Where the River Runs

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “She was telling me how hard it was, how she sacrificed so much of herself to make sure we never had a life like she had. Here I thought she was being so selfish, always worried about her image, when part of the way she acted was nothing but her idea of protection for us. Nothing is what it seems anymore, is it?”

  “Yeah, look at Penn. A mistress for five years. Spending our family money on a condo, clothes and I don’t want to imagine what else, while he gave me a hard time about signing the girls up for horseback-riding camp because it was too damn expensive.”

  “I’m sorry, Sissy. I really am.”

  “Well, now that I’ve spilled all my trash, why are you here?”

  “Well, I originally came home a few weeks ago to write a curriculum for our private school. But now I’ve come back to tell the truth and also—I know this sounds lame—figure out who I want to be. I’ve lost that knowledge through the years and I’m thinking that telling the truth might help me find it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Do you really want to hear it?”

  “As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with Penn or family or marriage or money . . .”

  “That’s a wide variety of topics there. No, this has to do with the fire.”

  Sissy sighed. “Terrible night. I still can’t believe it happened. Still . . . Danny . . . all that.”

  I looked up; the sky spun above me in crystal-dotted chaos. “Danny and I were sending off firecrackers—the ones Tim bought us for the graduation party. One landed on the crumbling roof that slanted into the bedroom on the right side.” I closed my eyes and saw the flame run across the cedar shake shingles. “So it was never the bonfire. It was the firecracker I set off that hit the roof. And I never told anyone. Only Danny knew and he’s . . . gone.”

  Sissy ran her hands through her hair. “You never told . . . anyone this?”

  “I was a coward.”

  “No, you were probably scared. Have you told Mom?”

  “No.”

  “Damn, Meridy. Just damn.”

  “I know. I’m reaping what I’ve sown—I know.”

  I felt, more than saw, Sissy shiver. “That is not what I was going to say. Is that what you think of me? That I would say . . . that?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Oh, my God, I have been the most terrible, judgmental sister known to man.” Sissy grabbed my hand. “I was going to say . . . you are so brave and it wasn’t your fault. Mom and Daddy sent you away. You were eighteen—what else could you do?”

  “Tell the truth.”

  “How? No one would’ve believed you. Mother wouldn’t have let your confession out as much as they wouldn’t have let accusation in.”

  “Mother will have to get over it. I’m not sure Beau will.”

  “Of course he will. He loves you.”

  “Sissy, his life is completely built upon integrity, honesty and making sure people pay for what they’ve done—especially if they’ve hidden their culpability—and I’m using his words here, if you can’t tell. He came here a few mornings ago and I told him.”

  “How did I miss that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “He came and went . . . quickly. But this blame not only goes against all he believed about me but all he believes about life in general. I’m not sure he can . . . love me even if he wants to. We were on two completely different planets as it was—then I told him about this and it didn’t help at all—trust me.”

  “I think we train them that way, Meridy.”

  “What?”

  “We train men not to accept the weaker parts of us. We show them just how perfect we are, so then they fall in love and marry us and then we can’t show them who we really are . . . because then they might not love us. It’s all so insane and stupid. . . .”

  An opening appeared in my heart—the water-rushing kind of feeling that comes with revelation. “Exactly.”

  “But me? I’m wrecked.”

  I glanced at her face in the opaque light—at her beautiful bone structure handed down from Daddy’s McFadden family. Her face required no further adornment.

  Sissy sighed. “Damn, we’re just falling apart, aren’t we? The whole fam-damily is falling apart.”

  “Yes, yes, we are.” A laugh bubbled from inside me.

  We walked together as I told her of my reluctance to let everyone in Seaboro know about my part in the fire. I didn’t want to ruin Mother’s reputation after how hard she’d worked to get here, how far she’d come—to this place in local society.

  “You see”—I faced Sissy—“it doesn’t matter who I am now, because it’s all come back.”

  “Is that why you tried to kill yourself the day you left?”

