Waters Fall
Authors: Becky Doughty
BECKY DOUGHTY
WATERS FALL
Copyright 2014 Becky Doughty
Cover Design by Bryan Stifle
www.BryanStifle.com
Published by
BraveHearts Press
ISBN 13: 978-0-9845848-7-1
ISBN 10: 0-9845848-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles.
The persons and events portrayed in this work of Fiction are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)
Scripture taken from
The Message.
Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
N
ora’s bones ached in the frigid water, and her
lungs
thrummed in desperation for oxygen, but she resisted the urge to push to the surface. She tipped her head back and gazed up at the warped glow above her, the sunlight flaunting its promise of warmth. The water roared as it flung itself over the stacked boulders of the falls and into the pool where she was submerged; the cacophony surrounded her, shutting out all sounds from above. The kids would be calling for her by now, and if she stayed under much longer, Jake would come after her. She’d long ago breathed out the last of her air so she could sink to the rocky bed of the pool. Her long dark hair drifted up around her head, reminding her of mermaid stories, and her arms floated out to her sides of their own volition. If she could just keep from kicking her legs, she might be able to stay there…longer.
It had started out as a game
to see who could hold their breath the longest, and Nora knew she’d win, hands down, even against Jake. A choir girl—first school, then church—her lung capacity was in tip-top condition because she worked to keep it that way. On the third round, though, something tripped inside her head, like a live wire sending a string of sparks skittering across her thoughts, and she was suddenly and acutely aware of the thrill of this watery cocoon, of being out of breath, of the cold, and of the churning chaos just a few feet away from where she waited in a strange state of suspended animation.
They
’d stumbled across the huge pool with its waterfall a few years ago while on their annual family camping trip to Kennedy Meadows in the Sierras. It was a bit of a hike up from their actual campsite, and some distance down a tributary of the main river, but they made the trek almost daily during their week-long stay.
They called it Anderson Hollow, and there was never anyone around to challenge their claim to it.
The falls made it less than ideal for the hardcore fishing fanatics, and the hike made it less than ideal for waders and sunbathers.
The banks along the west side of the stream were cut away where the water ran swift and deep, but on the east side it was sandy and wide, and they picnicked in the shade or napped in the sun after swimming in the chilled mountain water. The kids collected pretty stones, quartz crystals, and shiny bits of pyrite they were certain was gold.
“The California Gold Rush did happen in California, Mom,” Felix reminded her with wide, hopeful eyes. Leslie gathered wildflowers and seedpods to make peace offerings to the local water sprites, and they both learned to weave tall reeds together to form little rafts for boat races.
“This way, if we lose one down the stream, we’re not littering.” Leslie had participated in an Earth Day Campaign at her school and won a contest for her artwork depicting children putting flowers in the tailpipes of black cloud emitting vehicles. For a while, she’d driven everyone crazy with her activist behavior, but her fervor waned over time to “healthy awareness,” much to the relief of her family and friends.
Today was the first time Nora had ever intentionally opened her eyes under the water here without her goggles on. The torrent from the falls kept the pool stirred up and cloudy, and she’d always been afraid of debris blinding her.
But the swirling specks of silt and sand, glittering and pale, added to the otherworld sensation that held her in its grip. What would happen if she just opened her mouth and drew the fairy dust water into her lungs?
Suddenly the very thought of breathing had her clamoring for the surface, bursting up out of the water with a great gulp that left her coughing and gasping. She looked up to find she’d drifted to the far side of the waterhole where there was no easy place to climb out. Across from her, Leslie scrambled from the top of the large boulder where she’d obviously been perched to try to locate Nora. Felix, tears of panic streaming down his face, stood ankle deep at the edge of the pool, helpless in his youth. Jake, treading water out where she’d first gone under, couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether to come to her aid or go back to comfort the kids.
Nora waved him
off, and he grimaced at her before making his way to Felix. She read both fear and condemnation in his eyes, but she was too busy trying to catch her breath to respond. She was trembling a little, and her side felt like it wanted to cramp; she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the depletion of oxygen. She’d have some explaining to do, and she sighed in frustration, knowing nothing she could say would make sense to them. At least not to Jake.
The kids would probably accept that she
’d been swept under by the rushing water, even if they didn’t like it, because they’d never ventured too close to the falls for fear of just that.
Jake, however, wasn
’t going to be so easy to appease. He stood with his arm around Felix, his other hand up to shield his eyes from the glint of the sun off the water as he watched her, waiting for her to come back to them.
Lashing out at her husband never made for a good
start to a family outing. Nora knew that from experience. But the bags were not packed. They were not sitting in the driveway waiting to be loaded into the back of Jake’s truck.
The morning was nearly over, and they still had a six hour drive ahead of them to their favorite campsite, Kennedy Meadows, on the South Fork of the Kern River. Fortunately, it would be light until almost eight o
’clock tonight, so if they got on the road by noon, they’d still be able to set up camp in daylight. They might even have time to take a dip in the river before the sun set behind the peaks, making it too chilly to enjoy the water.
