Authors: Mary Alice Monroe
Every instinct in her body screamed out for her to ignore the call. Yet despite the cold knot forming in her stomach, Mia knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Without thinking more, she jabbed his number into the phone.
After the fifth ring she thought she might catch a break and be able to leave a voice message. A simple hello, she was all right, she would call again next week. She wasn’t so lucky.
“Hello.” His voice sounded tense.
“It’s me,” she said coolly.
“I called a dozen times. Don’t you check your messages? Where the hell have you been?”
“Why the hell do you care?”
“That’s not fair.”
She could only laugh, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it. “So now you’re telling me what’s fair?”
“Mia, you’ve been gone more than a week. Where are you?” he asked again, insistent.
“I’m in North Carolina,” she replied, begrudging him that morsel.
“What are you doing up there? You should be here. In Charleston. This is such a mess. We’ve got to talk.”
“I’m not ready to talk.”
“Look, Mia. I know you’re hurt. God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
“You mean you didn’t mean for me to catch you fucking that girl on my bed? So, which way did you mean for me to find out?”
“You don’t need to be crass.”
She blushed. Mia hated foul language, rarely used it. But she was so hurt, so angry, it felt good to strike out. If only with words.
“Me crass? I would have thought you’d at least have the decency to take her to some cheap motel that you pay for by the hour. Isn’t that the way it’s usually done?”
“She’s not that kind of girl.”
Mia was taken aback. She had expected him to say he was sorry that he brought the woman into their bed. That he was sorry for hurting her. She did not expect him to defend the girl.
“Just what kind of a girl is she? Aside from the kind that sleeps with a married man.”
“I didn’t call to talk about her.”
“Then why did you call? To talk about me?”
“Yes. And us.”
“Well I’m fine. So you can cross that off your list.”
“Fine isn’t running out of the house and disappearing for a week. Fine isn’t not bothering to call to let me know you’re alive. And fine sure isn’t taking my Titleist clubs!”
“Oh my God, Charles. You’re not calling to check on me. You’re calling to check on your golf clubs!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Listen, Mia, let’s not start getting nasty. I’ve seen that happen with my clients and nothing gets accomplished. We need to remember how we once felt about each other and move forward from that point.”
Mia’s blood chilled as she heard the divorce lawyer come into his voice. He had already made up his mind. He saw her as a client. She cleared her throat.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”
He took a long, ragged breath, the first sign of true emotion she’d heard. “I want a divorce.”
Despite the fact that she knew deep in her heart that this was coming, hearing the words caused her to suck in her breath.
“I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t want to drop it on you like this, on the phone. It’s been coming for a long time. You must have felt it, too.”
“No. I didn’t actually.” That made her feel all the more the fool. “Then again, nothing’s been quite the same for the past year.”
“Exactly.”
She felt suddenly defensive. “It’s not like we planned it. We didn’t wake up and say, hey, how about you get cancer so we can test our marriage to the
n
th degree.”
“I know. Mia, I do. But plan it or not, it happened. It did test our marriage. And frankly, Mia, it failed.”
“How can you say that? We had some great years.”
“Had. Not anymore. We don’t go out. We never talk.”
“I know I haven’t been myself.”
“We never make love anymore.”
“That’s because you don’t want to,” she cried back. “I know it can be difficult for husbands after surgery. But you won’t touch me. You can’t even look at me.”
There was a long pause during which Mia closed her eyes and saw in her mind’s eye the night she had dared to show her husband the scar after her breast surgery. She’d never forget the look on his face before he turned his head away.
His voice cracked. “I’m sorry, Mia. Really I am. I know it makes me shallow. I’ve told myself a hundred times it shouldn’t matter. But it does. I…I just can’t get past it.”
“In time…”
“It’s not just the breast or the scar. It’s
you
.”
He flung the word at her accusingly, as though all of their problems—the cancer, the scar, the affair—were her fault.
“You’re not the same person I married.”
“No, I’m not. How can I be? I’ve been through hell and back.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But things are different now and I can’t go back.”
“Who said marriage is easy? Marriage is for better or for worse. This was
the worse
part. But we have to hope for
the better.
