Mercy Train (20 page)

But there had been one moment, one day, when Iris, at thirty-seven, had decided that she could bend her course off its rails, to begin again. She didn't know what that change looked like, but she wanted to make herself available to it. There had been no big argument with Glenn. In fact, everything was fine. He'd just given her an Hermès scarf for their ninth wedding anniversary. Theo had started second grade. She had recently begun tennis lessons. She had a pork roast defrosting in the refrigerator.

After dropping Theo off at school, she returned to a clean and quiet house, put on her pale-rose wool suit from Bonwit's, her most flattering and sophisticated outfit, the belt of the dress cinched tight around her slim waist above an A-line knife-pleated skirt. A cropped little jacket over it. White square-heeled pumps. She wore her hair in a modified flip, the ends curled up and set twice a month at the hairdresser's, which she now brushed and smoothed. She didn't know where she was going, but she got in the car and drove south. When she hit Chicago she drove along Lake Shore, the lake a wind-whipped blue, the sun's reflection making it too bright to look at straight on. She felt both numb and exuberant, her freedom a secret no one yet knew, as she veered into the city at Michigan Avenue. And there it was, the Drake Hotel, just to the left on East Walton, and Iris felt as if it were what she had been looking for.

The Drake was where those with means stayed in Chicago. Iris had attended wedding receptions here, and she and Glenn had eaten at the Cape Cod Room many times, big nights out when they still lived in the city. She'd even taken her mother to the Drake to give her the full Chicago experience. Her mother had declared the hotel a little snooty and the tea weak, and she had not seemed awed by the grand scale and excitement of the city. Iris had been surprised, even a little hurt. She'd always had the silly inclination to impress her mother by the trappings of her life, as if she needed to show off why she'd left Minnesota.

As the valet took her car, Iris straightened her skirt, pressed her lips together to even her pale pink lipstick, wiggled off her engagement and wedding rings, and pretended she was someone else. The hotel bar, the Coq d'Or, had a dark, clubby feel, with butternut paneling, swanky lantern lamps that hung low from the ceiling over the tables, and a quilted turquoise leather banquette against the back wall. The bow-tied piano player, an older man with sparse gray hair slicked back from his forehead, smiled as she glanced over. The heavy bar was lined with red leather seats, a large crystal ashtray at each. It being midday, there were groups of suited men at a few tables, even a group of women laughing and smoking, but the bar itself was empty, save for an old man at the end nursing a watery scotch.

Iris perched on a seat at the bar, crossing her legs a little to the side, and pulled out a cigarette from a small silver case in her purse. She didn't smoke a lot, but it calmed her nerves, and she thought it made her look alluring. The bartender was instantly in front of her with a lighter. She felt conspicuous—a woman drinking alone was uncouth—but in the role she was playing, she didn't mind. She rubbed the absence of her rings with her thumb.

“Gin and tonic please,” she said to the bartender. “And a cucumber sandwich.”

The room's sounds enveloped her in a warm cocoon: ice tinkling in thick bar glasses, martinis being shaken, the low tones of professional men's conversations, the occasional roar of a man's laugh, the magpie cackle of one of the women, and, in the lulls, the soothing piano to smooth over any moments of fearful silence. She sipped her cold and bitter drink, the green ribbon of lime peel clinging to the edge of the glass, and stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. The bartender whisked away her ashtray and replaced it with a clean one. She crunched her dainty sandwich and dabbed at her mouth, careful not to wipe away her lipstick. The part up until now had been fun—she'd felt uncharacteristically nervy—but the reality of sitting here now started to feel desperate. What did she have to complain about, really? And Theo. As if she could ever leave her brown-eyed little boy who loved trains and still held her hand when they walked down the sidewalk.

“Excuse me,” a man said, suddenly beside her. “Are you waiting for someone?”

She furrowed her brow a little to stifle the laugh she felt gurgle in her throat.

“No. Having lunch,” was all she could get out.

“May I join you?” He was younger than she was, confident. She guessed he was in advertising from his slim little black suit and flamboyant paisley tie.

“That would be fine,” she said.

