Chapter Seven
Levi
F ive days ticked by, each one weighted down by the sudden appearance of Marigold and her possible connection to the woman I wrote about in The Mountain Girl . Her resemblance to that woman was uncanny.
Was I going insane?
I knew of one man who could help dispel or confirm my fears.
Old Man Donner.
However, with the scrutinizing eyes of the school board tracking my every move and Marigold healing from her injuries, it wasn’t until the Saturday following her sudden appearance that I found time to visit the reclusive hermit.
“Are you sure you don’t mind if I leave for an hour?” I asked Marigold as she arranged a cluster of flowers on her dresser. The room was overrun with plants in various stages of decay, occupying nearly every available surface. If she stayed here long-term, she might just deplete the land surrounding the cabin of its floral splendor.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m feeling better.”
The gash on her head had completely healed, and the cuts on her skin were now wispy red lines ringed with new white skin.
“Do you need anything before I leave?”
“No thanks.” She walked past me and stepped into the hallway. “I’m going to play in the shed.”
“Marigold, you don’t have to fix every mower, weed eater, and bike chain in sight.”
She’d spent the entire week sitting in the sunshine, tinkering with Dad’s outdated equipment and toys. Soon, the entire shed would have workable hardware. Not a bad option, but she should be getting some rest instead.
Marigold slipped her feet into her shoes. Well, technically they were Lillian’s old shoes. “I’m enjoying myself,” she said with a cheerful tone. “I can’t just sit around and read another book. I want to be useful.”
She walked out the front door, waving back at me over her shoulder. “See you soon.”
I couldn’t suppress a grin. Aside from Lillian, Marigold was the most attractive woman I’d ever encountered. Watching her work elbow-deep on a lawn mower with grease streaking her arms was almost too much for me to handle. She stirred a warmth within me that I had only felt with Lillian.
The hot summer air blew through my open window.The song “Yours” by Russel Dickerson played on the radio as I turned onto Old Man Donner’s driveway.
Old Man Donner—or Donner as my dad called him—was one of the few men I remembered Daddy strumming guitars with. He hadn’t crossed my mind in years. Not until Marigold appeared.
Donner, being one of the oldest people in Sutton, knew mountain lore better than anyone around here. I was confident that he could tell me why the words I wrote resembled a real-life girl.
Maybe he would even know a thing or two about the mystery surrounding my dad.
Marigold was a coincidence I simply couldn’t ignore. Her dream about two men on a cliff could be straight from my subconscious. Not to mention, her memory of the abusive boyfriend was a scene from the film I’d watched the night of her arrival.
Was it my fault she couldn’t remember who she was or where she came from? Did I write Marigold into existence?
I shook my head, a sardonic laugh crawling up my throat. Impossible.
Parking behind Donner’s rusted red Dodge, I let my hands fall to my thighs. The idea that I was about to ask a recluse if I could have written someone into existence was absurd.
Releasing a weary sigh, I swung open the door of my truck. Stepping out onto the cracked pavement, I made my way across the uneven sidewalk toward the weather-beaten house.
The front steps creaked as I approached the solid wooden door. An odd sight halted me—a vintage soda machine bearing a faded blue and red Pepsi logo sat nestled against the edge of the wrap-around porch.
Steeling myself, I advanced toward the door, contemplating whether to turn back. Instead, I rapped my knuckles against the wood.
Footsteps shuffled toward me from the other side. “Who’s there?”
“Levi.”
There was a clunk. Was that the pump on a shotgun?
“Levi who? I don’t know a Levi.”
I angled my body away from the door, imagining a gun pointed at me through the wood. “Levi Shaw. My dad was Duncan Shaw.”
There was a momentary pause.
The lock clicked and the door swung open. Donner stood wearing blue jeans, a button-down shirt, and a sleek black vest. He might be a hermit, but he was known for getting gussied up for any day ending in the letter y . A shotgun hung from his dark arm, and a cigar hung between his thin lips.
He plucked the cigar out and exhaled a breath of smoke. “Levi Shaw,” he said. “Why, you look as fine as rain in August.”
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
He had warm brown skin and a puff of curly gray hair upon his head. “What in Sam Hill brings you here? I don’t reckon I’ve seen you since you were no taller than my waist.” He leaned his shotgun against the door frame.
“It’s been a while.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “Do you mind if we talk?”
He brought the cigar to his mouth while he regarded me. “Duncan Shaw’s boy, eh? Yeah, I reckon I got time for Duncan Shaw’s boy. I wouldna recognized you if you didn’t mention you were his boy. How old are you now?”
“Thirty.”
