by D. Brown
Sam laughed.
Can you believe the luck?
6
“Sam!”
Maggie.
And boy is she pissed.
Sam could tell by the way she stormed up the beach slope after him, fists clenched, kicking up tufts of sand as she plowed through the thick drifts.
He stopped and watched her.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of what?”
“This!”
She pinched the shell between her thumb and forefinger, as if it were a vile and disgusting piece of rotten meat.
“What is this? A souvenir? A keepsake?”
“It’s a bullet,” something inherently obvious to everyone else on the planet except her. He then turned and continued up the beach slope toward the orange glow thrown by the campfire.
Maggie clenched her fists and started off after him.
“I know damn good and well what it is, and I don’t approve of it one bit!”
“If I thought it would have upset you, I’d have never given it to you.”
“I have children!”
“Yeah, three of them at last count,” he said as he continued walking, “Why, did you lose one?”
“This is not a joking matter. Why did you give it to me anyway? I don’t want the responsibility of knowing that I have the one thing that will prevent you from killing yourself!”
“Maggie,” Sam stopped and turned to her; that amused grin turning up the corners of his mouth again. “You would think that if I went to the trouble of owning a handgun, I’d also go to the trouble of owning more than one bullet.”
He chuckled.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not Barney Fife, Maggie.”
“I don’t want this bullet.
“Okay, give it back.”
“No!” she gasped and snatched the bullet away.
“It’s no good, Maggie.”
Maggie frowned, “What’s no good?”
Sam nodded at the bullet. “That. It’s a dud.”
“A dud?”
“A dud. It didn’t go off.”
Maggie blanched and her voice came out very small, almost childlike. “How do you know it didn’t go off?”
Sam didn’t reply, and Maggie saw something flash behind his eyes, maybe just the reflection of the campfire caught in his eyes, but she knew.
“Oh, Sam, you were serious back there?”
“It’s not something I’m very proud of at the moment.”
Maggie didn’t know what to say.
“About nine months after Diane died.”
“Sam.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Really,” he said. “I don’t mind. I want you to know. For some reason it’s important to me that you know what happened.”
“But Sam.”
“Maggie. If it’s uncomfortable for you, I won’t talk about it.”
“I don’t know you. I am in no position to be hearing this.”
“No, you don’t know me at all,” he said. “And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. You know how people sometimes reveal their deepest innermost secrets to complete strangers? You don’t have any emotional investment to deal with then. There’s no judgment, no investment of time in cultivating a friendship that might be irreparably damaged because of the revelation. It’s okay that you know. I want to tell somebody.”
“But why me?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like the right thing to do, why not you?”
This was not fair.
She didn’t want the burden of this responsibility.
She didn’t want to know.
“The bullet is the key that unlocked the rest of my life,” he said. “It didn't go off. I should have died.”
Sam crossed around the campfire to one of the grills and removed an old tin kettle from its side-burner. He grabbed two tin cups from off the table and poured each some coffee.
“Careful,” he smiled. “This stuff will put hair on your chest.”
Maggie laughed, trying not to sound anxious, terrified, or like she wanted to get the hell out of here at the first opportunity. It came out sounding like the tinkling of cheap glass.
“Sugar’s on the table, cream is in the cooler. People won’t start showing up until first light. We’ve got a few minutes if you’d like.”
Maggie took a seat in one of the Adirondack chairs positioned around the fire. Sam sat down across from her, on the opposite side of the fire ring. He found it hard to take his eyes off of her, and the more he looked at her, the more he watched her, the more he resented the hell out of the wedding ring she wore.
Sam wished he could take off the ring and throw it as far out into the ocean as his worn out left arm would let him.
“I haven’t said anything to anyone about this,” he began, “Not even my kids.”
“I see.”
“They know I thought about it, the kids did, and they sent me to grief counseling, and I went. It didn’t do much good. I wasn’t grief stricken.
“They asked that I seek professional counseling,” he said, “So I saw a psychiatrist and lived on Prozac for a year. That didn’t work either.
“My kids hate this place, this house, this is where she died,” Sam pointed to a stretch of shadow to the left of the pier, “She drowned right out there, right off the point of the pier. She got caught in the undertow and couldn’t swim free. Rescue divers found her floating in 20-feet of water. That’s why they won’t ever come back here, too many harsh memories for them.”
“You live here now though.”
Sam nodded, “Full time. I took a leave of absence and moved down here. I can go back whenever I want. It’s an open door thing. Money’s not a problem. That’s the other big stink about Diane’s death – life insurance. It didn’t make me a rich man, but I don’t have to worry about my next paycheck anymore. Those investigating her death found it damned convenient that I had a healthy life insurance policy taken out on my wife. What they didn’t bother noticing was I had an identical policy in my name as well.”
“You missed your wife,” Maggie said.
Sam let out an ironic chuckle.
“I wish.”
“What do you mean, ‘you wish’?”
