A Fever In The Heart

by Rule, Ann

  Gabby asked Morris if he might move in with him and Jerilee for a few weeks, just until he and Gay tried to settle their problems. Morris was all for it if it would help Gabby salvage his marriage. A “time-out” might be just what Gabby’s marriage needed.

  Jerilee Blankenbaker was definitely not enthusiastic when Morris approached her with the suggestion that they invite Gabby to stay with them until he pulled himself together. His divorce was hurting him bad and he wasn’t taking it well, Morris explained. Gabby was lonesome and lost outside the family he had been used to.

  Jerilee didn’t really know Gabby Moore. At twenty-seven she had two little children to take care of, not to mention her full-time job at a Yakima bank; she had more than enough to do without helping Morris baby-sit his old coach. It wasn’t that she was selfish or uncaring; it was simply that she and Morris were just getting their own lives on track. Morris had his college degree, and he was teaching at last. She couldn’t envision bringing Gabby into their home without incurring problems. She didn’t have time to cook and clean up after another man, to do his laundry, and she didn’t feel like giving up her privacy.

  Morris argued that it wouldn’t be for very long. Gabby was probably going to be getting back with Gay; and if he didn’t, he would soon be looking for his own place. Morris said he just couldn’t turn the guy away in good conscience. And that was typical of Morris. He had a conscience, and he cared a lot about Gabby.

  A future prosecuting attorney named Jeff Sullivan was Gay Moore’s divorce attorney. Much later, Sullivan would scarcely recall the divorce proceedings, which led him to believe that the dissolution of the Moore marriage was uncomplicated. “No-fault” divorces had just come into effect in Washington State at that time and Sullivan cannot remember if Gabby was any more reluctant than the average man to get a divorce. In fact, it was Sullivan’s impression that Gabby wanted the divorce. In any case, the proceedings were calm enough that they did not stand out in his mind.

  That was not the way Gabby described it to Morris, however. Bereft, Gabby confided in his athletes and in his friends. He seemed lost, afraid of the future, and angry at the same time. Of all of Gabby’s friends, Morris Blankenbaker was the one who worried the most about what would happen to Gabby when he didn’t have Gay any longer. At first, it didn’t occur to Morris that he was hearing only one side of the story: a side that showed Gabby in the best light.

  Morris had saved Gabby’s life once, and he was ready to do it again. It was almost as if he were living out the Chinese proverb that says that once you save someone’s life, it belongs to you forever after and you remain responsible for that person. Gabby was in bad shape and Morris was not a man to ever walk away from any of his friends when they were as down as Gabby seemed.

  Gabby had other friends, and his about-to-be ex-father-in-law was still close to him, but that didn’t make the long nights alone any easier. He needed to be around people. Morris saw Gabby as a victim, and Gabby did nothing to dissuade him. There were many things that Gabby did not confide in Morris. Certainly, Morris had no idea how much Gabby was drinking or how insanely jealous he was of Gay.

  Had Morris known, he might have rethought his offer to Gabby to move in. But he didn’t know, and he worked hard to convince Jerilee that Gabby needed a place to stay where people cared about him. Finally, she gave in, and Gabby Moore moved in with the family in January of 1974.

  Whatever Gabby was doing to effect a reconciliation, it wasn’t working. Gay Moore went ahead with her divorce action. She wasn’t divorcing Gabby because there was another man; she just wanted a different kind of life. Gabby’s moods were too unpredictable and he was almost paranoid, believing that she was interested in someone else. With a teaching job and three teenagers to raise, Gay had no time to think about a new relationship.

  Although Jerilee Blankenbaker had been against Gabby Moore’s moving into her home, she soon changed her mind. She could see why Morris and he were such good friends. He was a nice guy, and he was fun to have around. More than that, though, Gabby’s old charisma that had always drawn people to him was still working. When he wanted to be, he was the most charming man in the room, full of anecdotes and jokes, confident and bristling with goodwill. He was compelling, a man who seemed taller, handsomer, and more successful than he really was. He brought that force of energy to the Blankenbaker house, and when his eyes met Jerilee’s, she found it almost impossible to look away.

