by K. L. Kreig
“I want to grow old with you,” I whisper back, unable to help myself.
Her voice crackles when she replies, “I was sorta looking forward to that too.”
We stay that way. Our heads pressed together. Our chests heaving. My seed cooling on her flesh. Our wishes outstretched in an empty hand. I want to stay here, just the two of us. Make this our reality instead of what is.
“I don’t want to go home.”
Neither do I. Finality lives there now.
“Then we won’t,” I promise. “Not until you’re ready.”
We do as Laurel wants. We mosey our way toward Charlotte, taking a more scenic, leisurely route than the interstate. I only agreed to go rogue if she agrees not to be more than two hours away from a major hospital. Having settled on a new plan, we embark on a trip that could be made in one long day but ends up taking us five. And we actually never make it Charlotte at all.
We drive down the Jersey coast to our first stop, Tom’s River. They have a Midway on the Seaside Heights boardwalk, which makes Laurel giddy. We ride the Ferris wheel and the carousel. She picks a unicorn and I stand beside her to make sure she doesn’t fall. We play PAC-MAN in the arcade—I win—and we eat ice cream cones as we watch the melee below us from the comfort of the Sky Ride.
The next day as we pass through Philadelphia, we grab a Philly cheesesteak at Joe’s Steaks + Soda Shop, a restaurant that should be on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. I can still taste that tender roast beef melting in my mouth.
Our next stop is Monkton, Maryland, where Laurel finds an exquisite topiary garden that’s like stepping directly into Asia. From there we spend a couple of days in Baltimore. We wander the stunning and endless George Peabody Library and on the entire end of the spectrum, we stumble across a quaint yet brilliant bookstore near Johns Hopkins, called The Book Thing of Baltimore. Run entirely by volunteers, unbelievably all of their used books are free. We leave with three thrillers Laurel picks out. We eat crab cakes and pit beef and Berger cookies and find a bizarre place, fittingly called Bazaar, an oddity store that features eccentric relics, such as urine bottles, taxidermy, and jewelry crafted out of bones. I have to admit it’s a pretty disturbing place.
Virginia, our next location, is simply spectacular. Who knew that a few clicks from concrete highways and our nation’s capital there are cinematography-worthy, serene wetlands with connecting boardwalks and abundant wildlife? And we find a place in Chesapeake so eerily beautiful, it could inspire poetry. In fact, it did. Apparently, Thomas Moore wrote about the Lady of the Lake there. The massive cypress trees emerging from the dark waters are stunning beyond words. We sit for an hour and eat a picnic lunch while watching four turtles perched on a log sunning themselves.
In Georgia, we stop at a roadside peach stand, eat world-renowned barbecue, and take our picture in front of Lover’s Oak in Brunswick. But out of all the spectacular places we end up, my favorite has to be Blackville, South Carolina. A literal blip on the map you’d miss if you blinked.
“What can I get you two?”
Our waitress at Miller’s Bread Basket could have stepped straight from the movie Grease. White hair. Button-size earrings. Two dark, prominent moles on the left side of her nose. Makeup cakes the insides of deep wrinkles that have to house countless time stamps. And she sounds as if she’s smoked two packs a day for the last seventy years. Her name is even Vi. I gaze around, expecting Frankie Avalon to descend from the ceiling any second singing “Beauty School Dropout.”
“I’ll have the meatloaf and he’ll have the chicken livers,” Laurel replies.
I’ll have the…what? “Uh, no I won’t,” I pipe in. The liver acts as a filter of toxins in the body. I don’t understand how it’s fit for consumption under any circumstances. “Disgusting.”
Laurel laughs. Vi joins her. “Just seeing if you were paying attention.”
I wasn’t. I was waiting for a white spotlight and women with mile-high tin rollers in their hair to appear.
“I’ll take a hamburger,” I say, slapping the menu down on the table without looking at it.
“Pepper steak is the closest we have,” Vi replies. Twirling the pen she’s holding in her hand, she snaps gum I only now realize she’s chewing and all I can think of is that can’t be good for her dentures.
