River Angel

by A. Manette Ansay

  The little dog tumbling end over end. Like a punctured football. Like a knotted-up, worthless rag.

  “And if you don’t think what goes around comes around,” Ruthie said, “let me tell you those words haunted me after Tom’s death. It got so I could hear that man’s voice in my ear. Got away with that one, he’d say. That’s when I took Tom’s thirty-eight from the attic. You think I’m making this up? I wrapped it in plastic and stashed it in the blind. By then school was out, and I sent you into town every chance I got: summer school, swimming lessons, sleep-overs, church camp. Do you remember?”

  Cherish nodded. For once, she seemed to be listening. “I thought you didn’t want me around.”

  “I didn’t. All I could think about was that man, how I’d be ready for him the day he came back, and when Stan Pranke stopped by the house one morning, I told him I’d found the suspect, I’d identified him by his little red sports car. And do you know what Stan said? The paint they found on your father’s car, on his body—it wasn’t red. It was white. From an older-model sedan. It had been in all the papers. And then Stan said he had Tom’s thirty-eight and he was going to hang on to it for me, until I felt better, and he hoped that would be soon. That’s when I started the Circle of Faith. That’s when I turned my anger over to God. And it was like my life was given back to me again.”

  “I wish you’d told me,” Cherish said.

  “How could I tell you something like that?” Ruthie said. “I didn’t want you feeling like you couldn’t have a normal life, like you had to think about him every minute of the day.”

  “But when you don’t talk about someone, you lose the memory. That’s when a person is really dead. I can barely remember Dad anymore….”

  For a long time, she looked out the window, and Ruthie was afraid she wouldn’t say anything more, that their last morning together would be spent in a silence as thick as gauze pressed over a wound. But then she said, “I never told you this, but that night on the bridge? I thought I saw him.”

  “You saw Tom?” Ruthie’s voice rattled over his name.

  “He was running toward me like he wanted to save me, and I was so glad to see him because it meant that I was wrong and there was a purpose to everything, we’d go on living forever, just like you’d always said. Something told me, OK, you’ve seen, now close your eyes. But I had to be certain. I kept my eyes open. Everything was spinning, but I didn’t shut my eyes.”

  “What happened?”

  Cherish laughed, a short, bitter sound. “It was only Paul,” she said. “That’s all I remember—except for you, in the hospital. And I remember thinking, Well, good. She finally knows the truth about me. And I finally know the truth about Dad.”

  “No,” Ruthie said. “Give it another chance.”

  “I should have closed my eyes,” Cherish said. “I can’t stop telling myself that—if only I’d closed my eyes. Then I could believe in everything you do. I’d think Dad was in heaven. I’d think some angel rescued Gabriel and that there was a God who could forgive us for what we did.”

  Gwendolyn’s cheekbones. Gwendolyn’s face. But Ruthie had never once seen her mother cry. She gripped her daughter’s hand, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I was there.” They were coming into Eau Claire. “Mom, I just want to start over again. I want to get everything right.”

  “We all want that,” Ruthie finally said. “It isn’t only you.”

  They followed the general flow of traffic to the campus, where thousands of parents were already unloading their children in front of a series of box-shaped dorms. “Mine’s further down the circle,” Cherish said, but there wasn’t any way to pull closer, and already they were parked in, people springing from their cars, cutting bicycles and lamps from roof racks. So much commotion—radios blaring, returning students shrieking at the sight of old friends, dorm counselors shouting instructions on bullhorns, and above it all, thousands of parents arguing over the best way to unpack, unload, register. After so many months of dreading the moment of separation from Cherish, Ruthie actually found herself eager to leave. Instead she waited at the car for nearly two hours—“Do not leave your vehicle unattended!” the counselors bellowed—while Cherish got her keys, carried her suitcases up the steps into the building and then, as it turned out, up another four flights of stairs. The roommate was already present—actually, Cherish had two roommates. A counselor had promised a third bed was on the way.

  “I don’t know where we’ll put it,” Cherish said. Already she looked at home here, on this campus, with these people—all of them waving hasty goodbyes to crestfallen families, setting off with newfound groups of friends. Even as Cherish checked the truck to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, someone was hollering, “Hey, Cher? When you’re finished, we’re going to check out the union!”

  “I guess you’re all set, then,” Ruthie said.

  “I guess,” Cherish said. “Should I call you tonight?”

  “No,” Ruthie said, surprising herself. “Take your time, settle in. Call me when you’re ready.”

  “OK.” Cherish gave her a quick, tentative hug, and Ruthie smelled the sweet shampoo in her hair.

  “I wish I had something I could give you,” she said. “A goodbye present.”

  “Cash?” Cherish said, smiling.

  “How about this?” Ruthie said, and she reached up and unhooked the Faith cross that had hung from her neck since the Circle’s first meeting. Cherish took it, watched it dangle from her hand. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “but it isn’t for me. I’m sorry, Mom, I really am.”

