All five boys were watching King Kong on television, sprawled over the dark blue velveteen La-Z-Boy-style furniture, their gangly legs crossed on top of the round coffee table like crab legs on a platter.
“Promise me you’ll go to bed by eleven thirty,” Mallie said.
“Will you?”
She knew they had a holiday for teachers’ meetings the next day so they would want to stay up longer than usual and sleep late in the morning. They assured her with nods and mumbles, barely taking their eyes from the action on the screen.
Mallie went up to her room and ran a hot bath, as hot as she could stand it. She sank down into the water and closed her eyes. The heat surrounded her and penetrated her skin. Peace. Momentary peace. She wanted to stay there forever. As the water cooled down, Mallie looked up at her silky pink nightgown hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She thought of the advice she had read in an Ann Landers column about not wearing pajamas, about wearing a sexy nightgown that would appeal to her husband. What a joke. She wondered if Larry ever noticed her nightgowns. After brushing her teeth, she decided not to bother with the nightly moisturizer. She tucked herself under her blankets and fell into a fitful sleep. Around midnight she awoke and tiptoed down the hallway to be certain the boys had gone to bed.
At some point during the pre-dawn hours Mallie was aware that Larry was on the other side of their king size bed. She kept her back turned to him. Fleeting thoughts of what might have transpired at the hospital crossed her mind. She would find out soon enough. She willed herself back to sleep.
Chapter Three
At the first light of day, Mallie woke to see Larry standing next to her side of the bed, dressed for work. His starched white shirt, his dark blue fleur-de-lis tie, his gray suit gave no indication of what had happened the night before. He bent his head toward her. She could see that he had tears in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Mallie—so sorry,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He stood looking at her, shaking his head.
Mallie watched her husband as if he were a stranger in their bedroom.
“The reason Julie called you last night was because I told her late yesterday afternoon it was over—that I wouldn’t see her again.” He stopped and took a breath. “I had no idea she’d call you—that she’d take those pills. She’s okay. They got her in time. She’s home.” He choked the words. “I’m in a really bad situation. I need help.”
Mallie stared at Larry, his blonde wavy hair more streaked with gray than she had realized, his erect athletic body slumped, as if his shoulders carried an unbearable weight. His bent head. His tears. In spite of herself and the anger that she had felt throughout the night, her heart went out to him, the way it would to one of her boys who was hurt or sick. She had never seen Larry like that—he looked broken. As if the thought had been waiting in her mind for months, she suggested that he might see the Reverend Thomas Matthews. Her friend Jenny Bolton, a deacon in the Episcopal Church, had told her that Father Matthews was a kind, empathetic counselor who worked with married couples in trouble—and that his counseling was free through the church. Mallie remembered Jenny telling her about a couple they both knew who had come back from the brink of divorce through counseling. Mallie had filed away the name of Father Matthews.
“He’s a priest, a chaplain at St. Michael’s Episcopal Chapel,” Mallie said to her husband. “He counsels people in trouble.”
“I’ll see anybody you suggest,” Larry said. “Will you call him?”
She agreed to make the contact. He leaned down and kissed the side of her face.
At nine o’clock, before her nerve wavered or the boys came down for breakfast, Mallie steeled herself and dialed the number for St. Michael’s. With the receiver pressed close to her ear, she dropped to the kitchen floor, drew her knees up and closed her eyes. She believed that her whole life depended on that call. A measured masculine voice on an answering machine requested that she leave a message for Tom Matthews, not Father Matthews or the Reverend Thomas Matthews, as she had expected, just Tom Matthews.
She left her name and number, asking that he call back as soon as possible. Leaning against the cabinet, she thought about the Reverend Thomas Matthews. She had met him once at Jenny’s ordination to the deaconate the year before. She remembered that in the whole line of priests, he was the tallest and most distinguished. There was an intensity about him, a catlike grace in his step that contradicted his obvious signs of age: white hair as thick as snowdrifts, a craggy face with a long jawline as solid as a ship’s prow. She sensed a certain mystery about him. He wasn’t from Memphis or anywhere in the South. She felt fairly certain of that. She couldn’t remember seeing him laugh, or openly hug anyone—none of the affable southern sociability traits that characterized the other priests around town. Maybe he came from New England or the Midwest. From what she had heard, he was known around Memphis as an intellectual and an unconventional priest. After all her years as a devoted Catholic child and her adult years as a searching Episcopalian, she was definitely in a place of questioning her religious convictions. Larry had been raised Unitarian and cared little about any church. The idea of a priest who was “intellectual and unconventional” seemed to offer the right combination, the right possibilities.
Within twenty minutes, the priest returned the call. Mallie was still sitting on the floor. She started to speak to him about the situation with Larry and discovered that she was stammering. How unlike her! She felt tongue-tied. She realized that it was the first time she had admitted to anyone—anyone other than her sister Anne or her friend Jenny—that there was trouble in her marriage. Without giving any specific details—certainly nothing about the suicide attempt—Mallie managed to convey to Father Matthews her appreciation of his counseling practice and a request for an appointment for Larry.
