Knickers in a Twist

by Kim Hunt Harris

  “You don't know how close it was, though.”

  “Doesn't matter. Not really. A miss is definitely as good as a mile, in this case.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the tabletop. “No, that's wrong. It does matter how close it was. Temptations come in all sizes, and you stared down a big one. Size does matter.” He winked at me.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I've told you, you can't expect the day to come when you never want to drink again. It's not going to happen.”

  “I know. But what if it happens again and Stump is not there? I mean, if I hadn't been looking right at her and feeling like I had to stay sober for her...”

  He put his hand over mine. “You'll face that moment when you get to it. It's not going to do you any good to fight your battles in advance.”

  I sighed and leaned back, staring at the melting milkshake in the bottom of my glass.

  “You know, he got a new name. Jacob.”

  I frowned, thinking. “Is that why I keep getting him mixed up with Abraham? Did he become Abraham?”

  “No, Abram became Abraham. Jacob became Israel. Remember, he wrestled all night with the angel until God gave him a new name? Israel.”

  I tried to picture what that would be like and couldn't, but it did remind me of what Serena had said about Peter Browning—he was wrestling with demons.

  “Maybe I should wrestle with an angel until God gives me a new name,” I said. I stretched.

  “Maybe you should, if that's what you want.” He put a tip on the table and got to his feet with a groan. “You could just stick with ‘heal-grabber’, though. Grabbing your healing. Get it?”

  I rolled my eyes again, but I couldn't help but smile. I slid my arm through Les’s and put my head on his shoulder as we walked back to his car.

  It turned out that while Les was feeding me a milkshake, his wife Bonnie was talking to Tony. On the surface, that seemed like a good idea. Bonnie knew what it was like, living with someone in recovery. Tony needed someone who could understand what he was going through.

  It made me uneasy, though. I wanted to know what they were saying. I hated the idea that they were discussing me. I hated the idea that they were coming up with a plan to manage me, even though I had no trouble admitting that I needed to be managed.

  “Should I call Tony?” I asked Les as he dropped me back at Trailertopia.

  “What do you think?”

  Dread bloomed in the pit of my stomach. “Do you think he needs some time?”

  Les shrugged.

  “Would it be cowardly for me to just text him and tell him he can call when he's ready to talk to me?”

  Again with the shrug.

  “It's a good thing you buy me milkshakes,” I said.

  “How about this? Call him, tell him you'll be happy to talk when he's ready, and then leave it to him.”

  That sounded like a decent plan, so I did that—and breathed a sigh of relief when I got Tony's voicemail.

  “I'm sorry,” I said first. “Really. I'm sorry for what I said. I've been with Les, and I didn't drink. I'm just...I wanted you to know that, and to say that I'll leave it to you to decide when we talk again.”

  I hung up and tried not to envision him sitting, staring at his phone and refusing to answer because he knew it was me.

  He didn't call back until right before I fell asleep.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I am. I'm sorry.”

  “I'm sorry, too, Salem. I didn't mean to crowd you.”

  He didn't say anything about the hateful words I'd spoken. But I couldn't let it go unsaid.

  “You were concerned about me. You have every reason to be. Tony, I'm so sorry for saying what I did. I didn't mean it.”

  He made a sound—not a sigh, but not a word, either. More like the sound he was making if he didn't know what to say.

  “Listen, Salem.” He breathed deep on the other end of the line. “I shouldn't have pushed. I should have given you space. Space would be...would be good right now.”

  My heart thudded. I didn't really care for the sound of that. “I just needed a few hours to myself, you know. I wasn't—” I bit my lip, afraid. Space would be good right now. “I wasn't even mad at you. I was mad at my mother and took it out on you.”

  “I know.”

  “I don't want to do that. I don't want to be like that.”

  His voice was tender. “I know, Salem.”

  “I keep thinking about what I said.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I wish I could erase it from your mind.”

  “Maybe it doesn't need to be. You're not the first one to call me Saint Anthony, you know.”

  “I'm sure I'm not. I mean, you really are such a good—”

  “You're not the only one to call me that and mean it in a...not complimentary way. Rey used to say that, too.”

  Rey! That freak. “Everyone looks like a saint next to Rey. I look like a saint next to Rey.” Since Rey was currently serving prison time for participating in the murder of one of Tony's employees and helping frame Tony for that murder, I could legitimately claim the higher ground here.

  “The point is, there is a part of me—a part I'm not proud of—that does need to feel superior. I like being the hero. I like being the good guy, and I like knowing that people see me as the good guy.”

  “As personal faults go, Tony, that's not such a huge one.”

  “It was big enough to make you feel small, Salem.” He waited a beat. “Wasn't it?”

  He sounded so truly remorseful that my nose began to burn. I couldn't answer.

  “The thing is, I've been talking to Bonnie. I have to admit, I don't think I really grasped what I was getting into here. With your addiction. With all the...there's just so much out of my control.”

  He sounded so overwhelmed that I wanted to hug him. Welcome to my world, I wanted to say, but just said, “There is, yes.”

