Dust

by Eva Marie Everson

  Westley shrugged. “I don’t know. Paul’s never mentioned anything … I don’t even know if they’re trying.” He chuckled. “I mean other than … you know, the usual try.”

  I slapped at him. “Now there’s a picture in my head I don’t need.”

  Within minutes Westley parked the car in front of the large house—so much larger when I compared it to ours. Not that I cared. I loved every square foot of our home, especially since Michelle had come into it. I grabbed my beach bag and slung it over my shoulder.

  Unlike our first trip when Paul and DiAnn practically waited at the door in anticipation of our arrival, the front porch stood quiet and empty. Now, with our frequent visitation—sometimes just for dinner, other times for the weekend—we were no longer guests at all. As Paul quipped, “You’re family, by golly, so act like it and just walk on in.”

  DiAnn hadn’t seemed too charmed by that idea, so I insisted we knock upon arrival. Once we got inside, I did everything I knew to make DiAnn see me as her sister-in-law. I happily helped in the kitchen. On weekend excursions, I stripped the beds and put on fresh linens before we left to go back home. I even washed the sheets, threw them in the dryer, and folded them, placing them back in the tiny upstairs hall closet as my final act of “family” duty. Still, DiAnn remained somewhat distant to me. Accepting, but distant.

  After knocking two or three times and getting no answer, we decided to walk around to the back of the house. Sure enough, Paul and DiAnn—both clad in their suits—were at the dock—Paul on his knees, appearing to tinker with the boat’s engine. “Hey there,” Westley called out, waving as if we’d just returned home from an extended trip at sea.

  “Ahoy,” Paul called back as if he’d read my thoughts. “Got some issues down here.”

  “Oh, no,” Westley muttered, leaving me to wonder if his disappointment was for what this may mean for his brother … or for him and his weekend plans.

  We hurried toward the dock, my flipflops slapping against my heels. The grass—which needed a cut—licked at my ankles, while gnats, already up and pesky, fluttered around my face. I blew them away with the trained act of every southern child. Bottom lip out and whew. “What’s going on?” Westley asked as soon as we stepped onto the dock and over the skis that had been laid there half forgotten.

  “Engine sounds funny …”

  DiAnn shook her head as she pulled large sunglasses to the top of her head, pushing her blond hair back to reveal the elegant lines of her face. My shoulders sank. How could one woman be so put together without makeup? Not to mention so early in the morning? Even the humidity refused to torment her. She walked toward us as I ran my hand over my ponytail, hoping to slick some of the frizz out. “Wes,” she said in a commanding tone I hadn’t grown accustomed to, “your job is to convince him there is absolutely nothing wrong.” She nodded toward me. “Come on, Allison. Let’s go up to the house and get the picnic ready.”

  I turned obediently and headed back up the slope of their backyard, this time with DiAnn by my side, asking her usual field of questions. How have I been … how was her grandmother … did she still insist on a proper tea at four o’clock … and that sort of thing. I’d often wondered if it bothered DiAnn that I spent so much time with Miss Justine, but she never mentioned it outright, so I figured not. After all, DiAnn, like her grandmother, wasn’t one to beat around the bush. Whatever she thought, she said. “So, how does it feel not to have Michelle in tow?” she asked when we reached the back door.

  “Odd,” I admitted. “I have kinda gotten used to the little squirt.” We slipped inside where cold, manufactured air met us and I breathed out a sigh. “Already hot out there.”

  “Too hot.” Most of the ingredients for making sandwiches had been placed on the bar between the breakfast nook and the kitchen. “Get the mayo for me, will you?” she asked as I dropped my beach bag onto a chair.

  “Sure thing.”

  DiAnn worked the twisty-tie free from a loaf of bread as I fished the mayo from a refrigerator that stood full to overflowing. Unlike ours. I only purchased what I knew we needed for the week, using nearly all of it before heading back to the store seven days later. Not because I worked economically as the housewife of our home but because I couldn’t think any further ahead than a one-week period. “Have you met her yet?” DiAnn asked as I brought the mayo to her.

