eleven

Again, there’s an envelope on the project table with my name in block letters. There’s no return address and the stamp is crooked. It takes me a long time to decide whether to open it, but of course I do, because an unopened letter will eventually have its due. This I know.

What I try to do—what I’ve always tried to do—is bring something good with my work. Now someone is using this goodness to bring fear. I want to open the envelope. I want to burn it. I’m curious. I’m scared.

Finally, after what seems like ages, I lift the cotton envelope. I rip the flap quickly, like a Band-Aid from skin. There it is, another card from the Ten Good Ideas line. This time, the Search for the True card—number four in the series. The design shows the world, blue and floating amid the dark night. Stars are set as sparkled dents in the universe.

I brace myself for the anonymous note, but this time—nothing. There’s just blank space where words should be. Something is inside, though. A small business card falls out and lands on the painted concrete floor; it stares up at me with block letters, e-mail and a phone number for the Anglers.

I leave it there, this offensive business card on cheap paper. I stand and use my foot to push the card under the table, toward the trash can on the far side, and I turn away.

If there’s a truth to be known or told or written, I want to know. Who wouldn’t? But to hint like this is perverse. I wish I had a wineglass to throw again. I wish I had something to smash and hurl and splinter, but I don’t.

I’ve come here to print wedding invitations and I’ll focus. We have a huge order—four hundred invites using both a polymer plate of two tiny birds facing each other on a tree branch, which Francie had designed for the bride, and also our carved-wood fonts, which are set and tied into a metal chase. Setting this card took Max and I the better half of a day. I lift the large platen top, placing the first sheet of cotton paper.

A meditative calm comes over me, as it often does when I’m alone and printing. Four hundred invitations. My God, who invites four hundred people to witness the exchange of vows? Does this make them more binding? Cooper and I married in front of a small crowd in a downtown chapel. My family couldn’t pay for a large wedding and Cooper didn’t want one, although his mother begged us to please let her have a cathedral wedding and she’d pay for it.

For this invitation’s design, I met with the new bride for hours over a month’s time. When I asked about her groom, she flushed. She loved him so much and she told me, she couldn’t believe her luck. He’d been her best friend, and then love showed up.

My parents claimed to have a great love—one that lasted through thirty-six years of marriage. So tied together that they died together. It was an accidental carbon monoxide death. Usually when you hear about this kind of dying—the slow, in your sleep death—it’s suicide. But not my parents. Suicide would have meant an eternal hell, and no matter what they feared here on earth, they feared damning separation from God more so. What I’ve learned since is that carbon monoxide poisoning is the number-one reason for accidental death.

There are some things you don’t want to learn.

They’d gone to bed that night and closed their Bibles—Mom’s with the pink quilted cover and Dad’s with the leather so cracked, it looked like dried mud. They’d turned off the lights, let Buster, the mutt, jump onto the bed, and together closed their eyes. They were lost in their own worlds, asleep when the ancient furnace, which they’d sworn to replace, started to leak. Sleep, I think, is the only time we can live entirely in our own world. And this time, for my parents, it was an eternal sleep.

The church secretary found them the next day. She had said that the worst part was the way they looked alive, curled in repose, as if they didn’t know they were yet dead. Buster, too.

But the worst part for me, the terrible part, isn’t that I wasn’t the one who found them; it was the reason I didn’t find them. Two weeks before my parents passed away, we had a disagreement about why I didn’t regularly take Gwen to church, why I myself had stopped meeting them at the front steps. I’d tried to explain, but because I didn’t fully understand my motivations, I couldn’t rightly explain it to them. My decision then was vague and unformed. Dad yelled at me, telling me that I would destroy my family and my life. I said a terrible and hurtful thing when I told him that church hadn’t exactly saved his family, that it wasn’t the catchall insurance card he’d wanted for us, was it?

I was sick for days after this fight and I’d spent hours forming an apology. But Mom and Dad died before the gap was healed. A simple ending, a terrible ending, and one I couldn’t undo.

