Only Ever Her

by Whalen, Marybeth Mayhew

  She thinks of Annie’s request. They had been standing in this same kitchen the first time Annie brought it up. Faye had left them to do the dishes. “Don’t ask me to do that,” she’d said to her cousin. “It’s not fair.” She wonders if Annie is staying away to force her hand. If it were that simple, would she just go ahead and tell Travis? If it meant Annie would come back? It would be just like Annie to orchestrate it so that Clary would do the one thing in the world she didn’t want to do.

  But, despite her flair for the dramatic, even Annie wouldn’t push it this far.

  “Clary?” Faye reminds her. “The cream?” Behind her, she hears Faye turn on the tap and fill the coffeepot all the way. These are, Clary thinks, the sounds of crisis.

  She opens the refrigerator a second time, pulls out the half-and-half, and places it beside the sugar bowl. In response, the coffee machine makes a hiss and burble noise as it begins to force water through the grounds. She smells the coffee as it hits the pot, wishes it were morning and she was smelling coffee where coffee belongs. Beside her, Faye clatters around in the cabinets, pulls out far too many mugs.

  “Expecting a crowd?” Clary quips. She reaches for the extra mugs, to put them away, to keep busy. She leaves just the four out.

  Faye comes behind her, takes two mugs back out, and sets them down emphatically. “I know what I’m doing,” she says.

  Clary narrows her eyes at the extra mugs, feels her heart pick up speed, as if it already knows the answer to the question she has not yet posed. “Who else is coming over here, Mother?” she asks. She hears the catch in her own voice.

  In answer to her question, she hears a knock at the front door, hears Tracy hop up to answer it as if she lives there. “You invited him over here?” Clary turns to her mother. “When did you have time?”

  Faye looks away from her, sweeps invisible crumbs from the counter, and nods. “He called earlier because he couldn’t get Annie on the phone, either. I told him what was going on, and he offered to come over.”

  She hears his voice in the next room, as familiar as if they’d just spoken yesterday. But she hasn’t spoken to Travis Dove for years. Another voice, a feminine one, echoes his. Clary lowers her voice to something more like a hiss. “His wife, too?”

  Faye snaps her head up. “Well, of course. What’s he supposed to do—leave her behind?” Faye’s voice is a whisper but with an edge, that mother voice that can still remind Clary which of them is the parent and which is the child.

  She looks down at herself. She is wearing sweats and an old T-shirt that she probably owned back when they dated. Her only consolation is that she is at least wearing a bra. She hears Travis Dove laugh, and it is sandpaper on her frayed nerves. What could he be laughing about at a time like this? She wants to glance at her reflection in the microwave, but her mother will see her do it and know exactly what’s going through her mind. As if what Travis Dove does or doesn’t think of her makes any difference at all now. Still, she runs a hand through her hair, sweeps fingers under both eyes to wipe away the mascara, undoubtedly smeared from sleeping.

  She could die right then and there. She could die, and Travis Dove would have no more chances to save her soul. She thinks about their last conversation, the things he said that rendered her speechless in a time she’d intended to say some things of her own. She’d been silent ever since. She hears Annie’s words in her mind: You need to tell him what happened. But Annie isn’t here to push her on this and, for a guilty moment, Clary is glad. Everything that happened between Travis and her—what ruined them—is Annie’s fault anyway.

  Annie was the one, after all, who invited him to that church camp in the first place. It had taken her a long time to forgive Annie and her do-gooding ways for effectively ruining their relationship by inviting God into it. To be fair, Clary was supposed to go, too, but she got sick and, for reasons she will never understand except that it was destiny, Travis still went. “You’ll just be home in bed all weekend, and the church already gave me the camp scholarship, so . . . I think I will.”

  Travis’s parents had been fighting a lot at that point, and she knew he was looking for a place to escape. So she forgave him for leaving her. But she never expected him to come home an entirely different person. He even looked different when he got back: softer, with the reckless, restless energy that used to emanate from him magically, mysteriously gone.

