Leaving Scarlet

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “Listen, Mabe, Grandma wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for breaking up a group that is so incredibly important to our community.”

  Our community.

  Mabe’s eyes light up when I say our, indicating that I might be staking claim as a member of Dillon Creek, but really, it slipped out. Old behaviors maybe. Old feelings.

  When Mabe doesn’t answer, I ask where she’s headed.

  “Home, dear.”

  “Would you like me to walk with you?” I ask.

  “No, no. I’ll be fine. Where are you headed?”

  “The Whiskey Barrel. Dinner with Anna.”

  “Oh, good, dear.”

  I give her another hug and watch her make her way home. I think about the loss of John and Francine and how she has no family left here in Dillon Creek—well, unless you count me as a distant cousin. She’s going to need help someday.

  Who’s going to take care of Mabe when she can’t take care of herself?

  Pulling my wool coat tighter around me, I think and walk into the night air. I breathe deep as I pass the storefronts decorated with reindeer and Santa Clause and Christmas villages. When I lived in Chicago and when my mother left me during the holidays for work, I used to pretend I was a little girl in the Christmas village with my grandparents at home in the Mercantile. That we laughed and joked and drank eggnog and ate cookies, and my mother was kinder, softer, and present. I longed for home. Marmie then would distract me with homemade cookies or a story. But the longing for this place never left. I just buried it down deep.

  I pass a couple.

  “Scarlet Brockmeyer?” the woman says.

  When I meet her eyes, I know who it is. “Sarah Beth? It’s been a long time.”

  Sarah Beth reaches in for a hug. “It’s been years. I heard you were back. I’m very sorry to hear about Don and Erla.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You remember Shane Sawyer.”

  “I do. Hello, Shane.”

  “Good to see you again, Scarlet.”

  I’m glad to see they made it. I always wondered if they would. Even as kids, you could tell there was something different between these two.

  “Are you moving back to Dillon Creek?” Sarah Beth asks.

  “Oh, no. I’m flying back to Boston at the end of the month.”

  “Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. Life just won’t be the same without a Brockmeyer in Dillon Creek. They were a staple in the community. I really hope you reconsider, especially with The Ladybugs on hiatus. Anyway, Merry Christmas.” She reaches out and touches my hand. “It was good to see you.”

  “Merry Christmas,” I say.

  Her words settle inside me. Dillon Creek without a Brockmeyer. A staple in the community.

  What would Dillon Creek do without a Brockmeyer?

  I suppose they would go on. That’s what happens when someone dies. Life keeps moving on. People eat chicken. Read the newspaper. Go to work. Drink coffee. Life keeps marching forward.

  Dillon Creek will be fine without a Brockmeyer, right?

  I find Anna at our window seat.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I say to Anna as I sit down. “You’ll never believe who I ran into on my way here.”

  “Who?” Anna takes a sip of water.

  “Sarah Beth and Shane.”

  “Aren’t they cute together? I always knew they’d make it.”

  With Sarah Beth’s words still turning in my head, I scan the menu.

  Libby approaches the table. “Welcome back, ladies. So good to see you both again.”

  We exchange pleasantries. Small talk. Ew. But I participate.

  After Libby leaves, we talk about Anna’s pregnancy and the house, and then she asks about Cash—a subject we haven’t discussed yet.

  At first, I’m caught off guard, but then I realize it’s Dillon Creek and not Boston—a city you can disappear into and no one would ever know unless your loved ones came looking for you.

  “I’m sorry. Colt brought up that you two were spending time together after all these years.”

  “Were is the operative word.” I use my finger to mop up the condensation on my water glass.

  “How so?”

  Anna is safe. Sound.

  “I—”

  “You know, he was absolutely heartbroken when you left,” she says. “Honestly, I was worried he wouldn’t come out of it.”

  I don’t tell her why I made the choice I did or the words we exchanged before I left.

  “And then he turned into a train wreck. I mean, a super-successful train wreck, but you know what I mean.”

  My skin begins to crawl, and I want out of this situation, so instead, I ask her if she’s made any headway on her father’s stuff with the handwritten address.

  But it’s this moment that my heart starts to pick up pace.

  The notes.

  The handwriting.

  My senses become nonexistent, and I’m numb. I can’t hear, and everything sounds like it’s underwater.

  I see Anna’s face, and she’s looking at me, talking to me, but I can’t hear what she’s saying.

  I’m transported to a moment when I was six.

  My mother stopped at a gas station just outside of Chicago to get a pack of cigarettes.

  As I perused the aisle for the perfect candy, I heard her ask, “Can you tell me where Haight Street is?”

  “I have to go.” I stand and walk out of The Whiskey Barrel.

  My heart follows behind in a trail of pieces.

  I can’t think.

  I can’t speak.

  All I can do is remember a note a man left for a lover, saying he was leaving his wife.

  I think I know who my father is.

  39

  Cash

  Present Day 2020

  I come to, seeing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and hearing the occasional cow’s ornery moo.

