“I accept it.”
“I want you to believe she is real.”
“Then I do.”
Polly turned in a full circle, as if looking for her. She came back around to Agnes.
“But she isn’t, you know. What was that phrase? She’s a figment of my imagination. I know that even as I am looking straight at her. I both know and don’t know.”
“I don’t see the harm in it,” Agnes said, “if it makes you feel better.”
“The harm is—” Polly chewed on a fingernail, a gesture Agnes had never seen before. “The harm is that I am always waiting to see her again. I am waiting instead of living.”
“Oh Lord, if that’s a crime, the whole human race is guilty! How many people are waiting for Jesus? Or for Judgment Day? Or for a miracle?” She thought, but didn’t say, her own version—writing is waiting.
“I’ve always wanted to ask you,” Polly said. “Did you realize Nan in your books is nine and that Lydia died at nine?”
“Yes. But it’s a coincidence.”
“Why did you make her nine? Older than the real Nan was.”
“Nine-year-old girls are perfect humans,” Agnes said. “Nan would have been. Lydia was.”
Three cars left Meadowlea and headed up Point Path. Agnes waved, and Caroline called out that they were going to a lobster pound for dinner.
The breeze was beginning to die down, as it did at this time of the afternoon. When Agnes and Polly and Elspeth were girls they had imagined an orchestra conductor guiding the whole day, bringing up different sounds at different moments. When the afternoon wind settled, and the air became like a skin, the smaller birds and insects that hadn’t been heard from for hours insisted on having their say. The piccolos.
“What do you want on your grave, Pol?”
“You’ll read it soon enough.”
“If I don’t, though. For some odd reason.”
“I don’t really care. Nothing, probably. Maybe an etching of a tree.”
“No name?”
“Who will care? Who will remember before long?”
“That’s awfully unconventional of you.”
“We didn’t used to mark our graves.”
“As you wish.”
“Watch Archie erect a mausoleum for himself.”
They laughed.
“How about you, Nessie? What do you want yours to say?”
“I’m still working on it,” Agnes said.
Polly squeezed her arm this time. “Let me know, will you, when you decide? In case I’m not here to see it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll waltz on my grave. Though not before—” She broke off. This was not the time to raise the issue of the Fellowship agreement. “I’m having treatments now. In fact I think I’m meant to not embrace anyone. I might be radioactive!”
“What does Dr. Oswald say?”
“He says to have fun and eat healthy food.”
“Are you sick from the medicine?”
Agnes appreciated how Polly could shift to being matter-of-fact when a lot was at stake. “So far it’s not bad. It will depend how much I want to do.”
“Are you allowed to drink?”
“I’m allowed to do anything I allow myself.”
“Come back with me. I want to show you something,” Polly made a beckoning motion though she was two feet away.
They walked across the meadow and up the porch steps of Meadowlea and Agnes admired the new pink wall. Polly mixed them each up a quick mint julep made with bourbon and maple syrup, and they carried their glasses through the cool rooms, Agnes taking in details and admiring the changes made since she’d last been inside the house. None of the furniture had moved an inch, but there were fresh touches—bright pillows, a sofa reupholstered in a floral, Pollyish things. The windows were open and the curtains filled and rose and fluttered. Flowers were plonked into vases on every table and browning petals littered the wood. Agnes’s was a family that enjoyed writing their names on dusty mirrors, but the Hancocks preferred a setting.
They walked into Dick’s study. It was a large space, with two desks, a chaise, and beautiful built-in bookcases. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in here. Not since it was Dick’s, at any rate,” Agnes said.
“He never invited anyone in. He always said it was an extension of his mind, and if people came in they were stepping on his ideas.”
“I’m sympathetic to that,” Agnes said, privately thinking that she’d never heard a thought of Dick’s that was worth so much drama. But there was something to be said for the thinking life of even a small mind. It kept people off the streets. Dick’s study looked like a professor’s study, or perhaps the landlubber refuge of a sea captain. The wood was all cherry, the rug centrally orange and green, the shelves many and groaning with books. Enviable.
Polly went to the desk and lifted an envelope. “This is what I wanted to show you. See if it rings a bell.”
Agnes opened it and began to read. The words were familiar. Yes, she knew this piece. She had the same one in her desk. Polly had sent it to her after the birth of… Theo? She thought so. She looked up at Polly, whose expression was cautious.
“I found it in Dick’s papers.”
“How? I told you not to show it to him. Did you show him anyway?” Agnes shook her head. “Forget I said that. That was your choice. I just couldn’t imagine he’d understand.”
“I sent it to him anonymously, at his office address. I don’t know what I thought would happen. Maybe he’d come home from work brimming with excitement over the brilliant thing he’d read that day. Maybe he’d share it with me, and I’d reveal that I was the author. But he never mentioned it. It’s embarrassing that I thought he might.”
“That he might be different than he was?”
“That he might think I was smart.”
“He kept it. That’s something.”
“Yes, I suppose. But he was a bit of a packrat. I don’t want to embarrass myself again with another stupid fantasy.” Polly shrugged.
“But wait, Pol—look at this.” Agnes pointed to a few words that had been written in pencil on the back of the letter.
Polly held the page away from her at arm’s length. “I can’t read it.”
“It says, ‘Find out who wrote this and invite him for a lecture.’ Him! Of course he’d never think it was a woman. They’re all so—”
Polly put her hands over her face.
“What is it?”
“He thought it was good.”
Agnes felt a flash of her old irritation at Polly for being more moved by Dick’s opinion than by hers—Agnes had told Polly perfectly clearly this piece was good, very good. That had gone in one ear and out the other and all this time she’d waited to see if Dick would say anything. Good grief. Best behavior, Ness, she coached herself. “Yes, he did. And good for him for knowing it.”
“Yes, good for him.” Polly sank onto the sofa. “But what would it have been like if he knew it was me? If we could have talked in that way with each other?”
“Do you think he would have?”