Still Waters

Copyright

Still Waters
Misha Crews

Copyright 2012 Misha Crews

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by CWC Publishing
Because good books are essential for a happy life.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9857167-0-7

eBook designed by
MC Writing

To the Reader

Dear Reader,

The events and people in
Still Waters
are fictional. You know how it goes: any resemblance to persons living or dead (or undead!) is purely coincidental yada yada yada. But I’d like to share with you a few elements to this story which make it uniquely personal for me:

The house in which Jenna and Christopher are living is based on the house that I lived in as a child. It’s in a pretty little part of Virginia known as Arlington Forest, a development built in the late 1930s. At the time, the houses sold for about $6000 (garage and fireplace extra, of course!). I don’t have much memory of the place, since we moved from there when I was around six. But the memories that I do have are warm and happy.

The house belonging to Jenna’s in-laws, Bill and Kitty Appleton, is the house owned by my grandparents in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It’s still there, in a very old section of Burke, Virginia. I’ve never been inside, but its existence and the time that my family lived there is an integral part of our family lore.

The house that Adam builds is part of a real-life subdivision called Hollin Hills. Although I have no direct connection to this place, it’s not far from where I live now, and it’s every bit as magical as I’ve described.

Jenna’s dog is named Fritz, which is the name of the dog that we had when we lived in Arlington Forest. Our Fritz was a black-and-tan collie, while Jenna’s Fritz is a German Sheppard. The thing I remember most about Fritz is how much I loved him, and that affection is now Christopher’s love for his own beloved pet.

Still Waters
has always felt like home to me, and now you know why! I hope that you’ll grow to love the characters – and the places in which they dwell – as much as I do.

Thanks and happy reading,

Misha

P.S. I’d love to hear from you! The best way to get in touch with me is through my website:
www.MishaCrews.com
. Don’t be shy!

Acknowledgements

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the friends who encouraged me and helped with the research for this book. In particular, I’d like to thank:

Karen Cantwell, author of
Take the Monkeys and Run,
for constantly assuring me that this is a story worth telling. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know if I would have made it this far.

My editor Misti Wolanski and my proofreaders at Red Adept, who lovingly raked this manuscript over the coals.

The tireless and enthusiastic librarians in the Virginia Room at the Arlington County Public Library, who were as keen about this project as I was.

Blaise deFranceaux and Sandi Poole, who helped me understand the history of Hollin Hills and gave yet another layer to its lovliness.

My aunt Helen Collins and my uncle Jim McConkey, keepers of the family lore, preservers of photographs and memories. Thank you for keeping the past alive.

Dedication

For my father, who left us much too soon.
 
For Phyllis and Charles, my second Mom and Dad.
 
For Dave, the brother I never had a chance to know.
 
And for David, Matthew and Amy,
who bring the sunshine,
even on the cloudiest days.

Still Waters

by

Misha Crews

PART ONE: DEATH

“Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie.”

—
R
UDYARD
K
IPLING

P
ROLOGUE

Summer 1984

D
RIVING HOME FROM HIS GRANDMOTHER’S FUNERAL,
Chris Appleton felt a change coming. He tried to tell himself it was just the change of recent death: that lightning-strike chasm which forever marked the end of
before
and the beginning of
after
. But this was different. Something intangible was floating in the air. Apprehension had settled beside his grief and exhaustion: three black crows sitting side by side on his chest.

He glanced in the rearview mirror, at his mother and stepfather in the back. They were silent, sitting at opposite ends of the comfortable Cadillac seat, each one looking out a different window. To a stranger’s eyes, they might seem to be experiencing the cold aftermath of a quarrel. But their hands, which touched lightly on the leather between them, told the true story of the closeness they shared.

Chris directed his gaze back to the road. Outside the air-conditioned comfort of the automobile, the world rolled by in a haze of heat-drenched lawns and sun-hot sidewalks. It was the kind of day when Chris would have liked to forget he was a grown-up. There was an itchy feeling under his skin. He felt a powerful desire to pull the car over and jump out, go tearing down to the creek, and climb on the mossy green rocks, with the dark, round scent of summer blackberries in his nose.

But this wasn’t a day for ditching his responsibilities, not that he made a big habit of that, anyway. Today was a day for family — it was a funeral day. And nobody liked funeral days.

Chris had been five years old the first time he had seen Death. It had been a cold, clear afternoon when he had witnessed the twitching, staring void that marked the passing of a living creature. Like most human beings, he had found it terrifying, devastating. And fascinating. After the glory of a human life, death was a pitiful inevitability. And maybe that was why Chris had become a doctor.

