“Little Owl and Princess Yellow Hair!” he shouts, then begins a war dance, bobbing up and down and patting his hand against his mouth, still yelling.
Zach takes a tumble running to Cooter, but he scrambles to his feet and beats Abbie in the race. Cooter plays with them as though he were a child himself. They’ve made up a whole tribe of imaginary Cherokees who roam the Landing and spy on Zoe Catherine, the mean old white woman who took their land and forced them to live in the swamp.
“Oh, no, Chief Big Cooter, it’s the palace guard,” Abbie yells, pointing to Genghis. “Let’s get him!” They can spy on the cruel white woman only if they can get past her flock of bodyguards, who are uniformed in emerald and turquoise and gold and defend her by spreading tall shields with dozens of evil eyes. Whenever Cherokees encounter the evil eye, it scares them off, and they have to retreat to the swamp.
When Abbie and Zach take out after Genghis, who squawks in terror, Zoe puts an end to the war games. “Hey!” she calls out. “You young’uns leave Genghis alone. He’s getting too old to play like that.”
Cooter stops his pursuit to frown at her. “Aw, crap, woman. He loves playing with us. It’s you who’s gotten too old.”
“Hush your mouth,” Zoe snaps. “Don’t start talking ugly around those babies.” Seeing Zach and Abbie’s downcast looks, she relents and says to them, “You can play with Genghis if you don’t make him run. Like Cooter, he’s got a weak heart.”
Abbie looks stricken. “Chief Big Cooter’s gonna die?”
“Sure is,” Zoe tells her solemnly. “Just as soon as I get my hands around his scrawny neck.”
Dory went inside to wash up, and she appears on the porch just as Cooter explodes indignantly, with Zach and Abbie staring up at him. Dory smothers a laugh when Cooter thumps his chest and shouts, “Weak! Nothing weak about me, you crazy old woman.”
“Oh, kiss my behind, Cooter Poulette,” Zoe says.
Folding his arms, Cooter glares at her. “Hell, no. I’m mad now.”
With a schoolmarmish clap of my hands, I call out to Zach and Abbie, raising my voice to be heard over Cooter’s big mouth. “Okay! It’s getting colder out here, and we need to get back to Mommy’s before dark.”
Zoe leans down to them and says, “Guess we’d better go look for some cookies before you have to leave, huh?”
Zach nods agreement, but Abbie looks worried. “Can Chief Big Cooter have a cookie if he promises not to say ugly words?” she asks Zoe.
Abashed, Cooter hangs his head. “Hey, I didn’t mean to, Princess Yellow Hair. Your gramma Zoe hurt my male egret, is all, calling me weak. I’m in better shape than young braves half my age.”
Although Zoe throws him a look, she tells Abbie that Cooter can have a cookie if he’ll behave. When they start toward Zoe’s house with the palace guard trailing behind, Cooter picks Zach up and rides him on his shoulders, even though he’s grimacing and hobbling slowly. With Abbie’s hand in hers, Zoe stops in the driveway to wait for them.
“Aw, look at that.” Dory grins mischievously, coming to stand beside me at the foot of the steps. “Makes you believe in the power of love, doesn’t it?”
“Either that, or an intense terror of being alone in your old age,” I say.
“Don’t turn cynical on me, honey. I don’t think I could stand it.”
With a laugh, I put an arm around her shoulder. “Surely you jest. What on earth could I see on a daily basis that could turn me into a cynic?”
“I know,” she says softly. “But still …” She raises her eyes and looks toward Zoe’s cabin. “We find ways to make it work for us, don’t we? Rather than spend our nights alone, we find a way.”
Chapter Fifteen
I’m a creature of habit. Regardless of what time I go to bed at night, I get up at the same time each day without having to set an alarm clock. After my exercise routine, I take a quick shower, slip on a robe, then head downstairs to dish up the breakfast I’ve fixed myself for years: yogurt topped with two spoonfuls of granola, which is made by Zoe Catherine and so full of sunflower, pumpkin, and flaxseed that Mack swore it was the same stuff she fed her birds. Since most Fairhope mornings are pleasant and sunny, even winter ones, I take my yogurt and coffee to the arbor outside. Half an hour later, it’s time to dress and head to the office.
