At the Scent of Water

by Linda Nichols

  “You asked how you keep your faith when the curtain tears. The curtain tearing is seeing, isn’t it? Seeing the pain and the ugliness of living in this fallen world.”

  “Yes. That’s what it is.” Annie answered her quietly.

  “But you see, you’ll never make sight and faith agree. Not in this world.”

  Essie was talking that familiar timeworn gibberish, and Annie wanted to say so. But it was her own fault for asking. Why had she thought that question would engender any new information? She kept her mouth closed, forced it so, and her lips felt tight with the effort of keeping in her protests.

  Essie looked at her with tenderness and paused before she answered. “Long ago I decided that He was enough,” she said, and Annie knew exactly who He was. “You may never have the answers to your questions in this life,” she said gently, “but when He speaks peace to you, your questions will ease.”

  Annie shook her head. She wished she had not asked the question. She had known, somehow, that this would be the unsatisfactory answer.

  “I don’t know you well, Annie,” Essie said.

  Something about that admission stabbed Annie, shook her out of her silent protest. Oh yes, you do, she wanted to argue. You know me. She said nothing, just gave a slight nod and waited for Essie to go on.

  “But I’ve prayed for you time and time again, and to be honest, I prayed for you today. When you came in I could sense the heaviness in your spirit.”

  Annie nodded, not surprised. Had she not known this was a safe place to come? A place of comfort and compassion?

  “You know Him, don’t you?” Essie asked, her brown eyes probing and insistent.

  Annie nodded. How could she deny it?

  “Trust Him, then. That’s where peace and freedom is.”

  She stared at Essie and wondered at how little people really knew of one another and how easy the answers seemed before the realities were known. Oh, how simple it sounded. How free and easy. But it was not. She gave her head a small shake. The doorbell jingled, and two women came in, chattering and laughing. The moment was over.

  “Thank you,” she said to Essie, taking the bag from the counter.

  Essie covered her hand with one of her own. “I’ll keep praying,” she said. “Come again.”

  Annie nodded, turned away, and stepped back out into the fog.

  ****

  Her apartment was silent, cold, and dark. She turned on a few lamps, made herself a sandwich, but she ate little, for she had promised herself she would do it today, and today was nearly gone. Her stomach gave a twist. It was time. She felt a surge of fear, and she remembered a quote she had read in a book. Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied. She had an unsteady feeling, as if she were teetering on the brink, balancing in one of those halfway moments.

  She shook her head and put away those thoughts, then quickly, before she could think or change her mind, she picked up the telephone. She dialed Max Kroll, and after a few pleasantries she accepted his offer of the job at the Los Angeles Times.

  “We’re pleased to have you,” he said heartily. “I’ll have Jason call you on Monday to discuss your actual starting date.” Jason, the light and golden one.

  She thanked him, disconnected, then dialed again, without hesitation, the number of the attorney whose card she had carried in her purse for a year.

  She waited for him to come to the telephone, her heart thumping out a rhythm, her mouth dry. “It’s Annie Dalton, Mr. Carson,” she said after his greeting. “I’ve decided it’s time.”

  They talked. Details were cemented; plans were set in motion to end her marriage. She would come in next week, and the papers would be prepared. He would file them. There would be a mandatory ninety-day waiting period. She would need to fly back to Seattle and appear in court on the day the divorce was granted. She thanked him, said good-bye, and pushed the button to end the call.

  She crossed to the window of the apartment and looked outside again, the telephone still cradled in her hand. She played the saved message one last time and heard Sam’s deep mellow voice. Instead of the Jiffy Lube and the doughnut shop and the dry line of shrubbery across the edge of the parking lot, she imagined she saw a tall line of pines, black cherry, and mountain locusts, and the misty blue mountains behind them. She blinked her eyes, and they were gone. Then quickly, before she could change her mind, she erased his message. She dropped the curtain and turned back to the empty room, her heart feeling like a vast windy desert.

  Six

  Elijah Walker sat in the kitchen of his sister’s brownstone row house and felt he would go mad with pure, plain boredom. The clock ticked. The cat licked its paw. His sister pursed her lips and turned the page of the catalog she was perusing. She circled something, then turned the page again. He gazed out the window, but even outside the world seemed curiously still, for this was one of Pittsburgh’s old neighborhoods, full of old people, and old well-worn cars lined both sides of the narrow street. There were no children here clambering on and off school buses, no gangs of boys playing basketball, no clumps of girls walking together, their heads close, sharing secrets.

  He had stared out this window every day for nearly three months now, and he knew exactly what would happen and when. Around ten each morning Mrs. Pettibone from across the way would take her toy Chihuahua for a walk. Peppy. He was a scrawny, pathetic excuse for a dog according to Elijah’s thinking, but he kept his opinions to himself. The two of them made their shaking progress down the street, stopped for Peppy to do his business, then turned around and headed back. Around noon, old Mr. Swanson next door would go out for his daily walk. He tottered down to the other end of the block, turned around at the streetlight, and came back. The high point of the day occurred around two, just minutes from now, in fact, when the neighborhood erupted in a frenzy of activity. That was when the mailman came. At the sound of his step each door would open, residents would step out onto the stoops, and sometimes, if it wasn’t raining, a greeting would be exchanged. “How are you today?” “Arthritis bothering me.” “Diverticulitis acting up.” “Cataract surgery next week.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Oh, what he would give for clean, honest work to do. A tree to cut down. A room to paint. A fence post to dig. Anything except this incessant sitting and watching. The teakettle boiled, giving out its shrill whistle, and Elijah felt a palpable relief as it sliced through the dense blanket of silence.

