Wild Raspberries

by Connie Chappell

Lucius supposed she thought he’d be fooled into thinking her statement was merely a conversation starter when, in truth, he fully expected her to nibble away here and there—now that Beebe was outside—until she consumed his knowledge of the past.

  “I knew him as Jack,” he said sparingly.

  “His mother called him John. I always did, too. Mother Sebring is gone, but John’s stepmother lives on.” Arnett pulled a face as if the death of the one and the life of the other were atrocities in their own right.

  “I knew Jack from the country club. Not that I was a member.” He pressed splayed fingers to his chest. “But I’ve done work there over the years.”

  “But now you live here?”

  “Nearly two years. Before that, I was back and forth on specialized carpentry jobs. Willie Thorne, my beloved,” he added, just to watch her cringe, “is still back in Cassel. Do you know him? He’s brilliant. A financial consultant.”

  “No, I don’t believe I do.”

  “Too bad. He is a genuine hunk. A beautiful man.” Just talking about him gave Lucius a shiver that visibly traveled from head to toes and back again. “This is what’s great about being gay and talking with women: We have the love for beautiful men in common.” Arnett’s silence spoke volumes, which Lucius immediately challenged. “Oh come on, admit it. You may be a grandmother, but you like beautiful men. If you and your girlfriends were doing lunch and you saw Willie, you’d drop your salad forks, clatter, clatter, clatter, right to the floor. It’s true. People stare when they see Willie.”

  Her reaction was a nervous smile.

  “No, you’re right. You’re the kind of woman who needs to see for herself. And that’s all planned. Willie will be here next weekend. We’re having a dinner party for all of you at our place Friday. My beloved,” he said, sighing hopelessly, “knows everything about everything.”

  “Sounds like John.”

  “Yes, I got that from him.”

  Rocking forward, she studied him. “Did you like John?”

  “Honestly—and I know this is honesty week, so you can count on me for that—I found Jack an acquired taste. One had to learn to appreciate the bouquet, the body, the slight tartness on your tongue.”

  First, her face went blank, then she grinned broadly.

  “And every once in a while, one got a bad bottle with Jack.”

  She laughed outright at that. “No one here understands my side.”

  “Oh, I think they do. They’ve just gotten a bad bottle of Arnett recently. You need to re-label yourself. Sweeten the bouquet. Give them what they want.” Lucius offered straightforward advice, just as he offered Callie that first night. No betrayal of Callie was intended, nor did he think Callie would perceive any. Lucius, like Callie, chose to rally around young Chad Sebring.

  “It’s complicated,” Arnett said without a thread of further explanation.

  He narrowed suspicious eyes just as Arnett projected her wariness of him. She still did not believe Lucius understood Jack possessed a shady side. Once at the club during a renovation, when Callie thought he wouldn’t hear, Lucius witnessed a fearless Callie correct a headstrong Jack, his uncompromising attitude, his discriminatory word choice. Callie did so on Lucius’s behalf. The thing was, Jack stayed corrected. Lucius gave him credit for that. Callie’s stern rebuke reprogrammed Jack as surely as if an updated memory chip had been implanted. Callie and Jack had that effect on each other, one could wend a better quality into the other.

  It was Arnett Sebring, though, in whom Lucius needed to implant some updated programming.

  “What are you holding back from Lucius?” His elbow was pinned to Heatherwood’s kitchen table, his head propped in his hand. He watched Arnett stubbornly turn away. “You’re a proud woman, Arnett Sebring, and a strong one. Come here.”

  He pushed back his chair, then helped Arnett with hers. She balked when she realized he was steering her toward the quilt and photographs on the entryway table. Lucius took a second or two to admire Callie’s workmanship, but knew better than to articulate his admiration.

  A wand-less magician, he waved his hand over the three photographs. “This is Chad’s life, Arnett. Grandpa is gone.” He turned Jack’s photo down. “Daddy is gone.” Dan’s photo followed Jack’s. “That leaves Chad and a quilt. How sad. You’re needed here. Accept the quilt. Step in, lift up Chad and the quilt together.”

