The Last Forever (27 page)

The music has changed. It is some kind of Spanish tango, probably snitched from Mom and Dad’s music collection. Elijah is leading the older guy around by his bow tie. Millicent is sitting on the lap of the boy with the argyle vest. He twirls
a lock of her hair around one finger. He kisses the corner of her mouth.

There is Henry, finally.

He scans the room. He looks disgusted. “Let’s get out of here.”

“And leave before you blow out the candles?”

“I’m finished with this.” He seems angry again, maybe even furious.

He takes my hand. He is pulling me, actually. People are starting to dance, and he is yanking me through the door. He shoves past a couple kissing on the porch. I am flying behind him. I am glad to see he has his present from me under one arm; it’s as if we’ve just rescued the kidnap victim and are now making our escape. Outside, it’s the pure bliss of liberation.

“Thank God!” I shout. We are running. But we are not running in the direction of my car. Maybe toward his? I don’t know. I don’t care. We are running across the parklike lawn, the huge width of it.

“Where—” I ask.

“Here.”

It is an enormous lilac tree, the tree I imagined Henry and Millicent beneath, and the lilacs are in bloom, stark white against the dark sky, and the tree smells delicious and potent, capable of inducing the dreams of Oz. Henry is kissing me. He is kissing me hard, like I’ve always wanted him to kiss me. It’s passionate in a way Henry hasn’t been, a way I’ve waited for. There’s moonlight and the sounds of the party in the distance and the smell of lilacs.

Henry pulls me down, or I pull him, or we both go together. We are falling ten thousand miles, and I want to fall. For me, there is such relief that Henry is back again, but there is also the oddness of the night and the driving need to prove myself with mouth and hands and tongue, to verify my importance in his life, to remind him that he belongs to me, not Millicent, not Elijah or these other people,
me.

Henry is pressing himself against my body, and above me, his sweet eyes are squinched shut. His cheekbones have new angles in the shadows of the moon. My hands are under his shirt, on his smooth skin, his very own ribs, his chest. My skirt is shoved up, and I’ve lost a shoe, and he will know I am his, and I will
be
his, and no one will take that away, and the thought of it all fills me with such desire that I fumble with the button of his jeans and the buttons, buttons, buttons of his white shirt.

We aren’t us, but we are us. We are more than us. He is pressing, pressing, and this new Henry wants me so bad, and it feels so good.

But then he stops. “Wait,” he says. He is reaching for his pants. His wallet. “My father gave me this when I was fifteen.” His voice, these actual words, break some lilac spell, and I look around, and I’m aware that people are not that far off but far off enough. A car engine starts, and someone shouts and people laugh. I am gauging this, people, distance, and then he says, “Do they have an expiration date?”

And, of course, I don’t know if they do or not, but this
makes us both laugh, and it’s as if he actually sees me, Tess, down below him, and he’s trying to open the darn thing with his teeth, and then trying to figure it out, and it all gets ridiculous, much more the real Henry and me than this fiery passionate couple on this lawn who I don’t even recognize, this Henry who
needs
me.

It breaks some spell, and he is fumbling and I am fumbling, and neither of us knows anything about this, and so it becomes, now that we are here, something to be completed, only it isn’t really completed. It is sort of completed, I think. I can’t really tell. You will wonder how that is so, and I can only say it
is
so. I don’t know and I can’t exactly ask. I only know that the minute he opened his eyes and spoke moments ago, we became halfhearted and awkward, and whatever lit between us on this strange night is now over. We are on Elijah and Millicent’s lawn and he is reaching for his pants and I am pulling down my skirt and I don’t know exactly what has happened or hasn’t happened, only that it has been significant. It has changed me and us, probably forever.

That’s when I hear him. Elijah. He’s not far off; he’s close enough for me to see his face quite clearly. And all the smart remarks and witty jabs and sarcasm are gone from it. Every bit of his cockiness has left, and he stands there only plain-faced and scared.

