The Feathered Bone (27 page)

Beside me, Ellie starts to cry. Her pain carves canyons in me, a shift of my soul.
Is Carl really a snake, as Raelynn believes?

We are now in black—no moonlight, no stars, and a steady rain. The highway is flanked here with even steeper, deeper ditches on either side, and only a few porch lights shine. Halos. Like a kid, I pretend they are angels guiding our way, and that no harm will ever come to Ellie again.

Oh, how I want to believe!

As we near the river, the rain becomes a downpour, blocking visibility. Raelynn navigates the bends, focusing intensely as
she drives over the narrow bridge and through the long stretch of homes being built along the Diversion Canal. I roll my hands together, trying to ease my nerves.

I knew from the start he had a troubled past. A hardened heart. An abusive family. But my father wasn't much better than his. Who was I to judge? I thought my love would heal him. And I bet my future on it, believing that, together, we would make it.

We reach the launch at Head of Island, and Raelynn finds a place to park in the gravel lot. “We should wait out the rain in the van,” she suggests.

“No,” Ellie insists, crawling out of the vehicle as quickly as possible.

Jay is waiting for us in his jeans and ball cap, pacing beside his unmarked Ford, soaking wet. His headlights shine, turning raindrops to white as he steps back and forth, breaking the beams.

He rushes to meet me, but I cannot look him in the eye. Carl's words resurface.
Nobody wants you. You're the problem. Our marriage has been dead for years.
And Ashleigh's.
You didn't give him enough attention. He loves me.

Jay wraps me into his arms, holds me close. “Let this be the last time he hurts you.”

There's nothing I can say. I just let him hold me long enough to gain my footing, long enough to catch my breath.

Then Jay returns to his truck, ready to launch his Bass Tracker into the water.

I guide him with hand signals from the canal's dark edge as Ellie waits anxiously, her hands keeping rain out of her eyes. Raelynn unloads the van, complaining about the weather. After pulling the empty trailer back to land and locking his truck, Jay heads our way
again, this time with Boudreaux on his heels. The loyal Lab jumps right into the boat. Raelynn joins us, bags in tow, and we all hurry to board.

Jay drops the luggage in his dry storage seat, where he finds a stack of ponchos. Then, shining a Golight across the black face of the water, he takes the captain's chair as I pull one of the wraps over Ellie's head. Raelynn and I cover ourselves too, and Jay takes us to his camp.

With the storm and the night, the Diversion is empty of people. Normally a hot spot for party crowds, the riverfront bars sit silent, clinging together in the dark like shunned mistresses exposing their bruises and scars. No music blares from the balconies; no hired-help repair boats near the pier; no bikini-clad beauties flirt with beer-bellied outdoorsmen. Just rain, pecking the pontoons and pounding the waters that circle the fueling station.

Jay steers the craft out through the canal as the rest of us huddle together in our seats. Even in the dark, the grand estates with their screened-in pools and outdoor kitchens loom heavy over the water, their lanterns blurring through the rain. On the opposite bank are quaint cottages. If it weren't pouring, we'd find people on both sides equally happy to sit on their swings enjoying the moonlight. No one here bothers to waste concern over haves and have-nots. They are as content as I have always been. As I wanted to believe my husband to be.
What does he mean it was all pretend?

By the time we exit the smooth canal and reach the more rugged route of Blind River, I am cowering beneath the sky fall. I hold our ponchos tight against the wind, trying to shield Ellie from the rain, but the flimsy wraps flap like crazy. When I try to lean over her, to shelter her from the storm, she pulls away.

Jay navigates the river without a map, and despite having been
here with him countless times, I become disoriented. I am soaked and shivering.

“Told you we should have waited it out in the van,” Raelynn grumps, raising her voice to be heard over the growl of the motor.

Deep in the dark, the Golight catches the yellow glow of eyes scattered across the swampland. Alligators, nutria, opossums, and coons monitor our movements, reminding me that the whole wide world is one dark and dangerous place.

In contrast to the newer, more expensive homes back on the canal, we now pass river camps with no electricity, no running water. Some serve as permanent residences, but most consist of barely more than a wooden frame and a mismatch of salvaged materials. With the land accessible only by boat, getting construction items out here is no easy task, so rubber tires serve as stepping-stones, scrap wood and duct tape work as doors, and plastic tarps wrap rooflines—especially on the camps that have suffered storm damage.

This is a world on water, but I understand why people choose to come here, leaving behind the outside world, opting for the hazards of nature over the malice of man.

As we make the final turn, blasts of air whip against my face, thrashing my hair into a wet, matted mess not so different from the Spanish moss that drapes the cypress boughs around us. By the time we reach Jay's camp, we all look as if we've fought the devil. And lost.

As Jay pulls the blue-and-white Bass Tracker into a slot next to his bateau, Raelynn jumps out to tie the bowline to the cleat.

Once settled, Jay guides us with the Golight. We step beyond the pier to a set of mud-soaked rafters. They stretch end-to-end to form a shoddy walkway through the low-lying land. At his front door
we remove our ponchos and shake water from our clothes before entering. We also leave our shoes on the covered porch, a practice that could attract all sorts of critters in search of dry quarters.

