State of Wonder - Ann Patchett [20]
Nothing would be lovelier than a lie now, a single dose of possibility. But if Marina gave her that then she would be nothing but another fishhook in Karen Eckman’s mouth. She said that Anders was dead.
Karen put her hands in her pockets, looked to the very clean wood plank floor. She nodded. “Was he writing to you?”
Marina understood the question but she left it alone. “He sent me a postcard from Manaus and two letters from the jungle very early on. They were mostly about birds. I showed them to Mr. Fox. I’ll give them to you if you want them.”
“For the boys,” she said. “It would be good I think to keep everything together. For the future.”
Marina was not claustrophobic by nature, and the pantry was as big as a hotel elevator, but she was ready to open the door and step outside. The canned green beans and bottled cranberry juice and packets of instant oatmeal in sweet, assorted flavors were beginning to press towards her, taking up more and more of the space. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“Well, whatever you do, don’t stay.” Karen tried to say this lightly. “That’s the big mistake.”
After they said their goodbyes, Marina left the Eckman house and walked out alone into the subdivision beneath the endless expanse of velvet night. She gave herself a moment in the enormous darkness to shake off the small, bright closet she had been in. She wondered if there would be some time in her life, ten years from now, or twenty, when she would not be thinking about that letter. Such is your bravery, such is my good fortune. Probably not. In his death, her officemate had become her responsibility. While she understood Karen’s position on hope she wouldn’t have minded a little bit of it for herself. How gladly she would go to Brazil to find Anders! But her job was to confirm his death and finish his work. All those years in the smallest lab at Vogel working on the same reports, they had grown accustomed to completing the other’s data.
Marina filled her lungs with frozen air and smelled both winter and spring, dirt and leftover snow with the smallest undercurrent of something green. That was another thing she and Anders had in common: they were both profoundly suited for Minnesota. She wanted to develop a fear of flying that would keep her from ever going farther than the Dakotas in her car. Like her mother and all her mother’s people before her, those inexhaustible blondes who staked their claims in verdant prairies, Marina was cut from Minnesota, the soil and the starry night. Instead of growing up inquisitive and restless, she had developed a profound desire to stay, as if her center of gravity was so low it connected her directly to this particular patch of earth. The frigid winds raced across the plains with nothing in their path to stop them but Marina, who stood there freezing for one more minute before finally getting into her car.
Back at home she found Mr. Fox waiting in her driveway, engine running and heater on. When he saw her he rolled down his window. “I’ve been trying to call you,” he said.
“I went to tell Karen goodbye.”
She could have told him about the letter but there was so little time left, and anyway, what could she say? This week hadn’t gone the way either of them would have liked. They had seen each other mostly at the office in the presence of Vogel’s board. Given the circumstances, the board had wanted Marina to have a complete and detailed account of their expectations for her trip. Did she understand exactly what was expected of her? Fly to Manaus, go to Dr. Swenson’s apartment there, they had an address, Anders had found some people who knew where la, la, la. Marina was scrambled by the lack of sleep and agitated by the