“Henry?” he says. It is so plaintive. It is the quietest agony. I think he might cry. And then he turns and runs, and I know in that instant everything I need to know. I know who’s really
in that turned-down photo in Henry’s room. And I know who it is in that photo I thought I saw on the bookshelf in Elijah’s room when I heard that girl laugh. I know whose two faces are in Elijah’s painting. I know what is likely written in the journal stuffed down in the seat of Henry’s car and the reason his heart was broken.

“Lij!” Henry calls. His thin legs are so white under that moon. And now, with Henry’s own plaintive cry, it is my turn to run.

chapter twenty-two

Pinus banksiana
: jack pine. Although most people consider a forest fire to be a destructive force, fire can actually be the mechanism that allows a forest to regenerate itself. The jack pine, for example, relies on fire to spread its seeds. Its cone is actually sealed shut with resin, but during a forest fire, heat from the fire will melt the resin and release the seeds. The seeds
need
fire. Without it, they will be forever locked inside. What looks like destruction can lead to renewal.

“You knew,” I cry. I am gutted. My chest aches, my stomach, every bit of me is grief and more grief; the loss of this hope, Henry hope, is every loss all over again. It’s the loss of progress and new life and, God, the loss of love. Real love. True love. Last-forever love.

Jenny has her arms around me. My father has been kicked out of my room. It’s a time you need another woman. It’s a time you need your mother.

“I didn’t know,” Jenny says. “I mean, I knew he and Elijah . . .
I was worried you’d be hurt. But, honey, only Henry
knows
. And, obviously, it’s complicated for
him
.”

I don’t want her arms around me anymore. She kept something from me, something that would have prevented me from being shattered like this. I wrap my arms around my own self. My shirt is wet from tears and I’m still wearing that stupid skirt, and I am in shock. I am in such shock, I simply can’t believe this night happened. I go over it again in my head. I was getting dressed. I drove over. I held that present. I was in that house. Henry and I were on the grass and then confusion and then . . . My stomach feels so sick.

“Why didn’t you tell me anyway? Why didn’t you
say
something?”

“Oh, honey, I’d done that before! Intervened, got involved in things that weren’t my business . . . I tried to say what was what when I didn’t know what was what. And I lost your dad and your mom and you. I didn’t want to lose you again.”

“I feel like such a fool.” I feel like such a fool, and I feel betrayed, and I feel confused. Henry’s body was next to mine only a few hours ago. And now, this whole universe of Henry I never knew existed. I didn’t even see it. “He said he
loved
me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jenny says. She puts her arms back around me even though my own are not open to her. She doesn’t care. About this she will be stubborn. “I’m sure he
does
love you.”

“How could he let me love him like that?” I cry. “How, how, how?”

“He didn’t mean to hurt you. Even I can see that. He’s a human being, sweetie. Us human beings, sometimes it takes a while to understand ourselves.” Jenny rocks me. “Sometimes it takes a long while.” I let her rock me like a baby. I am crying so hard.

“We left her alone,” I sob. I don’t know why I’m telling her this terrible secret now. My grief is all mixed up, or else it’s just a night to be done with secrets. “No one was there. We left her alone and she died.”

Jenny doesn’t seem shocked at my confession, or even surprised at this grief mixed with grief. She doesn’t let go of me, the horrible person I am. I am breaking in half. I am breaking open, and it hurts and my chest is crushing in on my heart. “You didn’t know. You were doing the best you could. Henry too. That’s all we can ever do.”

I cry and cry until I feel too empty to cry anymore. My phone rings and rings again until I turn it off. If he thinks I ever want to talk to him again, he’s crazy.

I am devastated. I am scorched earth inside. “I think I want to be alone now,” I say.

“All right,” Jenny says. Her own face looks old and sad and defeated. When she opens the door, my father actually falls inside, just like in the movies, when someone is listening in with a hand cupped around one ear.

“I was just . . . passing by,” he lies.

I don’t even care. Nothing really matters. All that we’ve built here seems gone. Jenny and me, Dad and me, this place and everyone in it. It all feels different now.

*  *  *

This is how Pix dies. Over the next several days, its stalk narrows and shrivels. It turns black. It is a wretched, limp black, and then it falls. I don’t want to wait for it to dry up. It feels obscene to watch. It feels private.

