The Handfasting

by David Burnett

  “Let go of me! Let go!” Choking and sputtering, he released Katherine as Willy Kelly pulled him into the air and flung him against the bar. The thud of Bill’s body hitting the wood and the shattering tinkle of glasses hitting the floor rose above the commotion in the room.

  Bill twisted with a grimace of pain, his hand shot to his back, as he started to stand. He grabbed onto the bar, reached his knees, and raised his head to find himself staring point-blank, into the barrel of Detective James’s revolver.

  “Perhaps you need to think again about your next phone call, Mr. Wilson.”

  Katherine stood by the door, watching Bill lying face down on the floor, his hands cuffed behind his back. The sounds of voices faded as the bar was cleared of people. Sirens began to wail, growing louder, as an ambulance and two patrol cars raced toward the hotel, slamming to a stop outside.

  As he was pulled to his feet, she saw him glance to his right, where his group still sat at their table, surrounded by officers. Katherine could not hear what they were saying, but one of the other Bills was pointing in his direction.

  As Bill was led out to a patrol car, he passed Katherine. Her eyes met his, and she held his gaze until he dropped his eyes and turned away.

  Katherine walked slowly back to the bar, where Willy Kelly stood, watching as Bill was placed in a patrol car.

  “Thank you.” Katherine looked into his eyes. “Thank you for pulling him off me.”

  Willy turned and looked away. “I should have done something…sooner.” He shook his head. “I should have told you.”

  Katherine nodded. “Yes, you should have.” A siren began to wail and they looked up to see Bill being taken away. “Thank you for going to the police. I would never have faced him if you had not talked to them.”

  Willy’s eyes met hers now.

  “I mean it,” Katherine said. “I have my life back. Thank you, Mr. Kelly.”

  They watched as the other four men were led from the bar.

  He turned back to her, a look of sympathy on his face. “He was wrong, Dr. Jackson. He was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “There will be a line of men wanting to marry you.”

  Katherine smiled.

  “Looks like one of them now.” Willy pointed to the hotel lobby where Steven stood, a bouquet of roses in his hand.

  Katherine patted Willy’s arm, turned, and walked toward Steven. Time seemed to stop, as if she were moving in slow motion, walking into a mist. Like the mist on a Scottish loch, she thought.

  Steven reached for her, took her in his arms, and they held each other for what seemed to Katherine like an eternity.

  She took the bouquet from his hand and smiled. “Yellow roses?”

  “The florist told me that they should be red on Valentine’s Day, but I insisted.” He kissed her. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Arm in arm they walked down the street. Steven guided her to a small restaurant where they had frequently eaten back in the fall. They sat by the window, at the table they had once decided was “theirs.”

  Their last date had been in this restaurant, at this table. As the waiter left, Katherine laughed, realizing that she was dressed as she had been that night and that she had ordered the same meal she had then. It’s almost like rewinding a cassette, she thought.

  She took Steven’s hand. “You gave Bill your seat on the airplane.”

  “It seemed important to everyone, him and you, that he arrive on time.” Steven smiled. “I was happy to help.”

  “But you’re here. You made it too.”

  Steven grinned. “After Bill boarded, the attendant got a last minute cancellation—First Class.”

  She placed her other hand on top of the one she was holding. “You knew, didn’t you? What happened, what he did?”

  “I did.”

  “When?”

  “Becky told me on Monday.”

  Tears filled Katherine’s eyes and she started to cry. “And you still cared? After what happened? After the way I treated you?”

  “Yes. I still cared.” He squeezed her firmly. “I had pretty much given up hope, though.”

  Katherine took a deep breath and dabbed at her tears with a napkin. “After everything that has happened, I can’t expect you to marry me—”

  “Shhh.” He put a finger on her lips. “We gave ourselves six months to decide if we were still in love. Today is that day, Kath—Katie. After everything that has happened, I want to marry you.”

  He took her right hand in his. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a strand of purple cord and wrapped it around their hands.

