The Sweetness of Water

by Nathan Harris

“You are General Glass,” she said.

  “And you must be Isabelle,” the man said.

  His cheeks were rosy from the ride, his lips cracked, and she invited him inside and offered him water. He told her he’d been with Ezra earlier in the day and heard of George’s worsening condition. That he’d wanted to give him time to see his friend, and perhaps, once he’d returned, make his way over himself.

  “I can’t fathom why,” she said. “From what I’ve gathered you weren’t my husband’s biggest admirer.”

  Glass ran his hand over what little hair he had before answering. She reckoned he was much more imposing when surrounded by his soldiers, yet he retained his dignity alone, standing at attention in a stranger’s home.

  “My time posted in Old Ox has resulted in a number of regrets that I cannot make right. My treatment of your husband ranks high amongst them.”

  Having no interest in alleviating whatever discomfort or guilt he might feel, she held her tongue. Better to let him finish.

  “My own aims occupied me so entirely that they became something of an obsession. Given as much, I did not find George’s plight to be worth the trouble. Wade Webler assured me it would be handled in a manner that was fair, that would preserve a sense of calm…”

  He seemed to need a moment, and he used it to look out the window—at the very land, she imagined, that George was just now staring at himself.

  “He betrayed me in the exact manner George told me he would. And I have paid for it.”

  A smile spread across his face, yet it was false, and quickly curdled into a grimace of humility. Indeed, he said, he was being reassigned to go west, with only half as many men under his command as he was currently responsible for.

  “I have no reason to wonder why,” he said. “I have acted beneath my rank. And I believe George deserves to hear as much from me before I depart.”

  Isabelle had no words for this man, divorced as he was from whatever sense of certainty had once fueled him. She simply walked to the bottom of the stairs and indicated for him to follow.

  “Don’t take long,” she said. “He really does need his rest.”

  Glass was upstairs no more than five or ten minutes and he soon appeared again, picking a loose hair from his jacket, taking a deep breath as he found her at the foot of the stairs.

  “Were you well received?” she asked.

  “He was certainly alert. He listened to me closely. When I finished he said not a word. It was strange. He simply patted me on the side. Like I was a boy, really…He then told me that we all must carry on. That he wished me well.”

  “Strange indeed,” she said, considering the humor in her husband’s attempt to show this man a little compassion, figuring George ached to be rid of him. Yet it appeared to have worked for Glass, and all the better. “I hope you keep those words close to your heart during your travels west, then.”

  Glass gazed into the kitchen as though it might offer access to a greater truth, then nodded and headed for the front door.

  “Good luck, General,” she said.

  He turned and put his hand upon his breast.

  “I wish the same to you and yours.”

  * * *

  The dark was total by the time the general was mounting his horse. Isabelle returned to the kitchen, finished preparing the stew, and brought the food tray upstairs. When she opened the bedroom door she was met with the smell of rotten meat, and the room grew dense in the thick air. She pulled a chair up next to George. The dew of sweat glistened on his forehead again and his hand trembled. All she wanted was another lucid hour with him, or even a moment, before she lost him to the fever once more.

  “Where have you gone?” he asked.

  “I was only making your dinner.”

  His brow arched but when he saw the food tray he nodded encouragingly. “What finer way to end the night than with a stew.”

  She was trembling herself now. Her only wish was for him to enjoy her creation, and her nerves clouded the tranquility brought on by the open window, by the dark mass of the trees in the distance. She scooped a dollop onto the spoon and he opened his lips to it, and she looked on, spellbound, as he swallowed.

  He said nothing. She refused the idea that the stew wasn’t to his taste and simply dipped the spoon into it once more. But when she invited him to open his mouth again, he turned his face away.

  “George, you should eat.”

  He shook his head petulantly. “My stomach cannot manage.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “And now I am saying I don’t want it!” He slammed the side of the bed. “It’s no good!”

  She could not look at him. Every few moments he whimpered in agony, the sweat pooling on his pillow now. There was no means to distinguish her sadness from her anger, for she was enraged that he’d given the last reserves of his energy to guests and left nothing for her but this undying bitterness; and yet, she also knew the pain that had racked him and desired only a moment of peace for her beloved. A resolution to his pain.

  By the time she spoke, the steam had floated off into the night and the stew sat cold on her lap.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I cannot cook to your satisfaction. I’m sorry I was so cruel at times. That I grew so frustrated by your behavior when you were only acting naturally. I raged at you in a fever when you were too cold to understand my pain and I ran from you when you needed nothing more than my touch. And I blamed you. My God. I blamed you for so many things that weren’t of your doing. Only someone like you could tolerate me, and perhaps you’re an angel in that way. I am so grateful to have you. And I am sorry.”

  His face, hauntingly pale, had emptied itself of color altogether, and he lay still. Without warning he reached his hand out and took the stew from the tray. He gripped the spoon and took a sip. Then another.

  “George, you don’t need to—”

  “It’s excellent,” he said.

  He struggled with each swallow, his throat quivering as the food passed down.

  “It is so excellent. All of it. Exquisite. Divine.”

