The Promised Land Read online

  From the time I was little, she took me to places like the High Museum and the Atlanta Symphony, and that was okay with my mother because it was “culture.” But when Swannee heard about my gap year and offered to pay for a four-month class with Jean-Paul, Mom did that lip-quiver thing that means she’s desperately fighting the urge to say something she knows she’ll regret. The thought of my not heading off to college in the fall is about killing her.

  Fortunately Dad is okay with the gap year idea. He’s a wealth management consultant, helping really rich people get even richer. I guess he’s done a good job of it for us too, because we aren’t exactly hurting for money. He even said he’d cover my gap-year expenses, right in front of Mom, and winked at me.

  It was our friend Stephen who first put the gap year idea in my head. He grew up all over the world and said lots of kids in the UK and Europe take a year between high school and university to travel or work or gain new experiences.

  Stephen and Tracie Lefort go to my church. He runs an online paper, The Peachtree Press, and for the last two summers I’ve done an internship there, mainly in photography and graphic design.

  During the first weeks of my gap year I’ll be staying near Vienna, where I can spend hours and days wandering around the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I’ll also be helping at a refugee center called the Oasis. Stephen goes there pretty often and thinks I’d like it. And then before I take that art class in Paris with Swannee’s artist friend, I’m thinking about walking the Camino—from Le Puy in southern France to the Spanish border. A sort of pilgrimage. That was Stephen’s idea too.

  When I tell him a few days before I leave that I’m seriously considering the pilgrimage, he says, “Caroline’s supposed to be walking the Camino too, later this fall. I’ve asked her to take photos and write up some articles.”

  Caroline is Stephen’s younger sister. She’s a photographer and has worked for him off and on. Stephen’s always worrying about her. He doesn’t exactly say that, but he says things like “She’s a free spirit” and “She’s had a rough time. I’m trying to help her get her feet back on the ground.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want me to send you photos and articles?” I ask.

  “Of course not. You probably won’t be doing the same route anyway. But could you check in with her in a week or so? Let her know which part you’ll be walking, and the dates? It’d be great if I could do a series of articles about the Camino in the paper from when you start in August until the end of the season in October.”

  Stephen tends to throw out ideas on the spur of the moment, and I’m supposed to catch them and make them a reality. “Sure, boss. Give me her number and I’ll text her.”

  “Thanks. You know she’s a bit hard to pin down, but if y’all can keep each other apprised of your plans, that’d be great.”

  ———

  Dad and I don’t say much on the way to the airport. We had that talk last night standing in the middle of this huge loft on the Beltline—our new home—about him taking on a three-month project in Chicago.

  “Cool. Is Mom going with you?” I asked. He’s had extended trips before, though never that long, and Mom has usually figured out a way to join him.

  “No,” Dad said, and his shoulders slumped a tiny bit. He brushed my hair off my forehead like he used to do when I was a little kid. “No, I’m going alone. I’m taking a bit of a breather for a few months.”

  “A breather?” I narrowed my eyes. “From marriage?”

  When he nodded, I felt my stomach drop. “Are you . . . are you getting a divorce?”

  “No, Bobby. No. I don’t think so. I just need to get away for a while.”

  I understand, if I’m honest. Look at me, flying away. Far away from my dear but controlling mother.

  “Do you . . .” I struggled to get the words out. “Do you have someone else?”

  He drew me into an embrace. I thought he might be crying. Whether he was or not, he didn’t answer my question.

  In a way, I am furious with Dad for leaving right now. Jason and I are finally getting some freedom from Mom—but we love her. We don’t want her to “go off the deep end”—yet another of her favorite expressions—if Dad leaves too. Plus, I still don’t understand why they decided to sell our house so quickly. I like that house.

  Poor Mom. It’s not like she handles change well.

  Before he hugs me good-bye at the international terminal, Dad says, “I think your mom needs a break from all of us, Bobby, whether she knows it or not. Keep her in your prayers, son. But you go discover Europe. It’s not up to you to solve our problems.”

