Illumination Night: A Novel Read online

  She can tell her granddaughter is afraid of her. She catches her staring when they eat dinner. Elizabeth can move around the house now, dragging her leg behind her, using two canes. When the doctor came to visit, she could tell he was amazed not to find her in bed, wasting away. She has always been strong. When she was younger she picked beach plums and spent an entire week making jelly. For a whole week her skin was flushed and pink. The oddest thing of all is, should her bones mend, she is not at all certain she won’t go upstairs, open the window, and try it again.

  SIMON wakes Vonny. She puts on a robe and takes him downstairs, leaving Andre to sleep. Simon rolls snakes out of Play-Doh while Vonny makes French toast, using the last egg. Later she will go to the farmstand where the eggs are always freshest. It is a little before seven and bands of light angle through the trees. Teenagers are supposed to sleep late, but when Vonny looks out the window Mrs. Renny’s granddaughter is already out on the back porch, drinking a can of soda. When Vonny squints it could well be herself out there, fifteen years earlier, balancing the can of soda on her knee so she can light a cigarette, not noticing that the starlings are calling in the birch tree.

  When Andre comes down, he goes to the stove and pours himself a cup of coffee. He stands by the window and watches Mrs. Renny’s granddaughter idly stroke the back of the white cat. Her fingernails are painted blood red. “What the hell does she do out there all day?” he says.

  “She plots her future,” Vonny says. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” Andre says.

  He rinses out his coffee cup, then begins to pack a lunch for himself and Simon to take to the beach.

  “Two kinds of cookies,” Simon insists, and Andre adds a paper bag of chocolate-chip and lemon cookies to the thermal lunch bag. Vonny tips her chair against the radiator to watch Andre; in the murky kitchen light his skin looks unnaturally pale. Simon comes to sit on her lap. She puts her arms around him and notices that his dangling legs do not reach the chair rungs. Once, she was the sort of person who never wore seat belts, who didn’t think twice about mixing Valium and gin. Now she worries all the time. Perhaps she should have known she would turn out like this; there was always her fear of bridges. She watches Simon too carefully. Lately, she worries not only about chicken pox and ear infections, but about Simon’s height. People often judge Simon to be younger than he is. They’re surprised when he talks in full sentences, when he fearlessly jumps into the surf. Secretly, Vonny measures him twice a month against the kitchen counter, setting cookies up high for him to reach.

  All that morning, Vonny works at her wheel on the sun porch off the living room. Her vases and mugs are sold at shops in Edgartown and Vineyard Haven, and some of the larger, more expensive pieces are crated and shipped to Cambridge. Unless there is a special order, she prefers to use varying proportions of copper oxide in her glazes so that her pottery runs from a pale mossy color to a green so dark it seems black. Often, she scratches away at the glaze to reveal the red-hued local clay she favors. Some of her customers say that the figures and patterns this sgraffito technique reveals are what distinguishes Vonny’s pottery, but this is not her concern. What she likes best is that moment just before the clay takes shape. It is the time when if startled, by her child’s voice or a sudden rainstorm, Vonny is always amazed to look up from the clay and see the world around her.

  In the afternoon, after Andre and Simon have returned from the beach, Vonny scrapes her wheel clean, then bathes Simon and puts him down for his nap. On these hot days he doesn’t cry and insist he’s not tired, and sometimes he sleeps for more than two hours. Vonny takes a shower, then puts on white shorts and a T-shirt with the logo of Andre’s defunct company—a small red motorcycle inside a hot-pink heart. When she goes down to the kitchen, Andre is on the phone, trying to reach the client in New Jersey who has bought the Norton, sight unseen. Vonny fills a wicker basket with blueberries, grapes, apricots, and oranges. On a piece of yellow note paper she writes: I’m taking this next door. She slips the paper in front of Andre, waits for him to nod, then goes out the door. She should be taking homemade baked goods or jam rather than fruit, but she’s certain that Elizabeth Renny is twice the cook she is. Since they have lived as neighbors, Vonny has been inside Mrs. Renny’s house only once, when the pipes in her kitchen froze and Andre went to help. Vonny, carrying Simon in a Snugli then, brought over a wrench. Sometimes, when they are both outside, they talk to each other through the lilacs. Eventually they will have to confer over the half-dead pine that borders on both their properties. They have had one disagreement—when Nelson chased the white cat up a tree. Nelson loves cats, but figures they’re fair game outside. He likes to trap them between his paws and gently chew on their backs.

