Revenant (21 page)

The trail wound through the woods and along the Chickasawhay River, a slow-moving, brown stream with white sandbars that invited swimmers and picnickers. There were treacherous currents, though, especially farther downriver where the Leaf joined the Chickasawhay to form the Pascagoula. Merrill had once been the thriving river town at the fork of the river. Miss Lizzie had told me stories of gambling, prostitution, hangings and cutthroat outlaws. It had been a real Old West boomtown in spirit, if not location.

Beneath the canopy of limbs, Miss Lizzie's green house was almost undetectable. The grass path that led to it off Beaver Dam Road was choked with weeds, and for a moment I felt panic zing through me. Then I saw her in the yard, her apron full of feed for the chickens. She scattered it about, clucking to the birds that provided her with fresh yard eggs.

Mariah and I stood perfectly still, but Miss Lizzie's face lifted and she stared right at me, waving one hand slowly in a gesture of welcome that I remembered.

I rode down the bluff to her yard, slid off Mariah and gave her a hug.

“Why, Carson Lynch, you've grown yourself into a woman.”

The past three years had changed me greatly, but not Miss Lizzie. Her face was smooth, and her gray hair pulled back in a bun, just like the first time I'd seen her thirty years before.

“I've got some spring turnips cooking, and some corn bread. Come in and eat.”

“Mama's cooking dinner,” I said. “She'd be upset if I ate here.”

She gave me a critical eye. “You could stand to eat both places. Open your mouth.”

I obliged and let her examine me.

“You need you a tonic, and I don't mean the kind you can buy at the liquor store. Your gums are pieted.”

I knew that was her word for showing poor color, splotchy. Miss Lizzie was a conjure woman of the medicinal type. She'd delivered three hundred babies and diagnosed a lot of illnesses, later confirmed by “real” doctors.

“Dorry says she may study to be a midwife. I think you've influenced her.”

Miss Lizzie nodded as she began to broadcast the chicken feed again. “That would be a good thing. I'm getting too old for sitting up all night with wailing women.” She shook out her apron and started to the house. “I haven't seen much of Dorry these last years.”

“She's been busy with her family.”

“She used to come when she first married. She was happy then.”

It was pointless to try and hide anything from Miss Lizzie. She saw straight to the soul. But Dorry's business was not mine to discuss.

“How are you doing? Is Jimmya taking good care of you?”

“He's a good boy. Got seven children of his own now.”

“Seven?”

She laughed. “I told him I was going to have to fix him where he couldn't make Vanessa pregnant again. He stayed gone about two weeks. I think I scared him.”

Her son was my age, and I'd gone to high school with him. As close as I was to Miss Lizzie, Jimmya had never allowed me to become his friend. His friends were black.

We took our customary seats on the front porch. I'd taken Mariah's bridle off, and she grazed along the grass path. Miss Lizzie's old Lincoln was under a shed, and it sparkled with a new wax job. She didn't drive often, but when she did she went in style.

“Tell me how you are,” she said, reaching across the short distance between us and touching my heart, “in there.”

“Angry,” I answered. It was pointless to lie.

She nodded. “You lost your baby girl. A part of you is dead forever, and there's no way to change that.”

Instead of making me angry, her words brought the fresh start of tears.

“How is your husband?”

“We're divorced.”

She nodded. “I'm sorry. He's a good man.” She looked off the porch. “Sometimes, when you lose so much, you have to let go of everything.”

“I know.”

“Did you come for some thoughts on the future?”

I considered her offer. There had been times in the past when Miss Lizzie had offered a glimpse of what would be. Or what could be, because she felt that nothing seen in the future was absolute. Free will could change anything.

“No,” I said. “The truth is, I can hardly face the day at times. If I knew the future, I might have to give it up altogether.”

“That doesn't sound like the girl I knew who wanted to see how soon she'd conquer the world.”

“That girl is gone.” I wasn't sorry for myself. It was just the truth.

She touched her fingers to my cheek, the tips smooth and dry. “Carson, she's not gone, but you have to help her heal. Nothing you do to yourself will bring your baby back.”

I sighed and looked out at Mariah. She grazed, and I suddenly wondered if I'd been cruel in never letting her have a foal. We controlled the lives of our animals without a thought. We sold their babies as if we had the right.

“Tell me the news,” I said to break the chain of unpleasant and unproductive thoughts.

“Ole man Joe Bill Tom died this year.”

“I'm sorry, Miss Lizzie.” Joe Bill Tom had been her friend. He'd gathered roots and berries for her tonics. He claimed to be a descendant of the Chickasaw Indians who had once roamed the area, but most white people thought he was a black man with delusions of grandeur. I'd talked to him and listened to his stories. I believed him.

