Waking Savannah

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  One tour became another. And another. Each time he came home on leave, Doc had changed a little more. It wasn’t until he was home for good, after the girls were born, that he hit her for the first time.

  Just a slap. He hadn’t meant it.

  He promised to go to the army-appointed therapist she’d been begging him to see. But he didn’t.

  He swore he’d never do it again. But he did.

  Savannah breathed in deep, let it out long, returned to the present and the man sleeping under her hovering hand. This man who made love to her like she had never been made love to before. The things he did. The way he touched her. Savannah’s whole body shuddered its own memory of what his fingers and tongue could do, not to mention the glory between his legs.

  She blushed at her own thoughts. The past wouldn’t take away her future. Beyond all sense and reason, Ade had come into her life and changed it for the better. She truly and with all her heart believed she’d done the same for him. They could be happy. They would be, once the matter of Anita’s baby was resolved.

  Savannah was as unsure of her hopes for the outcome as Ade was. To have a child to raise, even part time—

  She caught her breath. Her hovering hand jerked. She’d done it. She imagined her future with Ade, a future more distant than the immediate. Raising a child together meant a life together. A solid, real, enduring life together. Could they? Letting the feeling come, she found it a happy one. More than happy. Joyful. Even if she had one secret left to share. The one that could change it all.

  Chapter 19

  speak to those who lie asleep

  It’s dark out here. A different kind of dark than at the farm. I’m never scared there. Or in town. Only here.

  I want to leave this place, but I feel stuck. Like my feet are chained to the ground. If I had feet. Didn’t I have the thought once, about getting stuck to the place where I died, and wondering if there was a piece of me here? I’m pretty sure I did. And I was right. A piece of me is stuck here, because I don’t have feet and something is holding me to this spot. I can almost feel his hands on me, the hammer, the flash of pain when my skull cracked and my brains leaked out. And I can feel…that. What Ricky Ricardo and Savvy do. Only it’s not like that at all, aside from the mechanics.

  It’s me, but it’s not me. She’s here, that dope who fell for lines I never would have. She’s living it over and over again. The swack. The rape. Getting wrapped up in the carpet. All this time. Over and over. I’m afraid. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to remember in such detail. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’d leave her here to keep reliving those terrible hours if it meant sparing myself, but she has a hold on me. Either I break it, or I become her.

  I can’t become her.

  I guess that means I have to find her, get her out of here. I guess that means I have to face him, or the piece of him that rapes and kills me over and over again in this house. I guess this is it. Do or die.

  I crack myself to bits sometimes. I wish this was one of those times.

  * * * *

  “Does everyone have a basket?”

  A chorus of yesses rose up in the morning air. It had come to her as she woke, on the futon beside Ade, that her vegetables knew nothing of headaches and losing foremen, of falling in love or dying aunties. They needed harvesting, and things were already getting out of hand. It had taken a week to organize and get the word out, but Savvy’s first annual overstock harvest was already a success. A good portion of Bitterly arrived, paid their twenty bucks, and stood ready to pick their own fresh produce. If only Margit had been able to stay, but she was already almost a week back in Georgia. At least she promised to be back for Halloween, and planned on bringing a certain Yale doctor with her.

  “Remember, only this field. Stay out of the pumpkins or you’re not going to have any for Halloween. Raul, Ade, Edgardo and I are here if you need help. And feel free to ask my amazing young field hands for assistance. That’s what they’re here for. Okay, is everyone ready?”

  Another cheer.

  “Have at it.”

  The citizens of Bitterly—both seasonal and full time—walked carefully among the rows of zucchini and tomatoes, beans and cukes, swiss chard, kale, broccoli rabe, and peppers of all kinds, choosing whatever vegetables called to them. Men and women, young and old, chatted as they harvested, laughed when their skills proved less than sufficient. The newly hired students seemed taken by their roles as teachers, and proved both helpful and knowledgeable. Savannah couldn’t be prouder of them, of her staff, of herself.

