West of You

by Christina Metcalf

  “M never thought she’d…”

  He handed me a beer.

  “She ever talk to you about it? Hell, you could probably tell me all about my life, couldn’t ya?”

  He doesn’t join me back on the swing. Instead, he leans up against the railing and looks down at me.

  “Couldn’t ya?” He pressed.

  “Not all about it.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said you made her happy. Happier than she ever was or thought she could be.”

  He nods. I feel relief that he seems satisfied until he exploded with, “That’s bullshit! And you know it.”

  “No, it’s not. I promise.”

  “She said that? I don’t believe it.”

  “All the time. Seriously. I wouldn’t make that up….not now.”

  “I wanted kids and she thought she’d be a terrible mom. I kept telling her how well she took care of all of the animals. How she was so nurturing. She said it wasn’t the same and she had watched what it had done to you….”

  There wasn’t much I could see with his face backlit from the kitchen light shining onto the porch but I could tell he hadn’t meant to say it.

  “Oh...Sara…I...didn’t”

  “It’s okay.”

  I wave him away like it’s okay but it’s not. All these years she had been my constant cheerleader. Even when I called her and told her that I had left Maddie at school by accident, she told me I just had too much on my mind. When I told her that the screen door smacked Henry on the forehead because I was carrying him and the groceries in and missed it with my foot but he stopped it with his head, she said mistakes happen; even when I confessed to her that sometimes I thought my kids would be better off with another mother she told me I was wrong that no one was better for them than me. It had all been a farce. She had been there, over in Childlessville judging me.

  I chugged my beer and thanked Luke for the conversation but told him I didn’t feel like talking much more. I waited for him to remind me of the deal but he didn’t. He let me get all the way to the screendoor of the house before calling my name.

  “Sara, wait. She didn’t mean anything by it. And it wasn’t right of me to say it like that.”

  “No, it’s okay Luke. I guess it just never occurred to me than when she was telling me about you, that she’d be telling you about me too.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  I rested my head against the tiny squares in the screen door wondering if they’d leave an imprint.

  I said, “Good night, Luke” but I didn't move. I was frozen. Did M think I was a bad mom or that the kids had been bad for me? She didn’t want to end up like me. What part? How could I have not known her feelings and how had it come up in conversation to Luke?

  Honey, can you pass the orange juice? Oh, by the way, did you know my friend Sara is a raging loser of a mother? Poor blessed little lambs. Wonder if they’ll live to adulthood.

  “She didn’t think you were an awful mother. She just thought being a mother stole your magic.”

  I turned to face him and was surprised to find him right behind me. It was amazing I hadn’t crashed into him. He was uncomfortably close. He pushed an unruly strand of my hair back behind my slightly larger than average ears. My eyes stung with tears.

  “She said you were an amazing sculptor. You had interest from New York galleries. You sold pieces in Europe.”

  I nodded. I vaguely remember that all being true before the goats.

  “She said you were going to travel the world and live off the money you got selling pieces. The two of you were all set to go when Mike asked you to marry him.”

  Also true.

  “I’ve always thought that story was a little sad.”

  I wanted to tell him it wasn’t sad that I loved my kids and Mike...but it hadn’t ended any differently than if I had abandoned them all and jetted off with my best friend to Europe.

  I was alone.

  He brushed my tears from my cheeks and I swallowed hard. It would be incredibly easy to move in halfway to his mouth. I was fairly certain he would do the rest. And I could play her for him and he could play Mr. Right for me, if only for a few minutes. We could stop feeling so very alone.

  One summer never so alive

  The dripping of the rain on the tin roof and the smell of coffee woke me. It looked to be about mid-morning from the brightness in the room. I worried for a second Luke would think I was a slacker being as how farmers got up at the crack of dawn. I went down to face him anyways. I figured I had to at some point. Maybe I’d tell him I was sketching out new sculpting ideas all morning; make it sound like I wasn’t “sleeping the day away” as my father used to chide.

  He stood by the sink looking out at the property. I could see what M saw in him. He had none of the complications of age. She lovingly called him Bo Triangle. Bo because he was “all Texan,” a concept she found endearing and “Triangle” because of his broad strong shoulders and “twenty-something waist.” She loved that his body never got the message that he was supposed to be in his paunchy thirties.

  Sometimes she called him her dessert. She would tell me she had spent two decades with what was good for her. Now she wanted something purely for the pleasure.

  “Hey, there sleepyhead.” he said, turning to me, cup of coffee extended like a peace offering. I bet that Texas accent had gotten him out of a lot of trouble in his life.

  “Sorry ‘bout last night.” I offered although I didn’t really know what I was apologizing for.

  My cheeks burned. I’m sure I was lit up like Rudolph’s nose. He watched as I drank my first few sips of liquid energy but what I really wanted was a Mountain Dew.

  “Can we talk?” he asked moving that pesky hair away from my cheek again.

  I also remembered M telling me he was a little in touch with his feminine side.

