Library

Chapter 4

Three days after her impromptu trip to the Athen?um, Saoirse sits on the third-floor balcony overlooking the rose garden, eating an orange. She finally has groceries in the house, though she didn’t get them that first morning she went out. She was too tired, and felt too haunted after her experience at the library, and spent the rest of the day in bed. The afternoon is unseasonably warm—in the high seventies—and she wishes she brought a glass of something cold out with the fruit. It’s not laziness that keeps her from going inside for a can of seltzer but the paralysis that comes with crushing boredom. And, if she’s being honest, this pervasive inability to rouse herself comes from being depressed too.

She hasn’t been completely useless the past few days. She managed to unpack and to transfer the utilities into her name. She also wandered out to the graveyard to explore the two-hundred-year-old tombstones, drawn by the feeling that the cemetery existed on some other plane, that the cracked granite and other signs of age were illusions meant to deceive the casual passerby. She was disappointed to find that the lichen crumbled corporeally between her fingers, that the hanging boughs did not disguise a shimmery barrier between this world and the past.

Saoirse sighs. She should call her mother, longs to speak with her beyond the Made it here safe text she sent upon arriving Friday evening, but then she’ll feel like she needs to call her father as well, and she doesn’t want to do that. There’s a show on Netflix that’s captured her interest, but it always makes her feel more depressed to binge something in the middle of the day. Her old therapist would suggest she do a meditation exercise, or maybe make a list of all the things she can control versus those she can’t, but Saoirse’s done trying to implement Dr. Fitzpatrick’s handy-dandy tricks of the trade, and besides, she’s no longer her patient anyway. She could read, but the novel she started—well, about a month ago now, if not longer—isn’t really meeting her expectations.

Though ... the disappointing novel isn’t the only reading material she has. With the sensation that she’s about thirty years older than she is, Saoirse pushes herself up from the wicker chaise and goes in search of the books on Poe and Whitman she borrowed.

In the living room, she pauses to marvel at the bold colors and large windows, the damask-patterned floor and lofty ceiling. She is struck—as she has been every day since moving in—by the way the space feels both contemporary and old-fashioned, by the poetic balance between order and chaos: a double-handled vase centered neatly on a desk in one corner faces a bookcase in another, its shelves scattered with shells, fossils, the compact skull of a small animal, a bird’s nest, and several pressed, dried flowers. The leather-bound gold-leaf books appear well curated and well read, the quaint daguerreotypes suitably cloudy. Who knew “fully furnished” could equate to such inspired decor?

She finds the library books on the coffee table beside the silk roses and her cell phone, and sinks onto the settee. Opening Poe’s Helen Remembers , she begins to read.

An hour later, she’s scrolling an article on her phone detailing the couple’s short but intense relationship. It seems Poe had first seen Sarah Whitman in the backyard of this very house in 1845, tending her rose garden under a midnight moon, while he’d been walking with the poet Frances Sargent Osgood. Three years later, on September 21, 1848, Poe met Sarah officially for the first time, again at 88 Benefit Street. The two shared the same birthday—January 19, though Sarah was six years Poe’s senior—and a love of literary criticism, and began corresponding with one another, culminating in plans for what was to be an “immediate marriage” at the end of December. Poe wouldn’t spend much time at 88 Benefit Street; Sarah’s mother detested him. Here, the article picked up with what Leila Rondin had relayed at the Athen?um, and Sarah’s reasons for breaking off the engagement.

Amending the wording of her original search, Saoirse brushes up on the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. She’d forgotten, since high school, or maybe from the courses she took as an English major, of the writer’s marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis, and of the degree to which he struggled with substance abuse. Though, claims of Poe’s dependence on drugs were apparently unfounded, propagated by a high-profile obituary published by literary rival Rufus Wilmot Griswold. The reason Poe’s Helen Remembers even existed was because biographer John Henry Ingram appealed to Sarah Whitman for help in writing a redemptive account of her once-love. She accepted and would spend the rest of her life working to repair Poe’s reputation whenever the chance arose.

Saoirse can see why Roberto, Mia, and Lucretia are fascinated by the poet. Sarah Whitman was a woman of knife-edged intellect and fierce loyalty; she was genuinely kind, independent, and unconventional. Saoirse slides farther down on the settee, considering the walls around her with new interest. Sarah might have written those letters defending Poe from this very room. Satisfied—for now—with what she’s learned of the couple, Saoirse closes the browser.

Before she can think about what she’s doing, she’s opened a text message draft. Is it Mia who has the smartphone? No, Mia uses a landline, and Roberto, a flip phone. Lucretia is the one who admitted to enabling a slew of content blockers on her iPhone to keep her from wasting time.

Saoirse starts to type, but a floorboard pops behind her, followed by a quiet rustle on the air. Saoirse whips around, squinting into the shadows. What had Mia said when Saoirse had asked if the house was haunted? That she would find out soon enough? She stares a moment longer into the darkened corridor beyond the living room, unsure if she’d prefer Aidan to step from the gloom or a chain-weary specter. Nothing further comes, but Saoirse still can’t relax.

