by Leanna Ellis
He grins and rubs the top of his not-quite-shaved head. “I kind of like it. May keep it this way. How’d the florist go?”
Mike may be an attorney, but he has never been the clean-cut type. In California he can get away with it. I find this new conservative look a bit unsettling. Maybe he’s going through a midlife crisis. If so, then what is Mother going through at sixty. Or is sixty the new midlife? In Daddy’s case, Mother seems to think dead is the new sixty.
“Mother’s enjoying this charade far too much to ever want Daddy back.”
He tugs his boots off and tosses them on the floor. “These boots sure are comfortable. I may start wearing them full time.”
“Where did you get them? Fredericksburg?”
“No, in Luckenbach.”
I start to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Those are gently-used boots, Mike.”
“All broken in.” He grins, nonplussed. “Guess they gave some other fellow blisters.” He props his socked feet on the coffee table. The rubbed places have turned a burnt-orange color.
I place my feet next to his. If Mother were in the den, I wouldn’t dare. But she’s in the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee, sorting through all the food that has been brought, throwing away anything she deems distasteful and writing her thank-you notes. “I have to stay on top of these things,” she told me earlier.
“How’s Daddy?”
“How’d you know I spoke to him?”
“I thought maybe that was your errand.”
“We went to the Chester Nimitz museum.”
“What if someone saw you together?”
“Tourists only.”
“How is he?”
“Not having much fun. He ran into Kay Walker this morning and was met with a high-pitched scream and hysterics.”
I sigh and roll my eyes. “More ghost stories will be popping up.”
Mike nods. “Thing is, he refuses to stay in his hotel room. So when he runs into someone he knows, he tries to calm them down. Which only makes it worse. He’s decided he’s not leaving Luckenbach. But he doesn’t seem interested in coming back to your mom either. He’s enjoying his freedom.”
“Just like you wanted.” Resentment hardens my tone.
“I didn’t cause this situation, Suz.”
“I know that. But you’re eager for my dad to spread his wings.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it wasn’t the worst thing ever. Either way, it’s not our decision. We can’t force them apart or together. You can’t control this situation.”
“I’m not trying to.”
He stares at me.
“Okay, so I am.” Uncomfortable staring at myself and seeing my mother’s reflection, I huff out a breath. “So what will happen when the powder keg blows?”
“I hope we’ll be out of the way. Otherwise, it’s stop, drop, and roll.”
We sit in silence, our hands clasped together, although I sense a resistance in me, a stiffness toward Mike.
“We need to wash your jeans.” I place a hand on the dark blue material covering his thigh. “Looks too new to be real. But at least they’re new.”
He grins. “So you want new boots but faded jeans? Texas is like a foreign country.”
I laugh. “If you want to look like a real cowboy, then they need to look like they’ve had cow stuff on them.”
“Cow stuff?” He smiles, eliciting one from me.
“You know.” I elbow him in the side. “Where’s Oliver?”
“You didn’t see him when you got back?”
I shake my head.
“I put him to work cleaning out your parents’ garage.”
“You didn’t take him with you on your errand?”
“No, your mom complained about the mess your father always leaves—excuse me, left—out there in the garage. I figured it was good penance for getting in trouble the other night.”
“We don’t know that he did anything wrong.”
“He admitted he shouldn’t have gone off with that kid. Whether he smoked pot or not, he made a bad decision.”
“What’s going to happen with all that?” I ask, but I’m afraid to know. Suddenly I feel cold from the inside out, as if my blood has stopped pumping.
Mike puts an arm around my shoulders, but it’s not comforting; it’s simply a reminder of my own betrayal.
“He’s a good kid. But even good kids make mistakes. We all do.”
I feel the weight of his words in my stomach. I nod and wonder what Drew thinks of my family. He’s the only other person who knows of my mistake. But he only knows part. Okay, Josie guessed, but she hasn’t mentioned it again. I pray she doesn’t. Pray Drew doesn’t start thinking, questioning, wondering. Fear makes my insides shift. If there was one person I never wanted my son to run into it was Drew Waring. I’ll be able to breathe easier when we leave Texas.
