At the Scent of Water (19 page)

She looked at the mug rack over the sink, the old chipped blue cup Sam favored still hanging there. The can of coffee just where she’d left it that morning. She had always made him coffee and breakfast before he left for work, until those last days when he was never home. She had been alone here with the shadows and grief.

It was fitting, she supposed, that he would find her here. She heard a slight sound and turned, and there he was.

She stared, ran her eyes over him, not quite believing it was true. It was, though. It was Sam. He stood, hands in his pockets. His face was sober. His hair was still thick and combed back from his face. His expression was dark with something familiar to both of them. All what she had expected except when she looked at his eyes. They were not hard and distant as she’d thought they might be, but soft and full of pain. “Hello, Annie Ruth,” he said. “Somehow I knew we’d meet again.”

“Hello, Sam,” she answered back, and suddenly it seemed as if no time had passed at all.

****

Somehow he had imagined that she had changed. Cut her hair, perhaps. Become someone he would not know. Perhaps he had even hoped she had. Then he would not have felt this raw sense of two broken edges grating against each other in his chest. She was wearing jeans and a blue cotton shirt. Her beautiful hair spilled down around her shoulders. Her eyes were huge saucers, and her cheeks flushed pink, blending together the spatter of golden freckles on her cheeks.

Neither one of them spoke for a moment, but his mind was whirring. Racing. Had she changed her mind? Had she come back to tell him? Hope rose up for a moment, then crashed back down in a spectacular heap when she spoke.

“I came to clean out the house,” she said, and her face flushed even pinker.

“Oh.”

“Did someone tell you I was here?” she asked. “Is that why you came?”

He shook his head. “I came to do the same as you. Get my things out and put the place up for sale.”

“Oh.” Was there disappointment there or only indifference?

“When did you get in?” he asked after a moment.

“Yesterday afternoon. What about you?”

“The same.” They glanced away from each other, and there was an awkward silence for a moment.

“Sam,” she finally said.

He turned toward her, and it was foolish, but even then he hoped she might take it all back. Say, “Never mind those papers. I was angry. Now that I’m here, of course, I can see it was all a mistake.” What would he do? he asked himself. Would he take her in his arms and kiss her? Would that make things right? Suddenly he saw how foolish he was being. There was too much between them, and suddenly it seemed insurmountable. He had no idea how to span it.

“Sam, I’m sorry about Kelly Bright,” she said softly, finding the words she’d been searching for. So she had not been about to take it all back.

“So am I,” he returned. Perhaps a little more curtly than he’d meant to. But what more was there to say? He felt that familiar hopeless exhaustion grip him by the throat.

She crossed her arms and looked away from him, and when she spoke he could hear that the tenderness had left her voice. “Do you want to save anything here?” she asked bluntly.

He felt a flush of anger then. Those words hit him like battering rams, and he saw himself waiting alone every year at that silly restaurant, looking and acting such a fool that even old women felt sorry for him. He looked at her standing there. He had not thought he would ever see her again. Not since her terse note. Her legal papers. And he realized how foolish he had been to think there might be any hope. After all, they weren’t Sam and Annie anymore, they were Petitioner and Respondent. He felt angry that she had come. Could not her father have taken care of this last funeral? Could she not have paid someone to come and clean away the debris of their life? Why had she come? To torment him? To see him in his agony?

“What are you doing here, Annie?” It was his own voice, though it almost surprised him to hear it. He had not thought about speaking these thoughts. The words just appeared, surprising him when they landed back in his ear. They did not sound particularly angry, in fact they sounded dull, monotonous, as if he would be barely interested in her answer.

Her face grew hard then. “I have every right to be here.”

“Did your
lawyer
tell you that?” he threw back, and somehow disinterest had become mockery.

Her face flushed bright red down to the roots of her hair. She didn’t answer. Her mouth became a tight line.

“Did you come to rub salt in the wound?” he asked, an edge to the mockery now. “Maybe you wanted to be here to see your
ex
-husband take his fall. Welcome!” He spread his arms wide and made a sweeping gesture. “Take a seat. The show is just beginning.”

“I didn’t come to see you take a fall.”

