Николас Спаркс - The Return

“Who told you that?”

“Does it matter?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

Her comment caught me off guard. “I’m not implying that you did. I’m just trying to figure out why he went to South Carolina.”

“Why would you think I know anything about that?”

“I was told that the two of you were close.”

Standing from the table, she shoved the last of her sandwich into her mouth and followed it with a final gulp of milk before stuffing the remains of her lunch into the bag. “I really can’t talk right now. I have to get back to work and I can’t be late.”

“I understand,” I said. “And I’m not trying to get you in trouble. Like I said, I’m just trying to figure out what happened to my grandfather.”

“I don’t know anything,” she repeated.

“Did you help him harvest the honey?”

“He paid me,” she said, color rising like a stain in her pale cheeks. “I didn’t steal any, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t steal anything.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew him as well as you did?”

“I don’t know you or anything about you.”

“You knew I was related to him.”

“So?”

“Callie—”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” she cried again, cutting me off. “I was walking by and he saw me and he asked if I wanted to help him with the honey, so I did. It only took a couple of days and after that, I put the labels on and stacked them on the shelves. Then he paid me. That’s it.”

I tried to imagine my grandfather asking her on a whim for help with the harvest, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t. And based on the conversations we’d had to this point, I couldn’t imagine her agreeing to such a thing, either. At the same time, there was some truth there; she had, by her own admission, helped him harvest the honey. What, I wondered, was she not telling me?

“Did he ever mention that he was going to visit Helen?”

Her eyes suddenly widened and for the first time, I thought I saw a flash of actual fear. As quickly as it came, however, it vanished with an angry shake of her head. “I’m sorry about your grandfather, okay? He was a nice old man. And I was happy to help him with the honey. But I don’t know anything about why he went to South Carolina, and I’d appreciate it if you just left me alone.”

I said nothing. She lifted her chin defiantly, before finally turning around and heading back toward the store. On her way, she tossed the remains of her lunch into a garbage can without breaking stride.

I watched her leave, wondering what it was that I’d said that had upset her so.

* * *

Back at home, I considered what, if anything, I’d actually learned. Could I trust what Jim had told me? Or Jerrold? Had my grandfather gone to Easley because of a woman named Helen? And what was I to make of my conversation with Callie? What had I said to make her believe she was in trouble?

I didn’t know. And yet, as I continued to reflect on my encounter with Callie, I had the gnawing sensation that she’d said something—or I’d seen something—important. It was the answer to one of my many questions, but the harder I tried to zero in on it, the hazier my thoughts became. It felt like I was trying to grab a handful of smoke.

Chapter 9

On Wednesday, while pondering my maybe-but-not-guaranteed date with Natalie, I decided to take my grandfather’s boat out to try to find the alligators and bald eagles I’d heard about the day before.

I made a quick inspection before untying the lines and starting the motor. There were no other boats in the vicinity, which was fortunate, because I would need to get used to the steering again. I had no desire to participate in a water-based demolition derby or accidentally run aground, so I gently eased the throttle, turning the wheel as I pulled away from the dock. To my surprise, the boat was a lot easier to maneuver than I remembered, which meant my grandfather must have done some work on it, and I was quickly able to get it headed in the proper direction like the highly skilled Naval Academy graduate that I was supposed to be.

As a kid, I always loved going out with my grandfather on the boat, but unlike most people, who preferred the wider Trent and Neuse Rivers, I always favored Brices Creek. Because the creek wound its way through the Croatan National Forest, it probably hadn’t changed since settlers first arrived in the area in the early 1700s. In a way, it felt like traveling back in time, and when my grandfather shut down the engine, we would hear nothing but birdcalls from the trees, while every now and then a fish would jump, making ripples on the otherwise black and silent water.

I settled into the ride, keeping to the middle of the creek. As ugly as it was, the ride itself was surprisingly stable. My grandfather had built the boat the way he had because Rose was afraid of the water. As an epileptic whose seizures grew in frequency and intensity as she’d aged, she’d never learned to swim, so he’d designed something impossible to capsize or sink, with rails to keep her from falling overboard. Even then, it usually took some convincing for Rose to accompany him, so my grandfather often went alone, at least until my mom was old enough to join him. When I began spending my summers with him, we spent almost every afternoon on the water.

Boating always seemed to put my grandfather in a contemplative mood. Sometimes, he would tell stories about his childhood, which was far more interesting than my own, or talk about bees or his work at the mill, or what my mom had been like as a child. Almost always, though, his thoughts would turn to Rose, melancholy settling over him like a familiar shawl. The older he got, the more he repeated himself, and by the time of my last visit, I’d heard all of his stories often enough to recite them by heart. But I would listen without interruption, watching as he lost himself in the memories, because I knew how much she’d meant to him.

I had to admit, their story was charming; it harkened to a place and time I knew only from black-and-white movies, a world replete with dirt roads and homemade bamboo fishing poles and neighbors who sat on their front porches to beat the heat, waving to passersby. After the war, my grandfather had first spotted Rose having a soda with her friends outside the drugstore, and he’d been so taken with her that he swore to his friends that he’d seen the woman he would one day marry. After that, he saw Rose everywhere, outside Christ Episcopal Church with her mother or strolling through the Piggly Wiggly, and she began to notice him as well. Later in the summer, at the county fair, there was a dance. Rose was there with her friends and though it took him most of the evening to work up the courage to cross the floor to ask her to dance, she told him that she’d been waiting all night for him to do just that.

They married less than six months later. They spent their honeymoon in Charleston before returning to New Bern to settle into their life together. He built the house, and both of them wanted a brood of children. However, perhaps because of Rose’s condition, one miscarriage followed another, five in total over an eight-year period. Just when they’d given up hope, my mother was conceived, and the pregnancy went the distance. They considered my mom a gift from God, and my grandfather swore that Rose had never been more beautiful than when he saw mother and daughter together, playing hopscotch or reading or even standing on the porch, shaking dirt from the rugs.

Years later, when my mom went off to college on a full scholarship, my grandfather told me that he and Rose enjoyed a second honeymoon, one that lasted until their very last day together. Every morning, he would head out early to pick Rose a bouquet of flowers; she would make breakfast, and the two of them would eat together on the back porch, while watching the mist rise slowly from the water. He would kiss her before heading off to work and again when he returned at the end of the day; they held hands as they took their evening walk, as though touch could somehow make up for the lost hours they’d spent apart.