Monday morning, however, my routine is disturbed. With the tray holding my breakfast in one hand, I stop in surprise when I reach for the back door. A note has been pushed under it, and I recognize Lex’s bold scrawl: “Clare, didn’t want to scare you, but I’m outside—I need to talk to you.”
Sure enough, when I go outside, Lex is sitting at the table under the arbor, hunched over a Styrofoam cup of coffee, his face dark and troubled. For an early March morning, it’s still fairly chilly, but not really cold. Yet Lex is wearing his marina jacket with the collar turned up as though an arctic wind is blowing. He’s so lost in thought, he doesn’t notice my approach, but when I put down the tray, he raises his head. His eyes are red and bleary, and his mouth is a tight line, white-rimmed and taut.
“Jesus, Lex,” I say in alarm, sinking into my chair. “What is it?”
He looks at me for a long moment before saying, “I fucked up last night.”
“Evidently. Have you had any sleep? You look dreadful.”
“Couple of hours, maybe.” I wait for him to go on, but he looks away, his eyes traveling to the garden. It’s been so peaceful out here these late winter mornings, with the singsong chatter of the cardinals clustered around the bird feeder, and the tartness of the salt-scented air. Finally Lex turns back to face me and rubs his face wearily. “I got drunk last night. Falling-down, stumbling, commode-hugging drunk.”
I sigh and lean back in the chair. “Oh, dear.”
“‘Oh, shit’ is more like it,” he says wryly. “I won’t even tell you what my blood pressure was this morning. My doctor’s gonna chew my ass out good. I’ve put off my checkup for ages now, and I finally got it scheduled for later this afternoon. But I’m thinking of canceling it so I won’t have to face him.”
I take my coffee cup in both hands, cradling the warmth, trying to decide on the best plan of action. He’s so resistant to talking about his emotions that I have to proceed cautiously. Usually humor works best with him, so I say lightly, “Well, it could’ve been worse. I was afraid you’d come to tell me that you’d gone back to Elinor.”
“That, too,” he says.
“Oh, shit,” I say, and both of us smile.
“It was your damn fault,” he says peevishly, and I stare at him openmouthed.
“What do you mean, my fault?”
“You left me a message Saturday, remember?”
“Of course I remember. I’m not senile yet. I was at Wayfarer’s Landing, and I called to tell you how much I appreciated all the work you did on my office. It looks great, and I really love it.”
“As soon as I got your message, I sent you an SOS, knowing how anal you are about returning your messages. I asked you to call me back because I needed to talk. Good thing about having a therapist as a friend, I figured. Ha! Didn’t occur to me you wouldn’t even bother to return my call.” He finishes off his coffee, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at me.
He’s right; I always return my messages, and I did so yesterday. Or at least one of them. It was pretty late when I got in. Since I’d taken the kids with me on Saturday, I hadn’t gotten as much work done as I’d hoped, so Sunday I returned to Wayfarer’s Landing alone. I spent the day fixing up my office, stopping a couple of times to drive to Wal-Mart for supplies. Last night I had dinner at Rye’s, and afterward we turned on the stereo, pushed back the rug in his living room, and worked on our tango moves for an upcoming dance. When I got home about eleven, the first thing I did was check my messages. In addition to the one from Lex, I had three frantic calls from a client. After being on the phone with her an hour, I went to bed thinking I’d call Lex first thing this morning. I had no
idea he was having a crisis.
“Dammit, Lex, you did not say that you needed to talk. Here’s what you said.” In an imitation of his Maine brogue, I growl gruffly, “Hey, Clare, Lex here. Gimme a call, would ya?”
“So? Why would I be calling if I didn’t need your help?”
“I can think of a dozen reasons.” I put my cup down so hard that the coffee sloshes on my hand. “First of all, let me remind you that you’ve only called me a few times in the last couple of months. You’ve—”
“That’s your damn fault. What you get for hurting my feelings, throwing me out in the cold.”
