Free Where Mercy Flows by Karen Harter Page B

by the river.
    “How do things turn out the way they do, Sam?” Donnie leaned against his door with his feet on the dash, while I sat cross-legged,
     ravenously attacking the bag of chips. “You’re the one who said you’d always live within earshot of this river. You said you’d
     build a cabin on the other side and live off the land and never get a real job. Remember that? And I said I’d hit the road
     the day I turned eighteen and never look back.”
    I bit off all three corners of my tortilla chip methodically before popping the rest of it in my mouth. Was I supposed to
     have an answer to that question? Was life actually supposed to make some kind of sense? It was not like I left the valley
     on purpose; I was more or less shot out of my father’s cannon and landed in Reno with powder burns that still hadn’t healed.
    “And what about you and me?” he continued. “Why didn’t we ever date or anything?”
    I looked at him like he was nuts. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall you never asked me out.”
    He laughed. “I kissed you once. What do ya want?”
    “A little warning would have been nice, for starters. You scared the snot out of me. You never acted like that before.”
    “You never looked like that before. At least it was the first time I really noticed. After that I figured I’d keep my distance
     until you were mature enough to handle a real man.” His chest swelled and his voice deepened at the end of his sentence. “Guess
     I should have checked in a little sooner. Tim slid in there ahead of me. So, whatever happened between you two?”
    “We’re still married.”
    “Oh. I didn’t know. You’re not wearing a ring or anything.”
    “Well, after I didn’t see or hear from him for a few years, I just took it off.”
    “That jerk! He walked out on you? Takes you away from your family and friends to some godforsaken desert and then dumps you
     there? Sam. I wish I had known. I would have come and kicked his butt up around his ears. I wish you had kept in touch.” He
     twisted the cap off a beer and passed it to me.
    I took a long swig and let my head fall back on the seat. “It wasn’t like that exactly.” It wasn’t fair to let the blame fall
     on Tim. Tim loved me. I never doubted that one minute of one day. Not even when we were fighting. I was such a shrew that
     summer of my third trimester, my belly protruding halfway to Texas, ankles swollen from the heat, still trying to earn my
     keep on the ranch. The pregnancy was a terrible inconvenience, totally unplanned, but after what happened the first time—well,
     I couldn’t consider that alternative again. So I suffered through it, along with Tim. He rubbed my back at night while we
     lay on our sides naked, an electric fan propped in the open window stirring the air like in a convection oven. He told me
     if it was a girl we’d get her a pony as soon as she was big enough to ride. But I knew what he really wanted was a boy. “My
     son’s gonna know how to rebuild his own truck, from headlight to tailpipe,” he would say. “I’m going to teach him to spit
     and scratch and pee his name in the dirt.”
    Donnie was respectfully silent. Finally, I raised my head. “Tim was not the bad guy. It was me.”
    “You left him?”
    “No. The last time I saw Tim was in the hospital after TJ was born. He was there the whole time I was in labor. He made me
     focus and do all those breathing techniques we learned; he brought me ice and put cold washcloths on my forehead. He held
     my hand while I was pushing and I thought I was going to die, but he just stayed calm. He was a very patient person.” Suddenly,
     I felt embarrassed. I hadn’t talked about this to anyone. Why was I spilling my guts to a guy I hadn’t seen in seven years?
     “I think I’ve had too much to drink,” I said.
    Donnie shook his head. “No, you haven’t. Talk to me. I’m listening.”
    I took another swallow. “Well, I finally just reared up