Amy: 1994
It was two years to the day since Amy’s grandmother died. Stella and Simon had worried about leaving Amy alone on the painful anniversary, but in fact it was her parents’ concern that weighed on her most. Amy had planned her own personal memorial, and it did not include anyone else. So last night she had had an early dinner at her childhood home in Hudson, after which a car service arrived to pick up her parents.
“Sure you’ll be okay, puddlesplash?” her father asked, his pet names meteorological of late. Earlier in the day she had been “blue skies.”
“Uhh!” Amy responded through the crush of Stella’s bruising hug.
The taxi tooted outside, and at last her parents set off for JFK. They would catch a flight for London in the morning and make the drive to Devon where her father had grown up.
Amy slept in her old bed in her old room and woke early, conscious that she had been busy with dreams in the night. Her head was filled with images that tumbled around like clothes in a dryer. She lay quiet for an hour or so, making the transition to reality, but before long, she was on her way to the town of Indian Creek on an unusually warm spring morning. She drove straight to the cemetery. It occupied a gentle hill on the fringe of the local golf course about half a mile from her grandparents’ house, now occupied by a fashionable young couple who had painted the entire interior in an array of whites, including the original eighteenth century pine floors.
Inching her car up the pitted access road, Amy remembered the countless times she had tagged along with her grandfather as he played the course. The distinction of being his “caddy” had made her feel very grown up. He would ask her what club he should use, giving her a thumbs-up if she got it right, and explaining why if she guessed wrong. She parked now at the fifth hole, which abutted the graveyard. It was a challenging hole, very short—you wouldn’t go lower than a five iron. But the green sat on top of a steep hill, like a traffic cone with its head lopped off. Every single time she and her grandfather had played it, he would stop before teeing off and say, “My gravestone’s going to be right there ….” He would point with his club. “But if I don’t make a hole in one on this son of a bitch before I die, bury me someplace else. I don’t want to have to look at the goddamn thing for eternity.”
“Grandad!” Amy would chastise him. “You’re not going to die!” But in the end he shot not one, but two holes in one before the fatal heart attack and wound up with a first-class view.
She got out of the car and opened the trunk, removing a tarpaulin and a carton. She walked them through a break in the hedge and stood for a moment, gazing at the neat rows of graves where she and her friends had spent so many hours during the long summer days, playing hide and seek and inventing treasure hunts. There was an intoxicating smell of recently cut grass. Clusters of daffodils caught the morning sun.
Amy spread the tarpaulin out between her grandparents’ headstones, noting that her grandfather’s, more than fifteen years old now, could use some attention. She stared at the inscriptions on first his and then her grandmother’s. She accepted the fact of her grandfather’s demise now, though for a while it had seemed impossible that such a force could be so unexpectedly cut down. But her grandmother was an entirely different story; even as a child Amy could be brought to tears merely by imagining Gran’s inevitable departure. Now that the first two years of heartache were past, Amy had work to do, and she planned to complete it today.
Installing herself cross-legged on the tarpaulin, she removed a hardcover book from the carton: The Children’s Eyes, a novel by Amy Vanderwall. She stared at the cover, a misty photograph of a pair of lovers in a leafy wood. It was beautiful. She wished Gran had seen it in its final incarnation.
A writer friend had warned her that the appearance of your just-published book in a bookstore window was apt to be somewhat of a letdown. How wrong he was! It was embarrassing how many hours she had loitered in front of various bookstores throughout New York, gazing at her novel and fully understanding what it meant to swell with pride. It was like being pumped full of a giddy gas that lifted you straight off the pavement to bob deliriously around among the skyscrapers.
She set the book down and peered into the carton, which was crammed with letters, hers and Gran’s. It turned out that they had both been storing them away over the years, so that now there was a comprehensive collection of their correspondence. Amy had pulled a selection from both Gran’s and her own that seemed particularly appropriate for her intentions on this day. She began with an early letter, its disciplined sentences on Gran’s awful blue stationery that she bought each year from the mentally challenged son of a neighbor. She always ordered too much, which accounted for the dozen boxes in her closet when she died. The familiarity of it, the tactile reality, seemed cruel. This was what was left of Gran’s voice, these flimsy bits of paper? Amy held the letter to her chest.
“Gran,” she whispered, and felt her eyes prick.
She sat for some moments, calming herself, but soon she became aware that the words in the box beside her were practically jumping off the pages, rattling and rustling and demanding attention. She had come here, after all, to read and to celebrate. There was a rite to complete as well, but that could wait awhile.
As on most of her letters, Gran had penciled at the top a number representing Amy’s age at the time.
