Time Is a River

by Mary Alice Monroe

The old woman grunted.

  “Mrs. Minor,” Mia said, scooting lower to be closer to her face. “I’m Mia. I’m living at the cabin at Watkins Cove. In Kate Watkins’s cabin.”

  The old woman turned her head back and looked at Mia. Her eyes appeared sharper as she studied her face. “What you doin’ at the Watkins place?” she said fiercely. “You ain’t got no business there.”

  “I was invited.”

  “Huh. No one’s invited there. By who?”

  “By Belle Carson.”

  “I don’t know no Belle Carson,” she mumbled.

  “Belle is Kate’s grandchild. Theodora’s child.” Mia paused, hearing her own words. Theodora’s child. Theodore DeLancey. Another chink fell into place: He was the father of Kate’s child.

  “Little Theo?” Mrs. Minor’s voice brightened. “I haven’t seen her in, oh Lord, I can’t remember how long. How is that sweet child?”

  “I’m sorry. Theodora passed away. Last winter I believe.”

  The old woman’s face seemed to fall into itself. “They all dead now. It’s a blessing and a curse to live so long. At least she’s with her mama at last. She been waitin’ a long time to see her child. God rest their souls.”

  “What happened between them?”

  She waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, that’s a long story. You don’t need to know all that.”

  “I’d like to hear the story. All of them.”

  “Why you want to know all that? It’s all past. Long past.”

  “It’s not past. The scandal is still very much alive.”

  “Dirty rumors, that’s all they is. If you come here for that, then you can go now. You won’t hear me bringing up those filthy lies.”

  Lucy put her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder to calm her. “It’s OK, Grandmamma. We won’t talk about them.”

  “I’m not here to upset you, Mrs. Minor, or to dig up dirt on Kate Watkins.”

  “I got nothing to say to you.”

  “Please, Mrs. Minor. I don’t believe the scandals are true. But the silence over the years has allowed those lies to be perceived as the truth. There aren’t many people alive who remember Kate. I talked to Mr. Phillip Pace and now there is only you.”

  “Why do you want to talk to me? It’s not your place. I should be talking to her granddaughter. Belle’s her name? You tell Belle to come by soon.”

  “Belle won’t come. Theodora filled her mind with so much suspicion and hate for her grandmother she doesn’t want anything to do with her.”

  The old woman grew agitated. “I need to see Theodora’s daughter.”

  “Mrs. Minor, I’m here because I want to help her daughter. Because I care about her. And…I care very much about Kate Watkins.”

  The old woman leaned forward to peer closer at Mia’s face. “You say you’re staying in Kate’s cabin?”

  “I sleep in her room.”

  Mrs. Minor nodded her head, her eyes gleaming. “She come to you yet?”

  Mia’s breath hitched. She said carefully, “It…It’s more a feeling.” “A knowing.”

  Mia nodded. That was it exactly.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Mrs. Minor said, and sighed with satisfaction as she settled back into her wheelchair. “If you say you’re trying to help Miss Kate…I’d do anything for her. People thought she was cold. But she wasn’t. She was strong is all. And spoke her mind. People didn’t like that in a woman. Not back then.”

  “Who was Theodore DeLancey?”

  The old woman’s back went erect in her chair. “What you know about him?”

  “I only know his name. And that he had a letter of introduction to Kate.”

  “Humph. If you don’t know about DeLancey, then you don’t know nothing.”

  Intrigued, Mia pulled out a copy of the letter Nada had found in the stacks.

  “This is a letter of introduction that somehow made its way to the historical society. It’s addressed to Miss Watkins and concerns Theodore DeLancey.” She opened the thick, vellum paper and handed it to Mrs. Minor.

  “I’ll need my glasses.”

  Lucy reached far over to the bedside table and retrieved a pair of glasses with thick lenses. “Here, Grandmamma.”

  Mrs. Minor slipped the glasses on. They slid down her nose a fraction as she bent to read. Her lips moved over the words.

  “So, this here’s the letter that started it all. Lord, Lord, Lord, one little letter.”

