A Stillness of Chimes (5 page)

If it was true—

A sob tried to surface. She stifled it, tucking her chin down and pressing her lips together. Sean pulled her toward him, her bowed head barely touching his chest and keeping a space between them. A space between their hearts.

“You want me to stay awhile?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her forehead against his warmth, her glasses bumping against him. His shirt was damp with rain. She pulled away and plucked at his rain-speckled collar. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Go home, get into some dry clothes yourself. I need some time alone. To process everything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She made herself smile.

His frown eased away. He returned the smile, giving her a glimpse of the younger, softer Sean who’d carved their initials into an old picnic table under the pavilion across the road. “Remember, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind about absolutely anything.” The twinkle in his eyes told her exactly what he was talking about.

Aching for the freedom to change her mind, to change their lives, she could only look away and hope he would understand someday.

“Call me anytime, day or night.” He bent toward her as if he wanted to brush her temple with his lips, but then he only gave her shoulder an awkward pat and walked toward the door.

“Thanks for telling me what’s going on,” she said, following at a safe distance.

“Don’t take any of it too seriously, now. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you soon.”

Sean made his long-legged way off the porch and down the steps, then across the road and up the bank to the church parking lot and a red pickup. She brought a hand to the hollow of her throat. It was the same ’69 Ford he’d bought in high school with the wages her dad had paid him. She and Sean had shared a thousand kisses in that truck.

But he’d sold it. When had he bought it back? When she was in town for the funeral, he’d been driving a newer model. One that didn’t barrage her with memories of high school and her dad’s drowning.

A drowning that hadn’t happened? She didn’t want to grasp what it might mean.

She leaned in the open doorway, inhaling the wet air, her ears filled with the pounding of the rain on the tin roof. She didn’t let herself look at the graveyard on the hill.

Sean climbed in, starting the engine even before he’d slammed the door. Headlights knifed across the gray afternoon, and the truck crunched away over wet gravel. One of his brake lights was out.

He’d forgotten to take his umbrella. He’d forgotten to take some of the coffeecake too. Maybe, like her, he’d been thrown off balance, rattled by this strange new world where her father might yet live.

She pulled the neck of her sweater higher. Closing her eyes, she listened to the storm pelting the world with rain and remembered a wet day in April
when her mother’s mortal remains had awaited burial under a green canopy. Green, the color of life.

She closed the door and paced, her thoughts shifting like a dark kaleidoscope. Her father—thinner than ever. Lonely, growing old, maybe half-crazy—but alive?

Who in town believed it? She imagined folks going home from church to eat Sunday dinner and spin yarns about a Vietnam vet flipping out and hiding in the mountains. Yarns that might be true.

He had always loved Hamlin Lake. It had the best fishing in the county. It was a beautiful spot, too. Bright blue water ringed by tall pines. A convenient boat ramp. And a blacktop parking lot where he’d left his truck and trailer the day his little boat drifted to shore at sunset, empty.

Laura dug her phone out of her purse. She scrolled through her contacts, overshot Marsh, B., and landed on Mom. Blinking back tears, Laura stared at the familiar number. She couldn’t imagine deleting it.

Hardly able to read the screen, she selected Doc Marsh’s number. He might have some answers.

Seated at a massive antique desk in his home office, Doc Marsh resembled a younger, thinner Colonel Sanders in jeans and a flannel shirt. Once the banjo picker of her dad’s little band, he hadn’t changed much in the twelve years since Laura had left home for college.

He smiled, his brown eyes magnified behind thick lenses. “It’s wonderful to see you, Laura.”

“I’m glad to see you too. Especially in your home, where I know there won’t be any medical procedures.”

He chuckled. “Likewise.”

The phone rang in the kitchen. His wife answered it and laughed. Muffled by a closed door, her cheerful, normal voice made Laura want to cry for some old, ordinary life that she’d never actually had.

“I hope you’ll stay in town long enough to enjoy the bluegrass festival,” Doc said. “It’s not often that I drag out my banjo and play with anybody these days, but I never miss the festival.”

“I must have a month’s worth of work at my mom’s house, so I’ll be there.”

He put his elbows on the desk and rested his goateed chin in his hands. “So will Sean. He’s quite the up-and-coming luthier.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Y’all haven’t been an item for quite some time, have you?”

“Not since we were eighteen.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out. He’s a fine young man.”

“He is, but put yourself in my shoes. Can you imagine Dale as your children’s grandfather?”

Doc shuddered as if she’d made him drink one of those nasty liquid antibiotics he’d prescribed for her when she was small. “I’d rather not imagine.” He cleared his throat. “Have you stayed in touch with Gary and Ardelle’s girls?”

“With Cassie at least, and she always tells me Tigger’s news. Did you know Tig and her husband are expecting their second baby?”

“My, my. And she still goes by that nickname?”

“Yes, but only the family still calls Cassie ‘Eeyore.’ Sometimes she still deserves it.”

Doc laughed heartily, then sobered. “You didn’t come here for chitchat about your childhood friends, did you?”

“No.” Laura was suddenly afraid to ask the big questions. Rain dripped outside, but its steady rhythm did nothing to soothe her.

“Out with it,” Doc said gently.

“Okay. Have you heard the rumors?”

“About your daddy?”

She nodded with a sad smile, remembering a college roommate who’d told her an educated adult shouldn’t refer to her father as her daddy. The roommate had never had a southern friend before.

