Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe

by Heather Webber

  I grabbed River by the collar, keeping tight hold as Cam quickly clipped on a leash.

  “Down, boy.”

  River glanced up at Cam, then slowly sat down, inch by inch, as if it were the last thing in the whole world he wanted to do.

  “What was that all about?” he asked the dog.

  River panted and wagged his tail.

  To me, Cam said, “We were driving home when River suddenly jumped out the open window. I don’t know what came over him—he’s never done anything like that before.”

  I pointed inside the car. “A cat came over him.”

  But the cat was gone. I looked around. “He must have gone out the passenger window.”

  Cam scratched at his beard, and there was confusion in his tone when he said, “River’s never gone after cats before.”

  “I’m sure the cat instigated it, right, River?” I patted his head.

  Cam smiled. He had on mud-splattered hiking pants and a blue moisture-wicking shirt, also covered in grime. “Don’t go giving him ideas that it’s okay to chase cats.” He spotted the open hood and said, “Car trouble?”

  “If by trouble you mean catastrophe, then yes.”

  Looking under the hood, Cam whistled. “Looks like a squatter’s made herself right at home, and that’s the least of the problems.”

  “Can’t say I blame her. The car hasn’t budged since I parked it here a month ago.”

  “This is your car?” The confusion was back in his voice, along with a touch of judgment.

  “Yes. Why?” I put my hands on my hips.

  “Just making sure,” he said quickly.

  He leaned in and poked around the engine. “Wait a sec.” He reached in and touched the egg. “This is a rock.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a rock.” He held it out to me.

  “How did it get in the nest?”

  “Can’t say I know, but that bird’s going to be sorely disappointed when the rock doesn’t hatch.” He gently put the stone back into the nest. “But, even with no nest, this car isn’t going anywhere without a tow truck.”

  I sighed. “It’s my fault for not checking on it sooner, but I didn’t need it.”

  “And you do today?”

  “I have an appointment down in Fort Payne … had. I was already running late. By the time I track down a car to borrow I’ll have missed the appointment altogether.”

  “Well, come on.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll take you down. My truck’s right here. Let’s go.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why not? You don’t want to go to the appointment?”

  That question hit too close to home. “It’ll waste your whole afternoon.”

  “I have some errands down there I’ve been putting off. I can get those done while you’re busy. You’re actually doing me a favor, putting an end to my procrastination.”

  Meeting his gaze, I held it. I wanted to say no thanks, go collect Ollie from Faylene’s house, and settle in for the night. But I could also feel the anxiety under the surface of my skin, poking and prodding me to do the right thing. “Put that way, okay, I’ll go with you to do your errands.”

  He laughed as I grabbed my purse from the car, and within minutes we were on our way out of town. His pickup was a newer model with all the bells and whistles, and I couldn’t help smiling at the comparison to my junker.

  Between me and Cam, River had settled in, his head on my leg, and he kept trying to lick my fingers. I knew I’d smelled bacon on them.

  “Where are we headed?” Cam asked.

  I pulled a piece of paper from my bag and read off the address. “It’s a medical building.”

  He looked over. “You feeling okay?”

  I rubbed River’s ears, which had flecks of mud stuck to the fur. “Physically, yes.”

  He gave a firm, understanding nod. “Counseling?”

  “I thought I was done with therapy, and I don’t particularly want to go back, but…” I shrugged, wondering why I was telling him all this. Maybe it was because he seemed to understand what I was going through—something most people couldn’t even fathom.

  “To my way of thinking, it can’t hurt to go back. But it could help, right?”

  “Have you ever been?”

  “Sure. Unit-mandated, but I continued on my own after I got out.”

  “Unit?”

  “Sorry—I thought you knew. Most people around here seem to, though I don’t talk about it much.”

  “Small towns…” I said, my tone sympathetic.

  “I was a Green Beret.” His eyes darkened with a haze of sadness. River shifted, lifting his head off my leg. He pressed his nose into Cam’s thigh.

  By Cam’s reaction, I should have stopped right there with the questions, but I was curious about this man. How had he gone from being a highly trained soldier to being a wildlife photographer? “How long were you in?”

  “Seven years.” He petted River’s head. “I’ve been out for three.”

  There was an emptiness in his voice that made my heart ache. I could only imagine what he’d seen and done to protect and survive. “Do you regret it? Your time as a soldier?”

  He kept his eyes on the road, looking like he was debating answering before he finally said, “I don’t regret fighting for the country, protecting the soldiers I served with. But I definitely lost more in those years than I gained. Including good friends in combat and ultimately my marriage.”

  There was absolutely nothing I could say that would help him in any way—I knew that from my own experiences with grief and trying to get on with life. But, as he showed me the other day, sometimes all it took to provide a little comfort was to just sit and be with someone else. “There’s a bench I know that’s great for sitting and watching the world go by. I’d be happy to sit with you for a while, if you ever feel the need.”

  “I’ll remember that. Thanks, Natalie.”

  “Anytime, Cam.”

  We drove in silence for a while, and River eventually shifted his head back to me and my bacon scent. Mud from his ears flecked off onto my skirt.