  Mrs. Minor adjusted her glasses and looked again at the letter, then let it fall into her lap. “The way the Reverend saw it, a letter of introduction was like a command performance. The Reverend was a gentleman. He surely was. And a gentleman only lives by one code, hear? I don’t believe he could’ve played it another way. That said, I figure if he knew how things would turn out, all because of this letter, well I don’t think he’d have made the stand he did.”

  “Please, tell me what happened.”

  Mrs. Minor shifted in her seat, ruminating. Mia saw the struggle in the old woman’s eyes and waited for her to continue.

  “One thing you got to know right from the start. It wasn’t just some”—she gummed her lips thinking of the word—“affair like people said. When it all came out, folks made it sound tawdry and cheap. It weren’t nothin’ like that. There was love there. She loved that man fierce and true and went into it with her eyes wide open. That was her way.”

  Mrs. Minor looked again out the window and her voice grew soft as her mind traveled far back in her memories.

  “DeLancey, he come to town in his fancy railroad car. Oh, it was something. The townsfolk were mighty impressed. Everyone who lived in Watkins Cove at that time listened for the high-pitched whistle of the afternoon train. Whenever Reverend Watkins heard it, he said a prayer of thanks. He could remember back to when the train line was built. He was only a boy then but he claimed he’d never forget the high cost that railroad demanded—in lives and dollars. People quickly forget tragedy, though. By the twenties, when that whistle blew the townsfolk ran to the depot to see who might be stepping off onto the platform. On that particular Sunday, the Reverend and Kate were ankle-deep in the Davidson River, as usual. They should’ve just kept fishing, I always thought, but Kate had a new rod coming in on the train so they went to town.”

  “Is that when she met DeLancey?” Mia asked.

  Mrs. Minor slowly nodded her head. “Him and his fine suit and shoes. Lord, he had money. More money that the Watkins family ever dreamed of having, if that gives you any idea. Not that money made any difference to Kate.” She cackled softly. “She used to tease him about it, call him a dandy and a fancy boy. I think he liked that best about her. That she was so feisty and gave him what for. I don’t imagine there were too many folk in his life who did. He adored her, any fool could see that.”

  The old woman sighed again and brought her thin fingers to her mouth. “No, it weren’t the money. I know that for a fact. Years after it all happened, Kate and I were sittin’ on her porch just watching the sun go down. I remember the sky was all red, like a fire over the mountains. She was in one of those talking moods. You know the kind? It didn’t happen often with her. She was tight-mouthed about things close to the heart, so I remember it clear. Might’ve been she sensed her time was coming, or it just might’ve been the soft air that night.

  “She was rocking and looking far out and she told me when she first saw DeLancey she’d thought he was Lowrance Davidson coming home from the war. She’d stumbled and grabbed hold of her father’s arm from the shock of it. DeLancey turned his head and then, of course, she knew it wasn’t Lowrance, but she allowed there was some spark in that first connection. Her father did speculate as to how the two men looked alike. Not in the face so much, but in the hair and the way they moved.” She shook her head. “It was curious.”

  “How often did he come to town?” Mia asked, gently steering her back to the story.

  Mrs. Minor leaned back in her chair. “For four years he came every spring and every fall. B
ehind their palms folks used to joke they knew when to change their clocks by when that fancy rail car showed up at the depot. Course, the reason he came was for the fishing. Everybody knowed that. And course, he always got Miss Watkins for his guide. Nobody gossiped, at least not much. I guess you could say the town looked the other way. We all had too much respect for the Reverend. And them two never did nothing that anyone could point a finger at. He rented that fishing cabin from the Watkins family when he came. It was all up-and-up. They’d fish together, of course. I remember Kate had this real pretty white horse. Lord it was a big animal. Testy, too. He scared me half to death. But not Kate. She’d ride that horse most every day in the mountains and when DeLancey came, he rode with her. Once in a while they would come to town to eat dinner. But they never did any of that lovey-dovey stuff. At least not in public. Kate knew how to be proper and DeLancey was a gentleman. But anyone who saw the way he looked at her…” She sighed. “And the way she looked at him. Well, you knew. You can’t hide a love like that.

