by Penny Reid
The pleading had begun three sessions ago. I’d broken down and cried in her office. I’d cried and cried. It was the first time I’d cried since childhood.
We’d been discussing my brother, Quinn. I hadn’t hugged him in years, since before our oldest brother’s funeral. Since I’d started lying to him all the time. Liar defined me more than any other word.
I missed him.
I missed both my brothers.
And I missed my parents.
And I wanted to hold my nephew.
And I want to hug my sister-in-law and thank her for loving my brother so fiercely.
But I didn’t deserve any of them, not after what I’d done.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
My chest ached at the thought.
Since my crying session, I’d felt off-balance, sensitive. I’d been feeling too much. Part of me wondered if it was a side effect of the medication. Dr. West said I’d had a breakthrough. I didn’t feel confident in her explanation.
“This is about keeping Quinn from your parents, correct?” Dr. West flipped to the back of her notes. “After your older brother died?” Nine words. Five words.
“Yes.”
“When your mother called you and asked you to reach out to Quinn. But then you . . . were afraid he would leave you in Chicago.” Thirteen words. Eleven words.
My stomach hurt at the memory so I folded my arms over my abdomen. “Yes. I didn’t want Quinn to go back to Boston. I didn’t want to be alone again.”
“You told her that he did . . . not want to have anything to do with them. With your parents.” Fifteen words. Three words.
You don’t deserve them. They deserve better. So much, so much, so much better.
I winced, my heart and mind racing, and I lowered my gaze to her shirt. It was blue. But not aqua, not navy, not royal.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Your shirt, what color blue is that?”
“Shelly, please focus. I know discussing this situation—what happened to your family after your older brother died and the decisions you made—is very difficult for you. But the time is going to come when you’ll have to tell the truth and distracting yourself won’t be an option. You need to take responsibility for lying to Quinn. And your parents.” Three words. Twenty-five words. Twenty-one words. Nine words. Three words.
I nodded, forcing myself to focus and confront my anxiety. “I want to apologize, make things right.”
“Then you will.” She sounded so sure.
And I was having trouble breathing. “He’ll hate me.”
“He might, and yet you still have to take responsibility for your actions.” Thirteen words.
“I promise,” I gave her my eyes, “I haven’t lied to you.”
“I know, Shelly.” Her expression was patient.
“And I haven’t lied to anyone in over a year.”
“But you’ve been avoiding your brother Quinn for two years, and your sister-in-law for months.”
I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “I’m almost ready. I just need a little more time. I need to be better.”
Dr. West considered me, then continued speaking in her measured pace. “Your disorder, it has grown. We will diminish its hold on you. But this will take patience. Last year was the first time you have tried to overcome your OCD. The first time you have sought treatment in your entire life. There’s still a lot of work to be done. But I know you can do it.” Five words. Seven words. Five words. Thirteen words. Eleven words. Nine words. Seven words.
Her soft brown eyes moved over me, searching. “I don’t want to bring this up again if it’ll upset you, but the option still remains to check yourself into a facility. We could then address your touch aversion in a safe setting where you’ll be monitored.”
“No.” A stabbing fear shot through me, hitting my chest like a thunderbolt, and I struggled to keep my voice even.
“It would be intense, but I still believe it’s the safest and most efficient way—”
“Where I’ll be forced to touch strangers? Where they can touch me? No.” I shook my head vehemently.
“Your compulsions limit what can be done in the office setting. Without supervision, the ERP plan we’ve designed, when you’re ready, may not—”
“Then I’ll work harder on my own.” Determination firmed my voice.
My therapist pressed her lips together and nodded grimly, jotting something down in her notes. “Are you writing in your journal, Shelly?”
“Yes.” Thinking about my journal made my hands relax.
Dr. West had discouraged the keeping of a diary. Rather early on in our sessions, when I still lived in Illinois and we spoke over Skype, she’d asked me to keep a journal where I listed three things I was thankful for every day. She said it would help with my feelings of anxiety. She’d been right.
“Good. And you’re meditating?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. How is work? I mean, how are you feeling about the statues?”
“I’ve cast the copper structures. I am missing some of the silver. I have orders coming in next week.” I studied my therapist as I began to relax, and I wondered if she brought up my art because she actually wanted to know, or because she knew it would calm me.
“One of your worries about taking medication was that you would lose your ability to be creative. Are you experiencing any difficulty?”
I took a moment to reflect on her question. Had I lost my creative energy? “I don’t know. I did the sketches before I started on the fluoxetine. Now I’m following those plans. I’m more focused than I’ve been in the past, less distracted, so I’m ahead of schedule. But as to whether my creativity has been inhibited by the medication, I suppose I won’t know until I receive a new commission.”
“Okay, fair enough.” She wrote something down in her notes. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss today?”
I want to talk about Beau again.
I bit my tongue, struggling against the impulse.
I wanted her to help me stop thinking about him. I wanted to stop noticing how kind he was, how thoughtful, how generous. I hated how easily he’d been able to apologize to me last week, and how sincere he’d been. I believed him when he said he was sorry. I also wanted to discuss how he looked at me, like he actually saw me. Even when I frustrated him, I felt like he still saw me.
