The deadline to meet Bobby was approaching quickly and I didn't see a way out other than to run. Maybe the phone was my better chance. Rory would probably catch me before I ever made it to the front door. I tried not to make a sound as I tiptoed back to the bed to try the motel again. But Rory's footsteps halted my plans for the second time.
I could hear the glass in his hands clanking before he even made it up the stairs. In one hand he managed two bottles: one of whiskey and the other scotch. In the other hand, a highball glass already gleamed with the topaz-colored liquid.
“I don't want to hear it, Lilly,” he professed as soon as he saw my eyes rest on the plunder. “I just need to get through today,” he sighed, tilting the glass on its end against his lips to take the remaining sip of his first drink.
I tried to think of a rebuttal, but my mind was consumed with what Bobby would think when I didn't show up. Would he leave me? Would he think I chose Rory over him? If he left, would I get the chance to tell him I didn't? Or would he break his promise and vanish again?
I was certain of nothing, except for the fact that Rory was in a state unlike anything I had ever seen. Despite the drinking and the arguments, I had never feared him. I had known him almost my whole life, and for most of those years, he was a stable person. He grew up in a good home with loving parents. I never thought he could become the man in front of me. But on this day, under these circumstances, cornered like a frightened animal, something dark came out of him.
He was scared. He would never admit it, but I could see the terror in the way his hands trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips. As he mumbled to himself, and sometimes to me, how “we were going to get through this,” reciting his plan over and over.
I had no choice but to go with his plan or pray Bobby would come and save me from my captivity. But Bobby promised me he wouldn't force me. That he wanted me to make this decision with a clear head. I had to come to him to tell him I was ready to leave it all behind.
At 11:55, my hope of making it to Bobby in time had died. Rory had slowed his drinking pace, not because he was moderating his drunkenness, but because I think he was on the verge of being sick. So when he could not distract himself with drink, he brought the record player upstairs for entertainment.
Rory begged me to dance with him. I agreed, thinking this would calm his nerves and keep his hands occupied with something other than a glass of liquor.
And like some sick, twisted joke that confirmed to me that god did exist and he was cruel—the record he grabbed was something I didn't even know we owned.
I recognized the melody right away. It was a different arrangement, a little quicker and peppier, the voice a little higher in the throat; more old-fashioned.
“What's this?” I asked through a clenched throat as Rory pulled me in to dance.
“Uh, Ruth...” he glanced back to the record sleeve and almost lost his balance. “...Et—ting. Ma and Pa used to play her all the time,” he added, his face droopy from the copious amounts of alcohol he had ingested.
Rory tried to lead, but his feet kept tangling into mine, and his body rocked haphazardly like a boat docked in a storm.
“Let's just go slow,” I suggested, pulling him in close and resting my head on his shoulder.
I listened to the words of the song. The story of who I had become. I rocked side to side with Rory as I looked at the clock on the nightstand, the second hand rapidly approaching the twelve.
The chime of the grandfather clock that had become white noise during this time of turmoil, rose back to the surface. Taunting me as it always did. This was the inevitable. This was the countdown I had always known was imminent.
The last time I heard this song, sung by Billie Holiday, the words were bittersweet. A love note. A little boy watched his parents dance and thought of a little girl. He didn't know yet what that meant, but on a warm summer night, they swam in the lake under the moon and they understood. One day he left the little girl, now a woman, taking all the good parts of her when he left. But he was back. And so, she was back.
Now, the song was an elegy. The sad story of a girl who loved the wrong boy. Of a boy who tried to run away to make things better, but instead left with best pieces of that girl. So that every time she looked in the mirror she saw skin, and hair, and eyes and lips. But she didn't see herself.
Tick. Tock.
The second hand pointed to the 12, and I buried my face deeper onto Rory's chest to mask the tears, bracing for the feeling of loss like a grenade had been dropped onto what was left of my soul.
Bobby thought I had chosen Rory again.
And if he left again, there would be no putting me back together.
