Water's End

by Jessica Deforest

  During the early days of their love, she had written abundantly, joyously, believing David to be her muse and knowing the poems she wrote to be her best. Now she felt her poetry slipping away.

  Over the next few weeks, she noticed David was losing weight, and she credited the dark circles under his eyes to the sleeplessness she herself was experiencing. She had lost more weight and knew she was too thin. The bones stood out in her chest and gave her a washboard look, and her new clothes grew baggy on her.

  The Monday before payday, David asked her to meet him in the parking lot after work. Her heart began its usual mad race at the prospect of being with him, and she could barely sit still until the day was over.

  "Anne, I hate to ask you this," he said, looking down. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to."

  Seeing his discomfort, she touched his hand. "What is it?"

  "I'm a little bit short of cash. Could you loan me twenty dollars?"

  "Of course." Her heart took a dive into her shoes and then struggled up into the pit of her stomach. So that's what he wanted. He didn't want to see me; he just wanted to borrow money. But how can I say no? She handed him a twenty-dollar bill.

  "Thanks, I'll get it back to you payday," he said and walked away, tucking the bill into his back pocket.

  The next day he looked worse, as if he had been punched in both eyes. His clothes were wrinkled and looked slept in. A button was missing on his shirt, and his cuffs were frayed. Several times she caught him looking at her with the same profoundly sad expression.

  Promptly on the first of the month, just as he said he would, David paid the loan back, but in only a couple of weeks he came to her for more money. Toward the end of the month, he borrowed another twenty dollars. He looked positively haggard.

  "David," she said, "what are you doing to yourself? Are you working too many shoots?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Cut it out. You know what I'm talking about. You look as if you've been chewed on by a catfish and spat up on the bank to dry."

  He ran his hands through his hair, which needed to be cut. "I know I look crummy. I haven't worked for Beckwith lately because of it, so I'm dead broke. There's been car insurance, and I had to do a valve job on my car. And my grandma's sick again. Guess it's just a lot of stuff."

  She was worried. There was something he wasn't telling her, but if he didn't want to share with her, she couldn't make him do it. She wondered what had happened to the man she fell in love with. Her David had been replaced by a silent shadow who looked away when she tried to make eye contact.

  It was mid-December before she could go to bed without crying, and January when she finally stopped. The holidays were a blur.

  As she gave up hoping David would forgive her, she began to feel more like eating and more like living. Some of her flesh returned, and she looked healthier. She would always love David, but she accepted that she could not have him, that he did not want her.

  Being his friend was not enough. Might as well hold a hot-fudge sundae in front of her mouth and then tell her she could look but not taste. She was young, and she wanted love, and marriage, and children. So she gave up on David, who grew more withdrawn every day.

  By March, the last of the snow, once pristine but soon gray and slushy, had thawed, and Anne felt the ice in her soul begin to melt. Tulips poked up their bright heads in April, and by May, Anne's yard burgeoned with flowers of every variety and color.

  Anne found working in the yard to be good therapy, and the dirtier and sweatier she got, the better she felt, in spite of freckles and sunburns.

  Blossoms on the old fruit trees in the back yard held promises of apples, pears, and cherries to come; and tiny clusters of grapes were forming in the arbor. Fat honeybees, their legs yellow with pollen, buzzed about.

  Best of all were the huge peonies that bloomed at the end of the month, in time for Memorial Day. Long ago, Grandma Mills had planted these perennials—divinely perfumed flowers in deep burgundy, pink, white, or white tipped in red—with deep green foliage. Each spring, when they rose out of the ground, the plants were bigger and produced more flowers.

  Much to her surprise, Louie Cord called her one evening. "Miss me? I've been at Fort Bragg."

  She hadn't even known he was gone. In fact, she hadn't thought about Louie at all. "Oh? When did you get back?"

  "This morning. And I sure have missed you. What say we have dinner tonight and get reacquainted?"

  That evening they had a gourmet meal at Knollwood, an elegant restaurant converted from a Victorian mansion, which sat atop the highest hill in town. While they ate, he regaled her with stories about his adventures at Fort Bragg. She hadn't realized how much she missed him, and she found herself enjoying his company.

  Soon, she began seeing him on a regular basis. They went to Starlight Theater in Kansas City to see musical productions performed on an outdoor stage beneath the stars. Saturday nights they went dancing, and on Sunday afternoons they saw the latest movies in town.

  When they were invited to dinner at her sister's house, Louie was an instant hit with her nieces and nephews. "Did you ever hear the story about the pig and the princess?" he asked them with a loud snort.

  In a short time all three children lay on the floor, roaring with laughter, and soon flung themselves onto the couch next to him, laying their heads and arms on his shoulders. She noticed the way he unconsciously patted Nancy's back and rubbed little Terry's head. Goldie, her sister’s dog, came over and laid her head down on his foot, waving her plume of a tail like a happy, fringed banner.

  "What a super guy Louie is," her sister remarked as they cleaned up the dinner dishes.

  "Yeah," Anne answered, and Joan knew by the sound of her voice to leave it alone.

