Riverstorm

by Tess Thompson

  This was a great man. A man to admire and trust. My father. His blood runs through my veins. I can be a great man too.

  Mike tossed a twig stranded on the rock into the water. “This community’s been my life’s work. Our town died along with the timber industry. All the young people left. Families couldn’t live here because there was no work. But three years ago, some of us made a vow to change the reality. Together. We dreamed big—turn a dead timber town into a thriving tourist destination. No one thought we could do it. But look around. We did what no one said we could. And it was all because my gut told me it could be done. That’s the thing, kid. We limit ourselves because our imaginations aren’t big enough. Don’t let other people’s limitations define yours.”

  “My dad’s voice follows me everywhere I go. ‘You’re a loser’ is mostly what he says. I’ve spent a lot of years trying to prove him wrong.”

  “Well, you’ve done that. So now you don’t have to anymore,” Mike said. “Now my voice can replace his. I know it won’t happen overnight. I have a lot of years to make up for. All the baseball games and fishing trips and help with your homework, those are gone. But I can be here now for whatever comes next. Whatever it is, I want it to be my voice saying you’re smart and strong and loved. I’m proud of you, son.”

  “I’d like that too,” Grant whispered.

  “I’m hotter than hell. You want to try the rope?” Mike pointed up at the rope swing on the cliff.

  “Heck, yeah.” The sun was hot on the middle of Grant’s back and shoulders. He dove into the clear, cold water and swam to shore. He followed Mike up the dirt path to the swing.

  “Let me show you how it’s done.” Mike gripped the rope between his hands and pushed away from the bank. As he soared out over the water, he wrapped his feet around the rope. In the middle of the river, he let go and, for one glorious second, seemed to hang suspended in the air before dropping into the water. A great splash. A roar of bubbles. He disappeared. Bubbles gushed to the surface like a great volcano erupting lava. Waves of water rolled away from the point of entry until the water became almost still, ripples near the shore the only proof that a man had just entered the deep green pool.

  Grant held his breath. A second ticked by. Another. Come up. Come up. He grabbed the rope. It was slippery against his fingers. He wouldn’t be able to hold on. He would fall too near the shore.

  Mike popped out of the water, twisting his head in one strong movement to rid water from his hair. He shouted out to Grant. “Still colder than a witch’s tit.”

  Suddenly, Grant was eight years old. There was no scar on his shoulder, only the grass under his feet and the sun on his back and the swing that would take him to the river. To his father. He gripped the rope. It was rough. Not slippery at all. He pushed away from shore and bellowed the sound of the young and wild. He was Tarzan swinging through the jungle. Nothing could hurt him. He was smart and strong and loved. He let go and plunged into the deep green. As he sank in slow motion, he opened his eyes. The sun illuminated every bubble. He was weightless.

  This water was where he belonged. This river. This land. This man. You’re family, son.

  I belong here. Not partner. Not L.A. Here. With my father. With Lizzie.

  He rose to the surface. Mike was there, treading water.

  “I was Tarzan.” Grant shook the water from his hair.

  “Not Jungle Boy?”

  “Next time.”

  **

  He and Lizzie lay in the hotel room bed, damp with perspiration and breathing hard. “Are you trying to kill me?” she asked. “I have a delicate disposition.”

  “There was nothing delicate about what you just did.” He pulled her close and wiped perspiration from the tip of her nose.

  “What we just did.”

  “If I asked you, would you marry me?” he asked.

  She rolled to her side and tucked her hands under her cheek. “Are you truly ready?”

  “I’ve been ready for twelve years.”

  “Then a thousand times, yes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Liz

  AFTER GRANT HAD left that morning for Mike’s, Liz stayed in bed watching the sunlight dance on the ceiling. She replayed the night before over and over, wondering at times if it was real. Finally, knowing that she couldn’t laze around the entire morning and get to the bottom of the mystery of her grandmother, she decided to call her mother.

  “Mother, it’s Liz.”

