The Road to Bittersweet

by Donna Everhart

  As Paulie went to leave, he give me a final wink and nod, the kindest thing anyone had done towards me in over a week. I would miss Paulie, I thought. Soon as he was out of sight, Papa sat down, looking beat and dispirited. Momma waited for him to tell her any news. She wouldn’t ask, she was too afraid, and I was too.

  He sighed heavy after a minute, and said, “Sheriff Baker said longer it goes without them finding something, less likely our chances are.”

  Momma blanched, and when she spoke, her voice shook. “I don’t know why you told us that. You could a gone all day, all week, all month, and not said it.”

  Frustrated, Papa said, “If I hadn’t a told you, you’d have asked!”

  “And you could a said, he’s working on it. You could a spared me.”

  Nobody spoke after that. We moved about the campsite like we was strangers, like we’d each gone up a different mountain and stationed ourselves far apart.

  It got on towards suppertime, and though I won’t really hungry, I asked, “Is anybody hungry? Should we go on to the cookhouse?”

  Papa snorted like a bull, irritated by my question. “I ain’t in the mood to see all them people again. Fix something from what Paulie brung. Might was well get used to doing the cooking again.”

  I dug out the skillet, and set about fixing a meal, using the campfire like in the old days. Momma come over to help, and we worked side by side, not talking. She made biscuits, while I put on the side meat to fry. She boiled some beans. We didn’t cook much, thinking ahead to how long it might have to last. It was going to be like Momma always said, back where we started, only worse. After we ate, we went to bed. It was hard with Laci’s empty cot beside mine. I sat on it, then lay down and turned my head on her pillow, hoping to catch her scent there. That was how I fell asleep.

  * * *

  Morning come with a deep quiet all about and none of the usual noises I’d growed accustomed to. I sat up, sensing something different. I slipped outside in the early dawn and was met with the sight of bare, flattened grass all around us. Sometime in the middle of the night, while we slept, the traveling show had moved on. I’d heard none of the big wagons moving, none of the animals, not even a whisper. Muddy, trampled areas, where hundreds of visitors had walked over the past weeks, could now be seen. It was very odd looking in that I could also now see mountains clearly as well as the farmland what had been hidden behind rides, and tents and wagons.

  It was like being abandoned.

  The barren fields left me gloomier than ever. I wandered over to where the arena tent had been, looking at the impressions left in the ground, like ghost prints. The high dive platform area had icy patches where the water had been dumped onto the ground. Where the cookhouse tent stood, scraps of leftover food was left in the dirt, and a flock of crows flew into a tall pine nearby, cawing in protest at my intrusion of their meal. I moved on to where the sideshows used to be, and then on to where the Ferris wheel had stood. I drifted through all these spots like I was lost and looking for something I couldn’t find. I looked across the acreage to where our lone tents stood. They looked so tiny, so deserted against the vacant surroundings, like they didn’t belong.

  I walked close to the area where the Friesians had been staked out. There was bare spots on the ground where the animals had grazed. I gazed about, my eyes passing over a patch of bushes near the woods, an unassuming gray and brown cluster of branches, and it was there I seen a spot of color what looked out of place. My breath caught in my throat. I hurried over and as I drew closer, a scrap of lavender material fluttered on the lower branch of a thick bush. I bent down, snatched it up, and looked closely at it. It was torn from Laci’s dress, I was certain, but what caused me to run back to our tents fast as I could was what was on the material.

  I hurried into their tent, and said, “Look. Look at this,” while flapping the piece under their noses.

  Papa narrowed his eyes and took it saying, “Where’d you find this?”

  “In the pasture near the woods where they put the horses, and the zebra.”

  He showed Momma, and said, “I’m going to get Sheriff Baker.”

  Momma gaped at the material, at the dark brownish stain smeared on it.

  I felt I ought to say something. “It could be just dirt.”

  Momma shook her head. “I know what dried blood looks like.”