  “I never understood why her daddy allowed it. I asked my mama once and she said he just knew Kate was different and he wanted her to be happy. I guess we all did. She went all dark inside when her cousin, Lowrance, died in the war. But when DeLancey came she was her old self again.”

  She shook her head, clucking her tongue. “I’m not saying that DeLancey wasn’t a fine man. He was all right. I don’t reckon he meant to get caught up in all this, same as Kate. It weren’t that he was bad. More that he was…weak. My mama said he never should’ve come sniffin’ around Kate’s door. Him being married and all. It was bound to turn out bad for Kate. But none of us saw where it was heading. People said afterward that poor DeLancey paid the highest price for his loving Kate. But I say that ain’t so. They don’t know. Kate paid, all right.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She paid and paid and paid.”

  Mrs. Minor’s head drooped forward and her shoulders shook as she silently wept. Lucy wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders, then looked to Mia.

  “I think you’d better go now.”

  Mia nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” She rose and stood for a moment in agony, thinking there was something more she should say.

  “Good-bye,” she said awkwardly. “Thank you for talking to me.”

  Mrs. Minor looked up with red eyes and waved her hand. “Now honey, don’t be feeling sorry. You did nothin’ wrong. I’m an old woman and I feel things stronger. You come back. I want to tell you the whole story before my time is over. I’m just tired now, is all. Come on back and visit with me some more, hear? And bring Belle. I want to see little Theo’s daughter.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Presentation is the placement of the fly on the water. The cast is viewed from the perspective of the fish. The angler’s goal is to present the dry fly gently and in a natural manner so that the fish is not scared but will, hopefully, be lured to take the hook.

  —KATE WATKINS’S FISHING DIARY

  Thunder rumbled overhead, low and threatening. Mia looked up to see a large, angry front of dark clouds coming in from over the mountains, covering the late-morning sky like a lid being slowly pulled over the earth. When she looked upstream toward where Stuart stood, she saw that he, too, had stilled his rod and was checking the weather. A sudden gust of wind swept across the water, bringing cold droplets across her face.

  “We’d better get out of the water,” he shouted.

  Before he’d finished the sentence the first drops of rain fell, icy and hard. She drew her line in as quickly as she could and made her way across the stones and silt, feeling the wind pushing at her back.

  Stuart was already at the bank swooping up their backpacks. “Hurry!” he called to her, and his voice mingled with another roar of thunder, louder this time. Over the ridge lightning lit the underbelly of the clouds, turning them an electric purple and yellow. “It’s going to be a downpour. Give me your rod. Let’s try and make it to the Jeep.”

  Mia began to sprint, holding her hat with her hand as the cold wind tugged. The temperature was dropping and looking up she could see a slate gray line of rain moving toward them. All she could think while her heavy, booted feet pounded the earth was Why did we wander so far from the Jeep? Stuart was way ahead of her on the path carrying the rods, but though the Jeep was in sight, she knew he wouldn’t make it to the car dry.

  Lightning flashed, turning the sky white, and only seconds later thunder cracked, shaking the earth. The sky opened up. Cold rain plastered her hair down her face and soaked her clothes. She could barely see the Jeep through rain as thick as fog, but Stuart spotted her coming and pushed open the door and helped her in. When he slammed the door shut behind her, she slumped against the seat and caught her breath. Prying open an eye she saw Stuart leaning against his seat, his mouth open and water dripping down from his hair. When he turned his head and saw her looking at him with the same shock and wonder, his mouth moved to a grin and they both burst out laughing.

  “Whoa,” he said, mopping his face with his palm. “That storm came on fast. I thought that lightning was going to fry us.”

  On cue the thunder cracked seemingly right on top of them. Mia jumped and grabbed his arm, then laughed again.

  “You’re soaked,” he said. “I’ve got to have a towel in here somewhere.”

