The House Near the River (19 page)

Angie didn’t know how she could bear to sit here and just wait. She’d just lost her grandmother, she couldn’t lose another family member this soon. She wanted to get up and run until she found an opening that would take her away from this. But then she looked at Clemmie and knew she couldn’t abandon the other woman.

She expected to be told at any minute that the child had died and moments passed with the leaden wait of hours. The only thing she could remember that was worse than this was when David went missing. It had been awful to lose Mom and Grandma, but danger to a child was something irredeemably wrong.

Then Clemmie stiffened at her side, saying, “I hear Tobe’s siren!” And then she heard it too, the siren coming closer and closer until it came to an abrupt stop out front.

Tobe and a slim young man came in, the young surgeon not even seeming to see them as he hurried past. Tobe stopped to wrap an awkward arm around his wife, “
T
he surgeon’s
here, hon. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Angie could only hope.

Clemmie suddenly looked at her as though really seeing her. “Oh, my goodness, sit down, Angie. I’ll get you something to eat and drink. We can’t have you getting sick. What have I been thinking? Tobe, kick me, I’m such an idiot.”

“Now, hon,” her husband patted her hand. “You can’t take care of the whole world at once.”

Angie stared at her in bewilderment. “You’re the one with sick children. You’re the one who needs looking after.”

Clemmie laughed a little wildly. “Are you kidding? Matthew would never forgive me if I let something happen to you or your baby.”

“Baby?” Angie mouthed the word.

Clemmie enveloped her in a hug. “After all that baby you’re going to have is all I have left of my brother.”

The best thing in his life these days was his little farm and more and more he began to avoid other people. Just last Monday he’d told his boss he’d found another man to take over his job as foreman and even though both he and Salina had tried to argue him into staying, he’d held solid and was now an independent farmer with barely enough money to feed himself and his animals and to put in a crop next spring.

His own company was all he could stand
. Th
ough his new friends did their best to get him out in the community, even they were about ready to
quit
. “You’re hopeless, Matthew,” Salina yelled at him at the end of their last conversation. “I absolutely, positively give up on you
!
”

Now this evening, he lingered outside past dark, watching his two heifers munch at grain, and thinking what an extravagance they’d been. But he had to have a start if he was to
own
even a small herd and, bred to a neighbor’s bull, the two would provide him that  beginning.

He had bare enough of anything, his money going further than he’d thought, but still not far enough. Still he considered himself a lucky man and tonight he was standing outside where his sense of Ange was often strongest. None of this made any sense, but he knew what he felt and the illusion t
h
at she was close was all that he had left
on which
to hang his sanity
.

He hesitated to go inside his little house, even though he’d put enough work into it to make it warm enough to survive the winter. He’d bought an old table and a chair at which to eat his meals and a worn couch on which he slept on those nights when he could sleep.  He had a basin in which to wash himself and another for dishes. He had two plates, two cups, two glasses, and a minimum of forks, knives and spoons, all given to him by Salina, and an essential coffee pot. Along with a blanket, washrags and towels, he had all a man living alone needed to get  by.

But nothing inside that house was so inviting that he was anxious to
leave the barnyard
.

It was at this time of day when the school down the road
w
as dark and empty with all the students gone home that he felt closest to Ange. Funny that, he would have thought  it would be the other way around.

But now, he
coul
d
lean
against his fence, facing north, and feel he could carry on a conversation with her. He considered that, wondering what he would say if she was actually there.

He would tell her how he’d seemed to be drawn south across the river that separated the two states until he came to this area and then, finally, to this spot. It was as though some instinct drew him to her presence.

He believed this as he believed in Heaven, a trust based not on acknowledged reality, but on some inner sense that led him to truth.

He believed everything she’d told him. He said that aloud know, “I wasn’t so sure about what you were saying for a while, Ange. And it wasn’t just seeing you and your brother disappear that way. More than that, it is here and now and the way I can feel you near me.”

Truth was, though, he couldn’t feel her, not tonight.

Maybe she’d gone away for the night, or for a few days. She might have gone visiting relatives. He would always be a little afraid on nights like this when he could not feel her presence that she’d given up and gone away for good. In that future time where she lived, she could always decide she’d had enough of loving a ghost, or whatever he was, and married some other man, going away with him to establish a home.

His heart ached at the thought. She would never be happy that way. They belonged together, he and Ange.

If only he could get word to her across time that he was close at hand and waiting for her. He thought about that. How could it be done?

He had nothing of permanent value, nothing that would last over the decades. His belongings were so few, he’d left most of what he’d possessed back at the farm in Oklahoma.

Then he thought of the little box of possessions he’d been unable to part with—his dog
tags, his identification as a soldier, meant to survive even a brutal death.

He looked at the darkened school building. He couldn’t imagine why she would be there at some future date, but he knew quite well that was where he felt her being.

He went inside for the dog
tags, put them in the pocket of his pants, then climbed over his own fence to head to the school house.

It wasn’t hard to break in. But where to hide his tags when busy, curious, searching little children would be coming into the building day after day, year after year.

