The House Near the River (11 page)

Back home in Texas the boyfriend she’d been seeing seemed impossibly remote and irrelevant as she sunk into this heated bliss. Jason hadn’t even been born yet, she told herself in an excess of ill-logic and continued to kiss and be kiss
ed
.

After some little while, he released her and hastily exited the car out the driver’s side door, dragging her with him. He
let her go and then, turning away from her grasped
the
door handle
r as though dizzy and afraid he would fall.

“Matthew,” she asked, “are you all right?”

He didn’t look at her. “Not hardly.”

What could she say to that? “I’m not sorry.”

“Nor am I.” He turned to face her. “Ange, you’ve got to say you’ll marry me.”

“You said we were already engaged.”

“Ange!” Her name was said as a cry of pain.

She felt a need to comfort him and went into arms that closed almost involuntarily around her and then they were kissing again, twining together until once again he pulled back. “You have to say you’ll marry me.”

It was the one promise she couldn’t make. She thought about Jason back at home and how unlikely it would be that he would demand an agreement to marry before he made love to her.

She knew about World War II soldiers. They were men like other men. It was the war that ended American innocence. Boys and girls were
much the same as they would be later .
They had longed for each other and found release in each other’s arms even though pu
blic standards had denied them.

But for Matthew, she guessed, to be in love meant more than that. He was not a boy, but a mature man and he wanted a lasting love. Even as half-thought reasoning flashed through her mind, she supposed that even  in the new century where she lived
most
everybody dreamed of that kind of love.

What did they call it? Finding your soul-mate,
waiting for the love allotted you at the very beginning of time.
Such romantic ideas. She’d never believed in such nonsense, not after she’d grown up enough to put fairy tales behind her.

Right now she wanted nothing so much as to fall down to the grassy meadow at their feet with him and make  love for hours. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Matthew, already so lost and wounded, what would happen to him if she did that and left  him again
?

She didn’t belong here. She was not a woman of the 1940s. “I can’t make that promise,” she said and wondered if that wasn’t real love when you didn’t do what you wanted, but what you thought best for the loved one.

He looked so crushed, as though she’d smashed his face in with a rock, that she couldn’t leave it at that. “Tell me again about that first day when we met,” she said, thinking that might help him.

“I was in the coffee shop and had ordered a hamburger and chocolate shake. I was waiting for it when you walked up to my table and asked if you could share because there weren’t any others available.”

“And you said ‘sure,’ she contributed teasingly. “You looked up and saw me and thought you’d be happy to share your table with this woman.”

His smile came slowly to his pained face. “Actually I thought you looked a little snooty all dressed up as you were. I wasn’t used to girls like you and was feeling very much like I was in a foreign world with all those fancy looking people around me.”

She frowned. “But you said yes.”

He shrugged. “It was the only polite thing to do.”

“So it wasn’t love at first sight.”

His look was tender. “Must’ve taken at least five minutes. It was after we started talking and I had a chance to see how pretty you were . . .”

“And I took right to you?”

The smile deepened. “Not exactly. I started telling you how I’d just joined up and could tell you were feeling sorry for me. I made use of that, of course, and told you all about my folks back at home. What could you do? You could hardly ignore the soon-to-be soldier, away from home for the first time.”

She stared at him. “You manipulated me!”

“A man does what he has to. I knew I didn’t have much time, just until you finished your chicken salad and iced tea. But by the time you
were done
, you’d agreed to keep me company at a movie. It was
To Each His Own
and by the time we’d bought the tickets, I think you were beginning to get interested.”

She hadn’t ever even heard of that film. “That’s a long way from being engaged at the end of the day.”

“I’m a fast worker,” he boasted.

She studied him seriously. “Somehow I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

He took her hand and began to
take
her along a little path that led toward the lake. “The truth is, Ange, we seemed to just know each other. A year, a decade, could have passed in that one day. We lived a lifetime in that afternoon and by the time it was over,
I asked you to go meet my family. I didn’t have to report
for a couple of days
and I told you that might be all we had for who could guess how long. We got in my car and talked and snuggled all the way back to the farm. “

“Clemmie must have been surprised.”

“She was, even more surprised that I’d already signed up. She wouldn’t let Charlie go, saying a man with a family couldn’t just go off like that. But after she met you, she was glad I had a girl. Said it gave me someone to come home to.” He grinned. “She also said she’d thought she was doomed to have an old bachelor brother on her hands.

“She made us fried chicken and homemade ice cream for supper. That was before we had a refrigerator and could make our own ice, of course, so Charlie had to go to town for a block of ice to make the cream. It was a real celebration.”

Angie nodded, looking out over the lily-pad-covered lake. She could imagine very well since she now knew all the players so well. All except Charlie, of course. Charlie had eventually to go to the war and finally had not come home with the others.

“We went to bed late. Clemmie put you in the spare room where you sleep with David now. In the morning when she went to wake you for breakfast, you were gone
.
”
H
is tone was bleak as he
lived over
that loss. “At first we thought you’d just gone out for a walk, though it was a cold day and you had no coat. But we couldn’t find you.”

