“Yeah.”
“I lied. I’d really love it if you came up.”
“I’ll be there,” Maddie replied. “Let me work out a few things here so I can take some time off. I need to get the kids taken care of. I have a big meeting next week. I can try and come after that. Are you OK till then? You won’t do anything stupid?”
“No, of course not. I’ll be fine. Settle it at work and with the family and come up when you have a spare weekend. Really, I’m OK. It’d just be nice to see you.” Her voice broke.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Call me every day, OK? Even if you have to climb a mountain to get reception, call me.”
Chapter Six
Dear Diary,
Here is a secret. I was lost in the woods. I never told anyone.
I had followed a stream to its end deep in the forest. It dried up in some rocky crevice surrounded by a hillside of glorious fern. I’ve done this before. It has always been such an adventure, and when I reached the stream’s end, I followed it back home. But I must have made a wrong turn because I was soon in a part of the woods I did not recognize. Nothing looked the least friendly or familiar. I wandered for a long time, calling out over and over for Daddy. Only the birds returned my calls. The trees, the wildflowers, the rocks, the critters, all things that I loved hours before suddenly made me afraid. My mind began playing tricks on me. I imagined bears and snakes and all manner of evil lurking where the trees grew thick. I’ve never been such a ninny before. I’d heard talk of children wandering off never to be seen again, that must have been what made me so fearful. I was embarrassed for my tears. Lowrance would tease me if I told him.
It was the river that saved me. I heard it before I saw it. The sound of rushing water was like hearing an old friend calling my name. I followed the sound over the mountain. My dress and stockings were torn and I was very thirsty. But my heart near burst at the sight of the most charming stream I’d ever seen. The water ran swift over the dearest waterfall and led to a deep pool. Just beside it sat a cabin. I knew instantly it had to be the one my father had built after my mother died. From time to time he went off for short trips alone in the woods. He never invited me to join him on these trips, though I’d often begged him to. He said that there were times when a man had to be alone with his God and his thoughts. I sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the cabin and waited, knowing he would come.
Afraid. Scared. Timid. Fearful. Terrified. Frightened. Lonely.
I write these words down because I do not want them to come back into my heart. By writing these words down I must face the feelings. It is strange how I feel a shiver of the feeling when I say the word aloud. I shall read the words over and over until that feeling is gone. These are the feelings of the lost. I am not lost.
Kate, the Fearless
Clarence arrived at the cabin a few minutes after Mia did. She felt wounded and raw after her phone call with Charles. She crossed her arms and leaned against the porch pole as she watched Clarence’s shiny red truck pull up to the cabin, its enormous tires digging deep tracks in the mud. It was a giant four-wheeler and she wondered, when he jumped from the cab, if it didn’t have something to do with compensation. A second, rusted truck ambled along behind, loaded with firewood. He directed the two men where to stack the wood, giving orders like a Napoleon, and then turned to join her on the porch.
“I made it in pretty good time,” he called out as he walked up to the porch. He climbed the stairs and, tucking his fingertips in his pockets, looked out over the view of river, and beyond, a glimpse of mountaintops. “A right pretty spot it is,” he said with a sigh. “I came here once as a boy, you know. Just to look at it. Most children hereabouts think the place is haunted. Old Kate was already long gone when I came up. I didn’t mean any harm, just curious. Never went in, of course. Wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t dare. Mrs. Minor kept the place locked and you never knew when that old harridan would come bolting out and chase the rascals out with a broom. True story. It happened to a friend of mine.” He laughed and shook his head. “About scared the tar out of Bill Morgan.”
“Who is Mrs. Minor?”
“She looked after this place after Kate Watkins died. She lived at the next house down the road. She was very loyal. I believe she was the only one Kate kept up with after she came out here. Course, Mrs. Minor’s ancient now. In her nineties if a day. She doesn’t come by to check on this place anymore, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one what started the ghost rumors. Just to keep the kids away. She’s quite a character. Lives in town now where her folks can keep an eye on her.” He wiped his palms on his chinos, then headed toward the door. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got with this fuse box of yours.”
Clarence gave the cabin a thorough once-over, commenting as he saw fit to Mia what could be done in repairs. He was enamored of the cast-iron stove, declaring it in mint condition and how he’d like to take it off her hands. Mia reminded him several times that the cabin did not belong to her, but he chose to ignore that and continued to make suggestions. To her relief he was able to fix the fuse. She didn’t miss his smug smile when he showed her its location by the back door. Clarence didn’t stay long, sensing her mood. She watched him drive away, no doubt in a hurry to report to the town the status of Watkins Cove. A little gossip was a small price to pay for a cord of wood properly stacked beside the house and the power restored.
“Day by day,” she said softly, allowing Kate’s words to become her mantra.
That evening, Mia flicked on a switch and yellow light filled the room. It was comforting, and she’d never take easy access to light for granted again. She wouldn’t need to light a fire tonight, thank heavens. Summer had taken a hold in the mountains and the nights were warming up. The sun was setting on another day.
