The Singing River

by R. K. Ryals

  My brother’s eyes drooped, his hand pressed hard against his stomach.

  “Nothing keeps them away permanently,” I said.

  Roman sighed, his voice low as he slipped into sleep, but I heard the words anyway.

  “Death,” he said. “Death would keep them away.”

  His breathing was even, but his sleep was fitful, his hand clutching his abdomen as he moaned. I sat there watching him, as I’d often done just after our mother passed away. We weren’t children anymore, but I still saw that five-year-old grieving boy when I looked at him. I felt the crushing weight of responsibility, the sense that even beyond the grave my father ruled me. His death ruled my nightmares, his rules ruled my life, and his expectations ruled my future.

  Roman snored, whimpering as he exhaled.

  A door creaked, a thin sliver of light falling across the floor, and I looked up to find Haven standing in the bedroom door, her long legs white in the darkness. Roman’s words rang through my head. You brought me here to help me only to hurt yourself in the process.

  “Is he okay?” Haven asked.

  I stared at her. Roman’s words were Dad’s words. I didn’t know this girl and she was already socially beneath me because my family dictated it was so, because my life dictated it was so. Because I had been controlled by expectations since I was born. I was sick and tired of expectations.

  It was a desperate man that rose, a desperate man that approached the wide-eyed young woman, a desperate man that pressed her back into the bedroom, and a desperate man that slammed the door shut with his foot as he kissed her. It was so much easier to tell myself it was desperation rather than need.

  Chapter 17

  Haven

  Light woke me; faint light streaming in from around navy curtains and forging a glowing trail full of floating dust from a small window to the bed. I swept my hand through it, watching the way the beam played over my palm as I lay on my side, my eyes on the bedroom door. Outside, a bird chirped, and I could smell the distinct scent of frying bacon.

  A groan next to me made my heart beat faster, my throat constricting with the memory of the night before, of River’s kisses, of his hands tangled desperately in my hair. There had been something very possessive and even necessary about the way he’d taken my mouth with his, pulling my lower lip gently between his teeth before pressing me to the bed. It had been reckless and wanton, but just when I thought he’d go too far, he’d stopped, facing me.

  “I won’t do this,” he’d said.

  I’d stared at him, at his desire-laden eyes, and I was flooded with embarrassment. “Why?”

  He’d lifted himself off of me, his elbow near my head and his bare chest against my T-shirt. “Because you don’t want to,” he’d answered.

  “And you know that?” I’d asked.

  He’d stared at me then, his dark eyes searching my face. I knew what he saw there. Need and confusion. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but for some reason I didn’t want to tell him no. I didn’t want him to leave. It was the strangest feeling. I didn’t need people.

  “It’s not you,” he’d said. “Getting mixed up with me is …” He glanced at the bedroom door, rolling off of me so that he lay next to me on the bed, his eyes moving to the ceiling. “I’d bring you down.”

  My eyes had moved with his. “I’ve been down,” I told him. “There isn’t anywhere left for me to go but up.”

  He’d laughed next to me, his arm going under his head, his breathing heavy. My heart had pounded, my blood hot.

  “You’d be surprised at the hell that goes on inside my head,” he’d said.

  I’d scooted backward and rolled to the side, my gaze on his face, on the faint beard shadowing his jaw. “Because of your father?”

  He hadn’t asked me how I knew. Everyone knew.

  “Partly,” he’d answered. “The way his body …”

  He said nothing else, and I hadn’t forced the issue. We’d just lain there instead, each of our chests rising and falling, the need and desperation obvious in our breathing, heightened by the forbidden need to feel. There is something very heady about being close to someone you want to touch, someone you want to reach for and yet are afraid to approach.

  In the end, I’d let my palm slide down the quilt, bolstering my courage as my fingers found his.

  I’d thought of his brother beyond the bedroom door, of his life, and his position in society. Then I’d thought of my mother, our broken down trailer, bills, and my job.

  The kinship I felt with the man next to me had been sudden and unexpected.

