Two Days Ago, July 30. Memphis.
Rosemary lives in a quiet, nondescript neighborhood on the east side of the city. Block after block of almost identical ranch houses with tidy front yards. But I know her house the minute the taxi pulls up: on the front landing is the alligator umbrella stand from her mother’s porch, its mouth still agape after all these years. Rosemary comes to the door holding a small dog—a rescue, she tells me. Her hair is beige, cut short. She’s a professor of musicology. Her husband Edmund teaches quantum physics. They have no children.
“My area is Baroque,” she says as I follow her into the living room. “I have herbal tea or decaf. Caffeine makes me jittery.”
“Decaf’s great.”
“Make yourself comfortable. I made a carrot cake.” She heads into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the living room. The mantelpiece is covered with framed photographs: Rosemary looking drab in a cap and gown; Rosemary and her husband on their wedding day; Rosemary as a young girl riding on a trolley car with Leo. There isn’t a single photo of Conrad. I pick up a silver-framed photo of Rosemary with an elderly couple on a cruise ship. It takes me a moment to realize the man is Leo. He has his arm around a woman I recognize as Rosemary’s mother.
“They remarried,” Rosemary says, coming up behind me.
“I didn’t know.”
“A few years after my brother died.” She takes the photo from me and puts it back on the mantel. “They’ve both passed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s what happens.” She hands me a slice of carrot cake. “I use applesauce instead of sugar. And how is Anna?”
“Anna died, too. Almost twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, tomorrow is the anniversary of her death.”
“You two never really got along, as I recall,” Rosemary says.
I bristle. “She was my best friend. I feel her absence every single day.”
“Life can be lonely.”
We sit there together silent, each pretending to concentrate on eating.
“This is delicious,” I say after a while.
“The applesauce makes it moist. So, what brings you to Memphis?”
“My husband Peter. He had to come here for work. Mum’s at the pond, taking care of the kids. We have three.”
“And is this the first time you’ve been back?”
I nod. “I should have come sooner. I visited Conrad’s grave yesterday.”
“I’ve never been. Cemeteries depress me. Mother visited him once a week. She never quite recovered from it all. I think she blamed you.”
I feel as if she’s thrown a glass of ice water in my face.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling the inadequacy of those words. “I couldn’t save him.”
“Oh, well. If you’d jumped in he probably would have pulled you down with him in his panic. He was that type.” She takes a big bite of cake, chews slowly. “You saw him drown.”
“Yes.”
“That must be a hard thing to get out of your head.”
“I never have.”
Rosemary fingers a small cross that hangs around her neck. She seems to be considering something. “I’ve tried to picture it: Conrad falling off the boat into the cold open ocean. He was a terrible swimmer. What was it like, watching him go under? I wish I’d been there to see it myself.”
It is such a bizarre thing to say. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” She gives me a long hard look. “You remember that summer he came home to stay with me and Mother?”
I nod, feeling a dull dread.
“Well, that was my idea. I was quite lonely after Con left. Mother was in a mood half the time. I’d sit on the porch swing, try to stay quiet as a mouse. She said noise made her nervy. Anyway, Conrad, Mother, and I made a plan to drive across country to my uncle’s home in Santa Fe. I was so excited. The first night Conrad was home, he came to my room after Mother was asleep. I woke up with him on top of me. I could barely breathe. I tried to call out for help, but he kept his hand over my mouth. I sobbed into his palm.” She pauses, picks a bit of lint off her trousers. “The whole time he was raping me, he kept saying your name.”
The room bleeds into a white blur. I feel as though I am being sucked slow motion through the center of a star. I can vaguely hear the low hum of the air conditioner. Somewhere down the street children are shouting. I imagine them playing with a hose, dousing each other in cool water. A car drives past. Then another.