“You’re leaving already?” she mumbled. Her lips felt stiff and numb. Please, Troy…please don’t give up on me.
“Time I headed on back.” He was mumbling, too. “Need to get at that nursery job for Mirabella.”
“What about your bag? It’s inside.”
“You can bring it to me when you come. I expect we’ll be seein’ each other. At the wedding…”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Okay…sure, I’ll do that.” He was holding out his hand, giving her the room key. What could she do but take it? And after that…
She groped blindly for the door handle. Jeez. she was thinking, all I’ve done since I got to this damn town is cry. She found it finally and pulled it open. “Well,” she said, “thanks for everything. I really do appreciate all your help.”
“No problem,” said Troy abruptly. “Glad to do it. Listen-” she turned to look at him, and he nodded at her “-I hope everything works out for you. And you let me know how your daddy’s doin’, y’hear?”
“Yeah…sure. I’ll do that.” She felt numb.
She was about to slide out of the seat when Bubba suddenly stuck his head over the back of it and gave her face a worried lick. It was almost more than she could take. She wrapped her arms around the dog’s neck and buried her face briefly in his silky coat, then choked out a strangled “Bye-thank you,” and hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind her. She hadn’t even turned around before she heard the Cherokee’s engine roar as Troy backed out of the parking space and drove away.
“Well, Charly,” she whispered as she fumbled to put the key in the lock and tears dripped from the end of her nose and splashed onto the backs of her hands, “you are really somethin’ else, you know that? Cool, capable, sophisticated Charly… So if you’re so damn smart,” she growled furiously as the lock finally gave and she pushed the door open, “how come, when it comes to human relationships, you…don’t…know…jack!”
Troy drove like a bat outta hell. It did enter his mind, as he headed up the curving mountain road, that if the right trooper happened along, Charly might wind up bailing him out of jail. But he didn’t let it slow him down.
Just before he got to the fork where the road to Mourning Spring Park branched off the main highway, he pulled over onto the grassy verge, turned on his flashers and stopped. He had nerves jumping around in his belly like fleas on a hot rock, and thoughts and emotions chasing one another around inside his head. He knew if he could ever manage to pin one of them down he probably wouldn’t be doing what he was doing, so he didn’t even try.
He got out of the car and slammed the door, then went around to the back and got Bubba’s leash. He gave the pup a hug and rumpled his neck fur as he clipped the leash onto his collar. Then he said, “Okay, boy, let’s go find Charly!” and stood back out of his way.
Of course, ol’ Bubba was just happy to be out of the car, happy to have some new territory to investigate and mark in his usual way. Down the bank he went, Troy slippin’ and slidin’ along after him, just trying not to lose his feet. When they got to the bottom, he let the dog snuffle around some, then gave his leash a yank and said it again, “Come on boy-find Charly. Where’s Charly? Go get her-go on!”
What was he thinking of? The dog wasn’t even a tracker to begin with, and nothin’ but a pup besides. And there were enough interesting, good-smelling distractions in those woods to keep him busy all afternoon, what with squirrels and turtles, mushrooms and deer sign and no telling what all. So Troy wasn’t expecting much.
They’d been at it maybe fifteen minutes and had gone about fifty yards from where they’d started, Troy thinking it was about time to call it quits on this crazy fool idea, Bubba plowing his way into a little thicket of cedar and holly where last winter’s leaves still lay rotting in knee-deep drifts. Troy was about to call him back when the pup, instead of snuffling on to the next excitement, sat abruptly back on his haunches and turned to look at him over his shoulder.
“What is it, boy? What’d you find?”
Bubba just looked at him, tongue hangin’ out, pleased with himself. So Troy went on over and dug around in the piles of leaves, and there it was. Impossible to see because of its color-without the dog he’d never have found it in a million years.
“Good boy-good ol’ Bubba…” Troy crooned, hugging and petting the dog for all he was worth. His heart was pounding in his chest and those thoughts and emotions were still running around in his head, and he still didn’t care to try to pin any of ’em down.
Instead he tucked the little green book inside the waistband of his jeans, and he and the dog scrambled back up the bank and loped down the road to where the Cherokee was parked with its flashers still blinking away. He opened up the door, and Bubba jumped in ahead of him and wallowed across to the passenger’s side. Troy got in and started up the truck and off they went, burnin’ rubber, heading up the mountain toward the spring.
Troy was banking on the kid still being there, and he was-not sitting on the picnic table any longer, but standing over by the granite memorial, sort of leaning against it, with his arms folded on his chest, staring down at his feet and brooding. And there’s nobody does that better, Troy thought, than a twenty-year-old kid.
Cutter straightened up like a shot, though, when he saw the Cherokee, his face looking like a thundercloud, eyes shootin’ sparks. He seemed a little less sure of himself when he saw Troy was alone.
“I was just leavin’,” the boy muttered, starting past Troy with his head down.
Troy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Not yet, you’re not.” He walked him backward until he was up against the granite monument again. “I got somethin’ to say to you first. And make no mistake, this isn’t your mama talkin’ to you now. You will do me the courtesy of listenin’. You got that?”
