Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  Hummph, let’s she what she thinks when she gets a little farther. Maythorn watched, grinning as her friend neared the spot where Elizabeth and Mike had stood talking.

  There was someone else on the trail! Mum had stood and talked to them—a man, Rosemary decided, putting her foot inside one of the big footprints. Maybe that creepy Cletus—he’s always out in the woods. And they went this way.

  She trotted down the path, smiling to think how surprised her mother would be when she appeared. A little way on and the path veered sharply as it wrapped around the mountainside. Just beyond that turn was one of the benches Pa had made for Mum so she could sit and look at the view. Maybe she would be there. Humming, Rosemary hurried on.

  The brightly striped boggin was the first thing she saw. But the other person—it wasn’t Cletus. She recognized the fancy coat, all tan leather and creamy sheepskin. The arms were wrapped around her mother, almost hiding her blue jacket. It was Maythorn’s Uncle Mike. Kissing Mum. And Mum was kissing back.

  All at once Rosemary felt bitter cold. Her mouth filled with salt saliva like she might be going to throw up. She stood there, feeling sick and sad, then spun around and ran clumsily back up the path. Her eyes were full of tears.

  High in the deer stand, Maythorn waited. Soon Rosie came staggering along the path, out of breath with running and crying.

  Rosie’s mother was a few minutes behind her, calling out, Rosie, wait, I need to talk to you. She was crying too.

  12.

  REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

  Friday, October 14

  Chilly mist was rising from the gray river as Rosemary and Elizabeth crossed the bridge at Gudger’s Stand. It was only 7:20 but the early start was necessary if they were to have a full day in Cherokee and its environs—the Qualla Boundary, homeland to the Eastern Band of Cherokee…and Maythorn’s father’s people.

  Elizabeth clutched her travel mug of hot, black coffee, wishing that the car would warm up faster. Rosemary was driving, her creased brow indicating that she was deep in thought…or memory. Elizabeth concentrated on the scenery. I wish I could paint this, she thought, her eyes devouring the rapidly passing scene—autumn reds and yellows, bright against the haze…a plume of white smoke, billowing from the chimney of a house otherwise swallowed by fog.

  Then they were winding up the narrow road, climbing from the river and out of the mist and she was ravished by the sight of the early sun shining through a yellow-leafed poplar, illuminating its interior to reveal, like a dark skeleton, the framework of trunk and branches. On, up toward Dewell Hill, where the land opened out. Rich honey-gold sunlight lying on the brown and umber fields brought to mind the California plein air paintings she had admired recently on a trip to the art museum. The car whirled past a weathered tobacco barn, doors open, revealing bright tobacco hanging to cure, the rows looking like tattered ball gowns.

  They always make me think of Blanche DuBois, for some reason. Or Miss Havisham. Elizabeth started to speak and then stopped herself. Rosemary was still preoccupied with her own thoughts. And that’s what this trip is for—to help her remember the time she and Maythorn went to stay for a weekend with Maythorn’s granny. She doesn’t need my idle chatter.

  Now the roadside was a tapestry of evergreens interspersed with bare gray trunks and an occasional maple, a cloud of greeny-yellow leaves shading to coral where frost had nipped. Ahead, an old silver-gray log barn topped by a rusted metal roof perched on a hilltop—a scene from years and years ago…and today.

  And then they were on the Ridley bypass, where the sun glared off the white lines at the edge of the pavement. A steady flow of cars, an amazing number of cars, in both lanes were coming to the high school and middle school or traveling to Asheville. Where do they all come from? Elizabeth mused. When we moved here there was so little traffic that it wasn’t unusual to see two pickups stopped in the middle of the road, the drivers talking to each other. And there was only one traffic light in Ridley, and that was more for show than anything else.

  The highway to Weaverville and the dark loom of the Blue Ridge appeared in the distance. But soon the rolling pastures gave way to subdivisions and the scenery grew generic—strip malls, fast-food places—and Elizabeth’s thoughts turned inward.

