from installment 3: Avon has given Lewis the information to solve their family enigma. Now he must reckon with how it changes things. Lewis hates change.
Installment 4 - final
His Father’s Daughter
"What is it?" Lewis asked.
She stared at him. eyes wide. She shook her head and fled down the beach. Lewis jumped up after her, but he was too slow. She ran back to the house. He followed her then her trail, to the boardwalk, hurrying as much as a growing stitch in his side would allow. At the foot of the steps that passed over the rocks from beach to house, he stopped for breath. He squinted anxiously up the stairs.
A sound caught his attention. Out from the shadows came Avon, shoulders hunched over, hands in the pockets of her pea coat, tears streaming down her face. Lewis gathered her in his arms, his hand ruffling the back of her hair. She sniffled against his coat.
"It's all right, Avon. It's all right."
She pushed away, hiccuping. “It was like--like when we laughed. It sounded--sounded just…." She sobbed, then righted herself with a cough, "…like my mother and father. We sounded just like them." She cried again, shoulders heaving helplessly.
He drew her to him. She had said the laughter of her parents sounded like music. Did that music pass on to son and daughter? Had their genes united to play such a heart-rending trick on them?
He closed his arms about her in shelter as she cried away the pain. At last her tears subsided. Avon pulled back, wiping her tears in ultra-feminine, shame-faced fashion.
Hesitantly Lewis asked, "Is it true? My laugh is like Papa Joe's?"
She nodded, blowing her nose. "Just like it."
"No one ever told me that. I always assumed -- well, I resembled my mother's people. That's what everyone said."
Avon looked up at his face. The sun shone brightly now, illuminating her face. The wind tossed her hair.
"You're a lot like Papa Joe, Lewis. Your hair is light, but it grows in the same way his did: thick, and with that forelock dropping down. You seem to have a slighter frame, and you're...heavier, but your body is shaped basically the same as his. And you have some of the same mannerisms."
"How could I? I barely knew him. He wasn't around long enough for me to imitate."
She shrugged. "I don't know, but I can tell you two things right now that are just like things he used to do."
"What are they?"
"The way you pull your coat tighter and re-button it when you get ready to go outside-- "
"Any number of men do that!"
"Not the way you do. You put your left arm in front of you and your right arm in back. right at the waist. As you walk up to the door, you pull your coat against you with your forearms. Then you swing both arms down and shake the sleeves. Then you smooth the lapels and re-button your coat and reach for the door. I used to tease Papa Joe about it because he did it that way every time, and you do it just the way he did! I noticed it at the restaurant, and again before we came out this morning."
Lewis reflected. She was right. He did exactly as she described. Somewhat chagrined, he asked, "What else?"
"Well, this one's more subtle. Last night, before I brought you the folder, you were sitting in Papa Joe's chair looking at the ocean. You were sitting the same way he used to. I don't think you realized it. but you were playing with the edge of your saucer. running your fingers along it, tapping it—playing with it."
Lewis nodded, something stirring in the back of his mind.
"Papa Joe used to do that all the time." She giggled. "It nearly drove Mom crazy. She was always nagging at him to stop fidgeting."
The memory crystallized. Young Lewis, home for an evening from graduate school. His mother serving him coffee to drink while he told her about his studies. She'd always encouraged his love of language and enjoyed hearing about his 'schoolwork'. Suddenly, however, she spoke to him sharply.
"Stop fidgeting, Lewis! If you're not careful, you'll wear the gold right off the plate! If you're done with your coffee, give me the cup." She took both cup and saucer and whisked them into the kitchen. She was gone longer than it took to put them in the sink, and her face was flushed when she returned. He'd never understood why she became so angry over such a little thing. Now, he understood.
An icy gust of wind brushed them and brought Lewis back to the present. "Avon, you're shivering! Let's go inside."
They climbed the long staircase, still huddling close together. Inside, Lewis shooed her into the den and found his way around the kitchen well enough to produce some hot chocolate. He brought in the tray, they helped themselves then settled back, she on the couch, he in Papa Joe's chair.
