At the Corner of Love and Heartache

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  It was a great story. He had plans of selling it to his old Houston newspaper and hopefully some magazines.

  Marilee watched Tate’s face and knew exactly that he was carried away with anticipating the sale and publication of his wonderful story.

  “Yes, our Willie Lee has a way with animals,” she said, “and by ten o’clock tomorrow morning the information is going to be all over town that Willie Lee James is a healer. Your story will broadcast it to everyone and his cousin across the country.”

  She thought to calm her voice, but she got to her feet and leaned toward him. “His life is already hard enough. People treat him as if he’s an imbecile, or they’re afraid of him, as if he might contaminate them. I don’t want…well, I don’t want people getting crazy ideas and looking at him all the time, and making pilgrimages to our door with their dying dogs and canaries.” She saw the frightening prospect in rapid but clear images crossing her mind.

  “Darlin’, don’t you think you might be gettin’ a little carried away with that?”

  This comment struck Marilee like a slap across the face, and she stared at him for several seconds, before saying a definite, “No, I do not.”

  Tate knew he had misspoken.

  Marilee sought to keep a firm hold on her emotions. She knew she could get overwrought, and say and do things that later she regretted. She had lived this many times, only to wish later she had contained herself. She always promised to contain herself, but one problem with this was an equal fear that she might contain herself too much and be sorry that she had. When it came to Willie Lee, she figured she would rather have to deal with regrets at actions taken rather than not taken.

  She said in a hoarse whisper, “I saw a similar thing once, in Tennessee. Stuart did a story about it. A three-parter, in fact. It was reported that this little girl could heal people, and my gosh, for a month, people were streaming to her door. The poor thing could not go anywhere hardly. People just hounded her. When she wasn’t able to help them, they called her and her parents charlatans, and other people, who said she had healed them from everything from ingrown toenails to skin cancer, said she was the Virgin Mary. The little girl was lost in all of it.”

  Tate, not wanting to put his foot in it again, tried to think of a way to show support for her position but not encourage what seemed to him making a mountain out of a molehill.

  “Now, I grant you, sweetheart, that sometimes things get sensationalized. But in Willie Lee’s case, I don’t think we are looking at him being proclaimed a healer. In the first place, what Willie Lee did is not something new. He laid hands on a horse he cares for, and that cares for him. The horse’s wound did not magically heal up before our eyes. The horse simply came back around. I’ve seen my own mother use laying on of hands. Sometimes a person is helped. It was said around our neighborhood that Mama could cure headaches, neuralgia, lumbago, and once she cured my hives. But she sure didn’t succeed every time. Science is even recognizing the energy fields involved in this now.”

  He saw by her expression that he had not calmed her fears.

  “Your mother is an adult who can understand,” she told him. “Willie Lee might not understand, and he sure might get worn out, trying to heal every Tom and Spot. And what if he can’t heal every animal? What then? He will be so hurt. You know how he loves animals. We’re liable to have a zoo in our backyard.”

  “We don’t have a backyard at the moment,” he interjected, before he thought.

  Marilee’s reply to that was, “I am being serious here, Tate. And we do so have a backyard, we have just lost half your house.”

  Her voice rose again, and they both looked at the closed bathroom door.

  Then Tate said, “Darlin’, I know we’ve had a hell of a day in which our world has been blown to pieces. I know you are worried over this thing. I promise you that I will not mention Willie Lee, okay? I’ll just tell about the filly, and how everyone went over to help as best they could. I’ll report the heroic human capability for compassion.”

  He paused a moment, and then a few more thoughts occurred to him. “If reports on healings of this nature were done in a rational style, people would not make mountains out of them but take them as a matter of the normal course of loving each other.”

  This idea sat very well with him; he thought how he would employ this line of reasoning in his article. Maybe it would require another article. He could certainly get a good editorial out of it.

  His eyes slid over to his humming computer. He didn’t want to waste time arguing; he wanted to get back at his writing.

  “Honey, I have a real good chance of sellin’ this story to a friend of mine down at my old Houston paper. I spoke to him earlier, and he’s waitin’ for me to send my first piece tonight.”

  Marilee, who had ceased to hear, was suddenly picturing her ex-husband and his own laptop computer. “Stuart is likely writing this story up right now.”

  “Well, I imagine he’s workin’ on something,” Tate agreed, and he wanted even more to be working on his own story.

  “I’ve got to get over there and stop him.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ve got to stop him. He’s got access to top magazines. He’s got pictures.”

  Marilee was having a panic now. She did not want anything reported about Willie Lee. Already he was a target, an innocent child who had been reported in the press last year as having gained a considerable fortune in stock, given to him as a reward for finding an important computer chip for the Tell-In Technology Corporation. After that came out in papers nationwide, Marilee became more vigilant than ever over her son, worrying about him being kidnapped.

  Tate was telling her to calm down, but she told him to look after the children as she hunted around for her purse and keys.

  At that point the bathroom door opened, and Corrine, with wet hair and pajamas hastily donned, came out, her eyes wide. “I heard thunder. It’s lightning outside.”

  Marilee stopped in her tracks.

