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Our first place winner is Janine Acevedo. Janine Acevedo was born in Salem, Massachusetts and lives on the north shore of Boston with her husband, Morris Acevedo, and their daughter. Ms. Acevedo would like to dedicate this story in memory of her friend Sharon Sarill. |
If you've ever spent a summer on the north east coast of Massachusetts, then you understand. You know about the heat waves that are all about humidity. You know about the relief of sudden cool, rainy days that turn into disappointing crying jags of rainy weeks. Then, heat and humidity redux.
This particular heat wave was pulling out all the stops: temperatures in the upper nineties and humidity of almost eighty percent. For days. Thunderstorms were consistently predicted, and with them, a break in the sultry heat. But for now, Cliffpoint, a quiet coastal town about twenty miles north of Boston, seemed stuck in a sticky haze. Even the sailboats in the harbor bobbed listlessly, and I imagined the water as warm as a bath.
I had just moved into my parents' attic, in my childhood home. I was thirty-eight. I was separated from my husband and I was taking it all a lot harder than I should have. It seemed others had the knack of taking things in stride, which I lacked. The antique mirror in the attic had a speckled, amber cast; in its watery depths I found silver among the dark stands of my hair, and my eyes looked larger and darker. I'd had to leave my job as an English teacher and was working at a local preschool. I found that reading stories to a rowdy group of two year olds was somehow more manageable than discussing The Scarlet Letter with a bunch of bored teenagers. Literature, once my comfort, now was full of pitfalls. So many unions and partings and always--loss. Reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the eighth time after snack, that I could handle.
My parents' worry was a weight I carried everywhere. It lodged itself in various places: my throat, stomach, chest. My mother, a professor of nursing at a private college in Boston, and my father, a lawyer in a nearby town, often invited me along on their endless social outings of golf, tennis, parties. I always declined, mustering up energy to say indulgently, "go on, you two; I won't wait up."
You'd think I'd stay downstairs in the air conditioned bliss. But no; was it a sense of comfort or penance that drew me back up those attic steps? Into my little home within a home with sloping ceilings. I'd always be bleakly shocked at how much hotter the very air was up there. My skin was damp, my hair stuck to my forehead. It almost felt like breathing in high altitude, the way I couldn't seem to get enough air into my lungs.
As soon as the sun was lower, but still high enough to see by, I'd bring my book out onto the widow's walk. You may have seen these if you've spent any time in Salem or nearby towns. At the highest point of the house, a place to pace and peer out at the sea. I found myself dwelling on who might have stood here years ago. The house was very old. Who stood here, shading their eyes, looking out for a ship? Filled with loss, already imagining the unacceptable, still hoping a ship would come into view. Sometimes by then the sea breeze would have become an actuality and I'd feel my hair lifted slightly by a soft wind that carried with it a hint of salt and cold from deep water, far from the coast.
Ever since the heat wave began, sleep was hard to come by. I'd toss from one side of my narrow bed to the next, seeking a cooler patch of sheet. I'd turn my pillow over and over, not finding relief. Eventually I'd fall into a restless sleep, full of dreams that I'd only half remember. But each night I was thrust from sleep in the middle of the night as if I'd heard someone call my name. Sitting up, gasping, straining my ears, I only heard the faint sound of the ocean and the wind chimes from the garden. I looked out onto the widow's walk, certain that someone was there. My heart pounded; was that a step I heard? The old wood floor, warped from weather and years of salt from the sea, creaked as if under weight. My terror would mount until I would feel a scream building in my throat. Unable to breathe, I'd leap into the hallway and pause, my hand on the door to the downstairs, listening intently. Eventually, my heart would slow, my breath would loosen, and I'd hear: an owl, the ocean, the wind in the old pine out back. Each morning I resolved to buy a lock for the doors that opened to the widow's walk, and an air conditioner, too, so that I'd feel safe and cool enough to sleep. But somehow by the middle of the day I would shrug off my fears from the night before, and think that the heat would break soon. I did love to fall asleep to the sound of the surf. Cliffpoint had a reputation for being a very safe and sleepy town, and I was lulled each day by the neat yards and orderly traffic. Sandy beaches, not one but two lighthouses, and many areas of historical interest, Cliffpoint attracted numerous tourists each summer. Each night, however, found me once again upright and rigid in bed, barely breathing, certain that someone had been watching me while I slept. Those were the only times I felt cold in my attic; my blood felt icy within my veins and my hands shook with sudden chill.
