Time Is a River (10 page)

Mia felt a stab of empathy for both women. “That’s so harsh.”

“Who’s to say? The name Kate Watkins was rarely spoken in our home, and when it was, it was with contempt. I grew to hate her myself.”

“Why? You never even met her.”

“I didn’t have to know her for her name to bring me pain.” She straightened her shoulders and sat back in the hardwood chair. “My mother was an alcoholic.” She sighed. “I can say that now, after years of therapy. My mother was an alcoholic,” she repeated slowly. “Of course, I didn’t know that big word when I was a kid. I only knew that whenever my mother drank she became mean and surly and that was the only time she’d talk. I used to tremble in my bed when I heard the ice chink in the glass at night, knowing she’d come and wake me and make me listen. When she was drunk she always wanted to have someone to talk to, and that someone was me. I didn’t like her very much when she drank. She said some pretty horrible things about Kate. And about living out here.”

Mia felt for the young girl woken up from sleep to hear that abuse. “Didn’t she have any friends? Someone her own age she could confide in?”

“That’s the sad part. She blamed her mother for not having any friends when she was growing up. But she never had any friends after she left, either.”

Mia rocked and thought of the sadness and bitterness that Belle had grown up with. Right or wrong, it sounded like Kate Watkins was the scapegoat for all of Theodora’s unhappiness. She thought about the optimism and spirit she’d discovered in the diaries. She couldn’t match the cruel harridan of Theodora’s story with the girl who wrote those words. There was something amiss in this perception, but Mia didn’t know what it was.

“Aren’t you curious about your grandmother? What she was really like? Don’t you want to know her?”

“No,” Belle shot back like a bullet. “She’s nothing to me but a shame to get past.”

Mia felt a stirring in the air, a breeze from the open window.

“Belle, if you feel that way, why didn’t you sell the cabin?”

“Who’d buy it? Folks around here say it’s haunted.”

“Not everyone believes in ghosts. It’s a beautiful spot. Someone from off would buy it. I’d buy it if I had the money.”

“Goddamn, it should be easy for me to sell this place. It’d make my life easier, I can tell you that. But I…I never had much family. My mother had turned her back on the Watkins name but she never met the Carson family, either. So she was pretty much alone. She did her best, but she wasn’t a very strong person and she didn’t have much education. She read a lot, mind you, but she never had the money for college so she worked as a waitress, then got promoted to a manager. But she never made much money.”

Belle wiped her face with her palms. “So it was a shock when she died and I found out I inherited this cabin and the eighty-seven acres it sits on. My mother always was short of cash and my first thought was, Why she just didn’t sell it? She’d held on to it all those years, paid taxes on it when she didn’t have a dollar to spare. I had to ask myself, What she was holding on to? That’s why I’m going to hang on to it for a while, at least until I figure out the answer to that question.”

Mia stopped rocking and studied Belle’s face. Her brown eyes, usually so calm, were full of sorrow, and lines she’d never noticed before creased her forehead. Mia hadn’t known Belle all that long but she knew Belle was the person everyone went to when they needed support. She was more a mentor than friend. It could hardly be anything other than that, considering Belle was the guide and the leader of the retreat, and now her landlord. Yet somewhere from then to now they had crossed some line toward friendship. She was glad Belle felt able to confide some of the hurt of her past. Now, at least, it wasn’t all about Mia’s pain. For a friendship to develop, it took two equals.

Mia gripped the sides of her chair and raised herself to standing. She went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of white wine. Grabbing two small glasses she poured a liberal amount in each, then carried them back to the table. She handed one to Belle.

“Cheers,” Mia said, raising her glass.

Belle clinked glasses with her and they both took a long drink. Mia thought Belle looked a little uncomfortable for having opened up so much of herself.

“Maybe,” Mia ventured, “some of your answers are here in this cabin. In this town. Maybe you should be staying here. Not me.”

“No way.”

“Why not? Are you ashamed of being related to Kate?”

Belle looked incredulous. “Wouldn’t you be ashamed if your grandmother was considered a murderer?” She took another long sip of wine. “Besides, this place gives me the creeps. Maybe it is haunted, after all.”

“If it is haunted,” Mia ventured, “the spirit isn’t angry. She’s…”

Belle’s eyes narrowed. “What? Did you see a ghost?”

