to be sure to save you the spot," she told me. "Yours truly became the chef from time to time."