They met the following day, and the day after that, and they soon becameinseparable. Every morning but Sunday when he had to go to church, he would finishhis chores as quickly as possible, then make a straight line to Fort Totten Park, whereshe'd be waiting for him. Because she was a newcomer and hadn't spent time in asmall town before, they spent their days doing things that were completely new toher.
He taught her how to bait a line and fish the shallows for largemouth bass and tookher exploring through the backwoods of the Croatan Forest. They rode in canoes andwatched summer thunderstorms, and to him it seemed as though they'd alwaysknown each other. But he learned things as well. At the town dance in the tobaccobarn, it was she who taught him how to waltz and do the Charleston, and thoughthey stumbled through the first few songs, her patience with him eventually paid off,and they danced together until the music ended. He walked her home afterward, andwhen they paused on the porch after saying good night, he kissed her for the firsttime and wondered why he had waited as long as he had. Later in the summer hebrought her to this house, looked past the decay, and told her that one day he wasgoing to own it and fix it up. They spent hours together talking about their dreams‐‐
his of seeing the world, hers of being an artist‐‐and on a humid night in August, theyboth lost their virginity.
When she left three weeks later, she took a piece of him and the rest of summer withher. He watched her leave town on an early rainy morning, watched through eyesthat hadn't slept the night before, then went home and packed a bag. He spent thenext week alone on Harkers Island. Noah ran his hands through his hair and checkedhis watch. Eight‐twelve. He got up and walked to the front of the house and lookedup the road. Gus wasn't in sight, and Noah figured he wouldn't be coming. He wentback to his rocker and sat again.
He remembered talking to Gus about her. The first time he mentioned her, Gusstarted to shake his head and laugh. "So that's the ghost you been running from."
When asked what he meant, Gus said, "You know, the ghost, the memory. I beenwatchin' you, workin' day and night, slavin' so hard you barely have time to catchyour breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin'
to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin' to forget. I just didn't know what.”
He thought about what Gus had said. Gus was right, of course. New Bern was hauntednow. Haunted by the ghost of her memory. He saw her in Fort Totten Park, theirplace, every time he walked by. Either sitting on the bench or standing by the gate,always smiling, blond hair softly touching her shoulders, her eyes the color ofemeralds. When he sat on the porch at night with his guitar, he saw her beside him,listening quietly as he played the music of his childhood.
He felt the same when he went to Gaston's Drug Store, or to the Masonic theater,oreven when he strolled downtown. Everywhere he looked, he saw her image, sawthings that brought her back to life.
It was odd, he knew that. He had grown up in New Bern. Spent his first seventeenyears here. But when he thought about New Bern, he seemed to remember only thelast summer, the summer they were together. Other memories were simplyfragments, pieces here and there of growing up, and few, if any, evoked any feeling.
He had told Gus about it one night, and not only had Gus understood, but he had beenthe first to explain why. He said simply, "My daddy used to tell me that the first timeyou fall in love, it changes your life forever, and no matter how hard you try,the feelin'
never goes away. This girl you been tellin' me about was your first love. And nomatter what you do, she'll stay with you forever.”
Noah shook his head, and when her image began to fade, he returned to Whitman.
He read for an hour, looking up every now and then to see raccoons and possumsscurrying near the creek. At nine‐thirty he closed the book, went upstairs to thebedroom, and wrote in his journal, including both personal observations and thework he'd accomplished on the house. Forty minutes later, he was sleeping. Clemwandered up the stairs, sniffed him as he slept, and then paced in circles before finallycurling up at the foot of his bed.
Earlier that evening and a hundred miles away, she sat alone on the porch swing ofher parents' home, one leg crossed beneath her. The seat had been slightly damp
when she sat down; rain had fallen earlier, hard and stinging, but the clouds werefading now and she looked past them, toward the stars, wondering if she'd made theright decision. She'd struggled with it for days‐‐and had struggled some more thisevening‐‐but in the end, she knew she would never forgive herself if she let theopportunity slip away.
Lon didn't know the real reason she left the following morning. The week before,she'd hinted to him that she might want to visit some antique shops near the coast.
"It's just a couple of days," she said, "and besides, I need a break from planning thewedding." She felt bad about the lie but knew there was no way she could tell himthe truth. Her leaving had nothing to do with him, and it wouldn't be fair of her toask him to understand.
It was an easy drive from Raleigh, slightly more than two hours, and she arrived alittle before eleven. She checked into a small inn downtown, went to her room, andunpacked her suitcase, hanging her dresses in the closet and putting everything elsein the drawers.
She had a quick lunch, asked the waitress for directions to the nearest antique stores,then spent the next few hours shopping. By four‐thirty she was back in her room. Shesat on the edge of the bed, picked up the phone, and called Lon. He couldn't speaklong, he was due in court, but before they hung up she gave him the phone numberwhere she was staying and promised to call the following day. Good, she thoughtwhile hanging up the phone. Routine conversation, nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing to make him suspicious.
