Colette called and asked me to take Van on Saturday while she did dead-person things—canceling credit cards, visiting the law offices of Fredrick-the-Rapacious, calling the car-insurance company, submitting piles of paperwork, picking up the ashes. I almost said no, that I had to work on my “Rising Tides” Apogee assignment for Jane, but that last one got me, the thought of Dad in some cardboard box being handled by a stubbly guy in a fireproof smock.
When Saturday came, I borrowed my roommate Adrian’s car and drove to meet Colette and Van at the halfway point between us. Coming off the highway, I realized I was twenty minutes away from Linda T., who had written her address in the guest book at the funeral. I hatched a plan. After I picked Van up, if he fell asleep in the car—one of his superpowers was the ability to conk out in moving vehicles—I would make a detour to 14 Horseshoe Road and see if I could learn anything.
In the parking lot of a gas station, Colette, Van, and I hugged like survivors of a shipwreck. When I pulled away, I saw a tremor running through the vein on Colette’s forehead.
“I just want Van to be with family,” she said. “I couldn’t make him stay with a sitter, not now.”
“I’m glad you called. We’ll have fun,” I said.
There must have been babysitters who knew Van better than I did, who saw him more frequently and could converse with him in sign language—but it was only for a few hours. Anyway, I liked Van.
Colette’s fingers flew gracefully as she signed a goodbye to Van, her face as solemn as a parent’s at a kindergarten drop-off.
“We’ll be fine!” I called as she walked away, though once Van and I were settled in Adrian’s car, I blanched. Had I ever been alone with Van outside of Dad’s house? He took that moment to look up at me, peeking through the blond hair that curled into his eyes. If he spoke, I would have said, Hey buddy, or Hi sport, or some other ludicrous name for a ten-year-old boy that zinged up from the socialized folds of my brain where I also stored information about table settings, thank-you cards, and everything my mother had ever impressed upon me about dating. Instead, I tweaked one of his big Dad earlobes.
“I’m hungry,” he signed.
“What?” I signed back.
“Food,” he tried, putting his clumped-together fingers to his lips. Then he drew a circle in the air.
“You want a hamburger?”
He shook his head.
“What other food is round? Bagel? Pizza?”
Van removed his phone from his pocket and opened the Notes app.
While he typed, I sat up straight and tried to make my face seem bright and unencumbered. My mother had told me that I could achieve this by drumming my fingertips lightly over my cheekbones to bring color to my face.
Van held up the phone. He’d written, Can we get black and white cookies?
I exhaled, motioned for the phone. I was supposed to get black and white cookie from that circle? I wrote.
;) yup
BW cookies coming up. Dad loved those.
He loved old bay more
I once saw him put old bay on one!
Ewwwwwww no you didnt
lol
I started the car, rolled the windows down. How did he die? asked a chorus of voices in my head.
We passed a string of strip malls and smokehouses, the sun glaring off the hoods of parked cars. Van was curled against the window, his face turned away from me. I poked him gently on the shoulder. Sure enough, he didn’t stir.
Whoever that woman at the funeral had been, between her house and my father’s was a stretch of bay coast so ragged and twisting that as we drove, the water dazzled one side-view mirror and then the other. I swung off the highway and found Horseshoe Road, then parked in a speckled patch of shade across the street from the converted barn I’d seen on Google Earth, where someone named Linda T. lived. Heat steamed up out of the grass, and the brackish scent of water came rushing over the tall dark pines. Van jerked his head when I cut the engine; through half-lidded eyes he took in the unfamiliar street.
I took out my phone and tapped a text to Van. Running into that house for a few. Stay here?
Next to me, Van shook his head no.
“Five minutes,” I said, flashing five fingers.
Who lives there? he texted back.
I hesitated. Friends, I wrote.
I knocked on the front door, three quick hollow raps. From deep within the house, I heard what I believed were the footfalls of my father’s lover.
“Yes?” A man’s voice filtered from behind the door.
“Hi, I’m looking for Linda?”
