by Nat Burns
Chapter Sixteen
They were getting embarrassingly loud. She was a big girl with that compact, dense fat some girls harbor. Her face was round, red now with anger, and Delora found herself waiting for the girl to bust loose and knock her husband’s head off. It wouldn’t be an easy feat, however, for he looked as shriveled and tough as beef jerky and just as ugly. Especially with his face twisted in rage as it was now. He made Delora feel as though she was staring into a pot of boiling water. She was not a bit surprised when the pot boiled over.
With a blurred snap, his hand was in his wife’s hair, jerking her head back and pulling her toward him, almost out of her chair. The girl’s fury brought her right fist around in a roundhouse punch and connected solidly with the side of his head. He blinked his eyes, probably seeing stars, and shook her until her heavy arms flopped loosely on the wooden tabletop. She glared up at him through a mass of disordered hair. Hatred radiated from her entire body.
“I told you to shut up. I’ve had just about enough of you today. The boy is going fishing with me Tuesday and that’s all, you hear me?” He grabbed her chin in his free hand and made sure she heard him by talking with his face only three inches from hers.
Delora was glad the club was mostly empty although the few rummies at the bar were enjoying the show.
She looked away. Once when she and Louie had been fighting about how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey, he had grabbed her hair just like this husband. Only Louie had used the fistful of hair to drag her down the hall and into the bathroom. He’d then stuck her face against the cold, clammy porcelain inside the toilet, making sure she got a good mouthful. He said it was to wash out her mouth for the way she was smart-mouthing him.
She realized now that was when she had stopped talking to him. Beyond the normal daily requirements, she did not seek him out. She lost interest. Gone was the fantasy that he would be the man she wanted him to be. A man who would treat her in such a way could never be what she expected.
Seeing the man and his wife made her heart thump in her chest. The man had let go, but a swirling air of humiliation and anger hung above both of them. He was pretending he was cool, only doing his husbandly duty. She was wishing him dead and gone from her life, the wish written on every molecule of her body. Delora felt sad for her. Had been her. Was her.
Maybe being burned the way she had been burned was a good thing overall. Louie seldom had anything to do with her now and this was a blessing. She no longer had to feel that way about anyone. These days it was a gentler emotion, a “when my ship comes in” type of longing for his disappearance instead of the harsh craving she’d once had.
“Shame, isn’t it?” Esther said.
Delora turned, caught off guard by the heavy woman’s quiet approach.
“Sure is. And you just don’t know who to blame.”
Esther pushed back her sandy, graying curls with one hand as she straightened liquor bottles with the other. “When it gets to this point, everyone is involved,” she replied.
“She needs to get away from him,” Delora added.
“Nope.” Esther looked squarely at Delora. “She likes it. I mean subconsciously, of course. Egging him on gives her a sense of power. She knows just what to do to push his buttons and that’s power. Of a sick sort.”
“But look what he did to her.”
“Look what she did to him. He’s wrong, dead wrong, but so is she. He needs to learn to mind his temper, and she needs to back off. It’s a no-win situation.”
“That’s for sure.”
Had she egged Louie on? Had she provoked him? She felt sure she had, but it was easy to do with Louie. He was a quick trigger and her very existence seemed to irk him.
They watched the grumbling duo. Watched them lift their drinks and converse in a stilted manner.
“So what do they do?” Delora asked finally.
Esther checked the ice bin and found it lacking.
“They get on. Day after day. Until one gets hurt beyond repair, whether physical or emotional. Then they divorce. Those two have a baby—a one-year-old. She’s the one that’ll pay. Her and her brother. Either way they’ll pay, whether they stay together like this or separate.”
“And the sad thing is, both of them will probably grow up thinking this is the way people should live.”
“Right.”
Esther disappeared through the kitchen doorway. Delora reached into the fridge below the bar and pulled out a jar of maraschino cherries. She filled the cherry section of the garnish tray. There’d been a run on Manhattans earlier.
“You know what’ll happen. Kristen, that’s the baby, will grow up thinking that it’s okay to let a man beat on you, to disrespect you. Then she’ll marry a man just like dear old dad.” Esther dumped the bucket of ice into the bin hard as if punctuating her prediction.
Hinchey entered and paused just inside the door to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He saw Delora and his face brightened.
“Your boyfriend’s here,” Esther muttered.
“Hey, Delora. Esther,” Hinchey said with a nod of welcome as he took a seat at the bar.
“Hinchey, how you doing?” Esther asked with fondness. She’d once babysat him while his mom played bingo.
“I’m good, Ess. You all right today?”
“Good. Can’t complain. Jeb finally got that vinyl siding on the house. You need to come on over and see it.”
He grinned boyishly and rubbed his hands together. “Is that a dinner invitation? If so, I’m there.”
Esther laughed and said, “Then consider yourself invited. You come over Sunday afternoon and you’ll get the best pot roast you’ve ever set your teeth into. It’ll make your tongue slap your brains out trying to get to it.”
Delora smiled at the phrase. “You want a beer, Hinchey?”
