After a Sunday dinner alone, with the leftovers that Tim had sent home with me, I had Clete help me load the ranch’s small portable Honda generator in the back of the truck and a power drill and extension cord. Kevin had left as soon as he woke up Sunday morning and was with Ariana. Where they went or did during the day, I had no idea, but I could imagine.
After the incident at Emily’s, my patience was over. While I had calmed down some, the Hoppy Gene still had not run its course and remained unsatisfied. Adrenalin was still cursing through my old clogged arteries and I felt I had to do something. Buying a drill to see if there was anything hidden below the cistern’s floor was doing something and a way to stay out of trouble while Sunny was away. I figured the small diameter of the bit wouldn’t damage the cistern’s floor and was a shorter route to the cavern below than drilling a borehole away from the cistern.
Sunday night as I prepared for bed, I was nervous about meeting Laura Miller’s son, George Landau, for the first time. It made for another very sleepless night. My dreams took me back to when Barbin was twelve and we lived in Austin, Texas. I had broken up with George’s mother, Laura Miller, about six months earlier.
. . .
I was out in the back yard of our Austin home raking leaves and picking up pecans when Barbin came running out of the house. “It’s Laura. She’s on the phone,” she said out of breath. “She wants to talk to you.”
I pitched the handful of pecans on the pile I had been working on and went inside. I wasn’t excited at the prospect of talking to Laura. I hadn’t heard from her since she had left Austin for San Antonio, though she had written a letter to the kids. She must need something, I thought to myself.
“I was wondering if I would ever hear from you again,” I chided her after I picked up the receiver.
“You knew where I was.”
“So, how are you,” I said to change the subject.
“I’m fine. I wanted you to know that I’m getting married next month.”
“Jesus, Laura!”
“Can Barbin be my maid of honor?”
“You’re serious?”
“Of course, I am. Can she?”
“I don’t know. She’s never been away from home before... at least out of town by herself.”
“Walter’s from San Antonio. We’re getting married here. Can she, please? I’ll take care of her. She’ll stay with me the whole time.”
“Let me talk it over with her. Who is this guy?”
“Like it’s any of your business, but I met Walter when I was in college. We sort of lost track of one another after I graduated.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of soon?”
“No, I do not,” she said indignantly.
“I’ll call you back on this,” I said, anxious to hang up the phone. I can’t say I was surprised by the news, she was always impulsive. I knew her, though, and it probably wouldn’t last. I felt angry with her at the news, but then I felt stupid, because I had no claims to her‒no man did on a woman like Laura‒and I was complicit in the breakup between us.
“No, I’ll call you back tonight. Will that give you enough time?” she said.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Please, Max.”
“It’s Barbin’s call, Laura.”
“You won’t forget to ask her?”
“No. I’ll talk to her, I promise.”
After I hung up the kitchen phone, I went back outside. Barbin heard me go outside and followed me. She didn’t say anything as I continued to pick up pecans. It was a good year for pecans. The summer’s weather had been good for the trees. Barbin was being very patient and I wondered if she knew.
“Laura’s getting married,” I said. I could tell by her expression she hadn’t known. To her credit she didn’t give in to whatever it was that she felt.
“I’m happy for her,” she said without much enthusiasm.
“She wants you to be her wedding.”
Barbin shook her head, no, and went back inside the house. My first reaction was a sense of relief. We both felt the same sense of betrayal. By the time I had rolled up the pile of pecans in the newspaper and carried them into the house, I knew I couldn’t let it stand like that. Barbin needed to be able to let go of the broken relationship and get on with her life.
“Barbin,” I said outside of her closed bedroom door.
“What!”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Please.”
I heard her get up from her bed and walk over to the door. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said through the door.
“Okay, I understand that, but would you mind if I did? I need to.”
She opened the door. She had been crying. I put my arm around her shoulders and walked with her to the bed. She flopped down and buried her face in her pillow. I sat on Sarah’s bed across from her. I wanted to lie down beside her and hold her as if she were still five years old.
“When you love someone, sometimes it hurts as much as it feels good,” I said and regretted it as soon as I said it. That pearl of wisdom sounded pretty stupid even to me.
I heard her mumble, “Duh!” into the pillow. It was her favorite response to everything I said back then.
Okay, I thought, I had been a little too trite and could do better. “If we love Laura, we want her to be happy and we have to ignore the hurt. She wasn’t happy with me. Maybe she can find happiness with the man she’s going to marry. I think you should be part of that. She wants you to.”
“Laura’s getting married?” Sarah asked from the door.
“Yes. She wants Barbin to be in the wedding,” I said.
“Cool.”
“I thought she loved us,” Barbin whined.
“She does. Her love for you guys is as strong as it can be under the circumstances. Her getting married to another man doesn’t change that for her. It does for me, because we had a different kind of relationship, but not for you two and James Lee. Why don’t you give it some thought, Barbin? She wouldn’t have asked you, if she didn’t love you, and wanted you there.”
