After a while we let go, and Scratch said, “Dell, you need to take a look at what we found.”
He led me over to the lineup of cast-offs—the ratty old sofa Chase had taken from the house when I replaced it years ago, a couple of equally threadbare easy chairs, several end tables and lamps, old mattresses from the bedrooms. “I did some clearing out to make a little more room upstairs,” Scratch said. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“You can set a torch to it, or a couple of sticks of dynamite, far as I’m concerned.”
I stopped next to Chase’s battered old mahogany desk and peered at an angular black contraption that looked like a giant spider.
“What on earth is this?” I said. “I never saw it before.”
“It’s a home gym,” Scratch said. “A multipurpose work-out machine. If you don’t want it, I wouldn’t mind keeping it. It’s really a nice one.”
I shrugged. “Sure. Keep anything you want. But you didn’t call me down here to ask me that.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“We found this,” Alyssa said. “Wedged behind one of the desk drawers, when we moved it.”
She held out a small, thin book with a dark green fabric cover—it looked like a ledger book, the kind you might use to keep track of business expenses. But when I opened it, there were no columns for income and expenses, no spaces for debits and credits. It was just a blank book with faintly lined pages. And it was full of writing. Chase’s writing.
“We think it’s a journal or a diary of sorts,” Scratch said. “We barely looked inside, just enough to know it’s personal, and you’re the only one who ought to be reading it.”
I held the book at arm’s length, like it was a snake about to strike. “Thanks.”
I didn’t know what else to say. They weren’t aware, of course, that I already had all the information I ever wanted about Chase’s secret life. Whatever was in this little green book wouldn’t be much of a surprise. The only surprise was that he had kept it in the first place. My husband, the jock? A journal?
I took the little book over to the picnic table and sat down. Alyssa said something about bringing me something to drink, and she disappeared up the steps into the house. Scratch stood there looking down at me.
“Take your time,” he said. “We’ll be here if you need us.”
He laid his big hand on my shoulder and left it there, warm and comforting, for a minute or two. Then he squeezed it, and the pressure left, and he was gone.
I was alone. Alone with the memory of a husband who’d betrayed me, and a book that might tell me nothing, or might tell me more than I wanted to know.
• 35 •
January 1
All right, I got this damned thing, and I’m determined to use it if it kills me. I hate writing, and I ain’t much good at expressing myself, but I reckon it’s high time I learned. Past time.
The diary went back to the beginning of last year, four months before Chase died. The entries, in a familiar erratic scrawl, were messy and difficult to decipher. But the meaning was clear. All too clear.
It wasn’t just Peach Rondell. It was Ginger from Tuscaloosa, and Kathleen from Tupelo, and some girl he only called Babe, from God knows where—none of them lasting more than a week or two. He wrote about buying the exercise machine and working out so he could get his athlete’s body back, and trying different kinds of cologne (cologne? Chase?), and how Babe had brought him a gift of black silk underwear, and how he felt sexy in it.
Shoot, I thought. I don’t need to be reading this.
But still I kept on. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion: brakes squealing, cars jackknifing, bodies flying, metal crunching. I didn’t want to see it but couldn’t turn away.
And then a woman only identified as J.
J’s making me do this—writing all this down. She says I need to be more emotionally engaged. What the hell does that mean? I don’t know how to do feelings. I’m a man, for God’s sake, not some faggoty feel-good fairy like that Boone Atkins.
Fury rose up in me at this. If I’d had a match, I would have incinerated the book right then and there. But I didn’t have any fire except the one burning in my gut. I forged ahead.
I’m starting to get the point of what J says. I reckon I can feel those feelings and live to tell about it. It still don’t seem quite natural, but I’m gonna keep on trying. I really am.
I cried today. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but J said that crying is a sign of strength, not weakness. That only a real man knows the value of tears.
In nearly thirty years of marriage I had never seen Chase Haley cry. The idea that he was doing it so freely in front of another woman caused the dragon inside me to stand up on its hind legs, roar, and belch flames.
I hadn’t reckoned on being jealous. Funny, I didn’t feel much of anything about the adultery anymore, but the thought of a few tears made me furious.
I flipped through some more pages and scanned through the description of Chase’s affair with Peach. She might not have known who he was, but he sure as heck remembered her. The Bean Queen, he called her. Easy enough to seduce, but not much to look at after all these years. Some women just go to pot when they hit forty.
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to tear the pages into confetti. Just as I’d never told anyone about Peach and Chase, I would also keep my silence about these ugly words my husband wrote. One kind lie deserves another.
And then I reached the end. The entry on the day of his death, a kind of last will and testament. The final words of Chase Haley.
April 17
J asked me if I was finally ready. Ready to make a decision. Ready to make a change. I am ready. I’ve known it for a long time. I just didn’t have the words to say it, even in my mind, even to myself. But it ain’t the kind of change J’s expecting, and I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling her the truth.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on. I put my finger in the book to mark my place, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.
I ain’t been happy, not for a long time. Maybe never. Don’t know if Dell’s happy or not, she never says. Guess that means she’s just going with the flow, not rocking the boat. But I can’t do that anymore.
