Ghost Image (11 page)

“Oh, my God. Is this the first time he's done something like this?”

Tommy's eyes met mine, and I knew there was more. “That we know of. Mom drove up to Connecticut this morning. Dad didn't want her to go on her own—especially making that drive to West Redding all by herself—but hunting season just wrapped up and now he's got the spring steeplechase race coming up, plus it's a busy time in the real estate market. She's thinking of staying up there for a while, and he can't afford to be gone that long.”

If something were seriously wrong with my grandfather, Harry would drop everything—turn his real estate business over to his partner and get someone else to take over organizing the point-to-point that the Goose Creek Hunt, his foxhunting club, sponsored—and he and my mother would fly to Connecticut. Since he was staying behind, maybe the situation with Chappy wasn't so bad.

“Mom should have told me,” I said. “I would have gone with her.”

“She knows. That's why she didn't tell you. She said you'd take Chappy's side and the two of you would gang up on her.”

“Take Chappy's side about what?”

He broke off a piece of corn bread. “She wants him to move to an assisted-living facility because she doesn't think he should be rattling around that big house all by himself. Chap won't have any part of it. She's not going to have the easiest time persuading him.”

“An assisted-living facility? Are you kidding me?”

“Hey, calm down—”

“That's been his home for more than forty years. It would be criminal to put him in some room or suite where he doesn't have access to his studio, all those decades of photographs and negatives and slides. Come on, Tommy. His mind's still as sharp as a tack. I talked to him a few days ago, and he was telling me stories about the old days at Magnum, Capa's parties when he'd come back to New York from the Paris office and everyone would go to 21 or the Algonquin. He remembers every detail.”

“Soph, Robert Capa died in Vietnam. I think it was in the 1950s.” Tommy stood up. “I'm going to get another beer. You want one?”

“I'll stick with this, thanks.”

When he came back into the room he said, “Look, sometimes with memory loss you remember things that happened years ago with absolute clarity but you have no idea what someone said to you ten minutes ago or how to find your way back home from church or the grocery store.” He paused and added in a gentle voice, “Or how you got to Topstone Park.”

“He doesn't have Alzheimer's. Or dementia. He couldn't.”

The chandelier flickered as if a small electrical surge had pulsed somewhere in the building, and the light seemed to grow dimmer. Across the room, the radiator gurgled and the heat came on with a hiss.

For a long moment neither of us spoke. Finally Tommy said in a calmer voice, “I don't know anything and neither do you. Mom wants him to see a doctor, get him evaluated.”

“So she can move him to some warehouse with a bunch of strangers. It'll kill him.”

“Come on, Soph, Chap does need medical attention. Why don't we sit tight until we find out how that goes? Before I forget, we still have dessert. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. I bought it for you.”

He was finished talking about our grandfather until there was something new to say. Nick was like that and so was Harry. Men can be so economical with their emotions. Women need the catharsis of talking it out, exploring all the possibilities and angles. Men want to move on to dessert. Done is done.

We stood in the kitchen and ate ice cream out of the carton after Tommy stuck it in the microwave to soften it.

“I'm still going to see you Saturday, right?” I said. “We could use your help translating at the shoe store when the kids come with their parents. Your Spanish is perfect.”

“I wouldn't miss it. And your Spanish isn't bad, either.”

“Mom wouldn't speak it after we left Spain. Mine is workmanlike, only what I remember from high school.”

“It's better than that. It's a terrific thing you and Gracie are doing, Soph. I see a lot of those kids in the clinic. It's hard to imagine the kind of poverty I saw in Honduras right here at home.”

“I wish we could do more. It just seems like a drop in the bucket. One pair of shoes.” I pushed up my sleeves.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“The dishes. It's the least I can do since you fed me, plus I owe you for Saturday.”

“No, you don't.”

“Go get whatever's left in the dining room.”

Tommy flashed a grateful smile and when he came back with dishes and our empty beer bottles, a copy of the
Washington Tribune
was tucked under his arm. He set the paper on the counter folded to Grace's story on Kevin.