  Vonny walks up the steps to Mrs. Renny’s house, but before she can knock on the screen door Jody says, “My grandmother’s asleep.”

  The girl stands hidden against the silver mesh of the screen. Vonny has the uneasy feeling that she has been carefully watched as she crossed the lawn.

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Vonny says. She holds up the basket of fruit. “I brought this over as a get-well present. I can leave it with you.”

  The girl opens the screen door. She is tan and her shoulders are a little stooped. She has beautiful eyes and a wide, sullen mouth.

  “You can come in,” she says.

  Vonny does, then puts the basket of fruit on the counter. “You’re Jody?” she says.

  Jody nods. She has taken an orange out of the basket and is peeling it.

  “How long will you be staying?” Vonny asks. When she first heard that a teenager would be living next door she naturally assumed her search for a regular babysitter was over. Now, watching the girl coolly consider a slice of orange, she’s not so sure.

  “I guess time will tell,” Jody says. This is exactly the sort of thing her mother says when she doesn’t want to answer a question. “I’m starting to like it here,” Jody says. “The people I know in Hartford are extremely immature.”

  They can hear Elizabeth Renny stirring in the parlor. Something—a cane?—falls to the floor. Vonny looks down the hallway and sees Mrs. Renny struggling with her canes. When she turns back, Jody is studying her, a dreamy look on her face. When Mrs. Renny reaches the doorway, Jody jumps to help her into the kitchen.

  “I thought I heard voices,” Mrs. Renny says, and then, about the fruit, “You shouldn’t have. Now I’ll never be able to thank you and your husband enough.”

  Vonny finds it difficult to smile. Jody stands in the doorway. Though she’s looking directly at Vonny carefully, she seems a million miles away. Vonny remembers that when she was sixteen and seemed that cool, she was burning up inside. If pressed, she would have to admit that she had wanted a daughter. Seeing Jody makes her doubly glad for what she’s gotten. She could not bear a daughter this aloof and self-contained. When Vonny leaves, grateful to be back out in the hot sun, Elizabeth Renny takes the fruit to the sink and, leaning her canes up against the counter, washes each piece.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Mrs. Renny says, and Jody smiles. As far as she can tell, Vonny is absolutely no competition.

  IT is the first week in August, and Simon is so excited he can’t sleep during his afternoon nap. Instead, he crawls under the thin quilt with a flashlight. His mother has told him that Illumination Night is like thousands of fireflies. For more than a hundred years, since Oak Bluffs was a Methodist camp with believers’ tents set beneath the old, enormous trees, there has been a Grand Illumination once a year. The Victorian cottages that ring Trinity Park are hung with Japanese lanterns, lit by candles, illuminated all at once by a signal from within the Tabernacle in the center of the park.

  Simon knows his mother has been getting ready all day. She is making a special supper and before they go to Oak Bluffs they’ll have a picnic of tunafish-and-olive sandwiches, carrots, Doritos, and chocolate cupcakes Simon helped to make. His father will let him have several swallows of cold, dark beer.
The streets will be crowded and most of the children will have light sticks that glow in the dark.

  Today Simon’s parents are angry at each other. Whenever this happens his father goes directly to work in the shed and his mother cooks something with brisk, controlled movements. Today it is blueberry muffins, which Simon will have for a snack when he finishes with his alleged nap. When his mother is angry she thinks she speaks calmly, but her voice cracks. While Simon is in bed with his flashlight, they are downstairs arguing about money. The customer in New Jersey who was supposed to buy the Norton has canceled at the last moment, and his father is left with an expensive antique bike that may be difficult to sell. His response was to go off the Island this morning and return from Hyannis with an old Vincent Black Shadow that cost two thousand dollars. They still have money from the sale of Andre’s business, but they have bought this house outright and have nothing much to fall back on, no health insurance for instance. Vonny is furious. She never wants to be so broke that she’ll have to beg her father for money. Her father has a new family and would prefer to imagine that his old family, the one that didn’t work out, never existed. Once Simon asked Vonny who her daddy was, and she began to cry, suddenly, as though she’d been stuck with a pin.