  My fingers tangled with his. “Responsibility is a bitch.”

  I’d whispered it, and although he’d said nothing, his fingers had tightened around mine. Sometime during the night, we’d fallen asleep.

  Now, as early morning light filtered into the room and River groaned from behind me, I froze, my eyes staring hard at the closed bedroom door, the beam of light hovering over my hand.

  “That would be Uncle Marley. Roman can’t even boil water,” River groaned.

  His voice was low, hoarse from sleep, but light and easy, as if he knew I was uncomfortable.

  I relaxed, the smell of bacon making me both nauseated and hungry. It was a strange sensation that had more to do with River than the thought of food.

  “I like to cook,” I said abruptly. “My mom has always worked a lot, and so I often make dinner. There is something therapeutic about cooking, something artistic.”

  “Artistic?” River asked, the amusement in his tone obvious.

  I blushed and was suddenly grateful he couldn’t see my face. “There are so many ways to mess it up, so many ways for it to go wrong. Too much salt here, not enough sugar there. There’s something satisfying about getting it just right.”

  River shifted, and the bed dipped as he turned on his side. His presence was heavy behind me, his chest just barely touching my back.

  “So you want to be a chef then?” he asked.

  I laughed. “I want to be a lot of things. A chef, an archeologist, an astronomer …” My hand fell to the quilt, and I gripped it. “I want too many things.”

  “Rather too many than nothing,” River murmured.

  The heat coming off of him was disconcerting and comforting.

  I sighed. “I’m selfish.”

  River shifted again, his mouth near my ear as his chest fell against my back. “Because you want so much?” he asked.

  Inhaling, I shifted away from him, but his arm came down, pinning me against him, against his muscled physique. His strength was both surprising and safe.

  “Because there isn’t enough room in my life for want,” I told him.

  “Hmmm …” he mumbled against my ear. “There is always plenty of room in life for want.”

  I pushed him away. “Not in mine.”

  River’s palm went to my face, gently forcing it toward him, his eyes narrowed. “Here, now, there’s nothing but want.”

  My gaze searched his. “You’d bring me down, remember?”

  He let go of me, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed, sitting up, my head hanging.

  “You should go first,” I mumbled. My eyes studied the floor, studied the way the thick carpet pushed up between my toes.

  River stood and walked to the door, his sweat pants slung low on his hips. My back was suddenly cold.

  “Haven Ambrose,” he muttered. “You’re a curious thing.”

  I looked up. “Because I’m so different from you?”

  A look of surprise crossed his face as his eyes searched mine. “No,” he said. “Because we’re so much alike.”

  His answer shocked me, and I stared at him. “And you’d know that based on what?” After all, we didn’t know each other.

  The doorknob turned in his hand. “Responsibility is a bitch.”

  The way he repeated my words made goose bumps spring up on my arms, and I rubbed them, my eyes on his strong back as he exited the room. He was right. It didn’t
matter the kind of life each of us lived. Both of us had way too many responsibilities. I wasn’t sure what kind of expectations he thought he had to live up to, but I had something to prove. I needed to prove that I could make something of myself. I needed to prove that sometimes making it to the top means starting from the bottom.

  Chapter 18

  River

  Roman was sitting up on the couch, his head in his hands, when I walked into the living room. Opposite him in the small kitchen, Marley was whistling, his glasses slipping down his nose as he flipped bacon in a skillet at the stove.

  “Sleep well?” Roman sneered.

  His head lifted, his swollen, red eyes meeting mine evenly. There was judgment in his gaze, but I ignored it, giving him my back as I moved to the kitchen island. Propping my hip against one of the bar stools, I swept my hand through my sleep-tousled hair.

  Uncle Marley glanced up from the stove, his knowing eyes studying me before sliding to the bedroom door. There was no censure in his gaze, nothing to suggest he cared one way or another what I’d been doing in that room. My blood heated at the thought of Haven, her messy hair and flushed cheeks, and I shifted uncomfortably.