  I went back out and stoked the fire, putting a pot of coffee on while I waited for Papa to get back. It was the quickest Sheriff Baker ever come. Papa come bumping along across the emptied carnival spot with the sheriff directly right behind him. He got out of the truck and motioned for me and Momma to come. Then we all got into Sheriff Baker’s car and I showed them where I’d found the cloth.

  I pointed. “There. It was hanging on that lower branch right there.”

  Sheriff Baker looked at the branch first, then he carefully went along, staring at the ground, moving some of the debris aside every now and then. He went around the bushes and come out again.

  “I don’t see nothing more. Let me go have a better look this a way.”

  We stayed by the car as he walked into the woods, poking along here and there, until he was out of sight.

  Papa said, “He ought to see if he can’t get someone to get one of them hounds back over here. Let’em see if they can scent her from it.”

  Momma stared at the woods with a mixture of fear and hope on her face.

  He come out after about half an hour. He had more of the material in his hands, another piece smaller than the one I’d found, but it also had the same color stain on it.

  He said, “How well did you know these here carnies?”

  Momma and Papa looked at each other.

  Papa said, “You insinuating they had something to do with it?”

  Sheriff Baker said, “Well, it’s kind of odd how quick they left after she went missing, don’t you think?”

  Papa said, “They helped us search for her. It don’t seem like they’d do that if they had her.”

  Sheriff Baker said, “Pure speculation, but I got to consider everything. This don’t mean she’s come to harm. If they took her for the show, I doubt they’d want to hurt her. There won’t any more blood found on the ground. Look, I’ll see if I can’t reach out to some of my contacts down in Florida. How’s that sound?”

  Such a tiny thing, yet we had hope now. Sheriff Baker drove us back to our tents, and took off. And then we waited. And waited. Days later he come back, his expression grim. He parked his car, propped a foot on the bumper and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it and let a plume of smoke blow from his mouth to hover over his head before he began.

  He said, “I called down to Florida. That traveling show arrived and the sheriff ’s office down there conducted a, what’ll I call it? A secret search. Turned all them wagons they use upside down, inside out. No sign of her. I’m sorry.”

  He might as well have said Laci had passed. An emptiness come with his words, and my stomach felt like a giant fist dug into it and wouldn’t let up. It was strange how someone so quiet could be so loud in my head, how someone who’d taken up no more space than any other human could seem as large as the entire universe. Momma and Papa didn’t speak. They accepted what he said, like they’d come to some conclusion. Sheriff Baker kept coming every few days, only to say there was still no sign of Laci. Momma got more despondent. I’d never seen her so torn apart. Having no answers, no finality, I began to see, was much harder than a finite end like with Seph.

  We couldn’t leave, not when we was stuck, expecting something, while receiving nothing. Papa got to where he didn’t want to see Sheriff Baker coming no more, unless he had news, and he told him so. We didn’t see the sheriff none after that. We hovered around the tents, wordless, and lost. I heard distant church bells chiming “Silent Night” and other songs for about a week, and then “Auld Lang Syne” and that told me Christmas season had come, and was gone.

  * * *

  One morning in early Januar
y, when hoar frost turned everything white as snowfall, and our breath sat heavy in the air, Papa said, as if to himself, “We done what we could. We’ve looked, and we’ve looked. Sheriff has looked and ain’t been back. We lost her, and we ain’t getting her back.”

  Momma cried out as if in pain. “Don’t say it! We will get her back. We will!”

  Papa didn’t argue. He let what she’d said go.

  An hour later when it seemed Momma had got ahold of herself, he said, “We’re going home. I don’t know what else to do, Ann.”

  Momma pressed her hands together as if praying, and shook her head.

  Papa said, “Sheriff Baker will get word to us there. It ain’t like we’d not keep in touch.”

  Momma started doing what Laci used to do, rocking. I couldn’t offer any comfort, because what would I say? I’m sorry all over again? Papa set about taking down the tents and I helped him. Like in the old days of working side by side, we went along fast and efficient. Now he’d made a decision, it seemed he wanted to get on with it. Momma quit rocking, and sat frozen, she didn’t even look like she breathed. I worked around her, gathering the camp stools and carrying them to the truck. I folded mine and Laci’s clothes, got her fiddle, and wrapped it in her blanket. I set all those things aside and helped Papa take our tent down. By dinnertime, the sun was as high as it would get, and we was packed, ready to go.

