by T. L. Haddix
“Let’s get John before he heads home. Mary, nice to see you again.”
When the woman gave Rick a once-over that was just a little too familiar, Ben realized there was more to the story than met the eye. He stopped Rick when they got to Ben’s truck.
“You and Mary…?”
“We’ve spent some time together. Why? You interested?”
“Nah. Not really. I didn’t realize you two were involved.”
To his surprise, Rick’s face flushed a little. “We’re just… we’re not really involved. After I broke up with Jennie, Mary kind of… We’re just friends.”
Ben clapped his shoulder. “I understand. I’ll follow you up to John’s. Otherwise, people might think you’re chasing me.”
“Yeah, you look like some dangerous criminal. Tell you what, I need to get cleaned up before we go out. Why don’t you stop and ask him, since it’s on the way, and you guys just come on over to the house if he’s interested. We’ll take his car.”
Following Rick’s cruiser up Highway 15, Ben let his thoughts stray to the place he’d tried to keep them from all day. He’d worked on a new client’s yard that morning, and when Ben had seen whose house it was, he’d almost quit on the spot before Kyle told him why they were there.
“Old Mrs. Brewer passed away a few months back. The guys who were doing her landscaping didn’t want to keep on, and the estate hired us. No one’s living here. From what I understand, the daughter barely came back for the funeral.”
The explanation had helped, and Ben had been able to lower his hackles enough to do the work. But being that close to anything directly connected to Ainsley was disquieting. Ben had only been to her house once after she’d left—when her mother had broken the news to him that not only had Ainsley been playing him, but she’d married someone else the previous weekend.
With the past sitting so firmly on his shoulders that night, Ben was thankful Rick showed up when he did.
John was just coming out of the metal-and-glass building where he worked when Ben pulled into the parking lot. Ben rolled down the window and pulled up behind his brother’s car to wait.
“They let you out early for good behavior?”
“Something like that. What brings you here?”
“The need to get into some trouble and avoid my memories. Rick stopped by. Let’s go see what we can stir up.”
John rubbed his neck. “You know, that sounds good. We meeting at his place?”
“Yep. You’re driving.”
“I’ll follow you over there.”
It was a short drive from the office to Christopher, where Rick rented a small house. Ben parked next to his cousin’s cruiser, and they went inside. The house was so small they were able to call from the living room to the bathroom easily, and they quickly decided on a plan.
“New diner went in next to the bowling alley,” Rick poked his head out to tell them. His face was half covered in shaving cream, half clean. “I’d like to throw some balls and knock shit over. How’s that sound?”
“Like a damned good plan,” Ben said, thumbing through a thriller that was lying on the end table. “Sounds like you had a rough day, too.”
“Ran into Jennie. That’s all it takes. You?”
“Ran into my own ghost. John?”
“Taxes. Zanny.”
“Enough said,” Ben declared. “Ever wish we could just run away to Mexico? Get blind stinking drunk on a beach with some half-naked women?”
Rick stepped out of the bathroom, fully shaven but still shirtless, and exchanged a look with John. “When’d you get your heart trampled on? Is that why you came home?” He pointed at the book. “Don’t lose my spot.”
Ben made a show of putting the bookmark back in the book exactly where it had been and carefully laying it down. “I’d rather not discuss the specifics, thanks.”
Rick ducked into the bedroom to get dressed. John, seated in the arm chair beside the couch, nudged Ben with his foot. “Does your ghost have anything to do with whatever it is in your wallet you didn’t want Emma to see?”
Several weeks earlier, right after Emma had returned to town, John and Zanny had shown up just as Ben was chasing his sisters around the farm, trying to recover his wallet. They’d gotten into a discussion about what they each carried in their wallets, and Ben had answered Amelia’s queries noncommittally. Before he’d been able to react, Emma had dug into his back pocket and taken his wallet. The girls had played keep-away for a bit, and if their mother hadn’t interceded, Emma would have gone through Ben’s wallet.
He’d taken to carrying his wallet in his front pocket. Even his daredevil sister wouldn’t attempt going for it there.
Ben scowled. “Did you miss the ‘don’t want to discuss it’ part of this conversation?”
“No.”
Rolling his eyes, Ben shrugged. “You’re worse than a woman. Yeah, it does. There. Topic closed.” When John narrowed his gaze, Ben stopped him cold with a question of his own. “Talked to Zanny this week? I cut the grass yesterday afternoon.”
“Thanks for that. And no. Which is fine by me.”
Figuring he’d made his point and not really wanting to push his brother’s buttons, Ben asked Rick about a couple of the other books lying on the coffee table. A heated discussion ensued, as they were all voracious readers with similar tastes.
By the time they reached the bowling lane and ordered their food, Ben was starting to relax a little. The basket of fresh yeast rolls on the table between them helped.
Since it was a weeknight, and rainy to boot, they had the bowling alley pretty much to themselves. Nursing the same beers they’d started when they arrived, they bowled until ten o’clock, when the owner told them he was closing up.
