Wild Flower

by Abbie Williams

  Aunt Jilly exhaled through her nose and seemed more upset than my words would warrant. “We can ask him to leave.”

  “Jilly, hon, can I get a refill?” asked a regular at the counter.

  “Sure thing, Chuck,” she said over her shoulder, and I put one hand on her elbow.

  “No, it’s all right,” I said, wishing I hadn’t mentioned anything. Aunt Jilly had seemed extra distracted the past few days and I didn’t want to trouble her with nonsense. But I could sense Zack watching us from across the crowded dining room. Packing my voice with conviction, I insisted, “I can deal with him.”

  She nodded, saying okay without sound.

  I steered clear of his table as best I could after that, delivering the food with no comment, hoping the cold shoulder would discourage him from returning here while he was in Landon. Shore Leave stayed busy with the lunch crowd and when I finally wandered back to check on him, I saw he was already gone. I breathed a sigh of relief as I cleared the table, noticing a twenty dollar bill placed squarely atop a napkin. Twenty was far more than his lunch would have cost and I glanced around the cafe, wondering if he was still here, expecting change; maybe he’d gone to the bathroom. Rain obscured the view out the window; everything outdoors resembled a blurry watercolor painting, and so I couldn’t tell if Zack’s car was still in the lot. Then I noticed handwriting on his napkin and lifted it up, confused.

  The napkin read, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Thanks for lunch. Tell Jillian I said hi.

  I dropped the note as though it had burned my fingers. Before anyone noticed, I crumpled it into a tight wad and stuffed it directly in the garbage.

  By late afternoon the rain clouds shredded apart and drifted away; the sun became blinding upon the multitudes of droplets clinging to the leaves. I went to collect Millie Jo from Ruthann, who earned plenty of money watching the girls on days when Aunt Jilly and I worked lunch, to find my daughter napping on the couch in Grandma’s house. Ruthie told me she’d bring Millie home when she woke up, and so I walked over to my apartment to change out of my work clothes. I thought about doing some cleaning but instead found myself lifting Malcolm Carter’s letter and telegram from the drawer of my nightstand, carrying these, and his photograph, to the kitchen table, where I sat and studied them.

  “Where did you end up?” I asked Malcolm, angling the picture into the sunlight drifting through the west-facing window above the sink. As though he could somehow hear me. “Please tell me. I need to know.”

  I stroked my fingers over the surface of the photograph, touching the leather strip tied around Malcolm’s wrist, the one with a woman’s name carved into it; this detail was something I had noticed for the first time last winter. I imagined how Malcolm’s voice would sound, could he reply to me. Then I touched the typeface on the telegram from 1876, with its desperate tone and heart-wrenching words. MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH I HURT, one sentence read, hand-lettered on the ancient Western Union paper.

  Oh, Malcolm, I thought, aching at this evidence of his pain. We’ll find you. I promise.

  “What were you searching for?” I whispered, wishing he could magically appear to tell me; I glanced at the adjacent chair, imagining Malcolm sitting upon it, regarding me with the same half-grin that graced his handsome face in the photo. “If only you could talk to me. I wish we could take Aces out for a ride.” Mathias and I joked about Aces all the time, as though he was our horse. In the photograph, which was not colorized, Aces appeared dark, his nose adorned with a long, narrow blaze marking. I imagined that his hide had been a deep reddish-brown, that I could step outside right now, cup his long face, and press my lips to the blaze. I knew I had done that very thing. Some way, somehow. Not for the first time, I imagined doing the same to Malcolm—cupping his face, seeking his mouth with mine.

  I whispered, addressing the picture, “Would you know me, if I suddenly appeared in front of you?”

  Through the open window I heard Mathias’s truck rumble into the parking lot and I was out the door and halfway down the steps before I knew I’d even moved. I came across the yard just in time to see him climbing down from the truck, Clinty slamming the passenger door. Mathias caught sight of me and opened his arms.

