Love Overdue

by Pamela Morsi

  “That sure seems like a rush,” Maureen Schultz said. “Though I suppose there is no help for it.”

  “And no reason not to,” Nina Philpot said. “When something like this happens, well...the less he’s eulogized the better.”

  Jeannie Brown sat at the counter, stirring milk into her coffee. “I know he must have been in tremendous pain,” she said. “But his timing was so bad.”

  “Or his timing was great,” Amos said as he wedged himself into the seat beside her. “If you’re planning on doing something that is going to hurt other people, you’d want those people to be as busy and distracted as possible.”

  “You could have a point there,” Maureen said.

  Nina shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “When people kill themselves, the wants and needs and feelings of other people don’t even enter into it.”

  “You sound really sure about that,” Jeannie said.

  “And it’s pretty harsh,” Amos pointed out.

  Nina shrugged. “That’s how I see it,” she said. “Suicide is a selfish act.”

  “But you know he did try to spare his wife,” Maureen said. “He did wait until she was in the shower. So she didn’t see it. And he muffled it with a pillow, so she didn’t hear it.”

  “To spare her?” Nina asked. “Or to prevent her from stopping him? Who was going to find him? Who is going to have that horrible image in her head for the rest of her life?”

  That somber truth had everyone nodding.

  “I guess you’ve got the right about that,” Bob said. “He wasn’t thinking it through.”

  “Or maybe not all the way through,” Amos admitted. “But I do think that... people can... can contemplate suicide unselfishly. That sometimes they can see their continued existence as so...so flawed that it would be better for everyone if they were no longer around.”

  Jeannie spoke thoughtfully. “It might be even more than that,” she said. “We’ve all had times that were... well, so low. Maybe even that low. But we’re still here. Why is that?”

  “Because we’re not selfish,” Nina stated, as if to prove her point.

  “Maybe not you,” Jeannie said. “But I am seriously out for me.”

  Everyone chuckled lightly. Most would have testified that Jeannie didn’t have a greedy bone in her body.

  “Proof of my selfishness is evidenced in the fact that I’m still here,” she said. “Choosing to live in the face of... whatever... is a selfish choice.”

  “So then suicide is unselfish?” Amos asked her.

  Jeannie shook her head. “No, I think it’s not that, either. It’s about your head getting so messed up that you can’t see straight. You don’t know up from down, day from night, wrong from right.”

  “Are you saying Dutch was off his rocker?” Earl asked. “’Cause I spoke to him just three days ago and he was sound as a bell.”

  “You don’t have to be running-naked-in-the-street crazy to have a moment of insanity,” Jeannie said. “I guess you could even call it a temporary insanity or maybe a compartmentalized one. In that moment, maybe just a brief moment, you act on instincts that lead you in the wrong direction.”

  Nina and Earl were both shaking their heads. Maureen was nodding. Bob was sipping his coffee thoughtfully. And Scott was silently contemplating her point.

  Amos spoke up. “You’re exactly right, Jeannie,” he said. “I’ve known guys in the service who committed suicide and it seemed to me that they weren’t a lot different than the rest of us. Their troubles weren’t bigger. Their connections to their families weren’t more tenuous. It was just like a kind of blurred reality overrode their better judgment. And no one recognized it, so no one could stop it.”

  “That’s a bit easier to swallow than him being a lunatic,” Earl said.

  “I still think you’re being too kind,” Nina told him. “I blame Dutch for his own actions. It’s a horrible thing to do.”

  “Well, it is horrible for his family,” Jeannie said. “I certainly agree with that. For the rest of us, well, we are going to miss him. And we’ll miss him as much now as a year from now.”

  “That’s truth,” Bob agreed.

  Maureen was even more conciliatory. “The important thing is to remember his life, not how it ended.”

  There were solemn nods all around.

  “Still,” Jeannie said. “It’s going to create some rough days out in the field, shorthanded. Half of our crew are members of the Porter family.” Her words were punctuated with a tired sigh. “See, didn’t I tell you I’m a selfish person?”

