On Blue Falls Pond

by Susan Crandall

  Then she heard hushed voices downstairs. Sliding from the bed, she went to the window and moved the lace curtains enough to peek out. A white SUV that appeared pale purple-gray in the early light and had an emergency light bar on the top sat in front of the house.

  She dashed out the door of her bedroom and down the stairs. The voices came from the kitchen. She was at a dead run when she burst through the door.

  Her bare feet skidded to a stop on the linoleum when she saw Granny sitting at the table drinking coffee with a man in a blue shirt who was just turning toward the sound of her panicked footsteps.

  “You’re all right!” Glory said, the adrenaline draining from her muscles, leaving her legs feeling like jelly.

  “Right as rain, darlin’.” Granny’s eyes smiled over her blue willow cup as she sipped coffee. “You look a bit peaked, though.”

  “I thought you were sick . . . or hurt. . . .” Glory’s gaze cut to the man sitting at the table with Granny, looking at him fully for the first time. Her mouth went dry.

  Granny said, “You remember Eric Wilson.” Her words sounded as if they came from somewhere in the depths of a cavern.

  Suddenly, Glory smelled smoke—the sharp, biting combination of burning wood, plastic, and human hair. It made her stomach lurch, her eyes sting, and strangled her breath.

  Eric stood in what appeared to Glory as slow motion and extended his hand. “Hello, Glory.” His voice seemed to be resonating, slow and muffled, from underwater.

  She stood there stone mute, pulling at the bottom of the T-shirt she’d slept in, trying to draw air into her suddenly starved lungs.

  Still sounding deep in a cavern, Granny cleared her throat; Glory recognized the gentle prod into politeness, but could no more respond than she could erase the impressions that flashed in an incoherent parade through her mind.

  Darkness. Rain on her face. Flashing red lights. The cold ground under her back. The blurred image of a fireman leaning close and ripping his breathing apparatus away. The sound of his shouting her name.

  She blinked, and the fireman’s face came into clear focus: Eric Wilson. But he wasn’t in her mind; he was standing right in front of her—and moving quickly in her direction.

  His hands were on her arms, big and warm and secure, as she felt her knees begin to give way.

  He held her erect as she stared at him, her memory-evoked emotion battling the flesh-and-blood man. With numb lips she said, “It was you.”

  “Let’s get you in a chair,” he said, as he moved her with the confidence of a trained rescuer in the direction of the seat he’d just vacated.

  Granny was on her feet, hovering close as Glory sat down. “Good lands, girl, are you all right?”

  Before Glory could answer, Granny was at the sink getting her a glass of water. When she placed it in Glory’s hands, the liquid in the glass shook like it was in a paint mixer.

  She took a tentative sip, more to buy time than to quench thirst.

  Eric knelt in front of her, concern in his whiskey-colored eyes—just like . . .

  “It was you,” she said again, her words not much more than an exhaled breath.

  “What was me?” he asked gently.

  Glory felt Granny’s bony hand fall on her shoulder and squeeze slightly.

  “You brought me out of the house . . . the fire.” She could hardly believe four therapists hadn’t budged a single image from her memory, yet one glance at Eric Wilson’s face had catapulted something right to the forefront of her mind.

  Eric cast a worried glance at Granny. Then he said quietly, reverently, as if he suddenly saw the magnitude of what was happening to her, “Yes.”

  Glory locked gazes with him, trying to budge another memory loose.

  None came.

  After a moment, she began to feel reconnected to her surroundings. “I didn’t remember that until just now. I haven’t been able to remember. . . .”

  His gaze remained upon her, making her feel the need to retreat. He said, “I’m sorry.”

  It was a phrase she’d heard a thousand times since the fire. But this time it ignited a fury in her that she couldn’t quell—a fury born of months living with an aching void that reached to the center of her soul, a fury reignited by the horrible memory that had just assailed her.

  Her voice was cold when she said, “Sometimes I am too. Sometimes I wish you hadn’t done it.”

