John smirked and nodded dumbly without taking his eyes off of her. “Water’s nice.” Then, as if on cue from Cicada, and quite in unison, the host of unseen green tree frogs all around them burst into song like a choir.
“Yeah, quiet,” John snorted.
Staring into one another’s eyes for a heartbeat the couple gave in to the little joke.
“Oh, Lord,” Cicada chortled softly. “Lord, Lord, Lord.”
John was relieved to see her relax and pressed the moment. “Why you keep repeatin’ his name? What, don’t you think he’s gonna hear ya over all this quiet?”
Cicada slapped his thigh playfully. When she leaned in John moved to kiss her but she stopped him. As quickly as the tension had been severed, it was restored.
“John, we need to talk.”
“Talk? Christ, ya sound like my—” He cut himself short, struck dumb by what he’d almost said. Still, it was more than enough.
“Yeah.”
“Cicada,” he began to plead, but couldn’t find his footing to go on. They were quiet then for what seemed like a long time to John. Up on the bridge a lone set of headlights suddenly appeared and the couple watched nervously as the orbs grew closer. John clenched a bit as he thought the vehicle began to slow with its approach. When the headlights kept to the road and the dark machine passed to disappear off into the night, John was sure he heard Cicada release a held breath.
“Cicada….” he said, speaking her name again, but this time really considering it for once. You know, I don’t think you ever tol’ me how you got your name.” She turned her eyes from the river to meet his gaze again. “Don’t get me wrong,” he rushed to explain, “I think it’s real pretty. The prettiest. Just different, ya know?”
“My daddy gave it to me,” she said, staring back out over the water.
“Really? Well, that, that’s….” he fumbled.
“When I was real little he used to tell me how I was conceived on a summer night when he and my mama were so poor they couldn’t afford a radio or phonograph. All they had was the music of the cicada to be together by. Daddy said the cicada song was their song, and that made me their Cicada.”
“That’s nice.”
“He left us after Mama died.”
John didn’t know what to say. He considered something about how unexpected death takes its toll on people in different ways. Considered it, but held his tongue.
“Sometimes, when I wasn’t busy being angry with him for leaving us like that, I’d play a make-believe game where daddy had come home and I was keeping the house now like mama.
“My brother Ben cured me of that though. You know how?”
John shook his head.
“He told me Daddy was dead. He told me he was dead and he wouldn’t ever be coming home.”
Even if her voice hadn’t betrayed her as it broke there, and even if there was only the moonlight in the dark of the wood by the river, John still knew she’d begun to cry. She ignored it, but John could just make out the tear that stole down the rise of her cheek.
“I called him a liar, of course. A goddamned liar. I slapped his face hard as I could and I called him a liar. Told him he wasn’t my brother no more.”
“He was only trying to help…you know,” John whispered.
If she heard him, she made no acknowledgement.
“After the third night I hadn’t spoken to him, Ben left me something under my pillow. Something I’d rather I’d never gotten. I guess I asked for all the same though. That’s the way life is. You press in on it, and press in on it, and before too long it just might give you what you’re asking for…especially if it turns out to be something you’d rather not have once you got it. Damn fairy tale or something.” The hard look Cicada gave John as she paused to wipe the drying streak from her face was the most anger he’d ever seen in her. “It was my daddy’s suicide note.”
“Suicide?”
“Daddy was dead. Just like Ben tried to tell me. Dead and he wasn’t ever coming home.”
Dumbstruck, John had to look away. He couldn’t meet her accusatory gaze. “I’m sorry,” he offered. It was small and insignificant and so he tried again. “I’m…well, I’ve been in some dark places myself. Went there…after my brother died. He was killed when we were just teens. Killed on a hunting trip.”
“Killed? How? By who?” Cicada asked, and when John looked away she was quick to add, “Oh, John, you didn’t….”
“No. No, not like that. I didn’t kill my….” But he couldn’t finish the lie. “Never meant to…just an accident. A stupid Goddamned accident.”
“John, honey, I am so sorry.”
“No, it’s alright. Yeah, thanks.”
The frogs had pitched into a frenzied calling such that John’s last words were all but lost among them. When he turned to her again he could see what was coming before she spoke. He would do anything to stay her, he was willing, but he knew there was nothing in his power to make it so.
“John,” she said finally, “I can’t…we can’t see one another anymore.”
…
Buckshot didn’t think it was from the old wound that had scarred the secret goldfish like a shotgun blast, but something was certainly doing-in his pet, Vitamin D.
The boy hovered over the Maxwell House coffee can and once more used the tip of his index finger to lightly propel the torpid creature in little circles through the water. Every now and then the fish would offer a feeble thrust, but even that effort only caused Vitamin D to go onto its side, or worse, momentarily white underbelly up.
Perplexed, Buckshot used his forearm to clear the welling tears from his eyes and sprinkled a few more flakes of food into the can. He couldn’t be certain whether Vitamin D was gasping for breath or was pleading for food, but other than the aforementioned pushes with his finger, it was all the boy could think to do. Of course he also thought to call the pet store and ask Mrs. Humble for her advice on the matter. There was no way, however, that he could have such a conversation without revealing his secret to his mother and father. Perhaps in the morning, if Vitamin D made it through the night, then Buckshot could pedal into town and talk to the pet store owner face to face.
