A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [39]
I nodded. There were hundreds of tiny, malformed apples in the McIntosh, each the size of a thimble. I didn’t know about grace, but I had nearly been swept under numerous times.
“I walk down to the pond every night because I think of her there. I sit looking at the water and I sense her, I really do. If I can only keep her in focus, hold her there, I’ll be all right, I’ll be all right.” She took a long drag. She was talking out to the orchard, as if the trees had come to stand in straight rows for the purpose of listening to her; I felt sure that even if I hadn’t been present she would still have been talking, to the grass, the birds, the possible spirits. I slunk back into the unyielding trunk of the tree. “I drove to Neenah today, to talk to Albert Satinga,” she went on. “Everyone says I have to get on with my life and keep busy, take a vacation, get a puppy, plant a garden. I smile and agree—God, I was so well brought up it makes me ill. Inside I’m screaming at the advice. My sister signed me up for volleyball on Wednesday nights, and a counted cross-stitch class at the Sewing Center! She’s only trying to be kind, but I just wish they’d all leave me alone. Dan has been getting up at four o’clock and going to the Dairy Shrine—”
I could picture him in his basement office, his ceramic cow knick-knacks facing him on the desk. I wondered if he could work, if sometime months from now he might unveil an exhibit, a surprise to the community, a brilliant installation about the invention of the threshing machine. It was also conceivable that he might sit down at his office for a year and have nothing to show for himself. I had been afraid of Dan at first; after the days in the hospital I had not feared him less but I began to be frightened for him as well. He may have tried to look unflinchingly at the possibility of the endless dark hole, the hereafter, not so much for himself, but for his little girl. Most of the family would probably have hoped to find solace in the conventional images of heaven. Although I hadn’t yet visited Lizzy’s grave, it certainly would have had all the crudeness of the earth, of planting a seed or burying a hamster. Theresa had talk and inborn strength on her side: There she was, talking at me in spite of the knife slicing through her breast, and the fact that theoretically we had nothing to say to each other. I didn’t know if Dan could look into the abyss without falling in himself.
She was alternately wiping her face with her hands and dealing with the cigarette, which seemed conspicuous and awkward to her, something ill-fitting and new that requires an adjustment, like walking for the first time in high heels. I started to ask if someone was planning activities for Dan, but she didn’t hear. “Yesterday,” she said, “I just had to see Albert. It’s crazy, I know, but I had to. I left Audrey with my sister. I made an excuse about how I had to go settle with the insurance company and finish out a staffing at the office since I’m not going to work anymore this summer. I couldn’t wait to get up there, to see Albert.”
I was looking in on a private moment. It was not for me, Theresa resting against the tree, smoking and talking. I felt I shouldn’t look at her. It was logical that she should go see her old friend, Albert Satinga. He had been a priest at the parish church, as well as Theresa’s English teacher at St. Benedict’s High School. He had been in his middle twenties at the time, stocky, she’d said, solid, with black eyes and what still looked