Faithful Unto Death

by Stephanie Jaye Evans

  The glassed-in sunroom was bright with morning light. The wrought-iron furniture had been stacked high with floral cushions and pillows, and there was a deep-pile flower-patterned rug on the brick floor. Fresh daffodils stood in vases on the side tables, and on the small glass breakfast table was a woven basket filled with bright orange clementines. The room seemed like an extension of the backyard, flower-filled and sunny. The lake looked blue and cool, and if it wasn’t big enough for sailboats, it was just the right size for the white canoe pulled up to the Garcias’ dock.

  Honey sat alone in the corner of the love seat, her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands clasped around her ankles. A roll of toilet paper next to her was trailing its sheets on the floor. A scattering of damp tissue wads littered the cushion around her. On the table to her left, there was a part-full glass of lemonade almost the same color as the slacks she wore.

  Annie Laurie dropped her purse and tote bag on the floor and went over to Honey, brushed aside the tissues, sat down, and put her arms about her. Honey’s face was puffy and streaked with weeping; now she laid her head on Annie’s breast and let the tears fall. She didn’t let go of her ankles, didn’t make any effort to wipe the tears away, hardly made a sound as her shoulders heaved. Her tears left a wet patch on Annie’s blue cotton shirt.

  Looking at the two women together, I was taken aback by how much Honey had changed. Annie has always been a slim woman; after our girls were born, she rounded out some, but for a woman over forty, she looked good. Shoot, Annie would look good for thirty.

  Honey, on the other hand, had battled her weight for as long as I’d known her. She hadn’t ever been less than plump, and there had been times when she had veered off into, well, if I were an unkind man, I’d say she’d gotten a little fat sometimes. The thing is, Honey looked good plump. She’s a peachy-skinned redhead, and full-bodied, she looks ripe and luscious and more than one man has been surprised that her unfashionably fleshy curves have caused such a stirring in his loins. I’d be a liar if I said it hadn’t ever happened to me.

  But the Honey who sat in front of me, eyes squeezed shut, leaking tears all over my wife, was not plump. I’d say she was skinny, but the word that came to mind was “deflated.” She must have dropped a good thirty pounds. That’s a lot of weight to lose, even for someone as big as I am. Honey was maybe five feet nine. And I’ll tell you something else: Honey’s probably a bit over forty, but I’d never before noticed. Now those years clung to her. Looking at her made me feel sad, and old.

  Annie Laurie did that comforting murmur thing women who care for each other do when one is in terrible pain. I took a handful of clementines before I sat down on the chair closest to the love seat and I peeled and sectioned four or five just to give my hands something to do. There wasn’t a trash can anywhere I could see, so I mixed the torn pieces of peel in with a bowl of potpourri. Then I lined the miniature orange sections up on top of one of the magazines stacked on the coffee table. In case someone might want one. The phone rang somewhere in the house; there was talk and then a definitive click as the receiver was replaced in the cradle.

  Cruz came in with a coffee tray and I jumped up to take it from her, but she wouldn’t let me. She put it down on the glass table with a thump that brought Honey’s head up, and before she could go back to crying, Cruz handed her a folded, damp washcloth and said, “Wipe your face. You’re all splotches. That was your father on the phone again. I told him what you told me to tell him.”

  Honey patted her face with the washcloth and said through the cloth, “Thank you, Cruz.”

  “Yeah, he’s coming out anyway. He’ll be here in a little bit, so you want to pull yourself together.”

  Honey threw the washcloth across the room.

  Cruz was unperturbed. “I told him what you said, he said he’s coming out. You can’t stop that old man. I don’t know why you think I can. Your momma is coming, too. You should have called her first thing, Honey. How you think that’s gonna make her feel, getting that call from me? Should have called her yourself with the news. And you gonna pick that cloth up yourself.”

  Honey unfolded herself and crossed the room to fetch the wet cloth. Cruz poured out four cups of coffee, fixing each the way she knew we drank it; she put three sugars and milk in mine, four sugars, no milk in hers. She sat down in the chair opposite me, smoothed the straight, navy blue skirt of her dress over her knees, and said without preamble, “Alex isn’t home.”