”
“Mia…”
“You’re my husband,” she exploded, hearing the finality in his tone. She knew he didn’t call to talk about it. His mind was made up. The hurt was scathing. “You should have been there to help me get through this. But you weren’t there. Charles, you were never worried about how the cancer was affecting me. All you were worried about was how the cancer was affecting you. When would you have told me if I didn’t come home early?”
“I was waiting till you were stronger.”
“So you were going to do it again?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry when you’re not!”
“But I am sorry,” he shouted back. Then, skipping a beat, he repeated more softly, “I am. I never planned for this to happen. I still care about you. But it’s over.”
“I hate you for doing this to us,” she said, her voice breaking. She brought her fingers to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut while she rocked back and forth, willing herself not to cry.
“I was hoping we would be able to work the divorce out ourselves.” He spoke in the voice she’d heard him use in court. “We don’t have a lot of property and we have no children. We could save a lot of money, given we have so little to divide.”
She dropped her hand, incredulous. “So now you want me to trust you to be fair to me? After what you did?”
He sighed with resignation. “Fine. Do it your way. You need to get a lawyer. I can recommend a few, if you like.”
“Screw you. Screw that girl. And screw—”
She heard a click.
Mia flushed. He’d hung up on her. How could he be so callous? How could he care so little to ask for a divorce without discussion, without even waiting until she came home. Why didn’t she see it coming? She let her hand drop to her lap. Charles wanted a divorce. She couldn’t quite get that concept clear in her mind. Her marriage was over and in walking away he took from her all that she had so willingly given of herself. And for all his saying “I’m sorry” over and over, he never really apologized.
She took a breath, then picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s number. It was a reflex action.
When she heard Maddie’s voice on the line Mia blurted out in a rush, “I talked to Charles.”
“Damn. I’ve been trying to reach you before he did. Don’t you ever answer your phone?” She paused, then said cautiously, “He told you?”
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He wants a divorce.”
“Is that all he told you?”
Mia tensed again, sensing another blow. “Isn’t that enough?”
Maddie sighed heavily. “I’m just going to spit this out so you hear it straight and you hear it from me.” She paused, then blurted out, “He’s going to marry that bimbo.”
Mia’s mind stalled. “Who? That woman?”
“She has a name,” Maddie said softly. “Do you want to know it?”
Mia felt her blood ice in her veins. She wasn’t sure she wanted to give the woman an identity. It made her real.
“Yes.”
“Julia Barnes. She’s a law clerk for the same firm. Did you know her?”
“No,” she blurted out, regretting her decision, seeing again her face; her long, dark hair flowing over her beautiful breasts. “And I don’t care what her name is. She doesn’t deserve my recognition.”
“OK, then,” Maddie drawled.
“How did you find out he wants to marry her?”
“He told me. God help me, Mia, he’s been calling me every day, bending my ear about this and that, like I’m some ambassador between the two of you. He seems to think if he can make me his ally this will all end neatly and without scandal. He’s going on about how he’ll divide everything equally and how you can both get on with your lives, make a new start, that kind of crap. My bet is he’s more than a little worried about how his law firm will react to any gossip about how you found him in bed with Julia at lunch hour. Not a classy scene. Wouldn’t look too good for him.”
“So. It’s going to happen. The divorce.”
“I’m afraid so, honey.”
She swallowed the news, though it had a tough time getting down her throat. “I’ll have to think about it more.”
“Think fast. Charles seems hell-bent on it happening. He’s putting it on the fast track.”
“Why the hurry? I’ll be up here for the summer. Let him sit on the hook for a while.”
“Oh honey, bolster yourself. There’s more.”
Mia stiffened. “What more could there be?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Mia felt numb and could only sit for a moment, dazed and speechless. The first emotion that pushed through the shock was hate.
She and Charles had talked about having children early in their marriage, but they were both ambitious with careers blooming and they’d decided to wait. When Mia neared thirty-five, she wanted to begin a family but Charles didn’t want to talk about it. He’d said he wasn’t ready. He was still young and wanted a few more years of freedom, he called it. Time while they were still young to enjoy going out when they wanted to, to travel and not have to worry about being tied down by rug rats and diapers and that whole lifestyle.
