As Waters Gone By

by Cynthia Ruchti

  She clicked on the lamp at her side. It was darker than she thought. “You’re the Rachel in this story,” Bougie had said. What did that mean?

  She opened the Bible to the beginning, removed Max’s letter, and skimmed for the name Rachel. Creation . . . Cain and Abel . . . Noah . . . Abram . . . Isaac.

  “Jacob marries Leah and Rachel,” a heading said, twenty-eight pages into her search.

  She propped her feet on the trunk and flipped back one thin page to get the background for the story. She’d heard about it in a sermon sometime in her distant past. Maybe in college when her roommate’s boyfriend got all Jesus-y on them.

  Jesus-y. What would Emmalyn call it now? And where did Max fall on that spectrum? Where did she?

  Jacob needs a wife, she read. He travels east and starts up a conversation with some guys at a well. Rachel comes toward the well to water her father’s flocks. Cue the music. Jacob’s in love. She’s beautiful, kind, hard-working . . . mostly beautiful.

  “Bougie, I’m not seeing the connection.”

  Jacob works seven years not for money, but so he can marry Rachel.

  Emmalyn stopped on a verse that read, “Jacob worked for Rachel for seven years, but it seemed like a few days because he loved her.”

  Max had been gone almost five years. It felt like twenty. In some ways, it felt like “together” had never happened.

  At the end of the seven years, Rachel’s father Laban tricks Jacob so he winds up with Leah instead. This part, she remembered.

  Leah, whom he doesn’t love, is his wife. He gets Rachel, too, but has to work another seven years for her, which seems like a cultural glitch someone should have resolved with an amendment to their constitution or something.

  “When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was unable to have children.” Emmalyn stopped reading. Breathless. Her own story in the crinkly, ages-old pages?

  Leah has four sons, then five, then six, assuming each time that having a baby will endear her husband to her. She knew. She knew Rachel was the one her husband loved.

  Into the pre-dawn air, Emmalyn whispered, “Leah did math like I do. Three or more is a true family. A child will bond us forever.” The columns of words swam before her eyes. Leah was wrong.

  Rachel is the one Jacob loved. Rachel made herself miserable while Leah made babies. Rachel grieved what she didn’t have while Leah craved Jacob’s love for Rachel, a depth of love she’d never know.

  You’re the Rachel in the story, Emmalyn. Not the Leah. Bougie’s voice reverberated in the chambers of her mind, echoed in the middle of the night cottage sanctuary.

  “I’m Rachel. The barren one.”

  She pressed the pages against the ache in her chest. A slow wave tilted her thoughts. It retreated, then pushed against her reasoning again until it moved. “I’m Rachel?”

  The loved one?

  * * *

  The skin on her face resisted when she squinted against the light streaming into the cottage. A trail of tears had left a salty, taut reminder.

  Grateful she had the day free, she eased into it. After a cold, clear night, the temps had already risen enough to add the drip-drip of melting snow to the ever-present sound of Lake Superior tickling the shoreline a few feet away. In her old life, she would have turned on the television in the kitchen of the house in Lexington, then the coffee maker, in that order, and caught up on current events and pop news before diving headfirst into the day. With no television in the cottage, she took her coffee to the French door entrance and watched the island wake up.

  The numbers of sailboats and kayaks she’d seen earlier in the fall had dwindled to nothing. Cora said some winters the entire lake froze over, water captured in ice, mid-wave. What a spectacle that must be.

  She needed a bird feeder, a doggie door, and . . .

  A car built for cold weather and snow-covered roads. Hers had balked on city streets. How would it behave on the island? And how would her budget accommodate an upgrade? Things were tighter than they’d ever been. She had to tread carefully to make the proceeds from the sale of the Lexington house stretch until she found a job that paid in actual dollars. No offense, Bougie. I’m grateful to whittle down my Wild Iris bill by inches.

  A doggie door. A permanent adjustment to the cottage. When Comfort decided to move on, would Emmalyn get another dog? She looked down at the mop of fur staring up at her. “I’d be hard pressed to find another like you.”

