At the Scent of Water (17 page)

Sixteen

Elijah rode along in Pastor Ralph Lindsey’s car, taking in his surroundings with a mixture of bewilderment and wonder. He supposed there was something else mixed in, too. Sadness, for it was becoming abundantly clear to him that the home he had left was not the one to which he had returned. If he hadn’t known it by the knots of freeways, the sprawl of buildings and stores, the incessant buzzing of traffic as he passed through Asheville, he knew it when they drove through Silver Falls.

Reverend Lindsey exited the two-lane highway and drove several miles to the city limits of his old hometown, a courtesy to him, he was sure, for their destination was farther out. They drove through a gauntlet of strip malls and fast-food restaurants, and Elijah felt the sadness catch hold of him then. The awareness dawned that everything he remembered was gone. There was no one left here who had loved or known him. No one who even remembered him. Even this pastor was a friend of an acquaintance, doing his Christian duty to find lodging for a servant of the Lord.

“Where was your house?” Ralph Lindsey asked, and Elijah felt bewilderment, for to tell the truth, he had no idea where he was. He looked around for a landmark, something familiar to anchor him. Pastor Lindsey drove slowly in the direction of the town square, and there Elijah regained a little of his confidence.

“All right,” he said. “I remember this. Turn left there just past the courthouse.” Pastor Lindsey did, then followed Elijah’s directions. They drove to the end of the road, and Elijah knew he had passed it by. Reverend Lindsey turned the car around, and on the way back Elijah pointed, and the car pulled toward the ditch.

“That must be it there,” he said quietly and pointed toward the weed-choked field and a single-wide trailer. The doorstep was littered with trash, and a pit bull was tied to a stake in the ground by the driveway.

“This was my grandmother’s place,” he said. “There was a big old house there underneath the pines. White clapboard and a porch with a swing.” He stared. His heart felt bleak.

“Where did your own family live?” the pastor asked.

“On down a little farther and a mile or so off to the east,” he said.

“Do you want to see it?” he asked gingerly.

“May as well. We’re here.” He nodded grimly, stoic. Without a word the pastor drove down the road, as if he knew what Elijah must be feeling. Elijah’s heart ached as they drew near, for at the end of the road where his boyhood home had been were thirty or so spec houses made of particle board and vinyl siding, surrounded by tiny patches of newly seeded lawn and spindly trees.

He said little on the rest of the drive, just stared out the window, and Reverend Lindsey let him be.

He forced himself to sit up and take charge of his emotions as they passed through Gilead Springs. The lodgings the pastor had arranged for him were on the other side of town, and it wouldn’t do to arrive full of self-pity and complaint. They passed the courthouse and the library, and for a moment Elijah felt cheered. This was more what he remembered. In this place, at least, he felt a sense of familiarity. They passed the Pentecostal Holiness church on the corner, and he remembered going to a revival meeting there. A flood of memories rushed back at him, for he had come to Gilead Springs often for a time. He had had business of the heart, he remembered with a bittersweet smile, and he wondered what had become of her.

They passed through downtown, came to the railway crossing, then veered off to the right onto Piney Creek Road. They drove and drove, farther up into the hills, finally slowing when they came to a red mailbox with a rooster painted on it. Pastor Lindsey turned into the long driveway and drove toward the house, then ground to a halt in the gravel, a cloud of dust rising.

Elijah and the pastor got out from the car. They retrieved Elijah’s suitcase, and then the front door opened and someone came out onto the screened porch. Elijah squinted to make out the details but didn’t see much until she opened the screen door and stepped out into the yard. She was a woman, younger than he was, though not by much, and had blond hair gone to silver, swept away from a sweet, soft face, and his heart gave a catch, for there was something familiar about her. She shaded her eyes and looked toward them, and as she walked closer, he watched her expression change from polite greeting to shock. Her hand went to her heart, and her mouth dropped open slightly. His own heart missed a beat or two as her features matched up with the image in his memory.

“Elijah?” she asked, wonder in her voice and eyes.

“Mary Ellen Anderson,” he said, his voice full of awe.

“You’re the retired missionary from Africa?” she asked incredulously.

He nodded. “And you’re the lady with the guesthouse.”

