Waking Savannah

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  After the momentary but undeniable silence rife with glances passing from Savannah to her new foreman, the party descended upon Adelmo with questions about Ecuador, his work, and the locro Savannah mentioned. She took the opportunity as it came, to gather dishes and her composure. Loading up an empty bread basket with things to bring back inside, she pretended she didn’t notice Benny trying to get her attention.

  In the empty kitchen, Savannah set down the basket and leaned against the counter. She breathed in. And out. Deeply. Trying and failing to tell herself she was being silly, that her reactions were only creating more misunderstanding of the situation she currently found herself in. These sisters, Benny and Dan, were the stuff happily-ever-after was made of, one and all. Naturally, they were looking for it. Everywhere. They loved her, and she loved them. But they had no idea she already had her happily-ever-after, and that it became the stuff of nightmares in the end.

  “Another headache?”

  Benny came through the door, pushing the screen open with her foot and carrying a platter of dirty utensils. Savannah hurried to hold the door for her.

  “Strangely enough, no,” she answered. “I haven’t had a headache in a few days.”

  “That is strange. They’re usually really bad in the summer. Probably the heat.”

  “In Bitterly?” Savannah laughed. “Sugar, you never felt heat until you’ve spent a summer in Georgia.”

  “Allergies?”

  “Checked and checked again. Just the headache. But it’s not plaguing me now so let’s not jinx it.”

  Benny put the platter and utensils into the sink and ran the water until it was hot. “I’m just going to wash these.”

  “I’ll dry.” Savannah grabbed a dishtowel. The two women stood at the sink in companionable silence. Savannah caught Benny peeking at her twice before she took the last utensil from her soapy fingers.

  “He’s just my new foreman,” she said through an expelled breath. “He didn’t turn out to be the college kid I thought he was, but that changes nothing. Johanna invited him tonight, not me.”

  “But you did have dinner with him on Tuesday.”

  Savannah rolled her eyes. “I knew the whole town would be talking about that.”

  “Not the whole town.” Benny crinkled her nose. “At first anyway. Johanna called me from her cell on the way home that night. I did hear about it at the coffeehouse though.”

  “Bitterly is way too small-town sometimes.”

  “Come on, Savvy. It’s cute. You have to admit it’s like something out of a romance novel.”

  “If there was any romance, maybe. But there isn’t. Overqualified as he is, Adelmo’s my foreman for the next year on the farm. End of story.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Savannah knew better than to believe that was the end of it, but, hanging the dishtowel over the oven handle, she pretended for the moment that it was.

  “So how was your abbreviated camping trip with the little princess in tow?” she asked. “I hear the flies were too much for you.”

  Benny wrinkled her nose again. “July is black-fly season. I didn’t know. And camping with a baby is a lot less fun than it sounds. I think we’ll do a hotel next time, save the camping until she’s four or five.”

  “Where to next?”

  “New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. We met a couple up in Bar Harbor who were just coming back from there. The pictures.” Benny clutched her heart. “To die for, Savvy. You’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “Isn’t it cold up there?”

  “Gloriously. You know me. I’m a polar bear at heart.”

  “And I’m a tropical bird.”

  “In Bitterly, Connecticut. You poor dear.”

  And the subject of Adelmo thankfully and truly dropped. Savannah followed Benny outside where dusk settled and fireflies rose up into it. Julietta and Efan, as always, led the children off like a pair of benevolent Pied Pipers. The jars Savannah noticed lining the porch rail were handed out, holes were punched into the lids, and off they all went to catch little glowing bugs in makeshift lanterns.

  Still gathered at the picnic tables, the adults chatted less animatedly than before. Dan’s arm rested across the back of Benny’s chair. Baby Irene slept on her mother’s chest. Emma and Mike sat likewise tucked, Julietta’s infant son snuggled into the crook of his aunt’s arm, while Nina and Gunner pointed out the ways constellations were different all over the world. Charlie and Johanna, heads together, whispered and laughed softly over jokes no one else heard. Charlotte and Peter, Tabitha and Caleb leaned in, no longer children yet not yet full-fledged adults. And Adelmo sat amidst them all, one leg slung over the other. Casual and relaxed. He already fit in more naturally than she did, even after all her years among these wild sisters and their extended others.