“He's one of the very last who remember,” she said. “Soon, a way of life will be forgotten in this part of the world.”

“Some people have written it down.”

She shook her head. “It's the living who hold the true memories. All times pass away, Carson. That's not a bad thing. What's left is a haze. There are a lucky few who can walk into the haze and see the past. At one time, my grandfather was a slave. Life had a very different rhythm then. Those times are gone and trying to hold on to that misery is a trap. The past can be an instrument of instruction or it can be a weight of grief.”

Her message was to me. I nodded. “How does one leave the past behind?”

“By tending to yourself now, here, in this moment. Heal in this moment and you will heal the past.”

I didn't disagree with her; I just didn't know how.

“You'll figure it out,” she said, patting my knee. “You'd best head home for dinner. You know Miss Hannah gets all worked up when you stay here too late.”

I stood up and bent to kiss her cheek. She smiled and waved me home as I bridled Mariah and jumped lightly onto her bare back. We headed home at an easy jog, Mariah ready for her dinner even if I was not.

Dorry met me in the barn, a knowing smile on her face. “I didn't want to start this in front of Mom, but what do you have going with Mitch Rayburn?”

I tried to hide my reaction, but I'd never been very good at lying. “We've gone to dinner a time or two. These murders have drawn us together.”

“That's really unpleasant. But if that's what works as an aphrodisiac for the two of you, who am I to judge?”

I brushed Mariah's golden hide, trying not to let Dorry get under my skin. She was trying to be my big sister. “There's nothing going on, Dorry. Our careers put us together.”

“I disagree. You like him. I can tell.” She picked up a comb and began to work out a few snarls in Mariah's tail. “I miss the horses. Tommy was afraid I'd get hurt, and with the kids and all, I needed to be well.” She brushed for a moment. “Mitch Rayburn has an upstanding reputation. You could do a lot worse.”

“From what I've seen, he's a good man.” I checked Mariah's feet, eager to get finished and out of the barn.

“He's helped some of the young people in Harrison County. Kids that got in trouble with drugs. He didn't prosecute them. Instead, he helped get them into programs. He's done a lot to raise money for summer programs for kids all over the coast, even here in Greene County.”

“Did he hire you to handle his PR?” I kept it light. “He's a nice guy, Dorry. I concede that. But I don't really know him, and he certainly doesn't know me. Can we just leave it at the fact that he's a nice guy?”

“Sure.” She put the comb down and put her arm around my shoulders. “Bring him to Emily's party tomorrow, if you want. Now let's go eat before the food gets cold and Mama has a conniption.”

D
riving back to Ocean Springs, I thought about the offer my father made at the dinner table—a chance to start over in another career. Dorry was ready to turn in her apron and spatula. I, on the other hand, had never wanted to be anything except a journalist. Wife had been a surprise avocation, mother an unexpected joy. But journalism was my rock. There were ideals and principles that anchored me in a way that no other profession could.

I had grown beyond the youthful belief that writing the truth could change anything. Change was no longer my goal. I had no goal when it came to writing a story. I simply wanted to tell what had happened in a responsible way. Maybe I'd lost my fire. Or maybe I'd grown up. I didn't know.

When I left the dry counties of Greene and George behind and entered north Jackson County, it was only midnight. I stopped at a small bar that did a surprising business on such an empty stretch of highway. I knew if I sat there long enough, I'd see plenty of people I recognized. Many voted against alcohol in their own counties. Still, they bought it and drank it.

I settled on a bar stool and ordered a screwdriver. I'd have one drink and finish the drive home. There were at least two dozen people in the bar, men and women, old and young. They were country folk, dressed in clean jeans and shirts, hair pouffed up or slicked back. They wore boots or tennis shoes, and several couples danced belly to belly in one corner where a jukebox played.

“Care to dance?” I swung around, surprised by the voice and the hand on my shoulder. Michael.

“Last time I saw you, there were two of you.” I met his gaze and didn't flinch. I'd been very drunk. Our seduction scene had been a failure. Thank God it was blurred by vodka.

“Last time I saw you—” he touched my cheek in a way that sent a shiver through me “—I may have made a mistake.”

“Chivalry was always your trademark.”

“Maybe I should take up something else.” He eased down on the stool next to me. “I remember a famous quote. ‘He who hesitates is lost.' Have I lost again, Carson?”

