The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [168]
The thing I needed to see had been flitting around and around in the darkness, like something winged, and now it settled.
All these years, I’d been asking the wrong question altogether. The question was not what might have happened if I’d gone out fishing with my father. The question was what might have happened if I’d never gone out that night at all.
That night, I’d flown on the back of Keegan’s motorcycle through the cool dark air to the gorge, where I’d run into Joey. He had taunted me my whole life long, the sort of contempt of indifference that wears a deeper scar every time it happens, and the anger of generations was coiled around my heart. So I had felt justified, even thrilled, stealing Joey’s clothes and casting them into the trees, throwing his keys so deeply into the bushes that they were most likely there still, rusting into the earth. My remorse for all that had come much later, and had never been great, a mild uneasiness at most. And yet, in the deep silence of the sanctuary, I heard Art say what I had not been able to take in before: Joey had come in that night making a lot of commotion, much more than usual. He had banged drawers, searching noisily in the dark for clothes, for another set of car keys. I imagined Art, woken from a sound sleep, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Art, swearing under his breath and getting up, going downstairs to drink a glass of water, knowing he wouldn’t sleep again. The night had been mild, like the nights of his youth, and he found himself thinking of the fishing place, of taking the boat out for a little while. Why not? He put his glass in the sink and headed for the lake. My father was already there.
What had happened to my father was not my fault. I was not responsible for his death. I did not push him, or leave him alone in the water.
Yet it was not only others, in another country or on a dark lake, who had been ensnared in this pattern, repeating itself through the generations.
It was also me. I was woven into the story like everyone else.
I sat there for a long time, until the windows began to gather the light and distinguish themselves from the cold stone walls. The women in each frame began to emerge, carrying jars or bowls or stories, going about their lives. It gave me comfort to see them. The vibrant figures of the Wisdom window took shape, too, animals and plants and people with their arms uplifted, their hands becoming leaves, becoming words amid the healing rush and weave of Wisdom, encircling, creating, playful, and delighting. I thought of Rose, and all her letters. I thought of her sitting on the edge of the lake, struggling against anger, making the hardest decision of her life.
When the sun was fully up, I left. I took care to lock the church behind me and walked slowly back through the fields, the long weeds alive with wind. I wondered if I could call my experience in the chapel prayer—not a long list of asking, after all, or a rote string of words, but rather a kind of sacred listening. The Impala stood at the entrance, a remnant of a lost time. I drove it back to the house.
No one was up, so I made coffee. When it was late enough I called Blake and told him I needed to see him right away. He was groggy and puzzled and hardly pleased, but he agreed to come. In fact he arrived even before my mother came downstairs, tying her robe tightly at the waist.
“What’s going on?” she asked, joining us at the table on the patio. The breeze had picked up, but it was warm. I’d placed smooth