The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [77]
“I’m hungry,” Max announced.
“Granola bars and juice in the backpack,” Keegan said. “It’s up there, under the bow.” Max lifted a curtain and scooted into the cavelike space.
“He likes it in there,” Keegan said. “He’ll stay there the rest of the ride, I bet.”
We passed more forested land, more fields, and came to the shoreline my mother owned: the boathouse and my kayak on the shale beach, the wide lawn up to the house with its porches and French doors, its cupola.
“Remember that night you snuck out?” Keegan asked. “I was waiting right here in the canoe, trying to stay in the shadows. You were wearing a white dress.”
“I nearly tipped the canoe trying to get in,” I said. “I got soaked.”
“It was a warm night, as I remember.”
“It was,” I said, remembering how we’d sat spooned close together, me leaning back and Keegan’s arms around my waist, and the moon floating above us.
“We were so young, weren’t we?”
“Yes, we were. We were indeed.” Keegan lingered for a moment longer before he turned the boat in a wide curve and headed back, the damp wind rushing over our faces.
We docked, and Keegan lifted Max from the boat as we talked, making tentative plans to meet at the chapel on Wednesday. We parted at the sidewalk, but I stood watching them walk, Max skipping again, his shoes flashing, as they went hand in hand back to the glassworks, back to the fire and motion.
The Impala was stifling. I opened all the windows and doors to let it cool while I took out my phone to check my e-mail. Nothing more from Yoshi, which made me a little uneasy. Maybe he was just busy. I pulled up an earlier message and then a photo of the two of us, taken by a stranger outside the hot springs. Yoshi had his arm around my shoulders, and we were both smiling, and there was nothing in the picture to reveal our languorous dance in the dark kitchen, or the little flares of anger, or the trembling earth.
There was a message from the Serling College Special Collections office confirming that they had possession of the collected papers of Vivian Branch, and saying also that they were in the process of researching my request. Last was a message I didn’t expect, from Oliver Parrott. It was very formal, inviting me to visit the museum again to go through some of the images from his archives. Stuart would be there, he assured me, though the house wasn’t officially open on Saturdays, and I was welcome to bring someone, too. He had spoken to the church, he said, and felt quite passionately about the connections that were emerging. He could not wait to see the other windows, and he had stood for a long time this morning before the window on the landing of the woman with her arms full of flowers.
Full of irises, I thought.
Yes, I wrote back. I will come.
Chapter 10
SOME DREAMS MATTER, ILLUMINATE A CRUCIAL CHOICE, OR reveal some intuition that’s trying to push its way to the surface. Others, though, are detritus, the residue of the day reassembling itself in some disjointed and chaotic way, and those were the sorts of dreams I had the night before I drove back to see Oliver Parrott—dreams of chasing after Max, whose laughter I kept hearing in the trees, floating over water; dreams of running across the depot land, trying to climb out over the fences, which kept growing higher. Yoshi was in the dreams, too, trying to help, unable to find me. Frantic dreams, they left me tired, and I woke grouchy to another rainy day, the sky so densely gray and the rain so thick that I couldn’t see the opposite shore.
I pulled on the only pair of jeans I’d brought, my last clean T-shirt, and the same dark blue Night Riders sweatshirt. In the gray light, the color made me look bleached-out and tired. I brushed my hair and teeth, collected a basket of dirty laundry, and made my way downstairs.
Though it was Saturday