by Ron Irwin
In the middle of the night I woke up to find Ruth propped up next to me, reaching over me for her purse. “Sorry, Carrey, I need something in there.” Then she paused. “God, you’re warm.”
She was wearing a T-shirt that hung off her sharp shoulders. She pulled her bag across me, rummaged inside and came out with something she palmed. She chucked the purse off the bed and lay back “I grind my teeth. I have this guard I have to wear. It’s not really attractive. If you’re going to make a move, do it now.”
“I’m still thinking about it.”
“Then hand me that glass of water. I can’t see anything.”
I took the warm glass and handed it over. She tentatively pushed her hand toward me and I took it, pressed it against the glass, waited for her to finish the water, took it back. She fell back in bed, pulled me to her.
“Go to sleep, Ruth.”
“I’m trying.”
36.
Just before sunrise I was still holding her. It had not been a comfortable sleep. My left arm was completely numb and my back was killing me. I pulled myself out of bed and sat up. Ruth spread her arms when I left the sheets. It was 5:30 A.M., three and a half hours before the service for John. I covered her gently and stood by the window watching her sleep. The river was brooding blue, the hills indigo. All around the grass fields were vibrant and green. You could feel that strange energy coming from them, the ground having absorbed hundreds of games of soccer and lacrosse, field hockey and football, baseball and rugby; the energy of youth pounded into the earth, released at dawn.
I went to the bathroom and slipped on a pair of shorts, went back to the room and found my running shoes. I hadn’t run in weeks. No, months. They were stiff with disuse.
Ruth sighed and curled up. I wondered if she was really sleeping or half-awake, waiting for me to leave the room so she could make her exit. I’d see her later in the chapel, after the service, trade numbers and e-mails with her. We’d hug good-bye, tear up a bit, and we’d promise, promise to stay in touch, although we knew we wouldn’t. Not really.
I slipped my cell phone into my shorts, eased out of the door without clicking it, and walked down the hall through the open front door into the light of morning.
By the time I reached the road I was already out of breath but I had a good pace. I felt limber, more powerful than I thought I would. I jogged along the river, away from the school and the boathouse. By the end of the first mile I was going strong, by the second I was winded, almost walking. I pushed through another half mile and stopped. I turned and looked up the river.
The sun shone across its surface and the water glinted and winked. I had to shade my eyes to look far down where the river turned east, toward the school. I breathed deeply and evenly knowing that this iridescent light would not last. And then, a miracle. A boat was making its way down to me. A small scull, the oars pressing into the water evenly, rhythmically, driven by a good hand. I waited to hear the sounds of the oarlocks, hear the exhalation of the rower, the backsplash of the blades, but it moved in silence.
It wasn’t a sculler. It was a bird flying out of the sun and over the surface of the water, skimming it, just touching, before lifting up and out of the river valley. I watched it fly over the mountains, wings beating. I looked once again at the river but the sunlight had shifted, and the surface had become a cool shadow. And I knew for sure that the bird would continue on and make its way to the ocean. On its journey it would fly over millions of us. It would soar over broken hearts and broken bodies and ended relationships and new beginnings and sons and daughters and parents and rivers and boats and schools and kids free for the summer and it would just keep going. It would fly over cemeteries and cars and houses and fields and roads and highways and then into the clouds, through shame and longing and regret and grief and forgiveness and laughter and childless love.
I would never come back. I would not think about this place much, either. A year later, Ruth would send me a letter announcing a new marriage. Wadsworth would write a short e-mail to her reveling in the birth of his second son, William, and she’d send that on.
On that last day at Fenton, however, I would open the phone and call Carolyn. I’d wake her up. At first she wouldn’t be sure it was me, and then she’d ask why I was out of breath. I’d say it was because I had been running and I was in pretty bad shape but that wasn’t important now.
She’d want me to tell her what was important. And I’d reply I didn’t know. But that was not really true. I knew that it was important to remember that time was impossible to stop. I knew that if we could have one piece of it back, just the briefest hour of our choosing, we would find each other. And we would hold on against the future.
We would find each other and hold on.
But on that brilliant morning she’d sigh and yawn and ask me when I was coming home without any guarantee in her voice.
And I’d tell her.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction, but it is partly about the fine sport of rowing. The tragic events described herein are in no way meant to disparage that brilliant pursuit, but instead to provide a record of the exhilaration of a fast boat and the tremendous toll it takes upon those who move it. Rowing, like love, asks much of the human spirit over time and distance.
This novel has made friends over the many years it took for me to write it. Katie Gilligan, its editor at St. Martin’s Press in New York, has shown unflagging enthusiasm ever since I sprung the idea of a love-struck rower on her over lunch in Cape Town. Tris Coburn, its agent, was also my roommate at Kent School; he’s a much finer oar than I and a partner in crime.
I owe much to Tim Scott and Mimi Dow, who introduced me to the world of writing. I also wish to thank the Centre for Film and Media at the University of Cape Town for providing me the time, space, and wherewithal to write this novel.
The greatest debts are to my family, particularly to my father, whose deep love of books has become my own. And to Emma and Sarah, who have put up with so many unexplained absences. And to my lovely wife, Jacqueline, who always believed and made it possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RON IRWIN was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, and attended boarding school and college in New England, where he was a member of a number of winning rowing crews. He is currently the writer in residence for the University of Cape Town’s MA in Creative Writing program, where he has taught since 1999.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
FLAT WATER TUESDAY. Copyright © 2013 by Ron Irwin. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Cover photograph © Megerson/Getty Images
Map by Jane Heinrichs
“Mending Wall,” from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.
Copyright © 1930, 1939, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1958 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1967 by Lesley Frost Ballantine.
Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-250-03003-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03002-3 (e-book)
ISBN 978-1-250-03598-1 (international paperback)
e-ISBN 9781250030023
First Edition: June 2013