This wasn't a moment for a flip answer. “I don't even know who I am anymore, Michael. Sometimes, when I'm with you, I almost feel like Carson Lynch, girl reporter. Then I blink and I lose her again.”

He motioned the bartender for another drink for me and a soft drink for himself. “Polly said you called. I must have left my cell phone on the table when I stopped by to visit my daughter.”

“Polly was pissed off. She acts like you're still married.”

“Yeah, but only on the phone to other women. She instantly jumped to the conclusion that we were sleeping together, and that you'd called to rub it in.”

“I'm sorry.”

“She only thought that because that's what she'd do. Don't be sorry. The papers are signed. This thing just has to grind its way to the finish.”

“What are you doing here?” Michael didn't hang out in places like the Back Room. At least he hadn't way back when.

“I saw your truck. I was on an emergency in Hurley and was driving by.”

“And they told me high school was over for us.”

He laughed. “We could go back to your place.”

I was surprised, and it must have shown.

“Not a good idea, huh?”

“It's not that. I'm just trying to figure out why you put me to bed alone last night, and now you're suggesting that we go home together.”

“Carson, you were drunk then. I didn't want to take advantage of you. When you pulled away from me, I didn't want to push it. You've been through hell and back, and I'm not going to add to your worries.”

I thought of the nickname he'd been given in high school. St. Michael. He was waiting for my answer. “I don't know what I feel for you.”

“That makes us even, I guess.”

“This isn't the best basis for jumping into the sack together.” I took a breath. “I haven't slept with anyone since the divorce.” And not before that, for a while.

“We've made love before.” His eyes were clear, hungry.

“I was a different person then. It's almost a bigger risk now. What if I disappoint you? What if I disappoint myself? There was a time when making love with you was like breathing. What if it's not like that, and I end up without even the memory?”

He stood up and signaled the waiter for a check. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand.

I started to balk; this was a Michael I didn't know. I followed him outside, and he put me in the passenger seat of his truck.

“Okay,” he said, “there's only two rules.”

“What?” Gone was his hesitation. This was a man who took action.

“You can't drink any more until we finish, and I drive you home afterward. I won't stay.”

I frowned at him. “What's going on?”

“No questions allowed. It's a simple yes or no.”

“Yes.” My curiosity would have killed me if I'd said no.

He got behind the wheel and headed north, taking some of the old farm-to-market roads that were narrow and unlined. We passed fields of soybeans and stands of pines, until we came to a narrow gravel road. He turned onto it and cut his headlights.

“What are—?”

“No questions, remember?”

I closed my mouth and waited until the truck pulled up under the Salter community water tower.

“Let's go,” he said, pulling a can of spray paint out from under the seat.

“No!” I was shocked.

“Yes, sir. Out of the truck and up that tower. I was marking fence posts this afternoon and have just enough paint left to do the job you didn't finish.”

I slid to the ground and walked to the rickety ladder that led up the side of the water tank. I was surprised there wasn't an electric fence around it, but it was unprotected. I looked up. Back when I was in high school, it hadn't seemed so tall. I felt a tiny knot of excitement. I was way too old for such foolishness. I'd outgrown the high school rite of passage, but that was the point.

“Go on,” he said, trying not to laugh. “I'll be the lookout. Unless you're scared.”

I grabbed the paint can, stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans and began to climb. I was winded by the time I got to the top. It was dark, and I couldn't see the tower well, but I sprayed what I hoped was a big
C
and
L
on the shiny aluminum skin of the tank. That high above the pines, a stiff breeze whipped the air, and though I knew Michael couldn't see me, I spread my arms wide and yelled, “I'm the king of the world!”

Applause floated up to me.

“Thank you. Thank you very much,” I said, laughing at myself and the foolish exhilaration I felt. Below me, lights scattered among the trees for at least a mile around. I took a deep breath, tucked the paint can in my pocket and climbed down.

Michael's arms caught me and I turned into his body, my face lifted for his kiss. I thought I'd never forget his kisses, but this was new and different. He'd changed, too. That was part of the equation I hadn't considered.

“We can't ever go back, Carson,” he whispered into my hair. “But it's okay, because we can go forward.”

I lifted my lips again, but he kissed my forehead. “I'm taking you home, like I promised.”

“St. Michael,” I said, remembering too late that his nickname had galled him.

“Not a saint, just a man of his word.” He put me in the truck and closed my door. In another minute, we were turned around and headed to Ocean Springs, the night making me feel both cold and alive.

“You can take me to my truck,” I said. “I'm okay to drive.”

“You are, aren't you?” he said.

“Another challenge is met and conquered.” I found his hand on the truck seat and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks.”

