Summer in Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  I pivoted on weak knees, my throat aching, and looked up at him. “If she’d been perfect, she would have followed you. She’d have gone wherever you went, even if you rejected her, and she’d have told you she was pregnant.”

  “That boy she loved—that boy I was—never gave her a chance. He did the right thing—for that perfect girl, and for the children we made.” He held me by the shoulders, pulling me toward him, holding me still, me with my hands reaching for his shirtfront, to pull him close, to keep him at a distance. There were so many obstacles in the thin air between us. “What happened yesterday wasn’t good,” he said. “If I stay, there’ll be more trouble.”

  “Oh? I saw plenty of good. I saw people who cared about you, people who made an effort to welcome you back.”

  “None of them were named Rob Walker.”

  “Rob needs to fight you. He needs to deal with the past. You’re the key to him doing that. Ida knows that—it’s one reason she wanted you to come back here. Sorry, but you’re stuck. It’s messy business, being an icon of redemption. Isn’t it?”

  “An icon of redemption.” He gave the words a sardonic twist and added a mountaineer term or two to seal his disgust. But all the while, he searched my face. “Are you trying to tell me,” he said slowly, “that you’ve decided you want me to stay?”

  Silence. We looked at one another in electric sorrow and desire and fierce self-restraint. “We have children to think of.” Children to think of. “I’ve called Joel and Samantha at the university. I’ve told them you’re here . . . Lieutenant-Colonel Settles, our old friend, their father’s and mine. Old childhood friend. That you want to buy the bridge and a few acres around it so you can build a house. They both immediately said they’d drive home today and meet you.”

  “They know my history.”

  “Of course. Everyone knows the story of—” I halted, wincing.

  Marle nodded stiffly. “Everyone knows the story of the trashy Settles family.”

  I lifted my chin. “They know you were and are considered a good soul and that I have always spoken of you as a dear friend. And they know Charlie felt the same way.”

  Marle relaxed a little. “All right, then I’ll go back to my room at Hamilton Inn and get cleaned up, and you let me know when they get here. I’ll come back looking decent, and we’ll do the whole ‘old friend’ scenario and see what they say about me being their family’s next-door neighbor.”

  I uttered a soft sound of defeat. “It’s not going to be that simple. Marle . . . we have to tell them the truth. That you’re their father.”

  Stunned silence. Marle’s eyes bored into mine, his expression dark, angry, incredulous. “No. Not just no. Hell, no. I won’t do that to Charlie, to you, to them. No. I didn’t come back to hurt them with the truth. It’s not your decision to make alone, Hope. I don’t want them to know—”

  “How can you be a father to them if they don’t know you’re their father?”

  “By being their friend. By being your friend. By developing trust and respect and . . . Hope, I want them to like me, for God’s sake. That’s more than enough for me. I admit I’ve daydreamed that some day, with luck and a small miracle or two, there might be a way for you and me to tell them. But not now. Not like this.”

  I shook my head wearily. “If you stay and they find out the truth by accident, they’ll never forgive either one of us.”

  “Ida’s the only one who knows I’m their father.”

  I smiled thinly. “No, Ida’s the only one who knows for certain. Trying to keep a secret in Mossy Creek is like floating on a sponge. If you stay and we’re seen together . . . the rumors will sink us. Joel and Samantha will hear something. We can’t let them find out that way.”

  “Then I’ll leave. Now. I’ll get back in my Piper and fly out today and you tell them I’ve changed my mind about making a home here.” He dropped his grip on my shoulders and took a step back.

  Misery and grief and rage and longing rose up inside me and spewed out. “Don’t you dare be noble and try to desert me again,” I hissed. “I’ll come after you this time. I swear it.”

  He pulled me into his arms just as I jerked him into mine. We kissed ferociously, him not caring about his bruised mouth and me not letting him care. The kiss quickly began to sink into something far more painful—tender and urgent and filled with memories, then gentle and loving and very, very seductive. He sank a hand in my hair and gently pulled my head back enough for him to look down into my eyes. “I can live the rest of my life alone,” he whispered hoarsely, “remembering you right now. I’m leaving, Hope. And you’re staying. I know you better than you know yourself. You’re not going to ruin their lives by telling them who I really am. I won’t let you.”

