Waking Savannah

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “It all happened the way you read about,” she said, caught her breath, buried her face in the crook of Ade’s throat. “Except Doc didn’t kill himself.”

  His arms twitched, the caresses faltered, but he didn’t let go. The pain between her eyes sliced open her mind, spilling out the memory suddenly there, completely inescapable. Doc. Fighting for the gun. The explosive pain of bullets. Her leg. Her side.

  “Some reports said he got the gun from me and shot himself.” The Savannah of her mind’s eye fought, bloody and wheezing. “Other reports say the gun went off and he was on the wrong side of it.” The gun flew out of both their hands, spun circles on the ground. “The truth is…the truth is—” Savannah’s throat constricted, so tight she could barely breathe. She held tighter to Ade. Bodies pressed together, skin to skin, she held him as tightly as he held her. “The gun went flying. I picked it up. Took aim and—” The pain silenced her.

  Ade’s comfort came from far away, unable to reach her.

  “and—” Not a word, only a sound came out, more like a groan.

  Still far away, Ade pulled back, touched her face, spoke words of concern Savannah didn’t quite understand. She felt…fury. The kind that had sent a marble bowl flying, a ceiling fan spinning. It burrowed into her. So deeply into her.

  It. Is. In. Your. Head. Let it go. For them. And for you.

  Warmth, like warm water, pooled in Savannah’s belly. Let it go. It spread. Chest, arms, legs. Let it go. It loosened her throat. Love welled unbidden, from somewhere well hidden, and in that instant, she felt her wings for what they were.

  The vision behind her eyes wavered, became dual images, superimposed one over the other. Savannah saw herself as memory always showed her—gun in hand, aiming, shooting as Doc’s hands went up. She also saw herself trembling, fingers bloody and slipping on the trigger, Doc lunging for her. Murderous. Desperate.

  She gasped breath back into her lungs, lifted her face from the safe and the dark. Dawn lit Ade’s features. Concerned. Loving. Frightened. Savannah swallowed the constriction in her throat. Closed her eyes and again saw those two images, frozen in that moment before her finger found purchase on the trigger, and pulled.

  Eleven years. Memory showed her scrambling for the gun, taking aim, firing. Even in the hospital, between delirium and slumber, she remembered with such clarity there was no question about its veracity. Self defense. No one would ever claim otherwise. She had always known, or thought she did, the truth. She had killed him. She had shot Doc. Aimed for the heart when a knee shot would have taken him down. A killer. A murderer. No better than he.

  Savannah’s heart stuttered, like being clenched in a fist. She inhaled deeply, unwilling to allow the pain to rise. She grasped for the second image never conjured before this moment in Ade’s arms, at dawn, in this confessing light. She remembered. She remembered. Scrambling. Grasping. Trembling. Slipping. Weeping. Pleading. Doc’s hands going up. Surrender. Relief slumping her shoulders. The gun barrel dipping. The lunge. The shot. The blood.

  “The truth is,” she said, not a hitch in her voice. “I shot Doc. I killed my husband. We fought for the gun.” The false memory faded, bringing the true one into sharper focus. “I got it. I begged him to stay back. I told him I loved him.” No wishing. No misplaced, misremembered guilt. Truth. “He put up his hands. The moment my guard went down, he lunged for me. I pulled the trigger, and that’s how he died.”

  Ade didn’t speak. He only held her tenderly. Savannah kept her eyes closed, replayed the true memory. Like a dream escaping daylight, the false memory fell away in chunks she had no desire to reclaim. Eleven years, she told herself she shot him dead when she’d had it in her power to incapacitate him instead. How had she ever believed herself capable of such cold calculation? It was laughable and sad at the same time. Headaches and nightmares suddenly made sense. It wasn’t guilt wracking her brains, but a memory fighting to be remembered.

  Savannah almost laughed at herself. The notion was as ludicrous as Carmen’s. Memory wasn’t sentient, and there was no such thing as ghosts. The warmth that filled her moments ago, helping to free the locked-away truth, wasn’t her daughters giving her strength. They were gone, just like Doc was gone. There was only Ade, only herself. Only their love.

  That, she would believe in.

