Never Too Late

by Jo Barney

  Never Too Late

  A Jo Barney Henlit Novel

  Jo Barney

  Contents

  Copyright

  New Release Newsletter

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Smart Women’s Fiction

  This edition published by

  Penner Publishing

  Post Office Box 57914

  Los Angeles, California 91413

  www.pennerpublishing.com

  * * *

  Copyright © 2015 by Jo Barney

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Cover Designer: Christa Holland, Paper & Sage Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-940811-35-2

  New Release Newsletter

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  It is never too late to be what you might have been.

  George Eliot

  Years ago, Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News, said that she absorbed the language and speech of Newfoundland by sitting in coffee shops and listening. She added, as I recall, “I could sit and listen for hours. No one ever notices an old lady in the next booth.” Another author, Elizabeth Berg, advises, in The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted and Other Small Acts of Liberation “ wear a hat and some old lady shoes, and you can do whatever you want.”

  My book, Never Too Late, is dedicated to all those feisty old ladies who know about the liberation that comes with being unnoticed, and the exhilaration that results from doing whatever they want. I know and admire a couple of women like that and this book is an attempt to get to that place also.

  Prologue

  “Yeah?” a voice asks when he rings the bell.

  “I’ve got something nice for you,” he answers.

  A buzzer lets him in, and he finds Patsy’s door open at the top of the stairs.

  Inside, a tattered blind defends the only window. A woman, gray irises glowing beneath heavy eyelids, greets him from a narrow bed pushed against one wall. “One hundred dollars,” she says as she lifts a bottle to her lips. She frowns, shakes it, and sets it down on the table beside her.

  Art knows the minute he sees her sprawled across the bed, her privates showing, her robe ties clutching loosely at her waist, her voice soggy with drugs or alcohol or both, that he has made a mistake. There’ll be no talking to her.

  She wheezes. “You said you got something nice for me. Where is it?”

  “In my pocket. Fifty dollars, your going rate, Patsy.” He pulls a wad of bills out of his back pocket. “I heard you were worth it.”

  “Yeah? From who?”

  “Someone who said you’re really hot.” Nice touch, he congratulates himself. Maybe there’s still a chance to negotiate with her. Not about the sex. He can’t imagine doing it, but about the blackmail. “Can I sit down for a minute?”

  “Sure, it’s Christmas isn’t it? I’ve been doing a little celebrating.” She shoves her body upright on her pillow, reaches with a dark, unsteady hand toward a second bottle on the nightstand. “Drink?”

  Art has already had a couple of drinks, to get his courage up, before he drove to the street his son Brian had described. He’s glad he did. Patsy, her pale eyes now dimming under lowering eyelids, her boobs deflated at the edge of each armpit, her fingers touching herself as if they have a mind of their own, makes him shudder. He glances away from her, takes in the emptiness of the room.

  A narrow bed presses against one wall. He slides a pile of clothes off a wooden chair and moves it closer to her. As he sits down, he knocks against a small sink stacked with bowls, a hot plate next to it. This hole is her home, not just a place of business. She pours a plastic tumbler half full of bourbon and leans forward to offer it to him, and he accepts it with a shrug.

  “Like I said, it’s Christmas. And you look a little nervous.” When his fingers misfire and he spills some of the liquor on his pants, she caws a laugh and lifts the bottle again. “Come on, we don’t have all night…or do we? Hundred dollars, all night.”

  “Let me finish my drink,” he says, and he drains his glass and looks for a place to put it. It slips and bounces on the floor. He doesn’t need any more alcohol; he’s slurring almost as much she is. And if he doesn’t do this fast, he’ll not even remember why he is here. “I’m not sure I can get it up. I’m a little drunk, and I’m really tired. I haven’t slept good the past couple of days.” He sits back, trying to gather the words he needs.

  Patsy pokes under her pillow, pulls out a plastic tube, rattles it. “I use these when I need some sleep.” She pries off the lid, palms a few capsules, and holds her hand out to him, pulls it back. “After the fifty bucks, of course.” She shrugs. “Oh, hell, it’s Christmas.” She leans over the edge of the bed, tucks the pills into his jacket pocket, and flops back against the pillow. “Damn, I don’t feel so hot.”

  She sprawls like a rag doll across the mattress, the whites of her eyes flashing as she blinks and lowers her lids, moans.

  Art glances at her drink, lifts it to his lips, and wonders what he should do next. Cover her up at least. He stands up, pulls her robe over her crotch and breasts, and yanks at the blanket under her feet, but he can’t budge it. Patsy snores with a soft purr. She’ll be out for a long time, he decides. He has to get home. Edith will kill him if he misses the family’s Christmas brunch. He stumbles toward the door, and his arm brushes against a little Christmas tree sitting on the counter. Plastic. Earrings and satin-and-paper ribbons droop from its skinny branches. Even Patsy needs a tree, he thinks. A plastic ribbon catches between his fingers, and he’s not sure why, but he slides it into his pants pocket. Then he hears the woman stir, throw up, the vomit splashing on the floor. He smells the stink, and he doesn’t look back. Escaping through the doorway, what is left of her drink still in his hand, he feels his way down the dark stairs. He is hammered, but he has to talk to Brian, let him know that his father has failed him.

