Eclipse

“Aren’t you glad I kept it?” Bob asked, lifting a small telescope onto the lawn table. Recognizing it, Therese smiled. It had been her first scope, a simple and easy way to bond with the night sky. “I never throw anything away, you know,” Bob said, inserting an eyepiece in its place.

Therese knew that, and even though Bob’s hoarding of arbitrary mementos and random junk had made Rose raise her eyebrows on more than one occasion, she was happy to see this particular piece of her childhood reappear this very night.     

After returning home, Therese had spent the first two days fluctuating between disbelief and disillusion. She had sat with her mother till the early hours of Sunday morning, first crying and then gradually opening up about every last detail of her week with Carol. Rose had listened to her quietly, not once interrupting her daughter’s lamentation, for she knew that the truth often hid in the instinctive way the words were chosen and chained together.

At one point, having heard noise from downstairs, Bob had peeked in in his flannel pajamas. Startled to see Therese so upset, he had asked if she would like him to stay or to go back to sleep. Remorseful over her rude behavior towards her father, Therese’s sobs had started anew and he had held her in his arms for a long time. When Therese had two hours later fallen asleep, Bob had watched the new day move across the wooden floor in thin, parallel lines of light. His exhausted daughter had lain sleeping on the couch, her head nestling gently in his lap.

The moonless night afforded Therese and Bob a chance to peer into the deep sky, all the way to the photons of Andromeda. “They’re all still there,” Bob said, “even if we can’t see them with the naked eye.” He moved away from the telescope, allowing Therese to take a look.

The distant, fuzzy patch of light 2.5 million light years away looked unassuming, yet it contained a trillion stars, twice as many as the Milky Way. Give the fuzz a second thought, and you’ll understand its glory , Therese mused. She remembered how Carol had leaned in to see the same view Therese was gazing at now, and the image reverberated bittersweetly from one chamber of her heart to another.  

The garden surrounding Therese’s childhood home was all quiet now, the trees standing somber guard on both sides of the house. Only a few short hours ago it had rung with boisterous cheers and airy giggles, Carly and Jack having brought their children for an impromptu visit. Therese had run around the garden dodging squirt guns and water balloons Cass, 7, and Dusty, 4, had aimed at her.

The girls adored Therese, especially the wee, absent-minded Etta, 2, whose tawny hair stuck out of her skull in untamed tufts of tangled shine. Her plump arms extended, Etta had teetered after Therese like a baby penguin, its grey plumage replaced with a green Tinker Bell dress. Every time she had let Etta catch her, Therese had swept her up in her arms and dashed out of her sisters’ range with her. Etta’s heartfelt laughter had warmed Therese, and it had made her forget her troubles for the time being.

She hadn’t been able to fool Carly though. “What’s wrong?” she had asked Therese when the tumultuous triad had targeted Dannie and Phil for a change. The two brothers had just joined the merry crowd. Having cast a furtive glance at her daughters, Carly had pulled Therese farther away from her daughters’ noisy excitement.

“I blew it,” Therese had conceded. “I tried to tell her that I need to tie up some loose ends before… well, anything, yet managed to make it sound like I was two-timing Jane.” Both she and Rose had come to the conclusion that Carol might have thought something along those lines.

“Well, that’s an easy thing to fix,” Carly had commented, not understanding what the big deal was. “Go talk to her again. Make it good.” She herself had always been outspoken, almost to her own detriment.

“I don’t think she wants to have anything more to do with me,” Therese had grumbled, though Rose hadn’t shared her opinion on that.

“Have you tied up those loose ends now?” Carly had asked, ignoring her sullen remark.

“I haven’t had a chance yet, but I will. Soon.” Carly frowned at Therese’s reply but refrained from discussing it further.

If Therese had dreaded the moment when she would finally have the talk with Jane, she didn’t anymore. Not that it didn’t feel important and difficult, quite the contrary; the emotional wringer she had been through had just dampened everything, even her fears.

Bob sat down in the weather-beaten Adirondack chair and picked up his ukulele. He started plucking its strings, the remnants of a song played just before Carly and Jack had left with their girls back to Brooklyn. Etta had fallen asleep in Therese’s arms before their departure, her bantam frame curled up against her aunt’s bosom.

