Set Me Free (17 page)

“What have you done lately that isn’t about yourself?”

“I came to help you, you fucker. Which ranks among the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.” She remembered how easy it was to
confuse this rage with love. She pulled her arms tightly around herself and, safely contained, headed back up the hill, calling
Ferdinand to her side. He scuffled up against her, glancing up at her expression. He always knew when she was upset.

“Wrong direction,” Elliot called.

“Screw you.”

“You’re going back the way we came. If you want to go back faster, walk that way. I took you the scenic route. Trust me. You’ll
see the main building from the top of the hill.”

Indeed she did. But she did not wish to give him the satisfaction of being right. She waited for him at the top of the hill,
and when he got there, she tried to bait him. She got her voice under control. “I always forget what an asshole you are. It’s
such a disappointment.”

“I tell the truth the way I see it.”

“You tell a self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, self-promoting truth where you get to feel holier than every other goddamn
person you meet.” He didn’t say anything. This was encouraging. She went on. “You win. You’re the best. You’ve helped the
most people. Is that what you want me to say?” He was looking out across the land as the morning light arrowed over it. She
was losing him. And then she was losing her grasp on her fury. It had resigned itself. “Jesus, Elliot. What the hell am I
doing here?”

He didn’t answer. Just kept looking west. She had no more fight left. She couldn’t remember what had been said or what had
started the argument in the first place. So she made her way down the hill alone, in the direction he’d pointed. “Fergus,”
she called. The dog stayed beside Elliot. “Fergus! Come here!” But he did not come. Of course he did not come. She would walk
alone.

The ground was prickly with sagebrush, and she had to fight her way around the juniper trees. That’s what he’d called them.
Juniper. The smell of the earth was salty and wild, a smell she’d never smelled before. Silky. Rasping in her lungs. A lozenge
of pine that unwound itself inside her as it began to bake in the daylight. The sand beneath her feet was red and soft. She
moved quickly. She knew he would watch her as she made her way all the way back to the school. So she kept on steadily, her
back to him. She swore she would not look back. All the mercy between them was gone.

“E
XACTLY HOW ARE
you getting to the airport?”

She was surprised he had followed her back to the house. The
Elliot she’d married would not have done so. She pretended not to be impressed. She gathered up her toiletries in a frantic
fury as his frame filled the bathroom doorway. She was looking forward to shoving him out of her way.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to offer.”

“I don’t think you should leave.”

“I’ll call a cab.”

“There
are
no cabs.”

“I’ll find someone to drive me.”

“You don’t know anyone.”

“I know Cal. He’ll be pleased to hear I’m leaving. And I know Lydia. I know she has a car. Or I’ll walk down to the highway
and hitchhike.” Elliot’s judgmental silence raised Helen’s hackles. “I’ve hitchhiked before. And I’ll do it again. If forced.”
She grabbed the shampoo and headed for the doorway.

Elliot stopped her, putting his arms on his shoulders. “Please listen,” he said. He seemed amused.

“I don’t need you laughing at me.”

“I’m sorry.” He made his face serious. “We got off on the wrong foot. Amelia gave me some good advice last night. In the middle
of all the yelling. She was right. I should have picked you up at the airport myself. It was very rude of me to send someone
else to do my job. I was swept up in my work, distracted, but the real truth is I was afraid to see you again.” He dropped
his arms from her shoulders. “We’ve spoken on the phone all these years, on and off. But I haven’t seen you. I haven’t seen
you since…” His body seemed to cave.

“I know.”

“So,” he said.

Helen felt exhausted. She had been so determined to leave the bathroom, but now it seemed the safest place in the world. She
wanted to stay in its womb. She set her toiletries down in the sink and closed the toilet cover, then sat on it. Elliot leaned
in the doorway, silent.

“I’m not sure how to proceed,” she said. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stay.”

Elliot nodded. “I’m sure Duncan will be happy to have you home.”

“Oh.” She examined the tile grout.“Well. I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Elliot coughed his Wasp cough, deflecting any talk of private tensions.

Helen picked up a shampoo bottle for security and fiddled with the flip top. “Look,” she said. “It’s a very nice offer. The
house and all. I appreciate it, I really do. I guess I’m just sensitive right now about feeling like a charity case.”

“But you aren’t,” said Elliot.

“You didn’t even want me for the job! You asked me to suggest a director for the play. And I volunteered myself! I don’t think
I have to tell you how unusual it is, someone in my position—and I mean this with no vanity—but it’s a strange career move,
to say the least, coming all the way out here.”

“I’m thrilled that you’re here, Helen.”

“Don’t I deserve an ounce of respect?”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I had to figure out what I was going to say.”

“About what?”

“I’ve been thinking. A lot. About that night, over sixteen years ago. After I found out that Astrid was gone. And the way
you came and helped me after what I’d done to you. After leaving you. You were… you were amazing.”

Helen couldn’t help her smile. “Nah.”

“You were. I was out of my head. I lost my mind. But you helped me get back to myself. So I could be there for Amelia. I’ll
never be able to thank you enough.”

Helen shrugged. “What can I say? You needed me. I had to help.”

“This is another one of those moments. I need your help.”

“You mean directing
The Tempest?”

“Yes,” he said, but his voice didn’t commit. “That and more.”

“You haven’t lost your marbles again, have you?”

“I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

H
E MADE HER
breakfast. Omelettes and toast. No coffee, but strong black tea, and that would do for now.

“I’ve had to reimagine my goals for Ponderosa Academy as it’s grown. The problem is, as I see it, that the school and I are
too closely linked. I fear that if something were to happen to me—”

“God forbid.”