  “Hasn’t anyone called the school yet?”

  Cruz gave me a look. She’s really good at that, giving meaningful looks.

  “Of course we did, Bear. What you thinking? He’s not at school. He didn’t come home last night. He’s not answering his cell. Jenasy’s roommate is bringing her home later today. You know what happened?”

  Annie said, “No, we just heard …”

  “You gonna tell them what the police say or you want me to?”

  Honey shook her head. Her hair was clean and brushed, but she needed a color touch-up. I could see a dark line at the roots of her curls. She got one of Cruz’s pointed looks as she curled back onto the love seat. The coffee in front of her was black. She used to prefer coffee with cream. Lots of cream.

  Cruz drank her cup halfway down and set it in the saucer.

  “Okay. This is what they’re telling us. You know the Bridgewater golf course? I’m talking about that piece of it at the corner of Alcorn Oaks and Elkins Road; you know where I’m talking about?”

  I said, yes, I knew it. I’d played the course at least once a month since we’d moved to Sugar Land. It was easy walking distance from our house.

  “So that’s where she found him. Some little Chinese girl on her way to school.”

  “Cruz, she’s Korean, or her parents are Korean, she’s American …” Honey trailed off under Cruz’s gaze.

  “Is that important to what I’m saying?”

  Honey shook her head. Cruz took the story up again.

  “No. So anyway, this little girl, her house backs up to the golf course, and she crosses the golf course each day to get to Fort Settlement, that’s the middle school, you know.”

  We knew. Jo had been in school at Fort Settlement last year. She was a freshman at Clements High School this year.

  “So that’s where she found him.” Cruz drank from her coffee cup and put it down with a clink that said “There, now.”

  We had come full circle in the story and I still didn’t know how or why Graham had died.

  I asked. “Cruz, how did Graham die?”

  “Somebody hit him on the head. Hard.”

  In my mind’s eye I could see a golf ball ricocheting off a pine tree and beaning Graham.

  “Are they certain it wasn’t an accident?”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty sure.” Her tone of voice meant they were positive. Cruz shook her head firmly, finished off her cup, and turned it upside down in the saucer. Cruz Valtierra is the only person I’ve ever seen do this.

  “Probably not an accident unless he could manage to whack himself in the head with a Big Bertha. Graham has got a dent in his head that fits a Big Bertha.”

  I ran through the mechanics in my mind’s eye. A Big Bertha golf club has a great big head, hence the name. There wasn’t any way on earth I could accidentally brain myself with one. But a Big Bertha seemed an unlikely murder weapon. Still, I could see how someone else could accidentally hit you with a Big Bertha. I’ve played with guys who made me feel like golf could develop into a contact sport. Say, if they stepped back when they were swinging, not that you’re supposed to step back in the middle of a swing, but say they stepped into your space …

  Cruz said, “Then we got the problem of what Graham was doing on the golf course in the middle of the night. Not playing golf, I’m thinking. Not in the dark.”

  It wasn’t all that dark last night. There was a full moon. With a glow-in-the-dark ball, a really good golfer like Graham might be able to play—you shouldn’t, the course cl
oses an hour after full dark, but …

  “Was he robbed? Do the police have any idea who did this?”

  At this, Honey lifted her head. She wore a bright, tight smile.

  “Do you have any idea, Bear? You may have been the last person to have a real conversation with Graham. Did he tell you anything? Because when he got home after talking to you, he locked himself up in his study for three or four hours and then went out. He didn’t say more than a sentence or two to me. So of course, I’m wondering what went on between the two of you. Did you learn anything I should know about?”

  I said no, which maybe wasn’t entirely true. She might need to know about some of it. But not now. Maybe not ever.

  “Did you get one of Graham’s staring sessions? You doing all the talking and him looking at the ceiling, giving back a whole lot of quiet?”

  I didn’t say anything and Honey took that for assent.

