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“Yeah, she has a night off,” I say and then nearly crack my jaw on the yawn that follows my words.
“Get sleep, my little treasure. I’ll call you in the morning. Tell her hi for me,” he says.
“Okay. I will.” I never know what to say in return because Hayes’s family isn’t around. I know he’s close to his brothers but he talks to them less often than we see each other. “Sleep well,” I tell him
“Sweet dreams.”
And then he disconnects.
When I drift off a few minutes later, it’s with my pillow cradled in my arms, a smile on my face, and a song in my heart.
WILD RIVER
HAYES
ONE MONTH LATER
“All of these rivers—St. Francis, the White, and the Arkansas—come together and empty into the Mississippi from this delta,” Confidence points out to me.
“So, it must have been booming once,” I say and look around at the dead downtown of Amorel. There’s the one church building that looks like an ice sculpture that’s melting and the two long park benches chained to the ground in front of the town’s police station.
“It still is,” she tells me. She’s been idly running her fingers through her hair and she slips the end of her ponytail in between her smiling lips.
“Yeah, all of these abandoned buildings scream a booming town.” I laugh and she bumps me with her hip in reproach.
“No, but the blues festival that still happens every single summer does.” Her voice is tinged with defensive love and brims with pride.
“You love it here, don’t you?” I ask her.
“I’m proud of its persistence,” she answers after thinking for a minute. “It’s seen every boom and survived every bust since it was settled in the 1800s. But … the river has given it a constancy. It’s made the soil here some of the most fertile in the world. Most of the forests have been cut down, but look at how ardently what remains still grows. There’s only a small fraction of people who live here when you compare it to before.”
“Where’d they go?” I ask.
“To the city for jobs. Like me.” She shrugs and leans back into me.
We’re driving back to her mother’s house after a day spent sightseeing or maybe just seeing. This is my fifth trip here in eight weeks. It’s the first time we’ve ventured beyond her small town. She drove us out in her mother’s beat-up, old Oldsmobile Delta 88. I’m driving us back. The front bench seat that lets her sit right next to me is the only thing that has made driving around in a car with sponge and wires poking out of the seats, no air conditioning and a barely-functioning radio through the swampy Mississippi Delta bearable.
We roll over the railroad tracks that seem to run through every town in this part of Arkansas and turn onto her mother’s street.
“The place still calls me sometimes, my love for it … This is where blues was born,” she reminds me for the hundredth time. I just smile and nod, grateful that the sun is setting and taking the punishing heat with it. I glance at her. I’ve noticed that when she’s happy, she tucks a lock of hair between her lips. Today, she’s done it so much I’ve lost count. She gazes out of the window as we drive into the wooded area where her mother’s house is.
“The delta is the soul of the South. And while the rest of the South is looking to become the ‘New South,’ we still own our past. Can’t forget that the same time that we gave the nation the blues, we also harbored the KKK. And then, in the sixties it was a steaming cauldron of social change. So, yes, we’re flawed, but we persist.”
We fall silent for the rest of the drive. It’s nearly a mile down this dusty road, lined with white clapboard houses that sit on at least half an acre of land each.
“Do you think you’ll want to come back here and settle?” I ask her, and my throat closes around the question because I’m desperate for the answer to be a very firm no.
“It’s home. But, it’s also got so many bad memories. Between my father and the river, living here was like having a devil at my front and hell at my back. As much as I love our way of life, I’ve never felt like this is where my life was supposed to take root,” she says. “The first flood I was old enough to remember was when I was twelve. I saw how we were left holding nothing, and it made me want to do what I could to make sure that next time we’d do better than just barely survive. I think I can do that more effectively outside of here,” she says without hesitation.
The knot in my throat unclenches, and I smile down at her as we roll into the parking spot under her mother’s covered carport.
“I understand that,” I say simply. Because I do. It’s how I used to feel about returning to Houston permanently. But now, I can see how much potential the city has.
I push the gear shift into park, unbuckle my seat belt, and give her a kiss. She cups my neck with both of her small, strong hands and kisses me back. Her mouth tastes like sunshine and water and trees and smoke. I pull her onto my lap until she’s straddling me. “You’re so sexy when you’re up on that soapbox,” I murmur against her lips.
“Yeah, well my convictions give me the feels …” she jokes.
I don’t laugh. “I know, and that gives me feelings, too,” I say, refusing to use that ridiculous slang.
