The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [106]
Downstairs, they come and go, talk and argue, voices lapping at my door. Sometimes I join them. Other times I stay alone in my room and sleep, or read, or write. I do not know what will become of me.
“Let me see,” my mother said. I handed her the pages and sifted through the papers from the cupola until I found the page Rose had mentioned in her letter, the page that had launched my search, the brittle paper with the dense text discussing basic human physiology, and the scrap of paper that had been folded inside it where Rose had written her startled and impassioned thoughts. Such a simple article, such straightforward facts; I wondered if Cora had ever read these pamphlets, or if she’d been too shocked. Rose had fished some of them from the eggshells and coffee grounds; perhaps they’d been left behind when she went so hastily to New York City, or perhaps Cora had found them only after the move from town to this house on the lake, and had shoved them in the space beneath the window seat—out of sight, out of mind.
We sat up for a few more hours, my mother and I, going through the letters and the papers, trying to sort out the chronology and fill in the gaps. After my mother went to bed, I stayed up even longer, writing down names and dates on index cards and putting them into little piles. I lay down on my stomach on the bed with my chin in my hands, the facts swirling in my mind. I closed my eyes, thinking I would not sleep, just rest.
In my dream that night I took Rose’s journey, stepping from a train into an unfamiliar city. I walked, stopping at houses all along the way, but the doors were locked, or the people who lived there did not recognize me and had no idea who I was. Panic was a steady thrum beneath all my actions. I put my suitcase down and it was gone. I walked until I came to a park. It was spring, new leaves on the trees, and a crowd had gathered, held back by waist-high metal barriers. I was trying to see something, we all were, but no matter how I craned my neck or shifted my position, nothing was visible beyond the heads of the crowd. A woman next to me asked my name. I told her, and she expressed surprise. I have something for you, she said, reaching into her purse. Something I’ve been holding for a long, long time. You must have lost it. She pulled out a wallet and handed it to me. Inside I found my ID cards, all my identification. I’ve been looking for these forever, I said. Where did you find them? Here, she said. Right here, in the museum. I looked up then and saw that’s where we were, that the walls were filled with paintings and the windows with stained glass, and as I watched, the figures in the windows began to emerge, beautiful, luminous men and women stepping into the room. I walked from place to place slowly, because everything, and all the people, were so very fragile. Before I reached the door, I woke up.
I sat up, rubbing my neck, the unease of my dream flowering into the still morning. Letters and papers were scattered all over the floor. The lights were still on. Then I remembered: I’d promised Yoshi that I’d call last night, and I’d forgotten all about it.
It was evening there, and he answered right away when I called him on Skype, his face appearing on the screen with an expression both concerned and annoyed. He was out of sorts to begin with—one of his flights had been canceled, and he’d had to reschedule his whole trip. When he didn’t hear from me he’d gotten worried, and his concern came out as anger. We argued, me sitting on my childhood bed, Yoshi in a hotel in Jakarta, ten thousand miles away.
“Maybe I just shouldn’t come,” he said, finally. “If it’s just going to be like this.”
“No. No, please come, Yoshi. I want you to come.”
“It feels strange, Lucy. Like you’ve been gone longer than a week.”
Had it been only a week? I counted back—yes, but so much had happened that it felt much longer. “When you get here it won’t feel that way,” I said.
“What’s so important that you forgot to call?”
“Nothing,