Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

The Volvo was there when they got back. Amaryllis bounded out to tell Gilles that Felix would be all right but needed to stay over for observation.

“Good, good, good — now, say hello to an old friend.”

“Hello,” she said, staring at Marcus.

“Hello!”

He smiled and hung back, not wishing to crowd her. She looked beautiful — so much longer than when he had carried her on his back from the Higgins — with shorter hair, and some fat on her, too.

“Well, don’t you know who it is?” the baker said.

“It’s Topsy,” said the girl nonchalantly, as if idly identifying a photograph. Lani called from the kitchen, and Amaryllis sprinted off, disappearing through the front door.

Marcus asked the baker if he felt the visit was a good idea. Gilles reassured that she was shy and had actually been awaiting him with great anticipation. That made him feel somewhat better, but he wasn’t sure if it was puffery. He followed his friend into the house.

Lani served lunch in the backyard (roasted guinea hen stuffed with nutmeg and parsley) on a glass-topped wrought-iron table set with wild-flowers. Marcus even drank a glass of wine, which he usually eschewed owing to various meds. Table talk skirted anything related to hard times, and while now and then he caught the girl staring at him with a kind of formidable acuity, it was readily apparent that they would share no intimacies — at least not here. His focus drifted. Toward the end of the meal, Amaryllis brought up the place called MacLaren and told her mother how much she wanted to go for a visit, especially to see Dézhiree. Plates were bused while Gilles went inside to arrange the surprise.

For a moment, the two were alone. He told her how pretty she looked, and she deadpanned that he looked “different.” She asked where his beard had gone and remarked that he was a good deal thinner than she remembered. He laughed, but she only smiled, and by then Gilles had returned with a tray of desserts: mille-feuille of custard, almonds and honey. By the taste of it, he could tell the flour had been rolled “hot”—Marcus always made sure, as his father had taught him, to run his hands under cool water while evening out the layers. Still, it was a lovely, magnanimous gesture, true to the baker’s form. Lani returned with little cups of espresso and partook herself of the lemony Moscato d’Asti.

Soaking in the sun (he’d hung his coat on the back of the chair), his broad face dappled by leaf shadow and the skittish attentions of a silver fritillary — soaking up all the space and time the four of them had traveled since being apart — well, Marcus thought it more than a small miracle.

Suddenly, it was over. The men smoked cigars while Amaryllis helped at the sink, though Lani shooed her away (she wanted her outside, with their guest). Gilles asked about his arrest and imprisonment, then talked all kinds of harmless nonsense about his fascinating recovery and how if he should write the whole incredible story up in screenplay form it would win fourteen Oscars, and so on. Marcus heard raised voices; then Lani’s alone. She was talking to the girl, not harshly but firmly.

When mother and daughter re-emerged from the wings, Lani announced it would be a wonderful idea for Amaryllis to show her old friend the Shakespeare Bridge.

“No, no,” said Marcus, mindful of the girl’s feelings. “Another time, another time!”

“Go with her. It’s nice to walk,” said Lani.

“Go!” said the expansive Gilles. “You should see it!”

“Oh, the bridge won’t go away! I’m sure Amaryllis has other things to do,” he said guilelessly.

“I’d like to show you,” she volunteered.

He was surprised, because she sounded quite sincere. Only human, Marcus had mistaken a child’s nervousness on seeing a mythical figure from her own Dark Ages as a sign of indifference. He grabbed his coat, and they set off, first passing through the coolness of the house.

Lani stopped him just inside the front door.

“ Tell her,” she whispered, “about who you are —if you want to. I mean, she should know . I mean, the hell with it — when she came to stay with us, I said, ‘No secrets!’ But you do what you like.”

They walked through the neighborhood in relative silence, but this time the girl led the way, unlike long-ago peregrinations. Watching her chug along on her own steam as an independent (if still tiny) person, he couldn’t suppress a smile.

After a time, she spoke. “You don’t talk with an accent anymore.”

“Did I have a thick one? I didn’t think it was too bad.”

“It was ,” Amaryllis said, and he saw her roll her eyes. “Were you just pretending?”

“I wouldn’t say I was pretending — I really did feel I was someone else.”

“Were you crazy?”

“Did I seem crazy?”

“No.”

“I don’t think so, no. I think that — that I had concerns —preoccupations, if you will … that others — well, most people — don’t have.”

“You were in jail,” she said, not looking back at him.

“I was. A terrible place.”

“The detective thought you killed my mother.”

“Yes.”

“The lawyers came and talked to me.”

“I was grateful for what you told them about the scarf.”

“But you didn’t kill her.” She looked him tentatively in the eye, wanting him to tell her what she already knew.

“No, Amaryllis, I didn’t. To be accused of something like that was the hardest thing. And that it was your mother—”

“But they found the person who did it.”

“Yes.”

“The man who owned Half Dead?”

“Yes.”

“He was your friend?”

“He was.”

“Did you know that he killed her?”

“I did not — and was shocked when they told me. I had no idea he was capable of such a thing. Did you ever meet Mr. Fitzsimmons at the encampment?”

She nodded. Then: “He used to come around with that dog. He tied him up outside when he came to see her. She always made me go leave, but I never played with that dog.”

“I wanted to call you the moment I found out what they were accusing me of. I couldn’t believe it! But they wouldn’t allow me. And then so many things happened … I moved to a hotel — and then to a house on the coast, where I now live. I finally got my wits about me and the energy to come see you. I ask your forgiveness for the delay.”

They had reached the bridge, and sat down on its bulwark.

“Not as big as the one on Fourth Street, is it?” he said.

“I like it better.”

She stared into the canyon. The spirit of the child he knew was hidden by armature grown these past rough seasons. Cars rumbled by, and they watched birds and planes and insects. The world was filled with flying things.

“Do you like living with Gilles and Lani?”

She nodded.

“Marvelous people. Good souls. Have you seen your brother and sister?”

“Uh-huh. They live in Lawndale.”

“Lawndale. Now, where is Lawndale?”

“I don’t know. It takes an hour to get there — no, maybe a half hour. We’re going to California Adventure next month.”

“Very good, very good.”

“Where do you live?”

“Santa Barbara — a place called Montecito, actually.”

“Where’s that?”

“Up north, about ninety minutes.”

“Is it near Tunga?”

“Well, I’m not really sure!”

“Does the man drive you everywhere?”

“Until I get a license.”

“Are you rich?”

“No. But the people taking care of me are.”