Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  Daddy cleared his throat, and I wondered if he was as close to getting choked up as I was. We shelled in companionable silence, popping the pods open and letting the little flat beans hit the pan with a satisfying ping. Off in the distance I could barely make out the rumble of Julian’s tractor, and my heart caught in my chest. This could’ve been my life.

  But would it have made me happy?

  I wanted to go to restaurants other than McDonald’s and Taco Bell. I wanted to have a glass of wine with dinner, a glass of beer while watching the game. I would just about kill for an iced chai latte. Internet? Practically nonexistent. Bookstores? Might as well cozy up to Amazon and hope the mail carrier didn’t leave a box on top of the mailbox in the rain.

  And what about my kids? Sure, the school where I taught in Nashville had metal detectors and kids with a hard glint in their eyes that said they knew things no person should ever have to know, much less a teenager. But they were my kids. Who would take care of them?

  “Hank!”

  My head snapped to the McElroy edge of the yard. The person who’d yelped my father’s name was nothing more than a shadow, a humped-over shadow with a limp. Still, I stood and put the old metal dishpan of beans in the lawn chair where I’d been sitting.

  “Hank Satterfield!”

  I looked at Daddy, and he nodded for me to go ahead. It would take him a minute to maneuver all of the buckets and chairs out of the way so he could get to the ramp. I ran down to the edge of the drive.

  Debbie McElroy.

  She stopped when she saw me and probably would’ve pushed me away, but she had to use her right arm to support her left. At the best she’d dislocated her shoulder. At worst, the stiffly awkward arm with the purple hand might be broken.

  I stepped back, but she limped forward, looking even more like a zombie with her swollen eyes and cheeks. Blood from a busted lip outlined her teeth. She trudged past me as if I weren’t there, stumbling as she walked up the slight hill to the gravel driveway to stand in front of Daddy.

  “Hank, I need you to find Julian.”

  “Why, Debbie, I don’t know where he is. Come inside and let’s call nine-one-one.”

  “No!”

  Hank had already started turning the wheelchair around, but looked over his shoulder to try to figure out why she felt so vehement on the subject.

  “I just need Julian to take me to the emergency room. I’ll wait for him here.” She walked past the ramp and sat on the edge of the porch, rocking her injured arm.

  “I know where he is,” I said, but the voice came out as a whisper.

  “Well, go get him then!” Hank waved his arm in the direction of the truck, and he started rolling over to where Mrs. McElroy sat. He grunted each time a wheel sank into a mole trail.

  “Did you hear me, girl? Go!”

  That got me in motion. I felt for the keys, which were blessedly still in my shorts pocket. I hopped into the truck and took off like a wild woman down to the Smith place. I swerved around the dog who was, indeed, napping in the middle of the road, and forced myself to slow down as I found the dirt road that led to Mr. Smith’s fields, the ones he was letting Julian use for hay.

  A couple of times my fear got the better of me, and I pressed the accelerator too much, only to hit a bump hard enough to bend the axle. Still, the old Ford kept going, no stranger to dirt roads or rough drivers. Finally, I made out the outline of the tractor through the veil of dusk. I’d forgotten to even turn on my lights, instead leaning forward and straining to see.

  I ran over two rows of neatly raked hay before I realized what I’d done. Then, I yanked open the door and ran for Julian. He saw me just before I got there, cutting the motor and reaching for his shirt. His chest and upper arms glowed in the dark they were so white. I stopped short, shocked by the sight of the worst farmer’s tan ever on the world’s most vociferous opponent to the institution. But I put that information away in a different compartment, something to think about later.

  “Julian, your mama’s at the house and needs you to take her to the emergency room.”

  He scowled. “How bad?”

  “Arm might be broken and her face is busted up, but she’s still walking.”

  He exhaled, already jogging in the direction of the truck. I had to run to catch up with him. He climbed into the passenger side without a word to me, his lips pressed together in a stoic line. I knew his father sometimes beat up on his mother, but Julian refused to give many details. I’d never seen her in the immediate aftermath. This was something Julian had always had to live with?

