Ghosts
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It was early October 1946, and Noah Calhoun watched the fading sun sink lower from the around porch of his plantation-style home. He liked to sit here in the evenings, especially after w hard all day, a his thoughts wander without scious dire. It was how he relaxed, a routine hed learned from his father.He especially liked to look at the trees and their refles in the river. North Carolina trees are beautiful in deep autumn: greens, yellows, reds, es, every shade iween. Their dazzling clow with the sun, and for the huh time, Noah Calhoun wondered if the inal owners of the house had spent their evenings thinking the same things.
The house was built in 1772, making it one of the oldest, as well as largest, homes in New Bern. inally it was the main house on a w plantation, and he had bought it right after the war ended and had spent the last eleven months and a small fortune repairing it. The reporter from the Raleigh paper had done an article on it a few weeks ago and said it was one of the fi restorations hed ever seen. At least the house was. The remaining property was aory, and that was where hed spent most of the day.
The home sat on twelve acres adjat to Brices Creek, and hed worked on the wooden fehat lihe other three sides of the property, cheg for dry rot or termites, replag posts when he had to. He still had more work to do on it, especially on the west side, and as hed put the tools away earlier hed made a mental o call and have some more lumber delivered. Hed goo the house, drunk a glass of sweet tea, then showered. He always showered at the end of the day, the water washing away both dirt and fatigue.
Afterward hed bed his hair back, put on some faded jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt, poured himself anlass of sweet tea, and goo the porch, where he now sat, where he sat every day at this time.
He stretched his arms above his head, then out to the sides, rolling his shoulders as he pleted the routine. He felt good and now, fresh. His muscles were tired and he knew hed be a little sore tomorrow, but he leased that he had aplished most of what he had wao do.
Noah reached for his guitar, remembering his father as he did so, thinking how much he missed him. He strummed once, adjusted the tension on tws, then strummed again. This time it sounded abht, and he began to play. Soft music, quiet music. He hummed for a little while at first, then began to sing as night came down around him. He played and sang until the sun was gone and the sky was black.
It was a little after seven when he quit, atled bato his chair and began to rock. By habit, he looked upward and saw Orion猎户座 and the Big Dipper (group of seven stars (in the stellation Ursa Major大熊座), Gemini双子星座 and the Pole Star北极星, twinkling iumn sky.
He started to run the numbers in his head, then stopped. He knew hed spent almost his entire savings on the house and would have to find a job again soon, but he pushed the thought away and decided to enjoy the remaining months of restoration without w about it. It would work out for him, he knew; it always did. Besides, thinking about money usually bored him. Early on, hed learo enjoy simple things, things that couldnt be bought, and he had a hard time uanding people who felt otherwise.
It was arait he got from his father.
Clem, his hound dog, came up to him then and nuzzled his hand before lying down at his feet. "Hey, girl, howre you doing?" he asked as he patted her head, and she whined softly, her soft round eyes peering upward. A car act had taken her leg, but she still moved well enough a him pany on quiet nights like these.
He was thirty-one now, not too old, but old enough to be lonely. He hadnt dated since hed been back here, had anyone who remotely ied him. It was his own fault, he khere was something that kept a distaween him and any woman who started to get close, something he wasnt sure he could ge even if he tried. And sometimes in the moments right before sleep came, he wondered if he was destio be alone forever.
The evening passed, staying warm, nioah listeo the crickets and the rustling leaves, thinking that the sound of nature was more real and aroused more emotion than things like cars and planes. Natural things gave back more thaook, and their sounds always brought him back to the way man was supposed to be. There were times during the war, especially after a majagement, when he had often thought about these simple sounds. "Itll keep yoing crazy," his father had told him the day hed shipped out. "Its Gods musid itll take you home."
He finished his tea, went inside, found a book, then turned on the porch light on his way back out. After sitting down again, he looked at the book. It was old, the cover was torn, and the pages were stained with mud and water. It was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and he had carried it with him throughout the war. It had even taken a bullet for him once.