  Two pairs of footsteps thudded on my front verandah. Marle and I traded a startled look. “Joel and Samantha are here early,” I said hoarsely.

  “I want your word. You won’t tell them.”

  The front door opened with the swoosh of oiled hinges and the slightest melodic jingle of a tiny wind chime dangling from a wooden apple. “Mom?” a strong male voice called, followed by a lilting female voice singing out, “Mother? We’re here.”

  The agony on Marle’s face tore me apart. “Give me your word,” he repeated.

  I clutched a hand to my throat to ease the knot there. “I can only give you my love and hope I’m doing the right thing.”

  He looked as if I’d stabbed him. I turned away. Moving like old people whose bones refuse to bend, we went to meet our children—our harvest of mistakes and love and redemption—together.

  OUR SON, JOEL Stanton, is a lanky, dark-haired future astronaut. He’s finishing a degree in science at the University of Georgia but has already been accepted at Georgia Tech, down in Atlanta, where he plans to get a second bachelor’s degree, in engineering.

  “Mom, I’ll wave to you from Mars someday,” he likes to tell me.

  “I’ll be out in the orchards, and I’ll wave back,” I always say.

  Our daughter, Samantha Stanton, is a tall, sturdy, redheaded farmer. She’s finishing a degree in horticulture at UGA, with a minor in business. After that she’ll go down to Atlanta and study more business, at Georgia State. After that she’ll become my junior partner in Sweet Hope Farms.

  “We need an expanded, year-round, commercial kitchen to produce Sweet Hope apple pies and jellies, Mom,” she tells me. “And an on-line catalog with credit-card ordering.”

  “I’ll be out in the orchards,” I always repeat. “Waving at Mars.”

  By which I mean that I’ll be content to work my earth and nurture my trees as long as my children are happy in their own orchards, whatever or wherever those may be. They are the fine harvest of my heart, and Marle’s heart, and Charlie’s, and all three of us did well by them. I’m so proud of Joel and Samantha I could cry.

  Crying was uppermost in my mind all morning, as they politely chatted with Marle, the man they didn’t know was their father, the man who gave Joel the heart of an eagle and Samantha the dark, visionary eyes of a Cherokee medicine woman. Sitting on a stiff wicker chair across from them on the back verandah, Marles’ stoic expression crystallized in the autumn sunshine. He made nice in return, gruff and formal and straight-backed, a man of means and honors, a military officer of no small rank. I was so proud of him I could cry again. He kept glancing my way like a condemned soldier waiting for the firing squad to pull the trigger. Our unsuspecting children saw a strong-jawed, notorious man of the world; I saw a vulnerable soul depending on me for his future.

  Finally, Joel and Samantha traded one of those portentous, semi-psychic looks shared by children who shared a womb. My skin tingled. Charlie and I had had a saying for moments like this. “Look out,” one of us would whisper. “The wolf puppies are about to team up for the rabbit hunt.”

  “Now, h
mmm, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Joel said in his deepest, most solemn voice, “Let’s get down to brass wing nuts and talk about your request to buy property from our mother. You realize, I know, that every acre on this mountain has been in the Bailey family for over one hundred and fifty years. Baileys don’t sell their land. Ever. Mother has explained that you’re a special case, and of course, we understand that your great-grandfather built the bridge over what used to be Bailey Branch. But still . . . we have some things to say to you.”

  Samantha nodded like the CEO of an inquisition. “Yes, we need to ask you some hard questions, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant-Colonel.”

  Marle leaned forward in the wicker chair, his elbows on his knees, his face calm, ready, slightly sad as he looked at them. “Go ahead. Nothing’s off limits. There’s no question I won’t answer. I respect your loyalty to your heritage.”

  “No, it’s my turn to talk, now,” I said. I stepped forward from a tense spot beside the verandah’s railing—no way could I have spent that morning sitting calmly in a chair. “Y’all’s questions won’t matter—or won’t be the same questions—after I say what I have to say.”

