Where the River Ends - Charles Martin [6]
She thought for a second. “Although, I would like to do a loopty-loop in an old plane.”
He looked confused. “What’s that?”
She waved a large circle in the air with her hand. “You know…a loopty-loop.”
“Can I add that to the list?”
I spoke up. “Yes.”
Rather than calling it Resolutions, she called it her Top Ten Wishes for the year. Something about it struck a chord with readers. Maybe it was the simplicity, the gut-level honesty. I’m not really sure. For the last five months, she’d been getting letters and a lot of traffic on the website. Wanting to remind her that she had once hoped and wished, I’d framed the article and hung it next to the bed. Only problem was that with all that we’d been through the first part of this year, we hadn’t really checked off any. She pointed at it. “Hand me that.”
She dusted off the glass with her gown, her reflection staring back at her, then loosened the tabs on the back, pulled off the cardboard and slid the article from beneath the glass. Half laughing and mostly smiling, she reread the article then shook her head. “Still wishing.”
“Me, too.”
She lay back. “I want to give you your anniversary present.”
“Five months early?”
“I’m surprised you remembered the date.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“You’ll want this.”
“I don’t need anything.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Honey…”
“Doss Michaels.” She pulled me to her. “I’m not doing this here. Not like this.” She fingered my hair off my brow. Her game face had returned. “I won’t do it.”
You see that? That right there? In the nearly fifteen years I’ve known her, Abbie has possessed and exhibited a trait that I’ve never been able to put my finger on. A prisoner on the tip of my tongue, no articulation gives it justice. Every utterance falls flat. But while the name escapes me, its power does not.
I protested, “But…”
“Not here.”
There was no use arguing with her when she got this way. Sick or not. And although she’d argue the point, she got that from her dad. The only response was “yes, ma’am.” Strange how two words can change you forever. I laid the article across the bedspread in front of her. “Pick one.”
She pointed without looking. “All the way from Moniac.”
Number ten. Of the list, it was the most impossible. I raised both eyebrows. “You realize that we’re two days from the first of June?” She nodded. “And that officially marks the beginning of hurricane season?” She nodded again. “And the Jurassic-sized mosquitoes are just now hatching?” She closed her eyes and nodded a final time with a sly smile.
I pointed to her parents’ house a few blocks down the street. “What about him?”
She tapped the single yellow legal page resting on the bedside table.
“And when he gets it, he’ll call out the National Guard.”
“Maybe not.” She sat up, more focused now. “You could talk to Gary. He can prescribe something. Something to—” She pressed her fingers to my lips. “Hey.” She wanted my eyes. The edges were blurring and I knew that added to the weight she already lived under. I turned. “Have you ever broken a promise to me?”
“Not that I know of.”
She folded the article and stuffed it in my shirt pocket. “Then don’t start now.”
Neither option was very good. “Abbie, the river is no place to—”
“It’s where we started.”
“I know that.”
“Then take me back.”
“Honey, there’s nothing but a bunch of hurt down there. It won’t be the same.”
“You let me be the judge of that.” She gazed south out the window.
I tried one last time. “You know what Gary said.”
She nodded. “Doss, I know what I’m asking.” She tapped me in the chest. “They say we have reached the end.” She shook her head and pressed her lips to my face. “So let’s start over.”
And so we did.
2
JUNE 1, 2 A.M.
Rain pelted the windshield in sheets. Every few seconds, golf ball–sized hail smacked the hood and rooftop, thundering like firecrackers. I leaned forward and rubbed the backside of the glass with my palm, but that did about as much good as the wipers. Ninety miles ago, a semitrailer dragging a broken hydraulic line passed us in the