Time Is a River

by Mary Alice Monroe

  She’d come mostly for this, she realized. The silence between them. She simply needed to be with her best friend.

  They sat for a long while, listening to the storm. Mia’s eyes grew heavy and her mind wandered. Where was Belle at this moment? Did she have someone to confide in? Or was she alone reading the letter from her grandmother? With her anger spent, Mia grew concerned for Belle and the confusion and pain she might be going through.

  “I’m worried about Belle,” she told Stuart.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  Mia shook her head. Her cheek rubbed against a button on his shirt.

  “She’s a resourceful woman. I’m sure she’s OK.”

  Mia reached up to pick at the button and wondered if that were true. The tallest tree fell the hardest.

  “What are you going to do now?” Stuart asked her.

  “Go back, I guess.”

  He hesitated. “You could stay here in Watkins Mill.”

  “I don’t have a job.”

  “You could get one. Mia…” He paused. “Why go back to Charleston?”

  She slipped the button disk out from the buttonhole. “It’s not just about getting a job.” She moved her hand to the next button and played with it. “I’ve got to go back to Charleston. I have unfinished business I need to tend to. My divorce will be final soon. I have to move my things from my condo.” Her fingers released the second button. “My doctors are in Charleston, too. I’m due for my checkup. And…” She opened a third button and slipped her hand underneath the fabric. She felt his chest rise as she ran her fingers through the fine hairs, letting her nails softly skim from shoulder to shoulder.

  “I’m considering breast reconstruction.”

  “Why? You look beautiful the way you are.”

  She shifted her head to look up at him. His face was inches from hers. “You make me swoon. They should clone you. I know a thousand and one women who would steal you in a minute to hear the things you say to me.”

  “I’m serious, Mia. Why do it now? Why go under the knife again?”

  She tucked her head back in the crook of his arm. “Because maybe I want to look normal again? Whatever that means. Every time I see that empty space on my chest I’m reminded of the cancer.” She brought her lips to his chest and kissed the smooth skin. “Maybe I won’t. I don’t know. But that’s a decision I’m ready now to face. I remember something you said to me a while ago. You were talking about my reading the diaries and you said I was stealing the fire. Remember?”

  “Yes, vaguely.”

  “I remember it vividly because it was perfect. It’s exactly what I was doing. Kate Watkins showed me the fire and while I was here she helped me conquer my fears. I know who I am better now than before the cancer. I know now that being a survivor means I’ve got my life back. I see things more clearly. I’m stronger and I know I can take care of myself. My time at the cabin—and with you—changed me. I’m ready.”

  “But…” He stopped and his hand stilled on her head.

  Mia closed her eyes tight, hearing the subtle plea in his silence. He couldn’t ask her to stay. He knew she had to go back. And yet, if he did ask, she might do it.

  She raised herself from his shoulder and moved to sit cross-legged before him. They sat for a moment, eye to eye. He’d been working long hours and her loving eyes picked up signs of his fatigue: the chalkiness of his tan, the dark stubble on his jaw and upper lip, the faint shadows under his eyes.

  Over the past few months she’d had a crush on this man. He’d made her body come alive again after a long hibernation. During the summer months she’d experienced the giddiness of romantic love, the gushes of a girl complete with self-doubt and uncertainty.

  But this man sitting before her was real, not a summer fantasy. She knew with him the infatuation could grow, in seasons, to love. What could she bring to love? she asked herself. She had to settle issues within herself before she could answer that question. Mia had to go home for those answers.

  She reached out to bring her hand to his jaw, cradling it. “Stuart…”

  His hand flew to cover hers on his cheek. His eyes blazed. “I know.”

