The House Near the River

by Barbara Bartholomew

“And I took right to you?”

  The smile deepened. “Not exactly. I started telling you how I’d just joined up and could tell you were feeling sorry for me. I made use of that, of course, and told you all about my folks back at home. What could you do? You could hardly ignore the soon-to-be soldier, away from home for the first time.”

  She stared at him. “You manipulated me!”

  “A man does what he has to. I knew I didn’t have much time, just until you finished your chicken salad and iced tea. But by the time you were done, you’d agreed to keep me company at a movie. It was To Each His Own and by the time we’d bought the tickets, I think you were beginning to get interested.”

  She hadn’t ever even heard of that film. “That’s a long way from being engaged at the end of the day.”

  “I’m a fast worker,” he boasted.

  She studied him seriously. “Somehow I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

  He took her hand and began to take her along a little path that led toward the lake. “The truth is, Ange, we seemed to just know each other. A year, a decade, could have passed in that one day. We lived a lifetime in that afternoon and by the time it was over, I asked you to go meet my family. I didn’t have to report for a couple of days and I told you that might be all we had for who could guess how long. We got in my car and talked and snuggled all the way back to the farm. “

  “Clemmie must have been surprised.”

  “She was, even more surprised that I’d already signed up. She wouldn’t let Charlie go, saying a man with a family couldn’t just go off like that. But after she met you, she was glad I had a girl. Said it gave me someone to come home to.” He grinned. “She also said she’d thought she was doomed to have an old bachelor brother on her hands.

  “She made us fried chicken and homemade ice cream for supper. That was before we had a refrigerator and could make our own ice, of course, so Charlie had to go to town for a block of ice to make the cream. It was a real celebration.”

  Angie nodded, looking out over the lily-pad-covered lake. She could imagine very well since she now knew all the players so well. All except Charlie, of course. Charlie had eventually to go to the war and finally had not come home with the others.

  “We went to bed late. Clemmie put you in the spare room where you sleep with David now. In the morning when she went to wake you for breakfast, you were gone.” His tone was bleak as he lived over that loss. “At first we thought you’d just gone out for a walk, though it was a cold day and you had no coat. But we couldn’t find you.”

  “And you had to go back to the city to report.”

  He nodded. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  All those years and he’d been loyal to her. Or had he? She felt a sudden twinge of guilt, and then laughed aloud at herself.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Not you,” she said hastily, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Just something about myself.”

  Modern girl, she thought. He was in his mid-thirties. No doubt he had been through some relationships. As had she.

  It was only fair that he understand. “You’ve got to know that you weren’t my first love, Matthew.”

  He frowned, lines cutting deeply into his forehead. “No?”

  “After all, we didn’t even know each other.”

  “I reckon,” he admitted reluctantly, looking as jealous as she could have hoped. Then his expression cleared. “But you are my last love,” he said softly, “the one that will last forever.”

  She suppose she should have gagged at the cliché, but instead she felt warmed and kissed him on the mouth this time.

  Feeling contented as a kitten in the sunshine, she walked on with him. They had this beautiful spot on the earth entirely to themselves and the only sound she heard was the distant buzz of insects.

  “And you don’t remember that day at all?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It hasn’t happened. It’s not something I would forget.”

  She thought that he believed her now, but she saw a look of doubt brush his thoughtful eyes and wondered.

  “And if you never remember it happening?”

  He didn’t say, ‘If it never happens.’

  Gently she pulled her arm free. “We’d better go back to the farm. I’m worried about David.”

  “Nothing to worry about.” He refused to be hurried. “You know Clemmie and the kids won’t let anything happen to him.”

  She looked around. No cracks emitting golden sunlight here, no interruptions to this reality. For the first time she realized that she never saw the openings in time anywhere but at and around the farmhouse: not in town, not at church, and not here on their outing.

  David wasn’t safe there. That was the change point where everything happening. And while she was gone, he might stumble into one of those cracks and she would never see him again.

  She didn’t bother to explain to Matthew. Most likely he wouldn’t believe her anyway. “We’ve got to get home,” she said.

  With reluctance he agreed to take her back to the farm. She ran to the car and with the sound of pounding pulse beats in her ears waited for him to get the engine started, back up and head away from the lake. Of necessity their speed had to be low leaving the park to avoid hitting one of the wild animals, but when he sped up only a little once they were on the misbegotten little road, she grew increasingly impatient and urged him to a rate of travel that he protested was less than safe in such country.

  To add to her frustration, about half way home they had to stop while he fixed a flat, which she gathered was a much more common occasion than that to which she was accustomed. That flat she’d had when driving out to meet her cousin had been the first she’d had in years, but he talked as though this happened practically every time he went anyplace. No doubt tires in these after the war years weren’t up to the standard of the 2000s.

  Then he insisted on stopping at a little station for gas. “We won’t have enough gas to get to town from the farm if I don’t,” he said.

