At the Scent of Water (18 page)

Eighteen

Carl Dalton was up, as usual, with the chickens. He fed them every morning and had even named his favorites. He tossed out a handful of corn now. He liked getting up early. That gave him time to read his Bible and shower and still make it to the Waffle House in plenty of time for his steak and eggs. Diane had regular purple hissy fits about the fact that he left his bowl of granola and oat bran muffin untouched each day, but he was an old dog and didn’t want to learn any new tricks. He smiled, thinking about his wife. She was a good fifteen years younger than he was, and there had been plenty of naysayers when he’d brought home the pretty young woman from Georgia, but they had been together for over twenty years now, and he loved her as much as he had the first day he’d laid eyes on her. His only regret was that Annie had never taken to her. But you couldn’t change other people. You could only choose whether you would love them or not.

He smiled when he thought of his daughter and felt a deep satisfaction. She was home. Bedraggled, yes. Confused, yes. Angry and hardhearted, yes and yes. But she was home, and he had a conviction as deep and solid as the hills underneath his feet that now that she was here where she belonged, those things would be worked out. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew they would. And that was what faith was all about, wasn’t it? Knowing what you couldn’t explain? Believing in what you couldn’t see? He had a God who raised the dead, who called things that are not as though they were. Reality? It didn’t make any difference to Him. He made it and unmade it. The Savior could melt a hard heart just as easily as he could step through the walls of the upper room. And now Sam was back home, too, a fact of which his daughter was still unaware, a situation Carl had taken pains to preserve in case she decided to bolt.

He had found out Sam was home even before Ricky had called and told him yesterday afternoon. It seemed that Sam had stopped at Fred Early’s grocery and gas out on the edge of town. He had bought two ham biscuits, a bottle of water, a cup of coffee, and a sailing magazine from Fred’s wife, Etta Jean, then stood there right in front of her and took what she thought were “nerve pills” because they looked just like the little white things that her sister Elda Rose had taken when she’d had that bad bout of fretting after her children had grown up and left home. So, of course, Etta Jean had
called
Elda Rose and told her Sam Truelove was home again, taking nerve pills, and that she’d heard all about that little girl on the news, and what do you suppose it all
meant
?

Then Elda Rose, who served lunch down at the Cracker Barrel, had told Alice Mae Johnson, who was the lunch hostess, that Sam Truelove had come back, looking
real bad
and
on medication
. Alice Mae had simply
mentioned
it in passing to her best friend, Suellen Robertson, who also worked at the Cracker Barrel but was on temporary disability due to a disc she’d ruptured in her back when she’d had to serve the whole choir of Mt. Calvary Baptist church back in the banquet room and had tried to carry two trays instead of just one. She had come in for an appointment yesterday afternoon and had her usual chitchat with Carl’s lone employee, part-time receptionist and billing clerk, Margie Sue. Have you heard? she had asked, and Margie Sue said she hadn’t heard anything at all, and then Suellen had told her, head shaking, eyes full of concern, that Sam Truelove had had a
complete nervous breakdown
and was back home trying to put the pieces back together and after that was going to get a boat and sail around the world. So of course Margie Sue had come right into Carl’s office, bustling around with an armload of charts, but he could tell by her bright eyes and pursed lips that she had a morsel. “What is it?” he’d asked, gossipy as an old hen himself, never dreaming it was his son-in-law he’d be discussing.

Carl prayed for him now as he threw out the last handful of corn to his chickens and watched them scatter and peck, clucking and chuckling. He smiled again, then went inside. His coffee was almost finished perking. Diane was always fussing that they should buy a drip coffeemaker, but he was used to his ways. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he would say, and she would shake her head and say he’d drink a little bit of ditchwater if it had enough cream and sugar in it. She was a good girl, Diane. Steady and calm with as good a heart as God ever put in a woman. A lot like his daughter, in fact. The percolator gave one last strangled sound that indicated his coffee was ready. He looked in the pantry and found a clean Mason pint jar, his favorite coffee cup. He poured it full of coffee, added his cream and sugar, plenty of each, picked up his Bible, then went outside to enjoy the fine morning.

He sat in his rocker on the porch, read for a half hour or so, prayed awhile, then showered and dressed. It was barely seven when he left his house and drove up to the other one. Their house. Annie’s. And Sam’s.

