The Truth About Love and Lightning (16 page)

“Hey, you’re up!” her mom said, tucking messy strands of ash-blond behind her ears. “Did you eat breakfast yet?”

“My stomach isn’t exactly ready for it,” Abby replied as she went to kiss her mother’s cheek. When she straightened, she turned toward the fellow swaying to and fro on the swing. “Hi,” she said to him. “I’m Abby, the prodigal daughter from Chicago.”

“Hello, Abby from Chicago,” he replied and gave her a slow nod. He had his arms draped across the wood-slatted back and his legs extended as he rocked. “Your mother and I were just talking about the sheriff, who happened by a little earlier. I don’t think he likes the fact that she’s got a stranger hanging around.”

“Frank Tilby’s always been hot for my mom,” Abby said, because it was the truth and had been forever. “So he doesn’t like any man hanging around her.”

“Abs!” Gretchen blushed, but she laughed just the same.

“Well, then it’s a good thing he didn’t haul me away in handcuffs.” The fellow nodded and kept gliding, the chains creaking with the motion.

The sound was strangely comforting. It reminded Abby of all the spring and summer nights Gretchen had sat there beside her. Their bellies full from supper, they’d swayed back and forth, waiting for the sun to set or watching fireflies light up the dusk. Abby wondered how it would have been to have had Sam share in those moments with them. Even if she could get all that time back, it wouldn’t be enough.

“You seem better this morning,” she remarked and took a step forward, trying to look at him and figure him out without being too obvious. “Are you feeling okay?” She stopped shy of the swing. “I’m figuring you are ’cause you aren’t unconscious and that bruise on your forehead has calmed down. It’s no longer eggplant purple.”

“Yes, I’m better, just plenty confused.” His gray eyes squinted at her, like he was taking her in the same way she was him.

“That makes sense,” Abby said, and she couldn’t help adding, “Being dropped on a farm by a tornado would be pretty confusing, I’d wager, unless it’s something you’ve done a lot before.”

“Ah, so you figure I’m a professional tornado wrangler.” A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

“You never know,” she replied, feeling the weight of his gaze. A shiver raced up her spine, despite the windbreaker. She hugged her arms to warm herself. “I grew up hearing stories about a man who could talk to the sky and make it rain.”

“Is that so?” The fellow glanced at Gretchen, who hastily explained, “Abby’s great-grandfather was something of a magician.”

That wasn’t exactly what Abby had referred to and Gretchen knew it, but Abby’s mother had a knack for bending the truth.
Sometimes it’s best to say what people need to hear instead of making them uncomfortable,
she’d once defended herself when Abby had called her on it.

As if afraid Abby might test the waters even further, Gretchen began nattering on about climate change and last summer’s drought, asking the man if he was cold or hungry, whether he had thick enough socks with the borrowed shoes or if the shirt wasn’t too big, all sorts of things to keep from tackling the elephant in the room. Namely, was he or was he not Sam Winston?

With a resigned sigh, Abby settled into the nearest wicker chair. She found herself watching the man, searching his face, looking for recognizable traits, bits of herself he’d passed on to her, things she couldn’t discern in a decades-old picture. Like the way he cocked his head or scratched his nose. He’d cleaned up, she noticed, shaving off the rest of his beard, although his hair was still too long and shaggy. He had deep grooves at his mouth and eyes, making him seem older than he should have been. But forty years away was a lot, and who knows where he’d been or what he’d gone through.

He reminded Abby of the grandfather she’d barely known, perhaps because he was wearing the obnoxious red-and-green plaid shirt that had belonged to Cooper Winston, one he’d worn on the first and last Christmas Abby had celebrated with him, preserved in Gretchen’s treasured photographs. Her mom must have dug the shirt out of the cedar chest—along with a battered pair of Levi’s and some navy blue Chris-Craft duck shoes—and Abby wondered if the clothes smelled of lavender and mothballs like everything old her mother tucked away.

Abruptly, the man stopped the swing’s motion, rising slowly to his feet. “I think it’s time I stretched my legs a bit, maybe took a little walk to see if I remember anything about how I got here.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” Gretchen asked, hopping onto rubber-booted feet. “I’d be happy to show you around the farm but only if you feel strong enough.”

