The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey with Samantha

I tell Samantha I’m sorry I scared her. When she looks up, tears fill her eyes, and she says it’s not my fault. The lake… My stomach tightens uneasily as I wait for her to finish.

Tears roll down Samantha’s face, her voice barely above a whisper. It takes a long time before she tells me. Her parents drowned there, their boat caught in a storm. Watching me go under, she was afraid she’d lose me, too.

Samantha’s words hit me like a blow to the ribs. Now I understand her fear. I think of how kindly Samantha listened when I missed Mom, and I want to return the favor, asking what her parents were like, whether Grandmary tells her stories.

Samantha wipes her eyes, shaking her head. Grandmary never talks about them, probably missing them too much. I say it helps to talk about good memories, something Mom always tells me. Samantha agrees, but her smile carries a faraway look, and I wish I could do more.

The next morning, rain drums steadily against the windows and wakes us, and we hurry to the main house, where a fire crackles in the hearth and the admiral naps in his rocker with a book on his chest. Grandmary does needlework across from him, while delicious smells drift from the kitchen, where Mrs. Hawkins works hard on what is clearly no vacation for her.

I settle on the couch beside Samantha and Cornelia while Uncle Gard, sprawled on the bearskin rug, tells Grandmary about a city play he saw with Cornelia, then jumps up to suggest charades. Miming bound hands and straining hard as if to break free, he gets guessed as Harry Houdini. Samantha’s horseback-shooting mime, complete with an imaginary rifle, becomes Annie Oakley, sending Grandmary up next with an invisible paintbrush, guessed after a few tries as Mary Cassatt.

I know Houdini and Oakley, but not Cassatt. Samantha shows me a book of her paintings, and a small oval photo frame beside it: a dark-haired teenage girl who could be Samantha herself. It’s her mother, Lydia, she admits, blushing.

I tell Samantha she looks just like her mother, and a slow, warm smile spreads across her face. I risk one more question, really aimed at Grandmary: what was Lydia like? I glance over to find her needle paused, mouth pursed, and wait.

Finally, Grandmary sets down her needlework. Lydia was curious, happy, generous, an artist who loved watercolors and long summer days here at Piney Point, and so much like Samantha. Tears well in Samantha’s eyes, and Grandmary crosses the room to sit beside her while I excuse myself to the kitchen.

A while later, Samantha finds me and hugs me, showing me a golden brooch locket Grandmary just gave her: inside, grown-up Lydia and a dark-haired, bearded man, her father, meant to help her remember them both.

I finger my own locket, tracing the cool edge of the metal. When Samantha asks if I have family photos in mine, I admit not yet.

The next day, Hawkins helps me board the steamboat home. My last image of Samantha is her waving from the dock, brooch sparkling in the sun, Grandmary’s arm around her shoulders.

Playing with my own locket, I wonder which photos I’d choose if I could stop time to put pictures in the locket. Mom’s, Dad’s. Then I think of my stepmother, who once said this same locket helped her through a hard time. Something flutters in my chest. Did she have her own adventures here, meeting Samantha, too? Maybe when I get home, I’ll ask what she went through. She might not want to talk about it, or she might. Either way, I know now it helps, and I hope Samantha, my new friend, learns that, too.