  “Hi,” I whispered against his chest. He wore faded jeans and steel-toed boots, thoroughly caked with mud from the day’s work, and the navy blue fire crew t-shirt that read CARTER in white letters across the back. His black hair was damp from the earlier rain, the stubble on his jaws raspy as he lifted my chin for a kiss.

  “Hi, honey,” he whispered. “I’m so glad to be home.”

  And then Clint leaned over the hood, bracing on his forearms, and announced, “Holy shit, Milla, Mathias almost died today, seriously.”

  Time seemed to pause, crystallizing the air around us.

  Mathias said immediately, “That’s not true.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded in a voice not my own, looking between them as the setting sun struck my eyes.

  “I did not almost die,” Mathias insisted, but Clint was shaking his head.

  Clint supplied, “There was this tree limb overhanging the fire station that Chief Larson wanted removed, right? So he tells Mathias and another guy, Josh, to climb up there and take care of it. They showed me how to operate the ladder on the boom truck and then they climbed up to that branch. It was way up there, too, and—”

  As much as I loved my cousin, his explanation was making me insane and I interrupted his prattling. “Then what?!”

  Mathias took over, holding my gaze in his as he explained, “I climbed out on a branch beneath the weak one but then Josh stepped behind me, to hand me the saw, and then there was this cracking sound, like a gunshot, and—”

  “The branch broke just like a fricking matchstick!” Clint concluded, his face stark white at the memory. He added quietly, “I don’t think I’ve ever had my heart stop like that.”

  Mathias said quickly, “Josh grabbed my arm right away. He still had one foot on the ladder, it was all okay. But shit…my footing just fell away. In all the years of working on the crew, I’ve never had anything like that happen. And here we were doing chores, not even on a response. It took a while for my heart to calm down.”

  I realized he was babbling a little, still shook up, and understood that no matter how he attempted to reassure me, he’d been in serious danger. I clutched the material of his shirt in both fists.

  “Hey,” he said, observing my expression. “It’s all right, honey. I’m just fine.”

  “I want you to call and tell them that you’re done. Tomorrow. Tonight.”

  “Honey, I can’t do that. I’ve worked there every summer for years and never had something like this happen. It was just a freak thing.”

  Tears blurred my vision and I stalked away, aggravated at his continued stubbornness, just as I’d been furious when he wouldn’t quit walking his trap lines alone. Behind me I heard Clint say, “She’ll be okay in a minute,” but Mathias dogged my steps.

  “Hey,” he said again, and the concern in his voice caused my feet to stall. He caught my elbow and gathered me close, resting his cheek on my loose hair, repeatedly smoothing its length with both hands. “It’s all right.”

  The grass smelled sharply of the recent rain, the humidity of the day washed away. In the evening light, the quality of which was more precious than any jewel, I clung to him; a small part of my brain acknowledged it was irrational to demand that he quit the fire crew. Even still, I said brokenly, “It’s not all right! What if Josh hadn’t grabbed you? You’d be gone from me…oh God…”

  He made a sound in his throat, concern and love. I pressed my cheek to his beating heart, holding him as hard as I could; at the center of my worst fears, I knew I had faced this before – I’d faced life after having been ripped from him, much different than a life in which we had not been allowed to find each other at all—and the loss haunted me even now, holding him close in the evening light, in this life.


  “Camille,” he whispered. He rocked us side to side, similar to the way I soothed Millie Jo when she was upset. After a time he dared to add, “I’m always careful, I want you to know that. We’re always careful on the crew, we check our equipment. We really do.”

  “You think you do, but I know you take chances,” I rasped, my throat raw. “Last winter Jake McCall told me about how you went back into a burning house that one time…”

  “That was crazy, even for me. I blame that on teenaged hormones.” He added intently, “I would never take foolish chances, honey, not ever.” He drew back enough to lift my chin. “I have never had so much to live for.”

  “Accidents happen so quickly,” I argued. “You think I’m being unreasonable, but you don’t take it seriously.”

