The Arcanum of Beth

by Mary Jane Russell

  “I’m glad we had a drink with dinner,” Patti mouthed the words to Lou behind Will’s back.

  “If one more old man asks me who I am, then says ‘that Lou,’ I’m not responsible for my actions.”

  Will cleared his throat.

  “I was in your mother’s Sunday School class for twenty years,” the woman said as she held onto Beth’s hand. “Best teacher I ever had. She never ran out of ideas to make the lessons interesting.”

  Beth nodded.

  “I just have to tell you. She was so proud of you. She never failed to praise how you looked after her and how the two of you had looked after your father. That meant the world to her. She loved you dearly.”

  “And I, her. I was so fortunate to have the parents I did.” Beth hugged the woman.

  “Florence-fucking-Nightingale. How do you live with her?” Patti whispered to Lou.

  “Enough,” Will said to his wife.

  “I know you didn’t just try to tell me what I may say, Will Candler. We didn’t have to be here tonight. These people are coming in for Beth. We could have waited until the funeral tomorrow to make an appearance.”

  “Are you the son?” The man grasped Will with a gnarled hand the color of cured tobacco. He wore crisply laundered overalls and a starched white shirt. He tugged at the tight collar against his neck.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Uh-huh. Heard about you. Shame you didn’t take over the farm. Beautiful land. Your father and his before had a gift with crops. Guess it wasn’t your calling.” The man looked at the suit with vest that Will wore as comfortably as most men did jeans and a T-shirt and moved into his place before Beth.

  “Hiram.” She smiled and hugged him.

  He blushed. “If you want a summer job again, there’ll always be a place for you dropping tobacco plants. Never saw anyone with a better eye for spacing those seedlings. Your father won my grocery money one week, betting that the majority in the row you set was equally spaced. Then he gave me the money back because he said the pleasure was in watching me pull the string line between each plant and seeing the expression on my face.”

  “You’re lucky he gave your money back. He always kept mine. You’d think I’d have learned not to bet with him.” Beth chuckled.

  “You did right by both of them, girl. That’s all any of us can hope for.”

  She hugged him again.

  “And who are you?” The man stopped in front of Lou.

  “Keith’s adopted daughter, Lou Stephens.”

  “Oh, well, glad you’re here for Beth.” The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other, couldn’t think of anything else to say, and moved on.

  “I’m Will’s wife,” Patti spoke first to get the question over with when the next person stopped in front of her.

  “Who’s Will?” The woman glanced along the line.

  It was all Janet could do not to laugh. She hovered behind the family line, making sure Beth had something to drink and catching people’s eyes to encourage them to move along.

  She looked across the room. Ellen had not moved from her post and made sure everyone signed the registry. Beth would need help later to remember all who came through the receiving line. Ellen knew some of the people from her years at the college. She slipped back into effortless chatter with strangers.

  “They never talk about any of this.” Greg glanced about the room of plain, country people as he spoke to Lou. “It’s a whole different life that she and Andy were supposed to be a part of.” Lou had decided to stand with Will and Patti so they could all three be politely ignored at once. “It’s as though she was another person on her parents’ farm. Andy’s the same. Sometimes I forget he and Beth were a couple.”

  Andy left the line when he reached Beth and now stood beside her. They looked as though they had been comfortably married for years as Beth leaned against him for support.

  “She never says much about the past or her father,” Lou said. “I knew she helped care for him before he died, but I didn’t realize it was for years.” She looked at Will as though he should have explained it better to her.

  “And you wouldn’t have known that unless you heard it from her mother or some of the others.” Greg leaned closer to Lou. “She barely told Auntie about any of it until Keith launched into it in front of Janet. Most people had no idea what Beth did with her twenties, being a co-caregiver to her bedridden father. She never complained except to say she should have handled it better. She did once say that if she had the decision to make all over again, she would have done the same but with more patience.”

  Will sighed.

  Greg looked at Will. “She wasn’t even bitter about doing it alone.”

  The couple in front of Beth and Andy stalled the movement of the line.

  “Everyone knows about you two. They don’t pretend to understand, but they know both of you too well to be critical of who you live with.” The man was Andy’s age but with black hair and heavy mustache and the deep tan of farming.

  His wife hugged Beth again. “They’re still disappointed you two aren’t married and living on the farm. Don’t bother to try and tell them that you’re married to someone of the same sex. It just doesn’t connect with their image of you two.”

  “I tell them when they ask my opinion that anyone who wants to suffer through marriage ought to be able to, regardless of sex, same or nonexistent.” With that, his wife pulled him away to join their set of friends in the corner.

  “And to think we went through school with all of them.” Andy watched his former friends and teammates who had turned into their own parents.

  “Thank God, we’re not normal.” Beth giggled and sagged against Andy. “I could use a stiff drink if I didn’t think it would put me out cold.”

  “Are you sure that would be a bad thing?” Andy held onto her as he watched Greg slip behind the line to his aunt.

  Beth nodded. “Thank you so much for being here and for that huge tray of cold cuts at the house. You guys have fed us for a week at least. Mom thought the world of you and never forgave me for letting you get away. She told me I should have married you anyway.” She chuckled. “Maybe she was right.”

