by M. O'Keefe
“I haven’t seen him, hon. But you tell him, we’ll be ready for him on Friday. You gonna be picking him up?”
“For what? What’s Friday?”
“Chemo treatment.”
Her mind went blank.
“He never has anyone to pick him up, the poor guy. Driving home so nauseous I just can’t imagine.”
“How many times has he had the chemo?”
“Two. Friday will be three.”
Ben was having chemo. On Friday.
The front doors opened with a quiet gasp and swish, and idling in front of the hospital was a sleek black car. Dylan sat in front wearing dark glasses, with the window down.
He was smiling at her. With that mouth, those lips—she loved that smile.
“That your ride?” the nurse asked.
“Yes,” she said, slightly breathless at the sight of him. “He’s…ah, he’s with me.”
“That fool man left yesterday against medical advice.”
“What?” She spun around in the wheelchair.
“He lost a lot of blood and he’s not being too smart about his stitches. But he wouldn’t listen.”
“I’ll take care of him.” Though she was not sure how she would do that. Or if he would let her. Or if she was even capable of that. But the impulse to try was real. And it made her feel good.
“Good luck with that,” the nurse grumbled, and she took the wheelchair away when Annie stood.
Dylan opened his door, unfurling from that car and stepping out onto the curb. He winced slightly as he straightened. “I’m fine,” he said, reading her concern.
“The nurse said you left against medical advice.”
“They want me to rest and not get stabbed again. Both of which I can do at home. What did they tell you?”
“Take it easy, try not to get beaten up.”
“Should be easy enough.”
Annie smiled at him. As best she could with her lip. And he smiled back at her. As best he could with his lip.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” His fingertips touched the side of her face, his thumb under her chin, his pinky by her ear. Little spots of contact, the warmth bleeding across her skin. “You look good.”
She laughed and held out her arms, showing off her scrubs and flip-flops. The pink hoodie with the brand name across the front that she’d never heard of. “The nurses dressed me from stuff in the lost-and-found.”
“I’ve got a bag of clothes in the car for you. Margaret went a little nuts when she heard what happened.”
“That’s really kind—”
“I had to restrain her from coming down here herself.”
“You’ve done enough. Really. I don’t…I can’t take any more from you.”
He looked about to argue and this wasn’t a day for arguing.
“Except,” she said, “a ride home. That I’ll take.”
“Okay, you tell me,” he said, tipping his head. “Where’s home?”
“What if I said Oklahoma?”
Dylan glanced at his watch. “Then I’d say we’d better get moving.”
Annie was pretty much an emotional ping-pong game. Bouncing between joy and grief and tears and laughter, and for some reason, him offering to drive her halfway across the country to that run-down farmhouse with the wraparound porch and all the framed embroidery samples hanging cockeyed in their frames made her laugh.
Home Is Where the Heart Is and A Back Door Guest Is Always Best.
It made her howl, really.
Like a crazy woman.
He grinned at her. “What’s so funny?”
“The idea of you in that farmhouse.”
“That’s not what you want?”
What do I want?
Where exactly was home? Oklahoma was a journey too far to even contemplate.
That left the trailer park. The field and the work. The kudzu. Joan and Ben.
That strange place where she’d found happiness for the first time in her life.
“The Flowered Manor.”
“Then hop in,” he said.
It was warm out, the sun bright. If she were a kid, drawing pictures of today, the sun would have a big smiley face. Sunglasses maybe.
They got in the car and unrolled the windows, the breeze teasing their hair, the soft loose edges of their clothes. She leaned back against the seat, tired down to her bones.
“You get any sleep?” he asked.
“Not much.”
“You heard from the cops again?” he asked, glancing her way.
“Angela came by this morning and asked me a few more questions. She told me I needed to stay in the area just in case…”
“In case of what?”
“In case they have more questions, I guess,” she said. “That’s what Terrence said.”
“He didn’t seem worried?”
“He said it was standard operating procedure.”
He nodded as if satisfied by that.
“Thank you,” she said. “For hiring him for me. I’ll pay you back—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried. I’m just saying I’m going to pay you back.”
“Yeah, and I’m telling you not to worry.”
“Dylan, I can’t let you pay for everything.”
“It’s just money,” he said.
“You’re saying that because you have lots of it.”
“No, Annie, I’m saying it because it’s only money. We both could have been killed a few days ago. It’s just money, and if it can buy you some safety, it’s the least goddamn thing I can do.”
She sucked in a quick breath, loud in the silence after his outburst.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her instinct was to say that’s all right, because she’d had a lot of practice pretending to forgive just so the person who was out of line would feel better.
And she had a lot of practice saying nothing, which never got her anywhere.
“Thank you,” she said.
But the air was suddenly cooler and she rolled up the window partway even though she knew the chill had nothing to do with what was outside the car. It was them. It was all them.
He cleared his throat as if he, too, could feel the sudden chill. “What are you going to do about the farm?”
