“Yeah.” I nodded. “He was.”
As the lawyer said, everything had been taken care of. My dad had chosen the type of graveside service he wanted, he'd had his clothing dropped off, and he'd even picked his own coffin. Knowing him, I guess I should have expected it, but it only reinforced my belief that I never really understood him.
His funeral, on a warm, rainy August day, was only sparsely attended. Two former co-workers, the director of the extended care facility, the lawyer, and the neighbor who'd helped take care of him were the only ones beside me at the graveside service. It broke my heart—absolutely broke it into a million pieces—that in all the world, only these people had seen the worthiness of my dad. After the pastor finished the prayers, he whispered to me to see if I wanted to add anything. By then my throat was tight as a drum, and it took everything I had to simply shake my head and decline.
Back at home, I sat tentatively on the edge of my dad's bed. By then the rain had stopped, and gray sunlight slanted through the window. The house had a musty, almost moldy odor, but I could still smell the scent of my dad on his pillow. Beside me was the envelope the lawyer had brought me. I poured out the contents. The will was on top, as were some other documents. Beneath it, however, was the framed photograph that my dad had removed from his desk so long ago, the only existing photograph of the two of us.
I brought it to my face and stared at it until tears filled my eyes.
Later that afternoon, Lucy, my long-ago ex, arrived. When she first stood at my doorstep, I didn't know what to say. Gone was the suntanned girl from my wild years; in her place was a woman dressed in a dark, expensive pantsuit and a silk blouse.
“I'm sorry, John,” she whispered, coming toward me. We hugged, holding each other close, and the sensation of her body against mine was like a glass of cool water on a hot summer day. She wore the lightest trace of perfume, one I couldn't place, but it made me think of Paris, even though I'd never been there.
“I just read the obituary,” she said after pulling back. “I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral.”
“It's okay,” I said. I motioned to the couch. “You want to come in?”
She sat beside me, and when I noticed she wasn't wearing her wedding ring, she subconsciously moved her hand.
“It didn't work out,” she said. “I got divorced last year.” “I'm sorry.”
“I am, too,” she said, reaching for my hand. “You doing okay?” “Yeah,” I lied. “I'm okay.”
We talked for a while about old times; she was skeptical of my claim that her final phone call had led me to join the army. I told her that it was exactly what I needed at the time. She spoke about her career—she helped design and set up retail spaces in department stores—and asked what Iraq was like. I told her about the sand. She laughed and then asked no more about it. In time, our conversation slowed to a trickle as we realized how much we both had changed. Maybe it was because we'd been close once, or maybe it was because she was a woman, but I could feel her scrutinizing me and already knew what she would ask next.
“You're in love, aren't you,” she whispered.
I folded my hands in my lap and faced the window. Outside, the sky was again dark and cloudy, portending even more rain. “Yes,” I admitted.
“What's her name?” “Savannah,” I said. “Is she here?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
No, I wanted to say. I don't want to talk about it. I'd learned in the army that stories like ours were both boring and predictable, and though everyone asked, no one really wanted to hear them. But I told her the story from beginning to end, in more detail than I should have, and more than once, she reached for my hand. I hadn't realized how hard it had been to keep it inside, and by the time I trailed off, I think she knew I needed to be alone. She kissed me on the cheek as she left, and when she was gone, I paced the house for hours. I drifted from room to room, thinking of my dad and thinking of Savannah, feeling like a foreigner, and gradually coming to the realization that there was somewhere else I had to go.
Eighteen
That night, I slept in my dad's bed, the only time I'd done that in my life. The storm had passed, and the temperature had risen to miserable levels. Even opening the windows wasn't enough to keep me cool, and I tossed and turned for hours. When I crawled out of bed the next morning, I found my dad's car keys on the peg-board in the kitchen. I threw my gear into the back of his car and picked out a few things from the house that I wanted to keep. Aside from the photograph, there wasn't much. After that, I called the lawyer and took him up on his offer to find someone to haul away the rest and sell the house. I dropped the house key in the mail.
