Turning Point

by Deborah Busby

  Chapter Four

  I knew exactly where I was headed as I wound my way along the well-worn path that led through the businesses and down to the beach. Years ago, one of my mother's last wishes was to have her ashes scattered in the sand of Ecola State Park. The beach inside the park itself is the main attraction in Cannon Beach, and it’s what draws endless visitors to our small town each year.

  But for my mother, there was kinship with the ocean. Any time she needed to think or just get away for a few minutes, the beach was where she went. She knew every inch of that strand as though it were a part of her, and when she knew that she was dying, she told me the beach is where she wanted to be. Forever.

  Mom told me that whenever I needed to talk to her or feel her presence, all I had to do was take a walk on her beach.

  Over the years, whenever I was upset, I always headed there, and today was no exception. This was the one place that I knew I could let my guard down, and let the emotions spill out of me.

  I was furious with my sister. Leave it to Hannah, one of the most oblivious people on the planet, to have her annual moment of lucidity at my expense. How could she say those things to me? She could be infuriating! Especially when she was right.

  Angry or not, I couldn't ignore the truth in her warning. Derek was going to be livid if I hired Landon on full-time. Hell, he’d be upset if he found out that Landon even helped out today. How would he feel if I brought the boy on permanently? Landon was just a kid. He had no concept of the rattlesnake's nest he’d stumbled upon when he wandered in the door of Turning Point looking for a job.

  Hannah had questioned my motives for even considering hiring him and even though I had been unwilling to answer her, I couldn't help but wonder the same thing. Why hadn't I just let Landon keep walking yesterday? I could have simply closed the store early. What was I thinking?

  As I walked down the steps fashioned out of old railroad ties, I kicked off my shoes and my feet sank into the sand. The deafening sound of the waves drowned out my fears, and I turned south, toward Haystack Rock.

  To me, the rock looked like one giant, enchanted boob coming out of the ocean. Over the years, I got used to it looking odd, jutting out of the ocean, and shooting straight up. I had to admit, boob-like or not, it was beautiful, covered in moss and bushes, the mist of the ocean hanging at its base.

  I wound my way down the beach, getting close enough to the water that when the waves rolled in, the water just barely covered the tops of my feet and soaked into the cuff of my pants.

  Derek still on my mind, I remembered the first time I saw him since our high school years as though it were yesterday.

  Mom had been gone for almost four years when he meandered into Turning Point one afternoon, looking for an atlas. He was going on a construction job near Bend, in central Oregon, and needed to know how to get there. I knew who he was the moment that I saw him, standing there, just inside the door of my mom's store.

  He didn't recognize me at all.

  When he told me what he was looking for, I was puzzled, not only because Derek hadn't set foot inside of the store in all the years it had been open, but also because usually all of my scenic Oregon books with maps were sold to tourists. Locals didn't need them unless they were buying a gift for someone who lived out of state.

  “You know, you could just Google it. This is the digital age,” I joked.

  "Nice sales pitch,” he said sarcastically. “Well, I like maps that I can lay out on the hood of my truck and draw all over. I haven’t figured out how to draw on a Google map yet.

  "Okay. We’ll we have those kinds of maps. They’re right over here, Derek."

  "Have we met?" His eyes narrowed, and he leaned closer as if he didn’t recognize me. I still remember a glassiness to his eyes. I didn’t know it at the time, but now I know him well enough to realize he’d certainly been drinking. By that time, he was always drinking.

  When I didn’t respond to his question right away, he followed up, "I mean, how’d you know my name?"

  "Yes, we've met," I told him, laughing softly.

  "When?” He studied me, obviously confused.

  "We went to school together," I answered him.

  "High school?"

  "Yes...and Junior High...and grade school. We’ve been in the same class since Kindergarten."

  "No way!” He genuinely seemed shocked. "What's your name?"

  I was suddenly embarrassed that he didn’t even know me. We’d been sharing the same classrooms and teachers since we were children, and yet, to him, I was a nobody. I crossed and uncrossed my arms uncomfortably.

  "Belle Clark."

  He paused for only a moment before he faked a look of recognition and said, "Oh yeah! I remember now. How’ve you been?"

  The truth was he didn't remember me and I knew it. I realized there wasn't much to remember. In school we barely even spoke, except when he teased me.

  And there was that one time, in eighth grade, where he wanted to cheat off my paper during a math test.

  The present conversation, a dozen years after graduation, was the most he had ever spoken to me in a single episode. Derek and I made uncomfortable small talk as I sold him a map, and then said a polite goodbye. I truly thought that was the end of it.

  But he called the next day and asked me out for a drink.

  We didn't have much to talk about at drinks either. Everyone he remembered from our school years was no more than mere acquaintances of mine, and all of my friends were most certainly not his. We did our best to find topics to discuss and did a fantastic job of skirting the issue of our senior year, and how everything ended up for him.

  By the time he proposed, Derek and I had been dating for three months — if you could call it a proposal — or dating. We were out to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Seaside when, halfway through our salads, he looked across the table and said, "Marry me."