8
Dear Gran,
How is Lord Stingwell? Do you think that there is a Lady Stingwell?
Love, Amy
Lord Stingwell, Amy remembered, was a wasp who had bored a hole into an eave of Gran’s house. She and Amy had spent an entire hour sipping lemonade and watching the hard-working creature stuff pieces of leaf and straw into his new home. Gran had remarked that he ought to be knighted for his “enterprise and tenacity,” two words that Amy readily added to her list of favorites. Her grandmother could always be counted on for a fresh supply.
Gran had replied:
Dearest Amy,
Lord Stingwell has indeed been seen about town with a winsome lady friend. I hesitate to elevate her to the status of nobility if only because her clothing leaves much to be desired. Her dress is drab. Her antennae droop. Well, you’ll see for yourself next weekend. Shall we cook something?
Love, Gran
Amy set the letter down and sailed off on a memory voyage back into the big kitchen at Indian Creek where she had spent so much time with her grandmother. Some of their concoctions became classics in the family lore—for instance, the peanut butter ice cream that yanked a filling out of William Adams’ bicuspid. Nonetheless, the two persevered. Mostly what they did was laugh.
9
Dear Gran,
Somebody pulled the vine down in Kramer’s Woods! It was the best vine by far for swinging. Why would anybody do that? It made me cry so much my face hurt. It was just lying there in the leaves like a great big dead snake.
Love, Amy
What Amy remembered about that incident, along with her outrage, was that the arrangement of words in her letter had mattered. She had struggled over it, trying to work out a way to express to Gran precisely what she meant. The first version had led off with the final sentence. Ultimately, she realized, without quite knowing why exactly, that the dead snake would have more of an impact if she left it for the very end. Funny that all this time later she’d recall that struggle with the language when she couldn’t begin to remember who had actually been with her in the woods that day.
Dearest Amy,
Sometimes it’s very hard to understand why people do things. The person who pulled down the vine may have done it very casually, not even thinking about the consequences. Or maybe he didn’t even know what it was used for. Or it could be that he did it to be mean. Sadly, there are some in this world who like to destroy. I believe that they are very unhappy with a big empty place inside themselves that, no matter what, they can never fill. I’m sorry that you lost your vine. Maybe you and your friends should have a little ceremony for it, like you did for Anabel’s turtle.
Love,
Gran
The next was also from Gran. Now and then, she or Amy would dash off a random thought and post it to the other before it slipped away.
Amy dearest,
You had mentioned your lack of interest in sports, despite your athletic abilities. It’s not hard to understand. For you, words were and are the thing. You eat them. You gobble them up. You get lost in the dictionary as if you were at Tiffany’s gazing at jewels. But I agree with your mother, that you need a balance to stay healthy. I’m certain that you can come to an agreement that will satisfy you both.
XO Gran
Amy could almost hear her grandmother’s voice in the words as she read them. She strained to hear it, longed to hear it, but it just eluded her. She was beginning to feel an ache in her chest like a bruised rib. Suddenly, a raucous cackling noise above Amy’s head caught her attention. She looked up and saw a squirrel perched on a nearby limb. It seemed to be lecturing her.
“Excuse me?” she said out loud.
It leapt from branch to branch, then scurried down the trunk, head first. It halted and settled back on its hind feet to study her.
“You know what?” Amy said, laying her hand against the spot that ached. “This sucks.”
She had hoped that reading the correspondence might be healing. What was all that bullshit people spouted about memories being a comfort? About as consoling as a poke in the eye as far as Amy was concerned. What she craved was the tangible fact of her grandmother, sitting beside her on the tarp, with the dappled light playing off her aged face.
“Oh, hell,” Amy murmured to herself. This is what she got for having a best friend nearly sixty years her senior. Just then she saw the number at the top of the next letter and experienced a moment of clarity. The year was 1975, a year in which several memorable events had occurred, all of which Amy had ascribed to her having achieved, at last, the double digits; Ron had kissed her in the science lab, most notably. She still remembered the surprise of his teeth against her upper lip.
10
Dear Gran,
I’m feeling much better. I forgot what it was like to be sick and hear the visiting nurse drive up. You just know you’re going to get a shot. Also I’m sad that I missed the most amazing week ever. There was a foot of snow on the ground, then it rained so the top layer melted a little. Then it got really cold and the whole world froze so you could ice skate on your yard, or the golf course or anywhere. It was one gigantic rink out there and I had to watch it from my bedroom window. Unfair!
Are you taking care of your cough?
