by Jack Riggs
I never came back up to Whiteside Cove while Parker was alive. Cassie reconciled as best she could, and after her father died, she started going back in the summers. She used Kelly as her excuse, when I know the real reason was that she just couldn't stand living in the low country. I could feel it building all year, every year, each time I'd come off rotation. By the time the heat of summer was on us, Cassie was miserable. The first time she went back to visit her momma, it lasted only a week, but later, two weeks stretched into three or four until I had to plead with her to bring Kelly back home.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've been back here—once when Parker died, a few times in the summers since then, once in the winter when Cassie wanted Kelly to see snow. It's been some years now, but standing here looking off the edge of the porch toward the mountain, the cove stretching out behind the house, it feels strangely familiar as if I am waiting, watching for Parker to appear along the rise, his measured steps bringing me news that his daughter has done it again, and that this time, we are both betrayed.
Inside, Kelly's finally up rummaging in the kitchen for something to eat. If Cassie's not feeling up to it, I'll take the girl to camp myself. Cassie said we would talk after dropping Kelly off, but that was last night. Who knows what she'll want today, if she'll even see me at all. I know she's been with Clay, maybe in ways I hadn't figured on. I could've asked Kelly driving up here. She tried to tell me in her own way, but I didn't want my daughter telling me things like that about her mother. I can read between the lines, or maybe I should say between trips to the bathroom. I've been here before.
Breakfast is quiet, Mavis cooking too much good stuff, ham and bacon, eggs, and buttermilk pancakes. Cassie is nowhere to be found until we're done and the dishes cleaned. When she comes out of the bedroom, she's dressed, ready for our trip. I look at her, but she's not taking the bait. When I ask if she'd like a piece of dry toast, that gets her goat good. She knows I know, but we don't talk about it there. We'll have time after Kelly's back at camp.
We let our daughter say good- bye to Meemaw and then head out. The rain never lets up, thunder rolling across the mountains as we drive to Cullowhee. It's slow going on a two- lane road that drops into the middle of the earth before rising up, twisting and turning us until all our stomachs are knotted. Cassie looks like she's going to get sick again, so I pull off the road, the Tuckasegee River running alongside us. I don't think she notices where we are. She's too busy dry heaving, squatting outside her door, where she spits into the mud along the shoulder, but I know exactly where I am.
After Parker kicked Cassie out, we drove all day through the mountains, spending time in Highlands and then heading back down to Cashiers. We parked in the lots of the local tourist traps, waterfalls and mountain overlooks, trying to figure out what to do next. That afternoon, we drove in the opposite direction, further north to Cullowhee. Cassie wanted to show me where she had started school. There was still hope in her voice that once the baby thing was over—that's the way she would talk about it, the baby thing—she'd be back in school, just like nothing had happened.
We drove on to Sylva after Cullowhee, ate at a small café on Main Street, went to a late- afternoon matinee at the movie house, and then had dinner in the same café, sitting in the same window seat, where we watched the rain pick up again, the dirty gray sky weighed down with clouds. Cassie tried to call home all day but Parker wouldn't let her talk to Mavis, told her just to go on, pray that God would forgive her. They finally stopped answering the phone when she would try, so we were on our own sitting in a café in Sylva with no idea what to do next.
We'd have stayed there forever if it hadn't closed, the manager sorry that he had to kick us out. We left Sylva in a downpour, headed back in the direction we'd come. It was dark by then, and I was so tired from being up nearly twenty- four hours that we started looking for some cheap place to stay. “Cheap room for cheap people,” Cassie said. She was trying to punish both of us, but I just told her we'd be all right. I was trying to do the best I could. I saw no reason to stay in the mountains, but she wouldn't leave.
“How?” Cassie said. “How can we be okay?” She started crying uncontrollably then, the darkness crawling into the mountains much sooner than it ever would along the salt creeks.
I was so tired my eyes started playing tricks on me. Tar lines came alive in the road, snakes skimming across in front of the truck. Trees bent heavily on both sides, and I overshot the motel when it came up on us, the lighted sign almost disappearing in the fog. I slammed on the brakes, hit the steering wheel with my hand. I was pissed at Cassie's father, a minister of all things, for sending us out like this.
Hell, Pops drank liquor and beat the tar out of me when he thought I needed it, but he'd never have done anything like that. It wasn't right to let kids so young and messed up wander along dangerous roads in dark so black headlights found it hard to open it up. I put the truck in reverse, stuck my head out the window, and backed up the fifty yards, telling Cassie to watch for headlights bearing down on us from behind until we were safely in the motel parking lot. Then she broke down again, cried real hard there in the seat. It had been a pretty goddamn rough day, worst in my life at the time.
It's odd remembering all of it now, this road fifteen years later. Kelly's sitting in the back of the car reading a Sports Illustrated she talked me into buying her on the way up last night. I try to get her to look at me, but she's not going to do it. She's just acting like she couldn't care less that her momma's throwing up in the mud alongside the road.