  Beside her Amos offered a broad grin. The most genuine smile Scott had seen on the man’s face in a very long time.

  “Don’t worry, Jeannie,” Amos said. “You still got me.”

  She laughed lightly. “There’s not that much that you and I can do,” she said.

  He tutted teasingly. “Now you’re not only selfish, but your memory is failing. Have you forgotten the Homecoming Dance committee?”

  Jeannie moaned aloud dramatically. “I’ve tried to put that nightmare behind me for fifteen years.”

  “Eight people on the committee,” Amos explained. “And the day of the dance, six of them weasel out of doing the decorations.”

  “I twisted crepe paper into mums until my hands were raw.”

  The two laughed companionably. “We were both late for our dates.”

  “I was so tired that evening, that I didn’t bother to put on makeup.”

  “I drove my date down by the creek to park and fell asleep in the car.”

  “She probably thought you were the perfect gentleman.”

  “No, I think she’d already figured out that I was an idiot.”

  It was a warm exchange of remembrance of time gone by.

  “It was a tough day, but we did get it done,” Jeannie said.

  Amos nodded. “The two of us, there’s not much we can’t accomplish.”

  “You’d better hope so,” Earl said. “There’s a lot of wheat out there to get.”

  By ten-thirty, the drugstore had cleared out. The grab-and-go breakfasts were all gone, and Scott was alone with his thoughts. The hours dragged by without anyone stopping by, without the phone even ringing.

  He decided to close up a half hour early. But he was locking up the door even fifteen minutes before that. He headed to his mother’s house with the intent of changing clothes. His garden probably needed water and he could check on his house, see if the septic system had healed itself as suddenly and mysteriously as it had gone on the blink.

  Scott arrived at his childhood home to find his mother’s car still gone, but D.J.’s vehicle was in the driveway. He imagined that the library must be even deader than the drugstore.

  Good for her, he thought. Taking the initiative to close up and go home. Everybody in town had heard how hard-nosed she’d been about keeping the place open. It was to her credit that she could moderate her stance. There were too many people who had to dig in their heels to prove themselves right.

  He let himself in the back door. The house was very quiet and empty. Scott was reminded of his thoughts earlier in the day about D.J. losing both her parents. Considering it made him kind of queasy. Everyone would eventually pass away, of course. And it was natural, he supposed, to expect that his mother would likely die before he would. But he didn’t want her to go now. Not now before he’d found someone, before she could see him start a family.

  That thought caught him up.

  What had got him thinking that he would find someone? He had deliberately given up on that possibility. Better to be alone than be with the wrong person. That was right. Scott was sure that was totally right. Maybe being back in the old home place was giving him flashbacks of the guy he once had been.

  He was shaking his head as he went down the hall toward the guest room. A knock on the back entrance halted his progress and turned him around. In the kitchen, he could see D.J. through the window glass.

  “Hi,” he
said as he opened the door.

  She turned around. In her arms she held a cut-glass bowl filled with small red orbs in a sauce that smelled fabulous.

  “The pancakes were no big deal. I hope you’re not reciprocating.”

  “What? Oh, no,” she said. “This is for... the Porter family.”

  “Oh, right, of course.”

  “That’s what people do, isn’t it?” she asked. “They bring food to the house. Even if they don’t know you that well, they bring stuff.”

  “Yeah, I guess they do.”

  She glanced down at her offering. “It’s watermelon salad,” she said. “Isn’t that what people bring? A meat dish, a dessert or a salad. I have to choose salad because it’s about the only thing that I know how to fix. I’m a cooking school dropout.”

  “I’m sure it will be very appreciated,” Scott told her. “There’s probably fifty people just in the immediate family. Some of them coming from out of town. Everyone will need to eat.”

  She nodded. “So I wanted to take this, but I don’t actually know where they live.”