  “Glory!” Granny’s sharp, shocked tone cut through the emotional haze that swaddled Glory’s brain.

  Eric didn’t appear surprised—or shocked—by her words. He stood slowly, but didn’t move away from her.

  Granny said, “That’s the hurt talking.” Then she said to Eric, “She just come back last night. It’ll take some time for her to sort her feelings out.”

  Glory worked to free herself from the grip of anger. She kept her gaze safely on the floor at her feet, and said, “Yes, that’s right. I shouldn’t have said that. I do appreciate you risking your life to save our—mine.”

  When she forced herself to look at him again, she saw an edgy look in his eye that surprised her.

  Well, I was pretty damned rude.

  He shifted his weight, and said, “I’d better get going.” Then he moved to the corner of the room and knelt.

  For the first time, Glory saw a small boy sitting in the corner. He held his fingers in front of his face, closely examining a string from Granny’s throw rug. The child’s unwavering focus on the string seemed unnatural—especially since Eric was kneeling right in front of him.

  “Scott, Daddy’s going to work now.”

  The toddler continued to examine the string.

  “Scott.” Eric put his hand under the boy’s chin and raised it, gently forcing him to look up. “Daddy’s going to work. I’ll be back to pick you up this evening.”

  He kissed the top of the boy’s head, got up, and said good-bye to Granny.

  Glory stopped him halfway to the door. “You aren’t leaving him here, are you?”

  He turned with a furrowed brow, and said, “Yeah. Is there a problem?”

  Glory’s gaze cut to Granny and back to Eric. “Well, yes. Granny’s sight . . . you can’t expect her to watch a toddler.”

  “I told you, Glory, I can still see fine. I always watch Scott on Thursdays and Friday afternoons.” There was a snap of fire in her voice and a flash in her eye that clearly broadcast Glory’s transgression.

  “Of course.” Glory tried to brush away the crackling annoyance in the air. “I’ll be here to lend a hand today anyway.”

  Eric lingered in the doorway.

  “Go on, now. You’ll be late,” Granny said.

  Eric cast one last look toward his son, then nodded and left.

  Glory sat watching the space in the doorway he’d just vacated. Instead of this unexpected breakthrough in her memory fostering anticipation for healing, an icy fear settled in her chest.

  “So you remembered something.” It was a statement, not a question that Granny uttered as she sat back down at the table across from Glory.

  Glory gave her head a slight shake. “Not much really. Just that I remember seeing his face.” How could she explain the cascade of emotions that ripped through her in that split second?

  As she thought of Eric’s face again, she tried to grasp at something just beyond her flash of memory, lurking in the rainy shadows of that night. She’d sensed it before, when the terror scratched at the back of her brain in therapy sessions. But now she was met with the same blank wall as always. Maybe that flash generated by the surprise of seeing Eric was all she’d ever get.

  “After . . . he came to check on you, you know.”

  “What?” Glory’s gaze snapped to Granny’s face. “Eric Wilson? When?”

  “While you was in the hospital. Ever’ day.”

  Glory’s brow knotted. She remembered the stay in the hospital—every excruciating detail. “You must be mistaken. I never saw him.”

  “No, you didn’t. Not
after that first time . . . the night of the fire. He came into the emergency room and you . . . well, you were upset.”

  Try as she might, Glory didn’t remember anything more of that night. Even the smells and sensations that had momentarily been so vivid and immediate that they robbed her of her strength were dulled until she could almost pretend the whole glimpse of memory hadn’t happened.

  But her knees were still rubbery and her body drained. And she could still feel the security of Eric’s grip as he’d guided her to this chair. It had happened.

  Granny’s words sank in. “Oh, God, what did I say to him?” Had she screamed and ranted and laid blame on the man who’d saved her? In those first days, Glory was now ashamed to admit, she had blamed the doctors for not saving her baby. Had that grief-fueled fury spilled over to the firefighter who’d saved her too?

  For the briefest second, Granny’s lips pursed. “You weren’t in your right mind, ever’body knew that.”