My dad was an old-fashioned “father knows best” kind of dad. But there was more to it than that. At least for Willa and me. There was this dad, this charming and gregarious man who made people laugh and cry, who enriched their lives. Then there was the man who would only appear at home—the moody, angry man frustrated at the daily goings-on of any life. The rages came from unexplainable sources: a barking dog across the yard; a pair of shoes left in the middle of the kitchen; crumbs in the beanbag chair in the den. And there he’d be, his forehead scrunched up like a wrinkled sheet, his eyebrows drawn together, screaming.

God, the screaming.

The weird part (the part Willa and I would discuss under the bed) was how the screaming usually wasn’t prompted by our disobedience or back talk. It would usually be something random and unpredictable that would set him off. That’s what made it all so terrifying. There was the night I came home crying because I’d been excluded from a club my friends had created. The Cool Clique, they’d called it, an uninspired and dull name for a club that didn’t invite me, and I told them so. “Stupidest name for a club ever.” It hadn’t gone well, and for days, until it became boring to them, the girls shunned me, closed gaps at the lunch table, refused my phone calls, and turned away when I approached. I wept at the dinner table, wanting solace or comfort or anything parents should offer when a child is hurting. But instead, I was rewarded with a lecture about “not being of this world” and how I cared about the wrong, wrong, wrong things. When Willa piped up and told Dad to have a heart, he exploded with a lecture and rant so severe, it rang in my ears for a week. So, no matter what it was, the irritating circumstance reminded him, again, that his daughters were disobedient and willful. Mostly, we were. Although we tried very hard not to be.

And yet my favorite phrase had been “That’s my girl.” I always wanted to please my dad, even in my rebellion. If he gave me a compliment, I would repeat in my head over and over like a poem or love song. “You look lovely today, Eve.” “Great report card; that’s the Wetherburn way. You got the brains in the family, for sure.” Then the big smile and “That’s my girl.”

But that was only part of it. I hated him too. I hated the smell of his aftershave as he came down the stairs; his black hair combed sideways across his head; his loafers left in the exact spot at the front door; his change of voice when he believed other people were listening. I hated it all. Yet I needed him to approve of me.

Oh, and the drinking. I hated the havoc alcohol wreaked upon my family. It wasn’t the drink’s fault: it was the excess. When Willa started drinking in high school, she didn’t drink a beer or two like the rest of us at the bonfire; she drank a six-pack and then a twelve-pack. She didn’t get drunk; she got hammered.

By the time Willa met the boy from Colorado on Tybee Island one summer afternoon, she was that other person all the time: alternating from hilarious and witty to sarcastic and sad. She left on a Sunday afternoon after church. We’d come home and she’d walked upstairs to take a nap, she’d said. Later that afternoon, we realized she was gone. A note said that she couldn’t live with the hypocrisy and ridiculous faking; she was gone to live a “real life.” Sadly, I knew “real” for her mostly rested in a bottle.

I wanted out of the family house as badly as she did, but I’d been biding my time. When she left, she was eighteen years old, had graduated from high school only three weeks earlier. I was working at Soapbox then. Willa’s absence throbbed with pain in that small house, like a missing limb taken in a brutal accident.

She “got sober” a few times through the next years, but ten years ago, after a DUI in Boulder, she quit, or so she said. Her abstinence lasted for weeks and then months and now coming up on ten years. Sobriety wasn’t so good for a love affair that was based on dependence. When drinking ended, so did his love. That’s how she came to live with us.

Dad didn’t often drink, but when he did, he drank until he passed out, wherever he happened to be: the shower twice, the garage, the living room couch, the kitchen table. He never took a sip of alcohol outside the house. He kept his vice private, for our enjoyment.

“Eve.” Willa’s voice startles me. Sunlight surrounds her and forms a halo around her hair and body, a ring of fire as she steps into the studio. I see her as she’d been in those days we hid under the bed during our summer of heresy, a summer that was now being turned into a card line, into something good: one thing again made from another.

“Good morning,” I say. “How’re you feeling?”

