Coldwater Revival: A Novel (16 page)

Twenty

Wave after wave pummeled my body with a liquid mallet, but still I pressed toward the light, its unmistakable message pulsing in my heart. Progress was slow and tedious, rendered so by pugilistic currents that knocked me from my feet like a prizefighter. The ocean had a fickle mind, tugging me out to sea with one heave, yanking me back to the shore with another. Saltwater burned my eyes, and my legs wearied of trudging a channel whose density was like cottage cheese. I no longer sensed the water’s coldness as it swirled atop my shoulders and lifted my feet from the ocean floor. Dead to all feeling, save the sorrow that had led me to this time and place, I longed for one thing: to abandon my guilt and sorrow in the tides of forgetfulness. Purge them as I had purged my sins in the baptismal waters of Susquant Creek. As I bobbed in the currents and waited for the ocean to swallow me, I hoped the sea would be gracious and proffer me its forgiveness, as well.

The ocean roared in my ears, more intensely now that the sea and I had become one. A rogue wave poured down on me like the floodgates of heaven, plunging me to the bottom of the sea, and then sailing me high above the breakers. Why I struggled to stay afloat remains a mystery. Perhaps it was an instinct for survival, though I wished not to survive at all. My arms paddled like ferocious oars as I fought to gain purchase of the light, but another wicked wave picked me up like a rag doll and pitched me toward shore. I choked and quaffed water, spitting back into the wetness all I coughed up. When I pushed to my feet, I was dismayed that I stood in a mere foot of sea. I waded to waist-high water and turned toward the light. But the sea swelled again, towering high, catapulting me through the blackness and onto the beach where it pounded me into the fast-shifting sand. Exhaustion bound me with invisible ropes as I lay on the shore, heaving for air.

Moonbeams rained down from the sky like spears, tattooing the beach with a pale, sickly glow. I stood after a time, tottering in shallow surf that licked my feet while my heart responded with maritime pulses. Water rolled from my clothes in salt-tainted sluices as I sank deeper into my fluid sandbox. I knew weariness as never before. I, who had boasted of swimming the seeable length of Two-Toe Creek with barely a hitch in my breath.
A weakling … that’s all I am.
When I most needed to reach the light, I couldn’t navigate past the first big wave. I wept again, saddened by another failure—too soon come upon me.

A voice thundered through the night air, rising above the squall of the sea. For one frightening moment, I thought I had unknowingly entered a netherworld—one existing in the deepness of middle earth or beneath the origin of the sea. Then I reasoned I must have been dreaming, and even now lay on my bed in Coldwater, for the voice sounded very nearly like Elo’s.

“… and the three stars in the middle are called belt stars. Sure as the sun rises each morning, the mighty hunter rears up in the eastern sky every autumn, ready to do battle.”

My ears rang with the sound of the sea, yet I imagined I heard Elo’s voice a second time … saying something about a belt. Was he thinking to use his belt on me? He’d never dared such a thing before … what was Elo doing in Galveston, anyway?

“See that cluster of stars—right up there? Just follow my finger. That’s Orion’s head, and there’s his shoulder. The stars off to the right make up his bow. Crafty fellow, isn’t he? You can bet his quiver carries nothing but the deadliest arrows.”

The voice moved in my direction. I whirled my head toward the sound. A man approached, setting a slow but steady pace on the path leading to me. His hand stretched upward, but his gaze never tarried from my face. In the near darkness, he looked menacing and as deadly as the arrows of which he spoke. A scream tore from my throat—an unending scream that snatched all breath from my body. I dropped to my hands and knees, crawling like a baby, clawing the sand as I scrambled for the safety of the sea.

“Whoa … whoa there … I don’t mean you any harm.”

The man fell to his knees in the water, his hands reaching for me as I cried and gouged my way into deeper ocean. When I let loose with another yowl, he reared back his hands like a robber surrendering to the police. I crabbed through knee-high water, coughing and yelping as I made my escape from the stranger.