The night when my story began I can only say this: that I knew I had slept and I knew I had woken. The book lay heavy in my lap; I was on the chaise out on the widow's walk. Crickets were raucous and stars throbbed overhead. He was leaning against the railing, looking at me with such an open and affectionate look that I caught my breath.
"I missed you too much, sister, to keep away. Jenny!" His voice broke and he put his hand over his eyes. My instinct was, and I'll never forget it, to comfort him.
"Come and sit, " I said, moving my legs from the wooden chaise lounge. What are the theories of love at first sight? That this someone holds an aura, an amalgamation, of all you need and want, and all you should and shouldn't have--to create an irresistible, unobtainable ideal? Or that some souls are separated and seek their other half, in union finally whole? All I can say, with my whole broken self, was that he was it: my one.
"Do you remember," he looked up, his cheeks wet, "when we'd sit out here and use father's spy glass, pretending we were pirates in a ship? I've been looking for you," he broke off, seeming confused, and continued almost to himself, "it has seemed so long."
"It does feel that we could be on a ship, even now," I said softly, and it was true. If you closed your ears to the occasional sounds of cars and voices, and just looked out, the sea was in front of us and to each side. We looked at the ocean and then at each other, smiling.
So that is how it started, this new part of my life. I got through the days hugging this secret pleasure to myself, until the nights when again we'd meet.
To learn his name I tried to be crafty, and asked him if he remembered what I called him when I was very young. He laughed, the sound of it mixing with the crickets' steady song, and described how everyone else called him "Sam", but even as a baby, I always used his full name, sounding charmingly formal as I struggled to say "Samuel". He was slight, with locks of very dark brown hair that curled over his wide, white forehead. Almost black, his eyes had a uniquely bright appearance and I found them mesmerizing. I'd stare into them as he spoke and everything else: the night, sounds, my own breath-- receded. His shirt seemed woven of a thicker cotton than I'd seen before and his pants were woolen. His feet were bare. In the starlight, his skin shone like a dimmed moon. When he listened, he had a way of clasping his knee and bending toward me. I'd never known anyone who listened so completely with his whole self.
I learned early on not to challenge his assertion that we were sister and brother. The third time I'd tried that, he appeared so bewildered that I swore I saw him flicker in and out of being. So that was how I kept him close, by keeping quiet. I acted as how I imagined a sister would. And inside, if I imagined his lips moving from a brotherly kiss on the brow to one that slid onto my lips, then that was my secret. And if he clasped my hand, recalling a time of innocent fun while I imagined his hand pulling me close and closer, I kept still. And I took some strange comfort that there were these stories linking us, even if only in his mind. All the times we'd gotten into trouble, ate too much cake, or tried to stay awake all night.
As I always tried to do--not wanting to slip away from him I'd watch him, his dark eyes. Taking him in with my ears, too: his fragile, musical voice. Barely wanting to blink, holding him in my awareness, memorizing all of him. And if you think it was a kind of darkness for me to love him in this way, while he saw me as his sister, his best friend, I can only say that it seemed somehow a time apart. A certain spell had been cast; however I could I held him dear.
I'd always end up, no matter how hard I tried to stay awake, asleep and in my own bed. Always waking with a fragment of a dream, waking with heavy eyes and flushed cheeks, hot and sticky, rising to another day of heat. My lips curling into a secret smile as I remembered moments from the night before; things he'd said to me on the widow's walk and things we'd done together in my dream.
One night he seemed pensive as he leaned against the railing, looking out to sea.
"This is how I waited and watched, sister, all those long days and nights."
I couldn't bear the sadness in his voice.
"Who were you waiting for? Who were you watching out for?"
He turned to look at me and there it was again, that look of affection, mixed now with confusion, as if he were peering through a kind of fog.
