Andrea Barrett - The Forms of Water

At the top of the ridge he turned and saw the reservoir shining below him. Islands dotted the water— Hills, he remembered his father saying morosely. Those used to be the tops of hills — and the shoreline was ruffled with points and bays. Around him as far as he could see stretched green woods, his woods. He hardly thought at all about how half of this would be Wiloma’s or how none of it would be his until his uncle died.

Somewhere, not far away, the trees thinned to young undergrowth and exposed his parents’ cabin site, but he couldn’t make himself look for the clearing. Someone else owned that land now. It was gone and so were his parents, but so, too, was the sad and dispirited creature he’d been these past six months. He felt a great surge of exhilaration and hope, and a conviction that his earlier selves had nothing to do with him now. With some energy he could turn himself into someone else. Without hardly knowing it he began to whistle, and his sneakered feet picked their way lightly along the path.

The condominium complex he’d imagined earlier faded away and he saw houses instead: modern, cedar-sided, with huge windows facing the spectacular view. Homes for· the computer executives, spaced on large lots and linked by a narrow, curving lane. He could see the development’s slogan already, the carved wooden sign that would span two tall pillars: “Any Closer To The Water — And You’d Be In It!”

Near the water, near a dock and shed that were either the ones he remembered from his childhood or replacements of them, Henry saw Marcus and Brendan beside a bunch of aluminum rowboats. They were facing the water; Marcus stood next to Brendan with his arm straight out, pointing at something in the distance. Bongo stood up to his chest in the water, drinking thirstily.

“Hey!” Henry called, full of excitement, drowning in plans. “You guys!” They weren’t very far away, but they couldn’t hear him.

WILOMA AND WALDO OVERSLEPT, AND IT WAS AFTER TEN BEFORE they finished breakfast and headed for the dam. Wiloma wished she’d never touched the margaritas Waldo had ordered. Beyond the fact that she felt queasy now, and beyond the ridiculous ways she and Waldo had behaved, she disliked the film of irritability and suspicion the drinks had left behind. The day was beautiful, but the light hurt her eyes and made Waldo look pale and pouchy. He was as kind and thoughtful as he’d been throughout their drive, but now his kindness seemed calculated and she found hidden motives in his every word.

When they walked into the Visitors’ Center, he said, “Why don’t you let me do the talking?” Her first impulse was to say no; then she caught herself and wondered what she feared. There was nothing he could do legally to get her share of Brendan’s land, and she was long past the point where she’d give him something just because he wanted it. Except that her behavior last night seemed to prove she wasn’t— she’d been more susceptible to him than she would have believed. When she realized this, she also realized that it wasn’t Waldo she feared, but her feelings for him. She let him do the talking after all.

The woman at the desk was grumpy. “Up to no good,” she was saying to a young man who stood behind her. A group of rude kids had apparently just passed through and she hadn’t liked the looks of them. Waldo interrupted her complaints to greet her, and she turned to him with a brusqueness that made Wiloma’s heart sink. But within a few minutes, Waldo had charmed the woman completely.

He spread his maps out on her desk and told her how interested he was in the history of the reservoir; how his wife here— his wife? Wiloma thought — actually belonged to one of the old families from one of the lost towns; how they were hoping to find a piece of land that her family had once owned. Without ever mentioning Henry or Brendan, without ever giving the least impression that they were desperately seeking a runaway or that anything was wrong, he managed to convince the woman of the urgency of their quest. They’d come all this way, he said. They’d been thinking about this for ages. It would mean so much to them if they could just find this place ….

The woman responded warmly; Waldo was irresistible when he tried. The woman pulled books and maps from the shelves around her, called over one of her assistants, and bent over Waldo’s maps, listening to what he said. In half an hour she’d solved their problem as neatly as a jigsaw puzzle.

“Here,” she said, drawing pencil lines on the map that showed the valley before the reservoir was built. “The old Auberon farm was right around here.” Wiloma bent over the map and stared. That box outside the village of Pomeroy was where Brendan and her father had grown up and where Da and Gran had spent much of their lives. With a smile of triumph the woman pulled over another map, a new one with the reservoir in place. “If you compare these two,” she said, indicating various lines, “you can sort of imagine where the water lies over your family’s old place. The other parcel you were talking about is here.”

She moved her pencil north and east and pointed out a spot just beyond the blue lobe of water. “Of course, the village of East Pomeroy doesn’t exist anymore, and that land’s been incorporated by another township. But it’s right here, just outside this gate. There’s someone here who can tell you all about the area and what’s happened to it, one of our local historians. Marcus?” She turned to the man sorting photographs behind her. “Where’s Marcus O’Brian? Isn’t he supposed to be in this morning?”

“Called in a little while ago,” the man said. “He told me he’d run into an old friend, some guy he hadn’t seen since they were kids, and he was taking him up the east side to look at something. He’s not coming in.”

“Too bad,” the woman said to Waldo. “Marcus knows everything about this area — he’s really quite fascinating. You’d enjoy him. He’s almost eighty, and he grew up in the valley himself. He’s one of our living resources.”

Wiloma looked at Waldo. Almost eighty; almost Brendan’s age. Was it possible the old friend he’d met was Brendan? “You’ve been so helpful,” Waldo said. “Really. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You just enjoy yourself. Have a nice day.” The woman was flirting with Waldo, Wiloma saw, as if the two of them were alone. Waldo touched the woman’s hand and then began rolling up his maps. The woman pulled another, smaller map from a corner of her desk. “It’s easy to get where you want to go,” she said, indicating a route. “Just follow this.”

“Thank you,” Waldo said again, and they left. Outside he turned to Wiloma and laughed. “Wasn’t she something?”

“She gave you what you wanted.”

“What we wanted. Who would have believed it would be this easy?”

Off to the side, a few hundred feet away, the dam curved across the water like a huge sleeping snake. Wiloma couldn’t tear her eyes from it, and Waldo’s gaze followed hers. He said, “You want to take a look at that first? Before we head out?”

She shuddered, remembering the feelings it had raised in her last night. She remembered, too, what Christine had said— I have to see your uncle as soon as possible — but she hung back from telling Waldo about Christine or about why she needed to get Brendan home so quickly. She said, “Let’s just get this over with. I want to get Uncle Brendan away from whatever craziness Henry’s got going, and the sooner we get that van back to the Home …”

“You’re right. Let’s go.”

The woman’s directions were perfect, accurate down to the last turn, but still Wiloma was surprised when they took the final fork and saw the van parked there on the dirt road. She caught her breath as they drove up and parked behind it, and she was conscious of feeling a little cheated, as if the search hadn’t taken long enough.