For Love of Audrey Rose

Epilogue

The water was deep. Brown reflections rippled from rowboats, spread in long rings to the rocks. One by one, Jennie lifted green leaves, covered the pebbles at the shore, and touched them with a short sprig of elm. Her face was absorbed in the methodical ritual. The lake sent small sparkles of light across her eyes.

In the boathouse, Elliot Hoover sat opposite Janice, a table dividing them. It was early summer, and Janice studied the roses in a blue vase.

“I’ve always loved Central Park in summer,” she said, smiling.

Hoover said nothing for a while, then nervously fingered the edge of the table. Around them a horde of children roller-skated down a walkway. The leaves shivered lightly in the breeze, and the tall stone buildings undulated in the lake, breaking apart among the green reeds.

“Jennie loves it here,” he said.

Jennie playfully threw stones into the water.

“I’ve waited a long time to see you, Elliot. I tried to reach you.”

“I know. Forgive me, but… There was so much to think about.” He gazed at her through eyes grown haunted. “About Bill… and about us.”

Janice’s eyes lowered. “I know,” she softly agreed.

A silence was suspended between them. Music blared from a small fairground over a grassy hill. Lovers sunned themselves on the rocks. A smell of stale beer and thick charcoal smoke hovered through the boathouse. Janice looked up toward Jennie squatting by the lakeside, hypnotized by the stately progress of a swan across the water. Jennie had grown since the accident, and was prettier than ever. A small mark over her ear, covered now by longer black hair, was the sole souvenir of the tragedy.

“I had a police check made on Mrs. Ora Dunn,” Hoover said suddenly. “The woman who found Jennie. She’s been booked on eight counts of welfare fraud.”

“What?” Janice looked at him in amazement.

“She ran some kind of scheme with illegitimate children. Picking up welfare checks on more dependents than she actually had. It seems Jennie’s fortuitous arrival filled in one of the blank spaces. I spoke to her. She confessed to having found Jennie six months later than she had originally claimed.”

Janice could only shake her head.

“Our forged birth certificate was more accurate than we thought.” He turned to Janice calmly and with reverence. “I have known the grace and power of the Almighty, yet I am still amazed at his works.”

In the honeyed afternoon, the calls of children were muted, absorbed in the thick willows by the waterfront. Slants of golden light poured over them. A thick-set waiter brought two tiny espressos to their table.

Hoover looked at Janice. “You really do look fine,” he said softly.

Janice blushed, and dropped a sugar cube into the black, steaming coffee. “Are you determined to go back to India?”

The question did not catch him by surprise. Nevertheless, a shadow passed over his face.

“I don’t know.”

“What about the clinic?”

“The clinic is finished for me. Mr. Radimanath will take over. He loves his work there and is ready to devote his life to it.”

Two birds flew down onto the table. Pecking at crumbs, they hopped at will to the coffee cups, onto Hoover’s arm, then flew away. Hoover swallowed heavily.

“And you?” he asked. “What will you do?”

“Me? What else can I do? I’ll stay here and work.”

For what seemed like an eternity they remained at the white table, unwilling to depart. Janice sensed his torment.

“Would you like to take a walk?” she asked.

“I’d love to, Janice.”

They rose, and Jennie observed them from a pile of plucked grass. She came running, the legs pumping whitely through the dandelions. Hoover held out his right hand and she took it firmly.

As they walked, Hoover limped, using a slender cane lightly. Jennie held on to him with both hands.

“But what’s in India for you, Elliot?” Janice asked as they rounded the path, and a vista of swans under the willows opened up beyond the boathouse.

“I truly don’t know.”

They walked along the asphalt, savoring the warmth that dappled them through the tall elms. Ducks arrogantly walked past, taking over the path. When they were gone, Hoover smiled in confusion.

“Maybe I never really knew,” he admitted.

Janice slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow lightly, so as not to interfere with the use he made of the cane. Hoover looked troubled, unable to articulate his thoughts.

“Everything we did,” he stammered. “When you came to India to find me… when I set up the clinic… our trying to reach Bill…It was all… all destined, Janice. It was all to rescue a single tormented soul. Bill’s.”

Jennie suddenly broke from them, ran across a patch of wild violets, chasing butterflies.

Hoover stopped, his clenched hand gesturing his difficulty.

“Janice,” he said quickly, “there is one thing I must tell you.”

“What is it?”

He swallowed, but was encouraged by the frank acceptance in her eyes.

“When Bill… when the car toppled over on him, and he threw Jennie into my arms…”

“Yes?”

“Well, for an instant, just before the explosion, I detected in his eyes a look of true serenity, of fulfillment. The kind of fulfillment I’ve seen in the faces of holy men on the banks of the Ganges. As though his soul had succeeded in completing its Karmic mission in this lifetime.”

Janice said nothing, only held his arm. Jennie rolled down a small incline, arms flopping about in the sun. The sound of ducks echoed into the stand of trees, where the sun alternated with tall shadows alive with clouds of gnats in brilliant patches.

“I would give everything to attain peace such as that. I truly envy him, Janice.”

“No matter how Bill may have appeared to you, no matter what he may have said or done in your presence, it was you that he truly believed in. Your example.”

Hoover smiled gently. “I’d like to believe that,” he said softly. “I will pray that you are right.”

Jennie ran back to them, gave a handful of broken daisies to Hoover.

“Thank you, darling. They’re lovely. Illegal, but lovely.”

Suddenly, a circus troupe invaded the asphalt path. Balloons, clowns, wooden wagons in riots of red and yellow rolled by. A cage with a man ringed in horns, covered in gunny sacks, who rattled his chains and rolled his eyes. A sign read The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. Clarinets and snare drums echoed and blared through the park, followed by long files of yelling, taunting, shrieking children.

“Would you like some lunch?” Hoover asked.

“I’d love it, Elliot,” Janice smiled, then added hesitantly, “At Des Artistes?”

Hot grass shimmered in brilliance. Janice looked uncertain, yet Hoover was sure that a dark, fatal search had come to an end. Jennie sensed it, and she ran ahead, chasing the circus.

“Yes,” he said softly. “At Des Artistes.”

The asphalt softened under the hot sunlight. Des Artistes seemed to be a thousand miles beyond the dust and turbulence of the city. Janice and Elliot Hoover walked slowly through the willows. Nothing else mattered. Far away, the clarinet began a long, drooping solo, like sorrow soothed in the amber of delicate honey.