She Rode a Harley

by Mary Jane Black

  Many nights at home, I fall asleep with a phone tucked against my ear with his voice on the other end. Often he plays his guitar and sings to me across the miles. One midnight I whisper, “I love you.”

  He whispers back, “I love you too.” We both hold our breath for a moment.

  One week later on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, he picks me up at LAX, and we walk into our motel’s lobby. Dwayne takes the handle of my suitcase and shows me a single room key card.

  I take one end of it while he holds the other. He touches my cheek. “This time we’re sharing a room.” It’s not a question.

  I lay my hand on his shoulder. I pull him close and tiptoe up to reach his lips.

  We walk to the elevator. I open the door of our room for us the way I did on the night of our blind date. Later that night we fall asleep together for the first time since he left me with a glass of tea in a Bryan café.

  SNOW

  Dwayne calls me from Love’s Truck Stop in Oklahoma. “Baby, Jessica and me are halfway to Missouri. We’ll be there in about four hours.” “The turkey will be ready by then.” I stop and listen to the roar of trucks behind him. “I just hope Jessica and Stephanie get along okay.” We both know that the family of four sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table will include Stephanie and Jessica, our two teenage girls who’ve never met.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. Our girls just want us to be happy.” He clicks his lighter, and I can see him there leaning against the wall with the cigarette dangling in his fingers.

  I go back to the kitchen to continue cooking our holiday meal. I pop open the oven and squeeze broth over the browning turkey. I mix the ingredients for Millionaire’s Pies. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without my mom’s trademark pies.

  As I move around the kitchen putting together the meal, I think about what’s happened in my life over the last year. From a blind date to a breakup to a Thanksgiving dinner with our daughters.

  I left a message on Steven’s phone this morning wishing him a happy Thanksgiving and inviting him to join us. He won’t call me back. We haven’t spoken since the divorce became final. He’s also ignored Mom’s invitation.

  I perch on a stool at the kitchen counter and check my watch. This morning Stephanie has insisted on going to a friend’s house even if it is Thanksgiving. She should be home in a couple of hours, before Dwayne and Jessica arrive. A knot of nervousness ties in my stomach. Each daughter has accepted a new person in her parent’s life, but now they have to like each other.

  I’m sliding the turkey out of the oven when I hear Dwayne’s truck pull into the driveway. The engine dies with a cough and a sputter. The last time he visited me, the heater stopped working, and he drove the six hundred miles with his jacket stuffed into the vent to keep out the freezing air.

  I run to the front door and swing it open. I stand on the small front porch and watch the two of them step out of the truck. The man I love and his daughter—who may one day be my stepdaughter. Dwayne reaches into the bed of the battered Chevy truck and pulls out their suitcases. I wrap my sweater more tightly around me against the chilly winter air.

  Dropping the suitcases, Dwayne leaps up onto the top step by me and sweeps me into a hug. Behind him, I see Jessica stop by the bottom step. She shivers in the cold in her thin T-shirt without a jacket. Her white blond hair lifts in the brisk wind. She chews on her bottom lip as she watches her father and me.

  “Jessica, let’s get you in the house where it’s warm.” She smiles at me and comes up the steps. I hug her, and for a moment, she stands still. She wraps her arms around my waist and hugs me back.

  “Is it always like this in November?”

  “Yeah, it’s that time of the year. Pretty typical for this part of Missouri.”

  “I’ve never seen snow. Daddy told me we had snow once in Bryan, but I was just a baby.”

  Once we get in the house, I tell Jessica she’ll be staying in Stephanie’s room in the extra bed. We watch Dwayne carry the suitcases up the stairs. He drops hers in Stephanie’s room. He walks down the short hallway to my room and stops at the top of the stairs. He looks down the stairs at the two of us standing there.

  Dwayne opens my bedroom door and drops his suitcase inside the room. Until he comes back down the stairs, Jessica and I don’t talk or look at each other as we watch him.

  “Something sure smells good in here, baby.” Dwayne takes my hand.

