The Way of Women

by Lauraine Snelling

  “How’d you hear this?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Maybelle, you can be fired so fast you couldn’t get your desk cleaned out quick enough.”

  “So what, fire me and I’ll have you up on unjustified termination along with sexual harassment so fast your head will swim. Besides, I can retire any time I want, and if you badger me too much, I might want tomorrow.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “No.”

  He propped his head in his hands. “Maybelle …”

  “No, you need to know this. I heard someone say rehab or the road. Frank, they are coming after you.”

  “What grounds do they have? I’ve never shirked my job. I’ve never …”

  “You have been stopped for weaving …”

  “No ticket.”

  “Of course not. You’re the sheriff. Who would lay their job on the line by arresting or even ticketing you?” She stepped back. “Frank, you gotta get some help.”

  He half rose as if he were coming across the desk at her. “I can stop drinking any time I want.”

  “Prove it.” Nose to nose now, she lowered her voice. “You lost your family in the worst way, and now you lost a fine woman who’s loved you all her life. What more do you need to lose before you listen up?” She spun on her heel and marched out the door, leaving him slack-jawed and sucker-punched.

  If he ever needed help sobering up again, he knew who to go to.

  Fury helped. After calling her every name he could think of, he roared through the stack of forms to be signed, met with his officers, gave out assignments, and caught up with what had gone on with the mountain in the last two days. He dug out the résumés of the three people he’d narrowed out of a field of twenty for the open position of deputy and had Maybelle call them to set up appointments.

  By the end of the day everyone was tiptoeing to stay out of his way.

  Frank McKenzie was on a roll, and no one wanted to be rolled over.

  “So much for being Mr. Good Guy,” he muttered as he studied the revised roster. He’d used up most of the rest of his year’s budget on the mountain, and he had six months left to go. What would they do for funds? Another form to fill out.

  “I hate all this paperwork.” He slammed his pen down so hard it bounced and rolled off the front of his desk. “And I hate being a desk jockey.”

  He left at five. “Fools think they can tell me what to do. I want a drink, I’ll have a drink. But tonight I choose not to have one.”

  He didn’t stop at the restaurant for dinner, and he didn’t stop at the bar for a drink either. He headed on home all aglow in his “I can do it myself” pride.

  Until he entered the dark house where no one really lived, where he just existed. Dirty dishes in the sink, but not many, for he rarely ate at home, mouse droppings on the counter, dog food trailing across the floor. In his bedroom the shards of untold broken bottles glinted from their pile against the wall.

  “What a sorry mess I’ve made of things, Sig.” He slumped on the edge of the bed that missed more washings than he wanted to count and, propping his elbows on his knees, scrubbed at his hair with his fingers.

  “First Barbara and now Jenn. I don’t have too good a record with women. They up and leave me.”

  Sig sat beside him, leaning into his knee, as if offering what comfort he could by his presence.

  “This place is a pigsty.” He heaved himself to his feet, went for a broom, dustpan, and garbage can. Took him half an hour, but all the glass was cleaned up. He vacuumed the entire room just in case some got away. Sig could have cut his feet. I could have cut my feet. Where has my head been? He stripped the bed and threw the sheets in the washing machine. They aren’t going to tell me what to do. I can beat this by myself. Just watch me.

  He started on the kitchen, found a bottle half full of bourbon, and set it aside so he could wipe off the counter. Who do they think they are? Whoever they were. Leave it to Maybelle not to tell me who. Ha, I can figure it out. Bust my rear all these years and this is the thanks I get. Rehab or the road.

  He took one swig just to prove he could, finished the dishes, and looked in the fridge for something to eat. Nothing. The freezer? Several frozen dinners. Nothing looked appetizing.

  But the bottle. “Just like an elephant in the middle of the room. Don’t think about the elephant. What the …? One more drink isn’t going to make me or break me. No one will be any the wiser.”