“In the meantime …”
“Your parents. Think we could put them both in a psych ward, let them duke it out there in a padded cell?”
“Maybe we could sell tickets.”
He rubs his socked foot against mine. “There you go.”
“We could use the money to pay back all their friends who bought flowers for the funeral.”
“I’ve been thinking,” his tone is serious, “there was a story that came out a year or so ago in the news where two girls were in a car crash. One was killed, the other injured. Except they mixed up the girls, due to the extent of their injuries. A few weeks after the funeral, one girl’s family was told their daughter was alive, and the other family that had been at that girl’s bedside found out their daughter was really dead.”
“That really happened? How sad.”
“Yeah, but see how we could say something like that happened with your dad? We could say he was driving with someone else in his truck. Maybe that person was driving for some reason, because your dad was ill, then the semi hit them. The driver was killed and your father has been in the hospital all this time recovering. Unbeknownst to us.”
“You have a devious mind, Mike Mullins.”
He grins. “I’m an attorney.”
“So is what Mom doing illegal?”
“So far, I don’t think so. She’s not transporting a dead body illegally, and she hasn’t signed any paperwork declaring him dead. But the potential is there.”
“The potential for what?” Mother carries in a tray of coffee cups.
I immediately pull my feet off the coffee table. Mike doesn’t move. Of course, Mother would never scold him. But she wouldn’t hesitate to show her displeasure with me.
“Potential for getting arrested.” I remove a pile of magazines from the corner of the table.
“Oh, no,” Mother sets the tray on the far end of the coffee table, away from the place I’ve cleared, “Oliver didn’t do something else did he?”
“No.” My jaw tenses as I set the stack of magazines back in their place.
“Your father then?” She pours coffee out of the sterling silver carafe and into a china cup. “Sugar, Mike?”
“No, thanks.”
“You, Mother. Mike is concerned that you might do something illegal with this charade of yours. The sheriff was asking questions just last night.”
“That’s nonsense. I haven’t—”
“Not yet.” Mike’s voice holds an ominous tone. “But what are you going to do when you’re asked to show Archie’s death certificate?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Taxes maybe. To claim veteran’s widow benefits. Social Security. To have him taken off your checking account.” He takes the cup from her and sips the hot black coffee. “There are a thousand reasons.”
“Those are good ideas.” Mother doesn’t understand his sarcasm. “But I’m sure all those decisions are weeks away. I’ll figure out something before then.”
He sighs. “Look, Mrs. Davidson—”
“I know you’re a terrific att
orney, Mike. But the system is set up to catch someone committing murder. Not burying a fake person. So,” she pats his arm, “don’t you worry so much. Suzanne, sugar? Cream?”
I shake my head. Her logic frightens and, at the same time, exhausts me. I no longer know what to say. Neither, apparently, does Mike.
With a slight, indifferent shrug, she places a cup on a saucer and hands it to me. “I appreciate your expertise, Mike, but I’ve looked into this. I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“Mother, we’re trying to figure out a way for you and Daddy to resolve this spat.”
“It is not a spat.” Mother pours another cup. “It’s irreconcilable differences.” She smiles proudly. “How’s that for a lawyerly phrase?”
“What if Daddy doesn’t want to leave Luckenbach?”
“He doesn’t have a choice now. He left. He has to go.” She raises her hand to her cheek. “Oh, dear, I don’t have any of that fake sugar stuff. Is that what you use in your coffee?”
“No, Mother.” I set the coffee on the table. I didn’t want any to begin with. It’s too hot to drink coffee. “Mother, Mike had an idea.”
She looks toward my husband expectantly.
He almost chokes on his coffee, sputters, and places his saucer next to mine on the coffee table, united. “We could make an announcement that Archie didn’t die. That the paramedics made a mistake.”
