by Jeff Abbott
A huddle of pint-sized literati swarmed around my knees as I worked my way across the room. I’m convinced the large number of children in Mirabeau is a direct result of the town’s limited entertainment options. People really should read more.
“I did a doodie,” a diaper-clad individual of undetermined gender informed me. The speaker straddled my shoe while making this announcement.
I moved my foot back. “How nice.” I smiled encouragingly. “Go tell Aunt Gretchen. I’m sure she’ll be interested.”
The child tottered off, its balance suddenly at risk. Lord give me strength. I honestly didn’t expect the day could go further south. Until, that is, Trey Slocum wheeled himself into my library and I felt the cold hardness of hate enter my heart.
2
When I was a senior at rice university, I went to a friend’s Halloween party. His family was a large, rambunctious Louisiana clan and they’d gone all out, festooning the house with goblins and ghouls and sticky, fake cobwebs. They provided an open bar and a couple of fortune-tellers. My friend’s great-aunt was one of the holiday seers, a drunken old woman who in hindsight was pathetic but at the time seemed terribly amusing. We all must’ve been drunk not to pity her. She was laying out ta-rot cards between generous gulps of red wine, and as she tossed a card toward me it spun flat across the table, whirling a hanged man’s picture. I flicked at the card’s corner, snickering, and made it twirl back across the smooth cherrywood tabletop. The old lady’s hand had lashed out, catching my wrist in a death grip.
“Don’t you laugh at fortune, little boy, and don’t you make it spin,” she hissed at me, the smell of cheap grape heavy on her breath. “Fortune always spins back around in good time. There’s no need for you to jostle the wheel.”
I quieted at this unexpected pronouncement, and my date pulled me away from the table to dance to the latest Depeche Mode song. I’d never forgotten what that drunken lady had said to me, though.
God, did Fortune spin around.
Before Trey came in, I was helping two new patrons: an attractive but rough-looking woman in her midthirties, and an intense young man, around thirteen. Judging by her hearty, ruddy complexion and weathered hands, the woman apparently spent a lot of time outdoors. She had brown hair that would have been beautiful if she’d just left it alone; instead she’d teased and moussed the front of it so hard it resembled a rabbit’s frizzy tail. I’d noticed her eyes, too-chocolate-brown ones, clear and intelligent. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but when you live in a town where some of the same families have lived for generations, you aren’t surprised by nagging thoughts that you may have met someone before.
“You ain’t the librarian,” she politely said after telling me her son wanted to get a card. Her eyes appraised me frankly and she had a crooked, sexy smile. “You don’t got gray hair and a gingham dress.”
“Not today. I only wear the gingham on Wednesdays.” I pulled out a blank form for her and the boy to fill out. “I’m Jordan Poteet.”
“Well, hello. I’m Nola Kinnard, and this is my son, Scott,” the woman answered. Her son was around my nephew Mark’s age, a plain-looking, brown-haired boy with a shy demeanor, a pug nose, and clear hazel eyes. He mumbled a quiet hello and offered his hand after his mother gently elbowed him, giving me a curt handshake.
While Scott puzzled over the form Nola Kinnard chatted about how much she enjoyed being back in Mirabeau. I glanced away from her and that was when I saw Trey Slocum, in a wheelchair, easing himself through the front door.
My whole body iced, held cold for a minute, then began a quick thaw as shock and anger heated me. Shock that he was in a wheelchair and anger that he was even in town.
He didn’t see me at first; he was examining the posters I’d made to advertise the kids’ Christmas-break reading program. Nola Kinnard still prattled at her son; her voice sounded as far away as though she were on the other side of the river. Slowly, I turned to her and said, “I’m sorry. What?” My own voice, usually a little raspy, was hardly more than a croak.
“How many books can he check out? Scott’s had to go quite a spell without reading and he wants to catch up.”
“I like the Dune books.” Scott spoke up finally for himself. His voice stood on the edgy brink of change. “I only got through the first couple before we left Beaumont and I-”
I’m sure there was more, and if I’d been in my normal mind I would have gladly listened. Finding a teenager who enjoys reading is gold in my book. But my eyes left Scott and Nola and went back to Trey, whose gloved hands were poised above the wheels of his chair. He was staring at me, stock-still in his own shock.
