The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [46]
I nodded, remembering the story my mother had told me about what had happened while my father was in Vietnam. My grandmother had died when I was seven, and all I could conjure of her was a fluttering sleeve of a polyester print dress, her eyebrows arching as she laughed, and the fleeting dark red color of her fingernails.
“She didn’t like to swim,” I remembered, suddenly.
“No, she did not. She made sure we learned, though, me and Marty.”
“You know, the strange thing is, there was a note with these articles. It seemed like it had been written by a member of the family—it was written to your grandfather, in fact—but it wasn’t signed. It was passionate, though. A note about a girl named Iris, being sent away.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, and when he spoke, it was slowly.
“Well, I suppose it’s no secret that every family has its skeletons; you know that by now. There was some sort of scandal, way back when. My grandmother’s sister, maybe? I’m just talking from what I’ve gleaned, growing up, overhearing a bit of this or that. It’s probably as much conjecture as truth. But something did happen that got hushed up. Had to be hushed up, that’s how I understood it, for the sake of the family. It never interested me much, to be honest. I’m much more concerned with the here and now, with what’s right in front of my face.”
I thought about what was right in front of us, this building with its layers of the past, and all the things that had gone unspoken for so many years.
“What happened?” I asked, the words slipping out despite my best intentions. “What happened between you and my father?”
When Art finally met my eyes his face was anguished, grief welling up, the creases on the side of his mouth deepened, his eyes darkened with pain.
“I will not speak ill of the dead,” he said. “That is one thing I will not do. But I’m sure you’ve heard only one side of the story. Your father was a good man, but he wasn’t easy. He especially wasn’t easy for me. Maybe I wasn’t easy for him, either. I don’t think we’d have gone into business together if it hadn’t been expected of us from the time we were born. Still. What I did back then, while he was off fighting the war—it was wrong. I can’t undo it. But I can make a place here for you and for Blake. I was—I am—absolutely serious about that.”
I didn’t know what to say; his impassioned remorse caught me off guard. I wanted both to defend my father—against what, I didn’t quite know—and to comfort my uncle, who seemed consumed by the past in ways I hadn’t ever considered. My emotions were so intense and so conflicting I didn’t realize right away that he hadn’t really answered my question, not at all.
“I can’t work here,” is what I finally said. “If that’s what you mean. I appreciate the offer, I suppose.”
He nodded once, ran his hand through his bristly gray hair.
“Just think about it, Lucy. There’s always a place for you here. Remember that.”
I told him I would and then I stood up, saying good-bye, touching the papers I’d found, just to be sure they were still in my bag.
“Don’t be a stranger, Lucy,” Art called as I left, and I waved.
A few customers had entered the store and were browsing in the aisles. To my surprise, Blake was behind the counter, listening intently to a woman describing the kind of plumbing supplies she needed. When he finished filling her order he came over, smiling, rolling his eyes a little at the situation. I thought of Yoshi, who had been so pleased when I told him about Blake’s impending parenthood. When we’d talked of children it had always been in an abstract sort of way, and now I found myself wondering what Yoshi would be like as a father.
“What’s up?” Blake asked.
“Yoshi says hello,” I said. “He’s going to try to smuggle in some rambutans.”
Blake laughed, and