Dark Water Rising (22 page)

Slowly, we turned toward the way life used to be. I began thinking about the best time to tell Papa my decision concerning college while Aunt Julia and Ella Rose practiced calligraphy, poring over pages of scrolled and feathered script, looking more like mother and daughter than friends. Telephones rang again, electric lights shone from every window, and outside, Galveston’s streets were finally clean. The city gathered around Thanksgiving tables, and moved on to trim Christmas trees and sing carols, but every eye reflected pain. The deepest wounds, the ones unseen, still festered.

I think the holidays were hardest of all on Aunt Julia, though she tried to hide it. There’d been no graves for her to visit, no final words and prayers, and especially no solace from knowing how life had ended for her husband and son. Ella Rose seemed to have finally made peace with her loss, and Andy and Will, like most young boys, were easily distracted from theirs. Yet, in quiet moments, I saw the sorrow and wondered how long our hearts would yearn for healing.

I turned seventeen just before the end of the year. Celebrating the holidays had been difficult enough without squeezing a birthday into it, so I asked Mama not to
make a fuss. She nodded, but that night there was fried chicken and apple pie on the table, two of my favorites, and when supper was over, Ella Rose pulled me outside into the crisp-still night.

Streetlights cast yellow circles down the block toward the gulf, and oyster shells crunched under our feet. “Where are we going?” I asked.

She tossed me a mysterious smile. “You’ll see.”

“You know, don’t you?”

“What? That you’re seventeen today and you didn’t want cake and presents?”

I laughed. “Well, yeah. How did you know?”

“Ben told me right after you moved here. He said you were exactly one year and ten days younger than he was.”

“So you figured it out?”

She nodded. “But your mother said we weren’t supposed to mention it, so I planned a little surprise of my own.”

“A surprise?”

She held a finger to her lips. “Soon,” she said.

In the distance, I saw the electric glow from the repaired Garten Verein. She grabbed my hand, pulled me into a run, then collapsed on a bench near the pavilion. Like that first night here with Ben, band music drifted out to us, mingling with the soft sounds of surf.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, still breathless from our run. “It’s almost like it was before.”

I nodded, but it was her cold-blushed cheeks I saw, not the pavilion. Her warm breath puffed into the chill air, and her hair fanned around her shoulders, golden against the dark wool of her coat. With more than a little effort, I pulled my attention back to the pavilion. “So why are we here?” I asked.

“Because everyone should have music and bright lights on their birthday.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small box. “And because I wanted to give you this when we were alone.”

All smiles, she pushed the box into my hand and squirmed on the bench beside me, waiting.

I stared at the bright red ribbon.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?”

I laughed, untied the bow, and lifted the lid. Mr. Covington’s gold rose tiepin, the one Papa had returned to her the day after the storm, lay shining on white satin. I opened my mouth to tell her it was too much, that I couldn’t possibly keep something so precious to her, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Daddy bought it shortly after I was born,” she said.

“But . . . but, Ella Rose, you have so little left of your father’s . . .”

She closed my hand over the pin and smiled up at
me. “He said the gold rose always reminded him of me, and that’s exactly why I want you to have it.”

That night as I lay in bed, I didn’t have to wonder anymore if Ella Rose ever thought of me. She did, and someday there would be more. I’d seen it in her eyes.

28

I woke early on New Year’s Eve, thinking of college. My decision hadn’t changed over the months, but the worry of telling Papa reared its head daily now. I didn’t fret any longer that he might disagree with me—he surely would—but I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the disappointment in his face. In fact, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to steer clear of that outcome, short of going to college, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out a way to avoid it.

I’d have to tell him, and it might as well be tomorrow. His disappointment was just something we’d both have to bear.

I dressed, went down for breakfast, and caught Mama alone in the kitchen with Kate. I told her of my plans for the next day, and she nodded, not at all ruffled by the news. She just continued breaking eggs into her mixing bowl as if she’d known all along that this moment was coming.

I stared at her, wondering all over again about the message Papa had me deliver that day he’d chosen to work on the rail bridge. It meant nothing to me at the time, but it must’ve meant something to Mama. She’d smiled and kissed me on the cheek, like she and Papa shared some great secret. She hadn’t even been angry at him for leaving the family with just me to get us through the first weeks following the storm.

I found the whole thing strange.

