The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [92]
You are there still, in that place. My hand aches from this writing, my heart from the steady turn of the wheels.
Love from your mother, Rose
I sat back in the chair, still holding the fragile paper with its careful, slanted handwriting. Toward the end of the page the letters became wider and more wobbly, and twice the words ran off the page entirely. The pages trembled in my hand and I put them down, pressing my palms to my face and running my fingertips along the arch of my eyebrows, down my cheeks and the curve of my neck.
Everything changed with this letter. The story that had shaped my entire life and the lives of everyone I knew had changed. He would begin with the comet, which is the wrong place to start.
Then what had happened, I wondered, to make them flee everything they had known? What were the troubles that put them on that train, Rose with my great-grandfather, dreamy and carefree in his sleep? I flipped through the remaining envelopes in the binder. I imagined Rose bent over these pages, writing in the dimming light, her heart tightened with loss.
The little clock on the mantel struck four, delicate tones falling through the air, muffled in the carpet. A moment later the light footsteps of the curator sounded on the stairs. Without letting myself think what I was doing, I slipped the remaining letters back into the leather binder and shoved this into my bag. Blocks away, the town clock started ringing the hour, and then she was in the doorway, the low afternoon light catching on the silver hoops that climbed her ears.
“Wow, how many earrings do you have?” I blurted out, nervous; the letters were visible inside my bag, if she thought to look.
Startled, she touched her pierced lobes, then smiled.
“Eight in the left ear, nine in the right. Last week I pierced my navel, too. I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to do my tongue.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
She smiled a little wearily, as if she heard the question often. “Not so much. The very tops of my ears, a little. How did the research go? Did you find anything?”
“A letter,” I said, tapping the unfolded pages on the table. “Amid lots of other papers. It has some references that are useful. I wonder—could I take it for a few days?”
“I’m sorry.” She shrugged, then crossed the room and picked the letter up. I didn’t want her to touch it, and kept my hands clasped in my lap with great effort as she scanned the lines. “It hasn’t been cataloged, you see. Probably I shouldn’t have let you see it at all. Is it important?”
“To me it is. To my family. Probably not to history—you know, with a capital H. It’s personal, that’s all. That’s why I’d like to borrow it.”
“Sorry. Really—I would if I could.”
“Okay. I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“Sorry, we’re not open tomorrow. Usually we are, but because of this class, we’re not. It’s kind of an experiment, to see which days get the most traffic. We’ll be open Wednesday and Friday, though, nine to one.”
Slender filaments of panic fanned out around my heart; there was one more box I hadn’t seen at all, but Wednesday was the day Keegan had arranged to see the chapel on the depot land. Friday was the soonest I could come back. But I smiled and shrugged, sensing that it would be better not to make too big a deal of this.
“Ah—that’s too bad. No exceptions?”
She hesitated, glancing from the boxes and back. “I would, you know, but I’m leaving town. I’m going camping with my boyfriend.” She roused a little, curious now, and read the last part of the final page out loud. “ ‘You are there now, in that place. My hand aches from this writing, my heart from the steady turn of the wheels.’ Sounds like a love letter.”
“It is, kind of. A mother to her daughter, actually.”
“Are you sure it’s not important? Maybe I should call the director.”
“Oh, no, don’t bother. Really.” I stood up, making myself step away from the boxes with their tantalizing contents. “Like I said, it’s nothing earth-shaking. Not important to