He rubbed the cover, dusting it off just a little. The the book open randomly ahe words in front of him:
This is thy hour O Soul,
thy free <tt></tt>flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art,
the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging,
silent, gazing, p the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
He smiled to himself. For some reason Whitman always reminded him of New Bern, and he was glad hed e back. Though hed been away for fourteen years, this was home and he knew a lot of people here, most of them from his youth. It wasnt surprising.
Like so many southern towns, the people who lived here never ged, they just grew a bit older.
His best friend these days was Gus, a seventy-year-old black man who lived down the road. They had met a couple of weeks after Noah bought the house, when Gus had shown up with some homemade liquor and Brunswick stew, and the tent their first evening together getting drunk and telling stories.
Now Gus would show up a couple of nights a week, usually arou. With four kids and eleven grandchildren in the house, he o get out of the house now and then, and Noah couldnt blame him. Usually Gus would bring his harmonica, and after talking for a little while, theyd play a few songs together. Sometimes they played for hours.
Hed e tard Gus as family. There really wasnt anyone else, at least not since his father died last year. He was an only child; his mother had died of influenza when he was two, and though he had wao at oime, he had never married.
But he had been in love ohat he knew. Ond only once, and a long time ago.
And it had ged him forever. Perfect love did that to a person, and this had been perfect.
Coastal clouds slowly began to roll across the evening sky, turning silver with the refle of the moon. As they thied, he leaned his head bad rested it against the rog chair. His legs moved automatically, keeping a steady rhythm, and as he did most evenings, he felt his mind drifting back to a warm evening like this fourteen years ago.
It was just after graduation 1932, the opening night of the Neuse River Festival.
The town was out in full, enjoying barbecue and games of ce. It was humid that night - for some reason he remembered that clearly. He arrived alone, and as he strolled through the crowd, looking for friends, he saw Fin and Sarah, two people hed grown up with, talking to a girl hed never seen before. She retty, he remembered thinking, and when he finally joihem, she looked his way with a pair of hazy eyes that kept on ing. "Hi," shed said simply as she offered her hand, "Fiold me a lot about you."
An ordinary beginning, something that would have been fotten had it been a her. But as he shook her hand ahose striking emerald eyes, he knew before hed taken his breath that she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but never find again. She seemed that good, that perfect, while a summer wind blew through the trees.
From there, it went like a tornado wind. Fin told him she ending the summer in New Bern with her family because her father worked for R. J. Reynolds, and though he only he way she was looking at him made his silence seem okay. Fin laughed then, because he knew what was happening, and Sarah suggested they get some cherry Cokes, and the four of them stayed at the festival until the crowds were thin and everything closed up for the night.
They met the following day, and the day after that, and they soon became inseparable. Every m but Sunday when he had to go to church, he would finish his chores as quickly as possible, then make a straight lio Fort Totten Park, where shed be waiting for him. Because she was a newer and hadnt spent time in a small town before, they spent their days doing things that were pletely o her. He taught her how to bait a line and fish the shallows for largemouth bass and took her expl through the backwoods of the Croatan Forest.
They rode in oes and watched summer thuorms, and to him it seemed as though theyd always known each other.
But he learhings as well. At the town dan the tobacco barn, it was she who taught him how to waltz and do the Charleston, and though they stumbled through the first few songs, her patieh him eventually paid off, and they daogether until the musided. He walked her home afterward, and when they paused on the porch after saying good night, he kissed her for the first time and wondered why he had waited as long as he had. Later in the summer he brought her to this house, looked past the decay, and told her that one day he was going to own it and fix it up. They spent hours together talking about their dreams - his of seeing the world, hers of being an artist - and on a humid night in August, they both lost their virginity.
When she left three weeks later, she took a piece of him and the rest of summer with her. He watched her leave town on an early rainy m, watched through eyes that hadnt slept the night before, the home and packed a bag. He spent the week alone on Harkers Island.