  “I’ll wear it for you, then,” Ruthie said, and Cherish bent to fasten it back in its place. Then she straightened up, turned around, and walked away.

  Driving home, Ruthie forced herself not to think about the empty house. It would be late afternoon by the time she arrived, shadows leaking over the courtyard from the barn. She tried to make plans: She’d have a fried egg sandwich, homemade applesauce for dessert. Maybe she’d go down to the cellar, open one of the few bottles of dandelion wine that remained from before Tom’s death. She’d call a few Faith members, ask them over to join her. They’d been talking about refurbishing the milk house for their meetings—this might be the time to sketch out some plans. But she kept thinking about Cherish on the bridge, the question Cherish could not stop asking: What if I’d only closed my eyes? It was the same question Ruthie had asked herself so many times since that morning in the barn. What if I’d simply shaken my head, dismissed what I’d seen as exhaustion? What if I’d simply called 911, said only, “I found him, come quickly”? But the fact was, she had seen. The fact was, she believed. She’d been called to bear witness—to what, she did not know. Perhaps that was what Cherish was trying to do: bear witness to something Ruthie could not see. Maybe the act, in itself, was its own salvation. Hadn’t Cherish’s book said something like that? Ruthie couldn’t remember. She told herself she could always look it up when she got home. But she knew that she wouldn’t, at least not now, the way she’d known that Cherish wouldn’t accept the cross she’d offered her.

  A fried egg sandwich. A glass of Tom’s wine. Maybe she wouldn’t call anybody. Maybe she’d pull the curtains and sip her wine, and it would be as if Tom were still alive and she was just waiting for him to come home. Cherish would be in the barn, starting chores; there’d be fresh peach ice cream chilling in the freezer. As soon as the Bobcat rattled into the courtyard, she’d stick a stuffed summer squash in the oven, a tray of corn muffins to go with it. She’d greet Tom with a kiss, and they’d put on their boots and smocks and go out to the barn together, dreaming even then of the time when he could finally quit the post office and work the farm full time. How happy he would have been to see the land preserved for others to enjoy in his name. How proud he would have been to see Cherish on this day, and how unfair—Ruthie caught herself, tried, but could not block the thought—how wrong, dear Lord, that he couldn’t h
ave been there, just this once, to see her walk away so steadily, to wave along with the other parents shouting, “Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  coda

  What I remember most about the River Angel Shrine is how dark it was inside, and the dance of the candles in their little glass cups, and the animal odor of the old wooden floors. There was snow on the ground, though not much. I sat in a folding chair, listening to the music of the pigeons in the eaves. Every now and then, one would launch into the dusky air, flap-flap-flapping between the rafters. There was a single shaft of light slicing down from the apex of the barn, illuminating the cold face of the statue—an ugly face, I thought, with its pupilless eyes, its thin-lipped mouth. The stony curve of each wing ended in a knifelike point. It was said the boy’s ashes were buried here. I imagined how it would be to lie on my back in this barn, on a night much colder than this day, encircled by the warm breathing of sheep.

  I got up and walked around, fingering mementos others had left. A few stuffed animals, a plastic rosary, pack after pack of cigarettes. Mostly, there were photographs, and one in particular caught my eye. A newborn infant—boy or girl, I couldn’t tell—who already wore the wise and faraway look of the dead. Scrawled on the back were the words Remember me. I walked out into the light. The house across the courtyard looked abandoned, but I could smell woodsmoke from the fireplace, and there were bath towels and sheets hanging from the clothesline. I left a dollar donation, took a little gold angel from the basket. Then I put it back. Then I picked it up again, slipped it into the pocket of my jeans. Another car came slowly up the driveway. Two women were inside. As I drove away, I noticed they had Minnesota tags. One of the women waved.

  Later, I found the bridge. The spot the boy had fallen from was marked with a small white cross, and there were a dozen faded plastic bouquets, some of them partially buried in snow, that had been pushed off the highway by plows. I wished I had thought to bring something with me. I walked onto the bridge, looked out over the railing. The water was a clear, cold blue, and I could see the public park, the empty swings rocking just a little, as if occupied by ghosts.

  I don’t know what I expected to see, there at the bridge or, earlier, in the barn. Several weeks passed before I discovered the little gold angel I’d tucked in my pocket. Now it hangs above my writing desk from a piece of fishing line. The gold is flaking from its back and wings. Why do I keep it? I cannot pretend to believe that transcendence lies beyond the mind, that the soul is more than memory, which is neither fiction nor fact, but a country all its own. Still, as I type these words, the vibrations cause the angel to tremble on its slender thread, and how eager I am to forget, if only for a moment, that I am the source of its fear. I visit the shrines. I walk into the churches, the temples and mosques, the tent revivals and palm reader’s shops, and even, once, a Wiccan ceremony in a starlit field of wheat. My love for this world is great enough, at times, to shatter my heart. But what does it matter? Someday I’ll slip beneath its surface without a ripple.

