Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  Just do it, you dumb-ass. She’s better off without you. Look at her.

  My brain told my mouth to say, “Pass the pen,” but “I’ll think about it” came out instead. Now that she was finally home and standing in front of me, I couldn’t let go. I knew I should. I knew I was being selfish, but I couldn’t seem to give her the answer she wanted. Not for that guy. Oh, hell, not for any guy. Who was I kidding?

  She flew at me, but I grabbed her wrists and pulled her near. I came close to kissing her, close enough that her breath got shallow just like it always used to. Back in the old days I would sometimes hold my lips just an inch from hers and wait for that hitch in her breath. And I could kiss her. She was, after all, my wife—at least on paper.

  “Julian, please.”

  Please sign the papers? Or please kiss her? I didn’t know which, but I was about kiss her when Genie appeared at the door.

  “Julian, you’re up.” Genie assessed the situation, and her eyes narrowed. “Romy, are you okay?”

  I let go of her wrists as if they’d scalded me.

  “I’m fine. I was just coming back in.”

  Genie nodded, but opened the door wider instead of making a move to go back inside.

  “This isn’t over,” Romy spat to me over her shoulder before walking back in.

  God, I hope not.

  No, it is over. You are going to make it over. Remember what happened the last time you were at The Fountain?

  How could I forget? Those first few years after Romy left I was on a mission to piss off as many Baptists as I could. I drank, I smoked. I picked bar fights. I flirted like a sonuvabitch.

  But one night in particular, Pete Gates started telling a story in the back corner. A group of men hung on his every breath as he described in vivid detail everything he had done to a girl and everything she had done to him. To hear him tell the story, other women were involved, even a well-endowed horse. I sidled over out of curiosity but spewed my beer when he suggested Romy Satterfield was the woman in question.

  I should’ve known the whole thing was a lie, but I’d had a few beers too many and maybe some leftover pain pills. At the sound of her name, I scattered those men and started throwing Pete Gates around like a rag doll, beating him up enough to land him in the hospital. I totally trashed The Fountain, then promptly wrapped my truck around Lester Ledbetter’s tree. If I’d hit a car or hit a tree on anyone’s property other than ol’ Goat Cheese’s, I would’ve been in jail.

  That night I looked at how the massive oak had crumpled the front end of the truck and how the truck had splintered the tree and came to the conclusion there was too much of Curtis in me to even think for one moment that I deserved to be with any woman, much less Romy. I’d poured the last of those pills down the drain and cut back on the beer. I’d apologized to both Pete and Bill, helping pay for hospital bills and busted-up tables and chairs. That didn’t change who I was or what I could do.

  Beulah leaned out the door this time. “C’mon, Julian, we don’t have all day.”

  A quick glance told me what Ben had been up to while I was outside. He’d pulled up two chairs to the table where Romy and Genie sat and was now standing onstage with “Ebony and Ivory” cued up behind him.

  Benjamin Little, Esquire, was a dead man. And no way would a jury of my peers convict me.

  From Rosemary Satterfield’s History of the Satterfield-McElroy Feud

  The first recorded instance of trouble between the Satterfields and the McElroys came in 1861. The Ellery Gazette mentions the arrests of two men for public drunkenness and that they had squabbled over a calf. The calf supposedly belonged to the Satterfields but had wandered over to the McElroy pasture. An argument broke out in the local saloon resulting in both men spending the night in the county lockup. The calf was never returned.

  Problems with alcohol will crop up again and again in a history of the Satterfields and the McElroys. From this first altercation to moonshine stills and beyond, nothing good ever comes of mixing Satterfields and McElroys with drinking.

