After River

by Donna Milner

  June 8, 1968. The date is easy to remember because two days earlier Robert Kennedy had died. It was the only time I ever saw River cry. On Thursday night, he sat with Dad and Boyer in front of the television set in the living room. Silent tears spilled from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks while the image of the senator lying on the pantry floor of a Los Angeles hotel – his life seeping out in a dark pool of blood beneath him – played out in the news.

  ‘He was our hope to end this war,’ River said, his voice almost inaudible, as he left the room.

  On Saturday afternoon Boyer drove to Kelowna for the School Board to take delivery of a new school bus. He would stay in Kelowna overnight and drive the bus back to Atwood on Sunday morning. Morgan went along to drive his car home. Of course Carl wasn’t about to let Morgan go on an excursion to the ‘big smoke’ without him. The three of them would be back the next day.

  That Saturday evening was unusual to begin with. There were no town kids at our place. Not even Elizabeth-Ann. Well, perhaps it was not so unusual since the main attraction was two hundred miles away in Kelowna.

  After supper I worked with Mom in the dairy and River took over Morgan and Carl’s job.

  The sadness of mourning had not left River’s eyes. Still, he made attempts at humour as he ran the milk from the barn. ‘Ah, now I know your secret, Nettie,’ he said as he came in with the first load and caught Mom smearing her hands with translucent yellow cream. ‘Can’t fool me with that baby-smooth skin.’ He emptied a stainless-steel milk container into the separator.

  Mom tried to look innocent as she pulled rubber gloves onto her greased hands. She couldn’t deny that every day she applied the same salve to her face and hands that Dad used to soften the cow’s teats. She’d taught me to use udder balm from an early age. I still use it and, whether it’s that, or good genes, my skin is one thing I thank my mother for. We thought it was our own little discovery.

  ‘The milkmaid’s salvation, according to my momma,’ River said as he pushed open the door to leave. ‘But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.’

  River had been with us almost two years that June. His teasing was as harmless and easy as Morgan and Carl’s. He was like a part of our family. Much more than Jake ever was.

  There are those who would say later that they had thought the affection between Nettie Ward and River Jordan was more than it appeared to be. Even I wondered for a moment when I saw the flush of her cheeks as he called back, ‘And my momma’s skin is just as beautiful.’

  But as quickly as the thought entered my mind, I let it flutter away. I could not imagine there being an attraction between my mother and River, other than the affection of a young man who is missing his own mother. Besides, all our friends fell in love with Mom. Why should River be any different?

  Without my brothers the milking took much longer that evening. After Mom and I finished hosing down the dairy, we strolled together across the yard. The surrounding hillsides were losing the final rays of a blazing sun, which had turned our little valley into an oven that day. The evening air felt still and heavy. Billowing white clouds boiled up over the mountains behind the house. Distant rumbling in the skies warned of thunderheads that could not be far behind.

  Mom sniffed the air. ‘We could use a good rain,’ she said. But there was not a breath of wind. It looked as if the brewing storm would skirt our valley.

  After Mom and Dad took turns washing up, I filled the claw-foot tub in the bathroom. As I lay soaking, I heard them leaving for their monthly bridge game with Father Mac and Dr Mumford.

  ‘Don’t forget to bring in the rest of the wash, honey,’ Mom called out before the screen door slammed.

  I finished my bath and pulled on a cotton nightgown. As the sky outside darkened, I sat at the kitchen table studying for my grade eleven final exams.

  The house felt strangely empty. Sounds I had never noticed before, the ticking of the kitchen clock above the stove, out of sync with the mantle clock in the dining room, the hum of the refrigerator, moths hitting the darkening windows, all seemed amplified in the silence.

  The soft aroma of sweet peas wafted in through the window screen. The delicate blossoms, which climbed up the trellis outside the kitchen window, danced in the breeze. Like the flowers, I felt restless. I was finding it hard to concentrate. My mind was not on the books spread out on the table. My mind was in the room above the dairy.

