“You’re in love, aren’t you,” she whispered.
I folded my hands in my lap and faced the window. Outside, the sky was again dark and cloudy, portending even more rain. “Yes,” I admitted.
“What’s her name?”
“Savannah,” I said.
“Is she here?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
No, I wanted to say. I don’t want to talk about it. I’d learned in the army that stories like ours were both boring and predictable, and though everyone asked, no one really wanted to hear them.
But I told her the story from beginning to end, in more detail than I should have, and more than once, she reached for my hand. I hadn’t realized how hard it had been to keep it inside, and by the time I trailed off, I think she knew I needed to be alone. She kissed me on the cheek as she left, and when she was gone, I paced the house for hours. I drifted from room to room, thinking of my dad and thinking of Savannah, feeling like a foreigner, and gradually coming to the realization that there was somewhere else I had to go.
Eighteen
That night, I slept in my dad’s bed, the only time I’d done that in my life. The storm had passed, and the temperature had risen to miserable levels. Even opening the windows wasn’t enough to keep me cool, and I tossed and turned for hours. When I crawled out of bed the next morning, I found my dad’s car keys on the peg-board in the kitchen. I threw my gear into the back of his car and picked out a few things from the house that I wanted to keep. Aside from the photograph, there wasn’t much. After that, I called the lawyer and took him up on his offer to find someone to haul away the rest and sell the house. I dropped the house key in the mail.
In the garage, it took a few seconds for the engine to catch. I backed the car out of the drive, closed the garage door, and locked up. From the yard, I stared at the house, thinking of my father and knowing that I’d never see this place again.
I drove to the extended care facility, picked up my dad’s things, then left Wilmington, heading west along the interstate, moving on autopilot. It had been years since I’d seen this stretch of road, and I was only dimly aware of the traffic, but the sense of familiarity came back in waves. I passed the towns of my youth and headed through Raleigh toward Chapel Hill, where memories flashed with painful intensity, and I found myself pushing the accelerator, trying to leave them behind.
I drove on through Burlington, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem. Aside from a single gas stop earlier in the day where I’d also picked up a bottle of water, I pressed forward, sipping water but unable to stomach the thought of eating. The photograph of my father and me lay on the seat beside me, and every now and then I would try to recall the boy in the picture. Eventually I turned north, following a small highway that wound its way through blue-tipped mountains spreading north and south, a gentle swell in the crust of the earth.
It was late afternoon by the time I pulled the car to a stop and checked into a shabby motel just off the highway. My body was stiff, and after taking a few minutes to stretch, I showered and shaved. I put on a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt and debated whether or not to get something to eat, but I still wasn’t hungry. With the sun hanging low, the air had none of the sultry humid heat of the coast, and I caught the scent of conifers drifting down from the mountains. This was the place of Savannah’s birth, and somehow I knew she was still here.
Though I could have gone to her parents’ house and asked, I discarded the idea, uncertain how they’d react to my presence. Instead I drove the streets of Lenoir, passing through the retail district, complete with the assorted collection of fast-food restaurants, and began to slow the car only when I reached the less generic part of town. Here was the part of Lenoir that hadn’t changed, where newcomers and tourists were welcome to visit but would never be considered locals. I pulled into a run-down pool hall, a place that reminded me of some of my own youthful haunts. Neon signs advertising beer hung in the windows, and the parking lot was full out front. It was in a place like this that I would find the answer I needed.
I went inside. Hank Williams blared from the jukebox, and ribbons of cigarette smoke drifted in the air. Four pool tables were clustered together; every player was wearing a baseball hat, and two had obvious wads of chewing tobacco parked in their cheeks. Trophy bass had been mounted on the walls, surrounded by NASCAR memorabilia. There were photos taken at Talladega and Martinsville, North Wilkesboro and Rockingham, and though my opinion of the sport hadn’t changed, the sight put me strangely at ease. At the corner of the bar, below the smiling face of the late Dale Earnhardt, was a jar filled with cash, asking for donations to help a local victim of cancer. Feeling an unexpected pull of sympathy, I threw in a couple of dollars.
I took a seat at the bar and struck up a conversation with the bartender. He was about my age, and his mountain accent reminded me of Savannah’s. After twenty minutes of easy conversation, I took Savannah’s picture from my wallet and explained that I was a friend of the family. I used her parents’ names and asked questions that implied I’d been there before.
He was wary, and rightfully so. Small towns protect their own, but it turned out that he’d spent a couple of years in the Marine Corps, which helped. In time, he nodded.
“Yeah, I know her,” he said. “She lives out on Old Mill Road, next to her parents’ place.”
It was just after eight in the evening, and the sky was graying as dusk began to settle in. Ten minutes later, I left a big tip on the bar and made my way out the door.
My mind was curiously blank as I headed into horse country. At least, that’s how I remembered thinking of it the last time I was here. The road I drove slanted ever upward, and I began to recognize the landmarks of the area; I knew that in a few minutes I’d pass Savannah’s parents’ house. When I did, I leaned over the steering wheel, watching for the next break in the fence before turning onto a long gravel road. As I made the turn, I saw a hand-painted sign for something called “Hope and Horses.”
The crackle of my tires as they rolled over gravel was oddly comforting, and I pulled to a stop beneath a willow tree, next to a small battered pickup truck. I looked toward the house. Steep roofed and square, with flaking white paint and a chimney pointing toward the sky, it seemed to rise from the earth like a ghostly image a hundred years in the making. A single bulb glowed above the battered front door, and a small potted plant hung near an American flag, both moving gently in the breeze. Off to the side of the house was a weathered barn and a small corral; beyond that, an emerald-covered pasture enclosed by a tidy white fence stretched toward a line of massive oak trees. Another shedlike structure stood near the barn, and in the shadows I could see the outlines of aging field equipment. I found myself wondering again what I was doing here.
It wasn’t too late to leave, but I couldn’t force myself to turn the car around. The sky flared red and yellow before the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the mountains in moody darkness. I emerged from the car and began to approach the house. The dew on the grass moistened the tips of my shoes, and I caught the scent of conifers once more. I could hear the sounds of crickets chirping and the steady call of a nightingale. The sounds seemed to give me strength as I stepped onto the porch. I tried to figure out what I would say to her if she answered the door. Or what I would say to him. While I was trying to decide what to do, a tail-wagging retriever approached me.
I held out my hand, and his friendly tongue lapped against it before he turned and trotted down the steps again. His tail continued to swish back and forth as he headed around the house, and hearing the same call that had brought me to Lenoir, I left the porch and followed him. He dipped low, skimming his belly as he crawled beneath the lowest rung of the fence, and trotted into the barn.