Rick had shielded her with his body and, behind his back, handed her his keys. “Get in the car,” he said over his shoulder.
“Ooh, yeah, baby,” Tony said. “Get in the back seat and wait for me.”
“You always did have a big mouth,” Rick said to Tony. Then, “Go, Julie.”
Tony charged like a bull. Rick caught him and locked both arms around Tony’s chest. They wrestled to the ground. Rick punched Tony once, twice. Then Tony pulled a knife from his pocket, stabbed Rick in the shoulder, and pulled it down through the meat.
She’d spent the rest of the evening with Rick in the emergency room. He’d needed twenty-one stitches. A kind nurse had re-fastened the strap of her dress with a huge safety pin, which of course had infuriated Trudey. Rick’s fishhook-shaped scar had healed well, but the skin at the bend of his shoulder would always pucker.
“What?” Rick asked behind her now. “You can’t even look at it? I love you more now than I did then. I can and will protect you from every outside threat. I’ve even tried to protect our children from you and keep down the conflict in our marriage, by refusing to protect myself,” he said. “But the one thing I can’t figure out how to do, is protect you from yourself.”
Suddenly chilled, she rubbed her hands over her arms. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”
With her back to him, she told him of Dr. Lilly’s prognosis.
“What about surgery? Isn’t there a procedure which could be done?”
“It’s delicate surgery, there are no guarantees, and consistent voice rest would still be required. I figured you’d be happy I’ll be living on voice rest.”
“That’s your mother talking.”
She turned back to him, expecting to see the fury that had consumed him. But a single tear was sliding over his stubbled cheek. And the look in his eyes wasn’t anger, it was pity. Julie had seen that look on Rick’s face only one other time, while she was in the hospital after the accident, when he’d told Dr. Wyman she couldn’t speak.
“I support your singing because I support you.” He stepped to her. “I’d support you digging ditches if it put the same expression on your face as Sunday mornings. Carmine called Monday, but I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want you to pressure yourself or rush your recovery.” Wearily he shook his head.
“I. Want. My. Dream,” she said.
“Oh, yeah? Well, I want my dream, too. The one we promised each other when you married me. The one that doesn’t include you slicing me to bits. You know, I thought I’d gotten my old Julie back. The one I married. The one who had at least one positive thing a month to say to me. You have chewed me up and spit me out for the last time. I’m not going to take this from you anymore.”
“I’ve never wounded you like that!” She felt her voice crack in a way she’d never before experienced.
“Just because you can’t see the injury doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
He tossed his dirty shirts in the hamper. Pulled off his socks and tossed them in, too. He stepped into their closet.
She swallowed, totally conscious of the muscles, tissue, and cords in her neck, certain something awful had just happened.
She grabbed her throat, stumbled to the bed and sat. She thought of her vocal cords, the nodules and nodes, visible wounds only if one knew where and how to look.
Just because you can’t see the injury doesn’t mean it’s not there. The same words she’d used in the letter to her mother.
He returned, dropped a clean shirt and pair of jeans on the bed beside her. Their gazes locked and he quickly looked away.
She had a vivid flashback to the day they’d made Ben. There’s no blue like an Alabama sky, he’d said, but I’d rather look into your startling green eyes any moment of the day. They captured me when we were kids, but the way they shine when it’s just me and you ... I’d give you the world if I could.
Now, he didn’t want to look at her or connect with her, the same way she didn’t want to connect with her mother.
Could it be true that she’d hurt every one in her family? Her husband?
How long had it been since she’d said something positive to Rick? Since she’d encouraged him? Thanked him?
You have chewed me up and spit me out for the last time. In her mind, an invisible hand flashed cards showing his every flinch of the last seven years, then fanned them out before her.
And it hit her. Hadn’t she asked God to show her the beam in her own eye?
“I didn’t mean to,” she said.
He didn’t reply, and the silence stretched so long she thought he hadn’t heard her.
“After Ben was born, I ... what did I do wrong?”
“A man can starve for the physical, if everything else is right, you know? But he wasn’t meant to be his own best friend.”
She closed her eyes. “It happened gradually, didn’t it? I was exhausted—”
“Yes, you were.”
“And scared and overwhelmed and totally distracted simply keeping Ben alive and caring for him.”
“You saved him. Revived him more than once if you remember, when he stopped breathing.”
“Yeah.”
What awful moments those had been, stimulating her newborn son and hoping he’d start breathing again on his own.
“And somehow I suffocated us, suffocated you, didn’t I? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have.” He finally looked at her again. “I knew how to work, learned to stay out of your way. But I didn’t know what to say to you.”
“And I probably wouldn’t have let you get a word in anyway.”
Oh, how this hurt, finding out she’d done wrong to others exactly as wrong had been done to her.
“I mucked stalls before dropping the kids,” Rick said. “I’ve got just enough time to take a shower before I drive you to Dr. Wyman’s.”
She gulped. “Rick.”
The space between them was a canyon she didn’t know how to reach across.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do we find out?”
“I don’t know that either.” He walked into the bathroom, pushed the door closed. “Funny you should trust my input now.”
