Ruby River
Page 30
The girl had ash-blond hair, blue bracelets, and a black and red dress, according to the people who’d seen her last. The colors meant little in water. He thought of her parting from the car, long hair splayed, arms wide, her body too full to fly. Her cry as the car flew forward, as she floated, then dropped like a stone to the surface hard as concrete, bones driven through the skin. He was looking for bones.
He took off his cap and drank more, then put his cap on backwards. A bracelet could chain her to a root, and though flesh would want to rise, bone would hold her down. He heard the wind in his heart, a sigh, hollow and free as her bones would be. One day she’d sink, become a white pile in the brown depths. He knew he would not find her.
He laid up in the cave and drank for three days. The kitten caught a frog and ate its face and legs. It purred as it crunched the bones. On the fourth day, he pushed the boat into the slow current and let it take him to the site of the crash. The car was gone, but the hole it had bitten into the hillside remained. A small oak, its top sheared off, stretched toward the water. The grasses arched slowly toward their natural height. He passed without reverence or thought.
A glimmer of light drew his glance to the shadows along the bank. Blue jewels winked, a blue bracelet on a white hand, held up as if waiting to be called on. He touched the kitten and felt it tense. He waited for the claws, but it stayed rigid. Gently he rubbed its bony neck. Gently his boat approached the hand. He was sure she was underwater, sure she had been blessed by a baptism of light.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the women at Charlie Brown Daycare in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Greenhill Development Center in Takoma Park, Maryland, and Growing Together Preschool in Lexington, Kentucky, who shared the care of my sons while I developed as a writer. For their generosity, faith, and friendship, I thank Doris Stinson, Nanci Kincaid, Rebekka Seigel, Annie L’Esperance, Nina McCormack, Diane Dennis, Barbara Hausman, Pat Zeilen, Lynn McCune, Lynne Houldin, Deborah Isenstadt, Deborah Reed, and Gurney Norman. My perspective was shaped by my family, Carolyn Geurin, Ann Tahir, and Margit and Tom Pruett, with whom life is always an adventure. For years, David Lee Miller has provided enthusiastic support and encouragement. My son Jack’s keen wit elevates all occasions. I thank Truman and Sam who help me focus and keep me laughing.
I have been blessed many times by my association with a wonderful group of writers, the Kentucky Book Mafia, (KaBooM!): Mary Alexander, Susan Christerson Brown, Pam Sexton, and Crystal Wilkinson. The Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, particularly the Hopscotch House residency program, the Kentucky Women’s Writers Conference, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund all provided timely support.
Special thanks to my favorite cousin and traveling companion, Michael John Ross. Merci beaucoups to Rosemary James and Joe DiSalvo of the Words and Music Faulkner Festival in New Orleans, to Tim Parrish, a model of charity, and to Bruce Tracy, who aided and abetted. I owe a mountain of chocolate to my agent, Amy Williams, for her passion and wisdom, and a lifetime of gratitude to Elisabeth Schmitz, my editor, who knows all the right words.