River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

Author:Eleanor Shearer [Shearer, Eleanor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

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Rachel and Orion said a muted farewell on the outskirts of Georgetown. Rachel wanted to thank him for looking after Micah for all those years, and for keeping her son’s memory alive, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She thanked him for walking her back to the town and hoped, somehow, that he would feel the deeper gratitude without her needing to say it. Orion, too, looked like there was more that he wished to tell her than just the words “good luck.” He kept his lips parted after the last word, and Rachel hovered by him just in case. But, eventually, he closed his mouth, nodded to her, and turned to start the long walk back to Bellevue.

Watching him walk away, Rachel was seized violently by the thought that this was one of the last people to see her son alive, that as he left he took all the memories that Rachel would never have of Micah, the young, hopeful man. But the cry of “Wait!” died in her throat and, shuddering, she closed her eyes and let the wave of pain pass through her. What good would it do if she sat down again with Orion and made him relive every moment of Micah’s life? Pressing him to recall every smile, every sigh, every word Micah had spoken? Memories cannot raise the dead. Orion had given her enough to know the man Micah became after he left her, and that was all that mattered. She must let Orion, and the shadow of Micah that lived on inside his head, have peace.

When she got to the tavern, Nobody and Mary Grace were waiting for her outside. She didn’t know how long they had been standing there in the heat—perhaps since she had left—but as soon as she saw them as two tiny figures in the distance, her knees almost buckled.

Rachel’s whole world had been so profoundly shaken when she learned that Micah was dead, it was like her life was split into before and after. The knowledge was so cruel, so wounding, that she had not really thought that she would have to tell anyone else. In those moments when Orion had held her, weeping, in Bellevue, she had felt like the last person in the world to know.

But it was not so. Nobody and Mary Grace did not know, and she would have to tell them. Nobody, who believed he had earned his place in their family by helping her find Micah. And her daughter Mary Grace. Barely two years Micah’s junior. Who had wept every night for a week when he was taken, losing her appetite, growing thin and withdrawn. Rachel’s heart threatened to wrench itself apart all over again as she walked slowly toward those waiting figures. She ached to protect them both from the grief she felt.

There must have been something in the way she moved—head down, dragging her feet in the dust of the road. Mary Grace stepped forward as she approached, her brow furrowed and her lips parted, her question unasked but clear.

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