“Wally couldn’t?” Nell repeated.
“He was the one who found the map. He and Tam.”
“You mean the Sanborn? Or the gas station map?” she asked.
Even before Eve’s tense gaze met her own, Nell could see the panic flare in her body. “What do you know about that?” she asked.
“Not much,” Nell lied. “Ramona told me it was destroyed a long time ago.”
Eve grimaced. “It was dangerous, that thing. Cursed. Everyone who touched it got hurt.” Her eyes drifted back to the compass rose symbol. “And it’s still not over.”
Eve
The morning after the party, Wally was the only one not hungover, of course, so it was decided that he would drive the first car, with Tam, Daniel, and me. Francis, when he woke up, would drive the second, with Bear and Romi.
This was May of 1990. You were just two or three years old then, Nell, born in the middle of our Ph.D.s. Wally, Bear, Francis, Romi, and I had been there at City Hall, overdressed and excited, clutching bouquets and cheering as your parents kissed for the first time as husband and wife, and then just a few years later, we all were gathered the same way in the waiting room at the hospital, nervously pacing in front of the vending machines while your mother labored in the delivery wing with your father by her side.
At the time, even being as tight knit as we were, and for so many years already, I remember worrying a baby would change the closeness of our group. The magic of it. We had been a little society of seven for so long. But somehow, you made it even stronger. You changed us all from friends to family.
We got on the road early, Wally going exactly the speed limit, with me in the passenger seat to help navigate and Tam and Daniel in the back with you, in your car seat. That party, the night before, where we had practically closed down the bar, was because we had all just graduated from our Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin. The celebration had run late into the night, and I had been so drunk I was still dizzy if I stood up too fast. I wasn’t a big drinker then—later that summer, I would learn to hold my liquor, we all would, but at the time I could only stomach a glass or two of champagne—but Daniel kept ordering bottle after bottle from the bar and passing it around to the rest of us. We were all so giddy, none of us could say no to him, even after the fifth bottle.
That was how he was then. So generous, and so full of joy, all the time. Daniel could get anyone to smile, no matter what else was happening. Even when he was angry, he was still happy. When I think of your father now, that’s the way I like to remember him.
“Can you believe it’s really over?” Wally asked as we drove, flicking the turn signal to change lanes on the sleepy early morning highway. He seemed even more quiet and pensive than usual.
“Don’t you mean, can’t you believe it’s all finally starting?” Tam replied, her energy not dimmed in the slightest by lack of sleep. She was the only one who could ever bring Wally back from one of his moods. Out the window, late spring was in full bloom, weeds and bushes and trees bursting with color, practically swallowing the highway. Calling to us, urging us on.
“I can’t believe we made it, either,” I admitted. “That we actually graduated.”
“That’s because the whole night is still fuzzy for you,” Tam teased. “You look a little green.”
We’d all spent what felt like a lifetime at the University of Wisconsin. For the earliest friends of our group, who met freshman year, it was even longer—more than a decade. We’d gone from children to adults, from students to scholars. Tam and Daniel had gotten married, and had you there, and it seemed Romi and Francis weren’t far behind them. It was hard to fully accept that we were driving away possibly forever, that we wouldn’t be back in our graduate student apartments later that evening, cooking together as someone had a far too loud party next door, like always. That before the day was done, we’d no longer be in Wisconsin, able to pop into Professor Johansson’s office at a moment’s notice to ask a question, but rather almost a thousand miles away, somewhere in upstate New York. Even as I’d submitted my dissertation, completed my defense, and picked up my cap and gown from the university bookstore—none of it felt real until I was sitting in that rickety folding chair and finally heard my name called. Only when I crossed the stage to shake hands with the dean and take my fountain pen did everything finally crystallize.