The Remedy for Regret (21 page)

Oxford, England

T
he train I boarded in London is chugging its way through beautiful countryside but I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open. It is one o’clock in the afternoon but it feels like the middle of the night. I want so very much to see everything that rushes past the train but my eyelids are so heavy.

It’s not just jet lag that pulls at me. The last three
weeks have been a whirlwind of travel, discovery and soul-searching, and I am as anxious as ever to finally be at peace. I want to lie down at the end of the day, of every day, and feel like nothing has been left undone.

It was harder than I thought it would be to leave Simon after seeing him again, for just one day. As motivated as I am to make this pilgrimage to England and to make it now, it was still difficult to say goodbye to him. I had clung to him at O’Hare, long enough that it made him worry that I was taking on too much at an already stressful time for me. But somehow I had managed to assure him that I’d be okay.

I had clung to him the day before, too, when I arrived in Chicago from Dayton. When I saw him sitting in baggage claim waiting for me with roses on his lap, I’d run to him, causing quite a few stares.

We had spent the rest of the day cuddled on the couch while I told him about my weekend in Dayton, about Shelley coming to my aid, about my Dad’s reaction. Simon, of course, was not surprised.

“So are you okay?” he had asked when I was finished.

“I will be. It could have gone worse. And I think in time my Dad will come to the same conclusion the rest of us did. But I know he will have to discover it on his own. He can’t be told it and then just be expected to accept it. He has to solve it for himself. I can be patient. It’s not my burden to bear anymore.”

“You should never have had to bear it at all.”

“Let’s not go there,” I said. “What’s done is done. I don’t want to be burdened with
that
in place of the guilt.”

He had smiled then. “You sound like me. I tell myself that every morning I get up and look in the mirror.”

I hadn’t given much thought to Simon’s healing, being so concentrated on my own. I asked him if he was doing all right.

“I still have my moments,” he had answered. “I still wrestle with remorse and maybe I always will. But I am learning to give each day over to God, as soon as I get up and before I do anything else. I find I can make it through the day when I do.”

I had told him then about the conversation with Corinthia on the way to Jonesboro, how she told me God was not avoiding me, He was pursuing me. I had asked him if he could understand what that was like because I knew I would have a hard time describing it. He had nodded.

“I think I know exactly what it is like,” he had said. And I was suddenly very glad we were beginning this odyssey toward understanding God at the same time, the same place.

“Tess,” he had said next, and his voice was very tender. “I need to tell you something. Something I hope you will understand. I’ve been thinking about it a lot while you have been gone.”

He paused.

“What is it?”

“I am going to sleep on the couch tonight, Tess. And when you get back from England, I am going to move in with my brother until we are married.”

My first reaction had been amazement. The only times Simon had ever slept on the couch was when he was sick or I was. I wasn’t sure what to say at this point but strangely enough, I felt like I knew where these thoughts came from; a desire to do things right the first time.

“I just think we’ve been doing everything backwards,” he continued. “We’ve been enjoying all the benefits of marriage without the commitment. All this time we have been together we’ve been saying to each other and to the world that we value our independence more than our love for each other. I don’t want to do that anymore. I could leave you right now and no one could fault me. No one. I can’t handle that. I don’t want to do things backwards anymore.”

“I don’t either,” I had whispered.

And so we stopped.

This morning when I woke up, I came out into the living room to see my beloved Simon, curled up on the couch, clutching a sofa pillow to his chest. As I sat with a cup of coffee in the kitchen and waited for him to wake up, I planned my wedding.

The train’s whistle blasts and I realize I have dozed off. We are pulling into the station in Oxford. I sit up straight, trying to see the skyline and the yellow stone steeples and towers of Oxford University but the train station itself is all that fills my vision.

The train comes to a halt and the passengers arise as one and we all begin to grab our bags. An older gentleman insists on carrying my suitcase outside to a rank of taxis. I thank him and a driver in the nearest cab gets quickly out of his vehicle, takes the suitcase and places it into his trunk. I start to open the back passenger door, but the driver reaches for it first and opens it for me. I get in.

The driver runs around to the front of the car and gets in.

“Where to, love?” His accent is thick and melodic. Like Corinthia’s but in an entirely different way.

“The Randolph Hotel,” I start to say but then I change my mind. “Wait. Can… Can we just drive around Oxford for a few minutes first? Maybe you could show me where things are?”

“Ah, first time in Oxford, then?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, unable not to smile.

“Right,” he says. “I can show you.”

He zips away from the curb, sending me tottering toward the passenger door. The streets are narrow and there are lots of people walking around and riding bikes.

