Authors: Shelby Rebecca
I put on some faded jean shorts from my old closet and a fitted white t-shirt that smells like my least used sheets in the linen closet in my new house. I give up on my hair. I shouldn’t have slept with it wet, so I just pull it back in a ponytail. At this hour, I don’t even worry about a scarf for my scars. No one will be up for ages.
I pad along the wooden floor and find the roots in the refrigerator. It’s still the same old refrigerator I remember being here when I was a kid. I run my fingers over the dent from when I accidentally slammed daddy’s hammer into it. That was a bad whooping I got for that one.
I busy myself with taking some of the root and boiling it in a sauce pan to make a tea with it. This will be perfect for Momma to use as a mouthwash for her sores—I guess cancer gives people mouth sores.
The other root I put in the spice bowl and with the masher I smash it to smithereens until my upper lip is sweaty from exertion. In the pantry I find some coconut oil and in the yellow mixing bowl of my youth, I combine the coconut oil and the mashed up yellow root to create a nice smooth paste. I put that in a large mason jar and seal it up with the lid.
The last root I wrap in cheesecloth and tie it with string. I hang it from a nail in the pantry to dry it so I can make a powder out of it in a week or so. Doing this for Momma reminds me of her teaching me how. I try to reconcile the sickly woman up there in her room with the dark-haired strong woman of my youth. It feels like a loss I can’t fathom. I realize that I’d put Momma a certain way in my mind kind of like filing her away in a mental cabinet of memories. I just don’t want to add this to the file.
It’s almost light outside; the sun is just a little haze over the hills. I’m sure everyone will be up soon—probably another hour or so. I think about making coffee but I don’t know how to use the percolator on the stove. I decide to go sit with Momma while she sleeps. I’ll take the goldenseal paste and rub it on her skin.
As I’m creaking up the steps, someone taps lightly on the front door. For a moment I consider ignoring it, but they tap again. Resolved to get rid of them, I pad my way over to the door and open it. It’s not just the breeze that knocks my hair back.
Dillon stands there looking sophisticated in the door frame. He’s wearing dark fitted jeans, a brown linen button up shirt, and some grey canvas high-top TOMS Botas. My heartbeat accelerates. My eyelashes flutter.
Stop that
, I tell myself.
What? Do I think I’m immune?
He swallows hard. “Can I talk to you, Sadie?”
“On one condition.” I decide on the fly, my voice raspy and deep from no sleep.
“Anything,” he says, curiously.
“I want coffee and I don’t know how to use that contraption on the stove top.” He peeks over to the stove and smiles at the percolator.
“I think I can figure it out,” he says, as he walks in and moves effortlessly toward the kitchen. Suddenly, the contraption is in four pieces and he’s rummaging through the drawers. “Filter?” He looks at me questioningly.
“I’m not sure.” But I help him look.
“Ah, here we go,” he says, holding the filters up like a prize, obviously proud of himself for having found them in the drawer, neighbors with the tin foil and the plastic baggies.
“I’m glad you’re up,” he says, as he unfolds the filter and then pops it over the center stem inside the basket part of the percolator. “Coffee grounds?” he says, pointing at the empty basket and scanning the counter top.
I hand him the tin that has always held coffee grounds since the beginning of time. As he spoons the grounds in he says, “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither,” I agree.
“Maybe I’m sleeping right now. It’s like I’m dreaming seeing you here,” he says, as he stops and looks at me as if I might just evaporate into thin air.
“I feel that way, too.” It’s true. Seeing him here, like a warm memory in Momma’s kitchen folding the filter over the dry coffee grounds with his long thin fingers, reminds me that for the past ten years I’ve tucked Dillon away in my mind in that filing cabinet, too. At first he was real-like in my memories but lately he’d kind of blurred and become really small like a driver’s license picture. Not anymore—he looks
very
real now.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks, his voice sweet and smooth like red velvet cake.
“Caffeine,” I reply dryly as I rest my elbows on the counter top and stare at him impassively from under my eyelashes.
“I see,” he says, smirking. “Well, it seems this is the one thing I can do for you then.” There was a bit of sullenness in his tone there at the end.
