“No, keep them for yourself. It can be your story.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said her mother. “Harper gave us an advance on the strength of your writing. I can’t write about your adventure the way you can.”
“It’s too early to know what story to tell.”
“You should at least keep copies of what you write. So you have material to work from.”
Barbara hoisted her typewriter off her lap and scooted to the edge of her bunk. “If it’s about money, I can contribute my royalties.”
“Don’t you understand? You’ve got to make good on that advance.”
“You can do it. I’ll save copies of what I write for you.”
“I have to sell articles to keep us going. And you’re the one with the reputation.”
Barbara burned with shame at the thought of mentioning her father’s advice about her next writing project. Why admit to honoring his counsel? Besides, explaining that would surely send her mother off on another rant about her father, and then they’d end up in that old tar pit. “I just don’t feel any inspiration,” she told her mother.
“Why do you need inspiration? What you’ve already written is lovely.”
“I need time to think about it.”
“It’s the signed contract you need to think about.”
“I can’t stand you pressuring me, Mother,” she said. “I’m going up top.”
She stepped out of the cabin and climbed the stairs to the deck. Standing at the rail, she gazed to the north. Her father was in New York City. Now that she was far away and out of reach, surely he missed her. Her new adventures would surpass all the hikes and canoe trips she’d shared with him. He’d read her letters and regret all he was missing: Hadn’t he told her their outings never failed to awaken his own carefree, plucky side? And it’d undoubtedly grieve him that it was her mother, and not him, striking out with her on this bold undertaking. Good, let him go green with envy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NINE MONTHS EARLIER—BARBARA AT THIRTEEN
New Haven, December 1927
Barbara imagined how they looked to others—she and her father skating the ice pond perimeter, their faces thrust into the chill air, arms swinging loosely, legs flexing in unison. Anyone would surmise they were practiced partners. Ah, she liked nothing more than Saturdays with her father.
Only she hadn’t had enough of them lately.
As they eased out of a turn, she asked, “Won’t you stay for the New Year, Daddy?”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t.”
“You never used to work over the Christmas holiday.”
“That’s not true.” Steam puffed out of his mouth and trailed behind him. “I always worked on my articles during breaks.”
“But the house feels dreadfully lonely without you.” Her father had been taking the train back and forth every day for his job in New York, but over the last several months, he’d started staying there full weeks and sometimes weekends, too.
“Editors are expected to be in their offices,” he said. “There’s unending correspondence to manage. Meetings to attend.”
Barbara slowed her pace. “And I don’t see why you and Mother needle each other all the time.”
Her father straightened out of his forward-leaning pitch. “It’s hard to explain. Sometimes people grow apart.”
“If you didn’t spend so much time in New York, you wouldn’t grow apart. I can hear you arguing, you know.”
“I’m sorry. You and Sabra are very dear to me, but marriage has a life of its own.”
“How can you say that? Sabra and I count on both of you. But all you do is bicker.”
“You’re right, of course. This endless arguing is intolerable.”
The Hamilton Park rink resonated with the click and bite of many blades on ice. A chain of youngsters whipped around a curve, squealing with delight. Barbara took her father’s arm. “Then tell me you’ll stay for the New Year.”
He said nothing, and Barbara could tell from his straight-ahead stare that he’d not relent. She dug her skates into the ice and sped ahead, leaning into the turn at the pond’s oblong end.
Her father caught up with her, took her hand, and tucked it under his arm. “I’m so proud of my little author. One book published and another on the way.”
Barbara smiled thinly and slowed to his pace.
He asked, “What’ll you write next?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, it’s time you considered that.”
They skated in silence around the rink. Bare elm branches stood out against the lead-gray sky, clinking in the wind like twisted strips of metal. She’d worked up a warm sweat, but as they slowed, the clamminess of her clothing chilled her. “I’m hungry, Daddy.”
“Okay, sport.” He steered them toward the changing bench. They traded their skates for boots and headed for her father’s Lincoln L. He hooked his arm around her shoulder and said, “Let’s go to Louis’ Lunch for a hamburger.”
✭
Barbara sat across from her father at the diner’s long bar table, relishing the steamy atmosphere. Once they ordered, she leaned over her forearms and asked, “Where do novelists get their ideas?”
“That is one of literature’s great mysteries, my dear, debated by ancients and modernists alike.” In one smooth move, her father shook a Lucky Strike out of its pack. He lit it, drew in, and exhaled a spout of smoke. “Might creativity be the kiss of divinity? Can a pure and god-like love spark inspiration?”
“You make it sound like ideas come from God. That doesn’t sound very agnostic.”
“No, certainly not,” he chuckled. “Let’s simply say from muses.”
“You’re my muse, Daddy.”
“Nonsense, I’m no muse.” He flapped his hand like he was batting a fly. “But I’ll tell you this: What a writer makes of his ideas can’t be slovenly like a dream. They must be tamed into words and driven by purpose. The novelist should be a sure-footed guide through some sharply conceived world. He must entice the reader to embark on a quest by filling him with wonder and questions, and then he must bring him to some inevitable terminus.”
“Was The House Without Windows slovenly? Because it was like a dream, wasn’t it?”
“I’m
