by Tim Poland
The old woman draped her arms around Sandy’s shoulders as she scooped Edith from the truck cab. With Edith cradled in her arms, Sandy shoved the truck door closed with her hip and began to inch her way back down the embankment, moving with far less speed and far greater caution than on her last descent.
“It’d save us all a lot of trouble if you’d just toss me in here and be done with it,” Edith said.
“Whatever you want, Edith.” Sandy grinned, but also tightened her grip on Edith and set her feet more firmly to the slope.
After she’d settled Edith in the lawn chair, Sandy knelt on the rock ledge and leaned down to the stream. With both hands cupped, she scooped cool river water onto her face and arms to wash off the sweat. Wiping her hands on her shorts, she turned back to Edith. From the tote bag Sandy retrieved a thermos bottle and screwed off the plastic cap that doubled as a cup. “Iced tea?”
“Oh, please, dear. Thank you,” Edith said.
Sandy had prepared the tea in the way Edith preferred, a hint of lemon and thick with sugar. She couldn’t stomach the sickeningly sweet southern staple, but Edith loved it. A day this hot, Sandy would drink water.
Sandy rigged her rod and dug the little plastic case of flies out of her purse. She selected an Adams, a common pattern that should work on trout anywhere, especially the simpleminded stocked trout in this part of the river. While she tied on her fly, Edith sipped from her cup of chilled tea and drank in the river before her.
“Oh yes, look there,” Edith said. A kingfisher cruised along the surface of the stream, then turned into an upward swing, emitted a single metallic squawk, and alighted on a sycamore branch on the far side of the stream. “Always loved those birds. Made me laugh, for some reason. Must be that funny sound they make.”
Sandy finished tying off her fly and stepped from the rock ledge down into the river. The chill water rose over her bare calves and drew off the heat of the day. Edith would begin to talk now. Whether she added something new to the pot or spoke of things Sandy had heard her talk of before, Sandy would listen intently. Something in the aged warble of the old woman’s voice sustained her, provided sustenance as crucial as food. Edith would talk and Sandy would listen while she fished. She took a couple of steps further into the pool and began to feed out line into her cast. The seam of current closest to them, beginning at the head of the pool, would be her first target. Sandy would stay largely in this one pool by their place on the rock ledge. Occasionally, she’d move a bit upstream or down from this spot, but never far. For the hours they’d spend by the river, Sandy would never have Edith out of her sight or beyond earshot.
“Used to be a big hemlock tree, right there.” Edith raised a bent finger and waggled it in the direction of the far side of the pool. “Branches so thick and low, it threw shade over near half the river here.” Between casts, Sandy glanced at the snarl of pines and locust on the bank where Edith pointed. Most of the pool was in full sunlight.
The first fish of the day struck, and Sandy reeled it in quickly. A fish of common size, with the dark back and dull pinkish flanks of a stocked rainbow trout that had been raised in a hatchery pen. Still, she removed the fly from the fish’s lip and held it up for Edith to see. No matter how large or small, how common the fish was, the old woman was always pleased and clapped her frail hands together to applaud Sandy’s success. Given what easy fishing was offered in this part of the river, Sandy wondered if she wasn’t guilty of a touch of vanity in these outings with Edith. Did she in some way require the old woman’s praise, even for such a mundane accomplishment?
“I recall one day,” Edith said. “A lot like today. Hot as blazes and the sun beating down. Thought I might explode if I didn’t get cooled off.”
Sandy reeled in her excess line and flicked the excess water from her fly. She held her rod to her side at ease and listened as Edith continued.
“Was a Sunday and we’d been to church. Don’t know that the hellfire the preacher and all the faithful had been ranting about could’ve been any hotter than the air in that little church. When we got back to the homeplace, soon as no one was looking, I hightailed it right on down here. That old hemlock, one branch in particular hung so low it nearly touched the water.”
Sandy glanced again at the place on the bank where the tree had been and leaned her rod against her shoulder.