  She sat tensely while an attendant added the five gallons he requested, chatted cheerily and carefully cleaned the windshield. The total cost was barely over a dollar, but an impatient Angie told Matthew after they were on the road again that she could have filled up quicker herself.

  He laughed at the idea of a woman pumping gas.

  Her anxiety didn’t go away and her heart pounded helplessly as they drove, ever so slowly toward the farm. Almost there, she thought when they’d turned in at the drive. Almost there and she would hold her little brother safely in her arms again.

  As they neared the house, she began to see the cracks like lightning against the afternoon and her fear stirred even higher. Then she saw David, playing alone out front as he had on that long ago day. She didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete halt, but opened the door and rushed out the passenger side even as Matthew cried her name in alarm.

  One of those cracks widened just in front of David. He was walking straight forward, apparently without seeing it. She stumbled for an instant as the ground rushed up to meet her feet, found her balance and raced toward him.

  He stepped over and through was inside the opening as she flung herself forward, grabbing hold of him so that they both fell to the ground on the other side of the opening. She didn’t pause to catch breath, but grabbed him up and rushed to go back through to where Matthew waited for her.

  The opening was gone. She stared in shock at the house as she’d first seen it, fallen in and tumbled down. The porch roof was gone, worn away by time, and the windows were hollow empty eyes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  David, still in her arms, cried weakly and she murmured words of comfort even as a slim, blonde woman raced around the corner of the house toward them. “Angie!” she shouted. “Thank God.”

  Amanda started hugging and scold
ing her at the same time. “We’ve been worried sick. I called the sheriff. Your dad hired detectives. I was afraid you were dead, though your dad was sure you were still alive.” She pulled out her phone and started to call, “I’ve got to let him know. He’s acted so calm, but inside he’s got to be frantic. It’s a wonder he hasn’t had a heart attack.”

  Still in shock, Angie listened as her cousin told her father that she’d been found safe and well and that she didn’t have a clue, a single clue as to what had happened, but they’d be there as soon as possible.

  Her eyes widening, Amanda completed the call, staring at Angie with David still clasped sobbing in her arms. “Who is that little boy?” she asked. Then before Angie could answer, she went on, “He looks like David, or at least the way I remember David. Of course it’s been so long ago and I was so young, I probably can’t remember . . .”

  She kept chattering as she always did when she was excited or nervous so Angie tuned her out, sitting David on his feet and looking him over for injury. Other than scrapes on his knees where he’d hit the ground, he seemed in good shape. She looked at Amanda whose mouth still moved though Angie had tuned out the sound. What could she say to explain David’s presence?

  The answer was obvious. Nothing. How could she explain a brother who had not aged after being missing for fifteen years? She had her own theory that he’d been in some kind of stasis until a few days ago when he showed up at the Harpers, but she wasn’t about to suggest that wild idea to Amanda.

  “How long have I been gone, Amanda? “

  “Nearly two weeks,” her cousin responded. “Twelve days and part of another to be exact. When I got your message the next morning after we were supposed to meet, I came straight out and found your car. I thought you’d been kidnapped and maybe even murdered.” Her excitable cousin sighed gustily. “Thank God, you weren’t murdered.

  “Anyhow,” she continued. “I called the sheriff’s office and they came out to do a search, though they didn’t have any better luck than I’d had. Then we called your dad and he came right out.”

  “Who’s looking after the Prairie House?” Angie questioned immediately. She and Dad couldn’t both be away from the bed and breakfast at the same time.

  Amanda shrugged. “Who cares? It didn’t matter. We were only thinking about you.”

  “You shouldn’t have told Dad,” Angie accused angrily.

  Amanda stared at her. “Have you lost your mind? I’m not supposed to tell your dad you’d gone missing?” She studied her cousin seriously, then her gaze fell once more on David. “You still haven’t told me who that little boy is.”

  She didn’t see any way around the truth. “He’s David.”

  “David!” Amanda glared at her.

  “My brother.”

  “Angie, David disappeared over fifteen years ago. He’d be eighteen.”

  “He’s David,” it was the one point Angie would insist on in the questioning that lay ahead. She wouldn’t explain. She couldn’t defend. But he had to be David if she and Dad and Grandma were going to keep him. And a frightened little boy must be with his family.

  She looked around. Her car was gone, but a big red pickup was parked in the drive. “Are the police here now?”

  “No, I just came out, hoping . . .” Amanda stopped her explanation. “Honey, I promised to get you to your dad right away. He’s at my house. But what do we do about this little boy? I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping.”

  “He’s David,” Angie insisted firmly.

  David frowned at her. “Manda,” he said after a long look. As with his sister, he was facing a familiar face many years older than the one he remembered, but he still saw the familiar person within. He’d stopped crying, though he clung to Angie’s hand. “

  We’re going to see Dad,” she told him.

  “Daddy,” he affirmed, looking pleased. “Mommy?”

  That hurt. She would leave that to her father to explain.