“Hang in there, Vitamin D…jes’ hang in there,” he pleaded. He gingerly pushed the can back onto the shelf, careful not to slosh the water. He couldn’t bear to watch the struggling fish any longer, and, besides, his mother was bound to pop her head in at any moment to be certain he was in bed as he should be. He didn’t want to be caught still up, and he certainly didn’t want her to notice his crying. It was going to be a long night.
Buckshot was still kneeling at the side of his bed in the dark, deeply engaged in the longest, rambling, but most heartfelt prayer of his life, when he heard the sound of his father’s truck pulling up in the drive. It was nearly a quarter past eleven.
The front door was open wide and the light from the foyer bled through the screen door across the porch. John didn’t bother to lighten his step as he’d become accustomed to doing of late. He trudged up onto the porch, burdened but now unburdened, happy enough to be home. It was the first he’d felt that way in weeks. He suddenly realized as much and the first hints of a stupid look of contentment began to creep across his face as he reached for the handle of the screen door. Just then, the foyer light blinked out. Before he could even consider that unexpected turn, the front door slammed shut and the all too audible click of the bolt being thrown caused him to grimace.
Frances knew she was being a bit childish. She knew it and reveled in the fact that John was no doubt thinking exactly just that. Good, she thought, let’s both be children. She closed the window beside the front door and pulled the little drape closed to leave John completely in the dark.
Several thoughts competed in his mind for something to say, but none was victorious, and so John remained tongue-tied as the sounds of Frances’s receding footfalls disappeared within the darkened house. A few moments later he heard the backdoor slam shut. He c
ouldn’t hear it, but he was sure that door was locked as well.
John wasn’t used to unlocking the front door, especially without the porch light, and so it took him several tries to find the right key and get the door open. The dog came up from the dark and watched him inquisitively while he did, but he paid the animal no mind. Once inside, he quietly closed the door, but left it unlocked—as was the norm—and removed his boots. The hall was gloomy, with only the light from the kitchen at its opposite end offering any illumination. Although he could neither see nor hear her, he knew he would find Frances there. John considered simply going upstairs and going to bed even though he knew she was waiting for him in the kitchen and spoiling for a confrontation. He might as well give her what she meant to have. He began the long walk down the hall in his padded feet feeling something like a man condemned.
John discovered his wife where she sat with her back to him at the kitchen table.
“You got this place locked down pretty tight, don’tcha, warden?”
He made a gesture to touch her shoulder from behind, only to take it back. Instead, he moved past her and retrieved a glass from the cupboard. “Wanna glass of milk?” he asked, still having not looked her in the eyes. His voice sounded just as affected as he imagined it must—singsong and nothing like his usual weary baritone—as he continued foolishly trying to pretend away the tension between them. When she didn’t answer, he shrugged; an unconvincing actor playing a role out of his depth.
He poured and downed a full glass of cold milk in one long pull. Normally he would have left the dirty glass in the sink, or worse, on the counter. In this rare instance, however, he rinsed it out and put it on the drying rack. John made a stupid smile as he did, as though the simple effort proved him to be a man worthy of praise; a big boy who had done things for himself. Frances sat quietly all the while, ignoring him.
“Whelp, gotta hit the hay,” he conceded, wiping his damp hands on his shirttails. He leaned in to kiss Frances goodnight on her forehead and that was when she slapped him. Hard.
From upstairs, even through his closed bedroom door, Buckshot heard the smack and lifted his head from the pillow. Even if it hadn’t gotten his attention, the shout that followed from his father certainly would have.
“Damn, Franny!”
Still she said nothing.
“Jesus….” He muttered and stepped back to lean against the counter. Her eyes finally fell on him then. She stared him down as he dared to look at her doggedly, hoping to inspire her pity. There was none. John folded beneath her disdain and turned away to the sink. He ran the cold water, splashing it on his face and making a great fuss over the bright red welt growing across his cheek.
On the floorboards above John, Buckshot’s bare feet slid into the pair of house slippers at the foot of his bed.
Frances rose as well, removing the letter she’d found days before in John’s sock drawer. She’d thought of so many things to say since then, wasted so much of herself over worthless words. But now she was spent, too tired to be bothered with the matter any longer even with it finally at hand. There were no pithy comments to make. She had no need to crumple and throw the letter in his face as she’d considered so often of late while washing his clothes, making his meals, waiting alone in his bed. Instead, she took the pages from her apron, letting her thumb and forefinger run along the sharp crease one last time. She placed the pages lightly on the table with a soft tap of her worn fingernail and walked quietly out of the room.
“Living with ghosts,” John mused to himself. He stared dumbly at the letter on the table ignorant to the fact that it was his long-forgotten suicide note.
Chapter Twenty-one
Frances thought she hadn’t fallen asleep, but she had, although there was little discernible change in her mental state in either case. Her troubled mind had remained muddied with thoughts of John while she’d laid awake as well as after she’d slipped off into the eddies of a labored slumber. Regardless, she didn’t get a chance to sink away any deeper—perhaps to find a little peace—since the sound of John driving off in his truck pulled her up from those few minutes of escape.
