An August Harvest

by Ben Marney

  “What did she do?”

  “One day, she knocked on our front door, dramatically barged in, and insisted that my father take over control of the renovation of an historic building she had just purchased. No matter how hard he tried, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was just an infant, so I don’t remember, but everybody tells me that it was that project and Mrs. Hickenbottom’s insistence that pulled him out of his depression and saved both of us.”

  “She sounds like she was a very sweet lady.”

  Melissa started laughing. “Oh no, she wasn’t. She was anything but sweet. She was always dressed like she was on her way to the opera, wearing way too much makeup, with painted on dark black, Groucho Marx looking eyebrows, too much red rouge on her cheeks and bright red lipstick. She rode around town in the back of this beautiful old Silver Shadow Rolls Royce limousine like Norma Desmond, chain-smoking cigarettes at the end of a foot long Tortoise shell cigarette holder. She was bigger than life. The most cantankerous, grouchy, disagreeable woman you would ever meet. And she gave my father absolute hell on that first project and the seven other historic renovations they did together over the years. She was the only person on earth he allowed to call him a moron or an idiot to his face in public, and she did it almost every day. She was the definition of a crotchety old woman, but Dad loved her anyway.”

  “How did she convince him to let you go to UCLA?”

  “I’m not sure exactly what she said to him. Dad and I were still in the non-talking stage when her driver pulled up to our house and helped her walk up to our front door. Apparently, she had heard that I wanted to go away to college and took it on herself to talk some sense into Dad.”

  “How long did it take?”

  “She was there about an hour. The only thing I heard her say before they closed the door was, “I’ve always known you weren’t very bright, but I didn’t know you were this stupid!”

  “Is she still alive? I’d love to meet her.”

  “No, she died three years ago at 102. When she left that day, Dad came into my room and apologized. He admitted that he didn’t really care that I wasn’t going to Flagler College, it was just that he was going to be so lonely there all alone without me. When he said that, it broke my heart. I told him that I would stay and attend Flagler, but he insisted I go to UCLA like I’d planned. He said that it was finally time for him to let me leave the nest and sprout my wings and fly, just as long as I flew back home on every break.”

  “That’s where you met Jerry?”

  “Yes, it was in my sophomore year. It was on a blind date.”

  I raised up and looked at her. “So had you, how can I put this gently...changed your dress code?”

  She grinned. “You could say that. When I showed up, I looked like a nun compared to the rest of the girls. Fortunately, I joined a sorority and the girls there took me under their wings and helped me learn how to put on makeup and took me shopping. But, I was still much more conservative than most of the girls on campus and because of that, I didn’t date much.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re beautiful; were the guys there blind or just dumb?”

  She tilted her head and smirked. “That’s sweet, but to quote you, Mr. Nash, ‘I have a full-length mirror and I know what I look like.’ Grant, I’ve never been beautiful. I’m not saying I think I’m ugly, but I’m not beautiful, and I’m okay with that. I’m short, my butts too big, and I’m constantly fighting my weight. If I gain five pounds, I start to resemble a sumo wrestler.”

  I grinned. “I bet you’d look pretty sexy in one of those thong diaper thingy’s they wear.”

  She shot me a hard look. “Ha, ha, ha, very funny. Anyway, when I saw Jerry for the first time, I couldn’t believe my luck. He was so tall and handsome. He drove a sports car and dressed so nice. He just sort of swept me off my feet. Boys like him didn’t go out with girls like me.”

  “I’m sorry, but that sounds crazy. ‘Girls like you.’ What does that mean?”

  She reached out and took my face in her hands. “Oh Grant. You are so lucky you had Rita all those years in school. You are so naïve to how the real world works.”

  “Naïve? I’m not naïve!”

  She let go of my face and laughed. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, yes you are. It may be changing now, but I don’t think so. In high school and college, there are the pretty people and the not so pretty people. And they do not intermingle. So when I got the chance to go out on a date with Jerry...”

  “It didn’t matter to you that he was an arrogant, pompous asshole?”

  She sighed. “He wasn’t that way back then, or if he was, he was hiding it. He was charming and sweet.”

  I grinned at her. “We are talking about the same guy I met, right? Dr. Jeremiah Ashford Hollingsworth? Charming and sweet wouldn’t be the words I’d choose to describe him.”

  She lowered her head. “I know, but he was back then.”

  “When did he change?”

  “It started a few months after Molly was born. It was like he flipped a switch.”

  “In what way?”

  “This is a little embarrassing to talk to you about, but he had no interest in me sexually any longer. We became more like roommates than husband and wife. He began to start,” she made air quotes with her fingers, “ ‘working late’ and would come in later and later. Eventually, he stopped coming home at all, staying away two or three days at a time. He claimed he was attending a doctor’s conference or whatever, but I knew what was going on. This is a very small town.”

  “So that’s when you divorced him?”

  “No. It took more than that to finally open my eyes.”

  “What was the final straw?”