  Marley moved the bacon to the back burner and cleared his throat. “Up for a day on the river?” he asked

  Grabbing a thick, white mug from a wooden rack next to the stove, he filled it with steaming black coffee and slid it in my direction.

  I gulped down my first swallow, wincing at the heat. “Taking the canoe?”

  Marley nodded.

  The sound of the bedroom door opening snagged my attention, but I didn’t turn around. There was something about Haven Ambrose that dug its way under my skin. From the first time I’d seen her standing below a strange painting at Frieda’s Dairy Bar to the moment I’d watched her in the rearview mirror as I drove my drug influenced brother home, something about her had bothered me. She’d been constantly occupying my thoughts since she’d stepped out of her mother’s lime green Cadillac and into Marley’s pick-up.

  “Good morning, Haven,” Marley said cheerfully. He gestured at the stove. “Bacon?”

  She settled next to me at the bar, her T-shirt and cotton shorts from the night before replaced by a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a black racerback tank with a studded cross on the front. Her hair was braided and pulled over one shoulder.

  “Just coffee,” she answered. “Can I help you with anything?”

  Marley waved his hands, but Haven ignored him, moving into the kitchen to open the fridge. It didn’t take long before she’d commandeered the kitchen, scrambling eggs and laying Styrofoam plates out before pouring herself a cup of coffee and drowning it in half and half. She glanced at the sugar, but didn’t add it to her cup.

  “You won’t eat anything?” Marley asked.

  Haven’s eyes fell to the plates as Roman finally sauntered into the kitchen, greedily grabbing one before falling against the fridge, his shoulder resting on the stainless steel surface as he wolfed down the food. And yet, Haven didn’t take a plate.

  “I don’t eat breakfast,” she murmured.

  I knew from her conversation with Roman and with me that she was a recovering bulimic, and from the way she avoided our faces as we ate, it was obvious she still struggled with it.

  “Ugh,” Roman groaned. He put his plate down, the food only half gone before he moved to the couch again.

  “Is the nausea still bad?” Haven asked.

  Roman’s head came up, his gaze meeting hers before moving away again. “It’s a little better.”

  He leaned back on the sofa, his arm going over his eyes.

  “Well,” Marley cleared his throat, his coffee mug hitting the bar as he glanced between Haven and me, “up for a little time on the river? I want to take some water samples for a friend of mine and see about recording any unusual sounds.”

  Haven scraped the leftovers into the garbage disposal in the sink before throwing the plates away. Rinsing our coffee mugs, she placed the cups in the dishwasher and ran her damp hands down the back of her shorts. My throat went dry, my gaze following her palms to the spot where her frayed shorts met her thighs.

  “I just need to change,” I muttered.

  Roman snorted from the couch as I moved past him into the bedroom, quickly shedding the sweats for a pair of shorts and a maroon T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

  “Come on, bro,” I said as I moved back into the living room, pulling Roman off the couch before he had a chance to protest.

  He landed on the floor with a grunt. “What? You’ve gone from redneck to gangsta now? Bro? Really.”

  I laughed. “I’m diverse. Get up. You’re not staying here.”

  Roman glared, his red-rimmed eyes heavy as he pushed himself off the floor. He moved into his bedroom and returned a few minutes later wearing a pair of jeans and a white wife beater.

  Marley led the way out of the cabin, stopping briefly to check one of his cameras while Roman and I removed the canoe from the rack on the truck and lifted it above our heads. Haven followed with a small cooler Marley had handed her full of Gatorade, water, snack food, and a dry box with a first aid kit, sunscreen, and bug spray.

  “What does all of this really accomplish?” Roman asked.

  Haven stepped over mangled tree roots onto the springy, moist ground toward the river, her beaded flip flops slipping in the sand. In the end, she pulled them off, letting them dangle from her fingers as she looked at my brother.

  “You don’t like the outdoors?”

  Roman slumped, letting the majority of the canoe’s weight fall on me. It was heavy enough to make me throw him a murderous look but not heavy enough to hurt. If we had been traveling far, I would have let him shoulder the weight.