  “Were you two mudding today?” I asked.

  “It feels that way, but no. We went down to Lake Martin early this morning to get some pictures of bald eagles—there’s a beautiful nest down there. We got a little too into our work, didn’t we, buddy?”

  I instantly broke out in a cold sweat. My stomach pitched, and my head swirled. I slammed my eyes shut against the image of Matt’s bloated face.

  “Natalie? Don’t hold your breath. It makes it worse.”

  As I gulped in air, I felt Cam’s hand on my arm, warm and firm.

  Rocks hit the undercarriage as the truck slowed to a stop on the side of the road. I heard the window go down. Hot, soggy air hit my face.

  River whimpered and nudged my leg with his nose as Cam said, “Slow and steady breaths. Easy there. Good. That’s good. In. Out.”

  Trying to focus on breathing, I rocked in my seat and felt Cam’s hand on my back, rubbing it in gentle circles.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time Josh and I decided to sneak out of our house to go to a party a town over? I was sixteen, he was fifteen, and this party was the talk of school. Everybody was going. Somehow our mother caught wind of it and forbade us to go. As a single mom, she gave us a lot of leeway growing up, but for some reason she put her foot down that night.”

  I opened my eyes—he was leaning in close to me and had a devilish look in his eyes. His hand kept rubbing my back.

  “We, of course, were not to be deterred. Mom was an early bird and rarely could stay awake past ten at night. She wears earplugs to bed and sleeps like the dead. Josh and I thought we were golden. At midnight we climbed out a window in the spare bedroom at the back of the house. A buddy of ours picked us up and took us over to the party. We were there for five minutes, tops, when all hell broke loose. Had to be a least a hundred kids there. Fights broke out. Someone started
busting windows. The cops came and everyone scattered. The cops caught the friend who drove us there, so Josh and I ran as fast as we’d ever run in our whole lives. Took us four hours to walk back to our neighborhood.”

  My stomach started to settle and the dizziness faded.

  “All we wanted to do was get home, go to bed, and forget the night ever happened. Hell, we hadn’t even gotten a beer out of it for all that effort.”

  I smiled and rubbed River’s perked ears, which relaxed under my touch.

  “So we finally get home and make to get back inside. Only the window’s stuck. Won’t open. None of them will. And while we were trying our damnedest to get into the house, a policeman shows up. Someone had reported seeing suspicious characters trying to break in.”

  I smiled at him—his wry tone was completely captivating.

  “Stop me if I already told you how all this ends,” he said, his warm gaze feeling like a hug.

  I cleared my throat. “You know full well that we only met last week and you haven’t told me anything, so don’t leave me hanging.”

  He tugged on his beard. “Oh, that’s right. Just feels like I’ve known you forever. Where was I? Right. The policeman. He doesn’t believe Josh and me that we live there. And Mom doesn’t answer when he knocks—like I said, she sleeps like the dead until her internal clock goes off at five a.m. The policeman hauls us down to the police station, sticks us in a jail cell. We didn’t get offered a phone call, nothing. By noon, Josh is blubbering, certain that Mom was going to kill us on the spot when she found out where we were. I was trying to figure out a way to break out of our cell.” Cam pulled his hand from my back, checked over his shoulder, and pulled onto the road.

  “And?” I asked, telling myself I wasn’t missing his hand on my back. “Did you find a way out?”

  “Three ways. But we didn’t need ’em, because Mom finally showed up. Didn’t say a word to us as we waited to be let out. There was a vent above our heads—escape route number one, by the way—and Mom’s voice carried through it.”

  “She was the one who called the cops on you,” I said.

  “Hey now, don’t go stealing my storytelling thunder. How’d you know?”

  I laughed. “Because my mother did the same thing to me once when I was a teenager.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t seem the type to sneak out.”

  It was sneak out or be suffocated. “What type am I?”

  The corner of his lip twitched. “Oh, I don’t know. Prim and proper. You know which fork goes where at a dinner table. I suspect you have monogrammed clothes, a lot of hats, and were a sorority girl—probably a legacy. I haven’t seen you wear pearls, but I’d bet you own them. You’re loyal and giving and a people pleaser. A good girl. Picturing you climbing out a window is as surprising to me as if you said you were from Mars.”

  What he had said was annoyingly on point, right down to the pearls. I didn’t wear them because they reminded me too much of my mother.

  “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  “That I’m from Mars? Yes, you’re wrong. It only feels that way sometimes.” Like right now. “It’s true that I once was that girl. Some of me still is, I guess. Mostly, I’m not sure who I am anymore.” I didn’t really want to talk about that, so I quickly added, “Let’s just say my teen years were … challenging. The only reason I wasn’t arrested that one time was because my father stepped in before the police officer carted me off. Said I’d learned my lesson.” He didn’t talk to my mother for nearly a week afterward, using her own silent treatment against her.

  “Did you learn it?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Never snuck out again. Josh, either. But that’s not where my story ends.”

  I shifted to face him. “It isn’t?”