“And you had to go back to the city to report.”

He nodded. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

All those years and he’d been loyal to her. Or had he? She felt a sudden twinge of guilt, and then laughed aloud at herself.

“What’s funny?”

“Not you,” she said hastily, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Just something about myself.”

Modern girl
, she thought. He was in his mid
-
thirties. No doubt he had be
e
n through some relationships. As had she.

It was only fair that he understand. “You’ve got to know that you weren’t my first love, Matthew.”

He frowned, lines cutting deeply into his forehead. “No?”

“After all, we didn’t even know each other.”

“I reckon,” he admitted reluctantly
, looking as jealous
as she could have hoped
.
Then his expression cleared. “But you are my last love,” he said softly, “the one that will last forever.”

She suppose she should have gagged at the cliché, but instead she felt warmed
and kissed him on the mouth this time
.

Feeling contented as a kitten in the sunshine, she walked on with him. They had this beautiful spot on the earth entirely to themselves and the only sound she heard was the distant buzz of insects.

“And you don’t remember that day at all?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It hasn’t happened. It’s not something I would forget.”

She thought that he believed her now, but she saw a look of doubt brush his thoughtful eyes and wondered.

“And if you never remember it happening?”

He didn’t say, ‘If it never happens.’

Gently she pulled her arm free. “We’d better go back to the farm. I’m worried about David.”

“Nothing to worry about.” He refused to be hurried. “You know Clemmie and the kids won’t let anything happen to him.”

She looked around. No cracks emitting golden sunlight here, no interruptions to this reality. For the first time she realized that she never saw the openings in time anywhere but at and around the farmhouse: not in town, not at church, and not here on their outing.

David wasn’t safe there. That was the change
point where everything happening. And while she was gone, he might stumble into one of those cracks and she would never see him again.

She didn’t bother to explain to Matthew. Most likely he wouldn’t believe her anyway. “We’ve got to get home,” she said.

With reluctance he agreed to take her back to the farm. She ran to the car and with the sound of pounding pulse beats in her ears waited for him to get the engine started, back up and head away from the lake. Of necessity their speed had to be low leaving the park to avoid hitting one of the wild animals, but when he sped up only a little once they were on the misbegotten little road, she grew increasingly impatient and urged him to a rate of travel that he protested was less than safe in such country.

To add to her frustration, about half way home they had to stop while he fixed a flat, which she gathered was a much more common occasion than that to which she was accustomed. That flat she’d had when driving out to meet her cousin had been the first she’d had in years, but he talked as though this happened practically every
time he went  anyplace. No doubt tires in
t
hese after the war years were
n’t
up to the standard of the 2000s.

Then he insisted on stopping at a little station for gas. “We won’t have enough gas to get to town from the farm if I don’t,” he said.

She sat tensely while an attendant added the five gallons he requested, chatted cheerily and carefully cleaned the windshield. The total cost was barely over a dollar, but an impatient Angie told Matthew after they were on the road again  that she could have filled up quicker herself.

He laughed at the idea of a woman pumping gas.

Her anxiety didn’t go away and her heart pounded helplessly as they drove, ever so slowly toward the farm.
Almost there
, she thought when they’d turned in at the drive.
Almost there
and she would hold her little brother safely in her arms again.

As they neared the house, she began to see the cracks like lightning against the afternoon and her fear stirred even higher. Then she saw David, playing alone out front as he had on that long ago day. She didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete halt, but opened the door and rushed out the passenger side even as Matthew cried her name in alarm.

One of those cracks wid
e
ned just in front of David
. H
e was walking straight
forward
, apparently without seeing it. She stumbled for an instant as the ground rushed up to meet her feet, found her balance and raced toward him.

He stepped over and through was inside the opening as she flung herself
forward
, grabbing hold of him so that they both fell to the ground on the other side of the opening. She didn’t pause to catch breath, but grabbed him up and rushed to go back through to where Matthew waited for her.

The opening was gone. She stared in shock at the house as she’d first seen it, fallen in and tumbled down. The porch roof
was
gone
, worn away by time, and
the windows
were
hollow empty eyes.

David, still in her arms, cried weakly and she murmured  words of comfort even as a slim, blonde woman raced around the corner of the house toward them. “Angie!”  she shouted. “Thank God.”

Amanda started hugging and scolding her at the same time. “We’ve been worried sick. I called the sheriff. Your dad hired detectives. I was afraid you were dead, though your dad was sure you were still alive.” She pulled out her phone and started to call, “I’ve got to let him know. He’s acted so calm, but inside he’s got to be frantic.
I
t’s a wonder he hasn’t had a heart attack.”

Still in shock, Angie
listened
as her cousin told her father that she’d been found safe and well and that she didn’t have a clue, a single clue as to what had happened, but they’d be there as soon as possible.

Her eyes widening, Amanda completed the call, staring at Angie with David still clasped sobbing in her arms. “Who is that little boy?” she asked. Then before Angie could answer, she went on, “He looks like David, or at least the way I remember David. Of course it’s been so long ago and I was so young, I probably can’t remember . . .”