“May is a busy time ’ere,” he says. “Tourists start to come and they don’t stop until November. Are you a tourist then?”

“Sort of,” I say. “My mother was born here. And… And she’s buried here. She died when I was born.”

“Och, that’s too bad, love. You were born ’ere, then? You sound American.”

“I was born in the Azores, actually. My dad was in the Air Force and stationed at RAF Upper Heyford. He met my mother here. When they got married, they left for the Azores.”

“Oh, right. You know there’s no American base at Upper Heyford anymore?” he says.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Okay, right,” he says, changing the subject. “’Ere’s the Randolph, you can walk to just about anywhere in downtown Oxford from ’ere.”

He zips past a multi-stored building of stone with flags of every nation on its front.

“Now this is High Street,” he says a few seconds later.

“High Street?” I say excitedly.

“You know somebody on High Street?”

“No, no. My mother worked at a flower shop on High Street. She and her mother owned it.”

“Oh, well. Could be in there,” he says driving past a little alcove of shops surrounded by towering, ancient storefronts. “There’s a little flower shop in there. Now Cornmarket is down that way. Busy street. Lots of stuff down that way.”

As I look I see a sea of yellow stone buildings glistening in the sun. I wish he wouldn’t drive so fast. He makes a couple of quick turns and starts to go back the way we came. He turns left from High Street.

“Now ’ere’s my favorite of all the colleges,” he says. “This is Christ Church. It’s as old as God Himself. Nice meadows to walk about in. The Cherwell River is right down there. You can get a boat and go for a paddle if you want.”

He makes what I am sure is an illegal U-turn so that we again head back up the way we came.

“Oh, the covered market is right down there.” He points with his thumb. “And folks like Magdalen Street. Just make sure you say it right, love, okay? ‘Specially since you’re ’alf-British and all. You don’t say the “g.” Pretend that you are
modelin’
some new fancy fashions. That’s ’ow you say it, love. No “g.”

“I’ll try to remember,” I say.

“Blackwell’s bookstore is there,” he says, pointing to a tall corner building. “Nice book shop. ’Ave everything, they do. Wife likes it. Getting’ dizzy yet? Ready to get to your hotel?”

I know I do not want to try and meet Martin today. I am tired, my eyes are red and droopy and I am mentally not quite ready. But I decide I want to see his house. Or at least the house I think is his.

“Actually, do you know where is Tanglewood Close is?”

“I do,” he says. “You want to go there instead?”

“No, not instead. I just want to see where it is.”

“Suit yourself,” he says and he zooms away.

We leave the busy downtown district and enter a quieter business district that eventually leads to residential homes. I try to memorize the turns my cabbie takes and gauge the distance. He turns down a street lined with tall, brick homes. He makes two more turns and then we arrive at Tanglewood Close, a quiet cul-de-sac. I am guessing we have driven two miles.

“Thirteen Tanglewood Close,” he announces, pulling up to a two-story brick home with a blue door. Tea rose bushes line the walk to the front of the house. The single-car garage is closed. There is a window slightly open upstairs with no screen. There are no screens on any of the windows and every one is dressed in white lace.

“So you want to see if anyone is ’ome?”

“No. I just wanted to see where it was, what it looks like.”

“You know who lives here, then?”

“My uncle. I mean, I think he lives here. This is the last address I have for him.”

“Not sure, though, huh?’

“No.”

“Well, ’ere,” he says, reaching under his seat. “I got me a phone directory right ’ere.”

He hands it to me.

“You look up ‘is name and see if it says this address.”

I take the book and eagerly turn to the B’s. I can’t help smiling. It is there. Martin and Fiona Bowker, 13 Tanglewood Close.

“It’s here!” I say. I reach into my bag and yank out my boarding pass and a pen. I jot down Martin’s phone number on the back of it and then hand the book back.

“Well, there you go,” the cabbie says. “So it’s been awhile since you’ve seen your uncle?”

“I’ve never seen him.” I look up at the house and a tiny piece of lace curtain flutters at the upstairs window, waving to me.

“Never?” the cabbie says, swiveling his head around.

“No. And he’s not expecting me. That’s why I want to come back tomorrow. When I am not so tired. Maybe in the early evening after they are both home from work.”

The cabbie says nothing for a second.

“’Ow about if I come around for you at the Randolph at seven tomorrow evening?” he says.

I turn my head to face him.

“That would be nice,” I say.

“Back to the Randolph, then?” he says, winking at me.

“I think so,” I look back at the house and nearly return a wave to the fluttering curtain as we pull away.