“So hot, well, I didn’t even care. Waded right on out into the water there, still wearing my go-to-meeting dress. Not that I was likely to do much damage to it. Was already pretty tattered at that point. Walked right on in there, a step or two past where you are now, and took hold of that low branch and just let myself float up. Held tight to the branch and the current lifted me up and washed right through me. My hair and that old dress floating all around me, swirling in the water.”
For a few moments, Edith fell silent, staring across the river, through Sandy, to the low-hanging branch of a hemlock tree that wasn’t there anymore.
“Held myself there for I don’t know how long, it felt so good. Washed all the heat and preaching right out of me. Like I was flying above it all. Just closed my eyes and held tight to that branch, and after awhile, it was like the river and me was made of the same thing. To this day, I think that’s about the most perfect I ever felt.”
Edith grew quiet again, looking deep into the waters of another time. Sandy cast her fly onto the still surface of the pool, just inside the near seam of current. A fish hit before the ripples around the fly could even begin to subside. Unhooking her fish, she turned to show it to Edith. Just as a bubble of disappointment was about to pop within Sandy, Edith returned to the river of the present and applauded her catch in her usual way. Sandy released the fish and waded toward Edith on the bank.
“After I got out of the water that day,” Edith continued, “I sat right here for I don’t know how long, trying to get dried out some before I went home. Didn’t do much good, though. I was still a pretty wrinkled and soggy mess when I got back home. As you might guess, there was hell to pay, but it was worth it. Oh yes, it was worth it.”
Sandy laid her rod on the rock and climbed from the stream. She sat on the ledge next to Edith, and the warmth collected in the stone was delicious against the cold damp of her legs and wet shorts.
“Back then,” Edith said, “Daddy went back and forth pretty regular between whiskey and religion. I couldn’t much tell the difference between the two, though. The whippings stayed about the same. Was pretty much always hell to pay, one way or another.”
Edith reached to Sandy’s shoulder and patted it.
“You fished so beautifully there, dear. I do think you’re getting even better at this. So pretty to watch.”
Sandy gave Edith’s hand a gentle squeeze, then pulled the tote bag to her. “Would you like some lunch now?” Sandy asked.
“Oh yes, dear. What did you bring today?”
Sandy placed a chicken salad sandwich, cut in half, on a paper plate and set it in Edith’s lap, along with a paper napkin. The old woman raised the sandwich carefully to her mouth, took a substantial bite, and chewed with pleasure. “Just love chicken salad. What’s the sweet taste in there?”
“Raisins,” Sandy answered.
“Delicious, my dear.”
“More tea?” Sandy held up the thermos.
“Certainly,” Edith said, “unless you’ve got something with a little more spunk in there.”
Sandy smiled and pulled a half-full bottle of red wine from the tote bag. She poured them each a small portion in plastic cups and handed one to Edith. They tapped the lips of their cups together and drank. Edith took a long, luxurious slurp.
“Oh, now we’re living,” Edith said.
The two women continued to eat and drink in relative silence for a while. From time to time, Sandy handed Edith’s cup of wine to her, then set it back on the stone beside her until she was ready for another sip. After they finished their sandwiches, Sandy retrieved two small plastic containers from the bag.
“It was supposed to be strawberry pie. Didn’t turn out very well.” The candied berry filling had come out well enough, but the crust had been a disaster, crumbling to bits around the filling in the pan. “Might not look so bad if we called it strawberry cobbler or something like that.”
“Still, what a treat. And you made this?”
“I tried.”
“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises today.”
“A friend of mine tried to teach me.” Sandy grinned, thinking of how inept she was at pie making, how much Margie had laughed as she attempted to walk Sandy through the mysteries of crust and filling.
“Well, whatever you call it, it’s just lovely,” Edith said as she chewed, her mouth forming a smile around the bite of botched pie. “My legs and arms aren’t worth a hoot anymore, but something this sweet and good makes me damned glad I’ve still got some teeth in here.”
When they’d finished their lunch and Sandy had packed things back into the tote bag, she scooted to the edge of the rock ledge and dangled her feet in the river. She’d grown hot again in the early afternoon heat. After another moment, she turned her face back toward Edith. “Was it worth it, Edith?”