  No one could ever say when Jerilee began to view Gabby in a new light. Sharing a house with someone is an intimate experience—sometimes pleasant, sometimes uncomfortable. Gabby was there in the morning with his eyes sleepy and his hair tousled, and he was usually there as they all went to bed. In truth, Jerilee was living with two men, one her husband and one an interloper. But he was a disturbingly fascinating interloper. She knew that he drank a little, but she had no idea how much. Gabby was careful to be his most charming when he was with Jerilee. If there was an early hint that she found him special, perhaps it was the way she called him “Glynn” instead of Gabby, as everyone else did. She didn’t like his nickname.

  It was Morris who began to see his best friend with more critical eyes. He saw traits in Gabby he had never noticed before. “Morris said he could just see a change in Glynn,” Jerilee said much later. “And Glynn would drink for two or three days without sleeping and do things that were unlike his character. He took a gun up to his ex-wife’s house and he made threats toward her, and Morris could just … well, he lost his respect for him.”

  But Morris didn’t immediately confide in Jerilee about the negative things he was seeing in Gabby. Since she hadn’t known him at all well before he moved in with them, she couldn’t see the alarming change.

  “I didn’t know Glynn Moore that well previous to that,” she admitted. Morris didn’t tell Jerilee how much Gabby was drinking, or how bizarre his behavior became when he did drink. He didn’t tell her about the obsessive, almost psychotic jealousy Gabby was exhibiting toward Gay.

  Later, Jerilee would see the other side of Gabby, the one that made Morris pull back from the friendship. But by the time Morris distanced himself from his old coach, it was far too late to stop what was happening in his own home.

  Someone who wasn’t there cannot possibly say when things began to go awry in the Blankenbaker marriage. One can only conjecture.

  Jerilee and Morris had been married eight years, and they had long since grown accustomed to each other. Gabby Moore was a new element in the equation. He clearly found Jerilee enchanting. He listened to what she had to say, and he was quick to jump up to help her clear the dinner table. It soon began to seem natural to have him there; he was like part of the family. And then it was more than that—he was part of the family.

  Gabby Moore needed to talk about his feelings, and Jerilee listened. Gabby was, as a song popular in that era said, “a giant of a man brought down by love”—a condition that is ultimately appealing to most women. At first, Jerilee probably felt sorry for him as she listened to him talk about his lost marriage. The only side to Gabby she had ever seen—and that was at a distance—was the macho coach, the sportsman, her husband’s friend.

  Now, as he poured his heart out to her, she must have sensed that he had emotional depths she had never realized. Jerilee was undoubtedly touched when she saw how the end of his marriage had diminished his joy in life and in his successes. He would have made it seem that he was telling her secrets that no one else knew, that he trusted her enough to reveal weakness that he would show only to her. Jerilee must have realized why Morris had felt so sorry for him. His heart was broken, his children were lost to him, and every day was a challenge. Yet, somehow he gathered the strength to go on, to paste a smile on his face and go off to school to teach and to coach.

  The stage was set for disaster. Before he was aware of all the circumstances and the many-faceted sides to Gabby’s personality, Morris had invited a predator into his home. He had thought nothing of leaving Gabby al
one with Jerilee. He was disgusted when he realized how much Gabby was drinking—disgusted and disappointed in the man he had once idolized, but Morris wasn’t worried and he wasn’t wary.

  He should have been. At some point Jerilee’s relationship with Gabby had metamorphosed. Gabby no longer grieved for his lost wife and family; he was in love with his best friend’s wife. Although he didn’t tell her right away, watching Jerilee may have made Gabby glad he was free. His wholehearted pursuit to win her love suggests that he didn’t even reflect on the fact that she was not.

