At the Scent of Water

by Linda Nichols

  A minivan drove up, and a family of stair-step toddlers spilled out. Annie took a look, then smiled at him and began gathering up the garbage. “Looks like they’re going to need this table.”

  He nodded and rose up, and even though he hadn’t planned it, the words escaped his mouth. “Monday afternoon at Mama’s house it was like Yalta with Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt.”

  She grinned, giving him the courage to go on.

  “Mama and the generals are planning the reunion,” he said with a smile, using the nickname they had given his task-oriented aunts.

  She nodded. “It’s that time, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Next weekend,” he said, and then took the plunge. “Your presence has been requested.”

  Her face pinked. He couldn’t read her expression. She didn’t answer for a minute, and he reproached himself. He should have left well enough alone.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll come. If you’d like me to.”

  “Of course,” he said easily, and he held the truck door open for her. “I’d like nothing better.”

  Thirty-two

  The first thing Annie felt when she woke up the following Friday morning was worn sheets soft against her cheek. The sheer curtains were stirring with a slight breeze, and the sunshine flickered through the leaves of the tree outside the window and fell in dappled spots, like golden coins tossed onto the chenille bedspread and the polished oak floor.

  She sat up in bed and checked her watch, which was lying with her earrings on the table beside her. It was seven-thirty. She could hear muffled kitchen noises and the murmur of voices.

  It was good having Papa home, she realized, and for the first time since she’d arrived, things felt right. He had been home four days now, and although he was far from back to his normal routine, he was here, and that was the important thing.

  “I can’t go back to work for a few more weeks,” he’d told Sam. “Doctor’s orders.”

  Which had prompted all of them, she was sure, to wonder when compliance had become such a key in Papa’s temperament, but no one brought it up. She had her own theory. He had all the players arranged, everyone right where he wanted them, and he didn’t intend to compromise that arrangement by returning to his work. Today the practice was closed completely, though, except for emergencies, of course. Sam and Elijah were both otherwise occupied.

  She took a shower, dressed, grabbed her purse, and put on her shoes. She poured herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Mary had asked her to come and help cook for the reunion, and she felt a mixture of pleasure at the prospect and dread for the memories it might stir. She had the fleeting thought that her desire to keep pain at bay also kept the happy memories locked up. She had been robbed of her joys as well as shielded from her sorrows.

  Papa was on the porch. She stepped outside and greeted him.

  “Good morning, darling,” he said.

  “Good morning.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  Diane was in the barn doing chores, but she was taking good care of her husband. He was ensconced in a rocking chair, an afghan tucked around his legs.

  “You heading out?”

  She nodded. “Are you sure you won’t come?”

  “We might stop by for a little while later on.”

  She nodded. He was better but still tired easily.

  She stopped in the barn, bade good-bye to Diane, then drove to help Mary Truelove prepare for the reunion.

  ****

  Annie drove up to the Truelove family home and felt almost as if she were seeing it for the first time. The house sat far back from the road, obscured by a line of mimosas, covered with pink feathery blossoms. The grass was parched-looking but neatly trimmed, and Mary’s flower gardens were in exuberant bloom. Beyond the huge yard on each side were fields, already dry and yellow, then wooded hills gently sloping upward. Annie remembered this being her home away from home during her growing-up years, and truly she had spent as much time here as at her own house. Soon the drive would be lined with cars and the yard full of children.

  She knocked on the door and was admitted by Mary, who chided her for knocking.

  “Come on in,” she urged. She beamed at Annie, and Annie’s heart swelled, for she had not seen Mary this happy in years. She was dressed in a sleeveless cotton dress, her hair in a twist on the back of her head. Her hands were dusted with flour, and as Annie followed her into the kitchen, she could smell a savory mix of aromas: bacon, coffee, and the burnt-sugar smell of the pecan and berry pies that were lined up on the counter.

  Elijah was sitting at the table drinking coffee in what looked like an extremely comfortable domestic arrangement, but Annie kept her face sweetly innocent as she greeted him.

