Her Last Words

by Jo Barney

  Jackie rocked forward towards her priest. She knew exactly what to say for the first time in her life. “Xavier,” she would say, “I just finished figuring out that I don’t love you, no matter what you are about to say. And even if I did, and even if you love me, it would be so unfair. You will always have your Catholic way of dealing with the guilt of it. Confession, penances, absolution, a retreat or two. For you, nothing will change. But I have no option except to feel ashamed or stupid, like always. And alone and regretful. I’m tired of regrets.” She cleared her throat to say these words.

  But Xavier’s eyes lifted, met hers, flashed a warning. “I always know who I am when I’m with you.” He looked out into the black trees rising at the edge of the meadow. “But not now.” Jackie opened her mouth, ready, but he wasn’t finished. “In seminary I had an affair, I guess you’d call it, with a fellow student that lasted a few months. It ended. I didn’t see him again until last year, here. We both agreed we’d been foolish young men, water under the bridge.” He closed his eyes, rubbed them. “Until last night.”

  That’s when Jackie felt herself go into a state of some sort, as if a hand had passed over her head, blessed her, told her to go for it. She rose out of the gray rocker and bent down at his side. Her lips touched his cool forehead and she tasted the aftershave on his skin. Then she whispered, “Fuck off, Xavier. Go pray or sublimate, or whatever, somewhere else.”

  A minute later, alone, she lay down, drew the woolen blanket over herself, and thought of Fred and how sad she was for him.

  She drove home the next day.

  “You’re two days early,” Sally greeted her on the porch. “Anything wrong?”

  “Yes,” Jackie answered. “I need to see my husband.”

  Sally closed the door and told her to take it easy. She’d made dinner, enough for all three of them, primavera, come sit down. And when she did, Jackie saw that her daughter was swallowing more than food as she chewed and glanced at her mother.

  “You look like you’ve just poisoned me and are waiting for me to fall face down into my spaghetti.”

  Madison laughed and dribbled olive oil down his super hero T shirt.

  “Later, Mom,” Sally answered, and showed her son how to use a spoon to capture the strands of pasta. Jackie pushed her plate aside. Nothing’s easy, even for the new me, she thought. She went to her bedroom to unpack.

  After a while, Sally came in and sat on Jackie’s bed, pushing up a pillow to lean against like she used to when she was a little girl. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  Jackie stopped pulling her underwear out of the suitcase. “What?”

  “I told Ron where you were.”

  “And?”

  “He said, ‘That cinches it,’ and left.”

  The next day Jackie’s attorney called, told her that Ron’s divorce petition now included infidelity, along with abandonment and emotional stress. “With a priest, Jackie?” Beth asked. “An unfortunate choice. We’ve got a problem.”

  * * *

  Regret is what makes one’s stomach ache. She’s retraced her steps and finds herself at the door of the little beach market. As she looks around for the wine, Jackie regrets just about everything in her life except the daughter who cried not only for herself but for her mother, and the grandson who, from the guest bedroom, broke that day’s silence with cheers of “Okay, okay, level 89, twenty to go!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sunday Noon: Swells

  Lucius

  Lucius doesn’t call before he drives into the graveled parking space at the beach house. He hears voices out on the deck and walks around the building and finds the three women lounging in the worn canvas deck chairs he had spotted on his previous trips. A cold wind flows off the ocean and the afghans the women have wrapped themselves in make them look like striped wool mummies. The fourth chair is empty.

  “It’s been twenty-four hours,” he says, as if that is news to them. “We have officially placed Madge Slocum on the missing persons list, and I’ve called for emergency assistance in the search.”

  The mummy he identifies as Joan, by her blue eyes and the strands of blond hair escaping the scarf she wears, sits up. “Good,” she says. “We’re worried. We’re thinking that Madge may have met someone on the beach, may have been kidnapped. She would never leave on her own, and she wouldn’t stay lost in the woods, not with those Boy Scouts blowing whistles and calling for her. Something bad has happened to her.”

  Lou, her white hair flying into the wind now that she has unwrapped her head, turns to face him. “We’re going to call her sons. They need to know. Roger, too, wherever he is in Nebraska. We’ll look on her cell phone even though it won’t work out here. She must have their numbers on it, don’t you think?”

  Lucius sees that Lou is dry-eyed and is sounding a little manic. He guesses she’s operating on adrenaline now instead of tears and wonders if something has happened to bring about the change. Then he notices Jackie who has not moved since his arrival. Asleep? In the midst of a crisis?

  “Sit down.” Joan’s freed hand points to the empty lounge. She leans towards Jackie’s form and gives it a nudge. “Sheriff’s here,” she says. “Time to face reality.” She sends a slow wink towards Lucius. “She’s great at denial.”

  “Isn’t everyone?” Jackie’s muffled voice makes its way through the knitted wool. “Like why are we sitting out here freezing, as if we’ll see her walking down the beach waving at us? Shit.” Jackie works her way out of her cocoon and stands up. “I’m going in. Coming?”