“Why, then?”

Her defiant expression wavered for a moment. “I read in the paper . . .”

“So you came to help me out?” He should stop. He knew he should, but the anger and hurt spilled out of his mouth.

Her face became angry again. “I should have known better.”

“Oh, come on, Annie. If you’d cared, you would have come some other time in the last five years. Maybe you would have come when you promised.”

“How dare you talk to me about promises.” Her voice became hard and sharp. “You were the one who broke
your
promise. You promised we’d have a life together. You were the one who left me here alone because you wanted to be a big name. You wanted to be famous. Do you know how many nights I spent waiting for you?”

He shook his head in disgust. How many times had they had this conversation? It’s the nature of the work, Annie, he had said more times than he could count. There is no moderation possible. You’re there or not. Hot or cold. On or off. In or out.

“Your work was always the most important thing,” she continued bitterly.

“So you’re still beating that dead horse,” he said, and that made her even angrier.

She said nothing, but her face grew darkly bitter, and he felt as attacked as if she had shouted accusations at him.

“Go ahead,” he said bitterly. “Why don’t you say what you really hate me for? You’re angry that I went to work that day, and you think it’s my fault Margaret died. I know. You can lie, but I know you blame me.”

She said nothing. She did not admit it, but neither did she deny it. Her silence stabbed him as deeply as words would have.

“It was an accident, Annie. It was no one’s fault. It could have happened to you. Blame God if you want, but I didn’t kill our daughter. I loved Margaret, and I loved you.”

“You didn’t love me,” she hurled back when he had barely finished speaking. “If you had loved me, you would have stayed with me afterward. You would have talked to me. Do you know how many nights I looked into that stony mask—that one right there, still on your face—and waited for you to speak? To say something? Anything? But you never did. You left me here in silence, and you left me here alone, and finally I left you, but I was only making real what you had already done.”

“Oh. I see. So, is that what you’re doing now, Annie?” he demanded. “Making things
real
? Making things
honest
?”

“You’ve made choices, Sam. Don’t blame me for this.”

“I’ve made choices. Oh. I see. You probably think I deserve everything I’m getting now,” he finally suggested quietly. “Maybe God’s paying me back. Maybe I’m reaping what I’ve sown.”

She shook her head but did not answer. She walked past him, out the door. He stood there, not turning, until long after he had heard her start her car and drive away.

****

She was shaking. She drove a ways away, then pulled to the side of the road and waited until her pulse returned to normal and her stomach stopped swirling. She did not want to go back to her father’s. She would have a word with him, for surely he had known, probably along with the rest of Gilead Springs, that Sam was back. But she did not want to see him now. She did not want to go to see Laurie or Ricky. She did not want to see Mary or anyone else she knew. She started the car again and drove eastward, leaving a long plume of dust in her wake. She drove to Asheville without stopping or pondering. She found a moving supply company and filled the trunk and the backseat of the rented compact with flat folded boxes and strapping tape. It was nearly one when she turned the car for Gilead Springs again. She wished fervently that she had left things as they were. Better to have remembered him with some vestige of love than to have this bitter, cold memory. She felt a dread at returning to Gilead Springs.

She passed by the sign for the short jog to Silver Falls, and that was when she remembered the picture, that lovely picture of Jesus with the beautiful writing on the back, still wrapped in tissue and tucked in her bag, as a matter of fact.
Annie Wright Johnson,
it had said,
Silver Falls, North Carolina
. And here she was, wanting a delay. She turned the car and drove toward town. Seeing the visitor’s center, she stopped the car, got out, and went inside. It was a large empty room, the walls lined with glass display cases containing old photos and articles of history.

“May I help you?” A young woman, blond, with a stylish shaggy cut spoke, and Annie felt surprise. She had expected the attendant to be old, a member of the blue-haired biddy committee, as she and Laurie had named Gilead Springs’ matrons.

“I found a picture in an antique shop,” she said. “It’s inscribed by Annie Wright Johnson and dated 1920, Silver Falls. Any idea where I could find out about the owner?”

