All That's Left to Tell(46)

She looks once at the woodstove, where only an ember or two still burn visibly through the small door, then out through the front window into a starless night where the whiteness of the snow has always seemed to capture some light from a source he could never discern.

“You were in it,” she says, and waits to observe the effect of that statement on him. “But a lot like you are now, how you were all afternoon and evening, really. Passive. A bystander. A man standing in a bus shelter overhearing an argument between lovers.”

“I don’t know you,” he says. “I don’t know your family’s history. It’s not my place to offer insight or advice when there’s trouble for your brother, who I’ve barely met.”

“What about Kathleen?” He is surprised she uses her mother’s name.

“She and I will talk later, I suppose. Tomorrow, after you leave.”

She nods, looks down at the baby, and rocks her once or twice on her arm.

“I always wanted a sister,” she says. “And in the dream I had one. An older sister. And it was strange, because I had memories of our childhood. I could remember in the dream how she would want to dress me up as her own daughter, and she’d have me sit at a tiny table where only I could fit, and she would make in her toy oven, you know, a small tea cake that she’d sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve to me on a plate like she was a waitress at a fancy restaurant. Then she’d pour a mug of warm water from a little teapot that she said was very hot, and tell me to be careful.”

She looks up at him, and then out toward the lake again.

“It’s so dark out there. You’d think it would make it easier to sleep,” she says. “Anyway, in the dream, I had that memory, and others, but I also knew I’d never met my sister. And then the little room where she was giving me a tea cake transformed, and we were here, only the lake wasn’t frozen, or pretty and small like this one, but a kind of ocean or sea, except you could see to the other side, like a lake, and you were sitting in your chair here and my sister came in right through that front door.”

She points toward it, but he doesn’t need to turn his head to look.

“And then she walked right up to where I was standing, like where I was standing when we were looking out at the wind blowing the snow off the trees this afternoon. She was taller than I was, and she didn’t say anything until she took my hands. Then she only said, ‘Joline, I’ve missed you so much.’ And she squeezed my fingers and pulled me closer to her, and lowered her head and kissed me on the mouth. She let her kiss linger there, and when she pulled away I saw you watching us, only you were crying.”

She looks over at him, but he’s unable to meet her eyes.

“I woke up then, and knew you were down here, sitting up.”

He stares into his cup, and catches a slim reflection of his glasses on the liquid surface.

“Marc. What was your daughter’s name? She was your daughter, wasn’t she? Not a son?”

He feels his face go hot, and his eyes water. But he manages. “Yes.”

“What was her name?”

“Claire.”

“Claire,” she repeats. “That’s a pretty name. Is she dead? I’m sorry. I mean, did she die?”

He swallows hard, and his voice sounds outside of him. “I don’t know, Joline. I don’t think so. But I don’t know for certain.”

He expects her to ask why, but she doesn’t just yet, and only nods, staring at the floor, her eyes glassy. She remembers the baby, and blows very gently into her face.

“I don’t want her to get too warm.” His own hands are cold.

“How did you know?” he asks her.

“Well, the dream,” she says. “But when I first came in. And I handed Laura to you. You didn’t hesitate. And—well, there’s something you can see when a man holds a baby. Or at least I can see. It’s like the light in the room changes if he’s had a child of his own, like it’s, I guess, refracted by his memory as it gets close to his skin. Some men look happy, some look sad, depending on their experience since the time their kids were babies.”

“How did I look?”

She has been gazing at the baby’s face while speaking, but now she looks up at him and seems to be taking him in.

“Like you do now,” she says. “Like a hostage. How old is Claire?”

“She’d be almost thirty-five.”

“And how long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

“Fifteen years.”

She shifts forward in her chair then, and holds the baby to her chest and rises to her feet; she takes the few steps over to him noiselessly, and when she stands over him, her hair frames her face in the darkness so he can’t see it, and she lowers the baby into his arms. He takes the baby as she wakes and turns her head, opens her eyes, and briefly looks into his own, and then closes them and settles in. He feels her warmth at his chest. Joline walks back to the chair and sits down.

“I can see it again. Even with the lights out. You’re captive.”

He shuts his eyes against the emotion.

“Why haven’t you told my mother?”

“I don’t know why, Joline. I really don’t.”

“How close were you and Claire?”