Down River

She looked just like Grace.

I cut into the trees from a bright, empty stretch of road, passed by Ken Miller’s bus without slowing down. When I pulled to a stop in front of Sarah Yates’s cabin, a cloud of red dust hung in the air behind my car. I crossed the porch in two strides, and my hand was loud on the door. No answer. But the van was here, canoe at the dock. I pounded again and heard a noise inside, a low muffle that swelled into footsteps.

Ken Miller opened the door.

He wore a towel around his waist. Sweat matted the hair on his chest. A hot flush infused his face. “What the hell do you want?” he asked.

Beyond him, shadows filled the main room. The bedroom door stood ajar.

“I’d like to speak with Sarah,” I said.

“She’s indisposed.”

Then, from within, Sarah’s voice. “Who is it, Ken?”

He yelled over his shoulder. “It’s Adam Chase, all hot and bothered about something!”

“Ask him to wait a minute, then come and help me.”

“Sarah…” He was displeased.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Sarah said.

When Ken looked back at me, there was murder in his eyes. “I am so tired of you,” he said, then pointed at the row of chairs on the porch. “Wait over there.” Five minutes later, the door opened again. Ken pushed past me without looking up. His jeans were unbuttoned, shoes untied. He walked off without once looking back. A few moments later, Sarah rolled her chair onto the porch.

Her words came as a matter of course. “No man likes being interrupted in flagrante delicto.” She wore a fla

She rolled to a stop and set the brake on her chair.

“You and Ken…?” I said.

She shrugged. “When it suits.”

I searched her face, looking for hints of Grace, and wondering how I’d ever missed it. They had the same heart-shaped face, same mouth. The eyes were a different color, but had the same shape. Sarah was older, her face more full, the white hair…

“Well, spit it out,” she said. “You’re here for a reason.”

“I saw your mother again today.”

“Good for you.”

“She showed me a picture of you when you were young.”

“So.”

“You looked just like Grace Shepherd. You still do in a lot of ways.”

“Ah.” She said nothing else.

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve been waiting twenty years for someone to notice that. You’re the first one. I guess it’s no surprise. I don’t see many people.”

“You’re her mother.”

“I’ve not been her mother for twenty years.”

“Your child did not die in California, then?”

She turned sharp eyes on me. “You covered some ground with my mother, didn’t you?”

“She misses you.”

Sarah waved a loose hand. “Bullshit. She misses her youth, misses the things she’s lost. I’m no more than a symbol of all that.”

“But Grace is her granddaughter?”

Her voice rose. “I would never allow her to raise a child of mine! I know what that road looks like: narrow and sharp and unforgiving.”

“So you lied about the accident?”

She rubbed her lifeless legs. “That was no lie. But my daughter survived.”

“And you gave her up?”

The smile was cold, eyes like green stone. “I’m no mother. I thought that maybe I could be, but that was just self-deception.” She looked away. “I was unqualified in every way.”

“Who’s the father?”

She sighed. “A man. Tall and fine and proud, but just a man.”

“Dolf Shepherd,” I said.

She looked frightened. “Why would you believe that?”

“You gave him the child to raise. In the note you gave me, you wrote of good people who love him. Of good people who will remember.”

Her face hardened.

“There’s no other reason you would do that.”

“You know nothing,” she said.

“It fits.”

She measured me, debating her words. When she spoke, it was with determined finality. Like she’d made some brutal decision.

“I should have never spoken to you,” she said.

They buried Da

His aunt looked pained, but I watched her in silent admiration. The coffin cost more than her car. Her friends had traveled far to be with her.

A good woman, I thought.

We sat for a while in near perfect silence, waiting for the appointed time and the words that would follow Da

The preacher was the same who’d buried my mother, and the years had been cruel to him. Sadness spilled from his eyes. His face stretched, long and careworn. Yet his words still had the power to comfort. Heads moved in accord. A woman crossed herself.

For me, the irony was hard. I found Da

And I prayed for mine.

I watched Grace as the preacher finished his talk of salvation and eternal love. Her face showed nothing, but she had eyes as blue as Dolf’s. She held herself rigidly and clasped a small purse against her black dress. It was obvious why Da

When the preacher finished, he gestured to Da

In that space of time, she beamed. “I understand that he loved you very much.” She let Grace’s hand fall, and tears slipped down the withered planes of her face. “You would have made a beautiful couple.”

Then she sobbed and walked away, a bent figure under a stained metal sky.

Her friends followed, climbed into the old cars with their silent husbands. My family left, as well, but I lingered for some reason. No, I told myself. That was a lie.

I knew the reason, and I fooled no one. Not my father. Not the preacher.

No one.

I sat on the small metal chair until all were gone but the gravediggers, who lingered at a respectful distance. I regarded them as I stood: rough men in hard-worn clothes. They would wait as long as it took. They were used to it, got paid for it. Then, when all had left, they would lower Da

I looked for Grantham, but he was gone. I laid a hand on my friend’s coffin, felt the smooth perfection, then turned down the long slope that led, in the end, to the stone that bore my mother’s name. I knelt in the grass and listened to the distant sound of Da

When, finally, I stood, I saw the preacher.