  “Oh, of course you don’t. They live on the other side of town, near... Wait. I’ll take you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to. I want to. And that way you won’t spill your dish.”

  He retrieved his phone and keys, made sure his shirt was tucked in and put on a jacket to show some respect before hurrying out to let D.J. into the van.

  He held the salad while she got into the seat and buckled up. Then she carried it in her lap as he drove.

  Scott felt it incumbent upon himself to keep up a shallow, unthreatening conversation. They had reached some sort of peace and he did not want D.J. to retreat into the avid dislike she’d met him with. Lighthearted chatter, however, did not come easily considering the errand they were on.

  “You would have liked Dutch,” he told her. “And he would have probably become a regular library visitor.”

  “Oh, he liked to read?”

  Scott shook his head. “I doubt he ever read more than the Farm Journal,” he said. “But Dutch could never resist the company of pretty girls.”

  D.J. gave an incredulous chuckle. “I don’t really think I qualify as a pretty girl.”

  “That’s the way Dutch would have said it,” Scott told her. “Anyone under fifty he probably viewed as a girl.”

  And, of course, D.J. was beautiful rather than pretty, Scott thought to himself. She had that ethereal quality that made her seem to glow from the inside.

  Wait. That was Sparkle. This was D.J. He was getting confused again.

  Twenty-Nine

  393.4 Death Customs

  D.J . had wanted to turn Scott down when he said he would accompany her to the Porters’ home. But as she walked up to the front porch, she found herself surprisingly grateful to have him by her side. And not simply because he carried the watermelon salad. Her hands trembled and her throat ached. She felt as if she might burst into tears. She could definitely not do that. She absolutely could not, would not, cry in front of strangers and over the death of a man that she’d never met.

  The foursquare clapboard house was surrounded by beautifully tended flowerbeds. While everything looked to be in good shape, there was a lived-in feeling about the place. This was somebody’s home. Where a family lived and loved each other and made memories together. Today’s memories were going to be very sad. But they would not be the only ones to recall.

  The door was open and D.J. saw a familiar face through the screen. Suzy invited them in.

  “Good to see you, good to see you,” she said, hugging them both as if they were old friends.

  D.J. replied the same, surprising herself by the truth of that statement.

  “You’re part of the family?” she asked.

  “My father-in-law is a Porter on his mother’s side,”

  Suzy explained. “The joke is, of course, that makes him an actual Dutch Uncle.”

  It wasn’t much of a joke, D.J. thought.

  Once inside the door, Suzy directed them to the dining table, which was spread with a wide variety of food. Much more than D.J. remembered from her parents’ funeral. But then, there were a lot more people to feed here. She found a place for her bowl. Scott inched over the surrounding dishes so that she could fit it in.

  That chore accomplished, D.J. would have been happy to leave. But instead she was pulled into a round of greeting people and making appropriate comments. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  From her own experience, she knew that sound and tone was all they might be hearing.

  She would have thought that a stranger in their midst at such a time might not be that welcome. She recalled being exhausted by the new faces surrounding her in her parents’ home. But surprisingly everyone seemed eager to be introduced. And Scott obliged with the honors. Polite inquiries about her life, her accommodations, her plans for the future fueled the conversation.

  She began to realize that as the new person, she was giving them an excuse to talk about something else. Think about something else. She let them do that. Grief and loss had to be experienced. It was unavoidable. But that did not mean that distraction wasn’t allowed. She was honored to provide one. It was, in its own way, more of a gift than the watermelon salad.

  Slowly, person by person, she made her way through the house. Sometimes Scott was right at her elbow. And at others he was half a room away. But she was very aware of him. Aware of how respectfully he treated everyone. Aware of how genuinely sympathetic he could be without fawning. Aware of how his eyes followed her every time she glanced in his direction.

