Deep River Burning (17 page)

The sea is very different from the lakes and ponds she remembered seeing in Pennsylvania. The water was often motionless and the surface was an untouched, undisturbed, glossy sheen of balanced existence. She turned around and looked out at the horizon and dove toward it, curving her body so that she would sweep the bottom of the ocean and then rise again to the surface. She did this several times while keeping her eyes open so she could see the sand rocking with the water and particles floating in front of her.

In a split second, she felt her body being violently whipped and twisted through the water. She had no control over her body. She didn’t know if she was being thrown farther out to sea or being thrown toward the shore. She needed air. She kept twisting and spinning so she kept her eyes closed. She took a breath, but it was all seawater. She saw the faces of her mother and father smiling at her from the end of a long driveway as they watched her ride her bike for the first time down an empty rural road. Father Allen’s face passed through her mind. And another face appeared to her that was familiar but different from what she remembered. It was Josh, but he looked older, and he was looking at her while leaning on the broad trunk of a maple tree. He started to walk toward her, and she saw his feet brush through uncut grass dotted with tiny yellow flowers. His complexion was warm as he approached her and fixed his gaze directly into her eyes as if that would tell her everything she needed to know. He was just getting ready to speak when suddenly, his face disappeared.

As quickly as the rip current swept her away, it dumped her back near the beach a good distance down from where she had started swimming. She coughed and vomited the water from her lungs and stomach. She was dizzy from being caught in the whirling undercurrent so the world around her spun in circles when she tried to open her eyes.

She kept her eyes closed and sat in the surf that was pushing her around and felt the sand moving over her legs as her body began to burrow into the sea floor. She had been caught in a narrow, high velocity belt of churning water. The current could have thrown her out to sea and left her there, taking her for its own, but she must have gotten swept up in another wave that pushed her back to shore. The sea didn’t want her, not today.

But then there was Josh. In her mind, he was still looking at her as if something had been left undone. He was getting ready to say something to her, and she didn’t get to hear it. An old couple on the beach called out to her to see if she needed help, but she told them that she was all right. She stood up as the dizziness began to fade and walked back up the beach where her clothes were blowing a little in the wind and covered with sand. As she walked, she kept replaying it all over and over again in her mind as if the scene with Josh would continue and he would speak and she would get to hear what he wanted to say, but it always stopped right when he began to move his lips.

She went home and took the letters from her desk drawer and read them again. They weren’t letters really, they were notes. He wasn’t the type to reveal his thoughts in a long letter. When they were younger and he wanted to talk to her, it always had to be in person, never on the phone, and he only talked when the time was right and the place was right. She admired this restraint in him.

She remembered his hand that once held her still against the tremors under her skin that shook after hearing the terrible news of her father and mother. Her eyes burned and drained turbulently back into her ears, dampening her hair. The rapid flashes of quiet lightning that night kept her from screaming and hearing her own voice echo back to her as the boat, with its pattern of wet leaves on the floor, carried them across the Susquehanna. She closed her eyes and imagined the moon shining through lace curtains. She wanted to remember her father and mother, and she wanted to remember how Josh helped her.

For the next several days after her encounter with the rip current, she had trouble eating and sleeping. Her body knew. The body often knows first. When falling in love or out of love, losing ground or transforming, the body knows first. She became aware of this other part of her that was smarter than her rational mind, an intuitive intelligence that if left unacknowledged, would aggravate the mind and body with a host of afflictions until it was answered. The energy inside of her had been building, preparing for the migration, and when it comes time to go, she would fly. Soon, she would go north. At some point, geese always return.

In Adena, Josh always knew when there was going to be a full moon and he would tell everyone about it, but no one seemed to care as much as he did. If the night was clear, or even partly clear, and the moon could be seen sitting in the sky like the big paw of a polar bear, Josh was outside walking or sitting or sleeping. It didn’t matter as long as he was outside.

