As Waters Gone By

by Cynthia Ruchti

  “Thanks for getting our marriage back on the right track, Wild Iris. This is more than just an inn. We came in broken. We left healed. Many blessings.”

  Emmalyn came in broken. Still broken. ’Til-death-do-us-part broken.

  She opened her small carry-on bag and dug out her Pima pajamas, her cosmetic case, and Journal #5 in her Because You’re Gone journey. She settled into the chair/throw combo again, sipped lavender tea, and opened to the day’s date. The spot stayed blank a long heartbeat before she wrote:

  Another night without you, Max. And I’m not even sure you miss me. It would help if you missed me. Not because I think I can’t live without you. Because I think I can. And that scares me. It scares me that I might be wrong. It scares me that I might be right.

  A few miles away, within sight of a majestic maple and sound of a majestic sea, a cottage with a broken roof waited for its broken owner to step in and fix things. That ferry, too, sailed a long time ago.

  * * *

  Emmalyn intended to skip breakfast to help compensate for the fact she’d finished the slice of apple pie the night before as an accompaniment to the tea. So the tea wouldn’t be lonely. But the café’s breakfast offering rose as a sweet fragrance to the second floor and snuck under the door to her room.

  She’d slept with the windows uncovered, the moon her nightlight, fascinated that every time she woke, the moon was in a different position in the sky, but still there. Changing, but unchanged. Its blue light soothed her soul with its faithfulness.

  If Boozie had a free moment this morning, Emmalyn would ask her about the brand of sheets on the bed. Soft as but even smoother than peach skin. She dressed in a fresher version of yesterday’s outfit, black jeans and a v-neck sweater, traditional stack bracelets and her anniversary earrings—something about her had to sparkle—and stepped into heeled black and caramel boots that had more than outlived their price tag.

  The smell of coffee lured her to the door. In the hall at her feet was another small tray like the one from the night before. This one held a large pottery mug, a stainless steel carafe, and a note. Table by the fireplace reserved for you. Whenever. Morel quiche needs your critique. B

  After two cups and too many minutes trying to hide her lack of sleep with an obviously inferior concealer product, she bunched her favorite scarf around her neck, snatched up her cell phone, and descended to the café. The café’s clock, its numbers painted on the paprika-colored wall to the right of the fireplace, said it was almost nine. She’d intended to get an earlier start.

  A tented card with a calligraphed “M” marked the fireplace table reserved for her. Two older women sat near the window. Books in their hands held the kind of fascination Emmalyn had seen from restaurant patrons ignoring each other in favor of their cell phone screens. Somehow, the books seemed less offensive, more companionable. Three men occupied another table. Suits. Tablets. Business. Emmalyn lowered herself into “her” chair and scanned the room for sign of Boozie.

  Moments later, a thin, scruffy man with rings in both ears and a slender, graying braid poured her a glass of water. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze drifted to his fingernails. Not just clean. Exceptionally clean.

  “Welcome to The Wild Iris. You must be Ms. Ross.”

  “Joe?”

  “Yes. I mean, yes, ma’am. How . . . may . . . I . . . help . . . you . . . today?” The sentence sounded rehearsed with every intention of being genuine.

  “Is Boozie here?”

  “She’ll be by later. She said you’d want the quiche? Better snatch it if you do. Only two servings left.”

  “Morel quiche?”

  “Fancy mushroom.”

  “I’m familiar with morels. What else is in it?”

  “You got your scallions, your light dusting of nutmeg, and your GROO-yer.” He leaned closer. “Nothing but Swiss with its nose in the air, if you ask me.”

  Gruyere. Boozie had exceptional taste. “That sounds great.” She’d eat the top and leave the crust. She couldn’t afford to go from too-thin to hefty in one day.

  “Juice? We got your basic orange, fresh squeezed, cranberry, and apple cider.”

  “Cranberry.”

  Pirate Joe held out a finger on each hand, as if using his digits to remember what she’d ordered. “And fruit or grainy sticks-and- twigs toast?”

  Emmalyn unfolded her napkin and laid it across her lap. “Is that the rustic bread I had last night?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s all we have today. Usually have more bread options. If you want cinnamon rolls, you’ll have to wait here until tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have toast, please. One slice.” How could she not enjoy his demeanor? It was the jam sitting in the antique jam jar in front of her that convinced her toast was the better of the two options. It looked like black raspberry.