  In the front parlor she spotted her dog. Dew sat on an overstuffed chintz couch, wedged between Viv on his right and the deceased’s widow on his left. Mrs. Porter was absently patting the top of Dew’s head. It was not the way that Dew liked it. Even as a puppy he’s always preferred having her dig her fingernails into the thick fur behind his ears. If D.J. had been petting him that way, he would have shaken her hand off. But stoically the little dog sat, chin up, his focus on the hollow-eyed woman. He offered one quick glance in D.J.’s direction as if to acknowledge, I know that you’re here, but I am too busy for you right now.

  Also sitting on the couch, Viv looked a million miles away.

  D.J. felt a hand on the small of her back. Scott had come up beside her and was urging her forward.

  The women looked up at her.

  “Mrs. Porter,” he said. “This is Dorothy Jarrow, she’s our new librarian.”

  “Oh, hello.”

  D.J. clasped the cold, bony hand that she offered. “So sorry for your loss.”

  “This is your dog, right?”

  Mrs. Porter glanced toward Viv for verification. She nodded.

  “Yes,” D.J. concurred.

  “He’s such a sweet little creature,” she said, continuing to pat him. “He’s not caused one bit of trouble.”

  “I’m so glad,” D.J. said. She looked over at Viv. “I can take him home now, if you like.”

  Viv shook her head. “I’ll bring him later.”

  D.J. gave one last look at Mrs. Porter, petting Dew before moving away.

  Scott stayed at her side and leaned down slightly to whisper, “Are you ready to get out of here?”

  D.J. nodded.

  Calmly, without any appearance of haste, Scott got them across the room. Suzy was manning the door again.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  You’re welcome seemed like a weird response, so D.J. simply smiled.

  “I can’t wait to get back to work,” Suzy told her. “Driving these nasty old trucks sure makes me miss my bookmobile.”

  “Good. Sometimes it does take comparison to make us recognize what we’ve got.”

  “True,” Suzy agreed and then leaned forward to speak more privately. “And if you look around at all the potbellied snoozers in this room, you’d realize that you’re on the arm of the hunkiest hayse
ed in town.”

  D.J. gave her a stern shake of the head. “It’s not a date, it’s a condolence call.”

  Suzy looked unconvinced. “It’s never a date with you, is it?”

  D.J. had no comment.

  Finally outside in the open air, she felt as if she could breathe again. She felt such a jittery sense of being constrained, of needing to break out. She didn’t quite comprehend her restlessness, but it was real. Beside her, Scott said nothing. When they reached the van, he opened the door and she got inside. He walked around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

  Instead of turning around and heading into town, he drove farther out into the countryside. It occurred to D.J. to question their destination. But the silence between them seemed strangely comfortable. As if somehow they had transcended the need to make shallow conversation.

  On both sides of the narrow dirt road wheat grew tall and hardy. He made a couple of right turns and then a switchback left before pulling off toward the side and turning off the engine.

  “Come on,” he said as he opened his door.

  Why he wanted to stop in the middle of nowhere, she wasn’t sure. But D.J. got out of the van and followed him as he simply walked into the waist-high wheat of the field.

  She stopped at the edge of the crop, unsure. He didn’t even glance back. After a moment’s hesitation and with some trepidation, she stepped into the field. Her shoes were not the best for agri-tramping. And it was not that easy to walk among the tall blond stalks. Mostly she kept her eyes on where she was putting her feet. Scott stopped up ahead of her and she had hopes of catching up with him, asking what they were doing. But when she looked up again, he had disappeared. She hurried faster to where she had last seen him, but there was no one there. She looked all around, but in every direction, there was nothing but wheat, wheat and more wheat. The sense of aloneness was almost overwhelming.

  “Scott?” she called out.

  “I’m here,” he answered, not far from where she stood. “Duck down. Have a seat.”

  D.J. lowered herself to the ground. It was a strange sensation to have the world close in so tightly around her, but without any sense of claustrophobia. Above her was the purple sky of a sunset evening and all around her the welcoming embrace of tall grass.