Waking Savannah

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  Savannah grabbed leftovers from the fridge, shoveled a few bites of cold spaghetti into her mouth, and swallowed it down with a glass of cold milk. Bed awaited. Cool sheets. Soft pillow. The ceiling fan whirring a breeze. Savannah almost felt herself drifting off as she trudged up the stairs.

  “You’re home.”

  Ade’s voice startles her eyes open all the way.

  “I am.” She chuckles, halting on the top step. “How was your day?”

  “Uneventful. And yours?”

  “Exhausting. And no, I haven’t gotten any test results back. I promised to tell you when I do.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for caring. Seriously, Ade.”

  His gaze falls, but not before Savannah sees his smile.

  “What?”

  “Ade,” he says. “I like the way you say it.”

  “How do I say it?”

  He laughs softly. “Not the way my mother does. I don’t know if I can say it the way you do.”

  “Try.”

  “Edday.”

  “I do not.”

  “I told you I could not say it as you do.”

  “Well, how do you say it then?”

  “Ah-day.”

  “That’s how I say it.”

  “No, it’s not. But I like your way. It is uniquely you.”

  “Not if we were down south.”

  “But we are not in the south. We are here. And here, you are the only one who says my name the way you do. That is poetic in its way, don’t you think?”

  Savannah tilts her head. “How so?”

  His smile softens. Ade moves closer. He traces her jaw, the slope of her nose. Savannah breathes in and out, in and out, trying to do so normally. When his fingers caress her chin, she gasps.

  “You are the only one who says my name as you do,” he says, “and the only one who makes me feel like this.”

  Without pausing for a breath, Ade kisses her tenderly, and so quickly she doesn’t have time to respond before he steps back.

  “Sleep sweet, Savannah.”

  “Don’t go,” she blurts. Her cheeks burn, but she does not pretend she hasn’t said it. She does not take it back. Savannah holds out her hand for his. He takes it and she draws him to her, into a kiss that does not remain stationary at the top of the stairs, but moves down the hall, to her bedroom, to her bed. Sheets are thrust aside. Clothes are shed. Kisses and caresses are given and taken and given back again. Savannah has never been more aware of her own body, every sweat-slicked inch of it. And his—oh, his—comes alive under her small, work-worn fingers. Ade moves in her, she in him, a synchronicity of parts and pleasures buried so far back in her past they are brand new again.

  Straddling his hips, moving as he moves, as his hands travel from her hips to the curve of her waist to her breasts, Savannah’s insides alight, blazing orgasmically outward like sunshine rays, like starlight. Beneath her, Ade’s eyes are open. Watching her. Waiting for her light to dim before letting his own burst. And then they are in one another’s arms, out of breath and laughing softly. Speaking words of love, of the future, and Savannah understands in that last, cold-water moment before…

  She gasped awake. Alone in her bed still rumpled with strenuous dreaming. She half-remembered listening for him at the top of the steps, brushing her teeth, getting into bed. Only half. Sinking back into the pillows, she held tight to the dream, and wept because it was already fading.

  * * * *

  Carmen Iapalluccio, Benny’s friend from Brooklyn, was nothing like what Savannah expected. She was quite a bit older. She wasn’t a long-skirt-wearing, bead-clicking, crystal-carrying mystic either. Tiny and slight, she sported a helmet of dyed-black hair, sensible shoes, orthopedic stockings and a black, polyester dress straight out of the 1970s. Carmen was every sweet, little-old-lady Savannah had ever watched on sitcom reruns. She carried no crystals but, rather, a white marble bowl in one hand, and what appeared to be olive oil stored in an airline-sized whiskey bottle in the other.

  “Welcome.” Savannah tried her hardest to smile sincerely as she came down the back porch stairs. Benny held the old woman’s arm, though she stood straight and steady on her own.

  “Thank you. What a lovely place.” Carmen’s voice matched her appearance, high-pitched and birdy. “I love this town. Benny has been so good to show me around. Not like Brooklyn at all. Quaint, like a Norman Rockwell painting.”

