Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  “That’s the damnedest thing,” Len said as he picked up his hat to scratch his head. “She won’t say anything at all.”

  Len and some deputy I didn’t know led Julian away. The deputy gave Julian a hard shove, but he didn’t stumble. He limped a little, but I only saw it because I knew to look for it.

  “Julian, I’ll be right there!”

  Len turned to me. “No need, Romy. This is all going to take a while. Go patch yourself up.”

  Julian never looked back.

  All I could think as I tried to drive over to the orthopedist was I’d gotten my wish, but it wasn’t what I wanted at all.

  Julian

  It’d been ten years since I was last tossed into county lockup and that was an overnighter for a little drunk and disorderly. Nope. I’d kept my nose clean and avoided all of the major criminal acts until now.

  That had to be some kind of McElroy record.

  There I sat in a tiny iron-barred concrete hole that smelled like piss and sweat. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw myself punching Romy in the gut. Or her shocked look at the emergency room, her jaw swollen and already turning blue. I remembered the narrowed eyes and barbed questions of the emergency room nurse, who was certain that this time I really had done the deed.

  Murder.

  If I’d known I was going to jail for murder, I would’ve gone ahead and shot the bastard, but maybe kicked him in the ribs a few more times first.

  “Hey, Julian, you’ve got a visitor.”

  “I didn’t even make a phone call,” I said.

  The deputy snorted. “Well, someone called your lawyer for you.”

  Romy. She had called Ben.

  Ben I would speak to. If he’d told me Romy was out there— and I wouldn’t put it past her—then I would’ve stayed put. Ben, on the other hand, had already seen me at my worst. I followed the deputy, some guy I didn’t recognize with the last name March, down the hall to an interview room. Ben sat at the table. He was pretending to study some notes he’d written down, but his hands shook.

  “Thirty minutes, you two,” my new friend March said. He closed the door, but there was a two-way mirror on the other side so I was pretty sure we were still being watched.

  “What the hell, Jay? Why didn’t you call me?”

  I’d never seen Ben so mad.

  “I’m pretty much screwed, I think.”

  He slapped the table. “That’s for me or another lawyer to decide. Please tell me you haven’t admitted anything or signed anything.”

  “No.”

  “Thank God for small wonders,” he muttered. “Have you given any kind of statement?”

  “No.”

  He exhaled. “Dammit, Julian. This is a helluva mess. Romy’s almost hysterical. I’m not feeling so good myself.”

  “I reckon I deserve it.”

  He grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me forward. “The hell you do! Listen here, you stupid fucker. No one deserves to go to prison and be someone’s bitch for defending his wife, least of all you. So you are going to get your head out of your ass and quit playing the martyr. Got it?”

  Well, hell. Ben the foul-mouthed badass usually didn’t show up. Ben the educated lawyer almost always had things firmly under control. My eyes cut to the door, half expecting Len or Deputy March to come in, but apparently there was no rule against attorneys beating up their own clients. Ben’s eyes followed mine to the door, and he released my shirt slowly then sat back and adjusted his tie.

  “Preliminary autopsy reports should be in tomorrow. If they show murder, then I have a friend from my Memphis days who can take your case. He’s good, damned good.”

  “How’s Romy?”

  My question hung in the air. Ben stared holes through me. “You gonna ask me that question when you know she’s at home resting while you’re over here in deep shit?”

  “Yep. That’s all that matters.”

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She’s worried to death about you and would already be here if Hank hadn’t stolen the keys to keep her home. Doc gave her a sedative to help her sleep, but I bet she’ll be here tomorrow.”

  To see me here? Like this?

  “Don’t let her come.”

  “Ha! Haven’t you learned yet that you can’t make a woman do anything she doesn’t want to do?”

  “Speaking of women, where’s Mama in all of this?”

  Ben’s expression screwed up as if he’d taken a bite of lemon. “She’s making funeral arrangements with Anderson’s. She didn’t mention coming to see you.”

  Not surprising.

  Ben sat up straighter, and his metal chair scraped across the floor. “You stop worrying about things you can’t change and tell me exactly what happened so I can fill Byron in. Just in case.”

  I didn’t want to tell him what Curtis had been about to do to Romy, and I didn’t even remember too much of what happened after I started beating him—at least not until after I showed my true colors and hit her.

  “Jay. What happened?” Ben held pen over legal pad.

  I told Ben in a low voice, not yet wanting Len, March, or anyone else watching us to hear. I forced myself to tell him everything. When I finished, he exhaled deeply and looked at his notes with a frown. “We can work with this. What about your mama? Think she’d come in and make a statement?”

  “She never had anything bad to say about Curtis while he was living, so I don’t see why she would now.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I know that. I’m just saying we haven’t been on the best of terms.”

  “She is your mother.”

  “Has a funny way of showing it.”

  “Whatever, cowboy. This is my territory,” he said as he stood. I had no doubt Ben and his friend would come up with a way to keep me out of prison or to give me the least amount of time they could. That didn’t change the fact that I was still too dangerous to be with Romy—even now with Curtis gone. Jail might be the best place for me.