  He told her all about the peace he had found and how she could have it, too. But he didn’t understand that she didn’t want peace. She wanted disruption; she wanted uncertainty. She liked it; she craved it. At least, back then she did. She wonders, as she has a thousand times since, how her life might’ve been different if she hadn’t gotten sick that fateful weekend.

  “Might as well get it over with,” Faye says quietly but loudly enough for Clary to hear. She gives her the slightest push, but it’s enough to propel her forward.

  She wishes Annie were here. But if Annie were here, Travis certainly wouldn’t be—not in the middle of the night. He would be home in bed with his lovely wife. As things should be, as she was prepared for them to be. As bad as she’d feared seeing him would be, this is worse. Where are you, Annie? she thinks. Why are you letting this happen?

  The Doves’ heads turn in unison when Faye and Clary enter the room; Travis and his wife both fix their eyes on Faye, as if Clary is not there at all. “Faye,” Travis says, and takes a step toward them before he registers Clary’s presence, too. He blinks just once, then pivots back to Faye, reaching to cover his hands with hers. His eyes are filled with concern, and Clary, knowing him better than anyone, sees that the concern is genuine.

  His wife closes the gap between him and her, tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow proprietarily. Clary can’t blame her; she has to have heard the stories about the two of them, of their epic rebel romance, their passionate first love. Of course she would feel compelled to draw the boundary lines in clear sight of her rival. With one movement, Travis’s wife is saying loud and clear, He’s mine now.

  Travis’s wife probably expects that Clary is still pining for him. Clary herself had wondered if perhaps seeing him would stir up old feelings. She expected to feel some emotion when it happened, some sense of loss or regret or pain. Perhaps it’s because she is distracted by Annie’s disappearance, or perhaps it is because enough time has passed that whatever she once felt has had time to wither away. Or maybe it is because the Travis standing before her now isn’t even remotely the boy she knew then.

  But looking at him standing in her living room, Clary knows this: she does not want Travis. She just wants to get through this weekend as unscathed as possible, preferably without spilling the secret she’s protected for the last eight years. She wonders, if Annie were here right now, would she bring it up in front of everyone? Would she announce it herself? Or would she see that they are all okay and that well enough really is better left alone?

  “I’m so sorry about Annie,” Travis’s wife says, her voice high and sweet. She is too sweet for Travis, too good. Clary can see that from here, in two seconds. “We’ve been praying nonstop since we heard.”

  “Yes,” Travis agrees, remembering his role. Somehow, as absurd as it is, Travis Dove is there to be their spiritual leader. She wants to laugh but is stopped by his next words: “In fact, let’s all pray together.” His eyes are wide and expectant as he raises his hands, presumably for someone to grab.

  Faye looks startled by this demand. She glances at Clary so fast it’s likely no one else sees it. Faye knows this is a bad idea. Clary praying at all is a long shot, but Clary praying with Travis leading the prayer is way worse.

  “Well,” Faye says, “I just made coffee, so what say we have that first?” Clary is so grateful to her mother she vows then and there to do the dishes for a week. Without griping.

  Everyone murmurs their approval of this idea, and suddenly they are up, moving toward the kitchen to pour coffee. Travis claps his arm around Scott, begins to say pasto
rly words, words of comfort and hope, Clary supposes. She cannot hear; she has edged toward the perimeter of the room, in hopes of making a clean getaway. She will slip outside, hide with the doves until Travis is gone. She read that doves are so pure, they’re the one form Satan can’t change himself into. When she thinks about it that way, she is safer out there with them.

  She waits until the others are all in the kitchen before she begins backstepping out of the room. She hears the low murmur of voices, the sounds of silver hitting china, thinks of that lone mug that will be left on the counter once they’ve all served themselves. Oh well, she didn’t want coffee anyway. She didn’t want any of this.