By the time we get moving again, the rain has lightened up, a breeze pushing at the clouds to clear the air. It all makes the final push to Cullowhee less treacherous, the mood lighter in the car as the rain begins to leave the mountains. I let Cassie take Kelly to her dorm, then wait as they walk down to the gym to join the rest of the girls working out inside. It's easy to think about Cassie as a student here, makes me wonder what she would have been like if she had finished her college degree. Where would she be today?
That summer when she left the beach, there were promises that we'd write, maybe a trip up to visit her at college that fall. But, honestly, I wasn't betting on it. I thought I'd probably never see her again. I imagine she would have written letters for a while, maybe a phone call or two to talk about the next summer. Then it would have all stopped. Cassie wanted me to come up here and work, said there were lifeguard jobs at summer camps or maybe in Highlands at a country club. They boarded the summer help in Highlands, she said, so I'd have a place to stay. We talked all summer about the mountains and how we could be together after Myrtle Beach was over. It was fun to talk about, but I don't think either one of us really thought another summer together would ever happen.
When she reappears, Cassie is by herself, hurrying down the street toward the car. Her sundress presses against her legs in the breeze, her shoulders covered by a white sweater, flip- flops on her feet. She looks like she belongs here. She should have gone to school. We could have figured it all out in a different way after Kelly was born, but we didn't, and so when she opens the door, it hits me hard, my breath taken away like my air tank has just emptied out. I can't keep her. I'm going to lose Cassie this time. I'm going to lose her for good.
Cassie
“THERE,” I AY, flopping into the seat of the Bel Air, a weight lifting with Kelly back in her dorm.
“She going to be all right?” Peck asks.
“Yes, just fine,” I say. “I talked to Coach Lambert and he said they would start games this afternoon if the weather holds. She's missed a lot, so she won't start, but she'll get to pitch.”
“That'll piss her off,” Peck says, his attention turned to starting the car. “Teach her not to run away.”
“I don't think she'll do that again, do you?” I ask.
“She's got her own mind now, Cassie. She sees things.”
Peck rolls the car away from the curb and I think maybe it's time. He knows what's goin
g on, I can tell. “I was thinking about going into Sylva,” I say. “I need to go to the courthouse. It's open until noon on Saturdays, so if we hurry, I think we'll make it.” Peck laughs at that, just a little under his breath, but I hear him do it. “What?” I say.
“What what?”
“You want to let me in on the joke I just made?” I ask.
“There's no joke that I can see,” he says. He's looking both ways like he's not paying any attention to what I'm talking about, but I know he's pissed off. A few trucks come and go, but the roads are mostly clear; no need to squeal tires the way he does when we leave the campus. He rolls his window down, stays quiet then, and that's what always angers me about Peck. He keeps everything inside, never talks without a fight first. I don't want to fight today, so I keep steady, let Momma's story occupy our conversation.
“I need to go to the courthouse to look up Momma's land,” I say.
“What's wrong with her land?” he asks.
“John Boyd came over and told me it wasn't hers.”
Peck's eyes cut over briefly before going back to the road. “She told me about that this morning,” he says. “Said you think this guy's bad.”
“I think so, but I don't know. I need to look at the land deed, see what it says. I have to go to Sylva to do that, so I thought since they're opened till noon, we could start by driving over there. That's all I meant.”
The curves to Sylva are easier, two narrow lanes widening out to four. Peck looks at me again, longer this time with some kind of a shit- eating grin on his face. “What?” I ask.
“What what?” he says, really pissing me off this time.
“Dammit, Peck, don't do that to me.”
But of course, he does. He smiles that grin again, says, “Want to renew our vows while we're there?”
“You think that might help?” I say, looking out the window. The land out here is more open, not as severe as the road in from Cashiers.
“I don't know,” he says, “you tell me.”
“I don't have an opinion about that,” I say. “You're the one who brought it up—”
“No, you did,” he interrupts. “You're the one who brought up the courthouse.”
It's like we're teenagers again, a tit- for- tat fight over silly notions, emotions out of control. I try to let it go, ignore his taunting.
“Let's just look at the deed first,” I say. “One mess at a time.”
He laughs again, a pissed- off kind of thing. “Mess, that's a fine word for this,” he says, “a goddamn mess.”
I look at him hard. For the first time, I don't feel threatened. I feel I can stand up to Peck on my own. Maybe it's because we're here in the mountains, my turf, not his, maybe it's the distance the days have put between us. I don't know, but I'm not going back to the way I used to be. “Don't start with me,” I say. And he seems to listen, shuts up. I pop the glove box, remembering my cigarettes, pull out a half- smoked pack of Winston's, offer one to Peck first while I push in the lighter.
Coming up Main, the courthouse looms high above the town. The big white building sits perched on a hill like the law is looking down on anyone who comes to Sylva. Today, the steps in front seem nearly impossible, so many and so steep. One hundred and seven, a climb I have not forgotten in fifteen years. When we came here to get married in 1954, we parked on the street below and walked up. Today we drive a road that wraps around the hill, rising quickly to a parking lot. We are in a hurry. It's late, almost noon when Peck turns off the engine.
The courthouse shadows our car, and I begin to feel nervous. Police cars are parked out front, along with an ambulance and, believe it or not, two horses tied up alongside the building. “You need help with this?” he asks.