  She had finally spoken with Phillip, after so precipitously abandoning their dinner plans for Sunday and fleeing home to avoid talking about Mike Mullins. Repeated, unanswered calls on Sunday night had left her wondering if he was angry with her—“Fed up” is probably the right phrase—and just not answering. But he had returned her calls on Monday morning and had seemed much as usual. I did apologize; I just didn’t actually explain. That can wait till tomorrow night.

  The week had been hectic. She had spent long hours working double time to fill orders for dried flower and herb wreaths so that she would be free when Rosemary returned. Ben’s absence meant that she also had to make sure that Julio and Homero tended to the thousand and one details of collecting seeds, watering the greenhouses, and harvesting the last of the tender edibles. There had been no killing freeze yet, but she expected one soon.

  She and Phillip had talked briefly and, she thought, affectionately, each night. But she had delayed explaining to him the feelings she’d once had for Mike Mullins. Tomorrow, when he comes out tomorrow, then I’ll explain.

  She tried to make a picture in her mind of just how she would do this. Privacy and keeping her inmost feelings to herself had been a way of life for so very long that it was second nature to put a cheerful face on an unhappy situation.

  And there’s another thing I didn’t tell him. He would have wanted me to call the sheriff about that message from Bib Maitland. And you should have, you know, nagged the irritating voice of her common sense.

  I did replace the lock, she reminded the voice, in hope of silencing it. Bib’s threatening message had led her to the unusual step of replacing her front door lock set so she could lock the doors at night. And I hate that—after all these years of not worrying.

  “That’s where there used to be all those big white cows—what are they called? Charolais?”

  Rosemary had finally broken her silence and was nodding toward a development of multistoried houses, packed tight in what had been a pasture only ten or fifteen years ago.

  “How can people choose to live like that, Mum? Instead of building a MacMansion, why don’t they opt for a smaller house with more land around it?” Rosemary scowled at a particularly offensive example in which most of the façade was given over to a three-car garage. “I feel sorry for kids growing up without fields and woods to roam in like we had.”

  Elizabeth was silent, remembering her own childhood. She had grown up in a similar suburb—the houses not so large, the lots only slightly more spacious. But to her the yard had been a kingdom; the block, a familiar continent; and the immediate neighborhood, a world that was hers to explore, on foot or bike. We had the same freedom to roam that she’s talking about—within bounds, yes, but bounds that felt boundless. What was it Thoreau said about traveling much in Concord?

  She began to attempt to explain this to Rosemary, but now they were entering the steady rush of traffic on the interstate that led to Asheville. “I can’t believe all these cars!” Rosemary groaned, carefully merging into the flow of commuters. “When did it get this bad? I had no idea….”

  Farther on were more unhappy changes. The creepy old Victorian farmhouse that they’d always loved for its dark green Gothic trim had been wrenched from its foundations. It sat forlorn on trestles, awaiting relocation, while heavy earthmoving equipment scoured the red soil it had once rested on. The mournful evergreens that had lined the property were gone and a sign proclaimed that THE HEMLOCKS——LUXURY CONDOS! would soon rise on this site.

  Rosemary’s expression darkened. “Why do things have to change all the time? I hate what’s happening here! You know, I’ve always looked forward to someday coming home to the farm and building a house in the woods. If I ever have child
ren I want them to grow up like Laur and I did.”

  “Laurel said something similar the other day. You don’t know how glad I am that you all feel that way. So many people thought we were crazy, taking you two away from the so-called civilization of Florida. And during the early years, things weren’t always as smooth as I would have liked them to be for you and Laurel—I mean, beside the horrible fact of Maythorn’s kidnapping…murder…or whatever it was. I know I wasn’t always as good a mother as I wanted to be. But if you both feel that your childhood was happy, then that makes me feel really good.”

  Rosemary’s eyes were fixed on the road. “I think that Laurie was always happy. And I was too, mostly. When things didn’t seem right, I could always lose myself in my books or my ‘pretends.’” She glanced at her mother. “You may not have realized it, but for several years when we first moved to the farm, I wasn’t me—I was an Indian princess named Shining Deer.”