She bites her bottom lip and steps closer, speaking in almost a whisper. “I’m scared.”

I set down the pile of thick paper in my hand and wrap my arms around her, hugging her tightly. “It takes time.”

She gives me a look. “Dingle.”

“Sorry.”

She tries to smile. The sliding doors open again, and Francie and Max enter. They see Willa, and loud greetings erupt; hugs are given all around. Max touches Willa’s swollen eye and Francie cries a little bit before turning on the music. Johnny Cash sings “Folsom Prison Blues,” proving that Max last used the iPod.

Francie tosses a pad of paper on the table. “Welcome back to work, Willa. Today we work on number seven.”

“Yes,” I say, “but we also have that appointment with the accountant this morning and then I have to finish this wedding run. So let’s spend the afternoon with number seven. And I have to pick up Cooper’s car.”

“Cooper can’t pick up his own car?” Francie asks.

I don’t need to answer Francie, because the resounding bell that signals a guest outside rings through the studio and Max opens the door for our client.

Framed in the doorway, she appears small. She carries a large satchel, hugging it to her chest like a kid running away from home. She strikes me as nervous and afraid.

“Come in.” Max waves her in.

“Thanks,” she says, and stops for a moment to listen, and then looks at me. “I love Johnny Cash.”

“Good,” Max says. “So do we.”

“I’m Mary Jo,” she adds.

Francie walks toward her. “Nice to meet you. We have some ideas and concept boards to go over with you.” She points to the project table.

“Are you Eve?” she asks Francie.

“No.” I step forward and hold out my hand for her to shake. “I am.”

She stares at me for the longest time—or what seems the longest time, although it might have been only a few seconds. Finally, she holds out her own hand, clutching her satchel, so that her elbow is bent up. “Nice to meet you,” she says.

Behind me, there’s a small sound like a cat’s weak meow or the squeak of the printer before we oil her cog. But it’s Willa. She’s stepped underneath the overhead hanging work light, so she looks like she’s under a stage spotlight. Her bruise is greenish blue against white skin. Her lips are bloodless and thin, pulled across her face in a line. As pretty as Willa is, she looks anything but at this moment.

Mary Jo drops her satchel and it lands with a loud clunk it as it slams onto the floor. “Oh,” she says.

Francie calls from the project table. “Over here.”

Willa, Mary Jo, and I stare at the satchel on the floor. Finally, I speak. “Sounds like something broke.”

Mary Jo grabs her bag, again clutching it to her chest. And she steps backward, so I see her clearly. She is small, and not only because she is thin but because her bones seem made in miniature. Her eyes are round, two stormy worlds floating in her pale face. I’ve never seen eyes so blue. Does she wear blue contacts? I wonder. Her hair is not quite blond and not quite brown, and it’s pulled back in a loose knot that rests on her neck and falls a bit onto her right shoulder. Cute would be the right word for her if she didn’t look so pathetically nervous.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Nothing broke.” Her voice is lovely, with the sugary southern accent I’ve tried in vain to master.

We all move to the project table and Max brings the concept board, where our ideas and Francie’s sketches are displayed in overlapping squares and rectangles. Mary Jo settles into a chair and squints at the board, staring. “Tell me about this.”

Max launches into his normal introductory speech. “We listen to your story about how and why you started your company and then we dig into the symbolism we hear. This is our first concept, and then we move onto concept two after we hear your thoughts.”

Francie walks to the board, touching the top right corner. “This is the color palette we chose, since you said that “the numbers tell the real story.” We’re all about words and image here, so your take on numbers really inspired us. We started with green, but of course that was way too obvious, so we moved on from there and eventually ended up with these shades of blue and gold. Blue because it’s expansive and positive. And gold because,” and at this Francie laughs, “it’s gold!”

Mary Jo’s face takes on a new expression; the childish nervousness is disappearing and turning into something more mature. “This is great. Go on.”

“Well,” Francie says, “you talked about your connection with nature and with Savannah, so we’ve incorporate sea grass and, here, a wave.” She points at her sketch.

