by Pam Webber
“Nettie, are you awake?”
Silhouetted in the doorway stood Pastor Williams, hat in hand, brown suit baggy on his thin, aging frame.
“Yes, sir.”
“I know it’s late. Do you mind if I come in?”
“No, sir.”
Pastor Williams flipped on the small, frosted light behind the bed and laid his hat on the bedside table. “Miss Howe seemed to think this would be a good time to come. I’ve wanted to talk with you since you were admitted, but every time I stopped by, you had a room full of visitors.”
“Yes, sir. Folks just want to know I’m okay.”
“Of course.” He pulled a straight-backed chair close to the bed and sat, propping one leg on the other. “Are you okay?”
Nettie studied his wrinkled, sun-spotted face. He wasn’t asking about her broken leg and bruises. “Most of the time. Days are easier to get through.”
“I would imagine. From what I understand, you went through hours of hell during that flood.”
“Yes, sir.” At least he wasn’t skirting around what had happened. Most visitors hesitated to bring it up and got uncomfortable if she tried to. They’d use empty words of encouragement and make a quick departure. Andy and Win understood, but they had to leave when visiting hours were over.
“Miss Howe told me you’re having some bad dreams.”
“It’s not like they’re a secret. I wake up this end of the hall every night.”
“That has to be hard on you.”
“And them.” Nettie pointed to her leg. “Linda, Miss Howe, says as soon as the swelling is down, they’re going to cast my leg and I can go home. I’ll sleep better then.”
“Sleep takes us to a vulnerable place, doesn’t it?”
Nettie glanced at her dreamcatcher leaning in the corner. Since the flood, it hadn’t done its job. Maybe the legend was just that, or maybe the blood moon had taken everything it had to offer. Win had cleaned it, replaced missing feathers, and wiped the wood with walnut oil. Except for some gouges and scrapes in the ring, it showed little evidence of their treacherous journey.
“That is quite a piece of art. May I?” Pastor Williams held the ring up to the light to study the sinew webbing and amethyst. “I’ve heard of these but have never had an opportunity to examine one up close. Tell me about it.”
Given their history, offering the good pastor a lesson of any kind made Nettie nervous.
“It’s okay. We’re never too old to learn about something new, or, in this case, about something old.”
“I just need to remember how Nibi explained it.”
“Nibi? That name sounds familiar.”
“She’s Win’s grandmother—or was. She’s gone. The flood.” Nettie couldn’t bring herself to use the word “died”; its edges were too sharp and the loss too fresh. “She was the Monacans’ medicine woman.”
“Did you know her well?”
“Yes, sir. Very well.”
“I’ve heard tell of her. The pastor of the Oak’s Landing Baptist Church was a friend of mine. He said she seldom missed a Sunday and that she’d sprinkle tobacco or sage on a large stone that sat at the bottom of their hill every time she came.”
“That’s her. Nibi’s father built that church. The tobacco was to honor him.”
“Traditions are important. Was the dreamcatcher a tradition of hers as well?”
“Yes, sir. Win and I made ones just like hers.”
“Was it difficult?”
“Very.” Step by step, Nettie explained the meaning of the different parts of the dreamcatcher and what she and Win had to do to collect them. “Nibi showed us how to put all the pieces together.”
Pastor Williams propped the dreamcatcher on his bent knee. “Sounds as if you two had quite the summer adventure.”
“Yes, sir. We learned a lot.”
“I understand you had this with you the night of the flood. That it helped save your life.”
Pastor Williams waited and watched as Nettie struggled to control a surge of emotions. “So many people died. Good people.”
“Tragically, yes.” He handed Nettie a tissue and softened his voice to match hers. “People do not live or die in natural disasters because they lived good or bad lives. You know grace can’t be earned.”
“Yes, sir. I know.” The flashing red lights of a silent ambulance passed under her window. “But why me? Why did I survive and they didn’t?”
“Survivors have asked that question for thousands of years, and we still don’t have an answer. Grace as we know it defies our ability to reason. However, that doesn’t make it any less real.”
“The guilt is real too.”
“Did you cause the flood?”
Nettie’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Did you fail to save people you could have saved?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you save yourself at the expense of someone else?”
“No.”
“Guilt has no place in an innocent heart, Nettie. It’s a burden you need not carry.”
Footsteps and muffled voices grew louder, then faded, as the nurses completed their rounds. Linda gave Nettie a little wave when she passed.
“I’m glad she’s here for you.”
“Me too.”
“When there is so much sadness to deal with, it’s important to have people around whom you can count on.” Pastor Williams sounded as if he were talking to himself more than to her; the lines in his face deepened. “I owe you an apology, Nettie. My heart isn’t innocent when it comes to the situation with you and Mr. Danes. I’m guilty of holding so tight to the mindset that you were not ready for baptism and that he could accomplish what I hadn’t. I failed to see the truth about both of you, even when it was right in front of me. I put you in harm’s way, and for that I’m truly sorry. Forgive me?”