“Pepper steak it is.”
“And for your side?”
“Mashed potatoes?” Laurel suggests.
“I love mashed potatoes.”
“I know.” She winks at me and I can’t help myself. I snag her hand in mine. Vi falters for a second but recovers quickly. The smile on her face is now wide.
“Gravy? No gravy?”
“Why gravy, of course.”
“Best in Barnwell County.”
“Then double it.”
“You got it.” She pulls two place settings from her apron and sets them down. “You two traveling through?” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Have you been to the springs yet?”
“Springs?” I ask, unwrapping my silverware bundle.
“Why yes. People travel from all over the world to drink water from God’s Acre Healing Springs.”
I roll that through my brain.
“God’s healing springs? What’s that exactly?”
I glance at Laurel. She’s listening to Vi intently.
“It’s an old Native American belief that these springs hold healing powers when you drink of its water.” Vi looks to Laurel. She places her hand on Laurel’s. “You should check them out,” she adds, as if she has a sixth sense Laurel needs a miracle.
“Where are these springs?” I ask, sitting up straighter.
“North of town about six miles. Take Solomon Blatt Ave. until you see the signs. Make sure you take plenty of empty bottles to fill.”
Empty bottles. Plenty of them. Got it.
“Will do. Thank you.”
Vi’s smile is soft and warm. “I’ve heard many a miracle stemming from that spring. I always say, who knows, you know?” Yes. Who knows? “I’ll get your order in. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Thanks,” I mumble as she walks away.
“What do you think that’s all about? Magic water?” Laurel asks skeptically, as soon as Vi is out of earshot.
But miracles happen every day, right? People wake up from terminal illnesses spontaneously cured. Why not today? Why not us? Why not from the magical water of God’s Acre Healing Springs? It’s worth a try. It surely can’t hurt.
“Possibilities,” I reply.
Laurel purses her lips but doesn’t say anything back.
We’re unusually quiet while we wait for our food. Laurel is on her phone. I map our way to this healing springs place, which is our very next stop.
Our meals come. We eat, making small talk. My steak is tender and delicious. The potatoes are to die for. The bread melts on our tongues. Laurel’s meatloaf is hands down the best meatloaf I’ve ever had. Sorry, Mom.
For dessert we order, what else…peach cobbler, which comes with a healthy scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. By the time we leave, I could use a nap.
I tip Vi well and we load back into the Songbird.
“Why are we going to this place?” Laurel asks tersely.
“Why not?” I reply, unable to keep the bite on my tongue from snapping.
“Roth.”
“Laurel.” I take in a long breath. “You have been gung ho to do anything on this trip so far. What’s up now?”
She stares out the front windshield. She digs invisible dirt from underneath her fingernails. She fidgets and avoids eye contact.
“Tell me,” I demand, growing more annoyed by the second.
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, I can’t hear it if you don’t say it.”
Her head whips my way, and her tongue is as sharp as mine was when she replies, “Okay, then. Here it is. I don’t think you’ve accepted that I’m going to die. I think you think that we’
ll find some magic fairy dust or happen across some enchanted river.” She jabs her index finger angrily at the road in front of us. “I think you think I’ll be a one in a million medical miracle that no one will be able to explain and that we’ll live together until we’re ninety and die holding hands like Noah and Allie did in The Notebook. But we won’t find a cure, Roth. No matter how hard we look or how much time we spend or how many magic waterholes I drink from. And don’t you think that time we have could be better spent watching fireflies or gazing at stars or making new memories? This trip has been fabulous. Why are you ruining it now?”
I can’t push the lump in my throat down no matter how many times I swallow. She is correct. On all accounts. I put on a good front but…she’s right. I look for a place to pull this behemoth over, but the shoulder is too narrow. I have to keep driving.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Roth. I am going to die. I need you to tell me that you understand that, because you haven’t even said the words yet.”
