She sat down after a few minutes and leveled the camera across the table at him. He smiled tolerantly as she snapped away. His face was cast in light and shadow, the line of his jaw sharp. Splinters of gold flickered in his hazel eyes, and she tried to imagine what those eyes would look like in the finished black-and-white photograph. She suddenly felt very impatient to see it.
She set down the camera and cut another slice of bread. "I love riding on these country roads," she said.
Michael swallowed a bite of his peach. "Me, too. I wish I could get Jace to ride with me, but he has zero interest. And Katy doesn't even own a bike. Did you and Phil ride together?"
The question saddened her. "A little," she said. "Before he got sick. But not in recent years." In the last few years she'd ridden alone, welcoming the solitude. Those outings had been her only escape from the pall of illness that had settled over their house. "I liked to go out on my own and just ride. See where I ended up."
"You were always the one with wanderlust when we were kids." Michael set the blade of the knife on top of the cheese and cut off a slice. "You'd read about places you wanted to go and dream up ways to get there."
"Yeah, and I finally got just about everywhere I wanted to go. We did a lot of traveling before Phil got sick. The only place I haven't been where I'm still longing to go is Norway."
He stopped the slice of cheese halfway to his mouth. "You're kidding," he said. "That's where I want to go."
"No." She eyed him with mock doubt.
"Really. I saw this poster one time in—"
"Of the fjords? And a little village?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"Because it's probably the same poster that made me want to go there." She laughed. "It's on the ceiling in my dentist's office, and I stare at it while he's drilling away, wishing I were there."
"It's hanging on the wall of Lewis Klock's study." He shook his head. "There's something about that picture that draws you in. That's the mark of excellent photography, I think. The picture should tug at you.”
"I'll tell that to my kids." She cut a sliver of cheese from the wedge. "How about you?" she asked. "Have you gotten to travel much?"
"Barely at all. Our schedules don't lend themselves very well to travel."
"Phil and I were lucky, having the summers and holidays off. Plus, money was never a problem. Phil came into our marriage with a fortune inherited from his grandparents."
"Is that how you can afford to take a year off?"
"Yes, although there was such an obscene amount of money, I couldn't bring myself to keep it. I have enough for a good retirement and to get Chris through school. The rest I gave away."
"Gave away?"
"Donated. To the Leukemia Research Foundation and a few other charities." She'd enjoyed the process of picking and choosing the charities she'd wanted to help. "I talked to Chris about it first, to make sure he didn't feel cheated out of an inheritance. But Phil had left a good chunk to him directly, and Chris really shocked me. I honestly expected him to buy a car or something extravagant, but he put the better part of the money in savings and did what I did with the rest. Donated it." Chris had selected all animal-related charities. PETA. Friends of Poultry, or some such thing. He'd been a vegetarian since he was old enough to think for himself. "I was really proud of him," she said.
"You set the example."
“I guess.”
"I did the same thing with the money my parents left me," Michael said. "Not that there was that much. But once I'd set some aside for Jace, I gave the rest to the church. To the relief fund." He smiled at her, a rueful expression on his face. "Oh, Rache," he said quietly. "I'm really getting scared."
The skin on her arms tingled at the tone of his voice. "Of what?"
"Of having you here." He touched the back of her hand, lightly, briefly. "Things were pretty intense between us once. I haven't forgotten that. And it's been wonderful, being able to talk with you again. So easy, like we've never been apart. We have so much history together." He began rolling one of the peaches around on the table with his palm. "And if our history were all we had in common, we'd probably be all right. But it seems as though we share some of the same interests now, in the present, as well. The same values. We both love biking. We both want to go to Norway, for heaven's sake. We both gave away our inheritances. We understand each other without even trying. We love each other, and we have since we were kids. At least I assume…?"
She nodded. She was full of love for him.
"And it feels dangerous, that sort of…bond we have," he continued. "That intimacy. It's what I want to have with my wife, and I know that's impossible. I talked to Katy the other night, and when I told her you were in town, I felt as if I were admitting to some guilty little secret." He straightened his back with a sigh. "I touched on this when we talked yesterday at Helen's, but I think the problem's growing by the minute. What I'm trying to say is, that while I want us to be able to do some things together this summer, I feel a need for extreme caution." He looked at her, eyebrows raised, to see if she understood him.
She understood very well. "Tell me how I can help?"
"Just be patient with me, please. If I say I don't want to see you on a given day, or don't want to have to explain you to Jace, or whatever, please understand that it's not you, it's me."
"All right," she said. She thought back to seeing him at church that morning. "Did I make a mistake at church today when I said I'd see you tonight?"
He smiled again. "Well, you did prick up a few ears," he said.
"Sorry." She would have to be more careful.
Yet, as they put away the food and climbed back onto their bikes, she felt relieved that she was no longer alone in wanting someone she could not have.