“I mean, I wish it were that simple, something as simple as missing my wife.”
“She drowned Sam. You didn’t kill her.”
“The Red Hat ladies in Savannah think otherwise. Go have a cocktail with them sometime. They’ll fill you with all kinds of interesting stories. I’m sure your husband would love to hear their stories and conjecture.”
“Sam, it was an accident. You didn’t kill your wife.”
“No, I didn’t. But I didn’t try to save her either.”
Sam couldn’t bring his eyes to meet Maggie’s.
“I stood right here and watched her drown.”
Maggie told Sam if he had tried to save his wife, he could have drowned himself.
Currents out there are tricky.
She said maybe no one could have saved Diane that day.
“If the lifeguards couldn’t save her, what makes you think you could have?”
“There were no lifeguards on duty then,” he said. “I was the only one who saw her out there.”
Sam turned away, looking into the last remnants of the pre-dawn darkness. The subject of his wife’s death, was for now, closed.
“It wasn’t your fault Sam.”
And isn’t it just like a woman to get in the last word.
Sam’s mood lightened some as they set the table for breakfast, and he told her about the bullet’s significance.
“That bullet reminds me I’m living on borrowed time,” he said. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m not a religious man, Maggie, and I don’t put much stock in divine provenance. I guess it’s why I cook. I want to do nice things for people. I don’t know why.”
Sam chuckled, “I’m a big believer in the Shit Happens Theory.”
Maggie held the bullet in her open palm. She regarded the bullet as a little miracle, and said so.
“God has something special in mind for you Sam. There is a reason more than just shit happening that you’re here right now. There’s a reason why this bullet didn’t fire and kill you.”
“You have a lot of faith, Maggie.”
She didn’t know if what he said was a statement of fact, or a sarcastic dig.
The first of the beach walkers meandered up the beach between six and seven as the sun cleared the horizon and started its climb to the top of the sky.
Sam had carved the ham, sliced a few medallions into cubes to scramble in a large skillet of eggs.
The grits were done.
Sam said he cooked his grits in chicken broth. It gave them that little extra zing of flavor.
He had baked biscuits in an old cast iron skillet that he said belonged to his great grandmother and Maggie wondered if Southern folks could ever survive a meal without biscuits. She had yet to sit down to a dinner table since crossing the Mason-Dixon Line without a plate of them set somewhere on the table.
He fried slabs of fatback bacon over the open coals in the smoker’s firebox and cracked six eggs into the bacon drippings to fry. Maggie helped set out the juice, a packed cooler of soft drinks, champagne for mixing mimosas and beer – in Savannah, every hour was Happy Hour – paper plates, flatware and plastic cups.
Then Sam told her to sit back, relax and enjoy herself.
The beach walkers were retired folks with too much time on their hands, some tourists like Maggie and her family, but mostly locals, regulars on the beach who knew what the burning campfire signaled. They either filled up a plate or just grabbed a biscuit and cup of coffee, then dropped a couple bucks into the bucket Sam had set out whether they ate a couple bucks worth of food or not.
Maggie was content to stay off to the side, relaxing in Sam’s chair, sipping her coffee and watching the lazy line of people file up the beach. Sometimes the flow dwindled down to just one or two, and then Sam would drift over to her, take a seat, and stare out at the hypnotic procession of white-capped breakers spilling onto the beach.
He’d steal the occasional glance and smile at her, but when Sam was absorbed with these thoughts, he blocked out everybody, including Maggie, and suddenly, she desperately wanted to know what he was thinking.
She found him intriguing when every warning bell and whistle inside her head told her to turn tail and run for the hills as fast as her legs could carry her.
Something about Sam’s story pulled at her heart strings and she couldn’t explain why.
But Maggie, he had a gun in his mouth!
Yes, he did, and now Maggie held the bullet cartridge in her hand.
She felt a reassuring sensation in its smooth, curved contours. Here, this object, designed solely to take life, had spared one. A treasured possession, Maggie was glad Sam had given it to her.
“Mags?” jerked her from the solitude of her thoughts.
Robert.
“What have you got there?”
The color drained from Maggie’s face and her stomach folded like foil. She tried to hide the bullet as a guilt shard pierced her ribs.
“What is it?”
She knew once Robert set his mind on something, he chewed on it like a dog to a bone until he reached the bottom of things, or she relented and gave in. Robert did not like it when Maggie kept secrets, innocent ones or not.
She slowly opened her palm and hated her submissiveness for it.
“Maggie, that’s a bullet. What are you doing with that?”
“I found it on the beach,” she lied, and was surprised to have lied so easily.
“Bullets are so disgusting!” and before Maggie could react, Robert snatched the shell casing from her hand. “You don’t need to be carrying things like these around, especially in today’s world. We have children, Maggie. This is how kids get hurt.”
He turned and threw Sam’s bullet, high and long in the air, and Maggie followed its flight, spinning end over end out over the water where it disappeared with a brief splash of white.