Love,
Amy
The next was in pencil, Gran’s writing on the hasty side this time, though not scribbled. She was always neat.
Dearest Amy,
You would have enjoyed the little to-do outside the kitchen window this morning. Two gray squirrels were playing tag on the trunk of the maple tree. They stopped suddenly, on high alert with both tails straight up. They had spotted a chipmunk, who was laboriously rolling a walnut across the lawn. They were on him in a flash, charging at him from all directions. But the little guy was not about to give his treasure away. He stuffed the nut into his cheek and went up on his hind legs, holding his ground imperiously, like royalty facing down the rabble. Intimidated, the grays turned tail and scrambled back up the tree again. His majesty, the chipmunk, spit the walnut out and glared after the bullies with visible disgust. Such captivating drama to witness while doing the dishes!
Love,
Gran
14
Dear Gran,
I read a book this week that made me cry. A lot of things make me cry but not always in a bad way. It’s like I feel too many things at the same time or just feel too much in general. I think that I’m an inside out kind of person.
Love,
Amy
What could the book have been? she wondered. And yet, she was eager to get on with it. Gran had drawn a red star on the top right-hand corner of the next, with a date: “8/89.” 1989, the year Amy had finally set her first novel aside and spent a summer agonizing over the prospect of never writing again. And then … what was that magic, when the idea strikes like a fish surfacing, freed from the depths below to shower beads of water that glisten in the sun?
24
Dear Gran,
I have the first sentence of my new book:
“Ellen O’Malley … yes, that Ellen O’Malley … climbed out of the boat and onto the rickety dock in her Fifth Avenue shoes.”
Love, Amy
And the reply:
Dearest Amy,
Thank you.
Love, Gran
Leave it to Gran, Amy thought, to respond to such a profoundly personal communication with just those six perfect words. Even praise—How intriguing, I can’t wait to read it—would have felt like pressure. How did Gran know these things?
Here was a postcard from that period, with the Empire State Building on it. Amy flipped it over and read her own printing in bold letters:
25
GRAN, I GOT FIRED! IMAGINE THAT! XOXO
“Tell me!” Gran had written back, on that ancient lurid stationery.
To which Amy had responded:
I guess I’m just not cut out to be a waitress. I got the orders mixed up last night and gave a man who was allergic to onions a contaminated soup. You wouldn’t have believed how much he vomited. Gran, if it hadn’t been so tragic, it would have been kind of fascinating in a “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” kind of way. It just went on and on.
So I got canned. And no, Gran, please don’t start in about money. I’m fine, I really am. I just need to find some other line of work.
Love, Amy
Gran was always trying to fund her so that she could continue writing without having to work days. But Amy, for her part, worried that her grandmother would run out of money. What if she needed to go into a nursing home one day, or to hire help? The two had reached an unspoken truce in that Gran would give Amy one extravagant check at Christmas and then another at her birthday, which was conveniently five months later.
It had been such an odd sojourn in Amy’s life, living in the city. She had felt from her arrival that she was an alien in New York. One day, she had seen a man crossing Madison Avenue with flippers on his feet. The sight was bizarre enough, but even more striking was the fact that nobody else seemed to notice. To Amy, the flipper man seemed like a kindred soul. Of course, it didn’t help that she was making precisely zero progress as a published writer.
25
So, dearest Gran, another rejection for the book. That makes eight. I suppose it’s possible that if I had an agent there might be more interest, but I haven’t had any luck there either. It’s the slush pile for me. God knows if anybody ever really reads those manuscripts or if they just send out the turndown letters willy-nilly.
Mom and Dad are pressuring me to give the writing a break (i.e., quit). They think it’s too tough on my self-esteem—I should leave New York and come back to Hudson. Dad thinks I could get a job with The Reporter, a.k.a. The Distorter. I suppose that’s writing, too, but I want to make things up, not record the dreary facts.
Do you think I’ve made a religion out of writing? I’m not sure I believe in God, but I surely do believe in Words.
Love, Amy
Dearest Amy,
Yes, words are important—holy, even, or they can be. A perfect sentence is a contribution to the world. Not everyone can conjure up such a fantastical thing, but you can, with your own special voice and your own special light. Whether it’s recognized or not, your book is worthy. And so, you must write another, and another after that. If there comes a time—never, I hope, and believe—when you are no longer sustained by your work, that’s when you set it aside. And even should that come to pass, you will have enriched the hearts and minds of those who were fortunate enough to read your Words, in whatever form.