  His sister got up and went to the stove. He watched as she took down two mugs.

  “None for me, thank you, Frances. I’m going for a walk.”

  She turned toward him, her face concerned. “Should you be doing all this exercising?” she asked. “It’s only been two and a half months.”

  Since they had split him open, done the coronary bypass surgery, and put him back together again. “It’ll be fine,” he said, giving her a brief smile. “I’m supposed to exercise. It’s part of my rehabilitation.”

  She still looked doubtful, but he rose up without continuing to argue. She was his oldest sister and had always been motherish. Old man or not, he would always be her baby brother.

  He went to his room, changed into his sweats and T-shirt, hung the stopwatch around his neck. He set out at a brisk walk until he was past the house, not breaking into a jog until he reached the park. He did one lap, rested a little. There was no pain, so he did another lap. By the time he had done five miles, resting in between and taking his pulse, nearly forty-five minutes had passed.

  He walked another lap to cool off. Besides, he enjoyed the bustle here. A group of young women pushed strollers ahead of him. A gaggle of teenagers in track shorts and jerseys jogged past him. Four kids shot baskets at the basketball courts, and a couple volleyed tennis balls back and forth. He finished his circuit and started back toward home, but for just a second he wondered what he meant by that word. The Pittsburgh row house was certainly not his home. That much he knew for certai
n, but neither of the other two images that arrived with that word fit any better. Not the vast sky and sand of the place he had spent most of his life, nor the other home, the gentle hills and hollows of his boyhood and youth, tucked away in his memory.

  His sister’s world was not a bad place, he admitted. She had moved here with her husband shortly after their marriage fifty-five years ago, had raised her son in that tall thin house, and had stayed on after her husband died and Roger grew up and moved away. Pittsburgh was a perfectly fine city, he allowed, as far as cities went, and Frances had given him nothing but gracious help and acceptance. He had nothing to complain about, he realized, remembering how she coddled and cosseted him. And he supposed he had needed that help when he had first arrived, sick and alone. But he was better now. Completely recovered, and it was time for him to do something before he lost his mind.

  He supposed he could find something to do here. He had noticed a homeless shelter on one of his bus rides to the hospital. And the church his sister attended, although feeling cold and austere to him, did run a food and clothing bank. He could find something to do at one of those places, but the prospect left him feeling bland and apathetic.

  In fact, he felt a vague dissatisfaction at the thought of staying here at all. It didn’t seem right, somehow, and he remembered those high mountains, green coves, and splashing rivers of home. He remembered people, one person in particular, and he tried to recall that dear face, to imagine what it would look like now with so many years worn over it.

  He shook himself back to attention and picked up his pace. Now that he was back in shape, or very nearly so, he could return to the work he had left. For the last twenty of his forty-five years in Africa, he had been in the Sudan, and his work in the war-torn region had been demanding of both body and spirit. When he had left, his health had been so poor he had been resigned to retirement. But he was better now. In fact, it was time he wrote to the mission board and requested reinstatement. He brushed away the slight shadow that fell over his spirit. It was his illness and being in this strange place that was making him feel odd. He would be right when he returned to work.

  He had prayed about what to do, of course, but the results were confusing. He couldn’t seem to hear the Lord’s voice clearly here. The drone of the traffic and television seemed to drown it out, and he longed for open spaces and . . . what? He longed for people, he realized. People who were in the thick of life. Who needed someone. Who needed him.

  His sister was folding clothes when he came back in. She inspected him anxiously, as she did each time he left and returned. He smiled in reassurance. He glanced at the television. Frances was watching that talk show where the psychologist hollered and shamed people into behaving. “How’s that working for you?” he demanded now, and the man he was addressing shrugged and flushed, casting a baleful glance at the woman beside him. Frances watched a lot of television. Read a lot of books and magazines. Filled out every sweepstake and junk mail advertisement that came through the mail slot. He supposed she was lonely. Her husband had died four years ago, and her only son lived in New York. She would like him to stay, he knew.

  “Supper will be ready soon,” she said. “Pot roast and vegetables.”

  “Sounds good.” He smiled pleasantly, but he was thinking with grim dread of the long empty evening that stretched out ahead of him.

  ****

  It was after supper that he made up his mind. Frances was watching some police show, and he went to his room, not wanting to watch it any longer. He had seen plenty of killing, and heaven knows he wasn’t squeamish about blood and gore. It was the whole idea of depravity as entertainment that rubbed him the wrong way. He sat down and opened his Bible, prayed, and began reading. Second Samuel. The last words of David:

  Is not my house right with God? He felt a pang as he applied them to himself, for he had no house. No legacy, however stained or tattered.

  Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every part? He had, Elijah assured himself. The Lord had promised him that he would lack for no good thing, and he held that promise firm now against his doubts and the emptiness his life had become.

  Will he not bring to fruition my salvation . . . ? Of course He would. But what did that mean, really? To him? Today?

  And grant me my every desire? Those last words ran through him like a sharpened arrow, for he had put aside his desires many years ago. That ship had sailed, he told himself firmly, and he put away the feeling of loss at that realization.

  He set his Bible aside and sat thinking and praying. He didn’t know how long, but after a while, he took out the lined tablet he kept in the dresser drawer, found an envelope and stamps. He composed a letter to the mission board, requesting reinstatement, addressed it, and carried it downstairs.

  “I’m going to the post office,” he said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “It’s dark,” Frances said, looking up from the news. “Shouldn’t you wait until morning?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said and steeled himself against her certain protests.

  He was surprised that she offered none.

  He made the short trip but without the sense of settled satisfaction he had expected upon making the decision. Perhaps they would not have him back. Then, just as quickly, he felt a jolt of unease at the thought that they might accept him. He shook his head and took himself in hand. He had heard from the Lord, had he not? The Lord had invited him to pursue his desire. This was his desire, for he could think of nothing else, but just as the envelope slipped from his fingers, doubt became so strong he reached to pull it back. It was too late. It was gone, down the dark hole. On its way, as good as delivered, though it had not yet left the box. He shook his head and shook off his odd feelings. He had been unsettled and quirky ever since his surgery. He would be fine when he got back to work, and his heart and mind brightened at that thought.

  When he arrived back home he made himself and Frances each a cup of tea and carried them into the living room. She smiled with pleasure, but when she saw his face, he supposed she knew.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she asked.

  He nodded and smiled gently.

  “When?”

  “Whenever they assign me,” he said. “But, you know, I think I’d like to go home for a while first.”

  Her face lit with a mixture of fondness and wistful desire.

  “You could come, too,” he offered.

  She shook her head, and he knew why.

  “I know there’s probably nothing left there for me,” he said, and he knew he had struck truth when her pitying eyes turned toward him. “But I suppose I just need to go and see the old place one more time.”

  She nodded, and for just a moment she was the sister he remembered. The strong, independent girl, not this idle old woman she had become. “I was wondering when you’d come to that,” she said, and he smiled at her wisdom. They chatted awhile longer and sipped their tea. The cat got up, stretched, then curled into a ball again. The news ended. The clock chimed, and suddenly Elijah could not wait to be on his way.

  Seven

  Sam awoke at four-thirty, alert an instant after his feet hit the ground, an ability finely honed during medical school. The sun wasn’t up yet, he saw as he pulled back the curtains over the bedroom window. He dropped them and went into his galley-sized kitchen, measured out coffee, poured in the water, flipped the switch. As he did every morning, he wondered where she was. He wondered what she was doing. He wondered if he would ever quit wondering. It was the daily ritual he performed along with his shave and shower. He would stop now, he promised himself. Besides, allowing for the time difference, she was surely asleep in bed. Her day would not begin for hours.

  He went into the bathroom, showered, then dressed. He poured himself a cup of the coffee he had made, flipped off the burner and the lights, sipped as he rode the elevator down to the parking garage. Days went by during which he never saw anything other than the inside
of his apartment, his car, and the hospital.

  He drove out of the garage of his apartment and onto the street. It was a standard high-rise, not a luxury apartment by any means. Get one, Barney was always urging. Buy a house. Go golfing. Get a Lexus. Get a life. Sam didn’t want a Lexus. He didn’t want a condo. He wouldn’t mind having a boat, but when would he use it? He would, however, like his truck back.

  And he needed to go home. He wanted to go home. He didn’t know why he didn’t go, at least that’s what he told himself, but deep down he supposed he did know. It seemed a world apart. A place where good things lived, tucked away in the past, and he didn’t know exactly what he meant by that except whenever he reached the bleak wall of despair, going home seemed a last thread to hope. He was afraid of what would happen if he went there and found that hope was false.

  He hadn’t even gone to the Truelove reunion last July, though the thought of it brought a slight smile to his lips. He knew what it would have been like. The entire extended family and half the county—friends who couldn’t be excluded from a good party, family in heart if not lineage—would have come. Everyone would have had their instruments with them, and the yard would have rung with gospel and bluegrass music. There would have been children running wild in the field next to the brushy hillside, on his parents’ vast lawn, and adults calling cautions that meant no more to them than the sound of the dog barking in the distance. There would have been the clink of horseshoes, the crack of bat and ball, and in the distance the sound of children squealing and splashing in the creek. There would have been food on every available surface, groaning tables of it. Something stirred within his chest. Oh yes. He had wanted to go, but he was afraid somehow it would all disappear were he to go looking for it, and it was better, far better, to think of it fondly than seek it and find it gone. That’s why he had almost been relieved when, only twenty minutes out of Knoxville, he had been called back to the hospital.