Husband and Wives

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  There was dead silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘Carol Anne?’ I finally said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, this is too much . . .’ I started.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said. ‘We could make my old house a temporary boys’ dorm and my mom and Dennis could watch the boys, and we could make our house the girls’ dorm. Hallelujah!’ she cried out. ‘I think that will work! I’ll keep Mark here, of course, he’s just a baby. How old is Rachael’s youngest?’

  ‘Seven. A girl,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. Samantha. How long do you think Melissa will be in ICU?’

  ‘I really don’t know about either of them – Melissa or her mother. I can find out tomorrow, though.’

  ‘And the other children?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re being hydrated right now, and fed and given vitamins. They’ll probably be released later today.’

  ‘Whoa, then I better get the kids and get to it! We need to figure out beds and bedding, and towels. Oh, Lord! I need to go grocery shopping!’

  ‘Carol Anne?’

  ‘Yes, Dr McDonnell?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘The Lord never gives a person more than they can handle, Dr McDonnell. You should know that.’

  SEVEN

  Nita Skitteridge – Friday

  I rode with the sheriff to the hospital in the van we use to transport prisoners. We picked up the McKinsey kids, but there were only the four since little Melissa was in ICU with her mother. The sheriff sent me inside to deal with getting the kids released, which meant me signing a bunch of papers as temporary guardian, representing the sheriff’s department, and then signing more papers to prove I was with the sheriff’s department and had the right to represent the sheriff’s department as temporary guardian of these children. Then, finally, we got to the medical releases. It would have been a lot easier if the sheriff had come in, but he was out in the van, listening to the radio – and I don’t mean police calls either – I’m talking that awful country music he listens to. Sounds like somebody choking on their biscuits and gravy, if you ask me.

  When we finally got to the McKinseys’ house, the oldest boy, Matthew, said, ‘I’m not sure where anything is, Sheriff. When we got here we had our clothes and stuff, but Mr McKinsey didn’t approve of our clothes and he took them away, and all the little kids’ toys and stuff. And my books.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know where he put everything.’

  ‘I bet Melissa does!’ Samantha said.

  Matthew stiffened, but June, the eleven-year-old, ruffled her younger sister’s hair and said, ‘I know she does!’

  ‘So tell me about the house,’ I said to Matthew.

  He shook his head. ‘We were only allowed in the dining room and our bedrooms,’ he said. ‘And one bathroom.’

  I noticed June had her hand up. ‘June?’ I said.

  Her face turned red as she spoke. ‘Melissa was always exploring, going places she shouldn’t.’ Her head was down when she said this, but then she looked up, grinned slightly and said, ‘And I went with her once!’

  ‘You did?’ I said, surprised-like. ‘That was very brave!’

  ‘I know!’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘And we didn’t even get caught!’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘where do you think he might hide y’all’s stuff?’

  ‘I don’t think, I know!’ she said. ‘There’s a bunch of rooms in the garage, and one of ’em has our stuff. We found Sammie’s Pinky-Bear and brought it to her.’

  Everyone looked at Samantha. The child blushed, then said, ‘I hide him under my mattress, back by the wall so Emily won’t find him.’

  ‘Not like she would!’ June said defiantly. ‘We had to make our own beds and clean our own rooms, and wash and scrub our floor. She hardly ever came in our room!’

  ‘So,’ the sheriff said, opening the doors of the van, ‘Samantha, you go to your room and get Pinky-Bear—’

  She began to cry. ‘Not by myself! He’ll get me!’ She grabbed Matthew around the waist and held on, crying into his shirt.

  ‘That’s OK, Sammie. I’ll go with you. Remember, he’s in jail!’ Matthew said.

  ‘That’s right, Sammie!’ Luke said. ‘He can’t hurt any of us now!’

  ‘But what if he gets out?’ Samantha said. ‘He’ll come get me!’

  I squatted down next to her. ‘He’s not going to touch you again, honey. Even if he gets out on bail, you’ll be where he can’t hurt you.’

  ‘He’s getting out on bail?’ Matthew demanded.