“This fell off the dining room chair when I was cleaning up. I'm sorry I forgot to say something about Kevin when you got here. He was a good man. God, what a shame.”

I set the clean flame-colored pot he'd used for the chili in the dish drainer, and he picked up a towel and began to dry it.

“I'm really going to miss him. The last time I saw him was the day he died. He promised to help me with a book on the forgotten gardens of Washington,” I said. “Grace and I planned to use the profits from the book's sales for fixing up the Adams Morgan Children's Center. I'm going to be lost without Kevin's help.”

“I'm sorry,” he said again. He gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. “But if you're looking for overlooked gardens, the Ontario's got a great one. Plus we have an incredible communal herb garden. Kevin used to come by every so often to help one of our older residents who was a good friend of his until she passed away last year.”

“He did?”

He nodded. “I'm serious about you photographing it. I'm sure the board would give you permission. It's not just your run-of-the-mill parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. There's a lot of exotic stuff. My next-door neighbor grows herbs for teas and uses some for medicinal purposes. I've warned her to be careful, but she says she knows what she's doing.”

“Do you grow hyssop?”

“No idea. I can ask my neighbor. It's pretty common. I think it's been around since the Bible. Why?”

“I heard something today about a plant someone thought might be hyssop. It was supposed to help with memory loss.”

Tommy gave me a skeptical look. “Are you thinking of Chappy?”

“Of course.”

He pulled out his phone and started tapping. After a moment he said, “Looks like there's two kinds of hyssop. What you're probably talking about is called water hyssop. Listen to this.
Water hyssop is commonly used as a brain tonic to improve mental alertness and enhance learning and academic performance. The herb has antioxidant, cardiotonic and anticancer properties. It improves intellect, memory, consciousness, mental acuity, mental clarity and longevity. Water hyssop calms the mind and promotes relaxation
.” He looked up. “It's common in Ayurvedic medicine. That was from a website about India.”

“When I was in India on an assignment years ago, I developed a horrible rash on my arm that wouldn't go away. I tried everything—pills, creams, even a shot of cortisone. Finally our translator took me to a woman who practiced Ayurvedic medicine. She made a salve—I don't remember what was in it—that cured it within two days,” I said. “It was like magic.”

Tommy slipped his phone into his jeans pocket. “Or maybe what you were taking conventionally finally started to work. Ayurvedic medicine is part of that whole constellation of alternative or complementary medicines that includes acupuncture,
homeopathy, naturopathy, stuff like that. You can find practitioners here, too, but all of it's unregulated,” he said. “You've gotta be careful. Maybe you were lucky.”

“Or maybe that Indian woman knew what she was doing. If it's true that Chappy has the beginning of Alzheimer's, I'm going to find someone who knows Ayurvedic medicine and get him or her to make him a tea or tonic from water hyssop. So what if the FDA hasn't approved it? That doesn't mean it couldn't help. Do you think you could check and see if there's any in your garden?”

“First of all, it grows near water, so we probably have the other kind of hyssop if we have it at all.” My brother laid his hands on my shoulders. “Let's not jump to conclusions, okay? Or practice medicine without a license.”

“It's plants, not drugs. And I'm not going to brew some concoction myself. I'll find someone who knows what they're doing.”

He gave me a swift warning look. “Sophie—”

My voice wavered. “I couldn't bear it if Chappy starts to forget everything . . . if he forgets
us
.”

Tommy pulled me to him. “I know.” He ran his thumb back and forth through my hair, and his voice broke, too. “Neither could I.”

• • •

Harry called as I walked through the door of my apartment half an hour later.

“I just talked to your brother,” he said. “I heard you two had dinner and he told you about Mom and Chap.”

Harry is usually straight with me and he doesn't beat around the bush. He already knew about the dinner, and I figured he called Tommy to get the lowdown on how I'd taken the news.

“Harry,” I said, “why didn't you call me and tell me about Chappy? I know Mom put Tommy up to it after she left for Connecticut.”

