by Tina Welling
I came to Florida feeling that Jess had become a pebble in my shoe, a splinter in my thumb, a continual drain on my energy. My frustration at the end of a day had often broken into wordless sobs that jarred my body with their rough passage. Jess would hold me, smooth my hair, murmur, “There, there,” into my ear and take on the preparations for dinner himself.
Caring behavior? Yes. Also an arrogant response that came from a sense of disengagement: too bad I was experiencing problems; he wasn’t.
I could never have figured out the trouble I felt while living within this mixed stew of covert abuse and overt affection.
I was happy to hear the news about Wolf No. 9. For me she symbolized what could happen in wild places, and I felt I had been in a wild place for the past months. If No. 9 could give birth under those tough circumstances, any female could do anything. I, for one, could solve my life and my marriage.
I was driving through a dense forest of pine scrub, the land flat as the back of my hand, resting on the steering wheel. Bijou rose from her nest in the fuchsia-colored fleece blanket tossed in the backseat for her and came to brace her front paws on the center consol and rest her chin on my shoulder. I tipped my face to hers to acknowledge her presence and hoped she wouldn’t mind sharing me with Jess.
Nobody liked change. And, I knew, Jess would not like the upcoming changes one bit, as his response to the new financial setup at the store had demonstrated. In fact, Jess’ fear of such changes, I realized now, was what had prompted him to instigate the boys’ challenge that Thanksgiving evening a couple years back, when the three of them attacked my lack of interest in working at the store with Jess and watching TV with the family. Jess mixed it up, figuring that if I left our lifestyle, I’d leave our life . . . and him. He was working from fear and resistance. Didn’t he know that what you actively feared and resisted usually became reality?
I had seen couples greet each other at airports like this before, people who I knew had been married for years. I had always wondered how you could stand face-to-face with a mate you’d been separated from and not mash your bodies, your breath, your mouths together in relief that the parting was over. But there we stood, Jess and I, separate, smiling, though not rushing into each other’s arms. Jess, I saw, was attempting to mask the uncertainty of his standing with me. I did nothing to smooth his unease and, for once, did not take it upon myself to feel responsible for it.
I just stood there, looking at the man I loved, would always love, but seeing in him, too, the man who gave me the same gift of blue topaz ear studs for our anniversary that he had given me for Valentine’s Day, who gave away a share of my store ownership, who derided my passion for creating, along with the man who loved me, who was a good father, who had shared life with me for twenty-six years. I saw it all.
Then I went to hug him.
If our sons had accompanied Jess on the flight, I would have wanted to put on a good show for them. Their plane was due a few hours later, and by then I hoped Jess and I would have had time to relax with each other.
Dinner together that night in an Orlando restaurant, the first since our anniversary dinner atop Gros Ventre Butte, didn’t begin with champagne or gift giving, but rather quiet talk about our lives and our children. I didn’t buy a special dress after all. My heart wasn’t in it. But later, after picking up our sons, driving to Hibiscus, and settling the family in my small apartment, Jess and I retired to my bedroom and made love, sweet, slow love, devoid of urgency or lavish expressions of arousal.
Afterward, I lay beside Jess as he slept and remembered that woman who meshed herself so tightly into her husband—his body, his life, his awareness—that she pumped her own life force into his until she could not tell herself apart from him, his actions, his thoughts. His thoughtlessness.
And then I smiled to myself, because I recalled showing more enthusiasm when Jess’ luggage arrived at the same time and place as he did, earlier at the airport, than I had in bed with him just now. This, too, would heal, I thought, and went to sleep myself.
Though I had brought Jeter back to the boat after a couple of his overnights, making the visits look routine for the watchers, I had let Jeter board by himself and only waved to Daniel before walking or driving away. Today, bringing Jess to meet Daniel at the Turtle Nest, was the first time I’d spent with Daniel in a week. After introductions, we settled at a table on the deck.
“You notice anything different?” Daniel asked me.