  Sam came in then, and Annie’s heart jolted, for he looked so like she remembered him from the old days. His face had lost the tight tension it had worn when she had first returned. His skin was tanned from the time he’d been spending outside of late. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, and she remembered how he had played baseball at every reunion, cracking home runs out in the field by the house. She remembered seeing him throw horseshoes with his uncles and take the children swimming in the creek. She stopped her memories there.

  “Good morning.” Sam smiled at her.

  “Get Annie a cup of coffee, Sam.” Mary Truelove made at least two syllables of her son’s name. “I’m making y’all some breakfast before we get started.”

  Sam sat down and pulled out the chair beside him.

  Annie started to protest, but he caught her eye and gave his head a shake. “Mama told me to do it, Annie. Don’t get me into trouble.” He set a cup and saucer in front of her. Mary’s dishes were Desert Rose, their surface hatched with a crazing of delicate lines. How many meals had she eaten from these dishes? How many times had she sat at this very table?

  “Here’s the cream and sugar.” He set those down in front of her, as well, and poured her a cup of coffee.

  “What will you have to eat?” Mary Truelove turned from her post by the stove and smiled at her.

  “Oh, toast or a bowl of cereal is fine.”

  She knew as soon as the words were out that it was the wrong answer. Mary’s brows drew together in a slight frown.

  Sam burst into laughter. “Oh, Annie, you’ve been living up north too long.” He shook his head and set the coffeepot back down. “You have obviously forgotten what’s involved in a real breakfast.”

  Mary elaborated. “I’ve got grits on the stove and biscuits in the oven and bacon—”

  “All she meant was how do you want your eggs,” Sam clarified.

  Annie laughed. What had she been thinking? “Over easy, please,” she said.

  Mary nodded and smiled, turned back to the stove, cracked the egg against the side of the cast-iron skillet with a smart rap, and dropped it spitting and sizzling into the hot bacon grease. Papa would have been in heaven.

  ****

  As the day went on, the Truelove clan gradually gathered. By one o’clock the yard had filled up with cars and children, and the house was buzzing with people. The table was loaded with Tupperware, cake plates, and covered casseroles. There were huge jugs of sweetened iced tea on the kitchen counter and coolers full of soda for the army of children, who were now chasing each other into the field next to the house. Sam stayed at her side, personally presenting her to all of his relatives. She tensed at first, but they all seemed to take their cue from him, and his face and manner showed nothing but approval and kindness to her.

  They proceeded down a gamut of aunts lining the walls of the kitchen, giving and receiving hugs and kisses.

  “You come give me sugar, Sammy. Come hug my neck,” they murmured.

  “Annie, come here and give these old ladies a hug,” he urged. He was including her, giving them permission, and because he did, they took her back in.

  She felt humbled and shamed, and up through those two tight emotions surged a current of sweet joy. They were familiar faces
, and one by one they whispered into her ear, “We’ve missed you, sugar. We’re glad you’re home.”

  “I think I’ll go inside and see if your mother needs help,” Annie said after they’d made the rounds. Her emotions were stirred, and she needed the comfort of a task to perform.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said. “It’s time for me to start frying the fish.” He gestured toward the huge deep fryer. A gas fire burned under it, and the fish was piled in bowls on the plywood-and-sawhorse table beside it.

  “See you later,” she said, and if the mounds of fish were an indication, she thought it would be much later.

  She went inside and spent the rest of the hour arranging salads, filling glasses with ice, and ignoring curious looks.

  Finally they all gathered around the fryer outside and bowed their heads.

  “Elijah, would you ask the blessing, please?” Mary asked in her soft, sweet voice, and now the curious eyes turned his way.

  For a moment all the talking ceased, and there was just the shuffling of bodies and the cries of crows and crickets off in the distance as the sun beat on their bent heads. With his deep, smooth voice and gentle accent, Elijah Walker thanked the Lord for the Savior’s love, for the blessing of family, and for the food. “In Jesus’ precious name,” he said, and the family murmured, “Amen.”

