For two weeks Josh found escape in his father’s laboratory. But escape is all it was. He was a novice among Ph.D.s. Beyond a point, performing simple tasks and observing processes he didn’t understand served more as distraction than as learning experience. The obsession he had tried to outrun soon gained on him. Meeting Calvin McCrae had made things worse.

At home, his reticence was palpable. How different from his former self, and how different from Debbie now! She, almost literally crawling into her mother’s lap, wept out her sorrow. He, though no less close to his parents, seemed condemned to finding his way out of the darkness alone. Esther and Max watched with sadness but were wise enough not to interfere.

No one was surprised when he announced he was going back to Ithaca. He had decided the night before. Because Max had a lab staff meeting, Josh drove home alone. There he sat in the garage, eyes closed, calling on his hand to transmit once more the feel of Eden’s arm. He saw the den, the kitchen, the sukkah, the streets. Eden was everywhere, smiling at him, walking with him hand in hand, talking and listening, validating his innermost thoughts. He saw the woods, the darkness riven by the parting of the clouds, and he felt Eden guiding his hand to that special place. Reminders lay in ambush round every corner. He had to get away. It didn’t occur to him that more poignant associations awaited him at the house on the lake.

No word passed between him and Calvin during his remaining time in Philadelphia.

The Ellsworths received him with quiet sympathy, and right away he wished he hadn’t come. There was the telephone, through which he’d received the devastating news five weeks before. Upstairs was his room, in which he’d slept during that magical weekend, and in which he’d received Eden. As he entered, he became lightheaded and barely made it to the bed. For a while he lay on his back, staring emptily at the ceiling. Then, closing his eyes, he turned on his side and reached across the bed. There was nothing there but the edge of the quilt. He pulled it toward him, hugged it, and let the tears that wouldn’t flow at home gush forth.