Noah ran his hands through his hair and checked his watch. Eight-twelve. He got up and walked to the front of the house and looked up the road. Gus wasnt in sight, and Noah figured he wouldnt be ing. He went back to his rocker and sat again.
He remembered talking to Gus about her. The first time he mentioned her, Gus started to shake his head and laugh. "So thats the ghost you been running from." When asked what he meant, Gus said, "You know, the ghost, the memory. I been wat you, workin day and night, slavin so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasoher they crazy, or stupid, or tryin tet. And with you, I knew you was tryin tet. I just didnt know what."
He thought about what Gus had said. Gus was right, of course. New Bern was haunted now. Haunted by the ghost of her memory. He saw her in Fort Totten Park, their place, every time he walked by. Either sitting on the bench or standing by the gate, always smiling, blond hair softly toug her shoulders, her eyes the color of emeralds.
Whe on the porch at night with his guitar, he saw her beside him, listening quietly as he played the music of his childhood.
He felt the same when he went to Gastons Drug Store, or to the Masonic theater, or even wherolled downtown. Everywhere he looked, he saw her image, saw things that brought her back to life.
It was odd, he khat. He had grown up in New Bern. Spent his first seventeen years here. But whehought about New Bern, he seemed to remember only the last summer, the summer they were together. Other memories were simply fragments, pieces here and there of growing up, and few, if any, evoked any feeling.
He had told Gus about it one night, and not only had Gus uood, but he had been the first to explain why. He said simply, "My daddy used to tell me that the first time you fall in love, it ges your life forever, and no matter how hard you try, the feelin never goes away. This girl you been tellin me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, shell stay with you forever."
Noah shook his head, and when her image began to fade, he returo Whitman. He read for an hour, looking up every now and then to see ras and possums scurryihe creek. At hirty he closed the book, went upstairs to the bedroom, and wrote in his journal, including both personal observations and the work hed aplished on the house. Forty minutes later, he was sleeping. Clem wandered up the stairs, sniffed him as he slept, and then paced in circles before finally curling up at the foot of his bed.
Earlier that evening and a hundred miles away, she sat alone on the porch swing of her parents home, one leg crossed beh her. The seat had been slightly damp whe down; rain had fallen earlier, hard and stinging, but the clouds were fading now and she looked past them, toward the stars, w if shed made the right decision. Shed struggled with it for days - and had struggled some more this evening - but in the end, she knew she would never five herself if she let the opportunity slip away.
Lon didnt know the real reason she left the following m. The week before, shed hio him that she might want to visit some antique shops he coast.
"Its just a couple of days," she said, "and besides, I need a break from planning the wedding." She felt bad about the lie but khere was no way she could tell him the truth. Her leaving had nothing to do with him, and it wouldnt be fair of her to ask him to uand.
It was an easy drive from Raleigh, slightly more than two hours, and she arrived a little before eleven. She checked into a small inn doent to her room, and unpacked her suitcase, hanging her dresses in the closet and putting everything else in the drawers.
She had a quick lunch, asked the waitress for dires to the antique stores, thehe few hours shopping. By four-thirty she was ba her room.
She sat on the edge of the bed, picked up the phone, and called Lon. He couldnt speak long, he was due in court, but before they hung up she gave him the phone number where she was staying and promised to call the following day. Good, she thought while hanging up the phone. Routine versation, nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to make him suspicious.
Shed known him almost four years now; it was 1942 when they met, the world at war and Amerie year in. Everyone was doing their part, and she was volunteering at the hospital downtown. She was both needed and appreciated there, but it was more difficult than shed expected. The first waves of wounded young soldiers were ing home, and she spent her days with broken men and shattered bodies. When Lon, with all his easy charm, introduced himself at a Christmas party, she saw in him exactly what she needed: someoh fidence about the future and a sense of humor that drove all her fears away.