  Children squealed, turning her attention to the clutch gathered around Efan, who was holding up something small and wriggling. A mouse. A bat. Something he should not be touching, Savannah was certain. There were so many children from toddlers to adolescents. Happy. Carefree. Alive.

  The thought struck with the terrible force it sometimes could when she was least expecting it. Savannah turned away, her eyes filling and tears falling. She clenched her teeth, forced the tears back. Conjuring her twin daughters as they had been, smiling and sweet and just as happy as the kids still squealing over whatever Efan had in his hands, she breathed deeply until the sting of tears abated. A warm and soothing sensation began in her middle and spread. Savannah almost felt them there at her hips, little arms encircling her. In her mind’s eye, she placed one hand on Sally’s dense curls, one on Ginger’s silky locks, stroking their heads as she used to. You are always in my heart, my sugarbeets.

  The warm sensation reached her cheeks. Savannah didn’t care if she looked foolish, standing so still among the children’s chaos. She would have happily stayed just as she was, absorbing whatever of her girls was left in the world, if only out of her own mind. But the sensation ebbed and, like arms falling away, was gone. Savannah’s eyes opened, followed the sound of children racing about the yard. Ginger and Sally would be closer to Caleb’s age, or Tabitha’s. But for one, split moment, they were racing about with all the little ones. Their shadows, if not their selves.

  She spotted Charlotte just as Charlotte spotted her and waved her nearer. Savannah let go of her little ghosts and made her way to sit beside the young woman who always made her glad. “When you going back to Cape May?”

  “Tomorrow, unfortunately.”

  “I was hoping you’d changed your mind.”

  “I always change my mind once I’m here.” She laughed. “But Cape May calls. Matt’s been slammed. I had to beg Caleb to come back with me and help out a few weeks.”

  “You had to beg an eighteen-year-old guy to spend the summer at the beach?” Savannah pursed her lips. “Must be tetched, as my auntie says.”

  “Caleb is that.” Charlotte shrugged. “He doesn’t like Matt. He tries to push Peter on me every time I come home.”

  Savannah glanced at Peter Grady. Every young woman—and some of the older ones—found his bright blue eyes and dark hair as irresistible as the cleft in his clean-shaven chin.

  “I can think of worse things than having Peter Grady pushed on me, sugar.”

  “Savvy.” Charlotte lowered her voice. “We’ve been friends since childhood. I swore off hometown boys when I was in middle school. Katie and I have a pact. Local boys overly attached to Bitterly lead to never stepping a foot outside this town. No, thank you.”

  “When’s the last time you spoke to Katie?”

  Charlotte gripped her arm. “Don’t even say it…Who?”

  “Grayson—”

  “McKenna? No way.” Pulling the cell phone from her pocket, Charlotte rushed Peter. “Why didn’t you tell me about Katie and Grayson?”

  And like that she was gone, shrieking laughter into her phone. Savannah
was suddenly exhausted, yet she didn’t have the heart to pull Adelmo away when he was so obviously having a good time. Instead of joining the adults, she found an Adirondack chair, leaned into the curve of it, and closed her eyes.

  * * * *

  “Savannah?”

  Her brow furrowed. Her lips moved with words she didn’t speak, then frowned. Ade waited while Savannah blinked all the way back from adorable slumber.

  “Was I snoring?” She shouldered higher in her chair.

  Ade chuckled softly. “No, you were not snoring.”

  “I was dreaming. I think it was a bad dream.”

  “I’m glad I woke you, then. You are tired. We should go.”

  “It was all the food.” She groaned. “It made me sleepy. I’m okay now. We don’t have to leave.”

  “It seems the others are starting to go, anyway.” Ade gestured over his shoulder. “Dan and Benny want to get the baby home.”