At the Ellsworths’ gentle urging, he told them what he knew of Eden’s last illness. He described the memorial service, referring to his own part in it as “saying a few words.” Of his meeting with Calvin he said nothing. Next day he resumed work on his project.

~~~~~~~~~~

Weeks went by and Calvin went about his work. A dull perfectionism and rigidity had replaced the enthusiasm he had brought to his calling on the first of July. He passed his free evenings and weekends in the library or before the television. Father Conley told him to be patient; Josh Rabin might have to go through many weeks of indecision. Finally Calvin could stand the silence no longer. A month after their meeting on Kelly Drive, he called the Rabins.

“I’m afraid Josh isn’t home. He’s in Ithaca, and I expect he’ll stay into the fall term.”

There was a silence. Esther suppressed an urge to say something encouraging to Calvin, who, she believed, needed help as much as Josh. Calvin asked, “Would it be possible to get a telephone number for him? I hate to ask this of you, but I’m very anxious to reach him.”

Esther almost gave it to him, before realizing she didn’t know if Josh wanted to be called.

“Perhaps it would be better if I told him you’d called, and let him get back to you.”

From her caution, Calvin had to infer that she knew how their meeting had ended.

Weeks passed, his hope for a return call dying bit by bit until it was extinguished. Still Father Conley advised patience. Calvin waited another month, then played his last remaining card. There was nothing to lose. He might be turned away, but at least he would have tried.

“One moment, Doctor McCrae, please.”

Soon the receptionist came back on the line. “I am sorry, Doctor Avery cannot come to the phone.”

“Is there a better time to call?”

“One moment, please.”

This moment was perceptibly shorter. “He said he’ll call you, doctor.”

For the rest of the day, Calvin was satisfied that Doctor Avery couldn’t find time to return his call ― a reasonable possibility in a busy practitioner’s workday. By the end of the next day he gave up that fond illusion. So he was surprised when the call came a week later.

“This is Doctor Avery. You called a couple of days ago.” No apologies. No courtesies.

“Thank you for calling back. I was wondering, would there be any chance of my speaking with you in person? At your convenience?”

“Does this have something to do with my daughter?”

“I really would be most grateful for—”

“It’s out of the question.” Alan’s voice was hard.

“Well, I do appreciate your calling back, and thank you.”

His words fell on a dead receiver. Calvin considered trying Mrs. Avery. Perhaps she’d be more receptive. But if she was not, she’d be sure to tell her husband he’d called. . . .

He didn’t know that a lawsuit had already been filed.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was Saturday night before Thanksgiving. Josh would go home for the holiday weekend.

He had a dream. A hockey game was under way, one team in white, the other in black. Two players, one from each team, were chasing the puck when the white-clad player lost his balance and fell. The black player captured the puck and advanced on the white goal. Right away another white player checked him into the boards. The white player, in turn, was attacked by another black, who proceeded to pummel him. In no time there were five fistfights, each pitting a black player against a white. The referees stood and watched.

Josh’s eyes wandered to the white end of the rink and saw the puck lying inches from the goal.  As he looked at it, horrified that no one cared about the scoring threat, it transformed itself into a girl. With infinite grace she skated to the battle scene, where she separated the couples, one by one, with a touch of her hand. The players backed away and regarded their opponents with bewilderment. Then, grinning sheepishly as if belatedly seeing the obvious, each black player approached his white counterpart and bowed from the waist. The organist played Weber’s “Invitation to the Dance,” and the five couples gyrated serenely around the ice.

He couldn’t make out the girl’s features, but he was sure she looked straight at him, smiling, as she skated toward the white goal. There, devoid of substance, she glided through the goaltender into the back of the net, where she disappeared.

Josh woke up with a feeling he’d forgotten existed. It could only be compared to that of a patient, long ill with a debilitating fever, who wakes up one morning to find his temperature normal and his strength restored. He threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. His vision was clear, his breath easy, his muscles powerful. Thankful that it was Sunday and he had the day to himself, he dressed and walked down to the lake. He turned toward the park where, an eon ago, he and Eden had walked and danced. After his experience on entering the Ellsworth house in August, he had avoided this place for fear of the memories it held. Now he breathed the fresh November air with gusto.

Why did he feel so good? He knew his mood had to be related to his dream, but he didn’t understand how. In his introductory psychology course there’d been a discussion of dreams, their symbolism and their relation to the unconscious mind. He immediately identified the girl as Eden. She’d appeared on ice skates and she’d smiled at him. Those were clues enough. But he’d dreamed of her often since her death, only to wake to the reality that her existence was but a dream. His mood on those occasions had been more consonant with the reality than the dream. Last night’s dream, for that matter, had been unusually explicit on the reality of her death. How else to explain her ghostlike disappearance? Yet he felt altogether different.

He racked his brain. Unable to enjoy the mood fully without understanding it, he was tortured by the idea that he was missing something important. At that moment he heard the noise of scuffling in the underbrush. Two squirrels were chasing each other in circles. One scampered up a tree, followed by the other. Up they spiraled and down again. Were they playing, fighting, or acting out a courting ritual? Maybe it didn’t matter. How different were playing and fighting anyway? Kittens chase balls of string and pounce on them. It looks like play but once adult they do the same when hunting. He returned to the dream. How closely dancing had followed on fighting, as if inseparable like two movements of one symphony! Fighting, playing, loving ― wasn’t the couple dance a euphemism for lovemaking? ― all of them forms of engagement invested with emotion. Perhaps that was why one led so readily to the other.

It was all very interesting, but still his reaction was disproportionate. A pleasant dream puts one in a good mood, but what he’d felt was nothing less than therapeutic. As his conscious mind was thus engaged, the unconscious took charge of his next action, one that he was far from ready to take deliberately. Returning to the dormitory, with no more hesitation than if he were calling home to say hello, he dialed Cresheim Valley Hospital.

“He’s off this weekend, according to the schedule.  No, wait a minute, I think he switched with Doctor Albo.” A pause. “Yes, he’s here. Hold on, please.”

“Doctor McCrae here,” came the voice he recognized.

“This is Josh Rabin. I’m calling from Ithaca, but I’ll be in town for the holiday. I was wondering if you’d like to get together again.”

“I’d love to. I’m on call till noon Saturday. Then I’m free.”

“Saturday’s fine. Maybe we can meet in the same place, by the statues. Two o’clock?”