That’s not possible. He didn’t know me, not at all. If he knew you, he would run in the other direction.
But still, I wanted to pick apart every detail of every conversation we’d ever had.
Therefore, I tried for a smile, and said, “Nothing more today.”
I wasn’t in Tennessee to think about Beau Winston. I was in Tennessee to make myself better, so I could return to Chicago and be the person my brother, Janie, Desmond, and my parents deserved.
Hopefully, by my session next week, these obsessive thoughts about Beau Winston would be a distant memory.
5
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
― Stephen Hawking
* * *
*Beau*
Cletus being right about Shelly’s skills didn’t negate the fact that I was also right. She was bad for business.
“What are you going to do when I leave in November?” Duane had stopped me as we left church, a week and a half after Shelly Sullivan’s rude treatment of Mr. McClure. I’d been avoiding the woman since.
Saying nothing to her had been easy. She hardly ever spoke to me or anyone. When she did speak to me, it was always to ask where something was located. Yet, despite her silence, I never forgot she was there.
When I chewed the fat with customers, when my brothers stopped by, when I listened to music while I worked, I felt her watching me. Just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, every once in a while I’d glance up and catch her looking, that glare of hers sending me off kilter for two beats of my heart. The woman made no attempt to disguise her scrutiny.
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Her presence rankled like a sand burr in my boxers.
“What can I do?” I shrugged, well beyond exasperated. “Cletus won’t listen to me, says I’m biased. Meanwhile, she’s glaring at babies.”
Ms. Julianne MacIntyre had brought her two grandkids along to pick up her car. Shelly had taken one look at the children—the baby in particular—and darted in the opposite direction. And the baby wasn’t cranky, smelly, or ugly either. He was darn cute.
“I tried talking to Cletus last week.” Duane scratched his beard.
“I know.”
Cletus had instructed Duane to put his concerns in the suggestion box. Of note, Cletus had labeled the shredder in the upstairs office suggestion box a year ago when Duane had suggested half days on Fridays.
“What about hiring a front office person?” Duane lowered the volume of his voice. “Maybe Cletus’ll concede to that, and that would keep folks out of the garage. We could say it’s a safety issue.”
After witnessing Shelly’s treatment of a few customers, Duane had grown as concerned as I was. His worry eased some of my unrest. But at the same time, it irritated me. He was about to go on his grand adventure; the shop wasn’t really his priority anymore.
No. This problem was mine to solve.
And it was a big problem. Every time a customer walked into the garage, I had to stop what I was doing and sprint to the front. If folks encountered our new mechanic, they left in a tizzy, swearing to never return.
Shelly didn’t shake hands with anyone. That’s a big no-no in our part of the world, especially when a handshake is offered. She seemed incapable of small talk. If she didn’t offend a person, she creeped them out. And when she did talk, it was to make an insulting—albeit totally valid—comment.
When Devron Stokes came by to pick up his Chevy, she told the man he didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission and that’s why his blew out prematurely. She suggested he take driving lessons or ride a bike.
He was not amused.
Shelly had managed to rebuild his transmission by engineering and casting replacement parts on her own, saving the man a boatload of money, and us a ton of time.
See what I mean?
Talented.
We’d all been super impressed. If she hadn’t been mean, I might’ve asked her to teach me. But she was mean. Thus, I didn’t ask.
Case in point, when Mrs. Simmons brought her car in with a note from her husband with just “710” written on it, Shelly turned it upside down, pointed to the scrawled handwriting, and said, “It says oil, not 710.”
In this case, it wasn’t what Shelly said that was the problem, it was how she said it.
When Mrs. Simmons—who happened to be Darlene’s momma—responded with, “Watch your tone, missy. I’ve a mind to teach your smart mouth a thing or two.”
Shelly’s glare sharpened. Clearly she didn’t like Mrs. Simmons’s tone either, and her response made the older woman turn bright red. “You planning on teaching me how to speak idiot?”
Not helping matters, Duane unsuccessfully stifled a laugh at these words, drawing Mrs. Simmons’s ire. Duane never laughed.
Since Cletus wouldn’t do anything about the woman, Duane and I had worked out a system to keep Shelly hidden from view. That meant one of us were present in the shop at all times, just to be sure, and productivity had suffered.
Scratching my neck, I glanced at Cletus. He was across the church lot, chatting with Judge Payton and Carter McClure. My peculiar brother liked to play shuffleboard with the old folks at the senior center every Sunday and I’d volunteered to drive him over there today.
Or rather, he’d volunteered me to drive him, saying I needed exposure to wisdom, and sports without balls, whatever that meant. And I’d agreed, because I wanted to press the Shelly issue.
“I’ll figure something out.” I shrugged.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Let me help.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing for you to do.”
“I’m not leaving for a few more weeks, maybe I can—”
“Forget about it. I’m driving Cletus to the senior center, let me bring up the idea of a front office person on the way over.”
“I don’t get it, it’s like he doesn’t even notice how rude she’s being.” Duane’s face scrunched with dissatisfaction.
“Maybe he doesn’t care.”