“Richard.”

He held out his small hand and she shook it. It was damp, unappealing.

“Iris.” This does not feel exciting or romantic, she thought. She felt foolish.

“You are one pretty lady, Iris.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

“What're you drinking?” he asked, leaning in.

“Gin. And tonic.”

Richard held up two fingers to the bartender and pointed to Iris's glass.

This is ridiculous, she thought. What was she going to do? Have an affair with this man in one of the upstairs rooms? She was not a movie heroine. She was Iris, wife and mother.

She caught the bartender's eye. “My bill, please.”

“Oh, come on now.” Richard placed a proprietary hand on her wrist. “We were just getting acquainted. Stay for one more drink.”

Iris smiled and pulled her arm free. “It was nice to meet you, Richard.”

She retrieved more money than was necessary from her billfold and stacked it on her check.

Richard sighed loudly and lit a cigarette as she left. As she swung past the curve of the bar, she slipped a gold-rooster coaster in her purse.

She drove home. She didn't feel embarrassed by what she'd done or disappointed that nothing came of it. In fact, the excursion had made her feel powerful, and she would think back on it on occasion, in the months and years that followed, to remind herself of how easy it had been, momentarily at least, to walk away. And somehow that had made it more palatable to stay.

*   *   *

Out on her balcony, swallowed up by the dark, soft air, Iris sat and sipped her water and listened to the sounds that had become a backdrop to her aloneness: the crickets, the frogs, faint calypso music from the bar near the beach, the thudding of Stephen jumping rope for the second time today, the mosquito zapper from the pink house encrusted with seashells, and always the seagulls. The wind carried with it the soft sticky sea with a tangy endnote from the orange and lemon trees below. Sanibel had been a good home for her. It had let her be and, most importantly, she had chosen it.

 

SAM

December 10, 1910

Dear Mrs. Olsen,

It was with great expectation that I read your letter. A flood of emotion overtook me when I realized who you were. Has it really been ten years already? Where does the time go? Here I am, an old woman, a grandmother many times over.

As for your request, I am afraid I came up sorely short. I inquired at the Aid Society of one Joseph Sewell, bookkeeper, but after an exhaustive examination, as he characterized it, he was unable to find anything that might assist you in your search. Adequate records, I'm afraid, have never been the Society's strong suit. I took it upon myself to check the most recent Manhattan directory, but found no one by the name you provided.

You were my last group of children. I have fond memories of our journey together, though certainly there is sadness in remembering our farewell. I will always believe that the Lord's hand steered us, and that He keeps watch over us all.

I am pleased to hear of your health, and hope soon you will be blessed with a child of your own.

Faithfully yours,

Mrs. Harriet Comstock

While the pound cake baked, Sam tried to tease out meaning from the letter to her grandmother. Where had she come from? Who was she looking for?

The buzzer sounded and she lifted the butter-glistening brick out of the oven. It landed with a
thwunk
as she overturned it on a wire cooling rack, a rich and delicious mess. She pulled out the aluminum foil, tearing off a sheet against the tiny metal teeth of the box, and encased the still-warm cake. Maybe her brother would know something.

“What's up?” Theo answered.

“I found this letter to Grandmother Olsen in the box. From 1910.”

“And?”

“I can't figure it out. The woman mentions the Aid Society. And there was a Bible in the box with the address of the Children's Aid Society in it. Is there any way Grandmother could have been an orphan? In New York City?”

“All I know about her is that she grew up in Ohio or somewhere before Minnesota.”

“Wisconsin.”

“Whatever. The Midwest. And that she knit. A lot. And made a kickass butterscotch pudding. The letter was in Mom's stuff. Don't you think she would have told us if her mother had been an orphan in New York? That's a pretty big detail.”

“It was in with recipes Mom probably never even looked through. Maybe Grandmother never told her.”