  There came the unmistakeable sound of a rumble, which she and Tate had not heard because of their argument.

  Tate opened the cabin door. Lightning shot across the black sky, giving evidence of an approaching storm.

  Marilee set aside her purse. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll turn on the television and see if there’s a report. Come on, climb into bed.”

  The television screen showed a local weatherman reporting the build up of severe storms once again. Their county was under a tornado watch, and the thunder outside became louder.

  “Where will we go if there is another tornado?” Corrine asked.

  “Well…Tate, did you see a storm shelter near the office?”

  Tate, who had sat again at his computer and was typing, nevertheless warmed her heart by hearing her and saying, “Yes, there is,” and he went so far as to rip himself from his writing and take Corrine to the window, where he pulled back the drapes and pointed to the hump of the shelter that could just be seen near the office.

  Tate returned to his computer and typing, and Corrine returned to bed and sipping her hot chocolate. Marilee slipped off her shoes, curled next to Corrine and put her arm around her niece, whose thin body felt so fragile. Marilee had a sense that she would beat back the tornado with her very fists, should it try to zoom in on them again, and at the same time, she thought of Stuart, in her bungalow, typing away on his computer in the same manner to which Tate had returned.

  Both of them two peas in a pod—journalists, and as such, it was the story that counted. Stuart had a special talent for sensationalism.

  “Excuse me a minute, honey,” she told Corrine, at a time when the thunder had abated. She snugged the covers around the child. “Tate…can I have a word with you?”

  It took him several seconds to look up, and several more seconds to tear his hands and body away from his keyboard. She beckoned him outside and closed the door behind them. The concrete stoop was cool on her bare feet, and the strong humid wind whipped
around them, tugging at their hair and causing her to fold her arms close.

  “I want you to go talk to Stuart and tell him not to write about Willie Lee.”

  Tate’s brows came together and then rose in unison. “Darlin’, we don’t know that he’s doin’ a story about Willie Lee.”

  She disliked his patent placating and ignored it. “We had best catch him before he does. I can’t leave Corrine, but you can go.”

  “Marilee, I don’t think it is my place to tell another journalist what he can and cannot cover, and I have my own story in there to write. I’ve got a chance at a sale, but I’ve got to get it down to Skip in Houston tonight. If they don’t use it there, they’ll at least forward it to a string of smaller papers they own over in West Texas, and with his recommendation, it will be sold. It needs to be to those papers by tomorrow morning. News is only news for a day. Things move on.”

  “I think Willie Lee is a little more important than selling a news story.”

  That comment stood in the air a moment, while Tate ran his hand over his hair, giving her a long look. “I do, too, Marilee, but I think you are wrought up…and that is understandable after the day we have had. But Stuart is not only a journalist—he is Willie Lee’s father. What he does in that capacity is up to him. I don’t believe I need to be tellin’ him one way or the other. And this is somethin’ that needs discussing in a rational manner, not by me rushin’ over there and tellin’ the man what he should or should not do.”

  Marilee did not know what to say to his words and entire stubborn attitude. She swallowed, pain slicing into her chest. She had relied on him to help, to see how she felt and do what she needed him to do. But he would not. He was disappointing her.

  “All right, then,” she said and turned.

  “Marilee, don’t take it like that.”

  She did not reply to him, did not look at him, but kept going inside, where she pasted what she hoped passed for a calm expression on her face, because Corrine’s gaze fastened onto her like a magnet. “There’s more storms,” Corrine said, indicating the television.

  “There are? Well, we’re snug here in this bed.”

  Again Marilee curled around her niece. She looked over to check Willie Lee, only just then realizing she had not gotten him out of his clothes. She enlisted Corrine’s help to do so; this diverted the child from the sound of the thunder once more getting louder.

  Just as they tucked Willie Lee beneath the covers, Tate got to his feet, saying, “I’ll go over, Marilee. I don’t know what I’ll say to him, but I’ll go over.”

  Marilee regarded him in surprise, as well as doubt. Perhaps he was just trying to soothe her, and she did not want to be soothed now, since he had already displayed his true colors in disappointing her.

  Tate strode to the door, yanked it open and strode out into the night, closing the door behind him.

  Marilee stared at it for long seconds, and then she raced to it, jerked it open and threw herself outside.

  “Tate!” she called, raising her voice over the rising wind and thunder. “Tate!”

  In bare feet, she ran almost mindlessly over the gravel, to the door of the Cherokee, taking hold of it and stopping him from closing it.

  “Don’t go. You’re right…. It’s too late tonight…the storms…Don’t go.” She could not, in that minute, bear for him to leave. To be away from them.

  She gazed into his eyes, and he looked back at her as she struggled to find the honesty. “I’m afraid, Tate. I don’t know why, I just am.” It was the best she could do.

  His expression softened with blessed understanding. Slipping out of the vehicle, he put his arm around her and hugged her close as they went back into the cabin, where Corrine waited in the open doorway.

  When the door closed, the storm was shut outside.

  Although he would have fussed over her, Marilee sent Tate back to his writing. She would not think of any of it, she told herself. God, please handle it.