“Done.” Nettie smoothed the bedspread covering her lap over and over. “Truth is, I learned a lot from Mr. Danes before everything went bad.”
“It’s not unusual for good and bad to live in the same person.”
“Chief Brannon said that bad can’t exist without good any more than good can exist without bad.”
“Chief Brannon? Is that the Dr. Brannon who runs the clinic on Bear Mountain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t realize he was also chief of the Monacans. He sounds wise.” Pastor Williams spun the amethyst. Even in the dim light, it sparkled. “Light is interesting, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just as good cannot exist without bad, light cannot exist without darkness.”
Nettie leaned forward to touch the white and black feathers covering the dreamcatcher’s portal. “That’s what these are supposed to symbolize, like opposite sides of the same face. Nibi said they’re meant to remind us that we have a choice.”
“Another wise person. Life certainly gives us plenty of opportunities to make all the wrong choices, doesn’t it?”
Nettie untied one of the owl feathers and handed it to him. “Just in case you ever need some help.”
“Thank you.” Pastor Williams twirled the feather by its quill. “I regret not having met Nibi, but I’ll make a point of seeking out Chief Brannon.”
“What’s going to happen to Mr. Danes?”
“He’s going to be in jail for quite a while, perhaps for the rest of his life, not only for what he tried to do to you, but police discovered that he’d been involved in similar situations in and around New Orleans. When the courts finish with him here, he’ll be extradited there to face charges.”
“Did you go see him?”
“I did. And I’ll go again.”
“Good. He needs your kind of help.”
“And he needs yours.”
Nettie studied her wiggling toes through the pulley lines and traction bars. “Are you saying I need to do more than forgive him?”
“He’d like to talk with you.”
“I know what h
e wants.”
“I’d like to think remorse, an apology, and forgiveness have something to do with it, but I don’t know for sure. However, my primary concern is you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Things left unspoken can haunt us for a lifetime.”
The idea of meeting Danes face-to-face wasn’t intimidating, but getting answers to the what-if questions that haunted her nights were. “I need to think about it.”
“Good. Talk it over with your parents. It won’t be easy for them either, regardless of what you decide. If you all would like to talk with me about it, just say so.” He glanced at his watch. “My goodness. It’s after midnight.” Standing, he steadied himself against the bedside table. “Best you try to get a little sleep.”
Nettie had never viewed him as frail before. “Pastor?”
“Yes?”
“You know most of the pranks around the church over the past few years were my idea?”
“I do.”
“Forgive me?”
“Done.” He held out his hand. “Pray with me?”
Nettie took his hand and bowed her head as familiar words took on new meaning.
“Father God, you see the heavy laden among us and call them to you. You assume the burden of the willing and offer rest for their bodies and souls. Grant us the wisdom to hear Your call and accept Your gifts, for You are the strength by which a shattered world moves from darkness into light. Amen.”
“Amen.”
Pastor Williams retrieved his hat, then kissed Nettie’s forehead. “Sleep well, child.”
As his shadow disappeared down the hall, moonlight hit the amethyst, painting the whitewashed walls violet. Maybe the dreamcatcher had done what Nibi intended it to do all along. Nettie drifted off to sleep as Linda pulled the door closed.
Nettie slid the eraser side of a pencil under the edge of her cast, angling it to reach the spot that wouldn’t stop itching.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?” Linda leaned against the door, one hand on her hip, a paper bag in the other.
“It itches.”
“Then do what I told you to do: scratch your other leg in the same spot.”
“This feels better.”
“You’ve done too well to risk getting an infection under that cast.” Linda pocketed the pencil and took Nettie’s small suitcase from the wardrobe. “Are you excited about going home?”
“I can’t wait. Mom and Dad are letting Andy and Win pick me up.”
“I can understand why. They’ve been here every day. Have you been practicing walking with the crutches?”
“Yes. They’re a pain in the ass.”
“Quit complaining. You’re up and mobile.” Linda laid Nettie’s dreamcatcher on the table. “Don’t forget this.”
“Not a chance.” Nettie fingered the white arrowhead. “What’s the count now?” She dreaded the answer but asked the question every day. Linda didn’t hide anything from her like some of the others did. “Healing starts with the truth,” she’d said.
Linda kept packing Nettie’s things. “Over one hundred seventy so far, most from Nelson County, others from all over central Virginia. Most bodies have been identified, but some not. The coroner thinks some of the unknowns were just traveling through or were migrant workers coming in to harvest apples. Thirty-some are still missing. Officials think they were either buried in the mud or washed downriver. They’ve found bodies as far away as the Chesapeake Bay.”
For a moment, Nettie felt the choking panic of catapulting through the raging water. She nodded at the memory, then packed it away. It served no purpose to give that nightmare more of her life than it had already taken. “Have they settled on exactly how much rain fell?”
