Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [1]
She nodded once. “He was when I made you.”
I had just learned to cuss, so I was testing my boundaries. “Maybe.” I hacked and spat. “But he sure as hell ain’t now.”
She squeezed my cheeks between her fingers and jerked my heard toward the water. “Doss Michaels.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Look at the surface of that river.”
I nodded.
“What do you see?”
My voice sounded thick and garbled. “Black water.”
She squeezed tighter. “Don’t get smart with me. Look again.”
“A few minnows.”
“Closer—at the surface.”
I waited while my eyes focused. My teeth were cutting into my cheeks. “The treeline, some clouds…the sky.”
“What’s that called?”
“A reflection.”
She let go of my mouth. “I don’t care what trash the world throws at you, don’t let it muddy your reflection. You hear me?”
I pointed at the trailer. “Well, he does and you don’t say nothing.”
“True. But I can’t fix him. And you’re not broken.”
“Why do you let him stay?”
She nodded, then said quietly, “’Cause I can only work so many hours in a day, and”—she held up my inhaler—“he’s got benefits.” She lifted my chin again. “Band-Aid, are you hearing me?”
“Why you call me that?”
She pressed her forehead to mine. “’Cause you stick to me and you heal my hurts.”
I didn’t know squat about life, but I knew one thing for certain: my momma was a good woman. I nodded back up the street. “Can I go tell that big fat woman that she can just suck on a lemon?”
She shook her head. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
“Why?”
Lightning spiderwebbed the sky. “’Cause all that fat just represents pain.” She brushed the hair out of my eyes. “Last time…you hearing me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A few minutes passed. The air grew damp, charged with electricity and smelling of pungent rain. “What you got—what you can do with a pencil or a brush—that’s something special.” She pulled me close. “Any dummy with half a brain can see that. I didn’t teach you to do what you do. Couldn’t have, ’cause I don’t know the first thing about it—can’t draw myself out of a wet paper bag. What you got comes from some place none of the rest of us know nothing about. That makes you special.”
“I don’t feel special. Most the time, I feel like I’m dying.”
She hiked her skirt up over her knees to dry the sweat off her legs. A rusty razor had cut the rough skin above her heel. She waved her hand across the world. “Life ain’t easy. Most the time, it’s hard. It seldom makes sense and it ain’t never wrapped up in a neat little bow. Seems like the older you get the more it trips you up, breaks you down and bloodies you…” She tried to laugh and then fell quiet a minute. “People come to this river for lots of reasons. Some of us are hiding, some of us are escaping, some of us are looking for a little peace and quiet, maybe trying to forget, anything to ease the pain we carry, but…we all come thirsty.” She pushed the hair out of my eyes. “You’re a lot like this river. In your fingertips, you got what people need. So don’t hold it back. Don’t dam it up. And don’t muddy it.” She flipped my hand over and spread her palm against mine. “Let it flow out, and one day you’ll find that people from all over will dive in and drink deeply.”
She laid a sketchbook across my lap, handed me a pencil, then aimed my eyes downriver. “You see that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now close your eyes.” I did. “Take as deep a breath as you can.” I coughed, sucked it in and held it. “See that picture on the back of your eyelids?” I nodded. “Now…” She placed the pencil in my fingers just as the first raindrop fell. “Find the one thing that makes you want to look again…and let it out.”
So I did.
That evening, she studied my sketch. Her nose was running. Eyes too. “Promise me one more thing.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She stared out my bedroom window, where the river floated beneath a cloud of steam. She tapped my temple and laid her hand across my chest. “What you got inside you is…is a well that bubbles up from way down deep. It’s sweet water, too. But”—a tear dripped off her face—“sometimes wells run empty. If you ever get