Please Remember This (28 page)

If Nina Lane had wanted to kill herself, she would have done as Marie had; she would have drowned herself in the Missouri River.

Tess groped for the fence, wanting something to hold on to, but the honeysuckle was too thick. Her hands kept closing around the blossoms, crushing them.

Suicide had been her family inheritance. It had deadened her grandmother and left Tess in a fog-shrouded world. But it hadn’t happened. Nina hadn’t gone to New York to commit suicide. Her note to
Sierra hadn’t been a suicide note. She was going to take the baby to California herself. She wanted her mother to meet her baby. That was why she had drawn a violet at the bottom of the note. She had gone to New York to ask Duke to come back to California with her. Her parents would not have liked her returning without the baby’s father.

Why are you telling me this?
Tess didn’t know if she would get an answer.
I
have been the least dutiful of daughters. I have denied you. I have hated you. I have had no compassion for your torment.

The answer was immediate.
Because you are the only one who can reach her.

The day’s events were entering their climax, the most elaborate of the trilogy’s reenactments. People were streaming toward the arena. The entry points were blocked, so the arena must already be full. There was no way for Tess to get in. She circled around to the stage end of the building, the only one with a solid exterior wall. Next to an unmarked door, a young man in a yellow T-shirt marked “Security” sat on a folding chair.

“I need to go inside,” Tess said.

Apparently a lot of people “needed” to go inside. “Sorry,” the man said, not meaning it. “You have to be on the program to use this entrance.”

The door opened, and two people in elaborate costumes stepped outside. Over their heads she could see Gordon. “Gordon knows me. Ask him if I can go in.”

The guard caught Gordon’s attention. Gordon gave Tess a long look. Why should he let her in? He didn’t want anything interesting happening here, not
this year. But he shrugged and lifted his hand, giving permission. He owed her that much.

The narrow corridor was crowded with costumed people waiting to take the stage, but Gordon thrust out his arm, clearing the way for Tess. As she approached the stairs that led up to the stage, she saw Ned on the other side, talking to people, still with the papers from his talk under his arm. He started forward at the sight of her. She lifted her hand reassuringly.
I’m all right. I know what I’m doing.

The crowd quieted as she stepped onto the stage. They were expecting someone to be introducing the dramatization. The canvas storm curtains had been let down, and the arena was lit with artificial light.

Tess had never addressed a crowd, and she paused, startled at how many people there were in front of her. The microphone was cold in her hand. Suddenly the interior lights went out, and a bright spotlight focused on her. She blinked. This was what she had always tried to avoid, the white-hot glare of a spotlight.

But she was not going to quit. She was Nina Lane’s daughter. The spotlight would be a part of her life.

She gripped the microphone and spoke. “I was born with the name Western Settler Lanier. Nina Lane was my mother.”

Chapter 19

 

S
urprise surged through the crowd. Tess could hear people stirring; they were shuffling and murmuring. She gestured at the spotlight operator, and when he realized that she was not part of the reenactment, he turned the arena lights back on. It felt better to her that way. She would never like spotlights.

“I’ve never spoken before because I’ve never had anything to say. I have no memories at all of Nina Lane. I was three months old when she died, and it appears that even during those three months I was cared for primarily by another member of the Settlement community, Sierra Celandine.”

Would knowing that Nina hadn’t committed suicide make a difference to Sierra? Tess hoped so.

“The first thing I have to say is that people need to stop idolizing the person Nina Lane. She was a marvelous writer, but as a person, she was difficult. She was isolated and selfish. Her mental illness left her without the strength to be anything else. To think of her as someone who would have been your dearest friend will lead to a backlash, people determinedly trying to villify her, which won’t be that difficult.”

Tess wished she had planned out what she was going
to say. She did know that she would not mention anything about Duke not being her father. That was his secret to tell, not hers. “Nina Lane used people, she lied to them, she was heedless of them. You can’t let admiration of her work blind you to that.”

The people in the front row—the ones Tess could see best—were exchanging confused looks. Her words were harsh, but her tone was without anger. She tried to explain. “I am saying all this because I don’t want anyone to think that I idolize her, that I am blind to her faults. I’m probably more critical of her than anyone. But despite that, I do believe one thing, even though I have almost no evidence for it, just a line drawing of a violet at the bottom of a note, but I believe it with all my heart. Nina Lane did not commit suicide.”

Another wave of surprise swept through the audience. Some people rose in their seats. Others gasped and grabbed at their neighbors’ arms. Tess’s gaze sought out Ned. He was looking as surprised as everyone else, but then, as he made eye contact with her, he understood. He understood what had happened; he understood why Tess believed this. She had heard.

Tess turned back to the mike. “Nina Lane was no Juliet. She was not so passionate about love that she would rather die than live without Duke Nathan. The only thing she cared that much about was her work. She did love one person, her mother, and I’m sure you can see that in the intense emotion of
The Riverboat Fragment.”