That it wasn’t near dawn, and that John was heading off into the night yet again, wasn’t comprehended immediately. Once it was, however, Frances’s sluggishness was washed away in a surging tide of anger.
“Goddamn him!”
She threw the sweat sticky bed sheet off and stormed to the window to watch the taillights winking their goodbyes as the truck began its disappearing act, dissolving into a wake of ghostly dust and swallowing night. Then its headlights suddenly showed on the distant blacktop as the truck turned there and roared off to the north. Within seconds it was gone.
“That tears it.”
She threw on one of John’s undershirts and went out to the hall closet and began violently yanking free a pair of suitcases buried beneath boxes of Christmas ornaments and old folded quilts. Her head began to swim, caught up in the strong odor of mothballs permeating the otherwise stale air.
“Timothy! Timothy, get up. Get dressed!” she yelled over her shoulder and down the hall to her son’s bedroom door.
In the moment she looked away, one of the larger cardboard boxes slipped from its precarious balancing act above her and came down sharply onto her shoulder.
“Sonuvabitch!” she yelped, and then, “Timothy!”
She threw the fallen box past her into the hall in a crash and tinkle of delicate glass that would never adorn the family tree again.
By the time she’d finally freed the suitcases Frances was short of breath, and the thick sheen of sweat all along her exposed body had captured a gross amount of the swirling dust from the air. On any other occasion she would have done what crossed her mind next and taken a shower to cool off, calm down, and be rid of the filth clinging to her. Not this time. She meant to be gone. In fact, she was angry that she’d stayed on as long as she had.
Fool, she scolded herself silently as she padded down the hall to wake her son. How he’d not gotten up to see what all the fuss was about struck her just as she swung his door open.
“Buckshot, honey?” she called quietly now, flipping the light switch.
Whatever made her son think stuffing his pillows under his covers would trick her was just as misguided to her as John’s way of thinking.
“They don’t fall too far from the tree, after all, do they?”
Frances stood over Timothy’s empty bed for a moment, ineffectively trying to blow her sweat-matted bangs from her forehead, the hands crossed over her breasts seemingly welded there. She proved they weren’t, however, when she threw them up in surrender and walked back down the hall to her bedroom. On second thought, she’d have that shower. And then, she also decided, the very instant Buckshot snuck back up from wherever mischief had led him, she’d have the two of them all ready to go.
…
And so were John’s thoughts tangled and troubled as well. For the first half of his drive he struggled like a man stacking sandbags against the rising river of his failing marriage. But with every consideration he felt as though he could no longer keep up with the sandbags flying through the air to his waiting arms. Instead they pummeled him in the chest, slapping the air from his lungs, or caught him at the knees, time and again buckling him to the ground. More and more the troubles piled at his feet instead of finding their way onto the wall he meant to build to hold everything in…everything together. Finally, he conceded, the river would win. There was no easy solution, not even a hard solution. As far as he could fathom it, there was no solution at all.
He couldn’t confess his adultery. His wife would most certainly leave him. And not only did he not want that—since he still loved his Franny—but she’d most certainly take their son with her, and that would never do. At the same time, he couldn’t continue this deception. It was tearing his wife apart, turning her against him, and wearing him thin until he felt like one of the old burlap sandbags being tossed about, splitting at t
he seams and worn through; everything inside him slowly leaking away, too ineffective to do the job.
As he put his home behind him—both literally and figuratively—John began to fret over what awaited ahead. He was going at this late hour to see Cicada. He meant to persuade her to change her mind and keep him. Just how he might do that he’d no idea, but somehow he would restore things to how they had been. He knew this was misguided; like the man who steals sandbags from the foundation of the dike to build its walls higher. It was only a matter of course before the whole affair tumbled down around him and the flood waters washed him away. Still, he pressed on.
Even had the hour not been so late, and the night not a weeknight, the road probably still would have been just as deserted. Melby was a small town, after all. And where John was headed—to that lonely corner of the county where those new black families had thought to tuck themselves away from the world—that was a road to nowhere as far as most were concerned, little more than a thin seam of winding, cracked and dilapidated blacktop for the drunken insomniacs to kill time on between slugs from the bottle and fumbling searches back and forth across a mostly barren AM radio landscape. Just another lap on their nightly circuitous pilgrimage to no destination other than oblivion. Occasionally alongside their road a little white wooden cross might spring up, accompanied by batches of flowers and perhaps a few personal items—a hat, a keychain, or worn cowboy boots, or such—meager and temporary testimonials to mark where one of those souls had permanently concluded their journey, or worse, someone else’s.
Cicada was out on the porch, and John was rightly surprised when his headlights found her there. She waved off the blinding intrusion with one hand and partially shielded her eyes with the other. It didn’t help matters that John accidentally sounded the truck’s horn as he fumbled to park, hurrying to kill the headlights, and cut the ignition all at once. It was as though he was a nervous school boy afraid to be caught come calling.
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