At his nod, she fetched a Michelob from the cooler, popped the cap and set it on the bar in front of him. She leaned back and lit a cigarette, glad that the French Club still allowed smoking at the bar.
“Thanks, sweetness.”
“You hungry, Hinchey?” Esther asked. “Mike just whipped up some fries and cheeseburgers back there.”
“Yeah. I’ll take one of each,” he answered, lifting the beer to his lips.
He turned to Delora. “So, are you okay?”
“Not much. Just watched a fight between that couple over by the window.”
Hinchey craned his neck as he took a long swig of beer. “Them? Fighting? Who are they?”
“Imports, looks like. Esther knows them.”
“Did I hear my name?” Esther entered from the back having given Mike Hinchey’s order in person.
“That couple?” Delora inclined her head. “Hinchey wants to know who they are.”
Esther peered at Hinchey. “No one you’d know. They moved here from Virginia a couple years back. He works over at Bryson’s, moving rock every day.”
“What were they fighting about?”
Before Esther could get wound up into speculation, Delora excused herself and walked along the back of the bar and down the cluttered hall to the employee washroom. There was a company phone there and she paused beside it. Hesitating only a brief moment, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and pushed a button.
“Bucky? Are you busy?”
“Never too busy for you.”
“Did you have a good day?”
“Good enough. Therapy in the morning. Phone conference in the afternoon.”
“Conference about what?”
“A new job. Horse racing game.”
“Which company?”
“Still TechGaming.”
“They’re coming out with a lot of new stuff. Asian Knight must have done well for them.” Not being a gamer herself, she often wondered how the first game Bucky designed had sold.
“Did well for me. Gave me more money than I can use. Need a loan?”
Delora laughed. Bucky always cheered her. “No. Don’t think so.”
“How’s things with you?”
“Not great. I’m really scared.”
“Why? What’s Louie doing?” Bucky’s breathing became more labored.
“Nothing really.” She rushed to reassure him. “It’s just indirect things. The other day I found a can of lighter fluid under his bed. I was changing the sheets and knocked it over.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. Right there under the bed.”
“Did you tell him you found it?”
“No way. I talk to him as little as possible.”
“I thought he couldn’t…the trial…”
“That was a part of his release because I didn’t press charges, that he couldn’t have it in his possession. We’re supposed to light his cigarettes, for Pete’s sake.”
“Turn the bastard in,” he advised impatiently.
“No.”
“So, wonder what he was going to do with it.”
“What I want to know is, who the hell bought it for him? Rosalie? She knows better.”
“She should know better.” The sarcasm in his voice surprised Delora. “She probably did know better.”
“She is a bitch.”
“Yeah, and I know she has it in for you somehow.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The way she treats you. Making you work like a dog. Three jobs so you can pay that ridiculous rent for living in her house.” He was breathing hard from the exertion of speaking such long sentences.
“There’s nowhere else I can go,” Delora said quietly.
“Why do you say that?”
“You know why. Rosalie’s all the family I have.”
“Bullshit. She’s not your family, just someone the state gave you to.”
“There’s no way I could take care of Louie by myself. Rosalie’s bigger than I am and she can steady him. I can’t do it; I dropped him once.”
“You’re making excuses. You’ve got no business lifting anything. You were hurt too when your house burned.”
“I know.” Delora realized some time ago that she was taking the path of least resistance. The easy way. Though shamed by this fact, she felt powerless to change her life.
“Are you going to stay there forever?”
“No, of course not. I really do hate it.”
“No one can change that but you.”
“I know that,” she replied petulantly.
“Good.”
“Louie hid the remote the other day.”
“Why?”
“So he could give me grief. I looked for the damned thing for forty-five minutes and then suddenly he had it. I was so pissed.”
“He’s stupid. A brute.”
“Mmhm. All men are.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, other than you, there’s one guy I know, nice as the day is long. You remember me telling you about Hinchey?”
“Sure. You sweet on him?”
“Oh no, he still is on me, though, wants me to marry him. Leave Louie.”
“You could do that. Divorce Louie and go with Hinchey.”
“You know I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”
“If he loves you though, he would accept it.”
“He’s a young man. Deserves children and a wife who can be all he expects. You know what I mean.”
Bucky sighed. “I do.”
Delora answered with a hollow sigh of her own. “I’m going to go home now. I have to go in early tomorrow.”
“You be careful, now. I mean it. You watch that bastard Louie.”
“I will. Love you, Bucky.”
“Love you. Sleep, okay? Wait. Todd died. Did I tell you?”
“No, when?” Pain clutched at Delora’s chest. Todd Mays had been a patient with them at the burn center. Trapped in a house fire, he had been victim to a number of postevent infections that caused him to be a constant patient more than a year after the fire.
“Yesterday. His mom called me. They couldn’t get that last infection under control, then he got pneumonia.”
“I guess he just let go,” Delora whispered, one hand pressed against her lower belly as if confirming the life-force there.
“I’m sad,” Bucky Clyde said. “I wish I could talk to him again.”
“He called you as much as I do, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Bucky Clyde agreed softly.
