Dead Letters(107)

Here we are, at the end.

Z is for Zelda



I sit on the bottom step for long minutes, reading and rereading Zelda’s last letter. I realize I should get up, but I can’t move. The only thing I can feel is a loud, resounding NO. No. Not this. This is not the end. I hear someone speaking loudly upstairs, and I realize that Marlon has arrived. Muted laughter greets something witty he has said. I pull out Zelda’s phone and flick through the emails of the past few days, inspecting the dates and times of each one. Abruptly, I stand up and collapse over one of the barrels near the staircase, emptying my stomach of fizzy liquid that tastes of creamy Chardonnay. I keep gagging well after there’s nothing left to retch up. The sensation feels good, as though by reversing digestion I am reversing time, moving backward. Maybe if I crouch here vomiting long enough, I can go back to before the fire. Back to before I left Silenus. Back before Nadine got sick. Before Wyatt and Zelda, before college, before high school. Before Marlon left. How far back would I have to go, though, to right things? To that moment when Marlon gave us the wrong names, marking each of us as the person we would be for the rest of our lives? Maybe then.

I finally stand and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. With my other hand, I wipe beneath my eyes, where my mascara has surely ended up. I smooth my dress, perform all the rote gestures of composing myself. Following the rules, making sure I don’t create a scene. I head upstairs and quietly let myself into the room. Only a few heads turn to look at me; everyone else is watching Marlon. He is standing at the front of the room, telling the story of the first time he held Zelda in his arms, how she blustered and kicked, his feisty first-born child, though he thought she was second. I notice that he has a large picture of Zelda on an easel next to him; it’s a photograph from just over two years ago, one that I took. Zelda is standing down by the lake, half turned toward me, grinning mischievously. She’s wearing a loose caftan, and with the sunlight shining through it, you can clearly see the contours of her body, nymphlike and disconcertingly sexual. It’s a strange photo for Marlon to have chosen, but somehow it’s exactly right. We can see Zelda as she really was beneath the flimsy fabric, feral and wild, refusing to be tamed. I know that offscreen, I am holding the camera, clad in civilized trousers and a shirt with a bow, trying to capture her and failing.

—

Late that afternoon, people eventually trickle away. Marlon helps Nadine back to the house, and I am touched, watching them walk along the path between the house and the tasting room they built together, Nadine hobbling unsteadily and Marlon holding her up. Everything they made together is collapsing. I feel a deep pang of pity for them, these flawed human beings who made me, and who have created nothing but unhappiness for all of us. Of course, this is never what they wanted.

Kayla waits for me, but I dismiss her abruptly. The poor thing has no idea what she was in love with, or what she’s about to feel.

Wyatt touches my arm, and I flinch. I don’t want to talk to him now. I can’t look at him. If I do, I will break.

“Ava? You okay?” I don’t say anything, just continue staring out at the barn. The letter is still folded in my hand. I can’t seem to put it into my pocket. “Ava?” he repeats. I don’t look over at him. He waits for a few moments, but when I don’t respond, he sighs and turns around. I hear his steps across the wooden deck, and then I’m alone.

I stand on the deck for most of the afternoon’s remainder, thinking, staring. When the sun starts to fall into the lake, I shake off my inertia and walk to the big house. I head upstairs to my mother’s bedroom, where Zelda has left the pills. My mother is downstairs on the couch, watching a movie. Marlon is outside reading. I get what I need and come back down.

“Mom.” She doesn’t look up at first. “Mom. There’s something I want to show you.” She stares up at me blankly, uncomprehendingly. “Take a walk with me.” Precariously, she stands. Her eyes are unfocused and seem to twitch back and forth. I’ve seen them do this before.

“Zelda, I’ve had it with your performances. I’m tired. Go ask your father to watch.”

“This is a surprise just for you, Mom. You and me. You’ll see.”

She shakes her head reluctantly, but I hold on to her arm and guide her out the door. She’s still wearing her espadrilles from earlier. Good. That’s good. Painstakingly, we make our way down the hill to the lakefront. Moving at Nadine’s pace, it takes us a long time, and the sun is dipping faster than I thought it would. When we finally reach the water, Nadine is irritable and tired, and she keeps trying to turn around and head back to the house. But I nudge her farther.

At the lakefront, I let go of her arm and fetch the rowboat beached on the stones at the edge. I shove it toward the water, carving furrows into the pebbles. When the hull is in the water, I gesture to Nadine, who hesitates but then steps forward, almost eagerly. She is so light that I almost lift her into the boat, and she sits down on the bench, rocking. I hop in and shove off from the shore with a paddle. I feel a splinter dig into the pad of one finger as I awkwardly try to angle the boat toward the center of the lake.

“Sunset cruise, Momma. It’s the perfect night for it.”

“Zelda, are you sure this is a good idea? This boat seems rather…” Nadine trails off uncertainly, looking back at the shore with concern. The sun is halfway behind the hills that line the lake, and the temperature on the surface of the water is dropping quickly. Though I’m sweaty from the exertion, I shiver. “Zelda?” Nadine says again, querulously.