It’s gone.
“You had no right to do that!”
Her flash of temper surprised Maggie as much as it did Robert and she jumped to her feet. She took two quick steps, as if to chase after the lost bullet then stopped.
“Mags, it was an old bullet, beach garbage. Who knows where it’s been? Certainly you don’t want that thing around the kids.”
The sting of tears smeared Maggie’s vision. Hot red flashed behind her eyes. That was Sam’s. He gave it to her, and now she’d lost it.
Maggie stiffened, “What do you want Robert?”
Her voice became ice, the hard gaze she cut her husband just as cold.
Something in her changed regarding her husband.
Maybe something even died right then.
She tolerated his foolishness before, his petty and manipulative passive aggressiveness.
Not anymore.
I am a butterfly held captive in a Mason jar.
Robert taking exception to the bullet had nothing to do with it being a bullet, but everything to do with the jealous suspicion it was a gift of some significance come from Sam.
This was the monster she created.
Suddenly, she did not like her husband, not at all.
“I just wondered where you were.”
“This is vacation, in case you haven’t noticed. This is my vacation just as much as yours. I took a walk on the beach. I’m enjoying the company of these fine people. Do you have a problem with that?”
Maggie caught Sam’s eye over Robert’s shoulder. He had stopped talking and looked her way. The others had also stopped talking and were listening too.
Great, the whole island gets to see what an asshole I have for a husband.
She was embarrassed, and it pissed her off to no end.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Robert said. “I woke up and you weren’t there, and there’s no coffee made. I wondered what you were going to do for breakfast.”
“Sam made breakfast,” she said. “Help yourself to some of that Robert.”
Robert turned and looked at the spread of food arranged on the picnic table. He made a face and shook his head no.
“I was hoping for a quiet breakfast with you, just the two of us you know? We don’t get to talk much, or share any time for just us, and I thought that would be a nice way of starting the day. Plus, I’d just love one of your special omelets you make so well.”
She knew the remark was coming, and this infuriated Maggie even more.
“You don’t want to eat this? Fine. You want breakfast Robert? Fine. Do what the kids do. There’s cereal in the cupboard. Milk is in the refrigerator. Help yourself.”
And with that, Maggie left.
She walked off.
Leaving Robert to stand there and watch until she reached the front porch, slung open the front door and slammed it behind her.
Sam watched it all too, shook his head, and chuckled.
A real pistol she is, he thought.
7
Maggie stood at the kitchen sink finishing up lunch dishes when she heard the rapping on the screen door.
Sam, “Is everything okay?”
She turned and saw him standing outside.
“Hi.”
A smile touched the corners of her mouth.
She was happy to see him.
“You stormed off earlier. You seemed pretty ‘likkered-up.’”
Maggie toweled her hands dry and motioned for him to come inside.
“You sure this is okay?”
He stepped inside and eased the screen door shut behind him.
“It’s okay. You probably know your way around this house better than I do. Robert’s going to have to get over himself, that’s a
ll, and what do you mean by ‘likkered up?’”
“‘Likkered up,’” he said. “It’s a Southern term of endearment meaning good and pissed off; almost a conniption, but not quite.”
Maggie laughed, “Good and pissed off. Not a very ladylike term of endearment, and I’m having a conniption?”
“It’s appropriate for the moment and a conniption, you don’t have one you pitch one.”
“I thought you pitched a fit.”
“No,” he said. “You throw a fit and pitch a conniption.”
“I see,” she smiled.
Sam carried a paper plate wrapped in foil.
“Brought you some leftover ham, figured y’all could have it for lunch.”
Maggie liked the deep, gravel laced sound of Sam’s voice with the subtle Southern drawl and the way he said y’all.
It relaxed her.
Despite his brooding seriousness, there was a childlike quality to Sam as if he never took anything seriously.
He’s a living contradiction.
“Sam, I can’t go taking all your food.”
Sam pressed the plate into her hands, “Yes, you can take as much food as you want. I can’t eat it all myself. Plus, it’ll keep you the hell out of this kitchen.”
“I’ve got four picky mouths to feed, and none of them seem to like the same thing. I’ll always be in this kitchen.”
Sam proffered the plate of ham. “Then feed them this. It’s hard to screw up a good ham.”
Maggie smiled a thank you and put the platter in the refrigerator.
“What’s the matter?” he said, “Robert can’t cook?”
She laughed.
“You think that’s funny?”
“I know that’s funny.”
“Okay, then today’s lunch is covered.”
“Yeah right look around,” she didn’t try to hide the sarcasm.
“You guys do generate a lot of dishes,” Sam said.
“We Scotts never eat off paper plates,” her attempt at self-deprecation was evident.
“Oh?” he said. “So last night you guys were really slumming it then.”
“Sometimes I’m not very proud of the monster I’ve created,” Maggie said and picked up another dish to dry and put away.