  Her eyes were trained on Chad’s photo. “I could,” she said finally. “I could bow, and bend, and kiss her feet, and still she could take him away. I deserve that child. I deserve him in Maryland, not Florida.” She scraped a fingernail over a patchwork square of denim. “And I call this the surrender quilt. That’s how I’ve come to think of it.”

  Arnett walked away. Lucius allowed his twitching brow to arch. He must try harder to pry her secrets loose. He righted the two photos and rejoined her at the table.

  “Thank you for the coffeecake. It was very good. Callie should have been here, though. After all, this is her home.”

  “Oh, pooh Callie. I’ve been happy to have your company. Here, let me help.” Between the two of them, they carried the dishes to the counter.

  She scowled. “No dishwasher.”

  “Not necessary. You’ve got me.” His emphasis on the last three words brought her eyes around to his, the dark night meeting a brilliant dawn. In that dawn, he believed she saw that he welded a long-range truth to his pronouncement.

  She reached for the nearby dish towel. “What do your parents think about your…”

  “Sexual orientation.” He supplied the politically correct term. “It was hard for them. Willie’s family’s different. He has two gay uncles. His mother raised five sons. She said she knew Willie was different by the time he was two. It makes a difference, you know. Ready acceptance.”

  “Do you see your parents?”

  “Some.”

  “They live in Cassel?”

  “Not anymore. My brother died, and they moved to Florida.”

  Arnett’s head snapped his way, disbelief alive on her face. He made a cross-my-heart gesture. “Honest, ma’am.”

  From the corner of his eye, he spotted the radio pushed against the countertop’s splash board, its antenna raised to the window above the sink. He let the warm water pool in the white ceramic basin and toggled the radio on. “Hmm, let’s see what we can pull in.”

  “The radio seems to be the most modern amenity. No cable and no phone,” Arnett complained. “Are we just too far back in the woods?”

  “My cabin has a landline. It is possible. Heatherwood just doesn’t. Some of the other cabin owners around here have added them, but only in the last year or two, like mine. Next door.” He pointed up the hill. “I’m sure that cabin does. The O’Malleys live there.” He adjusted the tuning dial on the old General Electric. “I’m a music connoisseur. Did you know that? I have thousands of albums, cassettes, and CDs.” Straightening, he touched index finger to chin. “I will find the perfect song for you. From that point forward, it will be known as Arnett’s Song.”

  With a minor adjustment, the radio picked up the tag end of a newscast. He added a squirt of dish liquid to the sink and grabbed the waiting sponge. He dunked his hands into the soapy water just as the radio DJ did Lucius’s job for him, and quite superbly.

  Hit the Road, Jack was piped out of the oldies station.

  Openmouthed, Lucius and Arnett stared at each other. Arnett chirped a gleeful, “Ha!” and gave Lucius a light whack on the arm. She twirled herself onto a makeshift dance floor, crooning out the chorus.

  The amazing coincidence kept Lucius trained on Arnett’s high-stepping performance. At the appropriate cues, she pointed t
oward the road out front, then followed up by shaking her finger in a wildly discouraging fashion. Almost too late, Lucius worried about Callie. He craned his neck around to peer through the screen. Was Callie within earshot?

  “You’re dripping suds!” Arnett pointed out, now marching an invisible Jack in the direction of the porch.

  A short time later, after Arnett’s Song concluded, the dishes were stacked in the cabinet, and he ran a thick pile of paper towels through a wet spot on the floor, Sarah called his name at the screen door. Arnett followed him out. Sarah and Lucius chatted briefly about two odd jobs needed at cabins up the mountain. Callie hurried forward from the dock with a request. She asked to borrow a chainsaw to clear out underbrush along the far side of the cabin.

  “Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart. Why don’t I stop back in a few days and clear the brush for you?” A horror film starring four women and titled Chainsaw Massacre at Heatherwood flashed through his mind.