“I don’t want to be in her stupid wedding. I’m never going to get married.”
I got up and sat on her bed and stroked her hair. “I wouldn’t worry about that for a while, Sweetheart. I’ll tell you what. If you don’t want to go to her wedding you don’t have to. She’s going to call back tonight. I’ll tell her whatever you’ve decided.”
Sarah came in and sat on her bed. I went into the kitchen to start cracking the pecans so the kids could pick and shell them later. “Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving without roasted pecans,” my wife, Barbara, said to me.
Barbara’s presence in my dream that night about Barbin and Laura woke me up. Barbara’s spirit had lingered with me for many years after she died and her spirit had been part of my life up until I didn’t think it was healthy for the kids to catch me talking to their mother. It was the Catholic belief in saints and praying to them that had been drummed into me as a kid that made the idea of Barbara’s spirit so easy to accept and eventually talk to. Her spirit, real or imaginary, had been so woven into the fabric of my life that even now, almost thirty years later, she came to visit me every once in a while. I still thought of her and conversed with her and it didn’t mean, I assured myself, that I loved Sunny any less.
To see Barbara’s spirit again in my dream was enough to make me sit up and slip out of bed. I stood over the bed and looked down at Sunny’s empty side. In my imagination, I heard her heavy nasal breathing and missed her. The fact that I had dreamt of another woman did not distract me from my appreciation of the woman who now shared my life. I did however want to savor the moment with Barbara and could not do so in Sunny’s bed. I slipped on a pair of jeans and went into the living room to sit by the windows in the hopes that Barbara would visit me again.
Chapter 8
While reclining in the moonlight streaming through our living room window and comfortable beneath a soft
scent-laden throw blanket of Sunny’s I fell quickly back to sleep and resumed my dream of Laura’s wedding.
I had dropped Barbin off at the address Laura had given me in Alamo Heights. She came out to say hello to Sarah and James Lee while I remained in the car. A message was waiting on our answering machine from Barbin when we got home. She sounded excited and said she would call back later. James Lee headed for a friend’s house, and Sarah busied herself while I took a nap on the couch to wait for Barbin’s call.
She called later that afternoon while I was in the shower getting ready for work. Sarah answered the phone and came and got me. I was a little outdone with Barbin for making us wait so long, but I didn’t want to spoil her special time and so I swallowed my tongue.
“I want to come home,” she had said as soon as I picked up the receiver.
I stood there dripping wet with the towel wrapped around me. Sarah sat at the breakfast table and listened. Barbin didn’t sound so happy this time. “What’s wrong, Barbin?”
“I don’t want to be in the wedding. I want to come home,” she said.
Barbin’s mood swings were notorious in our family, so I didn’t take her change of heart seriously. “Okay, if that’s what you really want to do. But first, tell me what’s wrong.”
“No.”
That feeling of helplessness that comes when something happens to your child and you’re not there to protect them turned quickly to anger directed at myself. I should have never let her go to the wedding. Something had happened.
“Barbin, tell me what’s wrong. I have to know if you’re okay.”
“Can I come home?”
“Of course,” I said.
“It’s not like I thought it would be. Walter has kids. They don’t like me.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you talk to Laura about this?”
“No.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“No. You said I could home if I told you.”
“Barbin, the rehearsal dinner is tonight.”
“There’s not going to be one,” she said.
“What? You’re not telling me something, Barbin.”
“Laura said they changed their mind. They’re still going to get married tomorrow.”
I knew that Barbin could get a little upset sometimes if things didn’t go just as she had planned them in her mind. She wasn’t a serendipitous child. “Are you sure you can’t stick it out?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Sweetheart. I’m sorry things didn’t work out. Let me talk to Laura so I can make the arrangements.”
“No,” she said emphatically.
“Barbin, I need to know where to pick you up and that someone will be there with you until I can get there.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“No, you will not call me back. And don’t hang up. Where are you?”
“I’m with Laura.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I don’t know. We’re at some friend of Walter’s family. You should see this place. It’s huge.”
“I need to have a phone number in case I have to contact you.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
I heard Laura in the background ask her who she was talking to and then the phone went dead.
It took me a while to find the wedding announcement and get Walter’s last name. I called two Landaus in San Antonio, until I found his family home. I got his daughter on the phone. She sounded about the same age as Laura.
“This is Max Howard. My daughter is in Laura’s wedding. Do you know where she’s staying. I need to talk to her.”
“You’re him, the Max Howard,” she asked.
“Max Howard, yes. Do you know where I can reach Barbin?”
“Just a minute,” she said.
It sounded like she threw the receiver down on a table from my end. All kinds of things raced through my mind. Was Laura having second thoughts? I heard the receiver being picked up.