"For you, of course, I was waiting for you," he answered slowly, "Don't you remember how I didn't want you to go with the captain? But you were such a happy bride? Mother and Father scolded me for marring your pleasure. They said if you saw how I worried then you'd fret about me during your honeymoon. Then, that night, that sudden storm, then I'd wished I'd locked you up here; anything to have kept you safe."
"But look, here I am; safe and sound!"
He didn't seem to hear me.
"So close. It would have been easier--would it have? If you had been lost out at sea. But to stand there, on the sand, and see all the--the--"
"Samuel! I am alright, look here, take my hand."
I held out my arm to him, but it was as if he could not see me.
"The sea was so still and calm, the morning after, and the air smelled so fresh and salty, just as you'd always loved. But it was as if no other day on earth. The beach was covered in casks of wine and lemons. People were gathering them, the lemons, some people were. And the casks. Most of them unbroken. How could that have been? The casks whole and you--" He looked as if he would be sick, bending over the railing, then straightening. " And it was too late, too late. If only I'd been earlier; if I'd known. Jenny! You knew me, you knew what strong arms I had! I would have rowed out in our dinghy--I would have swum, I would have swum all night. I kept seeing it; you--holding on to a piece of wood or a buoy. I could feel it in my arms, my lifting you, alive and whole, into the boat."
A sob broke from us at the same time as we looked at one another, anguish and confusion mirrored in our faces. I feared that I saw his pale skin look even lighter, as if the moonlight were shining through his skin and I was suddenly frantic to tether him to me, to this time. So I tried to turn his thoughts to happier things.
"Tell me again," I asked, wiping my tears and smiling, catching his gaze,"about when Bella had kittens..."
However I could. I held him dear.
Somehow I know you'd believe me if I told you that these were the happiest days of my life--before or since. And like all happy times they fade or stop. Mine stopped abruptly when a storm broke and the weather turned unseasonably cold. The last hot night he had stood against the railing, looking out to sea, then looked back at me. Sleep was already overtaking me.
"Sleep well, little sister," he crouched in front of me, whispering, smiling into my eyes, "I'll stay and watch over you. The way I used to. The way I always will."
The next day I woke to an eerie stillness. The sky was red. Clouds rolled in and rumbled. I watched the sky all day, filled with foreboding. I wasn't usually afraid of storms. At sunset the clouds were blood red until the dark clouds broke open and the storm began. "Red sky at night, sailors take fright, or is it delight? Red sky at morning, sailors take warning," I chanted to myself, half remembering the rhyme from somewhere. The rain beat down, thick drops, so hard. The thunder shook me. I stayed on the widow's walk all that night, not sleeping once. I held my hair away from my eyes and stared out into the sea, into the night. Once I caught an impression of a shape, a voice in the sound of wind and rain, and then nothing. Not only was my heart in torment because I was wild for the loss of him; but I felt his yearning for me, too, and I felt his trying to get to me. If I tell you how many more nights I waited, I think you'd understand, and not think I was such a fool.
Each morning I'd wake and get ready for my day, feeling more alone than I'd ever dreamed possible, and each night I'd fight with sleep, as he fought death, to wait for him, to see him again.
Finally, somehow, it was fall. I made a sort of hobby of giving up hope.
Each time my heart lifted, I resolutely dashed it. I tried to anyway; I pretended to. The worst part of course was waking each morning. That half second of innocence broken quickly by the dread of, "what has happened?" Before that query is even half articulated the truth crashes in: loss. How my heart's rhythm would break, then speed. The sound of the waves carrying it back and forth: loss. The sobbing surf and the seagull's lonely cries accompanied me as I threw back my covers and tried to rise.
Fortunately, children's needs are so immediate that I was able to lose myself in my job caring for them. Scraped knees, passionate disagreements over whose turn it was to feed the rabbit, and my pupils' clamorous need for attention kept me busy.
When I'd finally fall asleep, after having battled with myself, trying to give up watching, waiting, I'd invariably be woken up by some small sound. Then how I'd fly to the widow's walk, feeling my heart in my throat, and stand there in silence. A wind chime, an owl, a lonely dog's bark--that would be all. It was night after night like this that began to make me afraid, afraid that I'd lose my reason. My mother and father tried to help; they were bewildered by my pallor, my sad eyes.
