Before I Saw You

by Amy Sorrells

  “I’m Gabe Corwin.” He shakes her hand heartily. “Nice to meet you. And I am certain I did not sign up for a pie.”

  “Well, don’t leave before I get you a visitor card. You can choose from Hoosier cream, apple, or derby on there, and when you turn it in, we’ll drop it off.”

  “You sure know how to make a person feel welcome,” he says. “Thank you, Ms. Spradlin.”

  “Oh, call me Veda.” She is blushing. “Nobody who lives in Riverton calls anybody by their last name, unless they happen to be your teacher.”

  “Okay then, Veda. Thank you.”

  “He’s my newest employee,” Carla says.

  “Is that right?”

  “Line cook, busboy, whatever she needs,” Gabe says, the same proud look on his face as the day I ran into him on the sidewalk.

  “He’s fantastic. And when he’s not at the diner, he’s an EMT.”

  “We like hard workers in Riverton. Welcome, welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to catch another new face I see over there.” Veda nods, then skirts away.

  “You ready, Jaycee?” Sudie says, approaching us. She turns to Gabe, looking him up and down. “You going to introduce me to your friend too?”

  Between her and Carla stirring up romance, I don’t have a chance.

  “Sudie, meet Gabe. Gabe, meet Sudie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Gabe,” Sudie says. “You still coming with me, Jaycee?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you going?” Gabe asks.

  “I help Sudie—she’s my neighbor—I help her take care of a cemetery a few miles from here.”

  “You know I don’t need that much help,” Sudie says. She leans forward and I see a little glimmer in her eye. “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Gabe is wide-eyed.

  “Unless I get there and find old Mrs. O’Reilly laid out next to her grave. Buried her Thursday. Had in her will instructions to be buried with all her jewelry. And I do mean all of it.”

  I see what she’s doing and decide to play along. “All of it? That diamond wedding ring was huge.” Sudie has managed to creep me out legitimately plenty of times. Says there’s a man out there who wears bib overalls she sees out of the corner of her eye but who disappears whenever she tries to look at him full-on. A gypsy, too, in a twirling purple skirt. And a Civil War soldier who stands in the back next to the grave of the son he never met.

  “Sapphire earrings. That big ugly fly brooch with the giant emerald eyes. All those gold chains.” Sudie leans back and crosses her arms, just waiting for Gabe’s astonishment.

  And astonished he is. “You work out there all alone?”

  “You look a little pale, Gabe,” says Carla.

  “The dead aren’t anything to worry about. It’s the living who make my job a nightmare,” Sudie explains. “Vandalism. Chasing off drunk kids from the college. Grave robbers.”

  “Grave robbers?” Gabe really does look pale.

  “Sure, every once in a while. ’Specially if the wrong person catches wind about somebody like Mrs. O’Reilly getting buried in all her finery.”

  “You about ready?” I say to Sudie.

  “I was actually wondering . . . ,” Gabe says to me, shifting his weight, acting like he’s still all nervous about Sudie’s story. But it’s not that he’s worried about. “I mean, if you didn’t have plans, I was thinking we could grab a bite to eat.” He turns to Sudie. “But that’s okay if you can’t. Some other time—”

  “You two go on and go to lunch,” Sudie interrupts, then winks at me. “I’ll be just fine.”

  I look from her, to Gabe, to Carla, back to Sudie again. What in the world is she thinking? She just gloried on about me breaking up with Bryan. Just revealed to me she knows about this baby I’m carrying. I sure don’t need her trying to set me up with Gabe. There is something about him, something that has the potential to get complicated quick. He isn’t like anyone around Riverton I’ve ever met. He doesn’t have the same edge that in others means anger and fists hiding behind their wanting eyes. Baby or no baby, I don’t want or need another man after Bryan. “I—”

  “It’s settled, then,” Sudie blurts before I can protest. “Gabe, I’ll be much obliged if you take her to lunch and then home for me. Pancake place on State Road 62—right on the way out to our place—has all-you-can-eat on Sundays.”