  “Kill myself? I never . . .”

  “Then why did you swim all the way out in the ocean? You completely freaked us all out.” Sissy waved her hand toward the waves.

  “I wasn’t killing myself. I was . . .” I held my palms up in denial.

  “Then what were you doing?”

  “Leaving my heart out there.”

  “What?”

  “Shutting down so I wouldn’t feel anything like Danny’s death again. I guess that is the best way to explain what I was trying to do. And it worked for a while—but not anymore.”

  By now we had wandered past Tim’s house. I pointed up at his porch, lit by gas lanterns.

  She looked up too. “Tim was so cute in high school.”

  I laughed, poked at her. “You thought he was a hellion.”

  “A cute hellion.” She went on.

  “Look at me now. I married a man I don’t even know. We’ve lost over half our money; my girls are doing terrible in school; I can’t think or sleep. . . .” She stretched, looked at me. “So I might as well have snuck out at night, smoked cigarettes, dated the hellions, got a B instead of an A. . . .” She pulled off her tank top, yanked down her pajama bottoms and ran naked toward the ocean. “And skinny-dipped in the middle of the night,” she hollered, and disappeared beneath the surface of the sea. Only a circle of disturbed water showed where she’d gone under.

  I opened my mouth to laugh or yell, but neither came out. I jumped up, flipped my sneakers off, rolled up my pants and waded into the water. Sissy’s head popped up five feet out; then she stood completely naked and stretched her arms out to the sky. She squealed and disappeared back under the water, then reappeared.

  I threw back my head and laughed.

  “Get in here, Meridy McFadden.”

  “No way. You’re nuts.”

  “I dare you.”

  Daddy’s words washed over the waves: Now you know—Meridy will always take the dare.

  I pulled my T-shirt over my head, yanked off my sweatpants and underwear and threw them toward shore, then dived into the vast sea. An emotion bubbled up from below my ribs and I recognized its face: the freedom and daring I’d last felt before I set off the firecracker. The face of these sensations had not risen since then. I immersed myself in them, under the water, and let the emotions surround me completely until the fear dissolved into the ocean floor.

  Sissy’s laugh echoed under the waves, and then vibrated across the night as I came to the surface. She bobbed in the water, only her face visible. “I knew I could get you in here with a dare. You always take the dare.”

  “I haven’t lately. I can tell you that.”

  “Then you haven’t been yourself.”

  “Exactly.”

  For a few minutes, we swam in the dark sea, diving, turning and floating on our backs. Then I swam toward shore, which Sissy reached before I did. She ran toward her clothes and yanked them on in frantic, quick movements. I slipped my own clothes on and we plopped down next to each other. Sissy curled her knees up under her chin.

  “Well, then,” I said.

  “Yes, just well, well.”

  The sound of the incoming tide washed over us. I whispered, “Sissy, I can see the difference now—this huge difference between living my li
fe and doing my life. After Danny died, I did my life—one thing to do after another, always something else to do. Because you don’t need a heart to do, but you do need one to live.”

  “Who’s there? Who is that?” A screeching voice, not unlike a cracked ambulance siren, shattered across our conversation. A beam of light skipped across the sand, landed on Sissy’s face.

  She held up her hands. “Mrs. Hamlon, it’s just Sissy and Meridy.”

  Charlotte Hamlon swung her flashlight, and the light landed on my face.

  “You’re on my property,” she screamed.

  Sissy stood, stepped forward, wiped her hair off her face. “Mrs. Hamlon, calm down. It’s not your property. . . . We’re at the ocean and it’s just Sissy and Meridy.”

  Charlotte approached us—a dent in the darkness with a beam in front of her. “I’ve been watching you from my deck,” she said, swung her flashlight with her words, creating a dizzying pattern. “You were skinny-dippin’—I saw you. This is completely inappropriate, absurd. I’ve already called the police.” She trained the light firmly on our faces. “I always knew your family was crazy, completely crazy—should’ve never married outside Seaboro, for God’s sake.”