  “She was always decent to me even after she saw me with Greg. I appreciated that. She didn’t miss a beat speaking to both of us and wanting to know how we were doing.”

  “Mom struggled with her faith but never stopped loving me even after I upset her entire world.” Beth glanced at the church photograph again.

  “She accepted all of us. She just couldn’t talk about it.” Janet had her arm around Greg’s waist as they joined Beth and Andy.

  “More than she accepted that.” Andy stared at Patti who had eased out of line and found a chair in the corner so that she could listen to her iPod. Will made no attempt to carry on a conversation with any of the locals he should have remembered from his childhood.

  Chapter Twelve

  The drive to the Outer Banks was painfully subdued. Janet and Ellen talked quietly in the front while Beth propped herself up with pillows in one corner of the backseat and slept, waking only when they stopped to eat lunch. Lou sat in the opposite corner and occupied herself with a CD player from Patti.

  “I’m glad we finally talked Beth into this,” Janet said quietly to Ellen as they crossed the state line into North Carolina. “She hasn’t rested since Keith’s death, between playing catch-up at the office and handling Keith’s estate.”

  “I know. I remember acting as my mother’s executrix. It’s a major pain sorting out all the hospital bills and Medicare statements while trying to settle life insurance policies and close out bank accounts and credit cards.” Ellen looked over her shoulder to make sure Beth was still asleep. “Beth told me that Keith still had policies taken out by her parents and converted when Keith came of age with companies that have been gone for decades. She has to track the buyouts.”

  “Good heavens. Good thing she’s a CPA.” Janet glanced in the rearview mirror. “Wild
child doesn’t seem too concerned about anything.”

  Lou nodded in beat with the music and stared out the window.

  “That’s what worries me.” Ellen reached for Janet’s hand. “Here I go again. We brought them here the first time October a year ago. Can you believe the change in them?” She looked at Janet.

  “What a difference a year makes,” Janet said ruefully. “Except in us.” She grinned at her partner.

  Ellen nodded.

  They pulled into the driveway of the cottage by mid-afternoon. Ellen couldn’t wait to be out of the car and smell the salt air. “Home sweet away from home.”

  Janet popped the trunk open to unload bags.

  “Need any help?” A woman’s voice carried across the sand from the four thousand-square-foot house next door.

  Janet hit her head on the trunk latch trying to see who was talking to them. She heard Ellen before she saw the source.

  “Fuck!”

  Janet stepped around the car. Ellen pointed to the crow’s nest atop the roof ridge next door.

  Patti was dressed in a pink jogging suit and waving to them. She pushed Will toward the steps.

  Lou stretched as she left the car and immediately looked to the house across the sand and waved.

  “Damn her, she knew!” Ellen dropped the bag she had pulled out of the trunk and prepared to go at Lou.

  Janet grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

  Ellen’s face turned a bright red. She held her tongue as Beth emerged from the backseat, looking groggy from napping. She smiled at Janet and Ellen. “We’re here. I had forgotten how much I love this place. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be. Thank you so much, Ellen.”

  “You might reconsider that.” Janet pointed to Lou jogging toward the house next door. Lou kicked sand at Will in passing. Patti started down the steps to meet her.

  Beth’s face fell. “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes. You’re not having a nightmare, sweetheart,” Janet said, watching Lou and Patti hug.

  “Are you too tired to drive us back?” Beth looked at Janet. “Just kidding.” Her smile was as wan as her complexion.

  “Hey, little sister.” Will stopped in front of Beth, hands in the pockets of his baggy knee-length shorts. He wore a Fletcher Women’s College sweatshirt.

  “Will, what the hell did she talk you into? You don’t have the money to throw away on that place for a week.” All hope Beth had of relaxing disappeared with her question.

  “Her parents treated us.” He shrugged. “We told them how stressed we were with Mom’s death and the move to Virginia to be closer to them, and they offered.”

  Ellen tried but could not stop herself. “How stressed you and Patti are? What kind of bullshit is that?”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Harris, how many kinds are there?” Will was in no better mood than Ellen.

  “You didn’t want to come, did you, but you couldn’t let her come alone?” Beth asked her brother.

  He wouldn’t answer.

  “She made you because of Lou.”

  He stared at Beth blankly. “Do you want help with your bags or not? Or do you have enough old bags?” His attempt at humor was not well received.

  “Not,” Beth said quickly and picked up her two duffels and started toward the cottage.

  “Fine.” He turned and walked back toward the big house.

  Lou waved from the crow’s nest as she twirled Patti in a dance step. Lou’s bags were left sitting in the driveway.

  “You’re welcome to stay with us,” Will said over his shoulder to Beth. “You know where Lou will be most of the time.”

  Beth continued into Ellen’s cottage without responding. She dropped her bags in the front bedroom and continued through the house and out the back door. She was soon walking north on the beach, away from Lou and Patti and Will.

