Authors: Mary Alice Monroe
Belle appeared self-conscious. She was still in her rain slicker and her long braid fell like a damp rope down her back. “Were the roads bad?”
Mia nodded and set the towel on the counter. “Very. They’re getting muddy.” A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows, emphasizing the point.
“I better go,” Belle said, and began walking toward her. “I just came by to give you this.” She handed Mia an envelope.
Mia recognized the yellowed envelope immediately as Kate’s letter. She took it in her hands and stared at Kate’s flowing script. The name
Theodora
was smeared with drops of rain. She looked up with uncomprehending eyes. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“I thought you deserved to read it. And I was ashamed.”
Mia’s breath hitched as she saw Belle’s implacable face crumple with grief. She wanted to reach out and hug her but Belle held herself so rigidly Mia sensed that to touch her would break the composure she was fighting for. Mia recalled the gentleness that Belle had shown her that day she found Mia sobbing in the car. She stepped closer to Belle.
Belle was still looking down as she spoke. “I spent the evening reading the diary. I couldn’t stop,” she said, looking up at Mia. “It was like listening to her voice.” She released a short, pained laugh. “My grandmother’s voice. After all these years. You can’t know what that meant to me.”
“I think I might.”
Belle sighed and shook her head. A droplet of rain shaken from her hair trailed down her forehead. She swiped it away, then rubbed her eyes. “What I’m trying to say here is you were right. I didn’t know who she was. Not at all. I wish I did. I would have liked to have known her.”
“Belle, you’re so much like her. Strong, independent, and a hell of a fly fisher. I’m sure she would’ve been so proud of you.”
Belle’s face softened. “You know what’s weird about all this? My mother never taught me to fly-fish.”
“What? Then how…”
“She had all this gear, so she must’ve fished a few times before she gave it up. So one day I just borrowed it and went to the river. The minute I cast onto the water I knew I was home.”
“Genetics won out.”
“Had to be.”
“When did you learn your grandmother was a fly fisher?”
“Not till years later. I read her name in some article written about women fly fishers who paved the way in history. I about fainted and I never faint. I was teaching at the university at the time but my passion was fly-fishing. At Thanksgiving I came home and showed the article to my mother. I was prepared to go toe to toe with her on it, but it was one of the few times I heard pride in her voice when she spoke about her mother.
“Right then and there she told me about the Watkins family and this town. Not in a bad way, like before, but like some history lesson. Can you imagine how I felt? Me, who grew up not knowing I had any relatives at all to learn I came from some historical family a town was named after?”
“I imagine you were pretty proud.”
“I was, but it took a while for me to accept the reality it was my family, not some people in a book somewhere. I wonder if that’s how my mother felt, living as an outcast in a town that bore her name. She told me that when she was young and still lived here, she used to go to the Manor House and just stand outside it and stare. It was somebody’s private home at that time and she wasn’t welcome in. She used to dream what it might be like to live in it instead of the cabin. To be rich and respected in the town, instead of poor and rejected.”
“That’s such a sad image.”
“She blamed Kate for their lot in life, like it was her fault the family lost their money.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was, to some extent. She did gamble in the stock market with DeLancey. But they’d have likely lost the house anyway in the Depression. Who knows? My mother must’ve realized that in time because I didn’t hear the old bitterness in her voice when she talked about Watkins Mill and Kate’s success in the sport. It was a turning point for her.”
Mia raked her hands through her damp hair, feeling the tension ease. Dropping her hands she said, “You know, Belle, when you think about it, all of us—Kate, Theodora, you, me—we’re all just women trying to do the best that we can in tough times.”
Belle stared at the rain hitting the window and her eyes filled with tears. “All my grandmother asked for from her daughter in that letter was a little compassion.”
“And what is compassion but sympathy for the suffering of another?”
“Doesn’t seem like much. But it is.” She slumped against the counter. “I feel so bad that my mother couldn’t find compassion in her heart.”
“You never know. Maybe she would have gone to see her mother but put it off, thinking she’d have time. Kate died so young. Theodora might have missed her chance.”
“Regret is a bitter pill to swallow.”
Mia nodded. “Maybe it wasn’t bitterness she felt, but sorrow.”
