Mammoth Secrets

by Ashley Elizabeth Ludwig

  “When’d we get so danged old?” Earl read her thoughts, his thin voice reaching her ears.

  A gasp, she stuttered a laugh. “It’s a blur, isn’t it?”

  He nodded once, breath whistling like wind through the reeds. “I’m tired, Naomi.”

  “It’s OK, honey.” Tears welled, spilled over her lips as she patted his hand, releasing the sea of tears the only thing that could quench the ball in her throat. “You can go rest, now.”

  “I’ll go find us a nice little place...wait for you...”

  Tears pricked, heated her eyes even as an icicle of fear clutched her heart. “I’ll try not to be too long.”

  “You be watchin’ for that big bird, now...” He sighed, worked for a breath and turned his head to the river below, eyes half lidded. “It’s a sign…from Becca.”

  “I-I’ve always thought so.”

  “It is.” Turning to look at her again, he smiled. “She just told me.” His eyes closed, mouth set at half a smile.

  Shoulders shaking, she knit her fingers together with his.

  “Hear that?” Earl’s eyes opened, a look of wonder brightening his face as he stared into a realm unseen. “It’s her, she’s singing…can y’hear?”

  “I’m trying...” Naomi strained her ears to the silence and prayed. Not yet. Please, Lord. Not yet. Forehead to her hands, her shoulders wracked in silent sobs of one robbed, too soon, of the love of her life. We need more time...is there ever enough time?

  No sound, no answer but his ragged breath.

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think, for all of the roaring silence. Naomi pressed a paper-dry kiss to his forehead then stood and backed away from him. Everything about her was dry. Parched. Her soul, her mouth, her throat. She’d left the glass on the counter. Ice. I’ll get him some crushed ice, for his lips. She muscled through the crowded emptiness into the kitchen but hesitated at the porch view.

  Beyond the flowerbox window, the kids and their beaus sat out on the screened in porch talking in hushed tones.

  Eden and Luke, side by side in the wicker swing, their index fingers hooked. Finally a pair. Lilah turned side to side in her swivel chair like a six-year-old, toes on the ground while Pastor Jake rubbed her shoulders and stared out toward the falls. The four of them, a newly arranged bouquet of blossoming love.

  Soon this river place would be full of weddings and babies. Of laughter and life. And, if Lilah and Jake figured out what to do with each other, her little runaway could be a pastor’s wife. The very notion burbled a laugh into her throat and a new waterfall of tears. Laughter. Anguish. Without sound, could one tell the difference?

  She returned to Earl’s side.

  His head faced in the direction of the river, his body lay still. Unmoving. A look at his calm face, and she knew. His body a shell, her husband was no longer there.

  The glass tumbled from her grasp to the rag rug. Ice skittered across the hardwood floor. Silence swelled with the scream that welled from her soul as she brushed over his chest, his arms, and his face with futile fingers. Still warm, but gone. Hollow. Empty. This vessel that held the soul she loved, would love, until the day she died.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me to come back? I wanted to hold your hand...to say g-goodbye...” But nothing mattered.

  Her husband was finally free.

  46

  The misty, morning painted the Arkansas sky a dull white. The cicadas echoed in a rhythmic hum. No sounds of traffic. Even the river seemed to have gone quiet to mourn the passing of Earl Dale.

  Lilah walked up the long, winding road from the chapel to the top of the hill, Jake’s sermon ringing in her ears.

  A good man. A quiet man. The foundation of his family. Of the town. Jake retold stories that brought folks to laughter, to tears, though not one of them experienced or heard first hand. The Earl Dale that Jake met was nothing like the man he’d known. “Obituaries are rarely that way.” He’d told her the night before. At his father’s mega church, often the pastor never even meets or knows parishioners first hand. Close to God, but not so much to each other. “Not like here,” he’d said. Was he intending to stay?

  On either side of the grassy path, centuries-old headstones bowed their heads in moss-covered disarray. Leaning oaks wove through the ghostly crowd, with exposed, knotted roots. Grave markers told the final tale of families, generations gone. Of children buried too young. Soldiers returned from war, taken before their parents. Her own mother laid to rest, there, at the crest of the hill.

