Chapter 9

On Wednesday, while pondering my maybe-but-not-guaranteed date with Natalie, I decided to take my grandfather’s boat out to try to find the alligators and bald eagles I’d heard about the day before.

I made a quick inspection before untying the lines and starting the motor. There were no other boats in the vicinity, which was fortunate, because I would need to get used to the steering again. I had no desire to participate in a water-based demolition derby or accidentally run aground, so I gently eased the throttle, turning the wheel as I pulled away from the dock. To my surprise, the boat was a lot easier to maneuver than I remembered, which meant my grandfather must have done some work on it, and I was quickly able to get it headed in the proper direction like the highly skilled Naval Academy graduate that I was supposed to be.

As a kid, I always loved going out with my grandfather on the boat, but unlike most people, who preferred the wider Trent and Neuse Rivers, I always favored Brices Creek. Because the creek wound its way through the Croatan National Forest, it probably hadn’t changed since settlers first arrived in the area in the early 1700s. In a way, it felt like traveling back in time, and when my grandfather shut down the engine, we would hear nothing but birdcalls from the trees, while every now and then a fish would jump, making ripples on the otherwise black and silent water.

I settled into the ride, keeping to the middle of the creek. As ugly as it was, the ride itself was surprisingly stable. My grandfather had built the boat the way he had because Rose was afraid of the water. As an epileptic whose seizures grew in frequency and intensity as she’d aged, she’d never learned to swim, so he’d designed something impossible to capsize or sink, with rails to keep her from falling overboard. Even then, it usually took some convincing for Rose to accompany him, so my grandfather often went alone, at least until my mom was old enough to join him. When I began spending my summers with him, we spent almost every afternoon on the water.

Boating always seemed to put my grandfather in a contemplative mood. Sometimes, he would tell stories about his childhood, which was far more interesting than my own, or talk about bees or his work at the mill, or what my mom had been like as a child. Almost always, though, his thoughts would turn to Rose, melancholy settling over him like a familiar shawl. The older he got, the more he repeated himself, and by the time of my last visit, I’d heard all of his stories often enough to recite them by heart. But I would listen without interruption, watching as he lost himself in the memories, because I knew how much she’d meant to him.

I had to admit, their story was charming; it harkened to a place and time I knew only from black-and-white movies, a world replete with dirt roads and homemade bamboo fishing poles and neighbors who sat on their front porches to beat the heat, waving to passersby. After the war, my grandfather had first spotted Rose having a soda with her friends outside the drugstore, and he’d been so taken with her that he swore to his friends that he’d seen the woman he would one day marry. After that, he saw Rose everywhere, outside Christ Episcopal Church with her mother or strolling through the Piggly Wiggly, and she began to notice him as well. Later in the summer, at the county fair, there was a dance. Rose was there with her friends and though it took him most of the evening to work up the courage to cross the floor to ask her to dance, she told him that she’d been waiting all night for him to do just that.

They married less than six months later. They spent their honeymoon in Charleston before returning to New Bern to settle into their life together. He built the house, and both of them wanted a brood of children. However, perhaps because of Rose’s condition, one miscarriage followed another, five in total over an eight-year period. Just when they’d given up hope, my mother was conceived, and the pregnancy went the distance. They considered my mom a gift from God, and my grandfather swore that Rose had never been more beautiful than when he saw mother and daughter together, playing hopscotch or reading or even standing on the porch, shaking dirt from the rugs.

Years later, when my mom went off to college on a full scholarship, my grandfather told me that he and Rose enjoyed a second honeymoon, one that lasted until their very last day together. Every morning, he would head out early to pick Rose a bouquet of flowers; she would make breakfast, and the two of them would eat together on the back porch, while watching the mist rise slowly from the water. He would kiss her before heading off to work and again when he returned at the end of the day; they held hands as they took their evening walk, as though touch could somehow make up for the lost hours they’d spent apart.