“This is Walter Landau. May I help you?”
I felt a little awkward. I wondered how much he knew about my relationship with Laura. And he sounded older than I was. “Walter, Max Howard. Congratulations!” I offered.
“Excuse me?” he said in a pompous tone. It took me by surprise.
“Look, I’m just trying to reach my daughter. She’s staying with Laura. Would you have a phone number where I can reach her?”
“She’s probably at my sister’s home right now. Her number is 306-1687.”
“Thanks. By the way, you’re getting a wonderful woman,” I said for no real reason, other than I felt like it was the thing to do. Social etiquette wasn’t my strong suit.
“You have me confused with my father, Walter Senior,” he said and hung up the phone.
“Holy shit,” I thought to myself as I put the receiver down. Laura had once told me she liked being with an older man, but this was ridiculous. I immediately dialed the number I had been given by Landau Junior. A young girl answered who sounded like she was in her early twenties. I explained who I was.
“What does she look like?” the girl wanted to know before she would go get Barbin for me.
I described Barbin and waited a couple of minutes.
“Hello,” Barbin said, surprised that she had a phone call.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said. “Why’d you hang up?”
“How’d did you find me?” she asked, genuinely amazed that I had.
“Hey, you’re my kid. What did you expect me to do? I called the father’s secret hotline. There’s a network out there of millions of fathers and they know everything every kid is doing,” I said to mess with her mind for those times in the future when she thought she could pull the wool over my eyes.
“Yeah, right.”
“I want to know what’s going on. Put Laura on the line.”
“No way,” she said, but her bravado didn’t last. “Daddy, he’s old. Like a hundred or something.”
“What?”
“She’s marrying an old man because she’s having a baby and no one will marry her,” she cried.
“She told you this?”
“No. One of the other girls did. She said Walter was doing it to help her.”
“Jesus.”
“Daddy, please. I want to come home.”
“Okay, Barbin. I’ll need help on that end. Let me talk to Laura.”
“You won’t tell her what I said, will you?”
“Of course not. I just need to make sure she can handle the arrangements.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“Good question. How about that James Lee broke his leg?” I offered.
“No, she will be worried about him. It will spoil her wedding.”
“Like your leaving the night before her wedding, won’t? Barbin, she won’t be concerned about James Lee.”
“Yes, she will,” she said defensively. “You don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Oh, never mind. I’ll tell her.”
“No, you will not. If you want to come home, I will tell her and I will make sure she has an adult with you until I arrive.”
“Don’t get her angry,” she warned me.
Laura came on the line a few minutes later. She answered hesitantly. “Hello?”
“Hey, congratulations,” I said.
“Thanks. You should see Barbin. She looks beautiful in her dress.”
“Barbin’s feeling a little uncomfortable. She wants to come home.”
There was a pause. I heard her tell Barbin to go downstairs and get her a cup of coffee.
“What do you mean?” she said when Barbin was obviously out of earshot.
“You know how she is. This is a big experience for her. I don’t think she likes being away from home.”
“Max, she’s doing fine. I’ll talk to her.”
“I told her I would come and get her.”
“The ceremony is tomorrow morning, for God’s sake.
Please let her stay.”
“It’s not me, Laura. She wants to come home.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re doing this to spoil everything. You’re such an asshole,” she said angrily.
“Calm down, Laura. I want her to stay. She needs to deal with this. But she is my daughter and if she really wants to come home, I’ll come get her.”
“Don’t you dare,” she threatened.
“Why, Laura? Afraid I’ll find out how old this guy is? I thought you said you were in school together.”
“We were,” she said indignantly. “He’s only sixty-four. And in better shape than you’ll ever be.”
“What was he, the dean?”
There was a pause on the other end. I felt we were off and running. It felt good to engage her again. I had missed that aspect of our relationship.
“He was a professor. With tenure.”
“Whoa, that certainly makes all the difference in the world,” I said. There was a pause on the other end. “Do you love this guy, Laura?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want you to be happy,” I said and was surprised at myself. The truth was I did want her to find whatever it was she was looking for and hadn’t been able to find with me. She deserved that after putting up with me.
“I’ll talk to Barbin and call you back.”
“Don’t make me call the cops,” I said to play with her.
“Don’t you dare threaten me, Max Howard,” she said with an attitude that was familiar.
I didn’t think it was a good time to remind her of why I was concerned about her keeping her word so I let her hang up with nothing more than, “Later.”
I wondered where we would have been now if we had lived together during the time we were a couple. I had not wanted her to move in with me because of the effect that it might have on the kids. If we had been married, so much of what we had both been through might not have happened. I had a sense of that road not taken again. Was regret what I had to look forward to now for the rest of my life? I called my supervisor and told him I would be in late that night for my shift at the Motorola Plant.
The Turbulence of Butterflies (Max Howard Series Book 6) Page 9