Not a Single River Runs Backward

Chapter 4 Foundry Day

Foundry Day is the one day a year the Voss family actually behaves like a family. There's a picnic on the bluff, a band from the mainland, kids fishing off the dock. Julian comes up from the coast with cases of wine. The board members stroll the grounds in blazers, pretending not to count the cracks in the balconies.

This year Julian brought someone. A woman named Camille, tall, laughing, with a diamond on her left hand.

Asher saw them from across the lawn. He was holding a glass of lemonade and he went very still. Then he did what he always does. He found me.

"Look," he said, in that pleasant voice. "The one you wanted."

I watched Julian put his hand on Camille's back. I watched him laugh at something she said. I felt nothing, which was the strangest part. Six years ago the sight of him would have gutted me. Now I just noticed the way he kept his shoulders turned slightly away from the house, like a man who had escaped and didn't want to be caught again.

"He's engaged," I said.

"He is."

"Then maybe you can stop pointing him out to me."

Asher took a long drink of his lemonade. "Why would I stop? It's the only thing that makes you look at me."

I turned and stared at him. He stared back, unblinking, that winter-gray stare.

"That's not true," I said.

"Prove it."

The band started playing something old and slow. On the bluff, Julian raised his glass and made a toast about family and tradition and the enduring strength of the Foundry House. The board members applauded. I stood there in the grass with Asher, two feet apart, and I felt the whole thing tilt a little.

"I'll come to the hearing," I said. "If you want to fight the board, I'll stand with you. But I won't lie for you, and I won't pretend."

"Pretend what?"

"That I chose this. Either of us."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he set his lemonade on the table and walked away, toward the house, leaving me standing in the grass with the music playing and the sun going down.