  MAY 30

  BRIDESMAIDS’ LUNCHEON DAY

  TWO DAYS UNTIL THE WEDDING

  Faye

  Faye wakes up entirely too early and, for a moment, reality doesn’t register. For a moment, her mind is deliciously blank. But then the events of yesterday come to her in a rush—realizing Annie was missing, searching for her, pouring coffee for guests in the wee hours of the morning. She’d thought the coffee would leave her unable to sleep, but exhaustion set in and, for a few hours at least, she succumbed to it. She sits up and grabs for her phone, hoping for news, ideally from Annie herself. But there are no texts or missed calls. Nothing has changed while she slept. When Annie comes back, Faye is going to let her have it. For once, she’s going to tell her exactly how she feels. This time, Annie has gone too far, stayed gone too long. She doesn’t care what compelled her to leave; she has no right to make them all worry.

  In typical Annie fashion, she will have no real idea of the trouble she has caused. And, once she speaks her mind, Faye will forgive her for this like she did when Annie forked Pastor Melton’s lawn on a dare (which Faye suspects is the real reason Annie asked Travis to perform her wedding ceremony, not Travis’s celebrity pastor status like Clary says—Annie couldn’t care less about such things) or when Annie started a rumor that Faye had lied about going to cosmetology school and was really self-taught. It took her weeks to convince her customers that the license hanging on the wall was real and not created on a home computer, as Annie had claimed.

  Annie had tried to look penitent as Faye railed about what the rumor had done to her business, but the entire time, she’d been biting back a smile. Sometimes that girl reminds her of Lydia so much it’s eerie. If she closes her eyes, Faye can still picture a young Lydia, kicking her feet as she sat outside the principal’s office of their middle school. She’d been part of a group of kids who set off stink bombs in unison in every hall of the school, filling the building with such an overpowering stench that some kids had gotten nauseous and had to go home early. Lydia had taken the punishment without ever giving up who the other kids involved were.

  Faye smiles at the memory. Faye had been one of the other kids who had been part of the prank. She’d enjoyed punishment-free days while Lydia did work duty at the school, the church, and, when she was done with that, at home. Once when Faye had tried to help her, Lydia had said, “No, they’ll figure it out,” and shooed her away, her eyes insistent as she pled with Faye to go about her business and leave her to the task. “You’ll make it up to me later,” she had said.

  “I’d say I’ve more than made up for it,” Faye says now to no one.

  She heads out to the kitchen to start another pot of coffee and finds Tracy and Scott both asleep on the couches in her den. She stops walking and shakes her head as she remembers, delirious from exhaustion and worry, telling Tracy and Scott they could just stay there if they wanted to wait for news of Annie. She retrieved extra blankets and pillows, assured them it was no trouble at all. What was she thinking? Now she will have to go to the grocery store.

  With a sigh, she goes to dress and brush her hair. She doesn’t bother with makeup. She doesn’t leave a note for Clary or her guests. She’ll likely be back before anyone wakes. They are nearly out of cream after the late-night coffee, and there is barely any food in the house to boot. With her house being the de facto gathering spot for the wedding-party-turned-search-party, she feels the pressure of playing hostess. If she goes to the store early enough, she can dash in and out without running into anyone she knows. At least, so she hopes.

  But that hope is dashed within the first five minutes of entering the Food Lion. She spots Millicent Craft at the very same time Millicent spots her, which means it is too late to duck into the next aisle to hide. Millicent is her customer and is supposed to be a guest at Annie’s wedding in two days. Which means that, if this town’s gossip mill is in full working order, she’s already heard that Annie is missing.

  Millicent’s expression tells her that the gossip mill is not only working, it just might be in overdrive. She envelops Faye in a hug, smashing her against her bountiful breasts and rocking her back and forth for a moment. “Has there been any word at all?” she asks.

  Faye closes her eyes, slowly shaking her head.

  Millicent begins shaking her head in time with Faye’s, her mouth in a grim line. “We are just praying and praying,” Millicent says.

  “Well, we’re mighty grateful for the prayers,” Faye says. Faye likes Millicent well enough; she just doesn’t want to talk to anyone about Annie.

  “How are you holding up?” Millicent asks as she studies Faye’s makeup-less face. “You look exhausted.”