  Lucius follows her into the house and they stand in front of the fireplace, rubbing their hands. “This must be tough on you folks.” If his instincts are still intact, this one, Jackie, will be the first one to crack, supposing there is something to crack about. The whole scene doesn’t add up. A famous writer goes missing, and her friends haven’t let anyone know? Why not?

  “I’m thinking you are wondering why we’ve hesitated calling her sons.” Joan has come in, is folding her blanket, smoothing her hair. She runs her tongue over her upper lip, shows the edges of white teeth at him, teeth not as friendly as usual. “We need to tell you something.”

  Lou nods, pushes a pillow out of the armchair, sits and pats the sofa next to her. Lucius takes this as an invitation and joins her. Solemn eyes meet his.

  Joan clears her throat. “We think Madge may be having an affair, a secret fling, maybe, like the ones she sometimes fantasizes about in her stories.”

  Lucius feels his mouth open, words gathering, and glances at the women circled around him. Lou has inhaled and is holding her breath, Jackie eyes are wide and naïve, Joan’s forehead wrinkles with regret and hesitancy, as if she should not be saying these words. She looks at the other two, blinks them into attending.

  “Yes,” Lou whispers. Jackie twirls a strand of black hair.

  “And you suspect this because?”

  Apparently, it’s Jackie’s turn to speak. “She was different than usual,” she says, sifting through words to find the ones she wanted. “Giddy, I guess. A little like me when I...”

  “When you’re in love,” Lou finishes. “When a person is in love, I mean. She could hardly get dinner on the table. She had a secret.” Lou’s lips purse with unusual certainty. “That’s for sure.”

  “Very talkative. Dried out the lasagna going on about her next book.” Joan shrugs. “Not like her ordinary put-together self. She hinted that she had a plan to go out, later, on the beach. ‘I might be gone for a while,’ she said, ‘but I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, maybe bring you something.’ She didn’t say when.”

  “So you weren’t too worried when she didn’t show up yesterday morning.”

  “Intrigued, mostly, until we found the walking stick, washed up in the high tide. Lover or not, she’d have that within reach if she were walking or whatever on the beach.”

  “You think she might have met this person, decided to leave with h
im?”

  “Or her,” Lou adds in her quiet way.

  “Whoever, and that she might walk through this door any minute with a pleased look on her face?” Lucius is getting annoyed. Running after an escapee cow is one thing, chasing after a lovesick famous author is another. Women. “Yesterday morning you just got up and when you saw she was gone, you went for a walk?”

  Joan gives him her blue look again. “Lucius, we’re all sixty-five or so. When one of us has an opportunity for romance, besides being a little envious, we cheer her on. I suppose we were eager to enjoy the details vicariously when she got back.”

  “Except she hasn’t come back yet.” Lou slumps against a pillow.

  Lucius shifts, starts to get up. “Sorry,” he says, hoping his pissedness is coming through. “This probably isn’t in my job description. Maybe you all should have another glass of wine, relax, and I’ll come back tomorrow to meet your truant friend.”

  Joan leans toward him, her hand on his arm. Even up close she’s good to look at. Terrific, urgent blue eyes train on his. “Sheriff, she would never have left us hanging like this, even if she were with a lover. She believed in tying things all together, to bringing each story to a satisfying end. This is not Madge. She does not write horror stories. No call for twenty-four hours, her walking stick lying in the sand, her shrimp and lobster lying cold in the fridge waiting for the risotto.”

  “Risotto?” Finally something is making sense. “She’s supposed to make tonight’s dinner?”

  “Yes. It’s her turn. Jackie made last night’s stir fry. Lou was on for breakfast. I have the enchiladas for tomorrow. That’s the way she planned it.”

  “Risotto is last minute, yes? Like a lot of stirring?” Lucius knows this because of a very long evening he spent with a narrow-faced librarian a week or so or before. Her version of foreplay seemed to be stirring chicken broth and wine into rice for forty-five minutes, during which time Lucius had drunk himself into placidity. The soggy rice offered a reason to fall asleep when he should have at least tried. He should call her, maybe.

  In the meantime, he knows anyone offering risotto for dinner, lobster, especially, means to be there. And she isn’t. “That person must be really important to Madge, enough to abandon the meal and all.”

  “Not the meal, jerk. Us.” Jackie has risen, and she is impressive in her tallness and lack of upper arm flab. She looks as if she might backhand him if he says another word. “Something’s happened to Madge.”

  Joan pushes back her chair. “So that’s why we’re going to call her sons and try to find Roger. We think she’s in trouble. She would never make us worry like this. In the meantime, we want you to make her disappearance a police matter, not a Boy Scout matter.”

  Because all three women have stood up, Lucius knows he’s not going to be invited to the glass of wine he’s been thinking about. He finds his baseball cap in his pocket, plants it on his head, and can’t resist as he moves toward the door. “You’ve got your intuition, I’ve got mine. I think you’ll see her in the morning.” It isn’t just his risotto intuition speaking now. The tide table he sees lying on the top of the kitchen divider is also chiming in.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunday Noon: Cusp

  Jackie

  A while ago on the path back to the beach house, the wine breaking through the paper bag she’d wrapped her arms around, Jackie had been glad she had time to be by herself, to remember how she gathered her courage, how Fred, thinking of him, and Xavier, too, had helped her decide to stay, even if she still has a few second thoughts. She always did, before taking a risk, didn’t she?