“Of course, I will see him,” the priest said. “I’d be happy to meet with your husband.” His voice was warm and reassuring, a balm to Mallie’s agitation. He confirmed a time to meet with Larry at St. Michael’s Chapel on Friday afternoon at three.
She hung up the receiver with an audible sigh of relief. She believed she had placed the problem in someone else’s hands, maybe into the hands of the Lord—a concept from her childhood trust in God that had diminished through the years.
Chapter Four
All day Friday Mallie’s thoughts drifted in suspension from her body. Her mind played “What if?” games while her body drove the carpool, rushed through the grocery store picking up an extra can of Spaghetti-O’s and a bag of Oreo cookies, watered the plants, and packed her clothes for a previously scheduled duck hunting weekend. It seemed easier to her to go ahead with the weekend as planned, rather than make lame excuses to their friends, and besides, if she and Larry were with other people all weekend, they would not have to face each other at home alone—no matter what might transpire in Father Matthews’s study.
The plan was simple. LeeAnn, the college student daughter of a friend from down the street, would come late Friday afternoon and spend the weekend with the boys. She would drive them to the football game on Saturday and remind them to feed Bingo, David’s beloved yellow Labrador retriever. After Larry’s appointment with Father Matthews, he would pick Mallie up at home and drive the two of them over to Arkansas for their hunting house party weekend.
At five thirty, Mallie slipped into her side of the car. She sensed instantly that Larry’s mood had completely changed. The sunny expression on his face was a transformation from the contrite gloom that he had worn since Tuesday morning. For three days they had barely spoken in the evenings, and they had slept—or feigned sleep—on opposite sides of the bed.
“Hi, peachie,” Larry said, as she shut the car door.
Peachie? Mallie was shocked, speechless. He had not called her “peachie” in as long as she could remember. She watched him loosen his tie and pat her knee. Something extraordinary must have happened in Father Matthews’s study. The “what if” questions became
“what happened?”
Larry turned the car around in the driveway and headed toward the highway.
“So, how was your time with Father Matthews?” Mallie asked, trying to keep from sounding unnerved as she tried to imagine what might have caused his extreme mood swing.
“Great!” Larry said. “It was really great. Tom’s a really bright guy. Straightforward. I liked him.”
He drove without taking his eyes from the road, but Mallie could see that he was smiling. He cocked his head toward his right shoulder, his way of alerting her that he was about to make an important point. “Tom said we have a communication problem.”
“He said what?” Mallie could barely get the words out. What on earth could the priest possibly have meant?
“You know—communication,” Larry said. “He said our big problem’s communication. He wants to meet with both of us together next week in his study. He’s sure we can work things out.”
Mallie felt dizzy. Incredible, she thought, insane. She had a flash of that scene from Cool Hand Luke—“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “What did you tell him?”
“Well, I told him about the stupid arguments we have at the breakfast table about the grapefruit. You know, about how mad you get when I click my teeth against the spoon eating grapefruit. About the pain-in-the-ass deal of going to your parents every Wednesday night for dinner. About how I thought we’d definitely decided to go skiing in Sun Valley with the boys for Christmas, and you called me at work and said to cancel everything—we weren’t going—we couldn’t afford it. All the same old, same old.”
“That’s all you told him?” Mallie knew her voice sounded accusatory. Not that those things were not true. They were the dust on the tabletops, not the pile of garbage in the middle of the floor.
“No, I told him some other stuff, too,” Larry said. Facing directly into the setting western sun, he covered his squinting eyes with his Ray-Bans. “He said he thought the specific issues weren’t so important—ours is basically a communication problem.”
Mallie wanted to blast Father Matthews—or Tom Matthews—or whatever he called himself. How dare he? Waves of nausea rose in her throat. How dare he tell her husband they had a communication problem when he had heard only one side? And, obviously, not even the whole truth from one side. What about her side? What about all of Larry’s denials and excuses for years? What about Monday night and the phone call? The attempted suicide? The hospital? And Larry’s admission of his need for help? What kind of communication problem was that? She was crushed. She had pinned her hopes on Father Matthews. As they sat in the car, bound for Arkansas, Larry flicking the radio from station to station, her hopes were gone. The gulf between them was wider than before.
They crossed over the Harahan Bridge, the Mississippi River roiling beneath them, the Memphis skyline in silhouette behind them, the flat, winter-brown fields of Arkansas spread out ahead. Mallie stared out the side window, her skin crawling with frustration. She felt as if she were bound for hell. Of all the perfect ironies, they were headed for a duck hunting club called Paradise Lodge. Members referred to it simply as Paradise.