  She shivered and he grabbed her arm to pull her to him, not gentle this time but rough and full of need. Her body fell against him, feeling the pressure of his desire. Their lips pressed hard, hungry and probing. Steal the fire kept running through her mind as her fingers fumbled at the remaining buttons of his shirt. He spread open the terry robe, exposing her chest, bringing his mouth to her nipple. Her hands froze for a moment, stunned as always by the exposure. She bent her head and saw that his eyes were closed and he wasn’t looking at scars or voids. She closed her own eyes and relinquished as his lips traveled up her neck, his breath warming her skin as he moved to claim her mouth. They knelt together, his hands clasping her head while he kissed her fiercely, possessively.

  I could love this man, she thought, holding him tight. He leaned against her, pressing her back against the sofa. She felt the cold leather against her back, then looked up as he tore the shirt from his body and threw it on the floor. She watched him wrestle with his belt and send it flying, heard the hum of his zipper. She lifted her arms in welcome and felt the weight of him on her, flesh against bone, heart beating against heart.

  When he entered her she closed her eyes and once again they were moving in perfect synchronicity, back and forth, slipping into a natural rhythm. When at last she arched to meet him she cried out from her depths. Then, with a shudder, she was released.

  Tropical depression Nicholas was loaded with rain and headed straight for Asheville. The rain was falling at a steady rate from a slate gray sky as Mia made her way back to the cabin. The windshield wipers were clicking feverishly but couldn’t keep up with the sheet of water on her windshield. Mia had to lean far forward and squint to see the slice of road through the water. Her hands gripped the wheel tight. Her little sedan cut through the rain on roads that were slippery with mud. It was like driving on ice. She crawled at a snail’s pace around Route 9, then up the back mountain road that led to her cabin. Alongside the road, the river roared like a racing lion.

  When she arrived at the cabin she was alarmed to see how high the river had risen. The pool was nearing the top of the banks and it was only a matter of hours before it overflowed them. She drove her car to the far back of the cabin, to the highest ground. She had to steer around the green truck parked beside the cabin. It was emblazoned with the sign Brookside Guides.

  Her first thought was relief. Belle would know what to do if the river overflowed. Her second thought was, What is she doing here? She yanked up the parking brake, pulled her nylon hood over her head, and took a deep breath before pushing open the door. The wind attacked her, knocking her hood from her head and billowing her rain jacket. The rain slapped her face with stinging cold so she ducked her head as she ran along the stone path, mentally thanking Stuart for his help with the project. Around the walkway the ground was a sea of mud. Mia climbed the stairs and ducked under the porch roof. She caught her breath, then shook the rain from her jacket like a dog and mopped her face.

  Mia hesitated, her hand on the door handle. She couldn’t imagine what Belle was doing here again, so soon, with a storm raging. She’d said she could wait until after the storm to leave. Could she possibly be kicking her out now? There was nothing to do but face the music.

  Pushing open the door, Mia stepped into the cabin. Belle was standing at the pedestal dining table, bent over her stack of watercolors. Her head bobbed up and she straightened the minute she heard Mia enter.

  “You’re back,” Belle exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Mia replied guardedly. She took off her dripping jacket and set it on the tree stand by the door. Walking across the room she felt Belle’s eyes on her. Her muddy boots thumped on the wood floors, and Mia was keenly aware of the trail of mud she would have to wash off later. She reached for the kitchen towel and began drying the rain from her face and hair. S
he looked over to Belle.

  Belle appeared self-conscious. She was still in her rain slicker and her long braid fell like a damp rope down her back. “Were the roads bad?”

  Mia nodded and set the towel on the counter. “Very. They’re getting muddy.” A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows, emphasizing the point.

  “I better go,” Belle said, and began walking toward her. “I just came by to give you this.” She handed Mia an envelope.

  Mia recognized the yellowed envelope immediately as Kate’s letter. She took it in her hands and stared at Kate’s flowing script. The name Theodora was smeared with drops of rain. She looked up with uncomprehending eyes. “Why are you giving this to me?”

  “I thought you deserved to read it. And I was ashamed.”

  Mia’s breath hitched as she saw Belle’s implacable face crumple with grief. She wanted to reach out and hug her but Belle held herself so rigidly Mia sensed that to touch her would break the composure she was fighting for. Mia recalled the gentleness that Belle had shown her that day she found Mia sobbing in the car. She stepped closer to Belle.

