Lisa Acri earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University. For ten years she facilitated poetry and prose writing workshops for a county prison because she believes in hope and second chances. Her writing has been published in Ev0ke Publications and Blue Villa Journal. Her twitter page is only haikus and occasional limericks (@lisapaiswriting).
When Nancy Found Howard
by Lisa Acri
Cold air wafted off the churning Arkansas River. The current tugged at the kayak as Nancy set one foot in the center of the boat, swung her other leg over, and dropped into the seat. Climbing into a kayak always made her feel awkward, with her ass hanging in midair for a moment.
Spring runoff had passed, but the lower waters of late June remained icy. She adjusted the spray skirt around the sharp coaming, struggling with the last stretch of fabric. Dan leaned over her, his thick thigh against the back of her head, his bountiful arms around her. He pulled the spray skirt cord tight, enclosing her lower body into the boat. His leg muscles hardened as he strained. She leaned her head against his thigh, closed her eyes, then opened them to Dan’s upside-down face; his mouth a straight line. He winked and gave the boat a shove. The kayak scraped across stone and mud, and she was off. She forgot thigh muscles and making love later because this slice of the river, going into the rapids, required concentration. She would have to trust that Dan was behind her—with the swift current she couldn’t look.
They put in a few miles north of Buena Vista, Colorado. Earlier in the season, the river had flowed Class III and IV rapids and they’d needed strength and skill to ride the white water. Now Nancy bounced through small swells, feeling the pull of her back stretching and her hips loosening. She kept her balance by meeting the waves with her paddle. Large red boulders, water-covered weeks ago, were more exposed. The cold water sprayed her arms and face, chilling her despite the high sun’s heat.
The river widened, calmed, and the land opened as they entered the upper Arkansas River Valley. Canyon walls gave way to farmland and green hills, with snow-capped mountains far to her east and west. She stopped paddling and let the water carry the boat. Dan blew past her, paddling furiously as if he had someplace to be. Maybe he missed the rapids of spring runoff. She liked the calmer river and a chance to admire the view.
She’d grown up canoeing Florida rivers with her little brother Brian. The Blackwater and Perdido. In a canoe they were together. Florida rivers were lazy; no adrenaline unless a snake or scorpion dropped into your boat from the tree canopies, or if you rowed close to a hidden alligator.
Brian died early on in Vietnam. He’d enlisted in ‘65, unafraid of the growing drumbeat of escalated deployment to South Asia. He’d wanted to serve because their grandfather had; because he wanted to see the world; because he wanted to learn mechanics. Five years now he’d been gone. She always thought about him when on the water. It was still hard to cope with knowing his dreams of owning a business and having a family had simply ceased to exist.
Her family collapsed as if Brian had been their adhesive. By the time she graduated college, her parents were divorced, the family home was sold, and she no longer spoke to her sister. When she inherited her grandmother’s new station wagon, she packed it and drove herself to Colorado Springs, where she’d spent a week during one spring break.
Nancy steered under a stand of cottonwood trees, their trunks bending over the water, and she grabbed hold of a long leafy branch just as Dan disappeared around a bend, still power paddling. As the water pulled her downstream, the branch and her extended arm anchored her. She drifted into the sun, rested the paddle, and took off her hat—formerly Dan’s USAF baseball hat—decommissioned upon getting stained during the Air Base’s annual league this spring. She’d claimed it.
Dan liked things neat and clean, except sex, he always said with a wink. He’d arrived in Colorado Springs three months before her. Previously he’d been stationed in California, before that Texas. He’d grown up in Fort Walton Beach, thirty miles from her in Florida.
They’d met in the grocery store where she worked. One day she’d helped a short, older woman reach an item on a high shelf and, behind her, his voice rumbled, joking that no one would need him with her working there. She’d turned around to find a man taller than her, handsome, with a crewcut, a smiley-smirk playing on his lips. He wore a clean white T-shirt over ample muscle and blue slacks. Multiple hellos over several weeks—where he often came into the store wearing his officer uniform—led to a hike at the Garden of the Gods, and they were a couple.
On their second date, he’d hooked his hand across her lap and slid her bottom across the bench seat of his truck, so she could snuggle against him. Nothing in her fleeting dating life had ever felt more natural. They’d bonded over Florida and a love for the outdoors. He was older, soon thirty, and wiser than any boy she’d known in college or after.