Jake sauntered into the kitchen from the garage, his arm around Felix, regaling the boy with fishing stories from his own childhood. Nora stood at the kitchen sink, washing the last of the breakfast dishes, trying to force her mounting frustration down the drain with the dirty water. As they passed behind her, Jake reached over and ran a hand along the curve of her waist, his fingers drifting across her low back, and she clenched her jaw to keep from flinching.
She did not want him touching her right now.
She usually loved camping with the family, but it was getting increasingly more difficult to take time away from her business. She had calls to make, orders to place, shipments to process, two new clients to book, and a miscellaneous to-do list a mile long.
And Jake had waited until the last minute to pack him and the kids up.
“It’s only four days, Nor.” So he
had
noticed her less-than-warm response. But then, what did he expect? She’d asked him every day this week how the packing was going, and his noncommittal answers didn’t bode well with her. And she’d been right to ask—he’d done nothing but stock the tackle boxes and junk food supply.
“We can wear the same clothes the whole time. Just toss some clean underwear in a grocery bag, and we’re good to go, right guys?”
He and Felix high-fived across the counter behind Nora.
Leslie sat at the table sorting her change, her long brown hair, so like her mother
’s, pulled back into a ponytail. There was a quaint little general store near the campground, and the kids collected coins for weeks in anticipation of the homemade goodies at the snack bar. At her father’s words, she stopped counting, and rolled her eyes.
“That’s so gross, Dad.” Looking to Nora, who was now filling the old red and white cooler with perishable food items she’d frozen overnight, she said, “You don’t have to worry about me, Mom. I’m packed.
Clothes, toothbrush, deodorant, my hairbrush. And my sketchbook and pencils, of course.”
“Of course.
Thank you, Les.” Nora, too, wanted to roll her eyes over Jake’s incompetence, but she refrained. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.” Leslie, still young enough to be excited about camping, was also old enough to be aware that there was more to it than just showing up for the fun.
“Will you make a list of everything you’ve packed and give a copy to each of the boys? Then when they’re finished packing their bags, please do an inspection to make sure they haven’t forgotten anything.”
“I don’t want her touching my underwear,” Felix quipped, a nine-year-old boy with bouts of teenage attitude. “That’s just wrong.”
“I don’t
want
to touch your underwear, freak.”
“I’ll count your underwear, Felix,” Jake laughed, ruffling the boy’s hair.
“No, you won’t. You’ll be too busy counting your own.” Nora eyed her capricious husband over the kids’ heads, making sure he understood that he’d been categorized with Felix in his ineptitude. Jake had the decency to mouth an apology before reaching over to smack her backside as he left the kitchen.
The three of them headed down the hall toward the bedrooms while Nora finished up alone, a reluctant smile softening the edges of her discontent.
~ ~ ~
“I
t's too much for me to handle on my own,” she
murmured, responding to his sideways glances across the silence between them; the unspoken questions in his eyes.
“You could have just asked for
a pair of floaties, you know.” He grinned and nudged her shoulder with his own. “They probably sell them down at the General Store.”
She frowned at his effort to make light of things
. She wanted him to listen, to really hear what she was trying to say. The way she’d felt today had scared her, too, and she needed to talk about it without him turning it into a joke so they could brush it under the carpet along with all their other unaddressed issues.
“I need your help, Jake.”
She dragged in a slow breath, then continued, not looking at him. “I need you to contribute more. It doesn't have to be equal amounts. I don’t care about the 'his money, her money' thing, so please don’t make this about that, but I’m sinking here.” She tried to pick up a piece of curled gray ash that had landed on the cuff of her flannel shirt. The delicate flake disintegrated between her thumb and finger, leaving behind only smudged traces of itself. “I need your help,” she repeated, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The kids were tucked into their sleeping bags in the tent, and she and Jake sat close to each other on a blanket by the campfire, a second one wrapped around their shoulders. This was usually her favorite part about camping; the two of them alone by the fire at the end of the day. Away from the cares and concerns of reality, they talked late into the night, snuggling closer and closer under a starry sky in the middle of nowhere.
Usually, there was nothing more romantic.
Jake, wide awake even after a long day of hiking, fishing, and swimming, looked over at her.
“Sorry if I seem a little confused, or surprised, but I thought we were doing okay, that things were going well.”
“Going well?
For whom?”
“For the family.
For you and me. I mean, we’re just doing better all around. We both have jobs we love, and the money’s good.” He pulled her close to his side, his arm around her waist. “I know it’s not perfect, but we’re making it work, right?”
She leaned away a little and turned to look at him, taking in his handsome features made rugged by the firelight and the wilderness around them. She wanted to reach over and run a caressing finger down the crooked line of his nose, but his insensitive response to her needs wouldn
’t let her. “Really, Jake? Making it work? I’m the one
doing
all the work,
making
all the money,
paying
all the bills. You’re living the life of a...of a kept man. Of course it’s working for you.”
Even in the flickering glow cast by the flames, she could see the tightening of his mouth; the lines between his brows deepen.
“A kept man? Wow.” He stared into the fire as though pondering some disturbing revelation. “You know, I was under the impression that I was doing some work, too. Maybe I’m not making tons of cash, but I’m certainly not sitting around in my smoking jacket and bedroom slippers all day.”