  Belle was still looking down as she spoke. “I spent the evening reading the diary. I couldn’t stop,” she said, looking up at Mia. “It was like listening to her voice.” She released a short, pained laugh. “My grandmother’s voice. After all these years. You can’t know what that meant to me.”

  “I think I might.”

  Belle sighed and shook her head. A droplet of rain shaken from her hair trailed down her forehead. She swiped it away, then rubbed her eyes. “What I’m trying to say here is you were right. I didn’t know who she was. Not at all. I wish I did. I would have liked to have known her.”

  “Belle, you’re so much like her. Strong, independent, and a hell of a fly fisher. I’m sure she would’ve been so proud of you.”

  Belle’s face softened. “You know what’s weird about all this? My mother never taught me to fly-fish.”

  “What? Then how…”

  “She had all this gear, so she must’ve fished a few times before she gave it up. So one day I just borrowed it and went to the river. The minute I cast onto the water I knew I was home.”

  “Genetics won out.”

  “Had to be.”

  “When did you learn your grandmother was a fly fisher?”

  “Not till years later. I read her name in some article written about women fly fishers who paved the way in history. I about fainted and I never faint. I was teaching at the university at the time but my passion was fly-fishing. At Thanksgiving I came home and showed the article to my mother. I was prepared to go toe to toe with her on it, but it was one of the few times I heard pride in her voice when she spoke about her mother.

  “Right then and there she told me about the Watkins family and this town. Not in a bad way, like before, but like some history lesson. Can you imagine how I felt? Me, who grew up not knowing I had any relatives at all to learn I came from some historical family a town was named after?”

  “I imagine you were pretty proud.”

  “I was, but it took a while for me to accept the reality it was my family, not some people in a book somewhere. I wonder if that’s how my mother felt, living as an outcast in a town that bore her name. She told me that when she was young and still lived here, she used to go to the Manor House and just stand outside it and stare. It was somebody’s private home at that time and she wasn’t welcome in. She used to dream what it might be like to live in it instead of the cabin. To be rich and respected in the town, instead of poor and rejected.”

  “That’s such a sad image.”

  “She blamed Kate for their lot in life, like it was her fault the family lost their money.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was, to some extent. She did gamble in the stock market with DeLancey. But they’d have likely lost the house anyway in the Depression. Who knows? My mother must’ve realized that in time because I didn’t hear the old bitterness in her voice when she talked about Watkins Mill and Kate’s success in the sport. It was a turning point for her.”

  Mia raked her hands through her damp hair, feeling the tension ease. Dropping her hands she said, “You know, Belle, when you think about it, all of us—Kate, Theodora, you, me—we’re all just women trying to do the best that we can in tough times.”

  Belle stared at the rain hitting the window and her eyes filled with tears. “All my grandmother asked for from her daughter in that letter was a little compassion.”

  “And what is compassion but sympathy for the suffering of another?”

  “Doesn’t seem like much. But it is.” She slumped against the counter. “I feel so bad that my mother couldn’t find compassion in her heart.”

  “You never know. Maybe she would have gone to see her mother but put it off, thinking she’d have time. Kate died so young. Theodora might have missed her chance.”

  “Regret is a bitter pill to swallow.”

  Mia nodded. “Maybe it wasn’t bitterness she felt, but sorrow.”

  Belle sighed heavily. “I’ll never know. She wasn’t real good at talking. She kept a lot bottled up. Everything with my mother was a secret.” She snorted. “If she’d have told me she was the illegitimate daughter of some foreign prince, I’d have believed her.”

  “Well,” Mia said with a crooked grin. “She sort of was considered that in this town.”

  They both chuckled at that.