  “Switch on your lights,” he murmured. No comments on how I’d ruined a couple of rows of hay, either.

  “Julian, if you need me to—”

  “I need you to drive,” he snapped. He leaned his head against the back glass and closed his eyes. I concentrated on not pressing the accelerator down too much. It’d take us that much longer if I missed the dirt path that served as a road and got us hung up in a gully.

  His eyes opened the minute I turned right on the pavement. “Did she have her purse this time?”

  I swallowed hard, trying to remember if I saw a purse. “I don’t think so.”

  He cursed, a new litany I’d never heard before. “Romy, I need you to take Mama to the emergency room. I’m going to have to get her purse.”

  Such harmless words, yet he said them with a grim determination.

  “But—”

  “He keeps her purse so she doesn’t have the insurance card. That means I have to get her purse. From him.”

  “Okay,” I whispered as I pulled into the driveway. “Anything you need, Julian.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes as he shuffled out of the truck and turned to help his mama in.

  “I’m not going anywhere with that girl.” Mrs. McElroy fought him as best she could with only one good arm.

  “Hey, now—” Daddy started, but I waved him off.

  “Look, Mama. I’m going to get your purse. You’re going with Romy to the emergency room. And that’s that.” Julian slammed the truck door for emphasis.

  Since the truck didn’t have automatic windows, I opened the driver’s side door and stood to look over the top of the cab at Julian. “What do you want me to tell the doctors?”

  His eyes bored through me, disgusted yet grateful I was willing to keep his family’s not-so-secret secret. “Tell ’em any damn thing you want.”

  Julian

  Damned if I hadn’t known Curtis would pull a stunt like this.

  You’ll regret it, he’d said. That was one promise he always kept.

  I trudged up the road, looking up one last time as Romy’s taillights disappeared down the road that led to Jefferson. If I were smart I could’ve asked her for a ride to the house, but she needed to get Mama to the hospital.

  And I needed a few minutes to calm down.

  I walked around the house to the back door. I could see the orange tip of his cigarette long before he spoke. My hands instinctively curled into fists.

  “I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came dragging up here.”

  Don’t answer him.

  I reached for the screen door, but he was already blocking my path. “Son, it ain’t happening this time. You—”

  My fist connected with his ugly, red, pockmarked nose. A blow to the gut sent him sprawling to the ground. God, it felt good. It felt good. My foot was already back and ready to slam into his ribs, when I came to my senses despite the roar of hot McElroy blood in my ears.

  I stepped over my bastard of a father and found my mother’s purse hanging from the ladder-backed kitchen chair where she always left it. I felt around to make sure her billfold was there. Then I left before I could give in to the urge to beat my father as he’d never been beaten before.

  My fists itched to pummel him. My feet twitched with the desire to kick his ribs with my steel-toed work boots. Maybe give him a taste of his own damned medicine.

&nbs
p; But I didn’t.

  I stepped over him and walked as calmly as I could to the old Chevy truck beside the house. The beagle came out to greet me, but I ignored her.

  Nothing I loved ever survived the wrath of Curtis, so I was going to have to quit loving.

  Romy

  Balancing the clipboard on my lap, I tried to block out the emergency room. A Hispanic man rocked in the corner with a blood-soaked towel wrapped around his hand. A skeletal elderly lady sat in another corner retching into a pan. Even worse, a young mother paced through the emergency room bouncing a curly-headed toddler. His screams curdled my blood.

  But Mrs. McElroy sat in silence, stoically cradling her arm.

  She’d answered my questions and allowed me to write the answers on the forms, but she’d closed off any hint of the vulnerability she’d shown at the edge of our driveway.

  “Don’t stare at me,” she snapped through lips pinched thin and bloodless.

  “Sorry. I can’t bear to look at the baby,” I whispered.