  * * * *

  I didn’t know I could cry in this state. I don’t think I knew I could feel so much, either. All this time spent bored and lonely, I guess it dulled my other emotions. Unless…oh, right.

  It’s because I took back those pieces of myself, isn’t it? Bloody Girl in the farmhouse, Drowned Girl at the rock. Maybe that’s what happens when someone dies so violently. The only way to keep from becoming a soul broken beyond healing is to split up, let different pieces of you carry the worst away. I was the lucky one. I got to remember life, got to roam about Bitterly and cause mischief now and then. That’s why it was up to me to pull myself back together. Like Savvy. She didn’t need me. She didn’t need her little girls. She defeated anger-ball all on her own. Though, I think Ricky Ricardo had something to do with it. Now he holds her while she cries and I can’t help crying myself. Love really does conquer all, when it’s true. Maybe that’s naïve, but what the heck. I’m only seventeen, right?

  Being smart wasn’t my thing when I was alive. Obviously. Too square. It took being dead to figure out life. There might be a few more pieces of me wandering around, but I think they’re more like shadows, like the monster in Bloody Girl’s haunting. I feel…whole. I remember the pain and the fear, the relief of drowning. Really remember now, and not just sideways, sort of. Humpty Dumpty got put back together again. Not sure how I feel about it yet. Not great. I think maybe that means it’s time to move on.

  Now if only someone would tell me how.

  Chapter 22

  across my mind

  The lone peach tree in the wood near the old, burned out foundation seemed to be the only one. Ade deduced that it had been a family tree, not part of an orchard. He and Savannah took a rainy day to do some research on the Internet, and at the Bitterly Library. The house had been abandoned for a bigger, more modern home after James Larson Jr. returned from Germany after World War II. He married shortly thereafter, bringing his wife into the new home already occupied by both his parents, his brother, his brother’s wife and their young son, Victor. It was in all the society pages, including the birth of James’s first child a scandalous six months after the wedding.

  Sometime in 1952, Wyatt Barnes took up residence in the old Larson place. Tall, dark and handsome as a movie star, polite until he was drunk and full of boasting, Barnes had been a buddy of James’ during the war, and needed a place to stay. He’d been drifting for years, in and out of trouble with the law. Only his status as a veteran kept him out of jail on more than one occasion, facts the Larson family didn’t learn until much later, after it was too late.

  It wasn’t long before even James couldn’t stand to be in his company. Wyatt became more of a loner, taking odd jobs now and then. He mostly kept to the house and tended a small garden—as far as anyone knew.

  Then a girl went missing in October of 1953.

  She’d been blonde and blue-eyed with a spattering of freckles across her nose. Hometown pretty and coming-of-age wild. The picture above her obituary showed her squinting into the camera, a mischievous grin on her bow of a mouth. Matilda Tully, known to her friends as Tilly. The headlines dubbed her the Drowned Girl, after she was found wrapped in a carpet and wedged under the lip of a giant boulder in the river. Her father, a man with a temper by all accounts, and frustrated with his wayward daughter, had been arrested and accused of the crime. Had it not been for James Larson checking in on his old war buddy, Mr. Tully might well have gone to jail for his daughter’s murder. In the old farmstead, James found a girl’s shoe wedged haphazardly under a floorboard, and his friend gone without a trace.

  Only articles written for larger papers mentioned
the blood and brain matter James also found. That had been kept out of the local papers. James himself, a man of means with children of his own, wrote an article for the Danbury News Times that got picked up by the Associated Press, offering a substantial reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest of Wyatt Barnes. A year to the day after the young woman’s murder, the old farmstead was set ablaze. Arson. No one was ever apprehended, and neither was Wyatt Barnes.

  Ade read through the articles and archives with a scientist’s curiosity, looking for facts and keeping his emotions in check. Not so with Savannah, who seemed to take the whole thing quite personally.

  “It all happened long ago, corazón,” he soothed, but Savannah cried anyway.

  “On my property. Oh, that poor girl. And her family.”