  “Who?”

  “Cindie.” Her expression told me I should have anticipated the answer.

  I shifted a little, then grabbed the packet of sandwich meat and pried it open. “No.”

  “A piece of work, that one is.”

  “That’s what Westley says. But he … he also says she is Michelle’s mother and …”

  DiAnn slapped mayonnaise onto a slice of bread. “And how are you feeling about that?”

  I shrugged, suddenly concerned as to where our conversation was headed. We’d never had anything close to this kind of moment. Not really. “I don’t know. He’s right. She is.” I started placing the meat on the prepared bread, then brought my attention back to her. “Do you want me to get the cheese?”

  DiAnn gave me a half smile. “Sure.” Then, after I opened the refrigerator door again, she added, “Well, I’d watch out for that one.”

  I peered over my shoulder, aware now that the room had grown darker, as if the sun had decided to find a cloud to hide behind. “Cindie?”

  “Yes.”

  I returned to the bar, a large package of sliced cheese in hand, my stomach suddenly revolting against any thoughts of Cindie. Or, perhaps morning sickness had returned on their wings. “Why?”

  DiAnn shook her head; the overhead light reflected in the dark lenses of her sunglasses. “Cindie isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but she’s cunning. Trust me. She grew up under the leading of Lettie Mae Campbell.”

  “I’ve heard some things …”

  My sister-in-law reached for the mustard and unscrewed the top. “Whatever you’ve heard, multiply it by about a hundred.” She opened a drawer near her hip, grabbed a knife from the silverware tray, then dipped it into the jar. “The only decent one—in my estimation—is the oldest sister, Velma. But if you ask me, she would have done better to have left town instead of just moving out in the country.”

  I found that a strange thing for her to say considering she and Paul lived out in the country. “Westley told me about her. She’s married to a preacher, right?” I tore the protective covering over the cheese, then pulled six of the wrapped slices from the stack.

  “How she turned out so well, I’ll never—” She stopped as the back door opened and our husbands walked through. I looked at her. Studied her. Wanting to see some telltale sign of being caught talking about Cindie. About her mother and her sister. Wondering if she’d feel the need to explain herself to Westley as though she’d breached a confidence I’d yet been made privy to.

  But there was none of that. Not from DiAnn Houser, at least. “Well?” she asked. “Are we going or is the boat out of commission?”

  “I think we’ll be fine,” Paul answered, “if the weather behaves.”

  Westley ambled in, sliding his arm around me, his hand gripping my waist. “You feel all right?” he said, low and in my ear.

  I stared up at my husband in wonder that he had sensed my sudden queasiness and hoping he couldn’t guess why as Paul explained the complexities of the engine and how he and Westley had master-mechaniced it back to rights.

  “What’s wrong?” Paul asked, abandoning his tale. “Have you been sick, Ali?”

  I shook my head. “Just a little …”

  “Pregnant,” Westley blurted, not waiting for the perfect time to announce our news.

  A flurry of activity broke out around us—DiAnn reaching for me with a firm but quick hug. Paul patting Westley on the back, quipping, “You don’t wait long, do you?”

  “It was a—not planned,” I stammered, heat rising in me, hoping they were not picturing Westley and me in bed, making this tin
y person who grew inside me.

  “You look like you could use some fresh air,” DiAnn now said. But she stole a look out the storm door and said, “Dark clouds are gathering,” as though the weather had some nerve.

  “Nah,” Westley answered. “It wouldn’t dare rain. Not today. Not on us.” He walked around the bar and began to insert the sandwiches into small bags. “I say let’s get this party started. I’m ready to feel the water beneath my feet.”

  By the time we made it back to the boat, which the tempestuous water rocked and bumped against the frame of the dock, my knees had gone to butter. My stomach to jelly. “Westley,” I said, turning toward him and away from the motion. “I think maybe I should go back inside. Lay down a while.”

  “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. You’ll be fine once you get out there.”