She went to roost on the blue sofa, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them in a tight ball. Charles had hurt her today, this time so deeply she had to compartmentalize the pain and tuck it away to deal with when she was stronger. She had to see clearly now that she had made poor choices over the past years of her marriage. She had given up herself to be what he wanted—the trophy wife, the socialite, the perfectionist. Not that it was wrong to like pretty things, but she’d neglected to make choices for her inner self as well. She’d given away too much.
She uncurled her legs and sat up, feeling a surge of determination. Her life with Charles was over. She would be a child again. This was her second chance. What difference did age make? She would get up early in the morning and paint. She would take long walks and read and find what it was that made her happy and build an authentic life. It would take work and discipline. She’d never been afraid of that. She had to stay positive. She had to let Charles go. She had to let the fear of cancer go. If she dwelled on the divorce or disease she would lose the slim shred of serenity she’d struggled so hard for up here in this cabin. This was her sacred space. Up here in these walls she’d promised to be good to herself and not let the negative thoughts in.
She rose and prepared a light dinner with a glass of white wine, taking pains to set a pretty table. After she ate, she went to the bookshelves. On top was Kate’s diary. She picked it up and held it in her hands. The leather was soft and familiar.
“Hello, friend,” she said aloud. She’d read and reread the young girl’s diary countless times. Kate Watkins’s words had filled her like a rich wine did an empty decanter.
Tomorrow she’d try her hand at casting again, she decided. She wouldn’t give up that dream so readily. First, she needed to learn how to knot a dry fly. She pulled several books on fly-fishing from the bookshelf and carried them to the table. She opened the first to discover that it was a series of essays on the art of fly-fishing. She closed this to read later.
The next two provided practical instructions on the basics of fly-fishing, more a twentieth-century how-to book. Always a good student, she dove in. For the next hour she studied diagrams and practiced tying a ser
ies of knots on the line that Belle had given her. When she was satisfied she could made a decent clinch knot, she idly opened the last book on the table.
This one had a heavy tweedlike cover. Something about it niggled in her memory. Opening it, her mouth slipped open in a silent gasp of recognition.
The heavy lined paper filled with neat script and charcoal sketches was exactly as Kate had described. Mia flipped back to the first page. She found the name Walter Watkins written in the same tight script. Her mind flashed to the initials on the photograph. WW.
But of course Kate would have wanted to keep her father’s fishing diary! She would have brought it with her to the cabin along with her other favorite books. It would have been one of her greatest treasures. Walter had written his entries in a tight and tidy script. On the right was an open space for comments. He had an incredible sense of detail and order. As she studied the pages, she remembered young Kate’s rapture at seeing it.
Mia’s head snapped up as words from Kate’s diary rang in her memory. Someday I was going to make a fishing diary of my very own. If Kate had preserved her father’s fishing diary, she thought…
Mia hurried to the bookcase and with excitement pumping in her veins scanned the titles for all the fly-fishing books. There were four more. She opened each one eagerly, one after the other. Each was another text on the topic of fly-fishing. No diary. Disappointed, her fingers tapped the table. She had felt so sure. Undaunted, Mia returned to the bookshelf and let her fingertips skim again over all the titles on all the shelves, reading each one carefully. There were many classics and a wide selection of early southern and feminist authors. She traced the titles by Henry David Thoreau, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Eudora Welty, Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, and several about Amelia Earhart. On the bottom shelf she found a narrow, burgundy leather box, tied in shipping string. With a flicker of interest, she pulled it out and brought it to the table. On the cover of the box the outline of a fish was etched into the leather in gold.
Mia untied the string. Then, with something akin to reverence, she opened the box. She sucked in her breath. Inside she found a burgundy, leather-bound book. It was thick and bulky, filling the box, which Mia knew was made especially for the book. The leather was well worn, burnished in some spots, and scratched deeply in others. In the center of the cover, in the same gilt as the fish, were the initials KW. Mia wiped her palms on her shirt, then very carefully lifted the book from the box. The book’s bindings held strong. Mia held her breath and opened the book.
Her breath released with a laugh. Did she call this a fishing diary? This was a far, far different book than WW’s neatly recorded journal. This was a marvel! It was a glorious explosion of creativity and color.
The design of the pages was exactly that of her father’s diary. There were the classic black lines that marked the same categories: date, fish caught, location, rod, fly. But where he had neatly recorded the information like a banker in a ledger, Kate had embellished her entries with impeccably rendered watercolors.
Mia hurried through the pages to get a grasp of the book. The dates spanned from 1920 to 1951—so many years! The colors of the paintings had not faded. These were not the cheerful paintings of a child. These were the entries of a mature and accomplished angler and artist.
On the left side were the categories, and her entries were written in a serious, tidy script. In between her entries, however, she filled all the empty spaces with sketches, some quite whimsical, of objects that must have caught her eye while out in the wild. An eagle’s head, a crested grebe, a barn swallow; there a rabbit, a bear, a deer—each carefully identified. On the right, where the diary provided a page for remarks, Kate filled the space with her shining watercolors of the spots she fished—the rivers, waterfalls, and mountains. And everywhere were fish—rainbow trout, brook trout, and others, large and small, swimming, leaping, on the fly, in the creel, even on the plate. Mia was enthralled. It was almost too much. She knew how an archeologist must feel when he opens a tomb for the first time to discover the marvelous treasures hidden there.
