The Memory of Water by Karen White

Author:Karen White [White, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Mystery, Adult, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781602852228
Google: Uv1-4SaTdVQC
Amazon: 1616578408
Barnesnoble: 1616578408
Goodreads: 2034864
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground.

—HERMAN MELVILLE

Diana

I sat on the back porch playing chess with my grandfather, our previous argument not forgotten but left simmering on a burner so that we were both aware that its smoke floated in the air around us like a ghost.

As usual I was losing, but I didn’t care. I had been worried that he would refuse to see me, and I was so relieved when he agreed to a game that I would have gladly conceded any game. Sitting across black and white squares had been the refuge of my childhood, and I found I could not give it up.

I was staring at one of my bishops, contemplating my next move and wishing I had a cigarette but knowing that I wouldn’t dare smoke in front of Grandpa, when the door opened and Marnie stepped out on the porch. She held a page from a sketchbook, the top edge torn and ragged as if it had been hastily ripped from the pad.

We had settled into a wary truce, my sister and I, since our drive into Charleston to buy cigarettes. I’d been furiously angry at having to curtail my plans for the day, but had rediscovered something about my sister when she hadn’t said a word to Quinn about me taking the car without his permission.

I faced her as she walked toward me but I didn’t smile. There was only so much I could concede to my sister. She kissed our grandfather on the cheek, and then I watched as he took hold of her hand and squeezed it tightly, as if she needed the reassurance to speak with me.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I wanted to show something to Diana.”

She held out the paper in her hand and I took it. I stared down at it for a long time before it registered what it was I was looking at.

“It’s from Gil,” she explained as if I couldn’t tell my own son’s handiwork. “He made it for you and wanted me to give it to you.”

I was almost amused that this same child she spoke about not more than fifteen minutes before had emerged from his father’s greenhouse and then made a huge circle around the house to avoid me and the closest entrance to go through the front door.

I met my sister’s eyes for a brief moment before returning to the charcoal pencil drawing I held in my hand, the warm breeze gently trying to pry it from my shaking fingers. It was a drawing of the orange tree I had planted with Gil and given to him on a foolishly naive day when I thought that I was on my way to being healed. I should have known even then that any Maitland couldn’t have escaped God’s ire so completely, and instead of planting the tree, I should have been hunkering down and preparing for the next onslaught.

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