Where the River Runs

by Patti Callahan Henry

  I lifted my hand to my mouth. “I’m sorry, Mother. What happened?”

  “She was alone in the house and must have had a heart attack. Her son hadn’t come to visit her in days. By the time he stopped by, she’d been dead for almost a week and . . . you do not want to hear the details.”

  “That’s terrible. I’m sorry you lost a friend.”

  Mother shrugged. “That’s what happens at this age. . . .”

  “Is Charlotte Hamlon still in the old house next to Mrs. Foster?”

  Mother exhaled. “Oh, yes. She’s still there.”

  “And probably still spying on the mischief in our neighborhood.”

  “I’m sure. . . .”

  “Not much to spy on with me gone, huh?” I winked at Mother, leaned forward. “Can you tell me what’s going on with the Keeper’s Cottage and Tim? Have you seen him or talked to him since the historic society asked him for money?”

  “I don’t run into Tim Oliver at church or bingo or the Ladies of Seaboro Society meeting, Meridy, so I don’t really see him, and you’d do best not to either.”

  “Why?”

  “No need to go digging up bones.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Let the historical society take care of it.”

  “But there have to be other ways to get the money to renovate,” I said.

  “Why? Tim should pay.”

  “Our private school in Atlanta has raised money a hundred other ways than taking it from someone.”

  “The historical society is not taking money, Meridy.” Her voice sounded exasperated, as in the days when I had been relentless in gaining permission to do something I’d already been denied ten times. She continued. “They are asking for it from the man who is responsible for the demise of the cottage.”

  “They could have a campaign or a festival or a raffle or anything else besides having Tim pay for it.”

  Mother leaned back in her chair. “Why are you so worried about Tim Oliver?”

  “He’s an old friend.” I averted my eyes from Mother’s glare. “And I’m good at this kind of thing—raising money, I mean. I’ve done it for the school many times.”

  “Oh?”

  I leaned forward, an idea percolating so far down I wasn’t yet sure what it was. “Our biggest fund-raiser is our arts festival. We’ve raised . . .” I stood, the idea bubbling out like I was a soda can someone had shaken. “My God, Mother. Arts. Where is the arts more prevalent than here? Sweet baskets, painting, storytelling, poetry, photography, net crafting. The Lowcountry has more artists than oysters, I swear. What about that?” I started to pace the kitchen, my hands flying.

  “Meridy Dresden, what are you all worked up about? Why do you care where the historical society gets the money? Is that why you’re here?”

  I stopped. “I’m here to write this Gullah curriculum, but how can you not care what they do to Tim? He doesn’t deserve the kind of pressure I know this town can drop on someone. He’s probably been ostracized—his parents, his poor wife.”

  “His wife left him a few years ago and . . .” Mother stopped, tilted her head. “Arts festival, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm. I’ll say something to Charlotte Hamlon at the society meeting tomorrow. She’s also on the historical-society board.”

  “Gee, what isn’t that lady in charge of?” I rolled my eyes. The memory of Charlotte, the abrasive spinster of Seaboro, univitedly entered my mind. “This town still tolerates her?”

  Mother actually laughed. “I don’t think they have much choice.”

  I laughed with Mother and it felt warm, like wine. I reached down and hugged her.

  “It’ll be nice having you here,” she said, becoming stiff again. “I just don’t know why you didn’t bring Beau or B.J. It’s not right for a lady to travel alone like this. . . . You can’t just leave your husband at home.”

  “Beau’s too busy to come and B.J. is off at baseball camp. It’s actually the perfect time.” I repeated my husband’s words, but felt the ache of deceit. I kissed Mother on the forehead. “I’m going to unload my car.”

  “Well, I’ve prepared the guest suite for you. . . . Clean linen sheets, and I’ve even had a TV with cable put in there.”

  “I think I’ll stay in my own room this time.”

  She drew backward, almost as if I’d hit her or just lifted my hand to do so. “You haven’t stayed in there since . . .”

  “Danny died,” I said.