  Glory’s gaze followed Granny’s as she glanced over at the little boy who had not moved one inch from where he was sitting ten minutes ago.

  Granny said, “That’s Eric’s way; he didn’t want to take the chance of upsetting you again. So he’d stop by regular on his way home from work to check with me or your mama.” She seemed to measure her words before she went on. “He came to the funeral. Stayed at the back of the crowd, out of your sight. ’Course he and Andrew played football together in school, so he had every right to be there. But he kept to hisself, so’s not to make it harder on you.”

  Andrew’s funeral. Although it had been just under two years ago, it was as if trying to recall a movie she’d seen so long ago that the details had run together, the cast had become indistinguishable, and the plot become tangled with every other movie she’d ever seen. Eric Wilson could have been standing two feet in front of her that day, and she wouldn’t have seen him. She’d floated through the endless hours of calling and the funeral on a silken gray cloud of disconnection—thanks to the little pills her mother had fed her at regular intervals. Pills not prescribed by Glory’s own doctor, but by her mother’s new husband, Karl Gustafson, M.D.

  Clarice, Glory’s mother, had landed the doctor not long after she’d sold her mobile home and transplanted herself to Florida. It was a move she’d been talking about for years—the final step that would forever eradicate the shadow of the hollow that tainted her in Dawson. As Glory had grown up, her mother had spoken of Florida as if it were a magical place where she could realize her full potential without people’s preformed notions holding her back—Glory thought maybe it was the influence of all the Disney World commercials. Nonetheless, Clarice had finally made the move, and her dreams had come true.

  It had been with some relief that Glory had dropped her mother and Karl at the Knoxville airport two days after the funeral. Although Karl had to get back, Clarice had offered to remain in Dawson as long as Glory needed her. But Glory wanted nothing more than to be left alone with her grief. The last thing she needed was her mother hovering, examining each tear and every mood swing, assessing what drug Karl might prescribe to make it go away. Glory had wanted to wrap herself in her pain, feel every nuance of it, not blot it out in a pharmacological haze. She felt that she’d earned the right to retreat into her own suffering—at least for a while.

  Apparently she’d closed her eyes to more than her mother’s good intentions. The man to whom she owed her life had been relegated to hiding in the shadows.

  “I had no idea,” Glory finally said.

  “He didn’t want no gratitude, said he was doing his job.”

  Glory knew that Eric and Andrew had known one another; they’d graduated from Dawson High together, five years ahead of her. But it seemed like a strained friendship in the few instances that she’d been present when they’d run into one another, as if hostility rippled beneath the sportsman’s camaraderie, as if they had been enemies forced into alliance. Once she’d asked Andrew about it. He’d told her it was her imagination. But she saw bitterness in his eyes and couldn’t help but think something had transpired between the two men that set them at hidden odds.

  Glory shook off those thoughts, not wanting to delve any deeper into the murky past just now. She turned her gaze back to the little boy, just briefly; she didn’t like the twinge of jealousy she felt when she looked at those chubby cheeks blushing with pink health.

  “How’s your eye this morning?”

  “Cain’t even tell anything was wrong.”

  “When do you go back to the doctor?”

  “Monday. But I don’t see the need. It’s doin’ just what Dr. Blanton said; I’m seein’ again. Nothin’ he can do anyhow. No sense in paying him just to peek in there with his little light.”

  Glory had no intention of letting Granny miss that appointment. But she decided to fight that battle later. She had three days until Monday. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to continue to babysit? What if you have an episode while he’s here? How will you handle a two-year-old if you can’t see?”

  “Seems foolish to give up afore I have to. Why, I could just sit here for years, doing nothin’, waitin’ to go blind. That’d be a sin. Changes will come in God’s time.”

  “But, Gran, a toddler? And you’re all the way out here—”

  “I got a phone and can call if something happens. Dr. Blanton says it’s not likely that my sight will just”—she snapped her fingers—“go like that. The bleeding was a fluke.” She went over and picked up the boy. “Besides, Scott and me, we’re partners. Ain’t we, big fella?” She kissed his cheek with her pale, papery lips.

