At the Scent of Water

by Linda Nichols

  “Now, you know I’d never tell you how to handle your business, but Sam’s in a world of hurt. He’d never admit it for the world, but I think he’s about at the end of his rope. Maybe you don’t want to get involved in that, and believe me, I understand.” His voice softened. “It’s just that I suspect you’re feeling it, too.” He cleared his throat. His tone became brisk. “Anyway. It just seemed like it might be the right time for you to come back home. I know we’d all love to see you. Just wanted to let you know there are no burned bridges here. The door is always open. Bye for now.” He clicked off.

  She stared. She blinked her eyes and sniffed. The next message played, left yesterday afternoon.

  “Annie, darling.” Papa’s plummy bass resonated across the miles and time, and that’s when her heart squeezed hard inside her chest. “Listen, sugar, you know I would never tell you how to manage your business, but if you’ve ever had a thought of coming home, now would be the time.” She knew what he was saying. Gilead Springs was a small town, close-knit, and ties were thick. Leaving your husband was one thing. Leaving him in the lurch was another unless he had done something heinous to you, and the only sin that fell into that category was another woman.

  And they probably didn’t even know that she had filed. Her heart tightened as she thought of the implications of her actions. She had filed. They would surely have served the papers by now, and in the light of present events, her action seemed unbearably hurtful and cowardly.

  The line was silent. She dialed the Residence Inn and canceled her reservation. She hung up the phone and unplugged it. She realized the truth. It was calling her back, that life she’d left behind. Or thought she had, at least. And she knew then that she would never be able to leave it without seeing it one last time. She needed to go back there. She needed to put a period at the end of that sentence. She needed to see Papa and Mary and Laurie and Ricky and all the others again. She needed to clean out the house, sort through her things and decide what to keep and what to let go. She needed to see Sam’s face once more, to see if there was anything left of the man he had been, to face him instead of having some nameless attorney file papers while she hid behind the miles between them.

  She would go. The exact reason refused to be narrowed and pinned down. They were many and were all woven together. It was time. He was in trouble. And her baby was there, and she had never said good-bye.

  Part Two

  There is a balm in Gilead

  To heal

  The sin-sick soul.

  Twelve

  Ricky Truelove, Dr. Ricky as he was affectionately known by most of the women in town, drained another cup of his wife’s strong coffee and prepared to go to the hospital to check on the patient he had admitted in the wee hours of the morning, just before his journey to Knoxville. She was a young woman of twenty having her first child and would probably not deliver until afternoon. His thoughts were somewhere else, though, and feeling a wrenching anguish that he could not do more for his brother, he breathed a prayer.

  At the same time farther up on the mountain, Laurie Truelove Williams was getting a late start to work. She had been up in the night, worried about her mother and her brother. She walked out to the road now and took her papers from the box. The neighbor boy delivered the Asheville Tribune as well as the Smoky Mountain News. She saw her brother’s face on the fronts of both of them, and her own face clouded. She looked across the wide yard to her mother’s home next door, a huge rambling house tucked under towering red oaks and a grove of dogwood and laurel. The lights were on. When Laurie had gotten up in the night, they had been on then, as well, and the night before that. She frowned, started toward her mother’s house but hesitated, then finally walked slowly back up the drive to her car, got inside, and started for Asheville and work.

  * * *

  Mary Truelove was praying. Trying to, at least. At first she had prayed earnestly, fervently, flipping hastily through the tissue pages of her Bible, looking almost in panic for a hopeful word. She had prayed on her knees. She had fallen on her face at one point. This morning she made the same requests but with a sense of grim acceptance. This was not to be changed. It was another grief-filled, destructive tide surging out from what she had done. It was a horror she couldn’t bear to think of, yet one she could not leave alone.