  Romy

  It was hard to say which was worse: having to share a table with Ben and Julian or listening to Ben and Julian’s painful rendition of “Ebony and Ivory.” Ben sang more like Frank Sinatra than Stevie Wonder, and Julian sounded far more like Brad Paisley than Paul McCartney. Even Beulah winced through the whole thing and offered a mulligan with piano accompaniment in a lower key, but Julian’s vehement no ended the issue—thank goodness. A few of the rednecks in the back muttered because they still hadn’t quite reconciled themselves to the fact that humanity could, indeed, live in perfect harmony like those keys on a piano.

  Ben took the seat next to Genie, which left Julian sitting next to me. Fight or flight warred within me with a heavy emphasis on flight. Spite took the upper hand, though, and I raised my hand to signal for another beer. Damned if I was going to let Julian make me walk out of The Fountain. As bad as that song was, he was the one who needed to leave.

  “So, Romy, what’ve you been up to?”

  A casual observer would think Ben Little was making pleasant conversation. I knew he was up to something because he and Julian were thicker than thieves and had been since playing high school football together. By this point he knew about that morning’s accident, and he knew I was seeing Richard Paris. He would’ve known who Richard was, too, because, well, everyone in the state of Tennessee knew who Richard was.

  “Just getting settled in today,” I said. “I’m going to be here for the summer to help Daddy out since he broke his leg a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I wonder how your father managed to get to the hospital after that happened,” Ben said. “A man like that all alone out in the barn.”

  Julian choked on his beer. My eyes shot from Ben to Julian. “Did you help him out?”

  “Happened to be mending the fence on that side when I heard him yell.”

  Hank Satterfield, stoic extraordinaire, had, of course, left out this part of the story. “Well, thank you, Julian. I’m glad you were there that day.”

  “You’re welcome.” He shifted in his seat—just enough for me to see there was still more to the story. When I looked at Ben, he was glaring at Julian, his lips in a thin line. But I could’ve told him that was all he was getting out of him. Julian McElroy could be the poster child for “hostile witness.”

  “Well, I was thinking we should sing a rendition of ‘YMCA’ before we go,” said Genie. “I’ll be the construction worker.”

  “No!” all three of us said together.

  “I mean, I think it’s about time for me to go home,” I said.

  Julian nodded toward the two empties in front of me. “Are you sure you should be driving?”

  I opened my mouth to ask if he thought he was one to talk, but I saw he only had one beer bottle in front of him. The other empty was a water bottle. Interesting.

  “I’ll be fine.” I stood up too quickly, knocking the chair behind me and interrupting Old Man MacGregor’s off-key rendition of “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.” I swayed a little in spite of myself and bent over to pick up my chair.

  “You do remember that you rode with me, right?” Genie said.

  The fact that I’d forgotten that crucial piece of information suggested I was, indeed, in no shape to drive home—not even in my imaginary car. Still, I would sit there all night before I’d let Julian drive me home. He muttered something about “stubborn women” under his breath.

  The smart thing to do would have been to order water. Instead, I chugged my Bud Light and raised my hand for another.

  “Well, if I’m not driving . . .”

  Julian

  It wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen Romy get drunk. I liked her pleasantly tipsy when everything made her giggle—or I used to. Watching her tonight, a night when I knew there’d be no sex under a full moon nor any mosquito bites in places you didn’t want to explain, was sheer torture.

  To make matters worse, Genie and Ben
were hitting it off as if just discovering each other instead of having gone to school together most of their lives. At one point I almost told them to get a room, but that would’ve meant leaving Romy with me. I shouldn’t have been shocked when they said they were getting another beer but instead sneaked out while Romy was in the middle of singing “I Will Survive.” I shouldn’t have been, but I was.

  They were trying to play matchmaker. Ben, of all people, should’ve known better. He knew why Romy and I couldn’t be together. He had seen it with his own two eyes. Me and him were going to have ourselves a chat tomorrow, and he was not going to like it.

  “I think it’s time we took you home,” I said as Romy stepped off the stage. She’d nailed the song despite being drunk, and she was flush with both victory and alcohol. Then she frowned.

  “Where’s Genie?”