Haven’t I?
I have certainly thought them plenty of times. That’s all I fucking think about.
“In one mile, turn right on Healing Springs Road,” our Google Maps assistant pleasantly advises us.
Laurel shakes her head.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asks, calmer now.
What is there to say?
I slow and turn on my blinker. Right.
“Roth.”
“It’s one stop, Laurel. A half hour. Can’t you give me that?”
I am being a grade-A asshole and she has every right to rake me over the coals for it. She doesn’t. And for the rest of the five- or six-minute drive we don’t speak.
Following the signs, I pull into the small parking lot at the bend in the road. Luckily there is room for us. I shut the engine off. Neither of us moves. Neither of us looks at the other. Long minutes pass.
“You’re right. I don’t want to accept this,” I tell her quietly. “I don’t think I’ll ever accept this, Laurel, so please…please don’t ask me to say it.” I grip the wheel with both hands and straighten my arms to the point my elbows scream. “I know it’s our reality. I know we all die. I know we don’t control the circumstances of it. I know all of that. But it’s still not fair.” She takes in a breath. I know what she’s going to say. She’s lived through unfair in the worst of ways. “And please don’t tell me life isn’t fair, because I already fucking know that.” I give her my attention now. “I wish I were the one who has cancer, because quite frankly I don’t want to be the one here without you. I know it’s an incredibly selfish thing to think and more selfish to say, but I don’t know how to do that, Laurel. I don’t know how to be here without you. Please let me have hope, because everything else will be gone.”
After unclicking her seatbelt, she kneels in the space between our seats. She peels my hands from the wheel. I wrap my fingers around the side of her neck and run my thumb along her cheek. It comes away wet.
“I’m sorry I was being a brat,” she whispers. “We can go to the springs.”
“Logically I know it’s only water, but…”
“It’s okay. I was wrong to try to take that away from you.”
I put my lips to her temple. “Don’t apologize. I know where your heart was.”
“Let’s go get some water.”
“All right,” I agree, not nearly as enthusiastic as I was a few minutes ago.
We gather as many bottles as we can carry and walk down the beaten rock path to the springs. When we arrive, I stop and take stock. A small stream of water runs in between tall, sparce trees and brush. There are several cluster of pipelike systems with water pouring freely from four spigots each. It’s unremarkable, really. Surely miracles don’t happen here?
“This is…different than I expected,” Laurel says softly.
“Yeah.”
Outside of a man and his son catching water from one of the contraptions, we are alone.
“Papi, this water tastes so good,” the little boy with two leg braces announces. I would put him around five or six. He has buck teeth and a tuft of blond hair, and his shirt hangs on him. But the grin on his face is the very essence of innocence. He’s a cutie.
The boy’s father, who is disheveled and could use a hearty, home-cooked meal at Miller’s Bread Basket, smiles at the boy, telling him, “Drink more, my son. Drink as much as you want.” He trades a full five-gallon water jug for an empty one, while three more are filling. He has close to a dozen full already and at least a dozen more to go. This guy means business.
Laurel heads over to them and starts making conversation. We find out they drove over three hundred miles from Georgia and that Logan has a moderate form of cerebral palsy and they’ve been coming to these springs for water for three years now.
“Obviously it ain’t cured him,” Greg, Logan’s father tells us, a little tongue-in-cheek. “But whenever we run out of this holy water, Logan cries all night that his knees hurt and his feet hurt and his back hurts. When he drinks it, he doesn’t, so…here we are. If it helps him even a little, it’s worth the trip. If Logan swears by it, so do I.”
“I do!” Logan yells. “I love it! You should try some.” He generously holds out a repurposed Mountain Dew bottle with the label missing to Laurel.
“Why thank you, Logan. That is very kind of you. But you should save that for yourself. I have one of my own that I can fill.”
“Hurry,” he urges Laurel. “All the water’s gettin’ away.”
“God sees to it that everyone has what they need, remember Logan?”
“I know, Papi. I just want her to see for herself.”