“Well, mercy me.” She gave her head a small shake and stared at him, eyes still wide, and he thought to himself that she was still the prettiest girl in five counties. He had a sharp moment of regret as he wondered what his life would have been like if he had married her, as they had once planned, instead of going to the mission field. He rebuked himself quickly, for she had no doubt gone on and married someone else. They had both made choices, though standing here looking at her now, it seemed just yesterday that he had told her good-bye.

She extended a hand to him, and he noticed it was trembling slightly when he took it. With her next words the situation became even more amazing. His conversation with the girl on the plane came rushing back, and he had the feeling that he had been placed here rather than bumbled in. “It’s not Anderson anymore,” she corrected him. “It’s Truelove. Mary Truelove.”

“Come on over to the house when you’re settled,” Mary had told him.

Elijah looked around the guesthouse now and stowed his things away. Neither activity took long. The cottage contained a bathroom, a tiny bedroom, and a sitting room with a stovetop and a small refrigerator tucked in one corner. He opened the cupboards. They were stocked with dishes and a few pots and pans. He looked in the refrigerator. There was a half gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a package of bacon, a gallon jar of water. A loaf of bread sat on the counter beside a tin of coffee.

Mary Ellen was a thoughtful woman, always had been, though he felt an ironic slice of pain that it was her particular hospitality he was enjoying. The thought flashed across his mind that it rubbed salt into his wound of loneliness, but he steadfastly rejected those thoughts. He knew where they came from.

“No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age,” he said aloud, “and in the age to come eternal life.” It was true, he assured himself, though he still felt the brush of loneliness and sorrow.

He walked into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. He rubbed his head, then let his hands hang down limp at his sides. What had he expected? he asked himself. That time had frozen? Did he think the world, with its satellite dishes and shopping malls, would have stopped at the Haywood county line out of consideration for his memories? Had he thought the people he had once loved would have frozen, as well, waiting for him to return and take them up again?

Things had changed. People had gone on.

Oh, but it was hard to believe. And it was hard to see. The church his family had attended when he was a boy was gone. There’d been a Rite Aid drugstore in its place. The Main Street he remembered was forlorn and forsaken, surrounded by Burger King and Pizza Hut. Both houses were gone, and he remembered his mother writing to say she was selling them. When had that been? he asked himself, and after a little calculation he decided it had been 1970, just before she’d died, and after that his sister had forwarded him his share of the money, which he had used to stock the clinic in Sudan.

He asked himself why he had come back here, and suddenly he remembered his letter to the mission board with a surge of hope. Perhaps there would be a telephone call, a letter, a hearty welcome back. Perhaps he would return to Africa soon, and he pushed aside the nagging thought that were he to do so, he might be running away from his assignment this time rather than toward it. Besides, they had younger men to do what he had done, and now that his health was unreliable, he might be considered a liability rather than an asset. He shook his head once again and refused to give in to self-pity. The Lord had blessed him and even now was providing for his needs, perhaps in ways of which he was unaware.

Elijah looked around the room and felt his pain ease. The floor was old oak tongue and groove. The bed was an iron bedstead painted white. The dresser was old, as well, and covered with a white runner, freshly starched and ironed, by the looks of it. There was a vase of white laurel blossoms on the small bedside table and what looked to be a hand-braided rug on the floor beside it. His heart eased for a moment. These were things he remembered.

He set his suitcases in the closet, then went into the sitting room. It had three walls of windows and was sunny and warm. There was an old white porcelain cabinet and sink like the one his mother had had, a small drop-leaf table covered with a red-and-white cloth. A basket of apples sat upon it. The sofa was covered with a blue-and-white quilt. There was an overstuffed red chair beside it. The worn places on the back and arms were covered with white doilies.

He sat down in the ladder-backed chair by the window. It looked directly out onto Mary Ellen’s garden, and he could see parts of it through the leaves of the trees. There were dogwoods, rhododendron, mountain laurel, and under them a heap of flowering plants. A statue of some kind. After a few minutes he rose up. He should go out to the kitchen and see if there was something he could do to earn his supper.

He knocked on the front door, but no one answered. After a moment he went around the side of the house to the back. He climbed the steps onto the back porch. The door was open, and he stood there in the doorway and saw her at the sink, her hands on the rim, her head bent, shoulders lifting slightly as she took a deep breath. He shifted his weight, and she must have heard him. She half turned, then wiped at her eyes and face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Come in please. And forgive me. It’s awful to greet you like this.”

