In My Father's Eyes (9 page)

It was a face Harold saw in his memory every day; a face that haunted him and gave him solace; a face he could never forget, never wanted to forget. Lydia. Younger, idealized, but Lydia. His Lydia.

Moisture clouded his eyes as he turned back to Emily. His heart felt heavy, his chest thick. The raw emotion in the drawing resonating with the prickling running along his skin.

“Where…” Harold stopped, clearing his throat. “Where did you get her picture?” He asked, his eyes pulled back to the drawing.

“Whose?” Emily asked, confused, stepping closer, looking again at her work.

“Lydia.” Harold said thickly. “Lydia.” His finger pointed at the angel, shaking. He wasn’t sure he could keep standing and staggered backward until his knees hit the bad and he collapsed, the drawing held reverently in his hand.

“I didn’t…” Emily paused, a cold shiver passed up her spine and Emily shuddered. “That’s not…Lydia.” She said, finally. Turning away she took two steps to her dresser and snatched a tattered photograph from where it was wedged into the mirror frame. Returning, she sat heavily down next to Harold, her shoulder brushing his.

Sticking out her hand, she shoved the photograph into Harold’s view. In it two girls stood, their arms wrapped around each other. Sunlight shone off their pastel Easter dresses nearly washing the color from them. On the right, a young Emily smiled up, gap-toothed, confident, and eager. Next to her, taller, with lighter hair and thick eyebrows shone the face of the angel in Emily’s drawing.

“I…I always draw Emma,” Emily whispered in explanation. “So I never forget her. So she’ll always be with me.”

Harold looked from the photograph to the drawing. It was true, he saw. It was the same face. Older, somehow, more developed in the drawing than the childlike features of the photograph, but without a doubt the same face.

And without a doubt Emma bore a striking resemblance to Lydia; younger, darker hair perhaps, the eyes maybe a bit wider, but the same mouth, the same lips and nose, the same thick brows and high cheeks. It was the Lydia Harold remembered growing up. The same girl-child that became more than a playmate, more than a friend from the first day they’d met.

Standing abruptly, Harold fumbled clumsily at his rear pocket, taking three tries to draw out his wallet. His fingers shaking, he flipped it open until he came to the picture he was looking for; a photograph taken on their wedding day. Lydia looked out beneath the veil folded atop her hair, her eyes alight with life and joy, tendrils of sandy blond hair framing her face in sinuous curls.

Harold held out the picture to Emily.

Emily stared. Took the wallet from his hands and rose, her eyes locked onto Lydia’s portrait. “This…this…” Emily paced back and forth before Harold, her steps growing sharp, her eyes unable to leave the picture of her sister wearing a wedding dress; fully grown into her nascent beauty.

“What is this?” Emily stopped, shaking the wallet at Harold, her eyes distraught, disbelieving. “What is this? What…How…It can’t…”

“I don’t know,” Harold said quietly, Emily’s drawing held in his right hand. Bringing it up, he studied it again, carefully, through the moisture in his eyes threatening to spill out. “But it’s her.”

Emily lowered the wallet, dropping onto her bed, she looked up at Harold. “This can’t be real. It can’t. It’s a coincidence…that’s all.”

Harold reached over, his fingers brushing her neck sending a shiver through Emily as he lifted the chain around her neck, the cross she wore resting in his palm.

“Maybe,” he said, shifting the cross in the light. “’There are more things in heaven and earth…” Harold whispered, his eyes shifting to catch Emily’s stare.

“Don’t start quoting Hamlet at me,” Emily groaned, rolling to sit up, tucking the cross below the collar of her shirt.

At that moment, Emily heard the front door open and Tom and her mother breeze into the house, her mother’s voice audible. Harold turned at the sound, looking guilty as if he’d been caught transgressing, and stood abruptly.

Emily grinned up at him. “Don’t worry. Mom would be thrilled to catch me in my bedroom with a boy.” She teased. “At least then she could be sure I’m not a lesbian.”

Harold’s face went hot. “Do you have to say things like that?”

A knock at the door interrupted Emily’s laughter and she bounced to her feet, opening the door. “Hey, Tom.”

Tom, startled, looked at Emily in her sweats and nightshirt, and then caught sight of the older man standing at the corner of her bed.

“Ummm…Hi.” He said. Emily held the door watching Tom struggle with understanding, enjoying his discomfiture at the scene before him.

Harold stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “You must be Tom, Emily’s stepfather.” He shook Tom’s hand. “I’m Harold. Emily’s boss. From the store.” He explained.

Tom’s eyes calmed and he shook Harold’s hand quickly.

“Oh. I…see. It’s just…we’re not…pleased to meet you.” He stuttered.

Chapter Eleven

Emily Walls walked out her front door into the early afternoon sun. The year’s first frost had hit last night and the hoary dew had melted, leaving the ground damp and squishy beneath her boots. Tugging her coat around her tighter against the cool wind, Emily squelched across the lawn and went left.

This late on a Sunday, families were just returning from grocery stores and churches. Emily, breath fogging, stutter jogged moving quickly along the sidewalk, her cheeks flushing in the November chill.