“How often do you come here?” I ask him.
Greg stands straight and sets his hands to his hips. “This here will last us about a month. Usually, my wife comes with us and it goes faster, but our daughter came down with a cold.”
“You drive ten hours roundtrip to get water?” I ask incredulously.
He examines me as if I have bugs crawling from my eyes. “Sometimes twelve. Sometimes sixteen, dependin’ on Atlanta traffic. But make no mistake—I’d drive ten days if need be. Would just bring more jugs.”
Greg removes another container and motions for Laurel to place hers in the empty space. When it’s full a few seconds later, she takes a drink and swishes it around in her mouth before swallowing.
“Well?” I ask, anxious for her report. Is this a hoax? Is there any truth to what this man from Georgia wants to believe? To the stories Vi has heard through the grapevine?
“It’s…crisp and refreshing and…I believe the purest water I have ever tasted. In fact, it has no taste at all.” She glances at the puddle beneath our feet. “It’s quite amazing, actually. Here.” She hands me the bottle and I drink.
She’s right. It is quite amazing. From God, someone whispers in my ear.
That voice gives me pause and I think about all that Laurel has been through over this past year. The doctor appointments, the chemicals, the pain, the sleepless nights. Could the miracle of miracles have been under our nose all along? Could we have saved her from all of that if we’d known this place existed sooner?
Suddenly I wish we had as many five-gallon jugs as Greg does, instead of the handful of empty sixteen-ounce Dasani ones I’ve stuffed in the crook of my arm. I wonder if I can get empties anywhere in town. I ask him and he tells me no. He made that mistake the first time he came.
We fill all the containers we brought with us. I manage to drum up a few more, but it’s not enough and will be gone in few days’ time. After we get our precious stash back to the Songbird, I help Greg with his load. The walk to the parking lot is short, so it doesn’t take us long to get them all into the back of his truck. Laurel chats with Logan while we work, and I decide he has a crush on her. Can’t blame the kid. She is rather magnetic.
“Hope you don’t mind me askin’, and you feel free to tell me it’s none of my business, but somethin’ wrong with
your wife?” Greg asks me on our walk back to retrieve the last two bottles.
My steps falter, then I’m back in step with him. “Can you tell?” I ask. Am I that blind to her state? Once again, I question whether we should be on this damn trip.
“Her colorin’s off, but it was more the way she was buried in her thoughts. This place can do that to ya, though. My wife swears she feels spirits here.”
Come to think of it, he’s right. Laurel didn’t say much.
“She has cancer,” I admit to a perfect stranger.
“Is it bad?”
We both pick up a jug. Greg holds roughly forty pounds with relative ease, waiting for me to reply.
“She’s dying,” I admit out loud, finally putting those vile words out into the universe. It is not a weight off my chest, however. It’s simply a burden I have placed on someone else now.
“I’m real sorry to hear that, Ross.”
I smirk, remembering the night I met Laurel and how she thought that was my name too. I don’t correct Greg the way I did her.
“So am I.”
“My wife and me will pray for her. And you.”
I’ve had countless people tell me they’d pray for us…it’s part of the script after all…but for some reason when this total stranger says it, I feel the power that simple act holds.
“Thank you.”
When we get to the parking lot, Greg heads to the door of the Songbird instead of his own vehicle.
“What are you doing?” I ask, as he balances his load on one knee and reaches for the handle.
“I figure you need this more than I do.” He walks up a step and sets the water right inside the door, gesturing for the one in my hand.
“No, I couldn’t—”
“I don’t have much to offer folks, Ross,” Greg interrupts. “Logan’s medical bills have put us in so much debt I ain’t seeing a way out in my lifetime, and I’m not complainin’ ’cuz I love my boy and would do anythin’ for him. But my papi taught me to always give a humble thank-you when someone offers you a kindness. I never understood what that meant ’til I was grown. ’Til I was the one needin’ a kindness.”
He plucks the jug from my hand and places it next to the other one.