  “Sorry about that,” I say once Gabe and I are outside.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “Sudie and Carla. They’re just . . .” Maybe he didn’t catch the fact that they were trying to match us up. I don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it already is. “. . . funny, is all.”

  “Nice people, that’s for sure. That one woman . . . they really give pies to everybody new?”

  “Yeah, they do.”

  “Nice.”

  A flock of Canada geese flies over the street toward the river, squawking the whole way. The snow from the night before has already melted, and the sun feels warm on my face.

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Near the park.”

  The Riverton city park is a couple of blocks from the church, and instead of getting in his car right away I head toward the river. “I like to take breaks from work out here when the weather’s nice.”

  “I can see why,” he says, following me.

  On the river, a barge slides past so slow and wakeless it appears as if it’s being pulled by some unseen force rather than motoring itself. A couple of families from church are taking advantage of the sun, their children clambering onto the swings.

  “Stay away from the slide,” one of the mothers calls. “It’s too wet still.”

  A boy, about the same age as Jayden would be now, runs down to the riverbank and stops along the sandy edge. He waves at the barge, and I can hear him erupt with giggles as a sailor waves back.

  My heart aches and I force back tears, but I am determined not to show emotion around Gabe. I guess I thought grieving for Jayden would lessen by now, but it hovers in my chest, like the hawks circling above the trees. I never know when it’s going to come over me, things like this little boy, hearing someone in the church nursery singing “Jesus Loves Me” like I sang to him. Hormones from carrying this baby don’t help.

  I take a deep breath and settle myself on a massive old log, long smoothed by the river. The air smells clean and new as if the water washes the earth as it passes through. Grass tapers off to the riverbank, and I wonder what Jayden would’ve thought about the feel of it under his toes, if he would’ve liked the blue sky and bright sun and the chug of the big barge engine. I think about these things and how I’ll never, ever know.

  Just like I’ll never know about my baby if I give him up.

  The boy picks up rocks, one at a time, and throws them into the water.

  Kerplunk.

  Plunk.

  Kerplunk.

  Gabe picks one up and launches it, skipping it half a dozen times.

  The boy turns to him in wonder, and Gabe skips another. Then another.

  A gray squirrel scampers up the white bark of a nearby sycamore, and a blue heron flies low enough I can hear its wings pushing against the wind. The heron dives into the frigid water and comes up with a fish, juggling it in its long beak until at last he swallows it. Around the far bend of the river a smokestack chugs out steam so fluffy and white it resembles clouds. A bird of prey—maybe a peregrine, maybe a Cooper’s, it’s too high to tell—circles above several times before disappearing over another patch of trees. The world is quiet except for the occasional high-pitched screech of a ring-billed gull, the banter of the other children on the swings behind us, the plunk-kerplunk of Gabe’s skipping stones.

  The boy tosses one more stone, then turns and runs back to his mother. She opens her arms to gather him. I’ll never know that feeling either if I give my baby up.

  Gabe brushes his sandy hands off on the thighs of his jeans and moseys over. “Mind if I sit?”

  I
scoot down to make more room. “Sure. I mean, no. I mean—”

  He laughs. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He looks around at the river, the paths, the trees. “It’s nice out here.”

  “One of my favorite spots.”

  “You have others?”

  “A few. You’d be surprised, all that’s around here. Waterfalls, cliffs, hollers . . .”

  “Hollers?”

  “Yeah. Hollers. You call them somethin’ different?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, exaggerating what sounds like a TV anchorman’s precise cadence. “A gorge, a valley. Holler is what I do if I’m angry.”

  “A holler’s a holler. And nothin’s wrong with my accent. Wasn’t even an accent to anybody until you came to town.”

  “Maybe not. But it’s cute. So’s your dimples.” He grins and nudges my side, too close to my growing belly, even if it is well hidden under my coat and oversize sweater.

  I jump up. “You ready to go?”

  “Sure,” he says, bewilderment on his face at my sudden movement.