  Savannah took his offered hands and let him haul her to her feet. She swayed just a little, and he held on to her until she steadied. Though he wasn’t tall, he was still taller than she. For one, split moment, he imagined her head coming to rest against his shoulder, the perfect fit they would make, and dismissed it as quickly. He was not a man of soft feelings and heart patterings. Normally. But he was anything but normal these days.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine, but—” Savannah fished the car keys out of her pocket and held them out to him. “You mind driving home?”

  “Not at all.”

  Ade took the keys. He held his hand lightly on the small of her back as they joined the others in saying good-night, kept it there as they walked to the car, telling himself it was to make certain she didn’t fall, and not because he wanted an excuse to touch her. The battle with his self-control was, he felt, the stuff of legends, and it had only been a few days. He’d met, bedded and forgotten women in less time. He told himself it was his promise to Taytay, the fact that Savannah was his boss. That’s why he stayed away when he wanted to be near, why he made her locro when what he wanted to make was love. It had nothing to do with resisting this forbidden thing, or that doing so made him happier than he had been in many years.

  “You will have to remind me of the directions,” Ade said as he got into the car and turned over the engine. “I was not paying attention, and now it is dark.”

  “Sure thing,” Savannah said. “Take a left at the end of the driveway.”

  They chatted as he drove, about Charlie’s mayoral campaign and Dan’s landscaping escapades, Johanna’s baking skills, Emma’s meatballs, the literary banter between Julietta and Efan that he couldn’t follow but appreciated all the same. Simple, wonderful topics with simply wonderful people he didn’t have to guard against, or outwit. He’d discovered that within moments of walking into the yard. There were no nuanced phrases that meant nothing. As refreshing as he found Savannah, Ade also found her friends. In fact, Bitterly seemed full of such people, just like Taytay assured him it was. He liked these people truly, and that was another something that had not happened in too many years.

  He pulled up the driveway. The night was young, and he wasn’t tired. Savannah, however, seemed drowsy. Content, but drowsy. Ade parked, and hurried to her side of the car. She took the hand he offered, and allowed him to keep it as they ambled to the porch steps. Whether he was slowing her pace or she was slowing his, neither of them were in any hurry. Ade opened the screen door, gesturing her ahead of him.

  “Oh, you have the…” Savannah spun to him, into him “…keys.”

  She was so close. All he had to do was tip her face and their lips would meet without any effort at all. Ade’s heart hammered. His lip beaded sweat. He was a boy again, or the man before women became an obstacle to overcome. A way to a means. Savannah was neither. She was a woman with a sorrowful past, opening up to him as his conscience said she shouldn’t.

  Her face tilted. She searched his eyes, found his mouth and Ade gave into his hammering heart. She tasted like summer. She smelled like a breeze coming down off the mountains. In his arms, she was the perfect balance of softness and sinew. Savannah’s arms wound about his neck. His wrapped tighter about her waist, hands wandering to her lower back and no further. This kiss was enough. And it broke no promises made by a more jaded man. A man who didn’t think it possible to feel anything more than calculated desire.

  Savannah pulled gently away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “I did.”

  That dimple deepened. His gut lurched.

  “I’ve been alone a very long time, Adelmo—”

  “Ade.” He caressed her lips with his thumb. “Now, you must call me Ade.”

  “Ade,” she said, and the power of that music dwarfed all other words she spoke. Savannah’s lips trembled. “I’ve been alone because that’s how I wanted it, because something terrible happened in Georgia, many years ago. Now I am kissing you, a man I’ve known only a few days, not to mention an employee, and I’m scared. I don’t want to be, but I am.”

  Ade stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Something terrible happened in Georgia. The horror, read indifferently weeks ago, hit him full in the face. Confessing what he knew wasn’t an option. Not after that kiss. Not after her trembling words. Ade leaned in, kissed the corners of her eyes, and stepped back. “It is a kiss in the moonlight after a wonderful night spent with friends,” he said. “Nothing to fear, Savannah. I am nothing to fear. I promise you that.”