The people in the front rows were nodding. Tess looked only at them. That made it seem as if there were fewer people in the crowd.

“The new introduction argues that being pregnant changed what Nina was writing about, and I would go on to say that writing about a mother-daughter bond made her more aware of how strongly she felt about her own mother. So I believe that she had decided to take her baby—me—home to see her parents.” Tess recited the note that Nina had left Sierra and explained what she thought the drawing meant. “There are a number of reasons she would have gone to Duke first. She probably didn’t feel able to travel on her own with a baby. She knew that her parents were conventional people. They would have preferred to have her come with someone they could at least tell the neighbors was her husband.”

Then, without saying anything about the voice she had heard, she told the alternative version of Nina’s being on the roof, trying to emphasize how speculative it was—that perhaps she had stumbled, perhaps the hem of her cape had caught.

“It was ripped.” A man in the audience suddenly stood up. He was standing toward the front and he turned to face the crowd. He was tall, and his voice was loud; it carried well. “I’m Dave Samson, and I know there have been rumors for years that I have photos taken by a bystander in New York that night. I’ve always denied it, but it’s true. I do have them. I got them illegally, and I don’t show them around because they aren’t the sort of thing that should be seen. But I can tell you that when she was being lifted … well, let’s just say that on one photo it shows very clearly that one section of the hem of her cape was sagging.” He turned back to Tess. “I always wondered if it was significant. It might have torn
when she landed, but she might have stumbled on it, she really might have.”

He sat down and, holding his hands up, was already warding people off, having stepped into the mess that he, like Tess, had obviously been trying to avoid for years.

“This isn’t simple,” Tess said. “Nina Lane was manic-depressive. There can be no question about that. She wasn’t stable. That’s why everyone has been willing to believe that her death was a suicide. If she hadn’t been disturbed, more questions would have been asked. But you heard Ned this morning. Nina might have been identifying with Marie Lanier. Surely if she had wanted to die, she would have drowned herself as Marie Lanier did.”

Tess could see the front rows nodding again.

She was done. This wasn’t much of a finish, but she couldn’t help it. She had said all she had to say. She slipped the microphone back into the circular bracket at the top of the stand. Ned was waiting for her at the bottom of the stage’s stairs. She couldn’t imagine how he had gotten through the crowd. The re-enactors were pressing close to the stairs, but as she descended, he put out his arm, blocking the crowd. He pulled open a door nestled beneath the stage.

They were in a little room with benches built into the walls. It was being used by the organizers for temporary storage. A big orange water jug sat on a bench next to a fistful of broad-tipped markers held together by a rubber band. The flip chart Ned had used for his talk was against the wall.

“That was something,” he said. “I didn’t expect that.”

“You
didn’t expect that? What about me? I didn’t exactly wake up this morning planning on speaking to a big crowd, telling them some far-fetched story I had heard from a dead person. That wasn’t in my day’s plans.”

She felt euphoric. She had done it. She had told the world that she was Nina Lane’s daughter.

She was going to be besieged. She was going to be annoyed. People would be intrusive and tedious. But she could live with that. Anything was better than the legacy of suicide that she had been living with.

“So you think you made some kind of connection with her?” Ned asked.

“I did feel that way at the time. It felt very real. Of course, knowing me”—she shrugged, laughing at herself—”I might wake up tomorrow morning and try to talk myself out of it.”

“You won’t do that.”

“You’re probably right. I’m almost starting to like the idea.”

Ned nodded. “I know. A couple of times during the dig, we would avoid a huge problem by inches or seconds, and I’d wonder if my grandfather wasn’t upstairs pulling a few strings for me.”

“I didn’t feel that way at all. The presence I felt was not a nurturing one. I had no sense that she, it, whatever it was, cared at all about what was happening to me.” Tess felt fine about that. “Let’s not be sentimental here. Why should dying suddenly turn Nina Lane into a nurturing, caring individual?”

Ned acknowledged the truth of that. “So where do you go from here? You’ve outted yourself. There’s going to be no end to the publicity.”

“I know. I still have a lot of stuff to figure out.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I know,” she said again. “I’ve always felt very complete. Even the year or so after my grandparents died, I felt complete. Empty but complete—this was who I was, I wasn’t changing. But maybe people aren’t supposed to feel complete. Maybe that’s too close to death.”

There was a knock on the door, instantly followed by Phil’s entry. “You know, Tess,” he said, shaking his head, “you could have warned us—at least let us prepare a press release. We could have gotten a lot of mileage out of it.” He turned to Ned. “Did you know she was going to do that?”

“I was as surprised as you were.”

“Wait until next year,” Tess said. “Then I’ll tell everyone that Duke Nathan’s not my father.”

“That will cause a flurry,” Phil said easily. “In fact—”

“Wait a minute,” Ned interrupted. “Is that true?” Phil had clearly taken it as a joke. “Is Duke really
not
your father?”