  Sarah spoke. “Have a good day, ladies. Either Nadia or I will be down every day to see that you have what you need.” She touched Lucius’s arm. “You following me?”

  “Buh-bye, my lovelies. Lucius is in great demand.” He blew a kiss, but one of the women slipped away. “Buh-bye, Callie, wherever you are.”

  . . .

  Callie was inside at the kitchen counter. The next voice she heard was Beebe’s.

  “Well, girls, shall we reconvene?”

  She hurried across the great room and out the hot tub door, carrying a cork-lined serving tray loaded with four tumblers and a pitcher of lemonade. She allowed the door to bang closed. That unspoken-but-audible message was sent and received. There was a lull while the leather soles belonging to her three roomers no longer crossed planked wood. Her heart quickened. She stepped out from the shorter porch stub and found their questioning faces. Given the situation, she wouldn’t necessarily have served a beverage, but the lemonade was made, and she needed something to occupy her hands. The loaded tray was more a barrier between her and the others than a hospitable offering.

  “Beebe,” Callie said, “can we sit over here? I’ve got my thoughts together. I really need to talk.” Her voice was thankfully clear and steady.

  Inquisitive looks passed between them, then Beebe led the way, prepared to overlook a serious breach of caucus protocol.

  Beebe, Arnett, and Lizbeth settled themselves in the three available chairs set around the rectangular table pushed against the cabin wall shared by the hot tub. A wicker rocker waited a few steps away, but Callie thought standing was better, giving herself room to move.

  Earlier, when Sarah and Lucius said their good-byes, Callie was struck with inspiration. Last night, Lucius said she really wanted to talk about Jack and—in Lucius’s words—their wild and daring relationship. He said the three seated women were just the ones to hear it. Out on the dock, Lizbeth strummed the curiosity chord. She said that anyone who heard only part of her tale would naturally want to learn the rest. So when inspiration reared, Callie held on. She didn’t want to pack for home, regretting that she had not bravely told her story. Jack and she were robbed of a happy and much longer future together. Instead, it was shortened by sickness and death. She would not be robbed again.

  She stood before the women, arms at her side. Her thumbs rubbed the tips of her fingers. The idea of openly revealing insight into her romance with Jack was more foreign than she could describe. They spent a lifetime keeping watch over that very secret.

  Arnett held the nearest chair. To keep her eyes on Callie, she turned her chair around, its back to the table. Callie couldn’t bring herself to concentrate on her pinched face and accusatory eyes. Callie imagined that same expression lined her face the first time Arnett phoned for harassment’s sake. It seemed unbelievably foreign to Callie to hear her refer to her husband as John. What did it say? Callie asked herself that day. It clearly said Arnett was not a welded link to her husband’s world, not the world that found him genuinely likeable and was asked to call him Jack.

  Callie gave her attention to Lizbeth, seated on her left. “Something you said out by the river got me thinking. The long and the short of it is this: Until Jack came into my life, I struggled with my ability to feel that I loved another person. I never truly knew love until Jack.” Her gaze drifted to Beebe, so attentive. “I thought something was wrong with me. But I did love Jack for twenty-two years. What was more amazing was—” her speech stumbled as she looked for words, “was, I guess, his capacity to love. I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else like I love him.”

  A certain strength rose with that declaration. She was able to face Arnett, who radiated barely controlled hatred that only tempered slightly with Callie’s confession. “And, yes, I did think about you, and how that betrayal would feel, should you ever find out about us. What I did was wrong, but it was too late. I loved him. I couldn’t give him up. I was willing to accept the conditions that needed to exist to keep us together. In many respects, that’s why it worked.” Her eyes left Arnett’s. They scanned Beebe’s face, then Lizbeth’s. “You have to appreciate a commitment that didn’t require a certificate to force two people to stay together. We built a life. We had memories.”

  Callie paused for what sounded like a stray comment. “People and marriages are indeed a tricky business. In my opinion, it’s a shame to waste a lifetime in an unhappy marriage. I wonder if sometimes brides don’t put guns to their grooms’ heads and force them to marry.”