Mia wanted to laugh. “No, nothing like that. It’s more a feeling I get sometimes. I sense a presence in the house, especially her bedroom. It’s Kate.”

Belle looked around the house with an uneasy expression. “I don’t put any store in that crap. You’re just alone too much up here. You’ve been through a lot, Mia. Facing death can sometimes make you dwell too much on death and dying. Careful, lest you lose your balance. It could be that’s what happened to my grandmother out here.”

“Or your mother.”

“Maybe,” Belle conceded. “I’d hate for you to become more unhappy. You’re kind of on my watch, you know.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not dwelling on death at all, Belle. Quite the opposite. I’m focusing on living.”

Belle came to her side and took hold of her hands. “I’m glad. Really glad. You look better than when I left you here that first night, that’s for sure. Did you contact your husband?”

“Yes. We had a rather unpleasant phone call. He wants a divorce.”

“I see,” she said without surprise. “And what about you?”

“I don’t have any choice. He wants to marry the woman I saw him with. Apparently they’ve been having an affair.”

Belle squeezed her hands. “That’s not what I’m asking. How do you
feel
about getting a divorce?”

Mia took a deep breath and in that space of time heard a birdcall outside her window. She recognized the strident cry as that of the Carolina wren. Belle released her hands and crossed her arms, waiting.

“My feelings have run the gamut from fury to hurt to finally just wanting to move on. That’s the good thing about being at a place like this. There are no distractions. No television or Internet and e-mails. I’ve had a lot of time to think about me. Not just about the divorce but all that existential stuff—my emotions, ambitions, beliefs. I’ve had the rug pulled out from me in so many ways.”

“Are you coming to any conclusions?”

“Oh, I’ve a long way to go yet,” Mia replied with a wry smile. “But I’ve come to terms with the fact that Charles’s betrayal was just one more betrayal. Far worse was the betrayal of my body.”

“Have you forgiven it?”

“I’m making friends with it. I’m eating better, taking long walks. And fly-fishing.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“I’ve told Charles to go ahead with the divorce.”

“Glad to hear that, too.”

“So is my sister.”

“I feel badly that I’m taking off so soon. I feel like I’m leaving you on your own up here.”

“When do you leave?”

“In two days. I’m meeting the group in Edinburgh on Saturday.” “It’s a dream trip. Six whole weeks fly-fishing in Scotland.”

“Will you be OK while I’m gone?”

“Oh, sure I will. I’m getting used to the place. I have my routine. I’m fishing more and I’m making a few friends in town.”

Belle’s gaze sharpened. “You are?”

“You know, at the shops and restaurants. It’s inevitable.”

“I’m going to ask you the same thing my mother asked me. Don’t stir up the mud while you’re up here.”

“I can’t help going to town.”

“The townsfolk might ask you questions, but keep telling them you don’t know anything and the gossip will die down again. I just want the story of Kate Watkins to die.”

Mia felt a shudder but nodded her head.

Belle turned and took hold of the fishing rods, her eyes gleaming at the sight of them. “At least my grandmother left me something of value.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to take the books?” Mia ventured. It was a small offering of the truth.

“No, you should read them while you’re here.”

“I’ll help you carry the rods out,” Mia offered. She suddenly wanted Belle to leave before she changed her mind.

As Belle loaded up her car with her treasured rods, she paused and swung her head around. “Mia, go on and get that rod I lent you. The one with the handle that didn’t feel right.”

“Oh, it’s OK. I’ll get used to it.”

“No, go get it. You don’t want a rod that doesn’t feel right.”

When Mia returned she saw that Belle had pulled out a different rod from her car and held it out to her. Mia recognized it immediately by the rosy coloring. It was a Temple Fork rod created especially for Casting for Recovery.

“I remember you liked this rod.”

Mia took the rod and held the slim, cork handle. It fit comfortably in her grip. She gave it a quick forward cast. “Smooth,” she said, repeating Belle’s word about the Payne.

“Hang on to it, then. See how you do.”

“Are you sure? But, what if I should hurt it? With my luck I’ll break the tip tugging my fly from some tree.”