“Are we gonna be all right, Bucky? Ever? It’s been two years and I don’t feel all right.”
Bucky Clyde didn’t reply right away, and Delora could picture him, indulging in his nervous-thinking gesture, fingering the bill of his ever-present baseball cap with his stubby three-fingered right hand. When he spoke, his voice was very clear, very strong.
“We’re forever changed, Delora. There’s no way we can forget that.”
Delora knew this to be true, but hearing him verify it grounded her anew. “I know, Bucky, I know.” She sighed deeply. “What are you going to do tomorrow?”
There was no need to talk about Todd’s funeral. Neither of them would go.
“Therapy, of course, then I get to play a new paintball game.”
“New game, cool.”
Bucky Clyde was hopelessly addicted to computer games, playing and designing. Paintball games, in which you had to outmaneuver and outstrategize your opponent, were his particular favorites.
“My mom sent it.”
“Oh, no way,” Delora exclaimed. “She contacted you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Hopes. Don’t want to get them up—yours or mine.”
“But that’s great. How did she know you liked the paintball games?” Bucky Clyde’s mother was an alcoholic who really went off the deep end after Bucky Clyde’s car accident.
“Ron told her.”
“So she’s back talking to your brother too? What brought about her change of heart?”
“I guess getting older. Realizing how mortal we all are.”
“Has she stopped?”
“Drinking? No. I’m not sure she ever will. She sounded good the last couple times she called, though.”
“That’s a good sign.” She looked up and saw Esther studying the plates resting under the warmers. “Listen, Bucky, gotta run. I love you. I’m so, so sorry about Todd.”
“Me too. Love you. Take care of yourself. Watch him.”
Delora hung up and pressed her forehead to the phone’s hard plastic coolness. A hand that had crept low pressed against the gauze square covering the gash from her morning fall at the greenhouse. The pressure made the cut sting just a little more.
Chapter Seventeen
The knock, when it sounded, was later than expected, yet Beulah nodded her head. She’d been expecting someone all day but hadn’t figured it would come this late in the evening. Hell, it felt like it was almost tomorrow.
She knew the person would change all their lives and she was a little surprised when Sophie finally opened the door. What kind of special presence was this? A little old bedraggled girl, thin as a pipe stem. Yet she seemed powerful—as if she had a wildcat coiled inside waiting to expand at the least prompting. Beulah looked her up and down, trying to know something. She saw the woman was afraid, but fear had been mastered, pushed down, and the only thing left to shine was an attitude of “fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
Sophie was barring the door, staring at the little woman as if dumbstruck. The little woman was staring back. Peering intently, Beulah could see the energy pulsing between them and smiled. So this was the way of it.
“Sophie, move yourself and let our visitor in.”
Sophie, chastened, stepped aside and dropped her eyes finally. “Please, come in,” she said, her voice subdued.
The woman moved inside slowly, eyes roaming the main room of the house. She didn’t seem afraid, just curious. Weren’t they all? Beulah thought tiredly.
“So what can we help you with?” she asked the little powerhouse.
“I hear you’re good with medicine an
d I got a problem.” The voice was strong, not meek, yet seemed tired as if she’d lived life and come out the other side.
Sophie stepped farther aside and stood by the bedroom door, her dark eyes studying the woman. Beulah noted her restlessness but ignored it. “You’d best tell us your name.”
“I’m Delora November. My homeplace was over on Cox’s Creek. You probably knew my daddy, Sherman Clark. He and my mama died in the big squall of ’82 when I was a kid.” She sighed, the litany finished.
Beulah nodded, the information digested. The girl was older than she’d thought, probably married.
“Sure, I knew of Sherman. My last husband said he was a good supervisor; best on the board. He left early because he didn’t like the way things were being handled by the other supervisors, it was said. Tried to make his own way,” Beulah responded.
Silence fell. In another world, the one of verandas, mint juleps and pretense, Beulah and Sophie would have listed their own pedigree but here, in the seething energy of the Alabama bayou, no trade was needed.
“So what is it? What does the house of Cofe need to do for you?”
Delora reminded Sophie of a rabbit transferring from one cage to another. She looked at the healer’s things scattered throughout the house—curiosity overcoming trepidation.
She’s got vinegar, Sophie thought, hands coming up to tuck in errant strands of blond hair, then down to straighten her shirt.
Delora stopped when she reached the center of the front room. Hands hanging limp at her sides, she remained perfectly still, not exactly a convicted felon awaiting execution, but close enough to make Beulah seem uncomfortable. And, as was Beulah’s wont, she manifested her discomfort in petulant anger.
“Well, what is it?” she barked.
Delora jumped slightly, but her eyes, cold blue fire, fastened hard on Beulah.
“They say you know all about medicine, those women in town.”
Sophie pulled her loose collar closer about her neck, feeling a chill sweep through her cotton shirt.
“We know enough,” Beulah said. “Just tell us what you need and I’ll tell you whether it’s enough for you.”
The girl mulled it over for a long time, her gaze studying the yarbs and parts in jars along the walls.