  They settled into a routine of Janet and Ellen’s early morning walk with Beth accompanying them in silence as Lou slept. Beth then went for mid-morning and mid-afternoon walks alone as Lou slept in each morning and hung out or shopped with Patti in the afternoon. Lunch was catch as catch can. Dinner was open for whoever was in a mood to go out. Lou spent her evenings with Patti and Will; Beth with Janet and Ellen. Beth went to bed at 10:00 just before Janet and Ellen; Lou usually wandered in about 1:00 to sleep part of the night with Beth. They all studied what one another was doing.

  Ellen waited up for Lou on their third night in Salvo. She was sitting on the back porch in the dark when Lou tiptoed up the steps to the house at 1:15 a.m.

  “What in the hell are you doing?”

  Lou jumped as though shot at. “Are you crazy? You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Someone needs to.”

  “Mind your own damn business.”

  “Not when it’s going on under my own roof.”

  “Then we’ll move out.”

  “Beth won’t.”

  This stopped Lou. “What do you mean?”

  “You can go wherever the hell you want to. In fact, we don’t want you in the car with us for the drive home.”

  Lou’s face hardened. “Fine.”

  “Beth is no fool.”

  “I didn’t say she was.”

  “That bitch Patti is married, for Christ’s sake.”

  “So?”

  Ellen threw up her hands. “Beth watches you and Patti. She knows something’s going on.”

  “But she doesn’t want to believe it. That’s the beauty of it.”

  “She can’t allow herself to believe it…it’s her friggin’ sister-in-law.”

  Lou shrugged.

  “You little shit.”

  “Well, I’m not the first to break up a marriage. At least there’s no child involved.”

  Ellen forced herself not to throw her 160 pounds at Lou. “If you’re implying I did, you’ve been told the wrong story.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone of anything. Live and let live. We’re all grownups.”

  “Yes, but we don’t all have the innate honor that Beth does. This will destroy her. Don’t do this to her so soon after losing her mother.”

  “It’s out of my hands.” Lou started toward the door. “I’ll go back if you don’t want me in your doll house.”

  “Get out of my sight. Beth still wants you here. Find an excuse to go home separately.”

  “Not a problem.” Lou entered the house.

  Ellen didn’t move.

  “Honey,” Janet whispered to her from the bedroom, using the window that opened onto the porch, “come to bed.”

  “You heard?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate her.”

  “I always did. Come inside.” Janet met her in the kitchen and grabbed two beers from the refrigerator, hoping the lager would help them fall asleep.

  An uneasy silence settled over the cottage whenever Lou checked in with Beth. Beth said nothing about what she observed until their last night. Will had decided to stay at the cottage to watch college football while Patti and Lou went to dinner. Janet and Ellen were civil to him for Beth’s sake.

  “Will, walk with me.” Beth held out her hand to her brother and led him out the back door.

  “I think I need to stretch out.” Janet looked at Ellen and started for their room.

  “Janet,” Ellen said as she stood from the sofa, “wait for me.”

  They eased open the bedroom windows.

  Beth and Will stopped on the beach directly out from the cottage. Will had almost tripped over a half-buried bottle he wanted to see the rest of—it looked like a fairly old whiskey decanter with the bottom sticking out of the sand three inches.

  “Wonder if the top is still on this. That would be a pretty good find to take home. Better than any of that crap Lou digs up in the old trash dump at the house.”

  “Did you enjoy the trip, big brother?” Beth sounded older than Keith.

  Janet reached for Ellen’s hand.

  “Some of it.” Will was intent on moving sand with his C
ross pen.

  “Will…” Beth waited for him to look up at her. She stared until he stood and faced her. “Will, it’s time. Patti needs to leave this family.”

  “Go on.”

  “What is her hold on you? Money? I’ll give you all I have if that’s what it takes for you to be rid of her. Even Mom saw how bad it was between you two.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “She’s throwing herself at Lou. Lou keeps telling Patti that she’s not an experiment and not interested in anything but friendship.”

  Janet audibly sucked in her breath.

  “What did you say?” Will finally showed some emotion—amusement.

  “Patti won’t leave Lou alone.”

  Will looked around as though he wanted someone else to hear this. “You’ve got it backward, baby sister. Your Lou has been coming after my Patti ever since they met. Patti has never been interested in other women that way until Lou.”

  Ellen whispered to Janet. “Yeah, right.”

  “What are you saying?” Beth’s voice trembled.

  “Lou is done with you and has moved on to Patti. You and I are just supposed to tolerate what they’re doing until they decide who they want to live with. Patti will never leave me. She won’t give up her social connections from a heterosexual marriage, which also happen to be her business connections. Whether you want to salvage something with Lou is your call. I don’t give a shit.”

  A wail escaped from Beth that made the hairs on Ellen’s head stand on end.

  “I suggest you get a grip on yourself. What did you think…that I was in denial because I love my wife? Get real. I’ve despised her for years.”

  Beth fought her emotions as Ellen held Janet in the room.

  “If what you say is true, then that’s all the more reason for you to be rid of Patti. You have to let me help you.”

  “You are so out of your league. There’s much more to it than that, or I would’ve been long gone from her by now.” He shook his head. “I’ll talk this over with my wife on the drive back to Virginia and get back to you.” He turned and walked away. “Better yet, the three of us will discuss it—me, Patti, and Lou—on the way home. See you in the commonwealth, little sister.”