“What did you want to talk about?” I ask politely.
Let’s get this over with.
“Hey, um, can you fill the percolator with water?”
“Sure, I guess I can handle that,” I say as I turn on the faucet.
Well water tastes like childhood
, I think as I poor myself a small glass before putting the percolator under the stream.
He pushes the long stem into the coffee basket causing some of the grounds to pop out where the stem just poked through. “Oh, I hadn’t accounted for that,” he explains and places a lid on top of the filter.
“Here you go,” I say, placing the big blue pot next to where he’s working and start wiping the spilled coffee grounds into my cupped hand. He puts the whole basket that he’s assembled into the percolator and places the blue lid over top of everything before setting it on the stove. It ticks a few times before the flame catches the gas and he walks back over to me by the sink.
“Well, if I may be so bold, I’d like to talk about us,” he says, earnestly, overly formal, his accent almost gone.
“Us?”
“If you like,” he says, with a gleam in his Tahoe beach blue eyes.
“Knock it off,” I say and fake punch him in his arm. He smiles but he’s still serious. “Okay, I’m ready,” I state, making my face look stern.
“Well, first of all, I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”
“Uh,” I start to blurt but he cuts me off.
“The thing is, I heard you singing. I was riding down the mountain just like I do every day at that time and I heard a woman singing
our
song.”
“Oh!” I blurt again. Embarrassed, my cheeks feel fiery.
“I started rushing down the mountain faster than I thought I was when I came around that corner and spooked Monty. I was so bewildered that you were really there and not some phantom or something. I don’t even know how we started arguing but then I just said all those things. Everything I’ve been hoping for and suppressing just came out of me. It was unfair and I’m sorry I did that to you.”
“It’s okay. I know we have history together,” I try.
“I want you to know that I’m here for you in whatever way I can get you. If that means we’re just friends, then that’s what we’ll be,” he says, swallowing hard. “I don’t want to drive you away now that I finally have a chance to see you in person.”
“Oh,” is all I can manage.
“What I’m trying to say is that I just want to enjoy whatever time I get to spend with you in whatever way works for you.”
“Will being friends be enough for you or will you keep trying to make me be...more?”
“It will be hard for me because I want...more, but for you, to make you happy. To see you comfortable like you were when we were kids. I’d do anything to see you like that again.”
The percolator starts to boil so he turns down the heat.
“I don’t want to scorch the grounds. It’ll make the coffee bitter,” he explains, but it seems like he’s talking about something else. Like maybe he’s talking about me.
“Well, I think there should be some rules then. If I’m considering being friends, that is.”
“Rules?”
“Mmm hmm,” I reply with a few nods of my chin up and down.
“Okay, what are the rules?” he asks, serious.
“You can’t touch me. It makes me uncomfortable,” I say and he looks at me like he’s nervous or hurt. He’s all wide-eyed like that night under the window’s edge.
I square my shoulders and continue, “You can’t tell me how you feel about me. Just let me be ignorant about it. That’s not what I want, the kind of relationship I want. I don’t want to lead you on. I did want it a long time ago, but I can’t anymore. It just hurts me when you bring up that old stuff, okay.” He looks down. I’ve hurt his feelings.
“Okay. Anything. For you, I’d do anything.” He means it, too. I can tell from the thoughtful look on his face.
“Okay, I say. “I accept your offer. Friends,” I announce and stick out my pinky.
“Friends,” he repeats and he wraps his pinky around mine and we ‘shake’ on it. Live wires.
“I just have one rule, too,” he says, cautiously.
“What?”
“You’ll keep in touch with me now. Friend me on Facebook, or write me emails, or invite me to a book signing now and then. Put me on your Christmas list. Call me on the phone. Maybe you come visit me, or I get to come visit you. Let me be in your life again. Just, please, don’t shut me out. I can’t take it,” he says, his voice shaky.
“Okay, I can handle that,” I say with a slight smile—
as long as Donnie doesn’t know.
Then I frown. His relief is suddenly gone. He notices my change in mood. I can’t hide anything from him.
“I brought you something,” he says. “It’s on the porch.”