  This, Faye knows, is the nice southern way of saying that someone looks awful. Faye starts to give the obligatory, reassuring response that she is holding up fine, but Millicent doesn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t know why in the world you’re here today. You know anyone would’ve been glad to come get whatever you need.”

  An idea dawns on Millicent just then; Faye sees it happen, watches her eyes grow bigger and brighter as the thought strikes her. “I’m going to go home right now and start a meal sign-up. I know how to do it on the computer.” She holds her finger up in the air for no apparent reason, her eyes darting from side to side. “I’ll let the ladies’ circle know and the girls in my garden club, just for starters.” She reaches for the buggy that Faye had plucked out of the line of buggies at the front of the store. “You just put this away now,” she orders.

  But Faye grips the buggy tighter before she can wrest it away from her. “I actually need a few things right away,” she says. Then adds, “But of course we’d appreciate the meals.” She forces herself to smile, tells herself this is a kind thing Millicent is doing, even if Faye prefers to take care of herself, to be the one doing instead of the one being done for. “One less thing to worry about, right?” she says brightly.

  Millicent reaches for her and smashes her into another, briefer hug. “That’s right,” she says. “You’ve got enough to worry about.” She shakes her head again, the sad look returning to her face, the momentary thrill of do-gooding gone. “I just can’t believe Annie has gone missing.”

  Faye has already grown to hate that word, missing, the snakelike quality of it, the way people’s tongues get stuck on the S’s. It makes her unfairly angry at Millicent for saying it just like that, a hiss instead of a word. Something in Faye rises up in retort. “Well, don’t you worry,” she says, feigning a sweetness she doesn’t feel. “We’re gonna find our girl.”

  Millicent looks shocked, and Faye can tell that she has already decided this isn’t going to end well. She is already anticipating tragedy, tasting it on her tongue like the ham that comes with funerals. As Millicent struggles for something positive to say in response, Faye uses the pause to push her buggy forward, away from Millicent and her meals and prayers. She doesn’t want them. She wants to be putting on a bridesmaids’ luncheon in a few hours. She wants to give her niece a lovely wedding, one Lydia would’ve wanted her daughter to have. For a moment, she hates her sister for not being here for this, hates that she can’t just be Annie’s concerned aunt who lives in another town.

  A child’s cry distracts her from her thoughts, and she looks up to see a boy being grabbed roughly by a bedraggled woman who
could only be his mother. Faye recognizes the look on the woman’s face, can guess what they’re doing here this early. No milk for cereal. No bread for toast. But that is not what the woman is yelling at the boy about.

  “I told you not to bring that shit in here!”

  As she shakes her son, he loses his grip on a sketchbook and pencil he is carrying. The sketchbook falls open on the floor to reveal drawings of birds. One of the pages tears away from the spiral coil, and the pencil rolls in Faye’s direction, stopping at her feet. She picks it up and impulsively starts to return it. The boy’s dark eyes meet hers. He shakes his head, a barely perceptible no.

  Behind the woman, two other smaller boys clutch each other, looking both concerned and relieved. They are glad it is not them their mother is angry at this time. Faye remembers the exhaustion and stress of motherhood that could lead to a complete and total loss of perspective. She wants to tell the woman to let it go, that whatever has angered her in this moment won’t last, that someday she will think back on moments like these and feel such intense sorrow and regret. It’s not worth it, Faye wants to say to her. But this woman’s issues are none of her business. She has issues of her own. She puts the pencil down on the ground for the boy to collect himself and heads to the dairy case. She needs to buy coffee creamer for all the company who will be coming. She should get the largest size they have.

  Kenny

  They sleep in in the morning, spooned together just the way he likes. He wakes before her and pulls her closer, feeling her remold her body to his. He sniffs her, inhaling her scent, thinking how much he likes it on his sheets. This, he tells himself—like he always does—is good enough. This is happiness. His cell phone rings—his mother, he can tell from the ringtone—but he does not move to answer it, lest he wake his sleeping beauty. She likes it when he calls her that, likes it when they fall asleep in each other’s arms.