  He used one thumb to brush away my rolling tears. “If we thought about all the terrible things that could happen, we would go crazy. Truly crazy, I mean. I know you better than that.” He bent and kissed the skin beneath my right eye, then my left, softly as a bird’s wing brushing my face. He whispered, “You’re tired, I can tell. There’s shadows under your eyes.”

  “I’ve been dreaming so much,” I said, resting my forehead against his chest. “I wake up exhausted.”

  He said, “I know you do. C’mon,” and stooped enough to lift me into his arms. He carried me up the steps and through our kitchen, then down the hall to our tiny bedroom. It was still early evening and I could hear the whine of outboard motors all over the lake, but he murmured, “Rest, honey, I’ll hold you.”

  “What about supper?” I murmured, eyelids already drifting shut.

  “Screw supper. Let me hold you,” he whispered, and I pressed my face to the scent of him and was asleep within minutes.

  When I woke again it was deep night. I lay tucked under the covers and could hear Mathias down the hall, in the kitchen making something to eat. I sat slowly, our mattress squeaking, and Mathias appeared in the doorway seconds later, backlit by the hall light.

  “Hi,” he whispered, in keeping with the stillness of the night.

  “Is Millie sleeping?” I asked, disoriented from sleeping away the entire evening.

  “She went home with Jilly and Rae.” He joined me on the bed. “I packed her an overnight bag, and we remembered her toothbrush and everything.”

  “You’re such a good daddy to her.”

  “That’s about the best compliment I can imagine,” he said, leaning to kiss my neck. “Are you hungry, hon? I had an idea while you were sleeping.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I thought maybe we could eat and then go for a swim. The stars are gorgeous out there.”

  Mathias grabbed the sandwiches he’d made while I changed into my bikini and dug the last two clean towels from the closet, along with the bug spray. The night was warm as we crept down our steps, the air alive with the sounds of crickets and frogs, the occasional owl. Barefoot, we made our way along the familiar path to the dock, fingers linked. Mathias sat on the glider and collected me onto his lap, keeping the towels draped to block out the mosquitoes as best we could, and for a sweet while we cuddled without speaking, eating our sandwiches, my head resting on his left shoulder.

  “That’s why people have babies,” he murmured after a spell, as though we’d been in the midst of a conversation.

  “Why’s that?” I turned to rest my nose against his neck.

  “To have part of the other person always with you,” he whispered, and my heart panged, as though I’d been struck hard there. Try as I might, I could not get the image of the breaking branch from my mind. How quickly he could have fallen, been injured or killed. His words brushed my skin, low and intent. “You have my heart, Camille, and that’s always with you, no matter what. I know you know that.” He paused and I could tell he’d closed his eyes. “I’ve been thinking all evening about what happened today. It happened so fast. I was more freaked out than I was letting on. It scared the shit out of me.”

  “I could tell,” I admitted.

  “But I’m just fine,” he said, sounding more like himself. “It’s all right.”

  I slid my palms along his sides, his bare torso warm beneath my hands. “You have my heart, too. My heart is yours, for all time.” I’d echoed the inscription on my ring without intending to, and a flash of déjà vu struck with enough force to create a dizzy ripple across my vision. Mathias took my left hand and kissed my knuckles, then my ring, the one he’d found as a boy and just last winter placed upon my finger.

  “Then I’m the luckiest man alive,” he whispered, dimple appearing as he grinned. “Will you swim with me?”

  “I would do anything with you.” Without another word, I stood and unclasped my bikini top, letting it fall to the dock.

  “So that’s the way of it,” he said, a little hoarsely. Valiantly, he kept his eyes on mine rather than letting them detour south. I stood unselfconsciously in the starlight; I had long ago lost all inhibitions around him, and slipped free of my bottoms next, stepping delicately from them. The heat in his eyes nearly torched me alive.

  “Come on,” I invited, jumping into the lake, in part to escape the hordes of whining mosquitoes. It wasn’t as warm as I’d anticipated but my shriek was muffled by the water. I surfaced just as Mathias, now also naked, executed a shallow dive and then swam underwater to me. I felt a burst of welcome laughter as his strong hands closed around my thighs. He surfaced near my breasts, the water lapping at my nipples, rising to his full height; his hair stood in wet spikes and he gave me a grin.