  Her affinity, and fragility since her early morning confession, didn’t escape him. Tears shed for this murdered girl were tears shed for her daughters, for herself. Even for Doc. Savannah was an intelligent woman. She would work through it and out of it on her own. It had already begun. There was a freedom about her, since her confession. Freedom and happiness that touched everyone around her. Benny noticed it. Taytay and Tío. Everyone and anyone who came to the farm. She was sunshine, and the world was a field of flowers she cast her rays upon. Best of all, her headaches were gone.

  September 19th loomed. Anita had not tried to contact him, despite the fact that he’d given her his new phone number, in case she had the baby prior to her surgery date. Both he and Savannah counted down the days, together, on a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. Each day they put an X through increased the weight on Ade’s psyche. With only three days left umarked, he felt as old as Taytay and Tío.

  Emerging from the farmhouse, ready for a day of work, Ade waved to his father stepping out of the trailer.

  “Buenos dias, Taytay.”

  “I have not gotten my wedding invitation yet,” Taytay launched right into his favorite subject.

  Not confiding in his father and uncle had been difficult, but necessary. He was confused enough, without adding their reactions to the mix.

  “It must have gotten lost in the mail,” Ade said. “I’ll have another one made out and sent right away.”

  “Before I go home, eh?” Taytay clapped his shoulder, winking. His blustered disapproval was weakening against the force of Savannah’s continued happiness. Conventional or not, his father knew love when he saw it.

  It was Wednesday, and Savannah had already left for the clinic in East Perry. Ade’s plan was to go up to the old foundation and finish clearing the last of the brush away. When he first found the place, his ambition had been to restore it, as well as the yard he was discovering underneath the bramble. Alongside the peach tree were beds of tulips and daffodils, copses of forsythia and lilac. A domesticated bit turned wild again. Preserved and waiting. It had been a home, once. A happy home by all accounts, before it became the site of a murder. His ambition dug in deeper after discovering this sorrowful fact. He wanted to rescue the site from that terrible moment, free it to be what it had been before, and could be again. The land had preserved its domesticated bits for a purpose. Adelmo Gallegos knew how to listen to this ecological call, and he did so with a vengeance.

  Neither did the more personal symbolism escape him.

  Dusk was tipping into evening by the time he pulled the coot into the barn and switched off the ignition. Voices in the yard sent him to the bonfire pit rather than to the house. Benny and Savannah stood close, arms loosely around one another’s waists. Softly as they spoke, he nonetheless heard the solemnity of their words.

  “Is something wrong, ladies?” he asked.

  Both turned their heads. Arms dropped away. Savannah dabbed her eyes with the corner of her shirt.

  Benny sniffed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just gave Savannah some sage to cleanse the house with.”

  “And that makes both of you weepy?”

  “Well, I grew it myself. It’s like my baby or something.” Benny pursed her lips. “I notice you didn’t ask what sage has to do with cleaning.”

  “I know what smudging is.” Ade shook his head. “My Lita was layqa. The local witch, if you like. I know what sage is used for. It is an ancient practice worldwide, and a wonderful idea.”

  “You don’t think it’s hippie bullshit?”

  He laughed. “There is actual science behind that hippie bullshit. Negative ions and serotonin boosting. All very fascinating. But if you prefer hippie bullshit…”

  “Funny. Very funny.” Benny turned to Savannah. “I told you he’s a keeper. If you don’t marry him, I will.”

  “You’re already married, Ben,” Savannah said. “Happily.”

  “Then that makes it even more imperative for you to keep me from making a terrible mistake.” She kissed first Savannah’s cheek, then Ade’s. “See you both at my place this weekend?”

  “Me, not Ade,” Savannah answered. “He has to leave for a few days.”

  “Oh, that sucks. All right then, just you. It’s going to be a blast.”

  “I’ve never canned before, tomatoes or otherwise. I hope it’s not too hard.”

  “Emma has done it tons of times,” Benny said. “That reminds me. I’m going to bring a few bushels over to my house now, save a trip.”

  “I will help you,” Ade offered.

  Benny waved him off. “I’ll grab a few of the kids. They’re always hanging around. Smoking.” She grinned. “But thanks.”

  Ade took Savannah into his arms. Benny’s footsteps on the gravel drive faded, and were gone. Evening sounds descended. Peace.

