Language Arts (47 page)

So she focuses on what she has, right here, in this moment: the unexpected blessing of sitting at a big, sturdy, plain wood table eating good bread, drinking good wine, in the company of friends and family, in this kitchen, in this storybook cottage where, for all this time—who would have believed it?—everything,
everything
has been waiting for her.

•♦•

“It's almost time to say goodbye, Sister Giorgia,” Sister Martha says.

“Okay,” Giorgia replies.

After finishing dinner, Charles, Cody, Sister Martha, and Giorgia cleaned the kitchen; Gil, Erik, and Sister Frances went outside, gave the van's engine a quick tune-up, and loaded up the remaining yard-giveaway items. The sisters were delighted to accept Charles's donation to the island convent's thrift store.

No longer employed, empty-handed, Giorgia appears restless. She has started roaming the periphery of the living room.

Cody stands in the dining room, watching her. In Giorgia's presence, Charles has noticed, Cody is like an astronomer, constantly recalibrating the telescope to keep her in sight, as if she's an unidentified celestial body whose existence he's determined to prove.

“May I please use the facilities?” Sister Martha asks.

“Right through there,” Charles says.

“Sister Giorgia? Sister Giorgia. Do you need to go?”

“No,” Giorgia answers.
“Io sto bene.”

“You'll keep an eye on her?” Sister Martha whispers. “I'll be right back.”

Charles nods.

Giorgia has alighted in Charles's office and is staring at the framed photo on his desk: his fourth-grade class picture, Sylvie McGucken's gift. Charles picks it up.

“That's me,” he says, pointing. “And this was my best friend.”

Giorgia stares and smiles, nodding.

And then, once again, she looks into Charles's eyes, but this time, she does not seem to be seeing someone else. Charles has the sense that she is absolutely conscious of her surroundings. She reaches out, lightly taps his Montegrappa Italia—always at the ready, clipped to his left shirt pocket, over his heart—and smiles.
“Paesano,”
she says.

What she says next is, of course, in Italian, but even though Charles has no idea what her words mean (and the name Dana will go by so quickly that he won't notice), their effect will be perpetual.

I knew there was something special about you, signore. I knew it when I saw you, and this house, and now there is proof.
She points at the photo.
This picture of you and Dana, my best student. He was a blessing while he was with us. We remember him always. And you, signore, you were his friend, his teacher, his hero. He told me all about you. He loves you still. Never doubt it. He roots for
you,
Charlie Marlow . . .

She pats his chest again.

Then she turns to Cody and wraps him in an embrace.
“Addio, bello,”
she says.
“Ci vedremo
presto.”
She takes his face in her hands, gently pulls him down so that they are eye to eye, and plants a kiss on the center of his forehead.

Sister Martha returns to collect her, they say their goodbyes, and then Giorgia is gone, leaving a light dusting of flour on Cody's cheeks.

What is it?
Charles thinks.
That word for the fine, soft, downy hair that sometimes covers a newborn baby's body? Emmy had it . . .

And then it comes to him:

From the Latin,
lana,
for wool:

Lanugo.

•♦•

After everyone left, Charles was suddenly aware of his bone-weariness.

Should he take Cody back to Pinehurst Palace first, or finish up outside? He should probably fold up the rental tables and bring them in.

Cody still stood in the spot where Mrs. D'Amati had delivered her farewell kiss; now he too was staring at the school photo.

“Hey, Cody, I know you're probably tired, but can you hang here with me for a few more minutes? I've got a couple of things to do and then I can take you home. You wanna watch some TV? No? Okay, well, I need you to come outside with me, then. This won't take long.”

Charles went out to the curb and retrieved the sign. When he turned around, he discovered that Cody had planted himself at one of the tables and was looking down at a legal pad; he must have picked it up off Charles's desk.

“No, buddy, you can't sit there. I have to fold up this table and bring it inside.”

The sky was completely cloudless. The days were lengthening, but it had started to get dark, and the stars were arriving. The moon—nearly full—was a softened spoonful of vanilla ice cream.