  He took his cleaning spree into the living room, folded up all the papers, stacked the magazines, and hauled his dirty clothes out to the washing machine, while there tossing the washed sheets into the dryer. Sig followed him from room to room.

  When he sat down with a peanut-butter sandwich to watch the news, he took another swig. By ten he was sound asleep in the chair, bottle on the floor almost empty.

  Sometime later Sig barked and barked again until finally Frank heard and realized the doorbell was ringing and someone yelled his name.

  “Come on in.”

  “Door’s locked.”

  “Oh, for …!” He staggered slightly but shook himself alert. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Tanner, what are you doing here?”

  “There’s a possible domestic violence situation going on, and they’re calling for you.”

  “Oh, all right.” Frank turned and ricocheted off the wall.

  “No, Frank, not tonight.”

  “Just a minute, get my gear.”

  “You’re drunk, man. You can’t go out there.”

  Frank came out the door like he was going to pound the young deputy into the ground.

  Tanner sidestepped, and Frank kept on going. He crashed into the side of his Blazer and slumped to the ground.

  “Thank God I didn’t have to hit you.” Tanner climbed back in his vehicle and headed out.

  Sometime later Frank woke with his cheek in a patch of water. Sig lay beside him. “What in the …?” He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. “Wasn’t I sleeping in my chair? How’d I get out here?” His words mumbled together as he heaved himself to his feet and stumbled back into the house. This time he made it to his clean bed, shucked off his clothes, and fell back into the nightmares that always rode him.

  No one would look at him when he entered the office, only half an hour late. After six cups of coffee, he’d been able to shave without cutting himself, shower, and make sure no one had any indication that he had been drinking the night before.

  “Hey, Maybelle, what’s for today?” The look she gave him stopped him in his tracks. “All right, now what?”

  “You didn’t listen to your radio?”

  “When?”

  “Last night?”

  “No, I finally slept. There a law against the sheriff getting a decent night’s sleep?”

  “You don’t remember Tanner coming out to get you?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “He’s in the hospital. A domestic violence case where they were calling for you. He said you were sick and went on ahead. He got shot.”

  The way she said sick let him know she knew what he’d had. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Still in surgery.”

  “I swear to God, Maybelle, I—”

  “No, Frank. Don’t do any more swearing. Just get your life cleaned up before it’s too late.”

  Tanner took a bullet for me. If I’d been there I might have talked them down. He’s too inexperienced, and then he lied for me too. Dear God, what have I done?

  JUNE 5, 1980

  Hey, Miss Kitty, I brought you something.”

  “I not Kitty.” Lissa halfway opened her eyes.

  “Oh, guess I got these two mixed up.” Jenn held up a poster-size picture of Lissa with Kitty draped over her arm. “I’ll put this on the wall where you can see it.”

  “You look funny.”

  “You don’t like my new outfit? And here I thought I’d go buy you one just like it.” Jenn put on a wounded face.

 
; Lissa smiled, a slight crack in a face so pale it disappeared against the pillow in dim light.

  Wearing her full sterile garb, with every inch of her covered by scrubs, booties, gloves, hat, and mask, she pushed pins into the wall to hold up the poster that had been through the decontamination process too. Nothing could come into the room without being sterilized first. She glanced over her shoulder to the bed shrouded in clear plastic, a system called LAF, for Laminar Air Flow, which created a room within a room, to protect Lissa, who had no resistance to any kind of illness. With all the radiation and chemotherapy, Lissa had no white cells to combat anything. Please, God, make this treatment that’s killed all the cancer cells work so now the new, clean bone marrow can take over and rebuild her body.

  Smiling was not the easiest thing right now, when one look at the little girl made one want to burst out in tears.

  Lissa lay sleeping again.

  Jenn took out the book she’d sent through the disinfecting and went back to reading. The three of them were taking turns, sitting by the bedside, being there for Lissa when she woke up, praying for her when she slept.

  Each of her rest shifts, Jenn drew a couple of cartoons, and then Katheryn told stories using the cartoon of Miss Kitty and her adventures.

