The Cartographers(47)
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.
They had made one for each of us, to commemorate our time at the university. I was supposed to be looking at Wally, who was holding his camera in the front row to get a shot of each of us as it was our turn, but I couldn’t stop staring at my pen. It was glazed deep red, one side bearing the University of Wisconsin’s insignia in white and the other carved with my name and degree in gold cursive:
Eve Catherine Moore
Doctorate of Philosophy in Cartography and Geography
“When is breakfast?” Daniel asked suddenly, waking up for just a moment and then falling right back into sleep before any of us could answer. Tam and I laughed, and he smiled faintly at the sound, already snoring again.
He’d been a lot more grounded about the whole event, as always. When his name was called, he gamely shook the dean’s hand, took his pen, and looked right at Wally with a big, obedient grin as Wally clicked the shutter and Tam gave him a pleased thumbs-up for actually doing what he was supposed to do, instead of staring awestruck at the gift.
To me, and the rest of us, those pens felt like the entire world. But to Daniel, it was no different than something to scribble with. By the next day his was already lost and forgotten. He probably would have accidentally thrown away his and Tam’s marriage license five minutes after the ceremony if Wally hadn’t snatched it away and placed it safely in its cardboard folder for them as they kissed outside the courthouse.
“You won’t miss it, even a little?” Wally asked Tam, after Daniel’s snoring had quieted. “After twelve years there?”
“Of course I’ll miss it,” Tam said. “But Bear was right. Our best hope of finishing our Dreamer’s Atlas is to get away from the university, where there will be no distractions. No temptations to pop into the graduate lounge to catch up with friends, no guilt that we’re not adjuncting some of the Geography 101 classes for a little bit of extra money, no spending way too much time that we could be working at the quad . . .”
“We can completely immerse ourselves,” I added. “The Dreamer’s Atlas is too important for anything less.”
This made Wally smile. It had taken the longest to get him on board, but once Tam had convinced him, Wally had become the most excited about our project of us all. He’d drafted the entire proposal within a month, given out copies for each of us to review, and hadn’t rested until he’d coached Daniel through his speech to Professor Johansson to win his support. When we received word that the university was going to approve us, he was so happy, I was sure I’d seen a few tears glimmering in his eyes as we’d all cheered and danced.
“You’re right,” Wally agreed then, looking determined anew. I tried not to smile as the car accidentally sped up just 1 mph. He’d never let himself speed outright—you were in the car, and he was even more protective of you than of Tam, if you can believe it, the most cautious, devoted uncle I have ever seen—but the look on his face was of pure exhilaration.
We could not let anything get in our way. Not teaching, not parties, not jobs. We would stop at nothing to make our Dreamer’s Atlas succeed.
“I’m always right,” Tam said, laughing. I glanced to the back seat to jokingly agree with her and saw that she had her graduation fountain pen out—and was carving up its glossy crimson shaft with the point of a pocketknife.