He had made it his habit to come here every so often. He walked around looking ruefully at the damage. The roses had died first. He hadn’t begun watering in time. The apple and plum trees were still alive, covered now with fruit, but it was stunted and wormy now that no one tended them. Most of the flowers had died, but he had managed to save one thing. He turned on the hose and went toward the balm of Gilead tree. He had given it to them himself as a wedding gift, and he wouldn’t give up on it even if they had. It had bloomed every year whether they were there to see it or not, every spring rewarding him with its pungent, aromatic fragrance when he would come to weed or water. It gave him comfort to know there was healing in its leaves and bark. He’d always thought it was a hopeful bush, homely but useful in its humble way. A reminder that you can’t judge things by the outside. That there were more possibilities than you know, reasons for hope, no matter what you might think.

He stood there calmly watching the sun paint the orange dirt an even deeper coral as it rose higher, thinking about Sam and Annie Ruth as he aimed the hose at the base of the tree. He wasn’t sure if this was allowed. There were water restrictions, he knew. But he did not ask, and no one had confronted him. He had let the grass die last year, and already this year it was moving from green to gold. He hadn’t watered the apple or the plum trees, but this one thing he would keep alive. The water pooled up into a still, calm pond around its roots, and Carl knew the Lord had something planned. Knew He hadn’t brought the two of them this far to leave them now, and He wondered, asked the Lord, if there was something he could do to help. He didn’t get an answer. Sometimes the Lord let him wait on things a bit. Well, when the time was right, he would know, but he had a feeling he had a part to play, though he didn’t know just yet what it was. He set the hose down, went to the spigot and turned off the water, turned the handle hard to make sure it did not leak, then rolled up the hose and replaced it. He brushed the dirt off his hands and drove to the Waffle House. His steak and eggs awaited him.

Nineteen

The first thing Annie heard when she awoke was the baying of somebody’s hound. Then the frantic chirping of the starlings in the tree outside the window. Diane had put her in her old room. It had been redone, of course, furnished with antiques. Annie had to hand it to Diane, she liked the way it had turned out. The bed was covered with white chenille, the curtains sheer and billowing gently now with a slight breeze. It was sunny and hot again today, a definite change from what she was used to. Annie got up, unzipped her suitcase, and took out her clothes. She took a brief shower out of respect for their drought, dressed, then went downstairs.

Diane was already up and gone. Annie went to the porch and could see her down in the hayfield. Probably deciding how to save next winter’s feed. She wondered how they were set for money, Papa and Diane. She wouldn’t be surprised if they lived close to the bone, for all the apparent prosperity. Papa had never been one to save. Diane was the frugal soul, but even so, finances must have been stretched thin by the expansion they’d done on their place. They had built a workshop for Diane’s wheels and looms, plus the office they’d built for Papa’s practice. And farming, especially as a hobby, was expensive. Throwing the drought into the equation would definitely produce negative numbers in the profit margin. Sheep were by no means a lucrative investment, and if you had to buy feed for them due to inadequate forage, they quickly became an expensive hobby. Annie went back inside, poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe, and looked around for cold cereal. She found none and finally ate her father’s untouched granola. Maybe that would spare him a scolding from Diane. She smiled thinking of Papa, then sobered when she remembered what she had come here to do.

It was hard to take in the fact that she was here. Back in North Carolina, within shouting distance of Sam. It gave her an odd feeling to know he was so close. What would he say when she saw him again? What would he do?

She could choose to not see him at all. Go back to Seattle, retrieve the truck, and drive on to Los Angeles, as she had planned. Let the attorneys do the talking and let him know she had been here only by her handiwork, the house cleaned out, her goods dispatched. Him free to take or leave whatever he wanted. It was an attractive option, and she considered it seriously.

She shook her head, closed her eyes, and steeled herself for the tasks ahead of her. She would do them. Quickly and resolutely. She would dispatch them in a day or so, have another day to visit with Papa and Diane, then return to Seattle and take up her life.

She would go to the house this morning. She would call Mary and arrange a visit. She needed to see Ricky and Laurie, as well, for had they not been like brother and sister to her? And finally, she needed to ask about Sam. She could go no further than that, and she was once again tremendously grateful he was safely in Knoxville plying his trade.

She went into the living room, turned on the television, and watched CNN for a few minutes, but there was no word of Kelly Bright. She found the newspaper in the living room, the first two sections scattered open. She scanned them quickly and found an article. No changes. Kelly’s second day without food and water. The president had urged action. The governor of Tennessee was meeting with legislators today. A bill was expected to be passed. Chances were good the tube would be replaced, and Annie didn’t know how to feel about that. She sat down, holding the paper in her hand, looking at the picture of the little girl taken before she had become the devastated patient at the center of today’s controversy.