  Amanda took them to her pickup without further argument. The vehicle had an extended cab with luxurious back and front seats, but Angie placed David between them on the front seat, fastening seat belts self-consciously.

  “Zoom, zoom,” the little boy said with a grin.

  “You bet,” Amanda agreed, starting the pickup with an unnecessarily loud roar that make the child laugh. “He sure looks like David,” she said.

  “He is.”

  Amanda roared down the drive and to the paved highway. “Angie, my two little girls are older than this child.”

  Angie just looked at her, her mouth set in a firm line.

  It was late in the day, approximately the same time of day in which she’d gotten out of the Nash she’d rode home from the refuge in and, though she wasn’t certain, she felt that the amount of time she’d been missing according to Amanda might be the actual time she’d spent with the Harper family in 1946.

  But David was still three after being missing all those years. Things didn’t fit together.

  Amanda took them to her home on an attractive residential street in nearby Elk City, a town both girls had frequently visited as children. Angie didn’t pay much attention until they climbed from the pickup and she saw her father and other people waiting in the doorway.

  “Dad,” she said, running to him, but still holding on to David’s hand. She threw herself into his arms for a fierce hug, then stepped back, making no introductions as she watched David’s face.

  She had to remind herself that for her brother only days had passed while once again he faced a relative unaccountably aged. Clarence Ward looked more like this child’s grandfather than his father.

  Tears rolled silently down his face as he waited for the boy to make the first move.

  It didn’t take David long. “Daddy,” he said and stepped up to be lifted and hugged. His small arms twined around the man’s neck.

  “David,” his father whispered hoarsely.

  For long moments only the three of them stood within that circle. Then when a man’s voice said, “Are you saying this child is your son, Mr. Ward?” she stepped back to take stock.

  She wasn’t well acquainted with her cousin’s husband, a nice looking man in glasses, and she hardly knew her two small daughters, who looked close in age, perhaps four and six. Two other men, both of them in uniform, were present. One wore the uniform of a state trooper, the other’s badge marked him as sheriff. He was a slim, aging man who looked nothing like Clemmie’s friend Tobe, who had been sheriff last she noticed.

  The sheriff was the one who had spoken. “Sir,” he said again, “You claim this child is your son.”

  Angie looked accusingly at Amanda, who must have been texting these officials even as she drove them in.

  Dad looked at Angie. She shrugged and he smiled ever so slightly. “I will swear anywhere you like, Sheriff, that this boy is my son and this young woman is my daughter who has been missing. I will even take a polygraph test if you wish. “

  “That might be necessary,” the sheriff was unbending. “In the meantime, I will need to take the boy into custody and place him in temporary foster care.”

  “No!” Angie and Clarence Ward said the word together.

  “My attorney,” Clarence Ward asserted, “is on his way right now. You will take no action until he arrives.”

  For an instant, Angie wondered who he was talking about, then recalled that both her parents had grown up out here and their contacts went deep. No doubt some lawyer who was also a boyhood friend had been summoned.

  She just hoped it did some good. David didn’t need the trauma of being sent to strangers. The boy seemed oddly comfortable now that he was back in his father’s arms. “Daddy,” he said now. “I’m hungry.”

  Clarence grinned. “How about a peanut butter sandwich with raspberry jam,” he said.

  David grinned back, lea
ning confidently against his father. “My favorite.”

  Ignoring the others Clarence went in the doorway of his niece’s house. Amanda followed, “I don’t think I have any raspberry, David. Would blackberry do as well? My mother made it.”

  On shaking legs, Angie followed them, turning before she closed the door to summon the others inside.

  Several weeks passed before they were allowed to go home. Clarence Ward passed a polygraph test, though his daughter did not submit to one. The most convincing evidence was that of DNA. Though nobody understood it, the evidence was that the small boy found at the old Ward farm was the son of his father, grandson of his grandmother and cousin of his cousins.

  Neither Angie or her father made any explanations other than the claim that David belonged to them and, of course, Angie could make no DNA claim since she had joined the family not by birth, but by adoption.

  Nobody else stepped forward to claim the child. No trace of such a missing child was found, so watchfully, cautiously Clarence was allowed to return home with his daughter and son.

  Angie had a fair idea of just how much they would be under the eye of officialdom for a while, but supposed that those persons had developed their own ideas about what had happened and they had to do with dad having fathered a second, much more recent son than David. She couldn’t much blame them. Human nature demanded a believable explanation.

  They drove to Texas with a feeling of release, nevertheless, passing along the northern top of the state from Wichita Falls through numerous small towns, stopping briefly at the assisted living center in the small border city of Sherman where Grandma lived now in a comfortable assisted living center.

  Naturally they had talked by phone and Grandma had been told about David, but it wasn’t until the tall, thin old lady looked up and saw them approaching that she said with obvious conviction, “but it is David.”

  The boy, who seemed accustomed now to the unexplainable aging of his relatives, went readily into her arms. He had been Grandma’s pet and was ready enough to take up that role again.