  “Said she needed a ride home herself.” Bullshit. “So she let Ben drive her home.”

  Romy frowned, looking around the rapidly emptying tavern for another option.

  That she would look to someone else in that crowd before looking to me felt kinda like someone had a crowbar under the rib over my heart and was trying to pry it off. I started to ask if I was really that bad, but I knew the answer. I deserved no less from her.

  “C’mon. It’s just a ride home.” I grabbed her elbow.

  She snatched it back from me.

  “Hey, now. I don’t bite.”

  Her arched eyebrow and the memory of at least one well-placed hickey contradicted me. “No. You do worse.”

  I reached for my hat only to remember I still hadn’t replaced it and ran my hand through my hair instead. “Look. I’m not drunk. You are. These other assholes are. Please let me take you home.”

  She nodded, and we made our way to the door.

  Riding home reminded me of too many other times she’d ridden home with me, times we’d taken a detour to Robert Smith’s abandoned orchard. I still had a stack of old quilts in the back, but these days they gathered dirt and dust. I’d seen no reason to wash them and only used them to cushion the bed of the truck from whatever I was hauling.

  “Why didn’t you show up?”

  She continued to lean against the door, as far from me as possible, gazing up at the moon. That imaginary crowbar stabbed the meaty part of my heart, the pain so intense I couldn’t find my voice for a minute. “I had my reasons.”

  Her head jerked to me, and tears streamed down her cheeks. “You could’ve talked to me, you know. I know you always thought you needed to protect me, but you could’ve told me stuff. I told you everything.”

  And she had. She’d been completely honest with me, but it was easier to be honest when your secrets weren’t so dark. There was nothing in the world she could’ve told me to ever make me stop loving her. Glancing at her tear-streaked face, I knew there’d never come a day I didn’t love her. But loving someone meant doing what was best for them. Sometimes what was best for them wasn’t all that good for you.

  Sometimes, loving someone meant you had to let them go, send them off, even.

  “I changed my mind.”

  I almost choked on the words because they weren’t the truth, not exactly. They told what I did, but they didn’t explain why. And I could never, ever tell her why. After I told her, she would never look me in the eye again, and I wouldn’t have that. I’d rather her look at me with hate in her eyes than pity.

  Romy broke into sobs, her face hidden in her hands, and a boulder of a lump formed in my throat. Was there anything I could do that wouldn’t make her cry? I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t think. I could hardly keep myself from stopping the truck and pulling her into my arms and telling her it was all a lie.

  If only it would be as simple as telling her I’d been kidnapped by the Dread Pirate Roberts. She’d always liked The Princess Bride.

  Ben was right. I had been watching too many movies—girlie movies at that.

  But, dammit, real life wasn’t a movie—at least not a happy movie. Real life didn’t have a happy ending—not for anybody I knew. If anyone deserved a happy ending, it was Romy. She might not realize it, but I knew she’d never find that happy ending with me.

  Romy

  I collapsed on the front porch steps, but Julian just sat there with his headlights blinding me. It took me a few minutes to realize he was waiting for me to go inside. He wanted to make sure I made it into the house safely. I had to wave him on at least five times before he got the hint and started to back down the driveway.

  I didn’t want to go in and face Daddy. Sure, he was probably snoring in the living room chair while he pretended to watch the late-late show, but if he were awake, he’d see that I was drunk. He’d dress me down even though I knew from Granny Satterfield that he’d had a few benders in his youth, too.

  Why won’t he just tell me why?

  I didn’t think it was too much to ask. If a girl got jilted, didn’t she deserve to know why?

  In spite of myself I went back to the night in question, a night a lot like the present one. It was warm with just a hint of the cooler days of a spring just past. We’d graduated, finally made it through the minefield of high school. In the shadow of the football stadium, Julian leaned in to kiss me even while other students and families milled about the football field taking pictures and looking for the caps they’d flung into the air with careless jubilation.