“Do you want some coffee first?” I ask as I take out two cups from the cupboard. “How do you take it?”
“Black is fine.”
“Oh, no. Not for me. I like a little cream and a half teaspoon of sugar in mine,” I say, as I pour the dark black tincture into the faded china. “Thanks by the way,” I say.
“It was my pleasure,” he says, looking at me like he’s smoldering inside. I have to look away or I’ll liquefy for sure. I think he’s breaking a rule, but I don’t know which one.
Sipping from our cups, we walk out to the front porch. It’s surprisingly warm out already. Right outside the front door leaning against the house is Dillon’s granddaddy’s courting dulcimer.
“Oh my gosh! I was just thinking about this when I was going up the trail!”
“You were?” he says, as he puts his coffee down on the little table in between the two porch chairs. “Do you want to play?”
“I don’t think I remember,” I say, in a nervous tone, sitting down.
“Seems like you were doing a great job remembering how to sing it yesterday on the horse,” he says, shooting me a huge grin.
“Let me watch you a bit first. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” he says, as he sits down and sets the gorgeous wooden instrument lying flat on his lap. It looks like two skinny guitars stuck together with little hearts in the corners. He crosses his legs resting his ankle on his knee and begins to play
Amazing Grace
.
I curl up on the chair, bringing my legs up to my chin and my coffee cup up to my nose before taking a much needed sip.
His nimble fingers tap the cords and then stretch in and out of a V formation, all the while strumming with his other hand. I hum the tune with him. It makes me feel so peaceful. Brings me to a time when things were simple—when life had grace and dignity.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
“Sure, I think.”
“Are you seeing someone?
“No.” Before I can say anything else he’s playing another song. “What’s this one?” I ask.
“Green sleeves,” he replies, caught up in the song. It’s a sad song as if it’s yearning for something or someone. I’m going to have to look up the lyrics. As he strums the ending, that hole in my chest starts to throb. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m glad that one is over.
“You’ll probably remember this one. It’s your momma’s favorite,” he explains as he starts to play a happy Irish tune. But just as soon as I think it’s going to be happy, this one, too, starts to feel poignant and sad.
“Is it that you don’t have relationships at all, or just with me?” he asks, looking up from his instrument.
“At all,” I reply.
“Never?” he asks to clarify.
I look down, shake my head no. I look back up as he opens his mouth and begins to sing. I’d nearly forgotten his singing voice. It’s a deep and light baritone and it does things to me—always has.
“
Down by the Salley Gardens,
My love and I did meet.
She crossed the Salley Gardens
With little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
As the leaves grow on the tree,
But I was young and foolish,
And with her did not agree.”
This song reminds me of a feeling—a memory that I can’t place. His voice is soothing but powerful—tender in the right places too. He makes this old song sound almost contemporary and brand new.
Now that hole in my chest is throbbing, aching and unbearable. To top it off, my throat feels like it’s closing up. I put my coffee down and stare at him from behind my knees. He doesn’t see how distressing this is to me as his eyes are shut and he’s strumming so attentively.
“In a field down by the river,
My love and I did stand
And on my leaning shoulder,
She placed her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
As the grass grows on the weirs
But I was young and foolish,
And now am full of tears.”
As he strums the ending he looks so content, his eyes are closed and an easy smile is bringing up the corners of his mouth. Me, I’m a mess. The hole in my chest is aching and I’m shaking a little bit like when I’m cold on the inside. He opens his eyes and then gapes at me.
“Oh, no, Sadie,” he says, and reaches over to me. “Are you okay?”
“It reminds me of the last time I saw you,” I say from behind my knees, my voice quivering. He looks at me, lips pursed, blue eyes aching, as if to acknowledge that it means the same to him.
“I can’t breathe.” I shudder.
“Come here,” he coaxes, putting the dulcimer down on the wooden porch.
I don’t know what just happened but I want to curl up on his lap and let him soothe me. As I realize that’s what I want, I’m already doing it. I put my arms around his neck and bury my face into his neck. My knees are pulled up to my chin again. “Just breathe, baby,” he says, in a gentle tone as he gently rubs my back, my arm, my hair.
What the hell am I doing? The rules!