The Memento (33 page)

Margaret stood by the counter near where Jenny and Harry took turns scooping out the distilled water and putting it in a glass container. Despite not feeling well she was making jokes and chatting with Marigold. Jenny had her lips pressed together, as though she was concentrating, thinking on matters of grave importance. She didn’t speak at all. Harry and Marigold discussed party details. They’d put a big tent up in case it rained. We’d sing in the gazebo. The waiters from the city would drift through with trays of food and drink. Marigold would welcome the visitors. Jenny could toss rose petals about. Art and I could wander around with baskets of soap and the miniature glass bottles of rosewater and offer them to the guests.

Jenny was on a stool by a big steaming pot. Harry stood by another. Harry said it could have been anyone accidentally
brushing up against the knob, it turned so easily from simmer to boil. Margaret had come over to the middle pot and lifted the lid. Jenny sneezed. And she sneezed again, holding her fingers up and squeezing her nose, falling into Margaret, who braced herself just in time on the edge of the stove. Margaret went to take the lid off and that’s when Jenny sneezed the last time, and Margaret startled and she fell forward, but this time she lunged over the pot, the sweet, dense steam scalding her face like a lobster shell, her skin blistering before our eyes as though rose oil was forming on her skin, her mouth open wide as she leapt about waving her hands, trying to cool her face off, shrieks coming out of that dark gaping hole, drowning out the gonging copper chimes in the herb garden.

T
HAT NIGHT
my dreams were shot through with Pomeline’s and Margaret’s screams, Pomeline’s mangled fingers, Margaret’s melting face smelling of scalded rose, my mother chanting and bird screech. I hardly slept, and the following day’s party was looming.

There was a path of pink petals leading from the house to Evermore the next morning. Harry and Sakura discovered them early and they brought me and Loretta around to see. No one knew who had scattered them. But the day came up behind us breathing heavy and it was so busy no one cared, and no one thought about whether the trail led from house to garden or garden to house except for me. I kept thinking about them open windows earlier in the summer, about the door in the far wall of Evermore that Art and I had come through on our way back through the woods from Grampie’s house, and the thing in the labyrinth. I kept sorting through what Grampie said in his letter, but it was of no help to me.

Summer was pressing herself down, digging in with her heels. Marigold missed Margaret, she said, who had been outstanding at bringing her ice water and keeping her fanned. Estelle was there, and she was strangely pleasant, her nursing training taking over, all business, as though they’d hired her, too. She went out to assist, inspecting, helping get the gazebo ready for our choir. Jenny whispered that her mother was calm because after the Margaret Incident, as Estelle called it, there would be no more long summers at Petal’s End for Marigold.

Art came over in a white shirt with a bow tie. It was then that the first breaks came in his voice. I watched him ride up on his bicycle with a cap on, like he was a lad from long ago coming by the old pasture where the lane came in, through the fireweed, towering goldenrod and blue star flowers of the borage plant. The summer was turning him into a man as it was turning me into a woman. The season would end and we’d be free of the Parkers, if we could just hang on. But that morning we had the party in front of us, and soon we were in Evermore with the music playing from the gazebo, and back by the lily pond, and all the guests arriving, people I knew and people I had never seen before and would never see again.

The cicadas were buzzing. White gauzy clouds hung in the sky and it seemed we’d been invaded by the world. The party planners dashed about here and there and Marigold wandered with her cane.

“Isn’t the music pleasant?” Loretta said. She didn’t know what to do with herself. The caterer from the city brought in the food and a fleet of servers, dressed in black and white, moving with the starlings’ perfect timing, trays and trays of glasses balanced.

“Must be what a ballet looks like,” Art said as a woman with a china plate full of delicate fairy cakes with light yellow icing went by, the tray held high. I took a cake and she swung away. As directed, we were holding out baskets of soap and rosewater bottles and bestowing them upon the guests.

The quartet they had in the gazebo and the quartet by the pond played gentle, almost tranquilizing music. This is the backdrop in my mind, even after the passage of these years. No one could find Jenny. As careful as I’d watched her, she’d still slipped away. We were sent off to fetch her. Not one more thing could go wrong at Petal’s End, Marigold said, especially on the day she had been anticipating all summer.