  “Well, the baby doesn’t want you to look at him, either. Look at the TV.”

  I looked up just in time to see a home video of a guy taking a crotch shot. Who in their right mind thought America’s Funniest Home Videos would be good emergency-room entertainment?

  My eyes almost traveled back to Mrs. McElroy again, but I stopped short to study my own print on the forms. Would it hurt the woman to show a little gratitude? I knew I wasn’t her favorite person, but I’d never been able to figure out why. Other than each mother’s belief that no woman would ever be good enough for her son.

  “Don’t jerk Julian around again,” she said, her eyes never leaving the television, where a dog dressed as a bee went skidding into a swimming pool.

  “What?” Me? Jerk him around? What kind of revisionist history was this?

  “I told you not to hurt my boy. He’s a good boy. Better than I deserve.”

  On that much we could agree. “Why do you hate me so much? I’ve never understood.”

  “You broke his heart. I don’t want you breaking it again.”

  My heart leaped up to touch my tonsils. Something was very wrong here. I hadn’t broken Julian’s heart; he’d broken mine. “You told me he didn’t want to see me ever again.”

  “If you’d really loved him, then you would’ve stayed anyway.”

  Had she been testing me? I couldn’t understand this woman.

  Julian appeared, still smelling of sweat and freshly cut fescue.

  “Julian! Baby!” Mrs. McElroy’s demeanor immediately became all sweetness and light except for the thin line between her brows. She masked her pain well.

  The cuff of Julian’s T-shirt folded up on his right arm, teasing me with another unexpected glimpse of white. Come to think of it, he’d been wearing long sleeves on the day of our infamous tractor lesson.

  At some point over the years the world’s most outspoken opponent of the farmer’s tan had decided to sport the worst one I’d ever seen. Something wasn’t adding up here. Even with my limited math skills, I was adding two and two and about to come up with—

  “Romy.” It was the louder tone of someone who’d already said my name at least once, and I jerked back to reality to take a look at Julian.

  “You can go home now. I’ll take it from here.” His clear blue eyes held no humor, no sadness, no emotion whatsoever.

  And I’m being dismissed? Just like that?

  “Are you sure you don’t need someone to wait with you, to help out?” I asked.

  He smiled, but it didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “This is going to take two hours at least, and all you could do is sit and wait. You might as well do that at home.”

  His words were kinder, but he was giving off the same tone as his mother: You are not welcome here. This was their club, and I was an interloper, a dangerous person who might call the police and betray them.

  I hadn’t. And I already felt sick to my stomach for it.

  I rose to my feet. “If you’re sure.”

  He stood, placing a warm, callused hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure. And thank you.”

  That part he meant, and an unseen fist reached inside and squeezed my heart. There was my Julian.

  Your Julian? He’s not yours, and he never really has been. And he never will be as long as the two of you keep having these moments without sharing anything real.

  I could feel Mrs. McElroy’s hatred burning through my back. Apart from a certain semester at Vanderbilt that would live on in infamy, leaving when she told me to leave was the only time I’d ever failed. It was a shame I hadn’t known I was being tested.

  He had to have said something that made her think leaving was my idea. Nothing else made sense.

  “Thanks, Julian, for throwing me under the bus,” I muttered to myself as I made my way through the parking lot to find the old pickup. Even as I said it, I still couldn’t believe Julian would betray me like that.

  Yeah, and you didn’t think he’d ever leave you high and dry at the old country store, either, now did you?

  I slammed on my brakes right in the middle of Royal Street, and the person behind me lay on the horn and swerved around me on the wrong side of the road. Had Curtis ever beat Julian the way he’d just beat Mrs. McElroy?

  I pulled over to explore this revelation in the parking lot of the Bible store that had become a pawnshop. I scanned memories at least a decade old for some clue to what had happened. I could think of nothing. Julian’s fights had always been after school with other teenagers. And I could count all of those on one hand because he wasn’t one to look for a fight. Of course, he’d never been afraid to finish one, either.