  “I Steven Richardson take thee, Katie Jackson to be my betrothed wife…”

  Epilogue

  Six months had passed. Bill paced about his cell at the New York State Prison. He had pled guilty to assaulting Katherine, rape, unlawful confinement, assaulting a police officer, and resisting arrest. His plea bargain guaranteed that he would be there for at least fifteen years. He had wanted to fight the charges, but his mother and his Aunt Betty had convinced him that the gossip in Hamilton would be too difficult for his family to handle.

  “Wilson! You have a letter.”

  The letter that the guard handed him through his barred door was his first contact from outside since his mother and older sister had visited, once, in March. He did not remember what they discussed. He only remembered the look of disgust on his sister’s face. She had come only because their mother was not able to make the trip alone.

  Bill turned the envelope over. It had been opened, of course, checked for contraband. It was postmarked Annapolis, Maryland. Bill knew no one in Annapolis, and there was no return address. Inside, he found a photocopy of a story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, dated August fourteenth, two weeks earlier. A photograph had originally accompanied the story, but most of it had been covered when the copy was made. He could make out what appeared to be a piece of lace in the bottom left corner of the space where the picture had appeared. He leaned against the cold wall and began to read aloud.

  “Dr. Katherine Lee Jackson and Dr. Steven Andrew Richardson were married last evening in a candlelight ceremony at the Bellerose Abbey, Bellerose Scotland. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Jackson of Hamilton, Virginia. The groom is the son of Mrs. William Steven Richardson and the late Mr. Richardson of Atlanta, Georgia…”

  Bill stared straight ahead. The paper fell from his hands and drifted to the floor.

  Other Books by David Burnett

  Click on the title for more information about a book.

  Once and Future Wife

  When Jennie Bateman tosses her medication, the demons of her bipolar disorder, the same ones that shattered her marriage two decades earlier, return with a vengeance, conspiring to prevent her from securing the love and happiness that finally seem to be within her grasp.

  Those Children Are Ours

  Jennie Bateman screamed at her daughters, cursed her husband and walked away. How can a mother abandon her children?

  To Fall in Love Again

  Class warfare may be less violent than it was in the past, but when Drew invites Amy to the St Cecelia Ball, battle lines are drawn. Family, friends, co-workers all weigh in on their relationship and choose sides.

  The Reunion

  “Wouldn’t it be great if we could crawl through a worm hole and find ourselves in high school, again?” Michael asks. He doesn’t men it literally, but when he begins to enjoy the same activities he did when he was young, his life begins to change.

  Sample of Those Children Are Ours

  Prologue

  Preacher

  Jennie leaned against the bar, watching the big, black guy who stood just inside the door, gazing around, waiting to be seated. Tall and stocky, he reminded her of the high school kids who her brother, Si, recruited to play football at the University. Except for his hair. It was turning white on the sides.

  He seemed to be out of place.

&
nbsp; Not many black men dropped in at the Rusty Anchor, the bar where Jennie waited tables. They were welcome at the Anchor, as the regulars called it, and a couple of those regulars were black, but Jennie had observed that the races tended to separate when they drank, much as they did when they worshipped. Black guys seldom walked through the door alone.

  The man wore a coat and a tie. Jennie had never before seen a man wearing a tie in the Anchor. Jeff, the man with whom she lived, and who came into the bar every night, didn’t even own one. Jennie chuckled. Sometimes the guys didn’t even wear shirts.

  She took a sip of bourbon and sauntered across the room, swinging her hips a bit, her hair brushing against her bare back above the halter top she had paired with the skin-tight jeans. The man didn’t seem to notice her appearance. Jennie shook her head. When she dressed for the warm Atlanta summers, as she had today, guys would drop by in late afternoon just to see her. The owner swore that she attracted more customers than did his two-for-one specials.