But she knew what had to happen over the next several weeks. She needed to take this time to remember so that when she returned to Adena, the memories wouldn’t overwhelm and choke her or make her run. She needed to remember the fire and to remember her parents most of all, to remember Helena and to remember the river. She thought about Aunt Rosemary who she wanted to visit in Florida, and she thought about Mr. Pilner and wondered if he was still alive. He knew better than anyone how to survive.

She felt a little confidence finally start to come to her. She had left Adena not feeling at all like a human being but rather like a fragmented bag of broken nerves. She had grown and come a long way since the day Father Allen woke her up on the beach and walked her to the nature sanctuary when she was still covered with sleep and sand.

If it wasn’t for Josh, she could have stayed away from Adena for the rest of her life, but he was her friend, and she had wondered about him for years. She had wondered about Helena also, and why the postcard she sent with her new address had been returned. She had made the decision to let go of the pain from the past because it served no useful purpose for her, but Josh and Helena were a part of her. There were times when she thought she heard their laughter coming from the beach, but when she looked out over the sweep of sand in both directions, she only saw surf and seagulls.

On her next work shift at the crab shack, she told her boss that she needed several days off from work to go to Pennsylvania. Then she went to the sanctuary to see Jimmie to let him know that she would be out of town for several days, that she would be visiting Adena, and to ask him if he would watch over Alexi and Shelly while she was gone. “Of course I’ll watch the kids while you are gone. Will you bring me back a bag of coal from Adena?” he said while laughing at himself. She grinned but didn’t say anything.

“Really? You are going back to PA?” he asked as if he didn’t believe her the first time.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m really surprised.”

“So am I, a little.”

“What made you decide to go back?”

“An old friend.”

“Well, it must have been a good friend to persuade you to go back to the land of gas and sinkholes.”

“You make it sound so alluring, but yes, he was a very good friend.”

“Oh, I see,” he smiled.

Jimmie wanted to know a little more about Pennsylvania’s coal town, but Denver didn’t have much to tell him. She hadn’t followed the news about Adena so she had no idea what condition the town was in, if anyone still lived there, and if the fire was still burning.

“I’ll fill you in when I get back,” she said.

“Yes, please do. Part of me is glad to see a coal mining town die. Coal is dirty and coal companies are only interested in profit. They don’t care about the people who crawl into the dark holes every day and breathe in coal dust.” Denver got the sense that Jimmie was about ready to launch into one of his environmental expositions. It never bothered her because she was always interested in what he had to say.

“Every year, a billion tons of coal is burned to serve our fuel consumption while at the same time rates of lung cancer, heart attacks, and asthma are increasing, especially in people who live anywhere near a coal-fired power plant. It’s a carbon intensive fossil fuel, so think about the CO2 emissions that are floating into the atmosphere around the world.”

“Yes, I know,” said Denver.

“And then you have the mercury issue. I think that is going to be one of the environmental challenges of the future, dealing with the mercury that is produced by these power plants and how the mercury is polluting the streams and causing all kinds of neurological health problems. Do you eat fish?”

“Rarely,” Denver replied.

Jimmie continued with his rant about coal mining by talking about mountaintop removal and how it has devastated landscapes in Kentucky, and how it clear-cuts native forests and dumps waste and debris into valley and streams, which in turn become polluted with toxic substances and infect the people living in the rural areas. “It’s the poor people who always end up paying the most.”

While talking to Jimmie, she felt a fresh rush of anger race through her blood, not the destructive kind but the kind that would keep her from sitting on a sofa for too long, the kind that would keep her from worrying about her own problems, the kind of calculating anger that would give her the courage to take a stand and take action, like she did back in Adena. After their discussion, Jimmie told her that Father Allen would be released from the hospital in a few days. He had visited the hospital that morning and got the good news. They sat down together and planned a welcome home party for him. It was time to celebrate.

Chapter 23

Moon Phases

The waxing crescent is a gentle slither, sheer moon slice, cradle of the stars. The sun’s light barely reflected on the moon’s face, prominent shortly after sunset. Denver watched it grow and thought of all the things that understand the pull of the moon. Alexi always looked for it, especially when it was full. She would sit on the windowsill and cast her eyes to the sky and then dart her eyes around a few tree branches and leaves until she found it.