“Sell it.”
“Really?” he asked.
“It’s not home anymore,” she said, and was surprised how much she meant it. Despite its years in her family, despite the blood, sweat, and tears she’d put into making it work, that farm was her past. It was not her future. “I want to sell.”
“Maybe that’s just a reaction to what’s happened,” he said. “You might decide to sell it and wake up in a month and wish you never had.”
“You think it’s possible I’ll forget everything that happened there?” she asked. “Like I’ll go in and paint the walls and hire a new crew and it will somehow be my place instead of the place where I got hurt. Over and over again.”
“I think anything is possible,” he said.
She scoffed low in her throat. “If anything is possible, why do you hide up on that mountain?”
He looked over at her as if startled by the question. And she was a little startled, too.
“I think anything is possible and that’s why I hide on the mountain.”
What a very Dylan thing to say.
As the drove, the tiny town of Cherokee gave way to country, random shacks selling boiled peanuts set back among the kudzu.
“The nurse said something to me as we were leaving,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Ben’s been getting chemo done at the hospital. He has an appointment on Friday. He’s already had two of them.”
Silent, Dylan shifted gears and took a slow turn onto the highway on-ramp.
“Your dad has cancer.”
Dylan was throwing up all kinds of signs that he didn’t want to talk about this. And she knew if she kept pushing, what w
as left of the easy comfort between them would be shot to hell. It was so fragile, so new.
But she couldn’t stop.
“Did you know anything about this?” she asked.
“Know?” He laughed, but it was sharp and awful. “Not really.”
“What do you mean, not really?” She turned toward him, tucking her knee under her, careful suddenly that they didn’t touch. The mood from minutes ago, that affection…it had turned so cold.
“I got a call a while ago from the hospital, asking if I was Ben’s next of kin. I said I was and asked if he was dead. The woman said no. I hung up.”
Incredulous anger bubbled up under her skin. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“She was probably calling to tell you about the chemo. That he needed a ride.”
“That seems likely, doesn’t it?” He glanced over at her. “Jesus, Annie, don’t look at me like that. You don’t know Ben.”
“I know…I just feel bad that he’s been going through this all alone.”
“You know why he’s alone? Because he’s an asshole. Because he’s hurt everyone who would have been there for him through this.”
“He hasn’t hurt me,” she said.
“Yeah.” Dylan laughed. “Give him time.”
“Do you think people change?” she asked. The question had been a drumbeat in the back of her head for the last three days. A constant whisper in her ear.
“Ben has not—”
“Not just Ben. Any of us.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Because you changed?”
“Because you changed!” he said. “Do you honestly think you’re the same person you were when you got married? You’re not even the same person you were when you answered my phone for the first time.”
“Because I killed a man?” she asked. The nail on her thumb was ragged, and she started to pull it off and tore off too much, until it hurt. But she kept pulling until the pain was sharp and burned and she wanted to stop. Wished she’d never started. But she was too far now; the cuticle was bleeding and tearing, and then it was gone. She held the ragged nail out the narrow crack of the window and let it blow away.
She put her thumb in her mouth and licked away the blood.
“Killing Hoyt was something that happened, Annie. I won’t pretend it’s not going to change you. But it’s something that happened. Most change is a choice. It’s long and it’s slow.”
She rested her head against the window and licked at the blood.
“I am different,” she said.
“Damn right you are.”
“You’re different than you were, right? As a kid?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Ben could be different.” The words turned all the oxygen to crystal, unbreathable and hard.
“He’s not.”
“But he could be. You said it yourself—anything is possible.”
“But it wouldn’t matter, Annie. Do you get that? It wouldn’t matter. The damage is done.”
He took the exit off the highway and things were familiar again, yet somehow not. Like everything had been washed in a different color.
“I don’t want to fight,” she said.
“Me neither,” he was quick to say. “And I’m sorry I’m not…softer.”
She put her hand over his on the gearshift, lacing their fingers together. He squeezed. She squeezed back.
“I don’t need soft,” she said. “I need you to be who you are. But I need you to hear who I am.”
Or who I am becoming, she thought. Just as soon as I figure it out.
They drove past The Velvet Touch, the concrete bunker surrounded by an ocean of parking.
“That’s the strip club you went to?” he asked, watching it go by in the rearview mirror.
“The one and the same.”
“It looks like a prison.”
“I like it.” It was the scene of her best rebellion. Forever she would love The Velvet Touch. Her fondness for that bunker knew no bounds.
And that night, what she’d seen. Those things she and Dylan had whispered to each other. Fevered and frantic. Alone, but somehow, somehow, impossibly together.
It had been one of the best nights of her life.
“You liked it, too,” she said, and he grinned at her. That dirty, knowing grin.
Heat pulsed through her and she sucked in a startled breath.
This wasn’t comfort, what she felt. This was excitement. Desire. She barely had a chance to recognize it before it was gone. Summer lightning in a dry sky.
