by Rie Warren
Yeah. Been there. Over it.
His hands roughly knotted in my hair and his lips plucked my earlobe. “I hate thinking about you going home to Palmer every night. That’s not enough?”
I shook my head.
“I’m not sorry you came to me.” His palms trailed up my back, beneath the shirt. “What do you want?”
“You.” I laughed once. “Should be simple, right?”
He lay back, spilling me across his chest. “What else?”
“There’s somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me about Slaughter.”
“He’s family.”
“So were the Hatfields and McCoys, and they certainly didn’t stand on ceremony.”
“He saved my company from bankruptcy at a time when I was incapable of functioning.”
“That’s not all.”
“He gave me something I can never repay.”
“Which was?” I rolled up onto my elbows above him.
His jaw was clamped as hard as his closed eyes. “Time.” Begging me for more time, he opened his blue eyes. “I know what I’m good for.” He rocked against me.
His pain ripping through me, I cried, “That’s not all.”
“Temperance has children.” His swift change of direction made my head spin.
Not understanding where this was leading, I hesitated. “She’d be a good momma.”
“Her three are adopted. They were older, in the foster system, never placed. One brother, two sisters. Temperance and Barbary fought so hard and for so long to get them.” He didn’t say it: Everyone should have the right to have children. “I made sure they had the best representation money could buy.”
There he was: money wasn’t a weapon of the wealthy for him, not really.
“They got ’em,” I whispered.
“And you got me. Won’t that do for now?” he quietly asked again.
I nodded.
His thumbs passed over my face to my mouth. “Can I kiss you yet?”
“Oh, Reardon.” I opened my arms. “C’mere, baby.”
* * * *
Home from the Tides, I skimmed off my dress, settled a skirmish in my closet when I hung it with tender loving care, and headed for a big cup of coffee and the backyard.
Being an all-around masochistic chick, I’d wanted to get back before Palmer left for Sunday fishing. At six AM, the air was thick and sticky, the insects waking from their nighttime torpor. I drank coffee and smoked, rounding the wedding bands on my finger, running a hand around my neck where the pretty necklace from Reardon had hung all night.
The very last stars extinguished, but the moon hung around in the lightening blue sky. Hung around like Palmer and me. Ghostly, as the sun took its turn in the sky.
My daddy had cheated.
My daughter had died.
My husband had left me, if not in body then in soul.
Love, honor, cherish.
I wasn’t upholding any of those vows anymore.
I couldn’t afford to backslide into depression. That was for rich, poetic folk. Zelda Fitzgerald and her Jazz Age tragic elegance, not me and my suburban hausfrau frustration.
I tugged harder at my Marlboro.
Butterflies woke up, those big buttercup yellow ones. They loved Delilah’s garden, attracted to the blues of the blossoms. Gathering in the flowers, they surrounded the statuette of mother and child.
Fluttering with a life as fragile as their delicate wings.
The din of creatures, birds, chattering squirrels saying hello to the morning held promise.
Reardon held promise.
I wasn’t any closer to what had screwed him up so much he believed he was beyond love, but he was trying. And he didn’t have to.
I lay back on the grass, remembered how to find fanciful shapes in the fluffy clouds above.
There was mourning.
But morning always came.
Palmer opened the squeaky slider. “Late night, huh?”
“Yeah.” If he knew what time I came in, it wasn’t because I’d snuggled against him in our bed as dawn cracked through the black of night. It had started the night of the Farmer’s Market. More and more of his belongings–the sweats he slept in on cool nights, his hunting magazines and alarm clock–had migrated to the guestroom, the one no longer reserved for our baby.
Gradually leaving me, as I was him. The same as our marriage dissolving, until one morning I realized the last thing holding us together–two bodies in our marital bed–was a mere memory.
He’d moved to the extra room, the one housing an old futon and boxes filled with photos, albums, and every record of our pasts, and I nearly hadn’t noticed.
I patted the grass beside me.
“Good time?”
I turned on my side. “Not really.”
