The Light Through the Leaves

by Vanderah, Glendy

  A fortyish woman in a blue beret walked briskly toward her with a dog on a leash. “I saw you come up from the river,” she said breathlessly.

  “Yes, I was walking,” Ellis said.

  “Have you heard their plans? They’re going to put a fence between us and the river.”

  Ellis supposed us referred to the people who lived in the apartment buildings.

  “Some stupid woman from Building Two let her kid fall in the water. Then she complained that the river is a hazard. I hear the boy was in, like, two feet of water. No danger at all.”

  Ellis had no words.

  “Did you know about the fence?” the woman asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, some of us are fighting it. You should come to the meetings. There’s a flyer in the lobby of every building.” When Ellis didn’t respond, the woman said, “They have no right to ruin the river for us. Nature is important for good health. You probably know that if you were walking down there.”

  “Yes,” Ellis said.

  “The river and trees are important for those of us who have dogs.” The woman patted the dog’s head. “Mimi can’t go out in the open. She needs privacy to do her business. She heads straight for the trees as soon as we get out. That’s one of the reasons I rented here. To walk her by the river.”

  Ellis vaguely worried she would cry in front of the woman, but she was too hollow to produce tears.

  “Speaking of which,” the woman said, smiling, “she’s gotta go.” She let Mimi pull her toward the river.

  Ellis quickly turned around. She didn’t want her last look at the river and trees to be connected to this woman and her dog’s bowel habits. But she supposed that had already happened.

  She went back to the car and opened a bottle of pills.

  9

  The pill took effect as Ellis drove through her former hometown. She’d had to take something to function well enough to operate the car, just enough to deaden her awareness of the abyss she felt within herself. She believed she was safer driving with the drug than without.

  She saw almost nothing around her, because she didn’t care to see it. She aimed toward a phone store she’d seen on her way in. She would keep a charged phone in the car in case she needed a tow truck or had some other kind of emergency.

  And maybe . . .

  Maybe the ranger. She’d gotten the idea when she was leaving River Oaks Apartments. The hollowness had mostly erased her by then. She could hardly feel enough body parts to operate the car. And for some reason, she’d thought of the ranger and imagined him touching her. Not sexually. He hadn’t looked at her that way. He’d looked at her . . . gently. That was how Ellis would describe the warmth she saw in his gaze. And if he could touch her that way—a soft hand on her hand, even an accidental brush against her body—she hoped she would feel her body again.

  She knew all these feelings might be one sided. She didn’t trust her ability to read a man these days. Maybe she’d seen only an absence of disapproval in the ranger’s gaze. Since the abduction, she’d grown used to people looking at her critically.

  She bought a phone and got out of town as fast as she could. The idea of calling Keith Gephardt stayed with her. She was surprised she wanted to ask a stranger to have a drink with her, but she couldn’t think of a reason why she shouldn’t. Her marriage had been over for much longer than two weeks. Even before she knew it. Calling a man for a drink wouldn’t be that weird. It would hardly be a rebound when she hadn’t been intimate with a man for more than a year. Just a drink. She sure needed one.

  She waited until after sunset, but that happened early up north in the winter. She fueled the car and sat in the station lot drinking water, looking down at the ranger’s card.

  She took her new phone out of the box. Ellis Rosa Abbey had a new number. A new billing address. She’d even abandoned the Bauhammer name. It had never fit anyway.

  She turned on the phone. It had no contacts. No call history. No photographs. Her past was buried far away in a river.

  She could do whatever she wanted. She could call the ranger with the gentle look in his eyes, and she would not feel guilty about it.

  She pressed his number into the phone. Just when she thought Keith wouldn’t answer, he said, “Hello?”

  She should have planned what to say.

  “Hello?” he said again.

  “So where can you get a decent drink around here?” she asked.

  After a few seconds, he said, “Do I know you?”

  “The odd camper.”

  Another pause. “I never said you were odd.”

  “But you were probably thinking it.”

  “Does the odd camper have a name?”

  “Ellis.”

  “Is that a last name?”

  “First.”

  “No last name?”

  “Not until I know how you feel about having a drink with an odd camper.”

  “I’ve never done it, in all honesty. But I’m open to new experiences.”

  “My last name is Abbey.”

  “I think the nurse got your name backward when she put it on the certificate.”

  “I’ve heard that joke before,” she said.

  “Darn, and I thought it was good.”

  “You’ll do better next time.”

  “So I gather the second grave didn’t go well?” he said.

  “It went about as badly as it could go.”

  “I’m trying to imagine that. Did zombies chase you out of the cemetery?”

  “That’s a pretty good metaphor for what happened.”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I can’t talk about it until I’ve had at least one stiff drink.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Somewhere between where I last saw you and the second grave.”

  “That’s real helpful, Ellis.”

  She liked him saying her name. “I can meet you anywhere.”

  “Okay, how about Pink Horses?”

  “Pink Horses?”

  “Yep.”