I am empty inside and Pix has left me. It feels
gone
; it has felt gone ever since that night with Jenny and my father and Henry and the berry and the seeds. I don’t want to think about plants and seeds and icy lands. I don’t want to think about the good people of this town, all those signatures, or a faraway place with the most important possibility of all—forever. Forever isn’t possible, and so I ignore Sasha’s calls too. I turn off my phone, and then I let the battery go dead, and then I finally do it. I pull Pix from the soil, pull it up by its roots. I lay it on a paper towel, and I press until what little moisture was left is no longer there. I place it where it now belongs, in between the pages of the photo album.

Grandfather Leopold’s blue-glazed terra-cotta pot has only dirt in it now. Just dirt. No seed, no plant.

It’s over.

*  *  *

By this time, I know Henry’s schedule at the Parrish Island Library. I know he won’t be here, but I still check for his car
anyway. But no. There’s only Larry’s Toyota and some big old RV with a license plate that reads
CAPTAIN ED
and a worn bumper sticker on the back that says
HOME OF THE BIG REDWOODS
. I see movement near the Dumpster, a flash of red. Sasha, in a crimson T-shirt.

“I thought you quit,” I said.

She tosses the stub to the ground. Puts it out with the toe of her Converse. “Damn,” she says.

“Did you and Abby break up again?”

“No. You and Henry did.”

“I came to say good-bye.”

“I was afraid of that. Well, come on. Larry’s inside.”

She stomps up the steps, opens the big library doors. I am remembering a pounding sheet of rain, and running up these same stairs, and my first view of these large windows and this warm wood, and this domed ceiling with the sky painted on it.

And once again, that high, domed sky makes me feel a wide vista of emotion, and once again I could weep at an overturned chair or a torn page, or today, Larry’s scruffy beard and the ink on his fingers that I can see from here.

“Don’t say it,” he says. He’s a big softie, that Larry. “Don’t say you’re leaving.”

Once again, I am translucent. I could break against rocks. I am ten thousand miles down and ten thousand miles across and around and it’s too far and too long and too deep, but there is no black-haired boy with wide, soft brown
eyes looking into mine and seeing exactly who I am.

“I came to say good-bye.”

Larry steps away from the counter. He puts his arms around me. He slaps my back. I am trying not to break down and weep against his
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T-shirt.

Sasha clears her throat. She’s a big softie too, but don’t tell her that.

“We sent it all off. The letter and the boxes. We’re going to get you to that vault. Whether you’re here or not.”

“Say it like it is, sister,” Larry says.

I can barely speak. “Thank you so much.” My voice is a whisper. It will crack if it’s any louder than this. “For all you did.” Svalbard, though—it doesn’t matter anymore.

They hear what I’m not saying. All that defeat.

“That seed,” Larry says. “It’s the chance for something
big.
For you, for everyone.”

“Cue the music,” Sasha says. She rolls her eyes at me, but I can see that this is only to match my state of mind. She agrees with Larry. They both understand the largeness of Svalbard and the seed. But I have no energy for largeness or greatness or even for motion at all.

“Wait,” Larry says. “Before you go.” He hurries off between 570—Life Sciences and 580—Plants. Well, of course, he brings me
How to Keep Almost Any Plant Alive
by Dr. Lester Frank. He hands it over.

“You’re giving me library property?” I ask.

“I’m just checking it out to you,” he says. “You have to bring it back.”

“And you should see our overdue fines,” Sasha says.

*  *  *

We have accumulated some extra stuff. There are two pairs of orca whale slippers and new clothes. There’s a quilt Jenny is giving me that I especially like and piles of food that won’t fit into the cooler we’d brought. I am carrying things out. Dad and Jenny are hunting around for an old suitcase she’s sure she has around somewhere and a Styrofoam cooler my father used for camping trips while he was in high school.

I don’t need to be that careful with the blue terra-cotta pot anymore now that Pix is gone. But I return it to my mother’s shoe anyway. I sling one of our bags over my shoulder and carry the shoe out to the truck. Dad spent the day before this one changing the oil and filling the tank with gas. He slapped the side of the truck when he was done.
Ready, old girl?
he said, as if it were a horse he was particularly fond of.