I looked around. As usual Daniel’s cell phone had been tossed on the table; as usual the dogs had scooted beneath our chairs. The umbrellas were open, the sun shined and the staff inside was gearing up for the lunchtime rush.
“It all looks the same to me.”
“No Stocker.” Daniel tipped his head toward the inside, then toward the water. “No go-fast boats.” He raised his eyebrows. “Been like that all morning.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Jess asked, though I knew he had been curious about go-fast boats and how it felt to be under surveillance. Even the boys had planned to stop by, after they fished with Shank, to meet Daniel and see a go-fast boat.
“Not good. My old partner’s nearby, is my guess. He has a long arm and he’s reaching for his IOUS.”
Daniel was restless, shifting position, sitting where he could watch inside the restaurant, instead of in view of the water. He didn’t eat much. I wondered what Jess was making of him. Daniel was not his typically cool self.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Have to leave.”
“When?”
“In the next hour or so. I put my boat in the hands of a broker this morning when I got cued from one of the go-fast officers. Then everybody took off.”
“Cued?” Jess said.
“One of the guys and I went to flight school together in Palm Beach years back. He let me know.” Daniel demonstrated with his fist and a thumb slicing across his neck.
Daniel said, “Whatever’s up is not standard operating procedure.” He took a swig of his iced tea and added, “I don’t plan to be one of those federal retirees collecting my pension in prison, which is where my old boss may be heading.”
“I’ll be damned; the government will still pay a pension to a prisoner.” Jess enjoyed this talk, I could tell, but I could see now that he was leery of Daniel. Yet he’d been hearing his story as a kind of serial during our phone talks over the winter months. Each call, Jess would ask, “So what’s up with Daniel?”
Daniel said now, “Most likely the officers didn’t get much warning themselves. Probably an early-morning phone call to look scarce for the next couple days. I was just waiting for the two of you to show before I took off.”
Daniel’s phone blinked a red light from the table, and he excused himself. “Sorry. Go ahead and eat.” He stood up, reached for his phone and walked around to the other side of the deck.
The second Daniel was out of earshot, Jess dropped his sandwich on his plate. It landed with a thud, and I looked up at him in surprise. He leaned across the table to me, hands braced on the edge, eyebrows raised.
“Hey! You told me Daniel was retired. I thought he was some old guy.”
“He is retired.” I hadn’t thought before about whom Jess had imagined I was spending time with.
“Damn it, Annie. I’ve been picturing some bent-over, gray-haired senior citizen.” Jess looked toward the direction Daniel had disappeared, then back to me. “What are you doing, hanging out with him? He’s built like our neighbor, what’s-his-name.”
“Who?”
“You know, the guy who tells his wife he’s going out for a run and then sprints up the Grand Teton and down before lunch.”
“Oh, Richard.” Jess was jealous. A first for us. There had never been an occasion for jealousy before; I didn’t especially like the complication it brought to our reunion. It felt like a diversion from the real issues. I said, “Believe me, we’ve both had our minds on other problems down here.”
&n
bsp; “I know what his problem is. What’s yours?” He sounded angry and challenging.
I was incredulous. “You,” I practically shouted.
“Oh, great,” he mumbled. Jess became very still and he stared into my eyes, looking grim and sad. I let him see the truth in my gaze: nothing had happened between me and Daniel.
“I love you, Jess.” I hadn’t said it last night, not even when he had said those words to me. But it was true: I loved him. And I wanted him to know.
He nodded his head once.
Our sons appeared then, thudding up the stairway and making the wooden-deck floor vibrate; they noisily pulled out chairs around the table and announced how ravenous they were.
“Where is he?” Saddler said. I had filled in the guys about Daniel last night during our long drive home from the airport.
Before I could answer, Daniel rejoined us. I introduced Cam and Saddler to him, and he waved the waitress over to get their orders, tossed his cell phone back on the table and sat down. We all talked for a while; then Daniel checked his watch and mentioned that he needed to meet his broker on the pier briefly to sign some papers. It would only take a minute. He invited Jess to walk down with him and see his boat. The boys’ food was just being served, so I stayed at the table with them.