  “Pancakes. All you can eat,” I say, then start walking fast toward his car.

  13

  * * *

  “You gonna tell me which way to go?” Gabe asks.

  “That way.” I nod right.

  His hands grip the wheel loose, but in control. Doesn’t take long before the road out of town opens up and we pass dilapidated farmhouses, patches of homes with midcentury architecture that were most certainly some family’s pride until the factories started closing and they couldn’t afford repairs. Trailers like the ones in Shady Acres sag, some in clumps, some alone on barren patches of land. Half the billboards advertise drug-treatment centers and the other half casinos and adult entertainment along the river.

  “Is it really that bad down here?” He glances at me, then back to the road.

  “What’s that?”

  “The drugs. Heroin.”

  His hair looks freshly cut, the brown layers precise but with enough styling product to make it look messy, like the celebrities on magazine covers. He wears a crisp, plaid button-down with a high-end logo on the chest, and a winter coat same style and logo as the students from Riverton College. No wonder he has a hard time believing the news about “down here.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “They’ve got us carrying Narcan in the ambulance. Guys in the department say they can hardly keep it stocked they use it so much. I only saw it used a couple of times when I was in training.”

  “You’ll use it plenty here.”

  I’m not used to someone who doesn’t know my story, someone who didn’t read in the paper about Jayden’s passing or Mama’s court appearances. I wonder what it would be like to live in a place where the paper doesn’t print the police reports.

  “Has it always been like this?”

  We pass a tractor turning over a frozen gray field, the dirt brown and rich behind it. I remember how long the summers seemed when I was little, when it didn’t matter we were poor and Sudie wasn’t telling us of all the graves she was having to call Shorty to dig. Running barefoot around the fields and hollers, catching butterflies by day and fireflies by night with the neighbor kids without being afraid of stepping on a used syringe, somebody renting a movie and shining it on the clean white side of somebody’s trailer. We could count on each other, back then. Some of us still do, like me and Sudie, folks at church, the diner. But it’s not the same. Not near the same.

  “No. Not always.”

  I didn’t tell him that it’s hard to find anybody nowadays who hasn’t lost a mama or a brother, a daughter or a sister. I didn’t tell him that first it was the toothpaste factory, then the metal smelting factory, then the shipping facility, then the refrigerator factory, then the furniture factory that closed, wiping out jobs, then lives. The only reason I remember the story of Sherman marching from Atlanta to Savannah from history class is because it feels like something evil’s been marching over our land burning everything down too. Same as those bugs killing all the ash trees. Can’t see it outright, but the hurt’s plain as day.

  “You know anybody who’s died from it?”

  His question shoots panic fire straight through me. I like not being known for what’s happened to me. “No . . . I mean . . .”

  His eyes soften at my sudden unease. Never have been able to hide my emotions too well.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m surprised at the way I snap at him, but at least I keep the tears down this time. It’s not his fault he doesn’t have any idea about Mama and Jayden. Still, I snap like the opossums and grown coons do at Sudie when all she’s trying to do is help.

  A shadow crosses over the car.

  “Watch out!” I cry.

  Gabe sees the dark form about the same time as I do.

  Thud!

  It collides with the front of the car. Or we collide with it. Hard to tell which.

  Gabe slams on the brakes and puts the car in park. The smell of burned tire rubber hangs in the air when we get out of the car.

  “What is it?” Gabe asks when we see the brown speckled mound on the side of the road.

  “Looks like a redtail.”

  “A red-tailed hawk? Is it alive?”

  “I can’t tell,” I whisper, stepping slow and careful toward the rumpled feathers. When I’m close enough to peer over the top of it, the head rises slightly. A dark eye blinks and fixes on us. “He’s still alive. Pretty dazed, though. Probably concussed.”

  “Birds can get concussions?”

  I straighten and stare at Gabe. “You’re an EMT.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right,” he says, then runs a hand through his hair.

  He may be cute, but I don’t think he’s going to be much help.