The man leaned toward me and again raised his hands. “Hey, look … I’m sorry I frightened you. I was just talking to myself, the way I always do. Then I saw you wash up on shore. You looked like you needed a little help. See that pile of rocks over there?” the man said, directing his finger to a mound of broken slab. “I’ll go over there, if you like. You can stay here. You don’t need to be afraid of me, little girl. You’re safe. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

For the first time, I detected a slight quiver of adolescence in the stranger’s voice.

As I wheezed and coughed up saltwater, I kept a fixed stare on the trespasser. He walked to a pile of riprap some distance away and sat down. While he kept his attention trained on the sky, I gathered my matted hair into a rope and slung it over my shoulder. With stiff, dirty fingers, I brushed straggly forelocks from my eyes and studied him. ’Twas true—though the youth stretched toward manhood, he’d not reached it altogether. After my nerves settled down, I determined he was not the malevolent-hearted beast I’d presumed him to be.

Though I hated the young man for his meddlesome interference, it proved difficult to turn my eyes from his presence. He appeared close in age to Elo, and had the same wide shoulders and tallness of my brother. But their similarities ended there, for the intruder’s hair was as black as the burning end of midnight. Faded dungarees and denim shirt hid portions of his shape, but they couldn’t disguise his lanky height and sturdy build.

I had no choice but to wait out the hours there on the beach. It wouldn’t do to appear at Granny’s house in drenched clothing. She would grow suspect of the mission I had failed to carry out this evening. She might unearth the truth in my heart and discover what I already knew: My future aimed in one direction only—the sea of forgetfulness.

A stiff breeze drove a smidgen of dampness from my clothes, but not enough to fool Granny. With eyes blindfolded, she would smell the sea on me and wonder what I’d been up to. I sat with the night wind to my back, scanning my brain for a way to hornswoggle myself out of the mess I’d made. As I waited for evaporation to do its work, exhaustion and cold combined into a mighty case of the shivers. I dared not move and call attention to myself, so I clenched my chattering teeth and huddled my shoulders against the cold, damp air. My gaze roamed lovingly over the water, searching for the beacon. For the hundredth time I wished I had made it to the light.

My eyes stared at the sea, lost in the journey I had been traveling for the last few weeks. I didn’t see the man-boy evacuate his place on the rocks, nor did I spy him walking toward me. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me. I whirled at the sound and opened my mouth to scream, but his words stopped me short, for they were breathed out like a prayer.

“Thought you might need my jacket. I could see you shaking from clear over there on the rocks.”

He laid his jacket across my shoulders and stepped back a pace, revealing empty palms, with nary a weapon in either hand.

I nodded my head in thanks, or perhaps it nodded on its own, as the shakes had taken over my body.

“Look … you need to get out of the wind. Let’s find you some shelter in those dunes.” He pointed to the sand ridges in which I’d hidden earlier today.

I tried to motion him away and tell him to leave me alone, but my chattering teeth wouldn’t allow me to say a word. Though he seemed kind enough, I wouldn’t follow him into the darkness. My trust didn’t extend as far as the dunes. I shook my head and backed up a bit on the sand.

“Shhhh … it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that, but you’d have screamed your head off if I just walked over and handed you my jacket. You’re liable to catch pneumonia out here in the wind. Keep the jacket. Just forget about the dunes. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”

Like a mother soothing her infant back to sleep, the youth cooed his hushed whispers to me. “I’m going back to the rocks now.”

His stride appeared purposeful and steadfast as he walked away with only one backward glance at me. He reseated himself upon the riprap before turning his gaze to the heavens.

I settled deeper into the thick jacket, grateful for its warmth.

Twenty-one

I was somewhat wary of the squatter who sat atop the slabs. But that didn’t keep the shakes at bay, nor did it stay my eyes from closing. I collapsed to the sand and rubbed salt and grit from my eyes. They stung as if they’d rubbed up against a stalk of bull nettle. Had I crossed the Sahara Desert on foot, I couldn’t have been any wearier.

I awakened with a start, looking first to the rock pile for the stranger’s whereabouts. He no longer sat atop the stones. My gaze swept the horizon, but spied him not. Sand covered half of my face and most of my body. As I stood on shaky legs and brushed stubborn grit from my hair and clothes, I scanned the beach for the stripling.

