The Twelve

24

Wolgast had come to Amy at last. He had come to her in dreams.

They were sometimes in one place and sometimes another. They were stories of things that had happened, events and feelings from the past replayed; they were a jumble, a pastiche, an overlap of images that in their reconfiguration felt entirely new. They were her life, her past and present commingling, and they occupied her consciousness with such completeness that upon awakening she would startle to discover herself existing in a simple reality of firm objects and ordered time. It was as if the waking world and the sleeping world had exchanged positions, the latter possessing a superseding vividness that did not abate as she moved into the traces of her day. She would be pouring water from a pot, or reading to the children in circle, or sweeping leaves in the courtyard and without warning her mind would drown with sensation, as if she had slipped beneath the surface of the visible world into the currents of an underground river.

A carousel, its gyring lights and ringing, bell-like music falling. A taste of cold milk and the dust of powdered sugar on her lips. A room of blue light, her mind floating with fever, and the sound of a voice—Wolgast’s voice— gently leading her out of the darkness.

Come back to me, Amy, come back.

Most powerful of all was the dream of the room: dirty, stale-smelling, clothing scattered in piles, containers of old food atop every surface, a television blaring with meaningless cruelty in the corner, and the woman Amy understood to be her mother—she experienced this awareness with a gush of hopeless longing—moving through the cramped space with panicked energy, scooping things from the floor, tossing them into sacks. Come on, honey, wake up now. Amy, we got to go. They were leaving, her mother was leaving, the world had cleaved in two with Amy on one side of the gap and her mother on the opposite, the moment and its sentiments of parting unnaturally prolonged, as if she were watching her mother from the stern of a boat as it sailed away from the pier. She understood that it was here, in this room, that her life had actually begun. That she was witnessing a kind of birth.

But it wasn’t just the two of them. Wolgast was there as well. This made no sense; Wolgast had entered her life later. Yet the logic of the dream was such that his presence was intrinsically unremarkable; Wolgast was there because he was. At first Amy experienced his presence not as a bodily reality but a vaporous glow of emotion hovering over the scene. The more she felt her mother moving away from her, into a private urgency Amy neither shared nor comprehended—something terrible had happened—the more vivid became her sense of him. A deep calm infused her; she watched with a feeling of detachment, knowing that these events, which seemed to be occurring in a vivid present, had actually happened long ago. She was simultaneously experiencing them for the first time while also remembering them—she was both actor and observer—with the anomaly of Wolgast, whom she now discovered was sitting on the edge of the bed, her mother nowhere to be seen. He was wearing a dark suit and tie; his feet were bare. He was gazing absorbedly at his hands, which he held before him with the tips of his fingers touching. Here is the church, he intoned, weaving all but his index fingers together, and here is the steeple. Open the door—his thumbs separated to reveal his wriggling digits—and see all the people. Amy, hello.

—Hello, she said.

I am sorry I have been away. I’ve missed you.

—I’ve missed you, too.

The space around them had altered; the room had dispersed into a darkness in which only the two of them existed, like a pair of actors on a spotlit stage.

Something is changing.

—Yes. I think that it is.

You will need to go to him, Amy.

—Who? Who should I go to?

He’s different from the others. I could see it the first time I laid eyes on him. A glass of iced tea. That was all he wanted, to cool himself off in the heat. He loved that woman with his whole heart. But you know that, too, don’t you, Amy?

—Yes.

An ocean of time, that’s what I told him. That’s what I can give you, Anthony, an ocean of time. A sudden bitterness came into his face. I always did hate Texas, you know.

He had yet to look at her; Amy sensed that the conversation neither required nor even allowed this. Then:

I was thinking just now about the camp. The two of us, reading together, playing Monopoly. Park Place, Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens. You always beat me.

—I think you let me.

Wolgast chuckled to himself. No, it was always you, fair and square. And Jacob Marley. A Christmas Carol, that was your favorite. I think you had the whole book memorized. Do you remember?

—I remember all of it. The day it snowed. Making the snow angels.

He wore the chains he forged in life. Wolgast frowned in sudden puzzlement. It was such a sad story.

Here was the river, Amy thought. The great, coursing river of the past.

I could have gone on that way forever. Wolgast angled his eyes upward, addressing the darkness. Lila, don’t you see? This was what I wanted. It was all I ever wanted. Then: Do you… know this place, Amy?

—I don’t think it’s anywhere. I think that I’m asleep.

He considered these words with a faint nod. Well. That does sound right to me. Now that you say it, that makes a lot of sense. He took a long breath and let the air out slowly. It’s strange. There’s so much I can’t remember. That’s what it’s like, you know. Like there’s only this little bit of yourself you get to keep. But things are coming clearer now.

—I miss you, Daddy.

I know you do. I miss you, too, sweetheart, more than you’ll ever know. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than I was with you. I wish I could have saved you, Amy.

—But you did. You saved me.

You were just a little girl, alone in the world. I never should have let them take you. I tried, but not hard enough. That’s the real test, you know. That’s the true measure of a man’s life. I was always too afraid. I hope you can forgive me.

A wave of sorrow broke inside her. How she longed to comfort him, to take him in her arms. Yet she knew that if she attempted this, were she to move even one step closer, the dream would dissolve, and she would be alone again.

—I do. Of course I do. There’s nothing to forgive.

There’s so much I never told you. He was staring intently at his hands. About Lila, and Eva. Our own little girl. You were so much like her.

—You didn’t have to, Daddy. I knew, I knew. I always knew.

You filled my heart, Amy. That’s what you did for me. You filled the place where Eva had been. But I couldn’t save you any more than I could save her.

As if these words had willed it, the image of the room had begun to recede, the space between the two of