  Mother gasped and I didn’t turn to look at her. We hadn’t discussed Danny since the Keeper’s Cottage fire; there seemed to be an unspoken agreement to never speak his name again—especially since my marriage.

  I turned. “I want to stay there. I want to be in my own bedroom.”

  Mother recovered. “How long are you staying?” Her voice came softer, lower, as if she was embarrassed to ask.

  “I haven’t decided yet. I’ll see how much information I can get from Tulu and go from there.”

  “You haven’t told Beau how long you’ll be gone?”

  “He’s so damn busy. . . . He’s fine without me for a little while.”

  “Don’t curse in my house.” Mother stood up. “Do I sense trouble?” She wrinkled her nose as if she smelled it more than sensed it.

  “No trouble here, Mother. No trouble at all.”

  It had been twenty-six years since I’d laid my head on my childhood bed, when I’d slept for three nights in a haze of pain and fear before Mother had shipped me off to Daddy’s parents in the north Georgia mountains.

  I lay down on top of the coverlet in my silk pajamas—the pink ones Beau had given me for my birthday last year—and rolled over, stared out the window across the room. The oak tree that had hidden my dreams and room in childhood was gone now. Mother had said it was struck by lightning and needed to be cut down. The view from my room now went farther. The stars sat in their firmament and if I stayed awake long enough, the moon would come over the house and into view.

  The sleep I’d thought would come quickly eluded me. I didn’t want to be who I used to be—that had brought death and heartache—and I didn’t want to be who I was now—that carried loneliness and emptiness. So where did that leave me? Alone, once again, in the same bed—full circle.

  I did have and love Beau. But when I searched for the emotion, I found only a blank slate—no anger, no resentment, no pain. Nothing really. I couldn’t think about all that now.

  I finally got up and walked to the window. Being in this room, surrounded by the paraphernalia of childhood, the smells of youth, I wondered if I could still make it down the roof to the trellis.

  The window lifted with a squeak. Dust flew from the sill and wandered out the window to nature’s night air. I leaned out the window and felt, more than saw, the roofline below me. My feet stepped out onto the shingled roof. I imitated a maneuver somehow remembered in my body until my feet caught hold of the trellis. Then my long-unpracticed foot slipped from the wood; I tumbled in a heap on the grass, rolled to my side.

  A shrill cry met my landing. My head snapped up; Mother sat on the back porch, a hand over her mouth, her nightgown fluttering around her legs.

  “It’s just me, Mother. Just me.” I stood up, straightened my silk pajama bottoms.

  “Oh, my dear, Meridy, what are you doing?” Mother stood, walked to the back stairs.

  “What are you doing?” I walked toward the stairs. “It’s after midnight.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. . . .” Mother stopped, placed her palm over her pursed lips as if she’d just revealed an intimate secret.

  “Neither could I,” I said, thinking maybe this was the first time in our entire lives that we’d shared the same restlessness.

  “Please tell me you did not just jump out that window,” Mother said.

  “Well, I guess I could technically say I jumped off the roof, or really the trellis . . . not the window.”

  “Now, why would you do that?”

>   I shrugged my shoulders and climbed up the stairs, sat in a rocking chair and hoped, in the silence, to say something that would bring us together. But the only piece of mutual interest I found was my sister.

  “How’s Sissy?” I asked, rocked back in the chair.

  “She’s doing great. The twins love their new school. You know they started high school last year.”

  “Of course I know that.” Maybe Sissy wasn’t such a good subject; maybe the tranquil night was our best bet at avoiding confrontation.

  “Well, Sissy says she doesn’t talk to you that much and—”

  “I talk to her. . . .” But then I couldn’t remember the last time.

  “Well, she comes to visit at least every other weekend and brings the girls. Penn travels so much for work and she gets lonely. I know she wishes that they’d move here, but he seems determined to stay in Charleston—two hours away seems even longer when you want to see each other.”

  I wanted to say, I’m five hours away and that doesn’t seem to bother you.

  “I’m sure Sissy will figure out a way to get back here,” I said instead.

