The Singing River (19 page)

“It’s homey,” I murmured. The scent of nicotine mixed with perfume invaded my nostrils. I’d caught a whiff of it occasionally on Haven.
 

Haven continued to look out the window. “We found this chair at the end of someone’s drive once. Perfectly good. They’d bought new furniture and were just getting rid of it.”

She didn’t seem to expect a response, and I didn’t give her one. Grief was an odd thing.

My gaze moved to the kitchen, separated from the living room by a faux wooden bar. A scarred kitchen table, gas stove, and white refrigerator sat beyond it. A clip magnet rested against the fridge, a sheaf of envelopes clenched within it. One look, and I knew they were bills.

Walking through the living room, I stopped at the bar, my fingers running over a small tree-like plant resting on its surface. Some of the foliage was turning brown, and it was rough to the touch.

“What is this?” I asked.

Haven stood, her arms folded across her chest, her hands rubbing her arms. I pretended not to notice the tears.

“A bonsai,” she answered. “Mom thought they were pretty. Almost spiritual, she once said. Mom wasn’t very good at keeping plants alive.”

My brow rose. “I can see that.”

Haven stepped next to me, her fingers skimming mine on the plant before she moved away. I followed her, my eyes on her unkempt hair and olive green tank top as she stepped into a small room just off the back of the kitchen. It was half the size of the living room with the same threadbare, brown carpet. A full size bed rested against the wall. Covering it was a colored afghan, its frayed ends folded over a simple white sheet. A dresser sat opposite, a pack of Marlboro light cigarettes and a lighter on its surface.

Haven paused in front of a light-colored trunk at the end of the bed. It was a simple box, large and undecorated.

“Mom’s hope chest,” she said.

I shook my head. “Give yourself tonight, Haven.”

She fell to her knees in front of the chest and lifted the lid.

“Mom didn’t believe in holding back, in waiting. Waiting is for dying, not for living.”

I knelt on the floor next to her, my eyes going to the chest’s contents. A tiny diaper and knitted onesie sat just inside the lid.

Haven moved them aside. “Mine. I was premature. Mom said it was lucky either of us made it back from the hospital.”

A pile of photo albums and letters lay just beneath the clothes beside a stack of notebooks.

I picked one of them up.

“Journals,” Haven told me. “Some of them mine, some of them my mom’s.”

Flipping it open, I sat against the end of the bed, my gaze on the scrawled words. I waited for Haven to stop me, but she didn’t. She dug in the chest instead, her quiet sobs pulling at my heart as I stared at the journal. It didn’t take long for me to figure out this one belonged to Haven.

I turned ten today. There was no party. Mom said parties were for little girls, that I was big now. All grown up. I should be happy today, but I woke up to find Mom sitting on her bed crying. She was holding a letter. Dad is gone, she said. He had some business to do. I think she’s lying. I think he is gone for good. Dad is too big for us. I heard one of his friends say that once. He didn’t know I was listening, but I was. I wonder what being too big means. We can grow. I know we can. If he could just wait, I could be big too someday. Maybe even big enough that he wouldn’t have to leave.

My gaze went to Haven. She was sitting Indian-style, an envelope perched on her knees, a sheaf of papers in her fist. The emblem on the outside gave the documents away. Life insurance.

Haven caught me looking. “She always told me if something happened to her, I would find this here. It’s not much, but …”

I took it from her, my gaze going to the amount. I knew enough about business and my father’s funeral to know the ten thousand dollar policy I was staring at would be just enough to cover a simple funeral and a few outside expenses.

“It’ll do,” I assured her. Closing the journal, I laid it back in the chest. “Rest, Haven. There is time enough for this tomorrow.”

Her shoulders started shaking again, her hands going over her face. Even with her words muted by her palms, I still heard her chanting “Mom” over and over again.

I stood, picking her up before laying her on the bed, her mother’s bed. There were three pillows, and she pulled one of them against her, clutching it to her chest, her face stuffed in the fabric. I could have left then, but I didn’t.

Pulling my shirt over my head, I climbed into the bed behind her, my arm capturing her shaking form against my chest. Her body trembled for a long time before her breathing finally evened out.

I stared at the wall opposite the bed, at a simple wall clock nailed into the paneling. It ticked softly, the sound overwhelmed by the sputtering air conditioner. Outside, the dog barked.

It took a long time for sleep to come, but when it did, it came with realization. My arm tightened around Haven’s warm frame. I cared about Haven Ambrose. I cared about her way too damn much.

Chapter 29

Haven

I was stuck in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from, my mind full of blurred moments. The hospital, the doctor coming out to tell me that they’d done everything they could, and River. He’d stayed with me through the night after Mom’s death, his arm a shelter from tragedy, a warm reprieve from fear and worry. But it couldn’t shelter me from the pain.