We soon pull up in front of the Randolph where attendants scurry out to fetch my suitcase.

“What do I owe you?” I say to the driver.

“Well, let’s say the tour was half-price, seein’ as you are ’
alf-British, so I’ll just charge you fifteen pounds.”

I peel off a twenty-pound note from the cash I exchanged at Heathrow. I hand it to the cabbie and notice that he is wearing a nametag that reads “Tony.”

“Thank you, Tony,” I say. “For everything.”

“See you at seven tomorrow, then, love?”

“Yes. Tomorrow at seven.”

Tony zooms away and I follow the bellhop into the elegant hotel.

I
awaken several times in the middle of the night, whether from the time change or simple nervousness, I don’t know. When my wake-up call comes at nine a.m., it feels as though I am being summoned from deep sleep just after midnight. I crawl out of my comfortable bed and try to convince myself that it is nine in the morning not the middle of the night.

I feel much better after a hot shower. I am trying to decide what to wear when there is a knock at my door. Someone calls out, “Room service!”

“Um, I didn’t order anything,” I yell towards the closed door.

“Miss, your breakfast was ordered for you,” says the voice on the other side of my door.

I open it tentatively, a little embarrassed to still be in my robe at nine-twenty in the morning.

A young man with Indian features is standing there in a starched uniform bearing a tray with a silver-domed lid, a crystal glass of orange juice, a pot of tea and a single daisy in a bud vase.

“You have standing orders from the person in charge of your bill to have breakfast served to you twenty minutes after your wake-up call,” he says plainly. “May I?”

“Oh, of course,” I open the door and let him in. I should’ve guessed Blair would do something like this. I start to reach for my bag to give him a tip but he stops me.

“That’s been taken care of, too, Miss. Enjoy your day.”

He turns and is gone, leaving me in a state of bewilderment. Several seconds pass before I turn to the little table in my room where my breakfast waits.

With a map in hand and pounds in my pocket, I leave the hotel on foot a little after ten. The streets of downtown Oxford are bustling with activity. Buses, bikes and pedestrians are everywhere. Above my head, hanging baskets of flowers dangle from iron poles. I stop first at Blackwell’s bookstore, which is busy, I think, for a Tuesday morning. I wander the aisles with no particular goal in mind. When I come across the section featuring titles on local history, I pick up a book about Oxford, my mother’s hometown, and buy it.

I wander down Cornmarket, remembering Tony telling me about the covered market. It is easy to find. Inside the market hall there is the peculiar, combined smell of fresh meat, tanned leather and handmade soap. At one stall two men are selling rugby shirts with the Oxford University logo. I buy one each for Simon, Dad and Zane. At another stall, a red-haired woman is selling tablecloths, curtains and doilies made of Nottingham lace. I pick out a dresser scarf for Shelley.

Once outside again, I follow my map and the spires of Christ Church and to the meadow Tony told me about. The gardens around the college are in full bloom and there are several artists sitting on stools painting the splendor they see in front of them. find a quiet spot and I sit for I don’t know how long. I am semi-aware that I am alone in a city where, at the moment, no one knows me. But it is very peaceful here, despite the crowds.

Sometime later I walk onto the college grounds and head, almost by impulse, to the cathedral. The air inside the cavernous sanctuary is cool. My steps sound like rocks hitting standing water as I walk slowly the length of the long center aisle. Someone is starting to play the organ, practicing perhaps for Sunday services. There are other people in the sanctuary with me, some studying the intricate stained glass, some gazing at the statues. Some are sitting in the wooden pews, just staring at the altar ahead of them as if God is expected to show up any moment.

I ease into a pew, maneuvering my bags so that I don’t sit on them. They make a crackly sound that seems out of place. I don’t know how many times in my life I have been inside a church, outside the occasional wedding or funeral. Certainly there were those times as a teenager when I visited the Church of the Beautiful Gate with Jewel. But I never felt like I truly belonged there and it really had little to do with my skin color.

Sitting here now I am struck by the strangest feeling that I have come home, that I do belong; not just here on this pew in this centuries-old church, but here in a place where it feels like God dwells. I begin to whisper the thoughts that are swirling inside my head. And they sound like prayers.

What if Martin doesn’t want to see me? What if he slams the door in my face like my Dad thinks he will? What if I came all this way for nothing?
In spite of the heaviness of these questions I do not feel panic. I feel hopeful, anxious, nervous. But there is no dread. I feel a sense of presence around me and within me that I can only describe as holy. It would have frightened me a month ago. But at this moment all I feel is peace.

