Read After River for Free Online Page A

set his guitar case down, shrugged the canvas bag from his shoulder, then held his hand out. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ he said, the ‘a’ in ma’am stretching out with a hint of a drawl.
    â€˜Nettie,’ Mom smiled back and took his hand. ‘You can call me Nettie.’
    â€˜Nettie,’ he repeated. Her name slipped from his lips and into the air between us. It came as so much more than a word. It came soft and warm, a musical note.
    â€˜And you must be Richard Jordan,’ Mom said, her hand still resting in his.
    â€˜River,’ he said. ‘My friends call me River.’
    Listening to his voice I knew. I knew right then why my mother had hired him sight unseen. His voice was his recommendation. His voice was hypnotic, mesmerizing, as soothing as a familiar melody.
    â€˜River,’ Mom repeated. ‘I’m happy to meet you.’ She let go of his hand then turned to me, ‘And this is my daughter, Nat.’
    â€˜Natalie,’ I corrected her. I wanted to hear him say my whole name. I wanted it to last as long as it could. I wanted to hear it slide from his tongue, onto his lips, and caress my ear the way my mother’s name had. I wanted to take it in and keep it in my memory.
    He held out his hand to me. ‘Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Natalie,’ he said.
    And my name fell flat into the still air, thudded, and was gone. No magic, no music, just vowels and consonants. Three flat syllables. Nothing more.
    He captured my hand in a firm grasp, where it went limp from the heat of this stranger’s skin. I stood there frozen, tongue-tied, suddenly feeling conscious of my childish ponytail, my jeans and loose T-shirt, and my tomboyish looks, of which up until that moment I had been proud. I jerked my hand away and held it behind my back.
    My mother hurried to fill the silence. ‘Well, now,’ she said. ‘Well, River, come with me and I’ll show you your room above the dairy. You can get settled, put your things away, then come back to the house for something to eat.’ Mom’s sure-fire solution to everything; fill their bellies and get to know them while they’re off-guard.
    River picked up his bags and together they headed to the dairy. Buddy followed at their heels, his tail wagging. As they passed the rose arbour I heard River say, ‘That’s a beautiful garden you have there, ma’am.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    â€˜Did you know that Jacqueline Kennedy had a rose garden when she was in the White House?’
    â€˜I’ll bet she never had to prune it,’ my mother replied with a laugh.
    Pruning that garden was always an ordeal for Mom. Once a week, from spring to fall, she put on Dad’s oilskin mackinaw, leather gloves, and rubber boots. Then she attacked those rose bushes with the vengeance of a warrior. Still, the angry thorns found their way through her armour, leaving tiny tell-tale streaks of blood on her delicate skin.
    I often wondered what it was she thought about while she hackedaway, muttering under her breath, and arguing with the bushes as if she expected them to talk back.
    â€˜Roses, Natalie,’ she once stated after emerging from another losing battle, ‘are highly overrated flowers.’
    That afternoon I watched as my mother and the stranger strolled past the rose garden. An unexpected breeze carried the fragrance of the blossoms through the heat-thickened air. I stood by the gate feeling forgotten, excluded, shut out of whatever it was that made my mother laugh.
    As they made their way across the farmyard, it struck me that something about these two together looked familiar. And then I realized that, from behind, River resembled Boyer. The hair colour, the carriage, seemed similar to my brother’s. Boyer in hippie clothes. The thought made me smile.
    Walking along beside River, Mom looked like a young girl, her hips swaying with a lilt I had never noticed