  She focused on getting herself into her pajamas, then joined Corrine in bed, where they watched the weather reports on the television, while there came the rhythmic clicking of Tate’s typing. Marilee found it comforting and fell asleep.

  Just before closing down his computer, Tate checked his e-mail. There were two messages. One from Stuart: Here you go, Editor. No charge. Several other papers are paying.

  Stuart had sent pictures of Tate’s damaged house, along with the damaged garage, and the tree and horse corral in the rear of Winston’s property. The most striking shots, however, were of people’s faces. Stuart James was very good at capturing drama.

  How had he gotten the pictures developed?

  Ah—Stuart had one of those newfangled digital cameras! Of course he would have, being the renowned photojournalist that he was.

  The second message was from his old friend on the Houston paper: You made a sale, buddy. Check will be in the mail tomorrow. Am forwarding these on to our affiliates out west.

  By golly, it paid to have friends! And the Internet! These were the good ol’ days.

  The Houston paper would run his article in tomorrow’s edition, and he would run it in the Voice on Wednesday. It darn sure paid to own one’s own newspaper, too. He felt sweet satisfaction. Pouring all his energy and finances into the newspaper had been the right thing. He had stretched his finances to the limit in order to update the Voice into the computer age, but he was surely now reaping the benefits. He would have done well to get Reggie one of those digital cameras, and he would, as soon as he could afford it.

  For a brief moment he closed his eyes and gave thanks. Then he turned off the computer and stretched, realizing he was darn tired. He looked across the room for the first time in hours. His gaze fell first on the bed where he would sleep with Willie Lee.

  Only Willie Lee wasn’t there—the bed was empty.

  His gaze skittered to the far bed, which was full. Sometime while Tate worked on his piece for the papers, Willie Lee had gotten up and crawled into bed with his mother, and now Marilee was tangled with the children. Even with Munro, who lay at the foot of the bed.

  Tate gazed at the sight for a long minute, feeling a mixture of gratitude and guilt. He had not meant to get so busy as to shut them out.

  His ex-wife’s admonitions came to mind; Lucille had said over and over, “You are a newspaperman, not a husband.”

  This time he wanted to be a husband. He didn’t want to let Marilee down, like he felt he had let Lucille down.

  He had seen that he had let Marilee down in her eyes, when he had refused to go to speak to Stuart.

  He thought of Stuart’s pictures and winced inwardly. What had seemed a far-fetched, overwrought worry on Marilee’s part began to seem quite possible. With growing unease, he wondered if he had pushed her worries aside too easily, and that maybe he had done so because he was focused on his own desires of the moment.

  His desire was to provide for his family. He was supposed to work for his family, wasn’t he?

  In any case, there was nothing to be done about it tonight. He washed up in the vintage bathroom, where he felt very much at home, and donned pajama bottoms, which he felt necessary because of Corrine—man, there was a lot to think about for a man who had been a bachelor as long as he had. Wearily he crawled into bed.

  It was lonely.

  He looked over at the bed filled with bodies and had the urge to either wake one of them up or crawl in with them, if there had been room.

  Just then Munro hopped off that bed and hopped up with Tate.

  “Thanks, fella. I appreciate it greatly.”

  He would be glad when he got to sleep with Marilee, although he had a sad suspicion that, even married to her, their intimate time alone might be scant for many years.

  Stuart sat with his notebook computer open on the dining-room table in Marilee’s bungalow and typed onto the e-mail message screen: Hey, Troy. I may be on to a story here. Pictures and commentary in the three attachments. I’ll check into i
t further. Get back to me about any publications you know of that might be doing healer stories.

  He read the black words on the white screen and sat there staring at them, hesitating about sending the message. At last he hit the send button.

  Over the years he had encountered various people who, it was claimed, healed. Stuart had thought it all hogwash, either delusion or deliberate conning. From one, though, a young girl in the Tennessee hills, he had gotten a good spread in Life magazine. People did not care if it was truth; they wanted to believe it, and they wanted to hear about it. The pictures he took had slanted to the belief side. It was what paid.

  A certain anger came over him, and he rose. His left leg almost gave way, and a pain seemed to go through every bone in his body. Surprised, he grabbed hold of the table.

  He had forgotten to take his pills. He shook as he went to the bedroom to get them from the dresser drawer. There was water in the pitcher there; Franny saw to that. He downed the pills, looked at the pain-killers, and took another, then lay back on the bed, closing his eyes, and seeing his son hold a bird that looked dead, and then had fluffed and flown. Stuart had thought he had not seen correctly, but perhaps he had.

  He had seen the same as everyone at the corral that day—that horse had been dying, and then it hadn’t been.

  Wouldn’t it turn out ironic if years ago he had turned his back and walked away from a really great story just waiting to be told, as well as the one person who could help him now?

  Thirty

  The best we can…

  Marilee had been sitting for some time on the front stoop of the cabin, watching the sun rise, when Tate stepped out behind her.

  “Here you are,” he said, as if both surprised and relieved.

  “Where did you think I was?”

  “Well, you weren’t inside,” he said, sounding a little put out as he lowered himself to sit beside her. “You could have been anywhere.”