  When Vonny comes in to check on Simon at three o’clock, he is asleep under the quilt. The flashlight is still turned on. Vonny sits on the edge of the bed and turns down the quilt. Simon is curled up in a ball and Vonny feels her throat tighten as she watches him. Andre has threatened not to go to the picnic, or to Oak Bluffs either. Vonny lies down beside Simon. She loves him most when he’s asleep. When he is awake, Vonny never knows if something will delight him or make him burst into tears. They have an on-again, off-again battle of the wills, which Vonny never wins. A battle that, whenever Simon is asleep, seems both pointless and unavoidable.

  When Simon wakes up, his mother’s arms are around him. He wriggles away and, though he is still half-asleep, says, “I want you to play the drum.” They are often a marching band, just the two of them on a trail that winds through every room in the house. Before he gets off the bed, Simon throws his arms around Vonny’s neck and kisses her. Against her own face, his face is damp.

  ANDRE has the truck pulled right up to the back of the shed. The Vincent Black Shadow is in the bed of the pickup, and he pulls out the metal ramp so he can walk the bike down. He knows the girl next door is watching him. She is studying his back as he strains to slide the metal plank out. Being watched should make him uncomfortable, but there’s something pleasurable about it. He gets into the back of the truck, wondering if he would have walked up the plank rather than jump in if she hadn’t been watching.

  As he lifts the bike, which scrapes along the blue metal, leaving what looks like a silver scar, Jody takes a deep breath and walks across the lawn. She knows you can fall in love with someone without ever having spoken, because that is exactly what’s happened to her. She has sat in the sun so long thinking about him that now there is a band of sunburn on both her cheeks. She thinks to herself, This is how people get into terrible situations. Even ruin their lives. But she keeps on walking. She knows the time is right because all this week the moon has been red, a lover’s moon that keeps her awake. She has been planning this carefully; she will tell him straight out that she needs a ride to a real supermarket, like the A&P in Edgartown. Just to be on the safe side, she has punctured one of her bike tires with a rusty nail. She will be telling him the truth.

  Her grandmother has been talking more lately, maybe it’s the painkillers. Today at breakfast she told Jody about the sailors on the docks who used to say, “Foul deeds are done in fair weather.” Another one of those sayings Jody hates. When she reaches the truck she puts a hand on the cool metal and everything clever she was going to say completely eludes her. She covers her eyes with one hand so she will not have to squint looking up at him.

  “Hi,” she says.

  Andre looks over his shoulder, then leans the bike back against the truck.

  “Hi,” he says. “Jody, right?”

  She nods. If she thought she wouldn’t squeak when she opened her mouth, she would answer him.

  “Want to help?”

  He reaches down, takes her hand, and pulls her up. Now that he is actually touching her, she can’t feel it. Andre grabs the bike. Jody goes around to its far side and together they lead it down the metal plank. The old bike is much heavier than Jody would have expected. Once the Vincent lurches toward her and she gasps, but Andre steadies it and they roll it through the open shed door. Jody stands there, stupidly she thinks, while Andre kicks out the kickstands. It’s really hot in the shed, and for some reason the heat makes them feel they have to whisper.

  “How’re you doing over there?” Andre says.

  “All right,” Jody tells him. She is in ecstasy.

  “Need a ride somewhere?” Andre says. “I have to get some parts. Need to pick up some groceries?”

  She cannot believe her luck. She needn’t have bothered with the rusty nail.

  He puts on a blue workshirt and reaches for the keys to the truck. When they walk out from the shed the sunlight is dazzling and, for one brief moment, they are both blinded.

  VONNY sees the angles of Jody’s thin shoulder blades beneath her cotton shirt as she gets into the passenger seat. A cloud of exhaust rises from the tailpipe. The worst thing Vonny sees is that across the lawn, at the kitchen window, Mrs. Renny is also watching as the pickup makes a left turn and disappears down the road. It is a mirror image that makes Vonny shudder. She closes the curtains and plays with Legos at the kitchen table with Simon. At six, Andre has still not returned. At six thirty, Simon complains that he’s hungry. He’s been looking forward to this night all summer. They had planned to picnic at the beach, then get to Oak Bluffs before the crowds arrived. Now it is too late for either. Because she knows they intend to go to Oak Bluffs, Vonny phones some neighbors, summer people, Hal and Eleanor Freed, who have a little girl a year older than Simon. In their car, Vonny has to keep Simon on her lap and the bag of food between her feet. Luckily, she is not asked to be sociable; the Freeds’ little girl, Samantha, talks nonstop. Simon watches her, mesmerized, and Vonny wonders if he is puzzled that another child can have so much to say. The roads are already choked with traffic, but Vonny doesn’t see one blue pickup truck.