Max stands on the other side of the board and continues to talk about their vision for her logo.

Then Mary Jo holds up her hand and looks directly at me. “And what do you do?”

“Excuse me?” I lean my elbows on the table.

“I mean, do you help with the logos or just … what is it that you do? Just curious,” she says.

Max takes a few steps, until he is standing behind me. “Eve owns and started this studio. She is brilliant with fonts, printing, and layout. We”—he points to Francie and then himself—“are the graphic designers and artists. But nothing is complete without Eve. Nothing.”

“I was just asking.” Mary Jo licks her lips and her eyes move rapidly from one face to the next. “So what font do you think we should use?” she asks me directly.

“I usually wait until I see a more concrete design.” I take a deep breath. “Fonts are a language all their own. I can’t choose one until I know what we need to say.”

“Does that part really matter all that much?” Mary Jo asks.

Max walks away and returns with two poster boards—one for a rock concert and another for a sweet sixteen. “This is why font is important. Imagine if we switched them.”

Mary Jo shrugs. “I get it. Whatever. But it’s the image that’s the most important to me.”

Max, Francie, and I glance at one another and smile—another kind of private language—and we continue explaining our process.

“Well, this has been interesting and I can’t wait to see the next version. I’ll email you my thoughts.” Mary Jo gathers her things and stands. “Where did Willa go?”

I search my mind, nudge words and sentences around, trying to remember when we’d introduced Mary Jo to Willa, but it’s Max who says it. “Do you know her?”

“No. She was just standing here when I came and now she’s gone. I thought maybe she worked here.”

“How do you know her name?” Francie asks.

Mary Jo squints, as if Francie were made of sunlight. “Because,” Mary Jo says slowly, “you said it.”

Willa approaches us now and gazes at Mary Jo. They stare at each other and then Mary Jo turns quickly on her kitten heels and walks out, speaking over her shoulder. “See you in a couple weeks.”

When the door closes and then tires crunch on the gravel outside, Francie says, “What a bitch.”

“I know her,” Willa says quietly. “But I don’t know how.”

“I think she knew you, too,” I say.

Willa shakes her head. It’s as if she’s trying to loosen memories, to shake them to consciousness. Quick tears come to her eyes. “This is terrible. It’s like looking into the dark, like finding your way through a room without lights or windows. There’s everything there, but I can’t see anything at all. I’m bumping into furniture and walls.”

“It’ll get better, right?” Francie says. “We’ll help you. What do they say helps?” She is desperate for an answer and trips over her need to help Willa.

“Reorienting over and over,” I say. “But the problem is that we don’t know what only you can know.…” I pause. “One of the things I learned is that our brain, your brain,” I say to Willa, “holds memories with a little tag of place and time. I mean, I know it’s all mixed up now, but somewhere the image is tied to place.”

Willa sits on a chair next to Francie. “Nothing is tied to anything. I dig around inside my stomach…” She pauses, seeming to know she’s used the wrong word, the wrong body part, but still searching. “My head,” she finally says. “I dig around in my head and try to find one scrap of something from that night. And what do I find? Nada. I know Cooper’s story, but I can’t remember it. What scares me the most is that someone can tell me exactly what happened and I have to believe it because I don’t know anything at all.” She talks so quickly, manically, with her voice rising at the end in a crescendo of frustration.

No one speaks; not one of us knows how to combat or fix this blackout in her memory.

Willa claps her hands together once, a signal, a resounding end. “Here. I know how to explain it. It’s like this,” she says. “When we were kids, Eve, we heard the creation story, right? Adam and Eve. The garden. The snake.”

I nod.

“And part of us knew it couldn’t be all the way true, right? It was true that God made the world and a man and then a woman, but the other stuff seemed as real as Narnia, right? Or the myths you loved in high school about Zeus and Hades and that goddess you loved—what was her name?”

“Persephone.”

Willa continues. “Then when we were in high school we took that field trip to Atlanta to the museum. Fieldstone…” Her voice fades.

