The Effects of Light by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Author:Miranda Beverly-Whittemore [BEVERLY-WHITTEMORE, MIRANDA]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780446533843
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Now Myla sat and tried to piece these ideas together. She could sense David’s ideas circling high above her, just out of reach, but that was even more frustrating than when she’d felt nothing pulling her at all. He seemed to be thinking about realism, or about how art depicted life. Every way she tried to put it in her mind, it felt trite, already examined. Maybe her father had just been a good man without good ideas.

She wished so much more for him. She was angry that this was all he’d left her. She wanted to give up, to forget the whole project. “But,” she thought, “I’m the only person up to the task. I’m the only one willing to listen. And here I am, alone with his notebook, with time on my hands and a willingness to work, and I can’t understand any of it.” She’d given it her all. The stuff she could understand fascinated, interested, enlightened her, but she knew she didn’t have the facts to string them all together. To get at his inner argument. It made her madder than hell.

She shoved away from the desk and grabbed her bag, feeling inside to make sure her wallet was there. She’d make the four-minute walk to the student center, buy some chips and a drink, try to clear her head. She grabbed David’s notebook and stuffed it in the bag, then berated herself for bending one of the corners. Even if it felt as though David were keeping her from something vital, even if she wanted to yell at him as she had when he was alive, the least helpful thing she could possibly do was to punish the only physical object currently tying them together. As she pushed open the library door, her right hand flattened the new crease, trying to ease it back into its original smoothness.

She sighed. The day was bright, brisk, easy. Light was everywhere, reminding her of her attempts to explain to all those lifelong easterners the joys that came with Oregon sunshine. Because you weren’t just getting sun when the Oregon sky was wide and blue; you were getting opposition to rain. It was a double benefit. As a child, she’d thought everyone lived this way, that light always came in layers: first you didn’t have to have rain anymore, then you got to have sun.

Myla turned right across the grass and startled a bird pecking in its depths. Normally she wouldn’t have noticed, but the bird hastened up before her and transformed into light itself—the wings and tail glowed from behind, carrying the sun and the golden disposition of the day. She gasped, and this startled her, her own gasping. Because now, standing stock-still, she realized she was gasping from beauty and beauty only. Yesterday she’d noticed distinct leaves, and now there was this beautiful bird. She was seeing things.

Myla heard quiet steps behind her and turned just as a middle-aged man with rolled-up shirtsleeves and wire-rimmed glasses began to tap her on the shoulder.

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