I reached out my hand to Jess as he was leaving. He took hold of it and came to my side. We looked into each other’s eyes. After a moment he leaned down and kissed me. Jess had a generous heart; I felt glad of that.
He was both right and wrong in perceiving Daniel as a threat. The threat had been a reality from my first meeting with Daniel, but then so had the firm position I took in response to it. I hadn’t come to Hibiscus to escape anything in my marriage; I had come to face it full-on. I hoped Jess knew that now.
After Jess and Daniel left, I asked the guys about their fishing trip with Shank.
Cam said, “We caught a ton of fish. Shank knows his stuff. We cleaned them, and Shank is packing them in ice for the houseboat. Sadd and I will grill fish for dinner tonight.”
Saddler nodded to the cell phone lying on the table. “They’ve got trackers in these things. Since Daniel’s old partner has access to governmental data, he probably has access to the data from the tracking device in the phone.”
“Really?”
“We could buy your friend some extra time,” Cam said and took a big bite of his roast beef panini.
I liked that he referred to Daniel as my friend and wanted to help him.
When Cam stopped chewing, he explained, “Your phone looks just like his.”
“Oh, I know. He knows, too. He flips his open before pocketing it to check that it’s his.” I knew what Cam was thinking—switch phones and Parson would follow me, not Daniel. “That won’t work.”
Saddler said, “Remember when we were in high school and you and Dad warned us that if we broke our cell phones, you wouldn’t replace them?”
I remembered that well. I should have made the same rule for Jess; he broke his regularly—dropping it in the snow, the creek, the toilet.
Cam said, “You never had to buy new phones for us, because we just removed our SIM card. It’s a little plastic-and-metal card less than a square inch inside the phone. We stuck it in a friend’s phone or any other old phone we found lying around.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes yours.”
Saddler said, “The SIM card holds all our information.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“If we stuck your SIM card in his cell, Daniel would still have his phone.”
Saddler added, “But they couldn’t trace him.”
I said, “Well . . . sure. If that’ll help.” I handed him my phone. A misty fog seeped into my mind during technical talk. When machines—computers, cash registers, even vacuum cleaners—didn’t turn on and operate the way I expected them to, it was as if I was injected with an anesthetic that turned me stupid. A kind of ennui flooded my normal curiosity at such times. I bent to pet Bijou and rub Jeter’s tummy. He and I had bonded closely since he’d begun coming home with me most evenings.
“We better hurry.” Saddler dug into his pocket for the Swiss Army pocketknife he always carried and handed it to Cam. “Use this to lift off the back of her phone; I’ll use the table knife on his.”
They began working with the phones in their laps, their backs to Jess and Daniel’s approach. Cam said, “This will help because the SIM card carries not only a person’s identification and phone contacts, but also has LAI—location area identity. You make a call and that information is sent to a mobile operator network.”
I glanced up from the dogs. Saddler got the back off Daniel’s phone, lifted out a tiny card, then reached for my phone from Cam. My heart pumped uncomfortably; I wasn’t cut out to be in crime. My sons, however, worked with ease and efficiency. I leaned sideways in my chair to pet the dogs again and pictured Daniel’s tiny card floating in the ocean below us. I wondered briefly what Gina would think if she called me and Daniel answered. Was that how it worked?
Saddler handed me Daniel’s phone and my own. “See? They both look like they always did.”
Jess and Daniel returned up the steps just as I was placing Daniel’s phone back on the table.
I looked up. “It’s yours.” I held my own phone in the folds of my skirt, then rustled a hand in my pocket, pretending to find my phone there. “Checking for messages.” Opened it, closed it. I flicked a glance toward my sons, and they both looked at me the way they did when I skied an especially skinny, steep path through trees without wiping out. But I was sticky with nervousness and breathing funny, too.