"Tell me, Avon, was that your special place we went to?"
She shook her head over a sip of the cocoa. "No. That place is higher on the rocks. I'd share it with you, but ... "
"Yes?"
"I don't think you're as used to climbing about on the rocks as I am." She smiled at him, a trifle embarrassed.
Lewis returned the smile. "You’re right, of course."
“ I just wanted you to see the beach and water up close. Lewis, that poem you recited—”
" 'The Walrus and the Carpenter'? Lewis Carroll."
"Yes. Well, I'm beginning to feel like I'm the Walrus and you're the Carpenter."
He looked at her quizzically.
"I'm doing all the talking, and you're hardly telling me anything at all. What about the papers last night? Did they mean anything?" Her eyes were bright with insistence.
Lewis sighed and gazed out the window. He must answer. The day required it, and he owed it to her. Yet ....
She sat quietly, sipping the hot chocolate, working to be patient. The silence stretched itself, telling her he would answer.
Shadows deepened as clouds closed in. A storm made its swift approach from the sea.
Three letters, mused Lewis, have told the tale. The first, though written last in time, from Avon. The second, an old one from Aunt Nicola. The third, the oldest and most telling, from his mother, Mary.
Mary. Joseph. They'd been a happy couple. His mother had often spoken to him of those 'golden years' before his father went away. She always spoke of the husband she had then with love, as if he and the man who left were not one and the same. Lewis had never understood how she could still love him, but in the mysterious way emotions have, her love for that young man lived on. In fact, he realized now, she'd never loved anyone else. The betrayal of that first love burned her too deeply, left her too scarred to ever trust to love again. The mistrust she felt conveyed itself to Lewis, and he, with his own hurt eating at him, held off any personal relationships with something akin to fear.
He could forgive her that. That subconscious teaching was something over which she had no control. This other...he didn't know. It would be far more difficult to forgive, but what other choice did he have?
With an abrupt movement of his hand, he began to speak. "I told you before that my father left us when I was four. One day he took me aside and said 'So long, son.' I thought he was going to work, but he never came home. Not that day, or the next, or the next. We never heard from him again. I never knew where he went, just that, supposedly, he'd shipped out to sea."
There was a spluttering sound as Avon choked on her drink.
“The papers I read last night explained a good deal. My father wasn't quite the irresponsible scoundrel I'd always thought. And Mother wasn't quite the saint. The facts—and the problem—lie somewhere in-between.
"There were two letters in the folder. The one you read, from Aunt Nicola—his sister -— to Joseph. She wrote about the day I received my Master's degree and the reception that mother and Aunt Nicola and I attended afterward. In the letter, Aunt Nicola said she'd spoken to my mother about my father and me, but 'Mary's mind was firm.' She wrote 'In twenty years she has not changed her mind, and she says in twenty more she never will. I'm sorry for you, Joseph, but you and Mary are both such fools.' " Lewis gave a weak smile. "Aunt Nicola never minced words.”
Avon nodded. "I read that letter. Even knowing Papa Joe left when you were little, it still doesn't make sense. Why did Aunt Nicola--she's my aunt, too, I guess—know where Papa Joe was and yet you didn't? Why didn't he write you? He had all those addresses!"
"Yes. Papa Joe knew where I was all the time. I think he would have written me, too, except for one thing. He was afraid to."
"Afraid! Why?"
"There was another envelope in the folder you gave me. In it was a letter written on extremely thin paper. You probably didn't even know it was there. It's dated about eight months after my father left us. It's a letter from my mother to my father."
"From your mother! Lewis!" Her tone and gesture rang of bewilderment and concern. His heart swelled, and he went on.