She never allowed herself to recall that day. She had relegated it to the locked basement of her memory, but pieces of it escaped now, as they had also done yesterday. She remembered that morning at breakfast. A Saturday morning in July, and Sam had been at home. An occurrence that had become rare since he’d accepted the position at the children’s hospital.

“I’ll stay home this morning, too,” she had said. “We can all spend the day together. I can go in on Monday and do the interview.” She had just taken the job at the
Asheville Tribune
, and to tell the truth, she had definite mixed emotions even though it was part-time and allowed her to do most of her work from home.

“Go on and do your interview,” he had said. “I’ll still be here when you get back. Besides, it’ll give me some daddy time.”

So she had agreed. She had gone off to Ebbot’s Cove to interview a man who was raising emus. She had been taking pictures of those strange ostrich-like birds and asking inane questions, her cell phone left in the front seat of her car. She had not known about the call that had come as soon as she left. There was a surgery that needed to be done. Now. A little child named Kelly Bright, but of course that is not what they called her. They called her an emergency aortic dissection repair, and of course Sam had gone, calling his mother to take care of his child. Annie had never pressed him for details, not after her anguished accusation. But she could imagine it in her mind. Sam calling gentle Mary. Mama, will you sit for Margaret? Of course, Mary would have said. Of course. Bring her on. And by the time Annie had arrived at the hospital, tracked down in person by her editor, it had all been over. So breathtakingly quickly, and she supposed that is what had made it all so hard to believe. It was as if her entire life had hung on the correct answer to a question, one question out of a lifetime of study. And she had gotten it wrong. They had all gotten it wrong. Every one of them. Herself. Sam. Mary. They had all answered wrong, and the verdict against them had been dispatched with ruthless speed and efficiency. In the morning they had been mother, father, grandmother. By afternoon they were not.

It had been days before she had found out about Kelly Bright. It was Ricky who had finally told her. She still remembered his hesitation, his grief-filled eyes, his sober quietness, so unlike his usual demeanor. It had hit him hard, the loss of his niece. It had blown through the family, through the community, like a devastating wind, and she thought again of Job. Of the whirlwind that had leveled his life.

“Annie, the day Margaret died . . . the surgery Sam did . . .”

She had looked at him, not comprehending, not able to understand why he would bring that up to her. Why he would trouble her with someone else’s child’s sad tale on this day that she buried her daughter?

“There was a problem.”

“I’m sorry,” she had said simply. For these things happened, did they not? And it occurred to her now how callous that had been, how selfish. Let evil and death touch your child, and it was regrettable, but a fact of existence. Let it touch my child, and it became tragedy beyond words. “Did the child die?” she had finally had the grace to ask.

“No,” said Ricky. “She’s in a coma.”

“I’m sorry,” she had repeated but still hadn’t grasped the import. For these things did happen. Not often, but they did. These children were sick to begin with.

“It was Sam’s fault, Annie. He made a mistake. A disastrous mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. I thought you should know.”

Poor Sam, she had thought in her ignorance. Poor Sam, to make a mistake and then to find out his daughter had died, and her heart had reached toward him in grief and love.

“How? What happened?” she had asked Ricky.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “All Izzy said was that they had tried to dissuade him from doing the surgery after the news about Margaret came, but he had insisted. It must have been shock,” he added, but that was all Annie had heard before the cold, hard bitterness had arisen. One word had allowed it to take root.
After
.
After
he had heard the news about Margaret, he had decided to operate on someone else’s child. After he knew his mother and his wife were alone with the unnamable catastrophe that had befallen them, he had decided to stay and help someone else. That was when she had known he had lost his love for her. If he had ever felt it to begin with. She felt the deep sadness again as she thought of that child and how it had all turned out.

She found her purse now and went out to her car. She scribbled a note to Diane and left it on the spinning wheel. She followed the road, her hands and feet remembering the way without the aid of her brain. And soon she was there. She made the turn, followed the long driveway, and then parked. Behind the house where no one would see her. Where her presence would invite no company or comment.

The old house was still standing. She stepped out of the car, walked all around it once. It had taken years to fix it up and considerably less time to bring it to ruin again. Still, it was familiar and dear, and she brushed her hand across the weathered wood as she climbed the porch steps, the shirring of the tree frogs the familiar accompaniment to the journey. She pulled open the screen door, and it twanged as it opened.