  “Please tell me you’re not a weirdo who plays with My Little Pony toys.”

  “Why would that make me weird?”

  “Maybe I’d better rethink my evening.”

  A soft laugh. “Pink Horses is a tavern. I swear. It’s not in a town—sort of out in the cornfields. It might be hard to find, but I could text the directions to you.”

  “Okay. What time?”

  “I’ll meet you there at seven. Is that too early?”

  “Not if they have food.”

  “They’ll have something that’s slightly like food.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “All right, see you soon,” he said.

  A few minutes later, Keith texted directions to the tavern. It was farther than she thought. An hour away. But if she left right away, she’d be too early. She went to the gas station restroom to change clothes. She exchanged hiking pants for jeans and put on a new T-shirt. She wore the same flannel shirt on top. She didn’t want to build up laundry too fast. Her hiking boots had dried, but she put on new socks.

  She brushed her teeth and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were bright with nervous excitement. Maybe from the meds, too. She thought she looked better than usual, at least recently. She was glad she’d washed her hair that morning. It had dried well, in soft waves. She had packed no makeup when she left New York, so what the ranger had seen would be what he got.

  Back at the car, Ellis looked up campgrounds near Pink Horses. She had to know where she would sleep, how long the drive was, how much she could drink. The campground where she’d met the ranger was forty minutes from the tavern. She didn’t want to go back there. There was a small one on a fishing lake only ten miles from Pink Horses. The drive would be on one-lane roads that should be empty on a winter weeknight. Ideal.

  She took the drive slow. Light snow was falling. Most of the route was on rural roads. Country houses glittering with Christmas lights lit the dark
landscape like jewels. Every one of those houses added weight to her heart. She thought of River and Jasper. They had celebrated their fifth birthday without her. And now Viola was nine months old. Did the woman who had taken her celebrate Christmas? What would she give the baby?

  Ellis shouldn’t have let her thoughts go there. Any speculation about Viola’s abductor inevitably led to visions of abuse. Ellis felt sick, almost had to pull over. She forced positive images to mind, imagined Viola crawling, giggling, pounding the keys of a baby piano like the one the twins had received for their second Christmas.

  Tears dripped down her cheeks. Her wrenching need for her baby surprised her with its strength. She turned the radio loud to drown her thoughts.

  By the time she arrived at the tavern, also strung with Christmas lights, she felt almost as hollow as she’d been when she left the river. She already needed another pill.

  She looked at the old neon sign with two pale pink horses standing on their hind legs, the magenta words PINK HORSES between them. Why was she there? What did she think she was doing meeting a man in her condition? He would ask questions she couldn’t answer. He would want to sleep with her, and she wasn’t ready. She should leave.

  A dark tavern. A drink. The first real food she’d eaten all day. A man who’d been kind enough to give her coffee and companionship when she needed it.

  She realized she wanted to be with the man more than she wanted the drink. And that surprised her.

  She smoothed her hair in the rearview mirror. Even inside the car, she heard the live country music. The parking lot was full, a sizable crowd for a weekday.

  As she entered the tavern, a rich tang of booze wet her tongue. She looked around the dark room, billiard tables to her left, a long bar straight ahead, and a band of two men and a woman playing on a small stage to the right. Ellis scanned the wooden tables scattered throughout the room.

  Keith Gephardt was seated facing the doorway. Watching her. He smiled when she found him. She was glad he’d chosen a seat far from the music. That meant he wanted to talk.

  She walked over, unzipping her down coat.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  He was dressed like her, in jeans, boots, and a light-blue flannel shirt over a white T-shirt. His short brown hair was neater than it had been that morning. But his dark eyes looked the same, warm and inviting.

  She hung her coat on the chair next to him at the square table. When she sat down, she noticed the toy. A blue plastic My Little Pony next to his bottle of beer.

  “No way!” she said.

  He looked at the pony with her. “What? I don’t go anywhere without her.”

  “You promised you weren’t a weirdo.”

  “I did not.”

  She picked it up. It was old—dirty and scuffed.

  He watched her, smiling, and took a sip of his beer.

  “I haven’t seen one of these for years,” she said. “Where did you get it?”

  “We bought it for my girlfriend’s daughter at a yard sale.” He added, “Ex-girlfriend.”

  “When did you break up?”

  “Three months ago.”

  Well, he certainly wore his heart on his sleeve.

  She placed the pony on the table. “Can I ask you something kind of personal?”

  He lifted his brows.

  “Did you say goodbye to her daughter when you broke up?”

  “Of course I did. I’d been with her mother for almost two years.”

  “Do you still see her daughter?”

  “I wanted to, but they moved away. They live in Missouri now.”

  “You should call her. Let her know you miss her.”

  “I don’t think her mother and new boyfriend would be especially keen on that.” He took a long drink of his beer. “You sure dive in deep right off the mark, don’t you?”

  She pointed to the pony. “You started it.”

  “It was meant as a joke.”