“Fernbank,” I say, filling in her gaps, writing over the blank spots as if our conversations are fill-in-the-blank tests.

“Yes.” She shakes her head again. “Anyway … we learned about other theories and the big bang and the dreaded word evolution and we discovered that there were other stories about the same event.” She is quiet for a while, shuffling the blank memory cards as if we are about to play poker. “That’s how this is with the accident. I know I’ve been told a story I’m supposed to believe. Mostly, I do, I think. But there’s another story out there, and I don’t think I’m going to find it at Fernbank this time.”

We laugh, but it’s a weak sound, a sad resonance.

Humiliation, a filling and nauseous feeling, overcomes me. We aren’t talking about some version of that night told by a stranger. This was my husband’s rendition of the accident, which might or might not be true: a creation story of his own mythology?

“How can we help?” Max asks.

“You can’t.…” Willa stands, waves her hand, and smiles. “Go back to work.”

We are silent, all of us.

“I do need to finish this print run,” I say, and then we break free. Tears sting the back of my throat like bees released from a hive under my ribs.

I lift the printer’s top, checking the magenta ink level, burying again and again the rising sadness that I just can’t fix. I focus on work, on my search for the right shade of green, for the poster for O’Leary’s pub. I flip through the Pantone color chart, which is a book of color recipes—an indispensable tool in the printing universe. Our chart is ink-stained and well loved, worn at the edges. Max startles me when he touches my elbow. “Hey, you okay?”

“Looking for that perfect Irish green.” I hold up the Pantone chart and then look at him, his eyes, at the circle of blue and then the brown. I close my eyes. “What color are my eyes?” I ask.

He laughs; I feel it as a low rumble under my ribs. “Mostly brown, but lately they’ve been greener and not so brown anymore.”

My lids pop open. “You noticed.”

“About a year ago.”

“It’s weird, right? Why would my eyes change color?”

“I was going to ask you, but…”

“But what?”

He looks away. “Eve, I don’t know. It seemed personal. And we stay away from those kinds of conversations.…”

“We do?”

His gaze wanders back to me, slowly, languid and swimming. “Of course we do.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.…”

“Here.” He takes the Pantone chart from me. “Let’s do this later. Francie really wants you to see her new sketch.”

“Wait,” I say, a fluttering feeling moving under my skin. “Why do we do that?”

“Do what?” He touches the Pantone chart. “Use this?”

“No, of course I know why we use that.” I smile. “Why do we stay away from those kinds of conversations? I’d have liked to know that you noticed my eyes, just like I know that you have a blue ring around your brown eyes. Did we somehow agree never to talk about these kinds of things and I don’t remember agreeing?”

“Eve.” He takes a deep breath. “You’ve always kept your private thoughts private. You keep your life outside this studio and inside this studio very separate.”

My eyes well with tears, but not enough to spill out.

“I’m an ass.” He picks up a clean white cloth and hands it to me like an old-fashioned handkerchief. “I wasn’t saying it was good or bad. You asked.”

“I know.” I hold up my hand. “I don’t want it that way, though. I didn’t realize I was doing that. I want to know how you and Francie feel about things outside these walls. I want to know what you do and think and notice. I do.”

He stares at me for a bit, pushes back a strand of hair from his forehead, but doesn’t speak.

“Tell me something,” I say. “Something that has nothing to do with this life inside these walls. Tell me something, anything about you.”

He smiles. “Okay.”

I wait and he falters, reaching for something.

“My brother is visiting this week. Yesterday, we kayaked from Savannah to Daufuskie Island and spent the afternoon drinking warm beer on Bloody Point Beach.”

“Beau?” I ask.

He nods.

“Sounds amazing.” I close my eyes, imagining kayaking across the green-gray water to an island with Max. Just as quickly, feeling danger, I stop the vision in mid-vision, opening my eyes to reality.

Francie and Willa walk toward us and they laugh about something we don’t hear. Before they reach us, Max whispers, “I like the green.”

I’m fairly sure he isn’t talking about the Pantone chart.