  She headed toward the spot marked for her grandfather’s earthly remains. Where Astroturf topped the freshly dug plot, and where the three distinct rows of white folding chairs waited under a tasteful canopy, along with countless wreaths and hapless sprays of memorial flowers.

  And the brass handled casket.

  So wrong...Papaw shouldn’t be here—he should be scattered in the river. But Nana’d put her foot down. They were going to rest forever together on the hilltop, just as they’d planned.

  She paused at the crunch of approaching footsteps and turned toward the sound. The lanky glassmaker shuffled his way up the path, then froze under her gaze.

  “You following me, Guthrie?”

  “Not intentionally...uh...Lilah.” He tried out a grin at using her name, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he dragged the cap off his head, held it wadded and bunched at his middle. “That was a right pretty sermon your man gave.”

  Lilah nodded. “Jake’s got a way with words.”

  “Why aren’t you in that big black car with your’n? Your grandma and sister?”

  “I needed some air.” Tipping her gaze to the limousine, she shook her head. “Walk with me the rest of the way?”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “Please.” She looked up into Guthrie’s haunted eyes. “I could use the company.”

  Together, father and daughter stepped up the winding path, side by side, separated by the gulf of time and a host of unanswered questions neither one of them considered asking.

  Lilah hesitated at the rise, frowned at the folding chairs lined up and waiting for her, for Eden, for Nana. At last, she found her voice.

  “P-papaw always said he knew more f-folks here than in town.” Like a dam overfull, her grief finally spilled over. Tears of loss and longing for a time she’d run from. For all she’d missed. Her steps halted, she fisted her hands to welling eyes. “I shouldn’t have run. I should have stayed.”

  “Don’t.” Guthrie pressed a clean handkerchief to her hand, gave her shoulder a hesitant pat. “You can’t get the time back, so no sense in trying.”

  “I left Eden.” She dragged the mascara-darkened cloth under her eyes and blinked up at the scattered cotton sky. “I left all of them, chasing the wrong guy. The wrong idea.”

  He nodded, eyes wide in a knowing stare. “Often wondered how that worked out for you.”

  “I failed at that, same as with everything else.” Her breath stuttered out. “All I can do is sling hash, cast a line. All of that, thanks to Papaw.”

  Guthrie focused on her. “Think those things aren’t worth doing?”

  She couldn’t help but study Guthrie’s features. This time, he did not look away. His eyes, the same color as hers. She recognized herself in his shape of face, like looking in a distorted mirror. At once, she saw her reflection in his strong jaw-line. Even the shape and mannerism of Eden’s in his calloused thumb, worrying each fingertip. Lilah found the part of herself that never fit in the Dale mold, here, in this man. She slow blinked and turned back to the gathering crowd. “Not sure I’m ready for a father-daughter talk, yet.”

  “No. Not the time or place.” He un-pocketed and pressed a hand to hers, pressing something small, cold in her palm. A silver key.

  She blinked up at her biological father. “Is this—”

  “You take that now. That river place’s all I’ve got to give you.” he pressed lips together. “I get the feelin’ Eden’s happier in town
.”

  Laughter mixed with tears as Lilah nodded. “You’ve pegged her right.”

  “Well, then. See you up there.”

  Guthrie continued up the path without looking to see if she followed, while Lilah rolled the key to the river house over in her palm, at last in charge of her own destiny.

  47

  “When will you be back?” Lilah hated the way her words rung with desperation as Jake checked his watch. Time wasn’t on her side this morning.

  “Scott Emerson’s giving the sermon this week. If it goes well, he’ll be there the following, too.”

  “If it goes well. You mean you’re done here?”

  He lifted, dropped his shoulders. “Mammoth’s a small part of a big engine, Lilah. There are steps, measures. We have to be accountable as a church.”

  “So that means running back and forth to California on your father’s whim?”

  The church hadn’t run him out on the news of his family, his deception, they’d embraced him. Did she even know who he really was anymore?

