“I wouldn’t chance it,cariño,” Bas says with a laugh. “Those K9 units might be trained to sniff out cheese along with cash and cocaine ... Oh shoot, Jorge is honking the horn of his truck. We’re headed out to do some errands.”
“No problem.”
“Let’s talk later, though. Love you so much,cariño.”
“Love you, too, Bas.”
I hang up thinking how close his voice sounded, and yet he also seems oceans away. If I’m lucky, we’ll soon hear something firm from Halligan, and I really can fly home on Friday.
It’s too early to start out for my meeting with Handler, so I sit for a while, sipping the extra coffee I brought upstairs in a paper cup. I think suddenly of the way my mother loved to relax with her coffee early each morning, resting the mug on the padded arm of the chair in the corner of our pretty kitchen outside Philadelphia. She was gathering her thoughts for the day, she used to say, and as a girl I imagined her scooting them together in a pile like I did with my toys.
There have been countless times since Mel’s death when I’ve wondered achingly what it would be like to have my loving parents around to lean on. My mom was supportive and helpful during Mel’s colic phase and the worst years of the button phobia, assuring me it would all get better one day. But my parents died three years apart when I was in my thirties. As much as I’ve longed for them in the years since, I’ve been forever grateful that they weren’t alive to see what happened to their only grandchild, and to watch how my life fell apart afterward: the broken marriage, the smashed dream of being a star in book publishing, the ever-shrinking circle of friends, to say nothing of the deep depression that enveloped me for close to four years.
Finally, it’s time to head to campus, only a few short blocks away. I grab my trench coat and slip out the side entrance of the inn. The first half of the walk goes well enough, but then suddenly the spire of the old campus chapel slides into view, and my heart squeezes.
Part of my anguish comes from being back in a place that Melanie loved and thrived in, that inspired her both intellectually and creatively, a place she never left because she died before graduating. Maybe, I think ruefully, if I walk around long enough, I will bump into her ghost here.
But my distress is also due to my own complicated relationship with the school. It’s a beautiful place, a right-out-of-a-movie campus featuring two-hundred-year-old ivy-covered brick buildings set around a perfectly landscaped quad, and though a bunch of modern structures have been added to the campus over time, for the most part, they’re both boldly designed and attractive, energizing the environment rather than undermining it. When Mel decided to go here, I fantasized about the moments we’d spend together when Logan and I visited.
I should have known better. During parents’ weekend the first autumn, she bristled at several comments I made, slipped out of my grasp when I took her arm—as if mortified by the idea of us touching in public—and widened her eyes disapprovingly at the pencil skirt and silk blouse I wore for the welcoming lunch on the quad. “Mom,” she blurted out, “they saidcasual, for God’s sake.”
Fortunately, parents’ weekend was something mostly freshmen and their parents took part in, so there was no reason to attend another. I did drive upstate with Logan in the spring of freshman year and twice when Mel was a sophomore to see her perform in plays, and though she was less dismissive of me by then, it was hard to erase that very first weekend from my memory.
I enter the college through the eastern gate. Spring hasn’t fully arrived, and yet the campus looks stunning. The grass on the quad is a bright green, and there are daffodils in the border gardens, shimmying from the breeze. Students are everywhere: dashing down pathways, huddled in clusters, and, despite the slight nip in the air, tossing Frisbees to one another on the quad.
I easily find the humanities building. Though it’s far quieter inside than out, I pick up the sound of voices and even laughter from behind classroom doors. Checking the directory on the wall, I see that Handler’soffice is on the second floor, and it turns out to be at the very end of the hall, beyond a small anteroom with a desk for an assistant, presently unoccupied. Before knocking at his door, I shrug out of my trench coat and hang it on one of the hooks along the wall.
There’s no verbal reply to my knock, though I can hear Handler shuffling papers inside and then scooting a desk chair around. At least thirty seconds pass. I’ve just knocked again when he finally swings the door open.
“Ms. Winter, how nice to meet you,” he says formally, extending a hand and offering a careful smile.
I’ve set eyes on him in person only once before, and that was from a distance at the campus memorial for Mel, though I was already familiar with what he looked like from the photo on one of his poetry collections, which I bought after Mel took her first class with him. He’s in his early to mid-sixties now, I’d say. Average weight and about five ten, so only a few inches taller than I am. He has a large, uniquely shaped nose and a high forehead, with his dark-brown hair cut close on the sides, and a tiny bit high on top.
Not classically handsome at all, but still, he’s an attractive man in his own distinct way.
“Call me Bree, please,” I say. “And thanks for seeing me today. I’m sure this is a busy period for you.”
“Well, we’re in the last stretch, closing in on exams, but I’m more than happy to make the time.” He swings an arm out behind him. “Come in, won’t you? And please excuse the clutter. English departments are still a long way from paperless.”
He’s not being facetious. There are stacks of papers on almost every surface and plenty of books, too. Overall, though, the office is a nice one, with a fetching view of the quad from the window and a large fern in the corner.
I follow him into the room, surprised a little by his choice of wardrobe. I guess in the back of my mind I was expecting something along the lines of a cardigan with elbow patches over a rumpledbutton-down, but he’s in a spiffy navy blazer with windowpane checks over a crisp lavender shirt.
We sit.
“I hear you’ve traveled all the way from Paraguay,” he says. “My goodness, that’s a long trip.”
“Uruguay, actually, though in the same part of the world.”
“Well, it’s good of you to come. As you’ll hear me say in my remarks Thursday night, we are incredibly grateful to you and Mr. Chase for your very generous gifts.”
Since Logan’s been insistent about my name being attached to everything, I don’t correct him.
“Well, we’re grateful for all the school has planned in response. The reception, the outreach to high school students about the scholarships, everything.”
He inches a hand across the desk and straightens a pencil.
“It’s the least we can do,” he says “Melanie, as you’re well aware, was a wonderful student and writer. Shakespeare advised that we give sorrow words, which unfortunately is far easier said than done, but let me say that her loss was keenly felt here.”
