A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [140]
“It isn’t exactly what I meant, Emma,” I said.
We closed in the late afternoon of the third Friday in September. It seemed fitting that we had to go seventy miles, all the way to Milwaukee, to the twenty-sixth floor of a fancy downtown office building, to give our farm away. The girls had gotten used to tagging along, waiting in reception areas with candy and some new cheap thing, a little doll, a puzzle, beads to thread. They didn’t get too excited over treats anymore. While I was signing the papers in the inner sanctum they got into a brawl in the lobby. I could hear Claire’s bloodcurdling scream down the hall. I excused myself. There was nothing to threaten them with because they’d already lost everything. They also didn’t seem to care if I hurt them. The receptionist saved the day by showing them how her fax machine worked. I took my leave to finish giving over the farm to Mrs. Reesman. When Sandy shook my hand for the last time, she said, “I sure hope that operation goes according to plan.”
“What operation?” I said.
“Your sister—the bone-marrow treatment.”
“She died,” I said, giving her hand a final squeeze.
Through the summer there had been occasional respites from the heat as well as a few insignificant rainy spells. The night we closed rain poured down and cool air moved in from the east. By Saturday morning the crickets had come back to life to sing their farewell song. Some of the maples had turned color prematurely and were beginning to shed their leaves. Families were raking together and burning trash when we drove to the bank in Spring Grove. Smoke was rolling across the streets. We were going to get our certified check for one hundred thousand dollars and then head for Racine. It was Emma who suggested we find some flowers for Alice, that we decorate the unit. Before the bank opened we went along the road out of town and picked a few straggling clumps of chicory and Queen Anne’s lace.
We harbored our fears as we drove to get her. Emma fretted that the money wouldn’t be enough, that the rules might have changed. Claire wondered if Alice would remember us. Emma called her sister an idiot and insisted that they would never be forgotten. I had plenty of my own worries. I once thought that memory was naturally coupled with understanding—with perspective. I have found that not to be the case. Despite the distance I can’t say now I have a clear sense of what happened last summer. I don’t know, either, if you can compare one thing to another, if a specific thing is actually like any other thing. The summer had been a test of some sort. I suppose it was a test of faith. If that was so I had failed. But I also wasn’t sure that there would have been any way to win, if it would have been better to look with blind eyes, to be faithful to the ideal. It wasn’t apparent that one way was better than the other.
To doubt was not a deadly sin, but it seemed to be as poisonous as any of the seven. Doubt had undermined all that I had taken for granted. I hated the fact that I would never really know what was true. There were reasons not to believe either side. There is no point in fixing the summer in my mind, settling upon a half-truth to satisfy my need to know. It still seems to me now that it is better to be vigilant, to keep those months fluid, never firming up the story, never calling any one person a defining name. It is better, I think, never to finally decide. In a weak moment I once tried to ask Alice, to tell her that I wasn’t sure. She stopped me. It is probably for the best that I didn’t give voice to my gravest doubt. Because I tell myself that I don’t know and will never know, I can almost fool myself at times. I can almost talk myself into believing that last summer didn’t take place.
We waited in the entry of the jail while Alice was notified. When the guard let her through she rushed at the girls. I gathered up the things that she dropped on the floor. After a few minutes I made them move to the door. I pushed them out of the stuffy entry, out of that place. Alice knelt