Her great aunts back in Florida were wrong; a woman with an education could get a man. When Dan introduced her to his friends, he proudly said that she was a Florida State graduate. He kindly left out the part that no one would hire her in her field because she was a woman. She had stopped applying for technical jobs after a year. She liked her easy job and being with Dan.
The pulling current stretched her arm and back muscles, urging her downstream. The strong sun felt good on her arms and in her bones. She hoped they would find a spot to make love. They’d done it outside a couple of times last fall, while hiking in the mountains. She savored the memory of the chilly air on her exposed breasts. She never thought she’d get naked in nature so readily.
She had survived her first Colorado winter. It was easy with Dan. He’d kept her warm, bought her hats, gloves, and boots. He even helped her pick out pink-with-roses long underwear as if there was nothing awkward about it. He had two younger sisters, he’d explained. He would make a good dad!
She took both hands, pulled on the vine, swung backward into the shade, then let go and coasted downstream. As she rounded the bend, the town of Buena Vista appeared in the distance. She searched for Dan in his green kayak.
She smelled reefer before she spotted several vans of hippies organizing themselves and their beer for an inner-tube float. Dan called them freaks and criticized the group who protested daily outside the base. She wished they didn’t always look like they needed a shower because their message rang true to her. She didn’t believe in a war so far away, in a place she knew nothing about. She never said so out loud. Briefly the gangly group reminded her that she had planned to go see a protest in Memorial Park, then she met Dan and never thought about it again.
Most of the hippies loudly abandoned the idea of floating after putting their toe in the cold water. She laughed at them as she sailed by, but noticed a handsome, white teeth smile among the uncombed men. She hit a rock and nearly tipped. They whistled and someone yelled he’d like to ride her boat. She didn’t look back, paddled past Buena Vista with its charming street of old western buildings like in a John Wayne movie. She rode around a bend in the river to see a sight she knew she would remember forever.
Brilliantly clear snow-capped mountains, green pastures with brown fences turned golden in the sunshine, black horses in the distance, and Dan standing on a two-story tall boulder watching for her. He waved then climbed down behind the boulder, where she’d disembark.
He pulled her kayak far onto shore and helped her out. She dropped the spray skirt at her feet and wrapped her arms around him, kissed him, and pressed against him like they’d been separated far too long. Dan hugged her with those strong arms she loved. Then he held her shoulders, stepped back, and dropped his hands.
He told her that he had been reassigned to Washington DC. He would leave on Monday, less than forty-eight hours away. His belongings would be packed and moved in a couple of weeks. He explained that he had not expected this. He looked at her finally, and his face was different. Closed. Like he didn’t want any trouble.
In complete silence but for the river swishing past, the dawn came to Nancy. He wasn’t taking her. She would not be joining him in Washington DC. She would not become his wife. He would not be the father of her children.
He went on to say that he hadn’t planned on telling her in the middle of their last kayaking trip together. Couldn’t they just finish and enjoy the ride?
Nancy’s body finished the ride. She paddled, stayed upright, but her brain remained blank. They left the kayaks on the shoreline and drove her car to his truck. Normally she would follow his truck back to the kayaks, help load, then follow him back to Colorado Springs. Instead, her tires screamed as she pulled out the instant he closed the passenger door.
*
“You’re going to start school,” he said later when she asked what about them.
Earlier in the year, she’d applied for Forestry Management classes in the fall that could lead to a civil engineering job in Colorado. She hadn’t been accepted. She’d never told him.
“I’ve tried long distance relationships and they don’t work,” he said without any consideration for the life they had begun together.
He said she could stay until the end of July; he’d already paid the rent. He was his normal forthright, calm, in-control self. The exact thing she’d admired about him, had imagined as a father about him, as a wise old man about him, she now hated.
Before the Fourth of July the townhouse echoed like an empty cavern. He had moved everything to Washington DC except her.
When the front door closed for the final time, she curled up in the carpeted bedroom walk-in closet, where she’d thrown her belongings as movers packed him away and removed him piece by piece. She waited for the phone to ring. For Dan to call and check on her, change his mind. When she discovered the phone was disconnected, she screamed in frustration.
And in that closet, she died. Or so she wished when the maintenance crew found her when they arrived to clean before the next tenant. A young woman opened the closet door, screamed, and disappeared. The brown-skinned man she’d seen working in the complex, at least as old as her parents, peered into her little world.
