Read Online All Rivers Flow to the Sea by Alison McGhee - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alison McGhee
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whispers her name, and I close my eyes and listen to him: “Ivy, Ivy, Ivy.”
Ivy, when your head hit the steering wheel, did you know that I was next to you? I saw your face just before the light blue truck finished its slide — its slide that looked so gentle — and met our car. You looked blank.
Joe Miller turns away from the bed and walks to the door. Tom starts up from the floor where he sits, but Joe flicks his hand and Tom sinks back down.
“She would have hated this,” Joe says to me. “She would’ve fucking hated this.”
He pushes at the door and it stays motionless. He jerks at the handle and it swings in at him. He shoves out the door. He’s gone. Tom turns to me and William T., shrugs:
I’m sorry.
Then he, too, is gone, gone after his cousin, gone to take him home.
The still water of Hinckley Reservoir covers what used to be: an entire town, the structure and framework of a thousand people’s lives.
Does water have a memory? Does water remember where it came from, what it used to be? Does a drop of rain that falls in the middle of the opening bud remember that it used to be a frozen crystal under someone’s gliding skate?
“I can’t lose my girl,” my mother said to the doctors. She stood in the hall of the hospital, surrounded by them — the nurses, the doctors, the white coats and the blue scrubs, and the light flashing off eyeglasses and pens. Hands held at their sides, hands clutching papers or instruments, hands jammed in pockets.
My mother put her hands over her ears.
“I can’t lose my girl.”
She closed her eyes.
“I can’t lose my girl. Can’t lose my girl. Can’t lose my girl.”
Words rose around my mother, whose eyes were closed and whose hands were over her ears. What were the words? I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.
Let her go
is what they were saying.
They didn’t use those words. They never would. They take a vow called the Hippocratic oath. It must go against everything in their training, to think of letting someone just . . . die. Just stop.
Stop breathing. Stop beating. Stop being.
Let her go.
I can’t lose my daughter.
Let her go.
I can’t lose my daughter.
I stood against the wall down the hall and watched. It went on for some time. The circle of men and women stood around my mother. The gentle wash of their voices continued. My mother was the lone center, her eyes closed and her hands over her ears, her face squinched shut, turning and turning and turning in a circle.
Ivy, are you somewhere else now? Does your spirit hover over that patch of road?
My sister and I had an accident. It was dusk in the Adirondacks that night. A boy who had just gotten his license came slipping and sliding down the mountains not knowing that he should be going slower, that it was a long curve, that it was icy here and there, and his light blue pickup truck didn’t stop when he put on his brakes, and it slid into our car that Ivy was driving.
It happened so gently. I was with Ivy, sitting beside her. And I was looking through the windshield, at the diamond-light sky, and I saw the truck coming and I knew that it wouldn’t be able to stop. It was going to happen. The truck would slide, and it would be soundless, and it would turn sideways toward us, and then it would turn again so that its front would be pointed directly at the car. It’s happening again —
On the way home from Ivy’s room, William T. stops at the Utica A&P. He wants to buy his girlfriend, Crystal, some green olives stuffed with garlic, which Crystal likes and which they don’t sell at Jewell’s Grocery. William T. loves to make Crystal happy.
“Garlic-stuffed olives for Crystal!” he says through the window to me. He holds up his right hand and blinks his fingers three times. “Fifteen minutes. Sit tight, Younger. Fifteen minutes.”
In the truck I sit, waiting for him. An old lady comes out of the A&P carrying a brown paper bag of groceries. She’s an old lady, old old. Her days
Ivy, when your head hit the steering wheel, did you know that I was next to you? I saw your face just before the light blue truck finished its slide — its slide that looked so gentle — and met our car. You looked blank.
Joe Miller turns away from the bed and walks to the door. Tom starts up from the floor where he sits, but Joe flicks his hand and Tom sinks back down.
“She would have hated this,” Joe says to me. “She would’ve fucking hated this.”
He pushes at the door and it stays motionless. He jerks at the handle and it swings in at him. He shoves out the door. He’s gone. Tom turns to me and William T., shrugs:
I’m sorry.
Then he, too, is gone, gone after his cousin, gone to take him home.
The still water of Hinckley Reservoir covers what used to be: an entire town, the structure and framework of a thousand people’s lives.
Does water have a memory? Does water remember where it came from, what it used to be? Does a drop of rain that falls in the middle of the opening bud remember that it used to be a frozen crystal under someone’s gliding skate?
“I can’t lose my girl,” my mother said to the doctors. She stood in the hall of the hospital, surrounded by them — the nurses, the doctors, the white coats and the blue scrubs, and the light flashing off eyeglasses and pens. Hands held at their sides, hands clutching papers or instruments, hands jammed in pockets.
My mother put her hands over her ears.
“I can’t lose my girl.”
She closed her eyes.
“I can’t lose my girl. Can’t lose my girl. Can’t lose my girl.”
Words rose around my mother, whose eyes were closed and whose hands were over her ears. What were the words? I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.
Let her go
is what they were saying.
They didn’t use those words. They never would. They take a vow called the Hippocratic oath. It must go against everything in their training, to think of letting someone just . . . die. Just stop.
Stop breathing. Stop beating. Stop being.
Let her go.
I can’t lose my daughter.
Let her go.
I can’t lose my daughter.
I stood against the wall down the hall and watched. It went on for some time. The circle of men and women stood around my mother. The gentle wash of their voices continued. My mother was the lone center, her eyes closed and her hands over her ears, her face squinched shut, turning and turning and turning in a circle.
Ivy, are you somewhere else now? Does your spirit hover over that patch of road?
My sister and I had an accident. It was dusk in the Adirondacks that night. A boy who had just gotten his license came slipping and sliding down the mountains not knowing that he should be going slower, that it was a long curve, that it was icy here and there, and his light blue pickup truck didn’t stop when he put on his brakes, and it slid into our car that Ivy was driving.
It happened so gently. I was with Ivy, sitting beside her. And I was looking through the windshield, at the diamond-light sky, and I saw the truck coming and I knew that it wouldn’t be able to stop. It was going to happen. The truck would slide, and it would be soundless, and it would turn sideways toward us, and then it would turn again so that its front would be pointed directly at the car. It’s happening again —
On the way home from Ivy’s room, William T. stops at the Utica A&P. He wants to buy his girlfriend, Crystal, some green olives stuffed with garlic, which Crystal likes and which they don’t sell at Jewell’s Grocery. William T. loves to make Crystal happy.
“Garlic-stuffed olives for Crystal!” he says through the window to me. He holds up his right hand and blinks his fingers three times. “Fifteen minutes. Sit tight, Younger. Fifteen minutes.”
In the truck I sit, waiting for him. An old lady comes out of the A&P carrying a brown paper bag of groceries. She’s an old lady, old old. Her days
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