Thirty-two

DESPITE HIS EXHAUSTION, DAVID barely slept that night.

He kept thinking that he could hear Rachel moving about in her room, but when he got up to look in on her, she was sound asleep. When he did sleep himself, it was to dream in lurid color. He saw Sara walking through Lewesdon, the beech trees a surreal, blazing green, and Hannah dragging at her heels; and Grace somewhere behind them, standing silently on the path, her face turned away from him. He pursued them down the ancient track, coming to the field and then suddenly losing sight of them altogether. He woke up in confusion, without a clue where he was. He had to stand up and look around the room, and go out into the hallway before the house actually registered with him.

After the second time of looking in on Rachel, he fell into a deeper dream, this one of complete terror. He dreamed that Anna was lying in a pool of water, her body submerged just below the surface, and only her face showing, framed by the reddish hair floating in tangled weed. It was exactly like the Millais painting.

He tried to reach out to her—her eyes were open, and she was looking at him, apparently aware of her predicament, the fact that she was sinking, that the water was rising around her face; but as quickly as he walked, his feet sank deeper and deeper into mud. He couldn’t get hold of her; when he thought his hands were on her, she dissolved. Only her face was left, a grotesque oval disc, the water creeping close to her eyes and mouth. He woke with a shock, his heart racing, and stared at the darkness of the room. For a second she stayed imprinted on the shadows; then, she vanished. He sat forward on the couch, heart pumping, fear racing through him. Only with an effort could he lie down again; but he couldn’t close his eyes. He was afraid to see her again, drifting from him, drowning as he watched.

At six, he gave up the uneven battle to sleep.

He went into the bathroom and washed, went downstairs and made tea, and then walked up to Anna’s studio, pacing the floor, looking at the open and empty drawers.

Rachel got up soon after that. He endured the breakfast routine with her, which drove them both to frustration. She liked the bread cut in just one way. She wanted the hot chocolate in a different mug, one that he couldn’t find. He turned and saw her sitting rigidly at the table, with an expression of misery on her face.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’ll write it down. Everything you like. To try not to forget.”

She seemed genuinely uneasy. He didn’t know what to do to comfort her. “Shall we go to the hospital?” he asked her, eventually.

“We’re waiting for Grace,” she said.

“We have to meet her at the hospital today,” he reminded her.

Her face puckered with fury.

“Rachel,” he said quietly.

“You’re a wrong person,” she told him.

He put his face in his hands and laughed softly, with a sad black humor.

They rode the T with hundreds of other commuters into Boston. It was a mistake. He hadn’t realized that the cars would be so crowded, and eventually he had to maneuver Rachel into one corner, where he stood a couple of paces back from her, his arms on the wall and the door, shielding her from the other bodies. She literally squirmed. She hated the proximity of others. People behind him, noticing, murmured to each other. As the T came into Back Bay, she began hitting the door.

“Rachel,” he said. “Stop it.”

It was no use. When the door opened, she got out, and began running along the platform. He ran after her and caught her as she started up the stairs. “Stay with me,” he said.

She pulled to get away from him.

“What’s going on?” a man asked him.

They struggled on the crowded steps for a moment; David glanced at him. “It’s all right,” he said.

“It don’t look all right to me,” the man said.

“She’s my daughter,” David told him.

“Don’t make it right,” the man retorted.

“Look,” David said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, OK? Just leave this to me.”

Rachel began to make a keening noise, totally overloaded by the press of faces, the noise.

“What’s the matter here?” a woman asked.

“This guy,” the man told her.

“It’s really all right,” David said. “She’s…it’s a medical problem…she hates crowds…” He looked at the woman, pleading. “I need to get her out into the air,” he said. “Outside.” The woman frowned at him. “It’s all right,” he repeated, desperate. “We just need…”

They followed him up the stairs. Rachel fought off his hands. At last they got out into Dartmouth Street.

“Where are you going?” the woman asked.

“Mass Gen,” he replied. “Her mother is very ill.”

“You needed to change at Downtown, and get the other line,” she pointed out. “You should have stayed on the train.”

“I know that,” he told her grimly. “I know.”

“It’s a long walk…”

“We’ll be OK,” he said. “Thank you. Thanks.”

He picked up Rachel’s backpack. She had put it on the floor. She took it from him only with repeated persuasion, and then walked a little ahead of him as they crossed the road.

All the time, he felt the gaze of the other passengers on him as he fought the long battle up Dartmouth, to turn right at James Avenue.

When they eventually reached the hospital, he was devastated to find that Grace wasn’t there.

He stood at the nurses’ station, utterly perplexed.

“Did she ring?” he asked.

“No,” the head nurse told him. “Did you try her home number?”

“I haven’t got a mobile,” he said.

“A what?”

“Cell phone,” he corrected himself. “I haven’t got a cell phone.”

She gave him the ward phone with a smile.

He dialed Grace’s house; but there was no answer. He looked at his watch. Nine-ten. Maybe she was already traveling. He dialed her cell phone number. It asked him to leave a message. Surprised, he gave his name. “Are you on the way in?” he asked. “Rachel is…” He paused. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Forget it. See you soon.”

Pausing a second, trying to think, he rang Jen’s house.

“Grace isn’t here,” he said. “I tried her house. There’s no reply.”

“But I thought she said she would be there early,” Jen murmured. “She even said she might try to get to Anna’s before the hospital.”

“I know,” he said.

“Maybe she slept in,” Jen offered.

He didn’t reply. He thought that impossible.

“I’ll phone her neighbor,” Jen said.

“You’ve got her number?”

“I think it’s on Anna’s list in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she told him. There was a slight pause. “David?”

“Yes?”

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“Yes,” he lied. “I’m OK. I’m fine.”

He put down the phone, and walked into the ward. Rachel was not working at her map or her drawings of the bridges. She sat on the chair next to Anna’s bed, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her chin lowered. She was watching Anna’s face, looking at the ventilator tube taped in place.

David pulled up a chair next to her.

“You can talk to your mom if you like,” he said.

She was silent.

“Tell her…” But he didn’t know what to suggest. Impossible for Rachel to pick up her mother’s hand and talk to her. Impossible for her to unravel the perplexity of her mother’s silence. Impossible to get all the shaken shapes back into line and make life look as it had been before. It was agony for Rachel, that much he could see; but not the agony of grief. It was the agony of frustration, knowing that the logic of life had been overridden. And that was not actually so far from the grief that anyone could feel, he thought. He looked at his daughter’s profile, and imagined her reaching the same point as he, by a different route. What was his fear, except a fear that his life and Anna’s life would never run straight again, would never follow the ordained lines they had made for themselves? What was anyone’s grief but a selfish desperation to get back to a point in the past?

He opened his own backpack, and brought out the piece of chipped stone, and the leaves from Island Thorns. He went around the opposite side of the bed, glancing at the monitors.

Carefully, he opened the envelope, turned Anna’s palm, and placed the oak leaves in them, and curled up her fingers around them.