He appeared then, sauntering toward me, his arms laden with sea trash. I stood, mostly on my good leg, and watched his approach, but he walked directly to the pile of stones and dumped his clutter of driftwood, paper, and dried seaweed to the ground. After digging in his pocket, he squatted in the sand and set aflame his stack of flotsam. The fire looked inviting. But when he motioned me to its warmth, I shook my head and stayed where I was.

“The fire sure feels good,” the lad said in a voice that presented itself well across the distance. He held his open palms above the burning debris and continued the one-sided conversation. “Oh, by the way … my name is Tate.”

I debated for a time, and then slowly made my way to the opposite side of the fire from the youth. His eyes narrowed as he studied my face, and he seemed to be waiting for a reply, though he didn’t press me for my name. ’Twas a good thing he didn’t, for as surely as stars filled the heavens, I would not divulge my identity, nor the reason I swam the nighttime sea.

Tate spoke of the sea, the weather, birds settling in for the night. His voice soothed my ruffled feathers and softened the shell of fear around my heart. While he eyed me with the intensity of a bird-watcher, a smile settled over his features, granting his countenance a gentleness I couldn’t deny. Surely I could trust a smile that held Mama’s own good sweetness in it. Tate must have sensed the moment I began to trust him, for his eyes took on a glint of utmost satisfaction.

I slipped the jacket from my shoulders and held it out to Tate from across the fire pit—a silent substitute for something I was unwilling to share with him. When he shook his head, I sighed in contentment, for I had grown used to the coat’s warmth.

We sat near the fire, he on one side and I on the other.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?”

I knew what was coming. I turned my gaze to the sea and said nothing.

“Never mind … it can wait.”

Tate stirred the fire with a stick, setting aglow the embers of a dying flame. Earlier, the fire had popped and spit, its glory brief, but consequential. Now all that remained was a smattering of charcoal embers and a pile of pale ashes.

The fire reminded me of Micah. His life had been brief and glorious, but now he was gone. His ashes would eternally abide in the burying box on our farm. There in front of the stranger my heart squeezed with grief. I would have chosen the pain of a thousand beasts stampeding across my body rather than knowing again the fresh hurt of losing Micah. I lay my head in my hands. The stranger would see no more tears tonight.

I’m unsure if Tate sensed my sorrow. He resumed his lecture about the stars, perhaps to turn my attention from something he didn’t understand.

“See that bright star … above Orion’s head? That’s the planet Saturn. If we had a telescope we could see Saturn’s rings.”

I didn’t respond, except to glance at the sky space of which he spoke. It wasn’t in me to explain that Papa had taught us about planets, star constellations, and galaxies. He had sketched our planetary system and made us draw its duplicate. Most likely Papa was a teacher at heart. I knew Saturn had two sets of rings. He told us that even a weak telescope could detect their visibility on a clear night. Papa would probably be willing to exchange his right arm—or his fifth child—for such a telescope.

Tate’s concentration attached itself to the night sky with deep devotion, as was the way with true astronomers. I rose quietly to my feet and disappeared into the darkness. I left him there, gazing at his stars, unaware that his audience had made her way to the dunes, where she retrieved her crutch and aimed it toward Granny’s house.

I knew my appointment with the sea was but a temporary postponement. I would come back. The light awaited my return.

Twenty-two

Granny stood on her front lawn, huddled with half a dozen people. She had gathered a posse, it seemed. I knew I was in a heap of trouble because people milled about as though searching for a lost puppy and every porch light in the neighborhood beamed with brightness. A finger pointed in my direction, turning Granny’s head toward me. Like the prodigal’s father, she spied me from afar.

“Emma Grace … Emma Grace! Where have you been, child?”

There was power in Granny’s lungs. A mighty breath of fear hurled her scream through the night air like a ball slammed by Elo’s bat. I imagined Tate hearing it from two miles away on the beach. Worried about her safety, I hurried as best I could, but she rushed on with anxious feet, meeting me head-on, wrapping me in a bear hug.

Granny’s sobs tore at my heart. I cringed at my selfishness, knowing I desired to escape my pain more than I cared about Granny’s feelings. I had hurt her tonight, as I would hurt my family when the sea and I parted no more. Even so, I had pondered it thoroughly and knew the only way to rid myself of guilt and shame was for the three of us to walk the plank together—so to speak.