  “Nothing to fear,” she whispered back, as if his promise made it so.

  He dropped the keys into her hand.

  Savannah opened the door. “Whoa!”

  She slammed backwards into him, arms flung wide and feet flying. Ade caught her before she crumbled. Eyes fluttering, lips working, Savannah slipped out of consciousness before he lowered her to the ground.

  “Savannah? Can you hear me?” He patted her cheek, looked beyond her into the dark kitchen. No sign of an intruder, no sound to indicate an escape in progress. Lifting her into his arms, he held her close. He whispered,“Ojalá que esté bien,” over and over, as he carried her into the parlor, placed her tenderly onto the sofa, and called 911.

  * * * *

  Oh my gosh! Oh, no! It just…I’ve never…those brave little girls. And me, so scared I couldn’t move to help them. It—he. I know that dark ball of anger is a he now. I saw him clear as those little girls trying so hard to keep him off. They didn’t stand a chance. Not against him. Ricky Ricardo kissed Savvy, and the ball of simmering anger boiled over. I felt it like an electric shock, same as when my brother told me to stick a hairpin into a light socket. Same as I felt that day, just before the hammer came down on my head. Evil has a feel to it, I guess.

  He came at Savvy and the little girls got poofed away. He slammed into her so hard. So hard. And I didn’t do anything to stop him. Again. All this time dead, and I haven’t learned a gosh-darn thing.

  Chapter 8

  making music for my heart

  “You should have told me they were getting this bad.”

  After a night in the hospital and days being doted over by three Ecuadorian men, Savannah now had to patiently endure Margit’s agitated pacing in the parlor.

  “It never hit me like that before.” Savannah sat on the couch, covered by a thin blanket despite the warm day, knitting with the fine, lavender lambswool Darla and Sandra had spun. “Not ever. In fact, the headache I had when I called you last week went away and stayed away for a couple of days. Then all of a sudden—slam!”

  “Did you eat anything out of the ordinary? Drink? Can you think of anything that might have brought it on?”

  Not a thing, sugar. Unless you mean kissing my new foreman under a starlit sky. “I did overeat at the McCallan’s. But I’ve certainly done that before. And I wasn’t drinking anything stronger than lemonade.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t spi
ked?”

  “Unless Johanna is now feeding her kids alcohol, yes, I’m sure.”

  “Savvy, don’t joke.” Margit sat on the edge of the couch. She pulled the mass of dark, curly hair off her neck, leaned into the breeze from the table fan. “You really should get air conditioning in here.”

  “We don’t usually need it but for a week or two every summer.”

  Margit’s blue eyes twinkled. “Of course the week I come to visit. Is this your way of discouraging me from ever coming back?”

  Savannah set her knitting down and reached for her friend’s hand. Until seeing her again, she hadn’t missed Margit. Now, sitting together in her parlor, she missed her so much. “I would love if you came back in the autumn. Or during the holidays. It’s really lovely up north then.”

  “I’ve consorted with Yankees before, sugar-pie.” Margit winked. “Remember Logan Rabbinol?”

  “Oh, wow. Yes, I do. I thought I was going to finally be your maid of honor.”

  “Yeah, well, two weeks playing house in Providence was enough for me.” Margit rubbed at her throat, her eyes slightly dreamy. “Maybe I could use another two after we see him.”

  “See him?”

  “In New Haven. I made you an appointment.”

  “Yale?”

  “Yes, Yale.”

  “With Logan.”

  “He is the best. It was good of him to squeeze you in. He’s usually booked months out. Good thing he still has the hots for me.”

  “Every man you leave in your wake has the hots for you, Margit.” Savannah groaned. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Not cutting it this time, missy. We’re going. I’ll drive.”

  “I’ve driven with your before, sugar. I’ll drive. When?”

  “Wednesday morning.”

  “Good thing I already have someone covering my shift at the clinic.” Savannah conceded defeat. “I’ll call Benny to mind the store for me.”