My grandfather found her on the kitchen floor on a Saturday, after he’d spent an afternoon building additional hives. He took her lifeless body in his arms and held her. He cried for more than an hour before finally calling the authorities. He was so destroyed that for the first time ever, my mom took a monthlong leave of absence from her practice and came down to stay with him. He spent part of the following year carving her headstone himself, and up until our last phone call, I knew he continued to visit her grave every single week.

There was Rose and only Rose; he’d always sworn no one could ever replace her. There was no reason to doubt him and I never did. Toward the end, my grandfather was more than ninety years old, with arthritis and a dying truck; he led a simple life that included tending to honey bees and tinkering with the boat, all the while cherishing the memories of a wife that he could never forget.

I turned all these things over in my mind while my thoughts circled back to my conversation with Jim. I tried to reconcile Jim’s comments with the grandfather I’d known but simply couldn’t do it. Despite what I’d been told, I knew with sudden certainty that my grandfather had never, nor would have ever, gone to South Carolina to visit a woman named Helen.

I continued upstream, motoring from one curve to the next, eventually reaching the public boat ramp in the Croatan National Forest. Interesting tidbit about the forest: It’s one of the few places in the world where you can find Venus flytraps and other carnivorous plants growing in the wild. My grandfather used to bring me out to search for them. Somehow, despite constant poaching, they’re still relatively common.

The boat ramp was one of the reference points I’d overheard at the Trading Post. Supposedly, the eagles and alligators were a couple of curves farther upstream, but for all I knew, it might be zero or ten curves. The guy’s description had been a little vague, so I slowed the boat and scanned the trees on either side of the creek. The problem, I soon realized, was that I had no idea what I was supposed to look for.

Technology, however, is a wonderful thing. Pulling out my phone, I did a quick internet search and was able to find images of bald eagles’ nests. To my eye, they looked like regular birds’ nests, only much larger, which made me feel foolish for not assuming that in the first place. In the end, I finally spotted it high in the branches of a cypress tree, a feat made even simpler by the fact that mama or papa eagle was sitting in the nest, while the mate perched in the limbs of a nearby tree.

It wasn’t two bends in the river past the boat ramp, by the way, but four.

I stopped the boat and scanned the banks for the alligators but had less luck there. I did note a cleared and muddy spot with some telltale burrows, however. Having lived in Florida, I’d seen them before. Unfortunately, no alligators were around, but alligators were territorial, which meant it was likely that they’d return.

In the meantime, my gaze was drawn toward the bald eagles and I snapped some pics with my phone. With brown bodies and white heads, they looked just like the one on the Great Seal of the United States, my first sighting of them in the wild. It soon became rather boring, though. Aside from occasionally turning their heads, they didn’t move much, and after a while, they were no more exciting to watch than the trees. I wondered if there were eggs in the nest, but I soon noticed a pair of baby eaglets. Every now and then, one or both of the little ones would poke up their heads and I had the urge to tell someone about it. Reaching for my phone again, I typed out a quick message to Natalie.

Again, I found myself watching the phone to see if she’d read it; to my surprise, her response came quickly:

I smiled, thinking that things with Natalie were getting interesting. It wasn’t exactly my grandfather and Rose, but definitely interesting.

There was still no word from the ambulance companies, but I figured that I’d give them until Monday before I contacted them again. Despite that, the rest of my afternoon was productive, if you consider taking a long nap after a leisurely boat ride productive.

For dinner, I decided to eat at Morgan’s Tavern. Located downtown, it was my kind of place: wood floors, lots of rustic brick, high-beamed ceilings, and an extensive menu. It was bustling, so I ended up sitting at one of the tables in the bar, but the service was quick and the food was tasty. A good place to kill time until I called Natalie.

Not wanting to be too punctual, I dialed seven minutes after the hour. Perhaps not wanting to appear too eager, Natalie answered on the fourth ring. Oh, the silly games people play…

“Hey there,” I said. “How was work?”

“Fine, but I’m glad I’m on days for the next few weeks. It’s hard for me to sleep when the sun is shining. My body just doesn’t like it.”