“The number changes almost daily, depending on which expert is weighing in. Most sources are saying the hardest-hit areas of Nelson County got over forty inches in six hours. The Weather Bureau said it was the highest amount of rainfall considered theoretically possible. Areas west of there, like Glasgow, Buena Vista, and Waynesboro, got up to twenty or so. All told, it was almost a billion tons of water, remnants of Hurricane Camille no one saw coming.”
“Camille? Wasn’t that the hurricane that hit the Gulf coast?”
“Uh-huh. Apparently, the massive clouds held together all the way up to Virginia, then let loose. Observers said the clouds were so black, they looked green.”
“The storm came out of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Linda stopped packing. “That’s right.”
Nettie continued, as if talking to herself. “The water in the gulf isn’t blue; it’s green. That’s why they call it the Emerald Coast.” She’d grown up spending summer vacations in the southern Wiregrass and swimming in those beautiful waters.
Linda waited and watched.
Nibi had known the darkness had an emerald aura but hadn’t realized the danger was coming from a thousand miles away, nor that it would appear in the form of an inland hurricane. No wonder she hadn’t been able to identify it.
“Are you okay?” Linda asked.
Coming back to the here and now, Nettie nodded. “Just putting the last pieces of a puzzle together.”
Linda closed Nettie’s suitcase and set it by the door. Retrieving the brown bag, she handed it to Nettie. “I have a little going-home present for you.”
Nettie pulled out a book with worn edges; a picture of a young nurse covered the front. “Cherry Ames.”
“A few days ago, you asked me why I decided to become a nurse. When I was growing up, this was one of my favorite books.”
“This helped you decide?”
“It raised the possibility. What made me decide were the nurses and doctors in the MASH unit that saved my brother’s life in Vietnam.”
“What’s a MASH unit?”
“Mobile army surgical hospital. The nurses and doctors work close to the fighting so they can treat the wounded faster. I’ve worked with the National Guard for the past year but move to regular Army next month. I ship out on the first.”
“Where are you going?”
“Vietnam. Third Surgical Hospital.”
Nettie knew very little about war, except that her uncle Jack had died in World War II and several young men from Amherst had been killed in Southeast Asia. “Be careful.”
“I will. You too.”
“Thank you. Not just for the book, but for everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Linda gave Nettie a long hug. “Here’s my forwarding address. Keep in touch. Let me know what you decide about college.”
“I will.”
“Linda?”
“Yes.”
“Keep your head down.”
Ethan helped Nettie onto the orange swivel stool at Howell’s lunch counter, then propped her crutches in the corner.
“How much longer do you have to use them?”
“I get a walking cast next week, just in time to start school. Two weeks after that, they’ll cut it off and I’ll be free.”
“If I didn’t know what you’d been through, I would never have guessed. You look great.”
“Thanks. Outside work is done. The inside stuff is coming along pretty well too.”
“Sleeping?”
“No more nightmares, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It was.”
The waitress placed small glasses of water and utensils in front of them, then took their orders.
Nettie gave Ethan a surprise hug. “I want to thank you again for what you did that night. If you hadn’t told Andy what was going on, I don’t think I’d be here.”
“You never know. Fate has a big toolbox. If one thing doesn’t work, I’m pretty sure it will try something else.”
“Since when did you become such a philosopher?”
“Since I came here. This summer changed a lot of things for me.”
“Your mom and dad?”
Ethan nodded. “They called last night. They didn’t tell
us, in case it didn’t work out, but they’ve been back together for the past few weeks.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I think it was Grams who pulled them back from the edge. They even talk differently now, like they did when Cal and I were younger. It’s as if they forgot how for a while.”
“I’m sure your grandmother is happy.”
“Ecstatic. It’s not been an easy summer for her either.”
“Did you know she came to see me in the hospital?”
“No, but I’m not surprised. What did she have to say?”
“That she was glad you and I were friends. That sometimes friends keep each other from falling down without getting in the way.”
“That old gal is one smart lady.”
“You did the same for me.” Nettie sipped her water. “She also gave me a present.”
“What?”
“A plaque she used to have on her desk when I was in elementary school. It says SEE THE INVISIBLE, BELIEVE THE UNBELIEVABLE, AND RECEIVE THE IMPOSSIBLE.”
Ethan laughed. “Cal and I have the same plaque in our rooms at home.”
Nettie laughed. “And here I thought she gave it to me because I was special.”
“She did. And you are. She gives it to people she cares about. Always has.”
“I bet she’s going to miss you and Cal terribly.”
“That goes both ways. We want her to come back to California with us, but she thinks we need time together as a family. My folks asked her to consider moving there, but she said no.”
“Why?”
“Because Amherst is her home. Her memories of my grandfather are here. They were childhood sweethearts. They raised my dad in that house and celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary there the summer before he died.”
“Forever love.”
“What?”
“Something I’ve spent the better part of the summer trying to figure out.”
“And?”
“Still working on it.”
“Andy’s a lucky guy.”
“I’m the lucky one. It just took me a while to realize it. You have a friend there too, you know.”
