The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [56]
“I saw them. But half of that is marshland,” I said, thinking of the beds of reeds and cattails, the swift, graceful shadows of the fish beneath the water.
“So, we drain it.” Art’s voice was terse, wary. “That’s what’s got the environmentalists all in a tizzy. But they’ll come round eventually.”
“It’s really about jobs, Lucy,” Avery said. She’d been so quiet I’d nearly forgotten she was there. “I’m sure it feels really altruistic and noble to worry about the environment, but we’ve been hard hit with the depot closing, and things weren’t great before that. Maybe it doesn’t seem different to you because of all the money on the lakes, but we all know there are two economies here, and one of them is hurting.”
“You can join us anytime,” Art said. “If that’s what’s really on your mind. I’m serious, Lucy. That’s what I meant when we were talking the other day. No one’s keeping you out if you want in.”
I didn’t say anything. The door creaked open and my mother came back outside, carrying a stack of plastic glasses and another bottle of wine.
“What?” she asked, stepping into the uneasy silence, pausing as she sensed the tension. “What’s going on?” Her voice was light, conversational, but because I knew her so well I could hear the wariness in it, too. Or maybe I was the one who was wary, cautious suddenly in the wake of this new information. Did Andy know, I wondered? And how far had these discussions gone?
“Just filling Lucy in,” Art said. “Telling her about our ongoing discussion.”
“Were you?” My mother’s tone hardened a little, and I could tell from her voice that Art had crossed a line. “I hope you told her also that I’m far from making up my mind.” She turned to me. “Lucy? Did he tell you that?”
“Not exactly.”
“Ah. I was getting to it,” Art said. “No pressure, then, Evie. Guess I was just hoping you’d decided,” Art said. “Blake and I were both hoping, I should say.”
“Well. I haven’t. One way or the other. The land is still mine.”
In the quiet that followed she went around distributing plastic cups. I was unnerved, and yet it struck me that she was enjoying herself. As long as she didn’t make a decision, she had a certain power over Art and everyone else who wanted this land so badly. It was a new side to my mother, and one I wouldn’t have imagined, one I wasn’t sure I liked. I wondered what she really wanted—what, in the end, she’d decide to do.
“I’m going to pass this wine around,” she said, holding up a bottle. “So you can all have a look before we open it. If I’d known this was going to be such an uneasy moment, I might have waited. But here we are, so I guess we’ll go on. I found this in the basement when I finally started tackling that maze in the back room. It was stuffed away in a box, wrapped up in a quilt that fell to pieces when I pulled it out. Take a look. And then, I suggest we have a toast.”
The bottle passed from hand to hand. When it reached me I held it so it caught a wedge of light. The label was written in dark ink, a slanted handwriting that didn’t belong to Rose.
COMET WINE
Langport, England
1910
Art cleared his throat, getting serious, the way people in the family always did when they talked about Joseph Arthur Jarrett and his comet dreams. “My grandfather used to talk about this wine,” he said. “I was just a boy, but I remember him telling the story. They went out that fall and picked the grapes that had grown beneath that comet sky. They made the wine themselves, and when he emigrated he brought three or four bottles with him. It’s supposed to be special, wine from grapes grown under a comet sky. My, my. I thought it was all long gone.”
I imagined my great-grandfather lifting his face, the light from the comet falling all around him as he dreamed of a new life. Like everyone else, I’d always found this story, passed down through the generations, very moving and important. But now I wondered: where was Rose?
“This bottle must have been forgotten, then,” my mother said. “Packed away for safekeeping, maybe, and then forgotten. Let’s see if they were right about the