*   *   *

Iris had gotten tickets to a concert to be held at the Presbyterian church, a performance by the Ying Quartet, precocious Chinese-American siblings from Iowa, and despite her inability to walk, her morphine flooded nod-offs, and her shallow, wheezy breaths, she had been insistent that she and Sam attend. Sam blow-dried her mother's hair, helped apply mascara, blush, and lipstick to her hollow, gray-skinned face, and dressed her in a navy silk caftan that swathed her ravaged body.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Sam asked again.

“I want to go out with Tchaikovsky in my head,” she said.

The wheelchair was heavier than Iris was to load into the car.

The church had a dated island feel, the stained glass panels too modern and bright, the pew cushions, like everything in Florida, sea-foam green. Sam rolled Iris up to the front row, the wheelchair parked on the end of the pew.

“Let's move back some,” Iris said. “I'd like to be able to see everyone.”

It was a strange request, given that Iris always wanted to sit close—for movies, for weddings even—but Sam complied.

Iris hungrily watched the arriving audience walk up the aisle and fill the seats, her eyes hot and foggy. She was not here for the music after all. She was looking for someone. In her periphery, Sam watched her mother's eyes roam and seek.

“Are you okay?” Sam whispered as the church quieted.

“Ha ha,” Iris rasped, her feathery hands momentarily aloft.

As the four young musicians took to the stage wielding their stringed instruments behind the pulpit, an older couple hustled up the center aisle. The man was tall and white-haired and wore horn-rimmed glasses and a well-tailored gray pinstripe suit—he was the only man there so dressed—and the woman wore a crisp white shirt and black trousers, a blond chignon at the nape of her neck. Iris lifted her chin and dropped her shoulders. Her gaze softened. The music began—Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor, Sam read in the program—and then Iris dozed off, her head cocked awkwardly toward her shoulder. Sam allowed her mind to wander. She and Jack had had a mild argument on the phone the night before over baby names; she liked Charlotte, Helen, and Louise, while Jack was pushing for Flannery.

“It's too literary,” she said.

“Why is that bad?” he asked.

“Because she's a baby. Not a footnote on your CV.”

She had said this in jest, and he had chuckled—“at least I'm not proposing Salman”—but she had the unsettling realization that Jack's career would always mean more to him than she'd like it to.

At intermission, roused by the applause, Iris tried to adjust herself in the wheelchair. She swallowed, an effort, and pressed her lips together to even her lipstick.

“How do I look?” she said.

Sam smiled and wiped a fleck of mascara from her mother's cheek.

As the distinguished couple passed by on the way to the lobby, the man glanced at Iris with the slightest shift of his eyes. His face tightened on sight, his mouth a grim line. Sam tried to look elsewhere, to afford her mother the privacy of the moment. A minute later the man returned alone.

“Hello, Iris,” he said, crouching down beside her.

“Hello, Henry.”

“How are you?” His voice was quiet and grave.

“This is my daughter, Samantha.”

Sam shook his soft hand and smiled, and he squeezed hers in return.

“It is wonderful to meet you,” he said. “Tchaikovsky,” he said to Iris.

“Tchaikovsky,” she replied.

Henry leaned in to Iris and said hoarsely, “I have missed you, dear.”

There was something in Iris's face then, a spark of heat, a knowingness, and it seemed that whatever it was she had been after, she'd found it.

“I will miss you,” she said to him with a faint smile, and it seemed he understood the finality.

He cleared his throat and straightened up just as his wife appeared, a lovely woman with slim hands and regal cheekbones. The lights flickered, signaling the end of intermission, and he placed his hand on his wife's back and led her to their seats without turning around.

Sam felt a dart of sorrow for her mother then, for the banality of having loved a married man, for the affair that had happened or had not, for Iris wanting to see him, or to be seen by him, one last time.

“Now we can go,” Iris had said. Inside the car, she didn't volunteer anything further.

“Mom?”

She didn't respond.

“Did you love him?”

Iris waved her hand dismissively, as if in the face of death, there wasn't any point in discussing it.

“I'm thankful to have known him,” she said, closing her eyes.

You're not going to tell me anything? You're going to die and I won't know you at all, Sam said to herself. She drove slowly under a heavy moon that paled the sky, her hands clenching the top of the steering wheel. Frantic bugs danced in the headlights.