  I stared out the window. The last colours of the day shadowed, and then darkened, as heavy black clouds rolled in. The leaves on the aspen trees across the yard turned their backs to the rising wind. The Pearson windows began to rattle when I suddenly remembered the wash.

  Outside the clothes snapped in the heightened wind. I stepped out onto the laundry platform and began to pull shirts, socks, pants, and underwear, wooden pegs and all, from the line. I tossed everything into a wicker basket while the commotion of wind and dust swirled around my bare legs.

  Then I glanced up and saw him in the window above the dairy. River.

  He stood there, backlit by the soft glow from his room. He raised his hand and waved. But I saw what I wanted to see. I do not even see the truth in memory. I have replayed that gesture many times over the years. My memory will not let it play any different. I saw him beckon for me to come to him.

  I finished yanking the laundry from the clothesline and carried the last basket into the porch. I grabbed a shirt from the top of the pile and pulled it on over my nightgown. The cotton shirt smelled of fresh air, aspen trees, and Boyer. I wrapped it around me and skipped down the porch stairs. The night sky was now black with the fury of roiling clouds. The only light in the yard was a circle of yellow from the bulb over the dairy door, and the glow in the empty window above.

  If anyone had been watching as I hurried across the yard, if any of the promised thousand-eyes-of-the-night had been paying attention, they would have seen no hesitancy in my steps. They would have seen a confidence that propelled me forward, as if I believed in what I know now – what I knew then – was an imagined gesture.

  When I was halfway to the dairy, a lightning flash lit up the night. Seconds later thunder ripped through the air. At the same moment the sky opened up, as if the crashing thunder had cut through the thick black clouds, unleashing their heavy load. A deluge of rain spilled over me. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairway at the side of the dairy I was as drenched as if I had swam there.

  The faint sounds of guitar music came from River’s room. I had to knock twice before the quiet strumming ceased and the door opened. River stood in the dim light dressed only in a pair of cut-off jeans. The expression on his face was more curiosity than surprise, as if he were trying to focus, to figure out just who this half-drowned creature standing in his doorway was. Then, startled, he exclaimed, ‘Natalie, man, you’re soaked.’ He ushered me inside and sat me down on the bed. He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a towel and began to rub my head.

  Three fat candles burned on the night table next to the bed, filling the room with a soft orange light. The air smelled of melting wax, the spice of incense, and the heady aroma of sweet smoke. The thrill of being alone with River, the pressure of his fingers through the towel, the tingle on my scalp, felt invigorating. I became bold. ‘Can I try some?’ I asked when he laid the towel on my shoulders. I nodded at the thin cigarette resting in an ashtray on his guitar case.

  ‘Oh, no,’ River laughed. ‘I promised your father. None of my wacky-tabacky, as he calls it, for any of his family.’ He reached over and pinched the tip of the marijuana butt, extinguishing the tiny glow.

  We sat together on the iron bed with pillows propped up at our backs and watched the storm play out in the picture window across the room. Outside the wind was working itself into a frenzy. The storm wrapped itself around the dairy, isolating us, cocooning us. Torrents of rain pounded a hard-step on the tin roof. Every few minutes lightning flashed, illuminating the canopy of heavy black clouds. Roars of thunder r
elayed through the night sky.

  It felt somehow magical, otherworldly, being caught in a storm with River. It was easy to believe the world was distant, as if only the two of us existed, while nature swirled around us. It felt as if that moment in time was separate, unconnected.

  I picked at the threads on my grandmother’s patchwork quilt while I pretended there was nothing unusual about sitting beside River in my nightgown, while his naked torso reflected the golden glow of candlelight.

  But inside I was weak with the thrill of it. My whole being felt his nearness; the fine hairs on my arms and legs lifted as if pulled by the static electricity of his body. I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding.

  After a while he reached down to retrieve his guitar from the foot of the bed. Melancholy strumming filled the air, while guttering candles created dancing shadows in the corners of the room.

