A Paper Son (40 page)

“We're in a restricted area,” he said, and though he nearly had to shout to be heard over the sound of the engines, which were just beneath us, his voice was calm, even warm. “The guys will let them know you're okay, and when we get you dry and bundled up we'll take you to them.” He sat down next to me and put a hand on my chest. “Just rest now,” he said. For a moment I lost track of which world he belonged to.

“I can see why she's missed him,” I said, and though I don't think my voice could have been heard over the engines, he nodded. I wasn't sure how this could make sense—Eva had never known Henry; decades had transpired between his disappearance and her birth—but it seemed right, somehow. He was everywhere, having managed to project so much of himself into my stories, my family, into the very architecture of our rain-beaten city.

My breathing was returning to normal now, and the color was coming back into my vision, but I had no desire to rise, not yet—the weight of my soaking clothes held me to the deck, and there was heat emanating from the crewman's hand, which still rested on my chest.

“Tell me your name, friend,” he said.

“I'm Peregrine,” I said.

“I've heard of you,” he said. His face did not change. “You've got a thing for swimming with your clothes on.”

“I think I'm done with that,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Things can get tricky for us down here.”

He helped me to my feet. The other men returned with a dry T-shirt and two sweatshirts from the souvenir stand, a pair of rubber rain pants and some wool blankets. As I dried off and changed I thought of the things Henry had said, and of Lucy's theories. Even the most extreme suggestion—that he had somehow been reborn in me—did not account for enough. There were too many other echoes, other resonances between his life and mine: sets of quadruplets, violin music, manuscripts, crops, the strength of our older sisters, fathers who'd left us when we were still children. Each discovery along the way had gone into the construction of a pair of galaxies which now spun in unison, exactly alongside one another, in maddening proximity, their centers pierced through by Rose's miraculous, fluctuating existence.

It was too much for me to hold in my mind all at once and when I tried, it all ran through and away like the wash of water that had flooded this whole search: reflecting in my teacup, running through the gutters, sitting in rice paddies, beating down all around us, and even now, holding us afloat. I thought of the
erhu
player and his music, sinking into the Pacific with Rose's manuscript in his bag, the sea pushing its way into that bamboo tube, pulling her little penciled letters into itself, and swallowing them. I thought of myself as a child, lying facedown in that wading pool, the water pressing into my lungs, my eyes and ears, my cells, carrying its contents into places it was not supposed to be.

The crewmen bagged my wet clothes and led me out of the aft compartments and into the main body of the ship, where Eva, Lucy, and Annabel met me with solemn greetings and consternation. They wanted to keep me in the cabin, where it was warm, but I insisted on heading back to the top deck. In my makeshift outfit, and with the blankets wrapped around me, we made for the stairs. As I climbed, my whole body tingling with the temperature change, I could feel the finality of this unfolding moment. I would have to say something to Eva, and she would hear my words, take them away, and carry them with her forever, the concluding material of this lifelong search.

We took seats on benches. None of the women spoke. Eva was sitting very still, her hands folded in her lap, not breathing. I turned to her, searching for words.

“He was there,” I said. “He spoke to me.”

And that was all it took. I don't know if it was a tone in my voice, or a change in my face, but something inside Eva released, and her tension fell away and vanished, almost the same way that the
Crystal Gypsy
, and Henry himself, had loosened, and dissipated. She didn't ask me what he'd said.

“He went down on that ship, didn't he?” she said, looking down. She shook her head, the movement barely perceptible, and muttered something that sounded like Mae's name.

“I don't know for certain,” I said. “He was a little cryptic.” I glanced at Annabel. “And then he disappeared.”

Eva nodded. Her eyes lost their focus; she seemed to be staring through the ship, through the water below, to a spot somewhere far beneath all this. “Thank you,” she said, her voice quiet. Annabel reached out and put a hand on her arm.

We were out in the open bay now, with Alcatraz passing on our port side, dark and imperious, and farther out to our starboard side, the Golden Gate Bridge, drained of its color in the fading sunlight, standing like a battlement between us and the vast wild strangeness of the Pacific beyond it. Eva rose and walked slowly to the railing, where she stood, looking westward.

One by one we walked over and joined her. San Francisco was fast approaching. We watched it grow, its gray hills and towers rising into the silver winter sky.

JASON BUCHHOLZ is an editor, writer, and artist. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in
Gobbledegook
and
Switchback
. He holds a BA in psychology from UC Berkeley and an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco. He lives in El Cerrito with his wife and son.

Despite the lone name on the cover of this book, the work in these pages is the result of a great many ongoing collaborations.

Many thanks to Ben LeRoy and Ashley Myers at Tyrus Books—Ben, whose determined advocacy made this publication possible, and Ashley, whose sensitive readings helped guide it to its final form.

Many thanks to Robyn Russell, whose faith, support, and direction have been integral to this pursuit over the last decade.

Many thanks to Tavia Stewart-Streit and LJ Moore, who first brought Peregrine and Annabel to the public, as part of Invisible City Audio Tour's production
The Armada of Golden Dreams.
A sort of far-distant epilogue to this story is available as part of the tour, which uses music, poetry, and fiction to guide listeners through a series of gold-rush-era ships buried beneath San Francisco's financial district.

Many thanks to my parents, David and Jadyne, who taught me the power and scope of language; to my wife, Rachel McGraw, who taught me the reasons to wield it; and to my son, Hawthorn, for creating a home where imagination and creativity are in constant supply. Many thanks to my sister Jennifer and my brother John for their feedback on early drafts, their support, and their respective examples of dedication, sacrifice, and excellence.

Many thanks to the teachers, staff, and my fellow students in the creative writing MFA program at the University of San Francisco—in particular to Lewis Buzbee, whose lessons, energy, and humor continue to ring in my head every time I flip the laptop open. I can't imagine what any of this would look like without those sublime years.

Many thanks to UC Berkeley's Professor Robert Eric Barde, whose book
Immigration at the Golden Gate: Passenger Ships, Exclusion, and Angel Island
(Praeger, 2008) contains some rare and crucial research on the Pacific immigration experience during the years of the Asian Exclusion Act; and to Amy Tan and photographer Lynn Johnson, whose article “Village on the Edge of Time” in the May 2008 edition of
National Geographic
provided me with indispensable insight into the customs and life of rural southern China, in particular the
guo-yin
ceremony.

Many thanks to Jennifer Reimer, Joe Cervelin, and John Ritter—your encouragement and camaraderie and your own efforts and determination are indispensable pieces of this community.

Copyright © 2016 by Jason Buchholz.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

TYRUS BOOKS

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.tyrusbooks.com

Hardcover ISBN 10: 1-4405-9161-X

Hardcover ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9161-7

Paperback ISBN 10: 1-4405-9162-8

Paperback ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9162-4

eISBN 10: 1-4405-9163-6

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9163-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Buchholz, Jason.

A paper son / Jason Buchholz.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4405-9161-7 (hc) -- ISBN 1-4405-9161-X (hc) -- ISBN 978-1-4405-9162-4 (pb) -- ISBN 1-4405-9162-8 (pb) -- ISBN 978-1-4405-9163-1 (ebook) -- ISBN 1-4405-9163-6 (ebook)

1. Novelists--Fiction. 2. Characters and characteristics--Fiction. 3. Missing children--Fiction. I. Title.

PS3602.U2537P36 2016

813'.6--dc23

2015025804

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover design by Frank Rivera.

Cover images ©
iStockphoto.com/Jasmina007/RonTech2000
.