  I shrugged my shoulders at Sissy, wished I could see her facial features to know if I should laugh or cry. My sister had just been called “inappropriate” for probably the first time in her entire life.

  Sissy’s voice came wrapped in a stifled laugh. “She called the police . . . on me. I knew something like that would happen if I hung out with you.” Full laughter poured out and we both ran back toward our own home.

  We collapsed on the thin strip where sand met grass in back of our house, attempted to catch our breath.

  “She called you inappropriate.” I lay back and stared at the sky.

  “She doesn’t know what inappropriate is until she’s seen another woman riding her husband like a damn horse.”

  I let out a strangled sound that came out something like “Gross . . . ughh.”

  Sissy rolled on her side toward me. “Now, that is what I call inappropriate.”

  A slight rustling sound came from behind us before we heard our names. “Sissy? Meridy? Is that you?” Mother called to us.

  “Yes, Mom,” Sissy called out.

  We stood and walked to the porch, where Mother sat in a rocking chair. After we’d settled in our own chairs with afghans Mother brought from the house—Sissy had refused to change clothes, wanting to stay wet and sandy—we told Mother about Charlotte.

  “Sorry, Mom. Really . . . sorry,” Sissy said as though she were five years old and had just broken a china plate.

  “Ah, don’t be sorry. Charlotte is always looking for something wrong with the family. You just gave the poor woman something to talk about.”

  “What is her problem?” I asked.

  “She dated your daddy before he left for college. . . . She has had it out for me since the Thanksgiving he brought me home to meet his family.”

  I laughed. “You’re kidding. How come you never told us this? It explains a lot about the woman’s consistently sour face.”

  “There are many things young children do not need to know about.”

  I laughed and there, as one day turned to the next, with my sister soaked from the sea and Mother at my side, I sat content. A tepid breeze blew off the water and crossed the porch, whispered across my cheeks, rustled the hair around my face. I sighed, remembering the feel of Beau’s finger running across my cheek on the day we met, and I wondered if I’d feel that soft touch again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “A good run is better than a bad stand.”

  —GULLAH PROVERB

  Mother’s kitchen brimmed with the morning light as I sipped coffee and willed the slight headache to release. I could not drink that many beers anymore. Today was both the historic-society meeting and Tulu’s funeral and I didn’t want to grind my way through the day with this dull ache.

  “Meridy, you okay?”

  My head snapped up and I forced a smile for Mother. “Fine, just fine.”

  “You had a little too much to drink last night?”

  “What?” I half laughed.

  “Ah, don’t think I don’t know the symptoms of a hangover.”

  “I’ve just had a few very, very long days. And today won’t be any different.”

  Mother glanced sideways at me. “You didn’t forget about the meeting this morning, did you?”

  “Nope.” I stood.

  “Darling, could you sit down for a minute?”

  I sat and rubbed my temples. “Yes?”

  Mother lifted her chin and glanced off toward the window. “I wanted to let you know that last night after you went to bed, Sissy told me about your part in the fire.”

  I slumped back against the chair. “She was always a tattletale.”

  Mother’s head turned in my direction, but I was smiling at her. She smiled back. “She wasn’t tattling. She wanted to be the one to tell me so that I wouldn’t—in her words—freak out on you when you told me. She knew my initial reaction would not be the proper one. And she was right.”

  “Oh?” I lifted my brows, and my headache seemed to ease.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t know why you never told me.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. I tried to tell you, in the very beginning, but you wouldn’t listen.” Speaking the truth was getting easier and easier, as if the first truth released the others. “And, Mother, you sent me away—off to live at Mawmaw’s.”

  “I did that to protect you.”

  “I know.” I reached over and patted her leg. “After that, I just couldn’t tell. The whole ordeal was buried too far down. At least until now.”

  “Is it why you came back with the idea of raising the money?”

  “Yes. I guess I thought that if I did something to make up for what I did . . .”