She heard him slide back the shower curtain. Heard him turn on the water.
Julie pressed a hand to her throat, cleared it, and heard the trace of raspiness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lightning rent the sky. Thunder roared, roared again, then lightning struck close as Rick pulled away from the oral surgeon’s office, with his drowsy wife tucked into the front seat.
“I’m sorry,” Julie said with eyes closed. “I’m so sorry, Rick.”
He knew she referred to their conversation at home before the procedure. She’d said little else other than to apologize ever since.
“Shh.” He reached for her hair and stopped, an old habit. Always checking for her acceptance before he made contact.
“I didn’t do right, either,” he whispered, uncertain whether he wanted her to hear or was glad she didn’t. And in the back of his mind hadn’t he always known he’d already gotten what he wanted? His land, the stables, his business, his dream.
Just a few short weeks ago he’d encouraged Rachel to see life from Julie’s perspective. But had he? Had he ever faced the complete death of a dream like Julie now faced?
He stopped at a red light. Turned into a drive-thru and bought himself a meal, her a milkshake, and placed it in the cup holder as Julie dozed.
The storm exploded in a dark, deafening whoosh. Wipers at full, emergency flashers on, he slowed to a snail’s pace. What should have been a twenty-minute trip turned to forty, the view out his windshield shortened to less than a yard.
Finally he pulled into their garage. He carried her inside, her head on his shoulder, one arm dangling as he turned sideways to enter their room and lay her on the bed. He removed her shoes, covered her with an afghan, and closed the blinds
.
Quietly he shut their bedroom door. When Dr. Wyman’s nurse had given him the after-care instructions, she’d said Julie would probably sleep for a few hours. He made a sandwich, ate standing, noting the rain had slowed, then walked through mud to the stables.
The tin roof shook with each rumble of thunder. All the horses had congregated in the indoor arena, rather than stay out in the pasture during the storm. They shook their heads and snorted in complaint that their daily grazing session had been cut short. Rick walked straight to the tack room and was hit full force with the scent of Angelina’s perfume and the sight of her sitting at his desk reading.
She lowered the book and looked up. “I’ve been avoiding you,” she said. “Since Monday.”
He’d forgotten she would be here. He’d been so focused on the mess that was his family, on getting Julie home, on all the answers he didn’t have. On a desperate need to just be alone in his barn with his animals for two whole seconds and not think about all the mistakes he’d made.
He slicked back his hair, wiped excess water from his arms.
“You’re soaked.” She rose, grabbing paper towels from the counter behind her.
“It doesn’t matter.”
She brought them to him.
He accepted the towels, wiped his face. Grabbed an extra shirt from a nearby cabinet and quickly changed in the attached bath.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he came out. “I should have apologized to Julie right away.”
Rick tossed his wet shirt on the counter, glanced at his watch. He had some time before he had to pick up Rachel and Ben. If he couldn’t be alone in the barn, he’d take a ride.
“I caused a problem between you and your wife.”
He shook his head. “No. You didn’t.”
“I know I did. And I didn’t mean to.”
“You’re not to blame.” He could see she did indeed blame herself. “If it makes you feel better, apology accepted.”
He donned his hat. Left her there and saddled Dutch.
No, Angelina wasn’t to blame. All guilt sat squarely on Julie’s shoulders. And his.
He rode out through the gate, through the pasture, over the land he loved as the now light rain misted his face. But he found no solace, no sense of security as he usually did when taking a leisurely ride across his property.
What good would it do to own all this, to leave all this as an inheritance for his children, if he’d taught them to be a victim in relationships?
God must be so disappointed with him.
“I’m too embarrassed to even talk to You, or anybody for that matter,” he said. “I can’t even ask You to forgive me, not yet, because the only thing I hate worse than a liar is a hypocrite. Telling You I’ll change would make me both, because I have no idea how to do any different.”
***
Rachel Matthews, Mrs. Tate’s English class, summer session:
Sunday, June 22:
Mrs. Tate, you might not give me credit for this entry. But I have no one to talk to—my best friend is on vacation, and my father has changed, too. I kind of don’t recognize him anymore.
I thought my family couldn’t get any weirder. More weird?
(Sorry, I guess it’s only a real comparison if I contrast two different things. But, if my family of two weeks ago counts as one, my family of this weekend is definitely the more bizarre of the two.)
First, since Friday evening when Mom woke up after having the wires removed, she’s kind of wilted. There’s no other way to describe it. She never looked weak before, even when her mouth was wired shut, her face was bruised, and her arm was broken.
But it’s like her backbone’s gone or something. She’s smaller somehow, fragile-looking, which doesn’t make sense.
Second, now my parents talk in low voices, the same way everyone speaks quietly at a funeral. They’re solemn and acting sad. When they look at each other, it’s like each is waiting for the other to speak. But it’s not like a “you go first” thing, it’s more a “please tell me” thing. Like someone just asked a really important question and neither of them knows the answer.