  One wing of the bird twitches, then falls limp. Though his eyes follow me, the pupils are small, unchanging. Not a good sign, according to what I’ve heard Sudie say.

  “Do you have a blanket in your car? A towel, maybe?” I crouch down beside the hawk. “And a box? A laundry basket? Something like that?”

  “I think I might.” He turns and hurries back to the car.

  I inch closer to the hawk. He tilts his head, as if he wants to ask me a question, but he shows no signs of trying to get away. If he had his wits about him at all, he’d be claws out and fighting.

  “Will this work?” Gabe hands me a cardboard box, empty except for a plaid wool blanket.

  “Perfect.”

  “How are we going to catch him?” His brow is wrinkled with worry, and he has a funny look on his face.

  “You scared of a bird?”

  “No.” He straightens, and his cheeks pink up.

  “If you say so.” I take the blanket from him, and he steps back. “I’m gonna toss this over the top of him, then secure his talons. It’s best to have gloves, but this’ll have to do. Once I’ve got the talons, he can’t do a whole lot. That’s how they fight, with their talons.”

  He glances at me, one eyebrow raised with concern, then back at the bird again. “Then what?”

  “Then I’ll put him in the box. Think you can handle holding it?”

  “Absolutely,” he says, but I think we both know he doesn’t sound so sure.

  I lean over the top of the hawk again, and it opens its beak a little.

  “Do they bite?”

  “Oh yes,” I say as gravely as I can, and I try not to laugh. “It’s the talons, not the beaks, you have to worry about with raptors.”

  Gabe runs a hand through his hair again and breathes out hard, like he’s trying to muster up some courage.

  “It’s okay; you’ll get through this,” I tease. “Just hold the box still.”

  The hawk turns his head to one side and then the other to get a good look at me.

  “What if he comes at you?” Gabe says, behind me.

  “Then I’ll swat him toward you.”

  “Oh . .
.”

  I grin and let Gabe think on that, then spread the blanket out wide.

  Sudie says redtails are the smartest raptors around. Creamy white feathers on his chest and underbelly are speckled with brown and gray. His back and tail are a mixture of mahogany and rich browns, rusty red on the tail, and a stripe of dark brown along the edge of it.

  “It’s okay, baby. We’re here to help ya. It’s okay . . .” I keep assuring the bird as I move closer. “There’s no blood, so hopefully nothing’s broken. If his wing’s broke, he’ll have to be put down.”

  “Can’t a vet fix a wing?”

  “Hardly ever. Most of the time, even if they do they can’t go back to the wild. They never heal right.”

  Overhead another hawk circles. Looks a lot bigger than this one.

  “Wonder if that’s his mate.”

  Gabe follows my gaze and watches the second hawk circle a couple more times before perching in a giant cottonwood tree and fixing its eyes on us.

  “It’s okay; I’m not gonna hurt you. If that’s your bride, we’ll fix you up and get you right back to her.” I keep talking until I know I’m close enough to keep from missing, then throw the blanket over the top of the hawk.

  He struggles underneath it.

  “Oh, geesh . . . oh! Oh!” Gabe shrieks like a girl, and over my shoulder I see him ducking and cowering as if the bird’s coming right at him.

  “Will you stop?” I scold him while trying to find and hold on to the bird’s talons through the blanket. “He can’t get to you now. Bring the box over here. I’m gonna pick him up and stuff him in there. All right?”

  Gabe’s face is the same creamy color as the hawk’s chest feathers.

  “Who let you become a medic?” I smile as I say it so he knows I’m teasing.

  “That’s different,” he says. “Humans are . . . well . . . they’re more predictable.”

  “Right. I’d rather deal with animals any day.”

  He hasn’t met the humans I’ve encountered. I crouch down and put my hand over the thick, round middle of the hawk’s body. The darkness from the blanket cover helps to calm him. The thick, tough claws are pulsing, trying to fight, and I am careful to avoid the places where they taper to their sharp, hook-like ends. Once secured, I pick him up and start toward Gabe. He’s holding the box as if it’s already got something contaminated in it.