Lookin' Back, Texas

by Leanna Ellis

  “No, that will about do it for me.”

  He looks at me sharply. “Have you two been drinking?”

  “Who doesn’t out here, sheriff?” Josie says. “Don’t tell me you never—”

  “Come on, I’ll give you a lift home. We’ll get your car hauled out of there tomorrow. Maybe.” “Maybe?” Josie protests. “What do you mean by that?” “I’m not sure,” he says. “Might be unstable around here.” I certainly feel unstable. “What is this anyway?” Josie asks. “I’ve never seen it before.” “I don’t know. I got a call about some kind of explosion. A loud noise. A shaking. Not to mention animals going berserk.” “Shaking? Like an earthquake?” Josie’s eyes widen. “From the looks of it, seems Gillespie County has split wide open.” He stands at the crevice and shines his flashlight in both directions. “Look, it goes on some ways.” “An earthquake in Texas?” Josie wheels on me. “Did you bring this all the way from California?”

  Displaced guilt, something I’ve always struggled with, settles on my shoulders. There are many things in my past I’m not proud of, but standing beside Drew I feel guilt push up through my insides like boiling magma.

  6

  Trapped with my riotous thoughts, I settle into the backseat of the sheriff’s SUV. It’s like being in a small cage, or maybe a dog kennel. I have to shift sideways, press my knees against the edge of the seat in order to fit. A metal contraption separates the front and back seat, a precaution against unruly criminals, another barrier between me and my past. I want to escape but am trapped in more ways than one.

  Along the dashboard a radio squawks. A computer screen glows in the darkness. There’s other equipment I’m not accustomed to seeing in any car. Josie claims the front seat beside Drew and talks about nothing and everything. I feel as if I’ve entered “The Twilight Zone” on my parents’ old Zenith television—black and white and a bit fuzzy around the edges. No snow though.

  Josie touches Drew’s shoulder, his arm. She seems too comfortable with him. Of course, they’re old friends. But are they, or have they been, more than friends? It’s actually none of my business, but the question stirs something prickly inside me, and I shift in my seat, banging my knee on the metal grid. I blame the cage, but my pain is deeper than a superficial bruise.

  “You okay?” Drew watches me through the rearview mirror.

  “Fine.” I pretend not to notice, turn my head, look out the side window to the dark-as-only-the-countryside-can-get night.

  Is he wondering if I’ve changed, if I remember? Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the back of his neck, his hairline, the slight curl at his nape that hints of wildness, defying the straight, starched lines of his uniform. Everything else may look the part of authority, but I know Drew’s past. I know him.

  Irritated at myself, I cut my gaze to the right (my eyes are about the only part of my body I’m able to move in this cramped space) and stare through the windshield streaked with bug guts and remember the destruction Drew wreaked on my life. Which I allowed.

  I used to think of darkness as simply a black canvas, but I watch the desert shadows and shapes shift and deepen as we zip past. The headlights arc outward and illuminate the edges of the road that separate civilization from wasteland. It occurs to me that I’m now walking a narrow path and the slightest bobble or wrong step could send me cartwheeling into rocky, treacherous territory.

  Drew Waring was that rocky overhang in my past. He almost caused my complete downfall. Perhaps he still is my weakness, an unstable precipice. Right now it feels as if I’m only hanging onto my life by my fingernails.

  I remember sitting on the edge of my bed a lifetime ago. I was younger, foolish, and vulnerable. I simply sat, unable to move or think or function. I had forgotten why I’d come into the bedroom. It didn’t matter. The sight of the empty bed, the spread crumpled on the end, the sheets in disarray. My energy dragged like the blanket off the side and along the floor. I hadn’t touched the bed in days, not to make it, not to sleep. I hadn’t crawled into it at night, sleeping instead on the couch in the den or the chair in the corner. Most of the time I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I wandered aimlessly around the apartment, lost, confused, weeping one minute, fuming the next over Mike’s angry, irrational departure a few days earlier.

  His face had been as hard and cold as the wrought-iron headboard. I couldn’t erase the image from my mind. I couldn’t escape the words chasing me.