“That so? Well, son, why don’t we have a seat on the porch, and you can tell me what’s on your mind? Nobody comes to visit me unless they’re sellin’ somethin’ or got somethin’ on their mind. I reckon you’re the latter.”
“You are correct, sir.”
As he moved silently behind me, I noticed his bare feet padding along the wooden planks. Despite being dressed nice enough for a formal occasion like church or a wedding, he had opted out of wearing shoes. His yellowed toenails seemed almost fused to his knobby and twisted feet.
“You want something to drink?” He angled into a weathered chair that bore the marks of homemade craftsmanship. Gesturing toward the soda machine, he pointed out the quarters nearby and said, “There're quarters there. Help yourself.”
“Sure.” My hiking boots clunked across the porch as I approached the towering machine emitting a soft hum and gentle glow.
Beside it sat a worn card table displaying an old cast-iron skillet overflowing with quarters. “What would you like?”
His chuckle reverberated around the wood beams. “Son, even you don’t know what you want. The machin’ll tell you.”
I understood what he meant as I tried to decipher the unmarked buttons. Why were there no labels? I stuck in four quarters, relishing the sound they made as they struck the bottom of the tray, and pressed a button. A metal can came loose and fell with an echoing crack. I pulled out a Pepsi.
When I refilled the quarter slot and hit the button again, a can of beer dropped into the dispenser. I handed the Pepsi to Donner, my mouth watering for the alcohol.
“I pressed the same button twice,” I said.
He snapped the tab on his drink and clinked the metal against mine. “That’s the beauty of fillin’ the thing yourself. You can put whatever you feel like in whatever slot. I never know what I’m gettin’. Your daddy helped me install that marvel. I haven’t seen many folks since his passing ’cept when I go to town, but nobody talks to me much.”
Taking a seat beside him, I admired the tranquil view around us. Our trucks were parked in the shade of the trees hugging his circular driveway. A plain wooden barn stood next to an unpaved path leading into the woods. Unlike some rural homes in the vicinity cluttered with trash and debris, this land was pristine.
Donner drew from his cigar before taking a gulp from his soda. “What brings you here, son?” His voice sounded tired.
Placing my beer on the porch, I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “I have an unusual question.”
He closed his eyes as he inhaled the tobacco. “Why, me?”
“Because you and my daddy were close, and they say you know more about this mountain than anybody else around here.”
He slowly opened his eyes. “So it’s about the mountain then. Git on with it. I ain’t gonna live forever.”
I played with the tab on my beer. “Something strange happened a few days ago. I might be crazy. But . . . ”
“Spit it out, son.”
I recounted the details of the wedding, the secluded cabin, the haunting ballad about the mysterious girl, how I suddenly passed out and then found Marigold. “When I woke the next morning, she seemed familiar even though I’d never met her. She resembles the girl I wrote about. I wonder if she’s . . . am I crazy?”
Donner gazed past the driveway, but I suspected he peered at something far away in his mind, a memory only he could see. Then he sighed and said, “Son, are you asking me if you wrote this Marigold to life?”
“I know it sounds nuts—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “It’s possible.”
“What?”
“It’s possible,” he repeated.
I both feared and expected this answer. “But how?”
His chair creaked as he leaned back. “It happens.”
“How?” I persisted, like a record with a scratch.
He took a deliberate drag from his cigar. “Because I’ve done it myself.”
The chirping of birds in the nearby trees mingled with the hum of the soda machine behind us, creating an eerie silence following his confession.
When I recovered my voice, I asked, “You’ve written someone? Who?” Maybe I wasn’t bananas—or maybe we both were.
“That’s the problem, son. Once you write them onto the mountain, you can’t change what you’ve done. You gotta live with that for the rest of your life.”
He spoke like the existence of Marigold could be a bad thing. “What do you mean? Who did you write?”
He answered my question with a question of his own: “Do you know why mommas and daddies worry about their kids from the moment they hear their first heartbeat until the moment that mommy or daddy passes from this life?”
“No, sir.”
He slapped his soda can on the arm of his chair with a clank. “Cause you can’t stop fretting about something you’re responsible for. It’s worse when the thing you made turns out to be bad.”
I waited for him to continue.
“I once sat in this house and wrote about the kinda son I wanted. Wasn’t married. Just over the age of forty. Saw my odds of meeting the right woman fadin’ by the day. I didn’t mean to do nothin’ reckless. So I wrote about a twelve-year-old boy I could teach to shoot and fish.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Next thing I know, there’s a little white boy on this very porch. He’s got no idea where he came from or how he got here. I took him in and fed him. The more time I spent with him, the more I began to recognize him. Not from town, but from what I wrote. I did everything I could to find his mommy and daddy, but they didn’t exist.”