  When he spoke, it was the measured words of her pastor, not the man she’d fallen in love with. “They want to hear our story out there. The Steadmans need a vacation, anyway. What a testimony they have.”

  “And I can’t stow away in your suitcase?” She toed his duffle bag, heart welling at his responding laugh.

  “Maybe next time. It’s still a little complicated back there—”

  “Because of your ex.” She managed.

  “And yours.”

  “Right.”

  The words ran out as the limo-taxi appeared. “Looks as if dear old dad shelled out the big bucks. You flying first class, too?” At his responding silence, she gawped. “You are! Wow. Big time pastor hidden in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Not so hidden anymore.” He held a wait-a-sec finger to the driver, and then clasped her hands. “If I could bring you with me I would.”

  “Just promise to take Tom and Earnestine to Disneyland. They’ll get a kick out of the roller coasters. Send me pictures. Texts. Emails.”

  “I promise.” His smile went serious, and in a flash his mouth found hers. No tentative, treading water, but hungry, needing her, wanting more with strong hands weaving through her hair, on her shoulders.

  She returned every unspoken word, every shaking emotion as she clung tight, mouth inhaling sweetness, light, and somehow understanding all he couldn’t, wouldn’t say. Her head filled with a rush of love and panic. Wrapped in his arms, heart to heart, she wanted so much, all at once. To show him how much she’d miss him, to beg him to stay, to make him want to come back. To tell him how she really felt. And when he pressed an aching kiss to her forehead, she knew this might be not the beginning, but the end.

  A honk from the driver broke the spell, and as his tail lights disappeared around the bend to the falls, doubt dug its ugly place into her heart.

  Even if he could come back, did he want to?

  ~*~

  After a week of closure, Eden and Luke announced they’d be married before summer was out. Why wait when they’d wasted so much time already?

  Lilah accepted the news and their insistence that she stay on at the house, but vacated for the new couple, anyway. “You guys need your alone time.”

  “What I need is a chaperone, twenty-four-seven.” Eden popped her gum with a grin. “You sure you want to go out there by yourself?” Eden looked visibly relieved, smiling a bit too wide as she helped Lilah pack her duffle.

  She’d admitted her plan of returning to the river place.

  “You tell Jake?” Eden dragged the top issue off a stack of bride magazines heavy with advertisements for trending gowns, ring-sets and honeymoon destinations.

  “He’ll be fine. Who knows if he’s even coming back.” Lilah swallowed the notion she should tell him her plans. She didn’t owe Jake explanations. He, of all people, should understand. “And I...I need some time before...before things get any more serious.”

  “Really?” Eden arched her eyebrows. “Why?”

  “It’s not like I’ve known him since we were kids.” Lilah cinched the duffle’s sides together, zipping it closed. “What if he’s a rebound guy? What if I screw things up again? What if—”

  “I get it. Take your time. Make sure it’s right.” Eden waved the rest of her worries away, her diamond engagement ring sparking a rainbow of light. “You tell Nana you’re going?”

  At that, Lilah felt her blood cool. “I told her. She didn’t like it, but didn’t try to stop me.”

  “So that’s what you two were yelling about last night.” Eden cast a cool gaze at the understatement as she flipped another page. “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

  “Yeah. Just like always.” Lilah stuffed the little convertible with clothes, towels, shopped out the Ultimart for cleaning products, and headed to the river house. Away.

  It was too much to be near Jake now. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process all the rifts in her world with him around. She might never fully understand all of the hurts left behind. She tried each and every day to heal the open wounds. Injured by a father who’d remained unknown, and by her grandmother, the only mother she’d ever known, who’d kept him away. And now, just when she was ready to accept him into her life, he’d vanished once again.

  Lilah rolled up, parked in the weed-cleared space and observed the single wide trailer with an appraising eye. Outside would need a good washing. The porch sagged, but was sturdy. Inside, she blinked at the dust motes in the thin-curtained light, and sighed at wood-paneled walls and the ancient checkered couch.