"You seemed to be doing so much better," my mother ventured once, "When Douglas and you parted I know how rough it was, sweetie, but you seemed to have rallied--but lately, these days...has something else happened?"
And my father, my poor father, he couldn't find the words but he brought things home for me: a cashmere throw, a book about shells, a beautiful journal, and his eyes crinkled with concern when he thought I wasn't watching. I was such a burden.
That is why I started going to Our Lady of the Sea, the Catholic church from my childhood, on the way home from work. The smell of incense and the quiet brought me some measure of peace. I'd stare at Mary's face, seeing her sadness and her acceptance, and remind myself that loss was love's other side. Usually there was one other woman sitting up ahead in the pews. One day as she left after genuflecting, she stopped by where I sat. Her lovely and lined face was lit by the stained glass windows. She nodded and pressed her rosary beads in my hand. My eyes filled with tears so quickly at this gesture. She said something in Italian and left, patting my hands over the beads. I wiped my tears and looked at the rosary beads, which still held the warmth from the woman's hand. The beads looked almost black in the dim light of the church. I tried to remember the prayers I learned so long ago as I touched each bead. Instead I found my thoughts tracing each moment I'd spent with Samuel, from the first time I'd seen him, and even before, when I would wake, thinking I'd heard my name called, to that last wild night, when I thought I'd caught sight of his form and heard his cry out in the rain. I pulled out my journal and began to write.
Liturgy of the Hours
Like rosary beads:
my penance,
my favorite pastime.
Each a picture,
a moment
a touch
each
worn smooth
smelling of rosewood
until the last--
just that one word
your voice.
And so I begin again:
that first memory,
your voice,
I try and stop
right at the center
with you
right at my center,
but there are just
a few more--
compelled to handle those last few
for although they are
loss
they are still
you.
I finished writing sometime late at night, in my room. As I wrote, I wept, and wondered if I could let go. If, perhaps, he had let go, and moved on. Maybe he had found peace at last, and if so, I should be happy for him. Perhaps his restless soul had found some resolution. My broken heart was just a glitch, an aberration. I rested my hot cheek on my pillow, trying to believe this, and for once I slept right through until morning.
The next day I went to the library after work. Cabot Public Library's unique aroma of varnished, old wood and books never failed to catapult me back in time, when my mother would bring me here for picture books and tea parties. I had found a Rosemary Wells book for my class and was wandering upstairs in the history section, still avoiding fiction. Don't you think fiction should be organized by content, rather than alphabetically? Soothing and Comforting, Shocking and Horrifying, and Heartbreaking--the ways to catalog would be endless.
There was a framed map on the wall that I had never looked at closely. I saw that it was a map of Massachusetts' north shore with notations of all the shipwrecks that had occurred up until the 1940s. There was barely room for all the listings. Try as I might, I couldn't help but remember Samuel's allusion to the shipwreck that took my, or rather, his sister's life. From the library's computerized data base, I got a listing of the books about shipwrecks of New England, and went back to the history section. Later, I sat in the old armchair that faced the bay windows and opened the first book. I forgot how quickly the sun had begun to set these days. When I finally had looked up, the golden and red leaves were ablaze as the sun cast its last rays of light. I felt as though I had been asleep and dreaming as I stood up stiffly and re-shelved the books.
When I got home, I went straight to the computer in my parents' study. I dove into genealogical and historical documents, clicking and reading, creating a file of scraps of information. Finally, my eyes dry with fatigue, I closed up and went upstairs. A cursory wash of my face and brush of the teeth later, I fell into bed. Despite my whole body begging for rest, my mind was unable to stop processing all I'd read about.
Should I truly doubt my sanity? Why was I even considering...?
I sat up in bed and got up, opening the doors to the widow's walk. I grabbed my quilt, and after brushing some fallen leaves off the chaise lounge, I curled up and looked at the sky.