The physical activity and violence of knocking down pin after pin had done the trick. Ben was still feeling a little of the sting of being at the Brewer house, but he’d moved to a better mental place to handle the memories it’d wrought. The aggression was gone, leaving only a hollowness in its place.
As they drove back to Rick’s, John made a confession. “Zanny wants me to start seeing other people while we’re separated.”
It was a good thing his brother was driving, because Ben and Rick both turned to John with identical exclamations of shock. They’d reached a stoplight near a popular bar attached to a somewhat seedy hotel, and John surprised them by putting on his turn signal.
“I need a drink. You guys mind?”
“No. Not after that revelation,” Ben said. “When the hell did this happen?”
“After Easter.”
The rest of the conversation waited until they were seated in a dark corner booth and the waitress had taken their orders.
“What the hell possessed her to tell you that?” Rick asked. “She actually said that? To go see other people?”
“Yeah. Told me that if I was going to have an affair, to just get it over with while we were apart.” John’s face reflected his confusion and his hurt. “How could she say that? I thought she knew I wasn’t a cheater.”
“I’m not that surprised,” Ben admitted, “now that I’m thinking about it. That sounds like something Zanny’d do.” The waitress came with their drinks, and he paid her.
“Well, you’re at an advantage over me,” John told him, a stunned look on his face.
“Yeah, me, too,” Rick said. “Because that sure as hell doesn’t sound like her to me.”
Ben was relieved when his brother nursed his whiskey instead of downing it. He took a sip of his Coke and rum, then pushed it aside.
“Zanny’s always had this impression that people only spend time with her because they have to. It’s how she grew up, how she sees herself. Not how we see her,” he hurried to explain as John’s face grew dark, “but how sh
e sees herself. That’s why I think she’s pushing the separation thing. To give you an out that won’t tear her apart so much if you want it.”
“I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it. She knows that.”
Ben disagreed. “I don’t think she does. And it isn’t so much a reflection of you as it is of her. That’s what Emma thinks, anyhow, and I believe she’s right. She knows Zanny better than anyone, except you,” he told John. “And in some ways, she knows her better, because they’re both female.”
“So how do I convince her I want to stay married to her?”
Drawing in a deep breath, Ben prepared to say the words he knew would hurt John, but that his brother needed to hear. “You can’t. It has to come from her. It’s like getting an alcoholic to stop drinking. Until they’re ready, nothing you say or do is going to make them stop.”
None of them had much to say after that, and they quickly finished their drinks. John handed Ben his keys when they reached the car. Without a word, he got in and rolled the window down, leaning back in the seat with his eyes closed.
They didn’t speak again until they’d reached Rick’s house.
John ran his hand over his hair. “I needed this tonight. Thanks, guys.”
“No thanks necessary. I think we all needed it,” Rick told him from the backseat. “We should do this more often.”
“That we should.” Ben turned the motor off, and they all got out of the car, then just stood there for a few moments. “John, you okay to drive?”
“Yeah. It was more mental than physical.”
They said goodnight, and as Ben headed back into town, he kept thinking about the utter confusion that his brother seemed to be feeling. Those thoughts brought back the memories of his own confusion in the days and weeks after Ainsley had left. He’d known her for only one summer, and her betrayal had almost brought him to his knees. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for John, who’d known Zanny practically their whole lives and had spent the last five years loving her, building a family with her.
He’d always thought the kind of love his parents had was a blessing, not a curse. But after Ainsley, that view had changed a bit. Even so, when he’d see John and Zanny and their growing family on vacations and holidays, he felt envy. Now, though, he didn’t know if John was the lucky one or if he was.
He did think his parents were very brave, though, braver than he’d known. To put their heart out there as much as they had to, to have the kind of love they shared, left them completely vulnerable. And as many nights as Ben had spent wishing he had someone beside him, sharing a life, he didn’t know if he would ever be brave enough to reach for that kind of relationship if the opportunity came up.
“I wonder if you ever think of me, or even remember my name,” he told the darkness of the night as he parked his truck behind the apartment. “If you have any idea how much I loved you or how much I cared. And I hate that I let you have that power over me, even now. Because if you came back to Hazard? I might not be strong enough to stay away from you.”
The hell of it was, he meant every word. He always had. That’s why he’d stayed away so long—and why he’d finally come home. One way or another, he had to exorcise Ainsley from his soul. All he had to do now was figure out how.
Chapter Seven
June 1988
Ainsley had dreamed about Ben last night. She knew it was because she was getting ready to go back to Hazard for the next six weeks or so to finish settling her mother’s estate. But that didn’t make her feel any less out of sorts as she packed for the trip.
“Bad night?” Byrdie asked as she came into the room, Jonah trailing behind her. The older woman hardly had a limp now that her leg had healed properly. She wouldn’t be going to Hazard with Ainsley, but instead would drive down in a couple of days, after she’d had her last appointment with the surgeon who’d fixed her knee.
“Yeah. The usual.”
