Word Count Day 4

12,058/50,000

Chapter 4 (continued some more)

Sedgewick hung up. It was her. And he knew what was wrong, what made her voice crack and stammer, though he hoped against hope that he was totally, completely, utterly wrong.

He crossed the parking lot, slow but sure. At the edge of the bank he looked down to the boulder and the black and green and flesh ball perched on top. Her head was again buried. Sedgewick picked his way down the slope, carefully placing each foot. At the bottom, where the bank washed away to stones and sand, he stooped and picked up a few golf ball size rocks.

He stood about ten feet behind the boulder and the crumpled girl. He looked down at the rocks in his hands, the girl still oblivious. One was pockmarked and beaten, chunks missing and broken off, jagged. Another was smooth, polished and worked over by the continual passing of water and minute grains of sand. He took the pockmarked rock in his fist, clenched it, and then hurled it with all his might up into the clear blue sky and out over the blue water of the Mississippi.

The rock hung in the air and Sedgewick held his breath, waiting for the sploosh that would shatter the silence and announce his presence. He closed his eyes and counted. One. Two. Splash. Three.

He opened his eyes and fell into the deepest well of tears drowning the greenest eyes he'd ever seen. The lump grew in Sedgewick's throat. A lump he hadn't realized was back, a lump that wanted to choke him. It was a lump he knew well.

Allison had the same lump, and from ten feet away Sedgewick could see her lip quivering slightly and a tear break from the pool in her eye and follow a well-worn path down her freckled cheek.

Sedgewick walked forward and stopped a few feet from the boulder. He pushed the sand with his shoe.

"Sometimes it helps," he said, holding out the smooth rock and looking past Allison to the Mississippi. Her body convulsed with the slightest of giggles, but it could have been a sob. Sedgewick couldn't tell.

She pulled herself from the boulder, stood on her own two feet, which were bare and sunk into the sand, and took the rock from Sedgewick's outstretched hand. She didn't wipe the tears from her eyes, but closed them, tightly, letting the tears run freely, draining her eyes. She finally opened them, looked out across the water and hurled the rock, hard and violently, letting out a pained scream as she did. She dropped to her knees with the effort, but kept her head up to watch the rock scream over the water like a baseball and then slowly drop into the water. When it splashed she dropped her head.

Sedgewick just watched. He toed the sand some more with his shoe, and turned the third rock over and over in his hand. He could see Allison sobbing again, see the muscles ripple through her body with each wave. Her cries became louder and louder, and Sedgewick bit his lip. When he stepped forward Allison raised her hands and clenched both fists, then erupted, smashing both hands into the sand and punching, punching as she screamed and her body racked with sobs.

He put his hands on her arms to steady her, to stop the violent outburst, but she kept going. Sedgewick closed his eyes, as tight as they would go and wrapped both arms around her, not tight and suffocating like a bear hug, but still strong and firm. She continued to punch with her fists, lashing out at anything and now that was Sedgewick. More than hugging her, he was containing her from exploding out of herself and leaving nothing but an empty, broken shell. She landed seven, eight, a dozen blows to Sedgewick's chest before she finally stopped. And they weren't weak, light punches either. They hurt. Allison did more than run in the mornings, she played soccer and worked out.

She finally collapsed into Sedgewick, burying her face in his chest, where she'd just pummeled and quite possibly bruised him. Her knees sank into the sand, and Sedgewick's did too as he pulled this girl close and held her in his arms on the edge of the Mississippi.

"Did it help?" Sedgewick asked, his eyes lost in a daze, his grip on Allison not loosening. She didn't move either but nodded her head.

"How… how did you know?"

"I know."
"I just can't believe…" The sobs overcame her again.

"I know."

"I can't believe she's gone."

"Your mom?" Allison nodded.

"Was it… did your mom…?" The question never fully came out. She just stopped.

"No, she didn't die," he answered. "I don't think. But I did lose her."

"But, the rocks…"

"My grandfather…" Sedgewick started, feeling a tremor in the depths of his soul. His eyes grew heavy with the weight of it all, and he closed them.

"…my brother…" Sedgewick continued, "my dad."