“Hey, no big deal. So I’ll get another one.” She paused to look at her feet, then raising her head said, “I didn’t mean to snap at you in there. Whenever I get to talking about
her,
” she jerked her chin, indicating the cabin, “I get riled. We can’t choose our families, can we? We can only try to get past some of them.”

“Do you want to stay for dinner? I can’t promise a feast but I can rustle up something.”

“Wish I could. I have so much to get done before I go.”

“Of course.” She walked with Belle to the driver’s side of the car and stood by as Belle climbed in and shut the door. She put the key in the ignition and fired it, then turned her head to smile up at Mia. For such a strong, sometimes intimidating woman, Belle had the sweetest smile.

“Thanks for the rod,” Mia said, then chuckled self-consciously. “And the waders and the boots and the vest and everything else.”

“You bet. And I wanted to tell you that the cabin looks real nice. I can tell you worked hard. I didn’t want to leave with you thinking I didn’t notice.” She pulled out a cigar from her pocket and set it between her lips. “Scotland, here I come.”

That night Mia lay in her bed feeling that she was caught in a river with several strong currents. The diary, the journals—they were part of a long, running story of a family. One that had deep pools and pockets. Belle might not be aware of it, but there was a connection waiting for her here in this cabin. From father to daughter to granddaughter they were tethered to a common line—a love of fly-fishing. That wasn’t coincidental. It ran through their bloodline as sure and strong as the currents in a river. Belle sensed it, which was why she couldn’t sell the property. Yet she was wary of it. Theodora’s version of the truth couldn’t be the whole story. Nor was the town’s version of the truth.

And what was her role in this story? Mia wondered. She had one, she felt certain. From the moment she’d stepped foot into this cabin she’d felt she was supposed to be here. Or perhaps she was granted the boon of staying in exchange for…what? Was she to be the historian? The narrator? A bit player?

Forgive me, Belle, she thought, but she could only find out by immersing herself in the story. To find out who Kate Watkins was and what had happened to lead her to a life of isolation she had no choice but to dive into the river.

Or perhaps Belle’s mother had said it right after all. To stir up the mud.

T
he Watkins Mill library was a two-story, tawny brick building with white-trimmed windows. Mia enjoyed walking along the tree-shaded street and catching the mouthwatering scents emanating from restaurants catering to the tourists. Summer was kicking in and the charming Victorian town was a popular vacation spot for people seeking respite in the mountains.

She stepped inside the library and welcomed the blast of cool air conditioning. Though cheery light poured in from the front windows, the rest of the library was muted and dim. Only a few patrons sat at the long wood tables or across the room in the comfortable collection of sofas, upholstered chairs, tables, and lamps designed to look like a family room. Book clubs likely met there, she thought, and it would be a marvelous place for her to sit and read when she came to town.

Mia had come to do research about the woman young Kate had become. She walked around the few rooms of the library, making herself familiar with the space. There were two computers for the public and her heartbeat accelerated at the chance to check her e-mails. Old habits died hard, she thought as she settled into a chair and eagerly hooked up to the Internet.

She had seventy-two e-mails. As she scrolled down the list, she was disheartened to find that most of them were spam. The few others were from Maddie and a few friends. There were two from Charles, one dated prior to their last phone call asking that she call. This had an urgent red flag attached. The second was dated yesterday, also with a red flag. She took a breath and opened it.

It was just like him to shout at her in capital letters. Mia puffed up her cheeks and exhaled. Well, Charles knew where she was now. What did it matter, really? Except it was unfair of him to imply she was living in luxury, spending wildly. It’d be different if she’d flown off to some great hotel and he was getting whopping bills for room and food and spa treatments. Hardly the scenario. She’d spent a few measly hundred dollars on enough food and supplies to live on for weeks. And no rent! If she returned home, then he would have to leave. What difference did it make who left? Meanwhile he was undoubtedly still living his lifestyle of eating out most nights, going to bars, and playing golf. Of course, he’d consider that spending essential. But everything she spent on cleaning supplies and groceries and a few pairs of jeans he viewed as over the top. If she ate leftover chicken again she thought she’d gag.

He always knew how to boil her blood, but flying off the handle was not going to help the situation, she decided. She composed herself and replied with an e-mail that she had to rewrite several times to delete any nasty tone that crept in. In the end she whittled it down to a few unemotional lines.