  “Were you unhappy a lot of that time?” A sudden pang of guilt gripped Elizabeth. “I was afraid that changing schools—”

  “No, it wasn’t that.” Rosemary seemed to be selecting her words with great care. “Once I could understand what the teachers and the other kids were saying, I liked school a lot. It was more…” She hesitated. “I guess I was picking up on the fact that you and Pa weren’t always very happy yourselves.”

  Well! And here I thought… “What made you think that, sweetie?”

  “Just…just a lot of little things. I hadn’t thought about it in years because I know how strong your marriage was. But all this remembering has made me think about that time when we had first moved in the house, and before Maythorn…went away. I remember funny noises at night—when you and Pa had your bedroom over ours.”

  Elizabeth felt herself blushing. “Rosie, do you mean you heard us—”

  Rosemary smiled, a little sadly. “No, Mum, I think I figured those noises out fairly soon. I’m talking about hearing Pa shouting out in his sleep, yelling in some strange language. And then I think I heard him crying…and sometime you cried too.”

  I feel like crying right now. You poor child. Too much like me—keeping it all private. Well, that’s enough.

  “Rosie, your pa was suffering from what they eventually diagnosed as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You know he was in the navy during the Vietnam War.”

  “I thought that the stress thing happened to guys who’d been in combat. Pa just said he was on a ship all the time and it was bloody boring.”

  Elizabeth hesitated. It had taken years before Sam had told her about his time in Vietnam—and he had told her very little. He insisted that it was just routine, but when the nightmares started I knew he had to be lying. And he was so adamant about not letting the girls know. She laid a hand on her daughter’s arm.

  “Rosie, sweetie, your pa was part of a six-man crew on a Swift Boat, patrolling rivers and canals in Vietnam. He said it was all pretty tame right up till their last patrol. Then their boat got hit and two men were killed and one wounded really badly. I guess that was what the dreams were about. And the strange language was Vietnamese—he said he’d learned enough that if they didn’t have a liaison guy along—a native speaker—he could usually communicate. Oh, Rosie, I’m so sorry that you never asked us about it—I didn’t know you’d heard him.”

  Elizabeth turned her face to look out the window. She continued. “We were both going through a bad time—leaving Florida and jumping into this different life, building a house, getting used to all the new things about living on the farm; it was hard on both of us. And, for your father, I guess the stress triggered those old bad memories. We never had any idea that you girls—”

  “Was stress why you were kissing Maythorn’s uncle that time I saw you in the woods?”

  13.

  TO THE BOUNDARY

  Friday, October 14

  Rosemary’s words, precise and merciless, were like a sudden slap. Elizabeth turned to her daughter, but Rosemary’s face was expressionless and her eyes were fixed at some point far down the road.

  Well, hell. “How all occasions do conspire against me”…or however that goes. “Rosie, did you just now remember that…along with the Maythorn memories? Or have you been wondering about it all this time?”

  “I never forgot that.” Four clipped words and a waiting silence.

  They turned onto 40W to Canton. The sun was at their back now and from the passenger seat Elizabeth could see the black shadow of the car running ahead and to the right of them. A single tree—an oak?—glowed deep purple-red against the soft-green pines. There were tangles of bittersweet in the trees—that vine, so beloved of decorators in the fall, with its beautiful orange-red berries in papery yellow husks, was gathered to be sold at farmers’ markets. An invasive introduced plant, bittersweet had come to rival that other alien, kudzu, in draping and strangling the native trees.

  “Rosie, I tried to explain it to you then. I saw you standing there and—”

  “I always wondered if you’d gone out on purpose to meet him. You wouldn’t let me come with you.”

  Ahead of them the green mountain slopes were warmed with a haze of autumn color. Deal with it, Elizabeth; you owe her an explanation now.

  “It was like this, Rosie—and I’m not trying to make excuses, I’m just trying to explain the way I was feeling at the time—your father’s nightmares had gotten worse, but instead of talking to me about them, he kept turning me away. And yes, there was the whole stress of the move and the difficulties of ordinary daily living—do you remember when our pipes froze and for weeks we were hauling buckets of water from the branch? And school was closed and you and Laurie were in and out of the snow and having to change your clothes six times a day.”