  At the edge of Oak Bluffs, the Freeds, who have always kept their distance and believe that all year-round residents are somehow aberrant, ask Vonny to be at the car by eleven if she wants a ride back. Vonny has a moment of panic. She had never imagined they’d planned to stay so late; she doubts that she’ll be able to keep Simon awake. They say goodbye to the Freeds and have their picnic by the bandstand at Ocean Park. After he eats half a sandwich and drinks two paper cups full of lemonade, Vonny surprises Simon when she lets him have not one but two chocolate cupcakes.

  By the time they start for the Tabernacle, the road is jammed and the sky has turned deep blue. Vonny holds Simon’s hand and drags him a little, so he’ll keep up. As they walk through the gate leading to Trinity Park, the air around them darkens. It seems later than it is. In this crowd, Vonny feels as though there’s no such thing as gravity. She can’t help but wonder if Elizabeth Renny actually stumbled out the window. As hard as she tries, she cannot imagine how that could have been accomplished without first climbing onto the window ledge.

  The path they take is narrow, and Vonny can hear Simon’s breathing deepen, the way it does when he’s excited. The lanterns are not yet lit, but there are so many it’s startling. All day Simon has been imagining fireflies strung on thread from house to house. Now when he sees the Japanese lanterns it is as though he has never seen color before. He wants them lit right now, he wants the rose and white to glow, the aqua and yellow to burst into light.

  Vonny buys Simon a light stick, then she sits on the grass while he twirls the stick in a circle. Before the band begins to play there is a sing-along, and Vonny is glad she doesn�
�t know the words to the first song. It is “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” sung a cappella. Vonny tells herself it’s just a song. It means nothing to her. From within the Tabernacle the voices are distant and deep; they seem to be coming out of the sky.

  After they stand for the anthem, Vonny pulls Simon onto her lap. He knows all the words to “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah” and “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” He lies on his back and watches the stars. It is so dark, Vonny would not know Simon was there if he didn’t balance the light stick on his chest.

  At last a lantern is brought down to the stage in the Tabernacle. An elderly woman holds a taper to the candle inside and everyone applauds. Vonny lifts Simon up to see as the lanterns surrounding the Tabernacle are lit. Now candles may be placed in all of the other lanterns. Every porch, every rafter of the cottages around Trinity Park is irradiated with color and heat. Everyone promenades through the meeting ground to view the illuminated houses, and Vonny holds Simon’s hand so he will not be lost among the legions of strangers. Simon feels as though he has stumbled into a dream, and because of this he is immediately sleepy. He cannot see the path he walks on, but the distance is filled with light.

  As they peer into the houses whose doors are flung open, it’s as though Vonny were watching a play. The path beneath her feet seems less real than a stranger’s living room. The band in the Tabernacle begins to play a march and Vonny holds Simon’s hand tighter. She suddenly feels the way she does when she is about to cross a bridge. Her legs turn to rubber; her mouth is dry. She pulls Simon onto the sidewalk and stands absolutely still. She knows she is breathing too quickly and shallowly, so she bends over and concentrates on a crack in the sidewalk. As soon as Vonny can move, they sit on the sidewalk, up against a low fence that borders a patch of lawn lined with seashells and bleeding hearts and ferns. Vonny helps Simon onto her lap and they watch the Illumination in silence. Less than two feet away is a cottage painted sky blue and white. Lanterns hang from the scrollwork, the archways, the ornamental brackets. Bags of sand hold candles on the path leading to its door. Simon leans his head against her. She can feel the heat of his body through her shirt and her thin sweater, and when he grows heavier she knows he has fallen asleep. If she has to carry him back to the Freeds’ car at eleven he will tighten his arms around her neck in his sleep and she will sway in the dark from the strain of carrying him. But now, the fence behind her back feels cold, and when she closes her eyes she can still see circles of yellow light.