Daniel sat on the edge of his chair and said, “I’m going to have to take you up on that offer with Jeter.” The dog rose from beside the chair at the sound of his name. Jeter pressed his forehead against Daniel’s knees, and Daniel laid both hands on Jeter’s ebony head, then rubbed his neck. He bent to whisper a few words in his dog’s ear.
Tears filled my eyes.
Jess said, “We’ll take good care of him, Daniel. You can count on it.”
“Thanks, Jess.” Daniel nodded to him. “Thank you.”
We set up a plan for getting Jeter back to Daniel, if at all possible while I was still in Florida.
“I won’t put Annie in any danger, trying to get Jeter back, Jess. Hope you know that.” Daniel looked down at Jeter, then back up. “And I appreciate your coming today; I wanted us to meet. You guys, too.” Daniel included my sons, then scanned the water.
Jess asked, “See anything?”
“Not yet. But Parson is persistent.” Daniel reached for his iced tea, keeping one hand on Jeter’s head. “He’s got all the cards for a showdown. Parson realizes now I won’t be partnering with him. I can see he isn’t accepting that.” Daniel finished his drink. He set his glass down. “I didn’t think he would.”
He stood, pocketed his phone. He tossed some money on the table for the bill, insisting this was his treat. He shook hands with Jess, Cam and Saddler. He nodded to me, and I felt just like Jeter did. I wanted to press my forehead against Daniel in a long goodbye. Likely, neither Jeter nor I would see Daniel again.
Daniel walked away. I held on to Jeter’s collar, soothing him—and myself—as we watched Daniel disappear down the steps.
During the drive back to my apartment to pick up our suitcases and the supplies I’d packed for the houseboat, I worked on the lump in my throat. Already I missed Daniel. Even in the presence of Jess and my sons, something about him stirred me. And I was worried about his safety.
Jess, the boys and I drove down to the Keys straightaway. Daisy and Marcus were bringing Dad. They would arrive on Islamorada a couple hours before us in order for Marcus to check out the boat and fill out the paperwork for the rental and insurance.
“Just enough time,” Jess said, driving down US-1, “to completely destroy order on the houseboat. If I find your brother-in-law’s wet bathing suit on my pillow or the twins’ sandals on the breakfast table, I’m
jumping overboard.”
Like he was Mr. Tidy. He’d already started collecting pamphlets, brochures and free magazines about every tourist attraction on the Gulf of Mexico, and they were all flung across the back window ledge of my car. Next they’d be lying atop every horizontal surface of the boat. I wanted to enjoy my family, so I’d lowered my expectations for this trip to merely hoping that my dad acted halfway sane and the sugar ants weren’t packed in Daisy’s luggage.
We arrived at the pier in Islamorada and greeted Marcus, then toured the boat. We found Dad checking the view from the upper deck. He greeted each of us with hearty thumps on the back that made us look like bobble heads as we absorbed his affectionate pounding. Daisy and the girls were out looking for a store; she’d forgotten something. Jess and Saddler left to unpack the car, while Cam and I put away supplies in the tiny kitchen. I still thought about Daniel.
“Do you think the phone thing will work?” I asked Cam. My voice sounded raw and I cleared my throat to cover up. I handed him a six-pack of yogurt to set in the refrigerator.
Cam said, “One catch. I know there’s an FCC regulation that you have to be within twenty miles of a cell tower for a nine-one-one call to be traced, so same deal for any call. Mr. Fields might have connections, but he still needs cell towers to trace location.” He checked his watch. “We don’t have time to move out of range tonight. Houseboats are slow. So that’s no problem.”
“What do you mean?”
His father called him to help carry Shank’s cooler of fish, and before Cam ran off, he said, “Houseboats only go a few miles an hour.” I knew that. I had meant, what did our houseboat trip have to do with cell-phone towers? I followed him down the pier to the parking lot to find out and saw that Daisy had just returned. Nell and Libby came running toward Cam and Saddler, flying across the final couple feet, both angled to leap into a cousin’s arms.
After the hugs and greetings, Libby said, “Mommy forgot to pack our wonderwear.”