We looked everywhere, even in the labyrinth, a different place to navigate by daylight, but we could not find her. Loretta and Art and I went to the big house to look. We called through the rooms and halls and stairs. We had given up and left the house when Jenny appeared, walking from the carriage house, her white-gloved hands together. Loretta put her hand to her chest. “Oh my goodness, Jenny, don’t disappear like that. You’ll be the death of me.” She rushed back to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder that they were waiting for us at the gazebo.

We took our places to sing. Pomeline, who insisted on playing through the pain, Art and me, Jenny beside her sister ready to turn the sheet music. Marigold stood with her cane like she was the director but she wasn’t doing nothing but fanning herself. We were to sing and then Pomeline was to walk over to the side of the gazebo and lead us in a bow. My stomach hurt, and Pomeline gave me a look of desperation. Dr. Baker was laughing and talking, seeming so kindly and wise, busy looking at what he wanted, knowing nothing, you see, of what he did all them years ago when Estelle was a young nurse. He knew not a thing of what he had done now that Pomeline was a young woman who wanted to be a concert pianist. None of us knew then, on that summer day, how all the lies and secrets wove together.

Jenny seemed nervous, like I was, as the people crowded in the chairs on the lawn. We gazed over a sea of summer hats. Jenny held out her bony arm and pulled me to her, Art standing on the other side. Marigold seemed electrified, like the audience had brought a
life force out in her. She talked about the history of Petal’s End, of the Annex, of the poor soldiers who came, the people who convalesced, of the Petal’s End Chorus and how it lived again now in us.

Harry took a step back. He was staying nearby while we sang, off to the side and crouched down, in case we needed him. Pomeline was at the keyboard of the spinet they had brought out for the concert. Her hair was piled up in a mass of ringlets. The bodice of her summer dress was very tight and her sapphire ring gleamed and she began. It was painful to see and hear, but we sang along, and Marigold closed her eyes. When we were finished the crowd was clapping away—oh how adorable, all decked out in their funny clothes. All of a sudden Pomeline started playing her exam piece, “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.” Music coursed through the gazebo, sweet and choppy as her swollen fingers stumbled over the keys, and she cried as she played, for it hurt her.

That’s when it happened. Marigold walking over to the side of the gazebo, holding out her arms for applause, taking the bow instead of Pomeline. Marigold bending strangely, the guests thinking she’s curtseying—the old lady is curtseying in her big summer gown—and that her expression was leering and off because of her stroke a few years back. But she was not curtseying. Her foot was caught by a loose board, tripping her, causing her to smash down, hitting her head with a thud. In that moment I was beside the lady, Jenny and Art and I were beside her. We tried to get her leg out. Marigold blinked and reached up a claw-like hand and she pointed directly at me. “We must make choices,” she said, tears leaking out of her eyes. “Poor little John Lee. But sometimes there have to be sacrifices, even if it brings out the hobgobblies. Do you understand that, darling?” Her runny eyes were wide, as though a ghastly sight was coming at her.

Dr. Baker pushed people aside as Jenny cried with her dry eyes, her shoulders heaving. Art took my hand and led me away from the gazebo and the chaos that had erupted over Marigold. We went
to the Wishing Pool surrounded by the polished gemstones from the beach that Mr. Charlie had collected with his dear mother who loved him so. The pieces of Grampie’s and my brother’s teacups were like mini stepping stones in the bottom of the Wishing Pool, disappearing from view occasionally when the goldfish darted about and made ripples over the water as the afternoon sun fell down. We sat transfixed by the water when we heard someone yell “Fire!” and in the southern sky we saw black smoke looping up in great feathery plumes as the forest behind the carriage house burned. We ran back, and in the pandemonium only Jenny didn’t seem surprised or panicked. She lifted her head up and slowly turned it, the blaze shining in her glasses.

H
ARRY INSISTED
on taking us to the island. He said we needed to go precisely because of all that had happened. It would be good for our spirits to get away from Petal’s End. An expedition always helped put things in perspective, he said, and perspective brought relief. It would help take our minds off the calamity. The tragedies. The upsets.

They had arrested Hector, arrested him for his big fields of ferny green plants he was growing way back on the land. The police did not know who set the fire. Hector did not tell on Jenny and she did not admit it. She blamed Hector for Margaret being at Petal’s End. It was his fault, she had impulsively decided. She was angry, too, that he had laughed alongside Margaret when she made fun of the Parkers.