  Papa didn’t even have to tell Momma. She got up and stumbled towards the truck. There was a heaviness to mine and Papa’s steps as we carried the last remaining items. Momma got in the middle like she always did, and then me. It struck me how, as we’d gone through these last few months, it was like all we’d been doing was traveling down a road towards this bittersweet ending. Nothing could change what we’d been through. As we rolled across the pasture slow, I looked out the window, remembering every moment what led us to this point. The night of the hurricane, my time alone in the tree and at Stampers Creek. My joy at seeing my family safe, our despair and misery at losing Seph, the desolate days of hunger, meeting Clayton at the waterfall, the carnival as it had looked when we’d first come to it, Laci playing fiddle, Laci in her new dress, Laci and Clayton. The memories repeated, flickering like heat lightning in the summer, until I wished I had a key like what got used with the truck so I could switch them off.

  Momma said, “Are we stopping at your brother’s?”

  Papa said, “No.”

  Momma made no noise, but her eyes closed in relief. It would only take us half a day to get to Stampers Creek. The idea we would be home before nightfall didn’t seem real. We stopped once for fuel, and Papa bought me and Momma a drink and some peanuts. Under any other circumstances I’d have enjoyed that, but we only ate to keep from going hungry, not for enjoyment. Off Highway 28, he stopped again at a general merchandise store.

  “I’m getting some tools to replace what was lost. Won’t take but a minute.”

  He went in and come out with a chiseling tool, a bow saw, a draw blade, and some nails. Eventually, we turned onto Highway 107 and studied the still flattened trees what hadn’t been cleaned up. We was lucky the northbound lane and the bridge to cross over to the road home hadn’t been washed out like some others further north. Despite the storm damage that still lay about, familiar territory spread before us, and soon we come to the two poplars. Papa slowed down at the clearing between the trees so we could look for a moment on Cherry Gap, and Cullowhee Mountain, and beyond to distant familiar valleys. I felt a big lump coming into my throat, and it was as if I’d been gone for years instead of a few months.

  Papa lowered the gear on the truck, and we climbed the winding hilly path. I leaned forward, looking this way and that. Everything was gray, barren, and with not a hint of color, but it was beautiful in my eyes. It was an unlikely time to come home during the coldest time of year, but I no longer cared. It was home. We rounded the last bend, and there was the yard. The collapsed barn. The leftover stone foundation. I seen movement near the foundation, and I could hardly believe my eyes, old Pete, looking a little thin, was hanging around, his coat full and thick with winter hair. He turned his head, and when the truck stopped, he lifted it and drew his lips back from his teeth. I got out of the truck and hurried over to him. He sort of shied away, until I held my hand out, and he got a whiff, and then he brayed long and loud.

  It seemed to me he might have been telling us, Welcome home.

  Chapter 26

  We only bothered putting up one tent, and I placed my cot in with Momma and Papa’s, a way to combine our body heat. It didn’t count for the perpetual chill in the air what had nothing to do with weather. Aside from the sadness, which thickened every day like ice on the pond, there was the disagreement on the decision to be here. One avoided it, and the other couldn’t stop talking about it.

  Tearful, Momma said, “We should never have left. It would have been easier to get news if we’d stayed.”

  Papa said, “The river level is back to normal. I can catch fish.”

  She said, “We don’t have Laci. Nothing else ought to matter.”

  He said, “Now I got me this here shotgun, I can hunt too. Wallis Ann can set traps. We’ll get to working on them logs and it’ll go fast now we got the tools. Right where we left off. We’ll have us a new cabin in no time.”

  I said, “I’ll help you, Papa.”

  He didn’t even spare me a glance, so intent was he on Momma letting go of her idea.

  Momma said, “We ought to take ourselves right back down there. We could be there in no time.”