  Oh, her life had gone on, a fact that had seemed like a curse instead of a blessing at first. But she got up every morning and dressed herself. She had cooked for her husband, cared for him after his stroke, then buried him between his parents and his granddaughter. She bought presents at Christmas time and put up the tree, then took it down again. She baked birthday cakes and had parties for the ones who were left. She even went to church every Sunday and sat there listening, yet knowing somehow that the words did not apply to her. She cleaned and dusted and went through her daily routine, but at night when she was alone, she thought of what had happened and did not know if the wounds would ever heal. The wound she suffered or the ones she had caused.

  She stared at the wall and felt herself dropping into the darkness that always seemed to be just one step away from her. She got up and stood against it once more, though it was becoming harder and harder to find a reason to resist. She showered, dressed, then went to change the sheets on the guest-room bed. He had not called, but when Mary had seen the little girl on the news, she knew she must have a place ready for him. The thought of that child pierced her heart anew, for she had been another casualty of Mary’s horrific carelessness.

  I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.

  Where had that come from? Her memory, perhaps, for they’d read that verse at Margaret’s funeral. And she had believed it at one time. That indeed one day the Redeemer’s foot would stand upon the earth. Everything would be made right when He came back. Mistakes would be undone. Valleys filled, mountains brought low. She supposed she still believed, but it seemed a vague promise, far off and faded against the bright stain of her guilt. People were suffering now. What was to be done about that? She could think of nothing.

  She murmured another prayer for that child, her heart sick. She smoothed the covers, pulled the coverlet up, plumped the pillows. She dusted the furniture, vacuumed, and opened the shades.

  She roused herself and thought of all she had to do. In addition to preparing for Sam, she had a guest coming to the cottage, a small mother-in-law cabin her husband had built, situated just between her own house and Laurie’s. Her husband’s mother had lived there until she’d needed daily assistance, then they had moved Mother Truelove into the guest room. Her own mother had lived there, as well, after Mother Truelove had passed on. Now she offered it to the church for occasional use but had steadfastly resisted Laurie’s urgings to open a bed-and-breakfast.

  Many of her neighbors had done so, earning extra income by entertaining the city folk who came to the mountains to see the dogwoods and laurels in the spring, who drove through in a steady stream each fall during the color season, looking at the turning leaves, buying cider and homemade quilts and mountain dulcimers and furniture carved from laurel and hickory. Laurie had even suggested a name—True Vine Bed and Breakfast, for the tangle of scuppernong vines that wound all over and around the creek. Oh, the children had had a time with those vines, swinging and hooting and hollering and playing Tarzan and George of the Jungle. She could almost hear the high-pitched sound of their voices calling out and arguing.

  Her stomach clenched. Why had she not thought about that creek when it would have mattered?

  The events played in her mind again as she stood staring at the empty hallway but not seeing it, seeing that other day instead. It had been hot. July, and a Saturday afternoon. She had been happy to baby-sit when Sam had called, for John had put up a swimming pool for the grandchildren just the day before—an above-ground one and just four feet deep, but she was anxious to have it christened, to hear those childish voices again calling and laughing. She had boug
ht water wings and life vests for the little ones, and she had planned to get in the water with Margaret herself that afternoon. She saw herself waiting on the porch. Saw Sam drive in, a cloud of dust behind him, for he was in a hurry to get to the hospital. She saw Margaret jump from the car when he opened the door and run to her on the porch. She felt the warm, solid body, the soft, fuzzy hair. She saw Sam bend down onto one knee.

  “Give Daddy a kiss,” he said, and she saw Margaret’s tiny lips purse and her arms go around Sam’s neck.

  He left. She and Margaret sat on the sofa and read a book before naptime. She had not mentioned the swimming pool, knowing nap would come first. No need for a tantrum, and what a lovely surprise it would be for Margaret when she awoke. She had gone down without a fuss—what a sweet child she had been! Mary heard her talking to herself for a minute or two in that singsong sleepy voice, then all had been cool silence except for the whir of the ceiling fan, the ticking of the clock. She worked in the kitchen for an hour or so making supper, for she had decided to invite Annie to stay and eat when she finished her work. She saw herself checking again, finding Margaret stirring, but still asleep.