In the garage, it took a few seconds for the engine to catch. I backed the car out of the drive, closed the garage door, and locked up. From the yard, I stared at the house, thinking of my father and knowing that I'd never see this place again.
I drove to the extended care facility, picked up my dad's things, then left Wilmington, heading west along the interstate, moving on autopilot. It had been years since I'd seen this stretch of road, and
I was only dimly aware of the traffic, but the sense of familiarity came back in waves. I passed the towns of my youth and headed through Raleigh toward Chapel Hill, where memories flashed with painful intensity, and I found myself pushing the accelerator, trying to leave them behind.
I drove on through Burlington, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem. Aside from a single gas stop earlier in the day where I'd also picked up a bottle of water, I pressed forward, sipping water but unable to stomach the thought of eating. The photograph of my father and me lay on the seat beside me, and every now and then I would try to recall the boy in the picture. Eventually I turned north, following a small highway that wound its way through blue-tipped mountains spreading north and south, a gentle swell in the crust of the earth.
It was late afternoon by the time I pulled the car to a stop and checked into a shabby motel just off the highway. My body was stiff, and after taking a few minutes to stretch, I showered and shaved. I put on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt and debated whether or not to get something to eat, but I still wasn't hungry. With the sun hanging low, the air had none of the sultry humid heat of the coast, and I caught the scent of conifers drifting down from the mountains. This was the place of Savannah's birth, and somehow I knew she was still here.
Though I could have gone to her parents' house and asked, I discarded the idea, uncertain how they'd react to my presence. Instead I drove the streets of Lenoir, passing through the retail district, complete with the assorted collection of fast-food restaurants, and began to slow the car only when I reached the less generic part of town. Here was the part of Lenoir that hadn't changed, where newcomers and tourists were welcome to visit but would never be considered locals. I pulled into a run-down pool hall, a place that reminded me of some of my own youthful haunts. Neon signs advertising beer hung in the windows, and the parking lot was full out front. It was in a place like this that I would find the answer I needed.
I went inside. Hank Williams blared from the jukebox, and ribbons of cigarette smoke drifted in the air. Four pool tables were clustered together; every player was wearing a baseball hat, and two had obvious wads of chewing tobacco parked in their cheeks. Trophy bass had been mounted on the walls, surrounded by NASCAR memorabilia. There were photos taken at Talladega and Martinsville, North Wilkesboro and Rockingham, and though my opinion of the sport hadn't changed, the sight put me strangely at ease. At the corner of the bar, below the smiling face of the late Dale Earnhardt, was a jar filled with cash, asking for donations to help a local victim of cancer. Feeling an unexpected pull of sympathy, I threw in a couple of dollars.
I took a seat at the bar and struck up a conversation with the bartender. He was about my age, and his mountain accent reminded me of Savannah's. After twenty minutes of easy conversation, I took Savannah's picture from my wallet and explained that I was a friend of the family. I used her parents' names and asked questions that implied I'd been there before.
He was wary, and rightfully so. Small towns protect their own, but it turned out that he'd spent a couple of years in the Marine Corps, which helped. In time, he nodded.
“Yeah, I know her,” he said. “She lives out on Old Mill Road, next to her parents' place.”
It was just after eight in the evening, and the sky was graying as dusk began to settle in. Ten minutes later, I left a big tip on the bar and made my way out the door.
My mind was curiously blank as I headed into horse country. At least, that's how I remembered thinking of it the last time I was here. The road I drove slanted ever upward, and I began to recognize the landmarks of the area; I knew that in a few minutes I'd pass Savannah's parents' house. When I did, I leaned over the steering wheel, watching for the next break in the fence before turning onto a long gravel road. As I made the turn, I saw a hand' painted sign for something called “Hope and Horses.”