  The unkind light pours through the tiny cracks and crevices of the wood. I shield my eyes with the back of my hand.

  It’s freezing cold.

  My head throbs as I try to collect the memories of last night, but I can’t.

  I can’t remember.

  I can’t remember a fucking thing.

  I realize that I don’t miss these mornings. The dread, the fear, trying to chase memories that I’d rather bury forever, that just wouldn’t die with my brother.

  God, did I piss anyone off?

  Get into a fight?

  Have sex with a woman whose name I didn’t know? More than one?

  Did I fuck up things with Scarlet?

  God, please, help me not to do this anymore.

  Well, at least I had enough sense to grab an old horse blanket to keep warm.

  I check my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there. Shit.

  Holding my head, I search around me on the loft floor of the barn, and the only reason I see it is because it’s lit up. Someone’s calling me. I scramble to my feet to retrieve it.

  “Hey, Mom.” I clear my throat with a quick cough, trying to sound casual.

  “You had me worried when I didn’t see you this morning for breakfast. You haven’t missed breakfast since you came back home.”

  I haven’t drunk since I came back home.

  But I lie my way through the conversation. “Thought I’d get an early start at the barn.”

  “Oh, your father said it was done.”

  “Just some odds and ends.” I cover my eyes with my free hand.

  I need to throw up.

  “I’ll be down to the house soon.”

  “All right then. I probably won’t be here. I have to head to town soon.”

  I glance down at my watch. It’s almost one in the afternoon.

  We hang up, and I frantically scan through my phone.

  Good. No odd numbers called. No numbers at all.

  Thank God I didn’t call Scarlet in my condition last night.

  I check through my text messages.

  Relief washes o
ver me, but it’s short-lived when I see the text from Scarlet around three in the morning.

  Scarlet: Can we talk?

  A message from Gary, my agent, about the upcoming schedule and the contract for Bullfighters One.

  A hazily remembered conversation with my brother Calder late last night.

  Casey had mentioned something to Calder about my behavior yesterday while burying the heifer.

  I told him it was none of his fucking business. But really, it was my way of protecting my brothers from what I had seen that night. They don’t need to hear it. They don’t need to live it. I did—I still am—and I’m dealing with it.

  The memories try to insert themselves into my head again, pictures of that night, snapshots, the awfulness.

  A trigger, I read on the computer one night while trying to fix myself. Sights, smells, thoughts that take you back to that specific time in your life when the trauma happened.

  Treatment for PTSD: therapy and/or medication.

  Alcohol, though I didn’t crave it, not like an alcoholic would, was my solution to the flashbacks that played in my mind. I couldn’t stop them, but the alcohol would slow them down. It made me numb and able to relax, and when I did, that was when the stupid decisions came.

  These bouts with the booze and the flashbacks happen, and I can’t control it. I can’t tell Bullfighters One that. No fucking way. I would lose my job.

  Once, I thought about seeking professional help. I’d come off an awful bender and several bullfights that were reckless and stupid on my part, but it boosted ratings through the roof. My life hung on adrenaline—that was the sweet spot—and I was untouchable to anyone. I chased that feeling and chased that feeling and chased it.

  The alcohol could never do what the adrenaline did, but it helped.

  But the time I got up the nerve to call a therapist, it was time to move on to the next city, the next bullfight. The next million dollars.

  I convinced myself that my job was more important than my health. That my body was the moneymaker. My decisions, though questionable, helped me to reach the success I had.

  The urge to throw up reaches my throat, and before I know it, I’m scaling the ladder and running for outside. As I retch everything I have in me, the flashbacks return.

  My dead brother.

  The brother who saved me, who helped me navigate life.

  Who always took my side.

  I throw up again and again until there’s nothing left.

  Calder texts me.

  Calder: I covered for you last night. Don’t let that shit happen again. Where the fuck are you?

  Running is easier. Instead of going home and dealing with life, I go back upstairs and take a big swig of the Jack Daniel’s.

  I tell myself if I puke it up, I won’t get relief.

  Although my body fights the alcohol, I swallow each gulp.

  I get back under the blanket and pray to God that the flashbacks go away.

  40

  Scarlet: Age 17

  Dillon Creek, California

  Cash and I spent the summer making love the way two awkward teenagers would. But we got much better at it. And in the moments of quiet ecstasy, we found vulnerability and glimpses of what our future could look like. I couldn’t wait to be his wife.

  I got into all the colleges that I’d applied to and chose Humboldt State with plans to return to Dillon Creek after I went back to Chicago and packed my stuff. I’d take online classes and travel with Cash from place to place with Bullfighters One.

  My mother was extremely disappointed with my decision.

  Thought I was throwing my life away for a boy.

  Thought I was putting my dreams aside for someone else’s dreams.

  But when you knew, you knew. And while I understood where she was coming from, she had also never been in love.

  She countered that agreement with, “No, I just didn’t let my own stupidity deter me from my dreams.”

  Grandma and Granddad were excited to have me home again, so I settled into those feelings as I waited for Cash to pick me up.