  “I think dinner is about ready. I’m just waiting for Stephanie to get home. Come on in the kitchen, and you can have a piece of fresh warm bread until she gets here.” I place my hand on Jessica’s shoulder and guide her across the living room into the kitchen.

  I put out the butter and a jar of my mom’s blackberry preserves and pile fresh rolls into a basket.

  Jessica juggles a hot roll onto a plate.

  “You made these?” “Don’t think I do this all the time. But it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without homemade bread in my house.”

  “My mom doesn’t cook much. I usually order pizza, or she brings home food from Sonic.” She smears butter and jelly on a roll and pops it in her mouth.

  Dwayne watches her and laughs. “I told you she was a good cook. This scrawny redneck’s going to get fat.”

  The three of us stand there leaning across the kitchen counter and eating the fragrant bread, butter dripping off our fingers. The quiet is broken by the sound of the garage door squealing open. The thin walls between the kitchen and the garage vibrate with the thumping bass. Pink Floyd.

  “Stephanie’s home.” I walk to the door leading to the garage and open it. Dwayne and Jessica follow me. We stand in the doorway and watch her in the small blue car with the Grateful Dead stickers. The music dies as she turns it off. She eases open the door to avoid banging into my car. She joins us at the door.

  “I know I’m late, but Heather and I wanted to listen to a new CD.” She pulls off her knit cap, and her hair frizzes in the cold air.

  I take her hand and kiss her on the forehead. The faintest whiff of marijuana smoke lingers on her clothes. I am aware of Dwayne and Jessica behind me, so I keep quiet.

  Dwayne moves to stand beside me and puts his arm over Jessica’s shoulder. “Steph, this is Jessica.”

  Stephanie and Jessica stand and look at each other. None of us talk.

  Then Stephanie smiles at her. “Let’s go up to my room. We’ll unpack your stuff. What kind of music do you like?”

  They walk away from us, and I don’t hear Jessica’s reply. I lean forward and rest my forehead against Dwayne’s solid chest.

  He places his callused hand on my head and strokes my hair. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Maybe it’ll be okay after all.” I worry quietly.

  I rush to put dinner on the table. Dwayne drinks coffee and talks while I’m working. Mashing potatoes. Pulling the green-bean casserole out of the oven. Setting bowls of food on the table.

  Dwayne’s stories fill the warm space. He waves his hands in the air as he describes the time Jessica rode her tricycle, eating a hot dog. “She fell off the porch and landed hot dog up.” He adds he knew then she’d be a hell of a motorcycle rider.

  Each time I pass him, one of us reaches out and touches the other. A hand on the shoulder. Fingertips to fingertips. My hand on his knee. We agreed we don’t want to make the girls uncomfortable, but we can’t be in the same room without touching. Magnets drawn to each other.

  I yell up the stairs that dinner’s ready. The blast of the music can be heard through the closed door. I shout again.

  The door opens, and our two girls come out laughing. They walk side by side down the stairs. I smile at the sight of them. Stephanie has French braided Jessica’s hair, and she wears one of Stephanie’s Grateful Dead T-shirts.

  Dwayne and I sit across from each other with our daughters between us. He carves the turkey. We pass around the bowls filled with steaming food. We laugh at Dwayne’s story of the Thanksgiving when he
and his brother, Doug, won the washer-tossing contest. They had their pictures taken with the Bud Light girls. When the picture was printed in the newspaper, Dwayne’s hair, blowing in the wind, made him look as if he had horns. “A Texas longhorn.” He laughs.

  Stephanie tells the story of the time I dropped a pie as I was taking it out of the oven. “I swear to God, she caught the pan. The pie twirled in the air and fell back in the pan. It was scrambled but not on the floor.”

  “It was your favorite pie. I couldn’t lose it. You ate it with a spoon, right out of the pan.”

  I scoot my chair over by her and pull her close to me. “I love you, sweetie.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Love you too, Mom.” I move my chair back to my plate.

  Jessica stiffens in her chair and stares at me and Stephanie. Her hand trembles against the table. “My mom tells me her life was ruined the day I was born.”