  He shook his head, not wanting to hear it, while I wished someone would simply acknowledge me in some way, even if it was to remind me all over again how I should have told them. This went on, and at one point Momma even threatened to take Papa’s truck in the middle of the night. Papa informed her she’d strip the gears and then we’d have no truck. I tried to make myself as small as possible. I did my chores, and did them quick. I didn’t complain if I was tired, cold or sad. Laci’s fiddle sat in the corner of the tent, and I would hold it every now and then, as if I could soak some of her spirit into me, but all it did was emphasize her absence. Whatever I’d felt about Clayton was consumed and replaced by the grief and guilt I felt over her.

  Regret was something I carried around, and held so tight inside me, I could barely breathe. I pulled my shame on like I did my clothes, wearing it all day, unable to look Momma or Papa directly in the eyes. At night, I wallowed in a soul-pulling guilt so complete, the darkness of night matched what had settled deep inside me. All them things what controlled me, the way I’d let my jealousy and anger take over, sat within my heart so heavy, my chest held a permanent ache, and it seemed no amount of time could ever take it away.

  It come to me the solid love I felt for her, deep as our deepest hollers, and what wore on me most was how that love hadn’t been strong enough to alter the way I’d behaved, hadn’t changed the dark jealousy what had rose up and come from out of me as unexpected as her disappearance. How could that be? Momma had warned me about this very thing, the coveting of what someone else has. She was right. My envy was to blame, only my learning it was too late. I should’ve listened to her, should’ve knowed she was right.

  I imagined one scene over and over. How Laci’s face would look. How she would put her hand in mine again, and how it would feel. At night was when I asked God to give me another chance, to bring her home so I could show her, even if she didn’t care, or it didn’t matter to no one but me. I just wanted a chance to make it right, to make this pain go away. I pressed my right hand into my left, closed my eyes, and prayed softly, only it was like talking when it’s cold outside and the steamy mist from your breath disappears in seconds. I pictured them prayers as weak and erratic as the fluttering a baby bird’s wings, unable to make it where they needed to be. They would never reach God’s ear. I still asked Him though, and promised I wouldn’t never put Laci in danger again. Never, ever be mad at her again. I would only show her the love
and care she deserved.

  * * *

  Every day Papa went into the woods and would shoot a couple squirrels to eat. Momma, would take them silently, and stew them. She’d make biscuits, and while Paulie’s food had been good, this food tasted of what I was most familiar with, though my stomach wanted to reject it. I noticed the air, how it held a cold winter crispness, the scent only of trees, the land around us, and a hint of wood smoke. I breathed in deep, several times a day. I couldn’t seem to get enough. One thing was certain, I had plenty of time to put what happened into perspective as I fetched water for boiling, cut wood for the fire, and went to stripping bark off the logs Papa brought and dumped in a pile. He worked like Old Scratch was after him, the old devil from my childhood Momma and Papa used to say was gonna get me if I didn’t do as told.

  I, too, worked hard like usual, and while I did, I come to the conclusion I’d been more curious about Clayton than anything. All he’d said or done, I’d honed in on because he’d stirred up new feelings. Being away from him give me plenty of time to recognize our differences. It was likely he’d never built a cabin by hand. I doubted he’d ever gone hungry, had to start a fire using rock and punk wood, or heard a screech owl. I couldn’t picture him wringing a chicken’s neck or bleeding out a hog during hog-killing time.

  Mainly, I worried about him having something to do with Laci’s disappearance, and because of that, any feelings I’d had was squashed, like a trap snapping shut at the first hint of pressure. Even though there was still this little niggling impression he won’t as bad as we thought, the ways of my thinking give me a setback of sorts and I felt almost like I did when I’d discovered him with Laci, filled with disappointment and sadness.

  After we’d been home about a week, I heard a “Hoo ha! Hoo ha!” coming across the holler as I sat beside a stripped pile of logs.

  Me and Papa was hard at it, and he pulled on Pete’s harness to make him stop.

  He shaded his eyes against the glare of a bright winter sun, and then slapped his hand against his knees and said, “I’ll be a son of a gun!”