by Amber Foxx
Jamie watched them turn, and frowned. “Muffie. Jeezus. Fucking ruined the evening, haven’t we? I’ll be looking at Ruth all night and thinking killer.”
“We still don’t know. Wait ’til I find out before you judge her.”
In the center of a sculpture garden, a huge red stone woman emerging from the pink earth brought them to a standstill, deepening and changing the silence between them into a moment of shared mystery. The figure was thick and strong, head tilted back, long hair merging with the dirt, knees, breasts, shoulders and hands above the surface, perhaps rising from the earth, or sinking into it like a bath. Mae felt it as the essence of birth or creation, but she wondered if to Jamie it was more like death.
In the darkening sky, the afternoon’s monsoon had crossed the mountains, a tower of black clouds promising ten minutes of delicate rain, or an hour of a crashing, roaring storm. Jamie stood gazing at the sculpture with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched in, the wind rippling his clothes against his body. As the rain started, slow, heavy drops patterned the stone carvings and the dry earth, spotting their clothes and touching their skin with fingers of sudden cold. Mae shivered, but he seemed impervious.
Thunder rolled closer, and the rain fell harder. Another explosion of thunder, closer this time, and with lightning. Mae touched Jamie on the arm. “We might get struck—better get indoors.”
“Been out in worse. I like it.” He turned his face up to the rain. “Go rain crazy. Out camping with my climbing group, they dive in their tents, and I take off my clothes and run around like a wild man.”
“In a thunderstorm?” He was afraid of spiders and dentists, but not of things that could actually hurt him. “God. And you think you’re some frightened rabbit.”
His face lit up, and he reached to her, suddenly and inexplicably joyful. For a split second his eyes and his smile knocked her off guard. He took both her hands. “I have my moments.”
Lightning cracked, and Mae pulled back from his attempt to draw her in closer. He shook his head as if he wanted to scold her for the refusal. Turning toward the gallery that stood at the entrance to the sculpture garden, he wrapped a sheltering arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get you in, you’re cold.”
She slid out of his hold with a guilty feeling. No matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t give up. The longer they were together, the more she liked him and the harder it got not to let him misunderstand her.
As they hurried to the building, the storm began to dump heavy sheets of rain and the rising wind snatched his hat. It flew over the adobe wall. Mae started to run after it, but Jamie stopped her. “It’s gone. It’s all right.”
They ducked inside the gallery, greeted by a trim woman with over-groomed hair, who exchanged cheerful praise of the rain with Jamie. A series of small, constrained abstracts in big frames filled all four walls. Mae and Jamie walked past the displays to a window, pretending brief interest in the unappealing works. He spoke softly so the gallery attendant couldn’t hear. “You’re not following your heart. You should fly with it, like you went for my hat.”
“You don’t know my heart. You can’t say if I’m following it or not.”
“Pig’s arse. It’s you that doesn’t know.”
A bewildering possibility occurred to her. “Can you see my soul right now? Is that why you said that?”
He shook his head, looked down, and fidgeted his hands together. “Nah.”
“So you can’t know my heart.”
“I do, though. I just ... know.”
She watched rain slash the sky and wash the street. Her chest felt full, her heart too big to hold. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into spending the whole day together.”
“Yeah, I’m like a fucking fly, aren’t I? Buzzing ’round your head.”
She looked at him to see if he was joking. He was smiling but bordering on sad.
“Kind of,” she said softly. “But I’d never put it that way.”
“It’s all right. I get it. I’ll behave myself. And if I don’t,” he took her hand and tapped it against his cheek in a mock slap, the depths of his eyes contrasting with his playful gesture, “you can swat me.”
Mae didn’t want to swat him. She withdrew her hand and turned away. A little wall seemed to rise between them, but not very high. They watched the storm again. Something light and bright bobbed down the street. Jamie’s straw fedora. He perked up, excited. “Look—it’s alive.”