  And yet I pray for the boy, whom I’ve chosen to call Gabriel. I pray for the infant in the photograph, its mouth like a tear in a pale piece of cloth. Remember me. Remember us. Let the end be more than that unwieldy plunge into ice and darkness. Let there be someone waiting to catch us when we fall.

  About the Author

  A. Manette Ansay was born in Wisconsin and now lives in Tennessee. She is the author of the novel Sister, winner of the 1996 Banta prize and a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a collection of stories, Read This and Tell Me What It Says, which won the AWP Short Fiction Prize, the 1995 Peterson Prize, and the 1996 Great Lakes Book Award for fiction. Vinegar Hill, the first of her novels, won a Friends of American Writers Prize and was named a Best Book of 1994 by The Chicago Tribune. Ansay’s most recent novel, River Angel, was published by William Morrow in 1998. She teaches in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Praise

  “MANETTE ANSAY IS A POWERFUL STORYTELLER WITH LYRICAL GIFTS AND A WRY, OBSERVANT EYE.”

  —Amy Tan

  From the award-winning author of Vinegar Hill and Sister comes the story of one community’s struggle to cope with a strange and inexplicable tragedy. A. Manette Ansay walks the line between what we know is possible and what we long to believe is true.

  Many citizens of Ambient, Wisconsin, believe the old tales of an angel living in the Onion River that runs through the heart of their town. Some claim to have seen it, “small and white as a seagull, hovering just above the water.” It is this belief that leads a misfit ten-year-old boy to the river’s edge one cold winter’s night, where he encounters a band of troubled teenagers from the local high school, out drinking and driving around. Gabriel Carpenter vanishes that night, presumed drowned, though the teenagers tell different—and conflicting—stories. And when dawn comes, his lifeless body is found by Ruthie Mader in a barn a mile away. “His body was warm when I touched it,” she says. “There was a smell like flowers. When I saw him there, I thought he was just sleeping.”

  No one in this quiet Midwestern community can agree whether a miracle or a hoax has occurred. But as the story spreads, and curious tourists overrun the town—some skeptical, others reverent, still others angling for financial gain—one fact becomes certain beyond any doubt: life here will never be the same.

  “Manette Ansay’s prose style cuts with a diamond edge.”

  —Madison Smartt Bell

  “Wonderful…I feel an overwhelming compulsion to thrust River Angel into people’s hands and insist ‘Read this! Now!’…Not many writers can top Ansay’s insight into character…She has delivered a beautifully told story that should bring her the wide recognition she deserves as a first-rate writer.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Compassionate storytelling and elegant writing.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “In clear, emotionally intense prose, Ansay delivers the story of the mysterious death of a ten-year-old boy through the eyes of townspeople of various beliefs, motivations, and behaviors…Ansay displays a gift for rendering the dynamics of small-town life and the minute calibrations of human relationships…She fashions a striking story about the ironies of faith.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ansay is a remarkable writer. Her light touch belies the depth of her passion…Ansay writes convincingly that all life has meaning and there is a purpose to everything under the sun.”

  —Oklahoma Family Magazine

  “Ansay rivals Jane Smiley in her ability to bring the small-town Midwest to life. Warmly recommended; this is a wonderful novel.”

  —Library Journal (*Starred Review*)

  “A sweet, engaging new novel…Ansay depicts all of these folks in these situations with plain, carefully shaped sentences, and a sharp eye for the right emotional as well as visual detail. She does the adult characters up splendidly, and the troubled teenagers and children also get their due…You may not believe in angels by the time you finish this novel, but you will believe in the fears and hopes of the citizens of Ambient, Wisconsin.”

  —Alan Chase, NPR, “All Things Considered”

  “Recalls Flannery O’Connor, Reynolds Price, and Walker Percy, among others…Ansay’s uncannily realistic portrayals force us to understand the characters’ pettiest actions…Ansay manages to convey how necessary faith is to the human heart, and how it is capable of glorifying the divine within us all.”

  —Toronto Globe and Mail

  “A haunting mysticism runs through this novel.”

  —People

  “Ansay’s books are ruthless in their dissection of the culture and landscape of her upbringing, softened by the compassion and adoration only an insider can bring to the operating table…In the hands of Ansay, this dour landscape and its inhabitants take on magical, even exotic, forms.”

  —Time Out New York

  “A r
esonant novel about faith and its power to transform individuals and a community…[Ansay] captures the soul of a town in transition through exceptional portraits of a handful of its citizens. This is a beautifully written, haunting novel, grounded in realism, with appeal for its readers regardless of their level of belief.”

  —Booklist

  Other Avon Books by

  A. Manette Ansay

  SISTER

  READ THIS AND TELL ME WHAT IT SAYS

  VINEGAR HILL

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  RIVER ANGEL. Copyright © 2006 by A. Manette Ansay. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.