Nola Kinnard glanced to where I was looking and said, “Oh, honey, I thought you were going to wait in the car.” She narrowed her eyes at me, appalled at my rude ogling at a crippled man. She didn’t have a clue.
“Honey?” I heard myself repeating her words, and my voice sounded as dulled as an old knife. “You know that man?”
She looked startled at my tone. “Well, sure. Do you know Trey?”
“Jordy, my God.” Trey pulled up his chair across the floor and stopped a few feet short of me. He looked much the same as the last time I saw him, six years ago: cham-bray shirt, glossy black hair under a cowboy hat, twilight-dark eyes, fancy boots, a mustache and beard. But the patch of chest underneath the open V of the shirt looked wasted, the legs in the boots seemed atrophied under the jeans, and the skin behind the beard shone sallow. He smiled thinly at me. “My God, what are you doing here, Jordy? I didn’t know you were back in town-”
I found my voice. “Hello, Trey.” I made myself look at his face and not the wheelchair.
“Well, how nice!” Nola perked up. “Are you old friends?”
“We were, once,” I answered before Trey could-I wanted the record straight. My hands gripped the edge of the counter. “Trey used to be my brother-in-law. I take it you’re with him?”
Nola looked confused. “Yes, I’m with Trey… your brother-in-law?”
“Jordy, maybe you and I should step outside and talk.” Trey’s voice was low.
I raised an eyebrow. Oh, God help me, I wanted to beat the crap out of this man. Even if it was in front of a woman and boy he’d taken as his own. I sensed a presence near my elbow: Gretchen. I heard the faint drone of Miss Ludey reading “Rumpelstiltskin” to the children. “And no one knows my name!” she said in a guttural voice tinged with evil. Then Gretchen broke through the stony tension.
“Jordy, is there a problem?” Gretehen’s interference I didn’t need right now.
“No, Gretchen, there’s not. Thank you, though, for asking.” I stepped around the counter and the Kinnards, glaring down at Trey. My hands closed around the handles of Trey’s wheelchair and I steered it toward the door. “Gretchen, would you please get Scott his card? And if you’d be kind enough to show him where the science-fiction books are-he’s a Frank Herbert fan.”
“Trey?” Nola’s voice trembled, not sounding nearly as confident as before.
“It’s all right, Nola. I’ll be back in a minute. I need to talk to Jordy in private.” I didn’t give him another chance to talk; I began pushing the chair rapidly toward the doors. For one awful moment I thought of shoving him through the glass, possibly one of the meanest fantasies I’d ever had, and I swallowed at the cruelty of it. Instead, of course, I opened the doors, left them propped open, and wheeled Trey outside. I shut the doors behind me. When I turned back, Trey had moved over to a stone bench in the shade of an ancient live oak.
The cooling wind that hinted at a coming blue norther chilled me as I crossed my arms and sat on the bench. The clouded sky was the color of old pewter. The scent of approaching rain and thunder rode the air, smelling like pennies stuck too long in a pocket. I didn’t speak, waiting for two elderly ladies to navigate their careworn way past us, smiling a greeting, and go into the library.
I turned to Trey. He stared into my face and lit a cigarette, shielding the flame
from the November breeze. He didn’t look like his lungs could inhale half a puff.
“I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you it was good to see you, Plum,” he said softly.
“Don’t you call me that,” I snapped. My grandparents had nicknamed me Plum when I was young, and Sister still reverted to it when she was feeling particularly tender toward me. Trey’d used it on me when he’d married Sister, first to tease me, but then out of real affection. Or so I had thought. A sour taste was in my mouth and I wanted to spit.
“Sorry. I guess I’m more glad to see you than you are to see me.” He blew smoke out, away from me. I watched it dissipate.
“Why are you back, Trey? I thought you were never going to come back to Mirabeau.”
“God, Jordy, ain’t it obvious?” He gestured at his legs, at the cold chrome of the chair. “I got hurt. Bull messed me up good. I can’t ride no more. Can’t walk.”
