Usually Nora goes into another room to call Russell. Leaves us in the kitchen and goes into the living room. Leaves us in the living room and goes up to hers. It’s a small house, so it’s more the illusion of privacy than the fact of it, but even the illusion of something precious can also be precious.
Today, though, she puts the laptop right on the coffee table with us gathered around, prays to the wifi gods for a strong enough connection, and lets Monday read Russell the letters she found. We are expecting tight, tentative optimism, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Russell or he’s seen all of us.
“Amazing!” he enthuses when Monday finishes reading.
“Really?” Nora breathes.
“Look at you girls!” He is grinning and shaking his head. “You’re all grown up!”
We forget that Russell knew us before we knew ourselves, back when we were brand-new. We forget that Russell began fighting this battle long before we did. We forget that Russell has loved not just our mother, however complicatedly, but the three of us as well for a very long time.
Last night, we looked—now that we finally knew what we were looking for—through Monday’s boxes in case the town deed to the dam was also hiding, misfiled, in the house all along.
“It could be like in a horror movie where the girl locks herself inside so she will be safe,” Monday said, “but the zombie or madman or monster or alien or deranged ex-boyfriend is already in there.”
“He’s only already in there if the girl is stupid,” Mab said, dismissing her, “or slutty.”
“You had sex,” Monday said, “so let us look through all the boxes again.”
Monday read over a great many pieces of paper herself, and I read over the great many pieces of paper she piled on my tray, and Mab lay on her bed with her legs up the wall and said things like “It’s so amazing. It’s beyond words. I really can’t tell you what sex is like.”
And Monday responded things like “Lie. That is all you have been doing since you had it.”
And Mab said, “Would you just concentrate on what you’re doing?”
And Monday said, “Why cannot you help us?”
And Mab said, “You’re the one in charge of pointless pieces of paper.”
And Monday said, “On television, sex makes people happy, but you are still annoyed and annoying.”
And I tried to remind myself that if I killed them both I would never be able to use the toilet again when my mother was not home.
Looking through all those papers was fruitless maybe, but not pointless. It was distracting. And I needed a distraction. It’s not like River and Mab having sex was a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any less of a betrayal—not by her and not of me, but a betrayal nonetheless. It’s not that I’m jealous—at least not exactly—more like I don’t want River to have sex with anyone. Not in an if-I-can’t-have-him-nobody-can way. In that I want him to be beyond—above maybe—his body’s baser limitations. I transcend mine every hour of every day. Is it too much to ask him to do the same for one afternoon with my sister?
Because I was trying to ignore Mab talking about River, because I was trying to ignore Monday talking about Mab, I was concentrating hard on the documents before us and can say this with confidence: Monday’s boxes do not contain the deed to the dam or anything relating to it or the land sale.
In their stead, Nora reads Russell the emails River got off his father’s phone in which, it is finally clear, on November 22, Duke Templeton plans to start repair work on the dam. Our dam. It was brand-new when he built the plant, but two decades later it’s as worse for wear as the rest of us. This is what Apple meant when she said Nathan could drown down here, the leaks and cracks she was worrying over in therapy. You can actually see them on the wall of the dam. Mab remembers brown curls of water wending their uneven way down the side from when she and River sat along its top and discussed leaping off the one in Switzerland. And those are only the cracks you can see. There must be at least as many on the lake side, but no reputable contractor would begin underwater work around here December through February. That’s why Duke was in such a hurry. Without a sufficiently functional dam there is no river there, and without the river there is no chemical plant.
The papers Duke was hoping stayed hidden and the papers Apple was desperate to find may have pointed the same place, but they are not the same papers. Neither wanted anyone to know about the dam but for different reasons. She wanted to destroy the letters that showed her father knew Belsum’s plan hinged on dumping chemical waste, knew the diverted river would be polluted and ruined, but sold them the land anyway, addressing the problem only by donating a house and taking his riches and moving away.
Apple knew her father’s actions were good profit-strategy but bad human-being, bad citizen-being, a bad legacy. What she didn’t know was that they were the missing link in the lawsuit, the elusive, irrefutable, incontestable proof Nora’s been after for our entire lifetimes.
What Russell says when Nora’s done laying all this out is “You’re gorgeous.” He is shaking his head in awe. “All four of you. Just gorgeous.”