Jumpy, are we? the voice in her head asks, and she shakes herself, then types a quick message to Lucretia and sends it before she can change her mind. The reply comes instantly, so Lucretia—if her claim that she doesn’t carry the phone around with her is truthful—must be home:

OMG, hi, Saoirse! How are you?!? Do you want to get together? Maybe do a little writing/hang out/coffee date? I’m working on something for a submission call, a short story of about 5,000 words, and Roberto and Mia aren’t around, but I LOVE writing WITH another person when I have something I’m putting together on a timeline ... so, let me know!!! It’ll be so fun!!!

Saoirse winces. The thought of Lucretia watching her try to formulate paragraphs, sentences, even string two words together when she hasn’t written in almost four years, causes a pit to form at the bottom of her stomach.

Maybe this is what you need, the voice whispers, and Saoirse freezes, anger rising.

“Uh-uh,” she says aloud. “No way. You don’t get to comment on this, of all things, when it was you that caused me to stop writing in the first place.”

Yeah, well, maybe committing to a writing date will get you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, the voice offers unhelpfully. Death has not stopped Jonathan from advising—or judging, or demeaning—her every decision, though now his words come from inside her head as opposed to across the breakfast table or behind the wheel of their car. But unlike when he was alive, Saoirse has the luxury of not dignifying those words with a response. Her thumb hovers over the blank text box. Say yes, she thinks. Just type, yes, that sounds great , find a notebook, and be on your way. She stands but is rooted to the living room carpet, stuck entertaining the same tired justifications and whiplash pull of the past.

In the three years before Jonathan’s death, no force on earth could’ve gotten Saoirse to write; the root of her pain was too present, the need to protect herself all too real. But since his death, she’s been tortured by her inability to put pen to paper. Every waking hour since the previous January, some deep, repressed part of her has screamed for her to write. But another, stronger part—the part that’s stuffed down what happened—resists. Tells her that returning to writing will expose her to her own terrifying thoughts and to the raw ugliness of her grief in a way she won’t survive. That it will break her.

She types her response to Lucretia:

Getting together sounds nice ... but could we save the writing for another day? Maybe just grab coffee?

She considers adding more, explaining her reluctance, then decides she doesn’t owe Lucretia anything. She hits send. A few seconds later:

That’s totally fine! Okay, yes! Awesome! Do you know where Carr Haus Cafe is?

Saoirse googles it. Spidery tickles of unease graze the back of her neck. Carr Haus would have her walking in the direction of the Athen?um again. Still, there’s no good reason to suggest they go somewhere different. Saoirse doesn’t know any other coffee shops in the area, though it can’t be far to the nearest Starbucks. Would a transcendentalist go to a Starbucks? She sighs, looks up Carr Haus on Google Images, and types:

The Gothic-looking place right past the old library that’s part of the RI School of Design?

Lucretia confirms, and they agree to meet in half an hour. Saoirse wanders the rooms on the main floor, planning on going out in what she’s wearing. That is, until she catches sight of her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair is wild and unwashed, and her clothes are rumpled. There are bags beneath her eyes, and her skin has the same pallor as some legless, eyeless creature scooped out from under a rock. She hikes up the too-big jeans and smooths her threadbare sweater, but her efforts are futile. Saoirse trudges upstairs.

There’s no time for a shower, but she alleviates the worst of her problems with a belt and a hair elastic. She fishes a slightly less worn sweater from the closet and mines a nearly dry tube of mascara for enough of a coat to promote her appearance from half-dead to merely exhausted. Slipping her phone into her pocket, she returns downstairs and grabs her bag. She doesn’t bother with locking the house.

The walk goes quickly, focused as she is on keeping the Ath from luring her toward it, sucking her into its serpentine rooms. She’s keeping her mind sufficiently empty, considering nothing more than the rustle of leaves and the murmur of passing cars, when her phone vibrates in her pocket.

Maybe Lucretia’s calling to cancel. But no, it’s her mother’s name that flashes across the screen. Saoirse answers the phone, feeling both the little twinge of warmth that always comes with thoughts of her mother and guilt for not calling her first.

“Hello,” she says breezily, as if everything is fine, as if the past nine months—and maybe the entire marriage preceding them—never happened.

“Hi!” her mother responds, and the concern and love in that one word make Saoirse close her eyes and take a breath. “How are you settling in?”

“I’m . . . settling,” Saoirse says.

“Is the neighborhood nice? Are there any issues with the property? Do you need anything? I can do an Amazon order.”

Saoirse stares up at the bright-blue sky. “The neighborhood’s great, and the house is fine. More than fine, really. You’d love it. Homey and beautiful at the same time.”

“And you have everything you need? Towels? Toiletries? Groceries? Blankets?”