She rummaged in her purse and produced the key, still there, but unused after all these years. She put it in the lock, and the door opened, groaning with protest. She stood for a moment, her eyes getting used to the dimness, and the first thing she remembered was the smell. An old friend, it got up and came to greet her. It was the same smell that had wafted out every time she entered an antique store, the aroma of the old things she had brought here and saved because they reminded her of people she loved, of places and things that were no more. She didn’t move, just stood rooted to the spot by the door, looking around her. It was all here, just as she’d left it. Somehow she’d expected that Sam would have shifted things a little, that he had lived here after she had left. But he had not. He must have left when she had, for everything was exactly the way it had been the day she’d left.

There was that old brown bumpy couch of Mary’s that she’d sworn she was too mortified to have Sam and Annie use. It was still covered with newspapers and unopened mail. She walked close and saw yellowed ads and flyers. The huge old overstuffed chair and the lovely antique table Mary had insisted that she take were positioned as she’d left them. They’d been Grandma Truelove’s. The pictures were still hanging above the mantel. She and Sam in their wedding finery. She looked a little scared. He was looking at her, his eyes and face glowing, full of love and confidence. There was one of the three of them beside it. Margaret snuggled in Sam’s lap. Oh, she had loved her daddy, and Annie didn’t realize she was weeping until she felt the tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away with her palm.

She walked slowly, her eyes sweeping across the whole room at once, taking everything in like the sweep shot at the beginning of a movie. The scuffed oak dining table, a few envelopes scattered beside a wadded up napkin. She’d used it that morning to wipe her eyes, she remembered, and she reached for it now again. The curved-front china cupboard was still filled with her mother’s china. The old lithographs were still on the wall, the nosegay-and-lace wallpaper she’d been hanging the day before Margaret had died. Half of the wall done, half bare, two rolls on the rug. The living room looking just as she’d left it. One wall covered with books, mahogany tables with the porcelain lamps they’d found in the garage sale in Valdosta, the Persian rug from the antique store in Savannah, the Maxfield Parrish print, the rocking chair.

It was empty now, but oh, so full of memories. They peeked around the corners, smiled back at her from the pictures on the walls. They were tucked into each corner and nook. There was the table where laughter had rung. The yard where they’d chased and played. There was the picture of Margaret in the pasteboard box under the apple trees taken by Sam, Annie’s own leg in the background as she picked the fruit.

She went to the window and looked outside. The huge garden she’d tended each year was choked with tall grass and weeds, the ground dry and cracked around them. The sheep pasture was empty, but she knew now what Sam had done with her small flock. The yard was a mess, the grass choked with weeds and wild flowers. Only the balm of Gilead tree stood untouched, obliviously green and thriving. It gave her pause for a moment, thinking about that simple fact. That year after year, as Sam had been off doing whatever Sam did, as she had been in Seattle, hiding, it had been here, rooted, planted, growing. Papa had given it to them on their wedding day, a cutting from his own. That silly tree. It still bloomed and blossomed, too foolish to know it should die.

She looked out toward the barn, and for a minute she could almost see Sam there, hammering boards into place. This old house had been his labor of love for her. He had bought it for her, then spent every precious spare moment fixing it up. She could almost see his dark head, the back of his sun-browned arms.

She went into the master bedroom, and there were all of her clothes still hanging in the closet. The hated black dress she had worn to the funeral was slumped lifelessly on the floor of the closet, the black pumps fallen beside it. The bed was made, as she had left it, but rumpled, as if someone had lain down on top of the spread. She opened the closet to Sam’s side. His suits were gone. Everything else was still there. His casual clothes. Jeans, pants, work shirts, and boots. She closed the door. She did not open the door to the other bedroom. She remembered closing it the day of Margaret’s death. She had not opened it since. She went into the kitchen.

Nothing was different here except the rust stains in the sink from a leaky washer that was still dripping. She wondered how many gallons of water it had wasted in this dry, parched place, and it tapped as she did so, a slow metronome to her thoughts. The gingham curtains looked dusty. She gave one a shake, and thousands of little dust particles swirled into a fury. She turned away. The door was ajar on the refrigerator, the old turtle-shaped one of Mary’s they’d inherited. She peered inside. It was empty, and she wondered who had cleaned it out. She pictured Laurie or Mary or Diane emptying it, and suddenly she felt a stab of guilt. Her leaving had affected others, she realized, that one small realization taking hold for the first time.

She ran her hand over the smooth enamel of the stove, the dinosaur stove, as Sam had called it. She looked down and there was the rag rug Sam’s Aunt Valda had made and given her for a shower gift. She remembered that shower. Over at the church. They’d had ham and potato salad, and the men hadn’t been allowed to come. What had those women thought about her leaving? What had they been told? Had they missed her? Had they been hurt that she had left without a word? And for the first time she remembered their names and faces.