He was handsome, intelligent, and driven, a successful lawyer eight years older than she, and he pursued his job with passion, not only win winning cases, but also making a name for himself. She uood his vigorous pursuit of success, for her father and most of the me in her social circle were the same way. Like them, he’d been raised that way, and in the caste (social position, class) system of the South, family name and aplishments were often the most important sideration in marriage. In some cases, they were the only sideration.
Though she had quietly rebelled against this idea since childhood and dated a few me described as reckless, she found herself drawn to Lons easy ways and had gradually e to love him. Despite the long hours he worked, he was good to her. He was a gentleman, both mature and responsible, and during those terrible periods of the war when she needed someoo hold her, he never ourned her away. She felt secure with him and knew he loved her as well, and that was why she had accepted his proposal.
Thinking these things made her feel guilty about being here, she knew she should pack her things and leave before she ged her mind. She had do once before, long ago, and if she left now, she was sure she would never have the strength to return here again. She picked up her pocketbook (purse, wallet, handbag), hesitated, and almost made it to the door. But ce had pushed her here, and she put the pocketbook down, again realizing that if she quit now, she would always wonder what would have happened. And she didnt think she could live with that.
She went to the bathroom and started a bath. After cheg the temperature, she walked to the dresser, taking off her gold earrings as she crossed the room. She found her makeup bag, ope, and pulled out a razor and a bar of soap, then undressed in front of the bureau. She had been called beautiful since she was a young girl, and once she was naked, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her body was firm and well proportioned, breasts softly rounded, stomach flat, legs slim. She’d ied her mothers high cheekbones, smooth skin, blond hair, but her best feature was her own. She had "eyes like o waves,” as Lon liked to say. Taking the razor and soap, she went to the bathroom again, turned off the faucet, set a towel where she could reach it, and stepped in gingerly.
She liked the way a bath relaxed her, and she slipped lower ier. The day had been long and her back was tense, but she leased she had finished shopping so quickly. She had to go back to Raleigh with something tangible, and the things she had picked out would work fine. She made a mental o find the names of some other stores in the Beaufort area, then suddenly doubted she would o. Lon wasnt the type to check up on her. She reached for the soap, lathered up, and began to shave her legs. As she did, she thought about her parents and what they would think of her behavior. No doubt they would disapprove, especially her mother.
Her mother had never really accepted what had happehe summer theyd spent here and wouldnt accept it now, no matter what reason she gave.
She soaked a while longer iub before finally getting out and toweling off.
She went to the closet and looked for a dress, finally choosing a long yellow ohat dipped slightly in the front, the kind of dress that was on in the South.
She slipped it on and looked in the mirror, turning from side to side. It fit her well and made her look feminine, but she eventually decided against it and put it ba the hanger.
Instead she found a more casual, less revealing dress and put that on. Light blue with a touch of lace, it buttoned up the front, and though it didnt look quite as nice as the first o veyed an image she thought would be more appropriate.
She wore little makeup, just a touch of eye shadow and mascara to at her eyes.
Perfume , not too much. She found a pair of small-hooped earrings, put those on, then slipped oan, low-heeled sandals she had been wearing earlier. She brushed her blond hair, pi up, and looked in the mirror. No, it was too much, she thought, and she let it back dower.
When she was finished she stepped bad evaluated herself. She looked good: not too dressy, not too casual. She didnt want to overdo it. After all, she didnt know what to expect. It had been a long time - probably too long - and many different things could have happened, even things she didnt want to sider.
She looked down and saw her hands wer<big>..</big>e shaking, and she laughed to herself. It was strange; she wasnt normally this nervous. Like Lon, she had always been fident, even as a child. She remembered that it had been a problem at times, especially wheed, because it had intimidated most of the boys her age.
She found her pocketbook and car keys, then picked up the room key. She tur over in her hand a couple of times, thinking, you’ve e this far, dont give up now, and almost left then, but instead sat on the bed again. She checked her watch.
Almost six oclock. She knew she had to leave in a few minutes - she didnt want to arrive after dark, but she needed a little more time.