His feelings were hurt, and she squeezed his thigh where her hand rested.
“I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.” Why did the words with the sharpest barbs always slip out at the worst time? “Try to see things from my angle, okay? This isn't the way we planned it. I was going to work some extra hours, take on a few more clients for a while, just until your business was up and running. Remember?”
He didn't say anything, so she continued.
“It's been almost two years since you got your license, and I'm still working ‘extra hours.’” She made quotation marks with her fingers to emphasize the words. “But your business hasn't...” She shrugged her shoulders, letting her sentence go unfinished. Her voice dropped. “When, Jake? When are you going to get this thing off the ground? I need to know.”
He continued to stare into the fire, not saying a word. The silence between them filled with the sounds of the wilderness at night; scrabbling little claws in the scrub brush around the perimeter of their site, the rustle in the trees above as life hurried by in the shadows. There was the
whup-whup-whup of a set of large wings; perhaps an owl, or even a bat, she didn’t know.
Finally she stood up, leaving the warmth of the blanket still draped around his shoulders.
“I need a little hope, Jake. I need to know what you’re thinking, what you’re planning for our future. I don’t even need specific answers right now, but I do need to know what the plan is, if it’s changed. I can’t keep going at this pace.”
When he still didn
’t speak, she sighed heavily. “I’m tired. We’ve got a full day tomorrow; I think I’ll turn in. You take care of the fire, okay?”
“I thought you liked your job.” He blurted out the words without looking up at her. “You're so good at what you do. And how can you argue being paid so well for doing something you like doing?”
“Like my job? I
love
my job, Jake. And it’s not about the money.” With her booted toe, she nudged one of the blackened logs jutting from the fire’s stone ring, making sparks shoot up into the sky. A balloon cloud of smoke gusted up toward her face, making her eyes burn. “I love my clients. I love helping people get their homes in order.” She wrapped her arms around her chilled body, hunching her shoulders up to her ears.
“But I love being a mom even more,” she said, her words throbbing with longing as she continued. “And I miss it. I love being a wife, and I miss that, too. I love being a friend, but I feel guilty for spending any more time away from home than I already do, so I don't have many of those left, either. I’m too busy for any of it.” She looked sideways at him, holding her hands out to the fire. Even in May, the nights were cold in the Sierras once the sun went down.
“Don’t say that, Nor. You're a great mom, and a great wife. We couldn't ask for any better.” He rose and came to stand behind her, wrapping the blanket around them both. She didn’t pull away from the heat his body offered. “I wouldn't mind if you spent an evening or two out with your friends. I know I’ll still be the one you come home to at the end of the day.” He bent and planted a kiss in the curve of her neck, nuzzling her ear in a way that made her shiver with pleasure. “Come back to the blanket, baby. I’ll help you warm up.”
They lay on their backs, close together beneath their cover, gazing up at the brilliant stars twinkling in the canopy above their heads. She tried to relax, to simply enjoy their time away from the busyness of life.
She tried. But she couldn’t. He just didn't get it.
Finally, she sat up again and looked down at him. Her voice was quiet, but firm.
“You've got to get yourself some work, Jake. Call your brother; he’s always hiring. Drive a forklift. Get an office job. I don't care. Just do something, so I feel like we're still a team.”
“Can I ask you something?” He stared off over her left shoulder, and it bothered her that he didn’t look her in the eye.
She nodded.
“How would you feel if the tables were turned? What if you were, as you put it, a
kept
woman, and I was the primary bread winner?”
She'd asked herself this same question many times. It was one of the reasons she'd let things go on so long. But she
’d worked their whole marriage. Even after leaving her receptionist job when Leslie was born, she’d turned her stay-at-home status into a work-from-home career, successfully launching SoNora Décor with a baby on her hip. She’d always contributed financially. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to.
Besides, the question didn't seem fair in these circumstances, and she responded with a flippant rebuttal.
“I wouldn't know. Unlike you, I've never had the chance to find out, have I?”
“Ah. Is that what this is about? You want your turn to stay home in your robe and slippers?” He propped his elbows up underneath him. Now he did meet her gaze, and his was slightly hostile.
Even with her thigh still pressed against his, she felt the chasm of unaddressed frustration widening between them. What kind of man asked his wife a question like that? She brought her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, her voice tight. “You’ve always said the man should be the provider. I’m happy to contribute to our finances, but that’s not what I’m doing anymore. I’m providing, Jake. And I’m doing so with very little help from you.”
“That’s not true
,” he declared. He was sitting up now, absently snapping a twig into tiny pieces and flicking each one into the fire. “We wouldn’t be where we are today if I wasn’t providing in one way or another. It may not be financially right now, but I still provide my services. The house is clean, dinner is cooked, dishes are washed, the kids are happy. And I certainly don’t hear any complaints in the bedroom. If I'm a kept man, then I'm doing a pretty good job earning my keep.”
Nora sighed. She didn't want to play tit-for-tat. She
pushed up to her feet and put distance between them again, standing so she could hold her hands out over the fire and still look at him; making certain he could see her face.