Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [25]
He was screaming now. “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!”
While his public persona was all poise, polish, cuff links and Hermès ties, his backroom manners were more brass knuckles, Dickies and Carhartt. When he lost his temper, spit collected in the corners of his mouth, spewing like venom the louder he spoke. “You can’t run far enough. Hide and I’ll find you…I’ll have you buried beneath the jail.”
I guess you picked up on the fact that our relationship had not been smooth sailing. Despite his disdain for me, I’d always admired him. Even voted for him. He’d come from little and done much. And while getting elected is one thing, staying elected is another. He’d managed to do both. From the governor’s mansion to now his fourth term as senator, he’d never lost an election. His tentacles stretched far and wide in Washington. A blessing and a curse—because what they say about power is true. I think in his other life, that one that included the good-old-boy farmer from South Carolina with the piece of hay sticking out his mouth, we’d have gotten along pretty well.
I swallowed and stared out across the water and at Abbie’s pale frame tucked beneath the tarp. Senator Coleman detested the thought of dying for one simple reason. It was beyond his control. Others’ deaths reminded him of this. The fact that his daughter showed no signs of fearing it might have been his singular weakness. It had always struck me as odd that someone so powerful, so accomplished, could be so easily derailed by something that no human, save one, had ever beaten. Because of this, we’d not seen much of him the last few years. Notice I said we hadn’t seen much of him, not that he wasn’t much help. He was. It’s complicated. He got us into places we’d have never gotten in alone and on more than one occasion bumped us to the front of the line. If we didn’t fly first class, he sent a jet. He helped from a distance because being too close hurt too much. Except once. That’s how I knew he loved her. She knew this too, but that did little to make it any easier.
I needed to hang up before he traced the call with some NASA satellite. As a ranking member and chairman of several committees, the least of which was Armed Services, they were probably triangulating me now. “Sir, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry for a lot of things, but I”—I spoke softly—“this is for Abbie.”
“She should be here. With us.”
“With all due respect, sir. You’ve had four years. You couldn’t have asked for a much more captive audience. If you wanted to be with her, you could have.”
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” His anger was palpable. He was not used to, nor did he tolerate, discussion that was not geared toward total agreement. I had never fallen in line with this so our conversations had been short and usually started and ended by him. It has its roots in the moment I asked him if I could marry his daughter. Also another short conversation.
“Sir, I don’t expect you to understand.”
He was screaming now. “You’re delusional…a dreamer who never would have amounted to anything had it not been for Abbie.”
“I agree with you, sir, but—”
“But, what!”
I stared at Abbie. “Please understand…” He started to say something else, but I flipped the phone closed and tossed it in the river, where the water swallowed it. Tiny bubbles rose up around its edges as the light on the faceplate dimmed to dark.
I climbed back to my seat, my hands remembering the feel of the paddle, and fought to find that one description that just nailed my wife. You’d think after fourteen years, I’d come up with something, anything but “Honey.” I admit, it’s rather weak.
I tapped the article in the map case. “You would have to pick the most difficult one.”
“I’m not here to check off just one.”
“I figured. Guess we better get busy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You rest. I’ll paddle.”
She cracked a smile. “Just the way it ought to be.”
I sunk the paddle in the water, pulled hard, reminding my muscles, and slipped beneath the moss-draped arms over the river. The ocean lay 130-plus miles