Dots swam before my vision. Was it the beer or Donner’s words? My chest tightened. I pressed my head between my knees, trying to suck in a lungful of air.
It couldn’t be true. What Donner said was impossible. Crazy.
I forced out one word: “Who?”
“Who what?” he said.
“Who did you—”
“You know Jake Tanner?”
I lifted my head and looked back at him. “Yeah. But he’s my age.”
Donner nodded. “Yep. The boy I wrote about that day was his daddy. Fredrick Tanner. Everyone in town knows Fred as my boy. Jake is my grandson by association. When Fred showed up, I told people he was my nephew. That made sense because he was white, so there was no way he could be my own flesh and blood. My half-sister was mulatto. After a year, nobody batted an eye when he started calling me Daddy. I said my sister down in Florida died, and no one checked my story.”
“I was a poor father,” he continued. “Gave Freddie too much rope. He did what he wanted. Got into drugs and junk. Then he had a son. Jake ain’t no different. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“All the drug runnin’ and weapons in Sutton,” he said. “Those are my fault. Fred’s in charge of all that. Jake just got out of prison a few weeks ago, and I fear it won’t be long before he’s right alongside his daddy sullying up this mountain.”
Fredrick Tanner was Donner’s son? That made him Donner Tanner. I’d never known him as anything but Old Man Donner—or simply Donner .
“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked.
He laughed. Then tears trickled down his cheeks, and he slapped his knee. “Oh, son. You got lots to learn. ’Course I talked to him. I’ve talked to both those boys, but they ain’t gonna listen. They in it for the money. No, son, I wasn’t firm with Freddie from the git-go. I messed him up, and now he does his own thing. It’s too late. You say you wrote a girl?”
I nodded. “Her name’s Marigold. And she’s more woman than girl.”
Donner sat back in his chair. “Pretty name. Where is she now?”
“At the cabin.”
He shook his head. “The first year is the hardest.”
“She won’t remember anything from before?”
“Son, there is no before. Don’t you get it? You wrote this girl.” He pointed his cigar at me. “I shoulda done what you done. If I wrote a girl and had a baby with her—with her permission, of course—instead of writing a kid from the git-go, then maybe I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in today.”
The weight of this responsibility felt like a tractor on my chest. “But she knows her entire name, as well as her likes and dislikes. She just doesn’t have any long-term memories.”
“And she won’t either. Her life started the night you wrote her. Sure, she might be normal for her age. She’ll know most of the things you do, I reckon. Freddie knew everything a twelve-year-old boy should. He even knew some movies and books of the time. But nothing ’bout his history.”
“What—what do I do with her?”
He spat a wad of brown liquid off the porch before answering. “Whatdya mean? She’s a girl, ain’t she? You treat her the way your momma taught you to treat a girl. And on top of that, you protect her. You’re all she’s got in this world. You darn well better keep an eye on her.”
“But she doesn’t belong to me. She’s a human.”
He jabbed a finger at my chest. “And don’t you forget it.”
This revelation was too much. I stood and paced the porch, trying to process. “How do I explain her to people?”
Donner took another drag of his cigar. “Son, that’s entirely up to you. I’m not gonna tell you how to run your affairs. All I gots to recommend is that you don’t run ’em like I did mine. You take care of that girl.”
How could I have so easily accepted the outlandishness of Donner’s explanation? Could he be speaking the truth, or was I fated to be the next crazy old man out on the mountain?
Maybe Marigold’s memories would return. Maybe Donner was wrong.
Yet, a deep intuition in my heart told me he wasn’t mistaken. The unsettling truth loomed over me, causing my throat to constrict.
I swallowed. “I could use another beer right now.”
Marigold
I’m not much of a better cook than Levi , I thought as I inspected the pasta. The spaghetti sauce came out of a can, and my attempt at homemade rolls had turned into dense, brown spheres due to.overcooking. Thankfully, the kitchen carried a comforting aroma of garlic and herbs that enveloped the room. My only consolation.
Levi walked through the door and kicked off his boots. “Smells good in here.”
“The rolls are like rocks, but the insides might be salvageable.”
He reached toward the cabinet and pulled out a glass bottle of amber liquid. As he brushed passed me, I caught a faint scent of alcohol on his breath. With the bottle in hand, Levi headed to the table that I’d spruced up with flowers.
Had he gone to a bar? He hadn’t stank of alcohol since the night we met.
“Are you hungry?” I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but his avoidance of my gaze and swigs from the bottle deterred me.
“Sure.”
I plated the food and set them on the table. Levi took a bite without saying grace—unusual behavior for him.
Breaking my roll in two, I discovered its softer interior. “Where have you been?”
“Driving,” he said.