“Are you okay, miss?”
She sat up, looked at him, and didn’t reply. He looked at the mess, the pile of vases and silly knick-knacks she’d bought, and her clothes half on the floor and half on hangers.
He nodded. “This is paid until July 31 but we thought it was empty. When you’re ready to pack, you come get me and we’ll help you, okay?” His face remained kind, sweet, wise.
She nodded, tried to smile, but her face was dead.
“You drive the lime green Station Wagon. I thought you’d left and would come back for it.”
“It was my grandmother’s. She bought it just before she died,” Nancy whispered past dried lips. She didn’t want him to go. He backed out of the closet, leaving the door open, and directed everyone lurking nearby to go.
That little bit of humanity helped her rise and, though it took an hour to eat a few buttered crackers, it was enough to know that she was unfortunately still among the living. She managed to shower, though the needles of water hurt her skin. She couldn’t bear being anywhere in the empty condo, couldn’t face the beautiful blue sky outside. When she tried to pack, she ended up smashing souvenirs instead.
Another day passed. She was sitting up, hating her size eleven feet when the doorbell rang. She ran, picturing Dan on the other side of the door. She momentarily didn’t recognize Julia, her co-worker, probably former co-worker, today dressed in a long multi-color skirt and halter top; different from their work uniform of blue slacks and red polyester top.
“Hi,” Julia over-enunciated. She started to speak, jumbling words, then stopped and restarted. “You’re alive. That’s good.” She peered around Nancy, into the empty room. “Um, no one has a good phone number for you. What’s going on?” She pushed into the house, surveyed it further.
Hands on her hips, Julia said, “Your mother’s looking for you. She only had a work number. No one’s heard from you in over a week. We thought you quit. Your mom called the police. The grocery store had a different address. The place on Pine? Are you squatting here? Then Mr. Hernandez came up to me at work this morning, said it was none of his business but thought you needed some help. And he knew we were friends.”
They had gone to the movies once, had started to become friends, but then didn’t, because of Dan. Nancy realized that she had been that girl who dumps her friends when a man comes along. Julia waited for her explanation.
“Dan got reassigned to Washington DC. He left… and he didn’t take me.”
“Oh honey.” Julia came to her and wrapped her arms around Nancy.
The awkwardness of being hugged by someone shorter than her flamed back to life. She’d thought she never had to worry about that again because of Dan, which made her sob. A tree above Julia, sobbing.
“You moved in with him? I mean, I knew you spent tons of time with him. I didn’t want to say, or believe her, but my mother always says do not get involved with an officer. They move every few years and take a girl in that town to keep them company. Honey I’m sorry.”
Nancy realized she wasn’t living her dream. She had been made a fool.
Julia walked through the condo, examined the refrigerator, the cupboards, and eventually the walk-in closet. “Ew,” she said, opening the door wide and then every window in the bedroom. She hustled Nancy into clean clothes and to a diner for a proper meal of eggs, bacon, and coffee. With an uncomfortably full belly, Nancy called her mother collect in the tiny phone booth by the bathroom. She told her mother she was still alive and would call soon when she could talk longer, and she hung up before she broke down. A few people stared at her and she knew she had to act—purely act—normal.
Over the next few days, when Julia wasn’t working, she stayed close, plied Nancy with chocolate milk shakes and home-grown tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches. She brought boxes from work and helped Nancy pack. Mr. Hernandez offered to store her bed, dresser, and kayak—all in Dan’s garage—on the property until she found a place. That damn kayak. She’d spent almost half of her savings because he’d talked her into it. She could hardly lift it by herself.
She left the USAF hat on the closet floor.
Nancy stayed with Julia in her second twin bed. Julia lived at home with her parents, who were perplexed by Nancy and wondered out loud why she was so far from home of all the crazy things. She heard the mother ask if Nancy was fruity because she had a man’s degree.
“Mother! She broke up with her boyfriend.”
“Maybe that’s why he left. No one wants a smarty pants. And she has hands like a man. This is why you are not getting asked out!”
Nancy closed the bedroom door, looked at herself in the mirror. Her grandmother had encouraged her to embrace her height, her brains, and her natural athleticism. She’d told Nancy that she could do more than secretarial work. Her grandmother worked as a phone operator, though she moved into supervising before she retired. Nancy believed everything her grandmother told her until people like Julia’s parents strode into her picture frame.