“Better make a run into Sportsman’s One-Stop,” Larry said, as they drove into West Memphis, the first town on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River. Strip malls with brightly colored neon signs lined both sides of the highway. Eighteen-wheelers stood like circus elephants, side by side in front of the truck stops. “Everything will be shut down in Stuttgart by the time we get there tonight.”
Mallie knew he was right. She had been going to Stuttgart on hunting weekends with her father, Samuel G. Malcolm II, since she was twelve. Before her father and a group of his friends started the Eden Lake Club, closer to Memphis, he had been a member of Paradise. She was familiar with the Sportsman’s One-Stop. It had always been too late at night to get a hunting license in Stuttgart and no time before the early morning hunt. Like her father, Larry would want to be up at five a.m. to greet the guides. A Yankee moving to the South when he married Mallie, Larry had taken to hunting with the passion of a religious convert.
“Okay,” she said. The weekend routine was so familiar that she slid complacently back into it—in spite of a nagging voice inside that wanted to stop right that minute and confront Larry with all her questions about his time with Father Matthews, all of her fears about the future of their marriage. But she knew it wouldn’t do any good to confront him. He would be defensive, probably lie to her, and they would be even later getting to Stuttgart. Just hold on, she repeatedly told herself, go along with him, get through the weekend.
She wasn’t the least bit hungry but agreed to stop at the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive-in. At least it meant she wouldn’t have to warm up any leftovers at that hour. Larry drove while they opened the red and white striped boxes on their laps and listened to soft rock music on WMC-FM radio. Under a moonless sky, only the headlights and an occasional distant house light relieved the darkness of the straight, two-lane macadam highway.
She picked at the chicken breast and wondered how in the world she would keep up a pretense of normalcy in front of her friends through the whole weekend. One thing she could count on: Larry would sleep through the afternoon, following the early morning hunt and a Bloody Mary before lunch. She would play bridge with the other three women and go to bed early. He would stay up late playing poker with his friends. Their only time together would be in the mornings in the duck blind, but there would always be a guide nearby. There would be no chance for any intimate conversation.
Chapter Five
In the predawn, Lucille, the longtime cook from Stuttgart, had already opened the kitchen and prepared breakfast. The three hunting guides, Shorty, Bobby Ray and Popeye, poured themselves mugs of hot coffee from the sideboard and pulled extra chairs up to the long rectangular table in the living room. A fire crackled and spat out sparks behind the wrought-iron screen on the wide stone hearth. Mallie and Cindy Morgan were the only women present; the other two wives preferred to sleep in. Larry, Ben Morgan, Gus Ballard, and Jamie McMahon, in various stages of hunting attire—Gus was still in his long red flannel pajama top—were helping themselves to loaded plates of scrambled eggs, hot greasy bacon, buttermilk biscuits and grits.
“Hey, big man,” Ben Morgan said, standing up to greet Bobby Ray, his longtime favorite guide. He gave the guide’s shoulder a friendly push. “What’s goin’ on out there?”
It was the standard question concerning the weather condition, the water levels, and the potential for a good shoot. Affable Ben was a vice-president of the Union Planters National Bank, a position he inherited from his father and grandfather. Advancement to president was inevitable. He had been Larry’s first male friend in Memphis and had insisted that Larry become a member of the Paradise hunters group. Mallie had known Ben since childhood and, in fact, had been duck hunting with him and their fathers before she ever met Larry. Ben had flaming red hair, slightly muted by a few gray strands at the temples. From the time he turned sixteen, he had been in love with Cindy—Gus Ballard’s sister, the redheaded girl he eventually married. As they grew older together, they looked more like twins than husband and wife.
“We got ‘em today,” Bobby Ray said. He was the oldest of the guides, his face as weathered as an old hunting boot. “’Bout forty degrees, overcast, plenty a water in the ponds. Lotta hungry birds flyin’ south.”
“How about Mojo?” Ben asked. “He still up to it?”
“That ol’ dog’ll fall out dead someday pickin’ up birds,” Bobby Ray said. His chocolate lab was getting past his prime, but he was still the best swimmer, the best finder of crippled ducks in Arkansas County.
Ben loved to tell newcomers the story of Mojo breaking ice to swim after a cripple one January morning when none of the other labs would get out of the boat, never mind put their paws in the icy water.
Ben assigned a guide to each couple, sending Mallie and Larry out with Popeye—as Malli
e had requested. She and her father had hunted with Popeye from the time that she was a teenager. Through the years, his long, lean frame had bent over like an old cypress tree, but his reputation as a champion duck caller endured. Gus and Jamie went with Shorty, which left Ben and Cindy with Bobby Ray.
“Get them waders on, folks; we’re ready to go,” Popeye said.
The group divided into pairs and walked towards the waiting pickup trucks. Like soldiers going to battle, all were dressed in camouflage slickers and dark green waders. Each person carried a gun. The guides took the guns and boxes of shells and stacked them on the flatbed in the back of the truck. The dogs—Mojo, Babe and Dory—were tethered to the cabin windows and panted with anticipation.
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