  Chapter One

  Christmas Morning, 1993

  I wake up with a pop, the kind of jolt that informs me that I’m through sle
eping, even if I close my eyes and try to bring back the warm arms that had wrapped around me, the music swirling behind my eyes. What I usually hear when I wake from this sort of dream is a raspy wind rushing through Art’s narrow nostrils, the angry snort that accompanies it, rattling the innerspring mattress that holds us afloat. This morning Art lies on his side, the snores silent.

  Lately, whenever I wake up too early and try to sink back into a little more sleep, memories pick at me. Right now it is the memory of lying on a different mattress, one crunching with straw. I have not thought of that old mattress in years. What other almost-forgotten scene will emerge, depress me, if I don’t stretch my legs? I have to move and trust that the usual cramp will relent, that I’ll be able to roll out from under the quilt and step into my slippers without going down on one knotted knee.

  My feet brush the lump of soap that is under the bottom sheet. My thighs pull my knees up to my stomach, but I’m not quite ready to straighten my legs, get out of bed.

  The night Art found the bar of Ivory soap in our bed, he sneered at me, more of a twitch of his thin upper lip, as if he could barely hold back a ha. For leg cramps, I tried to explain. It was in the Oregonian. As usual, that scornful ha. Like the time he smelled the alcohol on my breath from the nine gin-soaked golden raisins that I had pulled out of the jar with a toothpick. For arthritis, the article said. Ha, Art said. And like last week when I suggested having the young new neighbors over for Christmas punch, and he blew out a loud puff of air before I could finish my sentence.

  I close my eyes, remembering about the worst ha of all, that one last Fall. I’d read an article about people going back to college, not college really but the free classes offered for anyone over sixty-five at the university downtown. Maybe anthropology? I thought out loud. His lip curled. “Don’t be so stupid.”

  I pull the comforter over my shoulder and try to stop this digging into the past, a habit I can overcome by forcing myself to get up. But I need a little more sleep before I face this day. Christmas morning. And my daughter-in-law, Kathleen. As usual, her fingers will wrench the potato peeler from mine, will take the old knife out of my hands as I slice the onions, will grab the garlic in the garlic thing and squeeze just once more. She’ll remind me, ever so gently, that the strata smells a little burnt. Kathleen believes she is being helpful. My son Brian, oblivious, now twisting in some sort of midlife whirl of his own, will pass his lips over my cheek as he opens my front door, will not hear me say as we touch, “I love you,” his eyes focused on the destructive small brood he has produced as it races to the packages under the tree.

  Relief overwhelmed me a year ago on Christmas Day as I called out a final goodbye to my son’s family, their shopping bags full of shirts and electronic games, three hours after the morning had erupted. I leaned back against the closed door, breathed, and saw Art slumped in his lounger asleep, avoiding the chaos, as usual.

  I poke a foot out from under a tangled sheet. Find some joy! yesterday’s horoscope had advised me. Right now, I’ll settle for coffee. The air is morning-warm, the furnace groaning somewhere under me. I push the covers to one side, turn toward Art’s flannelled back, the wall he builds between us when he comes to our bed.

  I know I’m being mean-spirited, a disposition Christmas always delivers like a seasonal virus. Joy, I tell myself again and touch Art’s hump of a shoulder, give it a poke. If I have to get up, layer the cheese strata, set the table, pick up yesterday’s newspapers, he at least can help by turning on the tree lights and starting the fire in the fireplace. Shit! I’ve forgotten the stockings. They, and the stuff I’ve collected to fill them over the past six months, are piled in a box in the closet. I shake him a little harder. “Get up!”

  Art rolls over on his back. His blue eyes stare up at the ceiling fixture hanging above his head. His mouth is open, as if he’s about to snore, but he isn’t rasping, gurgling, even blinking.

  I raise myself up on an elbow. I pat his arm, bring my hand up to touch his cheek. His skin feels like that of an unripe peach, hard under whiskery fuzz. Cold.

  “Art?”

  My ear grazes his mouth as I listen for a breath. Silence. I press my hand against his chest, feel his pajama buttons with shaking fingers.

  “Art?”

  Art is dead.

  It isn’t as if I never imagined him dying, leaving me to finish my life alone. At those times, the idea hadn’t been frightening, maybe even the opposite. A new life for me once he was gone, I envisioned, a better life, maybe. But this actual moment is not part of that scene. I drop my head back to my pillow and try to figure out what to do.