  Jason texts me while I’m standing in the security line, saying the same thing he’s told me out loud a dozen times. You’re so lucky to be going far away.

  Your school isn’t bad either.

  I know. Then What should we do? About Mom. She’s going to go off the deep end.

  I smile.

  No idea. I guess we just have to trust Dad.

  ———

  I used to wander out onto Swannee’s sun porch as a little boy and sit for hours watching her paint. She noticed my passion first, before my parents or teachers. She bought me my first sketch pads, my first colored pencils, and then the watercolors, little tabs of pastels that I rubbed my wet paintbrush against before brushing it on the white page. I thought it was pretty cool, watching the colors bleed into each other and making the white page look alive.

  By the time I was eight or nine I graduated to acrylics and oils.

  In high school I took AP art history. Mom was chagrined; Swannee, thrilled. She’d support my artistic endeavors to Hogwarts and back.

  The first time I allowed myself to see that my grandmother was aging was about a year ago. I never told anyone, but that was the incident that made me seriously think about a gap year. I wanted to go to Europe while Swannee could still be my guide. Not physically, but mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

  We had our canvases on the sun porch, painting a still life she had set up. We’d done this a dozen times throughout the years, but Swannee felt it important for me to go back to the basics and also see my improvement.

  We didn’t talk much; when we paint, we’re both very intent on our work. But at one point she asked me a question, and I glanced over at her. While I answered, she sat with her paintbrush poised in her right hand. The brush shook, very subtly. It was moving because Swannee’s hand was shaking.

  It wasn’t a big deal except for one thing. The still life she painted wasn’t quite as brilliant and detailed as usual. It was as if I were watching Swannee age on the canvas. Her strokes not as swift and sure.

  And it broke my heart.

  I decided then and there I was going to Europe. Not that I thought she was dying or anything. But something deep within me urged me to go. So while Stephen gets the credit, or the blame, for planting the seed, deep down the gap year is for my grandmother—to find the inspiration she found and wrap it up in my imagination and bring it back for her to see and touch and feel.

  A few weeks before my flight, Swannee and I were sitting out on her sun porch drinking extra sugary iced tea when her cell phone pinged with a message. “Oh! Would you look at this!” she said, obviously surprised. Then, “How nice. How lovely.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, just that one of my paintings will be on display.” And she let me read the email.

  Dear Ms. Middleton, It is our pleasure to inform you that your painting, The Swan House, has been purchased by the Cottet family and will be on permanent display in what critics call one of the loveliest small museums in Paris. . . .

  “On display in Paris! That’s awesome, Swannee! You have to go see it!”

  She tried to make light of the good news. “Oh, no, honey. It’s not that big a deal.”

  But I could tell it was. To her. I think she would have actually considered making a trip to Paris if my grandfather’s sight hadn’t diminished even further.

  “I’ve had su
ch wonderful opportunities to travel and see the finest art. But I need to stay put now.”

  My grandparents are absolutely devoted to each other, which usually pleases me. But I hated for Swannee to miss this honor, one she’d dreamed of for so long. I understood. That longing of an artist to be recognized, not necessarily famous, but to know that what she’d devoted her life to, her vocation, somehow mattered to others as well.

  So I wasn’t surprised when she asked me, “Do you think you could try to visit the museum? I could get you a private viewing. But of course, only if you have time.”

  It amazed me how an artist as accomplished and appreciated as my grandmother could still lack self-confidence.

  “I’d love to do that!” I said.

  “Well, I’m sure Jean-Paul would be delighted to accompany you and show you around,” she said, then lowered her voice. “My last prayer for my art . . . I’ve always longed for at least one of my paintings to be hanging in a museum in Paris. So many of my adventures began there, and now they will continue to live on.”

  “I’m so glad it’s The Swan House,” I said, for this was her legacy, and she’d painted the Italian manor house in Atlanta many times. I scooted next to Swannee on her wicker couch. “Speaking of Jean-Paul and Paris, look at what I’ve uploaded to my phone.”