  It wasn’t like him to be late, so I called his house. It rang and rang and rang.

  The sky turned from light to dark, and the worry already settled in.

  “Should we call Chief McBride?” I asked Granddad.

  It was then that headlights appeared, and my heart leaped out of my chest. I ran out the front door, down the steps, and to Cash’s red truck.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, nerves getting the best of me. “I was concerned.”

  Slowly, he turned off his truck, his head stuck to his chest.

  “What … what’s wrong, Cash?”

  He pulled his head up to meet my eyes.

  Panic and fear sat in my chest with each passing second that he didn’t say anything.

  “Cash, please.” My voice broke. “What’s wrong?”

  I reached for him, but he jerked away from me.

  “When were you going to tell me?” His eyes were sad and heavy.

  “Tell you what?” I asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He brought his hand to his forehead, and he was trembling.

  I reached for him again, and he pulled away.

  “Please, Cash, You’re scaring me. What’s going on? You’re shaking.”

  “When were you going to tell me that your cancer is back?”

  My skin at the back of my neck began to prickle. My body went numb. “Wh-what are you talking about?” I barely choked out, unable to breathe.

  “Your mom called me today. Told me that your cancer is back and that it’s better that I stay away. You know, I would have understood if you’d told me—if you were honest with me—but it came from your mom, Scar. What the hell? We had big plans. Dammit, we lost our virginity together and told each other we’d never lie to each other, no matter what. You know what she finally said before we hung up?”

  I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “She said, ‘You don’t want to take care of a sick girl all your life, do you, Cash? Go find yourself a healthy girl.’ ”

  I picked a moment in my childhood. One of me running through the mustard fields off Waddington. One where I was at peace and my heart was full and I didn’t have a care in the world. Where the blue sky was bigger than any problem someone might struggle with. That if we just looked to the blue sky, we’d find our little spot of peace. Ours for the taking. Ours to hold and take care of and ours for life if we wanted it. That was where I wanted to live. In the blue sky, wrapping my arms around peace and mustard flowers.

  “I can never forgive you for this, Scar,” was what Cash said next, taking me from the mustard fields and back to the reality of the moment we were in together.

  I nodded, trying to understand what was going on. I stepped back from the truck and tried to pick up the information Cash had given me.

  My cancer is back?

  Cash started the truck and drove away.

  I felt Granddad’s hand on my back.

  “Angel? What was that all about?”

  And instead of telling him the truth, still trying to protect my mother, I said, “Some things aren’t meant to be, Granddad.”

  The next day, I boarded the plane in Arcata and waved to my grandparents one last time, knowing I wouldn’t return to Dillon Creek. As the plane took flight, I saw a bright red truck in the parking lot and a boy I’d once loved, and I traced the word good-bye on the window.

  It was wrong of my mother to call Cash.

  It was wrong of her to tell him before she told me.

  But she was right about one thing: Cash didn’t need to take care of a sick girl for the rest of his life, so I let him be free.

  Marmie wasn’t there when I arrived at the house, which meant my mother was home.

  “I’m in here, Scarlet,” she said from the living room as I quietly shut the front door behind me.

  She was smoking a cigarett
e in the dark, making smoke rings that faded to nothingness. “Please, sit down.”

  “No, I’d rather go to my room.”

  “Come now, child. You don’t have time for your mother anymore?”

  What I didn’t say was what I felt—she’d never had time for me my entire life. Instead, I sat down on the black leather sofa and asked if it was new.

  “Yes. I also bought you a new bed to take to college and rented you an apartment off-campus.”

  “But the cancer …”

  Mother took another long drag from her cigarette. The air around us was stiff, as if someone could take a knife and cut right through it and open it up like French doors on a summer day, allowing the fresh air to pour in.

  Then, her words sliced through the darkness as they always did. “It’s not back, Scarlet. Actually, I got the call from the oncologist, and he said you’re in remission.”

  I stopped breathing, and I thought I saw stars next to the ugly painting my mother had brought home from Paris. “What?” I barely said.

  “Sometimes, we have to do what’s right for our children, so they don’t make idiotic decisions. I wasn’t going to let you throw away your future for a boy, Scarlet. You’re far too smart for that. And one day, you’ll thank me.” She leaned forward and put the cigarette out in the ashtray.

  One thing I knew she wasn’t right about: Cash wasn’t just a boy, and I wasn’t throwing away my dreams for his.

  “I thought I was in love once too. But then he broke my heart, Scarlet. Don’t you see that’s what I’m protecting you from?”

  “You’re really fucked up, Mother.” And with that, I stood.

  “Actually, no. I taught you a very valuable lesson, Scarlet.”

  I stared into my mother’s deep, dark eyes. “How so?”

  “I demonstrated how easy it is for those who say they love you to turn their backs on you.”

  Curiosity made me do it and anger. “You gave sound advice to me as a child too, Mom. You said, ‘One day, you’ll learn that people will always let you down, no matter what. Every single last one of them.’ You’ve done a good job of letting me down my entire life. A very valuable lesson.”