  She spotted Charlie McCallan, an easy target with his abundance of red hair, and made her way to him. Johanna and several of their children picked zucchini alongside him.

  “Where are Finn and Valentine?” Savannah asked about their two youngest.

  “Caleb is watching them for now,” Johanna answered. “Tabitha is in town. They’re playing house. It’s adorable.”

  “Tabitha?” Savannah grimaced. “Oh, yes. Nina and Gunner’s daughter. How’s that working out?”

  “A little touchy. She’s an angry kid. Understandably. Nina and Gunner thought being up here in the country might do her some good. I’m afraid she’s viewing it as they wanted to get rid of her. She likes Caleb, though.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Savannah laughed. “He’s just like his dad.”

  “I heard that.” Charlie looked up from picking, a smile as always on his face. “He’s a good kid. More ambitious than I ever was, though.”

  “Says the man running for mayor,” his wife teased. “We have a babysitter for later, so he and Tabitha can come to the barbeque. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. It’s going to be fun. I hope the kids don’t get freaked out that the beef I’m putting on the grill was born and raised on the farm.”

  “They’re Bitterly kids,” Charlie assured her. “They know the realities of farm life.”

  “Besides,” Johanna added, “you don’t have to tell them.”

  “True enough, sugar.”

  Savannah walked among the rows, stopped to chat with most everyone who looked up from their tasks as she did so. Benny and Dan, Irene strapped to one or the other of them, didn’t pick as much as they helped out. Heart swelling, tears threatening, Savannah looked out over the field of people she’d known for so long, who probably knew her better than she had any idea. It didn’t matter. They had accepted her from day one.

  “You look happy, corazón.” Ade’s arms slipped around her waist from behind. His chin rested upon her shoulder. Savannah reached backwards, pushed her fingers through his hair and drew him ever closer. He kissed her shoulder. “This was a wonderful idea.”

  “I’m going to make it a yearly thing,” she said. “It’s the perfect time of year, just before all the fall vegetables start coming ready to harvest, but when the summer stuff is starting to slump. Summer’s nearly over. It’ll be fall before we know it.”

  Ade jerked, but his arms didn’t fall away.

  “September 19th is coming up real fast, huh, sugar.”

  He kissed her shoulder again.

  Savannah turned to face him. “Whatever happens, we’ll handle it.”

  “Of course we will. I have no doubt.”

  “But you still don’t know what to hope for.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then either way will bring a bit of happiness.”

  “It is not me I fear for,” he said, “but you. No matter if the baby is mine or not, she will try to hurt me through you.”

  Savannah opened her mouth to deny her ability to do so, but closed it again. The need to tell him that one thing she still had not, gathered in her throat, pushed at her tongue and teeth and lips. It swelled in her head, threatened to bloom. Ade’s hand on her arm steadied her.

  “Your head?”

  “A little,” she lied.

  “Come. Sit in the shade. I will get you something to drink.”

 
; “There’s so much to do. I’ll be fine.”

  “It will all get done, and what doesn’t, doesn’t matter. Please, corazón.”

  Savannah went to the shade tree where they had set up every mismatched lawn chair in the barn. Big coolers of water and lemonade stood at the ready, manned by some of her high schoolers handing out paper cups. She sat in one of the chairs, waited for Ade to bring her a drink, and tried to clear her head.

  “There.” He handed her a cup of lemonade. “Nice and cold.”

  She sipped.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “No. But I will be. Thanks, sugar.”

  “Good.” He opened his mouth, closed it again. A smile played at his lips.

  “What?”

  “Sugar,” he said. “It is your pet name for everyone.”

  “Habit, is more like it.”

  “Even more reason for you to choose another name for me.”

  “A new name? You mean like darling?”

  “Too common.” He nudged her with his knee. “What else do you have?”

  “Baby?”

  “Infantile. Next?”