  At first glance, it seemed highly unlikely that Gabby would be attractive to Jerilee. He was forty-two years old, and nowhere near as handsome as Morris. Morris had put on some weight but, underneath, he was still solid muscle. Gabby was soft and out of shape. He was not in good health, although the Blankenbakers didn’t know how precarious Gabby’s physical condition was. But Gabby had one big advantage: He was an unknown quantity to Jerilee. She had been with Morris since she was seventeen, and at twenty-seven she was no longer an immature teenage beauty queen. She was a lovely woman who had made a place for herself in the business world.

  To Morris, Jerilee was still Jerilee. They had achieved the comfortable familiarity of a long-term marriage. Morris loved his wife devotedly but he was used to having her around. The exhilarating, breathtaking romance of a new relationship just wasn’t there any longer. How could it be?

  Gabby played on that; he pushed back any thoughts he had about the ethics of what he was doing to Morris. He had moved into his friend’s life and he felt comfortable there. He wanted it all for himself. Gabby had always gone against the odds in sports. He was now prepared to beat the odds when it came to love. He wanted Jerilee Blankenbaker and he was ready to be whoever he had to be to win her away from Morris.

  Morris and Jerilee’s home now housed a three-adult family. If Morris noticed that Jerilee no longer complained about the nuisance of having Gabby live with them, he didn’t mention it. He just hoped that Gabby would make other living arrangements as soon as possible. He wanted his old life back.

  Morris may even have been relieved that Jerilee didn’t complain any longer about the loss of their privacy or about the extra work it was to have Gabby live with them. Gabby seemed to enjoy being around five-year-old Rick and four-year-old Amanda too.

  Apparently, Gabby never tired of looking at Jerilee. His eyes followed her appreciatively as she moved around her kitchen fixing supper and when she got her toddlers ready for bed. Although she was very intelligent, she was not an aggressive woman. She bent with seeming ease to the needs and requests of the men in her life. Jerilee had looked for so long to Morris for protection and approval. Now, subtly, it appears that she began to lean on Gabby. Although she had good female friends, she was a man’s woman, soft and pretty and sweet.

  No one but the participants knew just when the balance finally shifted in the Blankenbaker household. The change was cataclysmic, but it occurred so silently that it was as if a deep fissure in the earth had crunched one seismic plate against another and cracked every wall in the house. The marriage looked sound, but a gypsy wind blowing across the land could have flattened the whole thing. Obviously, Jerilee began to feel as if she were sleeping with the wrong man when she went to bed with her husband. She must have thought of the man in the guest bedroom, who was unquestionably thinking of her and seething at the situation.

  No one who knew them or who encountered them later believes that Jerilee had planned to fall in love with Gabby, and it would probably be fair to say that he had not expected to fall in love with her. He had simply switched his obsession with Gay to Jerilee, with barely a pause in between. Even Gabby—who was quite used to having his own way—must have seen the shame of stealing the woman who belonged to the man who had literally saved his life, who had rescued him from drowning. Undoubtedly, Gabby recognized what he was about to do, but it didn’t deter him. It was Jerilee he wanted now and he was going to have her.

  Gabby led Jerilee to believe that his financial picture was far brighter than it really was. He promised her that once they were married, he would buy her a wonderful brick house and that she could furnish it however she liked without ever worrying about the cost. The lifestyle he painted for her sounded secure and happy and without any problems at all. Gabby seemed to love her with a passion and a fervor that the more taciturn Morris had never demonstrated. Morris made commitments and kept them—that was the way he showed his love. Gabby was all fire and promises.

  The very fact that Gabby was fifteen years older than Jerilee may have drawn her to him. His charisma and his ability to inspire confidence drew her to him—just as he inspired his athletes. He seemed a dependable rock, a kind of half lover/half father figure. He was such a hero at Davis High School and in Yakima itself. Morris had a teaching job too, of course, but he hadn’t begun to achieve the status that Gabby had.

  Whatever it was—chemistry, pragmatism, true love—Jerilee had become completely mesmerized by Gabby Moore. When he asked her to leave Morris and marry him, she accepted. It could not help but seem that she threw away her marriage with scarcely a backward glance.