  “Let’s swim out to the middle!”

  I nodded agreement and he ducked under, swimming just beneath the shimmering black surface. I took a moment to appreciate the heady night air, inhaling the familiar scents of the nighttime lakeshore—scents that were released in the night, no longer stifled by the sun’s heat. The air was so calm I could almost hear the motion of the brown bats’ wings as they flapped above us; as though to highlight the point, laughter floated across the lake from downtown Landon, a good half-mile away.

  Mathias surfaced twenty feet out and I was about to push off the bottom and swim to join him when a horrible chill seized my spine. I froze, the same way I would have a split second before swimming for my life, as though a rattlesnake or some other equally deadly creature was approaching unseen beneath the water. I bit back a cry, willing myself to relax; the last thing either of us needed right now was more drama. I focused instead on Mathias, his head sleek as an otter’s in the moonlight, treading water in the middle of the lake.

  “C’mon, honey!” he called in a hushed whisper, and I kicked off the bottom and swam with sure strokes, my arms cutting through the dark liquid with hardly a splash; I’d adjusted to the temperature and the lake felt warm as bathwater, soaking my naked skin. It wasn’t until we were more than fifty feet from the dock, the black-silk sky mirrored on the flat surface, reflected stars rippling with our passage through them, that the realization struck me.

  Someone, hidden from view, was watching us.

  Instantly I berated myself. You’re being totally ridiculous. No one is out here except for the two of you.

  Still, I wondered if I should tell Mathias what I suspected.

  “Look at those stars,” he enthused, rolling to float supine. His skin appeared silver-white against the ebony mirror of the dark water and reflected sky, his face lifted to the heavens as he hung suspended, naked and unconcerned. I continued to tread water, my arms moving in slow undulations, unable to keep from peering back toward the cafe. From this distance and vantage point, submerged to my neck in Flickertail, everything on shore appeared tiny. I scanned the familiar shoreline, inspecting every detail in an effort to seek out something furtive, someone hidden neatly from sight. Ever since becoming a mother, and certainly since the attack on Mathias last winter, part of my mind was on constant alert.

  Quit it. You’re out here under this gorgeous sky with your man, and nothing is wrong. No one is there.

  W
ith that thought in mind, I kicked out my toes and maneuvered nearer to Mathias, floating on my back alongside him. It was a giddy, almost otherworldly sensation, with the distinct thrill of the illicit, skinny-dipping under the starry sky, Flickertail silent and mysterious, a keeper of secrets, as it never was by day. I felt cradled by it, held as though in a womb, hearing the rhythm of my heart like a steady drumbeat, ears submerged under the water. The stars were so bright, so breathtaking and immediate, that a part of me believed if I willed it strongly enough, I could somehow rise up there and drift among them, through space and time.

  “It’s so peaceful out here,” Mathias whispered. “This is what I missed most when I lived in the Cities.”

  “This is the summertime equivalent of the northern lights,” I whispered. Mathias loved to take us on winter picnics, where we would cuddle in the plow truck and watch the aurora on long December nights.

  “For sure,” he agreed. “Look at that cluster over there. I swear that as often as I’ve looked at these stars, I still find new ones. I used to swim at night all the time, only on that side of the lake.” And he indicated in the direction of White Oaks.

  “Same with us, every summer we’d come here,” I said.

  “It’s so funny to think about all those summers you were over here, just around the lake.” He brushed his fingertips against mine, beneath the water. “So close to each other, but we didn’t know.”

  It was just what I’d been considering, the other night at Bull and Diana’s.

  So close…

  What if…

  But you found each other in this life.

  You found him. It’s all right now.

  “It is, isn’t it?” I whispered, and tears prickled, seeping from the corners of my eyes to the lake. I tilted my head to look at him; he looked my way at the same time, as we linked our fingertips. If I’d never believed in souls before this moment I now understood fully, beneath the stars of this sky, that they were real, interconnected in ways I could never comprehend.