  I had challenged him. “You don’t want a baby!”

  “I don’t want this!” He spit out a curse word that I’d never heard him use before. Then he grabbed his suitcase, already packed for a business trip to Sacramento, and left. Left.

  Over the next few days I wept more tears than I could have ever fathomed. My eyes turned puffy and red. My heart felt swollen and bruised. I couldn’t tell anyone. What would I have said? How could I admit that my marriage had crumbled? How could I admit my own guilt? I nursed my wounds in isolation.

  I blamed myself. After all, I nagged Mike. I had wanted a baby so badly that I’d lost perspective. I had sacrificed our relationship on the altar of fertility. Forlorn over what I had lost, I wept. A dark blob of anger pulsed inside me like a ravenous creature.

  Then the phone rang, jarring me out of my black thoughts. Gasping a prayer, I ran for the phone, hoping it was Mike finally calling. I’d played out many scenarios in my mind, wondering what he was doing, where he was staying. I knew he had flown to Sacramento for a couple of days’ work. But when he should have returned, he didn’t. So was he staying at the office? At a friend’s? In a motel? Had he found someone else? Someone who wouldn’t nag, who wouldn’t tell him when her eggs were on the move? All the uncertainties and fears fed that angry creature lurking deep inside of me.

  “Hello?”

  “Suz?” The voice oozed like molasses. I knew that voice. Knew how he could soothe and cajole. Knew how he could tease and torment. Knew how he could reassure and make me laugh. And I desperately needed to feel anything but what I was feeling at the moment.

  “Yes.” It was a silly response. Coy. And yet brazen at the same time. I should have hung up. Okay, I should have said politely, “How are you, Drew? That’s nice. I’m sorry, but I’m married.” It would have ended everything and anything right then.

  But I didn’t.

  Little decisions that seemed innocuous gathered one upon another like snowflakes, numbing me to the pain and blinding me to the potential consequences. I knew the danger, recognized the rationalizations for what they were. I made excuses. I needed a friend. God only knew what Mike was doing! Didn’t I deserve a break from the stress, the grief, the strain? Wouldn’t an old friend be helpful? But honestly, I knew what my intentions were.

  “Drew? How are you?”

  “Missing you. It’s been a while, Suz.”

  “It has. Are you in Luckenbach or Gillespie—?”

  “No, actually, I’m here in California.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  I knew. I knew. I knew. I took that tiny side step that I’ve regretted ever since. Because in Drew’s rearview mirror I see the same eyes I’ve looked at every day for the last fifteen years in the face of my son.

  * * *

  “WHAT EXACTLY DID you two experience out there tonight?” Drew asks.

  “Like sitting on a cactus?” Josie’s tone is devoid of humor.

  “Like taking a dive into a ditch. A ditch I don’t remember seeing on the way out there,” I add, more to myself than anyone in the sheriff’s SUV.

  “Like a shaking or loud rumbling noise,” he clarifies.

  “Maybe that’s what made me fall,” Josie says.

  “That or too much beer.” Drew sniffs in her direction.

  Josie slaps him on the shoulder.

  “I should run you in for a DUI.”

  “I wasn’t driving.”

  Drew’s gaze shifts, meets mine in the rearview mirror. Tension tightens my belly. Squiggly-worm sensations wriggle across the tops of
my nerve endings.

  “That’s not what you told me earlier.”

  “Put the sirens on and drive faster.” Josie struggles to hold her backside off the seat.

  “You want me to take you to the hospital? Say the word.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m not breaking the speed limit.”

  “Not even for an old friend?”

  Once again Drew’s gaze shifts to the rearview mirror and mine darts away, chased by memories I don’t want to face.

  “Something happened out there tonight,” he says. “I don’t know what. But that ditch, or crack or whatever, wasn’t there yesterday. And the sound of Josie backing into a cactus didn’t make folks all over the county call my office in the middle of the night.”

  I don’t want to think about it. I simply want to go home and forget trying to save my parents’ marriage. I want to race back to California and reassure myself that my marriage is safe and secure.