"Damn," she whispered, "what am I doing here? I shouldnt be here. Theres no reason for it," but once she said it she k wasnt true. There was something here.
If nothing else, she would have her answer.
She opened her pocketbook and thumbed through it until she came to a folded-up piece of neer. After taking it out slowly, almost reverently, being careful not to rip it, she unfolded it and stared at it for a while. "This is why," she finally said to herself, "this is what its all about."
Noah got up at five and kayaked (lightweight single-person oe which is propelled by a double-bladed paddle (developed by the Eskimo) for an hour up Brices Creek, as he usually did. When he finished, he ged into his work clothes, warmed some biscuits from the day befrabbed a couple of apples, and washed his breakfast down with two cups of coffee.
He worked on the feng again, repairing most of the posts that . It was Indian summer (period of unusually warm weather ie autumn or early winter (in North America) , the temperature hty degrees, and by lunchtime he was hot and tired and glad for the break.
He ate at the creek because the mullets were jumping. He liked to watch them jump three or four times and glide through the air before vanishing into the brackish (of water) somewhat salty) water. For some reason he had always been pleased by the fact that their instinct hadnt ged for thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of years.
Sometimes he wondered if mans instincts had ged in that time and always cluded that they hadnt. At least in the basic, most primal ways. As far as he could tell, man had always been aggressive, always striving to domirying to trol the world and everything in it. The war in Europe and Japan proved that.
He quit w a little after three and walked to a small shed that sat near his dock. He went in, found his fishing pole, a couple of lures, and some live crickets he kept on hand, then walked out to the dock, baited his hook, and cast his line.
Fishing always made him refle his life, and he did it now. After his mother died, he could remember spending his days in a dozen different homes, and for one reason or another, he stuttered badly as a child and was teased for it. He began to speak less and less, and by the age of five, he wouldnt speak at all. Whearted classes, his teachers thought he was retarded and reehat he be pulled out of school.
Instead, his father took matters into his own hands. He kept him in school and afterward made him e to the lumberyard, where he worked, to haul and stack wood. "Its good that we spend some time together," he would say as they worked side by side, "just like my daddy and I did."
During their time together, his father would talk about birds and animals or tell stories and legends on to North Carolina. Within a few months Noah eaking again, though not well, and his father decided to teach him to read with books of poetry. "Learn to read this aloud and youll be able to say anything you want to." His father had been right again, and by the following year, Noah had lost his stutter. But he tio go to the lumberyard every day simply because his father was there, and in the evenings he would read the works of Whitman and Tennyson aloud as his father rocked beside him. He had been reading poetry ever since.
Whe a little older, he spent most of his weekends and vacations alone. He explored the Croatan Forest in his first oe, following Brices Creek for twenty miles until he could go no farther, then hiked the remaining miles to the coast.
Camping and expl became his passion, and he spent hours in the forest, sittih blackjack oak trees, whistling quietly, and playing his guitar for beavers and geese and wild blue herons. Poets khat isolation in nature, far from people and things man-made, was good for the soul, and hed always identified with poets.
Although he was quiet, years of heavy lifting at the lumberyard helped him excel in sports, and his athletic success led to popularity. He ehe football games and track meets, and though most of his teammates spent their free time together as well, he rarely joihem. An occasional person found him arrogant; most simply figured he had grown up a bit faster than everyone else. He had a few girlfriends in school, but none had ever made an impression on him.
Except for one. And she came after graduation. Allie. His Allie.
He remembered talking to Fin about Allie after theyd left the festival that first night, and Fin had laughed. Then hed made two predis: first, that they would fall in love, and sed, that it wouldnt work out.
There was a slight tug at his line and Noah hoped for a largemouth bass, but the tuggiually stopped, and after reeling his line in and cheg the bait, he cast again.
Fin ended up being right on both ts. Most of the summer, she had to make excuses to her parents whehey wao see each other. It wasnt that they didnt like him - it was that he was from a different class, too poor, and they would never approve if their daughter became serious with someone like him. "I dont care what my parents think, I love you and always will," she would say. "Well find a way to be together."