  Guthrie kept the place neat, but it was at least ten years past a good clean. Corners filled with cobwebs, spider webs, and worse. She threw open a window to let out the stale odor it might take weeks to get rid of.

  She set to scrubbing the aged river house, a surrogate therapist ready to help her work out her issues. Lilah pounded the brunt of her anger out on dingy, ragged rugs from the cabin floor, now hung on a clothesline strung up between pines. She harnessed her hurt sanding dings out of scarred chairs, washing, bleaching lace curtains until they hung white, smelling fresh along the front windows. Her soul finally cleansed by letting the humid, late summer Ozark air filter through the long closed up house.

  Hands white, pruned from mop water, the kitchen and bathroom counters sparkled. Walls scrubbed, smelling of pine and bleach, brought wallpaper back to its former glory, which unfortunately revealed the mauve and teal of the early-eighties decorator palette. She took one look around and decided the place needed updating. But really? It wasn’t hers to change.

  Taking her daily walk down the rutted, red dirt driveway, she angled to the row of mailboxes. No-seeums buzzed along with cicadas under the canopy of oaks. She maintained the simple act of retrieving mail out of habit, though nothing ever came except ads and junk.

  Still, it was a connection to the outside world, a chance to wave “hey” to the neighbors. To see horses prancing in the Taylor fields, sauntering past the sagging red barn. She clicked to them, scratched behind the ears of an old roan, and let it blow grass from her palm. The mare set off back to its grazing. Tomorrow, she’d bring an apple.

  Lilah sifted the stack of mail as she hoofed it uphill to the river house. She had daylight to burn today. She flipped over a coupon flyer and saw the yellow, manila envelope addressed to her. Inside, a letter from some lawyer in Plain View. A quick scan set her jaw hinging open as she read of property and transfer of ownership from Samuel Guthrie to Delilah and Eden Dale. Though the papers waited at the Thayer bank, this place was for all purposes, theirs.

  She returned to the neglected back porch and sat to take in the expansive view. The river cut through the Ozark hills, rambling over the stepped falls with a chute that whip-tailed around the little island. There, a father and son fished off the sandy bank while a little girl scrabbled on hands and knees, hunting something at the water’s edge.

  The breeze in her face
, she flipped through the Ultimart flyer. The ad beckoned with brightly colored Adirondack deck chairs. The deck could use a couple of those. Maybe some lights strung in the trees, or some outdoor lamps. Summer was just getting started.

  She turned the page, seeing a sale on bedding and a two-for-one deal on paint. Why stop at the deck? If this place was theirs…shouldn’t she do her best to make it a home?

  48

  The Thayer Ultimart was a sad comparison to its west coast counterparts. Less than half the size, serving as grocery store, nursery, electronics outlet, fashion mall, and pharmacy, it was a lot to pack into a tiny space that shared its parking lot with the squat, dark brick of Thayer’s National Bank building. There, her sister waited on a bench, filing her nails, dressed in her day-off clothes of work out shorts and a bright orange, loose t-shirt.

  Two birds, one stone.

  “How’re wedding plans going?” Lilah slammed her car door, making a red-dust streak on the paint.

  “Stand still.” She rushed Lilah into a bear hug, but paused at Lilah’s palm out request to admire the engagement ring. “I want the party of the century, and Luke wants to run off to Vegas.” Eden’s eyes went wide as Lilah stiffened. “Not that there’s anything wrong with—ah, shoot. We just can’t agree on the details.”

  Lilah observed Eden’s band of platinum, infused with a forest of tiny diamonds, the fat, round crystal-clear rock at its center. “He knows you so well. You two’ll figure it out.”

  Eden nodded, wiping away a wash of tears. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Together, they stepped to the double glass doors and pressed them open to the lobby.

  An air-conditioned blast greeted them, as did the chirpy bank teller with the sandy-blond bob. Lilah drew a mint from the table and spun it open as Eden explained they had an appointment with the manager. Moments later, Beverly Abernathy had them in her office, seated in two leather chairs, promising to be back with water and their papers.