He jogged to the door and sprinted out into the storm. A car braked hard as he dashed in front of it, and Mae’s strange, full heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t get himself hit by a car again. It missed him by less than a foot as he grabbed his hat and placed a hand to his chest, flashing The Smile at the driver and making an apologetic bow. Rain-soaked, he ran back toward the gallery, grinning and waving the rescued fedora at Mae.
As the sun returned through a rainbow, Mae and Jamie walked back to Delgado Street. Her calf muscles felt sore still, and he was moving like the old man he’d joked about being earlier. He held up his hat, which was already half-dry, and studied it. “Has more character now, y’think? After the battering?”
“That silly hat couldn’t have more character.”
“Silly? Suave.” He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle and danced a few jazzy steps. “It’s fucking suave.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not worth diving in front of a car for. Why do you do stuff like that?”
“Dunno.”
“You have to.”
“Nah, I really don’t.” The two-part shrug. He tossed and caught his hat a few times, and paused to hip-shift, as if trying unsuccessfully to put something back in place. “Just happens.”
“You need to get off that hip joint, sugar. I’d like you to rest while I talk with my family.” After missing them yesterday Mae needed to Skype with the girls. “I’m gonna need some extra time. My husband didn’t pick up yesterday. I don’t know what’s going on. He’s supposed to make sure the girls get to talk with me. You might as well take a nap while we sort it out.”
“Nah, I’ll fix you lunch. You haven’t eaten yet and it’s late. Nice lunch’ll brighten you up again after your lights go out.”
Mae felt her patience begin to fray. Something about this cheery offer was a last straw. She knew it shouldn’t have been, but his car encounter had pushed her Jamie endurance to the edge. “My lights don’t go out, and will you please stop cooking for me? It’s getting on my nerves.”
“Just trying to help you, love. Jeezus. You yelled at me.”
“I did not yell.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “And you said I could swat you.”
“Fair. I won’t cook.” He winked at her and grinned. “I’ll just make a salad.”
“Sugar—”
“It’ll keep me out of the way while you chat with your warden.”
“I don’t think that’s funny.”
“Neither do I. I’ve been committed, y’know, and I know what it feels like.”
“We were committed. That’s why it’s so hard.”
“Nah, I meant in the nuthouse. Couldn’t sign myself out. Locked up.” He put his hat on, matching her strides in spite of his limp. “You’re not involuntary, though. You could get out.”
They crossed Alameda onto the final block of Delgado. “I’m not locked up, and Hubert’s hardly my warden.”
“Yeah? You act like you’re in a bloody straitjacket.” Jamie stopped walking and looked into Mae’s eyes as she stopped with him. He became serious, curious. “What’s he like?” Then before she could answer he half laughed, scrunching his face as if he’d seen something awful. “Fuck. Don’t tell me. You look up normal in the dictionary, you find his picture.”
“Kind of.” She resumed walking. “Cross between a good ol’ boy mechanic and an organic farmer.”
Jamie caught up with her. “That’s what he does. What’s he like?”
“Smart. Works hard. Good father ... Good looking.”
; “Bloody shopping list.”
“Will you lay off?” The pain of losing Hubert shot through her suddenly, as if talking about him had ripped the stitches out of a healing wound. “We were good together.”
“Bored shitless, you mean.”
When she started to snap back, Jamie made a buzzing noise and mimed watching a circling fly. He smacked the imaginary pest between his hands and offered it to her, slowly opening his palms with a wide-eyed, don’t-be-mad-at me look.
Anger softened, Mae said, “Keep your thoughts on my marriage to yourself.”
“It’s not a marriage, love. It’s a divorce.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Leaving Jamie in the kitchen, Mae set up her laptop in the garden. The quiet was soothing. It seemed like a year ago when she’d brought him here to help her clean, yet it had been only a few days. She’d never thought he would keep coming back like this. He meant well, but he was so persistent. Bzzzz ... She swatted the image away. He probably had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like. She did, and she missed it. The call was bound to make it hurt more.
It was a little after five o’clock in North Carolina. Hubert, still in his blue coveralls from the garage, came on Skype, looking hot and tired.
