Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [86]
As Franny understood it, the river spoke of continuity. Itself a continuity, it spoke of cycles, flooding forward to the Gulf of Mexico, some of it evaporating and rising, condensing into a cloud, precipitating, becoming part of the water table, reentering the river, circling around again. An autobiographical river. Was she, too, condemned to travel in circles?
That night, as Franny lay close to Marcos, her legs aching from the climb, her mind aswarm with images of the day—evocative cliffs and provocative Clifford—she broke her pledge to Marcos and exhausted her skimpy knowledge of Vietnamese by whispering in his ear, “Tôi met, tôi may man. Tôi an hân.”
“You promised,” Marcos whispered back. “No more Kipamese.” A quarter of an hour later he softly asked, “Okay, what does it mean?”
“It means, Thank you for today.”
“That isn’t what it means.”
“How do you know?”
“I could tell it meant something else.”
“Tôi met means I’m tired. Tôi may man means I’m grateful.”
“Wasn’t there something more?”
“Now you speak Vietnamese, too?”
“You never know.”
Franny fell asleep before interpreting Tôi an hân for Marcos, who drifted away into sleep himself and would not remember to ask again the following morning. I’m sorry.
Like entering a time capsule. Viewed by flashlight until Ariel found the string connected to a bulb. The room was small, twelve by twelve. Flavor of mold in the air. Shapes under sheets. She pulled one back, as might an investigator, to identify what was beneath. A wingback chair from midcentury, its brocade as bright as on an upholsterer’s bolt. She ran her hand over its cushion. Under another sheet was a wardrobe, inside which were suits of clothes. Nothing elaborate, nothing Madison Avenue, but the gabardines and lush flannels of the day. Some camisoles. Undraping one more, she found a bookcase, the stacking kind that lawyers used to have in their offices. She’d always wanted one. But thought, More fitting to give it to Brice. Heaven knows, he might even remember seeing it in the Calder house when he was a boy.
Though these several things were hers, bequested by Kip, she looked at them only for a matter of minutes before resheeting everything, pulling the light string again, and locking the door of the storage room.
“We sent him letters from time to time, you know, telling him that he might just want to let us go through it for him, update the inventory, since he said he didn’t have one. Probably what he’s got in there isn’t worth a tenth of what he’s been paying in storage over all these years.”
“Well,” said Ariel, signing the registry. “He did what he thought was best, undoubtedly.”
“People’re funny about their stuff. Some of them take better care of what they got in storage than themselves.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“You’re right I’m right.”
“Well, thanks,” turning to leave.
“Miss Rankin?”
“Yes?”
“Will you be closing the account, then? Disposing of the articles?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“All right, then.”
Ariel understood. “I’m sorry.” She reached into her wallet for a check. “God, there must be a three-year outstanding bill for the storage fees. How much do I owe you?”
“No,” the woman waved her off. “Everything’s paid up, as ever. Never missed a rental payment yet. That’s why we keep it in such good order. Those sheets in there, I laid them on the furniture myself.”
“That was nice of you.”
“They was old sheets, anyway.”
“What you said about the storage rent’s being up to date, you mean to say it was paid long in advance?”
“No, once a year, every year. Like clockwork, last week of December. If everybody was as responsible as Mr. Calder, this world would be a better place.”
How could she not have thought of it before? “You must know where he’s living, then.”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to say.”
“I’m his daughter, as I told you. I have the key only because he passed it along to me.”
“Don’t take me wrong, but if he passed it on to you, don’t you know his whereabouts? If he’s your father.”
“I’ve lost track of him. That’s why I ask.”
The woman considered