  Romy

  I would’ve already been by to see Julian except for two things: One, Daddy had to go to the doctor to get his cast off, and two, Ben had told me to wait until later in the day in the hopes the preliminary autopsy would show something to clear Julian. Even then Dr. Winterbourne called, and I had to talk him into keeping Julian’s dog a little longer.

  I still couldn’t believe Curtis was dead. Julian had hit him—that much was true—but I couldn’t see how the man went from taunting to dead that quickly. He was dead on arrival. That didn’t make sense.

  “Pay attention or you’re going to miss your turn.” Daddy grasped for the bar above the window, and I took the turn on two wheels.

  “I’m driving home,” he muttered.

  “Look. I’m doing the best I can with one hand over here. Neither one’s in great shape, you know.”

  “I know,” he said softly, self-recrimination in his voice. He still blamed himself for the dog bite. Probably blamed himself for everything else, too. Both he and Julian seemed unwilling to accept the fact that I could make my own decisions and bear the brunt of their consequences. Sure, if I had it to do over again, I would’ve waited until Julian got home. I don’t think any of us knew Curtis was quite that batshit crazy. All of the signs had been there, but we human beings seem predestined to make something out of nothing only to ignore the honest-to-God somethings right under our noses.

  We parked outside the doctor’s office, and I managed to wheel Daddy’s chair out of the bed of the truck and get it opened and to the side door so he could scoot over. Both of us did a fair amount of grunting and cussing.

  “We’re a pair, aren’t we?” I asked.

  He grinned in spite of himself. “Yeah, I’d as soon skip all of these trips to the doctor for a while, though.”

  “I’m with you on that.”

  Getting the cast off wasn’t anywhere near the ordeal I had thought it would be, although the smell inside was enough to make me wish I’
d stayed in the waiting room.

  “That leg is even whiter and skinnier than your other one,” I mused before Daddy shooed me from the room to get his pants on.

  Finally, he emerged, limping on his new leg but walking pretty well, all things considered. I thought about that hug I’d wanted earlier in the summer and I threw my good arm around him right there in the doctor’s office hallway. He pulled me close then released me.

  “I guess you’re free to go now,” he said. “You don’t have to hang around and take care of this old fart anymore.”

  “Nah. Too late now. You’re stuck with me,” I said. “But you are going to have to teach me how to drive the tractor.”

  “I thought Julian did that,” he said with a frown as we walked slowly out the door.

  “He did. Kinda.”

  He arched a bushy eyebrow. I let him wonder. He’d defecate adobe if he knew I’d almost turned it over.

  “You sure you don’t want to run back to Nashville where all the important people are?”

  Knowing I’d already taken a job here, he still couldn’t believe I was sticking around. He and Julian were more alike than either would care to admit.

  “Know what, Daddy? I think all of my important people are right here.”

  He took my hand and squeezed, his own hand callused and warped with arthritis but warm and larger than life. “Guess I’d break my leg all over again to hear you say that.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I gotta get a new bull. Wonder if Julian would sell me his. I was thinking about some cross-breeding since I like the looks of that little calf of yours.”

  My heart caught in my throat at the mention of Julian. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t. Maybe we could even take the fence down and mix the herds together.”

  My father nodded noncommittally, not saying anything else until we finally reached the truck. “I’ll take the keys.”

  I tossed the keys to him, reasserting the natural order of things, then I climbed up into the truck cab beside him.

  “Aren’t we out of them little coffee-cup doodads for your fancy machine?” he asked.

  I grinned. Maybe things weren’t quite what they’d always been.

  “Stop by the store, and I’ll run in and get some,” I said.

  “Get some of that candy bar creamer, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “Anything for you, Daddy.”

  It was early afternoon by the time I got to the jail. I had been hoping the preliminary report Ben had talked about would’ve come in sooner rather than later, but Julian was still a prisoner of the state when I arrived.

  I’d also thought we’d have to speak through glass, but Len had chuckled and told me not to believe everything I saw on television. I stood when Julian entered the room. Orange really wasn’t his color, but he was still a sight for sore eyes to me.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. I wanted to hug him, but I wasn’t sure I could.

  He cocked his head to one side, and I could tell he was going to be surly because he didn’t want me there. It was almost as though the past few weeks had never happened. “All right.”

  “Did you get a lawyer?”

  “Why? Gonna get your ex to defend me?”

  His tone cut me to the core. Not that I was going to let him know that. “Stop being an ass.”

  “I am an ass. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be hurt.”

  “If it weren’t for you, I’d probably be dead!”

  He finally looked me in the eye. “If it weren’t for me, you never would’ve been in danger in the first place.”

  I bit back tears. “You don’t know that.”

  “Pretty damn sure, actually.”

  “Seems to me I defended myself quite nicely.”

  “For the moment.” Something about the tone of his voice made a shiver run down my spine. What would’ve happened if he hadn’t shown up when he did?

  He took a seat across from me, and I reached my hands across the table, but he wouldn’t take them. He moved as if he would, but then he remembered they were cuffed.