  ‘It can happen,’ the sheriff said. ‘But there’s no way he’s going near any of you. You’ll be in Bishop, not even in Longbranch, OK? And you’ll be protected by Mr Hudson. Do you know him?’ They all nodded. ‘He won’t let McKinsey get anywhere near you.’

  I prayed the sheriff’s words were near as true as I wanted them to be.

  The sheriff used the key confiscated from Mike McKinsey to get in the house, and Matthew took Samantha down the hall to the girls’ room to get her bear, while I took the others into the garage to find the room June spoke of.

  The garage was full of man-crap. Engine parts, tools, one of those six-foot-high Craftsman tool cases my husband lusts after, ban saws, standing drills, a whole rack of power tools, broken lawn furniture, and boxes of unknown crap. There were three doors at the back of the garage, and June couldn’t remember which one had their stuff. Opening the first door revealed the laundry room, full of baskets of clothes, but they appeared to be those of the McKinseys – Michael and Emily. The second held the hot-water heater, and the third was full of boxes of the kids’ and their mother’s stuff. As I began to pull clothes out of one box, I noticed a terrible odor.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ I said. ‘Kids, start a stack over here. We gotta wash this stuff.’ Then I saw the bugs: roaches. Not the huge outdoor kind that can get in occasionally, but the nasty little brown ones that get in your house and breed. My first instinct was to pull the gun riding on my hip, but even I knew that could be overkill.

  ‘Matthew, Luke, you boys look for some bug spray, quick!’

  They ran looking while the girls squealed and I tried not to – squeal, that is. They found some Raid and came back spraying the dickens out of all the clothes. We stood around and watched the little buggers fall over and die. It was truly family entertainment.

  I went in the laundry room – the first door – and took the baskets of the McKinseys’ clothes and dumped them in the center of the garage, and used the baskets for the kids’ clothes. We loaded up the washer and all stood around feeling righteous.

  ‘Hey, Junie,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’ she said.

  ‘Why don’t you get a broom and sweep those nasty things on over there?’

  ‘Where, Ms Deputy?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, on those old clothes there would be fine,’ I said, indicating the McKinseys’ dirty clothes. I mean, after all, they were already dirty.

  Milt kovak – saturday

  After Nita took the kids into the garage, I decided to entertain myself. I started with Michael McKinsey’s desk that sat in a corner of the living room.

  Everything on the desk and in the desk was neatly labeled and organized. I doubted McKinsey had done this himself; he wasn’t the organized type. One of the women had done it, and I doubted if he would have allowed Rachael near his personal papers. Emily may have been messy when it came to the belongings of the family from Tyler, Texas, but she was pretty damn anal when it came to hubby’s desk. And I shortly became thankful for that.

  There was a file on Rachael Owen, which I knew to be the married name of the kids’ mom before she married McKinsey. I pulled it up on the desktop and sat down in McKinsey’s chair, turning on the desk lamp to see it all better. In the file were bank records and check stubs from social security and the late Mr Owen’s pension statements. Rachael wouldn’t have received social security after she married McKinsey, b
ut the kids would have. In the two years Rachael had been married to McKinsey, he had pocketed more than a hundred thousand dollars. Somehow, I promised myself, that was coming back to Rachael and the kids – if it had to come out of the sale of this house or whatever, she was getting her money back come hell or high water.

  Then I found something curious. A file on Nalene McKinsey. That was the name of McKinsey’s first wife, the one who ran off after he took Emily for his second wife. I pulled it out and put it on the desktop. Strangely enough, there were bills for cremation from an outfit out of Oklahoma City, and record of an insurance payment of $150,000, payable to Michael McKinsey.

  So he lied, I figured. To his preacher and to me. Nalene didn’t run off, she died – either on her own or with a little encouragement. I was leaning towards the encouragement scenario since they went all the way to Oklahoma City to cremate the body, rather than have a nice little ceremony with their own church. It might be hard now to prove it, but it looked like Michael McKinsey might have two murders on his conscience – or whatever he had that passed for one.