On the night of the full moon, she and Shelly wouldn’t sleep. Alexi would always start at Denver’s feet and walk the entire length up her body until she found Denver’s nose buried under a hood formed from the blanket, a purring wake-up call that came much too early. Jimmie once told Denver that emergency hospital visits for pets spiked dramatically during the full moon but that there was no apparent explanation for it, and more people went to emergency rooms for animal bites during the full moon. The waxing crescent was known for its sideways smile and for its bottom point where a child might hang a list of dreams. It was hope that the cycle was starting again. It was the time to take initiative, a call to action. Although there was less howling at night during the crescent moon, the wild pull of this spherical satellite was starting to stir.

The first quarter moon brought the party for Father Allen. He was working in his office at the church in the early evening while preparations were underway in a nearby hotel conference room that was reserved for the occasion. Denver and Twyla decorated the large room with colorful ribbons and flowers while Jimmie appointed himself the host so he could greet everyone as they came in the door.

As guests slowly filtered into the room, the large banquet table filled up with raw salads, pasta salads, egg salad sandwiches, two large dishes of vegetable lasagna, a mushroom casserole, chocolate cake, pecan pie, corn bread, potato chips, brownies, and large beverage containers that dispensed sweet tea, water, and lemonade. The party was scheduled to begin in half an hour, so Denver walked the several blocks over to the church in order to escort Father Allen to his party. He insisted on walking even though he was still tired from his illness.

Denver entered the church through the front doors and stood in the foyer for a moment. Father Allen’s office was down the stairs to the left, but she decided to open the large double doors and walk into the church first. Small candles and an evening sun illuminated the stained glass windows and lighted the room as Denver gazed at its tall ceiling and rows and rows of pews. She had only been to the church a few times but was always surprised at how big it seemed on the inside.

She walked forward up the aisle, sat down in one of the pews, picked up a hymnal and flipped through its pages, running her fingers down a page of the book and along its spine. She sat for a few minutes and noticed the silence in the room. She wondered if this was the reason why some people go to church, to listen . . . to listen to what someone else has to say about life and existence. To listen to the silence. To listen to one’s own internal voice, which some people believe is the voice of God or the voice of a spirit. If she sat there for a while and listened, what would she hear? But she couldn’t stay. It was time to get Father Allen. She walked down the stairs and found him writing in a notebook when she arrived.

“Are you ready to go mingle with your fans?” she asked as she tapped on his office door.

“I’m ready,” he said smiling.

As they walked out the door, Father Allen inhaled deeply and tilted his head up toward the setting sun. Denver noticed that he was walking more slowly than what she was used to but that he looked well.

“I hear you are returning to Pennsylvania for a visit,” Father Allen said looking inquisitively at her.

“Yes. Are you surprised?”

“No, I’m not surprised. You are ready.”

“I’m looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time,” she said as two seagulls flew in front of them.

“Be open to whatever you find there and try not to personally identify with it. You have my phone number. If you need anything, give me a call.”

When they arrived at the party, Father Allen walked into the room and everyone cheered, some people from his parish cried, others gave him a hug, and even Iris had traveled back to North Carolina for his party. Music began to play and everyone helped themselves to the food.

Later that evening, after dark, when Denver, Iris, Jimmie, and Twyla all walked Father Allen home, Denver noticed the first quarter moon sitting quietly in the sky, the half illuminated lunar disk radiating the sun and telling time. It was a sign that progress was being made. That night, she replayed the faces and sounds of the party in her dreams and felt happy that she could put Father Allen’s illness behind her.

When the moon grew fuller to waxing gibbous, she packed her large duffel bag, bought a few snacks for the road, and looked at her map. Jimmie said that “Adena was a town that lived by the sword and died by the sword,” and might someday be removed from maps as if it never existed. A sword can cut a map into pieces. Her stomach gripped and rolled because she knew these days would pass quickly and she would soon be heading north. Waxing gibbous was a time of reflection, for self-analysis, for understanding, to discover one’s motivations. Illumination increased by small degrees every night. When she thought about why she was returning to Adena, she smiled a little because she discovered that she was no longer motivated by fear, but she was still anxious, not knowing what she would find, not knowing if she and Josh would know what to say to each other after all these years.