“Let’s go tell these good people that you’re safe, Emma Grace, so they can go back to their homes. They’ve been helping me look for you all evening. Where in the world have you been, child? It’s almost nine o’clock.”

Granny didn’t stop to hear any answers I may have concocted. She spoke quietly to each bug-eyed person in the yard while they studied my slovenly person with huge question marks in their eyes. When the yard was empty, but for Granny and me, she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and we walked up the porch steps together.

Granny lit one kerosene lamp in the parlor and one in the kitchen. There were electrical outlets all over the house, but she preferred her lanterns. Granny cracked and scrambled two eggs, buttered a slice of bread for oven toast, and poured a glass of milk. White milk. She turned to me and pointed to a chair at the table. I sat down, surprised by long-absent sensations of hunger that now rumbled in my stomach.

“Now, young lady … after you eat supper and take a hot bath, you’re gonna tell me what in the world’s going on.”

I floated in coolness, moving without resistance through calm, peaceful water. The water’s stillness unsettled me, for in my mind I still locked horns with the fearless sea. I had struggled with my eyelids, keeping them open while I scrubbed sand from hair, ears, toes, and every crevice of my body. But the task had proved too heavy-lidded to continue. Now I drifted in near sleep, the water in Granny’s claw-foot tub as cool as the air outside. But I was too tired and sleepy to pull the plug and crawl out. Neither did I wish to, for Granny’s tongue awaited me on the other side of the door.

“Emma Grace … what’re ye doing in there? Reading the Sears catalog from cover to cover?”

I startled awake at Granny’s voice. She stood outside the bathroom door—like a dog on point, no doubt. Before she took a mind to rattle the doorknob and burst right in, I grabbed a towel from the rack and covered myself with haste. Granny’s idea of privacy was as far away from my own as China was from South America.

“Just a second. I’ll be right out.”

I scuttled from the tub and dried off, knowing a bit of renewed strength as I determined not to let Granny’s gaze ponder my skin-draped bones. ’Twas enough—the lecture she’d lay upon me in a few minutes. Would it be too much to hope she’d take pity and postpone the grilling until tomorrow?

Granny directed me to the parlor sofa where I sat clasping my bathrobe, fending off a chill in the room. Could a person die from fatigue, I wondered? It seemed possible, especially if that person fell asleep during one of Granny’s inquisitions and hit the hardwood floor headfirst.

Granny wasted not a heartbeat. Her scathing tongue scorched staleness from the air as it spewed blasts of condemnation all over me. I smoldered with embarrassment and regret, for I had so frightened my grandmother’s heart that it had acted up, palpitating in hurried spurts and jerks. According to Granny, her heart hadn’t settled down yet, though the doctor had administered a calming tonic to her an hour earlier. And what about her neighbors, Granny wanted to know. They’d left their supper tables and combed the alleys and streets looking for her lost granddaughter.

She leaned in close, her shrewd little eyes peering through her rimmed spectacles as she spoke.

“How’d ye say you got so wet?”

“Sand got in my shoes. So I washed my feet in the water. Must’ve lost my balance, ’cause next thing I know I was at the bottom of the sea.” It sounded plausible to me. So long as I didn’t volunteer too much information and go cross-eyed trying to keep my story straight, I would probably come out all right. “I’m real tired, Granny. Think I’ll turn in now. I’m awful sorry that I worried you … and made your heart hurt. I love you, Granny.” I stood and leaned over, giving her cheek a peck. But when I saw the sadness in her eyes, my heart lurched and wobbled as Granny’s had earlier tonight.

She could be a real crank at times, but more often she was loving and kind, a person who truly obeyed the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. How could I amble off to my room when Granny’s face wore such a tired and desolate look? She had to know I was withholding something, yet I couldn’t bring myself to utter another lie. And never … never would I tell her the truth.

Though I’d been washed by the sea, and scorched by the heat of Granny’s blistering tongue, I still reeked of sadness and guilt. I walked from the room, leaving Granny to stew in her kettle of doubts and letdown feelings. I had to leave her—lest I pass my stench onto her.