There had been a storm that resulted in a shipwreck off the coast of Cliffpoint. So many storms and shipwrecks, to be sure, but only one, I'd found, that resulted in the beach by our house being littered with casks of wine and lemons. And only one shipwreck, I'd found, that resulted in the loss of the entire crew, including the captain's wife, Genevieve McAllister, nee Talbot. The Marianne had struck Dagger Rock, right off the coast in March of 1889.
The next morning I was at the kitchen table downstairs before anyone was awake. I had made a pot of darjeeling, my mother's favorite tea, and waited.
"Good morning, Jenny, the bright and early bird this morning," my mother said as she stroked my hair in passing and then poured herself a cup of tea.
"Mom, how did you decide on my name?" I asked her, looking into my cup where a few leaves of tea clung to the bottom.
"I swear I thought I was being original!" She laughed. "I wanted to name you after your great, great or was it great great great? Anyway, aunt. But I thought that was too old fashioned and clunky of a name to give a little girl. I thought the name Jennifer was still unique, but with a more modern flair."
"What was her name?"
"Oh!" My mother put her cup down,"Genevieve. Pretty isn't it?"
I hoped it wasn't apparent that I was clinging to my chair, feeling a wave of dizziness overtake me.
"Jen? Are you alright?"
"Yes, just a little tired, maybe coming down with the latest cold in my class. Umm, mom? Did she ever live here?"
"I wish your grandmother were still alive; she knew so much about the family. But yes, she did, I'm sure of that, live here, I mean. I remember when your father first brought me here to meet his mother. She was so into family history. I fell in love with the way the Talbots had lived in Cliffpoint for so long, and how this very house had seen so many generations of them. I especially loved the story of how Genevieve Talbot had been lost at sea, after marrying and going off with the captain of a ship. So sad."
"Did she, did she--have a brother? I mean, brothers and sisters?"
"That was another sad thing, I remember Evelyn telling me about it. There had been something like seven or eight children in the family, and all but two died when there was one of those illnesses that spread in the whole town. Influenza or something. Just the brother and sister, Genevieve, left. I always remembered that. I thought, how sad, you know? Maybe they had been very close, having been the only two left. And then only him. The poor, poor parents; I don't know how they could have gone on."
Her eyes rested on me, and I saw the love there, and the worry. I got up and kissed her cheek.
"I'd better get ready for work." I put my cup in the sink,"thanks indulging my new interest in genealogy."
I pulled my old three speed bike from the garage, unable to think of trudging by foot. As the wind chilled my face, I couldn't stop imagining Samuel at the water's edge, surrounded by lemons and wine. I kept trying to picture my, no-- Genevieve's, last moments. Had it been quick? Had she seen how close she was to shore and struggled to swim for it? Would the captain have gone down with his ship, and she with him? Or had he tried to save her, tried to save them all and died trying?
I don't know how I got through that day, as weary and wondering as I was. But finally I was riding my bike toward church. Once inside, I headed straight for the candles. I would light three, I decided, for Genevieve and Samuel and the captain, and in my heart I lit thousands of candles, for all those who had died at sea. I wanted to feel a sense of peace, some kind of closure. Perhaps I could truly let this mystery go.
I dug my rosary beads out of my back pack and sat down in the pew that I considered my own.
"Our Lady..."
Suddenly I was aware, in that way we can be, that there was a presence behind me. I turned and looked. A man, slight, not very tall, with dark hair that curled; he was back lit. I rose quickly, gasping, and my feet got caught in the kneeler, and I fell back heavily in the pew.
"Are you alright? I'm so sorry I startled you." He was at my side, the priest, looking at me concernedly. "You are very pale."
"I'm fine," I tried to breathe and speak like a normal person. My best impression of a grown up. "I just thought, for a moment, that you were--someone."
"No, not me," he smiled nicely. "Please come downstairs. I'll make you a cup of coffee."
"I only drink tea," I said weakly, still at a loss.
"Me, too, actually, but somehow people always say, let's get coffee, I'll make a pot of coffee, why is that? Misplaced yankee pride, maybe? We don't need those Brits and their tea! Don't even think about taxing us without representing us, or we'll throw your tea in the harbor!"