  “We might have to see about publishing these one day,” Katheryn had said. “At least I’m getting some writing done.”

  Jenn leaned back in the chair and thought about Katheryn. She was stuffing so much and either didn’t realize it or refused to acknowledge how much she hurt. Once the initial grief eased, she went about her business as if nothing were wrong. God, Father God, please help her. The not knowing is beyond comprehension. I know she feels they are gone, but hope flares, flickers, and dies. Please, God, do something.

  She watched the nurse check the machines and Lissa’s vitals.

  “She’s hanging in there. Doesn’t look strong enough to lift a glass, but she’s a fighter.”

  “I know.” Because watching her fight has changed my life, that’s for sure. All the time and energy I’ve wasted. Running away from my God who loves me. All the hours of watching a little girl battle for her life had given Jenn plenty of time to reevaluate her own and come to the right conclusion. Life without faith at the center was no life at all.

  “How do you do this, working with such terribly ill children?”

  “Some live, more now than before. So there is hope. Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Mommy?”

  “Mommy’s sleeping right now. You have to put up with me.”

  “I love Kitty.” Lissa gazed across the span to the poster. “I’m going to throw up.”

  Reaching through the portals, Jenn held the emesis pan, wiped Lissa’s mouth with a wet cloth, and patted her as she curled in a ball under the blankets.

  “My turn.” Katheryn entered the room. “Mellie is sleeping, so I left her with a note and came instead.”

  “No change. More vomiting. Nurse said she’s a fighter.”

  “Doesn’t look like it from here, does it?”

  Jenn got out of the chair and motioned for Katheryn to sit down.

  “How’re you doing?”

  Katheryn shrugged. “Susan came over for a while. She’s having a hard time talking about her father. Still pretty angry.”

  And you’re not? Jenn hoped the thought didn’t show on her face.

  “Hey, that’s some poster.”

  “Thanks. I was hoping it would get through quarantine before I had to leave.”

  “When do you go?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll wrap things up, get a mover, and be back in a week or so.” I hope. I’m certainly more needed here than there.

  “We’ll miss you.”

  “Thanks. I think when I come back I’ll find an apartment.”

  “There’s always room at my house.”

  “Thank you, Katheryn, but I’m realizing I’d better be thinking about the rest of my life. What I’m going to do.”

  “Why, you’re going to be a famous photojournalist with a specialty in Mount St. Helens, and you can live anywhere you want.”

  “You dreamer.” The only place I really want to live is with Frank, and that’s not a possibility.

  “Some of us have to have dreams come true so the rest of us can keep living.” Katheryn stared down at the sleeping child.

  “You have to let go, my friend.”

  Katheryn stared at her out of eyes so bleak that Jenn raised her hands to reach for her, but let them fall again when Katheryn took an invisible step back. Her withdrawal was so obvious that Jenn wanted to weep for her.

  “Of what? What more can I lose?”

  Your sanity? But this was not the time to preach. Jenn had learned that the hard way. “I’ll keep praying for you.”

  “You do that. Maybe God will listen to you. He seems to have a deaf ear where I’m concerned.” Katheryn sat down in the chair and turned to face the bed.

  Jenn understood a dismissal when she saw one. “I’ll bring Mellie back when she wakes up.”

  “Thanks.”

  Katheryn had invited them both to stay with her, since she was only a ten-minute drive from the Pill Hill, as the conclave of hospitals and medical offices located on Boren Street was called. Right across the street from Swedish Hospital and bounded on the south by Odea High School, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center was leading the investigation into bone marrow transplants to fight cancer, especially leukemia of many forms.

  Jenn read everything she could about the place and the people pioneering there. Indeed, Lissa being there was another one of God’s miracles. She glanced up at the concrete portico as she left the building. And I who such a short time ago was no longer sure I even believed in God, I am now recognizing miracles in action. Surely that makes me one too. Lord, get me in and out of New York quickly.