“Work’ll do that to ya.” Lips twitching in a faint smile, he came so close I thought he was going to cradle my face. I held my breath, held so still, but he stopped short and righted the cup tilting on the ground instead.
Touch me, damn it. Make me want you again.
Clean and sharp, his shaved jaw beckoned my touch. I whispered against it with one fingertip; he craned away.
Heaving onto my back, I shut my eyes. “Why can’t you be with me anymore?”
“I watched you die, Shay, when our Delilah did. I can’t ever.” He shook his head wearily. “I can’t be with you, because you’re gonna leave again like you did then.”
“But that’s because–”
He held up his hand. “I can’t do right by you anymore. And I wasn’t...Jesus Christ, Shay!” He punched the sod again and again until his fingers fell open, and his hand inched toward mine. “I wasn’t man enough to give you a child, and you deserved that. You should be a mother.”
“That’s not true. I lost her, Palmer.”
“I don’t give a goddamn what those quacks said. I failed you. I can’t give her back to you. You should just…”
My blood froze. “Just what?”
It was as if I’d opened one of those boxes in the spare room, the one containing tokens and keepsakes. Shot glasses from vacations to Myrtle Beach, Polaroids taken off guard, fair tickets. The memory so long tucked away tumbled out.
Us at eighteen.
Ladson Fair.
Near to being engaged.
His hair licking soft golden arcs across my throat, he bent forward to kiss me in front of the Flying Bobsleds. Hands strong and somehow knowing, roving from my hips to the underside of my breasts.
Palmer was so beautiful.
Fried dough and funnel cakes and Ferris Wheels.
Lights and grease and grime, and the roar of couples and families and rides droning on, and we were just teenagers.
Cattle in pens and cat-calls sliced the air in moos and mewls and men in cowboy boots.
Kaleidoscopes in red, green, blue and clanging amusement rides rising into the night.
At one point I’d laughed so hard, tears rolled down my cheeks. The star pitcher of the Wando Warriors had managed to miss at the hitting booth more than once. He’d blamed my short skirt, saying it distracted him. Then he’d aimed one final throw. Winding up, all beautiful youth, so athletic, so much fun. When he let the ball go, he hadn’t watched its trajectory. His eyes had been on me. He’d wiped my face with his hanky in one hand, accepting the biggest, most hideous stuffed toy with the other.
You can’t go to The Fair without a date, Momma said.
Be back before eleven, Daddy would have demanded.
We’d been in love like you only were the very first time.
Our kisses heated and stolen, our advances from shirt front to chest and breast, from waist to the inside of my thighs, the innocent joy of first caresses.
Everything had skipped by us.
Christmases, birthdays, being together.
When you tied the knot that young, there was nothing left but learning to make-do.
I’d loved Palmer greedily. I would let him go because we’d becom
e a faded photo of all those things we’d wanted.
We were going to have fallen asleep among mismatched toddlers’ socks and snuffly kids and toys in our bed.
When Delilah died, all our dreaming did too.
Palmer’s eyes trained on the garden, but he coaxed my palm open. “You’re slippin’ away again.”
I didn’t disagree. There wasn’t even an argument left between us anymore.
“Anything I can do to keep you?”
“You’ve had plenty of opportunity.”
“Yep.” He dipped his head. Pushing himself up, he started toward the house. “Meetin’ Curtis this mornin’. You need anything?”
I weighed what I’d had with Palmer against what I might-could have with Reardon. “Wait!”
I flung myself at him, held onto his long silky hair, kissing him, feeling his mouth under mine, wanting to feel something. Our lips moved as of old, so familiar, recognizable. But there was no heat, just…
Compassion instead of passion.
I stroked his face, so used to his rugged features I saw them with my eyes closed. I shut them now and sighed, “Goodbye, Palmer.”
One of these damn days, I’d break for sure.
But not today, not tomorrow.
* * * *
That processing shit didn’t last long. I opted for drinking instead, with Momma, who roped me into completing her foursome for the weekly Bunko blowout.
My idea of a foursome didn’t include her chatty card circle.
Maybe Whistler, Badger, and Reardon.