  She sighed and pushed her hair back off her face, holding it high at the crown and then releasing her hair to fall limply back down.

  “If you want to know what the police think,” Honey said, “their idea is that he was living with the enemy. Their idea is that I picked up that golf club and swung it at my husband’s head as hard as I could and smashed his brain to a jelly.”

  She stood up and slid her hands down her newly sleek hips. Her waistband slipped an inch and exposed some tummy. Not plump, but not tight, either. Honey picked up her glass of diluted lemonade and drank it down. She hadn’t touched her coffee.

  “That’s their favorite idea numero uno. Ideao favorito numero two-o …”

  I wasn’t sure where the cartoon Spanish had come from; I didn’t like it. Honey put her empty glass on the floor, and rested her hand on the back of my chair, leaning in close to me and breathing gin in my face. Now I knew where the cartoon Spanish had come from, and I didn’t like that, either.

  “Um … numero duo, I mean, that would be Alex, Bear. My baby boy is their number two suspect. The police have just given my boy’s room the kind of tweezers and Baggie search no sixteen-year-old boy should have to go through. Do you know what I mean, Bear?”

  Honey was upright now, swaying a little, hands on her hips, as much to keep her pants up as to demonstrate her outrage. Annie Laurie looked bewildered. Cruz was stacking coffee cups on the tray, making a lot of clatter. The clatter distracted Honey and she turned to Cruz.

  “Cruz, sugar, could you get me some more”—there was a hesitation—“lemonade?”

  Cruz walked out of the sunroom with the tray. She called back over her shoulder, “No, Honey, I got work to do. Better you drink your coffee instead. And did you hear me say your daddy is on his way? You want to lay off that ‘lemonade,’ Honey. Your daddy ain’t going to like that.”

  Honey wavered, looking uncertain. She noticed the orange segments on the magazine and sat back down.

  “Why, look here, Annie Laurie, here’s someone gone and peeled these oranges for me. I love these little clementines, don’t you, too? Little California Cuties, that’s what they call them. They’re so sweet, and no pits! I love that there’s no pits, don’t you, Annie Laurie?” Honey was working her way through the orange segments, chewing and swallowing, big tears running down her face. Annie Laurie slipped over to my side.

  “Bear, I think—”

  “Uh-huh, Annie. Let me talk to her. See if you can help Cruz, see if she knows where Alex might be. I know that boy didn’t do anything”—I didn’t know; that’s what I was praying—“but it doesn’t look good for him to be gone, and anyway, I’d rather he be here at home when he gets this news. Would you take that cake with you before somebody steps on it?”

  Annie Laurie nearly stepped on the pound cake herself as she backed out the door.

  I sat back down in the chair, noting that I could feel the cast iron beneath the cushion and all those pillows. Honey patted the seat next to her. Her rings slid stone side down; they were loose, too. Dang. Did she have some wasting disease?

  “No, Honey, I’m fine over here. Let’s go ahead and get this over with. I know you’re a good woman, and you know Annie Laurie and I love you, but good people do bad things sometimes; you and I know that’s the truth. So, did you kill Graham? Maybe not meaning to kill him, but are you the one who hit him with the golf club?”

  Honey looked at me and her eyes cleared; I could see the Honey I used to know looking out of that haggard face. Cruz ought to bring a plate of cookies, or something. I wanted Honey back to herself again.

  “Walker, I guess you know I had a drink this morning.” When people get serious, they often call me by my given name.

  I said, “I know you’ve had more than one, Honey.”

  She tried to smile but gave it up. “I’m just trying to ’stablish that even though I had a drink this morning”—a pause—“maybe two, that I am stone-cold sober when I tell you that I didn’t kill Graham, not accidentally, not on purpose.

  “I did hate him sometimes, Bear. There were times when I wished he would die. I suppose that’s kind of a ‘Jimmy Carter murder.’” She looked down at her hands, stretching them out. They were good strong hands, long-fingered, the nails manicured that way where the tips were white.

  “If I did any fantasizing about someone dying, it was more often me. Preferably like Camille, slow and easy and not disfiguring, so that Graham would have plenty of time to feel guilty and fall back in love with me.