  I struggle to find the right words to say. I know from years of dealing with young girls that their trusting you with a big secret requires a careful response to show you care and don’t dismiss their pain.

  Before I can speak, Dwayne says, “You made my life worth living.” He gets out of his chair and kneels by hers and wraps his arms around her. She leans against his shoulder for a minute. He wipes her tears with a napkin.

  I reach across the table and lay my hand on Jessica’s, rubbing it gently. We sit like that for a few minutes.

  Then we all start eating again. Forks clink against the plates. Dwayne asks the girls about school.

  The wind rattles the glass patio doors by the table. We stop talking and look at the trees whipping back and forth. Pellets of sleet crackle against the windows and the door.

  Jessica puts down her fork. “Do you think it will snow?”

  “It may stay ice, or it may switch to snow. Depends on the temperature.” I start stacking plates.

  “Let me help.” Jessica takes them from my hand.

  “Thanks.”

  Stephanie and Dwayne get up to help us. Jessica tells them she’ll clean up with me. She turns to me and asks if that’s okay.

  “I am sure Stephanie will not miss doing the dishes.”

  Dwayne and Stephanie go into the living room to watch TV. In a few minutes, I can hear the Loony Tunes theme music.

  “Daddy loves those cartoons! He always makes me laugh with his Elmer Fudd imitation.”

  “Me too.”

  We work together to tidy the kitchen and start the dishwasher. Every few minutes, Jessica presses her face against the glass door and watches for the first snowflake to fall. Nothing yet. Then she goes back to helping me.

  When we’re done, we go to the living room to watch TV with Dwayne and Stephanie. The four of us sit together on the couch, our bodies squashed together, Dwayne and I on each end with the girls between us. Our fingers touch behind their backs.

  After we finish watching the cartoons, Dwayne gets up to go outside to smoke. I remind him it’s freezing outside.

  “Smokers are like mailmen. Neither hail nor sleet nor snow can stop us from smoking that cigarette.”

  I hear the patio door close in the next room, and I go back to watching TV. Then the door bangs open, the vertical blinds clinking in the wind.

  Dwayne runs into the room and shouts, “Jessie Lane, it is fucking snowing outside!”

  Jessica leaps off the couch, and the two of them run out the open door. Stephanie and I stand up and look at each other.

  “Mom, are they seriously that excited about snow?”

  “I think this may be a Texas thing. Let’s go join them.” We take the time to put on shoes and coats before going outside.

  We walk out the door to find Dwayne and Jessica standing in the middle of the frozen brown grass. Their faces turn up at the sky with their mouths open. Fat snowflakes swirl around them. A few fall into their mouths.

  Stephanie and I stop for a minute, just looking at them. Then we join them. We link our hands and form a circle. The icy crystals sting our skin. At some point, we begin to dance in a circle, shuffling and kicking around and around on the cracking dead leaves beneath our feet.

  Dwayne laughs and tells me, “We’re a family now, Mary Jane.”

  Stephanie’s hand slides out of mine. I turn and look at her. She crosses her arms across her chest and moves away from us.

  I drop Dwayne’s hand and walk to my daughter. I grab both of her hands and pull her to me. Cheek to cheek, warm in the cold. Snowflakes melt in our hair. “You and me, Stephanie Lynn. We’ll always be together. You’re my family no matter what.”

  AN ATTACK OF THE HEART

  As I shove my key in the front door, I can hear the shrill ringing of the phone, and it seems to signal bad news. I push the door open quickly, banging it into the wall behind it. I drop my purse on the floor. I sprint to grab it before it stops ringing even though I know Dwayne isn’t supposed to call until later. I act out of a need to hear his voice. He should still be at work in Texas, I remind myself.

  Our conversation last night was a tense one, and I think he might be calling to see if I’m okay. Since our Thanksgiving with both daughters, we’ve been trying to figure out who is going to move their daughter to another state.

  Dwayne treats Stephanie as if she were his daughter. He buys her gifts the way Tom never did, and he talks to her each night when he calls to find out how she is. He slips her a twenty when he visits, so she has gas money.