Definitely not Momma, Babs, and Madge. I fully believed Madge and Babs were totally bunk made-up Bunko names, too.
Highlights of the night were the endless rounds of frozen margaritas–the old gals sure could knock it back–and a conversation about Mimi Flossie’s still standing house.
“I’m tellin’ y’all, this Old Village Historic Commission bullshit is springin’ a leak in my bank account.” Momma clapped a hand over her mouth, offering a muffled, “Sorry for swearin’.”
Madge paid no never mind. “Don’t you be concerned about that. Me and the Mister been known to cuss when it’s called for.”
“They still insist on ceasin’ demolition of houses over fifty years old.”
Gasps went up all around.
Momma swigged back like a sailor. “I know.”
“Your planning permit?”
“On hold again.” Momma spat, figuratively only. She continued in a rushed hush, “So, this is what I did. I went on up to my man in North Charleston–”
“By yo’self?” Babs clutched her heart.
Looking her in the eye, Momma nodded once. “Alone. I sat myself down and asked my financial advisor what to do about this nonsense.” Her voice dropped even lower. “He told me about the Saint Joseph.”
“Saint Joseph, oh my sakes! Is that a Catholic being?”
Holy fuckin’ hen’s clucking.
I tried very, very hard not to laugh.
“Keep a lid on it, Shay. Else you won’t get asked back.” Momma stabbed me with her no-way-no-how glare.
“That’s what I thought too.” Momma got back to Babs. “Or worse yet, The Voodoo.”
“Say a prayer, Madge.”
“You know what he told me?”
All heads wagged left and right like the devout dogs to gods we were.
“Get me a Saint Joseph statue from the Catholic bookstore, downtown.”
Another round of Good-Lordys met the air.
“Then! Then he advised me to dig a hole under my momma’s old oak, and lower the icon in, head first.”
“Oh, the blackness.” Madge found her family Bible in her knitting bag, fanning herself with the well-thumbed pages. “Letha, did you do it?”
“Mmm hmm, I most certainly did,” Momma said, as if she’d stood her ground with Lucifer himself. “But I kept an eye on the sky the whole time, expectin’ a lightnin’ strike.”
* * * *
Reardon squeezed me in on Friday. A quickie at his office downtown.
My hoo-ha came off hiatus to lick her lips in anticipation.
Entering the offices at the top of Radamanthus Place in prime position on Calhoun Street, downtown Charleston, I motored past the spectacularly bosomed She-Ra receptionist. Not even the Princess of Power could keep me from the sleek double doors facing her desk.
I swept into Reardon’s office, tempted to stick my foot out to trip what’s-her-name when she followed hot on my heels.
Lucky for her, she was saved from her face-plant fate by Reardon’s curt, “Cheryl, please make sure we’re not disturbed.” Cheryl, huh? She-Ra was close enough.
His sweet hug made even sweeter when he lowered his hands to my bottom, Reardon gave me a long, light kiss.
“What’ve you been up to this week?”
I told him all about Bunko, including Momma’s diatribe about the dreaded upside-down St. Joe statue. His shoulders shook and amusement played on his lips. Yeah, yuck it up. My life was sooo entertainin’, least I had the intrigue part down.
“Didn’t you see Jane yesterday?”
Stalling for time, I straightened his perfect tie before answering, “Yeah.”
“How’d it go?”
“Awkward.” I focused on an irritating particle of lint on the left shoulder of his shirt.
“Sorry about that, darlin’.”
“Y’all need to stop apologizing. Besides, Jane and me are still gonna be friends. We had make-up sex and everything.”
His eyes flipped wide open.
I patted his chest. “Figure of speech, baby. I’m savin’ the real make-up sex for you.”
“Really,” he murmured, dragging a forefinger over his lips.
“Uh huh.”
He perched on the desk. “Much as I can’t wait for that, we need to talk.”
“Talk?” What was this foreign language he spoke in?
“Yes.”
“Then I wanna know about Slaughter, for starters. You said he gave you time you can’t repay, but he’s a total jackass. What’s he got over you?”