I know none of this sounds like me. Hell, it doesn’t feel like me, either. It feels like somebody else is inside my skin, trying to get out. And I don’t know if I want him to get out or not. All I know is that I gotta do something.
I been trying to change. Trying to find the man I used to be, the one who had dreams and wanted more and didn’t just sit on his ass in front of the TV letting the world pass him by. But I can’t seem to find him. I tried to get him back, the football jock, the handsome guy who could get any girl he wanted. I got me a few, too. But it didn’t feel as good as I remembered.
I took a drink of the iced tea Alyssa had brought down, but could barely swallow it. There was a rock in my throat the size of a fist. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. But I couldn’t stop reading, either.
Nothing feels good. Nothing makes sense anymore. So I’m giving up. I never been the kinda man Dell deserved. She shoulda had better. She’s a fine woman, and she oughta have somebody who acts like he’s got a lick of sense. Not like me.
For months, he had been planning to leave, trying to figure out a way to break it to me. How long had this gone on without me noticing? How could I have been so blind?
Something nagged at me, tapping at the back of my skull like a woodpecker on the eaves. But I couldn’t identify it.
So this is the end. Tonight I’m gonna tell the Bean Queen that we’re finished. No more chasing tail, no more J. No more nothing.
My eyes filled up, and the pages of cramped writing floated underwater. I blinked, trying to see, trying to read the final words on the final page of Chase Haley’s life.
I’ll never tell Dell the truth about what I’ve done—all the other women, all the things I’m ashamed of about myself. She wouldn’t unders
tand. Nobody could possibly understand. If she knew, I reckon she’d never forgive me, and I couldn’t live with that. Instead I’ll have to live with not forgiving myself. Maybe the Catholics had it right all along. Maybe there is such a thing as purgatory, and it’s right now, right here, in the life you have to go on living when you know you deserve to be struck down in your tracks.
There was a space, a couple of blank lines, and then he went on:I’m going back. Back to Dell, back to my life. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I’ve gotta try. J says I’ve been attempting to recapture my lost youth, and I suppose she’s right. But you can’t get that back, no matter what kind of fool you turn into trying to find it.
How long has it been, I wonder, since I told Dell I love her? I shoulda said it more often; maybe saying the words woulda made it feel more real. Maybe we coulda been more connected, instead of living under the same roof like two restless ghosts haunting the scene of the crime.
I gotta make this work. I got to. There’s nothing else out there for me—I know, ’cause I tried like hell to find it and came up empty. So I reckon I’ll just have to live with the emptiness, if that’s what it takes, and fake being happy the best I can.
Even if I’m faking it, maybe I can make Dell a little happier. She deserves that much—deserves a husband who knows how lucky he is to have a woman like her, a man who pays attention and gives her what she needs and doesn’t take her for granted.
I sure ain’t been that man, but maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can still change. Maybe I can turn into somebody I’m proud of on the inside, instead of feeling like a shit all the time.
My mind balked and stuttered. I read the words over and over again, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined them or misunderstood. Peach Rondell hadn’t spared my feelings with a compassionate lie. She had told the truth.
Last time I saw Doc, he warned me I was a ticking time bomb, a heart attack waiting to happen. Gave me nitrates for the chest pains, told me to take ’em regular. He also warned me to stay away from the Viagra, but I been working out, and got my weight down some, and feel good, real good. Them little blue pills haven’t hurt me yet. Besides, a man my age can use a little help now and then.
My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t hold the book. It slipped from my grasp and fell onto the cement floor, and something fluttered out from between the blank pages at the back.
A receipt. Cash, $80.00.
To Dr. Julia Hess, Tupelo Center for Group and Family Therapy.
Nitrates and Viagra. A lethal combination.
Chase had brought the heart attack on himself.
A surge of sadness rose up in me, sadness colored by something like love. Poor Chase. Peter Pan. A little boy in a man’s body, a boy who’d lost his self-image to the ravages of age and complacency, and couldn’t find a way to get it back.
I could see it all on the screen in the back of my mind: Chase getting ready to come home to me, dressing in his nice clothes, taking the pills. And then when his heart started to seize up, calling 911 for help. A call that came too late to save him. Too late to know that I really might have been able to forgive him, if he had only just been honest with me. That we really might have had a second chance. That the distance between us wasn’t all his fault.
I sat there for a long time, holding the book, fondling the pages, staring off into space. Waiting for the tears to come. Waiting for the grief to strike.
But it didn’t come. What I felt was not pain, but pity. Pity, and no small measure of relief.
It was over. I had already done my grieving, all this past year. I had loved him once, or thought I had. Maybe what I took for love was nothing more than convenience, or security, or the soothing comfort of familiarity.
The real lessons of love had come not from my marriage, but from my widowhood. Late in life, in my fiftieth year, the world imploded and I was forced to learn how to open myself up and find out what real love was all about.
Real love wasn’t possible until I myself became real. Until fate or destiny, or whatever force it was, intervened and cut me open heart and soul. Only in the midst of all those raw emotions, when I was at my worst, did I discover that people could still love me when they saw exactly who I was. Shadow side and all.