  The speculation Callie recklessly assigned to generic brides and grooms was one Callie knew actually applied to Jack and Arnett. Arnett realized it instantly. She opened her mouth to respond. Beebe, innocent of the undercurrent between them, tapped her fingernails on the table and Arnett into begrudging silence. This time, caucus rules prevailed. Callie thought Arnett savvy enough, though, not to confess her guilt to witnesses.

  Lizbeth moved a filled tumbler closer to Arnett. “Try the lemonade. It’s good.”

  While Lizbeth attempted to distract Arnett, Callie dragged the wicker rocker over to the railing. She remained stationary since she began, causing nervousness to settle into every one of her leg muscles. They groaned for relief. In the close quarters of the porch, she pulled the rocker up for an unobstructed view of Beebe, diagonally across the table, and realized the disadvantage: She sat within striking distance of Arnett on her right. It felt like Callie was cozying up to a jaguar. A penance, she supposed, due and payable.

  She folded her hands in her lap and called on her sportswoman’s confidence. Eye contact with the woman she wronged was unavoidable. “I admit I was disappointed when Jack let things ride. The boys were grown when we met. Later, after they married, I thought he’d decide to divorce you. He loved his sons. I know he didn’t want to put them through a divorce. And let’s face it, there’d be hell to pay.”

  Arnett fairly glowed. The hellish payment made reference to her, and she was not offended in the slightest.

  “I told myself I accepted the terms of our relationship. It didn’t seem fair to change them later. And what if I tried and lost him? This was the first relationship I had that meant something. He was the man I wanted. Bottom line: I never asked Jack to get a divorce.” Callie’s head swiveled to Lizbeth, answering the question she posed on the deck. “Everything worked the way it was. I didn’t want us to be destroyed.” Her gaze rounded the table from Lizbeth to Beebe to become fixed again on Arnett. “After a while, I stopped having thoughts about your feelings. We had the two sides of our relationship. When we traveled, we didn’t need to be so cautious.” Callie’s eyes automatically drifted to the cabin as a prime example.

  “You were afraid.” Arnett leveled her point-blank charge at Callie, dodging Beebe’s caucus rules. Her three-word summary transmitted her disrespect: She no longer considered Callie a worthy adv
ersary.

  Callie put up a hand, deflecting Beebe’s belated interruption and met Arnett’s indigo pupils. “Yes. I was afraid. I didn’t want to upset things. Above all, I wanted our relationship to continue.”

  “Me, being his wife, got in the way of that.”

  Callie nodded, feeling strangely calm. “As it turned out, there was nothing to be afraid of. We weathered the storm and the disease. The way we were here, when each day seemed like make-believe, that was our life. It was real. It would have lasted. We would have made it. We both realized that. After Jack moved in, he asked me if I wanted him to get a divorce. He told me he would if that’s what I wanted. In truth, I didn’t care about a divorce. I had Jack with me.” Her voice broke on his name. “He had enough on his plate already.”

  How quickly grief and loss took hold. Avoiding faces, she looked from point to point: wall, window, hot tub, roofline, finally closing her eyes. In the darkness behind her lids, she touched her longing for Jack. In her lap, her little finger crooked.

  “Callie? Are you finished?” Beebe’s tentative words edged through.

  She wasn’t finished. Not yet. She opened her eyes and found Beebe watching, all of them watching. Beebe’s hands were clasped together at her lips.

  “Just a few minutes more,” Callie said. She pulled in a breath and aligned her thoughts. “After Jack moved in, after the diagnosis, he spoke of so many things close to his heart. That was a whole new side of him I never experienced. We were sitting out back one morning, and he talked about the hurt he caused. The day before, he sat with the boys. He told them none of the blame should be placed on me. It was all his fault. He loved me. He made them understand that.”

  Suddenly, Callie’s memory of that day put a smile on her lips. “Then Jack wandered out to some fantastical realm, wondering if despite our age difference and if he hadn’t married, would we still have met. It turned out, the answer was yes. We had met. When I was four.”