  Jean Mcdonnell – Friday

  Milt was supposed to pick me up at the hospital on his way to take the McKinsey kids to Bishop. While I was waiting, I checked on Rachael and Melissa and found Melissa doing well, but since Rachael, who was finally conscious and responsive, was still not out of the woods, the doctors had decided to leave the child with her mother, rather than cause more trauma by putting her in a room by herself. I had encouraged them towards this decision, so was quite pleased that they had acquiesced.

  I sat down next to Rachael’s bed and said, ‘Sister Carol Anne Hudson has come forward to take care of your children until you’re out of the hospital.’

  ‘Thank her for me,’ Rachael said in a weak voice.

  ‘I’ll do that. Melissa is going to stay here in the ICU with you, although she’s healthy enough to go to a regular room. The doctors and I all agreed that it would be better for her emotionally to be here with you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, taking my hand. ‘I want her with me, and she’ll do better here.’

  I smiled. ‘The sheriff is coming by here to pick me up. Would you like the other children to come up?’

  She smiled back at me. ‘Very much,’ she said. Then, touching her head, which was now covered with a gaily colored turban, she said, ‘And thank you for my hat.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re very welcome. We found it in lost and found and one of the nurses washed it. It’s quite colorful!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ she said, laughing back. ‘I love it!’ She sobered. ‘I haven’t seen color in a long time. And I’ve had very little to laugh about.’

  Sometimes I believe a professional needs to feel free to be unprofessional. Or possibly that’s just an excuse. I leaned over and hugged her. ‘That’s all behind you now,’ I said.

  Out in the hallway I called Milt, asking him to bring the children up to the ICU floor when he got there.

  Ten minutes later Nita Skitteridge stuck her head around the corner of the door to Rachael’s room. ‘Got room for a whole bunch more?’ she said with a smile.

  I stood up and Rachael and Melissa both sat up in their beds. ‘Definitely!’ Rachael said.

  The four other children came in the room, all dressed in 2011 street clothes – Matthew in baggy jeans and a big T-shirt, Luke in much the same, June in a short, ruffled denim skirt and a pink flowered T-shirt, and Samantha in blue jeans with a pink belt and pink hearts stitched on the butt and a puffy-sleeved pink T-shirt. They wasted no time in rushing to their mother and sister. I left the room, going into the hall with Nita.

  ‘Where’s Milt?’ I asked her.

  ‘In the car,’ she said. ‘I think he has a problem with the mushy stuff.’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, yes, that he does. And the mushy stuff is open to interpretation. You wouldn’t believe what all that encompasses.’

  ‘Oh, I’d believe it!’ she said, laughing back.

  It was as if we’d all had a load taken off our shoulders. Rachael was getting better, Melissa was definitely on the mend, and the other children would be in good hands. And Michael and Emily McKinsey were behind bars where, hopefully, they would stay for a long, long while. And even if they did get out, on bail or, God forbid, acquitted, the children would be safe from them.

  Personally, I was of two minds when it came to who was responsible for the injuries incurred by Rachael and her children. I was fairly sure that Michael had done much of the damage inflicted upon Rachael, but I wondered if Emily hadn’t been the one to discipline the children and shave Rachael’s head. The cutting of the hair and shaving of heads seemed more like something a woman in that sect would know to do to inflict the maximum emotional damage. Even in the ‘normal’ world, cutting a woman’s hair against her will or, God forbid, shaving her head, would be a demoralizing punishment. I’ve counseled women who have had to have their heads shaved due to chemotherapy, and in some instances that action has been as demoralizing as the cancer itself.

  Women think of their hair as their crowning glory. We spend entirely too much time agonizing over how it looks, buying just the right product to make it shine, give it body, make it thicker, color it the color it should have been by nature, fixing it this way and that, teasing it, blow drying it, curling it, or straightening it.

  I keep my hair short and spend very little time on it. Shower and shampoo in the morning, toss it a little and let it dry naturally. That’s my hair day. But, and this is a big but, it looks cute. It’s a cute cut. Tossing it makes it cuter. The cut was my decision. If someone were to strap me down and shave my head, I would be outraged – as well as humiliated and ashamed. Why? It’s a temporary thing – hair grows back. It is in no way equivalent to a man losing a testicle or having his penis removed. But yet it would feel as if I’d lost my womanliness. I’ve had a hysterectomy, I’ve lost that part of my womanhood, but having someone forcibly shave my head would be like losing it all over again.