I knew I should commiserate with him. I knew it, but I couldn’t. He’d done his share of hurting the Poteets and I wasn’t in a forgiving frame of mind.
“Are you moving back? With those two?” I pointed to the library. Through the glass I could see Nola Kinnard anxiously watching us. She saw me see her and she moved away. “Who are they supposed to be, Trey? Sister and Mark’s stunt doubles? Or just another passing fancy?”
“I know you’re mad at me. Why don’t you just punch me out and be done with it, Jordy?” Trey said through gritted teeth.
“I’m not going to hit you.” I didn’t eliminate shoving the chair into traffic, though. I rested my face in my hands, my fingers sore from clenching. I’d never felt such acrid, burning anger. I wanted to slap the cigarette out of his mouth. God, this couldn’t be happening. I looked up at him; he looked miserable. “I take it you have not seen your ex-wife and son?”
“We only struck town yesterday morning.”
“So Arlene doesn’t even know you’re here?” My voice rose.
“No, she don’t. I thought I’d call her later today-”
“Call her? You’ll do no such thing!” I grabbed the chair and stuck my face close to his. “You have made her suffer enough, Trey. You aren’t going to hurt her or Mark anymore.”
“I don’t want to hurt Arlene-”
“You don’t? How do you think she and Mark are going to feel when they see you gallivanting around town with your shiny new family? Did that ever occur to you?”
His hands clenched over my wrists. “What are you doing back in town, anyway? You get fired from your highfalutin job up North?”
“No!” I snapped back. “I came back here because my mother’s dying of Alzheimer’s.” His face crumpled; he’d always liked Mama. That didn’t earn any mercy from me. “Of course, you couldn’t know that since you haven’t bothered to stay in touch. Since you abandoned my sister, you asshole, she needed my help.” I took a long, calming breath. “There’s this thing called family, Trey. It matters. You make sacrifices because your family needs you. Because you love them. I know that’s a foreign concept to you, but-”
“I don’t need a lecture from you!” he yelled. “I don’t need you judging me! Look at me! Don’t you think I’ve paid enough for my mistakes?” His voice cracked.
I stepped back. “Is that your ploy? Is that what you’re planning to use on my sister and my nephew? Oh, let’s feel bad for Trey-he got hurt off playing cowboy. Well, I felt sorry for you long before you ever got stomped by a bull. You had the best woman and the best boy in the world, and you gave them up for a bunch of dumb animals. I hope it was worth it, you moron.”
“Are you done?” Trey asked, his voice cutting cold like the wind.
“Yes, I am.”
“Fine. I’m glad you’ve gotten your usual tantrum out of your system, Jordan.” He lowered his voice. “You don’t know the facts. I may have left Arlene, but I never abandoned her. I sent her money every month for Mark-”
“Don’t lie!” I shouted, but he ignored me.
“-and I left town for my own reasons, which, contrary to what you think, had nothing to do with Arlene and Mark.”
“I don’t care. Just keep your distance. Better yet, why don’t you leave town again?”
“Because Nola’s got family here. Her uncle’s Dwight Kinnard. He used to work with my daddy, and he’s offered to put us up for a while.”
“I can believe you were stupid enough to leave Arlene. I can’t believe you’re rotten enough to come back. Steer clear of my family, Trey.” I couldn’t resist twisting the knife. “You know, she did get over you. She’s dating Junebug now, and he’s our police chief. Maybe they’ll even get married. She’s got a real man this time.”
He looked away quickly, but not before I saw the pain in his eyes. He didn’t offer a reply, so I turned and went back into the library. I felt vaguely ill. Letting him have it hadn’t made me feel better.
Nola and Scott stood by the front counter, watching us. Scott held a stack of books, clutching them protectively to his chest. Gretchen hovered between the Kinnards and the checkout counter.
Nola grabbed my arm with a strong hand. “What did you say to him, you asshole? How can you be cruel to a man who’s suffered like he has?”
“Cruel, lady?” I pulled my arm free. “That man invented the word. But maybe he’ll treat you and your boy better than he did my sister and her child. I hope so.” Nola gave me a hard stare and shoved the door open. Scott, glaring at me, suddenly threw his stack of novels at me; they scattered at my feet.
