Where the River Runs

by Patti Callahan Henry

  Nothing, my name meant absolutely nothing, because I couldn’t find Meridy in a single search engine on the computer. I rushed home to ask Mother where my name came from.

  “Mother?” I opened the door to her bedroom. She sat in the bed with her head back on a satin pillow, a novel facedown on her lap. The lights were dim; the room was full of the rosewater fragrance that caused childhood memories to rush back at me.

  “I have a migraine,” she said, her eyes closed.

  “I’m sorry.” I lowered my voice.

  “Do you need something?”

  “I just wanted to ask you a question—is Meridy a form of Margaret or Mary?”

  “What?” Her eyes opened. “Neither. It’s just Meridy.”

  “Why did you name me Meridy?”

  “I thought it was . . . pretty.”

  I walked toward her bed. “Well, Margaret means ‘pearl’ and Mary means either ‘rebellious’ or ‘wished-for child,’ and somehow it seems important to know which.”

  A tightness of her jaw showed me that my voice was increasing her headache. She whispered, “It came from the name of the woman who paid my way through college. Her name was Meredith Donnelly. I should’ve used my mother’s name—but I used Meredith’s. I have no idea what it means. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I didn’t mean it to be anything other than a pretty name. . . . Why don’t you pick what you want it to mean?” Mother rubbed her temples with her forefingers.

  “Can I get you anything? Water, tea, a pill?”

  “No, I’m fine. . . .” She waved her hand toward the door, which I took as my sign to go. I kissed her forehead and left.

  Sleep came in sporadic shifts after my visit with Tulu. There seemed to be multiple pieces of a puzzle in each word she spoke, on each piece of paper from the box, and I couldn’t figure out how to put them all together. There was a picture forming that floated above and beyond my consciousness. I drifted off before dawn and again dreamed of the day I met Danny on my twelfth birthday. But for the first time in twenty-six years, the dream ended differently. Before Danny turned to leave, smoke at his edges, he handed me the dolphin box. I clutched it to my chest. The sharp edges of the rusted hinges scratched my forefinger; the latch squeaked against my hands.

  When I awoke, Tulu’s words came back strong and full: You will know you have come out on the other side of the sacred when someone gives you something in a dream. I sat up in the bed, felt Tulu’s presence in my room as if I could reach out and touch the rough and smooth pattern of her braids between my fingers. I spoke aloud. “I haven’t come out on the other side of anything at all.”

  I rose and stood at the window and scanned the sky for a whisper of dawn. Sissy had gone home to try to talk things out with Penn. Beau hadn’t answered the phone at either his office or our home, although I’d left messages. B.J. slept alone in his dorm room hours away. Mother was curled in the eerie quiet of painkiller sleep, and I was more alone than I had ever been since the night Danny died.

  Light crept over the back roof of the house and spilled onto the lawn in the thin strips of a new day. I slipped on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the beach—through the front door, not the window.

  I walked the shoreline, dragging my thoughts through the sand. Why had Danny given me the box? What did I need to come out on the other side of?

  Tim’s voice came from behind me. “What are you doing up so early?”

  I stumbled and my bare feet splashed into the incoming tide. “You scared me.” I kicked a spray of water at him.

  He jumped back, but the water hit his legs. “Well, you’re scaring me. I saw you from the deck—wandering up and down the beach mumbling to yourself like a madwoman.”

  “You spying on me?”

  “No, couldn’t sleep. I always watch the ocean when I can’t sleep—it never sleeps either. We have a deal. It’ll stay up with me if I ask it to.” He grinned.

  “You think I’m a madwoman? You have a deal with a body of water. . . .”

  Tim made a growling noise in the back of his throat. “You drive me crazy. . . . Seriously, when did you come back?”

  “A couple days ago. I was gonna call you today. I feel like I have this huge puzzle to solve, but all it does is get more and more complicated, like one of those awful calculus ‘problems of the week’ that Mrs. Greene used to give us. Tulu tells me all these strange things in proverb and story, and I keep thinking I’m on the edge of understanding something . . . and then it disappears.”

  Tim nodded. “I wish I could solve this one for you, Meridy.”

  “I don’t think anyone can. It’s almost like something I have to—I don’t know—find. I feel my marriage slipping away and at the same time I feel some part of me coming back—like they’re moving in opposite directions. Does that make any sense?”

  “Completely.”

  As we walked in silence back toward Mother’s land, Tim reached out and took my hand. “Meridy McFadden, I’ve known you since you were four years old and I know how strong you are. You’ll be fine.”

  In a world that echoed with loneliness, I gripped Tim’s hand tighter. When we reached the corner of my childhood home, I stopped short. A man stood on the back porch, his hand shading his eyes, his face twisted away from us.

  “Who’s that?” I pointed.

  “Hell if I know—it’s your house, not mine.”

  “It’s . . . what time is it?”

  Tim shrugged his shoulders. “Six, maybe six thirty.”

  “This can’t be good—what man comes to Mother’s house at dawn with anything but bad news?” The man turned, squinted against the morning and looked directly at us.

  “Beau.” I took a sharp breath.

  “What?”