  “We’re still on for tonight, right?” he asked with his forehead still touching mine.

  “Daddy is going to kill me.”

  He frowned. “Are you sure then? Sure you want to do this? We can do it the right way, you know.”

  “This is the right way,” I said. I was so young and stupid back then, so sure my father would say no and so sure I knew better than him.

  “All right. If you’re sure. I’ve got the truck washed and waxed. Oil’s changed, and it’s full of gas.”

  My heart swelled. What might be a checklist to some were actions of love from Julian. “I trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” he said with a wolfish grin as he reached for the hem of my white graduation gown and started lifting it along with the hem to my dress. I slapped his hand as he knew I would.

  “Come on, now. I couldn’t even concentrate on your speech for wondering what you could possibly be wearing under that gown. I couldn’t see the outline of anything. Are you commando under there?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I countered.

  “I aim to find out.” This time he reached for the zipper at the collar. I smacked his hand.

  “Later!”

  He kissed my lips gently. “Don’t blame a man for being excited about his wedding night.”

  “Then let’s go now.”

  He frowned. “Your daddy would have the cops on us before we got to Nashville. We’ll go tonight—but make sure to put out that letter where he can find it.”

  I tried not to think of how I later stumbled home before dawn and took my letter to Daddy off the kitchen table before hiding it in my suitcase and sneaking back up the stairs.

  Instead I thought of how Julian had kissed me long and hard, almost as though he knew he wasn’t going to show up later that night. At times over the years I’d thought of that kiss and wondered if he’d known in that moment what he planned to do, but I didn’t think so. No, the kiss and the smile that followed had held promise, not betrayal.

  Julian had known I didn’t like going to his house because his dad scared me and his mom hated me, so I had been sure he would call me. I hardly got out of bed the next day, worried sick about him. When Daddy asked, I told him I was just tired from all the work of the last few weeks of high school, that I needed to sleep it off and I’d be fine.

  But I wasn’t fine, and I didn’t sleep. Finally, after an entire day with no word from Julian, I called his house. I cringed when his mother answered the phone.

  “May I speak to Julian, please?”

  “No, you may not.” Her crisp reply startled me
. Even though she hated my guts, she’d never kept him from me before.

  “This is important, so if—”

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  And she hung up on me.

  My teenage world upended itself. I ran across the room to the trash can and hurled inside it, then had a momentary panic about what if condoms broke and I was now pregnant and without my husband of only a few hours. I gasped for air. I had to see him.

  So I ran downstairs, ignoring Daddy’s questions of where I thought I was going like a bat out of hell, and I jumped in my car to drive the short distance up the road. I tripped as I ran up the steps to the front door of the McElroy trailer. The acrid taste of vomit lingered in my mouth, but I couldn’t be bothered with that. I rang the doorbell once, then twice, before I heard feet heading in the direction of the door.

  Julian’s mom didn’t even undo the chain, instead peering at me with most of her body hidden behind the door, no doubt to conceal whatever damage Julian’s dad had recently done. “I told you he doesn’t want to speak to you.”

  “Please.” My voice came out on a sob, and tears streaked down my cheeks.

  For a minute I thought she was going to cave because I noticed her eyes were puffy and red, too. I thought she might open the door to me. Instead, she pulled herself up straighter with new resolve. “He’s gone. I don’t know where he is, and it’s all your fault. Now go on off to college or whatever it is you smart people do.”

  He left without me?

  She slammed the door shut with as much force as one could muster when it was held only a chain’s length open. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t in the midst of a horrific nightmare. It couldn’t be happening. Julian had promised to love me and cherish me forever. I’d heard him say those words just three days before. I’d seen the love and admiration in his eyes, his confident cocky grin.

  It made no damned sense.

  And because it made no damned sense, I had no choice but to drive home and go back to bed where I could cry myself to sleep even though the sun hadn’t even begun to set.