“I’m slow, but mobile,” he assured her, taking a few steps to prove it. “Just a touch wobbly, enough so that I wouldn’t mind an arm to lean on, if one of you kind ladies is amenable to joining me.”

“Please, let me take him,” Abby said, scrambling out of the wicker chair so hastily she nearly toppled it over. “A walk would do me good, too.”

Gretchen frowned her disapproval. “I’m not sure that’s wise. He’s still weak, and you’re—”

Pregnant,
Abby figured was forthcoming.

“Exhausted,” her mother finished diplomatically. “You only just got up, and you really need to eat.”

“I’m fine.” Abby didn’t want to take no for an answer. In Chicago, she could hold her own with egomaniacal artists and art dealers, yet she fell so easily into the role of eager-to-please daughter when she was back in Walnut Ridge. “Are you all right with my being your tour guide?”

The man nodded. “Right as rain.”

“Abs,” Gretchen said in that drawn-out way so that even one simple syllable brimmed with concern.

“Please,” Abby tried, all she had left. There was little she could do to persuade her mom to change her mind when it was made up.

“Oh, dear.” Gretchen’s face hid nothing well, and Abby could plainly see that she was nervous, undoubtedly worried that Abby might lose her mind and say something that would freak out their guest. Finally, her mother sighed. “All right, go on without me.” She faced the man who now stood near the railing, one hand upon it for support. “Just take it easy, and don’t go far.”

“Easy is about all I can do at the moment,” he replied.

“While you two wander about, I’ll get dressed and rustle up some breakfast for Abby.” Gretchen put a hand against her daughter’s cheek. “I’ll give a holler in twenty minutes if you’re not back.”

“Got it,” Abby replied and added softly, “Please, don’t worry.”

The man offered Abby the crook of his arm. “I guess I’m all yours, Miss Abigail.”

As her mom looked on, Abby touched him rather tentatively, wondering if she’d feel some kind of current between them, a physical sense of reconnection. Instead, when she grasped his elbow, she felt an ease that she rarely experienced with anyone but her aunts and her mother. Maybe that was sign enough.

They proceeded gingerly down the porch steps and away from the house.

He paused not far along the path toward the barn and tipped back his head, drawing in a deep breath. “It’s good to be alive on such a pretty morning,” he said, looking oddly relaxed for someone in strange surroundings.

“I guess it is,” she agreed.

Abby led him on a path across the lawn, avoiding broken branches the storm had tossed around the grass like land mines. The lawn was slick, damp with dew; the earth still soft from the rain. But they were in no hurry, and Abby didn’t mind the snail’s pace.

“You grew up here?” he asked, stopping again to catch his breath as they neared the barn.

“My whole life,” Abby said, nodding at the big red structure that once held goats and pigs, even a couple dairy cows. Now it merely housed old harvesting equipment that was probably as rusty as the exterior paint was worn and the boards warped. “I had a lot of freedom,” she said, squinting at the rising sun peeking over the roof. “I used to run around barefoot and pretend I was a bird or a horse. I’m glad I grew up when I did. It was a different time, you know? There wasn’t so much pressure to prove yourself or be someone you’re not.”

“You can only be who you are,” the man said, making it sound so simple.

She put a hand on her belly, wondering what it would be like for her baby if it grew up in the city, raised in a world full of immediate gratification, communicating by instant messages, forgetting what it felt like to share real intimacy or to talk face-to-face.

“There’s something about all this green,” the man said, turning his head as he took in their bucolic surroundings. “And the blue sky’s so close you could touch it. I’ll bet you miss it when you’re gone.”

“I do,” she told him. “More than I realized. My head feels clearer when I’m here, and not just because I can’t use my cell or a laptop on the farm.” She tried hard to explain. “I feel like time stands still, you know? Like I can pause and mull things over without the world passing me by while I make up my mind.”

“Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.”

“Do you recall anything about your home, even if it’s just the feel of it?” Abby asked suddenly. “You must have some sense of where you’re from.”

He rubbed his jaw, a tinge of sadness softening his voice as he countered, “What if I don’t? Am I lost forever?”

“No, you’re not lost forever,” she replied. “It’s impossible to completely forget your roots.”

