May swats at the idea like it’s a fly buzzing around her face. “Pppfff! Hootsie just likes to stir the pot. She has always been that way. You know, she was the reason I ended up staying with the Seviers at all. By the time we reached their home, Silas almost had me talked into taking to the river with him. He stood on the shore and grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me. The first time I’d ever been kissed by a boy.” She giggles, her cheeks reddening and her eyes taking on a childlike glitter. For a moment, I see that twelve-year-old girl on the banks of the oxbow lake. “?‘I love you, Rill Foss,’ he said to me. ‘I’ll wait here an hour. I’ll wait for you to come back. I can take care of you, Rill. I can.’
“I knew he was making promises he couldn’t keep. Only a few months before, he’d been hoboing trains, trying to survive. If there was one thing I’d learned from watching Briny and Queenie, it was that love doesn’t put food on the table. It doesn’t keep a family safe.”
She nods at her own conclusion, frowning. “Wanting to and doing are two different things. I guess in a way, I knew it wasn’t meant to be for Silas and me. Not while we were so young, anyway. But when I started up the path with Fern, all I wanted to do was run back to that dark-haired boy and back to the river. I might’ve done it if it hadn’t been for Hootsie. She made the choice for me before I could choose for myself. My plan was to sneak to the edge of the trees, hide there, and watch to be certain the Seviers would take Fern in again. I was scared to death that if they caught me, they’d send me back to the children’s home or off to some sort of workhouse for bad girls or even to jail. But Hootsie was out digging roots for her mama, and she spotted us there near the yard, and she went to hollering. Next thing I knew, there was Zuma, and Hoy, and Mr. and Mrs. Sevier rushing down the hill, and the dogs bounding ahead. I had no place to run, so I just stood there and waited for the worst to happen.”
She pauses, and I feel myself dangling on the precipice where she’s left me. “What did happen?”
“I learned that you need not be born into a family to be loved by one.”
“So they welcomed you back?”
A smile teases the corners of her mouth. “Yes, they did. Papa Sevier, and Hoy, and the other men had been out searching the swamps for us for weeks. They knew we must have left in the jon boat with Arney. By the time we came back, they’d given up hope that we would ever be found.” She laughs softly. “Even Zuma and Hootsie hugged us that day, they were so relieved to see us alive.”
“You were happy with the Seviers after that?”
“They were understanding of what we had done, after they knew the truth about the Arcadia, that is. Or what I could bring myself to reveal of the truth. I’d made up my mind never to tell them that there were other siblings beyond just Fern and me. I suppose in my twelve-year-old heart, I was still ashamed that I’d failed to protect Camellia, and Lark, and Gabion. I feared that the Seviers wouldn’t love me if they knew. The Seviers were good people––patient and kind. They taught me to find the music.”
“The music?”
She reaches across the table. “Yes, the music, darling. You see, there is one thing I learned from following in Papa Sevier’s footsteps as I grew up. Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment. I let go of the river’s song and found the music of that big house. I found room for a new life, a new mother who cared for me, and a new father who patiently taught me not only how to play music, but how to trust. He was as good a man as ever I’ve known. Oh, it was never like the Arcadia, but it was a good life. We were loved and cherished and protected.”
A sigh lifts her shoulders, then releases her. “To look at me now, you would think I’d never understood the secret. This music of old age…it isn’t made for dancing. It’s so…lonely. You’re a burden to everyone.”
I think of my grandmother, of her empty house, of her room in the nursing home, of her inability to recognize me most days. Tears well up in my eyes. The music of old age is difficult to hear when it’s playing for someone you love. I wonder if my grandmother will recognize May when they’re finally together again. Will May even consent to coming with me? I haven’t asked her yet. Trent is waiting down the hall. He’s driven up from Edisto. After discussing the possibilities, we decided it might be better if I talked to May alone at first.
“Did you ever see Silas again?” The question pops out, and at first it seems random. Then I realize I’ve asked it because I was thinking of Trent…and of May’s tale of first love. Strangely enough, that’s been on my mind lately. Trent’s smile, his silly jokes, his nearness, even just his voice on the phone stirs something in me. The fact that it matters not a whit to him what my family history may be or what decisions I make about it touches me in a way I’m not prepared for. I don’t know how to categorize it or fit it into my life.
I only know that I can’t ignore it.
May’s countenance bores through me. It’s as if she’s digging in and following the veins of ore all the way to my soul. “I wished for it, but some wishes don’t come true. Papa Sevier moved us over to Augusta to protect us from Georgia Tann. Our family was quite well known there, so I imagine he felt that she wouldn’t dare trifle with him across state lines. Silas and Old Zede wouldn’t have known where to find us. I never learned what became of them. My last sight of Silas was through the tangles of my new mother’s hair as she hugged me close. He stood at the edge of the trees where I had been only moments before, and then he turned and went back to the water. I never saw him again.”
She shakes her head slowly. “I always wondered what he might’ve become. Perhaps it was for the best that I never knew. I was growing into a different life, a different world, a different name. I did hear from Arney again years later. A letter came just out of the blue. My mother had it waiting for me when I arrived home from the college term. I’d always imagined that perhaps Arney and Silas had married, but they hadn’t. Zede had found a place for Arney on a dairy farm soon after I left them. Arney was made to work hard, but the people were fair with her. She eventually took a job in a bomber plant and married a soldier. They were living overseas when she wrote to me, and she was quite happy to be seeing the world. She never thought she’d have that sort of opportunity.” Even now, the story brings a smile.
“I’m glad things turned out well for her after such a rough start in life.” Given that May is ninety and Arney was older than her, it’s unlikely that Arney would still be alive now, but I feel a warm sense of relief. May’s story has made Arney and Silas and all the people of the river real to me.
“Yes.” May nods in agreement. “She gave me a fire in my belly for all those young, dewy-eyed women who found themselves taken advantage of by the playboys in Hollywood. I met so many during my years there, and I made it my business to help them—to provide a place to sleep or a shoulder to lean on. It happened very often, girls ending up in terrible situations. I always thought of Arney’s words to me at the end of her letter.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that I saved her.” May dabs at a sheen of moisture near her eye. “But of course, it wasn’t true. We saved each other. If not for Arney taking me back to the river, if not for what happened on the Arcadia, I could never have released Briny, and Queenie, and the river. I would’ve reached for that music all of my life. By taking me back, Arney brought me forward. I told her that in my reply.”
“I imagine that meant a lot to her.”
“People don’t come into our lives by accident.”