“Hey,” Mae said cautiously, “I missed the young’uns yesterday. What happened?”
“Talk to them first.” He took off his ball cap and let his hair down, the long, thick dark ponytail tumbling in a wave along his back. “Let me get cleaned up. We got things to talk about. Brook? Stream? Come on and talk to your mama.”
The twins bounced onto the sofa behind the coffee table where he’d set up the computer, and he left.
Mae and the girls chatted a while about the things they’d been doing, more to hear each other’s voices and see each other’s faces than from any need to say the words, stretching the conversation until they ran out of things to say, still wanting to look at each other. Into the silence, Stream said in a small uncertain voice, “Granma Sallie and Grampa Jim say hey.”
Mae hadn’t stayed in touch with her in-laws. A greeting through the children was awkward, and sad. It reminded Mae of the whole process of her marriage falling apart.
“Speaking of grandparents,” she tried to make the talk cheerful again, “you young’uns have to meet my daddy sometime. I’ll have to Skype you with him when I get back to his town.”
“But,” Brook squirmed closer to Stream, “will he be our grampa if you’re not our mama anymore?”
Mae’s heart seemed to stop. “Not your mama? Where’d you get that idea?”
“If Daddy marries Miss Jen,” Brook said, and Stream nodded. “Will she be our mama?”
Hubert came in, as if he’d been listening not far off. “All right, girls. Don’t you be worrying about that. She’s always your mama. Blow her a big kiss. We gotta talk about some grown-up stuff now.” The twins, reassured, said goodbye with kissy-face gestures that made them giggle and ran off. “Hey—y’all wait up.” The thundering little feet stopped. “You can go out in the backyard, but don’t get where I can’t hear you holler.”
A good father. Mae ached when she saw Hubert in that role, one of the things she had loved about him. He’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and the sight of him, that perfectly proportioned, well-muscled body—another thing she’d loved about him—made her think of what he’d look like while he changed, the way his tan lines stopped at his sleeves, the little patch of curly hair in the middle of his chest ... She pulled back into the present. Why was she going there?
Hubert rubbed his hands along his thighs, and planted them there. “All right, might as well get into it.”
“Are we gonna fight about something?”
“Could. I hope not, but here’s why I didn’t answer yesterday. We were over at Jen’s house. All of us.” Mae knew her hurt look must have shown from the way Hubert sighed and leaned back. “I ... Look, hon, I’m trying to build a relationship there.”
“You’re already going off together for the weekend. Isn’t that enough?”
He straightened up again, leaned toward the screen. “I’m talking about Jen and the girls. If you call every day and they don’t get any time with just her and me, it’s not gonna work. They need to get over you.”
“Get over me? I raised them from when they were one year old. I’m the only mama they know.”
“But you’re gone. You won’t always be the only mama they know.”
“We’re not even divorced yet and you’re planning on marrying Jen?”
“I didn’t say that. I never said that.”
“Brook said it.”
“Come on, Mae—you know her imagination. But we’re getting along good, and Jen really likes the girls, and it’ll help them heal if they have a woman in their lives here. You calling every day, it doesn’t help. I want them to still love you and know you, but—you can’t pretend it’s like you’re still here. You’re not.”
“And Jen is.”
“You know her, Mae. You can’t say she’s not a good person, or that she isn’t good for them.”
“I never said any of that. I just don’t want her to be their mama.”
“Sooner or later, somebody else will be. Couple of years, it might be her. I think it could. We’re taking it slow, but ... I’m happy with her. You and me gotta move on. So do Brook and Stream.”
Mae fought back tears. “So how often can I call?”
“Let’s cut back a little. How about you don’t call on weekends, except this one while we’re away? So Jen and the girls get some good times together. And maybe ... let me think about it. Jen’s off Wednesday nights, how about you don’t call on Wednesdays either. Can you handle that?”
“Does she spend the night?”