“To see a friend?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have many friends.”
I’d gathered this. His brother Colton was the only guy he had spoken of. I tried a different approach. “Did you visit your momma?”
He took another swig from the bottle. A big one. “No.” Then he finally met my gaze, and his eyes focused. “Are you . . . ” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Are you happy here?”
Confused, I focused on slathering butter on my roll. “I’m comfortable.”
I would be happy if I could regain my memories, but that wasn’t happening. Not yet, anyway. But I still had hope that they would return. Or maybe my family would come looking for me.
“What do you remember?”
This topic was at the forefront of my mind almost every minute of every day. “I remember waking in the woods, watching you fall off the cliff, and an abusive boyfriend.”
“No, I mean—what do you remember? You said your favorite book was Little House on the Prairie . You had three favorite flowers and a favorite drink. What else do you remember?”
“Oh.” I’d been so focused on my long-term memory: Who were my parents? My siblings? Where did I live or go to high school? Yet he wanted to know about me, not my past.
I thought for a minute. What did I remember?
“I like salted caramel candy, and—”
“Did you go to college?”
What was wrong with him tonight? The alcohol had turned his behavior sour. “I think so, but I can’t recall where or what for.”
“How many states are there?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Do you know?”
“Of course, everyone does. Fifty.”
“But you can’t remember anything from the night before we met?”
Pushing my plate aside, I stood. “We talked about this earlier. No, I cannot.”
He trailed from the kitchen to the deck, where a gentle and warm breeze carried wisps of my hair off my neck. If dandelion dust could truly be wished upon, I would wish for my lost memories to return. It would be my first wish from a genie, and my only wish upon a star. Why did he have to remind me that the one thing I wanted most—the return of my memories—was out of reach?
Levi must have sensed my change of demeanor because he said, “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t bother turning to face him.
“I didn’t mean to push you.”
The sun dipped toward the horizon, a daily delight I’d never tire of. I could watch the sunset from this cabin every day.
“Why are you drinking?” I asked.
“It’s Saturday. I needed a break.”
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
“Do you want to finish dinner?”
Dinner was a failure. “I’d rather listen to you play the guitar.” Every time I heard him play, something came to life in my head and my heart. It was like the music was a part of me.
“Okay.”
I couldn’t ignore the way he placed the bottle of whisky next to his chair upon returning with his guitar.
Though he didn’t sing aloud, I sensed there were words swirling in his mind, waiting to be unraveled. Someday, I would find them.
In between songs, Levi indulged in sips from the bottle. Soon, his once-clear eyes grew bloodshot and hazy. Dusk crept closer, and I no longer felt like crying. We should finish dinner before Levi lost his drink all over the deck.
My stomach rumbled. “Let’s eat.”
The food had cooled during our musical interlude, but our hunger overrode any desire to reheat it. We finished and stepped outside to admire the sun’s grand finale.
Levi held his guitar by the neck and said, “I’m sorry.”
“You already apologized.”
“I know, but—do you like me?”
I tore my gaze from the sunset. “You’re drunk.”
“I want to know.”
“You’re acting strange.”
He took another gulp of whiskey before I snatched the bottle away. “I wasn’t done,” he protested, slurring over his words.
“I think you are.”
“Do you like me?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking, and I won’t try to reason with a drunk man. Come on.” I clasped his hand, guiding him back into the house. I dropped his hand as soon as he stared at our intertwined fingers, as though this connection held significance. His behavior confused me, as did his reluctance to tell me where he’d been.
He fell onto the couch and reached for the remote.
“You should go to bed,” I said, pouring the rest of the brown liquid down the drain.
“Not tired. Wanna watch a movie with me?”
With a wistful glance at the vibrant horizon through the window, I threw the bottle into the trash and then settled beside him, curling my legs to my chest.
Halfway through the movie, he stood. “Be right back,” he said, then disappeared down the hallway.
When he didn’t return, I went searching.
I found him passed out in bed. The cabin gleamed spotless after my extensive cleaning efforts throughout the past week. I’d even lit candles throughout every room in an attempt to eliminate the musty odors. This particular room smelled like notes of walnut and vanilla.
“Goodnight,” I whispered, flicking off the light.
“Wait.” His voice was a whisper.
“What?” I whispered back.
“I want to know if you like me.”
I knew he was beyond inebriated and probably wouldn’t remember this conversation tomorrow. But still, what did he mean? Did I like him as a man? A housekeeper? Football coach? I had yet to have the opportunity to truly know him.
Instead of asking him to elaborate, I chose honesty. “You’re my only friend.”
His fingers found my face in the darkness and he cupped my cheek, then fell back onto the bed, sleep claiming him with gentle breaths.