Third, this morning was the ultimate weirdness. Usually on Sundays, my mom barks orders, gives time updates, and herds us all to the car for church. But this morning Daddy simply knocked on my door, stuck his head in, and asked, “You awake?” It was up to me to get dressed, eat, and manage my time so I wouldn’t make us late.
I think Daddy did the same thing to Ben, but Ben didn’t do so great. He forgot to brush his teeth—I know because he insisted on telling knock knock jokes while we were both in the backseat and nuked me with his nasty breath.
He couldn’t find his good sneakers, so Ben ended up wearing his grass-stained play shoes. Which wouldn’t have been so bad except they stink like hundred-year-old mildew from being left out in the yard when it rained on Friday. Dad’s truck will never smell the same. It needs to be detoxified or something.
So we got to church and I couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough. Ben chased after me—my constant shadow since Sean’s not around—and I heard Mom open her door and say, “Look at this. I’m sorry. I guess I forgot about it.”
I looked back and she’d lifted a fast-food cup out of the cup carrier in the back of the fold-down console. The cup had soaked through, and an entire milkshake (I think it was a milkshake) was leaking out of the bottom, over the console, her seat, and her clothes as she got out.
Then she just stood there holding the cup. I guess she accidentally squeezed it, because what was left exploded and a big glop burst out and fell on her shoes.
My mother didn’t scream. She didn’t yell. She didn’t even get upset. She simply stared at the goop dripping from her fingers. Either an alien has taken over her body or she is on some serious medication.
And I think my father might be taking something as well. Because he came around the truck and put his hand under both of hers and they just stood there like they’d never before seen or cleaned up a mess.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I forgot it Friday after I carried you in from the truck.”
My mother looked at their hands, at the gunk all over herself, at the mess behind her on the seat. Then she apologized again, which never happens.
“Daddy, do you want us to go inside?” I asked.
“What? Um, yeah,” he said, like he’d forgotten Ben and me were even there.
My parents never came inside. They spent the whole service cleaning up the truck and Mom’s clothes, apparently using Mom’s stash of napkins from the glove compartment and the remains of an old bottled water lodged under the seat.
And they didn’t fight about it. I know they didn’t because when Ben and I came out and got in the truck they were still as quiet as before. But it wasn’t that “I’m so mad I’m never speaking to you again” quiet. They were as silently weird as they were before the Great Milkshake Explosion.
But that’s not all. We were driving home and Ben started singing this goofy song he heard in kid’s church, “Father Abraham.” It has motions you do with your arms and your legs. So he started singing under his breath and doing the motions, and ended up kicking the back of Mom’s seat.
Mom didn’t move. She didn’t turn around or say a word or even notice.
Then Dad said, “Ben.” And he waited. “Ben.” And he waited. “ Ben!”
Ben stopped.
“Turn up your hearing aid,” Dad said.
“Sorry,” Ben said. “I was just doing the song.”
“I know, Buddy. It’s one of your favorites. But what about the hearing aid? Why do you always have it turned down?”
He shrugged. “I don’t. Only when I don’t like the noise.”
Then Dad asked, “What noise?”
He shrugged again. “When somebody’s upset. Or yelling.”
I couldn’t stand it. “He means like what usually happens over something like the milkshake.”
My mom hugged herself and kind of bent
over, shaking her head. And neither of my parents said another word all the way home.
***
Rick wouldn’t have felt more stressed if he were blindfolded and walking a tightrope while juggling.
Somehow he and Julie, both children, and Angelina had all ended up in the barn at the same time.
Julie was hunched over the computer in the tack room, listening to music through headphones and concentrating on inputting the last entries in the business’ bookkeeping programs. Rachel was begrudgingly mucking stalls. Rick figured her woeful sighs could be heard in the next county. Ben was dutifully washing and refilling all the water buckets, but the little guy kept filling them too full, and the excess sloshing over the rims created a slippery mess of hay and mud on the concrete walkway outside the stalls.
Rick parked an empty wheelbarrow in front of the stall where Rachel worked, then grabbed a push broom hanging nearby. All he needed was for one of the owners who regularly visited the stables on Sunday evenings to slip and break an arm.
“Daddy, aren’t you going to help me?” Rachel asked.
“In a minute. I’m going to sweep some and check on your mother.”
At least if he were sweeping he’d actually see some results. He didn’t know what to do for Ben, what to do about Rachel, or what to say to his wife.
If Sean were here, Rick would be a failure four times over. His only consolation was Angelina hadn’t been in the tack room when his family had tromped alongside him to the stables. Rather, she’d been in the arena giving Godiva a light massage. A little distance between Julie and Angelina was surely a good thing.
He started where he stood, steadily shoving the floating slush toward the nearest walkway end, and cleared a dozen feet.
To his left, the tack room door opened.
“Rick?” Julie’s voice trembled.
He went to her and laid the broom aside. “Didn’t your gums bleed a little after lunch?”
She looked so weary, just like he felt. Fear gleamed in her green eyes.
“You should go back to the house,” he said. “Take it easy.”
“What are we going to do?”
Sticks and Stones (The Barn Church Series) Page 22