She passed off her block and headed right, crossing the suburban street, her boots kicking at the piles of leaves gathered in the gutter, brown and soggy. Emily bypassed the bus stop not wanting to take a chance on having to speak with anyone, and made a left at the convenience store on the corner outside the entrance to her subdivision.

Thirty minutes and two miles later the church’s spire came into view over the tops the tall fir trees stretching into the painfully blue sky. Warmed by her walk, she loosened her jacket, and went up over the small hill surrounding the church’s parking lot. Slushing through the wet grass, she circled left of the church and followed the fence line for a hundred yards until she approached the entrance to the cemetery.

From far away came the sounds of cars passing on the road. Looking both ways, Emily shoved the toe of her boot into the locked chain link gate that barely rose to her waist. With a hop she was over and moving deeper into the manicured lawn that curved and slid over the rounded hills behind the church.

Hedgerows created walls that blocked off the cemetery into discreet sections. There was a map closer to the church that showed which numbered section was which, but Emily didn’t need the direction. She’d been here before. Many times.

Following the paved path used by the caretaker’s golf cart, Emily circled around the bare branches of a giant elm, and followed the cart path deeper, passing weathered angels, rusted wrought iron fences protecting family mausoleums with Delphic columns like tiny miniatures of the Parthenon until the large statues and tombs gave way to smaller, more intimate stones. Stones that bore names and dates with the occasional pithy remembrance.

Thighs starting to burn from climbing the rolling hills, Emily stopped under a dogwood that stood off by itself, away from the larger firs, elms and maples as if it had found itself amongst strangers and scooted away for safety.

Puffing fog, Emily looked at the bronze plaque set into the stone flush with the trimmed lawn. Kneeling, Emily set her bag down, feeling damp seep into her jeans and chill against her knees. Unmindful, she leaned forward and rolled onto her back, her head resting just below Emma’s marker, her dark hair splayed in a wash around her.

“Talk to me, Em,” she said, her eyes closing, hands clutching at the wet grass and soft soil covering her sister’s grave. Beneath her shirt, the cross felt heavy on her neck seeming to sense the attraction of its twin in close proximity. Over the years, she’d come to Emma’s grave to empty her soul, to share with her sister her feelings, her fears; the things she couldn’t tell anyone else.

In the three weeks since Harold had driven her home on that rainy night, she hadn’t been able to make any sense of the odd coincidence of Emma’s resemblance to Lydia. Her world was one of logic and reason, coincidences were just that, coincidences. Harold hadn’t spoken of it since that night. Things at work had gone back to normal and with the holidays kicking into full gear, they were busier than ever.

And now she needed answers. Her boot heels dug into the ground as she twisted on the earth, hands ripping blades of cold, yellowing grass. “What do you want from me, Em?” She whispered, hoping for some response.

Frustrated at herself, angry at how out of control her life felt, Emily groaned and pulled into a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her knees, her chin tucked on top she rocked back and forth.

The conversation with Harold had played in her thoughts since that night. Not just the eerie drawing, but Harold’s words in the car and her denials. She’d known them to be false when she uttered them. Known that he knew they were false. Whatever else their relationship might be, Emily knew that even in the short time she’d known Harold, Mathew and Roland; she’d grown to have real affection for them. Mathew treated her like his favorite grandchild praising her for every little accomplishment and doing his best to spoil her rotten.

Roland, on the other hand, acted as if she weren’t some wet-behind-the-ears teenager; expecting her to behave and perform like any other adult. Both of them showed a fondness for her difficult to accept. She’d always been on the outside before and this…whatever it was, left her feeling warm and almost giddy at times.

Her relationship with Harold was more complicated. He listened. So few people ever really listened. Not to her. He was friend and mentor and father-figure all at once; she couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing him, of not having him in her life.

It was a strange sensation for a girl who prided herself on not needing anyone; independent and self-reliant to a fault. She’d learned the hard way that depending on other people only led to heartache and grief.

Reaching for her purse, she retrieved her cigarettes, sucking as the tobacco flared into a glowing ember. Flopping back, her left arm tucked behind her head for a cushion, she closed her eyes again and inhaled nicotine, letting the acrid smoke ease out her nostrils.

What is Emma trying to tell me
? She thought.

Rolling onto her side, she pressed her cheek to her sister’s grave.
Emma?
She sent out her plea.
Emma?

She didn’t really expect an answer. Didn’t really think the dead had nothing better to do than float around looking at the pathetic lives of the people they left behind. Nonetheless, she’d always come to this place, to lay here, to bare her thoughts to the big sister who gave her life for her. Didn’t that love carry over even after death? Wasn’t there still some part of Emma that would look after her?

Love isn’t about feeling,
Harold had said.
It’s not about thinking or wanting or needing. Love is being willing to believe in the absence of all reason. Love is being open, vulnerable. And love requires faith…can only exist with faith at its core. Without faith, love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain. It’s faith in the one you love and the ones who love you that make love possible.

This was the one place Emily could admit to herself she was in trouble, had been in trouble and falling faster and faster ever since that day at the lake. Here in this silent repository of souls she could put voice to the fears that haunted her, the loneliness, and the desperate sadness that threatened to drown her as surely as the lake waters had taken Emma.

Where is my faith?
She thought.

Quietly Emily’s tears ran from her eyes.