  I started swiping through photos I’d scanned from my grandmother’s sketch pad—the sketch pad of her trip to Europe with her best friend, Rachel Abrams, in 1968. When I got to a sketch of a young teen sitting on a bench with Notre Dame in the background, I passed the phone to Swannee.

  She held it close, chuckling, “There he is. Jean-Paul Dumontel.”

  For many years, Jean-Paul had come to Atlanta to visit my grandmom. I met him once when I was about nine or ten. At the time of this sketch he was a shy thirteen-year-old, traipsing around Paris with Swannee during the May ’68 revolution. I think Swannee was just out of college, and she and Jean-Paul had bonded over their mutual love for art. In fact, they’d both dreamed of becoming artists.

  And of course, they both had become artists and both quite successful. Jean-Paul had gifted one of his paintings to Swannee, and it now hung in my grandparents’ home. He had always felt close to her—sending her marble from Italy and fabric from Provence and bottles of fine red wine from his favorite French vineyards—all because she’d practically saved his and his brother’s lives during the riots of 1968.

  Now I was going to follow in their footsteps—but those were two awfully big pairs of shoes to fill.

  I set down the phone and asked, “Swannee, what if I go to Europe and take the art class and find out I’m no good?”

  “Well, we know that’s not true, Bobby. But if you aren’t good enough or you lose interest, then you’ll find another path. You’ll go to school and try something else.”

  “And what if I go away and find my calling and never go to college? That would break Mom’s heart. Dad would be annoyed too.”

  Swannee set down her Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets plastic tumbler and spoke slowly—she was never in a hurry these days. “We trust the Spirit to guide us. You must find your path and trust that our God is big enough and wise enough to get the people you love to listen.”

  My grandmother is a very spiritual person.

  “I know one thing, Bobby. You must not be crushed under expectations. It will dry up your creativity. Take this chance, Bobby. Fly.”

  And so, I’m flying.

  ABBIE

  I watch him go, and a little bit of my heart flies out the window with him. It feels like a gradual death, like God is prying open my clenched fists and forcing me to wave good-bye without running after this boy-man.

  But Bobby dreams in living color, and he paints his dreams on canvases with an understanding that seems precocious. And so my stomach lurches and I uncoil my fists, and I will myself not to cry as I watch him walk out the door. He turns and gives me a lopsided grin, then drops his bags and comes back to embrace me, as he did when he was a child.

  I let the tears fall.

  His father is taking him to the airport. Then what?

  At least Bobby is starting his gap year in a place that seems safe. I try not to dwell on the term refugee center, but more on the fact that this is a place Stephen knows well, and I trust Stephen. He’s helped us through one major family crisis already.

  I scroll through my email on my phone until I get to a folder marked Travel. I stare absently at the list of emails confirming the flight I’ve booked, mine and Bill’s, to France after the surprise party I’m planning for October. He’s always wanted to go to La Rochelle, an idyllic spot on the west coast where one of his Huguenot ancestors finished his life at the end of the sixteenth century. For his fiftieth birthday, by golly, I am determined to make that dream come true.

  I need a break, Abbs.

  At least I hope I will still get to make that dream come true.

  ———

  Two days after Bobby has literally flown the coop, one day after we’ve left Jason at football camp, I watch Bill pack his bags, the ones he just unpacked in the loft the week before, the ones I had packed at first for the move, every shirt pressed, every sock with its match. I feel the color drain from my face. He is resolute, determined, moving on autopilot.

  “Can we talk?” It’s the same question I’ve asked since he told me he was leaving.

  He doesn’t answer, just keeps packing.

  Finally I step in front of him. “I want to talk about it, Bill. I need to. Please give me that.”

  He ignores me, almost. I do not know this person who has suddenly inhabited my laid-back, fun-loving husband. “We’ve talked for twenty years, Abbs. I have nothing left to say.”

  I feel myself shaking. I need something to do, something to arrange or pack or organize.