  Once in a while she allowed Louie to kiss her, but she didn't feel anything except relief when it was over. Even when she pretended he was David, she couldn't put anything into it. He seemed not to notice, though.

  "Bad news," Louie said over dinner one evening after they had been seeing one another for several weeks. "Today I got orders for Taiwan. It'll be a short tour if I go unaccompanied. That's thirteen months. If I take an accompanied tour, it'll be three years."

  He cleared his throat. "Marry me and go with me. Think of all the wonderful adventures we can have."

  Startled, she moved back in her chair and cleared her throat. "Louie," she said. "I had no idea."

  "I love you," he said, taking a black velvet box out of his coat pocket. "Here, I want you to have this."

  Anne opened the box. It contained a modest diamond solitaire ring. "I can't just pick up and move to the other side of the earth," she said. "I have a contract until June of next year with the Beckwith Agency." And I don't love you, her mind said.

  "Will you wear the ring? Will you wait for me?"

  "Louie, you've got to let me think about this. I care about you, but I don't know if I'm ready to settle down and get married right now."

  Disappointment was written across his face. Anne felt like a heel.

  "Look, it doesn't have to be an engagement," he said. "We haven't really been together long, but I know what I want. I want you to be sure, too."

  He put a hand on her shoulder. "Wear the ring on your right hand if you want. It can be a friendship ring. I bought it for you, and I want you to have it. Thirteen months is a long time. Date other people. But if I come back and you haven't met somebody else, promise me you'll think about putting it on the other hand for good."

  "It's a deal," she said, sliding the lovely ring onto the third finger of her right hand.

  "We've only got two weeks before I leave. Let's make the most of it."

  Maybe she liked him more than she thought she did. They had fun together and she knew she would miss him. But she felt guilty because she still thought about David, even when Louie was kissing her.

  He grew more passionate as their time together grew shorter. The night before he left, it was all she could do to contain
him, but she couldn't respond.

  "Louie, you've got to stop," she said, pushing him away. "I can't."

  He was flushed and breathing hard. "Sorry. It's just that I love you, and I'm so afraid of losing you. I have this premonition I'll never see you again, that you'll find somebody else while I'm gone. And I don't know if I can go through life without knowing your sweetness."

  "I'm sorry. I just can't. But I promise you this, if I find somebody else, I'll let you know. I won't sneak around and pretend. I'll probably be right here when you get back. Okay?"

  "I guess that's one reason I love you. You have principles. You're not some cheap thing who falls into bed with everyone. Not even with me, much as I wish you would."

  She laughed and hugged him.

  The next day, she drove him to the airport. A chill crept down her spine, and she thought of his premonition. It was crazy, but she had the same feeling, and she wondered if she would ever see him again.

  Although she didn't feel any passion for him, he had given her a peace and contentment she didn't recognize until he started walking up the steps onto the plane.

  She would miss Louie Cord.

  Chapter 14

  Now that Louie was gone, the time seemed to creep along. By June it was too hot to work in the yard, and Anne was restless and bored. She realized what a gap Louie had filled in her life, and although she missed him, she decided not to sit home alone any longer.

  He knew she planned to date other people. So she went out occasionally with Mike, the general's pilot, who was fun to dance with. Or Tom, a surgeon fresh from residency, who was doing his turn in the army. He wanted to get serious, though, so she quit seeing him.

  It didn't matter who she was with, she was always reminded, in some way or another, that she was still in love with David, because he was the man against whom she measured all others. Seeing him every day was still difficult for her, not only because he no longer loved her, but because she worried even more about him. He always seemed to be short on cash, and he was too thin.

  Soon she grew tired of dating people she didn't really care about, so she started taking on more fashion work on weekends, doing little shows for the local country club and a couple of dress shops in the city, even though she hated modeling. She needed the money, and it did keep her from being so lonely.

  Sometimes she and some of the other girls got together after a show and had dinner, nibbling on lettuce leaves and asparagus at some nice restaurant in the Country Club Plaza. Beautifully dressed and made up when they worked, they loved nothing so much as casual clothes and scrubbed faces when they got off.

  The guys who worked the shows tried to pick them up: the lighting crew, publicists, even married men in the audience, who would send them notes as they sat next to their wives, watching the show. Some of the girls went out with married men they met that way.

  "By gawd," said Hermione, "if they can afford to buy their wives these clothes, they're rich enough to trade in the old bitch on a newer-running model, and that would be me."

  "And what about when you're the old model?" Anne said. "Don't you know he'll trade you in, too?"

  "But he'll have to pay through the geegaw, and I'd still come out ahead of where I am now."

  Anne knew she'd rather be poor than take someone else's husband.

  The busier she kept, the faster the days spun away. She liked it that way; she couldn't stand being idle. Her bank account was growing, and soon she would be able to start college. She'd have to go to night school, but it was okay. She would be moving ahead instead of seeing her life not go anywhere.

  It was a rainy Saturday afternoon that Anne would never forget, September 2, 1960, and she was looking forward to the long Labor Day weekend when an army sedan pulled up in front of her house. Two officers got out. Answering the doorbell, she was puzzled and wondered what they could possibly want. One officer wore crosses on his lapels, which meant he was an army chaplain. All of a sudden, she grew dizzy, fearing what had happened.