Belle sighed heavily. “I’ll never know. She wasn’t real good at talking. She kept a lot bottled up. Everything with my mother was a secret.” She snorted. “If she’d have told me she was the illegitimate daughter of some foreign prince, I’d have believed her.”
“Well,” Mia said with a crooked grin. “She sort of
was
considered that in this town.”
They both chuckled at that.
“So I reckon you nailed it,” Belle conceded. “Somewhere in my subconscious, that’s why I came back here. To learn where I came from.” She reached out to indicate the letter in Mia’s hands. “And I have you to thank for doing just that. I came to deliver this letter to you because you deserve to read it, Mia. I think you’ll find your answer in there. I know I did.”
Mia looked at the letter with warring emotions. “I don’t know if I should. You were right, too. I took this thing too far.”
“Aw, go ahead,” Belle said. “You can’t read a story and not find out the ending.” She smiled and pushed herself from the counter. “I gotta go if I’m going to get out. This storm is a hellion.” She came forward to wrap her arms around Mia in a firm hug. “Listen, you be careful up here. You’re still on my watch.”
Mia’s tension flowed from her as she hugged Belle in return. “I’m glad at least this storm is over.”
“Me, too.” Belle walked across the room, zipping up her jacket and flipping her hood over her head. She paused before opening the door to the storm. Belle was tall and lean and the hood covered her red hair, so only her obsidian eyes shone from beneath it as she took a final sweep around the cabin. Lightning flashed outside, and in that moment Mia saw Kate come alive in her granddaughter.
“She is here, you know,” Belle said to her. “I felt it, too.”
By midnight, the storm bore down in full fury. Mia went from window to window double-checking the locks and putting towels where water leaked through the seals. The little cabin was well built and held firm against the battering wind, but the roof leaked in the add-on kitchen, so she placed two buckets beneath a steady drip of water.
There was nothing left for her to do but wait it out. The electricity had gone out hours before. She lit a strong fire and made a picnic dinner of cheese and bread and carried it and a bottle of red wine to sit on the velvet sofa. Wrapping herself in a blanket, she brought Kate’s letter close. Her fingers trembled with anticipation as she stared at the envelope.
She’d read young Kate’s words and come to love her. But these were the words of Kate as a woman nearing the end of her life. What would she have to say in these pages? Mia ran her hand across the writing on the envelope. Did she want her image of the brave, confident, headstrong girl to be tarnished by the ramblings of a defeated woman? What changes had a tumultuous forty years wrought on the young girl’s optimism?
A thunderous cracking of branches sounded from outside as another tree lost its footing in the wet earth and toppled over. Mia jumped at the crashing thud not far from the house. She tightened the blanket around her shoulders. Inside the cabin she felt safe. Yet she also sensed Kate again. Her presence was very strong, almost tangible in the close smoke from the fire.
Mia looked again at the envelope in her hands. Belle had said Kate asked for compassion in this letter. Kate wasn’t some goddess on a pedestal, some one-sided heroine in a tragic story. She had been a real, flesh-and-blood woman with strengths, weaknesses, and flaws, like anyone else. Who was she to deny her that compassion?
Mia settled back against the cushions and tugged the paper from the envelope. She smoothed out the folds from the paper, tilted it to the rosy light of the fire, and began to read.
November 9, 1952
Dear Theodora,
Darling child, I am writing to you across the miles praying that, wherever you may be, you are safe and warm and content. I am sitting by the fire on the velvet sofa. Do you remember how you loved to cuddle up together on it when you were a child? The wind is whistling, rattling the windows as a cold front moves in. Fall has come to paint the trees and the trout are frisky in the cold waters. If you should come to Watkins Cove today you’d see that nothing much has changed since you left. Except, perhaps, me. I am older now. Gray streaks my hair like the shadows across the river as I reach the sunset of my life.
My dearest Theo, you were always my sunshine. Since you’ve left, my life has been filled with darkness. I miss you terribly and long to see your face. In the fullness of time I’ve come to understand why you left. Once the hurt passed and my heart healed I was able to see with a mother’s eye that you left Watkins Cove—not me. I know how you longed for town life. I was not deaf all those years to your pleas to leave. I didn’t, perhaps, appreciate your desperation. Nor do I understand why you feel the need to cut off all contact with me. Perhaps now, as a grown woman with a child of your own, you, too, can finally release the hurt and comprehend the many reasons why I could not leave this place of refuge.