“Russell. Focus. Are you listening? This is what we’ve been waiting for all these years. Proof Belsum knew before beginning operations that there was harmful effluent they needed to hide. In our river!” She discloses not a single word of Apple’s therapy sessions. She does not so much as hint at Nathan’s PhD or the reason for Belsum’s shift from container parts to chemicals or the question of GL606’s provenance. She does, though, report Omar’s story about Apple’s frantic search through the town filing cabinets, which, after all, is not a doctor-patient confidentiality breach, only hearsay.
“Just gorgeous,” Russell says again.
Nora blushes with exasperated pleasure, and also, of course, she is used to his cautious pessimism in the face of her surely-this-time enthusiasms. She hugs Mab with one arm, squeezes my foot with her other hand, bends her head toward Monday who gives Nora a small smile of thanks for not touching her.
“My girls,” she says.
Maybe she senses his sense that it’s too late. Maybe it’s all these revelations, finding everything she’s been searching for for so long and finding also that it doesn’t mean what she thought it would. Maybe it’s that the question Mab and I wrestled was never a question for her. I can see Mab grinding her teeth and know she’s wondering what I’m wondering. If we told him about Nathan’s tests would that be enough? Or would it not matter because we could never prove he shared them with his father, or that his father, without a PhD in chemistry himself, knew what they meant? But Nora was never going to use anything Nathan disclosed in therapy anyway. Maybe her sad smile is because of any of that, or maybe she’s just tired, or maybe she finally sees what Russell’s been trying to tell her for years now.
“It’s not enough?” She’s smiling with wet eyes.
“Probably not.” He smiles back. “Especially not now that nearly everyone’s dropped off the suit. Especially because this brings in other parties, the Groves, mostly deceased and with whom your beef is not. Especially not after so much time.”
“I can get more emails,” Mab says weakly. “I can look more places. There’s more evidence out there.” She looks at me. “I know it.”
What we three feel is desperate. What Nora and Russell feel is more like goodbye. This is its own victory—maybe the most important one—but we’re not ready.
“The problem is you have all the proof you need of their disregard and their scheming and their willingness to do you great harm. It’s just not enough to take them down or make them stop. However—Hey! Look who’s here! It’s Matthew Pumpkin! Come on over, Mr. Pumpkin.”
Matthew in a pumpkin costume wanders on screen and also lights up to see us, his huge grin mooning larger. He throws his arms wide. “My friends!”
“Do you remember the Mitchells?” Russell prompts his son. “This is Mab, Monday, Mirabel, and Nora.”
“Hello!” he calls cheerfully. “I’m a pumpkin for Halloween.”
“It is November,” says Monday.
“I’m a pumpkin for Thanksgiving.” He waves vine-laced arms at us, shimmies his pillowed orange middle like he’s hula-hooping.
“You’re such a big boy, Matthew.” Nora is smiling the same smile Russell gave us. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Why?” He’s delighted but puzzled.
“Because look what a good job you’ve done growing up.”
She’s teary still but grinning now, Russell too, surrounded by four impatient, awkward, embarrassed kids, looking across too many miles and too many years into each other’s eyes like they are in the same room, which they will never be again.
“However what?” says Monday.
No one has any idea what she’s talking about.
“You said we do not have enough to take them down or make them stop however.”
“However what?” says Russell.
“That is what I am asking you!” Monday shouts.
“No idea. Here’s a thought, though.” Russell’s face changes. “You won’t get any money, and I can’t guarantee Duke Templeton won’t come back, but if all you want to do is stop the plant from reopening, you don’t need to win a lawsuit. Just take away his dam.”
“How?” Nora looks perplexed. My sisters look perplexed. Even Russell looks like he’s still puzzling this out. But all at once, I see it. I see everything.
“He doesn’t own it,” Russell says. “Bourne does. Who knows how he’s planning to get this done—forged paperwork, shady contractors—doesn’t matter. There wasn’t any way for us to keep them from coming back because they own the land the plant’s built on and those extended land-use rights, but we can stop any work he’s doing on the dam simply on account of its not being his.”
Because I was wrong. Duke wasn’t in a rush to get dam repairs underway before winter. Duke was in a rush to get dam repairs underway before anyone thought to look for the paperwork and realized the most astonishing thing of all: that it’s been in our power all along to say no. The land is theirs but the dam is ours, meaning all we have to do is nothing.
“How?” Nora asks again, though in a different tone this time, less incredulity, more wonder.