“He’s been embalmed.” Mother doesn’t blink an eye. “Too late for that kind of mistake.”
Where I would probably roll my eyes and give up, Mike sets his jaw with determination. “We could say there were two men in the car at the time of the accident and the paramedics mixed up the bodies. One man died, Archie lived. But he’s been unconscious and couldn’t identify himself. They assumed since he wasn’t driving that he wasn’t the owner of the truck. Then Archie could come back, and everything could go back to normal.”
Normal is a relative term. My family is anything but.
Mother sips her coffee slowly, thoughtfully. “Who was the other man?”
Mike shakes his head as if it’s unimportant. “Could be anyone. Another salesman. A friend. An old high school buddy.”
Mother’s frown worries me. “Does it matter?” I say.
“Not that I want your father to be alive. But I was just thinking …” She taps the side of her saucer with the tip of her carefully rounded nail. “If Archie was having an affair with this gentleman, you know,” she lowers her voice, “a homosexual thing, then that would perfectly explain a divorce.”
“Mother, you can’t make Daddy out to be gay!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s untrue!” Not that that has stopped her to this point.
“Oh, you’re probably right.” Her lower lip protrudes in a slight pout as she contemplates our suggestion. “Everyone would think I wasn’t woman enough to hold onto my man.” She shakes her head and smiles. “No, no, it’s best if Archie stays dead.”
18
You should know something.” Mother’s voice is startling first thing Tuesday morning. My brain isn’t awake yet and I’m not sure I’m ready for any more revelations. Slowly I sink into the chair at the kitchen table. Mother pours a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice and places the glass in front of me. She sits in the adjacent seat, her back ramrod straight.
“Brace yourself.”
“Okay.” I blink, my eyes grainy.
“There’s a rumor going around about Mike.”
I frown, then try for humor to throw Mother off track. “Another rumor?” A wistful smile plays about my lips as I think of him in the bedroom getting dressed in his newly washed and dried jeans. It’s an image that makes me want to laugh. “He’s not dead too, is he?”
“Not yet.”
My eyes open more fully, then narrow suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?”
Mother puts a hand on my arm as if to hold me in place, in case I jump up to grab a butcher knife or start to keel over. But I’m not like her. Or am I?
“It’s about Mike and Josie.”
My frown deepens. Then I laugh. “Mother, enough with the dramatics.”
“I’m telling you,” her lips pinch together like the edge of a pie crust, “that Josie is after your husband. And she’s just the type of woman who can lead him astray.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know the men she’s lured away from their wives, even if temporarily. And I saw her eyein’ your husband right here in this very kitchen.”
“She was eyeing my son. But that doesn’t mean anything. Josie eyes everyone. She’s very observant. She’s a people watcher.”
“Uh-huh.” Her utterance should mean agreement yet is anything but. Mother leans back and crosses her arms over her stomach. She raises one well-shaped eyebrow at me as if she holds some trump card. “Who do you think was seen coming out of the Old Hockheim Inn yesterday afternoon?”
“Mom, that’s where Dad is—”
“And with whom?” She has a look of triumph on her face, as if she’s suddenly convinced me my husband is having an affair. But this will take more than circumstantial evidence.
“So what if Mike was coming out of the hotel?” I toss back at her. “He was there to see Dad. That’s where—”
“With,” she emphasizes the word as if she sampled a stew and realized it needed cayenne pepper to give it a kick, “Josie.”
“Maybe Josie was there to see Dad. Maybe she’s after your husband.” The thought is unsettling, but better my dad than my husband.
Mother’s mouth opens, then shuts. She stares at me a moment. “No.” She shakes her head like she has a tremor that continues. “She’s not his type.”
“And she is Mike’s?” Her logic makes no sense. I sip my orange juice and catch a seed against my tongue. I tuck away a tiny question to ask Mike, but I’m not worried. I know my husband. Josie is the only factor in this equation that is unknown and creates a problem.