The first thing I recognized as the door swung open was the erect posture and the linen shirt of someone rich or famous. The next thing I saw was his thick white hair, pulled into a man bun at the back of his head. It had famously turned white when he was a young man, and now in his sixties, it was the color of snow. It was him. Standing before me was Romley Cass.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I peered at the man to make sure.
“What is this regarding?” He propped his forearm against the doorframe. The look he gave me said, I do not tolerate Jehovah’s Witnesses. It also said, I hope you’re a fan.
“Are you Romley Cass?”
“I am.”
“Oh wow,” I said. What was the poet laureate of the United States doing at the lagoon woman’s house? I drew a breath, starstruck, and looked down at the wide boats of his bare feet. “I love your work. But that’s not why I’m here—I actually didn’t know you would be here. I came to speak to Linda. She knew my father?”
“Who is it?” someone asked, a muffled voice, and then from the gloom of the dark hall the lagoon woman emerged.
For a moment we stood in solemn, uneasy silence. Romley put his hand on her hip, a casual proprietorship in the spread of his fingers. She was as striking as she’d been when I saw her for the first time at the funeral, but at close range she was thinner, her cheekbones prominent and below them a hollow space, the way some women get skinnier as they age, their soft places scooped out. Unlike my mother, she was thin without looking as though she’d spent much of her life denying herself food.
“What—” she said.
“I’m Eleanor. Jim Adler’s daughter.”
Linda put her hand to her throat, glanced at Romley. Something passed between them, ancient and intimate. “Would you like to come in?” she said.
Was her question the result of some agreement that had moved silently from her to him or in defiance of it? I couldn’t tell. I followed them inside, down a long bare hall to a kitchen where a sliding screen door looked out onto flowering bushes, mumbling, alive with bees. I knew Romley was an avid gardener; his collection of poetry, Stamen Songs, had won a National Book Award the same year my father’s collection hadn’t been nominated for one.
“Sit, please,” Linda said.
We arranged ourselves politely in kitchen chairs. I’d hoped to speak to her alone, but Romley seemed intent on staying; he was eyeing me gravely. With his black jeans and tattooed forearm, he reminded me of an older version of the baristas at the Rattling Panther, the popular coffee shop in my D.C. neighborhood, who served each latte with a side of disdain.
I started to speak just as Linda pivoted toward the refrigerator. “Something to drink?” she said. “I have kombucha.”
My oldest roommate, Nick, was into kombucha. Like half marathons, I thought of it as the purview of the recently turned thirty. But here was glamorous, middle-aged Linda, pouring out three glasses of fizzing liquid that reminded me of tree bark. “It’s not flavored. We like it that way,” she said.
We. Romley and Linda, tucked away in this converted barn on a muddy inlet, wearing—I glanced at their hands—matching rings that looked like twisted strands of rope. A week ago, Linda had been crying in the back row of the chapel, my father’s body fitted in his coffin at the front. What had she said when she came home to Romley?
I took a sip of the sour drink. “I’ve never had kombucha before. It’s nice.” Romley sipped eagerly beside me; I heard the heavy, wet swallows of a major poet. “My father was a writer,” I told him. “Do you happen to know his work?”
Romley said, “Mmmm,” in a way that could have meant yes or no, but before I could say more, Linda began pelting me with questions about my life: Where did I live? What was I up to now? Oh, wonderful, and did I enjoy D.C.? As Linda and I talked, Romley removed the elastic band that held up his man bun, shook out his thick hair, and redid the bun so that it sat higher on his head.
“And your mother?” Linda asked. At this, Romley stopped fiddling and looked at me.
“Rachel Gettleman. She’s remarried. She lives in Florida,” I said. My mother was probably right this minute prancing sleekly in front of the mirror in the studio Dr. Boris Gettleman had built for her in their air-conditioned basement in Tallahassee.
“I found your address in the guest book at the funeral,” I said to Linda, hurtling myself into the opening in conversation. “I’d like to talk to you about my dad.”