“Was what worth it, dear? Oh, that day in the river? My, yes, but it was.”
Sandy hesitated, watched Edith’s face until it shifted, showing she could tell Sandy asked about something beyond that.
“But that’s not all you’re asking about, am I right? Was what worth it?”
Sandy hesitated still longer, but then took in a long breath and spoke. “Was it worth it? All those years, you know, living alone?”
Edith folded her hands in her lap and gazed again at the spot where the big hemlock tree had once stood. “It wasn’t always so easy,” she began, “but yes, for me, it was worth it. I’d seen too much of how bad it could go the other way, and I just couldn’t, wouldn’t, risk it. Not saying it’d be right or worth it for someone else, if you know what I mean.”
Sandy looked back over her shoulder with a half grin. Edith tilted her head to the side and returned the grin.
“Lived on my own terms, as much as any woman could, as anyone can. No apologies. No regrets, when all is said and done.”
“And you weren’t ever lonely?” Sandy asked.
“Of course I got lonesome. Who doesn’t from time to time? But dear, just because I lived on my own doesn’t mean I was always alone.”
Sandy pulled her legs from the water, turned toward Edith, and sat cross-legged before the old woman.
“I had friends, a few darn good friends. Folks I worked with at Old Dominion. They’re all gone now, of course. Could I have a bit more tea, dear?”
Sandy lifted the thermos from the tote, poured Edith another cup, and handed it to her. The old woman took a generous sip, then held the cup in her lap.
“And there were men, too.”
Sandy’s attention perked up noticeably as she slipped the thermos back into the bag.
“There now, that got your attention, didn’t it,” Edith said. Her body shook visibly as she chuckled. The grin Sandy returned was decidedly sheepish.
“I saw pretty early on that if all a woman needed was a man, that is, needed a man, you know, in that way, well, that was about the easiest thing in the world to come by. Men’s like dogs. If the scent’s in the air, well, there’s always a couple that’ll come running.”
“Edith.” Sandy thought she might actually be blushing.
“Now, don’t look at me as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. There’s things that just don’t change that much over time.”
Sandy looked down and did her best to repress her own chuckling.
“And I liked it. Liked it quite a lot sometimes. I enjoyed the feel of a man. Had some damned fine times pressed up against a man.”
“Did you ever love any of them? Want to stay with them? Maybe get married?”
“There was a couple of them that wanted me to. And a couple others I was plenty fond of. But none that showed me they’d be any different in the long run. And my whole life I’d seen women settle for the same old thing and pay for it in the end. I had me all the good times I needed, but like I said, I wasn’t willing to risk any more than that. And I don’t suppose it would have been fair to those men, either. Some of them were pretty good fellows.”
Edith took another sip from her cup of iced tea and patted at her lips with the sleeve of her sweater. “There was a woman once. Gal I knew for a while in the rooming house in Sherwood we both lived in back then.”
Sandy’s posture changed abruptly. Her back straightened, her shoulders went back, and her mouth involuntarily fell open a bit. “Edith? You were gay?” she asked.
“Wasn’t no gay back then. Just two women who enjoyed the touch of one another, who felt at home with each other for a while. And who would’ve had a downright impossible row to hoe if they’d wanted to live a life together around these parts.”
Sandy leaned back on her arms, her palms pressed into the hot stone, and gazed with wonder on the old woman.
“Her name was Evelyn. Last I heard of her, she’d gotten married and was expecting a fourth child. But that was so long ago. And really, all said and done, when it came to, you know, that sort of thing, well, I suppose I really preferred the feel of a man.”
Edith handed her empty cup to Sandy, who groped behind herself to locate the tote bag and drop the cup into it. She couldn’t take her eyes from Edith.
“I got some and I lost some. Got some of it right and some of it wrong. But I did what felt right to me at the time. Kept myself honest and never hurt anyone particularly, not that I know of. And I never let anyone down. Then again, there was never anyone counting on me to be let down. Suppose that was the hardest part of it all, no one depending on me enough that letting them down would have been a misery. But must have been the right road for me because I’m still drawing wind, despite being an old bag of bones, and here we are, in my special place, having a glorious day.”