But in the end they couldnt. By early September the tobacco had been harvested and she had no choice but to return with her family to Winston-Salem. "Only the summer is over, Allie, not us," hed said the m she left. "Well never be over." But they were. For a reason he didnt fully uand, the letters he wrote went unanswered.
Eventually he decided to leave New Bern to help get her off his mind, but also because the Depression made earning a living in New Bern almost impossible. He went first to Norfolk and worked at a shipyard for six months before he was laid off, then moved to New Jersey because hed heard the ey wasnt so bad there.
He eventually found a job in a scrap yard, separating scrap metal from everything else. The owner, a Jewish man named Moldman, was i on colleg as much scrap metal as he could, vihat a war was going to start in Europe and that America would be dragged in again. Noah, though, didnt care about the reason. He was just happy to have a job.
His years in the lumberyard had toughened him to this type of labor, and he worked hard. Not only did it help him keep his mind off Allie during the day, but it was something he felt he had to do. His daddy had always said: "Give a days work for a days pay. Anything less is stealing. That attitude pleased his boss. "Its a shame you arent Jewish," Goldman would say, "You’re such a fine boy in so many other ways." It was the best pliment Goldman could give.
He tio think about Allie, especially at night. He wrote her once a month but never received a reply. Eventually he wrote a final letter and forced himself to accept the fact that the summer theyd spent with one another was the only thing theyd ever share.
Still, though, she stayed with him. Three years after the last letter, he went to Winston-Salem in the hope of finding her. He went to her house, discovered that she had moved, and after talking to some neighbors, finally called RJR. The girl who answered the phone was new and didnt reize the name, but she poked around the personnel files for him. She found out that Allies father had left the pany and that no f address was listed. That trip was the first and last time he ever looked for her.
For the eight years, he worked foldman. At first he was one of twelve employees, but as the years dragged on, the pany grew, and he romoted. By 1940 he had mastered the business and was running the entire operation, br the deals and managing a staff of thirty. The yard had bee the largest scrap metal dealer on the East Coast.
During that time, he dated a few different women. He became serious with one, a waitress from the local diner with deep blue eyes and silky black hair. Although they dated for two years and had many good times together, he never came to feel the same way about her as he did about Allie.
But her did he fet her. She was a few years older than he was, and it was she who taught him the ways to please a woman, the places to toud kiss, where to lihe things to whisper. They would sometimes spend aire day in bed, holding each other and making the kind of love that fully satisfied both of them.
She had known they wouldogether forever. Toward the end of their relationship shed told him once, "I wish I could give you what youre looking for, but I dont know what it is. Theres a part of you that you keep closed off from everyone, includis as if Im not the one youre really with. Your mind is on someone else."
He tried to deny it, but she didnt believe him. "Im a woman - I know these things. When you look at me sometimes, I know youre seeing someone else. Its like you keep waiting for her to pop out of thin air to take you away from all this ... "
A month later she visited him at work and told him shed met someone else. He uood.
They parted as friends, and the following year he received a postcard from her saying she was married. He hadnt heard from her since.
While he was in New Jersey, he would visit his father once a year around Christmas.
Theyd spend some time fishing and talking, and on a while theyd take a trip to the coast to go camping oer藏书网 Banks near Ocracoke.
In December 1941, when he was twenty-six, the war began, just as Goldman had predicted.
Noah walked into his office the following month and informed Goldman of his io enlist, theuro New Bern to say good-bye to his father. Five weeks later he found himself in boot camp. While there, he received a letter from Goldman thanking him for his work, together with a copy of a certificate entitling him to a small pertage of the scrap yard if it ever sold. "I couldnt have do without you," the letter said. "Youre the fi young man who ever worked for me, even if you arent Jewish."