Before pushing the send button, she affixed a red flag. Along with the e-mail she sent off all the anger bubbling in her veins into cyberspace. She harnessed her attention and focused on her new quest.

“Who are you, Kate Watkins?” she murmured as she typed the name into the search engine.

It felt good to have a project that she could sink her teeth into. Her mind needed to work again and deflect her thoughts from herself for a while. Her fingers clicked rapidly on the keyboard as she hunted through several results, following trails: Kate Watkins. Katherine Watkins. She was disappointed to find so little information. The Watkins family apparently was not as illustrious as she’d first thought. There were references to the historical family but most of the information was repetitive, offering similar document sources. She kept copious notes in a notebook.

After two hours she shut down the computer and yawned, stretching her arms over her head. It wasn’t all that fruitful a search. All her digging revealed was that the Watkins ancestors had settled in western North Carolina in the 1740s with a land grant of three thousand acres. Mia had to pause as she read that number. Those were the days of enormous land grants delivered from governments with a flick of the pen. Could she even imagine owning so much land today?

The family remained prosperous until the Civil War, when North Carolina seceded from the Union and the Watkins sons marched off to battle. She traced their war records, discovering that all four sons had joined a company called the Buncombe Rifles and marched off to war behind a flag made from the silk dresses of town belles. One son died as a prisoner of war and two other sons died in battle. Mia felt a stirring of sympathy for the mother who had lost three beloved sons. Only one son, the youngest named Robert, survived. He had returned home, injured and sick, to his grief-stricken parents. They died soon after, leaving Robert to face alone the trials of the Reconstruction era. He had fared better than his Watkins relations. Their homes and plantations had either been burned to the ground or sold.

Robert Watkins had hung on to his parcel with tooth and nail. He had strength of will and tenacity that Mia thought was passed down to his granddaughter, Kate. He sold off most of his land in parcels to support the rebuilding of the mill business. Eventually he married and fathered a son, Walter, and a daughter, Ann, who died young. By the turn of the century Walter Watkins owned less than five hundred of the original three thousand acres. Walter became a minister and married Isobel Rogers and had a daughter, Katherine. This last parcel of land and the estate house was lost in 1930, apparently due to heavy losses in the stock market crash of 1929.

The reports ended here.

Mia closed her notebook, feeling half full. As she tapped her pen against her lip she wondered about the loss of the family estate. Kate’s father had been her hero as a child, yet he’d lost the family land and home to the stock market crash. Odd, she thought, that a minister who loved to fly-fish would also love to play the stock market. It seemed out of character for the gentle, retiring man she’d read about in Kate’s diary. But, Mia thought, it would not be out of character for adventurous Kate.

Mia’s mind was pressing with questions as she rose and walked to the librarian sitting behind the counter. She looked exactly like Mia thought a town librarian should look: a prim, elderly woman, slight in build but straight-backed. Her gray hair was severely pulled into a French twist but errant wisps floated around her head as she bent over the computer keyboard.

“Excuse me,” Mia said, coming to the long wood counter.

The woman’s hands paused from typing and she lifted her gaze. From behind horn-rimmed glasses, steel blue eyes delivered a cool appraisal. “Yes?”

“I need some help finding information, please.”

The woman straightened with the air of someone being disturbed from some important task to deal with something no doubt trivial. She rose and clasped her hands on the counter and said archly, “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for information on the Watkins family.”

“Oh? What kind of information?”

“Anything I can find.”

“Well,” she said with a condescending laugh. “It’s an old family.”

“I know,” Mia replied in an even tone. “I did some initial research. I have the genealogy. I know that they owned the mill that gave the town its name and that they lost their money after the crash in nineteen twenty-nine. I’m especially interested in Kate Watkins. I’ve heard she left town to live in the cabin at Watkins Cove and stayed there until her death in nineteen fifty-two.”

The woman surveyed her with more interest. “Why, may I ask, are you interested in Kate Watkins?”

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Mia Landan. I’m staying in the cabin at Watkins Cove.”

A flicker of recognition flashed in her eyes. “Ah yes, I heard someone had opened up the cabin. After all these years.” Her gaze sharpened. “Are you a relative?”

“No. I’m staying with the permission of Kate Watkins’s granddaughter.”