  “The more I think about what you said, and what Bonnie said, the more I see the danger for someone like me—someone with savior behavior.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “That's what Bonnie called it. This could...this could be very bad for both of us.”

  My throat was too tight to speak, and I didn't know what to say. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab onto him, but I was afraid to make a sound.

  He waited a few interminable seconds, then said, “You know what I realized? You...you're the first thing I ever failed at. You and me, I mean. Us. The baby. Fixing you.”

  “Tony, it was never your job to fix me. It was never within your power to fix me.”

  “I know that, now, of course. And I don't think I ever really thought of it on a conscious level like that. But after talking to Bonnie, and looking back at it now, with the benefit of hindsight...that's definitely how I saw it. That I had failed. And I had no experience with that. I didn't know how to handle that.”

  I chewed my lip. I was terrified to ask the next question, but I had to know. “Is that why you stayed married to me? Because you couldn't admit that you'd failed?”

  He was silent, and the silence sent daggers of ice into the pit of my stomach.

  “I don't know,” he finally whispered. “Maybe partly. Maybe I hung on because letting go would be an admission of defeat. And I couldn't handle that.”

  I didn't know what to say to that. The silence on the line was huge, all encompassing.

  It seemed like pitifully little to build a marriage on.

  “But we have to be honest,” I said. “With ourselves and with each other.”

  “Exactly. Maybe we were moving too fast.”

  “Maybe.” My heart began to thud again. Maybe he was saying 'too fast' but what he meant was 'in the wrong direction.'

  “Can I have a few days, Salem? Just to think? Go to a few meetings? Bonnie gave me this schedule of Al-Anon meetings and I'd like to—”

  “Of course. Of course. Take all the time you need.”

  “Just a f
ew days.”

  “Sure.”

  He breathed deeply, and I realized he'd been at least partially holding his breath. “It's going to be okay, Tony,” I said, but it was as much for me as it was for him.

  “It is.” He waited a beat. “I do love you, Salem—”

  “I love you, too,” I said quickly. “I'll talk to you...well, you just let me know, okay?”

  I hung up and sat clutching the phone in silence for a long time, staring at nothing. The trailer was silent.

  I do love you, Salem...

  There had been a 'but' coming. I had sensed it coming, so I had cut him off. He'd been about to say, “I do love you, Salem, but...”

  The enormity of what I hadn't allowed him to say grew like a black hole, its inky darkness threatening to swallow me. I curled up on the bed, Stump tucked into my side, and eventually fell asleep.

  I woke the next morning with that sense you have when something important has happened but you can't quite remember what.

  It took only seconds before it all came flooding back, of course. I trudged to the front door to let Stump out, and wondered if I was really in any shape to go to work. It wasn't like I could call in worried, though. Flo would have dogs ready to be groomed, and I would need to be there to help her do it.

  I looked at the sky, though, and felt somewhat relieved to see dark clouds forming. More rain. That would keep the numbers of dogs down and might mean I could get done early. I would definitely not mind that.

  After Stump came back in, I headed to the second bedroom of my trailer, where I did my morning quiet time. I lit the candle and sat back, settling my mind for the daily Bible verse and prayer time.

  My mind wouldn't settle, though. I finally sighed and picked up my daily devotional book.

  A thought occurred to me as I was flipping through the pages to find today's date.

  Good Lord. What if today's verse is from Proverbs 31?

  I slapped the book closed.

  Proverbs 31 is all about the ideal woman, and I'm reasonably sure it was written to be an encouragement. At least, I'd like to think that. Usually when I read it, though, I felt wholly inadequate. It was like looking at a list of all the good things I wasn't.

  I chewed my lip. On the whole, I had begun to trust that God would speak to me through whatever verse happened to be in the devotional that day. Many times—many times!—it felt like God had selected that verse just for me, because something in it pertained to something I was thinking, something I was struggling with, something specific to what was going on in my life at the moment. But even when that wasn't the case, there was almost always a time later in the day when I thought about the verse, when I saw how it related to my life.

  I just did not think I could handle a Proverbs 31 moment like that. Not today. Not with that unsaid “but” hanging in the air.

  I chewed my lip some more. Did I just...skip it for today?

  I stared at the candle. I tried to remember if I had skipped a single day of my quiet time since I began it. I know there were days when I felt distracted, when I was frustrated with God because my prayers weren't being answered the way I wanted them to be, but I couldn't think of a time when I didn't at least go through the motions of reading a verse.

  I frowned and grabbed my Bible. Better not start today.

  As I flipped it open, I remembered what Les had said about Jacob getting his new name. Wrestling with an angel.

  That's what I wanted to read about, I decided. Jacob getting his new name. Maybe I could get some pointers.

  Genesis 32:

  That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

  But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

  The man asked him, “What is your name?”

  “Jacob,” he answered.

  Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

  Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

  But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

  I closed my Bible and watched the candle for a while, trying to get some comfort from this. Finally, I sighed and gave up.