He spent his hree years with Pattons Third Army, tramping through deserts in North Afrid forests in Europe with thirty pounds on his back, his infantry unit never far from a. He watched his friends die around him; watched as some of them were buried thousands of miles from home. Once, while hiding in a foxhole散兵坑he Rhine, he imagined he saw Allie watg over him.
He remembered the war ending in Europe, then a few months later in Japan. Just before he was discharged, he received a letter from a lawyer in New Jersey representing Moldman. Upoing the lawyer, he found out that Goldman had died a year earlier and his estate liquidated. The business had been sold, and Noah was given a check for almost seventy thousand dollars. For some reason he was oddly ued about it.
The following week he returo New Bern and bought the house. He remembered bringing his father around later, showing him what he was going to do, pointing out the ges he inteo make. His father seemed weak as he walked around, coughing and wheezing.
Noah was ed, but his father told him not to worry, assuring him that he had the flu.
Less than one month later his father died of pneumonia and was buried o his wife in the local cemetery. Noah tried to stop by regularly to leave some flowers; occasionally he left a note. And every night without fail he took a moment to remember him, then said a prayer for the man whod taught him everything that mattered.
After reeling in the line, he put the gear away a back to the house. His neighbor, Martha Shaw, was there to thank him, bringing three loaves of homemade bread and some biscuits in appreciation for what hed done.
Her husband had been killed in the war, leaving her with three children and a tired shack of a house to raise them in. Winter was ing, and hed spent a few days at her place last week repairing her roof, replag broken windows and sealing the others, and fixing her woodstove. Hopefully, it would be enough to get them through.
Once shed left, he got in his battered Dodge trud went to see Gus. He always stopped there when he was going to the store because Guss family didnt have a car.
One of the daughters hopped up and rode with him, and they did their shopping at Capers General Store. Whe home he didnt unpack the groceries right away. Instead he showered, found a Budweiser and a book by Dylan Thomas, ao sit on the porch.
She still had trouble believing it, even as she held the proof in her hands. It had been in the neer at her parents house three Sundays ago. She had goo the kit to get a cup of coffee, and when shed returo the table, her father had smiled and poi a small picture.
"Remember this?"
He handed her the paper, and after an ued first glance, something in the picture caught her eye and she took a closer look. "It t be," she whispered, and when her father looked at her curiously, she ignored him, sat down, ahe article without speaking. She vaguely remembered her mother ing to the table and sitting opposite her, and when she finally put aside the paper, her mother was staring at her with the same expression her father had just moments before.
"Are you okay?" her mother asked over her coffee cup. "You look a little pale." She didnt answer right away, she couldnt, and it was then that shed noticed her hands were shaking. That had bee started.
"And here it will end, one way or the other," she whispered again. She refolded the scrap of paper and put it back, remembering that she had left her parents home later that day with the paper so she could cut out the article. She read it again before she went to bed that night, trying to fathom the ce, and read it again the m as if to make sure the whole thing wasnt a dream. And now, after three weeks of long walks alone, after three weeks of distra, it was the reason shed e.
When asked, she said her erratic behavior was due to stress. It was the perfect excuse; everyone uood, including Lon, and thats why he hadnt argued when shed wao get away for a couple of days. The wedding plans were stressful to everyone involved.
Almost five hundred people were invited, including the governor, oor, and the ambassador to Peru. It was too much, in her opinion, but their e was news and had domihe social pages sihey had annouheir plans six months ago. Occasionally she felt like running away with Lon to get married without the fuss. But she knew he wouldnt agree; like the aspiring politi he was, he loved being the ter of attention.
She took a deep breath and stood again. "Its now or never," she whispered, then picked up her things ao the door. She paused only slightly before opening it and going downstairs. The manager smiled as she walked by, and she could feel his eyes on her as she left ao her car. She slipped behind the wheel, looked at herself one last time, then started the engine and turned right onto Front Street.
She wasnt surprised that she still knew her way around town so well. Even though she hadnt been here in years, it wasnt large and she navigated the streets easily.
