Her Last Words

by Jo Barney

  She can only follow the others, step in their steps, wrap her fingers around the one cold mussel shell she has managed to slip into her pocket.

  “Almost there,” Jackie yells. Lou sees Lucius reach for Steve’s belt as he stumbles and yank the young man up. Madge is shifting on Steve’s shoulder, her dark hair swirling against and catching against his wet Levis. The fireman groans as he sets her down on the sand.

  Lou and Jackie wait, not wanting to leave Madge, as Joan asks, “What now?” California Girl has folded her trembling arms inside her jacket, and her empty wet sleeves move on their own accord in the sea breeze.

  Lucius removes his cell phone from its plastic bag and holds it to his ear. “Damn.” He looks at Steve. “Can you carry her to the car? We’ll take her to town, to the hospital. We need a death certificate,” he explains, apparently lip-reading the question on Joan’s quivering lips.

  Joan shuffles to Lou and Jackie. “We have almost done it,” she whispers, and she points toward the cabin, and they glance one more time at Madge and then they turn toward the dunes.

  Joan looks at Lucius, manages to make the words emerge. “We expect Madge’s sons sometime today, and Roger. Please let us know where she is and what to do next. The family will make any decisions.” A massive tremor rattles her last words. “You’re as cold as I, I’m sure, Lucius. Get going before you get pneumonia.” Her lips twitch into a frozen facsimile of her terrific smile, and she adds, “Thank you. You’ve been wonderful.”

  Lou, looking back at that moment, knows that if her arms hadn’t been inside her jacket, wrapped around her ribs, Joan would have reached out and touched him.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Monday Morning: Shoal

  Lou

  By the time Lou and Jackie drag in, Roger has showered and is wrapped in the terry cloth robe that hung from the hook in the bathroom. His eyes are red-rimmed, but his gray ponytail is orderly, his face pale but clean. “Go ahead, Jackie,” Lou calls as she pulls off her wet shoes and jacket. “See what you can do with your hair, and the rest of you. I have to retrieve the car.” When Roger stirs to protest, she adds, “I have to do it. Only an old white-haired lady can get away with this if I get caught.”

  The front door blows open as Lou reaches for the knob. Joan, blond hair in dripping wads, her arms struggling to get out from under the grasp of her jacket, hisses a “Stop!” when she sees Lou. “Don’t go anywhere.” A hand escapes and grabs Lou’s elbow. “We have to get the car back.”

  Lou notes the wave of pleasure she feels at the sight of California Girl’s hair sticking out like a molting Medusa, blue eyes wider than ever. Deranged, maybe, or at least one cog off. Vulnerable. California Girl looks better than ever. Lou finds the zipper’s pull, tugs, and opens Joan’s jacket, and when she steps away from it, Lou wraps her arms around the shivering body and says, “It’s okay, Joan. I’m taking care of it.”

  Joan doesn’t move for a moment, maybe taking in the warmth of the hug, then she jerks away. A little manic. Lou thinks.

  “Listen, this is important. We need it back to explain Roger. I’ll do it. I just have to get out of these wet clothes.”

  Joan’s fingers twitch as she works at the buttons on her jeans. After a moment, she pauses, wipes a wrist across a wet cheek, says, “Shit, I give.” She leans on the kitchen divide, says, “You do it.”

  Joan has handed the problem over to her. The cold and a row of Levi buttons, and maybe the scene at the foot of the huge rocks, maybe the whole weekend, have allowed this woman to finally trust her. Another first.

  * * *

  The dry wool mountain socks wick away the cold in her feet as Lou hurries up the road to the house. Her nose isn’t doing as well, but in ten minutes, she’ll be in the shower, nose thawing. She rounds the last curve, sees the roof of the house against the bare sky. The clear cut is even more ghastly in the daylight. One tree has been left on the hillside, the one she supposes they tied the machinery to, to keep it from rolling down into the valley below. A witness tree observing the devastation greed can cause. The thought catches her in midstep, and she pauses.