  Gabby had nothing to throwaway; he was already figuratively on the street with a suitcase when Jerilee and Morris took him in. It wasn’t that he was destitute—he had money—but he was not a man who could live by himself. He never had been.

  Once they had admitted the obvious, there was apparently no going back for Jerilee and Gabby. It was spring in Yakima and the apple trees were blossoming. They were in love and they were not going to turn away from the overpowering emotion that swept over them. It had all happened in less than three months.

  When Jerilee told Morris that she was leaving him for Gabby, he was poleaxed. She was the only woman he had ever loved. But like many powerfully built men, Morris was gentle and not the kind to rage and threaten. He was too hurt. If Jerilee wanted a divorce, he would give it to her. There was nothing else for him to do. He let her walk away from him with one proviso, though. He made it clear that he still loved her. If she ever needed him, if she ever came to her senses, he would take her back.

  Morris wasn’t in a position to ask for custody of his children. Rick and Amanda were preschoolers. How would he take care of them? Olive couldn’t be expected to take on the daily care of two little kids, and, besides, she was still working full-time. He knew that Jerilee would let him see them whenever he could, and so he didn’t fight her for them. In his heart, he believed that she and the children would be coming back to him.

  It happened with such swiftness. When 1974 began, Morris Blankenbaker had considered himself married for life. By March, only a little over two months later, Jerilee had filed for divorce. Since uncontested divorces in Washington State take ninety days, she was a free woman by June. She and Morris would have been married for nine years on August 28, but, of course, they never made it that far.

  Coincidentally, Morris’s marriage had lasted almost exactly as long as his parents’ marriage.

  Jerilee came back to Morris once, but only for a very brief time. She was pulled in two directions. Her conscience and the familiar warmth and dependability of the man she had left drew her back. But, when she was living with Morris again, Gabby wouldn’t let her alone. He was the most persuasive person she had ever encountered. He kept reminding her that he was the one she loved, and that he could not go on living without her. He played “their” song, and her resolve melted.

  Lay your head upon my pillow,

  Hold your warm and tender body close to mine.

  Hear the whisper of the raindrops falling soft

  against the window,

  And make believe you love me one more time …

  Unlike most men in his situation, Morris was remarkably civilized. Although he was crushed by the betrayal of both his wife and his best friend, he actually allowed Gabby back in his house to discuss their dilemma. The three of them, each side of the hopeless triangle, had stilted, awkward d
iscussions. Sometimes, Gabby would show up at suppertime and they all sat together at the table again, unspoken thoughts heavy in the air. It was as if there were some solution to be found, some ending where all three of them could be happy, and yet they all knew there was none. Whatever happened, one of them was going to lose.

  Of them all, Morris was the strongest, heartbroken as he was. Gabby was full of bluster and persuasive arguments but he held on to Jerilee like the drowning man he had once been, and Jerilee was torn, caught in a situation she could never have imagined a few months earlier.

  Olive Blankenbaker, still troubled by the tableau she encountered two decades ago, recalled an evening when she inadvertently walked in on one of those meetings. “I took two steaks over to Morris and Jerilee … and Moore was there. I said, ‘I guess I should have brought three steaks. I didn’t know you had company.’ Gabby just hung his head and looked away. I even felt kind of sorry for him, but that was before I realized what he had done to Morris.”

  Years after it had all been played out, Olive could not speak of Gabby as anyone other than “Moore,” and she could not keep the disgust and rage from her voice. For all of her life, she had worked to make her son happy and there had finally come a time when she had no power whatsoever to ease the searing pain he was suffering.

  Hammering away at Jerilee with skewed logic and raw emotion and relentless pleas, it wasn’t long before Gabby Moore had convinced her to leave Morris once again and come back to live with him.

  This time, Morris realized his marriage was truly over.

  When his life disintegrated, Morris Blankenbaker could not bear to be in Yakima any longer, despite the fact that his mother, his brothers, his children, and his friends were all there. Everywhere he went there were reminders of Jerilee. Worse, there was every likelihood that he would actually run into his wife with her new husband. Yakima wasn’t big enough to avoid that.