  “See, you thought I was just telling you a sweet coming-of-age tale, but what I was really telling you is a love story.”

  “Oh, then please, go on.”

  He grinned. “The policeman came back the next day to check on Josh and me, make sure we were staying on the straight and narrow after our run-in with the law. And he came by the day after that, too. Eventually Mom invited him to supper, and he pretty much never left. They’re happily married and living down in Key West these days.”

  I pressed my hands to my heart. “Aww! How often do you remind her that if you and Josh didn’t sneak out that night…”

  “As often as I can.”

  “Well. That might be the best story I’ve ever heard. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” He glanced my way. “Do you want to share what set you off a minute ago?”

  Not really, but I felt as though I owed him an explanation after all he’d just done for me, talking me down.

  Turning, I looked out the window at the passing scenery, then said, “Lake Martin is where my husband drowned after his boat overturned in a storm. His death was ruled an accident, but…”

  “But?”

  “I’m not sure it was.”

  “You think it was murder?”

  River had fallen asleep, and his soft snores filled the space between us. “No, nothing like that. I think it could have been a suicide.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  I liked that he didn’t try to console me or talk me out of the notion. He wanted the evidence. It was easier to focus on the details than the emotions. “I didn’t know until after his death that he’d been gambling. I had no clue. He’d been keeping it from me for years. Lying. He traveled a lot for his job, so it was easy for him to hide it.”

  “Casinos?”

  “Mostly. Some online gambling as well. Got in way over his head, apparently. Our house had a second mortgage on it I didn’t know about, and was already in foreclosure. Our savings had been drained. He’d maxed out our credit cards. He’d borrowed money from friends. He’d lost his job the week before his death, and I didn’t know that, either. It seemed like every day after he died, something else came to light. I was a fool to let him handle all the finances, but it’s how we’d always done it.”

  Just like my parents had, and theirs before them. I chafed at the reminder that I’d fallen easily into the same gender roles. How had I let that happen? I was more than capable of balancing a checkbook, yet … I’d let him do it. I happily let him do it while I tended to the house and tried my hardest to get pregnant.

  “You’re not a fool,” he said.

  I crossed my arms. “I shouldn’t have been so trusting.”

  “Love is trust, Natalie. You had no reason to doubt him, did you?”

  Suddenly choked with emotion, I shook my head.

  “Did he have life insurance?”

  It took me a moment to answer. “Yes. We chose the policies when we bought our house, just one of those things the insurance agent recommended when we met with him.”

  “Did the company honor the policy?”

  “By some miracle, they did. Wasn’t near enough to cover Matt’s debts, though. The house was foreclosed on not long after the funeral, the cars were repossessed. I sold as much as I could before I finally had to declare bankruptcy to get out from underneath it all.”

  My father had begged me to come home, but I hadn’t wanted to face my mother. Ollie and I had moved into a tiny studio apartment he’d found for us, and I searched for an entry-level job for someone who had never before been employed a day in her life. I didn’t have a degree to fall back on either, as I’d quit school two years shy of graduating to marry Matt and keep house.

  My mother had fought me tooth and nail to stop the wedding, telling me over and over I was making a huge mistake. That I should finish school. That I should put myself before Matt. That I barely knew him.

  But I’d been in love, and nothing she said could have stopped me.

  I rambled on. “I know I should accept that it was an accident and move on with my…”

  “Why was he on the lake that day?”

  I jerked my head to look at him.
“You’re good. Not many people ask that question. He was supposedly fishing.”

  “He didn’t normally?”

  “Not alone. Usually he went with a group of buddies.”

  “Was he acting strangely that morning or the night before?”

  I’d thought about that morning a million times. “It was a Friday, early. He said he was going out to the lake, and that he loved me. He kissed Ollie goodbye and left.” My voice caught and I cleared my throat. “It was strange only that it was a weekday—he said he had the day off—and that he was going alone. A storm blew up fast, and his boat capsized. He was missing for two days afterward. In that time, the man he rented the boat from said Matt had been there every morning for a week, fishing alone. I just hadn’t known … More lies.”

  “The gambling and the debt are red flags for suicide, but he could have also been out on that lake trying to figure out how to tell you he’d been fired and how bad your financial troubles were. I know I take to nature to sort out my problems. How would you have reacted to his news?”

  The trees gave way to businesses as we neared the city. “I’d have been hurt, but we’d have figured something out. I took a vow, and I meant it. I’m driving myself crazy wondering if it was an accident or a suicide, because knowing the way he died is the only way to know the truth about our life when he was alive. If he could easily lie to me about the gambling and the money, was he lying when he said he loved me?” My breath caught and my hands clenched. “Was our whole marriage one big lie? I can’t get past it, and it makes me … so angry with him. I don’t want to be, but I can’t help it.”

  The truck rolled to a stop at a red light. “Sometimes people lie to protect the ones they love,” Cam said.

  I narrowed my eyes on him and said sharply, “And sometimes people lie to protect themselves.”

  He laughed. “Innocent bystander over here.”

  “Sorry,” I said, leaning back. “I can’t abide liars, no matter how much the truth hurts.”