Meet Me at the River (27 page)

Grandma puts her arm around me. “If she deserts that baby . . . ,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically hard. I wait for her to finish the threat, but she can’t. Because both of us know that as much pain as my mother’s exoduses cause, her parents will never be able to stop taking her back.

We stand there for a while, arms around each other, watching the space Paul has left empty, until finally we hear Grandpa’s truck on Arapahoe Road, heading toward home. It seems impossible that my mother sprang from two people who’ve lived in the same place for so long. I can’t remember my grandparents ever even going on a vacation. Maybe that’s what gave Mom the freedom to roam in the first place, this unwavering, unchanging home base.

“There’s a storm coming,” Grandpa says as he walks into the kitchen with a gust of freezing air. The cold emanates from his skin. Grandma and I let go of each other to let him pass, and at that exact moment the phone rings. I feel a little tingle in my palm—the mystic cross, perhaps, and I know it will be Evie, inviting me over. Before I pick up the phone, I tell my grandmother not to expect me for dinner.

H. J. pours a huge bottle of burgundy into a stainless steel pot, the bottom of which carries the charred scars of a long-ago spaghetti dinner. “Finally,” he says. “You’ve come for the mulled wine.”

A couple weeks ago I gave Evie the map I drew of their kitchen, and one of them has already had it framed. It hangs right above the stove, the glass fogging up from the steam off the hot wine. Evie and I sit at the kitchen block, sticking cloves into oranges. The wine glugs and glugs into the pot with an increasingly cheerful rhythm. He is making enough for a whole roomful of people, and I imagine most of it poured down the sink tomorrow morning.

“You know,” I say, “I don’t really drink wine.”

H. J. picks up a bag of sugar, bypassing the Pyrex
measuring cup next to it. “I’ll make it extra sweet for you,” he says, letting the sugar sift into the pot almost as generously as the wine. He throws in some cinnamon sticks and slices of lemon. We hand over the oranges and start in on some new ones. The room smells wonderful, an infusion of wine and citrus and cloves. Outside the wind kicks up, stormy and cold, and I find I’m eager to taste H. J.’s warm brew.

He makes popcorn in the microwave while the wine simmers, and for a few minutes the fake butter smell wins out over the wine. The three of us sit on the battered couch in the kitchen for a good while, watching the storm work its way over the mountains. The snow falls sideways in violent gusts.

“You’ll probably have to stay here tonight,” Evie says through a mouthful of popcorn. “It looks like a big storm.” I wonder if my mother made it out of the woods, home safe. I picture her and Paul, a shaky truce formed in the bad weather, Paul overjoyed that at least for tonight there’s no chance of her escaping.

“We’ll see,” H. J. says, maybe worrying that the thought of being stranded here will scare me off.

I shrug, feeling surprisingly complacent, then excuse myself to call my grandparents. “The storm looks like it might be bad,” I tell Grandma. “So I’ll probably stay here tonight if that’s okay.” When I come back into the kitchen, Evie asks if I’ve heard from any colleges yet.

“No,” I say. “Nothing yet.”

“Evie got into CU,” H. J. says.

“Really?” I say. “That’s great, Evie.” I don’t say anything about my possibly going there too.

“Yeah,” Evie says. And then, “H. J.’s selling the house.”

I turn abruptly to look at him. I don’t know why this news should alarm me. But everything about the place, the family photos and the worn but cozy furniture, the kitchen smells from hundreds of meals—successful and unsuccessful—spell permanence. I can’t imagine another family inhabiting these walls.

“But where will you go?” I ask H. J. He’s sitting on the other side of Evie, so I have to lean forward.

He shrugs and tosses a piece of popcorn into the air, opens his mouth, misses. For no particular reason I think that Luke would have caught it.

“Hither and yon,” H. J. says. “Out and about.” He grabs a handful of popcorn and eats it the normal way. I sit back on the sofa.

“My father sent me a letter,” I say. “He wants me to come to Wales and stay with him next year.”

“Oh, yeah?” H. J. says. “I didn’t know your father was Welsh.”

“He’s actually Irish,” I say. “But he lives in Wales right now.”

“Cool,” H. J. says, not investigating further. “You should go.”

“But what about college?” I say, instead of
What about Rabbitbrush?

