The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [142]
“I can be there,” I said, writing the address on the back of my hand, the ballpoint digging into my skin. “That’s fine, then. I’ll be there at two o’clock on Monday.”
Chapter 17
THE NEXT DAY YOSHI WAS FEELING PRETTY RESTED, SO WE took him to see Niagara Falls. It was about a two-hour drive, so we left early in the morning, and we did it all, standing on the edge of the magnificent, roaring falls, putting on raincoats and taking a boat ride up the river into the clouds of mist at their base. We had a drink in the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower, where Yoshi toasted the day and my mother toasted Yoshi and his visit. We got back to The Lake of Dreams quite late, and my mother had to work early the next day. She was gone by the time I got up, but she left a fresh pot of coffee, and a note wishing us a wonderful day. Her handwriting was so similar to mine, a little cramped and hurried, and I was glad that things between us had eased, that somehow discovering these new facets of the past had brought us closer than we’d been in years.
When Yoshi finally came downstairs, we took our breakfast out to the dock and sat there in the sun, breaking off pieces of the olive bread I’d bought at The Green Bean and spreading them with hummus, tossing crumbs to the ducks that darted in to sweep them from the surface of the lake. The coffee was strong and I poured it over ice. We drank and talked. After a while, I got the canoe out and we paddled in an unhurried way along the shore, admiring the beauty of the undeveloped land, the chapel in the distance, red and white and gray against the greenery. We went far enough that the construction site came into view, the earth stripped down to bedrock in places, piled in bleak, ugly mounds. I thought of the walk I’d taken with Keegan, the mystery and silence of the forest and the land left untouched, a kind of wildness that was growing rarer in the world.
“I’m glad you spoke up about the bridge project,” I said. “Even if it means we’re broke. It was the right thing to do.”
Yoshi rested his paddle across the boat and shook his head. “I don’t know. It was exhilarating at the time. But later I wondered. I mean, it’s not like me, is it? So rash.”
“You thought about it. We talked about it, a little. So it wasn’t rash. Besides, I don’t care,” I said, and the strange thing was, it seemed I didn’t anymore. Whatever need to achieve had been driving me to this point in my life seemed to have dissipated, like water easing through the stones on the shore. It had to do with settling things with Keegan, I knew that. And somehow, it had to do with Rose as well, with the way she’d lived her life, so unconcerned with the things that had focused the other part of her family, the descendants of her brother—money and status, the shiny evidence of success. We hadn’t known about her, which was telling, but she’d have been considered a failure if we had: unmarried, with no visible accomplishments, a woman who’d left her child in the care of others. Yet I admired her, and knowing about her life had changed the way I thought about my own. Rose had made mistakes, to be sure, but she’d had the strength to live by her own convictions, to know what she wanted and to try to get it, even when her culture put up one obstacle after another. And her love for Iris was so present in all the letters, even though she’d had to leave her. “I don’t care about the job,” I said again. “I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time for both of us to do something new.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I was thinking about that work we did in Jakarta for the orphanage. I was thinking it would be nice to do something good in the world. Even if we have to give up some of the perks.”
We drifted, floating. The lake was calm, the water touching the sides of the