For hours, I held in the tears. The words. The anger. The betrayal. Bobby didn't come to my door. He didn't demand to know why I didn't come. He kept his word that he would leave if I didn't show. And I sat on the bed, my head pulsating with pain, next to a frightened, drunken man determined to self-destruct. I was haunted by a dead friend (if I could still call her that), and a future that was as barren as a tundra.
Bobby could make me feel limitless and swollen with love. But with that same love, he could steal all of my hope and joy. He could make me whole, but with that power he could turn around and leave me in misshapen fragments. Fragments so warped and destroyed that no one else could figure how to put me back together; not myself, not his brother. That's what happened the first time around. Rory did try. But he couldn't fix what Bobby had demolished. No one could.
Rory played record after record, as I sat in a state of numbness. I was growing tired, but still determined to stay awake in this passive standoff with Rory. And so, I found myself in a trance-like state. Staring into nothingness, back to the hell of hollowness, as Rory's raspy, drunk voice sang along to song after song to keep himself awake.
That is until the popping and crackling of the end of a record broke my fog. Rory's slurred voice wasn't crooning in the background. I looked over at him to see if he was going to address the record and saw what, only to me, looked like a shred of hope: Rory sunken into his chair, the bottle of whiskey barely perched on his fingers, the neck of the bottle supported on the floor, dripping the last drops onto the carpet.
I opened my lips and moved them, but only a broken gust of air escaped my throat. I tried again.
“Rory?”
A snore. The most beautiful, glorious sound I had heard all day. The numbness was overtaken by a surge of adrenaline. I was so close to being free, but I knew what it was like to taste freedom, only to immediately become shackled. I slowly slid my legs to the floor and tiptoed out the room. Rory's snoring picked up and I let out a hushed sigh of relief in the hallway. The house undulated as I leaned against the bannister and hurried down the steps, which proved to be more difficult that I had anticipated.
I ran to the kitchen. The keys. Where were the keys? The last I remembered, they were in his pocket when he wrestled me for the phone.
“Come on. Come on . . .” I coached myself as I searched each drawer. Then I remembered, I could hear jingling when Rory was moving around in his clothes before he showered. But I hadn't heard that jingling in hours. They were in his pocket in the heap on the floor. I would have to go back up there.
I filled with dread as I realized I would need to risk going back to the place of my captivity to gain my freedom. But the freedom I was seeking wasn't just outside the door. I needed to get to that motel. That's all I cared about. I had fixated on the idea that Bobby might still be there. I didn't want to run to a neighbor, who might call the police, and hold me up further. Every second was precious.
I steeled myself with a lungful of air and tiptoed back up the stairs. No matter how light I was on my feet, the stairs creaked, forcing me to go even slower and add to the tension. Rory's snores could be heard from the hallway, which gave me a slight assurance. He only snored when he was very drunk. Still, I knew that once I could be in his sights, if he woke up, I would have lost the one shot
I had.
I made my way into the room, holding my breath as I knelt down in front of the heap of muddy, wet clothes. Rory shifted in his seat and I clenched my eyes shut, preparing for his outburst. But the symphony of his snores resumed. My shoulders dropped in relief when I realized he was still asleep. I pulled his pants out of the pile, and slipped my hand into an empty pocket. Maybe I had imagined the jingling. Maybe the keys were on his person. Then I slid my hand into the other pocket and felt the cold, jagged metal.
I could have sang at that moment, but instead I bit my lip and slipped the keys out as quietly as I could. I rose to my feet and turned on my heels. Just then, Rory snored so deeply that he began to choke. His eyelids fluttered, and he took a gasp of air. The bottle that was barely perched on his fingers fell out of his hand and made a loud thud. He began to squint. I didn't know if he was waking or if he was still passed out, but this time, I ran. Without regard for noise, or caution.
I raced down the stairs, and halfway down, vertigo kicked in from the concussion. I missed a step and tumbled down to the bottom. The fall wasn't too painful, but it was noisy. And when my eyes met the top of the staircase, there he was: looking down on me.
“Lilly?” he asked, confused and half awake.