I notice that above Mother’s head the crack in the ceiling is growing longer. It’s almost to the light fixture and seems to be splitting the room in half.
Mother leans forward, resting her elbow on the table and whispers in a conspiratorial tone, “Wanna have a double funeral?”
* * *
“LET’S GO FOR a drive.”
Mike offers me his hand. After a hearty breakfast of egg casserole some neighbor brought over and Mother’s homemade biscuits, along with peach preserves she recently canned, I realize my two men may have a tough time going back to egg-white omelets and fruit when we return home to California.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
His gently used boots are back on his feet, his button-down tucked in his slightly faded jeans. He even has a belt buckle as big as Texas. I’m beginning to wonder what’s happened to my husband.
“I need out of this house.” He takes my hand and leads me toward the rental car. I’m all for getting away from my lunatic mother.
We check on Oliver, who’s out in the garage sweating and rearranging Daddy’s tools. He’s covered in dust and filth, sweeping out the garage with an old broom. There is definitely an improvement. The tools are lined up neatly in rows or hanging from a peg board. Oliver has inherited Mother’s organizational skills.
Mother has tried for years to organize my father. She manages within the confines of the house, but she gave up long ago on his personal work space in the garage. She chooses not to acknowledge it, ignoring it the way she ignored her own mother’s housekeeping abilities. When I was a little girl, we would visit Mother’s mother, my granny. Mother would say as we walked up the swayed porch steps, “Don’t touch anything.”
Mother would sit on the edge of Granny’s couch, her hands primly placed in her lap. I would sit beside her, taking in the accumulation of junk covering every square inch of the room. As Granny grew older and more feeble, needing more help, Mother happily took charge. The first thing she did was clean that house from top to bottom, scr
ubbing each counter and surface within an inch of its life.
“How’s it going?” Mike studies his son’s work.
“All right.” Oliver’s smile is a dazzling white against his dirt-streaked face. “Mom, I saw your neighbor over there. The one Grandma called the police about.”
I glance over at Ned Peavy’s trailer. There he is, sitting in his rocker, feet propped up on a makeshift porch railing that is warped from heat and rain. From what I can see, he is wearing no clothes. But then the porch railing is thankfully in the way. No fly swatter in sight either.
Not noticing her naked neighbor across the road, Mother brings her grandson a big pitcher of ice-cold lemonade. “If I’d known you were all out here, I would have brought more glasses.”
“We’re going for a drive.” Mike tugs me toward the car.
“Oliver,” I make eye contact with my son, giving weight to my words, “keep an eye on things.” Meaning Mother.
He winks with understanding. I hope he can keep his grandmother from doing anything else outrageous. I can’t imagine what that might be, but I don’t want to imagine beyond this current fiasco.
“We’ll be back in—”
“A while,” Mike finishes for me. He opens the passenger door of the rental car, and I climb in. The heat is oppressive until the air conditioning kicks in and blasts cold air at my face. I adjust the vent.
“So what’s going on?” I fasten the seat belt across my lap.
“Nothing.”
“Just getting tired of Mother?” I can’t blame him for that.
“Who wouldn’t?”
I laugh, trying to lighten the mood which seems dark. He’s always been so patient with her. Sometimes when I complain about her, he says, “At least she loves you.” Meaning his mother didn’t. And I know this to be true. Mike’s mother abandoned him. It’s like never watering a plant: The ground grows hard and cracks, the leaves turn brown and crunchy, and eventually the plant dies. But Mother’s love is like over watering a plant: The roots become waterlogged, and the plant drowns from too much care.
Mother has showered my husband with love, sending him tins of cookies over the years, doting on him when she visits California, treating him like an invalid who’s unable to fetch even a glass of water for himself. And he basked in the attention like a little boy soaking up the nourishment. The first time I watched her in action I was appalled. But when I saw how Mike enjoyed the attention, I incorporated some of her tactics into our daily life, making him coffee, taking him a cup while he showered each morning. I have to admit, Mother might have been right about that one thing.