“Buddy. Come on now. Please get up.”

Cody didn't budge. He had a look on his face that Charles had come to recognize as the prelude to one of his refusal tactics: on little notice, he could transform into a one-hundred-and-seventy-five-pound conscientious objector. As strategies go, it was very effective. The caregivers had started calling it the Cody Sit-In.

“Cody. Cody, I need you to move. Maybe you could help me.”

“Ga,” he grunted with unusual emphasis, still staring down at the table.

“Yes, buddy, I'm right here, and I need you to get up now.”

“Ga!”
he grunted again, and Charles thought,
Oh no, here we go . . .

But instead, Cody thrust his arm in Charles's direction. Then he slapped the palm of his hand against the table surface.

“What is it, Cody? You want me to sit down?”

“Ga.”

“Okay, but just for a minute. Dad's tired, and I'd really like to get this done.”

Next door, Gil and Erik were gathering up their tools, closing the car hood, chatting quietly.

Cody grabbed Charles's hand, yanked it closer, and held it firm against the tabletop for a few moments. Then he made a motion:
Stay.

Charles sighed. There was nothing to do but try to figure out what his son wanted.

Tilting closer, giving Charles's chest a sideways glance, Cody reached out again, slowly this time.

His hand brushed against Charles's chest, paused there for a moment when he encountered the paper-clip necklace, and then moved on to the Montegrappa. He took hold of it and dropped it on the table.

Charles sat, stunned. “Cody? What—”

Cody tilted closer and nudged his nose toward the pen.

Charles picked it up.

Cody laid his hand atop his father's.

Charles waited.

Cody began moving Charles's hand for him, slowly:
up, down, around . . . up, down, around . . .

“Gaaaaaaah,” he said, the sound both an inhale and an exhale, and as their hands continued to move together, Charles discovered that his own breath felt light, ragged, irregular; eddying handfuls of shredded paper.

Cody squinted at the sky. “Gaaaaaah,” he said again; a different inflection, a different meaning. His eyes widened with recognition and delight, as if he'd achieved whatever celestial contact he'd been seeking.

And then, just when Charles thought the miracle was complete, Cody took hold of the pen, lightly, and his hand started to disengage, as if propelled by a very gentle rocket-booster system.

Tentatively, it floated and circled upward; ever upward.

Charles looked on, entranced, bearing witness as Cody gained confidence until eventually he was making grand, joyous, looping gestures in space, his pen a lariat, lassoing the lopsided moon.

THE END

If you're reading this, perhaps you are, like me, a person who stays seated at the end of a movie and watches the credits roll, taking painstaking note of every name, all the way to the appearance of the IATSE logo and the assurance that no animals were harmed in the making of this production. Perhaps you even continue to linger—marveling at just how many people it takes to make a film—until the lights come up and the theater is empty of everyone but you and a couple of theater employees carrying brooms and dustpans, smiling benignly but obviously wishing you'd remove your odd loitering self from the premises so they can finish sweeping up the popcorn and setting up for the next show.

Filmmakers often speak about the many fingerprints on a movie; the same holds true for books—although in a slightly different way, since the people who support a book's creation aren't necessarily in evidence. I get the byline, but an enormous debt is owed to the many uncredited friends and colleagues whose unflagging encouragement sustained me throughout the four years it took to write this book. They listened while I kvetched, hugged me when I cried, and kept my wineglass full of
piquepoul
while I babbled.

Here then, with gratitude, is a list of people who have left their fingerprints on
Language Arts.
I hope you'll stay in your seat and read all the way to the end.

To my pals in Seattle7Writers: Carol Cassella, Dave Boling, Erica Bauermeister, Jamie Ford, Jim Lynch, Kevin O'Brien, Thea Cooper, and Laurie Frankel.

To my band mates in The Rejections: Garth Stein, Jennie Shortridge, Matt Gani, Paul Mariz, and Ben Bauermeister.