  I looked over my shoulder to where DiAnn and Paul yanked knots from the ropes that tethered the boat to the dock’s security … on out to the lapping water against the shorelines of the narrow canal that, if we followed the snaky path, would lead us to the Flint River. On the other side of Paul and DiAnn’s property, trees stretched upward from a tangle of shrub, their leaves dancing, the pine needles shimmering in the dim sunlight of a morning that wanted to retreat as badly as I did. “Westley …”

  “Come on,” he said, turning me toward the boat and Paul’s extended hand. “You’ll sit up front with Paul and help him navigate and watch DiAnn and me do our tricks. What with all the fresh air you’ll breathe in, you’ll feel fine in no time.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I protested, my voice sounding more like a whimper than a roar.

  His eyes found mine, pleading. “Would I ever lie to you?”

  “No,” I answered, wondering if his lie by omission fell into the same category.

  I stepped toward the boat. Toward Paul, who took my hand and guided me until the fiberglass flooring rocked beneath me without provocation. I breathed in and out, found the cushy seat that swiveled from front to back, and lowered myself onto it. I closed my eyes as the boat continued to sway and attempted to absorb the sounds around me. The rhythm of DiAnn and Westley gently tossing skis into the back of the boat, then slipping into their life vests. Paul donning his.

  “Sweetheart.” Westley’s voice came from overhead. I looked up. He held another vest—mine—wide for me to slide into. I held out my arms and he placed it on me as though I were a child. As though I were Michelle and it was time to go to school or church …

  … something Westley had become strangely adamant about in the time since we’d gained custody of his daughter. Our daughter.

  “Here you go,” he said. He knelt before me and clasped the sides of the vest together, locking them to keep me safe. “Can’t have you going overboard and drowning,” he added with a wink, which made me smile. “That’s my girl.” He kissed me. “You’re looking better already.”

  “I feel … strange …” I said to him. “Hot.”

  “It’s just the rocking of the boat with a touch of morning sickness and a soaring temp of about ninety. Once we get it out, it’ll get better.” He kissed me again, then stood and joined DiAnn at the back of the boat.

  Paul turned the key and the engine came to life. He backed the boat out, glanced upward and said, “The sun’s making a dent in the clouds.” Then, to his brother, “I think you’re right, Wes. I think it’s going to break.”

  Westley grinned as he turned on the portable radio, twisting the knob until he found the station of his choice. Until Peter Frampton’s guitar permeated the air around us. Within fifteen minutes we were in the river, DiAnn and Westley performing their tricks. My husband’s lack of fear became more and more evident each time we came here while I shuddered to think of all the things that could happen, even as I kept Michelle wrapped in my arms, listening as she cried out, “Me, too, Daddy! Me, too!” and wondering at what point her father would purchase little baby skis for her and have her out there, slicing into a wake.

  I shifted in my seat, tucking one foot under.

  “You okay?” Paul called out over the whipping wind that pulled his hair straight back and mine forward so that it hit my face like needles from a pine bough.

  I nodded. “My back hurts a little. I just needed to shift.”

  He smiled. Brought the speed back up. I turned my attention back to Westley who lay nearly flat against the water now, teasing nature with his flamboyance. I laughed then, the sound of it catching in my chest as intensity pulled low and unwelcomed.

  Something was wrong … horribly wrong.

  I shifted again and, feeling a familiar but unwanted wetness, twisted to look at the white vinyl seat beneath me.

  It was smeared with blood.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  September 1979

  Patterson

  Dr. Patterson Thacker stretched on the sofa in his home office, arching his spine and feeling it pop. He blinked at the room made of heavy draperies, rich colors, dark wood wainscoting that gave way to bookshelves, a multipaned picture window, and double doors leading to the remainder of the house. The furniture was masculine and smelled of pipe tobacco and the lemony wax the housekeeper applied weekly. Axminster rugs that had cost him a near fortune lay somewhat flat and somewhat wrinkled and mostly curled on the corners, showing scant lines of the hardwood beneath. The bookshelves held a library of rare books as well as those he’d studied from in college and those he simply liked because they were considered classics and the writing was good. Books he’d read time and again. Would read time and again. This was his place of comfort. His reprieve. Where he stopped being who or what everyone else wanted and became only himself.