  “See, what it means, Bear, Graham dying, what it means, is that God isn’t ever going to fix us. Graham isn’t ever going to find his way back to me. He’s not going to love me again. All those nights on my knees, praying, and the extra highlights in my hair, the Botox, the personal trainer. Me being so careful what I put in my mouth that I went to bed hungry every night for the last year.”

  She shook her head, picked up the cup of now-tepid coffee, and sipped it.

  “When I was in high school, I dated, I dated all the time! And I was a fatty, then, too. Well, I was chubby. But boys liked me, thought I was pretty. I thought I was pretty. Graham wasn’t the only fellow to ask me to marry him. Two boys bought me rings outright, before they even asked.”

  I didn’t doubt that, and it might have been true even without HD Parker’s millions.

  “But once I met Graham, there wasn’t anyone else. I was drawn to that boy like a beetle to the bug zapper. And he burnt me to cinders. He’ll be getting buried in a couple of days, but when they put him in the dirt, a whole lot of who I used to be, who I ought to have been …”

  Honey’s face was so contorted with anger and grief it was hard not to turn away. She saw it in my eyes and her hands flew to her face. She covered her face with her hands, and then, with her fingers, she smoothed out the wrinkles on her forehead, drew her palms up along her cheekbones, briefly lifting her face. When her hands dropped, her face was calm.

  “A whole lot of Honey will be down there with him. That part is going to be every bit as dead as Graham.

  “Let me tell you about Graham, Bear, the Graham you didn’t get to know. The Graham hardly anybody knew. He didn’t let many people know who he was.

  “You know how I met Graham? Momma and I were flying up to New York to hit the after-Christmas sales. The flight was delayed, and Momma was engrossed in some book, and I’ve never been much of a reader. There was this handsome young man, already looking like the big-time lawyer he would come to be, waiting for the same flight. He was talking to these three women, they’re dressed just as plain as mud, and I’m thinking what do they have that can attract someone as sharp as Graham, because that’s who that was, that was Graham. And come to find out, they were nuns.

  “I know that because after a little bit, Graham comes over to Momma and me and wants to know do we want some coffee or anything since he was going to get some for himself and it would be his pleasure to get some for us, too. I’m not the dummy I look like and I said I’d go with him, help him carry it all back. So this nice-looking man tells me those three women are
nuns on their way to New York, and the place they were staying was in Harlem. Those nuns were planning on taking the subway to Harlem. Because the flight was delayed, those poor women were going to be heading off to Harlem on the subway at, like, one in the morning. I learn all this walking the concourse drinking coffee, which I didn’t even like back then, and talking to Graham.

  “Only when we finally got to JFK, there was a limo driver holding a sign, SISTERS MARY ALICE, THERESA, AND DOLORES. I don’t really remember their names, but, you know. What I do remember is, Graham had called ahead to get those poor women a limo to take them right to the door of their school or whatever it was. He didn’t have much money then, either.”

  Honey’s face went soft and dreamy.

  “I loved him for that. I fell in love with Graham right there and then, with my matching luggage all piled at my feet, the nuns flustered and surprised, kissing Graham on the cheek and blessing him, and I see Graham slip them money to tip the driver.”

  Honey pleated the bottom of her blouse and her eyes filled again.

  “Graham used to make word problems for me, you know that? No. No one knows that but me. He’d leave them on the kitchen table for me to find when I got up. Once I had the puzzle worked out, it would be a love message, or maybe a funny poem he made up about how sweet “honey” was. Every once in a while it was to tell me to look someplace—I’d find a piece of jewelry wrapped up in that pale blue box that makes every girl’s heart flutter.”

  I had no idea what that pale blue box was and made a mental note to ask Annie.

  Honey held a slim hand out to display a ring with a large sapphire. She straightened it on her hand, but the heavy rock slipped down to hide in her palm and she sighed.

  “There are one hundred stories I could tell you. One thousand reasons why I chose Graham and was never sorry I did. I love those stories.”