News of my darling grandchild reached me—and such news! Geraldine Rodale came to tell me that you had a daughter and named her Isobel after your grandmother. Thank you for asking her to let me know. I planted a tree for dear Belle and whisper hello to her every time I pass it. It is a magnolia because I remember that was your favorite tree. It sits prettily beside the river where you and I used to fish. I pray that someday you will bring my granddaughter to Watkins Cove to meet her grandmother. I would so love to share with my granddaughter my love of fly-fishing. She carries in her a long, proud legacy of fly fishers. Oh, Theo, I have so much I’d love to teach her!
It is in this spirit that I write to you tonight. Not to ask for forgiveness but for understanding. For with understanding comes compassion. So often you asked me why I chose to live at Watkins Cove and why I would never leave. I was asked countless times why I kept my silence after DeLancey’s disappearance. It is my intention to explain that to you in this letter. To once and for all purge myself of the memories that have both sustained and haunted me these many years.
I hardly know where to begin. “Begin at the beginning,” my father used to tell me. Oh Theo, what is the genesis of this story?
It must begin with Love.
I have loved and been loved in my life, Theo. What more can anyone hope for? A woman does not need to live among many people to be content. She needs but one true companion, one soul mate with whom to share this long journey we call life. I have known one great love and it has sustained me through the years.
My youth was filled with great moments. Much has been said about my achievements in the sport of fly-fishing. In my twenties the town that now scorns me celebrated my fame. I was called confident, headstrong, determined—descriptions which, in my time, were usually attributed to a man. Women before me have made great advancements in the sport and women after me will continue, ending once and for all the misconception that women do not fish. I admit, one of my greatest pleasures in life was breaking down that male barrier. If life were a river, men would shuttle women off to fish the riffles of small streams. I’ve always sought the deeper, fast-moving water.
I tell you this so you know who your mother was the day she met your father.
From the moment I first locked gazes with Theodore DeLancey I felt the universe move into alignment. It was not something I’d planned or even wished for. I’ve come to accept it was our fate. Or, perhaps, it was ill fated. I was caught in the current and I surrendered to it, body and soul.
Theo, I loved your father with an all-consuming love. And he loved me equally. This is the bedrock of our story and the seed of your conception. There is no shame in love.
There are, however, regrets.
We were discreet. I knew he was married and committed to his wife and children. I never sought to disrupt that sacred union. Nor did I care a whit for his fortune. He came to Watkins Cove in the spring and fall and I never demanded more. We might have gone on for years in this manner but fate had other plans. First was the stock market crash of 1929. DeLancey had speculated with his fortune, and with mine. We gambled and lost. Second was you.
Teddy came to see me one night early in November. Outside a storm was raging, and inside Teddy raged too. I’d never seen a man so desperate. His marriage was a facade. He had nothing to go back to. He kept telling me again and again how much he loved me. How I was his life. Despite his pain, I confess I was overjoyed.
I cared nothing about my lost fortune or his. Quite the contrary, I was thankful for the stock market crash. I thought it freed him from his obligations. I had girlish dreams that we’d be happy living a simpler life together at Watkins Cove. Even as I write these words the old woman of experience in me shakes her head at the folly of innocence. But forgive my naïveté. I was pregnant, emotional, and prone to mood swings. I chose not to tell him that night of my pregnancy. He was too indisposed.
The following night we ate dinner at the inn. The storm continued and the road to the cabin grew dangerous. DeLancey secured a room at the inn and I planned to go home to the Manor House. I was filled with my news and waiting for the best moment to tell him. During that dinner DeLancey told me, with a calm that was chilling, that he could not live the life that now lay before him. I could not grasp his meaning until he held my hand and called me his Francesca. The blood drained from my face. Instinctively my hand went to my belly.
Looking at DeLancey that evening, his eyes wet with tears and his face slack with emotion and drink, I fully understood that I was stronger than he was. I was repelled that he would rather end his life than give up the lifestyle he’d lived in New York. And I was so very hurt and angry that he could care so little for me—for us. I rose from my seat and threw my locket at him, ending it. I said words to him that to this day fill me with shame.