He drummed his fingers over his laptop, his anxiety clear with the usual nervous notes. “Sometimes a person does something so enormous, it can never be repaid. It makes him redeemable–no matter how reprehensible he appears–by the laws of human nature.” There was no joking here. His face was sharp, his eyes bleak, his mouth a straight line.
“Slaughter has a Get-out-of-Jail-Free card.”
“Quoting Monopoly to me, Miss Shay?”
“You do like to play, don’t you, Mr. Boone?”
Reverting to his habit of fuck or flee, he started toward me, sexual heat radiating from his taut muscles and darkened eyes.
I halted him. “Uh-uh, babe. Sit your fine ass back down. I ain’t done with you yet.”
To my astonishment, Reardon did as told. Awesome. I was so getting a boardroom of my own. Forget this bedroom business.
“Whatever went down with Slaughter, it wasn’t about the company, was it?” I asked.
“You could say that.”
Yeah, right. So much for the truth the whole truth, and nothin’ but the truth. This talking thing was like pulling teeth, a maneuver which would probably be easier with nothin’ but a doorknob and a string, minus the painkiller.
“You talked about Ransome a couple weeks ago, then Badger mentioned y’all always got together the same day every year like it was a commemoration of some sort.”
The color drained from Reardon’s face.
“Is it to do with your brother?”
He rubbed the left side of his chest. “Not exactly.” A film of sweat broke across his forehead, and when I touched his cheek his skin was clammy. “Badger talks too damn much.”
I withdrew my hand. “And you don’t talk enough.”
“I’m trying to make amends here, Shay.” On his feet, he paced. “Ransome got what he wanted. To be of service, to be in the service. He never went through the Citadel, but enlisted as soon
as he could. You see…” He looked at me, but he wasn’t seeing me. “He always was the type to be a hero. Taking on bullies, looking out for the underdog. He’d be just the leader who’d take a bullet for his team if he went overseas.”
Walking a straight line to the corner, he pivoted forward with military precision. “Don’t get me wrong, the guy was a little shit. He always played pranks on me, trying to get one over on his older brother.” He grinned. “God, he screwed with me. Stupid practical jokes. Turning all my furniture over one night when I was on a date so I came back to a room that looked like an M.C. Escher etching. ’Course I’d been drinking, so that didn’t help.” He laughed, remembering. “Instead of righting my bed, I stumbled into his room, shoved him into a corner of the mattress and passed out right beside him. But he was considerate too. I’d woken up, wondering what the hell I was doing in his room–feeling like shit–and I found a tall glass of the hangover cure I’d taught him. He left a note too. It read something like…” He tilted his head. “What did it say? ‘Told Ma you got the flu.’ She didn’t believe him for a second, but he meant well.
“First in the fray, a quick thinker, always honorable, he did well his first tour with the Navy. He wasn’t satisfied with being on a battleship for the remainder of the Iraq war, though. Seemed Ransome was a prime candidate for SEALs.” Reardon sat down and traced an invisible line across the desk. “Turns out we had a couple things in common. Killer instincts.”
Intense energy gathered inside of him, crackling as the atmospheric electricity before a thunderstorm, his memories a conduit. “He had ’em too. Similar to the way I conduct business. Infiltration, hostile takeovers kept out of the public eye.”
The voltage increased. “It should have been me. I was the oldest, I should have been the Boone to go off to war.” His body vibrating with velocity, he exploded. “Instead I sat behind my fucking desk!” He punched his fist into the thing with a crashing blow.
“He’s still alive. Please tell me he’s still alive, Reardon,” I whispered in the quiet reverberating so loudly with loss.
He talked to the windows, dredging each memory. “One year ago, at the age of thirty-five, Ransome Boyd Boone came back stateside with a traumatic brain injury. His mind trapped in a holding pattern. Legs? Useless.” He turned to me. “They think he might become stabilized, mentally. Not sure if he’ll walk again. He’s trying. I hate seeing him like this, Shay. He was built to be in command, not in the command of a body that doesn’t work.”