After crossing the Trent River on an old-fashioned drawbridge (bridge which be drawn up or let down to permit or hinder free passage), she turned onto a gravel road and began the final leg of her journey.
It was beautiful here in the low try, as it always had been. Uhe Piedmont area where she grew up, the land was flat, but it had the same silty, fertile soil that was ideal for cotton and tobacco. Those two crops and timber kept the towns alive in this part of the state, and as she drove along the road outside town, she saw the beauty that had first attracted people to this region.
To her, it hadnt ged at all. Broken sunlight passed through water oaks and hickory trees a hundred feet tall, illuminating the colors of fall. On her left, a river the color of iron veered toward the road and then turned away befiving up its life to a different, larger river another mile ahead. The gravel road itself wound its way between antebellum (pre-Civil War (in the USA); pre-World War I) farms, and she khat for some of the farmers, life hadnt ged since before their grandparents were born. The stancy of the place brought back a flood of memories, and she felt her iighten as one by one she reized landmarks shed long since fotten.
The sun hung just above the trees on her left, and as she rounded a curve, she passed an old church, abandoned for years but still standing. She had explored it that summer, looking for souvenirs from the War betweeates, and as her car passed by, the memories of that day became stronger, as if theyd just happened yesterday.
A majestic oak tree on the banks of the river came into view , and the memories became more inte looked the same as it had back then, branches low and thick, stretg horizontally along the ground with Spanish moss draped over the limbs like a veil. She remembered sittih the tree on a hot July day with someone who looked at her with a longing that took everything else away. And it had been at that moment that shed first fallen in love.
He was two years older than she was, and as she drove along this roadway-in-time, he slowly came into focus once again. He always looked older than he really was, she remembered thinking. His appearance was that of someone slightly weathered, almost like a farmer ing home after hours in the field. He had the callused hands and broad shoulders that came to those who worked hard for a living, and the first faint lines were beginning to form around the dark eyes that seemed to read her every thought.
He was tall and strong, with light brown hair, and handsome in his own way, but it was his voice that she remembered most of all. He had read to her that day; read to her as they lay in the grass beh the tree with an at that was soft and fluent, almost musical in quality. It was the kind of voice that belonged on radio, and it seemed to hang in the air when he read to her. She remembered closing her eyes, listening closely, aing the words he was reading touch her soul: It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun...
He thumbed through old books with dog-eared pages, books hed read a huimes.
Hed read for a while, then stop, and the two of them would talk. She would tell him what she wanted in her life - her hopes and dreams for the future - and he would listen ily and then promise to make it all e true. And the way he said it made her believe him, and she khen how much he meant to her. Occasionally, when she asked, he would talk about himself or explain why he had chosen a particular poem and what he thought of it, and at other times he just studied her in that intense way of his.
They watched the sun go down and ate together uhe stars. It was getting late by then, and she knew her parents would be furious if they knew where she was. At that moment, though, it really didnt matter to her. All she could think about was how special the day had been, how special he was, and as they started toward her house a few minutes later, he took her hand in his and she felt the way it warmed her the whole way back.
Aurn in the road and she finally saw it in the distahe house had ged dramatically from what she remembered. She slowed the car as she approached, turning into the long, tree-lined dirt drive that led to the bea that had summoned her from Raleigh.
She drove slowly, looking toward the house, and took a deep breath when she saw him on the porch, watg her car. He was dressed casually. From a distance, he looked the same as he had back then. For a moment, when the light from the sun was behind him, he almost seemed to vanish into the sery.
Her car tinued forward, rolling slowly, then finally stopped beh an oak tree that shaded the front of the house. She turhe key, aking her eyes from him, and the engine sputtered to a halt.
He stepped off the pord began to approach her, walking easily, then suddenly stopped cold as she emerged from the car. For a long time all they could do was stare at each other without moving.
Allison Nelson, twenty-nine years old and engaged, a socialite, searg for answers she o know, and Noah Calhoun, the dreamer, thirty-one, visited by the ghost that had e to dominate his life.
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