“I'm not telling anyone,” I said, as I shot up and made a run for the door. I hoped my words would persuade him not to chase me. In a welcome stroke of luck, my purse rested at the small entry table where I rested it when I walked in and discovered Rory the night before. I snatched it on my way out the door. I banked on the fact that Rory didn't want to be seen so he wouldn't follow me outside.
The streets were quiet as most families were in their homes for dinner. I ran to my car barefoot, my dress stained with blood from my head wound, and hoped no one had seen.
I sped out of our neighborhood and down the county highway to the motel where Bobby had stayed. Tears streaked my face as I finally was able to let out the mix of emotions I had held in for the entire night. I had started with so much hope and peace, swinging from a tree with views of my favorite place in the world. I was going to be Lilly Gale again. The girl with endless possibilities and a passion for life. The girl whose heart belonged to Bobby Lightly.
But I was assaulted with the reminder of who I really was: the woman who made a cowardly choice, and who paid for it with the loss of all the things that made her, her. Whose complete lack of fulfillment was mirrored in a drunk husband who had killed his mistress, her closest friend.
I pressed the gas as hard as I could, nearly spinning out at turns, running stop signs and red lights, until I swerved into the motel driveway, planting my car on a random location in the parking lot. My eyes scanned the place for Bobby's signature pickup, but of the few cars there, none were his.
I fixed my hair in the side view mirror and tried to compose myself before walking in to the front desk.
An older man who had his feet propped up laughed at an episode of I Love Lucy on a small TV behind the counter. The lobby was just as humid and hot as it was outside, but he had a little fan hitting him directly, keeping him from perspiring as much as me.
“Hello.”
He put his feet down and turned to face me.
“Hello, ma'am. Looking for a room?”
“No, um, actually, I am looking for someone who was staying here.” I tried not to sound anxious, but I oozed with restless energy. The sweat soaking through my dress and pouring from my brow didn't help.
“He give you a room number? A name?”
“Ye . . . yes. Well, not a room. But his name is Robert Lightly, goes by Bobby. He's . . . I'd say six feet maybe taller. Brown hair and eyes.”
“Ooooh, yeah. That nice looking fella. Looked like he should be playing football or baseball or something.”
I let out a big sigh. “So he's here?” I asked, wide-eyed and hopeful.
“Oh, no ma'am. I'm sorry. He left a few hours ago. Kept coming over as asking if we had gotten any calls for him—” he stopped. “Was it you?” Before I could answer, his eyes scanned me. As if he hadn't really looked as me before. “Are you okay? You look a little . . . you have some blood—”
“I'm fine. I was just gardening and it's just been a long day. So you said he left?” I asked, clenching the edge of the counter.
“Yes. I'm sorry. He checked out 'bout . . . three, four hours ago. He's gone.”
I thought I would collapse. The finality of those words gripped me, squeezed the air out of my lungs, and tried to drag me down to the floor.
“Do . . . you . . . did he say where he was going?”
“He's a charming fella. We had a talk . . . told me all these places he had been to. He said he . . . ah . . . was headed west. Seemed kind of sad when he left though. Checked out late. That's all I know. I'm sorry.”
He waited. But he didn't wait long enough. He didn't fight for me. He didn't try one last time.
I turned around and trudged to the door.
“Ma'am. You sure you okay? You don't have any shoes . . .” the man's voice drifted into the background as I headed out of the motel.
I was gone. Bobby had left me vacant all over again.
At first I tried to contemplate my next move in the parking lot, but I noticed the manager peeking outside the door at me. So I put the car in gear and drove away.
The sky was a dusty blue as the sun finally disappeared into the horizon. After a few minutes, I found myself sitting in my car at an empty four-way intersection on the county highway. Desolate. Abandoned. Scared.
If I kept going straight, I'd reach town eventually. But there was nothing there for me.
In the distance, on the road adjacent to me, two lights beamed in the distance. They grew larger and brighter as they neared me. I thought I should proceed, but I couldn't put my foot to the gas pedal. I had no place to go. At least here, things were quiet. I rested my head on the steering wheel in utter defeat as the lights from the other car illuminated mine.