  “The Rockwell Museum isn’t far from here,” Savannah said. “You should get Benny to take you while you’re here.”

  “Oh, do you think we could, Benedetta?”

  “Sure, Carmen. I’d be happy to.”

  “What a treat this has all been.”

  “Would you like a tour of the farm?” Savannah offered. “It’s not much, but…”

  “It’s lovely dear.” Carmen handed Savannah the bowl and bottle. “But you are not happy about the reason for my visit, so why don’t we get it over with, all right?”

  “I’m not—”

  “—a believer in such things.” Carmen and Benny exchanged a glance. “It’s all right, dear. I don’t require that anyone believe anything that makes them uncomfortable. If you’d rather I leave, I will take no offense. Benedetta did say you were reluctant.”

  “No, of course I don’t want you to leave.” Savannah reached for Benny. “Why don’t you take Carmen inside. I was just going to the store to get some of the mint and chamomile tea we mixed last week.”

  “Would it be all right if Benedetta showed me around a little?” Carmen asked. “I don’t want to wander through your house without permission, and it’s better if I get a feel for things.”

  “Not at all.”

  But of course, Savannah minded. She crossed the yard and slammed into the store, startling the young ladies who worked for her into motion. She gestured them to resume chatting, grabbed a box of the tea and started back to the house.

  Why was she so angry?

  Savannah halted in her tracks, fingers pressed to temple and taking deep breaths. The ache pounded a moment then eased back to dullness. Carmen seemed sweet, sincere and spiritual. Letting her do her thing harmed no one, and maybe…

  No, there was no maybe. Savannah took one last deep breath. The tractor rumbling and clicking in the distance was a huge relief, at least. Edgardo and Raul were showing Ade how to work around all the little idiosyncrasies of her second-hand equipment. Having him witness to this whole…exorcist thing was at least one embarrassment she didn’t have to face. It was bad enough, looking him in the eye after that dream.

  Up the steps, into the kitchen where Benny and Carmen already sat at the table, Savannah barely got to the sink to put the kettle on before Carmen said, “I sense something here. It got stronger when you came in, Savannah. But there is something else. A curious something, and not what I’m here to see to. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, dear, may I use your powder room before we start?”

  “Carmen,” Benny clucked. “You should have said something sooner.”

  “I didn’t want to be rude, dear.”

  “It’s this way.” Savannah showed the elderly woman to the bathroom and went back to Benny.

  “Are you sure you’re okay with this, Savvy?” Benny asked. “I wouldn’t have brought her if you told me you changed your mind.”

  “It’s fine.” She grimaced. “I don’t believe in any of this. I’m doing it for your peace of mind.”

  “Well, thanks for that.” Benny put her hands on her hips, arching backward and groaning. “Even when I’m not carrying her around, I feel Irene in the small of my back. I hope she learns to walk soon.”

  “Then you have a whole new set of problems.” Savannah turned her friend around, kneaded the muscles along Benny’s lower back. “Does this help?”

  “Mmm…yes.”

  “Get a tennis ball and have Dan roll it along your back at night, like when you were pregnant.
Keep it with you and you can do it yourself against a wall.”

  “Can’t I just come to see you?”

  “No, you can’t.” Savannah stopped kneading. “My hand is already tired. Baby-wearing might be a thing, sugar, but there’s an alternate meaning to those words.”

  Benny blinked. She snort-chuckled. “I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. It’s totally wearing on me. But she’s not happy otherwise.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about it. If you look at most other cultures in the world, it’s a natural thing to do. We Americans are so set on independence, we force it on our kids too young. Baby-wearing wasn’t a thing when my girls were infants, but I…”

  “Girls?” Benny gripped her arms. “As in children?”

  Savannah’s stomach lurched.

  “Savvy?”

  She couldn’t speak. It was Margit’s visit. Talking about her twins. About Doc and what he’d done. What he became in a far-off place. Because of horrors he could not unsee. Careless, careless. And already the pity in Benny’s eyes was too much to bear. How quickly would that pity turn to horror if she knew what Savannah had done?