  Savannah sipped her lemonade, eyed him up, down and sideways. “Love machine?”

  Ade’s laughter turned heads. He lowered his voice. “Something you can say in public.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What made you call me corazón that first time?”

  “It just came out,” he confessed. “You are my heart, plain and simple.”

  “You’re mine.”

  “Too late. I already staked my claim.”

  “Villain.” She slapped his arm playfully. “I’ll have to think about it. I sailed through med-school with better-than-passing grades, but creative, I am not.”

  “I’m sure you will come up with something. Until then”—he slapped his thighs, got to his feet—“rest. I will be in charge a while.”

  “It might take longer than that,” she called after him, but Ade only waved over his shoulder.

  Savannah leaned back in her chair. Ade was right. He deserved something better than her fallback, sugar. Everyone was sugar. Except Doc, whose name was actually Martin. She had nicknamed him the first day they met, after he tried to impress her with his degree.

  The headache eased, but didn’t give up. That the pain became worse when she thought of Doc, the girls, or anything even slightly related to them was too obvious to deny. So, too, was the fact that Ade’s presence somehow soothed it. Carmen’s notion of her late husband’s broken soul trying to do her harm nudged at her. If she could only believe, maybe…

  Savannah nudged it back. That road led to places she would not travel. Doc was gone. Sally and Ginger might always be in her heart, but they were not wings. They were not little guardians protecting her. They were objects in the Box brought out and cherished when she needed comfort more than she could bear. Tactile. Solid. Little bits of their lives to hold in her hands, smell. Kiss. That was as far as she would go with the whimsical. It was all in her head. Literally. It was no broken soul causing her pain, but the festering of a secret she had kept, even from Auntie Bea.

  Hands up. Fingers trembling. Bang.

  Tears welled. Savannah wiped them away before they could fall. This was a festive day, one she’d been looking forward to all week. No tears. No headache. No memories. No secret. Not now.

  Ade stood with Charlie and Dan at the end of a tomato row, laughing. Savannah’s heart bumped. She forced back the past, imaged instead the future. A year from now, two. Charlie and Dan had been friends since childhood, but they would pull Ade into their brotherhood just like they had Julietta’s husband Efan, Emma’s Mike, and Nina’s Gunner. Savannah wasn’t a Coco sister, but it wouldn’t matter. Families formed in all kinds of ways. These people, this place, was the family she never had, and the one that had been taken from her. She had never realized.

  Savannah finished her lemonade. Instead of heading for the cluster of men, she found the women. Though they’d arrived separately and started on different rows, Benny, Johanna, Julietta, and Emma had come together. Bending to the vines, she joined their conversation, their laughter, their harvesting. The basket of beans filled, Savannah’s heart did too, and the headache lifted away without her even noticing.

  Chapter 20

  backward to forgotten things

  I don’t remember screaming out loud. I screamed and I screamed inside, but no sound made it out of my mouth. I think he broke the connection when he bashed me in the head.

  That’s what I’m hearing now. Screaming. My silent screaming. This place is so weird.

  * * * *

  The fields were picked clean before dusk. Sweaty and weary, Savannah stood in the gravel parking lot with Ade, watching the last car drive off in a cloud of dust. The day had gone well, and the night was only just beginning.

  Already manning the oil-drum grill he’d built himself, Dan Greene was waving a piece of cardboard over the glowing coals when Savannah and Ade got back to the yard behind the house. Their friends sat tipping back beers, drinking wine or the last of the lemonade. Even Edgardo and Raul, who rarely socialized, sat among all the others, chatting the best they could in the English they’d mastered, she suspected, far better than they ever let on.

  “Who is that?” Ade pointed to the motorcycle pulling around to the back of the house. The passenger, a young woman, slid off the back and pulled off the helmet Connecticut law said she didn’t have to wear. A mass of long, black hair tumbled out. The driver put the kickstand down and likewise removed his helmet.