Ainsley didn’t have any secrets from Byrdie, or from Jonah, for that matter. The time for keeping secrets had gone out the window two years ago, when Ainsley had gotten sober.
“I wish one of us was going with you.” Byrdie went to Ainsley’s dressing table and moved one of the perfume bottles over a quarter of an inch.
“You’ll be there day after tomorrow. It’s two nights. Besides, I’m looking forward to getting there. Kind of. I want to get it over with, anyhow.”
Jonah kicked off his shoes and plopped down on the bed, playing with the strap on one of Ainsley’s camisoles. She took it and whacked him with it, then folded it and put it in her suitcase.
“All the utilities are turned on?” he asked. “Even the phone?”
“Mr. Thornton assures me they are. All I have to do is pick up some groceries once I get there. He offered to have someone do it for me, but I declined. Unlike my mother, I have no problem purchasing my own food.”
Byrdie snorted. “Shoot, your mother wouldn’t have known how to buy groceries if her life depended on it.” Byrdie had worked as housekeeper and cook for Ainsley’s parents for over twenty years. Geneva Brewer had been shocked as hell when, after learning about Ainsley’s circumstances, Byrdie packed up her bags and left for Lexington.
The older woman had been with Ainsley ever since, and she couldn’t imagine life without her.
“I want you both to know that I’m probably going to end up buying cigarettes this evening when I get there.” Ainsley made the confession with an apologetic shrug.
“Baby girl, if that’s what you have to do to cope, you do it. You have your pills?”
Ainsley held up the round packet of birth control. “Of course. I even have a spare, just in case.” She tucked it carefully back into the pocket of the suitcase. “And Jonah’s only a call away.”
“That I am. Are you coming back up here for your period or staying there?”
“I don’t know yet. Depends on how much work I have to do. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad this month. And I have three or four weeks before I have to worry about it, anyhow.” She checked to make sure her leather journal was in the pocket next to the pills, and after touching it for reassurance, she closed the suitcase and zipped it up. “Don’t you think?”
“If your pattern holds,” Jonah agreed, somewhat skeptically. “I’m concerned that the pills aren’t working to get that straightened out. This new one was supposed to be much more helpful.”
Shortly after her marriage to Doug, Ainsley had suffered a very traumatic miscarriage. It had left physical scars that made her period erratic and tremendously uncomfortable, to say the least. For the first two years, she’d coped by self-medicating, not just with the physical agony, but with the mental scars and pain. She’d fallen easily into addiction, wanting to escape the realities of her past. After she’d gotten sober, though, she’d suffered through the first six months of life without prescription pain medication. By then, Doug had been ill, and she couldn’t risk relapsing, not when he needed her most.
Jonah, who lived in a renovated carriage house on the farm, had stepped in to intervene. Under careful supervision, every cycle, he would administer pain medicine and muscle relaxers. He and Byrdie got Ainsley through the worst of it.
He’d teamed up with her doctor recently to try to figure out what a good course of treatment would be. Her gynecologist had been pushing for her to have a hysterectomy for over a year now, but Ainsley wasn’t ready for that. She knew she would never have children; the specialists she’d seen after the miscarriage had told her that. But she wasn’t ready to let go of her womb, no matter how much it reminded her of her failings every few weeks.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Byrdie asked. “I can reschedule the appointment.”
Ainsley easily wrapped the smaller woman in a hug and kissed her cheek. “I’m sure. I’ll be okay. I need to do this
on my own. Need to prove I can do it. And it’s only two days,” she emphasized again. “I’ve not come nearly as far as I think I have if I can’t handle two days on my own.”
She’d been sober for two years. She still saw a counselor occasionally. They both agreed it was time to go back to Hazard.
“Well, I’ll go get you some food pulled together. That way, if you don’t want to stop at the store, you don’t have to.” Byrdie left, and Ainsley exchanged a look with Jonah.
“You know you’ll probably need a moving van to get whatever food she’s thinking down there,” he teased gently.
“I know. But it’s nice to be loved.”
“It is. And you are.”
Once she was fully packed, she looked around to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She glanced at the three-paneled mirror in her closet as she came back out. “Do you think I should change clothes?” she asked Jonah.
“You look fine to me.”
She was wearing a casual shirt and nice jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a jaunty ponytail, which she took down and shook out.
“I don’t want to look too casual. Of course, it is Hazard. Casual is the norm down there.”
Jonah laughed as she twisted her hair up and used the fabric-coated rubber band to secure it in a loose bun at the nape of her neck.
“What’s funny?”
“You. Ainsley, do you even own a pair of real jeans?”
Planting her hands on her hips, she attempted a scowl. When he laughed harder, she figured she hadn’t succeeded. “These are real jeans.”
Jonah stood with a sigh and came to her. He gestured to his own attire—faded jeans and a T-shirt with the name of his favorite rock band on it. “This is casual. What you’re wearing is nice, but it isn’t casual. Not to ninety-nine percent of the world. For crying out loud, you don’t even have your shirt untucked.”