“Oh, Kate!” Mia exclaimed, bringing her hand to her cheek. “You wonderful girl. You queen of fly-fishing. You did it. Just as you said you would. You made the woods your own!”
Morning broke the stillness of night, stretching her pink and gold rays over the eastern mountains, then yawning wide and spreading her light down across the valley. In the forest, myriad birds shook their feathers and sang dawn songs to the new day.
Mia rose to begin her new routine. She hummed as she scooped coffee into the machine and reached into the cabinet to take out her favorite blue pottery mug and bowl that she’d found in Maeve’s shop. The scent of coffee tantalized her senses and her fingers tapped a beat on the counter while she waited for the coffee to brew. Then she poured the steaming coffee into her mug, topped it off with milk, and began her day with her first sip. Her breakfast was always a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries, prepared just the way she liked it.
After breakfast, Mia set up her painting environment, mimicking the pleasure she found in preparing her breakfast. She’d found an old wooden table in the woodshed that was perfect to hold her paper and supplies. Preparing the paper, soaking it, watching the water spill off, then its placement on the waiting watercolor board was a careful task.
These quotidian movements were her version of tai chi exercises—free-flowing, continuous routines for health and longevity. Every morning Mia would take care of herself, following her natural cravings, falling into a healing rhythm.
Mia began exploring. She took Kate’s words to heart and every day walked a little deeper into the woods, gaining confidence in steps. Today she felt braver and left the dirt road to follow the river, staying close to its winding curves. She traveled light, carrying only a bottle of water and the old fishing creel she’d found in the armoire. When she’d first put it on, she was keenly aware of the way the wide leather strap fell against the flat space on her chest. Now the strap was soothing, as if it were Kate’s guiding hand on her shoulder.
The sky was deepening to a periwinkle blue. She walked a little farther, enjoying the gurgling of the river, when she caught sight of a patch of brilliant orange. She hurried toward it, pulling the creel from her shoulder. As she drew near she recognized the three-foot-high, regal Turk’s cap lily. She smiled, remembering how Kate had painstakingly painted the orange color with the reddish-brown spots on her wall.
Mia reached into the creel to pull out her notebook and charcoal pencils. In the ancient, brittle wicker she collected specimens of trees and wildflowers instead of fish. She’d done sketches of bee balm, cardinal flower, and touch-me-nots. And now she had a Turk’s cap lily. Her sketches weren’t very good, but she wasn’t collecting them to show to others. She was learning the names, as Kate had.
Young Kate Watkins was Mia’s inspiration. The girl had shaken Mia’s fear of her surroundings and replaced it with a childlike curiosity. How, she wondered, had she lived a lifetime and not taken the time to learn the names of the trees that lived beside her? Or the sweet wildflowers, the birds, the animals? What blind arrogance was this? They were her neighbors. They made up her world. Not knowing what they were or what to call them, how could she help but feel disconnected when she looked at them? Each step she took into the woods was a step away from her old life. Was it any wonder great fairy tales took place in enchanted forests?
Up here in the mountains with the forest closing her off from the world, Mia felt far from the life she’d lived near the ocean. The betrayal and hurt, the hectic lifestyle, the medical worries, the omnipresent bills, the stink of hospitals, the honking of horns, the crush of people…She knew they were out there beyond the perimeter, but they did not exist in the forest she was living in now.
In this new world Mia vowed that she would be like Kate. Fearless, adventurous, curious. Going out a little farther each day, with Kate as her guide, she was not lost. She was making the woods her o
wn.
June 21, 2008
Charles,
I’ve given your suggestion of divorce mediation a great deal of thought. I agree that it is time for us to move forward with our lives, albeit separately. I suspect that the only real value we have accrued in our ten-year marriage is the condominium and a few stocks. That seems a rather sad statement, doesn’t it? Of course, I am not speaking in terms of money. I would have liked to think that in the past ten years of our lives we have accumulated something of personal value. Perhaps in the fullness of time we will mine out that gold, but for now, I am resolved to settle for bits of gravel.
Please move forward with mediating the divorce. I trust you will provide an accurate and thorough accounting of our possessions, such as they are. I intend to remain in the mountains for the duration of the summer. If there is something that you need to discuss with me, leave a message on my cell phone or e-mail and I will contact you as soon as I am able.
Mia
Chapter Seven
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
On the eve of the solstice Mia stood on the rocky bank of the river angling for the big trout she saw cruising in the depths of the pool. She’d seen that giant rainbow rise several times to slurp down an insect, then dive again with a flash of his silvery tail, as though to tease her.
She was dressed in waders and boots, and was casting the dry fly she had painstakingly attached to the line. It had taken her hours. Back near the cabin she heard the low rumble of an engine. Turning, she recognized the green Blazer that pulled to a stop. She waved her arm in an arc and called out. “Over here!”
Time Is a River Page 9