  His home rested along the outskirts of Druid Hills—an Atlanta suburb recently added to the National Registry of Historic Places—in a house made solely of red brick. A gothic sort of home where his wife entertained lavishly, inviting only those who hailed from the city’s A-list, and he retreated to his study as often as possible. Nightly, in fact.

  Patterson chuckled as he crossed his legs at the ankles on the leather-tufted sofa that both warmed and chilled him, thinking that this was one thing he and his old man had in common. That and a penchant for living life like a dead man. Going through the motions for the sake of what was expected. Obtaining an impressive degree, marrying the right girl, siring the right number of children—not too many, not too few.

  He adjusted the large earphones that kept him bound to the enormous stereo system Mary Helen had given him for his birthday a week ago. Since then, he’d hardly come out except to go to work … eat dinner … and then sleep on one side of a large king-sized bed while Mary Helen lay like a stone on the other.

  Ah, music … The one constant in his life had been music. He couldn’t play a single instrument. Didn’t know middle C from F sharp. But he took pleasure in the power and majesty of it. The boasting of it. He could determine all the instruments in nearly every work. Knew the French horn from the piccolo. The acoustic guitar from the 12-string, the bass from the lead. He could also tell anyone who may be interested about nearly every form of music, from Chopin to Dylan, from Sinatra to The Eagles, from Billie Holliday to Fleetwood Mac, which—amped up—pulsed through his body at present.

  He closed his eyes, tapped one socked foot to the beat of Mick Fleetwood’s straightforward drumming, breathed in and out, enraptured completely by the contralto voice of Stevie Nicks. By the sultriness. That low rasp and the way it warbled as it climbed the scales. He imagined her, for a moment—one longer than he intended—lying possessed in his arms … begging him to love her as she’d never been loved before. Certainly better than Buckingham ever could. Or Henley. Or Fleetwood, according to the latest music gossip.

  A tap on his shoulder startled him and he jerked upright to see his wife standing over him, her arms now crossed and a frown on an otherwise flawless face. He blushed as though she’d read his thoughts—and perhaps she had. They’d been together long enough that she should be able to. But, if
that were so, she’d have divorced him by now. Divorced him and taken him to the cleaners, as the saying went.

  How could so much sweetness have turned so sour in fourteen years? He’d often wondered if perhaps they shouldn’t have married on such a hot day—that the gods had aligned against them, starting with that. Or that they should have waited a little longer. Or perhaps that he shouldn’t have dallied around with Dani beforehand or Rita since. But he’d thought—no, believed—back then, that it would all turn out okay. That they’d have everything and more. A beautiful home, which they did. Although, compared to his childhood home, the rooms were smaller but the closets larger. A perfect number of family members—three wonderful daughters who excelled at everything they did, even five-year-old Helen-Leigh. A social life to rival his parents’.

  And they did. They said all the right things, moved in all the right circles, dressed in all the right clothes, and sent their girls to all the right schools—from preschool on.

  But what they didn’t have was passion. Not an inkling of it. What Mary Helen had declared as chastity before wedlock had turned to duty in marriage. For all their years together, he’d never once made her cry out. Never once felt the earth move in the throes of their lovemaking. It was all … just … duty.

  “You scared me,” he said, pulling the headphones off.

  “Well, if you wouldn’t act like you’re still in college …”

  “Did you need something?” he asked, ignoring the jab while keeping his voice in the same tone as when his secretary buzzed him or poked her head around his office door.

  “You have a phone call.”

  He furrowed his brow and looked at his watch. “This late?”

  “Harry Miller’s secretary. She says it’s important …”

  He turned his head in case heat rose to his face again, making a bigger to-do out of putting the headphones away than necessary. “I’ll take it in here,” he said.