“Not biologically. He let Nina put his name on my birth certificate even though she slept with someone while he was at Mardi Gras. He’s nowhere near the cad people make him out to be.”

“This is interesting.” Phil had straightened. “Are you going to say anything?”

“No, and you aren’t either. It’s up to him. Now I’m ready to get out of here. Is there a big crowd outside?”

“Yes, and Brian and Gordon are sufficiently pissed off that I think we can count on the security staff disappearing.”

“Oh.” Tess had been thinking only about the personal impact of what she had done. “I suppose this looks like I’m supporting keeping the Celebration here.”

“To put it mildly,” Phil said. He was pleased.

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Motives don’t matter.”

Phil was another one of the complete ones. Would life’s mess ever penetrate his neat little world? Would he ever be able to hear his father’s voice if it spoke to him?

Probably not, but in the meantime he would make plans just as he was doing now. “Once we get out the door,” he said, “keep your head down and don’t make eye contact with anyone. Just keep walking.” Phil lifted his arm, about to put it around her. Then he stopped. “This is your job, isn’t it?” he said to his brother.

“It will take both of us,” Ned answered. But he stepped forward, and put his arm around Tess.

Phil thrust out his arm and Ned used his shoulder as a battering ram, and together the three of them made it through the crowd. Caitlin, the oldest of the three sisters, had the green Jeep waiting at the livestock gate.

“Good girl,” Phil praised her. He got in the front seat, letting Ned and Tess sit together in the back.

“My truck’s at the schoolhouse,” Ned said. “Take us there. We’ll wait a couple of hours before going into town.”

Caitlin swung to the north and took a back road to the schoolhouse, where Ned and Tess got out. Phil remained in the car, which undoubtedly told
Caitlin—and by extension the rest of the town—all she needed to know.

There were a few people walking around the little lake that had once been the riverboat site, but the corn was already sprouting in the field. Tess took Ned around behind the cellar door and showed him her grandfather’s initials.

Her hair caught in a forsythia branch, and Ned grasped her shoulder in order to pick the narrow leaves out of her loose curls. He was standing close, and she could feel the warmth of his breath brushing against her face. “Why are you cleaning me up?” she asked. “I thought you wanted me all muddy.”

“Sometimes I think I’m the biggest idiot who ever lived. I’ve been asking myself why I was making such a big deal about believing in ghosts. So what if you were too clean? So what if you were going to make me miserably unhappy the rest of my life? You’d be worth it.”

“Do you really think I’ll make you miserably unhappy?”

“Not anymore … but I am concerned that all of a sudden you can’t tell when I’m joking.”

“I will work on that,” Tess promised. “I will listen to dead people when they try to talk to me while I’m in line at Kmart, and I will try harder to get your jokes. Is that good enough?”

“I also need you to do the whole white-satin deal—or whatever color it is that you wear. My life won’t be worth living if my mother thinks I won’t marry you. You can have Marie’s fabric if you want it.”

“I don’t need it. I have you.”

She had never thought she would marry. A year ago the best thing she could imagine for herself was
being able to afford to live alone. But what had given her the courage to leave her safe job in California, her safe apartment, her safe life? Had it been someone from another place speaking to her, telling her to start over? Had it been Eveline? Eveline’s daughter’s disgrace had made her flee her home and start over again. Or had it been Tess’s grandfather, trying to get her to return to Kansas and trace the initials he had left in the foundation of his school?

She could never answer that question, and the answer didn’t matter. She had learned to listen, and that listening had brought her Ned.

At long last, federal troops withdrew from New Orleans two years ago. But we shall not return. We have become Kansans. There are graves here that we cannot leave, and there is a future we cannot turn our backs on.

Mrs. Louis Lanier (Eveline Roget),
The Wreck of the Western Settler,
privately printed, 1879

 

They stayed at Ned’s that night. In bed they were different. Ned was spontaneous and physical. Tess was graceful and elegant. He was experienced, she was honest. They had much to learn from each other.

Tess woke early the next morning. She slipped out of bed and found a pad of paper and a pen next to the phone in the kitchen. Wrapping herself up in a quilt that was folded over the arm of the sofa, she sat on the back porch and wrote a long letter to Sierra, explaining all she had learned about Nina’s death. As
she wrote, Tess once again smelled the powerful, rich fragrance of honeysuckle. She ran her hand over the quilt. A few of the pieces were fraying; they had been feed sacks.

I
didn’t mean to, Mother. Please believe me, I didn’t mean to.

It was Nina again, but she wasn’t talking to Tess. Tess understood that. When alive, Nina had felt nothing for Tess. It was only her own mother whom she had cared about. Had she tried to reach Violet during Violet’s life? And had Violet, like Phil, been unable to hear?

Please, Mother, please believe me.

Tess had no answer for her. She was merely the vessel.

Suddenly there was another voice, deeply familiar, dearly loved.
I didn’t know that you were sick. I thought you were willful and belligerent. If I had known, it might have been different. I am sorry.