Allison pulled herself away and looked into Sedgewick's face. His eyes were still closed against the world. He was biting his lip. She reached out her hand, bits of sand still clinging to it and touched his cheek. He turned his face into her hand and slowly opened his eyes.

The tiniest of smiles broke out on Allison's face and she began to cry again, this time for her mother and Sedgewick's mother and grandfather and brother and father, and it just as well have been the entire world. She smiled only because she couldn't understand how one lone person could endure so much loss and still not be lost himself.

Tears were still coming from her eyes, but now they flowed from Sedgewick's as well, a single tear at first, but then another and another and another. They dropped from his face, some falling to hers, others falling to the sandy beach.

Together their tears fell, tributaries to the mighty Mississippi, winding through the heart of a nation before finally emptying into the salty ocean hundreds of miles away.

It was just this morning he'd even learned her name. Allison.

Sedgewick's mother was named Allison.

Chapter 4 (continued)

Outside the sky was a pale blue and the leaves were flame. Sedgewick could have soared across the sky. But no matter what, he couldn't sit there and read about expressionism. This was so beyond the history of art in digestible university format.

He packed his notes and pen and left the cafeteria, not really sure where he was going. Outside would be a good start. He pushed open a door and felt the crisp autumn air. He didn't realize he'd been sweating. His mind moved faster than his legs could carry him, and he quickly dropped on to a bench. His mind kept reeling and tried to understand what just happened.

Students were heading in every direction, swarming the campus on their way to class and work and home.

Allison. Her name was Allison.

He still didn't know anything about her, except she appeared to go running in the morning, and it bothered him that he was so fascinated. Charles seemed to think that was perfectly normal. But what's normal about it?

Sedgewick watched the churning sea of students, noticing plenty of college girls, and noticing a few who walked arm in arm with a college boy. He wondered if that's what was in store for him. That was the last thing he had on his mind, that wasn't exactly what he pictured when he thought about girls. But what did he picture? He didn't know. There would be a few imaginative scenes in his mind, mostly introductions, though they were nothing like the real thing where he barely managed to say five words. Less if you don’t count his own name. And those suave introductions in his mind never went farther than that. It seemed ludicrous enough that he was even having the conversation, it was too much of a push for his mind to go farther.

Allison believed. It was what made her cross a crowded cafeteria and say something to a stock boy she'd only seen once. It made her do something she wouldn't normally do, at least that's what she claimed. But what did that really mean? Wrinkles formed on Sedgewick's brow and he bit his lip.

Love at first sight? True love? Sedgewick suddenly felt like he was in the midst of some romantic drama, probably a teen flick, one of those dramedies that intersperse their touching scenes with witty dialogue to keep the teens laughing and enjoying themselves and buying more movie tickets the next week. No one is that witty in real life.

Does anything like that even happen in real life? It seemed to be happening to Sedgewick, but he couldn't believe that's what it really was. He still didn't know what was behind those deep green eyes. What's the point of all these mushy feelings if it's all for naught? But Sedgewick wondered if there was any way to win this game without going through the ups and downs. The only way to find out what was behind those green eyes, it seemed to Sedgewick, was to dive right in. And hope he was right.

He stood up from the bench and headed to class, hoping against hope that he'd be able to manage something productive that day.

She must have been looking for me, Sedgewick thought. He started to realize all kinds of meanings in the few words she said, though they were more than he said. She must have been thinking of going back to the grocery store as the only way she could find Sedgewick again. She must have had the same blur of a weekend, thinking about someone in that new, strange, floating on air kind of way. That someone was Sedgewick.

He also realized, with a touch of panic, that he had given her so little to go on. He had managed to squeak out five words. Hardly a complete sentence among them. He had been aloof, stammering, fidgeting, unsure of what to do or say. Not that he was ever completely on top of his game.

The thoughts swirled and swirled and practically drowned Sedgewick. Class finally ended it and he took off. Trying to continue like this was crazy. He walked across the campus, usually against the flow of hurried students late for class. He adjusted the messenger bag across his shoulder, resting one hand on the strap and sticking his left hand in his pocket. He walked slowly, enough to be the slightest nuisance to the people behind him, but Sedgewick didn't care. His mind kept moving so quickly that he couldn't let the rest of him go very fast or he'd slip off the ground and lose touch with this reality.