  “It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone.”

  “Romy, I don’t know what’s going to happen here, and—”

  “You’re going to get out of jail, that’s what! I gave my statement to Len. You were defending me. They can’t send you to jail for that.”

  “Manslaughter,” he muttered.

  “Maybe . . . maybe something else killed him.” I was grasping at straws. We both knew it.

  He snorted. “Let’s face it. All of this has finally caught up with me. Now it’s going to stop with me.”

  For a minute, hope fluttered in my stomach. Then I realized what he meant by that.

  “Julian,” I started in that voice of warning I often gave my students. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

  “I’m not going to hang myself with my belt. But I did ask Ben to take you those divorce papers.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  He started to run a hand through his hair, but his hands were cuffed and he put them back in his lap. “You don’t want a felon for a husband.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want.”

  “Romy, I hurt you. I punched you.”

  I’d never seen Julian look at me with that much pain in his eyes. That’s what this was about? He still felt guilty for punching me in the heat of the moment? “It was an accident!”

  “And you promised me that if I ever hit you—”

  Anger crackled behind my eyes. “You stop right there. I’ve had it. I can fight Curtis and dogs and my father, but I can’t fight you. I don’t know what else I have to do to explain to you how much I love you because, God help me, I do.”

  He leaned away from the table as though my words were a fierce wind blowing him back.

  “One of two things is going to happen today: Either that report comes back and clears you or Ben posts bail. No matter what, you’re going to be free to attend our class reunion on Friday, a place you promised you would go. If you show up, then we will stay married. If you don’t show up . . .”

  I blinked back tears because he couldn’t see those. “If you don’t show up, I am through. You gotta stop fighting me. There’s nothing standing in the way of us being together now but you.”

  That pretty speech delivered, I turned on my heel and left.

  Julian

  “Don’t leave town,” Len Rogers said with narrowed eyes as he handed me my personal effects. The report Ben had been waiting for had come in, and it suggested I hadn’t killed Curtis after all. No, it said the fire ants did him in. Ben used a lot of fancy words from the report, but the gist was so many bites in a certain sensitive region had caused a sort of allergic reaction that might have caused a heart attack or some kind of anaphy-shock thing. At any rate, Len was letting me go as long as I stuck around until the official report came in a few weeks later. Ben was outside calling off his lawyer friend.

  “Told you the fire ants did it,” I said as I worked my belt through the loops of my pants.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Len said. I got the feeling he was disappointed. He wanted to be in that Clue movie: It was Julian in the pasture with his fists.

  “Come on, Jay. We’ve got other problems.” Ben waved to me at the door, the phone still at his ear.

  I followed him, not sure what was going on because he was talking about wills and estates, one of his actual law specialties.

  Finally, about halfway home, he put down his phone. “You may need to find a new home for all your pets.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your uncle Charlie called, spitting mad. He’s filing a petition for probate and said to tell you that you aren’t getting a red cent.”

  “That so?”

  “Seems your father left everything to him but the trailer. Your mama doesn’t even get the land the trailer is sitting on.”

  “And Uncle Charlie called to tell you this?”
<
br />   “At the time he couldn’t call you, so I was the lucky one. He says he’s going to make your life a living hell until you sell him what little of the property is yours.”

  “I’ve seen living hell. He ain’t it.” I leaned back into the seat.

  “The good news is the whole thing will be tied up in probate for at least four months, probably longer. You’ll have time to contest.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You’re not listening to me, are you?”

  “I’m listening.” But I didn’t want to look at the swampy Harlowe Bottom or Wanamaker’s store or to think about Romy’s little do-or-die speech. I sure as hell didn’t want to contest the will. Uncle Charlie could have the whole damn thing as far as I was concerned.

  “What did you do now?”

  I looked over at him. “What kind of friend are you anyway?”

  “The kind who’s going to steal a beer from your fridge in about five minutes, so you might as well tell me what you’ve done now.”

  “Romy—”

  “Uh-huh,” he said as he guided the car around the corner.

  “She told me to show up at the reunion or we’re over.”

  He snorted. “That’s simple enough. Show your ass up.”

  “Ben—”

  “Don’t even tell me it’s complicated because it’s not. I know complicated. Your situation is no longer complicated.” He pulled into the driveway and stopped just short of the porch. I caught myself looking for Curtis before remembering I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.

  “I hit her.”

  “Sure did. She tapped on your shoulder while you were in a righteous rage, and you accidentally punched her. Despite what you seem to think, only one person on this earth has ever put you in such a state, and his sorry ass is dead.” Ben ended his sentence on the slamming of his car door.

  I opened the front door, and he headed straight for the fridge, as good as his promise. “Know what your problem is, Jay?”

  “Which one?”

  “This big chip you have on your shoulder. So you had a hard time reading. So you grew up poor. So your father was an asshole. Not a one of those things is a good enough reason to deny yourself happiness. Get out there and make it happen, man. You’ve got a good woman who’s been cheering you on from the beginning, and you’re bitter because you couldn’t do it by yourself? Well, that’s stupid.”