  But she was temporary.

  Bird feeder. That, she could handle.

  In a few days, she’d celebrate Thanksgiving as an employee of The Wild Iris. Much better than the turkey-for-one option. When her mother suggested Emmalyn drive down for Thanksgiving, she could truthfully tell her, “I’m working that day.” One dysfunctional function avoided.

  Her heart owed Max a letter. Not today. Tomorrow she had to work. Maybe Sunday.

  She toasted an English muffin and smeared it with black raspberry jam. A fresh cup of coffee and her grocery list joined her for breakfast. On a whim, she retrieved the Bible from the living room and opened it to a place far, far from Genesis. A random spot. Like a Random Room 37.

  Isaiah something. “Come, house of Jacob, let’s walk by the Lord’s light.” The house of Jacob. Jacob and Rachel’s story hadn’t ended in Genesis. Her planned avoidance skidded to a halt.

  She quickly flipped pages to something less awkward. Mark 10. “Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said, ‘Teacher, I want to see.’ ”

  This Bible reading habit could get dangerous. She closed the book and addressed her grocery list. Bird feeder. Teacher, I want to see. Bird seed. Teacher, I want to see. Romaine, chicken breast, eggs, tissues. Teacher, I want to see.

  She abandoned her breakfast and pulled her cleaning supplies from under the sink. Checked the mouse trap. Empty. Good. “Are you coming?” she called to Comfort from the base of the stairs as she headed up. The dog lifted her head, then lowered it. Emmalyn was on her own.

  The room she bypassed every day—the spare room—stood blindingly bright in the morning sun, its all-white color scheme crisp, pure, glowing against the super-saturated blue of the sky and water scene through the wide windows. Everything looks better in sunlight.

  “Everything looks dustier, too.” Emmalyn watched dust motes slow-waltzing in the early light. The new windows on this floor meant fewer drafts. So the dust motes drifted lazily, no more sense of direction than . . .

  Than Emmalyn had.

  She dusted top to bottom, left to right, so she always knew where she’d been with the dust rag. So few items on the shelves in this room. Just enough to make it look finished. Not enough to make it looked lived in. Which it probably never would.

  For months, Emmalyn had noodled ideas for her work-from-home job. Moving to the island upped the stakes. The job pool was larger than opportunity on Madeline Island, especially in the off season. She could turn the spare bedroom into an office if her Cottage Cook idea took off. And if she could convince one of her connections from pro-chef days to advertise . . . or . . . ?

  Emmalyn lifted the chenille bunny from its perch on the shelf above the single bed. The one childhood toy she’d kept for her own baby. Its floppy ears and floppier arms and legs dipped with the dust motes while she ran her microfiber rag over its resting spot. Too late for cradles. Too late for cribs. Too soon for the wastebasket.

  She replaced it on the shelf, plumped the pillows on the bed, straightened the comforter, and moved on to the next room, one with an equal set of lost dreams.

  Working away from home had its advantages.

  17

  Prep for the Thanksgiving meal at The Wild Iris turned out to be anything but traditional. Emmalyn didn’t catch the full significance until Thanksgiving Day.

  “You’re seriously expecting two hundred people today, Bougie?”

  “Some years, we’ve had more than that.”

  “Are there that many
residents on Madeline Island this time of year who don’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving?”

  “Most of them have a place to go. They come from the mainland, too. A couple hundred wouldn’t be unusual.”

  “In here?” Emmalyn’s eyes scanned The Wild Iris interior. It hadn’t grown wings or appendages. Where would they put that many customers? They’d prepped for half of the Midwest to show up, and rearranged the floor plan, but Emmalyn expected Bougie’s plans stretched out farther than this meal.

  “They eat in shifts. Like any big family.” Bougie looped her hair into a rough bun and stuck chopsticks cross-wise to hold it. She squirted hand sanitizer on her hands, offered some to Emmalyn, and said, “Here we go. Just unlock the door and move out of their way.”