“God forbid, yes, but those things do happen, and if it did, I fear the school would be unable to sustain itself. Look. The
first decade and a half of this school have been about surviving on a day-to-day basis. But there hasn’t been much nourishment.
There hasn’t been any kind of long-term plan. And that’s got to change, if only because of the financial side of things. We
make do—on my inheritance, on federal and state grants, on private donations—but everything’s held together with Scotch tape
and rubber bands.” He held the spatula in the air and gazed out the narrow window at the end of the kitchen. “These kids deserve
more than that,” he said. “They deserve more than just me lifting everyone around on my back. I’ll admit, it’s tiring, but
that’s not why we need to change the way things are run. We need to change things so these kids can go to the best colleges
in the nation. So they can be doctors and senators and presidents. That’s what I imagined when I started this place. And we’re
getting there. But I realize we can’t get there alone.”

“And my directing a production of
The Tempest
is going to fix all that.” Helen was amused. Elliot relied so heavily on other’s abilities to save. He was an optimist at
heart, but she had no idea where he was going with this line of thought.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, placing her meal before her. “Go on, eat up while it’s hot.”

“What am I thinking?” she asked through the bite as she commanded Ferdinand away from the table: “Sit, boy. Settle.”

“You’re thinking I’m a worthless liberal idealist with a lot of big concepts and no practical solutions.”

Helen waved her arms open. “This school is the most practical solution I’ve ever seen! If anyone knows how to turn idealism
into reality, it’s you. Most of our former comrades are renovating their prewar apartments and fretting over their second
homes. Anyway, what do I know? I direct plays.”

Elliot concentrated his efforts on his omelette, but Helen could tell he was pleased. She couldn’t help smiling. This wasn’t
flirting, exactly, what they were doing. But it was what they had always done. Danced around each other’s ideas. It felt good
to be known again.

When he sat, he told her, “There’s a school in Portland. The school where Amelia started this fall—Benson Country Day. They
call themselves a conservatory for the arts, but they have the potential to be so much more. I’ve been talking to the headmaster
and the board of directors. They’re excited about the opportunity to combine forces. Making one school out of two. They’re
not sure yet. But they’ve given me a year to see what kind of proposal I could come up with. I mean, we’re talking a big opportunity
here. They’re talking full integration; some of our kids go there and board. Get exposed to the arts in a way they won’t out
here. Get the kind of education I can only dream about giving them. Get some of those Portland private-school kids out here.
Create a new kind of community, one that expands the students’ world at both schools.”

“And you’d be giving up control?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But the academy wouldn’t be yours anymore.”

“No,” he said. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t be
only
mine. But it isn’t that now, and that was never the point. I don’t want to keep it
to myself. All I did was imagine the possibility of the school and put some of that possibility into play.”

“And
The Tempest?”

“There will be a festival in the spring, with an art show, a powwow, classroom presentations, and
The Tempest.
We’ll invite the Benson people and show them what an extraordinary amount we have to offer. We’ll show them that we have
the potential to be a world-class institution.”

Helen leaned back in her chair and sized Elliot up. “You seem in surprisingly good spirits in the midst of all of this.”

“As I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about that night sixteen years ago. For so long, I’ve shied away from it. I was sure
I’d gone insane. I couldn’t forgive myself for making such a terrible choice in marrying Astrid, in starting a family with
her. I couldn’t forgive myself for loving a woman who could leave behind her own child and commit such heinous acts. But lately…”
He shook his head, obviously moved. Helen had rarely seen Elliot like this: open and vulnerable. She felt compelled to reach
out and comfort him.

“Lately,” he went on,“I’ve had some stunning revelations. About the way we rejuvenate ourselves. The funny way life moves
and works. I can tell you this much: I believe in hope now. In a way I had forgotten.”

Helen put her hands around her mug and closed her eyes. She didn’t know what exactly he meant, but she liked the thought of
it. Hope. “I can’t believe I’m going to live in that shack.”

“You don’t have to stay”

“If I don’t show up one morning, you’ve got to promise to send a search party.”

“Only stay if you want to,” he said.

“I think I want to.”

“You can live up here.”

“We’d kill each other. And anyway. That would be a little strange.”

“You can stay here, with Amelia, and I can live down there.”

“No,” she said. “No, she needs you. And I need my space.” She added, “Perhaps it’s none of my business. But you’ve shared
these ideas about the future of the school with the assistant headmaster, right?”

“You mean Cal?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He seems a bit…” She cast about for a polite word. “He seems
concerned.
About the school. I don’t want to get in the middle of anything, but—”

“Of course,” said Elliot, and in those two words, Helen was reminded how deftly Elliot always moved her from feeling included
to feeling like an outcast. How he shut her out the second he believed she’d judged him. “I haven’t had the chance,” he said,
rising to clear his plate.

Perhaps I underestimated her.

W
lLLA

Day Two
Columbus, Ohio, to Mitchell, Illinois
Thursday, May 8, 1997

O
ne of Willa’s absolute favorite things to do on the road was eat. There was something thrilling about ingesting immeasurable
pounds of potatoes and red meat while streaming through the world. They ordered chicken-fried steaks from shiny red truck-stop
booths with built-in pay phones. They parked at small-town burger joints and scarfed down fries from trays attached to their
windows. Though this food was not forbidden in the Llewelyns’”real” life, the ritual of it was something they rarely engaged
in once they’d settled into a place. When they lived somewhere, they ate at home. When they were on the road, it was all fast
food and greasy spoons.