Sitting on shoes in Julia’s bedroom closet, Nancy called her mother collect. Her mother called her back so she wouldn’t be charged the higher collect-call rate. Julia’s mother picked up the downstairs receiver. Nancy nearly snarled but Nancy’s mother jumped in and thanked the woman for letting Nancy stay. Julia’s mother said it was fine for a few days and Nancy felt sick inside.
Her mother said, “I suspected you were living with him. Home phone disconnected to save money. I’m not stupid. Men and women are starting to live together without being married. I read about it in Time magazine. It’s called cohabitation. A lot of landlords won’t allow it. But you always give me a home phone number and address, wherever you are. Forever. You hear?”
Witnessing her parents act and dress modern after their divorce had embarrassed Nancy. Now she appreciated that her mother wasn’t, well, wasn’t Julia’s mother. Who repeatedly picked up the extension, sighed her displeasure, and hung up.
Nancy told her mother what a fool she’d been.
“Sweetheart, you loved. You loved. You are a woman and none of us escape the pain of love. I know you don’t want to hear it, but with time you will move on and love again.”
“Nancy,” her mother said before they hung up. “I forgot why I originally called you last week. Your grandmother’s estate has settled. All that Southern Bell Telephone stock sold. Do you know she bought stock with every paycheck for thirty-five years? I have a check for you. It’s more than she ever made in a year.”
*
Julia left early for work. Nancy lay in the twin bed with her legs curled up to her chest. All night she had stayed awake debating if she should move home to Florida. She understood now that she had run away. Now she wanted to run away from Colorado. The thought of leaving the mountains unleashed a stream of tears onto her pillow. Living in Florida without her brother sounded unbearable. Starting over in Colorado sounded impossible.
Julia’s mother barged in when Nancy must have dozed off and asked if she was going to stay in bed all day again.
Thirty minutes later, her station wagon still stuffed with her belongings, Nancy started driving. She could smell Dan and the condo on her things that had been cooking in the car the last few days. When she pulled into the bank to withdraw money, she rolled down all the windows.
Nancy drove into the mountains towards the Arkansas River. Instead of turning north on Highway 285 toward Buena Vista, she drove south to Salida, then followed the river east on Route 50. She missed being on the water.
Driving through a valley that had a few houses and a small farm, the words “Howard Colorado Rafting” painted red and black on a wood board caused a split-second decision to cross the highway and screech to a stop in a dirt parking lot. A one room building, white paint peeling, stood next to a long red garage covered with scaffolding. A bright grey steel bridge behind the property crossed the Arkansas River.
She climbed out of the wagon, stretched, and drank from her canteen. Hearing voices and laughter, she followed the sounds between the two buildings. Five women of varying ages stood near a large black raft stamped USAF that was painted over with a runny white X. They were all dressed alike in sneakers, baggy shorts, and long sleeve shirts. A small school bus painted blue and attached trailer blocked the river view. Someone pointed to her and a white-haired, chubby woman turned around.
“Hello, can I help you?”
Nancy hadn’t spoken in public in weeks. “I saw the rafting sign and pulled over. Are you open?” Her voice sounded tinny, weak.
The woman walked towards her. “We’re not open to the public. Next season. This year we trained guides and teachers for water safety. Today we are riding the Royal Gorge for fun.” The chatty woman looked up at her and smiled, even reminded Nancy of her mother with that kindness and openness some mothers have.
“I’m Alice. You know, we could use one more. Do you have any experience on the water?”
“I’m Nancy. I have a kayak. Got to take lessons last year and run high water this year. Mostly north of Buena Vista,” Nancy gulped back a sob, “I’d love to try rafting. I’ve only seen the Royal Gorge from above. Walked across the bridge to nowhere. Um, what’s the cost?”
Alice briefly put her arm around Nancy’s back and gave her a quick hug. “No cost but your muscles. Today we play. Come on.”
Alice introduced her to everyone and Nancy didn’t know if she’d remember any names. Alice pointed where to stand and the six women lifted the raft onto the trailer. The synchronized work of the women tying down the raft woke Nancy from what felt like a stupor. Her eyes watered with relief.
They climbed into the bus. Alice sat in front of Nancy and explained that they would put-in ten-miles downriver. Transportation had already been parked on the Eastern side of the Gorge.