But the light didn't disappear. I looked up to wave them along, and I saw a dark silhouette backed by blinding light. Tall, strong, walking towards my car. I squinted against the rays of light that emanated from this person to get a better view. I knew the gait instantly, but it couldn't be. I looked up at the vehicle: a light blue, weathered pickup truck.
I let out an almost hysterical celebratory laugh to myself, but at the same time, I thought I had snapped. This couldn't be. He left hours ago. And I had just learned my life was not a story where the hero rescues me. It was a tragedy where we could never be together.
“Lil? Lil? Is that you?” Bobby asked, shielding his eyes from my headlights. He began to jog over to the car. His voice. Thick like honey. Warm like melted butter. Sultry like velvet. He became more real as my sense of hearing perceived him. I thrust the door open, and stumbled out of the car, half-tripping towards the floor as I ran to him. I couldn't contain the swell of contrasting emotions that came over me as I called out his name and fell into his arms.
Touch. I could feel him all around me. A pillar of strength holding me up.
Smell. Of grass and sun. Of fresh air and salt.
“You're here.” Was all I could muster.
“I'm here, baby,” he whispered into my hair.
“They said you left. I tried so hard to get to you in time,” I panted into his chest, gripping him so tightly I thought I might cut off his oxygen.
“I tried. I waited longer and I tried to respect what you wanted to do — what I thought you wanted — but I got a few hours out and I turned around. I was just heading to you. I can't believe I just found you out here . . . I'm not letting you go this time.”
Finally feeling secure, my chest heaved uncontrollably as I cried against him.
“Lil, what's going on?” He stepped out of my grip to look me up and down. “What the hell happened? Are you okay? You said you tried to get to me?”
I didn't know where to start. How to tell him all the things that happened in the short time we
had been apart. It felt like I had lived an entire life without him, coming back to him changed by what I saw in Rory.
“Bobby . . .” I choked through tears. “Rory was home. I went to the lake and I came back and he was there. Drunk. A mess. Barbie's dead. And he drove her into the river. They've been having an affair. And he's hiding and he wouldn't let me go. And I tried to call you, but I slipped and—”
Bobby gripped my face and grounded me with his warm eyes. “Lil. Lil. Slow down.”
I winced when his fingers grazed the tender spot, my head still throbbing from the fall.
“What's this?” he asked, running his thumb across the gash. “Did he do this to you?”
“It was an accident. We were fighting over the phone.”
But I saw a look in Bobby's eyes that was foreign to me. Bobby's eyes were warm sunsets. Lemonade on a creaky porch during sunset. Laughter on a tire swing. A refreshing breeze just as you stepped out of the lake on a scalding summer day.
But now his eyes were hostile. They were both hollow and full. Scorching and frigid. Focused and distant.
“Bobby . . . Bobby . . . no,” I commanded, knowing what was to come next. “I don't want you to go back there. I just want to leave. I have my purse. Let's just go and never come back.”
“Lil, I need to go over there. I need to see my brother.” The commitment in his tone told me begging was a losing battle, but it didn't stop me.
“No. Please. He's got a gun and he's drunk!” I pleaded.
Bobby snickered. “He won't shoot me. He wouldn't dare, Lil.”
“I don't want you to leave again.”
“Lil, he's lost control. And . . .” Bobby tensed visibly with a rage I didn't know he could summon. “. . . he should have never touched you. I can't just let that go. I won't.”
“He's desperate.”
“You're telling me, he killed Barbie.”
“Not on purpose. He crashed the car and left her. He panicked.”
Bobby shook his head, the rage intertwined with a deep sadness. “I don't know what the fuck happened to him. I should have never . . .” Bobby stopped himself. We had told ourselves that line countless times and learned by now, there was no winning. It was a waste of breath. We did what we shouldn't have. We let each other go years before and we were here now. That's all that mattered.
Swelter Page 18