“I've never looked for a deed before, have you?”
“Nope,” he says. “But it's all public record. Can't be that hard, can it?”
“I guess not,” I say when I open the door. “I'll be back, don't leave me.”
“Where would I go?” he says. Then, as soon as I close the door, I hear Peck's open.
“I can look over your shoulder,” he says. “Two sets of eyes look twice as hard.” He walks ahead of me to the door, opens it when a woman gets confused, pulling at it rather than pushing. She's disheveled, her dress worn and faded, an oversize army fatigue coat draping her body, unlaced boots scuffing the ground. “Here you go, ma'am,” he says. “Looks like they forgot which way a door's supposed to open.” The little woman doesn't even smile, just shoots inside, climbing stairs toward the courtroom.
“That's probably her horse out there,” I say, and we both have a good laugh.
Inside, I feel the history, the day returning to me from memory fifteen years old. The magistrate who performed the ceremony wasn't friendly at all. I think he figured out what was going on and disapproved as much as my father. Momma paid for the license, gave Peck money to pay for that horrible motel room. She stole food money from the jar kept in the kitchen cabinet, money my father gave her once a month for seasonal canning. When my father found out, he refused to give her more to make up for the loss. Folks from the church helped her fill out the shelves in the kitchen that winter. It's confusing standing here now, looking for directions, feeling emotions I haven't felt in years.
Peck finds a security guard who points us in the right direction, and we head downstairs where land records are kept in the Public Registry. Through double doors we enter a dark room that takes up most of the basement. It feels more like a musty library than the place where all the land transactions in Jackson County are carried out. I feel intimidated, walking into the room ready to search legal documents, surveyed boundary lines that, when found here today, will help to decide Momma's fate.
Inside, Peck gets the attention of the clerk, a man in suspenders, a tie loose at his neck. He still wears a tweed coat though the weather has warmed. The man looks at the clock, perturbed for having to work right up to closing. Peck tells him why we are here and he leads us farther back into a small room to a table and chairs. Windows near the top of the ceiling filter in light from ground level, soft beams hitting against white walls, fluorescents humming above us. I'm given a piece of paper, a request form to write down the address to Momma's house in Whiteside Cove. The man smiles when he sees my request. “Lots of people interested in this tract lately,” he says, but I let that go. Peck nudges me to ask who might be nosing around, but I don't say. I'm not here to accuse. I just want to see where Momma stands.
It takes no time for the book to be located, the tract to be found, the description of the land described in Deed Book 387, page 239. Numbers of longitude and latitude, compass directions and natural markers I recognize on the land. The “double oak at the curve of Whiteside Cove Road” where the old church property ends and Momma's begins, and on the other side “the existing cornerstone intersecting Whiteside Cove Road and Garnett Hill Lane.” It's an old Cherokee marker that has been there for as long as I can remember. The base of Whiteside is mentioned as a plot point east and west, the distance my father used to walk daily for his meditations and prayers, land included that John Boyd said was never part of the deed. “This is a lot of land,” Peck says.
“More than I thought,” I say. “It goes all the way to Whiteside. John Boyd told me it was only to the ridge where the tree line begins.”
“John Boyd's a liar,” Peck says.
“I guess so,” I say, and then scan the page to find out who owns the tract, the legalese like a foreign language. When I see it, my heart jumps. On the deed is John Boyd Carter's name, but how could that be?
“So John Boyd owns the land, then,” Peck says. “Not the church.”
“No he doesn't,” I say. “Momma owns it.”
“Well, this says John Boyd Carter owns it,” he says while pointing down at the page.
I look at Peck and he raises his hands, surrendering. “All right, all right,” he says. “How can this be, then? I thought it was church property.” He points to the pag
e again like it's convicting evidence.
“I don't know,” I say. “I need help here.”
The man in suspenders and tweed comes over to hear my story. It shocks him. He looks doubtfully at the book, his mouth puckered up as if he's waiting for me to finish so he can kick us out. It flusters him more when I tell him that my mother has owned the land for ten years and that his book is wrong.
“No,” he says out loud, his voice stronger than it needs to be. We are right across the table from him. “The books are right,” he continues. “In fact, this parcel was recorded sixty- five years ago, and it's never been changed. The Carter family has owned this property since 1905. I understand some surveys are being conducted right now out that way, but this,” and he looks into the book to get the name correct, “this John Boyd Carter has held the deed since it was transferred over in 1935.”
“Is it possible this is a mistake?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Such a mistake or failure to report a transfer or sale would be illegal, fraudulent even. You can check with the tax assessor to see who paid taxes all this time, but that will have to happen on Monday. It's noon, closing time.” He smiles then like he's proud of himself, an office well kept, his duty done, time to go home.
Then there's a second where he seems intrigued by the possibility of something more. “Now if,” he says, and then pauses to think it out clearly before giving anything sinister a life. “If there is another deed that was never posted, then you might have something here. If a deed was signed, but never delivered, then it could be owned by someone else, but it means a fraud's been committed. But of course you would have to find the second deed and bring it in.”
I look at Peck. “Why would he do that?”