“No thanks necessary. That was simply unfinished business.”

“I'd like to cook dinner for you one day next week.”

He hesitated only a moment. “I didn't think you cooked.”

I laughed at his teasing. “I can, when I choose to.”

“Sounds great. You know I'm sometimes late.”

“Sure. I'll cook something that doesn't matter.”

He squeezed my fingers. “I'm glad you're back in my life, Carson. I'm sorry for the way you got here.”

“I never expected to be back in Mississippi, but here I am.”

When we got to the Back Room, I leaned over for a soft kiss good-night. He started to get out of the truck, but I stopped him. “Go on,” I said. “It's late.”

He waited until I'd gotten in my truck, started it and began to move away. I watched his taillights disappear down the highway as we drove in separate directions.

 

Sunday morning the phone rang at dawn. I checked the caller ID and reluctantly answered.

“The whole coast is buzzing about your stories, Carson. Congratulations.”

“Brandon, it's hardly six o'clock. What do you want?”

“Saul Grotowitz wants to have breakfast with you this morning at eleven.”

Saul Grotowitz was a big cheese with the Gannett chain of newspapers. “It's five hours until eleven. Why are you calling now?”

“To make sure you're up and presentable.”

I wondered what angle Brandon was playing. He wasn't doing me a favor—that was for sure. “I'm sorry, I've already committed myself for this morning.” I didn't want a private meeting with Saul Grotowitz.

“Break it.” There was iron in Brandon's voice. He'd forgotten that I didn't care if he fired me. I was surprised to discover that I did.

“No,” I said. “I'll meet him with the rest of the staff. Tomorrow.”

“Carson, you need to meet him today, and you need to be sober. You have problems the other staffers don't. At least some of them don't.”

I was momentarily stunned into silence. It seemed Brandon was trying to look out for me. “I'm sorry, Brandon, I can't. It's my niece's birthday party, and let's just say I haven't been the best aunt lately.”

The silence was so brittle I thought the telephone might shatter in my hand. “You're self-destructive, Carson. And your priorities suck.”

“I've given my word,” I said softly. “That's all there is to it.”

“I'll speak with you later.” He hung up and I put the phone down. I made some coffee and thought about my morning. Emily would have a bevy of girls her age, but she also enjoyed the company of adults, specifically my company. She was an extraordinary girl, and one I was afraid to get too close to.

When I realized I had no gift for her, I went online and ordered a gift certificate for the movie theater. I put the printout in a large cardboard box and dug through the closet until I found some wrapping paper. I had a vast selection, because Annabelle had loved to wrap gifts.

I pushed that thought aside and went into the kitchen to fry bacon and scramble an egg. I'd had a dreamless sleep, and I felt good. I finished breakfast and took a cup of coffee out on the porch to watch the spring day come alive. My yard was so beautiful. How could there be such beauty and such pain in the same world?

Determined not to fall into the abyss, I went back inside, took a shower and dressed. It was after nine, and I knew Dorry and Emily would be putting up decorations at the tearoom. I wanted to surprise them by showing up to help.

Grabbing my gift, I drove through the quiet Sunday streets of my small town. A few restaurants were open. From the bakery, the smell of fresh bread wafted beneath the live oak trees that canopied the main street, and I slowed to sniff the air. Behind me a van rode my bumper.

Ocean Springs was the most beautiful of the coastal towns, and I wasn't about to let anyone rush me in my appreciation. The van eased back a respectful distance, as if the driver understood. When I got to the restaurant that catered to private parties for young girls of a certain age, I saw Dorry's SUV there. I'd begun to think the van carried a guest, but as soon as I pulled over, it drove past at an angry speed. Too bad. This wasn't a morning for ill tempers.

At the front door, I clutched my gift and took a deep breath. The first squeal of girlish laughter was like an unexpected slap. There was an excited babble of voices, all young girls. My mouth went dry and my stomach knotted around the breakfast I'd been so proud of myself for eating. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I leaned against the balustrade and tried to steady myself. I hadn't had a panic attack in over a year. My hands were trembling so much that I put the package down and gripped the handrail. I was acting like a fool. It was only Emily and her friends, laughing. It was a party. What did I think, that they would sit in chairs and sip tea?

I tried to make myself ring the doorbell, but I couldn't do it. I looked in the window where the lacy curtains fluttered, and I saw Emily. She was taller than Annabelle, paler, but the resemblance was uncanny. She was laughing with three of her friends, young girls on the verge of being teens. They were hanging streamers. So beautiful. So alive. I turned and fled, leaving the package on the steps.