  I don’t have the luxury of being able to say I was seduced to excuse what followed. It’s difficult to explain how a young girl as naïve about sex as I was could be the seducer, but that is what happened. Until that night, other than what I read in books, my only experience with the opposite sex was a few awkward kisses during spin-the-bottle games held by the glow of campfires out at the lake. And yet there I was, alone with River, sitting on his bed knowing there was nowhere I would rather be, and nothing I wanted more than to have his naked body pressed to mine.

  I pulled my legs up and wrapped my arms around them. I rested my head on my knees and watched him as he played. The candle glow cast a warm light on his face. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep, but his hands caressed the guitar strings with the knowledge of a lover. As he strummed, his heavy lids raised, and his blue eyes slowly crinkled into a smile. A smile so tender I ached to reach over and stroke his face. Instead, I touched his bare shoulder, feeling the heat from his skin run up my arm. ‘Teach me,’ I said. ‘Teach me to play.’

  He passed his guitar to me and slid over to my side of the bed. ‘I’ll show you three easy chords you can use to play almost any song,’ he said, adjusting the instrument in my arms. ‘Even,’ he added with a warm smile, “Love Me Tender”.’

  To say I was paying attention to anything other than River’s closeness as he placed my fingers on the frets would be a lie. I don’t know how much time passed as the storm played itself out in the night while I pretended to be interested in his patient instructions.

  In the end it was me who put the guitar aside. I bent down and placed it on the floor next to the bed. Then I straightened up, leaned into River and tentatively placed my lips on his. I took his lack of response as surprise. And suddenly I was pressing harder. But the hunger, the heat in that first kiss was all mine. I was the one who laid back, pulling him to me. I felt the rigidity of his body, but I did not stop. With a certainty that was beyond my experience, I caressed his face, his neck, his naked chest. My fingers explored his body, undid the snap-button, then the zipper of his jeans. My hands reached down and pushed up my nightie to expose my naked body. My hips lifted to his, guided him to me, while he lay with his face buried in the bunched-up shirt on my shoulder, barely there. I ignored the robot-like response of his body, believing, wanting to believe, that he was holding back because he didn’t want to hurt me. In the end, the coupling that took place, the joining of our bodies, was all my doing.

  I knew – even then I knew – the part of River I wanted was not there. The whimpering coming from his throat was not that of passion, but of sorrow. He was still in mourning I told myself; his grief was for Robert Kennedy, for his country. Still I held on to him, unwilling to let go, to believe what my heart knew.

  The pain that I had read about, the searing pain of the ‘first time’ that girls had whispered about in the hayloft, did not happen. I felt only a warmth at the first thrust, then the heat spread through the core of my being as I clung to him.

  Even though I’ve played that scene over endlessly in my mind, reliving and embellishing our hurried encounter, it could not have lasted more than a few minutes before River pushed himself away, as if he had suddenly woken up. ‘Oh, God,’ he moaned as he rolled off me. ‘This is wrong.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I murmured and tried to pull him back.

  ‘No, no, it’s not,’ he cried. ‘This is so wrong, so wrong.’ He threw his legs over the end of the bed, and leaned over, his face in his hands. ‘God! I’m so sorry, Natalie.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I sat up and pulled my nightie back down. ‘I love you,’ I whispered.

  He looked up at me with glazed-over eyes, ‘And I love you too, Natalie, but not like this.’

  Outside the wind was winding down. The rain had stopped. Through the window I saw stars appearing between the parting clouds. Then I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel as Dad’s truck pulled into the yard.

  Suddenly there was nothing to say. The world turned back on. River grabbed his cut-off jeans and retreated into the bathroom.

  I couldn’t leave. I knew I was stuck there until my parents settled in for the night. I curled up on the bed while I waited. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the muffled sounds of retching coming from behind the bathroom door.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I GLANCE AT Jenny as she drives and I sort through memories. I take my time, picking and choosing which details to keep, which to discard or ignore, and which to share before I say anything. Then I lean back and in a detached voice I tell her about how River came to us, became part of us, how we all fell in love with him. And I tell her briefly about the night I went to his room.