  Then she sees that the garage door is open, the car still inside, nestled in debris. A man in a painter’s cap and sweatshirt stands in the driveway, arms akimbo, looking at it.

  Lou takes a deep breath. Noel Coward, not Mamet, she thinks. “Thank God! I found it!” She runs up to the man, grabs his arm. “How did it get here? Oh, God, I thought I was going crazy!” Lou is channeling Jackie and surprises herself at how well she can babble. “I went out this morning, and there was no car! I knew I had driven it to my cabin yesterday, nobody drove me here like last time, but it wasn’t there! I’m so relieved! How did it get here?”

  By now the man has pulled his arm away from her and is scratching his head. “Yours?”

  “Yes, mine! It must have been stolen, hot lined, I think they call it, teenagers out for a joy ride, scaring me to death!” She steps into the garage, jumps over teetering piles of drywall debris. “Thank you, thank you!”

  She has the keys in one hand, the other on the door handle, when the man says, “No. No,” and moves toward her. “No take. Boss come.”

  Lou opens the door, slides in and starts the motor. “No problemo,” she says, grinning through the window as she puts the car in reverse. “I tell him. Yo esta esposa.” She doesn’t know how to say grandmother, a more likely relationship, in Spanish. She rolls her hand from her mouth to him as if words will soon flow to her husband, the boss, and backs the car out, crunching her way to the driveway and then to the road. “Adios,” she calls as she pulls away.

  A pickup truck passes her along the way down, and she decides this isn’t time to stop and investigate what she is dragging under the car. She’s pretty sure it isn’t the worker. Too tinny.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Monday Morning: Ebb Tide

  Jackie

  Jackie can’t decide what to do with her hair, what’s left of it. She can feel three ugly stubs along the base of her hairline in back, and despite what Joan says, they show when she bends her neck down, like she’s into punk, old-woman style. “Joan, come in here!”

  Joan has returned her well-ordered blond self, at least on the outside. Hard telling about the rest of her, or any of them, at this point. Roger is quiet on the deck; Lou is using up the last of the hot water in the shower. None of them has said anything about this morning, about Madge. Maybe they’ve said it all by now. Or perhaps the scene beyond the point will be what they talk about next time they meet. Time heals, like they say.

  “Joan, you’ve got to do something with my hair.”

  Joan takes the brush and begins on Jackie’s head. “It’ll grow out.” She lifts the top layer in back, touches the bristles underneath. “Maybe. You gave your all, my dear. You deserve a medal. Or a wig.” She pulls what’s left of the curly black hair back into a soft low bun, turns Jackie’s head so she can see it. “Hardly shows. You just need a big clip to hold it there.”

  Jackie hardly recognizes herself in the mirror. The wild black cloud of hair she has had for years is tamed. She likes the face, the chin especially, that has emerged. Her hands may be bad, but her neck has survived the years. Better than Joan’s new one, in fact. She hadn’t noticed with all that hair. She’ll keep it mostly black, though, to go along with the great neck. Contributing black hairpieces to a mussel collector in need of a disguise may have worked out okay for everyone.

  “You’ll never have to feel bad about your neck,” Joan says. “Or any other part of your body.” Once again, Joan is mind-reading like good friends do.

  “None of us has to feel bad about anything.” Lou has come out of the shower wrapped in a towel. “What’s next, Joan?”

  “The boys are coming this afternoon. I imagine Lucius will be by, too, to tie things up. We need to tidy up, get rid of the pile of hair in the bathroom basket, for one thing. Unless you want it back for a keepsake, Jackie? And maybe cook something for dinner
? Pasta?”

  Jackie chooses to clean up rather than cook, and says goodbye to three rubberbanded hanks of hair as she dumps the basket into a plastic bag. A bit drastic, she thinks, but Lucius will never connect the hairy mussel collector with the sleek man on the deck, a slightly balding, gray-haired fellow who has just arrived in the rental car outside, the car with the strip of drywall metal still dangling from its undersides, according to Lou who was too exhausted to do anything about it.