“Oh? I didn’t know she had a granddaughter. What is her name?”

“Belle Carson.”

She nodded her head as though in recognition. “I see. What do you want to know?”

“Well.” Mia stopped. “Excuse me, but I don’t know your name.” Mia thought that turnaround was fair play in this town.

“Phyllis. Phyllis Pace.” She said the last name with a ring of pride.

Mia smiled, recognizing the name as the same she had seen carved in granite over a redbrick building on Main Street. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Pace.”

“That’s Miss Pace,” she said, lifting her chin a tad higher. “Not Missus.”

“Sorry. Miss Pace.” Mia opened her notebook on the counter and went through her notes, all business now. “I can’t find any information about the family after the stock market crash in nineteen twenty-nine. The trail ends with how Walter Watkins lost everything.”

“That’s not entirely true. It puts unfair blame on Reverend Watkins. In fact the Watkinses’ fortunes began their downfall much earlier, after the Civil War. Back when they had the mill. I don’t remember exactly when the mill closed, but by the time it did, the railroad had come to town. Instead of the mill, money came in from tourists. The Watkins family, well, their money just sort of dwindled. They sold their land, bit by bit. Then there was the stock market crash. Everyone lost their shirts in the Depression. The Watkins were like many of the other great families of that era, I suppose. The library has boxes of letters and correspondence of the family that were donated.”

“Really?” Mia felt the thrill of the hunt pumping in her veins.

“They’re not of a personal nature. These are largely business papers and household accounts. They’re important in an historical sense, of course. But I warn you, it makes for some pretty dry reading.”

“Thank you, Miss Pace. I’d love to see them.”

“Well then,” she said, and Mia caught a flash of interest. “Do you see that reading room in the far corner? If you wait there, I’ll go get them and be back.”

A short while later Phyllis carried in two boxes to Mia’s table in the reading room. After instructions on the proper handling of the materials, Phyllis came back into the room several times, eyeing Mia, obviously nervous over the handling of the collection.

Mia set down her pencil. “Phyllis, perhaps you’d like to help?”

“Well, if you think I could.” Phyllis gratefully took a chair beside Mia’s and together they sorted through the documents.

After an hour of sorting and reading bank statements, household records, financial holdings, address books, and assorted photographs, Mia leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. “You were right,” she said morosely. “This was tough reading.”

“Again,” Phyllis replied with a hint of a teacher in her voice. “These documents have great historical value. You saw how much of the documentation was what was considered women’s work. In those records we can mine so much rich cultural information. The library was most fortunate that the Watkins family donated their collection to us.”

“I now know how much they paid for a slave. But I still don’t know anything more about Kate. Not even a photograph of her.”

Phyllis sighed deeply and her face relaxed. “Ah yes, Kate…”

Mia’s attention sharpened at the change in Phyllis’s tone. “Did you know her?”

“Me? Heavens no. I’m not that old. But, my father has told me so many stories about her. They were friends, you know. Oh, what a time it must have been when they were young. This area was a Mecca for the la-di-da types. The trains brought the glamorous outside world into our sleepy hollow. In fact, it was the trains that changed this town. Even before my father’s time, my grandfather told us the whole town used to sigh with relief each time they heard the train whistle blowing, because that signaled the train made it up the steep incline to town. They’d all come running to see what celebrity stepped off the train.”

“What brought them here?”

She leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers under her chin. “At the turn of the century thousands of people came for the curative powers of the spring water.
To take the waters
was how they phrased it. A lot of them came from Charleston. But then the railroad came, and by the twenties folks came from all around seeking more than wellness. They came to breathe the fresh mountain air, to fish in our rivers, and to escape the miasma of city air in the summer. Fancy hotels sprang up everywhere. And along with them the businesses that cater to the tourists. The mill wasn’t important in Watkins Mill anymore.”

“What happened to it?”

“The same thing that happened to the sanitariums. It closed its doors as businesses often do.”

“What happened to Walter and Kate if the mill closed?”

“Walter Watkins was a minister. That was a proper profession for an educated man of a certain wealth in those days. He had enough money to maintain a secure but perhaps more modest lifestyle for himself and his daughter. He kept the estate as best he could. Though the property did fall into some disrepair over the years.”