  Then the telephone rang, and Mary’s stomach swirled as she saw herself going to answer it. She saw herself stand right beside the kitchen window so she could keep an eye on the swimming pool. It was old Mr. Prescott calling for Dr. John with a complicated story. Something about the pharmacy not refilling his prescription, and she heard herself explaining that he had called Dr. John’s home and asking him to call the office, but he was old and confused, so she had finally told him she would take care of it. She saw herself dialing John’s office, talking to the receptionist, then to John’s nurse. She saw herself doodling as she waited for her to check the chart and make a note of the pharmacy. It had been a refill of skin salve. The triviality of it all caught at her heart again, and she saw herself finally finishing that call, taking one last reassuring look out the window at the empty pool, then going to the room where Margaret slept, calling her name softly as she pushed open the door.

  She saw herself staring at the empty rumpled bed, her heart speeding up both then and now. She must be nearby. Margaret? Margaret? In the bathroom, perhaps. No. In her and John’s bedroom. No. Under the bed, for didn’t she love to play games? No. Margaret! Margaret!

  She checked the pool again, fear clutching at her heart. Empty, and she had felt that vain, deceptive relief. She ran into the yard, calling. There was no slight form, no red curly head. She ran out to the road and looked as far as she could see in each direction, then ran back into the house to call 9-1-1, then continued her search, growing more frantic and erratic. She looked in the field next to the house. Lord, there were snakes there. Please don’t let her be there! The woods, down the ravine.

  She stood frozen as the realization dawned. Someone had taken her. Twisted, horror-filled scenes ran through her mind. Things she had seen on the news. Read in the newspaper. Sick, horrible scenes. No, Lord, no. She kept moving, darting, checking, looking erratically and in growing hysteria. In the cars. Under them. In the pack house. In the freezer on the screened back porch. Who knew how long it was before she thought of the creek out in the woods. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Or only two or three? Sam had taken his daughter there only once, but she had loved putting her feet in the cold water. Surely she wouldn’t have gone there on her own. Surely not. Mary ran there, her feet hard on the path, her breath coming in panicked gasps, trying not to think of how many precious minutes she had lost.

  She saw the flash of orange out in the middle where the children used to swing and fall splashing into the water, where the bottom dropped out, where the water deepened, and she still felt the horror, could hear her own voice screaming, though she did not recognize it as her own. She saw herself splash in, pull her granddaughter out, saw herself begin CPR but somehow knowing by the lifeless feel of Margaret’s limp body that her spirit had already flown.

  “Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord,” she murmured now, and she realized she was trembling again, for she trembled whenever she thought of it. Of what she had unleashed. What she had done.

  Prayer was futile, for what was there to pray? That He would raise her from the dead? She had prayed that in those first few moments and had hoped and believed that He might. But He had not. They had buried that sweet child, and even though Mary remembered Lazarus, she could not find the faith to believe in miracles, then or now. In fact, she did not think she believed in prayer, despite the urgent pleas of the past days. There was nothing to say to anyone, even to the Lord, beyond the words she had murmured over and over when she could speak at all. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She could not say forgive me, for how could she ask that? How could she ask forgiveness for the unforgivable? Mary was not angry with God. She knew His ways were just and right. But she did not understand why He had done what He had done. Perhaps He was not who she had thought He was, after all.

  They had said the right things. Both Annie and Sam. “It wasn’t your fault. We don’t blame you.” But their faces were empty, and their eyes as hollow as were her own. Something had flown away from them all when Margaret’s spirit had departed.

  She went back into the guest room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She did not know if she would ever see Annie again. Oh, how she hoped she would, but really, hope was such a pale word for the deep longing she felt. She had prayed so, often and fervently, but halting doubtful prayers. She didn’t even know how to state the problem, much less imagine how to fix it.