“Big brick buildings. Very heavy. Difficult to move or destroy. Likely to be here when you get back.” He stands up, moves to the stove, ladles out mugs. Snow pelts the window, and I bring the warm wine to my lips. It enters my nose first, a wonderful, head-clearing blast. When H. J. sits down, this time it’s right next to me.

“Let’s go into the living room,” Evie says, “and sit by the fire.”

Today I go for a walk with Hannah. This in itself is weird. I’m pretty sure the last time I walked anywhere with her, she was taller than me. But what’s even weirder is, I think she knows I’m here. She keeps stopping and looking over at me. Once or twice she reaches out like she wants to touch me. It makes a certain kind of sense, her being Tressa’s mother.

Hannah heads through the woods toward the river. She’s wearing the hat my mom gave Tressa. When we get to the riverbank Hannah starts pacing up and down. I can tell she’s trying to figure out the exact spot where I went in. She goes too far and stops at the beaver dam. I see her take a deep breath and then squat down on the ground. She puts her elbows on her knees and stares out at the water.

Don’t ask me why but I feel like telling her I’m sorry. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been looking out for Tressa the way I should. I’m still taking her places nobody thinks she should go. So I tell Hannah, “I’ll do better from now on.” But I can tell she doesn’t hear me.

She stands and walks upriver. I follow her. After a while she starts running, so I run too. I can hear her counting under her breath. Maybe she’s counting out how long it would have taken me to drown. She stops in the wrong spot again.

Hannah pulls off her left glove. She’s got two wedding rings, one just plain and one with a giant diamond, and she screws both of them off her finger. She shoves the diamond ring into her pocket. I can already see it in the case of some pawnshop in Denver or Grand Junction, and I laugh. Hannah turns and looks straight at me. I freeze. Then she laughs too. She throws her other wedding ring into the river. She doesn’t put her glove back on, just shoves both hands into her pockets and stands there awhile.

I walk away and leave her there. I’m losing track of time. I’m not sure when I last saw Tressa. Maybe it was just a couple days ago, or maybe it was a lot longer. I can’t figure it out. All I can do is move in the only direction I know, toward Tressa.

*   *   *

The wine tastes so different from any alcohol I’ve tried before. It feels good, happy and warm. I become different. I move more; I laugh. I sit in the Burdicks’ living room beside the crackling fire and listen to H. J. and Evie exchange their barbed brother-sister banter. It strikes me as the funniest thing in the world. I love the intensity of their connection, and I say so: “Watching you two makes me wish I had a brother or a sister.”

“Um,” Evie says. “Hello? Don’t you have two sisters?”

I laugh. I’d forgotten Jill and Katie, not to mention Matthew. “Yeah,” I say. “But it’s nothing like what you two have.”

“Well,” Evie says, ever forgiving. “Your family is unusual.”

“To say the least.” I take another sip of mulled wine, as if I’ve been drinking for forever, as if intoxication is the most natural thing in the world.

H. J. regards me, noting I’m buzzed, which clearly amuses him. “Tell me, Tressa Earnshaw,” he says. “What’s your passion?”

I laugh, a short burst, taken by surprise. “My what?”

“Your passion,” he says. “What makes you tick? What makes life worth living?”

I have one immediate, obvious answer to this question, but I know it’s not what he’s looking for. He doesn’t
mean a person or a romance. He means something else, an avocation, something that drives me outside of human relationships.

My answer is the lamest one possible. “I don’t know,” I say. “What’s your passion?”

He sits back and considers. “It keeps changing,” he says. “When I was younger, it was physical—skiing and skating, being outside. Then in high school there was acting, being in plays. Like your sister. Then I thought it was teaching, but that didn’t work out. Now I’m thinking, maybe travel. Travel might be my passion.”

“Oh, no,” I say. “Not travel.”

He and Evie both laugh. “Why not?” H. J. says. “Wasn’t it kind of great, moving around the world like that? Seeing new places and meeting new people?”

I remember uncertainty, the feeling of rootlessness, the longing for home. But I also remember something else, the waking up in the morning, my eyes fluttering open, not sure where I’d find myself. And I confess to something airy and wonderful in that moment. I remember an evening in Key West, sitting on a pier with my mother. To get there we’d driven through Georgia, where we had seen a little market whose sign had read
BEER, WINE, GROCERIES, HUMAN HAIR PRODUCTS
. We couldn’t stop laughing about that sign. “It couldn’t be wigs,” my mom said, “because then the sign would just say ‘wigs.’ ” We made guesses about the alternatives—brooms, pillows, voodoo dolls—while eating fried
shrimp and drinking fresh-squeezed lemonade. A homeless sailor who called himself Peg Leg tried to flirt with Mom, and she laughed him off in her brave, inclusive, irresistible way.