She'd known him almost four years now; it was 1942 when they met, the world at warand America one year in. Everyone was doing their part, and she was volunteering atthe hospital downtown. She was both needed and appreciated there, but it was moredifficult than she'd expected. The first waves of wounded young soldiers werecoming home, and she spent her days with broken men and shattered bodies. WhenLon, with all his easy charm, introduced himself at a Christmas party, she saw in himexactly what she needed: someone with confidence about the future and a sense ofhumor that drove all her fears away.
He was handsome, intelligent, and driven, a successful lawyer eight years older thanshe, and he pursued his job with passion, not only win‐began to shave her legs. As she
did, she thought about her parents and what they would think of her behavior. Nodoubt they would disapprove, especially her mother.
Her mother had never really accepted what had happened the summer they'd spenthere and wouldn't accept it now, no matter what reason she gave.
She soaked a while longer in the tub before finally getting out and toweling off.
She went to the closet and looked for a dress, finally choosing a long yellow onethat dipped slightly in the front, the kind of dress that was common in theSouth. She slipped it on and looked in the mirror, turning from side to side. It fither well and made her look feminine, but she eventually decided against it andput it back on the hanger.
Instead she found a more casual, less revealing dress and put that on. Light blue witha touch of lace, it buttoned up the front, and though it didn't look quite as nice as thefirst one, it conveyed an image she thought would be more appropriate. She worelittle makeup, just a touch of eye shadow and mascara to accent her eyes. Perfumenext, not too much. She found a pair of small‐hoped earrings, put those on, thenslipped on the tan, low‐heeled sandals she had been wearing earlier. She brushed herblond hair, pinned it up, and looked in the mirror. No, it was too much, she thought,and she let it back down. Better.
When she was finished she stepped back and evaluated herself. She looked good: nottoo dressy, not too casual. She didn't want to overdo it. After all, she didn't knowwhat to expect. It had been a long time‐‐probably too long‐‐and many different thingscould have happened, even things she didn't want to consider. She looked down andsaw her hands were shaking, and she laughed to herself. It was strange; she wasn'tnormally this nervous. Like Lon, she had always been confident, even as a child. Sheremembered that it had been a problem at times, especially when she dated, becauseit had intimidated most of the boys her age. She found her pocketbook and car keys,then picked up the room key. She turned it over in her hand a couple of times,thinking, You've come this far, don't give up now, and almost left then, but insteadsat on the bed again. She checked her watch.
Almost six o'clock. She knew she had to leave in a few minutes‐‐she didn't want toarrive after dark, but she needed a little more time.
"Damn," she whispered, "what am I doing here? I shouldn't be here. There's no reasonfor it," but once she said it she knew it wasn't true. There was something here.
If nothing else, she would have her answer. She opened her pocketbook and thumbedthrough it until she came to a folded‐up piece of newspaper. After taking it outslowly, almost reverently, being careful not to rip it, she unfolded it and stared at itfor a while. "This is why," she finally said to herself, "this is what it's all about."
Noah got up at five and kayaked for an hour up Brices Creek, as he usually did. Whenhe finished, he changed into his work clothes, warmed some biscuits from the daybefore, grabbed a couple of apples, and washed his breakfast down with two cups ofcoffee.
He worked on the fencing again, repairing most of the posts that needed it. It wasIndian summer, the temperature over eighty degrees, and by lunchtime he was hotand tired and glad for the break. He ate at the creek because the mullets werejumping.
He liked to watch them jump three or four times and glide through the air beforevanishing into the brackish water. For some reason he had always been pleased bythe fact that their instinct hadn't changed for thousands, maybe tens of thousands,of years.
Sometimes he wondered if man's instincts had changed in that time and alwaysconcluded that they hadn't. At least in the basic, most primal ways. As far as he couldtell, man had always been aggressive, always striving to dominate, trying to controlthe world and everything in it. The war in Europe and Japan proved that. He quitworking a little after three and walked to a small shed that sat near his dock. He wentin, found his fishing pole, a couple of lures, and some live crickets he kept on hand,then walked out to the dock, baited his hook,and cast his line. Fishing always madehim reflect on his life, and he did it now. After his mother died, he could rememberspending his days in a dozen different homes, and for one reason or another, hestuttered badly as a child and was teased for it. He began to speak less and less, andby the age of five, he wouldn't speak at all. When he started classes, his teachersthought he was retarded and recommended that he be pulled out of school.
Instead, his father took matters into his own hands. He kept him in school andafterward made him come to the lumberyard, where he worked, to haul and stackwood. "It's good that we spend some time together," he would say as they workedside by side, "just like my daddy and I did."
During their time talk about birds and together, his father would animals or tellstories and legends common to North Carolina. Within a few months Noah wasspeaking again, though not well, and his father decided to teach him to read with
books of poetry. "Learn to read this aloud and you'll be able to say anything you wantto." His father had been right again, and by the following year, Noah had lost hisstutter. But he continued to go to the lumberyard every day simply because his fatherwas there, and in the evenings he would read the works of Whitman and Tennysonaloud as his father rocked beside him. He had been reading poetry ever since.
When he got a little older, he spent most of his weekends and vacations alone. Heexplored the Croatan Forest in his first canoe, following Brices Creek for twentymiles until he could go no farther, then hiked the remaining miles to the coast.