  Finally, when she asked what he would like, he requested a menu. The bar was, officially, a restaurant, and they did serve food, as Jennie had once pointed out to her father when he had growled about her place of employment, but in the three years Jennie had waited tables at the Rusty Anchor, she had served only a handful of meals.

  She retrieved a menu and bent across the table as she passed it to him, allowing her top to drop away from her chest a little, but his eyes didn’t even flick in her direction. He scanned the menu, then looked up at her face.

  “I’ll have the steak sandwich please. With fries.”

  Jennie almost dropped her pad when he ordered iced tea.

  He stayed for almost an hour. As he left, he handed Jennie a tip. Her mouth fell open as she saw the size of it, and she barely managed to thank him. He laughed and told her he had enjoyed his lunch and that he would see her again.

  After that, he dropped by two or three times a week, always in the early afternoon. His order never varied. After a while Jennie began to call it out to the cook as the man walked in the door, rather than waiting for him to inspect the menu, and she would hand him his tea as he took his seat. She stopped trying to entice him, and, since there were seldom more than a couple of other men in the room when he arrived, she took time to talk with him, more than simply “What will you have?” or “Have a nice day.”

  The other men began to tease her about her “boyfriend,” but they were careful when they did, fearing that their next drinks would be accompanied by snarls and delivered over their heads, rather than in mugs.

  After a month, Jennie discovered that the man was the new minister at the little church up the street, and she nicknamed him Preacher. “Trying to save my soul, Preacher?” she asked him with a smirk.

  He smiled. “Always, Miss Jennie, always.”

  Miss Jennie, a Southern sign of respect. No one would seriously address a barmaid in such a fashion. She studied his face, but she could detect no indication that he was not sincere.

  After discovering he was a minister, Jennie began to hide her glass of whiskey behind the bar and to slip a shirt over her top when she saw Preacher approaching. She was not sure why she did these things. Thomas would have told her that she did them because she felt her behavior was wrong.

  Jennie snorted. Who cared what Thomas would have said anyway?

  Several weeks passed, and Jennie found herself looking forward to their discussions and feeling disappointed when he did not come in. They talked about the weather, politics, the new construction in the neighborhood. Jennie asked about his church, and Preacher invited her to attend.

  She nodded. “I’ll do that, Preacher. I’ll do that one day.”

  One afternoon in late July, he told her about his life. He actually had been the football player she had imagined. He had played pro ball before tearing up his knee. He told her about his wife and his two small children, two little girls. Jennie’s entire body tensed as he talked about his daughters.

  “Do you have a family?” Preacher asked.

  Jennie’s temper flared. “Yes…no,” she snapped. “Mind your own business.” She had just come from the kitchen and the platter holding his sandwich clattered as she slammed it onto the table, cursing as a few of the fries tumbled off onto the table. “Anything else?” she demanded.

  His expression told her that he felt sorry for her.

  Jennie stomped off toward the kitchen. She wouldn’t tell him about her family, the husband who had adored her, the two beautiful little girls who had called her mama.

  “You’re a lucky man, fella,” a customer sitting across the room called. “Last guy to make her angry became a soprano.” He and the other men at the table roared with laughter.

  Jennie flung an empty beer mug in the man’s direction, just missing his head. It shattered against the wall behind him as the kitchen door slammed behind her.

  When Preacher was ready to leave, Jennie slapped his check on the table. “You think I’m an awful person.” She glared at him.

  “No I don’t think that, Miss Jennie.”

  “Why not? Because God loves me?” she asked derisively.

  “I’m sure that he does, but a few cuss words don’t put a black mark on your soul. It takes a lot more than that to make you an awful person.”

  “How about whiskey?” She was holding her glass and took a sip, daring him to tell her it was a sin.

  “The Anchor serves mighty good whiskey,” he replied. “Jim Beam used to be my favorite.”

  Jennie looked into his eyes as she took another sip. “Carl is going home with me in a few minutes.” She motioned to a tall man standing by the door, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Preacher nodded. “You get off after lunch on Thursdays, don’t you?”