–12–
Mayor Ursula Torwig sat in her small office on the second floor of the old Starr and Lieber Bank building and rested her eyes on Spring Willow Pond. She was spending more and more time these days sitting and staring at the pond, imagining how it would look when the two big office buildings went up. They would be sleek, glassy structures, and the reflection of the pond would play in their expansive array of windows. Just three stories high, nothing too big. She couldn't understand the fuss everyone was making about the buildings. Some people clung to the status quo, even when it meant their economic decline. She loved Reflection as much as the next person, maybe more. She loved it enough to try to make it the best it could be, and she was certain that someday people would get used to the change. People would come to view the development as the center of a prosperous small town. And her office would be on the third floor of one of the new buildings, instead of this crummy little borrowed space in the bank. She would have a view overlooking the pond.
The plans were spread out on her desk. She pulled them out at least once a day, unable to get enough of them. The curving streets, the hundred spanking new houses. The development would provide an enormous boost for the town's economy. She'd be remembered as the mayor who turned things around for Reflection.
Drew had said that to her once. She'd awakened to find him watching her, to feel his hand resting on her hip. "It's going to be great, Urs," he'd said. "Someday this town's going to thank you. They'll put a statue of you right next to ol' Pete's."
They were going to win. The opposition might have greater numbers, but she had most of the businesses and developers on her side, and they were far more powerful. Plus, they made up the board of supervisors. What did the opposition have? Some citizens, a few Amish farmers who wouldn't fight for themselves if their lives depended on it. She didn’t care about alienating the Amish. They didn't even vote.
She was surprised Michael had gotten into the fray, but then, her cousin had always been a thorn in her side. She'd heard him speak once. He'd been talking about how he came to be a minister, how he'd struggled to find answers to the many problems in his life, and she'd sat there seething. Right, Michael, you had it so rough. Her family had eaten pork and b
eans every night, while his ate steak off good china. He'd grown up in town, with his own bicycle, and his own car, and he'd had the know-how to keep himself out of Vietnam. She'd gotten up at four every morning to do the chores on her family's pig farm, coming home right after school to finish up. She'd feared that her clothes carried the smell of the farm around with her, and she'd been too embarrassed ever to have friends over to her house.
She'd worked hard in high school, knowing it was her only way out. Between chores and homework, she'd slept very little and played even less, but she'd graduated at the top of her class, two years behind her cousin. She'd attended the local college, all her family was able to afford even with the scholarships. And now she was mayor. The thought made her smile. You've come a long way, baby. She glanced over at the empty space above the pond and pictured the glittering new building that would house her office.
Someday soon, she thought. Someday very soon.
–13–
Rachel was combing through the pile of Brussels sprouts in the produce section of the grocery store when she noticed the young man stocking the lettuce. She saw him in profile one moment, then nearly head-on as he reached into the carton at his side. He was close to thirty, she guessed, with thick, dark blond hair, cut short except for a small wisp of a tail at the back of his neck, like Chris's. He had handsome features—high cheekbones, straight nose, strong chin—except for one thing: his face was lined by a patchwork of scars that cut across his cheek, down his chin, above his eye. Her hand froze above the Brussels sprouts as she stared at him. The poor man. Had he been in an accident? Or—her heartbeat quickened at the sudden distressing thought—could he possibly have been in her classroom?
He glanced up at her, and she quickly returned her eyes to her task, embarrassed she'd been caught staring. People must stare at him all the time. Children must worriedly ask their parents if the same thing might happen to them. What a burden to carry that face, so unabashedly handsome beneath the cobweb of scars.
She finished gathering her produce, aware every minute of the young man's presence. Suddenly, he looked at her again, a head of romaine in his hand.
"You're Rachel Huber, aren't you," he said.
"Yes," she answered, and then she knew for certain where he had gotten those scars. She clenched her hands around the handle of her grocery cart. "Were you in my class at Spring Willow?"
"Do you need to ask?"
She reached out to touch his hand. "I'm so sorry," she said, as he pulled his hand away from hers. "So terribly sorry."
He set the romaine on the pile of lettuce and began cutting open another carton. "I was one of the lucky ones, so they tell me," he said. "Seems like you were actually the lucky one, though, huh? Conveniently out of the room when it happened?"
"What's your name?"
"Kenneth Biers."
"Kenneth. If there were some way I could go back and change that day, I'd give up the rest of my life to do it." She wasn’t lying. Her eyes burned with the truth behind the words. She wished there were some way she could have that chance.
He smiled a smile that said he didn’t believe her.
"If there's ever any way I can help you, please let me know." She could hear the emptiness in that offer and was not surprised by his derisive snort as he shook his head and returned to his work. For the first time, she regretted having given Phil's money away. It could have been used here to help people like this young man.
Slowly, she pushed her cart away from the produce section and started down the dairy aisle. She was clinging to the cart, her knees rubbery, and the edges of her vision blackened briefly. This must be how Gram feels half the time, she thought to herself. Weak-kneed and dazed. She couldn’t faint here, couldn’t draw that attention to herself. "I'm sorry," she said again, to the air. It wasn't my fault, she wanted to say. She'd been a victim, too.