  “I like the outdoors if there’s a purpose behind being in it,” Roman grumbled.

  Uncle Marley huffed, his buttoned-up plaid shirt way too hot for summer, but other than pulling two of the buttons free, he didn’t seem bothered by it. Carrying two paddles, he shifted as he looked over his shoulder at Roman.

  “Any kind of research is important,” Marley insisted. “I’m also here checking the water for contamination. If a death chant doesn’t mean anything to you, then that should.”

  Roman grumbled, something about how the river could be full of shit and he wouldn’t care.

  “I like it,” Haven admitted. She shaded her eyes, her gaze searching the river as we lowered the canoe, part of it riding on the water. “There is something incredibly strong and yet fragile about a river.”

  A gusty breeze moved through the trees, lifting leaves and sending them spiraling to the water. Ripples moved along the surface of the river. Something leapt, causing a small splash that made Roman jump. He rubbed his arms, his shoulders rolling.

  “Just fish,” Haven soothed as she climbed into the canoe. It was a twenty-three foot four seater. Brand new because Marley only bought things when he needed them, and then he never used them again.

  Marley stepped into the craft, sitting on one of the middle seats before holding out a paddle to Haven. She set the cooler down on the ribbed bottom before taking it.

  Roman stood on the shore, his arms crossed, his face sullen as I moved to shove the canoe in the water.

  “This would be a lot easier with your help,” I complained.

  Roman snorted. “I suppose it would be.”

  I grit my teeth, but straightened when Haven moved to climb out of the canoe, her bare toes touching the water.

  “I can help,” she said.

  Her words catapulted Roman into action, his forehead creasing with disgust as he waved her back into the canoe.

  “No,” he muttered. “Just stay.”

  My gaze moved between them. There was something about the way Roman acted around Haven that caught my attention. It wasn’t interest. It was something different. Not respect, but understanding maybe.

  Roman waded into the water, jumping into the canoe just as we cleared the shore. I did the s
ame at the front of the canoe, lifting a paddle attached to the canoe’s gunwhale.

  Three paddles strong, we moved into the still river, the sound of our strokes loud compared to the silence. Marley didn’t help much. He pulled equipment from the dry box, filling a tube with river water before replacing it and grabbing a small recorder and video camera.

  “That isn’t going to be much use if it falls in the water,” I warned.

  Marley didn’t pay me any attention, his observant gaze searching the riverbank. Roman and I had both canoed as boys, and we worked the paddles with familiar ease. Haven did the same.

  “You’ve done this before?” I asked her.

  Haven glanced up, her gaze finding mine. “Not the safe way,” she admitted with a grin, “and with a much smaller canoe. My cousins and I used to take an old canoe of my uncle’s out on their pond. There were five of us, but there was only room for two, so we usually ended up in the water.”

  She chuckled at the memory, and I watched the way her eyes lit up. There was something carefree about her gaze, something that made her seem lighter, made her face glow.

  “Let me guess. You played with sticks and rocks too,” Roman jeered.

  A corner of Haven’s lips turned up. “Got pretty good with ’em, too,” she countered. “Could probably take out one of your eyes before you could blink.”

  Roman snorted. “Big words.”

  “Maybe.” Haven shrugged. “But I never say I can do something unless I can actually do it.”

  The honesty in her tone quieted Roman, and he stared at the water as he paddled.

  “See that,” Marley interrupted, his hand waving at the shore. “Your grandmother said she heard the death chant once while standing on that sand bar. I’ll never forget the way she described it. She brought your father and me here when we were boys. We used to fish from that sand bar, but we never heard the chant.”

  Stories about my father, no matter how endearing, hurt. I could see the pain mirrored in Roman’s eyes, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked them in. The father we’d known hadn’t been the brother Marley had grown up with. That man had been fun, even reckless. Our father had been strict, relentless, and driven by a need to improve himself and everyone around him. After a while, it was obvious pleasing him was impossible. Nonetheless, we’d loved him. We’d loved him enough to keep trying.