Where the River Runs

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “No intrusion.” I was wary of the undertones in her voice, in our relationship.

  “You mean you’re staying longer?” Sissy’s question had a hundred other questions behind it.

  “I don’t know. Hold on . . . I think I hear Mother coming in. I’ll have her call you right back.” I hung up before Sissy had the chance to answer or wait.

  I wandered to the front porch and stared out at the winding driveway that led to the street, and as if I had the gift of prophecy, Mother’s white Mercedes turned into the driveway. I waved at her as she pulled into the garage.

  I met her in the kitchen. “Sissy just called.”

  Mother’s face lit up as if there were an internal lantern for Sissy’s name. “How is she?” Mother pulled a lavender cardigan from her shoulders, placed it over the chair.

  “Fine. She wants you to call her when you get a chance.”

  Mother went straight to the phone and picked it up. I was sure Sissy was number one on the speed dial. I walked outside, headed toward the beach to watch the remainder of the day disappear behind the line of sea and sky.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “The thorn in your foot is temporarily appeased, but it is still in.”

  —GULLAH PROVERB

  I awoke to face a window full of honey-colored light. I lifted the window and held my hand out into the open air that felt as though it waited for me today—an expectant day holding its breath. Or maybe it was only I who was expectant; Cate was coming to visit. After Mother had finished talking to Sissy, I’d had an intense need for some connection, a friend who knew me well in my present life. I’d called Cate and invited her to come spend the day with me. Although she’d been surprised to hear I was in Seaboro, as I hadn’t told her, she was only two hours away and promised to be here before lunch. I’d then called Tim to beg him to show my best friend the better parts of Seaboro—the water.

  I opened the bedroom closet. I hadn’t worn any of my matching outfits or laced sundresses except to the Ladies of Seaboro luncheon. I leafed through the sundresses and had the odd feeling that I was peeking in someone else’s closet, trespassing on the wardrobe of a woman who was much more together than I was.

  I yanked a pair of wrinkled shorts from the laundry basket, dug around for a clean T-shirt and went down to the kitchen. Mother sat at the table waiting for me. She had always been beautiful; I had no doubt that Daddy assumed he was as lucky to have her as she thought she was to have him. Even now a stunning face lingered behind the sagging skin, the age spots and wrinkles, as if it were all a tissue veil over the beauty underneath. Her hair had once been blond as the sun at midday; now it was silver and still long and consistently pulled behind her head in a severe knot.

  Her hair was down again, which meant she had no plans for the morning. “This is nice,” she said.

  “What?” I asked, and poured myself a cup of coffee.

  “Having you here for breakfast every morning . . . I’m getting used to it.” And she actually smiled.

  Although I felt I should say something profound and loving in return, I only grinned like a goofy five-year-old who had just been told her scribbled artwork was a Picasso. I walked over, leaned down and kissed her cheek.

  She squinted at me, glanced up and down at my outfit. “What are you wearing?” she asked.

  “Clothes.” I laughed.

  “Meridy, surely you have some better clothes than that.”

  “Well, I invited a friend from Atlanta to come visit today and—”

  “A friend?” She stood. “To stay here?” She swept her hand across the kitchen.

  “No . . . just for the day. Cate—she’s in Wild Palms.”

  She sat, breathed out. “Well, will she be coming for lunch?”

  I nodded. “Is that okay?”

  Mother lifted her chin. “Of course it is. I just need to prepare something.”

  “You do not need to prepare anything . . . really. It’s just Cate and we’ll be gone most of the day.”

  “Well, you still have to eat,” she said.

  I laughed. “Yes, we do.”

  “Well, where are you headed this morning? Not out with that Tim . . . are you?”

  I half lied. “No, I’m headed to Tulu’s this morning. I’m hoping to wrap up this curriculum today. I’ve done as much research as I can and I just want to ask her a few more questions.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want you to . . . with Beau not here and everything, I wouldn’t want . . .”

  “I wouldn’t either.” I reached for a biscuit. I wasn’t sure what mother didn’t want to happen, but I might as well agree.

  “Lil’ one,” Tulu said, “you see, the songs are more than the songs. They too are the story.” She spoke to me on her front porch. I leaned back in a rocking chair, absorbing her melodic voice. She’d sung a few spirituals, told a ghost story. “The story is always what matters. Our lives are a story; you’re a story.”

  I laughed and leaned forward. “No, Tulu, I’m a character in someone else’s story, that’s all.”

  “Well, then, there’s your problem. This is your story, child.”

  Past her lawn, two children across the street stared and pointed at me, giggled as they ran behind some bushes. My story? I was more worried about how I fitted into everyone else’s story. “Tulu, I swear, you drive me crazy. I came here to get some information on the Gullah music and ghost stories. You’ve turned it back around again.” I handed her a piece of printed paper with a list of proverbs. “Here are the proverbs I’ve found. I remember some of these; some I’ve never seen.”

  “You go to the Penn Center?”

  “No. I got these off the Internet before I left Atlanta.”