  He patted the pocket of his jeans. “Almost forgot. You left this on the porch last night.”

  He handed me my phone. I didn’t bother to look at it. It should’ve been long dead.

  “I charged it while you were sleeping.”

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “This is awkward, ain’t it? I mean I don’t know what to say to you. I feel like I know things about you but I don’t know you. And I know you know a lot about me too.”

  I nod.

  “I’ve read her emails to you.”

  And there it was.

  “She kept them all from years ago. Before me even.”

  “Why did you read them?”

  I felt the spittle from the corner of my mouth fly free. I hoped he wouldn't notice but my sudden anger allowed me to escape that thought quickly.

  “I had to know why, Sara.”

  “Do you know why now?”

  “No.”

  “See. That was a dick move.”

  “Oh, what? Like I’m supposed to walk by all of her things every day and pretend like I still trust her implicitly? I trusted her not to take the one thing I loved more than anything.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about the car.”

  “Are you kidding me? I meant her!”

  “And the dog.” I added putting more sugar in my coffee. Sometimes I can’t leave well enough alone.

  “I don’t know what to make of you, Sara. It’s like you want everyone to know you’re wrecked and broken but you don’t seem to notice that other people are hurting too.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  I was mildly annoyed. He didn’t know me even if he had read the emails.

  “But I’m starting to. The way you’d brush me off on the phone. The way you said you might come see me but wouldn’t commit to anything definitive until you were 60 miles out. You are the most selfish adult woman with kids I’ve ever met.” So much for Texas charm.

  “I’m selfish? Well...you’re delusional! You mope around like some sort of freedom fighter took your girlfriend out and tried to cover up the murder by shoving her out on the railroad tr
acks. She did it all herself! She took everything that meant anything to you. Your car. Your dog. Your love….and what the hell was last night?”

  “What do ya mean?”

  “The wiping my tears thing.”

  Luke moved in toward me, tucking that hair again behind my ear. Next time I’m in the bathroom, I vowed to chop it off.

  “What? Not liking to see a lady cry? If I carried a handkerchief I would’ve given it to you instead of wiping but no kerchief, I had to make due.”

  “You’re so close to me I can barely breathe.”

  “You’re having problems breathin’?”

  “Only when you stand so damn close.”

  “I guess that’s my way of trying to keep you from runnin’. M said you had a problem with that.”

  I back away from him and into the counter. There’s nowhere to retreat.

  “Well, you have a problem with lechery.”

  “Lechery? What does that mean?”

  “Your beloved has only been dead three months and you’re making the moves on her best friend.”

  “Oh my gosh! That’s what you think that was? I was hurtin’ last night and so were you. I was tryin’ to comfort you.”

  “Is that what you call it in Texas?”

  “I was a complete gentleman. I assure you I don’t have one iota of sexual interest in you. I slept in the barn last night because I didn’t want anyone gettin’ the wrong idea, two single people under the same roof and all.”

  “Who would know? Does the milk man make any early delivery out here?”

  “I would know and maybe I didn’t want you getting the wrong idea or feeling unsafe under the same roof as a stranger.”

  “You’re not exactly a stranger.”

  “And yet you thought I was coming on to you.”

  “What if I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a killer or a fire and I was yelling for you and you were in the barn?”

  He cocked his head and looked at me the same way Mike used to in utter confusion.

  “Let me be clear. I’m interested in only one part of you,” he said.

  I scan my body as he shakes his head. He taps the side of my temple.

  “Your brain. I need to know why or at least your why.”

  “Why what?” I ask willing him to say the words.

  He exhaled and looked at me. Hard. Purposeful.

  “Why she killed herself,” he admitted.

  A weight lifted off of me like M has left the room. I long to crawl into bed and disappear.

  “How’s that feel?” I asked.

  “It feels like shit.”

  We are finally in the same room of grief, a room full of dense spider webs clouding the view, of stomped on empty Mountain Dew cans, a room littered with memories. He shakes his head and looks at the world’s most interesting shoe, kinda like that blacked out horizon last night.

  “I am delusional...or I’m trying to be. I know she did it but I just can’t accept that we don’t know why. And I need you to help me.”

  “Your brother said it was an accident.”

  “That’s how he filled out the sheriff’s report. He said it was smarter to do that in case of insurance and the rest but we all know sane, sober people who are in their 40s don’t go driving on the tracks for fun and get surprised by a train.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For finally saying it. Everyone treats me like I’m the crazy girl.”

  A smirk came over his pained face and he pressed his lips together for an awkward amount of time. I wondered if he was willing himself not to cry.

  “She fucking killed herself!” His roar shook the house. “My girlfriend Goddamn killed herself!”

  As quietly as I could I added, “...and your dog.”

  He paced back and forth in the corner of the barn that was her studio. I was surprised by how tidy it was. Except for the hay bail seat, animal smell, and occasional mooing overheard coming from a few stalls down, it was difficult to tell that section was part of the larger barn. It looked just like a trendy warehouse apartment.