  His eyelids began to twitch. The spoon slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. The bowl capsized on his chest. He was lost to convulsions, his leg skittering about as though it had acquired agency and wished to escape him; his fists clenched, his arms locked up at odd angles before his whole body abruptly went limp.

  Isabelle ran for towels and returned to him; cleaning him carefully, slowly, returning to the parts that were already washed, selfish ministrations, for even though his pulse still beat, she knew, then, that her husband was gone to her.

  * * *

  He lasted through the night. It was Silas who pulled the sheet over his face come morning. He put his hands gently upon her shoulders, telling her it would be all right—that he would stay with her however long her mourning might last.

  Yet she would hear nothing of it.

  “I’ve mourned enough in one lifetime for two women,” she said. “I’ll have no more of it.”

  Her only distraction was to keep herself busy. She collected a bin from the cellar and made her way to the bathroom, where she grabbed George’s brush, his pomade, and all of his other possessions there, and stored them away. His scent was omnipresent, that sweaty musk she neither loved nor hated, a smell that was simply George, as familiar as the man himself. She was certain that once his body was removed and the house was scrubbed of him, she might have a moment to think of things other than the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs, his oddly peaceful snoring, his delightful grin on returning from the woods. Perhaps she might even stop thinking of her son, who would have no news of his father’s passing, lost as he was somewhere in the world with no way for his mother to reach him.

  Silas appeared at the bathroom door to ask what she was doing.

  She gestured to the towels on the rack beside the washtub.

  “Grab those, please,” she said. “Whenever I see them I can only picture George
wrapped up in one, coming into the bedroom after a bath. Still wet. Always getting water on the floor. That won’t do. I’ll get new ones.”

  “Izzy, please. You aren’t yourself.”

  He hadn’t called her Izzy since she was a child. Surely her actions weren’t that immature? When Silas didn’t move to pick up the towels, she collected them herself and threw them into the bin. “If you won’t get the towels,” she said, “then you can begin with the pots and pans in the kitchen. His grip is worn into every handle. All I can see is him leaning over the skillet to smell his cooking. I can’t have it. I’ll get some new kitchenware in town tomorrow, too.”

  As she made to leave the room, Silas put his arms around her and held her tight, her cheek against his chest, and she dropped the bin to the ground.

  “Isabelle,” he whispered into her ear. “Give yourself a day. For God’s sakes. Putting away his pan will not help things.”

  Without uttering another word, he walked her to the couch. They sat together in silence. There was nothing more to do about the house and the weight of the day finally caught up to her. After some time he told her he wished to roll a cigarette and wondered if she would be okay without him for a moment.

  “I’d like to go outside myself,” she said.

  “Don’t let me stop you.”

  So that was where she spent the rest of her day, and when night came, she watched the stars with a blanket in her lap. Surely there would be another sign of her husband, clustered in the constellations. But it was a nighttime sky like any other. Silas refused to sleep himself but kept his distance, staying inside but making a routine of coming out to ask if she was ready for bed. The final time he opened the door he was yawning himself, and she told him to leave her be.

  “I suppose you won’t be moved,” he said.

  “You cannot worry after me like this,” she said. “I’m fine. I just wish to wait out the night.”

  “Wait it out for what?”

  “For morning.”

  “And then?” he said.

  “And then I will bury my husband. Let’s not have it come too quick.”

  Silas remained in the doorway. It was plain he didn’t understand his intrusion, and she wished he would grasp that there was nothing he could do but grant her this window of time where she could draw significance from the immensity of the countryside, and live one last night in a world that did not know or care that her husband was gone from her.

  “Go to sleep,” she said.

  She didn’t bother to see him off, but when she finally turned, a while later, the candles inside had been put out and the cabin was dark.

  CHAPTER 26

  It was Caleb who insisted they remain in the woods, claiming Hackstedde and Webler might still be after them—a fear that occupied Prentiss as well. They’d stopped a week into their flight, upon reaching a town he’d not heard of, and Caleb would go there for food, return to their campsite bearing bread and cans of meat, and after eating they would sleep surrounded by silence, awaiting daylight. Each evening Caleb would perk up, buzzing with an energy he’d stored away somewhere, and announce that another day had passed, his voice thick with pride, as though they’d accomplished something noble. Eight days on, he’d say. The following night it was nine. And each would lead to the next, all of them blending into one, until a few weeks had gone by and Prentiss had had more than enough nights in the woods to last a good long while, if not forever.

  One morning they stood idle, cloaked in the shadows of the trees, looking out upon the road that led into that town. Convent, Caleb had told him upon his first trip there. The place was called Convent. Prentiss had yet to utter the word. Didn’t feel right to tempt fate, to speak of it as an actuality, as the next step in his plan, only for it to be robbed from him when Hackstedde eased up to their camp, rope in hand, ready to shatter the very dreams of freedom Prentiss guarded in his mind’s eye so zealously. But it was nigh on a month now, and Hackstedde was nowhere to be found. Seemed more and more likely it might remain that way.

  “I bet they got beds in Convent,” Prentiss said. “I can’t be the only one of us who’d enjoy the feel of a real pillow under his head. No more bug bites, either. We ain’t gotta be itching each other’s backs all day. Imagine that.”