He watched a bus lumber through the intersection and crossed the street, heading right for a block and then ducking down a side street. The sun was higher now, giving warmth through the bitter air. It was still October though, and that bitter air made Sedgewick's nose cold.

A mother and child walked in front of him, about the same slow pace he managed. The mother looked worn down, practically dragging the child along, who didn't seem to notice. The kid kept stumbling along, bright eyes darting to the left and the right, taking in the strange new world of a college campus.

Sedgewick remembered that feeling. His first days on this campus were crushingly overwhelming. So many students. So many buildings. So much sidewalk going in every direction at once. It took a few weeks to adjust, days of getting his bearings and realizing that it wasn't as immense as it first seemed. He smiled, realizing the child wasn't overwhelmed with classes and schedules and confusing maps. The child probably wanted to run in the green grass, watch the city buses come and go, and toss the Frisbee around with the older boys who never seemed to actually go to class.

Sedgewick crossed another street, leaving the mother and child, and took a flight of stairs down the embankment to the river. The University of Minnesota campus straddled the Mississippi River, which wound it's way through the Twin Cities, through the fields and bluffs of Minnesota, through the heart of the Midwest and on south before finally emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. To be so connected to such a major artery made the world seem a little smaller, a little more manageable.

Most people in the Twin Cities took the great river for granted. They forgot it was their source of drinking water, forgot that it wound through the cities, only remembered when one of the many bridges was scheduled for reconstruction and their daily lives were interrupted.

Sedgewick stepped off the last stair and crossed the green strip of grass. At the bottom of the bluffs here was a flat stretch of land that slowly and gradually sloped towards the river. In flood stage this little park would be the first to succumb to the rising water.

Sedgewick had seen those rising flood waters before, years and years ago when his grandfather took him to a secluded little park in St. Paul. Everything was under water then. The street signs and parking signs stuck out of the water like buoys. You couldn't tell where the parking lot ended and the grass began, where the picnic tables were or where the beach started. The water looked calm and eerie, like it was slowly taking back the world, rising and rising until every last mountain peak gave in.

A few days later the water crested and finally began to recede. Sedgewick remembered coming back to the river again with his grandfather weeks later, seeing the sand and dirt and rocks and junk the water had left in its wake.

But that was years ago. While the river rose every spring, fueled by melting snow and April showers, it hadn't risen nearly so high since. Just before the water's edge the manicured lawn ended and wild vegetation, shrubs and twisted trees took over the final eight or ten foot drop to the river's sandy edge. The higher bluff Sedgewick had just come down blocked out much of the city's noise. In this part of the city the river ran at the bottom of a gorge, essentially dropping out of sight and going unnoticed by most people. It made for a quiet retreat, only interrupted by the knowing nods of fellow wonderers.

Sedgewick stopped at the last drop, looking down the steep, eroded slope. There were huge rocks and fallen trees, pulled down by the strong, continual sweep of the river. Someone sat on one of those rocks, perched on top with their knees pulled up to their chin, arms wrapped around their legs, not unlike Connor had been when Sedgewick found him alone in the cereal aisle.

It was a girl in a black shirt and green shorts. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but the wind kept pulling loose strands away. Sedgewick stood there on the bank, looking down on her, wondering.

He turned back to the manicured lawn, looked to the picnic tables and swings to the right and the parking lot to the left. There. At the edge of the parking lot. Sedgewick crossed the lawn, and stuck a hand in to his pocket, digging around for loose change.

The pay phone was half graffiti covered, designs and words that were meaningless to Sedgewick. In one movement he picked up the receiver and plunked his change in the slot. He breathed. He looked at his hand and dialed the seven slightly smeared digits. There was a pause, silence, then the phone began to ring.

Faintly, ever so faintly, he could hear the a noise like tinkling chimes, but the wind kept carrying it farther and fainter. It rang a second and third time in his ear, and with his other ear he strained to hear that faint tinkle. When it rang a fifth time he was about to hang up when he heard a click. There was another moment of silence and then what sounded like muffled wind.

"He—hello?" the voice cracked and broke, fragile when it did finally squeak out.