  But we struggle to get past my resistance to getting married again. I want to spend every day with him, but the idea of being married again scares me. After my first wedding, I was trapped for twenty-three years. I know he is not Tom, but the fear remains. “Can’t we live in sin?” I ask him.

  Dwayne refuses to move me to Texas without being married. “I’m not moving the woman I love with her teenage daughter to another state without our being married.”

  I pick up the phone on the fourth ring. I answer it with a breathless hello from the rush to the phone.

  “Mary, Dwayne’s had a heart attack,” a voice shouts in my ear. Both the news and the fact that the voice belongs to Janice, his second wife and Jessica’s mother, shocks me into silence for a moment.

  I finally find my voice and ask her how he is. She tells me a coworker found him slumped in the sanding booth at his work. He called 911, and now Dwayne remains in the emergency room. She pauses and tells me he’s been unconscious since the ambulance brought him to the emergency room.

  I hear her take a deep breath. “It’s a small town. They know I’m his ex-wife and his daughter’s mother, so they called me. I grabbed Jessica and got here as fast as I could. That’s when they told me he asked the co-worker who found him for Mary.” We hear the wires thrumming as the silence stretches between us.

  I tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can. It’s an eight-hour drive to Bryan, I remind her. She gives me the phone number of the waiting room. As soon as I hang up, I quickly pack a suitcase and wait for Stephanie to get home from school. Then I take her to my mom’s house to stay until I return. I begin my long trip to Texas.

  The sky darkens into midnight and lightens into dawn as I drive south. The tires rumble against the pavement. I push the radio buttons repeatedly during the hours and listen to a static-filled stream of old country music and preachers’ sermons. My eyes burn from tears and exhaustion. A headache thumps behind my temples.

  I stop at a truck stop in the middle of Oklahoma. I lean against a grimy wall by the pay phone and call the hospital waiting room. I listen to the ringing across the miles.

  Jessica answers and tells me her father has been in and out of tests all day. Her voice cracks as she whispers that he still isn’t awake. “Are you going to be here soon?”

  I promise her I’ll be there as soon as I can. I set the receiver down gently. I lay my forehead against the cold plastic. Then I walk outside and continue my journey.

  The sun is rising in a blaze of orange and red behind the parking lot when I arrive a
t the hospital. I slam the car door behind me and follow the red signs leading to the main entrance and step through the sliding doors to see an elderly woman with soft curled white hair sitting at the entrance desk.

  “Good morning, dear!” She leans forward to greet me. I ask her for Dwayne’s room number. As she thumbs through the register book, she asks if I’m a family member. I hesitate as I consider my answer. She raises her head to look at me.

  “I’m going to be his wife.” She raises her penciled eyebrows at my answer and gives me the room number.

  I walk down a maze of lime-green hallways until I find the room number. When I push open the door, I understand the raised eyebrows of the greeter. Standing on each side of the bed are Janice and Kathy, both of his former wives. In a corner of the room Jessica is curled up in a chair.

  Dwayne lies in the middle of the stiff white sheets in the bed. His chest rises and falls with his measured, steady breaths while a machine beeps rhythmically in the corner. I move to stand at the foot of the bed. Both women turn to look at me. After a few minutes, Kathy moves away from the bed and leans against the closed door.

  I walk to the now empty side of the bed. Across his quiet form, I ask Janice if he’s talked to anyone. She shakes her head no and tells me the doctor thinks he’s aware of what’s going on; the medicine is keeping him asleep for now.

  I perch on the side of the bed and rest my hand on his unmoving hands resting on his chest. I watch him while his heart beats tick up and down on the EKG monitor. All of us in the room remain motionless in our places for what seems to be an unbearably long time.

  Finally, I watch his eyelids flutter and open. I lean forward. I whisper in his ear. “I’m here, darlin’.”

  He grabs my hand between both of his. “It took you long enough,” he croaks. He grins at me, and I laugh out loud with relief.

  Janice backs away from the bed. Jessica gets up and sits across from me. “Daddy, I was worried about you.”