At 6:18, she stood, arched her back, walked inside and returned with more steam rising off her mug. At 6:40 a man ambled up with a mug of his own and a cigarette dangling. He spoke briefly and smiled, resting one foot on the bench, scratching himself. Lizards do the same thing when they perch on a windowsill and blow out that orange thing below their chin. She brushed him off. At 6:58 a.m., she stood, took a deep breath, and walked inside only to reappear a few minutes later wearing her running shoes. She did not stretch—she never did—but set off at a light jog along the perimeter, following the trail out across the lawn where it met and paralleled the fence.
The circle brought her closer. Her pants were baggy. Her face was more drawn, cheeks thin. Not anorexic, just disinterested. I could hear her now.
Halfway around the loop, she passed me for the first time. The sweat was beading across her forehead and top lip. A distance of twenty-two feet.
She passed, I closed my eyes and waited. Seconds later, it arrived. The fragrance was different but the aroma the same. It lingered a moment, then the same tea-bag breeze pushed through. My eyes followed her. About eight minutes later, she passed again. Another wake. Another breeze. I followed her. She circled, slowing, returning a final time.
A Japanese magnolia towered above the fence. Its limbs, which spread and fell half on her side, half on mine, were covered with a hundred or more, palm-sized blooms that looked something like a tulip. Depending upon soil conditions, which I don’t pretend to understand, the blooms will vary in color from snow white to deep purple and every shade in between. These were blood red, trimmed in white.
She slowed beneath the limbs, stopping below the umbrella of blooms, a few scattered on the ground. She stepped around them. Thunder in the distance spoke of rain. She stared over her shoulder, then turned and faced the fence. Surveillance cameras hung scattered in the trees around her. They were controlled by joysticks in a room on the other side of the buildings. The eyes monitoring the video screens cared little about the movements of people outside the fence, but they cared a good bit about what people inside the fence put in their mouths, or arms, or…
She spread her arms, reached high, grabbed a limb a foot above her head and hung there. No nail polish. No manicure. Nails were trimmed short. She closed her eyes and hung her head. Sweat trickled off her head and dripped onto a leaf below. I didn’t need the spotting scope. She didn’t see me because she wasn’t looking and I know how to hide. Circles shadowed her eyes. No makeup, and the ends of her hair were tired and frayed.
Like her.
Her breathing was deep, rhythmic. Sweat rolled down her. I counted the pulse beating on the side of her neck.
Her breathing slowed—each inhale deeper. She put her hands together, resting her head in the bend of her elbow. She swayed.
We had this tree out in front of the house. A live oak—it spread like an octopus across our yard. You could stand on the porch, reach out and hang on the limb, stretching. I’d had a long day. A bad day. A friend had been killed. I wasn’t with him. Not there to help him. A senseless act. I’d had to inform his wife. I couldn’t count the number of times we’d had dinner or drunk coffee. I pulled off the hard road, a half mile home. I was still holding it together. I could see her standing on the front porch, arms hanging from that limb, resting her head in her elbow. Swaying. Waiting. Needing me to need her. I parked, walked out into the pasture, crumpled amongst the prickly pears and cried a long time. When I looked up, she was kneeling, too. She pressed her head to mine. She walked me to the house, then around back by the barn. We stood beneath the windmill. She turned on the shower and that sweet water spilled over me, soaking my clothes but it could not wash out the sorrow.
The sweat drained off her face, around her lips, and into the base of her neck. Something flashed and caught my eye. Something new. I eased back in front of the spotting scope and turned the ring.
I sat back.
The ring hung on a tight necklace just big enough to fit around the base of her neck. A single band. Scuffed. Thin edges. Slightly bent where she’d slammed the door on it.
The bell sounded. Fifteen minutes to breakfast. She wiped her face on her shirtsleeve, pulled her hood up over her head, and walked across the lawn.