  “Hi honey. Are you having a nice visit?”

  Liz sat at the desk, doodling in her notebook. “We’re having a blast.”

  “Did you meet Lola?”

  “Yes. Twice now. She’s great. We read through the letters your mother wrote to Aunt Sally. They’re very interesting.”

  “In what way?” Her mother’s voice had turned chilly and brittle like a branch on an icy day. One wrong move and it broke in two.

  Liz picked up the stack of letters she’d left on the desk. “Do you want me to read them to you?”

  “I suppose.”

  One by one, Liz read them out loud. Twice she had to ask if her mother was still on the line. After the last one, she set them aside. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Her mother’s voice had changed from brittle to frightened.

  “If the letters are true, they had her trapped in one of the wings of the house. She wanted Aunt Sally to come get her. They’d arranged a time and place, but she never showed up. Aunt Sally got nowhere with the L.A. police. Do you think the Binghams did something to her when she was trying to escape?”

  “I don’t remember anything of those days. I can barely remember her.”

  “You were eight years old. You can’t remember your own mother?” How could a girl that old not remember her own mother? Had they brainwashed her?

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it was grief.”

  “Do you remember Rosemary?”

  “Vaguely. I’m fairly certain she moved to San Francisco right after your grandmother—my mother—died. She ran an art museum if I recall correctly. Yes, that’s right. She’d majored in art history and later became a curator. After she moved away, I don’t ever remember her visiting. But when your Great-Grandmother Josephine died, the money was split evenly between me, Rosemary, and my father. What was left of it anyway.”

  “What happened to the family fortune, anyway?” asked Liz. “Wasn’t it very old money?”

  “Yes. Railroads and land investments hundreds of years ago had made the Bingham family very rich. But no one in that family had done any real work for generations. When your Great-Grandfather Markham died in 1980, suddenly, my father was put in charge of our finances. He was a poor judge of the market and invested unwisely and rather rashly. He was a rash man in many ways. One can only go so long without making money, especially when you live the way the Binghams did.”

  “But you’d already met daddy by the time Great-Grandfather Markham died, right?” asked Liz.

  “That’s right. I was in graduate school and married by then. Your Great-Grandmother Josephine had no idea who she was without wealth. As they had to sell homes and such, she became increasingly bitter. At the end, I was the only one in the family still in regular contact with her. She expected a lot of me. When I married your father, she didn’t approve. She wouldn’t come to the wedding, which broke my heart. All I wanted was for her to see what an extraordinary man he was, despite his humble upbringing. But he wasn’t from her world. ‘He’s not Bingham material.’ She threatened to cut me out of the will, but I didn’t care. I was in love. I would’ve followed him anywhere on earth without a penny between us. It was my one act of rebellion to marry him. She never got over it. So at the end, it was strained between us. But still, I couldn’t give up on her, or let her die alone. I was all she had. ‘My little Karen’—that’s what she always called me. Even at the end, when she was dying, her eyes would light up when I came into the room.”

  It was her own fault. L
iz had no sympathy for her Great-Grandmother Josephine. In fact, Liz was starting to dislike her more and more as the tale unfolded.

  An image of her mother at a school function popped into Liz’s head. She wore a light blue suit and stood talking with some of the other mothers, but apart, not quite in the circle. Liz suspected it was her straight-backed posture, her careful way of speaking, her attention to every detail of her appearance that put the other mothers off.

  What had she always said? I expect more of you than the other children. You’re more gifted than the others. You come from a long line of brilliant people who didn’t reach their potential. We must not carry on the family legacy.

  “I wonder if Rosemary’s still in San Francisco?” asked Liz.

  “It’s very possible. My mother was thirty when she died, which would have made Rosemary twenty-two. I believe she left right after her college graduation. I remember my grandmother saying she’d become a hippie and moved to Ashbury, but I don’t know if that’s completely true. Grandmother Josephine was a woman of declarations with more emphasis on the declarative than the accurate.” Liz heard a hint of humor in her mother’s voice.