Only a fool or a very stupid man would care to argue with Troy Starr when he used that tone of voice. Cutter was neither. He nodded.
Troy let out a breath. “That’s better.” He held up the diary, and the boy’s eyes fastened on it, blazing with helpless fury.
“A little while ago, your mother tried to give this to you,” Troy said in a quiet voice. “You refused to take it, and that’s your choice. I can understand you being afraid-”
“I’m not afraid!”
“Yeah, you are. And like I said, I can understand that. Sometimes it takes a lot more courage to face up to a brand-new truth than it does to hang on to a good ol’ familiar lie. Look, I can’t force you to read this. But what I am gonna do is read just one little bit of it to you, and unless you know of a way to turn off your hearing, you’re gonna listen to it. And after that…well, the rest is up to you.”
He let go of the boy’s shoulder and opened the diary. He cleared his throat. “Okay. This is what your mother wrote on April 12, 1978-that date sound familiar to you? That’s your birthday, right? Okay, you just shut up and listen…
And then he started to read. “‘Today I held my son in my arms…’”
Chapter 15
April 12, 1978
Dear Diary,
Today I held my son in my arms. I’m naming him Colin Stewart, after his daddy. I just wish his daddy could be here to see how beautiful he is. Aunt Dobie says he is here, looking down on us from Heaven, and that he will always be with us. I don’t know if I believe that-about Heaven, I mean-but if it’s true, then Colin, would you please look after our baby? Keep him safe, and see he grows up happy and strong, and make him be a good and sweet person, like you were. Because I won’t be able to. They won’t let me keep him. They let me hold him for just a little while, and then they came and took him away. They took him right out of my arms. It felt like my heart was being torn out of my chest. I’ve never hurt this bad-not even when he was being born, not even when Colin died. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t think I can stand to live here anymore.
Thought for the Day: Sometimes I think Colin is the lucky one.
April 13, 1978
Dear Diary,
Today I am leaving this God Forsaken place forever…
Troy closed the diary and thrust it against Cutter’s chest, pinning it there with his hand. “It’s yours now,” he said hoarsely. “It’s up to you.”
He didn’t wait to see if the kid was gonna take the book or not, or even look at his face; his own vision was blurring, and after all, he had a certain image to protect. He just turned around and walked back to his truck and got in it and drove away.
He drove down the highway to the fork in the road, where he turned right instead of left, heading south out of the Alabama hills, heading home to Georgia. He didn’t look for a radio station playing golden oldies this time, or pop in one of his favorite tapes to keep him company. He drove all the way home with his own song playing inside his head. A song with only one lyric: “Charly…Charly…Charly…”
“I’m the one supposed to be doin’ that for you,” Troy said, scowling down at the yellow rosebud his brother was pinning to his lapel.
“Aw, you’d just go an’ stick yourself,” said Jimmy Joe, smiling his slow, sweet smile.
Troy snorted. “Yeah? Well, what’s the matter with you, anyway, little brother? You’re the one gettin’ married. How come you’re not nervous?”
Jimmy Joe tilted his head to admire his handiwork. “Got nothin’ to be nervous about. This is the smartest and best thing I ever did. When you know you’ve found the right one…”
“Yeah…” Troy said on an exhalation as he turned away to check himself in the full-length mirror on the door.
They were in their old room at his mother’s house, the room four Starr brothers had once shared. His mama had turned it into some kind of den, maybe partly an office, with a big desk and a computer, and a couch with a pull-out bed in it for company. But there were still a lot of memories there in that room. He could see some of them in the mirror, the team photos and graduation portraits on the walls, and the shelves full of sports trophies. His little brother’s face, looking at him over his shoulder.
“You’re a lucky man,” he said softly.
“Don’t I know it.”
There was a silence then, the kind that falls between brothers who are also friends, but who wouldn’t know how to put that into words if their lives depended on it. The door opened, and the minister from the Methodist church down the road stuck his head in.
“It’s time,” he said, pointing at his watch. “You boys about ready?”
“Will be in a minute,” said Jimmy Joe. The minister nodded and closed the door. Jimmy Joe turned and picked up his suit jacket from the arm of the couch, and Troy took it from him and held it for him while he shrugged himself into it. He felt like he oughta pinch himself-he was having a hard time getting used to the sight of his truck-driver brother in a suit and tie.
“These jitters of yours,” Jimmy Joe said, checking out his tie in the mirror one last time. “They wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re about to come face-to-face with a certain good-lookin’ maid-of-honor, would they?”
Troy let out a breath in a short laugh. “You know somethin’? Findin’ the right woman, that’s one thing. Gettin’ her to realize it-now, that’s somethin’ else.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jimmy Joe said with a chuckle, “Mirabella, now…she took a lotta convincing.”
Troy gave him a curious look. “That right? How’d you do it?”
His brother’s smile would have been smug on anybody else but him. “Refused to take no for an answer.”
“Yeah, well…it’s not always that easy,” Troy said, frowning.
“Hey, I never knew you to give up on a fight.”
“It’s not a case of giving up. It’s more like…the ball’s in her court, now, you know? I’ve done about all I can do.” Troy paused with his hand on the doorknob, thinking about it, looking for the words. Finally he cleared his throat. “She’s got…some issues.”