I rolled a cigarette and watched her grow smaller. She disappeared inside the door. I walked to the limb and gently ran my fingers across the wood. It was warm. Sweat moist. The smell of her hung in the air. I laid the cigarette in the elbow of the branch and walked away.
She reappeared briefly at 10:30—alone. Again at noon with a tray where she returned to her picnic table and pushed her green beans around. She ate two bites of turkey and turned the applesauce container in her hands for several minutes. She pressed it to her forehead, closed her eyes and finally peeled off the top and ate one bite. At four, she appeared again. A bottle of water. The same guy trailed her but she said nothing to whatever he asked so he took the hint and started sniffing another woman four houses down. At 6:00 p.m., she returned to her condo. I stared through the windows as she passed from room to room. She walked straight to her bedroom, and lay down. I was sipping cold coffee and eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She’d survived another day. I checked my watch.
Time to move.
I skirted the fence line and walked nearly a mile down another trail. I made my way to the water’s edge, cupped my hand and drank. I circled the spring, pulled aside the brush I’d stowed there, dropped to my belly, and began elbow-crawling through the granite. The rock outcropping was an anomaly the size of a semitrailer that bordered the water. The tunnel had been created when the rock split a hundred million years or so ago creating a man-sized space that ended in the shadows of the shelf that overhung the water. The tunnel was my vantage point. The shelf, her launching point. The tunnel ended and I propped myself on the smooth rock. An arm’s length away, the blue spring bubbled up, clear rolling glass for sixty feet where it overflowed its bowl, turned into a creek and flowed southeast.
I lay there, staring through a six-inch crack.
She appeared two hours later. Quietly. I smiled. I’d taught her that. Her hair fell across her shoulders, a towel hung around her neck. Barefoot, she tiptoed to the edge and stepped onto the shelf. Her back to me, she undressed, laid her sweats in a pile, then ran her index fingers along the lines of her hips, slipped off her panties—the Jockey athletic kind that were all function and no form—and set them on the pile. Naked against the backdrop of the night, she folded her hands atop her head and breathed deeply. Some three feet away, she stood staring up through the trees while the moon rose on the other side.
The baggy pants had not lied. She was thinner. There was less of her.
She did not dip her toe and test the water. She never did. Not in swimming. Not in horses. Not in life. In one fluid motion, she swung her arms, kicked with her calves and Peter Pan’d out into the water where she rolled, floated, and swam for the better part of an hour. Tiring, she climbed back up on the rock and sat there, dripping dry. Her hair lay flat across her back, sending the water down her skin in thin lines. Warming herself, she pulled her knees up, tucked them against her chest, and laid her head upon her arms. Goose bumps rose up on her back and shoulders. I could feel the heat rising off her. Separated by inches… plus a million miles.
Dry, she spread the towel and lay flat on her back, and rested her head on the pile of clothes. I did not move. Did not breathe.
She had weaned Brodie. I could give him a bottle. One morning I caught her looking in the mirror, her hands cupped beneath her breasts. Lifting. Worry on her face. She asked, “Can you tell?” If my wife had started to sag, I wasn’t going to be the idiot to agree with her. I shook my head. She frowned. “You’re lying.” My wife’s beauty did not lie in her perkiness. It lay in the sum of her. Convincing her of that was another matter.
Her chest rose and fell. I shook my head slightly. I still didn’t agree. The light reflected off her neck.
On nights whe
n I couldn’t sleep, I’d raise the blinds, shower her with moonlight and watch her heart beat in her neck while her eyes flipped like wipers beneath her lids. She was multilayered. Complex. Sleeping didn’t slow her mind. Sometimes she’d wake more tired than when she went to sleep. Some nights she’d sweat through her gown so she’d pull it off, throw aside the sheet and lie there, glistening, letting the ceiling fan dry her skin.
The breeze washed over her. More bumps on her skin. Her white skin pale in the light. The water dried. Except for a puddle in her belly button.