The following year, Mia was diagnosed with breast cancer. The chemo had poisoned her body, possibly her eggs, and now it was questionable whether Mia could ever have children. How did that woman get pregnant so fast? she wondered. Had it been an accident? Could she be so manipulative as to try to trap Charles in that age-old ploy?
But Charles wanted to marry her. He wasn’t the kind to get trapped.
“Honey, are you still there?”
Mia nodded, then croaked out, “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you all this. I thought you should know.”
“Hey, Maddie,” she said, her voice soft and shaken. “You know how I said I didn’t want you to come up here? How I needed to be alone?”
“Yeah.”
“I lied. I’d really love it if you came up.”
“I’ll be there,” Maddie replied. “Let me work out a few things here so I can take some time off. I need to get the kids taken care of. I have a big meeting next week. I can try and come after that. Are you OK till then? You won’t do anything stupid?”
“No, of course not. I’ll be fine. Settle it at work and with the family and come up when you have a spare weekend. Really, I’m OK. It’d just be nice to see you.” Her voice broke.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Call me every day, OK? Even if you have to climb a mountain to get reception, call me.”
Dear Diary,
Here is a secret. I was lost in the woods. I never told anyone.
I had followed a stream to its end deep in the forest. It dried up in some rocky crevice surrounded by a hillside of glorious fern. I’ve done this before. It has always been such an adventure, and when I reached the stream’s end, I followed it back home. But I must have made a wrong turn because I was soon in a part of the woods I did not recognize. Nothing looked the least friendly or familiar. I wandered for a long time, calling out over and over for Daddy. Only the birds returned my calls. The trees, the wildflowers, the rocks, the critters, all things that I loved hours before suddenly made me afraid. My mind began playing tricks on me. I imagined bears and snakes and all manner of evil lurking where the trees grew thick. I’ve never been such a ninny before. I’d heard talk of children wandering off never to be seen again, that must have been what made me so fearful. I was embarrassed for my tears. Lowrance would tease me if I told him.
It was the river that saved me. I heard it before I saw it. The sound of rushing water was like hearing an old friend calling my name. I followed the sound over the mountain. My dress and stockings were torn and I was very thirsty. But my heart near burst at the sight of the most charming stream I’d ever seen. The water ran swift over the dearest waterfall and led to a deep pool. Just beside it sat a cabin. I knew instantly it had to be the one my father had built after my mother died. From time to time he went off for short trips alone in the woods. He never invited me to join him on these trips, though I’d often begged him to. He said that there were times when a man had to be alone with his God and his thoughts. I sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the cabin and waited, knowing he would come.
Afraid. Scared. Timid. Fearful. Terrified. Frightened. Lonely.
I write these words down because I do not want them to come back into my heart. By writing these words down I must face the feelings. It is strange how I feel a shiver of the feeling when I say the word aloud. I shall read the words over and over until that feeling is gone. These are the feelings of the lost. I am not lost.
Kate, the Fearless
C
larence arrived at the cabin a few minutes after Mia did. She felt wounded and raw after her phone call with Charles. She crossed her arms and leaned against the porch pole as she watched Clarence’s shiny red truck pull up to the cabin, its enormous tires digging deep tracks in the mud. It was a giant four-wheeler and she wondered, when he jumped from the cab, if it didn’t have something to do with compensation. A second, rusted truck ambled along behind, loaded with firewood. He directed the two men where to stack the wood, giving orders like a Napoleon, and then turned to join her on the porch.
“I made it in pretty good time,” he called out as he walked up to the porch. He climbed the stairs and, tucking his fingertips in his pockets, looked out over the view of river, and beyond, a glimpse of mountaintops. “A right pretty spot it is,” he said with a sigh. “I came here once as a boy, you know. Just to look at it. Most children hereabouts think the place is haunted. Old Kate was already long gone when I came up. I didn’t mean any harm, just curious. Never went in, of course. Wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t dare. Mrs. Minor kept the place locked and you never knew when that old harridan would come bolting out and chase the rascals out with a broom. True story. It happened to a friend of mine.” He laughed and shook his head. “About scared the tar out of Bill Morgan.”
“Who is Mrs. Minor?”