  My breath isn’t taking hold. I seem to be leaking at the seams, lungs empty, about to be as dead as Art. I force my mouth to open, suck in air, push it out in a whoosh. The morning scrambles into focus: the unfilled socks, the strata, the fire, the tree lights. The dead man lying beside me. Three miles away, the grandchildren have gotten up, already wild with anticipation, are racing around, knocking each other about, not hearing their mother’s threats from the bathroom, not noticing their father’s clenched jaw, determined to get through the morning.

  Like me, my son does not like Christmas. Genetic, we almost-joked last year, over a too-sweet eggnog as we watched Meg and Winston squabble about a useless toy, pieces of it already lost in the piles of colored tissue. Standing over us, Kathleen, her lips gripped in her steady, motherly smile, sent an unmistakable time-to-go look to her husband and gathered up the strewn toys.

  I close my eyes. Christmas is difficult, but Christmas with a dead person as its centerpiece will be unbearable. Brian, a kind, open man, a good son, too sensitive, really, will have to deal with the unopened gifts piled in front of a cold fireplace, his disappointed children’s howls, his stalwartly competent wife patting his arm as he tries to find a way to say goodbye to a father who has remained a stranger to the end.

  I know I can get through what’s next––I’m not crying, maybe won’t ever––but I’m sure Brian hasn’t rehearsed this death as I have. I feel a flush of a plan, and I sit up, search for my glasses. Yes. I will put Art aside for a day. I will tuck the comforter up around his chin, explain that he’s sick, shut the bedroom door, and go ahead with the morning’s ordeal. “Don’t wake Grandpa,” I’ll warn the children. I’ll let the wife meddle in the brunch, try not to care when the boy and girl tear open their gifts like little savages, hide their uneaten casserole under their napkins, whine as they edge toward the door, bounty in hand. I’ll wave at them as they climb into their car, leaving red-and-green garbage for me to clean up. I will whisper, as always, “I love you,” to my son as he raises a goodbye hand from the open car window. Then, after they disappear, I will call someone to take care of Art.

  Yes, it can go that way.

  I glance at my husband. He is still staring. I should close his eyes. With my thumb, I push down the lids, am relieved that they stay down. I get out of bed, find my glasses on the floor, turn back to the man I’ve left behind—no, who’s left me behind—and arrange the comforter over him.

  On my way to the bathroom, I kick against his abandoned shoes, and I bend to pick up them up, along with his dirty socks, and at that moment I understand that the plan won’t work. Nothing has changed. Art, and all of his carelessness, is still here. His ghost will wander the house, lips twitching. He will continue to make his ha sound at me. Later, after the strata, I will say goodbye at the door. Behind me, he will have sunk into his chair and fallen asleep. I’ll be angry as usual but at a ghost who won’t give a damn about us any more dead than he did alive.

  I set the shoes in Art’s closet, go to the kitchen, to the telephone.

  The ambulance arrives just as I am pulling my sweatshirt over my head. I fluff the sleep mats out of my hair and open the door. The men, their stiff blue uniforms shielding them from whatever they might find in my house, follow my pointing finger, and moments later, Art is on the gurney. They cover his face with a sheet, fill out a form, and tell me
where I can find him when I am ready to make arrangements.

  “Are you all right?” they ask. “Do you have someone to call?”

  They look at me, seem to expect something more, tears, maybe. “I’m fine,” I answer. “I have a son.”

  The older man touches my shoulder, his mouth curving in a practiced way. “Call him.” He squeezes my arm and follows the others out the door.

  I go to the bedroom, see that some time in all this, Art has wet the bed. I pull off the sheets and cases, carry them to the washing machine, stuff them in.

  Art is dead. I need to fill the stockings, hang them up.

  Art is dead. I take the Christmas box out of the closet and set it on the hearth. A plastic doll with boobs stretches a manicured hand out to me.

  Art is dead. A chocolate Santa goes in the grandboy’s sock. I imagine the hubbub when he peels off the foil and bites off its head before he’s eaten breakfast.

  Art is dead. Four adult stockings lump in the bottom of the box, and I drop face cream and razorblades and Starbucks gift cards into their hollows.

  Art is dead. I hang up all six stockings, even Art’s, on the hooks that have hidden under the mantel since that first child-filled Christmas morning in this house years ago.

  Art is dead. Hands heavy against my knees, I push myself up from my squat in front of the fireplace and notice the bag of candy canes. “It’s Christmas,” I’ll say, when Kathleen frowns. I tuck one into each furry white cuff.

  I am finished. I phone Brian.

  “Art is dead.” The words fling themselves against the phone’s mouthpiece, fly back to my cheeks like sharp stones, bring a bitter glaze to my eyes. I blink, say, “Yes, he’s been taken away.” It seems important to add, “We can still do the stockings for the children.”

  Brian arrives alone twenty minutes later, doesn’t wait for me to answer the door bell, rushes in. “I love you,” I whisper as he takes me in his arms, holds me tighter than I’ve been held in a long time, maybe forever.