“You can’t say anything bad about Trey!” Scott yelled. “He’s a good man, better than you are!” That boy believed in Trey; desperation tinged his words. The anger seeped out of me.
“I’d have given anything if he was better than me, son,” I said. “It would have saved folks I love a lot of grief.”
Nola pulled Scott out the door, ignoring his tossed books. I watched her bend over Trey, hugging him, while Scott grasped the handles of the chair and maneuvered it to a decrepit blue Ford Escort. They loaded Trey in, Nola lifting his legs for him and tucking them in the car. I turned away and stalked back to my office, ignoring the character voices that Miss Ludey provided for the children. There’d been a momentary pause in the narrative when Scott had screamed at me, but Miss Ludey was, if anything, a trooper.
“Jordy, are you okay? Do you need-” Gretchen tried.
“No. Just leave me alone.” I slammed my office door behind me and spent the next hour staring at my desk, “Candace is going to drive me to drink,” Sister announced. She had come home around four and flopped down on the couch, her Sit-a-Spell T-shirt begrimed with sweat. “I got to go back there in a minute and do up the dinner fixings. The short-order cook Candace hired from that greasy spoon in Bavary don’t know his butt from a hole in the ground.”
I’m sure she’d anticipated a few quiet minutes at home. She seemed surprised to see me, but Gretchen had offered to cover for me. I’d never left Gretchen in charge of the library before, and I might be lucky if she didn’t frame me for stealing the coffee money while I was gone, but I couldn’t worry about her. Not with this terrible errand on my mind.
God, this was going to be hard. I sat down next to her, slipped her sneakers and socks off, and began to give her one of my patented foot rubs. (The secret is rubbing deep between the toes.)
“Gee, what brotherly concern,” Sister teased. “Oh, that does feel good. You must want me to keep Candace busy while you tomcat around town.”
“Not hardly,” I said, leaning back against the couch. I’d already checked-Mark was upstairs, studying geography. No time like the present.
“What’s Mama doing?” Sister demanded.
“Taking a nap.”
“I hope she’s not up again all night. I don’t need her bayin’ at the moon on top of everything else.” Sister pushed her other foot into my lap. “Don’t rub just one, Jordy, I got to use both of them dogs all day.”
I kneaded the bottoms of Sister’s foot, examining he
r sole intently. “I got some news, upsetting news. But you got to know, and you got to decide how to tell Mark.” I stopped rubbing and looked at Sister. “Trey is back in town. He came into the library today.”
Dead silence. Sister pulled her foot from my ministering hands. Her face looked carved-not a muscle moved. She finally pursed her lips and swallowed. Her mouth crinkled like she’d downed a dollop of poison. “That’s not funny, Jordan.”
“It’s not meant to be, Arlene.”
With my invocation of her first name, she knew it was true. She bit her lip, as though clamping down on words she didn’t want escaping.
“He got hurt in the rodeo. He’s in a wheelchair now.”
“Dad-Dad is here? And in a wheelchair?”
I froze. Mark stood halfway down the stairs; he must’ve been on his way down for a snack. I glanced at Sister; she wasn’t looking at me. I’d figured she’d tell Mark, not me. But there was no backing out now.
Having just seen his father, I was newly shocked at the resemblance between Trey and Mark. Where Sister and I are fair, Mark’s got his father’s jet-black hair and dark complexion. There was much of Trey in his face: the set of bones that made him look cagey and clever, the insouciant walk Trey had at Mark’s age, the tough hands with stubby fingers. Today he was resplendent in his latest fashion statement: a faded R.E.M. T-shirt I’d bought in Boston, black jeans, and red Converse sneakers. (Mark had recently renounced cowboy-style clothing; Sister prayed this was a temporary phase.) At least today he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap backward, a trend that for some reason irritates me. He came down the rest of the stairs and stood before us. He stared at his mother, and she stared back at him. Finally she turned to me.
“What did he say?” Sister found her voice. She’d pulled her feet up under her, and her posture reminded me unpleasantly of a fetal position.