The pain was agonizing. There didn’t seem any relief from it. No amount of tears could drown it. For a moment, Mom was there, sipping coffee from her chipped, black mug before heading off to work, a smile on her face. We’d said “I love you” before she’d left. It was the last time I saw her.

It seemed too quick, too surreal. I kept waiting for her to come home from work, to walk into the funeral home where I sat the day after her death to tell me it was all a joke, that she had faked her death for the life insurance. I would have laughed at that. But this …
this
I couldn’t laugh at. I couldn’t laugh at the tears that clouded my vision as River dropped me off at the funeral home, his Mustang throwing dirt as he left, his eyes full of sympathy. I hadn’t let him stay.

I couldn’t laugh at the projector connected to the funeral director’s computer as he helped me put together Mom’s obituary. I couldn’t laugh as I picked out her casket, the simplest wooden box they had. I couldn’t laugh as I helped plan her service. I couldn’t laugh as I stood to shake the director’s hand. I couldn’t laugh as we settled on times for my mom’s visitation and funeral. She’d be buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents in a plot they’d bought for her years ago. I couldn’t laugh as I did the paperwork for the life insurance. It would take almost eight thousand dollars to pay for everything.

I couldn’t laugh as I walked onto Mr. Nelson’s porch later that afternoon. He took one look at me and sat in his chair, his hand lifted. It was invitation enough, and I sat on the floor at his knee, my head in his lap, his hand on the back of my head. His palm shook against my hair, and when I finally glanced up, it was to find his aged cheeks covered in tears.

“You know, this house is awful lonely living here alone,” Thomas said, his voice shaking.
 

I cried harder, his kindness filling my broken heart and flooding it with strength.

“Your mama was one of a kind,” he whispered.

I nodded, pulling away from him to lean against a column on his front porch. His chair creaked, the sound comforting. There were no words, just the sound of his rocking chair.

Cars roared down the road, some of them stopping at my trailer before turning around to pull into Mr. Nelson’s drive. There were a lot of “I’m sorry for your loss” and “If we can do anything, please let us know” from cousins I’d never even met and relatives I didn’t care to see. Women from a church down the road brought a ton of casseroles I’d never eat, and I stared with empty eyes at my uncle as he dropped by to talk with me about the funeral.

It was nighttime by the time the cars quit coming. I tried several times to head back home, but my feet wouldn’t take me there, wouldn’t take me to the concrete steps leading up to my empty trailer. It was too much without someone there with me. Mom’s ghost haunted the red recliner. Her scent invaded the air. So, I curled up on Mr. Nelson’s couch, and I slept. Sometime during the night, the old man pulled a blanket over me, his trembling hand pausing on my forehead before he hobbled to his bedroom. It killed me not having Mom. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for him not having his wife. I’d never felt more connected to him.

Time passed. The next day came too quickly.
 

The funeral home opened the doors to visitation at five o’clock. I stood with family, my eyes avoiding the casket in the corner, the cloying scent of flowers overwhelming. I’d said my good-byes before they’d opened the doors to the public, kissing my mother’s cold forehead, my tears falling on her frigid skin. It had been too much for me. I wanted to cover her up, to make her warm.

My feet hurt from standing, my arms tired from hugging, my palms on fire where I’d dug my fingernails into them. There were people I knew, Poppy and Frieda, and people I didn’t. I hadn’t realized until now how many people my mother had known. Why did they come now in death? Why had they never come to see her in life?

“Haven.”

It was River’s voice that said my name, and I turned to find him standing behind me, his brother beside him looking uncomfortable. Roman’s gaze skidded over the room, his eyes avoiding the coffin. He looked jittery and out of place.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, giving me a quick hug before making his escape.

Marley came next, his fingers pushing up his glasses as he enfolded me in a quick, awkward embrace.

River stared at me, and I shifted uncomfortably. The black knit dress I wore was too short. I’d grown out of it a few years back, but it had been the only thing I’d found to wear.

“Sorry about Roman. Since Dad, he doesn’t do funeral homes very well, but he wanted to come,” River said.

I nodded, my gaze moving behind him as he was pushed forward by the crowd. He was swallowed up in the mass of sympathetic smiles.

My stomach churned. There had been a dinner for the family before visitation, and people had shoved food at me.

“You should eat,” they insisted.

I hadn’t wanted to eat, but I had, my hunger strong, the urge to fill up the void in my gut overwhelming. Now, it hurt to be full.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled.

I pushed through the crowd, my eyes on a door in the distance. A sign above it read
Women
.