  Was her great-grandmother Bingham a killer? Had she killed Liz’s grandmother just to get her out of the way so she could raise her “little Karen” as her own?

  “I wish Lola had left well enough alone. Who’s she to bring up all this? She’s obviously not all together there.”

  “The opposite. She smart and sophisticated. Well-read and she knows about wine and food and gardening. Your kind of person.”

  There was silence for a moment. When her mother spoke, it was the brittle sound of earlier. “She sounds like your kind of person. And your sister’s kind of person.”

  Was she jealous? Didn’t they all like the same kind of people? “You’ll like her, Mother. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I have to go, honey. Your father’s expecting me for dinner.”

  After they’d hung up, Liz turned on her laptop and googled Rosemary Bingham. Right away her name came up in articles about an art gallery in San Francisco. A phone number was listed for the gallery. Should she call it and ask for her? What the heck. Just go for it. You have nothing to lose.

  A woman answered after several rings.

  “Yes, hi. I’m looking for Rosemary Bingham. Is she available?”

  “Yes, may I tell her who’s calling?”

  “Sure. Liz Teeny. Tell her I’m Karen Bingham’s daughter.”

  “One moment.”

  She was on hold for about thirty seconds before the line was picked up. “Hello, this is Rosemary speaking.”

  “Hello. This is Liz Teeny. Karen’s daughter.”

  “Yes, yes. My receptionist told me. Has something happened to Karen?”

  “Oh, no. She’s fine. Quite well. No, I’m calling because I’m trying to understand a few things about the family that my mother doesn’t remember. We thought you might.” Without warning, she lied. “I’m going to be in town the day after tomorrow, and I wondered if you’d like to have lunch.”

  There was a hesitation on the other end of the phone, a second longer than polite. “The day after tomorrow. Yes, sure. Would you like to meet here at the gallery?”

  “That’s fine. Yes. Thank you.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  **

  Liz took a cab from the airport to Rosemary’s gallery on Geary Street in San Francisco. She arrived a few minutes before noon. Despite blue skies with temperatures in the high seventies, she shivered as she exited the cab and paid the driver. Wearing only a thin cotton dress, the breeze off the bay chilled her bare arms and brought a whiff of cigarette smoke, a woman’s perfume, and a hint of urine. As she stepped onto the crowded sidewalk, she slipped into the light sweater she’d folded into her purse. Business men and women dressed in suits, hipsters in skintight jeans, and artistic types with hair the colors of cotton candy and grape soda passed her.

  Liz took off her sunglasses and gazed at the sign above the door: Bingham Gallery. A sculpture of a woman’s torso and a painting of a poppy field decorated the space in front of the window. She walked inside. Almost frigid, the room held the scent of lilacs and oil paints. Various styles of modern art, mostly abstract paintings, hung on the walls. A young woman sat at a desk dressed in a white blouse and black skirt. She had the ultra-short bangs that always reminded Liz of the time she and Peggy had decided to cut their own hair when they were little.

  A receptionist with bright red lipstick looked up as Liz approached. “May I help you?”

  “Yes. I’m here to meet Rosemary Bingham.” Liz held her sunglasses in one hand and clutched her purse in the other.

  “Ah, yes. Liz?”

  Liz turned toward the sound of the deep, sultry voice. A tall, slender woman in billowy black pants and yellow blouse approached.

  “Yes, I’m Liz.”

  “I’m Rosemary. It’s nice to meet you.” Rosemary embraced her. She smelled of wealth and spicy perfume.

  “It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for taking my call.” Liz’s palms were damp with perspiration. She folded and unfolded the hinges of her sunglasses.

  “I was surprised, but delighted.” Rosemary smiled. Silver hair cut short accentuated bright blue eyes behind trendy black glasses. Delicate lines decorated her porcelain skin like embroidery incised into the finest silk. “The last time I saw your mother, she was eight years old.”