  Joe retreated to the kitchen. When had he had time to pour her coffee? Third cup of the morning. With a tarp over the roof of the place she was supposed to stay tonight, it would be more than a three-cup day, no doubt.

  A stack of books sat near the far edge of the round table. She picked up the top one. It held a dozen or more ribbon bookmarks with a button on the end of each ribbon. The buttons were marked with names. Apparently, James was on page 12, Carmen on 134, Leane, Ranella, and Darby all had marked page 177, and Joyce had only three pages to go until the end. What emergency kept Joyce from another cup of coffee so she could finish the book? Maybe finishing wasn’t as strong a goal as the process of reading.

  Emmalyn thumbed back to the first chapter. A handful of pages into the story, her quiche arrived. Only something that delicious could have drawn her attention away from the book’s captivating beginning. She took a buttoned ribbon and permanent marker from the bowl near the stack of books and wrote her name on the button—just the letter M—before thinking about how infrequently she might be back to this spot. She had a home of her own. A cottage on the water. It waited for her. Empty. Vacant. Full of—she sighed—potential.

  Real butter on the toast? Of course. Wisconsin. She slathered it with a spoonful of the jam. Not black raspberry. Better. Black currant. A little more tang. This could be dangerous. Food had lost its appeal shortly after Max started eating his from a plastic tray. Apparently, her appetite was back.

  The quiche arrived crustless. Ahh. It all evened out. Crustless and swoon-worthy. The Wild Iris had a good thing going here. She hadn’t seen a menu yet to note the prices. But it rated high in her book on ambiance and food quality. The chef in her wanted out to play.

  She hadn’t really thought that. Had she?

  When Pirate Joe approached with the coffee, Emmalyn laid her hand over her mug. “No thanks. I think I’d better switch to tea. But could I get that in a disposable cup? To go?”

  “I’ll bring you tea,” he said. “But we don’t do disposable.”

  “Just skip it, then,” she said. “I really need it to go.” How many hours of work lay ahead of her? And what were the odds she’d have someone hired to repair the roof before nightfall? Maybe she should consider another night in Random Room 37.

  “Oh, I’ll bring it to go.” Joe turned, his scraggly braid dancing mid-back. “We just don’t do disposable.”

  Huh?

  Emmalyn finished the last bite of toast and wiped her mouth with her napkin, then laid it beside her plate. The two older women leaned toward each other. Sharing secrets? No, the taller one pointed to a spot in the book she read. Both sat back, hands over their hearts. What words, what scene evoked that kind of response from them? Did Madeline Island have a book club? Or was this it? The Wild Iris and random reading? Random passage-sharing?

  “Here you go.” Joe handed her a tall, narrow-bottomed marigold mug and offered a treasure chest of tea choices. “Just bring the mug back the next time you’re in.”

  “Joe?” Boozie’s voice sounded less animated than it had last night, but held its same mothering tone. “Joe,” she repeated, more emphatically. “The lid?”

&n
bsp; Joe cursed, then stopped where he stood, face pointed at the ceiling. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a dollar bill, walked to the hostess counter, lifted the cover of a pottery cookie jar and tucked the dollar inside. From the sound of rustling, it appeared the jar wasn’t empty. He nodded to Boozie, curtsied, and returned to the kitchen.

  Boozie took the chair beside Emmalyn. “Sleep well?”

  “I slept. What was—?”

  “The Jesus Jar? Joe has a mouth like a . . . ”

  “Pirate?”

  “Sometimes. He’s trying to break the habit. So every time he swears, he has to put a dollar in the Jesus Jar. The man is close to single-handedly funding a well for clean water in Congo.”

  Joe, poorer but wiser, returned to the table with a smooth wooden disk that fit atop the mug. “Ingenious, isn’t it? Vocab word of the day—in-ge-ni-ous.” He demonstrated that the glass bead glued to the center of the disk made for easy removal without scalded fingers. “It . . . has . . . been . . . a . . . pleasure . . . to . . . serve . . . you. Have a blessed day.”