They drove past rock walls an arm’s reach away. Hot air blew in through the open windows. The trailer clunked and squeaked behind them. The land opened to a wide, empty valley of yellow sage and scrub brush. The bumpy train tracks they crossed were the only sign of humans. The driver swung the van around and stopped beside the river.
The coordinated waltz of preparing the raft, life jackets and paddles made Nancy want to be part of the dance. The six of them carried the raft to the river.
“Let’s let Nancy take the stern and give it a try,” Alice suggested.
“Oh, I’ve never…” Nancy said but Alice interrupted her.
“I realize that, but with those long legs and arms, you’d make a great guide. The taller guides have an easier time of it, don’t you think?” She asked the crew. “The river’s low. There’s two Class II once we’re in The Gorge but you can switch out before then if you want.”
A woman named Tina handed Nancy two long wooden oars as if they were scepters. Nancy lifted the heavy pieces that were taller than her.
Soon they were all in the boat with Alice sitting in the back with her.
Once they were moving in the current Alice said, “Paddles up, let Nancy get a feel.” To Nancy she said, “The lead, or guide, gives instructions. Who should paddle. How fast. How deep. Where to put our weight.”
Nancy didn’t know how to row with two oars and everyone demonstrated and she soon had a clunky rhythm.
“Okay lift the left oar and rudder with the right.”
Nancy tried and the boat turned and they rode the current backwards.
“Again. Lean in. Lean into it.”
She struggled to get the raft to listen.
“Left side back, right side forward,” Alice called. Everyone paddled. “You do the same Nancy.” Alice demonstrated moving her arms in opposite directions. The boat turned forward again.
Embarrassment threatened to bloom on her face but wilted when she saw the smiles of encouragement. She put her muscle into the oars; felt the raft listening.
“Okay Nancy, you switch out now or you steer The Gorge.”
“I’ll steer.”
The river narrowed, the water velocity amplified. The paddlers got to work without her instructions.
Alice called, “Our first Class II is coming up. Stay on the inside curve of the bend.”
Nancy dug the oars trying to move right but keep the boat straight. They plunked into a small waterfall and a wall of water soaked the right side of the boat, dousing Nancy and two paddlers who looked back at her with dripping hair and faces. Alice crowed and dry paddlers laughed. They rode the rapids, Alice calling orders. Nancy fleetingly admired the thousand-foot walls and the suspension bridge far above. She began to understand when Alice would call the paddlers to lean or paddle. Nancy’s instincts on the water reminded her that she was a capable, educated woman. She watched everyone facing forward, anticipating the next rapid, the next bend in the river. She was ready.
*
Back at the buildings, after the raft was unloaded and the gear moved into a shed, Alice offered to show her around. They entered the red building. The large room smelled like turpentine. New, clean linoleum in a brown and beige squares pattern covered the floor. Stainless steel tables and a large stove, wrapped in industrial plastic, lined one wall.
Alice said, “This is our future kitchen. I’d like to build a new kitchen though, and use this space as a cafeteria. We’re installing a row of windows that will welcome travelers and brighten up the place. For now. people have to eat outside at picnic tables, that we’ll buy next spring.”
They walked outside. Alice gestured toward the one room building. “Over here I’d like to have a little general store. Sell cold pop, candy, bread and peanut butter for our guests and any passersby.”
Nancy opened a wooden door with a broken screen and peered into an empty room with a cement floor. She envisioned the store, the shelving, the coolers for soda and popsicles.
“There will be camping eventually. Next year we open rafting to the public. The store and campground will wait until we have some equity. Banks won’t lend to women, which is bullshit.”
Nancy’s face cracked into a smile. She didn’t often hear older women swear. Her inheritance floated across her thoughts.
Alice asked, “Are you going to the action tomorrow?”
Nancy asked, “Action?”
“The protest outside the base in Colorado Springs. What our country is doing to our young men…” Alice put her hands together in prayer but rested them on her lips, as if to stop herself from crying.
Tears welled in Nancy’s eyes. She looked away, felt disingenuous because she’d only been crying for herself lately. Not for the soldiers or her brother.
Alice continued, “We must make our voices heard. Relentlessly. No to war. Protests must be loud, with everyone showing up. It’s the only way we’ll ever end the war. Our numbers are growing weekly. Will you come?”
Nancy didn’t yet know where she was staying tonight but knew she’d be okay.
“I will absolutely be there.”
Copyright 2025 by Lisa Acri