“She looked after this place after Kate Watkins died. She lived at the next house down the road. She was very loyal. I believe she was the only one Kate kept up with after she came out here. Course, Mrs. Minor’s ancient now. In her nineties if a day. She doesn’t come by to check on this place anymore, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one what started the ghost rumors. Just to keep the kids away. She’s quite a character. Lives in town now where her folks can keep an eye on her.” He wiped his palms on his chinos, then headed toward the door. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got with this fuse box of yours.”
Clarence gave the cabin a thorough once-over, commenting as he saw fit to Mia what could be done in repairs. He was enamored of the cast-iron stove, declaring it in mint condition and how he’d like to take it off her hands. Mia reminded him several times that the cabin did not belong to her, but he chose to ignore that and continued to make suggestions. To her relief he was able to fix the fuse. She didn’t miss his smug smile when he showed her its location by the back door. Clarence didn’t stay long, sensing her mood. She watched him drive away, no doubt in a hurry to report to the town the status of Watkins Cove. A little gossip was a small price to pay for a cord of wood properly stacked beside the house and the power restored.
“Day by day,” she said softly, allowing Kate’s words to become her mantra.
That evening, Mia flicked on a switch and yellow light filled the room. It was comforting, and she’d never take easy access to light for granted again. She wouldn’t need to light a fire tonight, thank heavens. Summer had taken a hold in the mountains and the nights were warming up. The sun was setting on another day.
She went to roost on the blue sofa, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them in a tight ball. Charles had hurt her today, this time so deeply she had to compartmentalize the pain and tuck it away to deal with when she was stronger. She had to see clearly now that she had made poor choices over the past years of her marriage. She had given up herself to be what he wanted—the trophy wife, the socialite, the perfectionist. Not that it was wrong to like pretty things, but she’d neglected to make choices for her inner self as well. She’d given away too much.
She uncurled her legs and sat up, feeling a surge of determination. Her life with Charles was over. She would be a child again. This was her second chance. What difference did age make? She would get up early in the morning and paint. She would take long walks and read and find what it was that made her happy and build an authentic life. It would take work and discipline. She’d never been afraid of that. She had to stay positive. She had to let Charles go. She had to let the fear of cancer go. If she dwelled on the divorce or disease she would lose the slim shred of serenity she’d struggled so hard for up here in this cabin. This was her sacred space. Up here in these walls she’d promised to be good to herself and not let the negative thoughts in.
She rose and prepared a light dinner with a glass of white wine, taking pains to set a pretty table. After she ate, she went to the bookshelves. On top was Kate’s diary. She picked it up and held it in her hands. The leather was soft and familiar.
“Hello, friend,” she said aloud. She’d read and reread the young girl’s diary countless times. Kate Watkins’s words had filled her like a rich wine did an empty decanter.
Tomorrow she’d try her hand at casting again, she decided. She wouldn’t give up that dream so readily. First, she needed to learn how to knot a dry fly. She pulled several books on fly-fishing from the bookshelf and carried them to the table. She opened the first to discover that it was a series of essays on the art of fly-fishing. She closed this to read later.
The next two provided practical instructions on the basics of fly-fishing, more a twentieth-century how-to book. Always a good student, she dove in. For the next hour she studied diagrams and practiced tying a series of knots on the line that Belle had given her. When she was satisfied she could made a decent clinch knot, she idly opened the last book on the table.
This one had a heavy tweedlike cover. Something about it niggled in her memory. Opening it, her mouth slipped open in a silent gasp of recognition.
The heavy lined paper filled with neat script and charcoal sketches was exactly as Kate had described. Mia flipped back to the first page. She found the name
Walter Watkins
written in the same tight script. Her mind flashed to the initials on the photograph.
WW.
But of course Kate would have wanted to keep her father’s fishing diary! She would have brought it with her to the cabin along with her other favorite books. It would have been one of her greatest treasures. Walter had written his entries in a tight and tidy script. On the right was an open space for comments. He had an incredible sense of detail and order. As she studied the pages, she remembered young Kate’s rapture at seeing it.
Mia’s head snapped up as words from Kate’s diary rang in her memory.
Someday I was going to make a fishing diary of my very own.