  “Caleb?” Savannah shook her head. “Johanna said he and Tabitha would be coming. This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “What do you mean?” Ade asked. Savannah only had to point to Charlie, already bearing down on his son as if he’d run over a kitten. On purpose. In front of its mother. She grabbed Ade’s hand and started for the gathering converging around father and son.

  “…irresponsible and heartless thing to do, especially with Benny here,” Charlie growled.

  “Leave me out of this.” Benny put up her hands. “I drove a scooter for years. Motorcycles don’t bother me.”

  “You have a car,” Charlie blurted. “What do you need this thing for?”

  “I don’t have a car anymore,” Caleb answered. “I traded it in.”

  “And what’ll you do when it rains? Snows? It’s not like this is…” Charlie’s rage-red face paled. “Are you moving to Florida? Like Will?”

  Caleb’s defensive stance melted. “Dad, no. I’m not moving to Florida. I just wanted a bike. Can we talk about this without an audience please?”

  “You should have thought of that before showing up on a motorcycle.” Johanna shook her head. “I have no idea how my sister and Gunner feel about Tabitha riding on the back of one.”

  “I never rode in a car until I was twelve.” Tabitha’s deep, accented voice took an edge off the tension. “Always on the back of a motorcycle, and most of the time with two others hanging on me. Is fine.”

  “I didn’t mean to make a scene here or anything.” Caleb put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, dad. I knew you’d be upset, sorry Benny, because of Uncle Henny. But I’ve been saving up a long time. I took the safety course and got my license all on my own. I’m eighteen. This is my decision to make.”

  “As long as you live in—”

  “Don’t.” Johanna held up her hand. “Don’t say it, Charlie, or you risk becoming every dad-stereotype ever known.”

  Charlie pushed fingers through his hair, blew a breath through his lips. “We’ll talk more at home,” he said. “It’s been a long day. Let’s just enjoy the barbeque Savvy went through such trouble to put together.”

  Everyone but Caleb started away, already resuming a more festive mood, if slightly forced. Savannah kissed Ade’s cheek and motioned him to follow the others. Caleb didn’t keep her waiting long.

  “I’m sorry, Savv
y. I didn’t think dad would freak out like that.”

  “You hoped he wouldn’t, sugar. But you knew exactly what you were doing.”

  He blushed. “Not very subtle, I guess.”

  “Just be responsible,” Savannah said. “Most bike accidents are caused by car motorists. You have to be more diligent about knowing everything that’s happening around you.”

  “I know.” He grinned. “I did my research. This wasn’t a whim, done on impulse.”

  “Forgive me, sugar, but a motorcycle is always a whim, especially when you live in a state where you can’t drive it a good portion of the year. Own that, and don’t try to make it seem like there’s a practical reason for your purchase.”

  “There’s the gas money.”

  “Cute.” She shoved him toward the trees where tables and chairs were still set up. “Go. Eat. There’s tons of food.”

  Caleb trotted across the yard and right to Tabitha, who leaned into him and whispered something that made him smile.

  Ade was instantly behind her again, nuzzling the nape of her neck. She turned to him. Forehead to forehead, arms around one another, neither of them moved but to sway. Savannah closed her eyes, savoring the hard thrum of her heart. The way it jounced about in her chest. In her yard, on her farm, surrounded by friends more like family, held by this man she loved, contentment filled her, overflowed and surrounded her. Astounded her. It buzzed like thoughts in her brain, words on her tongue.

  She lifted her face. Dusk cast Ade’s in shadow. The sobriety of his gaze steadied her.

  “I’m happy, Ade.” She breathed the words more than spoke them. Savannah licked her lips. “Happy in a way I’ve never been before. It’s not just because of you. I’m not that much of a romantic. But it is you. And it’s me. Even if September 19th comes and you end up back in Boston, you’ve been part of something huge in my life. I’ll never be the same, and that’s such an amazingly good thing.”