  She bit her lip, knowing that she could go on and on and on without ever truly explaining what had led to that moment in those snowy woods—the moment Rosemary had witnessed.

  “I don’t know…call it cabin fever, sweetie. But I was feeling trapped and so alone. Your pa was doing everything he could to help—everything except taking me into his confidence and letting me help him. And then…”

  Sam had been working in the house and, seizing the opportunity to leave the girls in his care, she had taken the jeep, piled high with several weeks of dirty laundry, into the Washeteria on the Ridley bypass. Leaving eight machines churning over the Goodweather wash, she had sought the comfort of a sandwich and a cup of coffee in the Burger Palace next door.

  She was reading her library book and munching on her Chik-N-Burger when Mike Mullins slid into the seat across from her. “Howdy, neighbor,” he had said with a smile that was almost blinding. “Where’s Sam?”

  The Goodweathers had seen little of their neighbors since that visit in October. In November Elizabeth had called Patricia with a dinner invitation and had been indecently happy to learn that the Mullins would be unable…the Harvest Home Pageant was coming up and Patricia and Krystalle…busy, busy, busy. Elizabeth had breathed a sigh of relief and decided to wait till spring, when the house would be nearly complete and the comparison with Mullmore not so stark.

  They had gone back to Mullmore for a huge Christmas party, complete with Moon rigged out in a Santa suit, boozily passing out expensive gifts to each partygoer. The girls had disappeared into a swirl of excited children; Sam had been cornered by two new friends who wanted to talk about the possibilities of purchasing farm equipment together; and Elizabeth stood by a window, holding a glass of punch that was far too sweet, wondering how soon they could return home.

  Mike had a way of showing up when I was unhappy. And when I was unhappy, I probably said more than I should have. I was so pitifully glad to have someone who seemed interested….

  “So was it planned or what?” Rosemary made no attempt to hide her impatience with her mother’s long silence. “I’m just curious.” “No, not planned…at least not by me. A few days before, before the day you remember, I was in town doing laundry and grocery shopping. You girls were h
ome with Pa and I was in the Burger Palace getting lunch. Mike came in and sat in the booth with me. We were talking about how the wintertime could make you a little crazy if you didn’t get out now and then, and I told him that I tried to take a walk every afternoon. But it wasn’t…it wasn’t an assignation.”

  Elizabeth glanced over at Rosemary. Her daughter’s face expressed something between suspended disbelief and outright doubt.

  “Rosie,” Elizabeth forced herself to speak the words, “what you saw was totally unpremeditated. Your father and I had an argument earlier in the day—I’d suggested he should get help for the nightmares, and he told me, in rather harsh terms, to mind my own business. And the water was frozen and Laurie had been so grouchy all day—I was feeling really sorry for myself and went for a walk, and there was Mike. He saw I’d been crying and asked me to tell him what was wrong and he was so…so warm and…so understanding.”

  God, this sounds like a bloody soap opera, she lamented inwardly. But I have to explain. “It was just a stupid thing, Rosie. I cried on his shoulder; he kissed me; and for a minute I felt like…I don’t know what exactly. But then I saw you standing there on the trail and I realized what I was doing. I tried to explain it to you back then, but you wouldn’t let me.”

  All the long-put-away guilt flooded over her and she stared at her daughter’s impassive face and the eyes that seemed only to see the road ahead.

  “Rosie, please, I’m so sorry if—”

  Miraculously, Rosemary turned toward her, her smile filling up the car. “Mum, it’s okay. I think I understand—not that it’s my business, anyway. That was one moment, over twenty years ago. I know that what you and Pa had was a lot better than any other marriage I’ve seen. What I saw…well, it definitely shook me at the time. I was already a little worried about you and Pa because you both seemed unhappy. But at some point I realized that it was possible for people to have arguments and still love each other.”