The crackle of my tires as they rolled over gravel was oddly comforting, and I pulled to a stop beneath a willow tree, next to a small battered pickup truck. I looked toward the house. Steep roofed and square, with flaking white paint and a chimney pointing toward the sky, it seemed to rise from the earth like a ghostly image a hundred years in the making. A single bulb glowed above the battered front door, and a small potted plant hung near an American flag, both moving gently in the breeze. Off to the side of the house was a weathered barn and a small corral; beyond that, an emerald-covered pasture enclosed by a tidy white fence stretched toward a line of massive oak trees. Another shedlike structure stood near the barn, and in the shadows I could see the outlines of aging field equipment. I found myself wondering again what I was doing here.
It wasn't too late to leave, but I couldn't force myself to turn the car around. The sky flared red and yellow before the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the mountains in moody darkness. I emerged from the car and began to approach the house.
The dew on the grass moistened the tips of my shoes, and I caught the scent of conifers once more. I could hear the sounds of crickets chirping and the steady call of a nightingale. The sounds seemed to give me strength as I stepped onto the porch. I tried to figure out what I would say to her if she answered the door. Or what I would say to him. While I was trying to decide what to do, a tail-wagging retriever approached me.
I held out my hand, and his friendly tongue lapped against it before he turned and trotted down the steps again. His tail continued to swish back and forth as he headed around the house, and hearing the same call that had brought me to Lenoir, I left the porch and followed him. He dipped low, skimming his belly as he crawled beneath the lowest rung of the fence, and trotted into the barn.
As soon as the dog had disappeared, I saw Savannah emerge from the barn with rectangles of hay clamped beneath her arms. Horses from the pasture began to canter toward her as she tossed the hay into various troughs. I continued moving forward. She was brushing herself off and getting ready to head back into the barn when she inadvertently glanced my way. She took a step, looked again, and then froze in place.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. With her gaze locked on mine, I realized that it was wrong to have come, to have shown up without warning like this. I knew I should say something, anything, but nothing came to mind. All I could do was stare at her.
The memories came rushing back then, all of them, and I noticed how little she'd changed since I'd last seen her. Like me, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, smudged with dirt, and her cowboy boots were scuffed and worn. Somehow the hardscrabble look gave her an earthy appeal. Her hair was longer than I remembered, but she still had the slight gap between her front teeth that
I had always loved. “Savannah,” I finally said.
It wasn't until I spoke that I realized she'd been as spellbound as
I. All at once, she broke into a wide smile of innocent pleasure. “John?” she cried.
“It's good to see you again.”
She shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind, then squinted at me again. When at last she was convinced I wasn't a mirage, she jogged to the gate and bounded through it. A moment later I could feel her arms around me, her body warm and welcoming. For a second it was as if nothing between us had changed at all. I wanted to hold her forever, but when she pulled back, the illusion was shattered, and we were strangers once more. Her expression held the question I'd been unable to answer on the long trip here.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked away. “I don't know,” I said. “I just needed to come.” Though she asked nothing, there was a mixture of curiosity and hesitation in her expression, as if she weren't sure she wanted a further explanation. I took a small step backward, giving her space. I could see the shadowy outlines of the horses in the darkness and felt the events of the last few days coming back to me.
“My dad died,” I whispered, the words seeming to come from nowhere. “I just came from his funeral.”
She was quiet, her expression softening into the spontaneous compassion I'd once been so drawn to.
“Oh, John ... I'm so sorry,” she murmured.
She drew near again, and there was an urgency to her embrace this time. When she pulled back, her face was half in shadow. “How did it happen?” she asked, her hand lingering on mine.
I could hear the authentic sorrow in her voice, and I paused, unable to sum up the last couple of years into a single statement. “It's a long story,” I said. In the glare of the barn lights, I thought
I could see in her gaze traces of memories that she wanted to keep buried, a life from long ago. When she released my hand, I saw her wedding band glinting on her left finger. The sight of it doused me with a cold splash of reality.
She recognized my expression. “Yes,” she said, “I'm married.”