  Why? Why hadn’t they stayed in contact? “I apologize for not contacting you until now. Our family doesn’t seem to excel at staying in touch.” Butterflies danced in Liz’s stomach.

  “So it seems. It’s terrible to have family and not know them. It’s my fault, running away from my mother the way I did. But one has to survive.” Her eyes danced with mischief. She glanced over at the receptionist. “Lauren, dear, we’ll be up at the bistro for lunch. We’ll see you in an hour or so.”

  They walked out onto the busy sidewalk. Liz fumbled for her sunglasses, searching for something to say. “Beautiful day,” Liz said as they started to walk.

  “It’s the perfect place to live, other than in the winter when it’s beastly damp and gloomy with never-ending fog.” Rosemary laughed, low and throaty. “It’s one of my favorite things—complaining about the weather and other First World problems. Terrible habit.”

  They walked only a half a block before coming upon a small restaurant. Happy patrons munched away on french bread at outdoor tables.

  “We’ll eat inside, if you’re willing,” said Rosemary. “The street’s loud, and I want to be able to hear everything you say. Terrible thing, getting old. I don’t recommend it.”

  “Inside’s fine,” Liz said.

  Inside, the host rushed toward them. “Ms. Bingham, I have your table ready for you.”

  “Excellent, George. Thank you.” They followed him to a table by the window with a shade drawn at the half-way point to mute the sun.

  George poured water and talked about the specials. Liz was too nervous to listen properly. She’d have no idea what to order.

  “I often order the seafood salad or one of the sandwiches,” Rosemary said. “The one with the brie’s particularly sinful.”

  “Seafood salad will work just fine,” Liz said.

  “Just soup for me today, George.” Rosemary took the white cloth napkin from the table and placed it on her lap. “I have dinner with one of my artists tonight. I always take him to this Italian place that serves portions large enough for a family of four. Artists so often need a decent meal. Poor darlings, half of them live on cigarettes and bourbon.” She smiled. “Tell me, Liz, what brings you to San Francisco?”

  “Well, I have…it’s that I have a few questions for you. About my grandmother.”

  “I take it you were not just in the neighborhood. You came to talk to me specifically?” Rosemary smiled, taking any edge from her words.

  “That’s right. I hope you don’t mind. I don’t know why I lied on the
phone. I thought you might think it strange if I took a trip specifically to see you since we’ve never met.”

  “It’s understandable. Think nothing of it.”

  “My sister, Peggy, and I are visiting our cousin Lola in Oregon for a few weeks.”

  “Lola? She’s the cousin who married a Frenchman? An artist, if I recall.”

  “Yes, that’s right. How in the world did you remember that?”

  “Your grandmother and I spent a lot of time talking together the summer we both lived with my parents. I had just graduated from college. My mother had coerced me into staying with them for the summer. We had several months of what I would describe as a deep connection.”

  “Lola found letters from my grandmother to her sister—Lola’s mother—when she was cleaning out the attic. They’re written during the time she was first at your parents’ home. She mentions you. She says you’re an ally.”

  Rosemary’s eyes misted. She looked out the window, obviously gathering her emotions. “Yes. We were both prisoners.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “My mother threatened to cut me off financially unless I continued to live with them after college. I was terrified of being out on my own and penniless. So, I stayed. The one bright spot was your grandmother and mother. Karen was just a little girl, but smart and sweet. Your grandmother was what I would call a kindred spirit.”

  “My grandmother says in her letters that she was basically trapped in the house. Is that true?”

  “She was allowed to go out, but only if one of the staff took her. It was a different era so they could keep us under better control in those days. ‘It isn’t safe to go out on your own’ kind of thing. The city and country were in turmoil. Vietnam protests. Racial tensions. Their concern wasn’t completely unfounded, so Marcia thought nothing of it. Until she wanted to go out on her own and was told no. That was the beginning of her realization that my mother wanted to control everything about her life.”