  * * *

  The fish was good, crispy on the outside, flaking and smooth on the inside. Annie sat on a blanket on the ground with Laurie and two of her children and watched Sam work at the deep fryer, moving back and forth between the plank table and the waiting plates on the other side. Finally, after everyone had eaten their fill and there was a mounded platter of fried fish left on the table, he loaded up a paper plate and joined them.

  “Mama broke out the five loaves and two fishes and fed the multitudes once again,” he said.

  Annie laughed. “You did a good job. What kind of fish is this?”

  “Brook trout,” Laurie answered. “Jim and the kids catch them all year long, and I pop them in the freezer.”

  “Well, they’re good.”

  Sam nodded but didn’t answer, his mouth full. When he finished eating, he lay down and closed his eyes.

  “Want some dessert?”

  “I can’t move.”

  “You’ve worked hard. Take a rest,” she said and headed for the table, now covered with chocolate pie, chess pie, custard pie, pecan pie, coconut cake, strawberry pie, chocolate cake, and of course, banana pudding. She moved through the line, filling a plate with a little bit of everything for them to share.

  They ate, and Annie listened to the drawling conversations around them, the shrieks of the children from the field next to the house. They were interrupted once when Sam had to get a shovel from the shed and kill a snake the children had found in the field.

  “It’s a rattler,” they screamed.

  “It was a corn snake.” Sam dropped back down onto the blanket, tossing the shovel aside. She could hear the children fighting over the carcass.

  Annie leaned back and watched it all, nodding and smiling, and ate until she thought she would burst.

  “Are you having a good time?” Sam asked her once, grinning and seeming to know she would say yes.

  “You know I am,” she said. He was silent, and the smile he gave her was bittersweet this time. He was remembering, the same as she was.

  She got up to take their plates to the garbage, got sidetracked into a conversation with Sam’s uncle George about the Republican party’s chances in the next election, and when she got back to the blanket, she saw that Sam had stretched out and fallen asleep. Annie stole a long look at his face, still and peaceful, then left without waking him.

  The children went swimming. She stayed behind and helped clean up the mess. Mary was in the kitchen chatting and smiling, her face flushed, and Annie realized with a spurt of true passion that she hoped joy would come again to this house. Would do more than visit temporarily, that it would stay. She glanced out at Elijah sitting in the swing on the porch, laughing and gesturing as he talked with the Truelove men. He belonged here. She only hoped he realized it.

  She wiped the sticky spots from the counter and covered the dishes with plastic wrap. Sam reappeared after a while, and she thought perhaps this was the most rest he’d had in years.

  “Why don’t you let them take over,” he said quietly, coming to stand beside her, “and come for a walk with me.”

  She debated. She hesitated. “All right,” she finally said.

  They walked, crickets and frogs chirring away in the warm twilight, and she alternated between stirred-up thoughts of sorrow and anguish, and remembrances of the sweet tastes of joy. She wondered again why things couldn’t be all one way or another. Good or bad, so you could either embrace them or leave them alone.

  They walked down the graveled driveway onto the narrow road of hard-packed red dirt and gravel. She fell into step beside him.

  “This red clay is the best dirt in the world,” he said, scuffling it with his foot.

  “You don’t have to convince me,” she said.

  They walked to where the road forked. Sam climbed over the gully and held out his hand to her. She took it and climbed up after him.

  “The old homeplace,” Sam said quietly.

  Annie smiled. She remembered his great-grandmother. She had been a fine old woman. She looked toward the vine-covered chimney, all that was left of her home.

  “There are the apple trees,” he said, pointing to the grove around her. “And remember? Her clothesline hung between those two oaks.”

  Annie looked toward two ancient trees behind them. A piece of plastic-covered wire was still strung between them, and a few wooden clothespins were clipped to the woody part of a clematis headed up the trunk of one. The red dirt between them was packed hard.

  “I remember y’all throwing acorns,” she said, smiling. “And I remember you saving me.”