  "David? Is it David? What's happened to David?" she said, terror rising in her.

  The chaplain, a major, looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

  "Has he been in an accident?" she said, and fainted.

  They were both kneeling on the porch next to her, patting her hands and face as she awoke. "Miz Mills, are you all right? Come on, ma'am," the younger officer said. "Let's get you inside."

  They led her to the sofa, where she lay while the younger officer fetched her a glass of ice water.

  "We don't know who this David is, but that's not why we're here," the major said. "I'm James Waterfield, and I'm an Episcopal priest. This is my assistant, Lieutenant Stewart."

  Happiness flooded her and she sat up, relieved. "You mean you don't have bad news for me?"

  "You'd better remain seated, ma'am," the chaplain said. "We do have bad news, but it's not about anyone named David." He cleared his throat. "We regret to inform you that Major Louie Cord passed away yesterday on the island of Taiwan from a massive heart attack."

  "I can't believe it," she said. She had just received a letter from him that very morning, telling her all about the island. He couldn't be dead. He was only thirty-five. How could it be? She twisted his ring on her finger.

  "That's all we know, ma'am. We're sorry to bring you this sad news, but he had you listed as his emergency contact in his records. He didn't have any living relatives. Is there anything we can do for you? Is there anyone we can call to come sit with you?"

  "No, I'll be all right. Thank you."

  They stayed more than an hour, the chaplain comforting her as best he could. Finally, seeing she was all right, they told her they had to leave.

  "Don't bother showing us out. You get some rest," the lieutenant said as they left, softly shutting the door behind them.

  Although she could feel the tears inside her, they wouldn't come. Thoughts raced through her head, but she couldn't seem to reach out and grab any one of them. Louie, with his crooked grin. She wished she had gone to bed with him, but it would have been wrong. Pretending was not her nature.

  She was amazed at how well she was taking the news, until she tried to get up. Her legs simply refused to support her, and she fell back onto the sofa. In a panic, she called the barracks. David answered.

  "David? It's Anne," she said, her voice cracking. "Louie. He's dead. Can you, would you come over?"

  "Be there in a few minutes."

  He arrived at her house in far less than the thirty minutes it usually took him. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded. "It's just such a shock."

  "What happened?"

  "Heart attack."

  It was when he sat next to her and put his arm around her that the tears finally came. He held her tightly as she sobbed.

  "I feel so rotten," she said. "He loved me. But I didn't love him. I liked him, but I couldn't feel more for him. And now he's dead."

  Even as she grieved for Louie, she could feel the fire rising inside her, and when she looked up at David, she sank into his eyes again. Without a word, he brought his mouth down to hers and drew her closer to him, then picked her up and carried her to her bed, where they made love quietly, almost reverently.

  Afterward, she fell into an exhausted sleep, waking to find him lying next to her in the dusk, his eyes fixed on her face.

  "I'll always remember you like this, flushed and warm with sleep," he said.

  She smiled, took his hand, and kissed his palm, folding his fingers over it. "Here, keep that for when I'm not around."

  He brought his hand to his heart and clasped it there, then tenderly drew her to him. "I'll stay here tonight."

  He found a can of tuna and mixed together a wonderful salad with walnuts and grapes in it. They ate on the porch, savoring the cool evening air, and then padded off to bed, where they made love again. During the night they woke and made love several more times, listening to the rain that started around midnight.

 
The weekend was beautiful in spite of the sadness underlying it. For the next two days, they lounged around the house in the nude, cuddling, fondling, and coming together in passion several times, eating, sleeping, and making love when they felt like it.

  David went back to the barracks late Monday night. Anne felt thoroughly sated, but the minute he was out the door, she wanted him again.

  The next morning she could hardly wait to see him at work, but when she walked into the office, the veiled look was back on his face, not contempt, but detachment. He had closed back up into himself. The light was gone from his eyes when he looked at her, and she sank into despair once again.

  She didn't know why this was happening, didn't know what she had done, and didn't know how she could live if he didn't love her anymore.

  Over the next week he barely spoke to her. Though he was courteous and pretended they were on good terms, she could see the little muscles in his jaw working when she caught him looking at her. If she tried to talk to him, he changed the subject and refused to discuss their weekend together.

  Anne started to lose weight again. The thought of food made her sick; nothing looked, smelled or tasted good. Worse yet, she couldn't even cry. It was as if all her tears had dried up and blown away in the empty desert of her soul.

  Once again she was numb, and she thought she rather liked feeling that way. It was better than being an open wound.

  Mike called her, as did another guy, but she didn't want to go anywhere or do anything.

  Although they were having a gorgeous Indian summer, sunny and sometimes too hot in the daytime, cool at night, she hardly noticed. She became a recluse, moping about the house. She tried to read but was too distracted, and writing was out of the question.

  Before she knew it, after a few cold snaps in mid-September, autumn ignited the landscape, painting the maples cadmium red and gilding the leaves on the elms that arched over the main road into the post. Vermilion sumac sparked the brush, and bittersweet, with its bright orange berries, scaled tree trunks and smothered fence posts.