Tatjana Soli - The Lotus Eaters

“You’re the one who goes to war, remember?”

“We better go home.”

“I like you. But you’re not that kind of girl.”

The next day she took the box of Darrow’s belongings and boarded a flight for New York.

She did not think about what she would find, did not know what she was looking for. Not until later did she realize that the addition of facts would simply dilute her own store of memories without bringing him closer, that as she became the biographer of his life, Darrow himself would move further and further from her grasp. Although she knew him deeply, now she could discover only the surface of his life.

She drove out of the city, onto long, winding roads shaded by the dying yellow and red of fall. Although it was only late September, already there was a chill in the air, and the low sun cast a somber light on the lawns and houses. Circling streets aimlessly, unable to place Darrow in this suburban environment, she came upon his street name and turned. She planned to drive by the house a few times, to reconnoiter the area, but when she saw a long, rising lawn that led to a white Cape Cod, she stopped. How to reconcile this house with the crooked apartment in Cholon? Could the same man belong to both places?

Helen parked on the side of the road and watched as a coiffed brunette in a floral dress unloaded groceries from a car trunk. Her own jeans and army T-shirt with a khaki shirt on top suddenly seemed shabby. This place, this woman, were impossible to put together with the Darrow she knew. Was the excuse of war a way to go live another, a second life? Were there closets filled with his clothes inside? If she brought them to her nose, would she smell him? She got out of the car and struggled to lift the box, balancing it on her hip as she closed the car door.

The driveway dipped before it rose to the house. A small puddle filled with fallen leaves had formed from an earlier rain. Helen walked around it, stepping on the wet lawn, almost slipping in a hidden dip. The driveway was long, the woman too far away for Helen to see her face. Once she saw her close-up, she would know if Darrow had loved her.

As she walked up the gravel path, a small boy ran around the corner of the house with an Airedale chasing him. The boy laughed and shouted to his mother, the dog jumping and nipping him in mid air, and Helen stopped. His curly hair the exact brown shade of Darrow’s. Her legs went weak. Suddenly she did not want what she had come for. Nothing could be added; nothing would change her facts. The woman called out to the boy a name Helen couldn’t quite make out. Her blood pounded in her ears like waves, and she realized Darrow had never told her the boy’s name, had kept him unreal.

The child pointed his arm down the driveway toward Helen. The woman reached out for him, but he ducked away and began to run full speed down the driveway with her in chase. When they came within speaking distance, the woman stopped, and her face became hard, a cool stare. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Helen Adams. From Life. I have your… I have Sam’s things.”

“You’re late. You were supposed to be here hours ago.” The woman shielded herself as if a wind had come up. “I’m Lilly Darrow. Come,” she said, and walked back up to the house.

The interior was neat and dark, low ceilings and unlit Tiffany lamps, unused chintz-covered furniture. Gloomy, wood-carved antiques and marble-topped, sarcophagal tables, everything in perfect taste, fallow. It did not seem that a man had ever lived there, and certainly not Darrow. As they sat in the dim living room, Helen noticed Lilly’s face had a professional symmetry to it-a broad, pale forehead, tight smile. A face more to be admired than loved.

“Would you like tea?” she asked, and Helen, not listening, was at a loss until Lilly pointed to a china service. “I love having someone to entertain.”

“It’s too much…”

“Not after you flew across the country.”

Lilly lifted the tea tray and pushed at the swinging kitchen door. “Come on, if you want. It’s more comfortable in here.”

The light through the windows was murky, the sun hidden by tall pines that cast bluish, prone shadows on the back lawn. Copper pots hung from the kitchen walls. Stacks of dishes leaned in the glass-paned cabinets. She was right: Compared to the other room, this did feel more comfortable. Helen liked Lilly better for noticing the difference and admitting it. Her back was toward Helen while she filled the kettle. The fabric of her dress was expensive with a dull, heavy shimmer to the thread.

When the boy wandered in, Helen was unable to take her eyes from him. His brown hair was messed, a cowlick in front, the promise of his father’s heavy-lidded eyes and long, slender fingers.

“Go to your room, Sam. This friend of your father’s, who came all the way to see us. To bring you some of Daddy’s cameras.”

He looked at Helen with new interest. “Show them to me?”

Lilly interrupted before Helen could answer. “Not now. We’ll look later, okay? Now scoot.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind.” She wanted the boy to stay, wanted the buffer of him.

“He never came here, you know,” Lilly said, taking out pastries from a box, and the evident effort that she had gone through belied her casualness. “We married in the city and lived in a small apartment before he left. My parents… live down the street. He told me family was important to him. So I made this home for him.”

“It’s lovely.”

“So he would have a home to come back to.” Lilly shook her head. “Someone to survive for.”

Helen said nothing. A feeling of claustrophobia, of wanting to escape, overcame her, and her hands fidgeted in her lap. As much as she hurt, she was lucky compared to this.

Lilly set down a series of forks and spoons at Helen’s place, put out individual pastries, berries and cream, small sandwiches, and sat down to pour. Up close, Lilly’s two front teeth, perfect otherwise, overlapped slightly. Helen hesitated, embarrassed that she did not know which fork to pick up.

“I was engaged to a law student from my hometown. But Sam… was so passionate about changing the world.” She picked up the fork farthest from the plate. “How could I not fall for him? I wanted to wait before we had children. Spend time alone.” She smiled and leaned forward, as if in confession. “I even thought of becoming a photographer. Going with him. But he insisted it was no place for a woman. He wanted a family.”

Helen used the small fork to tear apart her apple tart.

Lilly reached over and held Helen’s arm for emphasis. “I’m not naive. I understand things. He hated the war, and the two of you took solace in each other.”

Helen cleared her throat. “I brought everything I thought your son-”

“You’re the first one of them he talked of marrying, though.”

Them. So this was her purpose. Revenge posthumously. Helen put the tiny fork down and picked up the sandwich with her fingers. “He loved what he did.”

“Oh, yes.” Lilly stood and moved to the now dark window. She ran her hands over her hair and looked out into the dusk. A natural, unselfconscious gesture, it spoke of many afternoons spent alone. Helen could see only the pale forehead and curved line of her chin in the glow of the lamp. She imagined her as the young woman that Darrow had married. “He was ambitious, wasn’t he? That’s what I have to convince Sammy of. That he was a great man doing important work. That his death was a hero’s death.”

“Yes.” It took everything for Helen to remain seated in the room, not to run. A terrible mistake coming here; this woman twisting everything around until it was impossible to determine what was what.

“Every year he told me he was quitting. Each woman was the last. Finally I figured out that he was going to stay till he got killed.”