  It all sounds so banal, so commonplace – a young girl, who was so blinded with what she believed was love, that she lost sight of reality. A child lost in the moment, believing that her desire made her an adult.

  I don’t bother telling Jenny that ‘nice’ girls didn’t do ‘it’ in those days. I don’t say that what happened in that room all those years ago filled me with guilt and remorse. It did not. Not then. That came later.

  That night I lay curled up in River’s bed, hugging myself and hanging on to his words. He said he loved me!

  He thought I was too young for him, that was all, I told myself. I was sixteen. River was twenty-two. My father was ten years older than my mother, I would remind him. She was seventeen when they married, and look at them. In less than two months I would be seventeen; six years wouldn’t seem so much of an age difference then. I could wait. We could wait. I drifted off to sleep convinced he would see that too. He would wait for me, everything would work out, would be all right.

  Except, of course, it would not.

  I don’t know how long I slept. I woke to a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Natalie, wake up.’ I opened my eyes to find River standing over me. ‘You should go back to the house,’ he said not unkindly.

  He was fully dressed in jeans and a shirt, as if it was the morning instead of the middle of the night. The fragrance of Ivory soap radiated from his body. His hair, still wet from a shower, dripped onto the shoulders of his cotton shirt.

  He picked up his journal from the nightstand and went over to the chrome table beneath the window. The candles were extinguished. Bright light from the open bathroom door spilled into the room. River sat hunched over the table, his back to me. Through the window, I saw the storm had passed. Whole patches of starry sky showed through the breaking clouds. I climbed off the bed and took a step toward him. ‘Go home, Natalie,’ he said without turning around. It was more of a plea than a statement.

  ‘Everything will be okay,’ I said. I wanted him to feel the same joy I did. I knew he did not.

  ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said with a sigh.

  I didn’t want to leave, but the promise in those words moved me. I leaned over and retrieved my wet shoes from beside the bed. At the door I turned back and whispered, ‘Good night.’

  There was no response. At the table in front of the window, River sat bent over his journal, a pen in his unmoving hand. He stared out into the night. Then his should
ers sagged and his head dropped as if in defeat. I wanted to run to him, to beg him not to be upset, but instinct held me back.

  I hesitated only a moment before I quietly closed the door behind me. I stood at the top of the stairs. Across the yard the house was dark, except for the whitewashed siding, which seemed to glow in the growing light of the moon. As I looked at the darkened windows of our house, I felt a shiver that was not caused by the cooling air. In that moment I suddenly knew what Ma Cooper meant when she said, ‘a goose just walked across my grave. I pulled Boyer’s shirt tighter around me and shook off the feeling of sorrow as I climbed down the stairs.

  I did not hurry. I stepped carefully through the gravel-and mud-puddle-strewn yard. As I made my way past my mother’s rose garden, the air was heavy with barnyard aromas and the perfume of rose petals bruised by the heavy rain. To this day, I cannot smell the earthy freshness after a rainstorm without being transported back to that night.

  When I reached the porch, I opened the screen door slowly, stopping when it squeaked, then held my breath until the silence returned. I closed the kitchen door behind me and stood in the darkness for a moment. Grateful for the childish games of blind walking, I tiptoed up the unlit stairway, counting each of the eighteen linoleum-topped steps. In the narrow upstairs hallway, I turned left and counted six steps to my door, then felt my way across my room to my bed.

  Even as a child, the dark had held no fear for me. No bogey men or monsters ever lurked in my closets. I never looked over my shoulder to see what might hide in the shadows. Perhaps if I was not so at ease with the night, perhaps if I was timid in the dark, I would have cast furtive glances around, or paid more attention. Maybe I would even have felt the eyes watching me as I crossed the yard. Then I may have glanced back over my shoulder, or turned around and looked behind me. And perhaps I might have seen her there-my mother standing in the shadows beneath the dairy stairs.

  Chapter Thirty