  She went to the linen closet for a clean set of towels and put them on Sam’s bed, then paused beside the wall of photographs in the hall. She swallowed her tears back down her tight throat and looked at the pictures. Annie was intertwined with her own children in nearly every snapshot in the framed montages, for she had seemed like her own child in every way that mattered. Why, she and Annie’s mother had been best friends. Her own heart had broken when Ruth had died. Loving and caring for Ruth’s daughters had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She touched the pictures with her hand. There was one of Theresa and Annie and Ruth and Carl at the Truelove fish fry on the Fourth of July. Annie had been only a baby then. There was Annie, a freckle-faced toddler, her sister somber and brown-eyed, the year their mother had died. There was one Mary had taken of Annie Ruth and her own Laura Lee when they were about twelve, lying on their backs in the yard, eating Popsicles. Laurie’s black cloud of hair fanned out against the green grass in sharp contrast to Annie Ruth’s head of dark red flame. Two little girls. Two big girls. Two grown women. One of whom she hadn’t seen for so many long years.

  Her heart ached, a dull throb right between her breasts, always the accompaniment to these familiar sad thoughts. She remembered her joy, not superficial but deep and wide-flowing when Sam and Annie Ruth had realized they were meant for each other. She had seen it years before, but it had taken the two of them a while longer.

  Annie had been a fixture at their home, but by the time she was truly coming into her own, Sam had been off at college and then had gone to medical school. He’d been away during most of every school year and worked with his father and Annie’s father, Carl, in their office every summer. That boy had been able to draw blood and do an EKG before most of his classmates had their driver’s licenses. He and Annie had only greeted each other in passing during those years, since she was in high school and a busy little thing with 4-H and choir and swim team and newspaper and whatever else they needed a hand on. But it had all been for the best. Some time needed to pass before the two of them could stop thinking of each other as family and see each other as something else.

  It was at Sam’s college graduation that Mary knew the two of them realized what she had known for years. Both the Trueloves and the Daltons had piled into cars and driven to Durham for the ceremonies. Sam had been twenty-three and Annie not yet graduated from high school. Annie had walked into the auditorium with the indigo silk dress on, her gorgeous red hair piled up on top of her hea
d, those beautiful golden-flecked eyes sparkling, her sweet freckled face lit by that wide blinding smile, and Mary saw her son stare, frown, his jaw drop, eyes light, and she had known something had taken hold of him then that wasn’t going to let go. And she had been right.

  She’d been touched and somewhat surprised by what had happened afterward. Sam had waited. Courted Annie, yes. Let her know how he felt, yes. But he had waited as she finished her education. He had spoken of it to Mary only once when she had been able to stand it no more and had asked him his intentions.

  “I know what I want,” he had said quietly. “But what she wants matters, as well. I can wait.”

  He had waited. Five long years that were probably harder on Mary than they’d been on either of them. She had prayed every day that some other intruder wouldn’t come along and sweep Annie off her feet, and God had answered that prayer at least. For Annie had carried on in college about the same as she’d done in high school, shrugging off the frequent interest of the opposite sex.

  “He doesn’t like me,” Annie would protest when Laurie teased her. “He only likes the popular girls,” she would say. “He’s just being nice.” Mary’s own theory was that Annie’s humility was mistaken for lack of interest by the boys, and she, for one, had envied Carl his daughter’s nonchalance. She had had a time trying to corral Laura Lee, but that was another story.

  She took one last look at the pictures and turned away. She had wondered so long about Annie that she had grown weary of wondering. Diane gave her updates whenever she heard news, but that was infrequent, as well. Annie and her stepmother had never gotten along, for some reason. She supposed Diane could be a little blunt sometimes, but she had a wonderful tender heart. But she and Annie had butted heads from day one. Mary had her own theory—that they were a little too much alike.