Inside, Jay hurries to connect the generator. It roars to life, and I flip a lamp switch while Ellie turns on the kitchen light. Raelynn plugs in a space heater, and we all crowd around the warm, orange glow. I offer my daughter another hug. “We made it.” The dark rainy night, the rustic fish camp, the hard-knocked crew of survivors—our lives may not be a fairy tale, but here we are, all together, out of the rain.

Jay gets to work and hands us a stash of towels. After we pat ourselves dry, I brush dust from the sofa and offer Ellie a seat. Boudreaux lies at her feet, and she gives him plenty of attention. Then I pull a blanket from the closet and cover my child. She wraps herself into it and falls back against the couch, looking up at me the way she did as a little girl when she would catch a cold and ask for popsicles or milk shakes to soothe her sore throat.

“This was a good idea,” I tell my friends. “Just what we needed.”

“I'll bring the cooler in once the rain dies down.” Jay looks out the window. “Your luggage should stay dry in the bin.”

We settle in as Raelynn entertains us with stories about wild adventures at her brother's camp. Outside the rain begins to slow and the sky starts to fill with stars again. After about an hour, Jay flips the switches to dim the cabin. With the curtains open, he points outside and says, “And then there was light,” urging us to watch the transformation taking place beyond the panes. Over the river, the moon shines white and the world is renewed.

Now, as the stars burn across distances too far to fathom, aging billions of years beyond belief, I am reminded of an old Sunday school lesson. The simple one from Genesis that taught
us as children that God created the entire universe in the span of one week.

“It's funny, isn't it?” I say to the group. “We tend to get so caught up arguing over details such as days and hours and monkeys and rib bones, we miss the whole point of the story.”

“Which is what?” Raelynn challenges.

“That in the beginning, God made light. It was waiting on us when we arrived.”

Then I turn to Ellie. “We weren't brought into a world of darkness. Left to stumble around on our own. We were given flame. One that would outlast us all.”

She huffs, but she hears.

“Sometimes we start to lose sight of it, don't we? Times like tonight, it felt as if we were lost in the dark. Not a spark to be seen. But that's how this great big world is designed, Ellie. It was made this way for a reason. Again and again we spin into darkness, but the sun is always there, waiting to rise again. It never leaves us. And if we can manage to hold on long enough to make it through the night, then we'll be given a brand-new day.”

I pull her still-damp curls from her face and begin to braid them, as I did when she was young. “That's what we have to remember. Light defeats darkness. Never the other way around.”

Chapter 19

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

“I can't get enough of this weather,” I say, looking up at the beautiful blue sky as I walk with Vivienne toward the Tammany Trace. It's an old railroad route that has been renovated to guide hikers and bikers through five quaint Northshore communities. Each month we schedule one planning day, during which Viv and I tackle the logistics of the business and take time for some much-needed “self-care.” Today we're determined to soak up some sunshine and make the most of these warm temps. “We'll hit the eighties. Can you believe it?”

“I'm so glad we don't live up north. All that snow? I'll take bugs and hurricanes any day, thank you very much.” Then she switches subjects, diving straight for the one topic I'd rather avoid. “So how are things at home?”

As we hit the trail, I reply with an embarrassed grin. “I already know what you're going to say.”

“Really?” Viv calls my bluff. “What am I going to say?”

“That it's time for me to face facts. That the man who vowed to love, cherish, and honor me never really cared about me at all.” I don't play victim. I'm determined to get past denial.

She makes a buzzer noise. “Not even close. I was going to say, with almost sixteen years of marriage, you've made it longer than most.”

I step to the edge of the path, allowing room for a cyclist to zoom past me.

Viv continues. “Amanda, I need you to hear what I have to say.”

I look up, my eyes still red and swollen from another sunrise. It's been almost four months since Carl packed his bags for greener pastures, and I have cried every single day. In that time, he's moved
back home three times, only to leave again. And again. Just when I start to let go, he comes back, asking me to give it another try.

“You have been living in an abusive relationship. Do you realize that?”

I stop walking. It's the first time someone has put this label on my marriage.
Abusive
. She said it out loud.

“You do know that, don't you?” Viv seems surprised by my reaction.

I shake my head. Now I understand how my clients feel when I say this to them.

“Come on, Amanda. You aren't blind to this stuff. You've been a clinical social worker for years. How many women have you helped work their way out of unhealthy situations? You're one of the best, teaching people to set healthy boundaries for themselves. Coaching couples on how to behave respectfully, how to communicate, how to rebuild trust.”

When I stay silent, she prods again. “You have to see the patterns in your own home.” Her pitch lifts a bit. “Don't you?”

We start to walk again, but it takes me longer to answer. “I don't equate my own marriage to abuse, Viv. It's nothing like the stories I hear in my office.”

“Then why did the truth hit you like a stone to the chest?” She looks at me as she says this, hurling a hard and heavy thought my way. “Forgive me, but I'm going to get real for a minute. From what I can tell, Carl has shown a complete lack of empathy throughout the entire search for Sarah. He has been cold. All those controlling acts, complete disregard for your feelings or needs. He thought he owned you, Amanda. The minute you started stepping outside of the box, he couldn't handle it.”