“Sure, I liked the adventure,” I admit. “It was fun sometimes.”

H. J. smiles and takes a deep sip from his mug. “There you go,” he says, and I smile back at him.

I end up at the Burdicks’ house. I’ve walked by this place a thousand times but I’ve never gone inside. The other night Tressa asked me about them. Evie and H. J. But I can’t think why she would be here.

The wind picks up and snow begins to fall sideways. It’s kind of cool how I can just stand out here with no coat. I walk over to the window and wipe away the snow so I can look inside.

Someone’s built a fire. I can’t hear the noise it makes over the wind, but it looks warm. Cozy. The room is pretty messy, with skis and boots piled in one corner and the furniture all crowded together. I can see the back of some guy’s head, he’s sitting on the couch. It must be H. J. Evie’s sitting in an old wicker chair on one side of the fire. And Tressa’s there too.

I press my face closer to the window. It’s a big,
comfortable-looking chair Tressa’s sitting in, facing the window. She’s got on a black turtleneck sweater. It’s too big for her. I think that used to be my sweater. I remember the itchy wool. She’s got her hair pulled off her forehead with a little brown clip, but the rest falls over her shoulders. I used to like it when she had her hair that way. I still do.

Tressa doesn’t see me yet. She’s holding a steamy mug and I think it must be some kind of alcohol. Don’t ask me how I can tell this, maybe because of the way she looks so relaxed. The whole scene looks very wrong to me. Nothing is the way it used to be. I’m surprised I don’t just disappear.

I can’t see H. J.’s face but his hands move so he must be talking. Evie looks more grown-up than I remember. Her eyes droop like it’s hard work to stay awake. But Tressa looks
wide
awake. She leans toward H. J. and laughs.

All I want to do is walk inside. I want to pour myself one of those warm drinks. That chair Tressa’s sitting in looks big enough for both of us. I don’t like how I’m
watching
this. I want to be there inside joining this party. So I bang on the window.

The other two don’t hear it. But I do and so does Tressa. I see her face go still and I feel a little bad about interrupting. Then she looks out the window. For a second I’m scared she won’t be able to see me, like Hannah or my mother. But she can see me, and she smiles. She smiles way wider than when she was talking to H. J.

He turns and looks toward the window. But I don’t look at him. I look at Tressa. I wave to her.
Tressa Gentle
. She sees me mouth the words and I can tell she wants to wave back at me.

She puts her mug down and gets up. H. J. gets up too. They talk for a couple minutes. The conversation is easy enough to guess. Tressa’s saying she’s got to go home, and H. J.’s telling her no, no, it’s crazy to go out on a night like this.

Finally Tressa gives up. At least she pretends to. But I know how it goes when someone tells her to stay away from me. Before she heads out of the room she glances toward me, toward the window.
Don’t fade away
, is what that glance says.

Outside the storm gets stronger. All I have to do is wait.

I don’t sense him at first. I don’t feel him coming at all, maybe because so many weeks have passed, or maybe because of the wine. I’m so unused to the wine, it settles at the bottom of my brain, it cushions itself around my heart, and honestly for the first time since last spring—maybe for the first time in my entire life—I’m not thinking about Luke at all, just talking to H. J. and Evie—mostly H. J., because Evie might be falling asleep. Her
head nods a little. She’s like a little girl determined to stay up with the grown-ups.

And then I hear a knock, sharp like an alarm clock, snapping me awake. For a moment I freeze. I know exactly what that knock is, and I feel as though I’ve been caught. Caught drinking wine. Caught being relaxed, and happy, and worst of all caught forgetting,
forgetting
, even for a moment.

But then I see his face. Luke, standing outside the window, white snow gathering in his black, black hair. His beautiful sharp cheekbones, his beautiful dark eyes, his beautiful red lips. His beautiful gathering of my own face in his gaze, and I feel pure joy explode in my chest.

That joy disrupts the room. H. J. turns, staring out the window, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. Evie stops nodding off and sits up. I put down my mug and get to my feet.