Page 10 of Forget Me Not

I’m bumping down a dirt lane thirty minutes later, pinpricks of light streaming through the trees giving the day an ethereal shine.

After a few more miles of nothing but water on either side of the road, I reach a fork with a single wooden sign carved with the words GALLOWAY FARM pointing to the right.

I follow the sign, feeling the tires of my Corolla kicking up dust as I turn.

It wasn’t a deliberate decision, coming here.

I can’t identify the exact moment I decided to punch the name into the GPS; the instant my hands gripped the wheel, taking all the proper turns.

It was more of a knowing, a chest-deep awareness as soon as I glanced at that picture and took a long look at my sister’s expression.

A desperate desire to keep that girl close uncurling in my stomach like the stretching tendrils of a wild vine.

I bounce down a few more miles of road now, the live oaks on either side forming a twisted bridge with their branches; streamers of Spanish moss like a decorative archway beckoning me in.

It’s a gorgeous sight, just like I remember, although it feels a little unkempt now, a little neglected.

Patches of overgrown grass peppered with weeds; algae floating across dollops of marshland, a boggy breadcrumb trail leading up to the creek itself.

Just like how my house had looked smaller when I first pulled up, how certain places of the past seem to shrivel with time, the nostalgic glow of Galloway has been slightly snuffed out after my years away and I can’t help but wonder if it always looked like this, if my memory had simply buffed out the harsh edges, or if it has more recently descended into a state of disrepair.

I approach an ivy-clad fence with a house now visible in the distance.

It’s giant and white, two stories overlooking the water and a wraparound porch with a row of gliders rocking gently for no one.

There’s what looks like a small guesthouse to the left, essentially a miniature version of the main house beside it, and a shed off to the right made of old, chipped wood.

I creep up the drive, a produce garden tucked away to one side and the vineyard in view just behind it, perfect rows of muscadine grapes hanging loose and messy on the vines.

There’s a line of trees on the edge of it all, a swath of forest that looks wild and untamed, and a single clothesline stretched across the lawn.

Drying shirts swaying gently in the breeze.

I ease to a stop, realizing, with a sense of dumb awareness, that I have no idea if this place is even open.

My mom said they’re still in business, but it’s private property…

which I’m currently trespassing on. Someone lives here, clearly, and they must have heard my approaching car, seen the plume of disturbed dust in the distance, because just as I tap again on the gas, trying to find a spot to turn around, I watch as a man emerges through the door, jogging down the stairs to meet me out front.

I cuss under my breath, rolling down my window before plastering on a smile.

“Good morning,” I say, my hands still gripped to the wheel. “I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

“Morning,” he says, looking at me with a puzzled stare.

He’s slightly older than me—late thirties, maybe; early forties at the latest—crow’s-feet by his temples and a head full of hair peppered with gray, though he’s tan, handsome.

A solid jaw and robin’s-egg eyes the same blue as the brightening sky. “You don’t look like an Elijah.”

“Sorry?” I ask, not understanding.

“You here for the job posting? Elijah McCrae?”

“Oh, no,” I say. “I hate to disappoint, but that’s not me.”

“I wouldn’t call this a disappointment,” he says, smiling warmly. “What can I help you with?”

“I was just here to look around, but I didn’t realize how early it is. I doubt you’re even open yet.”

“We’re not actually open to the public anymore,” the man says, and I watch as he twists around, his palm rubbing his neck as his eyes land back on the house. “We stopped that a while back.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say again, cheeks flushing. Wondering how many times I can say the word sorry in the span of one minute.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It was just a lot of unnecessary maintenance. The owners, Marcia and Mitchell. They’re getting a little too old for that.”

“I’ll just turn around then, get out of your hair—”

“What’s your name?” he asks, cutting me off. Head cocked to the side like he’s trying to place me, this uninvited visitor who just barged into his place of work.

I watch as he leans his forearms against my window and I glance down, taking in their chestnut brown with a spray of blond hair bleached from the sun. He’s wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, tan work boots that look well past their prime.

“Claire,” I say at last.

“Claire,” he repeats, rolling my name around on his tongue like he’s trying to taste it, savor the sound for a little bit longer. “Nice to meet you, Claire. I’m Liam.”