One by one, the boys ambled in and fell into chairs, sleepy-eyed but happy that there’d be no school today. Kate squirmed, then whined to Mama that she had to go to the outhouse. I saw Mama glance at her skillet of eggs, still cooking, and I knew what was coming. To my surprise, it wasn’t my name she called.

“Take her for me, won’t you, Matt? She’s still so afraid of the bugs.”

A look of pure horror flashed across his face as he realized that this particular burden had just been passed to him. He groaned but rose from his chair and took Kate’s hand.

I stifled a grin while Mama brought the skillet to the table and spooned eggs onto my plate, but when she flashed a big smile at me, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I busted out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Andy asked.

“Yeah,” Will said. “What’s so funny?”

Lucas tossed me a knowing glance, but he wasn’t smiling. I guess he’d already figured out that he, too, might be called upon any day now.

That evening, I told myself that we were gathering along the beach to welcome in the New Year and watch the fireworks, but I think we all knew there was far more to it than that.

People arrived, bundled in coats and hoods, cuddling babies, and holding the hands of small children. Excitement crackled through the crowds, and soon rockets exploded over the water.

Kate and Elliott squealed. Faces around us reflected bright bursts of blue and red and gold, and for a short while, I guess we all lost ourselves in the glittering sky.

When the last spark disappeared, groans of disappointment swept through the gathering, but soon a voice rang out. Then another. And dozens more. We all joined in, and “Auld Lang Syne” swelled in my chest and rose above us, filling the sky, drifting out over the water till the last mellow tone died away. When it was done, we were left standing, arm in arm, before the black gulf.

The crowd grew silent.

I listened to the rhythmic shush of surf while cold salt air bit at my cheeks and memories of the last four months swept over me.

All around, families reached for one another, drawing close. I grasped Ella Rose’s hand, and the truer purpose for our gathering rolled toward us as sure as the waves that fell upon the beach.

It was time for good-byes, time to let loose the storm’s bindings, but I didn’t see how I’d ever be free of the ghosts.

I felt them often, just as I did now, close beside me, expectant, whispering around my ears, fingering through the images in my head. They turned from the beach with me that night, walked beside me along the oyster-shell road, and followed me right through the front door and into my bedroom. Even after the house was hushed with sleep, I could still sense them, sitting in shadowy corners, lingering near the windows, waiting.

I finally slipped out of bed, headed outside, and followed the road till my shoes sank into soft sand. The chill north wind swept through my hair and blew my coat collar up against my neck, but I kept walking.

When I reached the hard wet beach, I stopped a few feet from the foam that snaked along the water and looked out over the gulf. Dark waves carried the moon’s silver light toward me like fallen stars, but as I expected, more ghosts came with them.

This time I surrendered, and they quickly pushed through everything in my head. Instead of the beach, I saw Uncle Nate offering me my first carpenter job and
laughing at my surprise. I saw Ben leaning over the veranda railing, full of sly smiles, telling me about Ella Rose.

I felt Mr. Covington’s handshake and watched a grinning Toby throw his ball. Once more my heart mourned for the young nun and her nine small charges and raced after the woman and child swept down the alley behind Butcher Miller’s house.

I grieved again with Captain Munn and Aunt Julia, Ella Rose and Henry, and sent my gratitude to Zach and Mr. Farrell. I asked blessings for the girl in blue gingham, the twin boys, the woman and the sad lost man who helped bury her, and the countless souls finally given up to funeral pyres. Then I whispered Sarah Louise’s name, picturing it carried in the wind across Galveston, to the mainland, and into every ear.

I embraced them all, for I could do nothing else, then I tried to put this haunted piece of myself to rest.

It was time to move on, but as I glanced out over the gulf, I knew I’d never be truly free. Dark water would always carry ghosts to me. I’d feel Zach beside me with every nail I hammered; I’d see Toby’s grin in every baseball. Blue gingham, washboards, saws, broken mirrors—these things and more would forever speak to me, and I’d listen. I’d remember.

Wind whistled around my ears.

The ghosts had finally grown silent.

I left the dark gulf behind me, and as I walked back across the soft sand toward home, the scent of fresh cut lumber turned my thoughts to the future.

Galveston stretched before me, and on every block, I saw the pale bones of another new house shining under yellow streetlights. Someday soon I’d be there among them.

And tomorrow, Papa would know.

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