  * * *

  I FEEL LIKE I’M seventeen and being escorted home by the police. It happened. Once. Just as she did then, Mother stands at the front door of her house now, pulling the sash of her robe tighter, cinching her consternation temporarily, while her frown deepens with disapproval. I know exactly what she was doing before we arrived—pacing the den, wondering where I was, conjuring up ideas and scenarios that are farfetched but occasionally hold an ounce of truth. She’s been waiting for me. As she did every time I left the house as a teenager. It’s not because she didn’t trust my friends or boyfriends. She didn’t trust me.

  Two seconds before Drew comes to a complete stop in front of my parents’ house, Josie throws open the door and leaps out. Drew brakes hard, throwing me forward. My hand slams against the metal cage, rattling it and my nerves. Without a backward glance, Josie barrels up the steps, brushing against my mother, and racing into the house, leaving the front door open wide behind her just as she did the car door.

  “What in the world?” Mother stares after her, jaw agape. Her voice carries through the darkness. “Where have you two been? What have you been doing?”

  “That girl is going to get herself in trouble some day that I can’t get her out of,” Drew says.

  “Do you make it a habit of rescuing her?” I ask.

  “Anybody who needs it.” He throws the gear shift into park.

  I grab the door handle but have to wait for him to unlock it. When he does, I have one foot on solid ground before I remember to say, “Thanks, Drew, uh, Sheriff.”

  He nods then stops me with, “Suzanne?”

  I hesitate, notice he doesn’t call me Suz, and look at his profile through the glass window.

  “Tell Josie I’ll wait out here for her and take her home when she’s ready.”

  “All right.” I don’t invite him in. He doesn’t seem to expect an invitation. His radio crackles and someone announces that an eighteen-wheeler hit a cow on 290.

  On my way up the steps, I say, “Mother, do you have any allergy medicine or cream?”

  “Well,” she glances at the sheriff’s car then enters her house, catching the storm door behind her, “you might look in the medicine cabinet. Your father kept some for bug bites. But he might have taken—” She stops herself. “He might have run out.”

  My parents’ bathroom is blue and peach and smells like eucalyptus leaves. I search the medicine cabinet, catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, the tautness around my eyes. Dad’s toothbrush and toothpaste lay beside his sink. Did he forget them? Or did he buy replacements at Wal-Mart in Fredericksburg? Or does he carry a different one in his constantly packed suitcase that he uses on his weekly business trips? Finally I find a small tube of allergy-relief cream in the drawer along with tweezers and take them to the guest bathroom. Winces and groans drift from beneath the doorway. I knock twice.

  “What?” Josie’s irritation and pain sharpen her tone.

  “Try this.”

  The door opens a smidgen, and I hand Josie the tube of cream and tweezers.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No.” She hisses through her teeth and slams the door. A second later comes, “Suz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I place my hand along the wooded frame of the door. The paint is smooth and cool along my palm. “The sheriff—” I stop myself, admitting only to myself that his title sounds odd in my ears, but I don’t switch to his name; I prefer the distance his title affords. “He, uh, said he’d wait for you outside. Whenever you’re ready.”

  There are a million questions I’d like to ask her about his simple readiness to help her, but I refrain. Instead, I turn toward the den and find my mother glaring at me, her mouth screwed up in a tiny knot.

  I remind myself that I’m not seventeen anymore. I’m a grown-up. I don’t owe her any explanations. But I know an apology will go a long way toward mending this broken fence. I should have called her to let her know I was okay and not to worry. At least my willingness to apologize tells me I don’t harbor any latent teenage rebellion. “I’m sorry about all of this, Mother.”

  “What is going on here?” Her lips are pursed in that unforgiving way. Her anger points straight at me.

  “Josie sat on a prickly pear. She’ll be okay.” But I know that’s not Mother’s concern. And I’m frankly not so confident about what will happen to Josie’s car.

  Ten minutes later the clock ticks on the mantel, making the only noise in the house. Mother watches through the curtains as the sheriff’s car pulls away.