With much love and faith,
Gran
25
Dear Gran,
Somebody out there must have read your wonderful letter! I got a great rejection today! It says: “We are sorry that UP RIVER does not fit into our publishing schedule. We would be pleased, however, to read any future material you wish to send along to us. If would be helpful if you would attach a copy of this letter to any submissions. Very truly yours, Ramsey Smith.”
I love Ramsey Smith! I adore Ramsey Smith!
I was so inspired that I hopped on the subway and spent a whole afternoon walking on the beach. Listen to this. Suddenly, when I had walked, I don’t know, halfway to Montauk, I got this great idea for a final scene, complete with last line of the whole shebang, which is, of course, insanely crucial. But I didn’t have anything to write with and I was scared to death I was going to forget it, which is tragic when it happens because you never get it back and what you wind up with isn’t anywhere near as good as the initial thought. I had a receipt from the cleaners in my pocket. It had the straight pin still attached, you know, so they can pin it to the garment. I stuck my finger with it and squeezed and squeezed until I had enough blood to write down just a couple of words, enough to jog my memory when I got back to civilization. What do you think of your crazy granddaughter?
P.S. Do you think Ramsey Smith is a boy or a girl?
Dearest Amy,
I spent some time rereading and thinking about your last letter. I took it to the orchard and sat under the flowering crabapple with the bees humming fat and lazy around my head.
It seems to me that you’re talking about passion. You could be writing of your devotion to a man, such is the intensity of your description. This made me wonder where romantic love fits into your life? Or does it? I would be so very interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
Do you see Wayne in New York? You mentioned in passing that he works at the Natural History Museum, something to do with insects. The last time I saw the two of you in the same room together was here, last Christmas. Amy, darling, he does love you. It’s quite clear in the way he gazes at you with such longing. It seems equally evident, however, that you don’t return his ardor. Though by my count you do have four more years until your deadline.
And was there also someone named Kevin?
I wish you would tell me everything you can about your process of writing. I can’t think of anything more interesting.
Love, Gran
Gran rarely mentioned the boyfriend issue. Amy knew it grieved her that she was unattached, and Amy had half jokingly assured her that she would visit the issue when she was thirty, a birthday that now loomed close on the horizon. The truth was, Amy wasn’t so certain about falling in love. The closest she’d ever come was when she was fifteen, with Theo, the drug dealer. She still thought of him, in fact, which was alarming. What did that say about her? Both her mother and grandmother had suffered through marriages with troubled men. Amy had watched it, which was why she had pledged to herself that she would join a convent before she would carry on that particular tradition. Instead, she had vowed to throw her energy into writing; that producing a book would signal the end of something, and maybe the beginning as well. She would be free now, to explore all facets of her life—writing another book, certainly, and then another, but it was this one that proved a beloved tyrant in her head and in her heart.
26
Dear Gran,
Kevin is very good-looking. I’m so shallow anyway that, for the time being, just staring at him seems to keep me gratified enough.
Did I upset you with my gory tale? I never want ever to distress you in any way. How I wish we could be sitting side by side in the garden chairs to hash over such weighty issues as love and work and how to layer lasagna.
I remember one time when Mom and Dad went away and I stayed at your house. It was maybe my first sleepover because I was sad and a little scared. I must have been crying because you opened the door to the bedroom. You were backlit against the hall light with your hair cascading down your shoulders. You looked like an angel, and I remember feeling that nothing bad could ever happen to me. Now it’s my turn to take care of you! I want to bring you tea and biscuits and make sure you’re warm enough. I know how chilly you get on these cool spring nights with no fire in the fireplace.
You asked about writing. I’ve been keeping a journal. It’s not secret, really, though it’s very personal so there’s no one but you whom I would share it with. When I’m writing, I often feel that I’m under a spell—I really question how much control over the process I have. Maybe after a few more years it won’t feel quite so elusive. The journal is a way to pin it down, I suppose, to make writing more of a routine, like going to work in a factory each day. Of course, that’s ridiculous, but I am so afraid that the slender golden thread attaching me to the world of imagination will suddenly tear asunder and I’ll never write again.
Just in case they are at all interesting, here are some excerpts from my journal. Sorry for the sloppy handwriting.
Today I went to a new doctor, so I was asked to fill out a form. I stared at the “Occupation” box for a long time. What am I if I’m not a writer? Am I a writer if I never publish a single word? I left it blank.
Writing is like being possessed. I can barely look or listen without thinking: how do I describe that? (The water lapping at the shore during a cold snap—is it viscous, sluggish, what?) I am constantly weighing my words, a walking Roget’s.
