The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [125]
“Hi. Thought you’d be back today. Just sign in. The boxes are out and ready for you, on the table upstairs. I kept the letter, because the director is coming this afternoon and I think she needs to see it—in case it’s important historically, you know.”
I nodded, relieved, mostly; I’d been afraid the boxes would already have been locked away, out of bounds. I felt no guilt at all over the letters I had taken, sitting at home in the manila folder marked “Rose.”
“Thanks. Can I see that letter, at least? Just for a minute? I did some research over the weekend and I’d like to cross-check it with what I found.”
“I made you a copy, actually. I could tell you were serious. Here.”
She handed me the pages, Rose Jarrett’s sharp handwriting cast into shadowy tones of black and white and gray.
“Thanks.” I started to leave, eager to get upstairs, but hesitated, turned back. “You okay?”
She gave a short laugh and waved her hand. “Yeah, I’m fine, I’ll be fine. Big fight with the boyfriend, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry. Hey—at least you got a great tan.”
“A great tan and about three thousand mosquito bites. I forgot the bug spray. Mea culpa, to be sure. But would you break up with someone over that?”
“I might not be the best person to ask,” I told her, because I had, in fact, over the years broken up with people for reasons every bit as trivial, determined not to assume any complications or emotional baggage, determined—though I could not see it then—not to let anyone too close. That’s what I’d finally realized out on the lake with Keegan. It had been easy enough, living the global life I’d led, to keep myself free of any attachments, even to feel noble in my pursuit of the next great job. I hadn’t often paused to consider the people—or the possibilities—I’d left behind. I thought of them now, though, all the romantic partners I’d kept at arm’s length. Whatever ended up happening with Yoshi, at least I hadn’t run away. Though I’d come close.
“It was just bug spray,” she said, and sighed.
“You know what? I’m pretty sure you’re better off without him.”
A phone rang, and as she answered it I went up the curving staircase. The last big box was waiting on the walnut table with the others, as promised. Light filtered in through the lace curtains and made patterns on the polished wood. The air smelled of dust and old paper. Rows and rows of books lined the shelves and I let my eyes linger on the sturdy spines, thinking how human books were, so full of ideas and images, worlds imagined, worlds perceived; full of fingerprints and sudden laughter and the sighs of readers, too. It was humbling to consider all these authors, struggling with this word or that phrase, recording their thoughts for people they’d never meet. In that same way, the detritus of the boxes was humbling—receipts, jotted notes, photos with no inscriptions, all of it once held together by the fabric of lives now finished, gone.
I was methodical this time, not digging aimlessly, but making little stacks according to type. Downstairs the door opened and closed, voices drifting; the phone rang. I sipped my cold coffee, and searched.
I had my eyes open for a binder like the one in which I’d found the other letters, but it wasn’t until halfway through the last box that I found several more envelopes, this time held together with two ancient rubber bands that crumbled when I tried to pull them off. The handwriting on the top one was familiar, Rose’s sharp and slanted script, and my scientific training was no help to me then; my hands trembled. I scanned through them quickly, not stopping to read, not yet, aware of the time. More notes, ledgers, birthday cards from friends, and, every now and then, another letter.