  When he was out of earshot, Emmalyn angled toward Boozie. “A well in Congo, huh?”

  Boozie leaned in. “We don’t do disposable. Not in cups, plates, silverware . . . or people.” She rubbed her knee through a skirt that looked remarkably like a tattered prom dress. Intentionally tattered. Paisley leggings and a Fair Isle sweater.

  This is the same woman who created a minimalist retreat room upstairs. Speaking of that . . .

  “Boozie, I know it’s last minute, but I may need a place to stay tonight, too. I haven’t seen the cottage yet, but a hole in the roof is a lot more serious than the sweeping and window-washing I thought it would take to make the place inhabitable.”

  “Do you want me to put a hold on your room?”

  My room. Words like that fell so easily off Boozie’s tongue. They got stuck on the way out of Emmalyn’s mouth. “It’s not booked already?”

  Boozie laughed. “You’ve chosen the perfect week to arrive. Apple Festival week was insanely busy. But a Tuesday night in the non-tourist season? No problem.”

  Maybe it was the coffee. Maybe it was the warmth of the fireplace. Maybe it was the “no disposables” policy. Maybe it was having someone who cared. Emma didn’t want to leave.

  “Let’s make it a solid reservation. I’m feeling more strongly that I need to secure a place here tonight. I might have been overly optimistic about the shape the cottage will be in.”

  “It’s been a long time since it was lived in.”

  “Years.”

  Boozie shook her head side to side. “It’s cheaper by the week.”

  “The cottage?”

  “Your room at The Wild Iris.” Her face brightened as she responded to a voice at the door. “Well, look who’s here.”

  “Who?” Emmalyn turned to follow Boozie’s line of sight.

  “Your roofer.”

  Emmalyn kept her comment low. “No offense, but the roofer looks like a librarian.”

  Boozie stood to greet the newcomer. “She is. Emmalyn Ross, I’d like you to meet Cora Burman. Cora, Emmalyn.” Boozie folded her arms across her chest as if she’d accomplished a global-impact diplomatic introduction.

  Emmalyn shook hands with the four-foot-eleven woman with twice as many extra pounds as Emmalyn had lost during the crisis, 1950s cat-eye glasses, and the smell of old books. “Pleasure to meet you. You’re . . . a . . . roofer?” She couldn’t stop the squeak at the end of the question. No do-overs.

  “Among other things.” Cora’s voice had to be a transplant. Its operatic richness didn’t fit the rest of her. Or was it the rest of her that didn’t fit her voice? “I volunteer at the library as often as I can. I’m a volunteer EMT. Teach organic underground gardening online. That’s for pay. I’m licensed as a masseuse, but my massage table’s out of commission until the ferry brings me a replacement part. Chair massages only, for now.”

  Emmalyn fought to form a response. “Organic underground gardening.”

  “That’s my passion.”

  “Underground, as in . . . beyond the . . . limits of . . . the law?”

  “Good one.” Cora punched Emmalyn in the arm. “Underground as in under-the-ground. Below-ground greenhouses. Ideal for climates like ours, where the growing season is short.”

  Boozie stepped closer. “I get all my micro-greens from Cora.”

  The librarian/masseuse/EMT/gardener/roofer interjected, “I’ve got some skinny beans almost ready for harvest. Another day or two.”

  “Skinny beans?” Emmalyn needed to know about roofing costs, but the current conversation intrigued her.

  “Haricot verts. When I use the real name around here, everyone except Boozie thinks I’m growing hairy Corvairs. Thought I’d avoid the razzing this once.”

  Boozie chuckled. “M would understand. She’s a caterer.”

  “Was. I was a caterer.”

  “Well, you can take your pick of new careers around here. You can have two or three of mine, if you want.” Cora smiled broadly. “I’ll be happy to get rid of the roofer label for more than one reason.”

  Did Emmalyn want a roofer who wasn’t fond of the job? “I can call someone from the mainland, if you’d rather not—”

  “Gravy, no! I’ll help you out. I’m just looking forward to turning the nail gun back over to Wayne when he gets out.”

  When he gets out. Emmalyn knew that phrase. “I’m so sorry. Prison?” The word scraped her throat as much as it ever had.

  “Might as well be. Fourth deployment.”