  Tulu leaned forward. “Let you in on a little secret . . . my greatgrandmother was a slave child and was set free and went to the Penn Center. It was once called the Penn School and was part of the Port Royal Experiment—a school to educate Sea Island slaves freed at the beginning of the Civil War.”

  “Tulu, that is amazing. I can’t believe how much of your history I didn’t know. So those proverbs . . .” I tapped the piece of paper on her lap. “Was this how y’all talked to each other?”

  “We just call the proverbs the ‘palm oil with which words are eaten.’ ” Tulu leaned back in her chair and smiled.

  I wrote down what she said, scribbled across the pages. “Thanks, Tulu. I never want to misrepresent any of this. . . . I just want to give it in a form the children will enjoy and understand.”

  “You was always wanting to teach. . . . As long as you could speak, you wanted to teach children.”

  I tilted my head. “No, I didn’t. That must have been Sissy.”

  “You’re joking with me, right?”

  “No, I went to college for business—”

  “I didn’t say what you went to college for. I was talking about what you wanted to be, what you walked around pretending to be with your notebooks and fake blackboard and pretend schoolroom in the corner of the bedroom. That’s what I was talking about.”

  “I didn’t . . .” I halted in confusion. Had I really set up a pretend schoolroom?

  “Yes, you did.” Silence ran between us. “You looked into that box yet?”

  “No, there’s no need for that right now,” I said.

  “There will be.” She rocked, with tiny pushes of her feet against the porch. “You asked yourself what you want?”

  “Want?”

  “Yes, want. Do you know what you want?”

  It had been so long since anyone had asked me that question that I wasn’t even sure I had an answer. “What do you mean, Tulu? I want to write this curriculum, spend some time with Mother and Tim. Get the arts festival off the ground. Go home . . . I don’t know.”

  “Beyond that . . . beyond those doings, beyond those chores and then all the way to the being.”

  “Being?”

  “Who you’re wanting to be.”

  “Just me, just Meridy.” Wasn’t that wh
at I wanted? It seemed the right answer.

  “Ah, who is that?”

  “I’m sitting right here. But I know. I need to go home. Talk to my husband, find out what is . . . missing. Running away never solved anything. No lectures, please.” But I smiled when I said this.

  “You don’t talk to someone to find that, Meridy. You go inside for that.” She leaned her head on the back of the chair, closed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve made you tired.” I stood.

  “It’s not you, lil’ one,” Tulu mumbled.

  I leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You need anything before I leave?”

  She shook her head. “My son, Will, he arranged for someone to bring me my groceries and now I’m just getting lazier and lazier.” Her head drifted backward and the soft sound of sleep whispered through her lips.

  I leaned my forehead against the glass pane of the side panel to the front door, gazed out to the empty driveway. Mother came up behind me. “Staring out the window every two minutes will not get her here any sooner. You are still so impatient.”

  I laughed. “Thanks, Mother. I’m just worried—she’s late. She called from the road and said she’d be here by eleven.”

  Mother glanced at her watch. “Ten minutes late, Meridy. Come in the kitchen and have a cup of tea with me.”

  I nodded and turned just as the sound of a car motor purred up the drive. I threw open the front door; Cate’s Mercedes appeared. I waved, ran to the car and hugged her before she even fully emerged from the driver’s seat.

  “You’re here,” I said.

  Cate laughed, stumbled on the crushed shells. “Yes, I am.” She nodded toward the house and Mother standing on the front porch with her hands on her hips. “This is where you grew up?”

  “Yes . . .”

  She leaned her head in, whispered, “You made it sound like a place you never wanted to come back to, but this is paradise.”

  I nodded. “I know. But sometimes appearances are deceptive.”

  She nodded back. “I do know that. Come on, show me around this place.”

  After a formal tour of the house, Mother, Cate and I sat down for lunch. Mother placed Wedgwood china in front of us with her Waldorf chicken salad, poured iced tea into the large handblown glassware she hadn’t used since I’d arrived.

  “So”—Mother sat—“what are you ladies doing today?”

  I glanced sideways at Cate. “What do you want to do?” I attempted to make a be-quiet face, but Cate didn’t catch the hint.

  “Thought we were going out boating and fishing with your friend Tom.”

  “You mean Tim?” Mother asked, placed her fork back on the table with a clatter of emphasis.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Cate said, oblivious to Mother’s tone of voice.

  I held my fork up in the air. A glob of chicken salad landed on the table. I grimaced. “Tim offered to take us out in the boat and I thought Cate would love to see the water, the river and all.”

  “Oh,” Mother said, wiped up the fallen food.

  In stiff conversation, we finished our lunch, telling Cate about the idea for the arts festival and sharing local gossip about people she’d never met. She laughed and smiled, but looked sideways at me with the left side of her lip upturned in an expression of curiosity.

  Finally Mother stood to clear her plate; I grabbed the other dishes and placed them in the sink. “Okay,” I said, “let’s get going.” I grabbed Cate’s hand, nodded toward the door.

  Cate spoke to Mother. “Thank you for such a lovely lunch. It’s been a long time since someone cooked for me.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome.” Mother brushed her hand through the air. “You two go have fun now.”

  After Cate changed into shorts we walked to my car. She grabbed my hand. “Now, what the hell is going on?”