She tried to do what she could to take her mind off of the trip. She didn’t sleep well at night as the moon grew wider and created a silver world. One sleepless night inspired her to go rummaging through a box that she had declared junk but never took the time to dump into the recycle bin.

She pulled the box from the dark cob-webbed corner of her bedroom closet and tipped the box over on its side so that all of the contents would spill onto the floor. Alexi woke up and began burying her nose under the papers and chewing on the corners of magazines. The box was partially filled with junk mail that she never threw away, but she also found magazines that Twyla used to pass on if she found an article that she thought would be of interest to Denver. Twyla meant well, but she didn’t understand Denver’s desire to mentally dispossess of all things related to coal, so when she handed Denver articles or magazines devoted to the subject, the publications were promptly filed into this junk box that had only seen the light of day a few times in the last year.

She flipped through the glossy pages of a few
National Geographic
magazines and an environmental magazine that was entirely devoted to energy consumption. She glanced through the first few pages and came across the letters section where a short piece called “Keep the Coal” was written by a man named Daniel from Harlan County, Kentucky. Daniel described himself as a fourth generation, small coal mine operator who was heartbroken that his family business, which had been in existence for more than one hundred years, was being threatened by government regulation and explorations into alternative energy.

We need the coal
, he wrote.
It’s the only way to keep the energy bills down so that the people in my community can afford it. We would have a better lifestyle and a greater sense of purpose if we could maintain our livelihood and utilize the resources we have been blessed with.
I have been watching my community slowly crumble in recent years and I can barely hold back the tears as I write this letter.

Denver closed the magazine and allowed her body to recline back onto the carpeted floor. She had heard Daniel’s story before but didn’t have an answer. The clock read 2:14. She picked up another magazine from the floor and held it over her face. The issue was entirely dedicated to coal mining, and when she turned to the table of contents, she found that each article focused on a coal mining community that had been impacted by coal.

She saw articles about towns in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania mostly, and there on page sixty-one was a short article about Adena. Seeing the title of the article, “The Downfall of Adena,” reminded her of the time, about six months ago, when Twyla gave her the magazine. “There’s an article in here about your hometown,” she said. “You should read it. I didn’t know all of this happened while you were still living there!”

Denver read the three-page article that didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know about Adena, except for one thing, the fire was still burning after all these years. Apparently, there was no way to stop it, so Adena would be an even more unstable and noxious place when she returned than when she left. She wondered if Josh knew. That night, she never fell back asleep.

When the moon was almost full, she got into a rented car early in the morning and began driving north, looking to Virginia first, then Pennsylvania. She thought about how going backward can sometimes feel like moving forward; how sometimes being alive can feel like diminishing, how opposites overlap and reflect one another the way the sun is reflected on the moon.

With each passing mile she went deeper into the past to a land with no sand or seagulls, no crabs or lighthouses, no sultry and salty air. She was returning to corn and lakes, red-winged blackbirds, raspberry bushes, rolling hills, and coal. She wouldn’t have imagined that the drive would go by quickly, but the hours gave her mind the chance to go where it needed to go and to live there for a while again, even though much of the world was passing by her as a roadside spectacle. Horse farms, diners, cattle clustered on hillsides, and small white houses that were still holding onto sagging Christmas lights. Somewhere shortly after crossing the Pennsylvania border, she felt the air change. Even though it was July, it felt cool to her.

Late in the afternoon, Denver arrived in eastern Pennsylvania stiff and road weary. She checked herself into a hotel that was located ten miles outside of Adena on a highway where there were plenty of places for her to eat dinner. When she had left Pennsylvania, this stretch of highway was all forest and empty fields, but as the traffic increased, so did the development. None of the native trees were left standing. The hotels and restaurants were framed by small, ornamental trees that looked fake.