Doc took off his black-framed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “Everybody’s heard the rumors.”

“Do you believe them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know if my mother believed them?”

He put his glasses on again. “I thought this whole thing didn’t start until after she’d passed away.”

“But how do we know the sightings didn’t start earlier? If she knew, she might have talked it over with someone. She might have written—” Laura frowned. She hadn’t noticed her mom’s journals anywhere. Making a mental note to look for them later, she went on. “But I’d really like to hear your thoughts about my dad. His problems.”

Doc nodded soberly. “I thought the world of him. Some Vietnam vets get together, ride their Harleys, swap war stories, but he kept to himself. At least he never took to drinking like some folks do. PTSD plus alcohol can be a lethal combination.”

“You’d call it PTSD, then?”

“I’m no shrink. I’m just a small-town family physician. But as long as you don’t quote me … yes, I’d guess his struggles stemmed from combat-related
PTSD. Of course he steadfastly refused to be anybody’s patient, ever, so he never had an official diagnosis. In my opinion, though, he suffered mental injuries that should have been treated as seriously and as respectfully as a shrapnel wound. Mental injuries that shouldn’t have had a stigma attached to them.”

“But they did, and everything might have been even harder on him because he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier.”

“And your mom wasn’t cut out to be a soldier’s wife. She’d married a troubadour, a musician, not a GI. Of course this happened long before you were born, but she nearly flipped her lid when he was drafted.”

“I can imagine. When I was little, she was still pretty vocal about her antiwar beliefs.”

“She was even more vocal before you came along. As his moods got worse, though, she learned not to throw fuel on the fire. She went from being a pacifist to being a true peacemaker, always ready with a calming word. I respected her for that.”

Laura nodded, remembering her mom’s ability to read her husband’s moods. So many times, seeing him begin to react to a trigger, she’d stepped in with a soft word. He would always take a deep breath. He’d swallow. Sometimes he’d close his eyes as if gathering strength to battle the blackness. If she’d caught him in time, he’d say, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.” Or he’d give her the little wink that meant the same thing.

Once, though, instead of soothing him, she’d blasted him with her old antiwar rhetoric when he was already on the verge of a major episode. She’d said it with such venom that Laura, eavesdropping from around the corner, had recoiled.

As she tried to shrug off the rest of the ugly memory, she had to face an equally ugly fear.

“Are there connections between PTSD and other problems?” she asked. “Alzheimer’s, for instance?”

Doc’s sad eyes answered her question even before he spoke. “We have more questions than answers. Maybe combat PTSD increases the risk for late-life dementia, or maybe PTSD is sometimes an early symptom of dementia.”

“And if there’s some family history of dementia?”

He frowned. “Is there?”

“I’ve wondered if my Grandpa Gantt might have been in the early stages of it when he died. He seemed to be … slipping. He wasn’t very old, though. Sixtyish. A little younger than my dad would be now.”

“Early onset,” Doc murmured. “Could be. But with your dad, we obviously don’t have enough data to go on. We don’t even seem to have a patient.”

“But if by some chance he comes back, what do you think his prognosis might be?”

“This isn’t my area of expertise, so my opinion isn’t worth much.” Doc hesitated, fiddling with a paper clip. “Let’s hope for the best.”

“That’s what people say when they expect the worst.”

“You’ve always been a perceptive young lady.” Doc swiveled his chair, chose a thick book from a shelf behind him, and slid it across the desk. “This book has an extensive section on PTSD and related issues. Take it home with you. It might help you get a handle on things.”

She took the book and stood. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

“Keep the faith, Laura. Anything’s possible. And no matter how this turns out, you can be proud to be his daughter.” Doc’s eyes were moist. “Go home, put on one of those old CDs, and remember him at his best.”

Unable to reply at first, she clasped his hand in silence. “Thank you,” she managed after a moment.

The rain had let up. Walking across Doc’s wet lawn to her car, she looked up at the mountains that formed a backdrop to the town. If her dad was up there somewhere, his fate might remain a mystery like the dead ends she’d reached when she traced her genealogy. But in the long view of history, twelve years were nothing. Her dad’s disappearance was so recent that she might still find clues. She might even bring him home.

Tears made the mountains a blue-green blur. “Please, God,” she whispered. “Please.”

Sitting on the couch while the day-long storm ran its course and ushered the dusk into full night, Sean didn’t turn on a light. He preferred to sit in the shadows while he brooded over recent events.

The town was no stranger to strange doings. Back in the late eighteen-twenties, Prospect had been home to miners with gold fever. North Georgia’s gold rush brought both craziness and prosperity. Less than a century later, Prohibition brought a different brand of insanity, and an earlier generation of Hallorans added to their already sizable fortune by selling bootleg booze to thirsty citizens, far and wide. The Halloran Building still stood on Main Street, a monument to their illegal profits and a constant humiliation to Dale, who’d inherited the place and then lost it to foreclosure. Gary Bright, always quick to spot a bargain, had snatched it up.

Tourism brought the money to Prospect now. Senior citizens loved the spring wildflowers and the fall colors. Bikers loved the twisty mountain roads. Families tubed the Chattahoochee River, and hordes of musicians and fans came for the three-day bluegrass fest over Memorial Day weekend. Locals always griped about the outsiders clogging the roads but never missed a chance to make a buck. But if the moneygrubbers started selling “Where’s Elliott?” T-shirts, Laura would be devastated.