Come with me
, I whisper.

And I can’t help but imagine God is saying that exact same thing to me.

I have lost track of time. When I start to feel hunger, I leave the quiet sanctuary, stopping to inhale its scented air before I walk outside. I walk back up St. Aldate’s, to High Street. Strengthened, I want to see inside the little alcove I saw yesterday afternoon. I want to see the little flower shop that Tony told me about.

After a ten-minute walk, I am standing in front of the little store. It is called The Secret Garden. I open the door and little silver bells announce my arrival. The air inside is sweet and tangy, much more pleasant than the odor of the covered market. A woman behind a counter, arranging lilies in a vase, greets me and asks me if there is anything she can help me find.

“I was just wondering if a lady by the last name of Bowker used to own this shop. It would have been quite awhile ago.”

“Sorry, I don’t know that name,” she says. “The owner I work for has had the shop for maybe ten years, but I don’t know who owned it before that.”

“It’s okay,” I say. I suddenly think of Fiona Bowker, the aunt I have never met, and whom I hope to meet tonight. “Could you make up a little bouquet for me?”

“Certainly,” the woman says, smiling. “Anything special you’d like in it?”

“Just make it look happy.”

I walk back to the hotel with my happy bouquet, tired and ready to get rid of my heavy bags. I am hungry and it is well past noon but I am too worn out to go back out and look for a place to get something to eat. I stretch out on my freshly-made bed and close my eyes. Sleep comes quickly.

When I awaken it is nearly four o’clock. I have three more hours before Tony will come back for me. I am starving now and I head back outside after getting a tip from a hotel employee that a pub a few blocks away from the hotel makes splendid fish and chips.

While I eat, I rehearse in my mind what I will say to Martin. But it’s not much of a rehearsal. I keep changing what I will say.

I go back to the room and use the phone card Simon bought for me so that I can keep in touch with him. But of course he isn’t home. It is late morning in Chicago and he is at work.

Finally at fifteen minutes before seven, I brush my hair, grab the bouquet and my canvas bag and head down the stairs to the lobby. It is a warm spring night and I decide to wait for Tony outside. A few minutes before seven, I see a black taxi pull up. His off-duty light is on but it is definitely Tony.

“You’re a wee bit anxious!” he says as I open the back door and slide in.

“Yeah, I guess you can say that. Your sign says you’re off duty.”

“I am. I thought I could ’elp you out this way. Told the wife about you. Can’t charge you now or she won’t fix me any supper.”

“Maybe I should send these flowers home with you.” I laugh nervously.

“Don’t think nothing of it, love.”

A few minutes later, Tony pulls up in front of the brick house at 13 Tanglewood Close. Lights are on in the front windows. The garage door is open and a little red car is parked inside it.

“Tony,” I say. “Can you just wait here a second? If they invite me in, then you can go. If… if they don’t, I might need a ride back to the hotel.”

“No worries,” he says and I assume that means, “Yes.”

I gather my things and open the car door. I keep my eyes on the blue front door as I close the car door behind me and start walking past the rose bushes. I feel very young. I feel like a child who has been sent to the principal’s office but I don’t know what it is I have done that got me into so much trouble. My heart is pounding as I ring the bell. I try to recapture the serenity I felt in Christ Church earlier today. I hear the engine of Tony’s cab idling behind me.

The door opens and a woman who looks like she’s in her mid-fifties stands there, drying her hands on a dishtowel.

“Hello,” she says kindly.

“Fiona Bowker?” I say and I sound as young as I feel.

“Yes.”

“I am… I was… I was wondering if I might speak to Martin Bowker.”

Her eyes grow wide but she politely says, “Well, just a moment.” She turns from me and calls to the other room. I can hear the sound of a television and the mew of a cat. “Martin! There’s someone at the door for you!”

She backs up but stays within the entry of her home, as I would if a strange woman with an accent came to my house asking to see my husband.

I can sense that Martin is walking toward me. I see his shadow arrive on the wall of the entry before I see him. I wish I could still my pounding heart.

He comes to stand in front of me in the open doorway and I can see that he is tall, taller than my dad, and more solidly built. His hair is mostly silver but there are tiny streaks of faded reddish-brown. His eyes are a soft gray like mine. Martin is wearing a look on his face that makes me think he is slightly annoyed that someone has come calling on a Tuesday night without phoning ahead first.

I am about to say something when that annoyed, peeved look disappears from his face and is quickly replaced with something like alarm or amazement. I can’t tell which. I am starting to tremble in my shoes as I realize I have seen that amazed look before. John Penney wore it when Blair, Jewel and I walked into his classroom and he instantly recognized us.