Thinking it best not to go there, I continue, “And furthermore, you did not call me yesterday. Not technically, anyway. You simply pressed a button to return my call, so that doesn’t count. For all I knew, it could’ve been something about my office, in response to what I’d said to you.”
“You would’ve called me back if it’d been about your precious office,” he grumbles. “But I need you, and what happens? You don’t even bother to see what’s going on. What kind of therapist are you?”
“What do you mean by that crack? I’ll tell you what I’m not—I am not your therapist, thank God. Are we in agreement on that, at least?”
“That’s for sure. If you were, I’d fire you for dereliction of duty.”
“This is crazy. I planned to call you this morning. Since you told me nothing about what was going on with you—as usual—I assumed it could wait. Why didn’t you say anything? You could’ve said, ‘Clare, something’s happened, and I need to talk to you.’”
“Any more coffee in the house?”
“No!” I slam my hand on the table, and he jumps back, startled. “I mean, yes, of course there’s more coffee, but no, you are not going into the house until you tell me what’s going on.” We glare at each other until Lex sighs heavily and lowers his head. After a long moment, he looks up sheepishly.
“Then can I have some fucking coffee?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling, but I’m determined not to let him do this again. “Go get your bloody coffee, because it looks like you need it bad. But you’re telling me everything when you get back, you hear?”
A look of panic crosses his face as he gets to his feet, banging his knees against the table. “Everything?”
“Every disgusting detail. Tell it, brother.” I hand him my cup. “And warm mine up while you’re at it.”
I expect to have to drag it out of him, but when Lex returns and sits across from me, it comes pouring out. I sit quietly, sipping the coffee and struggling to remain silent, to keep from scaring him off with my prodding. Although he had filled me in on the basic details of his marriage to Elinor when we first told each other our war stories—as single folks are prone to do—he’d talked very little about his feelings. As usual, he’d treated them lightly and humorously.
“I went to Elinor’s last night,” he begins, and I nod helpfully. Then, with a note of defiance, he blurts out, “And ended up spending the night with her.”
Ah. So that’s it. Again I nod and sip my coffee, putting on my best professional face. When they first moved to Fairhope, Elinor and Lex bought an old bungalow on Magnolia Avenue, a couple of blocks from downtown, and restored it. After their divorce, she kept the house, and Lex moved into the little efficiency above the marina. It was supposed to be a temporary move for him until he found a bigger place, but he found it so convenient, he’d stayed. After all, he told me, like the quarters of a ship, it had a fridge and microwave, a bunk, a TV, and a john—what else could he possibly need?
“Did you decide to spend the night with her before or after you got drunk?” I say, unable to resist.
If he notices my sarcasm, he doesn’t react. “I got drunk at her place before deciding to stay over.”
“You got drunk, and you stayed all night.” A common therapist’s trick, echoing back a client’s response until I come up with one of my own.
Lex seems to be waiting for me to say more, but when I watch him in silence, he shrugs. “Yeah. And quit looking at me like that.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“You know.” He puts his cup on the table but continues to fiddle with it, rocking it back and forth absently. “I didn’t intend to spend the night at Elinor’s, but sometimes it gets so damn lonely at my place.” He shakes his head in bewilderment. “I always thought I was the kind of person who never got lonesome.”
“Such a person doesn’t exist.” He cups a hand to his ear, and I have to repeat myself, I said it so quietly. As I do, a memory flashes through my mind. Rye said almost the same thing this past summer when he took me by surprise with his proposal. “By choice, I’ve been alone my whole life, Clare,” Rye said. “But for the first time, I’ve been feeling lonesome lately. Just downright lonesome.”
“So, do you think it was mainly loneliness that sent you to Elinor’s?” I ask as I watch Lex over the rim of my cup.
He thinks about it. “Yawp, that’s part of it. That’s when I called you, by the way, before I went over there. Guess I was hoping you’d talk me out of going. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Elinor’s and my divorce.”