Bob never let them leave before Cass had sung her song. It was a ritual the eldest sister very much enjoyed, for she took her singing seriously indeed.  A precocious, lanky girl, a spitting image of Carly, Cass seemed to grow in height each time she had an opportunity to perform. After Bob’s quiet intro, the first, faint notes laying the soft ground for the simple melody, Cass had started with her clear, mellow voice Therese always loved listening to.

 Stars shining right above you

Night breezes seem to whisper: I love you

Birds singing in the sycamore tree

Dream a little dream of me

 

The absolute sweetness of Cass’ childlike rendition had turned into a full-fledged smile when Phil had added his bongos to the mix.

Say nighty-night and kiss me

Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me

While I’m alone as blue as can be

Dream a little dream of me

Having quickly removed his guitar from its case, Jack had joined Bob in the instrumental solo preceding the bridge of the song. “Take it away, lil’ mama…” Bob had murmured at Cass when their part had slowly faded away.

 Stars fading but I linger on dear

Still craving your kiss

I’m longing to linger till dawn dear

Just saying this

 

Breathing deeply, Therese had closed her eyes and circled her arms tighter around Etta.  

 Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you

Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you

But in your dreams whatever they be

Dream a little dream of me…

Though Therese was tired and utterly sad, devastated by her own mismanagement of the sensitive situation, a spirit of defiance was nevertheless stirring within her. By Tuesday, after two whole days of straight-talking and quiet contemplation with and without her family, she had more or less picked herself up.

Therese recognized a familiar pattern, an almost magical pull she possessed and had always been aware of. Whenever she was at the lowest ebb of misery, an avid aspiration to bounce back and thrive reared its invincible head, she had discovered. The survival instinct in her switched gears and propelled her towards light.                 

“You’re a fighter, Theodore,” Bob had told her when she was eight. “You are spirited and resilient. Remember that always.” Therese wondered if what Bob had said had helped her to find the will she now recognized as her strength, or if he had, in fact, instilled it in her all those years ago. We become what we have been told we are , Therese had once read from a newspaper column, and she couldn’t have agreed more.

She might return home like a wounded animal that crawls back to its den to lick its wounds from time to time, occurred to Therese, but at least she had the tools to fix what had been broken in her heart. She was nowhere near being able to weigh the meaning of what she had experienced with Carol in just one short week, but in time she would surely find it out. Time . Now she was willing to give it time, thanks to Rose who had talked some sense to her.

“Carol got scared,” Rose had simply said. “Scared of what she might have wished for herself far too soon.” She had paused for a moment to judge how receptive Therese was to hear what she wanted to say next. “My loss revealed my weaknesses to me, and it made me to run away from my grief,” Rose continued. “And many people who knew both me and your father Joseph ran away from it too. Bob didn’t. He stuck around.”

It was exactly the sticking around part that had puzzled Therese, but before she had had a chance to ask about it, Rose had already been ahead of her. “He listened to me, and he acknowledged what had happened to me. He mowed the lawn and cooked for me, fixed the leaking faucet in the kitchen…” Rose had smiled, remembering. “He was sensitive and never once took anything I said in the heat of the moment personally.” Therese had listened to her with growing interest. “And most of all, he was honest about everything.” Rose had cast a knowing eye at her daughter.

“Was I being dishonest?” Therese had asked apprehensively.

“I applaud your attempt at being honest, though it didn’t work out the way you had hoped,” Rose had said, squeezing her shoulder as she had gotten up to make some more tea. “Maybe you’ll get another chance. Just don’t push it.”

Let it happen the way it happens instead of making it happen? Therese afforded her reluctant eureka a sad little smile.

On Wednesday evening, Therese left her Jeep in the parking lot facing Jane’s place. Crossing the yard, she took a deep breath and prepared herself for what was to come. Therese knew what she had to say, but she didn’t know how she would say it. She trusted that the words would come if she only listened to both herself and Jane for the next few hours.

Therese had asked Jane not to prepare anything special for their get-together, but Jane had done so anyway. The rugged kitchen table was covered with a smooth white cloth, two lit candles, two blue-rimmed plates and shiny silverware Jane had inherited from her grandma. Two crystal glasses and a bottle of red wine waited next to the kitchen sink. It had always been Therese’s duty to open the wine, and she was sure Jane expected her to do it this time as well.

