Down River by John Hart Read Free Book Online

letting her wander off. Or the long walk back to the house, as my words finally calmed her. Maybe it was the smile she’d given me, or the desperate grip around my neck when I’d tried to put her down. Whatever the case, we’d bonded; and I’d watched with pride as she took the farm by storm. It was as if that plunge in the river had marked her, for she was fearless. She could swim the river by age five, ride bareback by seven. At ten, she could handle my father’s horse, a big, nasty brute that scared everyone but the old man. I taught her how to shoot and how to fish. She’d ride the tractor with me, beg to drive one of the farm trucks, then squeal with laughter when I let her. She was wild by nature, and often returned from school with blood on her cheek and tales of some boy who’d made her angry.
    In many ways, I’d missed her the most.
    I followed the narrow trail to the river and heard the music long before I got there. She was listening to Elvis Costello.
    The dock was thirty feet long, a finger bone stroking the river in the middle of its slow bend to the south. She was at the end of it, a lean brown figure in the smallest white bikini I’d ever seen. She sat on the side of the dock, holding, with her foot, the edge of a dark blue canoe and speaking to the woman who sat in it. I stopped under a tree, hesitant about intruding.
    The woman had white hair, a heart-shaped face, and lean arms. She looked very tan in a shirt the color of daffodils. I watched as she patted Grace’s hand and said something I could not hear. Then she gave a small wave and Grace pushed with her foot, skimming the canoe out into the river. The woman dipped a paddle and held the bow upstream. She said last words to the younger woman, then looked up and saw me. She stopped paddling and the current bore her down. She stared hard, then nodded once, and it was like I’d seen a ghost.
    She drove the canoe upstream, and Grace lay down on the hard, white wood. The moment held such brightness, and I watched the woman until the curve in the river stole her away. Then I walked onto the dock, my feet loud on the wood. She did not move when she spoke.
    “Go away, Jamie. I will not swim with you. I will not date you. I will not sleep with you under any circumstances. If you want to stare at me, go back to your telescope on the third floor.”
    “It’s not Jamie,” I said.
    She rolled onto her side, slid tinted glasses down her nose, and showed me her eyes. They were blue and sharp.
    “Hello, Grace.”
    She declined to smile, and lifted the glasses to hide her eyes. She rolled onto her stomach, reached for the radio, and turned it down. Her chin settled on the back of her folded hands, and she looked out over the water.
    “Am I supposed to jump up and throw my arms around you?” she asked.
    “No one else has.”
    “I won’t feel sorry for you.”
    “You never answered my letters.”
    “To hell with your letters, Adam. You were all I had and you left. That’s where the story ends.”
    “I’m sorry, Grace. If it means anything, leaving you alone broke my heart.”
    “Go away, Adam.”
    “I’m here now.”
    Her voice spiked. “Who else cared about me? Not your stepmother. Not Miriam and not Jamie. Not until I had tits. Just a couple of busy old men that knew nothing about raising young girls. The whole world was messed up after you left, and you left me alone to deal with it. All of it. A world of shit. Keep your letters.”
    Her words were killing me. “I was tried for murder. My own father kicked me out. I couldn’t stay here.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Grace—”
    “Put some lotion on my back, Adam.”
    “I don’t—”
    “Just do it.”
    I knelt on the wood beside her. The lotion was hot out of the bottle, cooked in the sun and smelling of bananas. Grace was beneath me, a stretch of hard, brown body that I could not relate to. I hesitated, and she reached behind herself and untied the top of her bikini. The straps fell away