  “What we both have to say,” Marle corrected gently. He stood and stepped over to stand beside me. “If it has to be said, I want Joel and Samantha to hear it from me. I want all the blame on my shoulders.”

  I put a hand on his arm. “If we’re going to tell them the truth together, then we’ll share the blame together, too.”

  Sorrow and love and regret moved across his face. I nodded. We looked down at our children, who had been perched on the edge of two old wicker rockers all morning, not rocking at all. They were even more still, now, on alert.

  “First,” Marle said quietly, “I want you two to know that I’d rather die than hurt you or your mother. You have to believe that, if nothing else. I’ve loved your mother as long as I can remember, and I will always love her, and I’ve always wanted what’s best for her. And for you two. Everything you’re about to hear . . . well, please believe what I just said.”

  I tightened my hand on his arm. “Y’all know I have a tendency to put things bluntly when need be, and so—” my voice broke, but I gritted my teeth and went on—”so I’m just going to tell you—”

  “Mom, don’t.”

  “Mother, it’s all right.”

  Joel and Samantha stood. Both of them were misty-eyed, and both looked at us with a kind of poignant understanding. When I glanced at Marle he was frowning, bewildered. So was I.

  “Mom,” Joel said hoarsely. “Lieutenant-Colonel.” He nodded to Marle as if greeting him for the first time. Re-introducing himself.

  “Mother,” Samantha repeated, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Lieutenant-Colonel.” She nodded to Marle, too. She and Joel looked at each other, communicated some silent, obviously well-rehearsed signal, then looked at us again. Samantha said simply, “Lieutenant-Colonel, we’d never agree to sell the land at Bailey Branch to anyone outside our family.” She paused. “But we’d be honored to give that land to our own father.”

  My knees went weak. I looked at Marle. Amazement softened his face. He snared me around the waist as my legs buckled. He held me up, and turned to look at me with tears in his eyes. I shook my head. “I had no idea,” I said brokenly.

  Joel cleared his throat, tried to speak, couldn’t and so, to my astonishment, simply smiled at us. Samantha put a hand to her heart and smiled at Marle tearfully. “Dad told us about you and Mother a few years ago. Everything. He made us promise never to tell her we knew. He said when Mother told you about our birth, and told you that she’d married him, you swore to him you’d never come back and try to take his place. He told us you started sending money every month, even though Mother had told you not to. Dad invested all that money over the years in our college funds.”

  Marle’s throat worked. He finally said, “Money was all I could give. But I know every award you’ve won, every good report card, every time you got your pictures in the Mossy Creek Gazette. It would take a cargo plane to carry all the scrapbooks I have about the two of you.”

  Samantha sobbed softly. Joel scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “We have scrapbooks about you, too. Things Dad collected for us. Everywhere you were stationed, every mission you flew in the Gulf War, every medal you won.”

  I bowed my head. Charlie, God bless you. I’ll always love you, too.

  “He wanted us to know about you in case anything happened to him,” Joel went on. “He said if you ever came back here we should be grateful. And that we should try our best to make you feel you have a home, here—for your sake, for our sakes, and most of all, for Mother’s.”

  Joel and Samantha eased toward Marle, who looked at them with an expression I can’t describe other than to say the condemned soldier had been set free, cleared of all charges, his honor and his heart safe inside an embrace he’d been fighting to earn all his life. He could not move, he could not breathe, he could only look at his children in wonder. I inched away just far enough to let his arm slide, distracted, back to his side. He needed to stand free and clear so his children could have him to themselves.

  Joel and Samantha each held out a hand to him. Slowly, as if in a dream, he reached in return, took his son’s hand and his daughter’s.

  “Welcome home,” Joel said hoarsely.

  “Welcome home,” Samantha whispered.

  A MAN DOESN’T recover from a total transformation overnight. In fact, I’m sure it’ll take a lifetime. I’ll never be the same, thank God.