Romley pressed his eyes closed as if he was in pain.
“Rom,” Linda said.
Romley’s chair scraped across the floor in a short burst of sound. He stood up. “You went to his funeral,” he said tightly.
“Rom.” She leapt up to face him. “I had to.”
“Don’t.”
“Look at me.”
“Stop.”
I watched the flame leap between them and edged my own chair back. “Sorry,” I said. “Excuse me.” I gestured vaguely in the direction of the rest of the house, where I assumed it would be reasonable to find a bathroom in a converted barn.
So it was true. Linda had been in a relationship with my father. What else would explain Romley’s anger? I felt vindicated and insignificant; Romley had made no attempt to conceal his feelings from me—I wasn’t worthy of his discretion. My father and Colette had seemed happy, settled. In love. But what did I know? He’d gone outside the marriage. Colette could never find out about this—it would ruin her to learn the truth only after he’d died; it would open a wound that could never be treated. I didn’t want her to suffer a posthumous revelation, the way I just had. In the bathroom, I washed my hands. Who had my father been? A man with secrets. A calculating man. A man who had not loved me as much as I’d thought.
I passed a table in the hall that held a statue of Buddha and a bowl of limes. Incense sticks were nested in a shallow sandalwood dish. A nearby door was ajar, revealing an old farmhouse table being used as a desk. I slipped inside. Romley’s awards were laid out on a shelf above. In the great man’s study. It could be the title of a book of poetry. Though Romley would write it better than I could.
A cut-glass bowl etched with the name of a major prize; the golden circle of the Pulitzer; three bronze plaques mounted on dark wood. Weighty, thick, made to last. I turned over a marble oval engraved with his name, a sprig of holly, the words “Stroika Poetry Prize.” I made out the rubbery edge of glue on one side of the green felt base and was satisfied by the imperfection.
My father’s one award, the Eugene Loafman Blatt Award Given to a Poet Over 50, had hung on the wall next to the bathroom mirror. He must have been a little ashamed of it, the “Given to a Poet Over 50” part, like a participation trophy, yet it was displayed where everyone who entered the house would inevitably find themselves. There had been a small ceremony at a nearby convention center, to which the entire family had gone, where we ate rubbery chicken and wiped our mouths with starchy cloth napkins, and at the end of the evening, while my father brought the car around, I’d watched the chairs and tables from the event being loaded up a ramp into a white rental truck. Romley’s success—this wall of awards, the shelves freighted with translations, glowing newspaper reviews framed behind glass—must have been what my father had wanted. Had he also wanted Romley’s wife? How had he kept this affair from all of us, especially from me? He often remarked upon how happy it made him that he and I were unusually close and open with each other.
Out in the hallway, I could hear no sounds from the direction of the kitchen. Whatever argument Linda and Romley were having was being conducted in silence. I walked loudly, so as not to startle them, and found them seated again, their heads bent toward each other like a pair of swans. When I cleared my throat, they looked up, dazed. “I’m sorry to have dropped in on you like this. I didn’t realize—”
“It’s all right,” Linda said.
“If you want me to go, I’ll go.”
“That would be best,” Romley said.
I paused in the doorway. “Thank you for the kombucha. You have a lovely home,” I said, sounding too much like my mother. As I passed toward the outer hall, I grasped Linda’s hands in my own, bending in front of her. “I made a mess here, but I honestly didn’t know you were married. I didn’t mean to cause you pain.”
Linda’s face softened. “I know you didn’t.”
“He died suddenly, and I was just trying to learn everything about him now that he’s gone.” Tears came surging to my eyes, but I batted them away. I was aware that it was hard for anyone to deny a grieving daughter, that tears went a long way. Did the fact that this was performative negate how sad I was? Wasn’t all public grieving a performance?