I left the restaurant alone. Had I known how violent the storm would get, I might have returned to the Manor House. That night, however, I was bereft. My one thought was to return to the cabin. It was a miracle that I made it safely. The roads were more stream than road and there were many times my wheels slid perilously in the mud.
That night was the worst night of my life. The heavens unleashed their fury. The devils howled and the angels wept. Trees bent to the wind and branches banged against the cabin like fists. I huddled on the sofa, struggling to keep the fire lit, and waited for DeLancey. Despite everything, I prayed he would come to his senses and return to me. I kept vigil for him all night, rehashing every line spoken at that horrid dinner. I prayed as I’d never prayed before.
Then, very late in the night, the storm abated. The quiet was intense in contrast to the roar of the storm. Of a sudden, I had the overwhelming sensation that DeLancey was with me. It was so strong that I stood up and called his name. As God is my witness, DeLancey’s presence was in the room with me. I shuddered as a cold breeze went through me and the room was filled with his scent. I knew it so well—sandalwood and lime. I was cold and went to stand by the fire’s warmth. A pale light glimmered not six feet away from me. It was not the flickering light of the fire or the flash of lightning from outside. Nor was it a ghost. But I knew without doubt it was him—my DeLancey—circling near, saying good-bye.
The storm returned in full fury and my howls matched the wind. I knew in my heart that he was dead. I threw myself upon the sofa and cried till the storm passed and there were no more tears left in me to shed.
The following morning I rose early. In the light of day I doubted what I’d seen the night before. I got in my car, desperate to see him. I drove only partway to town when I saw that the road had been destroyed by a mudslide. It was three days before I could make it down the mountain to town.
I never saw my DeLancey again. I stayed in my room for days, eating only out of obligation to my child. Some time later Sheriff Dodds paid me a visit and informed me that Mrs. DeLancey had come to town in search of her husband. She was making some dangerous charges and he hoped I could set her straight.
Theodora, I have kept my silence for years not to be obstinate or headstrong, nor to snub the town or his family. Quite the contrary. My silence was to protect DeLancey and his family. I believe Theodore DeLancey, your father, committed suicide the night of November 9, 1929. He died and his soul came to me to ask my forgiveness. It is I who beg his forgiveness. I knew I was stronger and I blame myself for not helping him through his depression. If I had but shown compassion and not scorn, perhaps he would not have felt so desperate. I believe he would have found his path again, even if that path led away from me. That terrible night he was holding tight to the one thread that held him to this earth—our love—and I threw it back at him.
My anger and my pride killed him. My shame and my guilt silenced me.
I vowed I would not destroy his family’s faith in him nor his reputation. Had I voiced my belief that he had committed suicide the insurance company would not award his family the money they so desperately needed.
My father alone knew the stand I was taking and he supported me in this as in all things. My dear darling father…I fear he gave the last of his strength to me, for he died soon after the horrid investigation trampled the proud Watkins name, sullying it forever. I shall carry the burden of that disgrace to my grave.
Before he died, my father held my hand and told me how he, too, had been devastated after my mother died. He couldn’t look at anyone or anything that reminded him of her. Not even his infant daughter. He told me how at his lowest point he’d turned to a favorite psalm—Psalm 23. Reading it, he said, was like hearing the voice of God.
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
“Kate, go to the cabin,” he told me. “Go lie beside still waters. Listen to the river. It will bring you peace.”
I’ve always trusted my father’s advice. I packed up a few cherished treasures, negotiated to keep Watkins Cove, and moved from the Manor House. I knew I could never return so I never looked back.
That, Theodora, is my story. It is not a sad one. Tragic, perhaps, but not without hope. My love perseveres. You are the living symbol of our love. And now dear Belle lives on as well.
The river calls to me now. I hear her voice and soon the time will come when I will lie down in her embrace and she will carry me to join DeLancey and my father and my mother and Lowrance and all who have gone before me into the current. I will do as I’ve always done. I will follow the river home.
If you should choose not to visit me, or if something should keep you away, I understand silence better than most. The bond between mother and daughter can never be broken. Love is stronger than death. So if I should pass before I see you again, please know that I will be standing in the river of time, waiting with open arms for you to join me, dear, darling Theodora.
With greatest love,
Kate