  Jackie goes out with the garbage and lies down on the driveway. She forces her fingers to bend around the aluminum strip and in a moment, has it loose in her hand. She tosses it with the plastic bag into the can. When she finishes vacuuming, she’ll offer Roger a drink. Then they’ll sit on the deck and be quiet together.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Monday Afternoon: Doldrums

  Lou

  Lou finds chicken breasts in the freezer and half a dozen tomatoes in the bowl on the counter. She chops on an onion and decides to throw in a carrot and what’s left of the celery too. Garlic. Onion. Her thoughts are elsewhere, on the mountain, with Susan, wandering through the forest cabin, remembering her sons sitting under the firs. “Are you scared?” they asked. She had answered no. But she had been. Until Susan, first, then this week, when the love she thought she’d never have came rushing towards her with such spectacular results—Susan who cared for her despite or because of her aloneness, a set of friends who chose to tell the truth to each other and to lie for each other.

  Esposa, indeed. She can hardly wait to tell Susan that story. The chopping done, the chicken and tomatoes cooked, the water heating, she pours a glass of wine and joins the silent Jackie and Roger outside. The sun is finally out. Lou leans back. A line of pelicans skims the waves below her. Waves have swept away the day’s footsteps.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Monday Afternoon: Swells

  Joan

  Joan, looking things over, finds the walking stick next to the door and replaces it on the mantel. The tide must have brought it in, she’ll say. What else will she need to explain? The guesses about a lover? In case it comes up while the sons are here? Stress, of course. No one wanted to believe the truth; they were all grabbing at straws. What if Jim or Grant mentions the Alzheimer’s to Lucius? Well, she had her good and her bad days. They knew, but she was herself, more than herself, sharing her writing, in a good mood, the mood they had mentioned to him before, the day they had arrived. Madge had apparently felt so good she was going to surprise them with mussel stew. A recipe for it lay on top of the fridge. Anything else?

  She lies down but cannot close her eyes. Where will they all sleep tonight? Perhaps the one B&B in the village has room—or the motel in the town. Is that her problem? She decides it is, and she gets up to call the number Madge has listed in her phone book. The B&B has two rooms. Someone can sleep on the couch. Joan goes back to the bedroom, sinks into a pillow, and wonders what else she has forgotten.

  Joan knows what’s happening. She’s obsessing about details in order avoid thinking about her return to her life in San Francisco. Abruptly, something blue-panted-Bill said, one of his aphorisms spoken in jest about himself and his golf, pops into her head. Pride goeth before the fall. The fall. Her fall. The pride part she can accept, but she can’t let herself imagine how far the fall will be, how her life will change. Damn that cheerful fountain of platitudes, she thinks, with an angry twitch that sends an earring clattering to the floor. He’s set her up for a psychic break. A knock at the door delivers her from this dismal thought. The others can’t hear it, so she slips on her shoes and goes to answer it.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Monday Afternoon: Detritus

  Lucius

  Lucius holds the plastic bag in the crook of his arm, as if he is protecting its contents. He isn’t, of course. The wet, torn clothes need no special treatment unless one considers that they are the last things to touch their wearer before she drowned and thus are sacred. Which, of course, they might be to the women to whom he’s delivering them. He knocks again.

  The door is opened by Joan, as he knew it would be. Joan is the leader, even now, maybe especially now. Lou is the thinker, the one who watches. Jackie is the clown, making them laugh even when she’s crying. Despite everything, especially his suspicion of women in general, Lucius has decided he likes them. They are plucky, a word he’s never found a use for until now. Strong, loyal, good liars when they have to be. Madge, too, he’s pretty sure. Maybe he’ll find out the reason for the lies today. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. He steps in, hands the bag to Joan.

  “Madge’s clothes, right?” She takes the bag and sets it beside the door. “We’ll wash them and put them with her other things for her sons.” At his look, she adds, “This afternoon. Roger’s already here.” She gestures towards the deck and Lucius sees two women and a man through the glass doors. “Do you want to meet him?”