  A man would not know this. He would not be able to relate to this. Only another woman could know this feeling. That’s why I was as positive as I could be that Emily had been the one to shave Rachael’s head and snip away nastily at Melissa’s hair.

  The doctor broke up the family reunion rather quickly as the kids were disturbing the other patients in ICU, so we headed out to the county van to take us all to Bishop and the Hudsons’ house.

  I let Nita Skitteridge ride up front with Milt, while I rode in the back with the kids. The meeting with their mother had perked them all up. While we were driving along, I heard Luke say, ‘June’s not gonna mind this at all, huh, Matt? She’s gonna have Nathaniel all to herself!’ And he laughed, as only a brother can at a sister’s expense.

  June started to protest, but Matthew spoke up. ‘Hey, Luke, don’t be mean. ’Sides, it’s Daniel she’s after!’

  June swatted at both boys, then let loose with the female comeback: ‘Too bad Lynnie’s too old for you, Matt. I know you drool over her!’

  Matthew blushed and Luke laughed with his sister until she said, ‘Lynnie’s too old for him and Candice is too young for you. Poor baby!’

  And so the punching and slapping began. I’d barely gotten that stopped before Samantha started crying for her mother.

  The Hudsons were out to greet us as we pulled into the cul-de-sac. Mary Hudson’s driveway was crowded with kids. Both Carol Anne and Rene were there; Rene’s little girl, Cheyenne, was clinging to one leg, while the baby, Michael, sat on Rene’s hip checking out the antics of his family. Carol Anne had baby Mark in her arms.

  The kids piled out of the van and there was a lot of arm punching going on with the boys, hugs going on with the girls, and Carol Anne Hudson had Samantha in her arms, drying tears. Rene looked like she wanted to rush into the fray. I held out my arms for the baby boy, who came willingly. Rene and her two-year-old, Cheyenne, moved into the crowd while I held six-month-old Michael. It had been five years since I’d held a baby this
age and it felt good. He was tiny and cute as a button, with light brown hair that curled around his ears, green eyes that shone like a grassy field, a tiny cleft in his little chin, and three teeth that were always present since he seemed to smile constantly. What we in the business call ‘a good baby.’ And the business I’m speaking of at the moment is not psychiatry but motherhood – the best of the two.

  And, of course, now I regretted the hysterectomy and wished I could give my son John a sibling – a brother particularly. Watching these boys interact, I wanted that for my son. His cousins here were so much older than him that he would never have that feeling of comradeship that these boys had, and the cousins nearer his age were all up north in Illinois, where my brothers and sisters lived. He would be lucky to see them once a year.

  I saw Milt looking at me as I held Michael, and knew he was thinking the same thing.

  Milt Kovak – Friday

  I looked over at my wife and saw that she was holding Rene’s baby, and turned to look for Rene. Couldn’t help it, a man has a right to gaze at a cute butt – I think that’s in the constitution somewhere. I found her in the middle of the bunch of kids, her little girl in her arms, talking to Rachael McKinsey’s kids and giving pats here and there. Couldn’t see her butt though; too many kids in the way.

  Then out of nowhere, the big yellow dog came galloping at me and threw himself in my arms, I swear to God. I almost lost my balance. He was licking my face and I was holding him fore and aft, and let me tell you he was heavy.

  ‘Butch!’ Carol Anne yelled. She ran over to me. ‘Just put her down. Butch, what were you thinking?’

  Butch turned back to me and stood up, his – I mean her – paws on my shoulders and licked my face some more.

  ‘Hey, Sheriff!’ one of the boys called. ‘She likes you!’ And all the kids laughed like – well, kids.

  ‘Butch!’ Carol Anne said, pulling at her collar, ‘Get down! The sheriff doesn’t want you drooling all over him!’

  I looked over at my wife who was laughing along with the kids. She caught my eye and I gave her a mean look. That just made her laugh harder.