Somehow he was confident that if he could put them someplace safe, she would find him. He believed in
her love for him just as he believed in his for her. He had come across to another state
looking for her.
Surely she would find this message he would leave her.

Finally he decided. The tags would have to be left within the building  itself. He would come back the next night with the right tools and he would bury them within the wall in one of the school rooms, repairing the plaster so that no one would ever know anything had been hidden there.

Angie sat trying to figure things out because it was easier than thinking about the little boy undergoing surgery only a few doors down.

She would know if she were pregnant.

She would know if she were married.

She would know if something bad had happened to Matthew.

Once again Clemmie had memories of her that had not happened yet. Last time she’d only met Matthew and gotten engaged. This time a whole lifetime of experience seemed to have taken place.

Only it hadn’t.

No messages from the operating room. Nobody had time to waste on them. Tobe moved quietly down the hall in the opposite direction, going at Clemmie’s request to check on the little girls. Neither she or Angie seemed able to move from their seats.

He came back, saying they were fine. He went  for coffee, bringing them each a cup. Angie sipped hers,
feeling molten strength spread through her veins. Clemmie let hers grow cold, even though her husband urged her to drink a little.

“It’s been so long,” she said softly as though speaking to herself.

Tobe looked at his wrist watch. “Only half an hour, hon.”

Angie had a dozen questions to ask Clemmie, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt the woman’s daze. Most likely
she wouldn’t get rational answers anyway.

But Clemmie had said the baby was all she had left of her brother. That sounded very much like Matthew was dead.

Desperately she tried to think of alternative explanations. Maybe he’d just gone away and nobody knew where he was. Or maybe he’d somehow followed her in time and nobody knew when he was.

She would hope. She would not give up until there was  no other choice.

“Such a long time,” Clemmie murmured.

“Only five more minutes,” Tobe reassured her, but Angie doubted she heard a word.

Clemmie was a
st
rong woman. She’d lived through the loss of her husband, lived through a wartime pregnancy alon
e
on the farm with her children. But this was different. Angie could only imagine what it was like to have your child in deadly danger.

A man came in. At first Angie thought he was a stranger, but then she recognized him as the pastor of the little church her family attended. He expressed his concern for the family, then said a prayer for Danny’s healing.

Then he sat quietly with them. Angie wished he would go away. Clemmie didn’t seem  to be aware of his presence.

“So long,” she said again.

Tobe looked again at his watch. “A little over an hour,” he said  in a falsely bright tone. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

Life or death
, Angie thought. They would know within minutes and it would make  all the difference in the world.
Silently she said her own prayer for both of them, for Danny and his uncle.

Another hour passed before they got their first word on Danny’s condition. Dr. Jones came out, looking exhausted, and shaking his head. He addressed himself to Clemmie. “He’s come through the operation, but he’s in pretty bad shape.” He shook his head again. “Pretty bad.”

“Was it
appendicitis
?” Angie asked.

“Ruptured. Poison has spread throughout his system.”

“When will we know if he’s going to be all right?”

“It could be a
while
, Mrs. Harper. That boy’s got a long road ahead of him.”

Angie sank into her seat, pulling Clemmie down beside her because she was afraid the other woman was about to collapse. “I’ll go see about the girls,” Tobe said.

“You’ve got to take care of yourself,” Angie whispered, “so you can take care of Danny.”

Clemmie nodded.

Weeks passed before an emaciated Danny was allowed to go home. To Angie he looked like
a
third world famine victim. The girls recovered within a few days and within a week were back to normal.

Somewhere in between in the long hours while they sat at the sleeping Danny’s bedside, Angie was finally able to talk to Clemmie about her own status.

First of all, she asked about Matthew.

Clemmie stared at her. “Surely you remember.”

Angie shook her head.

“After you told us about the baby, you disappeared again. I told him you’d be back, the way you had before, but after a while he seemed to just give up. He went away and this time he didn’t leave a note or get in contact with us. Ange, I’m afraid he’ll never come back. But if he knew you and the baby were  here . . .”

“Ange, there is no baby,” Angie said, speaking each word clearly and distinctly.

Dismay flooded the long, fair face. “You lost it!”

Angie grabbed the other woman’s hands. “No, no, Clemmie. There never was a baby. At least
not
yet. I have no memory of coming back a second time, of marrying Matthew, of expecting a baby. It’s like before when you all remembered meeting me and my being engaged to Matthew and I had no memory of anything like that.”

“You must have a really terribl
e
memory if you can forget things like that. It was such a lovely wedding, too, simpl
e
and beautiful. I’ve never seen Matthew so happy.”

Her life was mixed up in some strange way. Where the events of other people’s lives seemed to unwind seamlessly in proper order, hers jumped back and forth.

At least there was one comforting fact. Clemmie didn’t remember her brother’s death, but that he’d gone missing again.

“When did it happen, Clemmi
e? When did I show up back here
?” Clemmie didn’t look much different from the last time she’d seen her, the kids hadn’t grown perceptibly. Danny seemed smaller, but that was natural as terribly sick as he’d been and still was. Sharon’s legs were a little longer and now that she was well again, Angie noticed that Shirley Kay’s vocabulary had grown.