If Kate had preserved her father’s fishing diary, she thought…
Mia hurried to the bookcase and with excitement pumping in her veins scanned the titles for all the fly-fishing books. There were four more. She opened each one eagerly, one after the other. Each was another text on the topic of fly-fishing. No diary. Disappointed, her fingers tapped the table. She had felt so sure. Undaunted, Mia returned to the bookshelf and let her fingertips skim again over all the titles on all the shelves, reading each one carefully. There were many classics and a wide selection of early southern and feminist authors. She traced the titles by Henry David Thoreau, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Eudora Welty, Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, and several about Amelia Earhart. On the bottom shelf she found a narrow, burgundy leather box, tied in shipping string. With a flicker of interest, she pulled it out and brought it to the table. On the cover of the box the outline of a fish was etched into the leather in gold.
Mia untied the string. Then, with something akin to reverence, she opened the box. She sucked in her breath. Inside she found a burgundy, leather-bound book. It was thick and bulky, filling the box, which Mia knew was made especially for the book. The leather was well worn, burnished in some spots, and scratched deeply in others. In the center of the cover, in the same gilt as the fish, were the initials
KW.
Mia wiped her palms on her shirt, then very carefully lifted the book from the box. The book’s bindings held strong. Mia held her breath and opened the book.
Her breath released with a laugh. Did she call this a fishing diary? This was a far, far different book than WW’s neatly recorded journal.
This
was a marvel! It was a glorious explosion of creativity and color.
The design of the pages was exactly that of her father’s diary. There were the classic black lines that marked the same categories: date, fish caught, location, rod, fly. But where he had neatly recorded the information like a banker in a ledger, Kate had embellished her entries with impeccably rendered watercolors.
Mia hurried through the pages to get a grasp of the book. The dates spanned from 1920 to 1951—so many years! The colors of the paintings had not faded. These were not the cheerful paintings of a child. These were the entries of a mature and accomplished angler and artist.
On the left side were the categories, and her entries were written in a serious, tidy script. In between her entries, however, she filled all the empty spaces with sketches, some quite whimsical, of objects that must have caught her eye while out in the wild. An eagle’s head, a crested grebe, a barn swallow; there a rabbit, a bear, a deer—each carefully identified. On the right, where the diary provided a page for remarks, Kate filled the space with her shining watercolors of the spots she fished—the rivers, waterfalls, and mountains. And everywhere were fish—rainbow trout, brook trout, and others, large and small, swimming, leaping, on the fly, in the creel, even on the plate. Mia was enthralled. It was almost too much. She knew how an archeologist must feel when he opens a tomb for the first time to discover the marvelous treasures hidden there.
“Oh, Kate!” Mia exclaimed, bringing her hand to her cheek. “You wonderful girl. You queen of fly-fishing. You did it. Just as you said you would. You made the woods your own!”
Morning broke the stillness of night, stretching her pink and gold rays over the eastern mountains, then yawning wide and spreading her light down across the valley. In the forest, myriad birds shook their feathers and sang dawn songs to the new day.
Mia rose to begin her new routine. She hummed as she scooped coffee into the machine and reached into the cabinet to take out her favorite blue pottery mug and bowl that she’d found in Maeve’s shop. The scent of coffee tantalized her senses and her fingers tapped a beat on the counter while she waited for the coffee to brew. Then she poured the steaming coffee into her mug, topped it off with milk, and began her day with her first sip. Her breakfast was always a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries, prepared just the way she liked it.
After breakfast, Mia set up her painting environment, mimicking the pleasure she found in preparing her breakfast. She’d found an old wooden table in the woodshed that was perfect to hold her paper and supplies. Preparing the paper, soaking it, watching the water spill off, then its placement on the waiting watercolor board was a careful task.
These quotidian movements were her version of tai chi exercises—free-flowing, continuous routines for health and longevity. Every morning Mia would take care of herself, following her natural cravings, falling into a healing rhythm.
Mia began exploring. She took Kate’s words to heart and every day walked a little deeper into the woods, gaining confidence in steps. Today she felt braver and left the dirt road to follow the river, staying close to its winding curves. She traveled light, carrying only a bottle of water and the old fishing creel she’d found in the armoire. When she’d first put it on, she was keenly aware of the way the wide leather strap fell against the flat space on her chest. Now the strap was soothing, as if it were Kate’s guiding hand on her shoulder.