Once Therese had taken off her jacket, they hugged. The hug was awkward but moving, she thought. She didn’t say anything about the set-up, though she wished Jane hadn’t done it. Seeing it made Therese sad, for all of it only signaled the hope Jane still nurtured inside.

Therese ate the food Jane had prepared, one of her favorites, the prawn curry with ginger, cilantro and tamarind in it. She pulled the cork from the wine but chose to drink beer herself, a light Thai lager Jane knew she always preferred with her curry. The jiggly chocolate soufflé with vanilla ice cream on top tasted rich and sinful as she spooned it slowly into her mouth.

Jane talked about everything that had happened to her since they had last met, and Therese acquiesced to listen and to watch. She looked at Jane, both at close range and at surprising distance, recalling the woman she had first laid her eyes on four years ago. It was suddenly very easy to remember what had attracted her to Jane in the beginning.     

Jane had become a part of her life so effortlessly Therese had occasionally forgotten she hadn’t always been in it. She had been drawn to Jane by her good looks, the roguish, boyish bob messing with the otherwise feminine wiles, but none of that would have taken Therese further than Jane’s bed unless she hadn’t had the spunky character she had fallen in love with.

Jane’s presence had made even the most mundane things oddly meaningful, her having put a quirky spin on Therese’s routines. A trip to a grocery store had never been just that, Jane insisting they amass ‘photographic evidence of their consumer life’. For at least a year they had had their picture taken in a tiny photo booth next to the bus station, Jane always asking her to convey the ‘mood of the day’. They had goofed around in front of the cubicle’s all-seeing eye, hefty plastic bags filling the floor between their entwined feet. So many strips of photos, yet Therese didn’t recall having seen any of them for a while. Jane must have kept them , she mused.

And Jane had been obstinate and outright infuriating at times, Therese also recalled. The trips they had taken together had been mostly disappointing. Their ideas of what constituted a dream vacation never seemed to coincide, and the compromises they had reached hardly satisfied either of them. We agree to disagree , they had repeated as their mantra. As long as we keep talking, everything will turn out alright , Jane had reminded her. Yet it hadn’t.

After two years, their communication had become stilted and illusory, as if the mere act of saying something, anything at all, had overridden the purpose at its core. They had talked, but the words had become paper-thin, paying mere lip service to their real struggling as a couple. Therese had grown restless and moody, yet she had failed to notice the same development in Jane.

How easy it is to take someone for granted, to think that she or he isn’t moving even if I am , occurred to Therese. Her icy detachment, her sullen, lonely floe, had moved her far away from Jane’s reach sooner than she had realized. Had I intended to come back? Therese asked herself. If not, why was I so surprised by what happened?

“You are here to say goodbye, aren’t you?” Jane asked abruptly. The happy flow of her conversation suddenly interrupted, she looked weary and broken.

“Yes, Jane,” Therese said, gazing into her sad eyes with all the warmth and sincerity she could muster up. It wasn’t difficult at all, for it is possible to miss loving someone even as you’re letting go.

“I knew it.” Jane looked away, accepting what she couldn’t possibly change. “Are you in love with her?” she asked after a moment’s silence, regretting the question right away. She let it hang in the air between them all the same.        

“You do know this has nothing to with anyone else, don’t you?” Therese spoke gravely. No one can come between two people who truly love each other, if there isn’t a crack, an opening, a void that screams to be filled , she mused.

“I hope you’ll be happy,” Jane whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion.

Therese stood up and went to her. She kneeled before Jane and cupped her cheek gently. “ You will be happy. I promise.” They stayed that way for a long time, Therese telling Jane what she thought had been her mistake, what she wished she could take back. She wiped Jane’s tears away as much as she wiped her own.

They stayed up until the candles burned out, talking, crying and, finally, laughing at a few choice memories appropriate for the moment. When Jane asked if Therese could spend the night, Therese agreed to it. It was a rare experience to know that something had run its course and now lay at peace, to hold someone for a while longer only to let go forever.

The next day, Therese walked briskly towards the main building on the Vassar College campus. She had a meeting with her class advisor at the office of the Dean of Students. It was long overdue, but she felt good about it. She was – hopeful.

 But look; my niece is running through a field

calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel

and at the end of my block is a basketball court.

I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.