  Sam chuckled. “I wasn’t going to bring that up.”

  She realized then that the memories of her life were all entwined with memories of Sam. That one, in particular, was one of her earliest recollections. It had been somebody’s birthday, so Sam’s great-grandmother’s house was host to another gathering. Papa had taken care of an emergency call so that John Truelove could have his holiday. She and Theresa had been here playing with the Truelove children, and she had decided to climb the oak tree, to imitate the spectacular feat that she had seen Sam perform only days before. But it was tall, and she, only five at the time, was not. Still she had climbed, watching only the branch before her until she was at a dizzying height. Her mistake had been turning back to see if he was watching. And looking down through that maze of branches, she had frozen in panic, and climbing down had suddenly seemed a much more complex proposition than climbing up had been. She’d cried out, but unfortunately, it was Sam’s great-aunt Eudora who had heard her, then had gone into a full-scale meltdown, as only she could do.

  “Y’all come out here. That baby’s up in the tree! Oh, Jesus! Don’t you move a muscle, Annie Ruth! Oh, Lord! Lewis, come out here!” The last to her husband, a kindly, obese man who couldn’t have climbed a tree if his eternal salvation had depended on it.

  While Aunt Eudora was inside the house raising the alarm, causing all the women to fly from the kitchen and the men to toss aside their cigarettes and come running from the porch, Sam climbed up after her. A manly ten years old at the time, he had taken her feet in his hands and guided her down, step by step, limb by limb. Upon her safe delivery, she was scolded and hugged and talked to in earnest tones about what little girls should and should not do. Sam was slapped on the back and congratulated by the amused menfolk. She supposed that was when she had begun loving him. She had decided that day that he was her hero, able to right all wrongs, to save her from every hurt and threat.

  “Those were good climbing trees.” He looked past their dark shapes and the old homestead’s vine-covered chimney as if he could still
see the scene. “I remember that big azalea back there used to shield the outhouse.” He grinned, then faced the other direction. “And she had that old sawbuck table there in the cleared spot between the lilacs and magnolias. Sometimes she’d cover it with white linen tablecloths, and we’d have dinner on the ground.” He swept his eyes over it all, hungrily tracing the invisible outlines of things that had long since disappeared.

  He put his hands in his pockets and gazed out past the ruins again, then turned to face her.

  “I know what I’ve done is beyond forgiveness.” His face was drawn with pain.

  She was shocked and silent, and when she didn’t answer immediately, he spoke again.

  “I know it is,” he repeated, his voice very quiet, “but oh, what I would give to go back and do things a different way.”

  Thirty-three

  The actual reunion was held the next day, and Annie enjoyed it even more than the fish fry because the ice had not only been broken, but had melted. It was held at the church campground on Lake Junaluska, the adults congregating in the meeting hall, the children running and playing outside. She visisted with Aunt Valda and Uncle Lewis. She had a long conversation with one of Sam’s cousins, a history professor at the Univeristy of Virginia, and saw more of his distant relatives, many of whom had come from out of state. She laughed with Laurie, and it seemed, for a few hours at least, that nothing had changed at all.

  Sam introduced her to even more clusters of relatives whose faces looked vaguely familiar, but whose names she did not remember. After a while she went out with him to the banks of the lake. They stood with a knot of his cousins and watched the children splash and laugh as their shoulders burned red in the beating sun. A few people were beginning to pack up and leave, calling to their children to come out of the water. She and Sam watched in silence.

  It was nearly dark by the time they got back to Sam’s parents’ home and the singing began. This was the final part of the reunion, the Saturday evening gospel serenade by Sam’s relatives, some of whom had been professional musicians in their day. All the Ambassadors were in attendance. They rolled the tinny-sounding upright piano in front of the door just inside the living room, and Sam’s aunt Valda sat down and trilled out a rolling melody. Uncle Eldon played string bass, Arthur was on guitar, Mark was lead singer and played mandolin, and James brought out a fiddle.