  “So I reckon you nailed it,” Belle conceded. “Somewhere in my subconscious, that’s why I came back here. To learn where I came from.” She reached out to indicate the letter in Mia’s hands. “And I have you to thank for doing just that. I came to deliver this letter to you because you deserve to read it, Mia. I think you’ll find your answer in there. I know I did.”

  Mia looked at the letter with warring emotions. “I don’t know if I should. You were right, too. I took this thing too far.”

  “Aw, go ahead,” Belle said. “You can’t read a story and not find out the ending.” She smiled and pushed herself from the counter. “I gotta go if I’m going to get out. This storm is a hellion.” She came forward to wrap her arms around Mia in a firm hug. “Listen, you be careful up here. You’re still on my watch.”

  Mia’s tension flowed from her as she hugged Belle in return. “I’m glad at least this storm is over.”

  “Me, too.” Belle walked across the room, zipping up her jacket and flipping her hood over her head. She paused before opening the door to the storm. Belle was tall and lean and the hood covered her red hair, so only her obsidian eyes shone from beneath it as she took a final sweep around the cabin. Lightning flashed outside, and in that moment Mia saw Kate come alive in her granddaughter.

  “She is here, you know,” Belle said to her. “I felt it, too.”

  By midnight, the storm bore down in full fury. Mia went from window to window double-checking the locks and putting towels where water leaked through the seals. The little cabin was well built and held firm against the battering wind, but the roof leaked in the add-on kitchen, so she placed two buckets beneath a steady drip of water.

  There was nothing left for her to do but wait it out. The electricity had gone out hours before. She lit a strong fire and made a picnic dinner of cheese and bread and carried it and a bottle of red wine to sit on the velvet sofa. Wrapping herself in a blanket, she brought Kate’s letter close. Her fingers trembled with anticipation as she stared at the envelope.

  She’d read young Kate’s words and come to love her. But these were the words of Kate as a woman nearing the end of her life. What would she have to say in these pages? Mia ran her hand across the writing on the envelope. Did she want her image of the brave, confident, headstrong girl to be tarnished by the ramblings of a defeated woman? What changes had a tumultuous forty years wrought on the young girl’s optimism?

  A thunderous cracking of branches sounded from outside as another tree lost its footing in the wet earth and toppled over. Mia jumped at the crashing thud not far from the house. She tigh
tened the blanket around her shoulders. Inside the cabin she felt safe. Yet she also sensed Kate again. Her presence was very strong, almost tangible in the close smoke from the fire.

  Mia looked again at the envelope in her hands. Belle had said Kate asked for compassion in this letter. Kate wasn’t some goddess on a pedestal, some one-sided heroine in a tragic story. She had been a real, flesh-and-blood woman with strengths, weaknesses, and flaws, like anyone else. Who was she to deny her that compassion?

  Mia settled back against the cushions and tugged the paper from the envelope. She smoothed out the folds from the paper, tilted it to the rosy light of the fire, and began to read.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  November 9, 1952

  Dear Theodora,

  Darling child, I am writing to you across the miles praying that, wherever you may be, you are safe and warm and content. I am sitting by the fire on the velvet sofa. Do you remember how you loved to cuddle up together on it when you were a child? The wind is whistling, rattling the windows as a cold front moves in. Fall has come to paint the trees and the trout are frisky in the cold waters. If you should come to Watkins Cove today you’d see that nothing much has changed since you left. Except, perhaps, me. I am older now. Gray streaks my hair like the shadows across the river as I reach the sunset of my life.

  My dearest Theo, you were always my sunshine. Since you’ve left, my life has been filled with darkness. I miss you terribly and long to see your face. In the fullness of time I’ve come to understand why you left. Once the hurt passed and my heart healed I was able to see with a mother’s eye that you left Watkins Cove—not me. I know how you longed for town life. I was not deaf all those years to your pleas to leave. I didn’t, perhaps, appreciate your desperation. Nor do I understand why you feel the need to cut off all contact with me. Perhaps now, as a grown woman with a child of your own, you, too, can finally release the hurt and comprehend the many reasons why I could not leave this place of refuge.