I stare at him in surprise. “No kidding? How time flies when you’re having fun, huh?”
“I’d blocked the date out—didn’t even realize it until Elinor called to ask me over. She said it was all she’d thought about all day. We had dinner together, then we started talking about when we first met, and when we got married … when Alexia came along …”
“She called you over to reminisce about your marriage, then.”
He shrugs. “Maybe. But some of those memories weren’t so great for me. Matter of fact, they kind of cut through me like a knife blade, and that’s when I started pouring the booze.” I nod, and Lex falls quiet, deep in thought as he stares into his coffee cup. Finally he says, “What got me most of all was reliving the time she left me last year. It’s not easy for a proud man like me to admit this; matter of fact, it’s pretty humiliating. But I begged Elinor not to leave me. I pleaded with her, even though I didn’t think she’d loved me for a long time. Maybe years. You can tell these things, you know? But like a fool, I still didn’t expect her to end it like that.”
“Nothing foolish about it. Especially now, when she obviously thinks she made a mistake by doing so.” When he looks puzzled, I say in exasperation, “You spent the night with her last night. That means you two are back together, doesn’t it?”
He lets out a ragged sigh and runs his fingers through his hair. “Aw, hell, I don’t know. Last night Elinor said our divorce was the biggest mistake of her life. Said she wished to God she hadn’t gone through with it, but that’s what it took to make her realize how much she loved me.” He glances over at me and adds, “And yeah, she did ask me to move back to our house.”
“What was your response?”
“I told her I’d have to think about it, because I couldn’t go through all that crap again. I mean it. All that about killed me.”
“‘All that’ meaning?” I know what he means, but he needs to articulate it.
“All that back-and-forth before she filed. Her saying one day she wanted us to stay together, then the next that she wanted me out of her life for good. No way I’ll go through that again. If I move back in, I’m not by God moving out the first time things don’t go her way and she gets pissed with me.”
I study him, his bleary eyes and drawn face, then lean forward to say, “What do you want?”
He looks at me in surprise. “I just told you. Not to go through all that crap again.”
“That’s what you don’t want. Tell me what you want.”
“I just did,” he insists, frowning, and I let it drop. I ask him, “Does Elinor know that you’re here?”
Instead of meeting my eyes, he watches a hummingbird dancing around the red-globed feeder that hangs from the branch of the dogwood tree, bare of its leafy foliage.
“Naw. I left a note saying I was going to the marina.”
I can’t help but wonder if they made love, or if he was too drunk. I force myself to put the thought out of my mind and say, “Lex? You’ve told me the basic stuff, but I’m not sure I understand exactly what happened to cause your marriage to end. When did things start to go wrong?”
Lex’s eyes take on a faraway look, as though scanning a distant sea. “From the first minute I met her, I was crazy in love with Elinor. So much so, I kind of lost my mind.”
“That’s as good a definition of love as any I’ve heard,” I say with a smile. “In the early stages, it feels a little like going crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does. All I could think about was Elinor. I caught myself just sitting and staring sometimes, thinking about her. Damn, was she beautiful. I’d never imagined a woman could be so beautiful. Everything she did, every move she made, blew me away. I felt like I could be happy the rest of my life, just looking at her.” He stops to glance my way. “But it was more than just her beauty. I’m not sure I can describe it.” He sips his coffee as he struggles with the effort.
“It’s okay. Just tell me how you felt,” I suggest.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Lex!”
“You know I can’t talk about how I feel. It comes out sounding hokey as hell. I felt like a fool, was how I felt. That a woman like her could even look at somebody like me …” He glances my way. “Bet you don’t know this, but guys talk about their fantasy woman, or whatever you want to call it. Especially in the barracks or at sea. Mostly bullshit, a way of passing the time. Except with me, it was more than that. Probably had to do with me growing up in the long dark winters of Maine with nothing to do but fantasize, but I had it all worked out. How I was going to meet the perfect woman and fall in love and all that touchy-feely stuff. Sounds like a bunch of corn, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all. We all have our fantasies and daydreams.”
Queen of Broken Hearts Page 34