  The directives weren’t far from reality. The restaurant filled within minutes, each patron drawing a number from the upside-down pilgrim hat at the entrance and finding a place among the scattered tables. None voiced a complaint, even those seated at the tables with only a bowl of rice and weak tea.

  What a sight. A table marked “Third World Banquet” with rice and tea. A table marked “Single Parent Family” with mac-and-cheese and hot dogs. A table marked “Homeless in America” with an odd mix that looked like it came from a mildly successful Dumpster-dive. “Homeless Anywhere Else” marked the table with a bowl of well-aged bread crusts. A “Winter before Thanksgiving” table, decorated with Indian corn and pilgrim hats, held bowls of wrinkled turnips, watery venison soup, and flakes of smoked fish. The table marked “Prisoners” held the kinds of compartmentalized trays Emmalyn remembered from watching documentaries of a 1950s cafeteria. On the trays were pools of runny mashed potatoes, gray-green peas, and a mystery meat that only the cooks knew wasn’t made from roofing tiles. Max had complained about prison food in their early communications. Then he stopped talking about anything.

  The final table boasted everything expected of a Thanksgiving meal—turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mounds of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole with bright beans and homemade onion strings Emmalyn attended to herself, pumpkin pie, Bougie’s pecan custard pie . . .

  Wave after wave of patrons filed in, ate whatever meal was assigned them, the atmosphere far more sober than Emmalyn had ever seen it, and filed out to allow those waiting in line outside in the cold to come in. No one left without dropping a contribution into one or more of the canning jars in the middle of each table.

  Pirate Joe got the nod from Bougie as what looked like the final guests prepared to leave. He took off his apron and settled himself at the “Prisoners” table. Alone. He sat with head bowed for more than a few moments, then picked up a dulled fork and tasted everything.

  Emmalyn finished clearing the “Single Parent” and “Homeless Anywhere Else” tables and stood near Pirate Joe’s chair. “May I get you fresh coffee?”

  He looked up, intense emotion written across his face. Then a smile spread. “I’d be grateful. But it’ll have to be stale coffee today. Extra weak. Remembering.” He motioned toward the “Prisoners” sign.

  She obliged, hard as it was to give him less than he deserved. She poured herself a cup from the carafé specifically marked for that table and joined him.

  “You don’t have to eat here,” he said.

  “I think I do.”

  He let the confession go unanswered.

  The two ate in silence. And wonder. Freedom had a taste and texture not represented on their trays. It had choices they weren’t allowed this day. They ate in honor of a conquered past, a hopeful future, and those still behind bars.

  How did you spend Thanksgiving, Emmalyn? I shared an exceptional meal with an ex-prisoner named Pirate Joe. Best Thanksgiving ever.

  The leftovers of the traditional meal were boxed for delivery to the mainland. Emmalyn helped a volunteer load her van for the trip to Ashland to a shelter for battered women. An unadvertised shelter. Joe told Emmalyn that Bougie knew its location. All too well. One day, it would be Bougie’s turn to tell her story.

  The sting of Max’s letter got lost in Emmalyn’s efforts to serve the community. It dissolved in a pile of runny mashed potatoes. She finished returning the restaurant to its original layout, set the tables for normal service the next day, and found Bougie to ask her if there was anything else she could do.

  Bougie screwed a zinc lid onto the jar from the “Prisoners” table. “Yes, there is.” She pressed the jar into Emmalyn’s hands. “Go see your husband.”

  “It’s not that I can’t afford the trip.” So close to a lie. She could afford a couple tanks of gas. Could she afford the emotional expense?

  “Ah, but now you have greater incentive—not disappointing all those who gave so you could go.”

  An ache started low in her back and crept up her spine, spreading to matching spots under her shoulder blades. “I’m not even sure when visitation is allowed.”

  “Find out,” Bougie called over her shoulder as she disappeared into the walk-in cooler.

  * * *

  That beautiful elbow in the road—road and woods to the left, a wide stretch of sand and water to the right—told Emmalyn she was within a few feet of her own door. Most of the snow had melted, so the lane was a little slushy. She tiptoed around the worst of it, stomped her feet on the porch, and reached to slip the key in the lock as her cell phone rang.