  Now, as the door closes on Lucius, she, a little reluctant or maybe just scared again, is also confused. “Tell me again why we created a phantom lover?”

  Lou sighs. “Red herring, remember? We talked about it. In case he needs something to keep him interested until tomorrow morning.”

  Jackie turns and looks straight into Lou’s sorrow-tinged eyes. “I don’t like it when you sigh at me, when you use that tone of voice with me.” She can’t remember ever speaking to a friend like this. She tastes the words, finds them satisfying. She’s going to enjoy talking calm and tough once in a while, instead of screeching like she’s used to doing in tight situations. The words roll out from a deep part of her throat. “You remember I wasn’t ready to join this project when you three first discussed it. I missed a few details.”

  Lou’s chest rises and sinks. She’s doing it again. Sighing, Jackie sees. “Sometimes I wish I had missed this whole thing. One more night. Right?” Jackie decides to sigh, too. For a moment, she’s weightless. Breathing like this is about letting go, she realizes. Sighs don’t mean people think you’re stupid. Necessarily. Maybe they just mean the sigher is sad, or tired, or stressed. Or all three.

  “I got the candles this morning,” she says, pointing to the bag on the counter. “White. Tonight we finish our stories. Just like Madge wanted us to. Only we’ll tell the truth,” she adds. “Madge chose to make the end of her story a work of fiction. I think that her stories about us are a little untrue, too, don’t you? Until we get to our endings and then we have to tell the truth. And I, for one, am ready.”

  Lou sighs yet another sigh. “Forsooth, whence did that feistiness arise, stalwart friend?” She grins at Jackie. “Looks good on you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sunday Afternoon: Fogbound

  Joan

  Joan is tapping her sheaf of papers into a neat stack and placing it on the coffee table when Lou settles into one of the fireside chairs.

  “You’ve read yours?” Lou bends over the pile of chopped wood, arranges kindling.

  “Skimmed it.”

  Fiction or truth? Or does it matter? It is hard to remember the truth, the memories rise up in unnatural colors, speak in unfamiliar accents, seem to be someone else’s life. True, she did have an Irish silk jacket. Had Brian admired it? True, they did have an agreement to be as honest in their marriage as they had been about the past. And Madge had known about Brian’s past almost as thoroughly she knew Joan’s. The green bag didn’t exist, of course, but the tapes did, still do, most likely hidden in corners of drawers. Madge knew the whole story, knew it a year ago, knew that Joan had been unable in that year to see beyond an outworn, useless dream to the next place. She feels Madge’s hand at the small of her back, nudging her forward. Telling this story will be more difficult than anything else Madge has asked of her.

  Joan pulls a parka from the rack and goes out onto the deck to read Madge’s pages again and to decide how she will end the old story and begin a new one.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Whatsoever Things Are Lovely:

  Joan’s Story

  Joan, I’ve valued your secrets, your willingness to share them with me. A graceful, determined, and thoughtful woman, you will bring this particular story to a conclusion. A happier one awaits you just beyond the horizon. I wish I could be there. M

  Something about that spring morning, the blue sky lying still behind the still-barren tree limbs, the brisk nip on her cheeks that makes her want to grin, perhaps it is the way yellow light glances off the sidewalk and onto the bursting crocuses, but something that morning has sent her to the closets, to sort through the winter’s collection of clothes, to toss and rearrange and get ready for whatever would come next.

  This is why Joan finds it, the book bag, green canvas, the kind students had slung over their shoulders thirty years before. It huddles in a corner, behind her husband’s gym bag, under the pile of old sweaters she had asked him to sort through and get rid of months ago, maybe years ago. She pulls it out, its weight dragging it to the floor. Books, she guesses. The bag collapses and she kneels beside it, hesitant, perhaps even fearful, to reach into the opening, touch its contents.

  * * *

  Brian and she had agreed when they married that honesty was the soil in which their love would thrive. By the time they met, they had lived several other li
ves, had loved, lost, endured and made peace with their demons. They shared those pasts, talking late into their nights, about parts of themselves they had never revealed to anyone before. She found she loved reaching into the hidden pockets of her life, his life, retrieving unexpected stones and nuggets.

  “Is this what it means to finally grow up?” Joan wondered. “To be able to lay bare one’s soul?” It was their wedding day. Brian laughed at her question. “Along with laying bare one’s body? If so, we are very grown up.” She guessed he was referring to the pouches at the corners of her lips that she had been trying to massage away and to his small paunch, visible at the moment because his skivvies dipped under it, the only evidence of his fifty-four years. They had been pleasuring each other, he rubbing the small of her back with a vanilla oil that made her wish she could lick herself, and she had been pinching his nipples with her fingertips. They fell asleep entwined and so sure of themselves.

  * * *

  Her first marriage had been built on a dream from the moment she had felt Tim’s erection pressing at her pelvic bone as they leaned against the wall of the Gamma Psi house, his pants throbbing and then wet, leaving a stain on her skirt and her fingers sticky.