  The boy blinked, but showed no other response.

  Curiosity overcame her reluctance, and Glory asked, “Is he okay? I mean . . . he’s so quiet.”

  Granny settled him back on the blanket on the floor and set a plastic pirate ship in front of him. He reached out and began turning the toy in slow circles.

  Glory looked away.

  “Depends on which of his folks you ask. Jill says he’s just shy and slow to talk. Eric thinks there’s something wrong. They been doctoring a lot lately.” Granny caressed the top of Scott’s blond head. Then she sat back down. “From the looks of your car, you’re plannin’ on a long visit.”

  Glory had brought in a single small bag last night. It had been dark enough that Granny hadn’t seen that her car was packed to the roof; pillows and blankets piled on top of TV, stereo, and computer until they were pressed solid against the backseat windows, looking ready to spring out the instant a door was opened.

  Time to tread carefully. If Granny thought Glory was planning on hanging around Dawson because she thought Gran needed her, she would pack Glory back in her car and have her headed north before sunset.

  “I’m in transition,” Glory said breezily.

  Granny raised a gray brow.

  “St. Paul wasn’t working out. I’m not sure where I’m going next.” Glory decided to leave it as broad and ambiguous as she could possibly get away with.

  After a deep breath, Granny said, “You made your decision to leave here. I cain’t say I understand it, but I won’t be havin’ you change it for me. I just needed a day . . . that’s all.”

  Glory didn’t say anything. Instead she concentrated on the shafts of early morning sun that broke through the kitchen window, the hypnotic dance of dust motes. She heard the sound of the toy boat spinning in endless circles. Suddenly she felt just like that boat, spinning, spinning, and going nowhere. As if she were caught in a whirlpool that pulled her deeper the harder she struggled. What would happen if she just stopped struggling? Would she be sucked into a cold blackness and never be able to resurface?

  Staying in Tennessee would be like sitting in the eye of the vortex. She felt sure her strength would fail, and the whirlpool would win. But if she left here again, where would she go? Arizona maybe. Someplace where the heat and the blazing sun could bake the cold desperation out of her bones. She hadn’t been west yet. Would the va
st differences in landscape cradle her? Did she need a more pronounced differentiation from the lush green of Tennessee? Perhaps beige upon tan, sand and stone, brittle vegetation and prickly cactus would make the difference.

  But how could she leave Granny again—knowing that at any time, her sight might fail? Glory had plenty of cousins . . . but none she would trust to care for Granny. They’d put her in a home, or bicker about whose turn it was to take her to the grocery store; they’d make her feel like an invalid. And for a woman like Tula Baker, that would be the cruelest fate of all.

  She took Granny’s square, knobby hand in hers. “One day at a time, Gran. Today, let’s pick raspberries.”

  As Eric drove the curving road out of the hollow, he realized he was gripping the wheel with brutal force. Wisps of fog reached across the road in places, like fingers of the past trying to force him to stumble. But he couldn’t stumble; there was too much at risk. Glory’s return to Dawson was certainly an unexpected turn of events. He’d just begun to feel secure in thinking his questions were going to remain safely buried with Andrew Harrison.

  Why was it that every bad turn his own life had taken pivoted around Andrew Harrison?

  Eric remembered the flash of terror that momentarily sparked in Glory’s eyes; how she looked like a fearful child standing there in her oversized T-shirt with Scooby-Doo on the front. He hoped with all of his heart that Glory’s memory of that night remained a blank canvas. He told himself it was to prevent her further pain . . . but the coward in him recognized it for the desperate wish of self-preservation that it was.

  Chapter Three

  GLORY WAS SKEPTICAL when Granny insisted that Scott could walk all the way to the raspberry patch. It wasn’t a long hike, but with those stubby legs, he’d be taking four steps for their every one.

  “Scottie and me walk most every afternoon,” Granny said as she packed the last of the junk they were having to haul for the little guy into a quilted tote.