She finished her shopping with a wooden concentration, considering all the while the possibility of returning to the produce section and talking again with Kenneth. She turned her cart in that direction a few times but couldn't make herself go to him. What could she say? She was afraid to see his face close up, to feel what the mother of that young man must feel each time she set eyes on him. His mother must relish having someone to blame.
Once outside the store, Rachel unloaded her groceries, all the while imagining that the few people in the parking lot were staring at her. She was getting paranoid. She drove out of the lot, but instead of turning onto Farmhouse Road toward her grandmother's house, she turned right, toward town. She drove resolutely into the heart of Reflection, parked her car in front of the library, and in spite of the perishables in her trunk, walked over to the small circular park in the center of town, across the street from Huber Pond.
The park was deserted, and she felt an odd relief as the oaks and maples and birch trees closed behind her, making her less visible to the rest of the world. Yet she knew it was not relief this park had to offer her. As she slowly walked among the trees, she counted the weeping cherries, not stopping until she'd found all ten of them. At the tenth, she turned in a circle, her eyes searching for the stone memorial that had to be nearby. There it was, a sloping, symmetrical arc of fieldstone. She walked toward it slowly. Bouquets of cut flowers, some dried and dying, others fresh as though someone had brought them only minutes earlier, had been propped up against the memorial. At the peak of the stone arc was a bronze plaque.
In Remembrance of the Ten Children of Reflection Lost to Us on
September 10, 1973
That We May Never Forget
A list of the children's names followed: William Albrecht, Fredric Cash, Ruth Kitchin, Annie Paris, Patrice Rader, Jennifer Wright, Julia Shouse, Gary Feldman, Jacob Geyer, and Thomas Pike.
A list of strangers, Rachel thought. Too many names over the years. And these ten. Had she even known when she'd fled town which children had died? She couldn’t remember. But she had to remember.
She straightened one of the bouquets of flowers that had fallen onto its side, then took a seat on a nearby bench.
She had been twenty-three years old when she returned home from the Peace Corps, leaving Michael behind her in Rwanda. She interviewed for several jobs and was offered the position at Spring Willow Elementary. Then she found an apartment and her father spent the weekend before Luke was to arrive helping her move her things from the old triplex into the even older one-bedroom apartment. Her mother talked to her about Luke, about how excited she must be to see him after all this time, and her father joked about how no one would bother them for a full week. Longer, if they liked.
"You kids just get to know each other again," he said. "We'll have plenty of time to spend with you later." She loved him for his understanding, but she couldn’t explain to him that it didn't seem to matter to her. She couldn’t rid her mind of thoughts of Michael, of her last memory of him, his hand cradling her bare breast. She couldn't tell her parents that she felt no longing to spend time alone with her husband, that she wished with all her heart that she did.
She met Luke in the Harrisburg airport, and he hugged her hard. He was still handsome, although his body had changed. He looked thinner, but when she embraced him she felt the hardness of him beneath her arms, as though all softness had left his body and the muscle that remained had grown taut and tight. He felt like a stranger, but he whispered into her ear as he hugged her, "Beautiful lady," and that sounded like the Luke she knew.
He was protective of his luggage, checking the bags, wanting to be sure he left nothing behind. He carried three pieces, she carried two as they walked out to the car, and when she set one of the suitcases down to fumble in her pocket for the parking ticket, he grabbed her arm.
"Keep your eye on it!" he snapped, pointing to the suitcase. The bag was so close to her, it almost rested against her leg, and she knew then that the Luke who had left her a year earlier was not the Luke who had returned. He seemed as angry, as tightly wired, as he had been during their painful
week-long visit in San Francisco. Maybe worse.
He was quiet in the car.
"Are you tired?" she asked, wondering if that was the reason for his silence.
"Not really." He was looking out the window, watching Pennsylvania roll by, and the silence mounted between them.
This was ridiculous. Her oldest friend, and she could think of nothing to say to him.
"I've missed you," she tried, although it was not quite the truth.
"You, too." He smiled at her, but it was a quick smile. Forced.
What could she say? She couldn’t begin to sum up her experience of the past year any better than he could his. Focus on the present, she told herself.
"I think you'll like the apartment," she said.
He turned to look at a passing motorcycle. "Sure," he said.
Another few minutes passed.
"Everyone's looking forward to seeing you," she tried.
He let out a short, disdainful laugh, and she looked at him in confusion.
"Everyone's so protected here, you know?" he asked. "I mean, it's a shitty world out there, and I've seen the most fucked-up parts of it."
She tightened her hands on the steering wheel, unaccustomed to hearing Luke swear.
"Reflection kind of feels like Disneyland to me now," he said. "You grew up your whole life here, like I did. You can't know what kind of fucking shit there is in the world when you're—"
"I just spent a year in an impoverished, destitute region in Africa, Luke." She felt angry. Patronized. "I know it wasn't like what you had to go through, I know I wasn't in that kind of danger, but please don't talk to me like I've been living in an ivory tower."
He pounded a fist on the dashboard. "Pull this damn car over to the side of the road."