People like Toni Champion and Boone Atkins. People like Scratch, who forgave me for not trusting him even though we never said a single word about it. People like Peach Rondell, who saw my inner strength and took me for her hero.
And I realized something else, too. Chase’s death, painful as it was, had been the catalyst for change, the door that opened onto a whole new life. I never would have wished it on him, or on myself for that matter. But I also knew I wouldn’t—couldn’t—go back to who I was before.
Funny how hindsight turns curses to blessings; how the one experience you’re sure will kill you becomes the moment of your greatest transformation. If Chase had lived, I never would have faced those challenges, never would have grown, never would have found out what was inside me. Never would have developed into the woman I’ve become over the last year.
I like that woman. I like her a lot. She is my hero, too.
The temperature had dropped as the afternoon wore on, and I shivered. Out near the dock, Scratch and Imani were sitting on logs near a circle of stones by the riverbank, feeding sticks into a campfire. Imani was laughing.
I shut the journal and got up from the bench. “Everything okay?” Scratch asked as I approached.
I forced a smile and nodded, then reached over and dropped the little green book into the fire pit.
Fire has always fascinated me. It’s mesmerizing, hypnotic, alive. You can watch it all night and never see the same flame twice. It gives off heat and light and sweet nostalgic memories on the scent of the burning wood.
Destructive? Yes. But even the destruction brings light. Even the destruction warms.
The cover of the book blackened and warped, and after a moment the edges of the paper caught. I could see Chase’s blue scrawl on a page or two, and watched the orange flame rise up as my husband’s last worst moments curled into ash and smoke.
One more door closed.
One more secret I’d take with me to the grave.
• 36 •
Three hours until eviction.
We’d decided to make the most of it. The cafe was decorated to the nines—streamers hanging from the overhead lights, tables pushed aside to make room for a dance floor. Boone had brought a rotating disco ball, which threw glints of light around the room, in rainbow colors like sun off a diamond. The bar was loaded with platters of sandwiches and crab cakes, tiny quiches and fried apple pies.
We couldn’t save the Heartbreak Cafe, but it had saved us. And so we celebrated.
I sat at a table with Fart Unger while Scratch tried to teach Imani to jitterbug. All knees and elbows, she kept poking him and kicking him in the shins, but he didn’t seem to mind. On the other side of the room, Alyssa watched the two of them with undisguised adoration.
Peach came over and sat down. “You all right, Dell?”
The woman’s powers of observation never ceased to amaze me. She knew something was up, but fortunately, she thought it had to do with the eviction. She kept quiet, and every now and then reached out and squeezed my hand.
The party was well under way when the axe finally fell. Boone and Toni had the music turned up full volume and were doing the boot-scootin’ boogie with Imani, Alyssa, and Hoot Everett. Purdy Overstreet had a bright red feather boa wrapped around Scratch’s neck and was trying to give him a lap dance.
“Dell!” he yelled above the music. “Somebody’s here.”
I looked. With all the lights on inside, the best I could make out was somebody standing at the glass door, peering in. I went to the entrance and turned the lock.
It was Kevin Ivess, the sweet young deputy who had been appointed interim sheriff after Warren Potts’s promotion to the Chulahatchie Sanitation Department. Five or six years ago he
had been a big burly halfback for the Chulahatchie Confederates football team, and he still looked like a kid, like he might be in high school. Blond, with a round baby face, rosy cheeks, and a sheepish grin.
Tonight the grin was missing. “I’m real sorry, Miz Haley.” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. “But I got no choice.” He held out a folded paper, which I knew must be the final eviction notice. “You gotta be out by tomorrow morning at 8:00 A.M.” He looked away, into the restaurant, where the music was still blaring but the dancing had stopped. Everybody was staring at him.
I watched his discomfort and felt a twinge of sadness and sympathy. The boy was just doing his job, bless his heart. He didn’t mean any harm, and I could tell from the look on his face that he’d rather walk through a nest of cotton-mouths than have to evict me from the Heartbreak Cafe. None of this was his fault.
“Eight tomorrow morning?” I repeated.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well, that gives us time to ring in the New Year.” I looked up at him. “Are you still on duty, Sheriff?”
“No ma’am. I got off ten minutes ago.” He gave me an embarrassed grin. “But it’s just Kevin, ma’am, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, Just Kevin, come join the party. We got plenty of food and some real nice company.” I stood back and held the door open for him. “And leave the gun and handcuffs outside, if you don’t mind.”
“Five minutes to midnight!” Imani shouted.
The child had had way too much sugar and not enough sleep. She bounced like a Ping-Pong ball from one table to the next. “Four minutes! Three minutes!”
Most of the adults were partied out, and slouched around the tables waiting desperately for the year to turn so we could all go home and go to bed. Hoot and Purdy had toddled off to Hoot’s house hours ago. Sheriff Kevin had made his exit at eleven, thanking me for the hospitality and the great food, and saying he had another engagement. Bless his heart, his mama taught him well. About time we had a sheriff with some manners.
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