  She stumbled into the cottage as Comfort raced out, threw her purse and tote bag on the kitchen island, and answered her cell phone while scooping purse contents from where they’d scooted across the granite. “Hello?”

  A mechanical click almost moved her to end the call, but she heard a stilted voice say, “Will you accept a collect call from the state prison system?”

  Her heart raced faster than Comfort’s attempt to get outside. Yes, of course, but . . .

  “Yes. I will.”

  Another click. A pause. “Emmalyn?”

  “Max? Max, I can’t believe it. It’s so good to hear your voice.” An icicle in blinding sun, her heart hurried to melt.

  A deeper pause. “Em . . . I . . . they don’t give us much time. Fifteen minutes. We’ll be cut off in the middle of a sentence.”

  “It’s okay. It’s just so good to— I haven’t written back yet. I wasn’t sure what to say.”

  “Em, I’m losing hope!” His voice collapsed in a heart-wrenching groan.

  She blinked back tears. She hadn’t heard him this low since the night of the accident. He hadn’t reacted this strongly even when the judge pronounced his sentence. “Max, honey, you’re only a few months from getting out. Hang in there.” She was so rusty at encouragement. The word honey made her cringe with its clumsiness. Hang in there? How utterly inadequate.

  “No. Not that. My daughter. I’m losing Hope.”

  She “heard” the capital letter H on Hope now. And the sound of a man’s heart shattering.

  * * *

  “Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this!” she hollered at the phone when the screen told her “Signal lost.” They hadn’t had their full fifteen minutes. It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight when the line went dead in the middle of Max’s explanation.

  She’d heard enough to know it was serious. Impossible.

  And she’d heard the name Claire far too much in those seven minutes with Max. This time, her heart lurched with sympathy rather than jealousy.

  Claire’s “trouble”? She’d exchanged her latest boyfriend and an affinity for a once-needed prescription into a love affair with cocaine. Cocaine. Sick, and she knew it. She needed to check in to a resident rehab center, but without family or friends willing to take Hope . . .

  If Hope disappeared into the foster care system, would Claire ever be healthy enough to get her out?

  Claire’s family had their own problems, some worse than Claire’s, if that were possible. She hadn’t called on Max for help. What could he do from behind bars? She’d contacted him to tell him she was sorry for what sh
e’d put him through, what she’d put her daughter through, and why he might not hear from Hope again, at least for a long while.

  What a nightmare! Claire told Max it was cocaine. Emmalyn wondered if it had morphed farther than that. From Max’s description, she talked like a heroin addict.

  Emmalyn had listened, the shattering of her heart in harmony with Max’s, oddly enough.

  Before they’d been cut off, Emmalyn had ventured, “Max, is it true you believe in . . . God’s power to . . . create answers where there aren’t any?”

  The line had gone dead before his response.

  And now she sat in suffocating silence hundreds of miles from him, with compassion she wore like stiff jeans and a jar full of donations a foot away from where she leaned.

  “Call back. Can you call back?” She plugged the phone into its charger, taking no chances. She double-checked the volume. Full-blast. “Call back!”

  That sweet little girl, the one Emmalyn had tried to ignore. What must Hope Elizabeth be going through? How fast had she had to grow up? Was she okay?

  Emmalyn didn’t remember letting Comfort back in, but there she was, wet paws and all, asking to be fed. Emmalyn dabbed her paws with a towel she’d hung near the back door for that purpose, filled her food dish and water bowl, and wished the dog a Happy Thanksgiving.

  Thanksgiving. This was Max’s Thanksgiving—a message from Claire that his daughter might be in danger, or lost to him forever. What kind of clout would he have when released, an ex-prisoner who’d only had minor visitation rights, according to the law? What if Claire never did get Hope back? What then?

  Her heart caught in her throat. Max had called her, knowing she could do nothing. He’d called her because he hoped she’d share his pain. He needed to know she cared.