  Then why couldn’t he finish us?

  And then there was the image seared into my mind of Julian in the dim twilight, his chest and upper arms glowing in a white pseudo-undershirt. It made no sense unless he had something to hide. He’d said as much himself one lazy afternoon at the lake when we were seniors.

  “You gonna get in the lake?”

  I had been lounging underneath an oak tree, but I put my copy of Chopin’s The Awakening down when he spoke. Water sluiced down Julian’s chest, and I took a moment to admire the view before answering, “Never been one for swimming with snakes.”

  “You like to roll in the hay with them,” he’d said as he toweled off. Behind him, on the imported sand locals liked to call a beach, two girls stared unabashedly at my boyfriend.

  “Just have to parade around without your shirt on, don’t you?”

  “Well,” he said as he lowered himself to the blanket, “when it gets this hot, the only reason to wear a shirt is if you have something to hide.”

  I traced his chest muscles and the hint of a six-pack underneath them. “You aren’t hiding much.”

  He leaned over to kiss me, rolling me toward him. Lost in his sweet kisses, I didn’t realize he was up to something. At least not until he snatched my top and raced for the edge of the lake shouting, “And neither are you!”

  “I’ll get you!” I hollered as I drew the blanket around me and fumbled for his discarded T-shirt. The two girls had stopped ogling him long enough to giggle and point at me as I struggled to get the shirt on without flashing the lake crowd.

  In the end, he got what he wanted: me, in the lake, pressed up against him.

  At least until I swam off with his trunks.

  Of course, he walked up to the blanket, naked as the day he was born, to retrieve them.

  Who was this Julian who shrugged into a T-shirt so I wouldn’t see him? Who was this surly man, and what had he done with the boy I’d once loved?

  The answer smacked me with enough force to take my breath away: his father.

  His father had to have done something, something he didn’t want me to see. Images flashed through my mind of Julian playing with me by the creek. More than once he’d had welts on the backs of his legs. More than once he’d said he didn’t think he wanted to sit down. At the time he’d shru
gged and said he’d been spanked, and I didn’t think much of it because I’d been spanked, too.

  But my parents never left a mark.

  Then there was the last year we were together: a black eye he said came from horsing around with the guys or a bandage on his arm. What else had I missed?

  I’d been so busy mourning my mother and trying to make my father proud with my schoolwork, I’d missed it all. I had been so naïve, so stupid. Julian had been fighting with his father the whole time, and he’d never once told me. No wonder he would only let me visit his mamaw and only when he was with me.

  I had an irrational need to be home, and I pulled out of the parking lot, willing myself to drive at a safe speed. Finally, the headlights of the old pickup washed the porch with light, showing that Daddy had picked up all evidence of our bean shelling, despite the fact that it’d probably taken him forever while in the wheelchair. A sob escaped me as I fumbled with the front door, suddenly desperate to tell him in some way how glad I was God had seen fit to give me him as a father.

  He snored soundly as I entered the room, not even stirring when the door whined closed. I leaned forward to plant a kiss on his cheek.

  He snorted awake. “What was that for?”

  “Being my daddy.”

  He nodded in response, a tiny smile on his face, and I went on upstairs. All those times I thought our family had been irrevocably broken? No. We’d been wounded and scarred, but we weren’t broken. We never had been.

  I took the steps slowly. But the McElroys were broken. And Julian had been broken. Maybe whatever had broken Julian had also softened my father to him. Either way, I’d read enough Nancy Drew and Hercule Poirot to know I wouldn’t rest until I’d ferreted out the truth. If Daddy wouldn’t tell me, then it was time to take the question back to Julian.

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

  When she was thirteen, your aunt Bonita did something despicable. She says she did it because she got sick just looking at Granny Satterfield’s arms with their mottled white and misshapen skin. Your granny has always been a “turn the other cheek” kind of woman, though, so I know Bonita didn’t get any of these ideas from her.