  It wasn't a question; it was more of a command.

  "What?" I asked, not believing I heard him correctly.

  "Marry me," he repeated.

  I took a minute and considered him, searching his eyes for some bit of emotion, and finding none. I waited for an expression of love but didn't get one. He simply sat there and waited for an answer.

  I opened my mouth to ask him why he wanted to marry me. I meant to tell him that I needed to take some time and think about it….

  But when the words came out, all I said was a quiet, "Okay."

  That night, in the cab of his pickup truck, we had sex for the first time. It wasn't romantic or loving, as it should have been between two people who had just committed to spending their lives together. It was almost as if we needed to get it over with. We had decided to get married and sex was a logical part of that. Two weeks later, a local justice of the peace, in a private ceremony that no one attended, married us.

  Looking back, I can't say that my husband ever truly loved me, and, although the feeling was mutual, I tried to make a life with him. Derek, for his part, put in no effort at all. He never once uttered the phrase, “I love you”. He never behaved like a man who loved his wife.

  The sad reality was, other than an occasional roll in the hay, the need for a daily cook, and a maid, my husband didn't care about me or want me around.

  As ironic as it was, his jealousy was a major issue in our marriage. It was almost as though he simply expected me to walk away from him and never look back. Even though he didn't want to be with me, Derek would never allow me to leave.

  “If you ever try to leave, you’ll regret it.” was his favorite phrase whenever he realized that I’d had enough. And my patience with him was growing thinner than ever in recent years. When he said that I’d regret it, I knew what he really meant — that he’d rather see me dead than leave him. I suppose it should have scared me, and at first, it did, but sometimes now, I thought that death would be a welcome relief to the hell I was living.

  And while I was quite certain that Landon didn't think of me in tha
t way, on the off-chance someone did show the slightest bit of interest and Derek got wind of it, there would be hell to pay. It didn't matter that he didn't want me; no one else was allowed to want me either.

  One time, a few years ago, Derek and I had been sitting in a restaurant having a nice, quiet dinner. The waiter was being overly friendly to both of us, refilling our drinks before they were empty, bringing us extra bread, spending more time than was normal to explain the menu, and just generally giving us extra attention. Most likely, the poor guy was simply hoping for a good tip, but I made the mistake of smiling just a little bit too long.

  I didn't mean anything by it.

  He was just being so nice, and I wanted to let him know that I was grateful.

  Derek didn't see it like that. After the waiter had walked away, my husband kicked me so hard under the table that I heard my shinbone crack.

  "Derek, what was that for? What's the matter?" I cried out in pain. I looked around at the nearby tables to make sure no one had seen what happened, but they were all empty. A recurrent nightmare: having an audience to my humiliation.

  "You know exactly what that was for! That son-of-a-bitch was flirting like hell with you, right in front of me! I don’t know why…look at you. You’re ugly and disgusting." He shouted with venom in his voice. "And of course you just sat there eating it up like a whore!"

  "He was not flirting with me! He's a waiter, for god’s sake. He's paid to be nice!"

  "Whatever, if I wasn't sitting here, he’d already be in your pants. He probably wants to do you right in front of me on this table. That asshole better stop flirting with you if he knows what's good for him."

  "I'm going to use the bathroom while you take a moment to calm down and come back to reality."

  I stood up to limp toward the back of the restaurant, but when I turned, I saw the waiter standing right around the corner. He was out of sight but clearly within earshot of my recent conversation with my husband.

  It was obvious by the look on his face that he had heard everything Derek said.

  He didn't look angry; he gave me a sympathetic smile. I might have felt better if he had been pissed off. I hated it when people felt sorry for me.

  Either way, when I got back to the table, our waiter had mysteriously gone on his dinner break and been replaced by an older woman.

  That was the story of my life — everyone got to walk away — everyone except me.

  I never truly understood why Derek wanted to marry me. From the moment that we said “I do”, it seemed as though my husband was angry with me for reasons that remained a complete mystery. If I had made him so angry, then why did he even marry me? I made the mistake of asking the impertinent question during a particularly nasty fight only a few weeks into our marriage.

  "You were the only thing that was left!" He spat out at me. There was a particular emphasis on the word thing.

  Tears burned my eyes. I did not answer him.

  The devastating revelation came at the end of what seemed to me to be a silly argument. It started out ordinary enough: I’d made the mistake of washing his favorite t-shirt with his work shirts.

  Yet, he slapped me for it.

  It was the first time he ever hit me — quick and hard, right across the face. My punishment for ruining his shirt.

  I planned to leave him that night. I packed a bag and walked out to my car while he sat in the living room watching a game on the television. Before I could get to the car, Derek was racing out to the driveway.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I turned to face him and let the bag drop to the ground next to me. “Derek, you said it yourself…I was the only thing that was left. You don’t want to be married to me.”

  “Come back inside, Fanny.”

  “No.” At my defiant answer, Derek grabbed me by the arm, his fingers pushing into my flesh and my own fingers started to tingle from lack of circulation. “Stop, Derek. You’re hurting me.”