She was hungry after her long drive. She looked for a locally-owned restaurant and found one about three miles west of her hotel called Buddy’s Place. As she ate dinner, the only thing on her mind was the fact that tomorrow was the full moon. She was glad that she had arrived early so that she could take the time to recover from the drive and reacquaint herself with the place she used to call home. The restaurant wasn’t crowded. It was quiet. She had a table by the window, and the sun went down.

The next day, she woke up early and went to visit Blanton University. The campus was beautiful during the summer with the sidewalks and streets lined with draping trees on both sides and ivy growing up the walls of the old red brick buildings. A new student center had been built, and although it was a nice building, it looked out of place amidst the other older buildings.

She sat at a small table on the terrace that had a railing lined with blooming petunias and she listened to a group of students talk about their classes and a test. She had a view of tennis courts and a grove of maple trees that she remembered were stunning in the fall. She spent hours walking around campus and downtown Blanton where it seemed that little had changed, except for her, except for her perception, except for the other people who were evolving every day but perhaps didn’t notice. Leaving home and then returning can make the space more apparent, like looking into a gorge, like looking at a photo of yourself that you don’t recognize.

She arrived at Waterfowl Landing after sunset but before dark, during that hour of uncertainty when the theater curtains of the day are almost closed. It was good to arrive late when the darkness would hide the rawness of Adena, the rawness she felt in the air with the window halfway down, the same rawness that was magnified by silence and a gentle fog moving in from the river. She wanted to speak to her father. She wanted to hear his voice again call from the back yard, or hear her mother’s laugh float through the evening air.

As she drove around the desolate and deserted streets, darkness fell quickly, but an unexpected lightness came over her. It might have been the smell of the honeysuckle reminding her that there was still life blooming and going on despite the look of human failure that marred the landscape, but the fragrance didn’t last long before the smell of sulfur gradually began to creep into the car window. She wasn’t sure if the tufts of mist she saw hanging on the road were clouds of fog or fire steam.

When she came to a stop sign, a flash of light illuminated black spray paint that scribbled out the white letters on the sign entirely. So she didn’t stop, she kept going. But it was the heat lightning that revealed the past to her in flashes, snapshots of memory that lasted only a second, and then they were gone. In one flash, a thin, ragged dog appeared standing still at the side of the road. She wondered if it had run away once, and then when it finally made its way back home, found that everyone was gone. The dog’s blank stare hung over the road and when she drove on, she felt the emptiness pass through her.

She went to the river. When she pulled up to the landing, a truck was parked close to the river bank facing the river through the trees. A flash of lightning exposed a shadow in the truck. Tree limbs reached over the river and moved slightly in a soft breeze. She stayed in the car with the engine running until she saw Josh step from the truck and begin walking toward her headlights. She rolled down her window as his older but unforgettable face leaned in and smiled at her with tender recognition.

“When did you become a photographer?” she asked.

“When I saw the Grand Canyon.”

He helped her out of the car, and they held each other for a long time. There was nothing she could possibly say or do that would let him know how much she missed him and how happy she was to see him, so she remained quiet. She was overwhelmed by his presence, the sound of his voice, and the gold streaks in his hair that shone when the lightning flashed.

“Do you know that old Mr. Pilner is still living over on the island, content as can be, scurrying around like the old gray squirrel that he is?”

“Is he?” Denver asked, gazing over the dark expanse of the river.

“Yeah. I took a trip over to the island last night and I saw his fire through the trees. I thought about talking to him, but I figured he would be happier without me around. He was singing and talking to something in the air near him. He’s not the least bit lonely.” They looked at one another and then looked away. The passage of time and the circumstances that led to their parting left a space between them so wide she thought it would echo if she screamed into it.

“I can’t wait to hear how you’ve been and what you’ve been doing since we last saw each other,” Denver said to break the silence.

“I want to hear about you too, but there’s something I need to tell you first.” He turned to look at her with a mix of softness and sadness in his eyes.