  Her friend’s voice was a buzzing somewhere in the distance. Carmen flittered into the room, her words like chirping. Savannah kept her eyes on the old woman, on her sensible shoes and black dress, and the smile that became concern the nearer she came. Her lips moved. Benny’s buzzing ceased. Frail and birdy hands came up, came to rest upon Savannah’s shoulders. Old and glistening eyes looked from one side, to the other.

  “I won’t ask for your secrets.” Carmen’s voice snapped sound back into being. “I will only tell you what I see. Wings. One is like a shadow. One is like a cloud. Here.” She spread her fingers from Savannah’s shoulders. “And here.”

  How to breathe? How to breathe? Savannah couldn’t remember how.

  “I don’t know if they are there to lift you up, or if you are grounding them? I think you must decide.” Carmen’s gaze went beyond Savannah, and to the screen door. She smiled. “She won’t come in, but she’s watching.”

  “Who?” Benny asked. “Who’s watching?”

  “Savannah’s guardian.”

  “If that…that thing is Savvy’s guardian then it’s a rabid Doberman.”

  “So young,” Carmen continued without comment. “She doesn’t want me to know she’s here. She makes me feel a heaviness in my chest, like I can’t breathe…”

  “Are you all right?” Savannah fell automatically into doctor mode. “Take a deep breath.”

  “I can breathe just fine. It is she who can’t…couldn’t.” Carmen’s hand moved to her head. She winced. “Oh, goodness. Goodness.”

  “What is it?” Benny asked. “Carmen, talk to me.”

  “Pain and fear. Blood, water and…the moon. So cold. I don’t…I can’t. Not this. Forgive me, but I can’t do both.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “I have to let it go.”

  Carmen closed her eyes tight. Her thin, pastel-pink lips squinched up into her wrinkled face. And then she relaxed with a breath exhaled.

  “No matter what the poets say,” she told them, “death is never beautiful.”

  The old woman looked at the screen door, gave a little shudder but squared her shoulders like a fighter in the ring. She held out her hand for the bowl and oil. Savannah gave it back to her.

  “Come, ladies,” she said. “Let us begin.”

  * * * *

  I didn’t tell that old bat anything. She guessed. She read about me or something. What did she have to go and tell Savvy about me for, anyway? How’d she know I was even there? I didn’t let her see me. I didn’t. Why me and not that thing making Savvy’s life miserable, huh? He’s right there. I don’t get it. I didn’t get life. I don’t get death. I don’t know how any of this works and I’m damned tired of it.

  Now I said a cuss word. Mom and Pop would wash my mouth out. It’ll probably keep me out of heaven or something. Stupid, stupid old lady. I have to get out of here for a while. I’m too wrapped up in all this. Maybe I’ll go spook some kids. No. Too humdrum. The traffic lights have been working way too well lately. It’s time for something delinquently swell. That’ll make me feel better.

  Guardian, schmardian. I’ll show her who’s watching over who.

  * * * *

  Savannah had turned off the ceiling fans, as requested. Already, she was sweating, but the old woman seemed perfectly cool. Carmen filled the marble bowl halfway with cool water. Her whispered Hail Marys, three of them, were the only sound except for far-off farm noises and cicadas heralding the heat. Her rheumy gaze moved from face to face, window to window, taking in the surroundings.

  “Anger,” Carmen whispered. “So much anger. And sorrow.”

  “Me, or…?”

  “Savvy, shh,” Benny warned.

  Carmen uncapped the little bottle, and let three drops fall onto the surface of still water. She stirred with one fingertip and sat back. The oil swirled, spread, and reformed. Smaller and smaller drops surrounded one slightly larger one.

  “So broken,” Carmen said. “Shattered. Oh. Oh, oh.” Fingers kneaded wrinkled cheeks.

  Savannah wanted to grab her hands, make her eyes focus, make her explain. She curled her hands into fists and jammed them into her pockets instead.

  Carmen’s fingers moved up to the corners of her eyes, to her temples. “Pain. Here.” She gasped. “No mercy. No pity. Stop it. Please. Stop.”