  “Was it?”

  He leaned toward her. “Ellis Abbey, I think you need a drink. Those graves have made you much too serious.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  He held up his hand to a passing waitress. “Please bring my friend anything she wants.”

  The woman smiled and winked at him, obviously knew him. “What would you like?” she asked Ellis.

  “How about an old-fashioned? And may I see a menu please?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Keith drank from his beer, appeared unfazed by the lag in their conversation. “You said you wouldn’t tell me what happened at the grave until you’d had a drink, so I guess I’ll have to wait.”

  “Are you always this impatient?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in his chair. “Patience is my virtue, as a matter of fact.” He pretended to peer around the tavern while he waited.

  “If you must know . . .”

  He leaned toward her, elbows on the table.

  “It was all gone.”

  “The grave?”

  “There was no grave. It was a forest and river behind where I grew up. I’d put my mother’s ashes there when I was thirteen. The whole place is now a bunch of apartment buildings.” Saying it out loud to another person made the weight of it diminish.

  He put his hand on hers, softly, just as she’d imagined he would. “I’m so sorry.” “I guess I should have let you have the drink first.”

  “I’ve had a few hours to process that it’s gone. It’s still strange, though.”

  “When were you last there?”

  “The day I scattered the ashes. I went to live with my grandfather in Youngstown that day. His was the first grave I visited.”

  His hand was still on hers, and he pressed down on it for a few more seconds before taking it off. “Are you going back to New York now?”

  “I’m heading west.”

  “To where?”

  “Wherever the wind blows me.”

  “Really? You’ll be camping?”

  She nodded.

  “You don’t have a job you have to get back to?”

  “No.”

  “Family?”

  “Nope.”

  “How long will you wander?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sat back and stared at her.

  “Odd?” she said.

  “Brave, interesting . . . and yes, I guess it is considered odd for a woman to do that alone.”

  “What about for a man to do it alone?”

  “Still interesting,” he said.

  “But not brave or odd?”

  “Less so.”

  She nodded.

  “No lecture on double standards?” he asked.

  “No, you’re right. I agree it’s more dangerous for a woman to travel to isolated places than it is for a man. Women got the short end of the evolutionary stick when it comes to body strength. In most cases, a man can physically dominate a woman. And the anatomy of human genitalia makes the disadvantage even worse.”

  “Are these your usual topics when you first meet someone?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s my biologist background. I can’t help it.”

  “You’re a biologist?” he asked.

  “I was supposed to be.”

  “What happened?”

  “Life.”

  She didn’t typically use that cliché, but the reply worked. He didn’t pry.

  Her drink and menu arrived, and he held up his beer for a toast. “To the most interesting odd camper I ever met.”

  She touched her glass to his bottle. “To the best My Little Pony weirdo I ever met.”

  He picked up the pony and said in its ear, “Don’t be jealous, darling. You’re still number one.”

  She liked his sense of humor. He reminded her of some of the biology students she and Dani had hung out with at Cornell.

  The old-fashioned wasn’t the best she’d tasted, but it had the essential ingredient: a big slug of
bourbon. She was drinking it too fast. She had to put something in her stomach.

  She ordered a salad and grilled cheese sandwich. He ordered a second beer, and she asked for another old-fashioned.

  “I guess you needed that drink,” he said.

  More than he knew. She was feeling good, the pills and alcohol mixing well. And the park ranger was even better than she’d hoped. She was glad she wasn’t drinking alone in her tent over at the campground.

  “Normally I wouldn’t ask this so soon,” he said, “but since we’ve already discussed genitalia, I suppose we know each other well enough for a slow dance.”

  “We didn’t exactly discuss it,” she said.

  He stood and extended his hand to her. “We can talk more about it while we dance. Come on—I like this song.”

  Ellis wasn’t much for dancing, but she took his hand and went along. She’d asked him out because she wanted him to touch her, after all.

  He held her close but didn’t press into her. She liked the song, whatever it was. The bourbon was going strong to her head. She let herself relax into its mistiness and the music, movement, and him. He smelled good, very different from Jonah. She started to imagine what it would be like to make love to him.

  As if he knew, he tucked her closer. When the song ended, she thought they might kiss. But it was too soon. He put his hand on her cheek and smiled at her.

  Ellis returned to the table as drunk on the unaccustomed intimacy as the whiskey. She drank her new cocktail and ate her dinner. For the first time in months, eating didn’t feel like something she was forcing on her body. She was almost hungry.

  “Where did you study biology?” he asked.

  “Cornell.”

  “How did you decide to go there?”

  “It was the best of the schools that gave me a full scholarship.”

  “Wow, you must be a brain.”

  “The scholarship was more about economic hardship than academics. I grew up poor, lost my mother at a young age, and moved in with a grandfather who lived on a tiny pension.”

  “So you aren’t at all smart?” he asked with a smile.

  “I’m having a drink with a total stranger who carries around a plastic pony. How smart can I be?”