Edith’s eyes followed the strands of current through the pool for a moment, then turned back to Sandy. “So now,” Edith said, “I suppose you think I’m just a horrible old woman. One with a tainted past.”
Sandy Holston, also a woman with a past, reached out to Edith’s hand and took it in both of hers. “I think you’re beautiful,” she said.
“Well now, child, I know you’ve been out in the sun too long.” Edith freed her hand and, with some difficulty, unbuttoned the top two buttons of her sweater. “And I think I’ve been out here too long, too. That bit of wine has gone to right to my head, babbling on like this. Maybe I’ll have a little nap now, dear, okay?”
“Of course,” Sandy said.
“And maybe you can get some fishing done without an old woman carrying on so and interrupting.” Edith’s head had slipped forward onto her chest and her eyes had closed before her last few words were uttered.
Sandy remained at her side for a few minutes to be sure Edith was dozing comfortably. Once the old woman’s breathing settled into a steady rhythm, Sandy picked up her rod and stepped back into the river.
Two fish, one from each strand of current inscribing the pool, rose easily and willingly to Sandy’s well-cast fly. With each catch she turned to show the trout to Edith, but the old woman continued to sleep, her head down on her chest, drooped to the side. Though she had no expectations of more challenging or satisfying fishing in this stretch of the river, Sandy found herself growing disappointed and bored. Reeling in her line, she thought she’d do as well to return to the rock ledge and take a bit of a nap along with Edith. She saw the rise just as she was about to turn and wade out of the pool.
The ring of the rise rippled outward from its center just at the fall line beneath a thick outcropping of rhododendron about ten yards upstream from Sandy. The downy hair on the back of her neck bristled up through th
e perspiration on her skin. Sandy took a quick glance at Edith to confirm she still slept, then fed out line from her rod and waded upstream into casting position. This rise was a disturbance of the stream’s surface not made by the common stocked fish she’d been taking thus far. A rise like this was the track of a fish that, though bred in the same pens as these other trout, had entered these waters fitted with the resilience and luck to survive two or three seasons in the river, growing into a worthy catch.
Her casts cut the heavy afternoon air, and her fly dropped to the water with precision and delicacy just to the left of the shadow thrown by the rhododendron. The rainbow trout holding in the shadow hit her fly on the second cast. Just big enough that she had to play the fish a bit, Sandy let it run downstream. Rod held high above her head, she followed the fish back into the big pool adjacent to the rock ledge where Edith rested. Sandy led it back and forth across the pool a couple times before the fish tired and she brought it safely to hand. A good, hefty trout whose flanks showed the deep pink tones of its wild life in a trout stream. Sandy wished, as she released the fish, that Edith had been awake to see this one.
The big rainbow had been enough to cancel Sandy’s disappointment. Satisfied, she climbed from the river back onto the rock ledge with Edith to wait for the sun to bake her dry. Sitting beside the old woman, she looked across the river and tried again to imagine the big hemlock that died and washed away long before she came to the Ripshin Valley, tried to imagine the vast swath of shade it would have spread over the pool, offering cover and respite for fish and human alike, extending Edith a handhold in a current that buoyed her up within a moment of perfect peace. Sandy’s legs were dry and her shorts nearly so when she was started out of her reverie by the touch of Edith’s hand, patting and lightly stroking the top of her head.
“I hadn’t been back to that house, not once, since I left.” Sandy turned and saw that Edith gazed off into the distance, drifting upstream in time. “After I got hired on at Old Dominion and was settled in town, saw what life might be like away from there and how rotten it was when I was there, well, I got angry. Must have inherited a bit of daddy’s mean streak. Wanted to go out there one last time, give them one last go-to-hell.” Edith looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, then raised her gaze back out across the river. “If I believed in such nonsense, I’d say it was like I was called there, drawn there, by some sort of power outside myself. Maybe I was. So I could be there, as a witness.”