He looked at her face, at the grief in her eyes, and his heart moved in compassion. “Sorrow and I are no strangers,” he said quietly.

She looked at him for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to say more.

“My son was that little girl’s doctor,” she finally said and pointed toward the television. He nodded and his heart ached for Mary Ellen and her son. For his seatmate on the plane. For all of them, and he knew then that he had stumbled into a house of grief and sorrow.

“I guessed that,” he said. She did not ask him how. He did not feel the need to tell her.

She fixed him a cup of coffee, and they talked briefly, catching up on just the facts of their biographies. He learned that she had two sons and a daughter and that her husband had died two years before. He told her his spare history, seeing once again the shadow of might-have-beens pass across her face.

“I’d better start supper,” she finally said with that gentle smile he remembered. “My children and grandchildren will be joining us.”

In spite of her kind inclusion, he felt out of place, especially given the circumstances. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, meaning more than food.

She glanced away and shook her head. “Just make yourself at home.”

He watched television for a few minutes, but the news was jarring, the ads frantic, and after a while he went outside, walked into the garden, and sat down beside the statue of the little girl.

Seventeen

It was a strained reunion, as Sam had feared it would be. Laurie was there, of course, with her husband and their youngest son. Their other son and daughter were off at some practice or another. Ricky came with Amanda and their three little daughters, and that made some liveliness, took Sam’s mind off CNN, which he checked compulsively every hour or so, though his attorney had promised to call him if anything changed in Kelly Bright’s condition. Mama was in a state. Torn between joy to see him again and grief for his situation. And the poor lodger, the old missionary from Africa, was set down right in the middle of it all. He had gone to the guesthouse right after supper, pleading weariness. Sam regretted coming home. He confided that fact to Ricky as they sat outside on the porch watching his children play after supper.

“It was a mistake to come here.”

Ricky shrugged. “I know you think it is, but what’s so bad about letting people share your troubles?”

“There’s nothing they can do about it, and it just makes them miserable.”

“You think Mama’s happy when you’re
not
here? She’s always grieved. It’s just that most of the time you’re not here to see it.”

Sam shrugged.

Ricky pressed his point. “But then, maybe it’s not Mama’s discomfort you’re really concerned about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.”

That was just like his brother. He tossed out his little darts, then feigned innocence.

“What are you going to do now?” Ricky asked. A long overdue question and one each member of his family had gone out of their way not to ask.

“I’ll stay a few days,” Sam said. “I’m going to clean out the house and put it up for sale. I’ll go over and have a look at things tomorrow. See what needs to be done.”

Ricky looked surprised. “Why the rush now? It’s sat empty for five years.”

Sam took a deep breath and said the words for the first time. “Annie filed.”

Ricky took that in, then shook his head, a new compassion lighting his eyes. “Bro, it’s been a tough week for you, hasn’t it?”

Sam was still for a moment. “Things are just drawing to a close,” he said. “Like Ecclesiastes says. There’s a time for everything. There’s a time for things to begin and a time for them to end.”

Ricky frowned and shook his head. “I’m not sure the Lord intended this particular application,” he said doubtfully. “You’ll have to ask Reverend Lindsey about that one.”

Sam gave a forced smile.

“I’ll bring the truck over and help you clean out the house,” Ricky offered quietly. “What are you going to do with all of Annie’s things?”

“Put them in storage.”

“There are some places out toward Asheville.”

Sam nodded. He wished he smoked. His hands needed something to do.

“You going to list it with Jim?” Laurie’s husband sold real estate.

“I suppose so. We’ll probably have to sell the land and the house separately. I can’t imagine anybody wanting all twenty-six acres. I just don’t want any developers buying it, and I don’t want it to be somebody’s vacation home.”

“Awfully picky for somebody who doesn’t care,” Ricky observed. Sam didn’t bite. “You should get a pretty good penny for it,” Ricky observed after a moment. “Land’s dear around here. I probably couldn’t afford my own house if I had to buy it now.”

Amanda came to the door. “You about ready to head home, honey?” she asked Ricky. “It’s time for the kids to get to bed. They’ve got school tomorrow.”

They called their children and even that simple ritual sent ripples through Sam. He remembered his own daughter playing on this lawn, hiding behind the hydrangea, swinging there under the tree.

He visited with his mother until she retired, then went back onto the porch. He sat there watching the velvet darkness fall around him, hearing echoes, seeing shadows of people who were no longer there.