  “I hope so,” Mother whispered.

  Jealousy started to rise, then sank in the quiet night. There we sat in the dark, both unable to sleep, both McFadden women, and that was enough for tonight. Then my mother turned and whispered a question I’d dare not have thought.

  “Are you leaving Beau?”

  I stuttered, “No, of course not.”

  “Usually that is why women . . . go home alone.”

  “Not this time.” I gripped my fist, curled my naked toes under the chair and braced myself for the coming lecture about irresponsibility and foolishness. But the lecture never came. Only the sounds of the Lowcountry behind the house filled the night until the soft change in Mother’s breathing told me she’d dozed off in her chair. I stared out to the dark backyard; I knew where each tree stood, where every bush and flower bed lay. I saw only the shapes and forms of nature, yet I sensed, as one does at night, that something waited for me out here, something that needed to be found, or maybe lost.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Old firewood is not hard to rekindle.”

  —GULLAH PROVERB

  I dragged my toes through the sand and walked up and down the beach in the early morning. I’d lost track of time, unable to determine whether I’d been out here an hour or two or even three. I walked back and forth across the expanse of sand that stretched from our piece of land, which turned the corner to an oyster bed and then curled around the bend to Danny’s house with the long, wide beach facing the sea. Danny’s parents had moved—years ago—to a retirement community about forty minutes away. I had never seen or heard from them after the fire. In the suffocating log bedroom of my grandparents’ summer home I’d wanted to call them, but I never blamed them for not contacting me.

  Danny was an only child, and he was gone and I was alive. I had spent the summer in the mountains, which hid me from the mourning, the blame and the sorrow washing over Seaboro in my absence. I’d gone home for only a week, to pack my bags for college. By the time Christmas break rolled around I was sufficiently hollow and numb not to seek out my high school friends or Danny’s family for comfort.

  At the university, where other girls starved themselves to appear rail thin in the torn sweatshirts and leg warmers of the eighties, as they smoked cigarettes to suppress their appetite for food, so I suppressed the longings of my heart. I began the arduous journey of being a good girl. I remained on the honor list all four years; I was student body president and sorority vice president.

  Beaumont Dresden entered my life on a day when my heart must have been mildly hungry without my knowledge. He had stood at a table under the Forum portico, signing students up for the Annual Fraternity Blood Drive. Even now I don’t know if I was attracted to what appeared to be his absolute perfection.

  I had known who Beaumont Dresden was; everyone had. He was born of the Atlanta Dresdens and was by far the most gorgeous darkhaired, blue-eyed boy on campus. A date with Beau was as prized as a 4.0 grade point average. He was a senior and I was a sophomore. He’d never gone steady with a girl for more than a few months. I had seen him, but not really noticed him any more than the scenery of the university until the morning I went to relieve him of the post at the blood drive volunteer table.

  “Meridy McFadden, correct?” He held out his hand. I swore I actually felt my heart skip and I wasn’t sure of the last time I’d felt my heart at all. I ignored the skip as best I could and nodded, took his hand.

  “Yes. And you are?” As if I didn’t know.

  “Beaumont Dresden. Been wanting to meet you for a long time . . . Seems you are quite the busy girl.”

  “Meet me?”

  A boy, blond and freckled, came up beside us. Beau nodded at him. “Hey, Mark,” Then Beau looked at me. “This is Mark. Mark, this is Meridy McFadden.” Beau’s head nodded between us.

  “Ah.” Mark bowed. “Ice princess McFadden?”

  A warm flush ran up my arms to my face.

  Beau punched Mark in the arm, turned to me. “Forgive him. He is uncouth and barbaric.” He laughed. “You’re blushing. I knew it wasn’t true because ice princesses don’t blush.”

  He brought his hand toward my face and I backed up. He laughed. “You have food on your face.”

  “Oh . . .” I raised my hand, wiped my cheek. He reached across the space between us and ran his thumb along the opposite cheek, toward my lips. Something curled and asleep inside me awoke, stretched and left me loose and wordless.