  The overhead fan moved, slowly at first, and then picked up speed. There were no lights on, but daylight itself seemed to dim, chill. The hair on the back of Savannah’s neck stood on end. She broke out in a cold sweat.

  “What’s happening?”

  Benny pulled her closer.

  “Nothing good.”

  Carmen whispered words Savannah couldn’t make out. The bowl on the table rocked. Like the fans, slowly at first. Water and oil spilled over the sides. Carmen’s lips moved soundlessly now. Her face pinched. The rocking intensified, dumped the contents that pooled on the table, dripped onto the floor. The old woman trembled, desperate eyes flicking from Benny to Savannah and back again. She reached for Benny.

  “Out!” Benny shoved Savannah toward the door, grabbed Carmen’s hand and yanked her nearly off her feet. “Out, now!”

  Savannah held open the screen door. She stumbled through after her friend and the old woman. She barely kept herself from toppling down the stairs from the force of the heavy door slamming closed behind her. The screen door flapped, flapped, and was still.

  “What the fuck was that?” Benny growled. “Sorry, Carmen.”

  “Cursing has its purpose.” Her voice shook. She sought Savannah’s hand, gripped it tightly when she found it. “That thing means you harm.”

  “What thing? What is it?” You know what it is. You know who. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I wish I knew.” Carmen’s trembling hands moved up her cheeks. “Sometimes they speak to me. Sometimes I get images from what is left of them. I’d have never tried to contact it if I’d known.” She shuddered from head to toe, shook it off. “I can usually protect myself from such malevolent energy, but I have never encountered anything like this before. It is hatred. It is sorrow. And it means you harm, Savannah.”

  Real fear. Pure concern. The woman wasn’t faking it. Savannah couldn’t explain what happened inside her house, but neither could Carmen. Why, then, was she so chilled, gooseflesh and all?

  “Is it part of the house?” Benny asked. “Is it the drowned girl I told you about?”

  “Oh, my, no. I don’t believe so.” Carmen fanned herself. “Whatever that malevolence was, it is attached to Savannah, not the house.”

  Savannah sank to the bottom step. She put her head in her hands. None of this was possible. What had she been thinking, letting Benny bring this sweet but delusional old woman to her home? The two of them put things in her head that didn’t belong
there. She wasn’t Benny, prone to the whimsical. She was a doctor. A scientist. A woman who left the home she knew and loved to strike out into the unknown. Such a woman didn’t believe her dead husband was a furious ball of energy slamming doors and causing her head to ache. She didn’t believe Sally and Ginger were her wings. Whatever happened in her kitchen had a scientific explanation. A meteorological one. Over the mountain, storm clouds thickened. Electrical summer storms wrought all kinds of crazy havoc in the Berkshires.

  The sound of the tractor’s rumbling lifted her head. Ade waved from the seat of the ancient tractor he’d mastered. Savannah got to her feet, brushed herself off. Ade. The tractor. The farm. Solid things. Real things, no matter how badly she wanted to believe her girls were truly still with her, and not just memories in a box.

  “She is a fine old work horse,” Ade called over the roar, and cut the engine. He climbed down from the high seat. Benny and Carmen stood beside her in a clutch. Savannah focused on Ade, on the way his calf muscles bunched. His brow furrowing as he came closer. Even called up the dream that was no more real than…

  “Something wrong?”

  “Not a thing,” Savannah said quickly. “Ade, this is Carmen Iapalluccio, a friend of Benny’s visiting from Brooklyn. Carmen, Adelmo Gallegos.”

  “Brooklyn, New York?”

  “Is there any other?” She laughed, small and shaky, her gaze flicking to the house and back. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” he said. “I did not mean to interrupt. I’ll…”

  “The ladies were just getting ready to leave.” Savannah’s cheeks burned, but being rude was better than having them stay. “I was just going inside to get some things Carmen left in the kitchen.”

  Trotting up the steps, she cut off any protest, real or imagined, that might follow her. Savannah yanked open the screen and pushed open the door with more force than necessary. All was quiet within. Brilliant daylight. Just her house, her lovely little house, getting stuffy because she’d turned off all the ceiling fans.