  He dropped my arm and held up his hands. “Fine. Go. See if anyone else out there wants you.”

  “This isn’t about being with anyone else. You just hit me.”

  “I slapped you. I didn’t hit you. Don’t be stupid. We’ve only been married a few weeks. We’re just getting used to living together, that’s all.”

  He reached up and brushed his thumb across my red cheek. My skin burned.

  I considered his words. They weren’t an apology. If he had said he was sorry, I probably would have accepted it and gone back inside without question.

  Derek let out a sigh and gave me the closest thing to an apology that, to this day, I was ever going to get to one. “Belle, you make things…better. Please don’t leave.”

  “Don’t slap me again.” I said, resigned.

  “Okay.” Derek nodded, reached down, and picked up my bag. I followed him back into the house.

  I thought about that night many times over the years. That was my one opportunity to get out before it got too bad. Before he slapped me a second time, and then punched me in the stomach, only one week later. Before he told me, again, that I was the only person who believed he was redeemable — and I believed him — again. Before he started telling me that I was worthless and stupid and disgusting.

  That night was the first step down a path that changed who I was on a fundamental level. He undermined my self-confidence at every turn. He promised to take my mom’s bookstore away. He threatened my life and controlled me, both physically and emotionally. Derek Walters became my captor.

  Yes, that first slap shocked me, embarrassed me, but it was his words that truly, deeply hurt me. I was the only thing left — there had been no one else to marry, so he settled for me. I was the consolation prize after a lifetime of disappointments.

  Derek's life, as he knew it, ended during his senior year in high school. Cannon Beach was too small to have its own high school, so it bussed its students up to Seaside, about eight miles north of town. He’d been the quarterback of the Seaside High football team and the shining star of our little town.

  I remember being in awe of him — everyone was. It was more than the basic fact he was positively gorgeous; it was how he carried himself. Derek could walk into a room, and every head turned to watch him, every ear listened to what he might say. Everywhere I went, the conversations were all about, ‘Derek this’, or ‘Derek that’. I had often wondered what it would have felt like to be so universally adored.

  College scouts sat in the stands at almost every football game during our senior year. They all wanted him to play for their team, and college ball was simply a springboard to a more promising career in the NFL. Everyone looked at Derek as the golden boy. He was going to be the one who put Cannon Beach on the map.

  Derek, in the end, did make headlines.

  He put Cannon Beach center stage…but for an entirely different reason. Everyone assumed that day, when the news media showed up, they were there to tell the rags to riches story of a quarterback from a small town football team who was going to follow his dreams all the way to the National Football League.

  Instead, they came for the tragedy and the heartache he caused the night before.

  The story began with Homecoming. I’d stayed home from the dance because no boy had asked me. Bookworms and wallflowers usually didn't get dates to school dances. I didn't date a whole lot in high school anyway and I wasn't terribly interested in the drunken parties our school's activities usually turned into either — Homecoming included.

  Even though I wasn’t there, I still knew every detail of what happened. That night was small-town gossip fodder, the details of the lengthy public trial published in the local newspaper for everyone to learn in gory detail.

  The football team had defeated the Newport Cubs twenty-one to seven. Cannon Beach and Seaside were alive in celebration. Derek went to the Homecoming Dance at the high school gym with Jenny Travis, the captain of the cheerleading squad and his girlfriend

  After making a brief
appearance at the dance, everyone who was anyone wound up on the beach drinking and partying. Derek and Jenny decided to head back to a secluded overlook along the beach where lots of teenagers went to be alone.

  The Pacific Coast Highway is famous for being a scenic, winding, narrow road, and unfortunately, the only route to get home from Seaside.

  As they were driving, Derek and Jenny bickered over which radio station they were going to listen to, and Derek, being careless, veered into the other lane for only a matter of seconds, but the alcohol in his system slowed his reaction time.

  In court, he stated by the time he looked up, it was too late to avoid the oncoming headlights. The vehicles crashed head on.

  The police records showed Derek’s blood alcohol level had reached point 21, almost three times the legal limit.

  As he recounted the details for the judge, he said that when he regained consciousness in the hospital, a nurse told him that he was the only survivor of the horrific accident. Jenny had been ejected from his car. She died instantly. The passengers in the other vehicle, a mother, and her two daughters — ages ten and twelve — also died.

  Derek had been charged with four counts of vehicular manslaughter, to which he pleaded guilty. He spent six months in jail and was released two days before I graduated from high school. He, on the other hand, never went back to get his diploma, and he never went on to college.

  In addition to his jail time, Derek received five years' probation, was ordered to complete alcohol treatment counseling, and sentenced to so many hours of community service that it took him almost three years to complete it all. The year that he was out of jail, part of his community service was to speak at a Seaside High School assembly, where younger brothers and sisters of his former classmates snickered, and yelled out comments further humiliating him. Derek’s legacy at the high school created more of a distraction than a benefit. After that, he mostly spoke to Alcoholic Anonymous groups and at Mothers Against Drunk Drivers events.

  Either way, to have his sins on display like that was humiliating for him.