  But he closes the suitcase, turns, and glances briefly out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the brick loft, located in an old steel mill refurbished to be stylish condominiums. The view is breathtaking, with the Atlanta skyline in the distance and Piedmont Park in the foreground, but he doesn’t seem to notice any of it.

  “Will you call me?”

  He pauses, shoulders slumped. Then he turns, and with a weariness that sends a shudder through me says, “Just give me some space, Abbs. I need some space.”

  So they’ve all left, Bill and Bobby and Jason, and here I sit in this loft. I have plenty of “space.”

  I can walk to the Piedmont Driving Club, where I play tennis twice a week, and then meander next door to the Botanical Gardens, where I volunteer. Or I can take the Beltline path in the opposite direction and in just a few short minutes be at the trendy Ponce City Market.

  Perfect location, perfect direction, with the sunlight seeping through the windows in the morning. The sunset off the back of the loft will be fiery red.

  It is all perfect, just as I wanted it to be. Horribly, horribly perfect.

  ———

  I force myself to go to my parents’ house on Sunday for the big Bartholomew-Middleton monthly gathering.

  “Hey, sis!” Ellie calls out. “How are you doing with the move?”

  I press my lips into a tight smile. “Okay. A bit overwhelmed, but okay.”

  “Where’s Bill?”

  “He’s still in Chicago.”

  “Bummer. He doesn’t usually have to stay over the weekend.”

  “Some crazy emergency,” I lie.

  Ellie gets a twinkle in her eyes as she cradles baby number six, Abigail, named after me. “You sure you’re not pregnant? You look pretty thin and worn out.”

  I’m tempted to tell her about that river running down the middle of our bed. Instead I chuckle and say, “I’m sure. Thank the Lord.” An empty nester—sons and husband all gone at once—and pregnant at forty-four? No, thank you.

  I take little Gail in my arms and coo down at her. She stares back, huge gray eyes in that tiny cream face. “She’s so lovely,” I choke out.

  And she is. My eyes w
ater, and I let the tears spill. Yes, for the joy of holding this tiny new human. And yes, for the absolute devastation I feel when I think of my life.

  ———

  The next morning I’m sitting on the tiled floor in the middle of the den area, surrounded by neatly labeled boxes. I have yet to lift a lid on any of them. I pull myself up and walk zombie-like into every room, cursing those boxes, so perfectly packed, telling me exactly what I need to know. I could put this place together alone, simple.

  But I have absolutely no desire.

  Bill has been gone for five days. No calls, no texts, no emails. No jovial voice teasing me over the distance. No one saying, “Hey, Abbs of the perfect abs, wanna meet me at the club for a workout before dinner?” No laughter, big and boisterous, coming across the line or in the door.

  At least Bobby has texted. Six words. Doing awesome in Vienna. Vienna, Mom!

  Jason is settled in his dorm, his head, I presume, tucked into a helmet at football practice.

  Alone. I feel abandoned.

  I open just one box, the one marked Cross-stitch Project. I carefully lift out a canvas, eighteen inches by two feet. William Edward Jowett is stitched in white across the bottom against a background of royal blue. Above his name I’ve stitched a beautiful oak tree with fifty green-leafed limbs, and beside the limbs are tiny replicas of all the things my husband loves: cars and computers and sports and family. I’ve almost completed the project, just a month left of stitching when I’ve been working on it for two years. Another surprise for Bill’s fiftieth birthday.

  Bill loves history; he’s traced his family back to the Huguenots in sixteenth-century France. The story of his ancestor who fled France and landed on the shores of Florida fascinates Bill. I’d planned to visit Fort Caroline next week to take photos of the Huguenot insignia on the fort and work it into the canvas.

  But will Bill even be here for his birthday, three months from now?

  A knock at the door. My heart races. Maybe it’s Bill. He’ll wrap me in his big strong arms and say, “Hey, Abbs. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

  But it’s my sister.

  Nan steps inside and takes in my surroundings. I can tell she’s trying very hard to hide her shock at the boxes, the same boxes sitting in the same position as when she stopped by a week ago.