“We file an injunction to halt work on the dam. You believe that’s scheduled for November twenty-second?”
“Yes,” my Voice and my sisters all answer at once.
“I’ll prepare it now so it’s ready to file the minute construction starts.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Nora asks.
“Nothing. Keep quiet. Call Omar. Get the deed and whatever other pursuant paperwork.”
“Just like that?” says Nora.
“Just like that,” says Russell.
“It can’t possibly be that easy,” she breathes, “can it?”
“Of course not,” Russell says cheerfully. “They’ll appeal the injunction. They’ll countersue. They’ll go to some judge who owes them a favor and suspend the suspension. But all of that takes time, and we’ll have a head start.”
“And then what?” Nora says.
“And then we’ll see,” Russell promises.
“Trick or treat!” Matthew screams.
“It is November twelfth!” Monday shrieks.
“Bye, Matthew.” Nora gives a little wave.
“Bye, girls.” Russell holds his hands to his heart.
“Bye, Mab, Monday, Mirabel, and Nora,” Matthew sings.
“Bye, Russell,” Nora whispers.
“Bye, Nora,” he says and reaches forward to disconnect.
In all the years, it is the first time I have ever heard them say goodbye.
She calls Omar.
“Apple Templeton was both right and wrong,” she says without preamble. “It’s true you don’t have what she was looking for. But the answer is in your files.”
A pause while she listens then announces triumphantly, “The dam is leaking.”
Another pause.
“I’m sure a few small leaks are nothing to be concerned about if your goal is just to maintain a nice park and a pretty lake no one would be caught dead swimming in anyway. But if your intention were, say, to reopen a disgraced chemical plant and dump poison into the nearby river, it’s apparently in desperate need of repair.”
This time her face opens into its widest smile as she listens.
“Good question. The person who gives the go-ahead for repairs to a dam is the person who owns the dam.”
Pause.
“Also a good question. The person who owns the dam is you. Us. Bourne.”
Forty-five minutes later, he’s at our front door.
He is wearing a tuxedo jacket and shirt and bow tie over jeans and sneakers.
He is holding flowers.
And a tiny velvet box. A ring box.
We are sitting around the kitchen table when he knocks, and she is laughing before she’s even got the door open.
“Omar Radison. Why on earth do you own half a tuxedo?”
“Work-study job at college. Catering and Events.”
“I’m impressed it still fits.”
“Nothing ever changes around here”—he pats his belly—“except my waistline, of course. The pants went long ago.”
She laughs, touches the top of her own pants absently. “And where’d you get these?” She takes the flowers—yellow mums in a pot—with reverence. They are blooming things, after all.
“Donna Anvers grew these herself. A good sign, no?”
“The best.” Her other hand cups her flushed cheek like he’s told her they’ve struck oil underneath the Do Not Shop.
“And you were right, Nora.”
“About what?”
“Everything, probably. You’ve always been right. I’ve known it … Honestly, I guess I’ve known it all along.”
A pause then as she looks at him and he looks at her and neither looks away.
He clears his throat. “But among other things, you were right about the dam. The dam belongs to Bourne. The decision as to what to do with it is ours. If it’s leaking, if Belsum needs it repaired to get up and running, we’ve got the chance to answer a question I only ever got one shot at answering. And that time I chose wrong.”
“What question?” Nora’s trembling.
He gets down on one knee, holds the tiny box up to her. “Say no.”
She’s half-laughing, half-crying again. “Omar Radison, you’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.”
“Open the box,” he says.
She does. Inside is a piece of paper, origamied to fit. She unfolds and unfolds and unfolds until it lies flat. The deed to the dam. Witnessed by Hickory Grove. Built perhaps at his behest. But inarguably, unambiguously, notarized right there in black and white as belonging in its entirety to Bourne Town Council and Municipality.
“You mashed it all up!” Monday shrieks.
“It’s a copy.” Omar’s eyes do not leave my mother’s. “This one’s only for dramatic effect.”
She hugs it to her chest. “And sentimental value.”
“Sentiment is for the past.” He says it very softly because by now he is standing quite near her.
“This is from the past,” she points out.
“No”—his eyes are shining—“this is for our future.”
Her eyes are shining too, and when I search them I see that she can’t quite believe it, this promise of a future. But I see that she can’t quite not believe it anymore either, that her permanently reined-in expectations are slipping their leads, taking first tentative steps, then running wild.