“I hope you’re right.” He turned away from her, glancing around them. “Will you show me the walnut grove where your mother discovered me?”

“Sure, I’ll show you the grove,” Abby agreed. “Although finding the exact spot where my mom tripped over you is another thing entirely.”

“Can’t we just follow the Yellow Brick Road?”

Abby grinned. “Ah, a sense of humor in times of stress,” she said. “I wish some of that would rub off on me.”

“Maybe it will,” he replied, but didn’t return her smile.

He took her arm, and they continued toward the walnut grove in silence. There was so much Abby wanted to say but knew she couldn’t. Instead, she allowed herself to do something she rarely did: stay in the moment, enjoy his company and even the weight of his body as he leaned against her. She might not know who he was, but she certainly hadn’t imagined him. If he turned out to be Sam Winston, she would have more time with him to treasure. And if he wasn’t, well, at least she would have this.

As they got nearer to the trees, his steps grew more hesitant. The ground beneath them seemed a movable thing, littered as it was with walnuts and twigs. Even Abby felt a bit clumsy on her feet.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, though his breaths became noisy as they drifted between the rows of trees, searching for something Abby couldn’t see.

A light mist thickened the air around them the deeper they went into the grove.

Abby had a sense that the clouds had been hung too low that morning. The fog made it hard to tell where exactly they were, and she felt nearly lost in her own backyard.

“It’s here somewhere,” the man told her as they ambled up one row, cutting through to another, until he stopped abruptly and jerked Abby to a halt alongside him. He swiveled right and left until he seemed to zero in on something Abby couldn’t see. “There,” he said and grunted. “It’s right in front of me.”

“What’s right in front of you?” she started to say, wondering if he’d received some kind of message from the trees. Otherwise, how could he tell? Abby could barely glimpse the tips of her fingers.

He released her arm and walked through the thick air, each stride filled with purpose. Abby scrambled over the walnuts, the world around her full of fuzzy shapes. She envisioned a blur rushing by her, felt something brush past her leg.

“Matilda?” she said under her breath, praying it was the cat and not a possum.

Abby ducked beneath branches to find where he’d ended up. As soon as she was nearer, she spotted him winding around the tree, pausing at times to squat, most likely searching for his wallet or another lost object that would point to who he was.

“Can I help?” she asked.

Instead of replying, he muttered, “Strange,” and bent over, plucking up something from amidst the tree’s roots.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I thought they were robin’s eggs, maybe a nest knocked to the ground.” He held his hand out to her. “It looks like turquoise. Do you recognize it?”

It was a necklace strung with pale blue stones on a leather tether. Abby gently rubbed away the dirt. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “but I don’t know whose it is.” She gave it back to him. “Maybe it’s yours, and the tornado blew it into the grove along with you.”

“Perhaps your mother would know.” He slipped the beads into his shirt pocket before turning toward the tree itself. He stared at it, hands on his hips, before he approached, reaching out to touch the V where the trunk was split up the middle. “This is the place,” he said, without a lick of doubt in his voice. “I was here beneath these branches when the lightning struck.”

“Lightning?” Abby looked cockeyed at him. “You think you were under this walnut tree when it was hit?”

“I know I was,” he said and wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air. “I remember the jolt and the smell of fire.”

Abby bit her lip to keep from saying,
That’s impossible.

“I know it sounds crazy,” he remarked as if reading her mind. “But it’s there in my head like the slip of a dream. I’m sure it’s true, but I can’t make sense of it either.” He held up the reddened palms of his hands, gazing at them as if he’d never seen them before. “I can feel the heat on my flesh, the surge of fire through my blood before I fell to my knees.”

Abby still didn’t know what to think. “You’re sure it was
that
tree?”

“Yes,” he said and touched the peeling bark. “This one.”

But Abby wondered if he wasn’t confused, his brain garbling truth and fiction, as the tree he indicated was one she knew very well from her childhood. She’d even named it, calling it “the treasure tree” because she’d delighted in climbing its gnarled branches and hiding objects in the deeply split trunk. She even knew the secret of how the tree had been nearly sliced in two, something that Sam Winston would have known as well, or
should
have known if he hadn’t forgotten.