Playwright Steven Dietz defines
friend
as “someone who reads your first drafts.” With that truth in mind, I extend deepest thanks to those who read various drafts and offered invaluable insights: Cindy Heidemann, Cheryl McKeon, Kate Carroll de Gutes, Kevin McIlvoy, Kit Bakke, Sheri Holman, and Maria Semple. Special hugs and love to my “sister from another mother,” Randy Sue Coburn, whose friendship has been an anchor throughout this tumultuous process; she cheered with me, mourned with me, drank with me, and is one of the chief reasons that this book is finally seeing the light of day. Thank you, Petunia.

To “the Computer Doctor,” Boegart Bibby, for saving my work when Microsoft Word “hung”—a term I learned while writing this book and one I hope never to have to use again.

To my colleagues and friends in the 2013 Jack Straw Writers Program for their support during an especially difficult time; to the friendly, accommodating staff at Starbucks Store no. 358, who allowed me to nurse my lattes and journal for hours on end; and to Christina Janssen's third-grade class at Sand Point Elementary for providing the handwriting samples that inspired Charles's and Dana's youthful signatures.

To the following authors, whose writings on spiritual matters were nourishing sources of wisdom, solace, and laughter: Anne Lamott, David Whyte, Doris Grumbach, and Sue Monk Kidd.

To my knitting buddies: Alexandra Immel, Carol Cooper, Julie Hiers, Sarah Ketchley, and Wendy Dell.

To Tom Bothwell, for being the brother I never had and always wanted.

To Kelly Harland, Kate Buzard, and Barbara Burnett for speaking openheartedly with me about the challenges of parenting a child with autism.

The works of the following documentary makers provided special inspiration: Todd Drezner (
Loving Lampposts
); David E. Simpson (
Refrigerator Mothers
); Fridrik Thor Fridriksson (
A Mother's Courage
); and Susan Hamovitch (
Without Apology
), who was especially generous in allowing me access to her film.

To Timothy Archibald and Elijah Archibald for their inspiring photographic collaboration,
Echolilia.

To Beniamino Ambrosi, who kept Giorgia's Italian from reading like English run through Google Translate.

Thanks to Amara Najera for Dana McGucken's signature, to Noah Johns for Charles's prayer, and to Samuel L. Jianokopolous for re-creating Teddy Roosevelt's diary entry.

To the following arts colonies and staff, each of which provided much-needed time, space, and solitude: Hedgebrook (Amy Wheeler), Ragdale (Susan Page Tillett), and the Aspen Writers' Foundation (Mo LaMee, Adrienne Brodeur, and Jamie Kravitz).

A very special thanks to Isa Cato Shaw and Daniel Shaw for opening their beautiful home and glorious gardens to me in August of 2013. Much of the most difficult work on this book was possible because of the sanctity, magic, and sanctuary I experienced while living in Parliament House.

Gratitude to Bruce Nichols at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for having faith in me and in this project, and, as always, I offer deep and abiding thanks to my beloved editor and friend Lauren Wein. Huzzahs as well to the amazing Tracy “Dr. Eagle Eyes” Roe for her copyediting expertise and artistry.

To the boychiks, Rabbi Simon and Fab Dan: thank you for your good counsel, noodging, and integrity. I love you both dearly.

To my wonderful family: my husband, Bill; my boys, Noah, Sam, and (occasionally) Jack; my girls, Brynn and Amara. This work that I do would be meaningless without your love and support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To you, the reader, because novels are collaborations; it is only through your imagination that Charles, Dana, and the rest can come to life.

And finally, reaching into my past, I give thanks to the many dedicated elementary, junior high, and high school teachers who modeled the very best and highest aims of their profession: Mrs. Prohaska, Mrs. Axthelm, Mrs. Hurd, Mrs. Carol Gross, Mr. Paul Guidry, Mr. Steve Lahr, Mr. Jon Peterson, Mrs. June Williams, and many others whose names I've sadly forgotten but whose indelible fingerprints shaped me for the better. This book is my small attempt to pay that debt forward.