  That night as she sank into a first-class seat on the red-eye to New York, her mind did another of its one-eighties, and she could see a younger Frank, clear as if he stood right in front of her. His grin made her heart smile. Another miracle needed, Please Father, for Jesus’s sake, turn Frank’s life around.

  JUNE 6, 1980

  Oh, dear God, let him live.” Frank knew he’d not been a praying man for too many years, but if anyone deserved to be prayed for, Deputy Lucas Tanner did. He lay hooked up to every machine known to medical science, and he still looked like he could die at any second. He had yet to regain consciousness.

  Lord, he stood in my place. Because I was too drunk to do anyone any good, he went. And look what happened. The knowledge that his own skills in dealing with violent and half-crazed people might have prevented an officer down and a man in the morgue ate at him like a hyena on a kill.

  “Tanner, son, you shouldn’t have gone.” This bright young man who dreamed of a career in local law enforcement and was doing everything right had been a special protégé of Frank’s. Frank rubbed his jaw. He had a feeling the bruise on it came from a certain young man’s fist.

  And then you lied to save my hide. And unless you or I tell them differently, I still have my badge and what reputation I have left.

  He took Tanner’s hand. “You get better, you hear. No malingering. You can beat this.” He squeezed the flaccid hand, all the while ignoring the tears dripping off his chin. Not a flicker of an eye or a hint of a smile.

  But—the barest squeeze of a hand. Tanner could hear.

  “Lucas, thanks to you I’m on my way to check into rehab. You saved that woman’s life, and you saved mine. See you when you get out of here and I get out of there. Then you can tell me what really went on last night.”

  Another faint squeeze.

  Frank squeezed back, long and hard. “God bless.” After sucking in and releasing a deep breath, he saluted the man in the bed and left the room, blowing his nose as he went.

  That night, lying in a strange bed in a place he’d dreaded to the depths of his fear, he couldn’t get Tan
ner out of his mind. He stood in my place. By his deliberate choice. And he might die. Christ stood in my place by His deliberate choice. And He died. For me. For me. Oh, God, He died for me. He clenched his teeth and jaw against the scream that threatened to choke him.

  The scream escaped as a whimper. Is everything too late? My job? My life? Jenn? He tried to rise but fell back on his bed, arms flung wide. Is it too late?

  Frank McKenzie aspired to the principle that one should keep one’s dirty laundry within the borders of one’s own family, and since he was the only remaining family member, that didn’t leave many knowing the family secrets.

  The rehab counselor had other ideas.

  “And then?”

  Frank crossed his arms over his chest, to keep from exploding or from hitting the man, he wasn’t sure which. “I filed my report.” What do you think I did? I’m a cop. I filed my report and I …

  When the silence drew too long and made his feet twitch, Frank narrowed his eyes. “And I tried to nail him to the wall, but the court let him off, sent him to a psychiatric hospital where he can watch television and play games and perhaps do a little watercolor. To calm his demons, you know.”

  “I see. Let’s go back to the night you found your wife and son.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Murdered by that psycho that drew Sig and me up on the mountain to search for a lost child.”

  “Yes. Did you find the child?”

  “No, it was a false alarm.” Frank left the chair as if on fire and stared out the window, his body rigid, locked so tight breath could hardly enter.

  “Tell me what you saw when you entered the room.”

  “They were dead.”

  “In bed?”

  “No.”

  “How did they die?”

  “They were just dead.”

  “How did he kill them?”

  “I don’t remember.” Fist clenched, he slammed it on the arm of the chair.

  “What did you see when you first walked in?”

  “A hand.” He paused. “My son’s hand—on the table.” He fought the memory, writhing and flexing.

  “Nooo!” His scream ripped the air and flayed the walls. “He dismembered them. They were lying in pieces all around the living room. My son’s hand lay on the table with a note stuffed in it. Blood, blood everywhere.” He sank to the floor and curled in the corner. “Oh my God, blood and body pieces everywhere.” His sobs pooled around him, reflecting the pain that poured from his body.