  “Beau, my husband, Beau.” I released Tim’s hand, hugged him. “I have to go talk to him.”

  Tim stepped back, tilted his head. “This would probably not be the best time to meet him, huh?” He laughed.

  “Go on.” I punched his arm, then ran toward Beau.

  When I reached the porch, I threw my arms around him; he stood rigid, taut as a wire stretched from Atlanta to Seaboro. I stepped back and asked, “Honey?”

  “I drove all night to get here, to see you and talk about what the hell is going on. Now I know what the hell is going on.” He stepped backward, banged into a column.

  “What?” His words made no sense to me.

  “What’s his name, Meridy? Who is he?”

  “Who?” I reached for his hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “What am I? A moron? Do you think I didn’t just see you walking down the beach holding that man’s hand? I saw you ten minutes ago, but couldn’t believe it was you. Then you got closer and by God it was you. Were you just leaving his house, his—?” He turned and kicked the column, slammed his fist against a wicker table. “Why didn’t you tell me all this was about someone else . . . not some curriculum or school project or not noticing the forsythia or some shit like that?”

  “No.” Panic confused my words and all I felt I needed to tell him, to show him. “It’s not what you think . . . at all. He’s a childhood friend—Tim.”

  “You’ve known him since childhood?”

  “Yes. And there’s nothing there—well, there’s everything there.” I grabbed Beau’s face to make him look at me, but he backed away, kept his face averted. “I’m making this worse. Please . . . please give me ten minutes to explain and then you can run as far away from me as you want. Just give that to me. . . . Just listen to me for ten minutes.”

  He slumped onto the rocking chair and his head fell into his hands. “You should’ve told me the truth.”

  “That’s what I’m about to do, Beau.” I sat across from him and took his hands. “Tim is an old friend—a neighbor. I’ve known him since I was four years old. Once, a very long time ago, I was a head-strong child who had a best friend named Tim and a boyfriend named Danny. I
loved them both. . . .” I took a deep breath and used what Tulu had told me—turning the pain and harder parts into a story. I told Beau everything about Danny, about the fire, about how I felt, who I was and what I’d done—nothing edited, nothing obscured.

  Beau didn’t say a word and I spoke as fast as I could out of pure fear that I would run out of time, or he would stop listening, or I would decide to hide some of it.

  “So then Mother called and told me about the cottage and how they were trying to make Tim pay for the renovations, and I wanted to help. I thought that a little fund-raiser and some money would make it all right. And I knew I had to see Tulu again—find more of what she has been trying to tell me. Then I tried to go home—go back to normal and I couldn’t. My heart was all stuck up in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Alexis and Betsy saw it and so did I—I didn’t belong and they saw right through me; I was faking it.”

  “So you thought you’d run back here and not tell me why—just come back.” He stared out to sea, his voice robotic and empty. “You couldn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

  “No, that is absolutely not it. It wasn’t a matter of mistrusting you, but of not wanting to hurt you any more. B.J. got that DUI and you were devastated—I couldn’t get through to you at all. You were completely inside your own shell—busy with your case and worried about our son.”

  “I wasn’t too busy to hear this.” His face crumpled in an identical pattern as B.J.’s when he was a young child.

  “Yes, you were. But I’m not blaming you. I had twenty other years I could’ve told you about Danny and the fire. I’m just trying to explain to you why I had to come back. And Beau, I know how you feel about these kinds of things—I understand what you’re thinking without you saying it—I have to pay for what I’ve done. I know that. You taught me that too.”

  “I taught you that? That you have to pay for what you’ve done?”

  “Of course.” I leaned back in the chair. My neck and back ached with the effort to tell this man I loved that I was nothing like what he believed I was, but that I loved him anyway. “I love you, Beau. I didn’t want to hurt you or . . . make things worse at home. You were already dealing with B.J. and I didn’t want to be a burden.”

  “A burden?” His head came up. “A burden? What are you talking about? Is that some excuse for lying to me?”

  “Lying? I didn’t lie to you.” I snapped back as if he’d hit me. “I was trying to—”

  “Not telling me is lying. Same thing.” Yes, in his eyes omission was the same as commission.

  I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t been thinking straight and—”

  “I came to talk to you—I’ve missed you terribly and I find you on the beach with a friend you can talk to, and I find out this is about the memory of some high school love who died while saving lives? You’re here for that?”

  “No . . . you didn’t listen to me, did you? I’m here for . . . me. You’re not hearing anything I’m saying to you.”

  “What do you want to do, Meridy? What do you want me to do?” His voice echoed across the porch.

  I closed my eyes. The answer to this question seemed as important as any ever posed. Then the pieces of all Tulu had told me, of all the notes in the box, settled into words. My eyes shot open. “That’s it, Beau. It is not what I want to do, or want you to do. It is who I want to be, who I was meant to be.”

  “And who is that, Meridy?”

  I still didn’t have an answer. “We’re disconnected, too busy. We have reasons and lists for everything. We don’t make mistakes or if we do, we pretend we didn’t. We hide behind pretense and image. I want something worthy, something of sacred value. I want an open heart; I want connection—with you. I want to touch lives. I want to live, not just do.” My voice rose with each sentence until I was as close to yelling as I’d come in years. “No faking it.” The answers were coming slowly, but arriving nonetheless.