  “She loved this spot because it gets good light in the morning and she said she could watch the garden grow.”

  Peering out the window, I saw corn in all directions. There was also a tractor tire that had been used as a raised bed with something brown and scraggly growing out of it like a kindergarten drawing of a giant stick octopus. I imagined at one time there were gorgeous flowers. Living when she was.

  “I knew your brother was clueless when he said she had gotten confused driving through the corn.”

  Luke nodded.

  “Corn is short in June.”

  “It is.” he admitted.

  “Think the insurance company is smart enough to figure that out?”

  “We didn’t have life insurance on her. We cancelled it a few months ago. There’s no amount of money that could make me miss her less. Seemed like a dumb expense.”

  “So why’d Travis give me such a hard time about suicide?”

  “He just didn’t want it gettin’ around that she offed herself. Thought it would be better. We’re pretty thick into the bible around here and you know what the good book says about that.”

  I nodded even though I didn’t...exactly.

  “So why did you have theory after theory about how it happened and how it had to have been an accident, if you knew it wasn’t?”

  He shook his head, took off his ball cap, and rubbed his hair.

  “To admit she killed herself meant that she chose to leave me. She had done it before. I mean threatened but I always convinced her how good we were together. And she never had a good reason. She thought she was bringing me down. Like the kid thing. I wanted lots. She didn’t want any. She didn’t want me compromising on that. But this...her doing this...meant she left me in a way I could never win her back.”

  Through tears I smiled at him. I felt the exact opposite. I wanted to believe she did it on purpose so I could hate her and not be so damn sad. How could Luke and I continue to believe she loved us when she had gone to the far reaches of existence to escape us and without even leaving a note.

  “What’d she say to you again?” He asked.

  This must’ve been the eighth time he asked me that but I repeated it nonetheless. I was tempted to add something new to the story, to make me seem not so desperate, to make me seem like a better person, but I knew that wouldn’t help him.

  “She didn’t have time for me on our second call. She made it sound like she had something to do. I got the impression maybe it was your anniversary or something but I didn’t ask.”

  “Why?’

  There it was again. That same question that made me look like an ass.

  “I didn’t want to hear about how great her life was going when I was sure Mike was about to propose to the spice girl. Plus she wouldn’t talk to me about Walsey.”

  “Who’s Walsey?”

  This question was new. He was deviating from the pattern. Maybe we’d actually get somewhere today.

  “A guy we knew in college. He contacted me out of the blue and we had been flirting for a few days and I wanted her to tell me what to do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she always did that sort of thing.”

  “Did you listen to her advice?”

  “Usually but she didn’t give me any that day.”

  “Why not?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

  “Did she seem normal other than that?”

  He sat down next to me on the hay bale and I looked up at the tall wooden beams, majestic like the belly of an old Viking ship. I wondered if any of us live more than one life. Had we all known each other in a slightly different scenario in a different time period? Was I explaining to a factory-working husband why his wife had cut her hair short and started frequenting speakeasies, or maybe we had gone through a similar line of questioning 125 years ago in Utah when his first wife ran
off and he thought his second wife was to blame. There was something familiar about our exchange but then again we’d been over the details of this exact conversation ad nauseum.

  “She seemed irritated with me.”

  “Was that normal?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “Sorry, had to ask.”

  I wanted to help him figure it all out but I felt on trial here like if I had only not been such a shitty person she would be in the kitchen making lemonade right now.

  “How’d she seem to you?” I turned the questions on him.

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “When you left to run errands.”

  “I was grocery shopping. She hadn’t wanted to go. She gave up sugar and coffee that week and said she felt awful. There was nothing in the house. I was kinda pissed. It’s not like she had terminal cancer or something. I didn’t see why she couldn’t go do that stuff. I don’t expect her to do anything on the ranch...I mean, I didn’t. I just wanted her to decorate and cook. God, I sound like an ass but she told me she liked that stuff. I thought that’s what she wanted.”

  This part was different than before. I thought he had been running errands, not grocery shopping. She went grocery shopping because he had told me groceries were on the counter. Something wasn’t right.

  “I thought she did the grocery shopping that day.”

  “She did. We both did. We got in a fight about nothing being in the house and I stormed out. I went for a drive. Got some food and called her to apologize. She didn’t pick up. I ran into Travis. Talked for a bit. Called her again. Came home. Groceries, hers and mine.”

  Did she seem angry or depressed when you left?”

  “Nah...just….irritated. Like I was a giant baby who couldn’t do it for myself. I was the one who was angry.”

  “Exactly! I felt like she was irritated with me too.”

  “So apparently she thought we were both losers.”

  He shook his head and looked down at his lap. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing with me or at me. My phone vibrated. It was a text from Walsey, a picture of roadside flowers. “These are for you.”

  Seeing his text always made me feel uneasy like a storm about to hit. Have you ever gotten the stomach flu after eating and even though that food you consumed has nothing to do with what made you sick, you still associate that unpleasantness of throwing up with the taste of that food in reverse?