“My husband died, Mom. I didn’t lose everything I owned in a fire.” She wonders if her mother is surprised she’s mentioned Jonathan, but the only response is a bit of static as Ann Norman expels a whoosh of air. Saoirse can picture her, perched at the island in her kitchen, lips pressed together while one hand rests on a cup of tea and the other fidgets with the pearl-and-sterling drop earrings Saoirse bought her the previous Christmas. Photos of Saoirse, her mother’s only child, would be hanging on the wall behind her, glass frames glinting, each shot curated to suggest the nonexistence of any father figure, the same way the photos in Saoirse’s father’s house contained only him and his new wife, with no allusions to her mother or to her.

“Fair enough,” her mother says. “When can I come and visit?”

“Give me a few weeks.” Saoirse has stopped walking and stands at the corner of Benefit and Angell Streets. She is vaguely cognizant of the flashing walk sign on the opposite streetlight but doesn’t move. “I need to get my bearings. I’ve ...” She hesitates, then says, “I’ve met a few people already. I’m on my way to get coffee with someone as we speak.” With her father, this sort of admission would invite endless inquiry and suspicion, but her mother responds as expected:

“That’s great news! I’m so happy to hear it.” A pause, and then she says, “You haven’t called in a while, Sersh. You know how I worry.”

Guilt causes her eyes to water, clouding her vision. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m really sorry. You know why I do it. It’s just—” Saoirse’s fingers are cold around the phone case, and her mouth is dry, but she manages to continue. “Even though we agreed not to talk about things, it’s hard just knowing that you know .”

“I understand,” her mother says. “I just worry about you, all by yourself in the city. And I worry that you’re wallowing, letting the past remain present. You’re allowed to let things go, you know. Allowed to move on with your life.”

The walk sign is flashing again, and Saoirse steps off the curb. “I’m not wallowing, Mom. I promise.”

“And you’re taking care of yourself? Not overdoing it? Taking your medications?”

Saoirse resists the urge to bring her hand to her heart, to feel the steadiness of the beats in her chest, like she occasionally did at night before she fell asleep. “Of course,” she says. “But I’ve got to go. Coffee date, remember?”

“Right. Okay.” Her mother still sounds reluctant to hang up.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Saoirse ends the call. Her mouth is even drier than before, and it’s hard to swallow. She slides the phone into her pocket and gives her bag a halfhearted pat, but she already knows she didn’t throw in a water bottle before leaving the house. When she looks up, the fountain at the base of the Athen?um looms before her. Its epitaph is direct to the point of absurdity:

COME HITHER EVERY ONE THAT THIRSTETH

The water that runs from the bronze spigot and over the granite tier looks cool and inviting. Wasn’t this fountain bone-dry whenever she visited Jonathan here twelve years earlier? Feeling out of sorts from the impending meetup with Lucretia and the emotions brought to the surface by the conversation with her mother, Saoirse leans in and drinks before she can consider whether it’s a good idea.

The water is colder than she anticipated and far more luxuriant, like water from a mountain spring instead of a public city fountain. She drinks great, deep mouthfuls, starts to pull away, then lowers her head again and drinks some more. When she finally straightens, she feels more sated than she has all day. Satisfied and clearheaded. She takes two steps backward and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. A couple is coming toward her on the sidewalk, and they stop when they reach her.

The man on the left raises his eyebrows. “Wow, Julio.” He lets go of his partner’s hand to gesture at the granite structure. “Someone’s hitting the magical Richmond Fountain a little hard today, aren’t they?”

His smile is warm and good-natured. Despite her confusion, Saoirse smiles back. She glances at the fountain as if she hasn’t just drunk from it, as if it burst through the concrete like a beanstalk. She returns her attention to the two men. “Magical?”

“You haven’t heard the legend?” the smiling man asks. “It’s from, like, the 1900s, but it’s become pretty well known since the fountain was restored several years back.” His voice takes on the tone of someone relaying a spooky story around a campfire. “Anyone who drinks from this fountain will return to Providence again and again. They’re drawn back, by virtue of the Pawtuxet River flowing through their veins.”

“That’s not it,” the second man, Julio, exclaims, and Saoirse jumps. “Sorry,” he says, “but it’s not that you return to Providence. It’s that, once you drink from the fountain, you can never leave .”

A fly buzzes by Saoirse’s left ear, and her arms break out in gooseflesh. She swats at the air and turns back to the couple, but they’ve linked hands and resumed their stroll down the sidewalk. “Have a good one,” Julio calls over his shoulder.

Saoirse watches them cross the intersection and turn right onto College Street. They disappear into a throng of pedestrians. Other couples, students, professors pass her in either direction. She wants to shout at them, Have you drunk from this fountain? Have you heard the legend? Is it real?

Instead, she takes a breath and shakes the tension from her shoulders. A shadow darkens her periphery, and she swats at the air again, but the fly is gone. Maybe it had never been.

“Get a grip,” she mutters, then lifts her chin, sets her gaze on the gingerbread-house-style lattice of the Carr Haus building one block away, and forces herself forward. Behind her, the water from the curved bronze spigot continues to flow.

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