“No, not yet. I said we’re taking it slow. But if and when we get there—it’s gonna be none of your business.”
“Fine.” Mae heard her own voice as sulky and petulant. She didn’t want to be that way, and tried to sound more adult. “Four calls a week. I can handle it.”
The call ended with silent gazes across the distance. No more “I love you.” He said that to someone else now. The distance from Hubert was bigger than ever, and he was dragging Brook and Stream over that gap with him. It hurt like a piece of her heart being pulled out. Mae turned off the laptop and set it on the ground, lay back on the bench and closed her eyes. Even with sunglasses, the sky seemed too bright. Too much light coming in. More than she could handle.
They’re my girls. Tears burned her eyes, and her throat tightened. We should have stayed together. We should have worked this out.
A soft touch tickled against the arm dangling at her side. Pie’s tail. Then Pie’s head rubbed under her hand. Mae stroked the cat blindly, and let herself weep. She wanted to hold her stepdaughters, to wrap them in her arms, because she knew, deeply and certainly, that she was losing them along with her husband. That someday she wouldn’t be their mama.
A shadow came over her face, and she felt hot, strong hands along her temples, long fingers reaching around to touch away her tears. Jamie had to be kneeling in the sage and lavender and the rocks. He’d arrived as silently as the cat.
While she cried, he gently pressed his hands onto the fronts of her shoulders, holding her heart open so she couldn’t run from the pain or his witness to it. Somehow this helped her to purge the grief. When she stopped sobbing, he stroked the tops of her ears with the feathery touch of a single finger, then rubbed the base of her skull as if scooping it off her neck. These odd movements reminded her of the strange things he did to Pie, even as they softened the torn places in her soul. Jamie held her head in his hands, still and silent, and Mae felt him drawing her pain out, letting it soak into him like he was a porous stone in a rainstorm, leaving her drained but soothed.
After this moment of stillness, Jamie rested his forehead on hers and sniffed loudly. “Fuck. Sorry. Can’t help it. Anybody cries I—” He started laughing. “What a fucking mess.” The
laughter crashed to a halt. “Jesus, bloody hell, what a fucking mess.”
Mae took off her sunglasses and opened her eyes, and Jamie raised his head from hers enough for their eyes to meet, upside down to each other. “Yeah, it sure is, sugar.”
She sat up, and he stood, raising his face to the sky, rubbing his eyes, and then dragging his hands back through his hair. He made a sound halfway between a growl and a groan.
“Thanks for being with me,” Mae said. “You’re sweet. You helped.”
He glanced at her with too much hope, and she shook her head.
“I’m not ready,” she said. “You can see that. Nowhere near ready.”
Jamie nodded, and sat beside her with his hands interlaced and arms locked, making a kind of dagger shape that he clasped with his knees. His shoulders drew forward, forming a sheltering cave around his heart, and he looked at the ground. “Why?”
“I feel like Hubert and me shouldn’t have split. Shouldn’t have let our stuff take me away from the girls.”
“But you had to, or you wouldn’t have done it.” Still in his concave and braced position, Jamie raised his head a few inches. “I mean, I know. Kids—you want to stay.” Rocking, silent. A deep breath. “But you’re all right, y’know? And your parents split.”
“But Daddy being gay, that was no ordinary fight. They had some big issues.”
“And you’re all right.” He turned to her, freeing his arms, hands crawling over each other. “Your dad’s all right.”
“I didn’t see him for fourteen years.”
“But look at you. Look at him. You’re good. You’re well. Nobody died of it. Jesus—picture if he’d stayed. Did you think they were happy?”
“No.”
With a one-shoulder shrug, Jamie looked away, rubbing one hand along the other arm. “My mum and dad—love story. Passionate. Still are. But Mum had Haley from some bloke she fooled around with before Dad, and Haley’s fucking brilliant, sane, feet on the ground, head on straight. Had a single Mum ’til she was four. Me? Product of the perfect union, and look at me.” He looked to the sky again, rocking. “Bloody disaster. And it’s nobody’s fault.”