At the Scent of Water Read Online Free

their anniversary came, he had seized on the date as an excuse to contact her. He had composed his speech in his mind, had rehearsed it until it was perfect. He’d been confident that he understood her. She had been sad. She had been upset. But surely she was ready to talk to him now. To readmit him to her life. He had called four times and finally delivered his speech to her answering machine. “Come home,” he had said. “Let me take care of you. Don’t stay away, Annie. Come back to me.”
    She had responded in kind, leaving a message for him, calling at noon when she must have known he would be working. “All right,” she had said. “I’ll see you.” The words had opened the door between them even as her tight, fearful tone leaned against it. His hopeful heart had refused to admit the truth then, of course. But after the first few minutes that year at The Inn at Smoky Hollow, he had known she would not come. He remembered how his spirit had sunk as he had sat and waited. He had realized then how much he had underestimated her grief and pain. Her bitterness.
    He asked himself now why he had continued to come year after year, and he knew the answer. It was the only link left. To let it go would be admitting all hope was gone.
    He stared into the empty river gorge and thought of a play he’d seen once about a woman who stood every night at the doorway calling her dog. Finally, at the end, she’d come to a realization. Little Sheba wasn’t coming back.
    And neither was the one he waited for. The finality of it hit him like a blow. He felt a flare of anger, though, not the dull resignation he would have expected. The fresh memory of the old woman’s message came back to him. “Now is not a good time to stop praying.”
    He cast it off with a violent shake of his head. She wasn’t a messenger of God, just a lonely old woman who’d been watching his little drama and thinking she heard from the Almighty, but it was just her own wishes she was putting words to. Besides, it was too late. He had already stopped praying. He couldn’t remember when, exactly, but some time since he’d stood here last year this time, he had quit asking God for what was never going to be given.
    It was over. It was time to move on. He had been a fool to wait this long. The realization had a hollow, bitter finality, but at least things would be settled now. He was finished. He wasn’t ever coming back here again. He stared into the darkness thinking about the mistakes he had made, and after a moment he took off the ring he still wore on the third finger of his left hand. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, took out the small velvet box that contained his wife’s wedding rings, set his own inside with them, and snapped it shut. Then he took out his keys and walked to his car.
    ****
    He drove, keeping his mind as blank as he could. He crossed the North Carolina-Tennessee border. When he neared the interchange for his apartment in Knoxville, he kept going, continued on past the city limits to the small suburb of Varner’s Grove and followed a familiar route. He had come here every day at first, watching, hoping, praying for some slight change, some shift in condition that would signal a reprieve from the crashing disaster, the wall of unthinkable error that had fallen down upon him from every direction. It had been to no avail. After a while he had begun coming once a week. Then once a month. Part of him wanted to put it behind him now. To forget. But he could not do that, for like a cold shadow it trailed him wherever he went. It was a ghastly reminder that once the hand slips, the mistake cannot always be repaired.
    He drove into the silent parking lot, empty of all but a few rows of old worn cars that belonged to the staff. He parked his own car, suddenly ashamed of its newness and comfort. He clicked it locked, heard the electronic chirp, and walked up the concrete entrance walk, past a concrete pot full of brown-tipped