Ticklish would be an understatement. But she also hated losing. A fiery combination. I’d bet her dinner that she couldn’t keep a straight face while I traced a circle around her belly button. She’d lie there, resolute, biting her lip. I’d start slowly… one o’clock, two, drawing it out, taking my time. She’d squirm—a worm in hot ashes. ’Course, anywhere straight out from there was fair game so I really did take my time. By three o’clock, she was losing her grip. By nine she was screaming and kicking her feet against the mattress. By ten thirty she was throwing blows and laughing.
Her pulse slowed. Maybe she dozed. The ring glistened.
Toward midnight, she dressed, dried the ends of her hair with the towel, wrapped it around her neck, and disappeared through the trees, taking my longing with her. Within minutes, even the smell of her was gone. When the midnight bell sounded in the distance, declaring lights out, I clicked on my headlamp, and sat as upright as the rock would let me. I sunk my thumb deep into the knot in my thigh, working it back and forth, then bent my knee, pulling it into my chest, stretching. The blood rushed in and pushed out the ache. Having spent the day like Frankenstein, I’d be stiff tomorrow. I pulled the legal papers out of my backpack and laid them across my lap.
The words “Steele vs. Steele” and “irreconcilable differences” jumped off the page—as did her illegible signature on the last page. She’d signed it nearly a year ago when I shoved them in front of her as she walked out of the judge’s chambers toward the van that brought her here. Her handcuffs had rattled atop the clipboard with the jerking movement of her hand. I leaned against the rock, my hand—and pen—hovering above the blank signature line.
The pictures returned.
Flashes mostly. Moments outside of time… watching the wind bend and dance through the bluebonnets as we stood under the wedding tree, Sunday afternoons on the island, skinny-dipping in the river, feeding Mr. B out of our hands, counting her ribs, feeling the muscles flex in the small of her back, cutting the cord and setting Brodie on her exhausted chest, sitting at the coffee table—her knees pressed against mine, watching the corner of her mouth lift and twitch just before she smiled, finding her in the kitchen wearing an apron, a fun smile, and then swinging on the porch wrapped up in a blanket, showers under the windmill, mucking the stalls and then ducking for cover when she threw a shovelful at me, pulling the calves when the cows got tired on nights so cold we could see our breath, branding and cutting weeks later, waking nights to find her back pressed to my stomach, her feet tucked beneath mine, my arm around her and tucked beneath her, the smell of her alongside me, and long lazy afternoons spent in the saddle ambling down the middle of the river, her hat tilted, shading her eyes, heels deep in the stirrups, staring over her shoulder…
That’s my favorite. That one right there. Her, horseback. I’m riding behind her. It’s late in the afternoon. She’s turned in the saddle, a tank top. Her hat angled down low over her eyes. Sweat has soaked through her headband, the centerline of her back, her waistline. She’s lean, suntanned, the muscles showing in her arms and back. Her jeans are tucked in the boots that Dumps made her, she’s staring back over her shoulder, waiting on me, smiling with that little I’m-up-to-no-good-and-you-should-be-too thing in her eyes. I used to kid her that somewhere way back in her family tree, somebody married a Comanche ’cause she was good on a horse. Always better than me. And I’ve spent a lot of time in the saddle.
I’ve heard West Coast people remark to East Coast people how they prefer earthquakes to hurricanes. “Least we don’t have to evacuate.” I’m not so sure. You can see a hurricane coming. Read the storm warning and the level. Category 1. Category 2. Category 5. You can prepare: buy candles, water, gas for the generator, more shotgun shells. An earthquake arrives unannounced, splits the world in two, and sends a tsunami some two thousand miles away where folks didn’t feel the tremors.