  “It’s late.” Way beyond my bedtime, even Pacific Coast time. “I’m sorry if we woke you, Mother. We should get—”

  “Woke me?” She jerks the curtain closed, makes the two seams line up. “I must have known you were in trouble because I woke up suddenly and realized you hadn’t come home. Hadn’t come home. Do you know what fear that strikes in the heart of a mother?”

  “Yes, I do.” Maybe the shaking sensation woke her. I prefer to think of it that way rather than some psychic connection we share. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to worry you. But I am an adult.”

  “Then act like one. What were you thinking?”

  “Mother, Josie and I were talking. Catching up. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my friends. And it got late.”

  “But Drew Waring, of all people. I wouldn’t have thought—”

  “What?” My defenses suddenly stick out like a porcupine’s.

  “Nothing. Nothing.” She walks into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee. “It’s not my nevermind. You’re a grown woman. So you say. You know what you’re doing. So you say.” In other words, I don’t. “You know what you’re risking.”

  I rub my forehead as if that small action could expunge the headache carving its way into my skull. I don’t need a lecture on my wedding vows right now, especially from a woman who’s “killed” off her own husband out of spite. All the sympathy I felt for her earlier seems to have played out.

  “Let’s go to bed, Mother.” My eyeballs feel like they’ve been scraped dry. “It’s late.”

  “It’s so late, it’s early,” she says. “And Mike will be here soon.”

  “What?” I turn and look at her. Confusion gives way to relief. “Mike? Did he call?”

  “Well, if you’d been here, then you would have been able to talk to him.”

  She can’t make me feel guilty for something I didn’t do. I have enough guilt in my life and don’t need to borrow extra.

  Her hand flutters down the lining of her silk robe. “But I spoke to him.” Ever the martyr. “He tried to reach you on your cell phone but couldn’t. He was worried about your last phone call. I told him I was worried about you too. Disappearing the way you did without a how-do-you-do.” She purses her lips, and I know what she’s implying. “He took the red-eye.”

  Something twists inside me. Guilt? Fear? All silly emotions. I didn’t do anything wrong tonight. No matter what Mother believe
s.

  “He said he had to fly to Houston first, or maybe Dallas. I can’t remember now. He’ll be here first thing this morning. Probably in the next hour.”

  My hand trembles, an echo of what’s going on in my heart. I touch the nearest table to steady myself. Relief injects a healthy dose of reality into my system. I’m glad Mike is coming. He will quell Mother’s insinuations that I’m after Drew. He can talk candidly to Mother, and he’ll confront her on all this funeral nonsense. Then we can go home. Maybe even leave on Monday as I’d originally hoped. “Does he need me to pick him up at the airport?”

  “Mike said he’d rent a car. He wanted us to know, so he wouldn’t scare us coming in so early. Very considerate of him, don’t you think?” Her sharpened point aims right for my heart. “Your father wouldn’t have bothered.” She readjusts a vase, squaring it with the edge of the table. I notice she already speaks of him in the past tense. “And I bet Drew Waring wouldn’t bother either.” That was a quick, right hook. But I don’t dodge the blow. I take it, absorb the ricocheting effect within my body. “But then I guess Mike didn’t know he might beat his own wife home. Or is this how you behave in California?”

  I’m not getting sucked into this argument. I turn on my heel and head for the kitchen. I rummage around in drawers and cabinets, having long ago forgotten where she keeps the dry goods, hand towels, and knives.

  “What are you looking for? Not the phone book?”

  “Why would I want a phone book?”

  “For Drew’s number. Or did he give it to you? It’s probably unlisted. But you can always reach him at the station, I suppose.”

  I look at my Mother’s spotless linoleum and consider spitting on it.

  “Do you have pancake mix?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t keep it in a drawer. Top shelf in the pantry.” She crosses her arms over her middle. She watches me, judges me, sizing me up and down. “Have you been smoking,” her voice drops to a whisper, “dope? They do that over in Luckenbach all the time. I’ve never approved of it.”