  Caleb offered him a noncommittal look and said nothing.

  His unease made Prentiss try another tack. Hit the matter head-on. “I’d rather risk it than keep this up. Can’t quite see the point of chasing freedom if you ain’t gonna take it up once it’s sitting right in front of you.”

  “I like it out here,” Caleb said, his voice low and tinged with embarrassment. “I wish I could say why. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  But it wasn’t hard for Prentiss to understand. Out here, living with his guilt, the boy didn’t have to worry about disappointing anyone. There was no one to see through his false confidence and call him out as so many others appeared to have done in the past, at least according to the stories he’d told Prentiss—about boys who were predators, boys who haunted his dreams. Prentiss saw some of himself in Caleb, for he and Landry had hidden on George’s land in this same fashion. The reassurance, the blessedness, of being left alone was worth more than a thousand bug bites.

  From their spot on the road, Prentiss could spy the start of the buildings at the edge of town, peeking out from chimney smoke and the occasional cloud. Already his imagination had mapped out the place—the cozy nook of the general store where Caleb had ventured for their food, the looming spire of the church where everyone gathered on Sundays. He even knew the homes of all the townsfolk—families he’d invented, going so far as to assign them hobbies and jobs, passions and secrets.

  But Convent was not the place he wished to land for good. There was nowhere within journeying distance of Old Ox that he would ever call home. The very mention of it could make his mouth quiver. His feet go numb. And those old images of Majesty’s Palace, of Landry’s face as a boy, the brightness of his mother’s smile (only on good days, when they had a rabbit roasting, when the night’s work was done early and his mother tousled Landry’s hair and his giggles bounced against the walls of their cabin), would penetrate him like a knife, only to be replaced by the emptiness of their cabin after his mother was sold, by the mangled gape of his brother’s face in his coffin. Maybe with time there were parts of the past that could be forgotten, their sway over him toppled, but there would always be certain memories that survived the fall and stood amid the rubble. Monuments of loss.

  “I’m not stopping you,” Caleb said. “If you wish to go.” He was tossing the last jar of his mother’s canned fruit between his hands. He refused to eat it. That last connection with the woman he adored so much. It seemed he might well be content to stick right here in these woods for the rest of his life, holed away from society while the world carried on.

  The wind was so violent it felt as though it might cut through flesh like a whip. It quit for a spell before it kicked up one last time and took off in the direction of town. Prentiss squinted again into the distance at the rooftops, shards of brick and wood, seducing him with the power of the unknown.

  Yet for all his desire to take his chances in town, it was he whose heart began to gallop when a horse-drawn cart appeared on the road bearing a man who looked to be asleep, chin against chest. He shielded himself behind a tree, while Caleb, unconcerned, only gazed in the other direction, still playing with that jar. Prentiss scolded himself silently, brushing bark off his shirt, which only brought him to think of how badly he longed to bathe. But it wasn’t just the man in his cart—something in the daylight menaced him: a steady drum, growing louder, the sound of a threat creeping near, the same sound that followed Gail’s horse in the fields of Majesty’s Palace, or Hackstedde’s horse in the forest, and although the noise was not as real as Caleb made it out to be, it did not make it less persistent, less tangible in the sight of every stranger that came down the road before them. To his great shame, he was scared. />
  “What is it?” Caleb asked.

  Nothing, Prentiss told him. He had no interest in alarming the boy, who worried enough as it was about what had happened to his father. The trek alone had provided ample concern. He didn’t need to add to Caleb wondering, every night, if some distant rattle was George coming to reunite with them. Having returned from the war in one piece, Caleb apparently didn’t realize how these situations so often ended. No reunion. No resolution. Instead, the spark of life that connects you to the other you cherish simply dims and then goes black entirely. The present thunders on while the past is a wound untended, unstitched, felt but never healed.

  “I think we should both stay awhile in town,” Prentiss said. “Get up to something. Work a little. It’s possible, I think—to just live normal—even if it ain’t for long.”

  Time, he’d found, was different in the woods. Without a man like Gail—or George, in his milder way—keeping him attuned to its passing, he had learned to tell it by bearing witness to the emotions of the sun: its fury showing orange in the afternoon; its loss of interest in pockets of time, when it let the wind take flight and cool things down; its violet at sundown like a wink, a flourish, before turning in altogether, teasing the world with what it might have in store come morning. It might bring out your passions one minute but it could lull you in the next, and he was not surprised to find Caleb in a trance. He pondered how long he’d been standing there in silence; how far down the road the man with his chin to his chest had ridden since he’d last put eyes on him.

  What he would give to be so careless! To not look over his shoulder. To miss a signpost and find himself two towns over, drinking ale on a stranger’s porch and speaking with him of the last stranger who had made the same mistake. He wished to do wrong, too. That was what George, what Caleb, what no one quite got. They underestimated his passion for living. The freedom to steal a glance at a taken woman, one who reminded him of Delpha, or Clementine, and sneak in a word one day when her man was off at work—who she belonged to be damned, for every woman was her own woman, and he was his own man.