Of course, he hadn’t exactly gone from that one childhood incident directly into medical school. He had been born in 1951, the year of
Catcher in the Rye
, and started med school in 1973, the year of
Gravity’s Rainbow
. In between, a lot of stuff had happened, including the Sixties. Now here they were in 1984, the year that had so terrified him when he’d read Orwell’s book in junior high. The world was a very different place, and he was definitely not the same human being who had first come face to face with mortality.

He turned the car onto Farley Street, drove around the traffic circle with its giant holly tree, and pulled into the short driveway in front of his house. He looked up at it for a minute before setting the brake.

From the back seat came his mother’s voice, sad, but soothing. “I’m so glad we didn’t sell this place when we got married,” she said.

His eyes once again flicked to the rearview mirror, in time to see Mother touching Dad delicately on the wrist. It was to Dad that she had been speaking. Then she turned her head and met Chris’s gaze. The severe summer daylight accentuated the wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and mouth, but that didn’t detract from her beauty.

She spoke again. “It was such a pleasure to see you move back here when you started your practice, Christopher. I know it made your grandparents happy, too.” She paused, then asked, “Did Bess say she was coming over later?”

“She and Kevin will meet us for dinner,” Chris answered. “Along with the others.”

“Good.”

Chris’s sister had flown in from Seattle for the funeral. After the wake, she and her husband had gone back to their room to rest. Mother and Dad had tried to convince her to stay with them, but Bess, who knew her own mind and who had always liked her privacy, had opted for a hotel.

Chris got out of the car, watching as Dad crooked out his elbow and Mother took his arm. She looked over at Chris and smiled, her expression positive despite the tinge of sadness brought on by the passing of his beloved grandmother. There was a time, oh so long ago, when Mother had only given him that smile on special occasions. Although she’d tried to hide her melancholy, for the first part of his life, his mother had been a distant, beautiful mystery. Like the moon, she was luminous but lonely.

But not anymore. Not for a long time.

They crossed the lawn and walked up the steps to the porch. When they got inside, Christopher went to hang up his suit jacket.

“Jenna, are you all right?” Dad asked softly.

From the corner of his eye, Chris saw his mother nod. “Are you?”

“I’m not really sure. Things will never be the same.” Dad’s voice was thick with grief.

Chris turned his head slightly in time to see their arms slide around each other. He decided to give them a moment alone. He ducked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. A few minutes later, he heard the click of his mother’s high heels on the hardwood floor, and he turned around. Mother looked elegant as always in her black mourning suit, but her face was tired, and her eyes were sad.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, suddenly feeling awkward. “I’ve got drinks, coffee… and that’s about it.”

“Bachelor,” she said fondly. “Don’t you have any food in the house?”

“Are you hungry?” he asked with concern. “I could go out and — ”

“Coffee would be great,” she told him gently.

Dad came around the corner. “I’ll make it,” he said.

Chris tried to object, but Dad waved him away. “Go on, you two; get out of the kitchen and let me do my work.” He clapped Chris on the back, and their eyes locked for a moment. Christopher knew what his stepfather was trying to tell him:
Go see to your mother.

It was a job that only a child can do, but that no child wants to: comfort the parent after
their
parent has departed.

Of course, Christopher’s grandmother hadn’t been Mom’s biological mother. But Kitty Appleton, who had relished the name of Grandma, had a way of collecting children. Anybody who needed a mother had found one in Kitty. And all of them had lost something with her passing.

Chris followed his mother into the small dining room, half of which was taken up by painting supplies. Brushes, tubes of oil paint, canvases — no matter how neatly he stored everything, it still looked a mess. Well, he liked a little bit of artistic clutter, so it didn’t really bother him, but he had a feeling that there was a motherly comment coming — Mom would say something about picking up after himself. But she surprised him yet again.

“I’m so glad you’ve kept up with your painting,” she murmured. “You always had a good eye for art. You really always seemed to enjoy it when I would take you to museums.”

“I did,” he said softly. Actually, what he had enjoyed was the feeling that he was making his mother happy. His love of art had come later. But it wasn’t the time to be particular about things like that. “And besides, painting is a great stress reliever.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Good for the body and soul, you know?”

Although Mom nodded gently, he wasn’t at all sure that she’d heard him. She seemed far away, lost in the wooly fog of memory.

“Let’s go sit down,” he suggested. “Dad’s bringing the coffee.”

But on the way to the sofa, she paused at a shelf loaded with family photos. Chris studied the pictures with her, scanning the images, taking in all different kinds of facial features. Eyes, noses, mouths — all the same basic components that made up any human face, and yet the variety never ceased to amaze. And regardless of their differences, they had one thing in common: they were family.