He made a sound like air leaving a tire. “I learned when I first
married your mother not to get in the middle of things between the two of you. I think it's the reason I've lived as long as I have.”

“Still—”

“I'd like you to come to London with me, kitten.”

“Pardon?”

“That's why I'm calling. Your mother and I had a quick trip planned, just for the week. There's an art show at Olympia, plus an old friend has a Thoroughbred running in the Winter Derby at Lingfield. Caroline planned to bolster the British economy by buying out all the shops in Knightsbridge. Now that she's with your grandfather, I wondered if you'd keep your old man company instead.”

“Oh, gosh, Harry, it sounds great, you know I'd love to. But the day after tomorrow is Saturday and that's when the kids are getting their shoes at Sole Brothers. I can't miss that.”

“If that's the only impediment, don't worry. It's the night flight. Please come, honey. You've been working awfully hard lately. You can visit friends, do whatever you want. You'll have fun, I promise. And I'd love the company.”

I did some mental calculating. My one looming deadline was Olivia's manuscript; she wanted to meet in a week to talk about photos for “No Little Plans.” I could take the manuscript with me and work on it on the plane and in the hotel.

“I'll come,” I said. “I'd love to.”

After Harry hung up, I got my camera bag from the foyer and brought it into the living room. Though Nick and I had transformed one of the upstairs bedrooms into an office, I often worked at an antique gateleg table that I'd moved into the alcove of a bay window overlooking S Street. When I pulled out my diary, the brochure for Kevin's symposium at the Botanic Garden fell out. “Losing Paradise: Our Endangered Biosphere and the Challenges of Safeguarding It for Our Children.”

I looked again at the list of speakers and panelists, including the director of horticulture at the Center for Historic Plants at
Monticello, Dr. Ryan Velis. Kevin had been to Monticello in January, and after that he'd been in London to speak at a conference at Kew Gardens.

The other morning at the Tidal Basin he'd talked about something he'd found in London and said that he'd done additional research on whatever it was when he'd returned to the States. Had he bought the copy of
Adam in Eden
in England? Francis Pembroke, the Leesburg doctor who'd written to the head of the Chelsea Physic Garden, was a cousin of Meriwether Lewis. In my dim, distant memory of high school U.S. history, Thomas Jefferson had been president during Lewis and Clark's expedition.

I pulled out my laptop, and a moment later I found what I was looking for. President Thomas Jefferson, keen to learn anything he could about the land he had just acquired through the Louisiana Purchase, obtained funding from Congress for a western trip known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition headed by his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and Lewis's close friend William Clark. Maybe Kevin had gone back to Monticello for his additional research.

Ryan Velis's e-mail address was listed on the Monticello staff page, and there was a general information e-mail address for the Chelsea Physic Garden. I wrote two e-mails, one to Ryan Velis and another to “To whom it may concern” at the Chelsea Physic Garden, explaining my connection with Kevin and asking if it would be possible to meet with someone to discuss a letter John Fairbairn had written to Dr. Francis Pembroke concerning plants from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

I hit Send and found the file for the engagement photos from the other night, spending the next hour editing them. When I got to the ones of Kevin saying the blessing, I had to stop and pour myself a whiskey before I could finish. After I was done, I uploaded everything to a photo gallery and sent e-mails to Ursula, Yasmin, and Victor with the link.

Then because I'd forgotten about it the other day, I downloaded the Tidal Basin cherry blossom photos I'd taken the last time I'd been with Kevin. There were several of him gesturing enthusiastically, his arms windmilling as he talked, eyes lighting up, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, his familiar smile. I stared at them before I moved on to a series of panning shots, a complete view of the Tidal Basin. A few were blurred and I started to delete them when something caught my eye. A man stood next to the steps by the Roosevelt Memorial, staring right at Kevin and me. I enlarged the photo until it became too pixilated to even make out that it was a person, so I printed the picture and used a magnifying glass. But the photo was so blurred that the figure looked almost transparent, a vaporous ghost image.