My new heroine, Ellen O’Malley, is famous for being famous, empty at the core (we think, but she’s really hiding). She drives through a traffic light and causes an accident in which someone dies because she does not believe that even traffic lights apply to her.
Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll have some fatal accident before I finish the final draft of my book and someone will read it and think I thought this crap version was the finished product. The horror!
Along with the characters from my current book, there are people in my head from various projects, from other places, other centuries even. They exist apart from me, and I can tap into their lives at any time. This one is standing by the stove in the gaslight, stirring a pot, this one is walking on a mossy path in the woods accompanied by his three-legged dog. I can remember the people in stories I wrote as a child. Maybe this is why I rarely feel lonely. Miserable, fearful, yes, but not alone.
I had expected when I began the first novel that I would write exactly what I felt. Now I see that I can sometimes come achingly close, touch my finger briefly to the spot, especially at those inexplicable periods when the keyboard is clattering away faster than my thoughts and I’m just hanging on for dear life.
I like working in a small room, so that I can pluck the words out of the air before they can escape.
When I look back over these scribbles, Gran, I realize that I skirted around the piece of it that plagues me every day: my terror. I am almost always convinced that I will fail, that the cruel blank screen will win. That I have nothing important to say and that I’m living in delusion. I’m so intimidated by Mom’s real-world accomplishments. She is making a difference in people’s lives. I’m just a word whore. Maybe I should quit these ridiculous mutterings and get on with a productive occupation like teaching or going to medical school. These are the thoughts that torment me every day until finally I force myself to sit down and type a sentence. One sentence, which can be total nonsense—often is—and yet, for whatever reason, somehow that mechanical gesture starts the engine going and if I’m lucky, I’ll have a decent day at the computer.
I’m so lucky to have you, Gran. You are my safe place.
Love, Amy
Dearest Amy,
I should have known you would remember that Saturday was the anniversary of Grandad’s death and that I would be a little bit down in the dumps. Thank you for coming all the way up here in the pouring rain. Mercy, I half expected to see an ark floating past my window! And how dear that you would slog through the torrents with me to visit the cemetery. I am a lucky grandma indeed!
Today the sun shines in the rain-washed sky and I am cheerful.
Gratefully,
Gran
Amy dear,
Next time you come up, I’ll tell you about the night I got drunk with your father.
Love, Gran
After this one, her handwriting rapidly deteriorated, becoming wobbly and faint. But Amy continued to write regularly, unaware that this was Gran’s final year.
27
Dear Gran,
For two weeks, it’s been empty inside that place where my characters live. This has never happened to me before. Where is everybody?
Love from your freaked-out granddaughter,
Amy
Dearest Freaked-out,
Think of it this way: your imagination is a reservoir that never empties. When it’s active, the spigot is open and ideas flood out. When it’s closed, there’s merely a drip, or perhaps nothing at all. But the deep water is merely still, waiting for the tap to open again. And it will. You’ll see.
Love, Gran
(And the last, just a note jotted on a blank greeting card with a lily pictured on the front:)
27
Dear Gran,
You were right. It’s deafening in here. I can’t get them to shut up.
Love, Amy
Amy felt her throat thicken as she put the letters back inside and closed the box, and after sitting for so long, stood a little shakily. She folded up the tarp and set it down, laying her book on top. Then she walked to the car and opened the trunk. She removed a shovel and walked with it back to the gravesite. She lingered for a moment, breathing in the scent of new grass. She loved the way the trees looked in spring when the budding leaves veiled the trees in delicate pale green lace.
A lone golfer played up the center of the fairway nearby, striding with the loose long-legged gait of her grandfather. It seemed appropriate that he would visit her thoughts just now.
She dug a deep hole beside her grandmother’s stone. Then she set the shovel down and retrieved her book. Amy imagined it lying beside her grandmother, the leaves on its cover murmuring, soothing. She opened the book carefully so as not to crack the binding. The print looked beautiful crossing the page, line after line. She held it open and cleared her throat.
“I got a good review in Publisher’s Weekly, Gran. The reviewer said, and I quote, ‘Vanderwall’s novel is insightful, funny, poignant, not a new theme by any means, but deftly realized and altogether an auspicious debut.’ What do you think of that?” She imagined Gran’s face gazing back at her with pride and delight.
Amy listened to the silence for a moment. It was time. She knelt down on one knee, setting her book on the other. She took a pen from her pocket, held it poised for a moment above the title page, then began:
“For my dearest Gran. This book belongs to you. I would not be a writer if not for you. I would not be a person if not for you. You lit my way. You light it still.”
And, because it felt like a prayer, she wrote:
“Amen.”