“He’d care if he took the time to notice. He’s definitely fixating on something.”
I nodded my agreement. We’d learned over the years to leave Cletus be when he was on one of his fixation rampages, but this thing with Shelly was time-sensitive. At this rate, we wouldn’t have any customers left in a few months.
My brother eyed me. “Do you think it has to do with what Jethro said the other night?”
“What?” I didn’t know what he meant at first, but then I remembered our recent gathering at the newly renovated carriage house. “Oh, you mean about Cletus having a lady friend?”
“Yeah.”
Jethro had hinted that Cletus was preoccupied with a woman, but I couldn’t get out of my oldest brother who the woman was.
On the one hand, I didn’t like the idea of Cletus being distracted because of a woman. He was the only one—other than me—who hadn’t made big changes in his life over the last year. But on the other hand, when or if the identity of Cletus’s lady was revealed, we’d all be able to meddle with Cletus like he’d been meddling with us. And that was a cause I could get behind.
“I don’t know,” I said distractedly, fiddling with my keys.
“I think Jethro was right.”
Something about the way he’d said the words caught my attention. “Do you know who she is?”
Rather than answering the question, Duane lifted his chin toward Drew Runous. “If Cletus doesn’t listen, you might need to go to Drew.”
In addition to being our sister’s intended—though they weren’t yet officially engaged—Drew was a part owner—a silent partner—in the Winston Brothers Auto Shop. He’d bankrolled the upfront costs. But he was very hands-off, trusting Cletus with the business side, and Duane and me with the getting stuff done side.
“Don’t worry about it, Duane.”
“Promise you’ll go to Drew.”
“Fine. If it comes to it, I’ll talk to Drew.”
As soon as I made the promise, Duane’s stern expression cleared.
“Do you want me to come with you? To the senior center? Maybe if we both talked to Cletus, and he was trapped . . .”
Smiling at my twin, I shook my head. “Nah. You need to drive Jess home. And, besides, I think Roscoe was looking forward to spending some time with y’all.”
Our youngest brother, Roscoe, was in town from vet school because this week marked the one-year anniversary of our mother’s death. Ashley had sent a group text message earlier in the week, saying, Dinner on Tuesday the 4th at home. Please be there or I’ll be forced to wax your beard from your face. You know I will… XOXO Ash
So, in addition to everything else going wrong recently, I had that to look forward to.
“We need to go.” Cletus’s firm demand cut through our discussion and we both glanced at our older brother as he approached. He walked past without pausing, clearly expecting me to follow.
Duane and I shared an eye-roll, but I detected a hint of amusement in his expression. Or maybe it was nostalgia.
And it struck me in that moment how quickly Duane’s departure was approaching. We basically had six weeks left and then he’d be gone for a long, long, long time.
“It’s almost shuffleboard time, Beau,” Cletus called back to me, waving me forward like my lack of movement was a direct affront to his person. “Quit making eyes at your mirror image.”
“Are you sure you want to leave all this?” I asked Duane as I pulled my keys from my pocket.
“Oh, I’ll be back.” My brother glanced over his shoulder at the sound
of Jessica’s laughter, and when he turned to me again, his expression was a little smug and a little hazy. “But maybe not for a while.”
* * *
Pulling into the senior center parking lot, Cletus pointed to a space by the shuffleboard court. “I want to arrive before Judge Payton. He always takes the southernmost court and I want that court.”
My brother hadn’t been in a talking mood on the drive over and I knew better than to bring up hiring a receptionist given his disposition. We drove in silence, with Cletus staring silently out the passenger window.
We’d have to butter him up first. Maybe have Duane make blueberry pancakes, or pretend like we enjoyed his foul coffee. Then, we’d spring the idea on him.
I navigated to the spot he’d indicated, and that’s when I noticed Mrs. Cooper’s Cadillac parked awkwardly, taking up three spaces in a mostly empty part of the lot.
Cletus jumped out of my GTO as soon as it stopped, grabbing his shuffleboard stick—or whatever it was called—from the backseat. “Come on. You can come play, too. We’ll bond.”
As I stood from my car, I motioned to Mrs. Cooper’s Caddy. “Look at that. What do you think is going on there?”
Cletus didn’t get a chance to answer, because the lady in question appeared. “Oh, thank goodness. The Winston boys.” She sounded frantic.
“Mrs. Cooper.” Cletus performed a perfunctory bow at the waist, then darted around her. “Beau is ready to be of assistance.”
“Uh, sure. How can I help?” I tracked my brother, glaring at his hasty retreat. He faced me at the last minute, just before walking through the gate leading to the courts, and gave me a salute.
Sneak.
“It’s my Cadillac, dear. It’s smoking and making strange sounds. Can you take a look?” She already had her keys out and was walking toward the classic automobile.
“Of course.” I gave her a friendly grin and was happy to see some of the worry between her eyebrows ease.
Now, I’ve known Mrs. Cooper my whole life. She used to be in my momma’s poetry group at the library and my momma loved the lady. But it wasn’t until I was nineteen, and Mrs. Cooper pinched my backside and winked at me, that I understood what my brother Billy meant when he’d called the woman a cougar.