  Not the same thing. Not at all. “When will he be home?”

  The woman pulled her phone from her Vera Bradley purse. “I learned not to keep a countdown calendar. It never moves as fast as I want. I’ll get through this day. Then I’ll get through the next one. Address?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I want to program your cottage address into my GPS.”

  Boozie laid a hand on Cora’s shoulder. “You won’t need that. It’s at the elbow where Schoolhouse and Big Bay join up.”

  Cora’s eyes widened. “Oh. Nice spot. Right near Amnicon Point. Can I get my truck in there from the side road that runs parallel to the shore? Is that Chippewa Trail? Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I think so.” Emmalyn should have gotten up earlier. She should have been out there already, assessed what kind of shape the cottage was in. Braced herself. “I arrived too late last night to take a look at the place.” Too late. Too exhausted. Too uncertain.

  “When’s the last time you were up here on Madeline Island?”

  Her throat narrowed. Tighter. Tighter. She’d better speak while she still could. “The day we bought it. Nine years ago. My husband used it a couple of times for hunting until he—”

  The two-person book club near the window leaned as if paying attention to the conversation.

  Emmalyn changed direction. “It’s been a long time. I’m heading out there now.”

  Cora returned her phone to her purse. “I have a chair massage at 10:30. How about if I join you out there after that?”

  “How much for the estimate?”

  “I won’t know until I see what kind of hole we’re talking about, whether the trusses are damaged or not, what kind of shingles you have on there . . . ”

  “I mean, how much do you charge to come out to give an estimate?”

  Cora repositioned her glasses. “Have you seen the size of this island? It’s no big deal. I won’t burn much gas or time either. You’ve got bigger things to worry about. See you somewhere around 11:30.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  Cora nodded to the book club. “Keep up the good work, girls.” And she was out the door.

  The sound of silverware clanking on floor tiles jangled from the kitchen, and a few moments later, the clunk of the cookie jar lid.

  4

  Detail people notice things like the burned-down bar—still open for business—on the road that teed wi
th the main route through town. Tom’s Burned Down Bar, the sign said. An unimpeded sun lit the tarps that served as a roof over part of the skeleton’d building. At first glance, it was a happy junkyard. At second glance, a mind-boggling curiosity. Emmalyn wondered what the locals thought of a decidedly untouristy-looking, opposite-of-classy establishment.

  Ramps paved with old license plates and slabs of metal that looked like discarded submarine parts. Walls—open to the sky in places—draped with plastic leis and plastered with posters and quips.

  She glanced at the charred bar in her rearview mirror as she continued on Middle Road, angling east for a few miles out of LaPointe before turning north to the spot where Black Shanty Road meets with Big Bay Road. She passed the entrance to Big Bay State Park and Big Bay Town Park after it.

  How long would it be before these woods and meadows, the marshes and glimpses of water felt like home? Would they? How long would she be here? Cora might not be keeping a countdown clock for her husband, but Emmalyn knew exactly how many months were left until Max’s release. What she didn’t know was if he’d come back to her when the prison doors opened. She’d carried on a one-sided marriage for too long. How could they pick up where they’d left off before his incarceration? Not even six months into his time, he’d made it clear he wanted her to file for divorce.

  That’s what he said.

  He couldn’t have meant it. Not after all they’d been through.

  Nothing looked familiar in her surroundings. She’d observed the scenery but not studied it when they’d vacationed on Madeline Island. And they’d been riding bikes when they took this route. A slower pace. Laughter. Observing blades of grass and wildflowers in the ditches. Nothing seemed iconically identifiable to her until . . .

  Until the curve in the road ahead of her now. And there it was. Their tree. It registered none of the upheaval of the years since she’d seen it last. Just like it had then, the sunlight set the tree on color-fire, each leaf a yellow flame. Sunlight filtered through sweet-corn maple leaves lost no candlepower. If anything, the light was intensified after passing through the tree’s fingers. A handful of yellow escaped the tree’s gnarled grasp and floated to the ground, destined to improve the soil if no longer the scenery. A siren of light calling to a faint reflecting beacon deep in her soul ended in waves playing the beach stones with a maraca sound and a flirt of foam. Lake Superior. That close. The maple’s noisy but artsy next-door neighbor.