The pleasant pictures in my head come to an end. The next set shows a jagged and scarred earth. Tumbleweeds roll through. Things that once stood, now lie toppled. A desk covered in bills I can’t pay. Mike Merkett telling me he’s sorry and I’ve got ninety days. Brodie asking questions about his mom that I can’t answer. Finding Andie on the bathroom floor, pale and blue, an empty pill bottle next to her. Flying to the hospital and screaming my way through the ER with her in my arms. Watching them pump her stomach and fighting the guilt as ninety pills come back up. The judge’s chambers, her sitting across from me—handcuffed, screaming at me. An attorney asking me for a signature. And while these are playing, some giant hand pushes the mute button and drains the color. The images are silent, black-and-white and grainy. Only subtitles and closed-captioning. Monochrome.
An owl hooted over my shoulder. The hour passed. The moon climbed casting the pen’s shadow across the page. I brushed my fingers over the dried water spots. The same questions returned. Nearly thirteen years ago, I walked into the Laundromat.
How’d we get from there to here? Where’d it all unravel?
The film of our life ended. She turned, rode away, and did not look back. Her shoulders fell. The slope betrayed her.
My hand dangled above the line. I’d been coming here for the better part of twelve months trying to find a reason not to sign on the dotted line. The process was simple. Sign. File. Move on. People did it every day. Multiple times a day. Half of all married couples did it at one time or another. Why couldn’t I? If that one don’t work, find one that does.
When I was a kid, I was playing around an old abandoned barn. I climbed down a ladder into an underground storage area. The wind blew the door shut above me, locked itself from the outside. No matter how loud I screamed nobody rescued me—because no one but my horse knew I was there. That was a long night. My horse stood outside a long time, but finally figured I wasn’t coming up, so he ambled home and a day later, my dad lifted the latch. “You hungry?” I remember the feeling of sun on my face, of clean air in my lungs, but more than anything I remember walking out.
The owl sounded again. This time one answered a mile away. A lonely echo.
I scratched my head, wiped my eyes, pressed the pen to paper, and made the letters that spelled my name. I crossed the “T” and crawled out of the rock but it felt nothing like walking out of that cellar.
Later that night, in a downpour, I bumped into a stalled car on the highway.
Andie sat at the table, cupping her mug with both hands. I pulled my hat down, tucked the folder up under my arm and exhaled. About the time I was to step outside and speak to her, Dr. Earl Johnson stepped into view. He was carrying flowers.
My immediate reaction was difficult to control. I stepped back into the shadows and stared through the glass. He reached down to kiss her and she gave him her cheek.
That a girl.
Then he sat and they began talking. He reached across and held her right hand in both of his. Five minutes was all I could take. I figured I’d better do what I came to do before Earl ended up shot in the head and they put me in prison for the rest of my life.
Cowboy boots make a distinctive sound on concrete. Andie knew the sound. I stepped onto the patio. She turned and disbelief was soon followed by shame and discomfort. I walked to the table, set the court-sealed envelope in front of her that contained her court-certified copy of our court-ended marriage. Her eyes, surrounded in dark circles and sunk in her head, showed hurt. I turned, walked out, and the words of my father echoed: If you’re riding a dea
d horse… dismount.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was Saturday. The sun was not yet up. I sat on the porch huddled over a steaming mug, smelling the smell of cows knowing neither it, nor they, would be here much longer.
It was no secret around town that I took good care of my herd. In truth, I raised two separate herds. One Angus. One Hereford. Doing so allowed me to crossbreed for Black Baldies, or F1s. And my cattle were registered. More important, they were registered-to-registered. To cattle people, that’s important. I put the word out, along with my price, and it didn’t take but a few days to find a private treaty buyer. I’d heard of him. Art Bissell. He owned and operated a couple of ranches. One up in Tyler. Another out west. He drove down to see me, spent some time looking over my cows and agreed to a premium market price given the condition and makeup of my herd. He brought his trailers in the next morning. Sunday. I thought about having him come a day later—Monday, when Brodie would have been at school—but Brodie had raised a bunch of these cows, birthed and nursed them. He’d even pulled a few of the calves when the cows got too tired to push. He needed closure and I felt the only way for him to get it was to help drive and load them. So, we did.
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