  He climbed up to reach over the seat and scrounged in the back. He tossed a ratty old towel over his shoulder. It smelled musty but it was clean. Mia dried her dripping hair and face while Stuart continued to search the back. His hips butted her head as he stretched, so she pulled back flat against the door. When he slid back to his seat he carried with a look of triumph an insulated bag, a thermos, and a fleece.

  “Always be prepared,” he said with a self-righteous smile.

  The peak of the storm was right over them, a maelstrom of wind, thunder, and flashes of light, but with Stuart she wasn’t afraid. Rain battered the black, soft top of the Jeep like a drum, creating a din that they couldn’t speak over. She handed him the towel and watched him sweep it across his face and hair. Then he returned it to her, following up with the fleece. She indicated with her hands that he should take it. His eyes flashed like the sky outside and he pushed the fleece firmly her way.

  She accepted his offering gratefully. She was shivering in her soaked clothes, and the fleece felt like a blanket around her shoulders. Stuart opened the thermos and she caught the heady scent of coffee, almost swooning when the steam rose from the black liquid. He handed the plastic cup to her and, sipping, she felt the warmth slide down her throat and into her bloodstream. She drank quickly, then handed the cup back to him so he could have some as well. Next he unwrapped peanut butter sandwiches from zip-lock bags and handed her one.

  She was having a good time, she realized. She felt snug and safe in the compact space, sitting thigh to thigh with Stuart, feasting on sandwiches and coffee. It was exciting to look out the window and through the sheets of rain to see the power of the wind as it bent the grasses and bowers of trees and swept across the water like a broom.

  The storm passed as quickly as it came. The mighty clouds marched to the sea like Sherman’s army, the thunder now muffled like the distant boom of cannons. The rain had slowed to a rhythmic patter, and from the northern ridge she could see a slice of blue sky.

  She turned from the window to see Stuart still looking out. She stole the moment to study his unguarded face. His thick, dark eyebrows and the scruffy stubble along his jaw made his pale blue eyes shine out like beacons. They were his best feature and always drew her attention.

  “Nothing like a good summer storm,” Stuart said, turning his head back.

  “I’ve always liked thunderstorms,” Mia replied, settling comfortably against the door to face him. She slicked her hair back from her head and zipped the large olive green fleece high up her neck. Bringing her knees up, she felt like she was tucked under a blanket. “We always used to play the counting game betwee
n the flash and the crack of thunder to see how far away the storm was.”

  “Me, too. And it was pretty close today.”

  “I know,” she said, curling her toes. “The storms seem more violent up here in the mountains than down by the shore. Probably because we’re closer to them.”

  “I remember a storm once when the thunder cracked so fierce a whole herd of cows dropped to their knees. You don’t forget a sight like that.”

  “Did you grow up in the mountains?”

  “I did. I grew up in this great old place in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s part cabin, part house—added on to here and there over the years.” His eyes warmed as he envisioned the homestead and he leaned back, tilting his shoulders to face her.

  “It originally belonged to my grandfather and his five brothers. What a bunch of characters they were, all fresh off the boat from Scotland. And all of them fly fishermen. They shared the cabin growing up but as the years passed my grandfather bought them out as they lost interest, bought other places, you know how it is. My grandfather worked in insurance but his life was fly-fishing. He taught my father and my father…Well, we fish together, but you know how it is sometimes with fathers. They don’t always have time to spend with their kids. So my grandfather picked up the slack, happily. He took me out with him every weekend and I don’t know who enjoyed it more.” His voice grew wistful. “My dad came along when he could. Don’t misunderstand. He’s a great guy. I come from a close family. My mother and father still live in the house I grew up in. My two sisters live within a day’s drive away. So we see each other a lot. But when my grandfather died, I don’t know, home just wasn’t the same for me.”

  “What happened to the cabin?”

  “It’s still there.” He took a sip of his coffee. “My grandfather left it to me.”

  She smiled, understanding how much that inheritance meant to him. “How old were you when he died?”

  “Twenty-seven. I was grown up. It was time for me to move on. But I still feel cheated. There isn’t a day I’m on the river that I don’t feel him with me. He’s just casting farther downstream.” He refilled the thermos cup and handed it to her. “How about you?”