“Good Lord,” Martin says, barely audibly.

Martin sees his sister’s face. My face. He thinks he knows who I am.

“Martin, it’s me. It’s Tess,” I say, removing all doubt.

For a split-second, we stand there frozen in time, staring at each other as if across the decades. Then Martin finally finds his voice.

“How did you…? How…?” But he is unable to finish either sentence.

Behind him, I can see that Fiona has raised a hand to her mouth to cover her shocked expression. She didn’t recognize me like Martin did, but she must know my name. She looks utterly bewildered.

“Tess?’ she says, behind her fingers and barely above a whisper.

I cannot tell if they are happy or appalled to see me. I can almost hear my Dad telling me, “I told you so.”

“I… I know I should have called first,” I manage to squeak out. “But I… I wanted to see you so badly, and I was afraid…” I cannot finish my sentence either. I cannot seem to tell them I was afraid they would hang up on me.

“Please, ah, please, won’t you come in,” Martin says, trying to sound polite, but his face has lost its color. He looks like he has seen a ghost. I suppose to him, that’s what I am. I step inside. From behind me I can hear Tony pull away from the curb and drive off.

Martin steps into his living room and shuts off the television. A newspaper is scattered across the sofa and he grabs at the pages. “Please sit down,” he says.

I sit on the sofa and he takes the leather chair across from me, staring at me. I hand the bouquet to Fiona.

“They’re a bit squished,” I say.

“They are beautiful,” is all Fiona says in shocked response. She takes them to the kitchen to put them into some water.

“I can’t believe you are here,” Martin says, staring at me. “How… When did you…” but he is still unable to make his mind work in concert with his tongue.

“Let’s let her tell us, Martin,” Fiona says, coming back to sit by me on the sofa.

Martin stares at me. Perhaps I am imagining that his eyes are moist.

“Well,” I begin, but despite my rehearsing I struggle to find the right words. “I… I just wanted to see you, Martin. I don’t think it’s right that we don’t see each other or write to each other. You are my uncle. You grew up with my mother. You loved her. I… I just want to know you.”

What I have just said sounds rather accusatory, like I am blaming him for the years of silence. It is as much my and my dad’s fault as it is his.

“I’m so sorry I waited so long to find you,” I continue. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me because… because my mother died after giving birth to me and I know it was very hard for you and your mother…”

Tears have sprung to my eyes and I look down at my empty hands. I’m aware that Fiona has put an arm around me.

When I look up at Martin the tears in his eyes are now unmistakable.

“Oh, Tess,” he says, and it sounds like it hurts him to say my name. “It
was
hard losing her. But it was doubly hard losing you, too. My mother and I… We didn’t treat your father very well when he brought Madeline’s body back to be buried…”

“Martin,” Fiona says gently.

“No, it’s true. You know it’s true, Fiona. You said it yourself back then when it happened,” Martin says to Fiona, but then he turns to me. “We were awful to him, Tess. We were so angry and sad about losing our Madeline, we took it all out on him. And he must have been hurting like we were. God, it was awful.”

He stops then to chase away those horrible memories.

“When my mother finally got over her grief, she wanted very much to see you, Tess, she did,” Martin says when he is able to continue. “She tried to contact your father in the Azores but he would never return her calls. He sent back her letters unopened. She sent packages to you but they all came back. I tried, too. I even got a hold of him by phone one day at the hospital. I begged him to let us come to see you, but he wouldn’t agree to it.”

Martin stops again and I try to focus on what he is telling me and not how much it is hurting me.

“A couple months after that, your father was reassigned back to the States. We didn’t know where he went. No one on the Azores would help us find him because he left orders not to give out his forwarding address. I gave up then, but my mother kept trying. When she died five years later she knew you were both stationed in Maine. She was trying to make arrangements to come see you. She had even written your father, and this time the letter had not come back unopened. She was still trying to convince him to let her come when she died of an aneurysm. I wrote your father when she died. I thought he might come then. But he didn’t.”

It is more than I can bear. I let my body fall against Fiona’s and I just let the tears come. Martin has moved from his chair to sit beside me on my other side and he drapes his strong arm across my back.

It doesn’t make any sense. So many wasted years. And for what reason? These three people loved my mother—Martin, my grandmother and my father. They intensely loved her. In their grief they loved her. And look what their crooked kind of love did to all of them.

To me.

This is not how people—especially family members who are bound by bonds of love and blood—should treat each other.

This is madness.

It stops now. I will stop it. I will stop it for all of us.