"Mother did know how to reach him. At least, then. She wrote that she loved him. She said she would always love him, but she wouldn't compete with the sea. If he loved her as much as he said he did, he'd come home to stay. She wanted him to come back. She believed he loved her, but if he didn't give up the sea and come back, then he gave up his right to a family, to her and me. There could be no half measures. She insisted there be no contact between us, and if Aunt Nicola interfered. she'd be banned from the house. Mother didn't care if Nicola kept him informed about me. But she was never to mention Joseph or let me know she knew how to find him. Finally, she told him if he made any attempt to cross her terms, Mother would disappear with me entirely. Or so she said.
"I think she thought it would work, that he'd come back to us." Lewis gave a tired laugh. "She wouldn't have disappeared with me. She had all she could do to survive in a town where she knew everyone and had help. I'm surprised Aunt Nicola didn't know that. Maybe Father wasn't sure enough to risk it; maybe he made her go along with Mother's terms."
They sat in silence once more. The clouds herded together along the shore, waves choppy with froth sliding back and forth along them. Dark grey lines could be seen against the steel-colored sky where the rain sheeted. downward. Lightning stabbed the water's surface here and there. Thunder echoed hollowly from the rocks.
Avon turned her head. A remembered word had caught her inner ear.
"Lewis." the words came slowly, "do you realize what you just said?"
"Hmmm?
"You said 'Father', not 'Joseph'. You called Papa Joe 'Father'. " Anticipation glowed on her face.
“Oh, yes, I did! didn't I? Well...."
"Does that mean you've forgiven him?"
"I—don't know." He turned once more to watch the ocean. Huge waves were rolling in, rushing to tell about the great storm that had awakened them somewhere out in the briny deep. "Your mother knew how to handle Jos—our father. Mine didn't. Mine laid down ultimatums. Yours let him come and go as he needed. All those years I never could comprehend my father's fascination with the sea. I never understood what drew him away from us. Now, seeing this—” he gestured towards the view, "reading those letters; it wasn't just Father. It was both of them. Aunt Nicola may have been harsh, but she was right. They were both foolish."
The walls are cracking. crumbling now as he shares his revelations with her.
"Perhaps we're all a little foolish, puffed up with our own importance, our own ways...”
In sharing there can be found love.
“.... We miss a good deal if we insist on laying down rules all the time..."
The voice inside lets out a shout as the fortress is laid waste.
“We're all a little foolish. Too late we find that out."
“Too late?" Avon queried.
"I'm fifty-one. I have no close friends. No women friends at all. I missed out on a family as a child, and I've missed out on it as an adult as well. Although at least I have you now." His lips stretched into a fond smile.
Inner joyous laughter grows as he recognizes what finally destroyed his prison-shell.
"It’s not too late! Fifty-one? That's how old Papa Joe was when he met my mother, and I wasn't born 'til six years later!" She jumped up and ran to him. "You're not old. And you look even younger than you are!" She threw herself on him, giving him the fierce kind of hug only a loyal seventeen-year-old can.
Away with any doubts Lewis may have harbored. Sunlight and laughter and love—yes, love—streamed in where once he existed in sheltered, musty shadow.
She clung to his arm, nestling there like a young bird. He patted her hand, and slipped his other arm around her.
The squall blew inland, skirting 'round them completely with characteristic capriciousness. The ocean smoothed its ruffled waves into a glassine surface. Where slate-colored clouds had hung was now a pale, blue-washed sky.
“Your mother knew to let Joseph go,” he murmured softly. “Perhaps I can now, too.”
There was a line from a haiku he’d once read that stuck with him. He’d been working on a treatise, and for that he’d read several haiku by many masters. But one line struck him as haunting: Warm lovely youngling.
He looked down at Avon's head against his shoulder. Her eyes, closed now, but so like their father's, soft and generous as a child's. Yes, the fortress was gone, replaced by something even stronger, and far more wonderful. He hugged her closer, crushing her in his fierce new-found love; held her close to protect them both and recalled the singular line, now curiously applicable to his own life.
This little sister, offering back to Lewis so much that had been stripped away from his soul. This child, offering him back the solace of understanding for the childhood he’d never had. Offering and accepting trust he’d never known.
Loose pages drift down where once the fortress stood. Blank pages, ready for Lewis’s new story.