Marigold was in the hospital. Her fall had caused a heart attack and a broken hip and wrist. Estelle said Dr. Baker wasn’t fit to care for her. They’d had a huge argument and Harry had intervened.
Pomeline had just sat in the music room playing, one hand smooth and the other stiff, the music broken and empty. She didn’t seem to notice the tumult, just plunked away playing her exam selection over and over as if in a trance. There were to be no exams. The sole focus of her life had been taken away in one moment.

We’d left Dr. Baker and Estelle arguing and we were on the dock at noon. We left in the thick fog that was sitting low over the bay. I sat at the side of the boat looking into the white, thinking about Grampie, hearing him sing to me.
On the wings of the wind o’er the dark rolling deep, angels are coming to watch o’er thy sleep. Angels are coming to watch over thee, so listen to the wind coming over the sea
. The mist was wet and coated my face. My lips were salty when I licked them, and I couldn’t help but think of Marigold and her distillations, her rose ottos and absolutes. It was an eerily muted journey.

We were nearing the island when the fisherman who was taking us out cut the engine. He didn’t need to shush us. Art and I knew what to do. We’d been out in the boats many times. Harry looked confused, and Art whispered to him that the man was listening for gulls, for the sound of the wind hitting cliffs, for the waves breaking on the shore. He had no radar on his boat and he did as his father and his father before him had done and listened for the island. After a few moments the man seemed satisfied and went back to the wheelhouse to restart the engine.

We veered sharp west and suddenly vast vertical red cliffs emerged out of the fog, daunting and prehistoric. In places, trees and meadow at the very top of the island plunged over the edge in a sheer drop as though the island had been ripped away from the mainland long ago. In spots deep vertical gouges cut into the precipice as though some giant god had raked his jagged fingernails over the cliff face and left his mark. Enormous swells and waves bashed into the cliffs, white foam and spray erupting far into the air. It seemed from this side there was no way up, that the island was a fortress. We rounded the western end where huge towers of
rock stood high as buildings. A falcon, perched on top of one of the rocks, lifted up and soared away, disappearing into the mist. We had to journey around the entire island to find the spot on the north side where the wharf and fishing sheds used to be, where the island sloped down.

Finally we came to the beach where the fisherman could row us and our gear ashore and leave the sojourners in solitude. It was hard getting out of the boat. Harry’s backpack dropped in the water and his radio got soaked. Sakura tripped and sprained her ankle. It was nothing serious but she had to sit on a stump Harry found and elevate her foot. He got her a stick to use as a crutch. The mist blew in and out. That was a constant out there, the fog rolling in and out, holes opening up in the haze to reveal glimpses of the blue sky before the curtains of mist would pull shut again in an instant and all you could see was what was ten feet in front of you and nothing beyond, there on the island in the middle of the bay. We stood on the barrier beach watching as the boat disappeared around the end of the island. We were alone. Petal’s End was gone and the mainland was gone and the gulls cried out.

Jenny was already beyond the beach, over on the grassy area surrounded by buttercups and meadowsweet. Harry and Sakura sent us up to the top of the island, and they put Pomeline in charge. They wanted us to get some exercise while they set up the campsite. They were expert campers, Harry kept reminding us. Harry made us the guides because we had been there before. We were allowed to explore the original lighthouse site. We were not to go near the cliffs. When we came down we would have supper. Sakura waved as we headed off. The fog was blowing in and her long black hair whipped around and then disappeared into the grey mist.

We went up the only path toward the top. The island was surrounded by cliffs on all sides except where we climbed. The path had once been a farm road big enough for horses to haul a wagon up and down, but the island was taking it back now, the boreal
forest growing in since it had been abandoned thirty years before. Now it was just a wide and wild overgrown trail, tall enough for children to scamper along but low enough for a grown man to have to duck. Damp ferns brushed our ankles. We moved farther into the dark green light. Art’s leg was bleeding where branches had scraped at him. Jenny hummed to herself. Pomeline, beside me, stared meditatively at the trees. And up we went to the tippity-top, the path breaking into what had been a hayfield. It had gone wild, and the grasses were up to our chests. We pushed ahead, through a cluster of trembling aspens. We could see it then, off to the west, the tall metal skeleton of the automated lighthouse. The outbuildings had fallen down. Nothing left but the stone foundations.