My father had owned all of Romley Cass’s books; he’d jokingly referred to them as “the works of mine enemy,” but he’d never mentioned knowing Romley Cass or Romley’s wife. I saw now, though, how strange that was—my father and Romley were both sons of Maryland and were professionally obsessed by the same things: form, syllable, meter. But my father had always seemed like he was in a different category, a regional poet, beloved by few outside the muddy mid-Atlantic, while Romley had received every honor that could be bestowed on an American writer. I’d seen a photo of him with Barack Obama at a National Humanities Medal ceremony, Obama’s hand companionably on Romley’s shoulder, Romley in the middle of some humorous observation, offered from within the shield of his tux, his long white hair neat and, as I recalled, pre-bun. I thought how tragic the whole thing was—my father’s jokes about Romley Cass, his light, mocking tone, which must have been laced with humiliation, Romley being the poet of my father’s own generation who had achieved real recognition and real fame. But this thought was a betrayal. My cheeks warmed, and I pressed the cool backs of my hands to them.
Romley got up and walked to the sink, where he put one hand on either side of the faucet. The air in the kitchen felt close and electric; my head pulsed with a vague sense of danger.
“You were crying at his funeral,” I said quietly.
Linda’s mouth tightened and she looked at me with a new coldness. “Is that what you think?”
“My dad never said anything. I figured it out.” The watery slivers of her eyes. How she’d clutched her scarf, holding tight to the physical world. “You had a relationship.”
Linda made a small noise in her throat, like a squirrel that has found a rotten nut. “I screwed up,” she said. “We’ve worked through it, but you must forgive Romley. It’s hard for him.”
“So it’s true,” I said.
Linda went to the sink and wrapped both of her hands around one of his. “I nearly ruined our marriage. But people make mistakes,” she said, affecting bravery, like a Disney princess breaking into song. “Everyone makes mistakes.” Linda turned her face to mine, calmer now that Romley was again at her side. “I’m sorry. This must not be easy to hear.”
I was aware that Linda was doing all the emotional labor. She was consoling him; she was consoling me. The sun retreated and the shapes in the room—the kettle, the plants, the faucet—faded to blue and gray, the life leached out of them.
There was a noise in the hallway, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Van peering into the kitchen, bewildered, his hair sleep-flattened.
“Oh no.” I smeared my arm across my face. “This is my brother, Van. We were driving—sorry, he was waiting in the car.”
“Hi, Van,” Linda said too brightly, calibrating her voice to a new frequency.
Van came and stood very close to me. I spelled out L-I-N-D-A and R-O-M-L-E-Y with my fingers.
“Jim was your father?” Linda asked. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
Van looked at me.
“He’s my father’s youngest. Lip reading is really tiring for him. We should go.” I draped my arm over Van’s shoulders. “My father—our father—left you this.” I brought the baseball out of my bag, gripped it hard.
“What is it?” Linda took the baseball from me, her gaze blank and stunned as a cat’s.
“His lucky baseball.”
“But why would he—”
“It was in his will?” Romley asked.
“ ‘My baseball I leave to L. M. Taylor.’ I figured you would know about it.”
“Oh,” Linda said. “Well, I’m not L. M. Taylor.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m Linda Tapscott.” She handed the ball back to me.
I stammered out an apology and grabbed Van’s hand, pulling him into the hall. My chest was tight with embarrassment and confusion. We fled across the lawn to the car, hulking in the long afternoon shadows. In a few moments we’d be out of there, clicking our seatbelts and driving to D.C., and I could try to forget about the two of them, Romley’s miserable expression and Linda’s fluttery excuses, but it was hopeless; I’d never get them out of my head. Every moment with Colette from now on, I would be heavy with this secret about my father, a secret that would probably ruin Colette if she knew. Meanwhile, inside their renovated barn, Romley and Linda could set about the business of repairing their bond. His thick hair in her hands, him pressing into the cool, sharp bones of her hips.
“Wait!” Linda came up behind us. I hoped she would say something else, that whatever it was would lift the plow of pain in my gut, but when we got to the car, she only hugged Van and then me. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, her words falling into the air behind my shoulder.
So, then: Who was L. M. Taylor?