  “Ketchup maybe,” he said, smiled at me.

  I nodded, mumbled something about having just eaten french fries for lunch as it was all that looked edible in the cafeteria that day.

  From that day forward a piece of my heart yearned for one more touch from Beau Dresden, as if his finger running along my face had fractured open my closed and padlocked desire for intimacy. I soon sought reasons to be around him, find the nearness of him. I fell in love with him before I ever admitted it to my heart or mind, much less to another human being, including him.

  Beau had thawed a portion of my heart with his smile, his carefree attitude and his light touch. It had all seemed so right to me. And right was important. I’d dated him, then kissed him, and then met his family. He’d met my family; we’d inched a little farther along than kissing, but not too much. I would wait for the ring we never discussed, but which his mother had told me was hidden in the family safe in the library off the foyer in his Habersham Road family home.

  We dated all through my last years at college. In my junior year, he left for law school in Atlanta. I stayed at college until my graduation day when Beau knelt before me under the portico of the Forum building where we’d met, and offered me a three-carat diamond ring and the Dresden name.

  Everyone had said we were the perfect couple, came from the same kind of family. I heard what the girls said behind my back, in the corners of the sorority halls. “Wasn’t Beau Dresden just breaking hearts everywhere when he fell in love with prissy little Meridy McFadden?”

  Now I bent down and picked up a white shell as pure as the dress I’d worn twenty years ago when I’d said “I do” to Beau, allowing him to believe, if only by silence, that he was marrying a girl who’d never loved anyone but him. I placed the shell in the sweetgrass basket I carried in the crook of my arm.

  I sat down, carved my initials in the damp-crusted sand above the waterline where the tide receded. I tilted my head and lifted my palm against the sun. A wave crashed below my toes and splashed my face; I licked my lips and lost myself in the sound of the sea. A pressure that could have been a hand if I wasn’t alone lit upon my shoulder. I brushed it away. Startled, I jumped up to face a man with brown curls, a grinning face, sun-settled wrinkles lying in the places where his laugh lived. I dropped my basket of shells. He stood in a pair of torn khaki shorts and a faded blue T-shirt.

  “Meridy McFadden . . . do I lo
ok that bad?”

  I tilted my head—his chin, his laugh, his curls. “Timmy!” I yelped, threw my arms around his shoulders and hugged him before my more mature self told me not to.

  “I thought I told you never to call me Timmy again.” He pulled me back from him. “Now, didn’t I?”

  “Timmy.” I touched his chin, his curls.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “I thought it was you out here. I’ve been watching you for a couple hours now—pacing back and forth, back and forth, picking up and throwing away shells. . . . What are you doing, crazy girl?”

  I smiled and it felt good. “Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  Tim leaned over and picked up my basket, handed it to me. “I wasn’t sure it was you until you sat, leaned across your legs . . . Then I knew.”

  “Where were you?”

  Tim pointed. “Right there . . . the small cedar shake house.”

  I lifted my hand and shaded my eyes. “New house?”

  “New to you, I guess. It’s mine, been there for five years or so now.”

  “How come I never knew that?”

  “Maybe because when you come to visit your mom, you never leave your property.”

  I looked back toward Mother’s house four hundred yards away, not visible from the bend. “No, I guess I haven’t.” I looked back at Tim. “Oh, how are you?”

  “I’m good for an old man. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.” He grinned again and my heart swelled as if the sea had given me back some piece of it full of wave and water.

  “I’m so glad to see you too. And if you’re an old man, I’m an old woman, and I’ll have none of that. Forty-three is not old.” I lifted my basket up to my elbow, let it dangle. I had missed the past twenty-six years of this man’s life, this man whom I had once fiercely loved as an ally in my war against the world of expectation and responsibility. Goofy Tim with his bowlegged walk and his mass of untamed curls and his wide grin: my friend. “Tell me everything, Tim. Everything I’ve missed in your life . . . how have you been? I’m so sorry I haven’t kept in touch, haven’t . . .” A bittersweet sorrow flashed through my gut as I remembered who we were.