“We don’t keep genealogical data,” she said cheerfully. “Miss Harrison at the Historical Society might be able to help you. It’s right across the square in that old Victorian house behind the courthouse.”

Annie thanked her and walked back out. At the Historical Society, which obviously doubled as Miss Harrison’s home, she sat and examined the surroundings while Miss Harrison, surprisingly, consulted several Internet databases for genealogical information.

“There are several branches of the family left,” she finally announced. “There’s Charles Johnson, who was the grandson. He used to live out on Millard Street, but I believe he’s in a nursing home in Bryson City now. There are two great-granddaughters in the database. One is in Virginia and the other in South Carolina. The only one local might be Mrs. Rogers over on Pigeon Creek Road. I believe she’s related somehow, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to research it right now. I have to leave for another appointment. I can give you directions to her place if you like,” she offered.

“Thank you so much,” Annie said.

Miss Harrison wrote something on a piece of paper, handed it to Annie, then took her purse and the two of them walked together to the door.

“You don’t happen to have a telephone number for her, do you?” Annie asked as Miss Harrison climbed into her car.

“Oh, you don’t need to call,” she answered.

Annie wasn’t so confident, but Miss Harrison was on her way to gone. Annie waved a thank-you, got into her own car, then looked at her watch. It was nearly three o’clock. She could go back to Gilead Springs and begin packing up her past, or she could drop in on Mrs. Rogers.

It only took a moment to make up her mind. She drove, following Miss Harrison’s directions, and when she saw her destination, she realized why Miss Harrison had been so sure that she didn’t need to announce her visit. She grinned and pulled in to the graveled driveway. They did not have these in Seattle or Los Angeles, she would wager.

It was a small country store, a white wood-framed box.
Rogers Mercantile
, the sign proclaimed. There was one gas pump, a rusting yellow
Pennzoil
sign beside it. A bench beside a barrel of pansies. The wooden door was open. An
Open
sign hung from a nail on the screen door. The grass in the side yard was lush and green in spite of the drought, shaded by several large oaks.

Annie parked the car, got out, and walked toward the store. When she opened the screen door, the bell on it jingled as the spring screeched. The wooden floor creaked under her feet as she stepped inside. She looked around her and blinked, not sure where to look first. She didn’t know when she had seen so many objects crammed into such a small place. And the smells! She closed her eyes to take them in. There was that old smell again, along with woodsmoke and an overwhelming aroma of apples. She opened her eyes and saw them—red, yellow, and green—in front of her in bushel baskets. Behind them was a shelf stacked high with honey. Some jars were clear light amber, others rich dark brown. Some with a floating comb, some without. The next rows held jellies and jams in jewel tones, red and orange, purplish black, and light yellow. She turned and swept her eyes across the rest of the tiny room. There were shelves and tables, every inch crammed full of something. Cans and boxes, cakes and pies, a whole wall of candy, canned goods, a small refrigerated case, and shelves with everything from Mars bars and gummy bears to peppermint sticks and a jar of horehound drops.

“I’ll be out there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!” a voice called out from the room behind the shop. Annie saw a stove and a kitchen table through the doorway.

“Take your time,” she called back and continued looking around her.

There was a wall display of flyswatters, a cardboard holder of nail clippers, two missing, a lit display case featuring a profile of an Indian, but oddly, full of gum rather than chewing tobacco. A red, chest-style Pepsi-Cola cooler. She opened the lid. It was stocked with glass bottles. She turned toward the shelf of baked goods. A coconut cake was encased in cardboard and cellophane, loaves of bread decorated with red and blue and yellow dots. There were apothecary jars full of pretzels and pickles, macaroni and chocolate-covered peanuts. Shelves full of blue jeans and overalls. She passed another doorway and peeped inside. Sacks of feed and grain filled the room.

She walked toward the worn checkout counter and waited, this intersection of past and present doing seesaw with her emotions. Tentacles of memory were reaching out to grip her, and if she wanted to be free, she should leave now. She stared at the wire rack of potato chips by the cash register and remembered standing beside one by the lake in Gilead Springs. She could almost feel the wet hair on the back of her neck, the warm air, and the dampness of her swimming suit as she stood in line to buy candy.