  Beau opened his mouth. I held up my hand. “Give me a minute here to find the right words.”

  He licked his lips and leaned back in his chair, waved his hands at me in a “Go ahead” movement.

  I paced the porch. “I want to be someone who takes the dare, isn’t scared of what others think, helps others, appreciates nature, loves to teach. Someone who listens to the longing and doesn’t squelch it every time it shows up just because it might be inappropriate. Because if I listen to longing, it just might show up again and again. I want to be someone who laughs loud, says what she thinks and not what others want to hear.” I reached for him. “Am I making sense?”

  He crossed his arms with knotted fists. “You still haven’t told me what you want to do. I’m totally confused, Meridy.”

  “You see, I’ve been looking and looking for all the things to do—like organizing the arts festival, writing the curriculum, as if these ‘doings’ could wake my heart. But when Tulu told me how the river and sea meet in the most turbulent current, I understood. I hadn’t gone there in so long—to the turbulent parts of me where all the longing and desire are dangerous and lie below the painful memories. It’s dangerous because love can disappoint and hurt. But it isn’t better to just be safe anymore.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you don’t love me? That you’ve used me to be safe?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m trying to tell you that I love you completely and now I want to live that way.”

  He released his fist, planted his hands on the arms of the chair. “Let me tell you what I hear you saying, Meridy. You don’t feel you belong at home with me anymore because it isn’t where you can be yourself. You loved another man much more than you’ve ever loved me. You trust and care about what is here more than what is at home. You couldn’t be your full or real self—whatever that means—at home, with me. You don’t want what I have spent twenty-odd years building. You think all we’ve built together is fake. And most important—you lied to me. That is exactly what I hear.”

  None of what he said was true, wholly true, but none of it could be argued with. He was a good lawyer: summing up the entire story from his own perspective and leaving no room for dispute.

  He stood, hesitated before he moved toward the door. All I’d feared was true—he would not accept me.

  I chased after him, caught him by the arm. Now was not the time for pride or pretense; my heart stood naked and exposed. “I know I’ve ruined everything—I know, but I don’t want to ruin us . . . not us.”

  “There was a time, probably quite a while ago, to tell me the truth. Not about the stupid fire, but about who and what you loved. I don’t see how this can’t hurt us, Meridy. You don’t love me—you are in love with some adorable ghost of the past who might have been the perfect husband. It is utterly absurd that you believe this confession about the fire was bad enough to keep from me—this is about how you love him, not me.”

  I held up my hand. “No,” I cried out. “No . . . that is not true. This was about the terrible way I protected my heart. It’s not about you.”

  “Protecting your heart is all about me. I am your husband. What else do I need to know?”

  “That I do love you.” I bowed my head. “Please stay.”

  He spun around. “You know I have to go home. You know how important this case is and—”

  “I know how important we are.”

  “You do?”

  His tone sounded sarcastic and my heart lurched forward. “Yes, I do. Please just stay one day. . . . It can’t hurt the case that badly. You can meet Tulu—”

  “Meridy, I’d love it if I could stay—you have got to understand that I can’t. I came to get you to come home with me because I love you, because I can’t stand being there without you, but you’re . . . otherwise occupied here.”

  “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are.” This time when he walked away, he did not turn back.

  I sank to the bottom stair of the porch believing it would be a very, very good time to
start crying. But what came were not tears—just pure anger and frustration. I kicked at the ground with my heels. Moments later, the engine of a car purred and gravel popped beneath tires as Beau’s car left the driveway.

  I looked up to Mother standing on the top stair landing, looking down at me. “What happened, Meridy?”

  “I ruined everything. You can go back to bed, Mother. You were right—I’ve ruined everything with my own irresponsibility.” I walked into the house past Mother’s broken looks and into my bedroom. I shut the door behind me.

  I had talked with a man who thought I didn’t love him anymore because I had withheld the truth of who I really was. Once again, approval was so attached to love that the separation was impossible—like the sweetgrass baskets Tulu wove, they knit in and out of each other in an inseparable thread.

  My actions had shown him that I didn’t love him when, in truth, it had been the opposite, the complete opposite. I had meant to prove how much I loved him and our life together, and how I didn’t want to ruin it. But motivation had no say now—only the consequences.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “If you throw ashes, ashes will follow you.”

  —GULLAH PROVERB

  I ran up to Tulu’s front porch, needing to check on her, tell her all I’d discovered in my conversation with Beau. The sun ascended behind the roofline. I lifted my hand to knock. It was early—eight a.m. Maybe she didn’t rise at this hour. But I couldn’t contain the knowledge she’d imparted to me. I needed to tell her that she’d shown me the way.

  I knocked, called her name and listened. Silence met my calls. I knocked again, but there was no answer. I turned the knob; the door was unlocked. I cracked open the door and hollered her name one more time. Silence filled the house and stretched through the front door and onto the porch.

  I stepped into her house and swore I heard Mother’s words: “Don’t enter people’s homes uninvited.” But I ignored her voice for the first time in years and found my own voice: “Go, find Tulu,” it said.