  “What do you mean?” I tossed the car keys in the air, caught them.

  “I haven’t felt undercurrents like that during a meal since the day Harland came home and told me he had something very important to talk to me about. I thought it had something to do with money or investments or family—but nope, it had to do with a mistress and divorce.”

  “Mother has that way about her. She can make you feel something is . . . well, wrong when nothing is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I glanced at Cate. “This is a very long discussion. Can we have it some other time?”

  “How about the CliffsNotes version?”

  “Mother thinks something is going on between Tim and me . . . and there’s just a lot of misunderstanding between us. Nothing to do with you.”

  “Is there?”

  “Is there what?” I stopped next to the car.

  “Something going on between you and Tim?”

  I opened the driver’s-side door, looked at Cate. “No.”

  She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Just had to ask.”

  I nodded and got into the car, took a deep breath as Cate climbed into her seat. “Come on, let’s show you Seaboro,” I said.

  River swells banged against the hull as Tim’s boat rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the tide. Cate and I stood on the splintered dock; she dug her sunglasses out of her bag and I called Tim’s name.

  His head popped out from the galley. “Hey.” He jumped up onto the dock, held out his hand to Cate. He wore a faded blue bathing suit and a bright red T-shirt; a baseball cap was pulled low on his forehead. His curls poking out from beneath the hat made him look fifteen again. “Hi, Tim Oliver.”

  Cate blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Hi, I’m Cate Larson.”

  I raised my eyebrows as she used her maiden name. “Better known as Meridy’s lifesaver,” I said, stepping between them in an instinct I didn’t understand.

  “You two ready?” Tim grabbed the towels I held in my arms.

  “We are,” Cate and I said in unison.

  The boat cut through the water, and the waves separated in a V as the cloudless sky reflected light off the whitecaps the boat created in the water. The motor hummed a soft lullaby and I leaned my head back on the seat, closed my eyes.

  Cate touched my arm; I looked at her eyes. “This is so beautiful,” she said. “You are so lucky you can do this every time you come home.”

  Tim laughed, pushed the throttle forward.

  “What’s so funny?” Cate glanced at me.

  “I didn’t go out on the water until last week,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t been out on the water since I moved away . . . until last week.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” Cate said, then looked at Tim. “She’s kidding, right?”

  “Sorry to say—she’s not. But she’s reformed now.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Right?”

  “Reformed?” Cate asked.

  “Something like that . . . ,” I said.

  Tim leaned back in his seat, steered with his knees as he grabbed three beers from the cooler and tossed one to each of us. Cate popped hers open, then glanced at me as I took a long swallow of mine. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink a beer,” she said, pulling her sunglasses down to stare at me.

  “Really?” I said. “That can’t be right. . . .”

  “No, it’s right. I’ve never, ever seen you drink a beer.”

  I shrugged my shoulders as Oystertip Island came into view on the left side of the boat. Cate took a deep breath. “Oh, that is absolutely beautiful. What is that?”

  And, as one does on the water, while waves and wind soothe the rougher places of life, I answered before I gave it much forethought. “That’s Oystertip Island. Remember when I told you about my high school boyfriend, who died on graduation night? Well, that’s where they found his body.”

  Cate gasped. “What? You never . . . well, you implied something terrible happened to him, but . . . not . . .”

  “It was terrible,” I said.

  Tim looked back at me, winked, then pulle
d back on the throttle. The boat idled as he reached behind the seats for the fishing poles. “This is a perfect fishing spot for whiting. Or at least it was yesterday.” He handed Cate a pole. “You ready?”

  Cate shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I’ll try.”

  In the deeper silence of tide and nature the three of us sat and hooked the bait, threw our lines over the side of the boat. Tim threw me another beer.

  Cate glanced over at me, her line tangled in her hand. “Meridy Dresden, are you having a second beer?”

  I glanced down at my hand. “What?”

  Cate shook her head at Tim. “I can never get her to have that second drink. I bet you can even get her to be late to a party or wear shoes that don’t match her outfit.”

  “Not me. I’ve never been able to make her do anything, ever. Meridy’s always done exactly what she wants to do.”

  “Well, there must be two Meridys then. . . .” Cate lifted her knotted line in the air. “I think I need a little help here.”

  Tim laughed. “Never done this before?”

  Cate shook her head. “Nope. But perfectly eager to learn.” She glanced at my pole, steadied between my legs with one hand, droplets of water dancing on the nylon line. “Where in the hell did you learn how to fish?” she asked.

  “I grew up with it,” I said.

  “My God, where have you been all this time I’ve known you?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Where has this Meridy been?”

  “Right here,” I said.

  The afternoon passed in the glorious haze of two friendships, each of which defined the separate parts of me. Cate left Seaboro before dinner to make the two-hour drive before dark. When I hugged her good-bye, she pulled back, stared at me. “We never talked about what is going on with you . . . and Beau.”

  I shrugged. “There really isn’t anything to talk about. I just needed a day like this—to enjoy you, the water. You know? I’ve really missed you and somehow just being with you puts things in perspective. We didn’t have to talk about anything.”