Three days passed before I again ventured to the sea. Granny flitted about the house with renewed robustness, especially for someone of her maturity. Since guilt had not slackened its tirade against my heart, Granny’s recovery thrilled me, for it eased the way for me to seek the light. It was my stricken heart, therefore, that suggested the time had come to complete the task I began on Sunday.

I’d been in a tiff most of the day because Granny refused to relinquish my one remaining pair of overalls. She’d washed seawater from them on Monday, pressed them on Tuesday, but they’d upped and gone missing on Wednesday. When I awakened this morning, no overalls draped the bedpost. Instead, I found a gray muslin skirt and a blue shirtwaist, neatly folded at the foot of the bed. Without asking, I knew Granny had either disposed of my last pair of overalls, or vanquished them to a secret hideaway where others of its kind were stashed.

Granny’s afternoon nap sometimes stretched to near suppertime. At midafternoon, I left the house and walked to East Beach. November sun rained warmth upon my bare arms while a restless wind whipped at my hair and skirt. In a few hours the sun would retire and stars would spark the night sky. When darkness covered even the slight form of the heavyhearted girl entering the sea, I would again stroke toward the light.

I stood near a group of young children who ran along the beach, exclaiming with excitement each time they spied a seashell or shiny rock. A spindly woman with graying hair watched over them, her parchment face evident even from where I stood. One wee child attempted to place her hand in the woman’s, but the woman shoved the child’s fingers aside and then brushed her own hands as if to rid them of an unwanted touch. I didn’t have to hear her words to know they were spoken without warmth or tenderness. She pointed to the other children, and off the wee girl went with her arms crossed over her chest and a sullen look on her face. Anger at the woman fired my heart.

When I saw a boy with blond curls, my gaze fixed on him like frost on a windowpane. Not because he had handsome features or because he reminded me of Micah. I watched him because he held absolute authority over the other children. Of such characteristics was my Caleb hewn. Though the boy’s stature was less prominent than some, he discharged orders as though he’d attained the height of ten feet. The little rogue captured his playmates with the iron fist of authority, just as Caleb had captured my heart the day he was born. I smiled as a picture came to mind: Caleb leading this pygmy group into guerilla warfare. Even the general-boy with blond curls would have acquiesced to Caleb’s rule.

Longing seized my heart, pilfering my breath, glutting my eyes with tears. Oh, to see Captain Caleb well again—healthy and whole. I would follow him anywhere.

I’m unsure what caused me to enter the sea; what delusional thoughts persuaded me to seek forgetfulness before the appointed hour. Looking back, I believed my heart was too heavy with pain to determine other consequences, such as small hatchlings following my lead. Perhaps my mind just deserted me for the moment. For whatever reason, I walked straight into the water, confusion and pain flowing through my heart like the waves that wrapped around my legs. My knees buckled and I stumbled. How shocked I was to see little bodies close behind, flailing arms slapping at the rushing water that swept over their shoulders, knocking them down like bowling pins. Some toppled headfirst; others grabbed onto my skirt, tugging the hem, not understanding the dangerous game they played. When reality finally filtered into my head, fear for the little ones sped me to action. I knelt in the water, gathering children into my arms, shushing them with gentleness so they could hear my words. “Hold onto my skirt and follow me. The water’s too deep for us to play in.” With pounding heart, I held onto shirt collars and arms, herding all of them back to shore like a shepherd guiding his sheep to the fold.

Giggles spurted from their mouths as we stepped from the sea. Even the faces of those who had been fully dunked wore looks of delight. Delight didn’t slip from their faces until the woman approached and spewed upon me the severest tongue-lashing I had ever received.

My apology to the woman went unaccepted as she prepared to march her little charges from the beach. Though I had explained that the fault was entirely mine, she stormed up and down the line of children, fuming and barking orders at every child who had followed the Pied Piper into the sea. The puckish pack looked a mess, all right, their clothes dripping, their shoes waterlogged, and spikes of hair matted to their happy faces. Despite the bad-tempered mistress, the children smiled up at me, and one by one waved me a cautious good-bye.