  “It was a very long time ago—an accident. You do not have anything to make up for.”

  “Well, I did when they were trying to make Tim donate half his life’s work.”

  “Speaking of Tim, you’ve been spending an awful lot of time with him. Is there . . . are you . . . ?”

  “No, Mother. I love Beau. And always have. I’m not sure where we’ll go from here, but—”

  Mother grimaced. “Sissy and the girls are moving in with me.”

  “What?” I shook my head.

  “She can’t stay there . . . with Penn.”

  “I know . . . but I just never thought she’d leave him. Ever.”

  “Me neither. But she decided last night. . . . Be sweet.”

  “I always am.” I batted my eyelashes.

  She laughed and the sound washed over me like a baptism. “Well, why don’t you go get dressed now? We don’t want to be late.”

  Mother and I arrived at the historical society building; she touched my arm lightly before we entered the room. A rectangular table dominated the room; dust motes danced in shafts of morning sunlight blurred in the bubbled-glass antique windows. Ten men and women who had approved my arts festival proposal sat around the table with notebooks and ice water in front of them.

  I glanced around the table; Tim sat at the far end chewing on the end of a pen, staring down at some blueprints. Noticing us, he waved and winked.

  I made my way to him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to be in on this. I was looking over the blueprints with Mr. Cragg. I told him I’d do the work. Now go sit down.”

  Mr. Cragg stood up, coughed. “Okay, let’s get started. I know a lot of you want to go to Tulu’s funeral today, so we don’t have much time. Would anyone like to ask any questions or make any comments before we proceed through this arts festival packet that Mrs. Manning has prepared?”

  Charlotte Hamlon stood. “I have a couple of things to say. I know I was outvoted, but I have to tell you that I think this is an insane idea.” She pointed at Tim. “I still think he ne
eds to pay, and all this effort and work that Ms. Dresden has proposed is outrageous.” She wrinkled her nose as if my name reeked of garbage.

  I jumped up, held out my hands. “Okay, enough of all this ‘Tim has to pay’ nonsense. Tim might have given the party, but he did not start the fire that burned down the Keeper’s Cottage. I started the fire with a firecracker. Now”—I turned to Mrs. Hamlon—“will you please drop the let’s-make-Tim-pay mantra?”

  Stifled laughter poured across the table, and Mrs. Hamlon gasped, tipped her chair as she stepped backward. “You what? I told you their family was crazy.” She pointed at Mother and then me. “I saw her”—she shook her head in disgust—“skinny-dipping in the middle of the night yesterday. They’re crazy.”

  Mother stood now and I shook my head, whispered, “No, Mother.”

  She pushed a stray hair off her face. “Charlotte, you may take your accusations elsewhere.” She dropped her pink alligator purse on the table. “Can we move on to the arts festival now?”

  “Yes, we can,” Mr. Cragg said, and pounded his hand on the table. We all sat as Mrs. Manning handed out packets about the arts festival to be held on the Fourth of July of the following year.

  I glanced over at Tim. His face was placid—the way I’d once known it as a child. My heart tripped over itself—I had done the right thing. In all the confusion, how had I ever thought there would be any other way? God, I felt good.

  Charlotte Hamlon stood again. “This is insane. You are all insane.” She grabbed her purse and stomped to the door, bumping into Danny’s parents as they walked into the room, blinking in the overhead lights. Several women jumped up and moved toward the Garretts.

  “Hello.” Chris Garrett nodded at the table. “I’m sorry we’re late . . . bad traffic on 278. Meant to get here before you all started.” He turned and addressed Mr. Cragg. “Well, hello there, Dean, good to see you.”

  Bee elbowed him in the side and he continued, “Well, we’re here to help with the arts festival. It has recently come to our attention that Danny’s bravery was partly in response to his having started the fire. Although we don’t have the money to give you, we’d love to help with this arts festival. If renovating the Keeper’s Cottage is that important, we’ll do what we can.” Chris nodded and lifted his chin high.