  Jennie stared at him, imagining that she was having this conversation with the minister at her father’s church. He would have said that she stood on the slimy slope to hell when she had cursed at him. He would have told her that when she drank she was skidding down that hill, and that taking Carl home with her would send her tumbling into the flames that tormented sinners in the valley below.

  “Miss Jennie, you’re not an awful person.” Preacher handed her two bills, a five and a ten, several dollars more than his bill. “Have a nice day, now. I’ll see you later.”

  Jennie opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. . If she were to tell him that two years ago, on a beautiful Saturday morning, she had turned her back on her family, walking away without a second thought, without a single glance over her shoulder, then he surely would despise her.

  “Never seen Jennie at a loss for words.” The men sitting across the room cackled.

  Jennie gave them a nasty look and turned away so that they could not see the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  A few minutes later, she left for home, alone.

  Locking the door to the bedroom, her mind went back to that Saturday morning. She remembered some of what had happened, but so much was unclear. It had really started the afternoon before.

  “Hey Jeff.” Jennie opened the door and threw her arms around him, for a long, lingering kiss.

  “Coast is clear?” Jeff glanced around the apartment. “You alone?”

  Jennie looked toward the porch where Alexis and Christa were playing. “Just the brats. Hubby will be home late.”

  “Perfect.” Jeff pulled her toward him for another kiss. “I brought refreshments.” He held up a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Want to be refreshed?”

  “I was really thinking of something that would tire me out.” She pretended to pout.

  Jeff poured two glasses.

  “In good time. In good time.”

  “I want to be really tired.” Her eyes sparkled as she sipped her whiskey.

  “You’ll be exhausted. But happy.”

  Jennie giggled as they plopped onto the sofa.

  “Bottoms up,” Jeff said as he drained his glass. He poured another round for them both.

 
He kissed her again.

  “Uncajeff must be hot.” Alexis’s voice startled her.

  “Why is that?” Jennie smoothed her shirt as she turned around.

  “He must be hot. He’s taken his shirt off.”

  “Just preparing, Honey dew, just preparing. It’s going to be scorching in just a few minutes.” Jeff and Jennie both laughed.

  “Go back outside.” Jennie pointed toward the porch. “And stay there. Do you hear me? Don’t bother me for anything. I mean it.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Alexis toddled away. Jeff took a last gulp of his drink and pulled Jennie into her bedroom.

  She couldn’t remember exactly what had happened next.

  Well, she was pretty sure what she and Jeff had done next, for a couple of hours at least, but at some point, Alexis had knocked on the door and called her name.

  Jennie slipped on a robe and yanked the door open, confronting her daughter, her hands on her hips.

  “I told you to leave me alone,” she snapped. “We’re busy.”

  “Christa pooped in her diaper, Mama.”

  Jennie glared down at her. She could smell the diaper.

  “You’re four years old. Change it.”

  “But it’s really stinky.”

  “Won’t kill you. Now, go.” When Alexis did not move, she leaned over, shook her by the shoulders, and shoved her toward the porch. “I said go. Bother me again and I’ll beat your tail.”

  As Alexis began to cry, Jennie turned her back and slammed the door. “Children,” she snorted. “They expect you to do everything.”

  Jeff laughed.

  “Where were we, now?” She smiled as she climbed back into bed.

  The next morning, Jennie had awakened at ten, tossing back the last shot in Jeff’s bottle before wandering into the kitchen. She’d been asleep when her husband had arrived home, and he’d heard a sketchy account of the afternoon from Alexis. When he’d asked her what had happened, she’d become angry.

  Jennie wasn’t sure what had happened next. Had she thrown her coffee cup against the wall? Did she hit Alexis? Call her names? Or was it Christa? Although she was not sure exactly what she had said, she had definitely screamed obscenities at her husband. Thomas was no prude, but the image of the shocked expression on his face was her one truly clear memory of that morning.