  I knew Jacob was one of the big patriarchs of the Old Testament and everything, but that guy was a piece of work! First stealing his brother's blessing (my heart broke a little bit every time I read about poor hairy, smelly Esau's anguish that there was only the one crummy blessing left for him) then running like a complete chicken-booty to his uncle's, where he had the unmitigated gall to be successful and prosperous, when by all rights he should have ended up starved and feverish and covered in oozing sores. Everything the man did turned to gold. Frigging heel-grabber.

  I went through the verses again, thinking there had to be some lesson in there for me somewhere.

  I had originally pictured Jacob coming upon the angel and jumping him. Like a car thief spotting a shiny new Mercedes and being unable to resist. But reading it again, it didn't seem that way. The verse said that Jacob was alone, and a man wrestled with him “until the breaking of the day.” The angel. It was as if the angel had come to take Jacob, but when it came down to it, he just couldn't defeat the guy. So he touched his hip socket and put it out of joint.

  I wrinkled my nose. What the actual heck? He could put his hip out of joint (ouch, by the way) with a touch, but he couldn't overcome him in wrestling? How did that even make sense?

  And right away, Jacob was back to demanding blessings. Even after the huge one his father gave, even after the years of prosperity with his uncle, this greedy guts is demanding more. He was like a spoiled toddler. I'll hold my breath until you give me candy!

  And why did the angel ask Jacob's name? Surely he knew it already, unless he was some kind of fallen angel who just roamed the earth, looking for guys on their own so he could show off his divine half-Nelson.

  To rub it in his face? To say, “What are you, a heel-grabber or something? Okay, fine. Now you're a God-wrestler.”

  You have striven with God and with man, and have prevailed.

  He didn't just wrestle with God and man. He prevailed.

  It was like an Internet meme. “One does not simply...prevail against God and man.”

  And why, when Jacob asked the angel's name, did the angel say, “Why do you ask?” and then bless him instead? I thought the name change was the blessing, but no. He got the name change and the blessing.

  I sighed and sat back again. So was that the secret? Don't bother being Mrs. Nice Guy? Wrestle. Demand what you want. Go for it!

  And if that was it...did I have it in me? Did I have the...well, we'll be polite and say “inner fortitude” Jacob had, to wrestle an angel to change my name?

  Chapter Ten

  Itsy Bitsy Spider

  I had lots of questions about the labels that had been put on me during my lifetime. Trouble. Hot Mess. Drunk. Slut. Failure. Those had either been put on me, or I'd put them on myself—I wasn't even sure anymore. But I very much liked the idea of being given a new label. I didn't want to be a heel-grabber anymore.

  What was my new label, though? The first hopeful thought that popped into my head was Helper. I thought of Tony, when he was suspected of the murder of Lucinda Cruz. Of CJ Hardin's parents, not knowing what had happened to their son. G-Ma, certain that the High Point Bandits were going to rob her blind. I helped those people. I had liked helping those people.

  But one label I definitely had was Wife. And I didn't think that was compatible with Helper—at least not in the way I wanted to be a Helper.

  And al
though I could not say I was completely down with the idea of being submissive to my husband, the facts were plain. Tony had stood by me. He was my husband. He was concerned for my safety. That deserved at least some of my consideration.

  As I showered and got ready for work, I thought of other ways I could be a helper. I was becoming a fairly decent dog groomer. That wasn't nothing. The dogs seemed comfortable with me and maybe hated coming to the grooming shop a little bit less because they knew I would rub their tummy for them and might sneak them a treat. That sounded like a pitifully small way to make the world a better place, but I didn't mind that much. The truth was, I loved dogs. I loved Stump so much that if I had to justify the existence of a person just because they were good to Stump, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  And speaking of people who were good to Stump—I helped Frank, via a comfortable recliner and free food. He helped me right back by making sure Stump didn't get caught up in one of her separation-anxiety fueled meltdowns and destroy my trailer. So, this was a shared endeavor, but still...

  I could just be a normal person, I thought as I tugged on my clothes. There were lots of people in the world who went around not solving crimes, and they did just fine. They were still good people.

  Maybe I could perfect my lemon pound cake recipe. Or learn to knit, maybe knit blankets and hats for the babies in NICU. Or be the best wife Tony could possibly hope for. Those were all worthwhile endeavors.

  I wrinkled my nose. God made Jacob into Israel, father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Personally, I would have preferred something that came with a cape, but whatever. As long as I wasn't a heel-grabber anymore, I would learn to be happy with it.

  Viv texted me around noon. “What time are you getting off? I have booked two appointments for us today—Dorsett Oil and Bitsy Browning.”

  I checked my list. “Should be done by 2.”

  “Be ready by 1:45,” she replied. “Dorsett Oil is at 2.”

  I frowned and put the phone down. Maybe she needed a reminder that the British were known for being polite.

  Before she got there, I had second thoughts, though. We still didn't know if Browning had been murdered, but if he had...a powerful oil company would be a good suspect, right? Browning's reports on earthquakes related to fracking had been getting a lot of attention.