I couldn't help but laugh at his quiet comic delivery. "All that tea and wine in the ocean--how can it still taste salty?"
"What?" he looked at me curiously.
"Nothing, I'm sorry. I'd better go--it will be getting dark and I have my bike--"
"Are you sure?" He looked worried and I felt embarrassed.
"Quite sure, thanks!"
He looked as if he wanted to say something.
"I don't want to be intrusive," he said, "I've noticed you here. And I'm glad you come, I hope you find--some comfort here. But I never see you on Sundays, and I wonder if... Well, if sounds so cliche, but if you ever needed help, or to talk--"
I found myself touched. I felt his kindness, not pity, just his kindness. I tried to smile.
"Maybe I'll come on some Sunday. Good-bye, Father..."
"Dayson. Michael Dayson. The new guy. Take care," he said as I walked away.
For some reason, all that evening I found myself talking to Father Dayson in my head. I was explaining recent events and my subsequent findings. Perhaps because he had seemed sympathetic and I could tell that he was one of those kind of people to whom others pour out their problems. I opened the little velvet box on my bureau and looked at my wedding ring. Soon, I thought, I'll be divorced. Then I thought: I already am. I went to stand out on the widow's walk, and I felt it, razor sharp. It was all I had of Samuel, and so I held it close.
On Sunday, I thought about going to church. It was one of those wet, dark fall days, when the wind hurries the leaves off the trees. The leaves lie plastered in the street, bright against the dark concrete. I thought of the church's quiet space being filled with people and words and I knew I couldn't go. Instead, I got my bike out and pedaled off in the direction of Old Town, the section of Cliffpoint that hadn't been modernized. I loved biking through the narrow and winding streets. I was heading toward the little cemetery, across from a park I had often had picnics in as a child with my parents. Leaning my bike against the wrought iron fence, I walked inside the graveyard. The slate and granite gravestones were dark with the rain that had fallen earlier that night. The older gravestones had engravings of winged death's heads. Suppressing a shiver, I pulled my sweater closer around my neck. I walked along, glancing at some, stopping at others; I hardly knew why. I had some vague idea that there was a monument to the people who had died in shipwrecks; a memorial to those who had no grave here.
Samuel Talbot
I froze, standing in front of the headstone. I knelt, feeling the cold, wet earth on my knees. Placing my hand on the name, I knew it was his. This was my Samuel; I stood above his very bones. For a while, I don't know how long, except that I eventually realized I was shaking with cold, I stayed kneeling. Finally I stood up, looking around me, then back at the headstone. Like many others, it had an urn and a weeping willow engraved. Yet something was different about this one. On the surrounding headstones, the date of birth and death were recorded, but on Samuel's, it simply read:
Here lyes the body of
Samuel Talbot
Departed this life
March of ye 1899
Thou art Gone
But not Forgotten
There was no record of birth, I realized, wondering at the strangeness of it. I looked over at St. James, the Episcopalian church by the park. I knew that was where my father had been christened, it made sense that generations of Talbots had been buried here. My mother was Catholic, and since my father had long since stopped attending church, he deferred to her wishes when she wanted me raised in her faith. I wondered if St James would have any kind of record book, any historical information, about why Samuel's grave had no birth date. As I heard the sound of voices singing a hymn I knew I couldn't begin my search there at the moment. I rode towards the library, thinking it would open soon.
"Thank you Mrs Callahan," I said gratefully as the librarian unlocked the door for me.
"You could catch your death out there, come on in and get warm. I always come in early on Sundays. No sense in you waiting out there in the cold."
Mrs Callahan had worked in the children's section when I was a little girl, and since I had been in love with reading from a young age, I felt a sense of connection with her.
"It is a cliche but very true that it seems just yesterday I was helping you find books for book reports, or steering you away from ghost stories that would keep you up half the night."
I bit my lip, not knowing if I were trying to keep from laughing or crying out.
I asked her if she could help me, that I had no idea where to start looking, find out about my family tree. I wanted to know about the Talbots and their history here in Cliffpoint. She recommended the historical society of Cliffpoint. In the meantime, however, I was welcome to browse downstairs. She lead me to a room downstairs, unlocking the door.