Killing Hoyt had drawn a jagged line through her life. Before and after. And nothing on this side of the line felt familiar. But that…that lust. That curiosity. That connection. That had made it across the line, to settle under her skin. Warming her from the inside out.
Something survived, she thought. Something good.
—
A few minutes later he pulled up to the familiar white fence and the front office. It looked extra shabby in the bright sunlight. The storm damage hadn’t been cleaned up yet, and the gravel and mud drive were littered with downed branches.
“Here?” he asked. He looked exactly like Margaret had when she dropped Annie off a few days ago. Like a rat had died on his foot.
“It’s your property, Dylan. I just live here.”
Dylan sighed and parked the car next to the office. Kevin was out the front door before she could get her body free from the soft leather of the bucket seat.
“Hey, Annie,” he said in the kind of low, vaguely happy voice people saved for old folks or dogs they really liked. “How you doing?”
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling as much as she could with the stitches.
“I’m really sorry,” he said, dropping the tone of voice used for invalids. “I should have listened to my gut instead of Ben and called the cops.”
Yeah, she thought. That would have been helpful.
“Come on,” Dylan said, taking her elbow. His fingertips on her skin felt like bright points of light.
“I’ll talk to you later, Kevin,” she said, waving over her shoulder as they passed through the park. Tiffany’s trailer was dark and the swing set was empty. Annie wondered where the kids were, on a bright day like today.
Tiffany apologized that night before Annie went back into her trailer only to find Hoyt there. And Annie wondered if she’d known he was there. If Tiffany had a part in the ambush. Hoyt had said as much about Phil. But had Tiffany been aware, too?
Annie didn’t want to think about such betrayal.
“You okay?” Dylan asked, and Annie realized she’d stopped still in the dirt track, staring at the dark Christmas tree lights Tiffany had hung around their little fence.
“Fine,” Annie said. Dylan followed her past the laundry room and the rhododendron until they got to her beige RV. The morning glories were out in full bloom. Little splotches of purple and blue against all the run-down grief of the RV. Those flowers made her happy. The trailer made her happy. The memories of past happiness made her happy.
Home.
“This is me,” she said, giving the crap aluminum door a happy pat. “It’s no mountaintop fortress but it’s got a really great bed.”
She tried to see it the way he must be seeing it, but couldn’t. Every shabby inch of it was hers. More now than ever, because it was a choice made among options. Not a last-ditch effort to hide and stay hidden.
And that Hoyt had been there only made her angry. It did not make her love it any less.
She could tell by Dylan’s face that he was not even in the ballpark of in love with her trailer. He did not see its beauty beneath the rust.
“Come on.” She touched the hem of his red tee shirt with 989 Engines across the front of it. It was warm from his body and the sun. Soft from a hundred washings, or maybe it just came that way. A rich guy’s tee shirt. “I’ll show you around.”
Stepping inside the trailer, it felt like the
other night had been frozen. The sandwiches were still on the table. On the banquet seating was the pink washcloth, covered in dried blood. There was blood on the floor, too, where she’d spat at Hoyt.
“Look,” she said, throwing everything Hoyt had touched or broken into the garbage. “It’s like he wasn’t here.”
Dylan bent down and picked up her old phone, cracks across the screen like a spiderweb. He pressed the power button but nothing happened.
“Did he…” He took a deep breath. “Did he do this to you because he found out about us?”
“He was going to do it anyway.” She skirted the issue, knowing it was useless.
“Annie, did he find out?” His eyes were imploring and she couldn’t resist that look. Even though she knew it would hurt him.
“He looked through my phone. Found the texts. The…picture I sent you.”
He took a deep breath that rattled through him. His chest shuddered. “What did he do?”
“There’s no point in picking this apart.” She stepped out of the doorway toward the captain’s chair in the front of the RV, but he grabbed her hand. Keeping her still. Forcing her to look at him.
“I need to know, Annie. If he hurt you because of me.”
“He hurt me because he’s an asshole.”
“Annie—” He squeezed her hand and then dropped it, and she felt colder for it.
“He…” She swallowed. “He got turned on, I think.”
His eyes opened wide. “Turned on?”
“Well, your dad knocked on the door so I don’t know what he would have done, but at the time…he was turned on.”
Silent, he looked away, but she could feel big, heavy, powerful emotions rolling off him and the trailer was too small. Way too small to contain him.
When he turned back toward her, his face was set in rigid lines. His lips were pressed tight. The pink burns stood out against his pale skin.
“How much time do you need?”
“For what?”
“To get your things. An hour? That will get us back to my house around six.”
“I’m not…I’m not leaving, Dylan.”
“If you don’t want to go to my house outside of Asheville, we can go to Charleston or anywhere you want.”
“I want to stay here.”
“I can take you away,” he said. “You never have to see this place again. Annie, you don’t have to live with me. I get it—you want independence. You deserve independence. I don’t have to be there. I just want you to be okay!”