  “You’re home late,” Savannah said. “Tired?”

  “Exhausted. When did you get home?”

  “About five minutes before you did. I heard the coot coming as I got out of the car.”

  “Late night for both of us, then.”

  “And about to get later.” Savannah tugged at his hand, led him into the house. “Call for takeout. The Chinese place on the Green delivers. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  He wanted a shower, but Chinese food sounded good, as long as it wasn’t the place Taytay and Tío patronized like it was their mama’s kitchen. Making the call, he kicked off his work boots and replaced them with his clogs.

  Savannah returned, wearing the long, loose-fitting dress he loved for the way it made her look like an Earth Goddess, and the ease with which it was removed. In her hands, a familiar box. She held it out to him. “I want you to help me.”

  He took it.

  Savannah crossed her arms close to her body. Tears welled, rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away quickly. “It’s time to put them to rest. Benny gave me the words. I need you there so I don’t chicken out.”

  Ade followed Savannah outside, back to the fire pit already crackling.

  “I asked your dad to start it for me,” she said, “before you got here.”

  “How much does he know? About everything?”

  “I suspect as much as you did before, anyway. Everyone knows. I was a fool. There is no disappearing anymore, not like Wyatt Barnes did. Maybe that’s a good thing. Hiding is exhausting, and in the end, destructive.”

  The Adelmo Gallegos who came to Bitterly would have taken her words as a dig, but they were not aimed at him, even if they applied. Ade took them to heart, in complete agreement.

  Savannah lifted the lid, conscripted it to the fire. It was only cardboard, after all. Heavy, but still paper. Old paper. It burned quickly. She took out the booties first. “Time to fly, my sugarbeets,” she said. “The ties that bind are gone and the gateway is open. Go in peace, in my love. We’ll meet again.”

  The fast-food-meal toys, the valentines and drawings and the bits of ribbon that had once tied back their hair all went into the flames. Rising to her feet, she tossed in the one clipping she kept. Together, they watched it burn until the last curl turned to ash, then into the fire went the box.

  Powerf
ul. Unconquerable. Standing over the fire, her face bathed in its glow, Savannah’s true beauty burned as brilliant as all the stars and starlight. She wasn’t an Earth Goddess now, but a force of air and fire rising up to streak across the sky. This was the image forever embedding itself into Ade’s mind. When he was old and remembered only the past, he would be able to pull this image out and feel every skin-prickling charge stampeding across his skin. If life were kind, he would be able to simply reach out and take her hand, kiss it, and smile a secret smile.

  Savannah turned suddenly and put her arms around him, rested her cheek to his. “Thank you.”

  “I only held the box.”

  “You’re here. That’s what matters.” She stared into his eyes, hers narrowed in thought, not adoration. Ade loved this look just as much. Her every expression was honest.

  “I’m not the kind of woman who needs a man to be her knight in shining armor,” she said. “I’ve never been romantic, or whimsical. I never was, anyway. Since you arrived on the farm, I find I’m a little of both, and that bothers me.”

  “Why does it bother you, corazón?”

  “Because it means I’ve been living a lie. All my life. I never believed in love conquering all, or that my daughters’ spirits stayed with me.”

  “And now you do?”

  “Kind of.” She shrugged. “But it’s more than that. I am the commander of my own life. I make my own destiny. Or so I thought. You got here and everything turned upside down, because something about you drew me out of myself, even when you were just pretending to be nice.”

  “That didn’t last long. My old ways did not stand a chance against you.”

  “And you were ready to change,” Savannah said. “That’s my point. Remember what I said, about you being the exact person I needed to come into my life, just when you did?”

  “Yes. And you are that for me as well.”

  “See? How does that happen? How did we both just poof into each other’s lives just at that moment we needed to? Falling for you helped me let go of the past. I honestly don’t think I ever would have done it without you. It feels…orchestrated. My heart is wrestling with my brain these days. I’m trying to find logical reasons for things happening to me, and all I can come up with is love. For you. For them. It’s confusing and wonderful and completely frustrating. But I guess I’m stuck with being a whimsical romantic. And it’s all your fault.”