From the corner of my eyes, I thought I saw River following me, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was that bathroom.

I locked myself in, my arms shaking, my heart nothing but broken shards of glass, ripping me completely open.

My eyes fell to the toilet, bile rising in my throat. A fist pounded on the door, but I ignored it.

“Haven!”

Nothing prepares you for losing one of the reasons you live. Nothing prepares you for that. Nothing.

“Haven!”

I fell to my knees on the cold tile, my arms going around the toilet’s frigid porcelain, my eyes on the clean water. There is something deceptively beautiful about cleansing your body, purging all of the pain, the filth, the bone-searing hurt. Because there is darkness and sometimes the pull is too strong, because sometimes finding redemption in a toilet bowl or salvation in pain is easier than fighting.

My knuckles turned white on the porcelain.

“Haven!”

It was Mom’s voice, and it wasn’t. It wasn’t her. She was gone now. She was in a place where they didn’t have overdraft fees and long government lines.

The fist pounded again. It was distant. It was nonexistent. There was only me, a toilet, and redemption.

I purged myself clean, releasing the grief the only way I knew how. Afterwards, I hated myself because I’d been too weak to stop.

Pushing the lever, I watched as the water swirled before plummeting, my selfish pain plummeting with it. My body crumpled to the hard floor, the sickly smell of flowers in my nose.

“Haven!”

The voice. More pounding. I didn’t hear any of it. I was tired now, drained and empty, my knees to my chest, my cheek against a floor gritty from being walked on, my eyes shutting. Darkness. There is something enticing about darkness. River’s favorite color made sense now.

“God damn it, Haven!”

There was a jiggling sound in the lock, and then air against my back. I didn’t fight his arms at first as he lifted me, my body numb from the tears, from harshly forcing out everything I’d eaten in a matter of seconds.

But then he turned me, shaking me before forcing my eyes to his, and I jerked. River.

“Let go of me.” I whispered it.

He shook me again.

“Come on, Haven,” he said. “You’ve got to come back from this. I know, I’ve been there.”

Had he? Had he really?

I pushed at his chest, twisting against his hold.

“No.” I shook my head again. “No, you haven’t”

River’s hands tightened on my arms. “I’ve lost a parent, too.”

I gaped at him, my grief too strong to curb my mouth, too strong to keep me from saying things I knew I would regret later.

“You’ve never lost a parent to life, to struggle.”

With that, I shoved him, my back falling against the wall before I edged away from him, my eyes wide.

My father had run away, my mother was gone, and my future was over.

My fist went to my stomach. “Oh, God!”

A million memories in one moment. Mom shouting at the green Cadillac, my head stuck in its window. Mom’s brown bonsai trees. Mom’s arms around my stomach, holding me down when all I wanted to do was throw up. Mom cradling her black, chipped coffee mug. Mom whispering in my ears, words I’d never forget, “You’re beautiful, Haven. Don’t let life rob you of everything you are.”

My gaze went to River’s. “I’m sorry.”

He was right. Mom wouldn’t have wanted this.

We stared at each other. Something in his gaze had changed, something about the way he looked at me. It was too strong a look to have happened suddenly, but somehow I’d missed when it changed. Sometime during my grief, I’d missed the transition.

“It’s okay,” he answered finally. “Sometimes we lose our way and just need someone to help us find our way back.”

I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about me anymore.

Someone was talking to me then. A hand was on my shoulder, one of my family members pulling me back toward the viewing room.

I glanced back at River, watching as his brother came into the funeral home and dragged him out of it.

I went home that night, walking into the empty trailer, the Cadillac keys falling to the brown carpet. Grief still wrapped my heart with pain, but I was stronger now. I would carry the grief. I wouldn’t let the grief carry me. I was stronger than that.

I changed, brushing my teeth before pulling on my over-sized Beatles shirt. I wanted to sleep, but couldn’t. I stood in the living room instead, my back against the front door.

“Oh, Mom,” I whispered, my eyes on the red recliner. “I promise, I won’t let life rob me of who I am.”

I didn’t expect the knock on the door behind me, but I knew who it was when it came. I knew who it was even before I pulled the door open, knew who it was before I even saw his face.

My eyes widened.

“Don’t ever stop doing that,” River said, his hands going to my face.

“What?” I whispered.

Kicking the door shut, he pushed me up against the wall. “Looking at me like that before I kiss you,” he answered, his lips swooping to mine, his hands rough against my skin.

His fingers pulled up the hem of my shirt, his palm skimming my ribs before closing over my breast.

His eyes met mine. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

I didn’t tell him to stop. There is something about finding comfort in pain, about tearing down walls between two worlds, about holding onto memories while making new ones. I was River’s escape, and tonight he was mine.