  She looked down at her hands and nervously rubbed them together. “While I was unconscious, having the transplant surgery, Jerry hired a stranger to watch Molly and was partying in a hotel in Jacksonville with another woman.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Wilson was there at the same hotel attending a real estate convention. When Connie called him about my transplant, he ran to the front desk to check out and saw Jerry getting on an elevator. The guy at the front desk confirmed to him that it was in fact Dr. Jeremiah Ashford Hollingsworth and his tall blonde wife that had just checked in for the weekend.”

  “I’m so sorry. And I’m not trying to make excuses for him, but you knew he wasn’t being faithful. You said earlier that your transplant was very sudden; he couldn’t have known about the surgery. I really don’t see the difference in this affair than any of his others, so why was this one so important?”

  She wiped her eyes. “No, you’re right, he didn’t know about the transplant surgery, but he did know of my condition. I only had days, maybe hours to live, but he checked in that hotel for a three-day weekend. Don’t you see? He was celebrating. He was celebrating my death.”

  I opened my mouth, but couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so I just sat there quietly by her side, listening to the waves crashing on the shore and staring at the rising moon.

  “Does Molly know?” I said, finally breaking the silence.

  “Does she know what?”

  “That her father is...” I caught myself. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I just hate that he’s still in your life.”

  “Grant, I have no choice. He’s the father of my child and he always will be. Can we please change the subject? I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

  I put my arm around her. “Sure.”

  “Were you hurt bad?” she whispered in my ear.

  “What?”

  “In the crash. How bad were you hurt?”

  I sighed and dropped my head. “I’ve had nightmares about it for years. No one can explain why, I should have die, too, but I didn’t even break a bone.”

  “Grant, you can’t think of it that way. It wasn’t your time. God has something more for you to do.”

  My heart
skipped in my chest when she said those words. The one thing I hadn’t been able to tell her about was my suicide attempt. I wasn’t sure why, I guess I was embarrassed that I could’ve been so foolish, but I had held that back.

  “Grant, are you okay? You look strange. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I was just thinking about what you said...about it not being my time and me having more to do. It’s a little spooky, because someone else once told me the exact same thing.”

  10

  False Positive

  When we got back to my house, I cradled Molly up into my arms, walked her back to Melissa’s house and tucked her in. After Charley said his goodbyes to Donna and I kissed Melissa good night, Charley and I walked back to my house, I grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and joined Brenda and Marshall on my back deck.

  “Well?” they both said in unison. “How did it go?”

  “It was fun,” I said, petting Charley’s head. “She’s great and I like her a lot. She’s had an interesting life.”

  “I can only imagine,” Brenda said. “Growing up with a bad liver had to have been hard on a little girl.”

  “Actually, her liver problem didn’t develop until she was an adult. It developed after she gave birth to Molly.”

  Marshall frowned. “Wait, back up. She never had any signs of liver problems before childbirth?”

  “None,” I said. “In fact, she was pretty athletic in school. She ran track and played softball.

  Brenda leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Were there complications with the delivery that caused the damage to her liver?”

  I took a sip of my beer and leaned back in my chair. “I didn’t really press her too much on that. She did mention something about having a scare, because she tested positive for hepatitis toward the end of her pregnancy, but after Molly was born, they discovered it was a false positive. Could that have anything to do with it?”

  Marshall glanced over at Brenda. “Are you sure she tested negative for hepatitis after the childbirth?”

  “Yes, I’m sure of it, because she was afraid she might have passed it on to Molly and was relieved to find out that she didn’t have it.”

  Marshall leaned back in his chair and turned his head toward the ocean, but he was biting his lip. That had always been his tell. “Marshall...what is it? The last time I saw you this serious and biting your lip was when you found that melanoma on my mother’s cheek.”

  He turned in his chair and looked at me. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just my suspicious nature, I guess, but there are just a few things here that don’t add up to me. I’m an internal specialist, it’s what I do. And I’ve got to tell you...the liver is a tough organ and damn hard to kill. It can be done, but it usually takes years and years...not two.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What are you saying?”

  “Grant, I don’t know what I’m saying. All I do know is, other than liver cancer, it is extremely rare for someone’s liver to go from healthy to fatal failure in less than two years. And here’s the other thing that’s bothering me. In today’s world of computer testing, it’s very unusual to get a false positive for hepatitis. It’s difficult to explain, but usually false positives have to do with how the blood is drawn by the practitioner. It can sometimes get contaminated and show elevated levels of potassium, things like that, but not hepatitis. That would be very unusual and rare. And yet it happened to Melissa, who also in a very unusual and rare situation, lost her liver two years later.”

  “You don’t think...Jerry...”

  He lifted his beer, took a sip and stared over the table at me. “Well, he is a doctor...sort of. If he did have something to do with it, he would have left a trail. But he’s not smart enough to fool me,” he smiled. “I’d sure love to get a copy of her medical records. All of them, since she was a little kid through the liver transplant. You think you could talk her into giving me permission to looked at them? Tell her it’s for a research project I’m working on.”

  “Speaking of Dr. Dirtbag,” Brenda said, with a smile. “I met with the Florida psychology supervisory board today.”