He thrusts his right arm through the window and I grab his hand and give it a shake.

It’s rough, calluses peppering his palm like malignant growths.

His fingernails are dirty, but the rest of him is clean, and I get the sense that’s just a part of him.

Soil pushed into the cracks of his skin, the land leaving a permanent mark.

“I’d be happy to show you around,” he continues. “Since our friend Elijah appears to be a no-show.”

I glance at the clock. It’s not even nine.

“He was supposed to be here at seven,” Liam says, reading my mind. “We get an early start around here. Best to beat the heat.”

“I really don’t want to impose—” I say, gesturing again to the road behind me.

“Not at all,” he says. “Park over there and I’ll walk you around.”

I follow his finger as he points to the side of the house and I nod, smile, rolling up my window before pulling into the makeshift spot.

I’m grateful for the invitation, it’s a kind gesture, but it still feels like I’m intruding, charging into someone else’s home before nine o’clock in the morning.

Nevertheless, I am in the South. A part of the country where manners matter, almost ad nauseam.

Turning him down at this point would feel even ruder than showing up in the first place, so I kill the engine, looking down at the picture on my passenger seat before folding it twice and stuffing it into my pocket.

Then I get out of the car, meeting Liam in front of the clothesline.

“Welcome to Galloway,” he says as I approach, grinning with his arms spread open wide. “Founded in 1984, we grow and sell all kinds of produce, but we specialize in the grapes. Have you ever had one of these?”

He walks me over to the nearest trellis and I look down, noticing the clusters hanging heavy from the vines. They’re muscadines, large and plum purple to the point of appearing a bloody black, and I watch as he picks one at random, squeezing it gently between his fingers.

“A few times,” I say, nodding. Watching as he sticks it into his mouth, gnawing aggressively before spitting out the seed. Then he gestures to the vine, motioning for me to take one, too, so I follow his lead and pluck my own. A little red orb that looks like a speckled marble, a swollen eye.

“They’re about ready to be picked,” Liam says. “Hence the need for our friend, Elijah.”

I push the berry into my mouth, the skin tough between my teeth.

It bursts with a saccharine gush that coats my throat and I close my eyes, my body immediately transported back to that summer.

To the way Natalie used to come home with a giant bag of scuppernongs we’d eat on the dock, popping grapes like candy before sucking on the seeds and spitting them out.

Counting ripples in water like rings in a tree.

Somehow, I had forgotten all about that.

“They’re usually not ready until August,” Liam continues, his voice forcing me back to the present. “But we’ve had an exceptionally hot spring. Some are ready now; the rest will be in a few weeks.”

“How many workers do you have?”

He gestures to himself, a dirty finger digging into his chest.

“I’m the main caretaker,” he says. “I tend to the place year-round, everything that requires real knowledge of the vine. We bring on one more seasonal worker in the summer to help with the harvest.”

“That’s it?” I ask, looking back at the vineyard. The place is easily a dozen acres, the rows extending so far into the distance it’s hard to see the end of them.

“That’s it,” he repeats. “Harvesting is a job, for sure, but it’s fairly monotonous. Doesn’t require a lot of skill, to be honest. Just two working hands.”

I open my mouth, suddenly compelled to tell him about Natalie and her time here, ask what happened to the high school kids they used to hire for cheap.

After so many years of stuffing her memory deep down in my chest, of never uttering a word of her existence, I can feel the temptation to talk about her gurgling up my throat like bile, urgent and sharp…

but then I close it again, thinking twice.

Remembering how that went during the years I still lived here, seven long years before I graduated and ran away to the city.

Thanks to the trial and sensational headlines, the name Natalie Campbell tended to produce an uncomfortable reaction: awkward silences, a swell of apologies.

Good conversation suddenly stilted because I knew, from that moment on, that every time the person I was talking to looked at me, they weren’t actually seeing me at all.

Not really, anyway. Not anymore. They were seeing her.

They were thinking of her and her final moments, wondering how it all played out.

Curious about what kind of girl would foster a relationship with a man ten years her senior; what she could have done to deserve what she got.