  “Look at you, just look,” Ida Walker said when she came by the farm to see if her son had done any permanent damage to my jaw. “You look new.”

  “Happiness will do that to a face,” I said.

  “How about me?” Hope asked in exasperation. “How do I look, Ida?”

  Ida put an arm around her shoulders, and smiled. “In language Baileys can appreciate, let me put it this way: You’ve come into bloom.”

  Hope kissed me.

  I checked myself in one of her apple wood mirrors and, for the first time since I was kid, didn’t see Creighton Settle’s brother. Instead, I saw Joe Settles’ great grandson. Even better, I saw Joel and Samantha Stanton’s father.

  And I saw Hope Bailey’s future husband.

  But there was something I had to do alone.

  I drove one of the farm’s pickup trucks up to the Jeb Walker Memorial Air Field, which consists of a small office, a few privately owned hangers and two paved runways. I’ve rented space for my Piper. The tiny airport is built on a broad, flat ridge top overlooking Mossy Creek. There’s no better place to go for a Creekite perspective on life; the view is anchored by the security of the pretty town in the valley below, protected by the mountains all around, and yet the sky spreads over you like an open invitation.

  You stay or you go, but you never forget to come back.

  A broad, gold sunset was shooting streaks across the mountaintops when I got there, and the light had dimmed to a blue-gray mist. Rob stood at the end of a runway, legs apart, hands hanging in fists by his sides, silhouetted against the incredible sky.

  I walked toward him, not knowing what to expect, only that I wouldn’t take another punch, but I wouldn’t hit him back, either. In the low light, I couldn’t read his expression until I was close enough for him to charge me. I halted an arm’s length away, balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to wrestle him if I had to. That’s when I saw the mixture of determination and gut-jerked unhappiness in his eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting for my father,” he said in a low voice, “to come back from the dead and teach me to fly a plane. In my mind, he’s been the only man who could do it.”

  I nodded. “I have a son and a daughter who’ll always put their Father’s Day cards on Charlie Stanton’s grave. With my blessing. But if I could turn back the clock, I’d sav
e your father’s life and save my life as a father, too. So I’m waiting to be a father.”

  Rob bowed his head for a moment, then said quietly, “But your kids learned to fly without you.”

  I nodded, again. Couldn’t speak. Whether they’d climbed behind the controls of a plane in fact or in spirit, Joel and Samantha had learned to navigate the skies of life without my help. “I wish I’d been there for them,” I finally said.

  Rob studied me hard as the last of the sunset drew the sky down in dark shades of blue, leaving just a halo of gold to show us the dawn that’s always waiting on the far side of every night. “Will you teach me to fly?”

  I was so surprised, I faked an interest in the sky, as if gauging the diameter of a huge harvest moon that had begun to edge over the mountains. The air held the good scent of kindling burning in Creekite fireplaces, and the ripe, cold smell that to me would always mean Hope’s apples. I would be working with her in the orchards this year, getting to know our trees and our children, growing a new life. Harvest time had come, and all I had to do was welcome it. Welcome the opportunity to plant friendships on fertile ground.

  I held out a hand to Rob. “I’d be honored to teach you,” I said. “In your father’s name.”

  We shook on it.

  Somewhere beyond the gold sunset, I believe Jeb Walker saluted us.

  It WAS THE LAST day of summer in The Creek. Greater Mossy Creek, that is. The town and its happy little solar system of outlying communities settled down under a crisp blue September sky, resting at the end of a long, hot, funny-sad Creekite season. Friendships had been formed, lost, or refound; feuds had begun or been resolved; joy and heartache had grown into wisdom across the lattice of our joined lives. In other words, it had been an ordinary but extraordinary Creekite summer.

  Now Marle and I stood—muddy, sweaty, scented with the diesel scent of a bulldozer, but holding hands happily—in the shallow channel of ferns and shrubs that had once carried the waters of Bailey Branch. We riveted our eyes to a curve in the deep shade of giant hardwoods, where the old creek bed twisted out of sight. Behind us, afternoon sunlight dappled the magnificent covered bridge.