  “Oh yeah? What’d they have to say?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Although they were appalled at his so-called conclusion, they didn’t think it was sufficient grounds to revoke his medical license. However, it was enough to put him on their watch list. One more screw up and he’s done. Apparently, he doesn’t have much of a practice, anyway. They had to search for his name. He wasn’t even in their top 100. That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I wonder how he can afford that fancy office, his new Jaguar and all his fancy duds?” I asked.

  “With a prick like that,” Marshall said, “I’d bet you anything that he’s getting all his money from Melissa. Probably alimony or spousal support, or some shit like that. We know he’s not making it as a psychologist. What a sleazeball. When I get back to Texas, I’ll give O’Bannon a call and see if his father still has that private investigator working for his firm and see what he can dig up on Dr. Dirtbag.”

  “That’s a good idea. Well, hopefully he got the message and he’ll stay out of my life,” I said. “I’d hate to have to whip his ass, but if I find out he had something to do with trying to hurt Melissa...I’m gonna do a lot more than just kick his ass!”

  I looked down at Charley, who was curled around my feet. “He’s the best judge of character I’ve ever met in my life. Hey, Charley, wake up.” He jumped up and looked at me, “I want to ask you something. What do you think about Dr. Jeremiah Ashford Hollingsworth?”

  He lifted his lip, exposing his teeth. “Grrrrrrrrrr.”

  We all laughed. “Is he a good guy or a bad guy?”

  He shook his head. “Woof, woof, woof. Grrrrrrrr!”

  One more question. “Would you like to bite him in the ass the next time you see him?”

  He looked over at Marshall and Brenda, then back at me and smiled. “Woof.”

  “Good dog,” I said petting his head, “very good dog.”

  For the next four days, I rented a Cadillac Escalade, so the four of us and the two dogs would fit. We drove south all the way to Daytona Beach, and then north all the way to Amelia Island. On the last night of Marshall and Brenda’s visit, since they had an early flight out of Jacksonville, we left Charley and Donna with a neighbor, and checked into the Double Tree Hotel at the Jacksonville Airport.

  It was the first night Melissa and I had actually spent together. The first night we had ever made love. I must admit I was a little apprehensive. The electricity when we touched had not gone away; it was still there. We both laughed about it, but neither one of us was sure what was going to happen when we had sex. We wondered if all that electric shock might stop our hearts...it didn’t.

  At first, Melissa was very shy about her body, especially about her scars. But I insisted that I wanted to see every inch of her...kiss every inch of her...and before the night was over...I did.

  After that night, our relationship flourished. We spent most of our days and evenings together, but because of Molly, we didn’t sleep together. We had sex, but we were very discreet about it, not wanting to confuse her. She was too young to understand.

  I made a point of hiding away or taking a long run every other Friday night when Jerry would come to pick up Molly for his weekend with her, and I made sure I was nowhere in sight when he’d drop her off Sunday night. The few times I miscalculated and did run into him, he always gave me his best cold stare. Charley would show him his teeth and give him his best growl, but I always waved and smiled, just to piss him off.

  Everything seemed to be going great. Charley was head over heels in love with Donna and Molly, and I was getting that way over Melissa. The five of us - Melissa, Molly, Donna, Charley and me - were spending more and more time together and my life, for the first time in years, seemed whole again.

  It was early Wednesday morning and Charley and I were heading out for a run on the beach while
it was still cool. Jerry’s Jaguar was parked in Melissa’s driveway. I glanced at my watch to make sure it wasn’t Friday, but even if it was, it was way too early for him to be there to pick up Molly.

  “What the hell is he doing there?” I said, as I walked over the dunes to the beach.

  When I got back from my run, his car was still there. For the next two hours, I kept checking, peeking through my blinds until I saw him drive away. I immediately picked up my cell and called Melissa, but she didn’t answer. I left her a message, but she didn’t call me back. After an hour, I called her again, left another message, but she didn’t return my call.

  Two hours later, I tried again. After the fourth try, I walked over and knocked on her door.

  “Please go away. I don’t want to talk to you,” she said behind the door.

  I stood there in shock. “What did I do? Why don’t you want to talk to me?”

  “I’m begging you. Please go away. I can’t talk to you right now.” I could hear her crying.

  “What did that son of a bitch tell you? Why are you crying? What did he say to you?”

  “Please, Grant. Just go away.”

  “Melissa, I thought we had something special together. You know we do. After all you’ve told me about Jerry. All the things he’s done to you...all the times he’s lied...why would you believe him now? Please, Melissa, talk to me.”

  I heard the door latch click. I pushed it open and walked inside. Melissa was sitting on the couch with Donna in her lap. Her eyes were swollen and bright red.

  I sat down in the chair across from her. “What’s wrong? Please, Melissa, tell me. What is this all about?”

  She lifted her eyes and looked at me. “Will you promise to tell me the truth? Swear to God?”

  “Of course. I’ve never lied to you and I never will. I swear to tell you the absolute truth, no matter what you ask me.”

  Her hands were shaking. “I promise I’ll never tell anyone. Please just…just please tell me the truth. I have to know the truth.”