“Yeah,” said Jimmy Joe, putting his arm across his brother’s shoulders, “Marybell mentioned that.”
“I think she’d like to say yes,” said Troy gruffly. “But she doesn’t think she deserves to.” He gave his brother a hard, intent look. “You know what I mean?”
Jimmy Joe gave his back a slap. “Yeah, man…I believe I do.”
Troy opened the door, and they went through it together. They could see the minister waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. Just as they started down, Jimmy Joe nudged him in the ribs and whispered, “Don’t give up on her.”
Then the minister had him by the arm and was hustling them both through the French doors and out into the backyard, down the aisle between rows of folding chairs that had been borrowed from the Methodist church and set up last evening on the lawn. When he got to the rose arbor at the far end, the minister turned and faced the congregation, Jimmy Joe on his left and Troy right behind him.
It was a beautiful day. The line of thunderstorms had moved on, so the humidity was about normal for June in Georgia, the sky a pale, hazy blue and a hum of bees and the smell of flowers in the air. The friends and relations gathered in the folding chairs were fanning themselves, the ones unlucky enough to be in the sunny patches turning red in the face anyway, but nobody getting too unhappy about it, since it was pretty much to be expected, that time of year.
Troy stood beside his brother, drowning in his own sweat and his heart going like a freight train, and watched his family and Mirabella’s come down the aisle-the kids first, Jimmy Joe’s boy, J.J., pushing Amy in her stroller, his cousin Sammi June beside him, the two of ’em nudging and poking one another with their elbows. Then Mirabella’s sister Summer holding her two kids by the hands, and after that, the other sister, the older one- Eve, her name was-the globe-trotting TV producer, both of them tall, blond California girls, real knockouts. And then all the rest of his and Jimmy Joe’s brothers and sisters: Roy and Jessica, Calvin and Rhonda, and Joy Lynn, who’d already done this twice herself and hadn’t managed to figure out how to get it right yet.
So there they all were, gathered around the minister and Jimmy Joe, and all laughing and smiling just like it was a family picnic or something. And then they all watched as their parents came down the aisle, Mirabella’s dad with her mom on his arm, Jimmy Joe’s mama helping her mama, Granny Calhoun, along. It was the way Mirabella had wanted it, all the families together, and Troy thought it was just the way it oughta be. He was already starting to get a lump in his throat and a crowded feeling in his chest he thought could have been happiness, if there hadn’t been something important missing. As it was, it just felt like loneliness.
The parents and Granny Calhoun took their seats in the front row of chairs. The organist from the Methodist church struck some chords on the old upright piano-which Troy and his brothers had hauled out onto the patio last night-and then launched right into “Here Comes the Bride.” A rustle of anticipation ran through the crowd, and Troy felt the same shiver in his insides. Everybody turned to look. Troy was looking, too, but his vision was starting to go shimmery on him.
And then here she came. Charly.
She came down the aisle toward him, looking straight ahead, walking with assurance in spite of the grass and the high-heeled shoes, with those incredible legs of hers going on forever. He thought she seemed thinner than when he’d seen her last, but it could have been the dress, which was the soft green of new leaves, with a skirt that stopped just above her knees, and a top that left her throat and arms bare. Her skin was pale as wax, and she had her hair slicked back and up in that way that reminded him of Audrey Hepburn, or maybe a prima ballerina, and topped with yellow roses. She was holding a yellow rose, too-he happened to know they’d been picked this morning from this very garden.
Troy thought she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life.
But that wasn’t what had his throat swelling up and his eyes misting over. What did him in was the way she carried herself-head high, shoulders back, and a “Go ahead,
make my day!” look to her chin-that took him straight back to the first time he’d ever set eyes on her, that night he’d watched her come toward him down that hallway in the Mourning Spring jail. Bravado. Sheer bravado.
As the maid of honor took her place on the minister’s right, Troy could hear Bubba barking out in front of the house, where he’d been tied to a tree to keep him from getting in the way. At least, he thought, he’s not howling.
And then the organist started the wedding march all over again, and it was Mirabella’s turn to make that long walk down the aisle. Troy knew he should be watching her along with his brother and everyone else, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Charly.
Don’t give up on her.
Troy could hear his brother’s voice as clear as if he’d just spoken the words aloud. And right then and there he vowed he never would, no matter how long it took.
He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped worrying and thinking about what he was going to do with himself now that he’d retired from the navy. He just knew it didn’t matter anymore what he did with the rest of his life; the only thing that mattered was whom he did it with. And he knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the who for him was the woman standing across from him, the woman with the pain of unresolved issues in her whiskey eyes. It didn’t matter to him that she was an L.A. lawyer with some peculiar notions about what sophistication was, or that she’d made up her mind to hate everything about the South. He didn’t care that she had no real idea what it was like to be part of a family-he figured he had family enough for the both of ’em, and he couldn’t wait to make her a part of it. All he knew was, in her he’d found his soul’s compass, his life’s magnetic north. All the rest, as he’d heard it said somewhere, was details.
For the first time in his life he thought maybe he understood why it is that people cry at weddings.
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