  Lucius does. As he walks through the living room he notices the walking stick on the mantel and goes to it. “A real keepsake,” he says. It is damp under his fingers.

  “Yes. We’re glad it washed up for us to find. A little like a message in a bottle, an hello, a miracle, really, considering all of the places it could have wound up.”

  Joan leads him to the deck. “Take this chair. I’ll get one from inside.”

  The man, Roger, opens his eyes and frowns a little as if he’s trying to figure out who Lucius might be. His eyelids are heavy, his face lined and pale. As he sits up, Roger turns his head, and Lucius sees that his graying hair is pulled back into a soft tail. Lucius isn’t against ponytails, but this guy seems a little old for one. At least it isn’t a mullet. Lucius reminds himself that he once wore a mullet, back in his hockey days. No need to be judgmental. Besides, Roger may be of assistance in clearing up a couple of things.

  “When did you get in?”

  “This morning…while you were out at the point.”

  “Didn’t think there was a local flight from the city in the morning.”

  “There wasn’t. I rented a car and drove after I got off the redeye from Lincoln. I came as fast as I could after Joan called. But not soon enough.” Roger looks out to the water, does not go on.

  “I’m sorry. I have a couple of questions I have to ask.” Lucius leans forward, wonders if the man is listening. “What was Madge Slocum’s state of mind the last time you saw her?”

  Joan answers instead. “She was fine, happy, looking forward to seeing us, to a holiday. Why are you asking?” Her unsmiling gaze warns him that he’s going too far. Roger resumes his survey of the ocean’s movement.

  Lucius shrugs, turns back to Joan. She’s not about to reach out, touch his arm. “Routine. An accidental death has to be confirmed, just like any other kind. Most of the facts point towards an accidental drowning. A few don’t.”

  Jackie pushes up her sunglasses. “Like what?”

  Lucius hesitates, decides to say it, despite Joan’s dark frown. “Like the abrasions on her face. The coroner will determine if they happened before or after death. And, I’m sorry to have to mention this, the metal stake through the jacket. If she hadn’t been wedged under the rock, her body might have never been found, or it could have come up miles away. Mysteries, you know?”

  “You’re still considering the possibility she was murdered, aren’t you?” Joan’s question crackles with anger.

  Murder or something else, Lucius wants to say. He isn’t going to show his hand yet, but these folks are covering up something, even Roger in his shut-down condition. Why is one of his hands all beat up, scraped and raw? You don’t get that kind of treatment on the redeye.

  Lucius glances at Lou, silent, horizon-focused as usual. “Did she mention the low tide she marked in the book, like she was going to go around the point?” He won’t get a straight answer, but whatever one he gets might help.

  Lou turns to look at him, seems to be considering how to respond. “I’ve thought about this a lot, and I f
eel so guilty. When I got here I looked at the menus she had organized, and I said I had hoped that we’d be having mussels in the wine broth like she’d made once before. She got out the tide book and said that there would be a low tide the next morning, very early.” Lou’s face closes up, and Lucius can barely make out what she is saying over the surf’s roar below them. “She said she was sorry, she just wasn’t up to going out that early. It would be too cold.” Lou shakes her head. “But she did.”

  Roger emerges from his torpor and reaches for Lou’s hand. “No one blames you, Lou. No one.”

  “You jerk.” Jackie again. She has planted herself between the sun and Lucius; she’s frightening in her huge blackness. Squinting, he waits for a swinging fist. Her face moves in close. “We’re just trying to get through this day, and here you are, insinuating things, making us feel even crappier, playing detective-God to make yourself important instead of the sheriff of a backwater town where the crime of choice is fucking cows. You need to leave.”

  She has a grip on his arm and has one side of him lifted when she grimaces. “Shit,” she says, and drops him. He sees why. It’s a wonder she can hang onto her pocket book with that hand. Her mouth still works. “Get out,” she yells.

  Lucius has learned one more thing about these women. They work well together. He lets himself out after telling Joan he will need to come back with papers for the sons. She says this evening would be good. The women will be leaving in the morning.