"I've never been here," I said, thinking I'd been everywhere possible in the little library.
"It hasn't really been kept up or updated," she answered, "look--I have a soft spot for these: card catalogs!"
She showed me how the little shelves slid out of the case to reveal the titles and so forth of the books stacked in the room.
"We keep history books about the area, a lot of them by local authors from long ago. There are books about the marshlands and shipping reports; an odd medley of all things Cliffpoint. I'm sure you'll find at least some information about the Talbots."
I thanked her profusely as she left, and began to look through the card catalog. I started researching cemeteries at first. It wasn't long before I learned that the cemetery I had been at earlier had been called "the new cemetery" for years, and that there had been a larger one that had been destroyed during a storm in the mid 1880s. It had been, as so many things were in Cliffpoint and surrounding towns, too close to the coast to withstand some of the harsher nor'easters. I guessed that Samuel and Genevieve's siblings had been laid to rest in that cemetery; another loss for their parents who no longer would have even had the headstones to visit. And what of those parents, those ancestors of mine? Perhaps they were buried in the larger cemetery just outside of Cliffpoint.
I was half way through the stack of books on my side as I sat at one of the old tables, when I came across a slim volume. It looked as though it were some kind of novel, but when I opened it I discovered it was a memoir, published in 1923, written by Ann McCaffrey. Why had I pulled it from the shelves, I wondered, then realized it must have a reference to the Talbot family somewhere. My Life in Cliffpoint; a Lady Looks Back was a rambling account of life before the turn of the century. There were descriptions of clothes, etiquette, places in Cliffpoint and personal reminiscences. There was no index, so I settled back and began flipping through the pages.
"I attended the funeral of a most cherished member of Cliff-point's society. Samuel Talbot, called too young back to his Maker, was mourned by all today."
I sat up and read more slowly.
"Mr Talbot, a foundling, could not have been loved more by his poor parents, who now are quite alone. Died of a fever, he did, never strong after the loss of his beloved sister, who died at sea."
Search as I might, I came across no other reference to Samuel or Genevieve. I was elated and frustrated at having come upon even that much though, and "foundling" sparked my curiosity further.
As I rode home in the hour just before sunset, my mood plummeted. What was I trying to do? Why did I need to know more? Somehow it was as if I were following a trail of bread crumbs; I felt a sense of urgency. And to what end, I wondered. Samuel Talbot was dead and buried, long gone. How many times had I encouraged myself to see it all as a dream. Or perhaps a bit of memory mixed with a dream? A lonely woman in her parents' home, of course I had doubted my own experiences, even my own sanity, again and again. There would be no trail leading me back to Samuel, but I couldn't help but continue my search.
That night I had a dream of him. I knew it wasn't really him, not his spirit, or ghost. Even in my dream I tried to pretend it was real, whatever "real" signifies, but even in my dream I knew that this was just that, a dream. He opened the doors of the widow's walk and knelt by my bed.
"Genny!" He clasped my hands, his were chilled.
"You are so cold, get in," I pulled him toward me.
"I'll get your bed wet," he protested, even as he stretched out along side me.
"I just realized," he said, his head on the pillow next to mine,"who you are. You are not my sister."
Slowly I shook my head. I don't think I had any voice left. My heart began a loud and fast pounding.
As if by a magnetic force, our faces inched closer and closer together. When his lips met mine, I felt a dizzy sense of wonder. So gently, his lips kissed mine again and again, slowly, deeper and deeper. His cheeks and neck tasted of rain, and salt, and I couldn't get enough. Under my hands, his thick cotton and wool were pulled away, and under his hands my nightgown seemed to melt. My body was giving off heat, warming his chilled limbs. We were electric and fevered by this point, grasping and gasping. Even as I pulled him closer and closer to me, I tried to slow it down, tried to savor this space and time.
I woke shuddering and entirely alone.
I had made my choice: I would find Samuel again. If it took the rest of my days, so be it. He found me once and now he was lost and searching for me. I would not leave him alone; if he would just wait I would somehow find my way back to him.
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