“I’ll be there, rain or shine.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When Calvin finally reached Father Conley by phone, his voice gave him away.

“Why, hello, son. Is my imagination out of control, or do I hear music?”

Calvin laughed. “You see right through me even over the telephone. Josh Rabin called, all the way from Ithaca. Said he’d like to get together over Thanksgiving.”

“What a wonderful occasion for a meeting. God’s ways aren’t mysterious at all. I hope I can prevail on you to give thanks. This is a real gift. You agreed to meet, of course?”

“I’ll give thanks, and I’ll pray for guidance. God knows I need it. Of course I agreed. And I want to thank you too, Father. Without your support I’d have given up long ago.”

“If you had more faith, you wouldn’t be so dependent on me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I don’t know what made me do it,” Josh said to his parents. “One day I was going round in circles; the next I went to the telephone as if it were the most natural thing.”

“What happened in between?” asked his father.

“Nothing, except for a strange dream. When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was how different I felt. Then I tried to interpret the dream, but I couldn’t fit it together.”

He described the dream. Debbie immediately said, “That was Edie, of course.”

“That’s what I thought too. But so what? How does that explain anything?”

“Maybe she was telling you to call Doctor McCrae.”

“What? By breaking up fights on the ice?”

Esther broke in. “We’ll never know. But I’m glad you came to that decision. And I think that’s what Edie would have wanted you to do. So maybe the dream was a message.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The sun shone out of a cloudless sky on their second rendezvous. With no hesitation they headed for the same stone bench they had sat on three months ago. The ease of their greeting belied the length of that interval and the uncertainty that they would ever speak again. It was as if, all the while denying it even to themselves, they had known this meeting would happen.

“Did you think all along that I would call you?” Josh asked.

“I wish I could say yes, but that would be a lie. I don’t have the kind of faith that defies reason. But Father Conley saw it coming, because he kept on telling me to be patient.”

“Father Conley must be quite a man. Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to meet him.”

“I’d love for you to, but could I ask one question? How did you come to this decision? Did you talk with your minister, like I did? I bet Ms. Meld is very encouraging.”

Josh laughed. “Mrs. Meld isn’t my minister. Nor the Averys’. They don’t go to church. They made a special arrangement for the memorial service. I’m Jewish, and I guess my minister is Rabbi Stern, but we don’t go much either. No, my consolation and counsel come from my parents, and my sister. I must be the luckiest guy in the world to have a family like that. After you called me the first time and left that message, I didn’t know what to do, so I asked Mom. She looked at me and asked, ‘What would Edie have you do?’ That did it.”

“What a wonderful thing to say! It’s easy to see where your generosity comes from.”

“But I wasn’t ready to do anything except listen. I didn’t want to get involved with whatever you were thinking about. I had too much bearing down on me; it was too soon.”

“I was selfish, I know that now. I was too taken with my own needs to think about yours. There’s so much I need to learn.”

“Time has passed, and I’ve come to accept what can’t be changed,” Josh said. “But I still haven’t answered your question. To tell the truth, I can’t. All those months I’d been asking myself, should I call? And finding no answer. Then, when I did, it wasn’t a decision. All the thinking had nothing to do with it. It was as if I were being guided by a different force. I had a strange dream that night, and when I woke I felt changed.”

“I think,” Calvin said softly, “Father Conley would say God had spoken to you.”

First Eden, now God. “Who knows?”

“Every day that went by after we met,” Calvin said, “I became more convinced your rejection was final, because I didn’t hear from you. I tried to call you, and your mother said you’d gone back upstate. She said she’d let you know—”

“She did tell me. It bothered me, because it seemed I should make some kind of response and I didn’t know what. So I let it slide. Anyway, we can talk now.”

“The one thing I’m sure of is that I want to keep communication open with you. If I’m ever going to get through to the Averys, it’s got to be through you. I don’t see any other way.”

“Get through? To do what?”

“We’re all suffering ― each in our own way. If only there were a way to come together, to support each other, how that would ease the misery for us all!”

“We’re not without support, you know.”

“Strictly speaking, I’m not either. But it’s not enough for any of us. I deserve the Averys’ anger, and yours, but surely anger gets in the way of healing. You knew that when you said, at the service, ‘let us not be angry.’ It’s my duty, to them, to you, and to myself, to take the first steps toward healing. I need a chance to do something meaningful. Only, what can you do to take away the pain of such a loss? How can you give meaning to it, so there isn’t just this gaping hole?”

Josh turned his head in Calvin’s direction and, sensing the movement, Calvin faced him. For the first time since they had started talking, their eyes met.

“You really are serious about this, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Can you help me? Will you?”

“What can I do that Father Conley can’t? Have you tried to speak with the Averys?”

“I called Doctor Avery, but he cut me off. I can’t say I was surprised.”

They sat in silence for a full minute, separately absorbed in contemplation of the water.

“I don’t have any ideas,” Josh said. “But I believe you. Maybe we can work together. You talked about giving meaning to Eden’s death. I remember her for her life, but even in death she’s left me with something priceless. Is it possible to create something of benefit for others too? She would have liked that.” His eyes glazed over and his voice broke. “She felt as if she were embracing the world. I heard her say it.”

“How I wish I had known her,” Calvin said. “What can we do? What can we do?”

Josh regained his composure. “Let’s both think about it. I’m going back to Ithaca tomorrow, but I’ll be home for the Christmas break. We can talk some more then.”

“I can’t thank you enough. You’ve opened a door to me. I promise you won’t regret it.”

Josh produced a piece of paper and wrote on it. “Here’s my number in Ithaca.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Josh had not described his dream to Calvin. In the weeks that followed, however, it came back to him repeatedly. Like a faithful dog trying to show its master where a child lay injured, the dream beckoned Josh. “Follow me, I know where you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

Its meaning was not revealed in a flash. Rather, the scene in which the players backed away from fighting and came back to dance replayed itself over and over, each time more vividly. One day, fully awake, he conceived a new rule for  hockey that required any pair of players who were fighting to switch to dancing at the blow of the whistle or be ejected from the game.

Daydream! But it wouldn’t leave him alone. The dog’s tail was wagging. “This way!”

Where? What did hockey have to do with anything? Maybe Calvin could help. He was older, more educated, more experienced.

Unfortunately, Calvin’s attention had been diverted.