Morning Glory(86)

He will make your paths straight.

“What is it?” Alex asks, as the woman hands him his crepe and then passes me mine.

“Nothing.” I smile, but as we walk back to Boat Street, I think of James and Ella and the lonely ache deep inside, and I say a little prayer. Dear God, if you’re out there, I beg of you, please help me find my way. I don’t want to feel lost anymore.





Chapter 32





The next day, I pick up the phone and make the call I’ve been dreading for so long, too long.

“Hi Mama,” I say quietly when I hear her voice.

“Ada? Is it you?”

“Yes,” I say through tears. “Mama, I’m sorry it’s been so long.” I can see her standing there in the kitchen, in front of the big window that faces the street, where the old sycamore stands guard. Ella climbed that tree. I pushed her on the swing that I myself had swung on as a child. “I’m so sorry—”

“Oh, honey,” she says. I can hear the hurt in her voice, but I can also hear the acceptance, the unconditional love, just as I would have shown Ella if she ever walked through her own dark patch. “Please, don’t apologize. I knew you’d call when you were ready.”

The truth is, I don’t know if I’m ready, just that it’s time.

“It was wrong of me to close myself off the way I did,” I say. “And I want you to know that it had nothing to do with you. It was my own fragility. I was afraid that if I heard the sadness in your voice it would only make it worse.”

“I understand,” she says. “Your father and I just wanted you to know how much we love you. It’s why we kept calling.”

“I got your messages,” I say. “And the letters. All of them. Mom, I was just afraid, afraid that I wasn’t strong enough to talk about the accident with you.” I take a deep breath. “I’m in Seattle now.”

“Seattle?”

“Yes, just for the summer,” I say. “I left New York, quit my job. I wanted to get away, and it’s been everything I hoped it would be. Mama, I met someone. His name is Alex.”

I hear her crying now.

“Mama, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I’m just so happy to hear your voice, honey, that’s all.”

“Say hi to Dad, OK?”

“I will. When can we see you?”

“Soon,” I say. “I was thinking we could have Thanksgiving together this year. Is Aunt Louise still making that awful bean casserole?”

“Her specialty, you know,” she says with a laugh.

“Save a spot at the table for me, OK?”

“Should I make it two?”

“I don’t know just yet,” I say, glancing out the window toward Alex’s houseboat.



The morning plods along, and I can’t get Dexter out of my head. The sunlight streams in the window and reflects off the silver frame of the Catalina painting. I study the sailboat, then recall something I told Ella years ago. She’d lost Aggie, and we’d gone back to school to find the little boat, to the market, to the park. It ended up being a veritable grand tour of New York City. But after the exhaustive search, Aggie turned up at home, under her bed. The lesson? Things are usually right under your nose. And then it hits me. I recall something I came across in Penny’s chest a few days ago, and I pull it out and tuck it into my pocket, then run out to the dock, where Jim is hosing down the Catalina.

“I have to speak to your parents,” I say, catching my breath.

“But they can’t, they’re—”

“Jim, I have to, and I need your blessing.”



Jim’s mother pours tea from a white ceramic kettle, and hands me a cup.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Gene isn’t well enough to join us,” she says preemptively.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jim exchanges glances with his mother.

She crosses her legs. “Now, what can I tell you?”

“Yes,” I say, pulling a photo of Penny out of my bag, one I’d found in the chest. “Do you remember this woman?”

She reaches for her glasses on the coffee table, then has a closer look at the photo in her hand. Her face is pinched and tense. I imagine that after years of asking all the questions in her practice, it must feel uncomfortable for her to be the one on the spot.

She sets the photo on the table, visibly shaken. “Yes,” she says. “I do. Well, I did, a very long time ago. Her name was Penny Wentworth. She was the bride of Dexter.” She pauses, as if the name has knocked the wind out of her.

“I know,” I say. “I went to see him yesterday.”