“You should do a residency. Then you never have to sleep at all.”

She giggled. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll never guess where I went today,” I said.

“You called because you want me to guess?”

“No,” I said. “I went out on the creek today.”

“On your grandfather’s boat?”

“I prefer to think of it as a yacht.”

“Ah,” she said, amusement in her voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I was hunting for alligators.”

“Don’t tell me you found one.”

“I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I know where to find them. I was thinking we might try to find them on Saturday. We could take the boat out, maybe follow that up with dinner at my place. How does that sound?”

A second of silence on the line. Then: “Won’t it be crowded on the water this weekend?”

Your grandfather’s boat draws way too much interest from others, she didn’t have to add, and I’d prefer that no one else know I’m spending time with you.

“Not where we’d be going. We’ll be heading up the creek, probably in late afternoon. It’s usually pretty quiet. And afterward, we’d eat at my place. I can grill a mean steak.”

“I don’t eat red meat.”

Natalie, I was beginning to learn, seldom offered a simple yes or no, but I was growing used to it. “I can grill seafood if you’d prefer,” I suggested. “Seafood’s okay, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then how about coming by around four thirty? We’ll spend a couple of hours on the boat, head back, fire up the grill. Maybe open a bottle of wine. And I promise that even if we don’t find the alligators, you’ll see something pretty amazing.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise. What do you think?”

“Four thirty?”

“We could go earlier, but I wouldn’t go later or we’ll lose the daylight when we’re on the water.”

In the silence that followed, I tried and failed to imagine her as she was speaking. Where was she? In her kitchen? The family room? Her bedroom? Finally, I heard her voice again. “All right,” she said, still sounding hesitant. “I guess I should drive to your place?”

“If you’d rather, I could pick you up.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said.

Because you don’t want me to know where you live? “Great,” I said, ignoring that internal query. “A couple of questions…are you okay with tuna?”

“That’s fine.”

“And my odds that you show are better than fifty-fifty this time?”

“Ha ha,” she said. “I’ll be there at four thirty.”

Maybe I was just imagining it, but I think there was a little part of her that was flattered by my persistence. “Good night, Trevor.”

“Good night, Natalie.”

On Thursday, I heard from the first of the ambulance companies, who let me know that they hadn’t attended to or transported my grandfather.

On Friday, I heard from the second one and struck pay dirt. After a brief conversation, I was emailed a scanned copy of the report.

I read that my grandfather, Carl Haverson, had been picked up near mile marker 7 on Highway 123, and transported to Baptist Easley Hospital. Though light on details, the report showed that he was unconscious, with a thready pulse. Oxygen was administered en route, and he reached the hospital at 8:17 a.m.

It wasn’t much information and told me little that I didn’t already know, other than the pickup location. A quick search on the internet, including Google Earth, showed a stretch of highway near a dilapidated strip mall, which didn’t add any helpful information, primarily because I had no idea of what exactly had led to the call in the first place. He could have been walking to his truck or already driving or heading into a restaurant. I didn’t know who’d called the ambulance, or even what near mile marker 7 actually meant. Perhaps the only way to find the answers to any of these questions was to go there and check it out.

But noting the time of his arrival triggered an additional thought, one that I should have realized before. Easley was at least six hours away by car; in my grandfather’s truck, at his age, it might have taken him as long as nine hours to get there. Had he driven through the night? Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine that. He was, and always had been, an early riser. In my mind’s eye, I could visualize him getting into the truck early in the morning, after sleeping in a hotel or motel…

Where, then, had he stayed the night? Near Easley? Farther east?

Also, if he’d been found near the truck, I knew there was no way it would still be sitting alongside the highway, not after six months. So how was I going to find it?

I wrestled with the questions on and off the rest of the day, without answers. What I did finally come to accept, however, was that a road trip to Easley was in my very near future. To understand what had happened to my grandfather, I knew I had no choice but to go there.