Falling for You Again

by Catherine Palmer

  “You’re going a little crooked there, Mr. Moore,” Brad called across the empty space between them. He was mixing fresh drywall mud. “Try to stay straight, because I can’t mud over a wrinkle in the tape. It’s got to be perfect the first time or it won’t look right.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Charlie muttered. “The voice of experience. Mr. Perfection himself.”

  “What’s that? Did you say something?”

  “Just doing my job here,” Charlie said over his shoulder. “You got that compound ready?”

  “Coming your way.”

  Brad carried the heavy bucket toward the ladder on which Charlie was standing. As the younger man set to work on the next seam, Charlie stepped down and drew in a deep breath. He was dog tired, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  Life simply wore him out these days. Especially with Esther acting so snippy and defensive. Since their conflict two days ago, she kept trying to convince Charlie that her friendship with George Snyder had been perfectly innocent.

  It was going to be hard to work his way through this one, Charlie had realized. No matter what Esther claimed about the innocence of the relationship, it didn’t feel right to Charlie. A man and a woman alone together for hours on end. Talking. Giving each other presents. Him sketching her. Her crying on his shoulder. No, it was wrong no matter which way you turned it.

  Last night, Charlie had driven Boofer around the Deepwater Cove neighborhood so many times the golf cart nearly ran out of gas. He kept thinking about Esther’s accusations—all the ways he had failed her through the years. Plenty of things came to mind. He’d been far from a saint, and she was right about his wandering eye.

  Charlie had always struggled to keep his focus on Esther, especially during the times in their marriage when she had declared herself “not interested” in his affections. “Off-limits” was the way she put it. That didn’t happen often, but it was enough to frustrate him plenty. Besides, Esther had never been much of a go-getter in the bedroom. In fact, that part of their marriage had been something of a disappointment. Still, he deeply loved his wife, and he had learned to adjust to their different levels of desire.

  Little had he known that George Snyder was always lurking in the background of Esther’s mind. Was that what had kept her from wanting Charlie at times? She had insisted that she and George never touched each other. But according to Esther, the artist down the hall certainly knew all the right things to do for a woman. The memory of her smile in the sketch made Charlie’s gut ache. She had never looked at him that way. What had George Snyder done to earn Esther’s eternal loyalty and unabashed adoration?

  “I guess you heard what happened between me and Ashley the other night,” Brad commented as he slapped gray mud onto a seam in the drywall. “Seems like everyone is talking about it. I don’t even know why I’m working on this stupid room except to be able to sell the house and get my money back out of it.”

  Charlie tried to focus on the young man. Willing away thoughts of Esther and George Snyder, he lifted the ladder, moved it down to the next joint, and began to unwrap the tape. Charlie had no idea how he could concentrate on anything except his own worries and frustrations, but at the moment, he had no choice.

  “I haven’t heard anything about the two of you,” he told Brad. “I try to keep my nose out of other folks’ business. If you want me to know what happened, you’d better just spill the beans.”

  “I’m not sure I can talk about it without cussing. I’m so mad I could just—”

  “Give it a try, boy, because I’m in no mood for your filthy mouth.”

  Charlie could feel Brad’s eyes on him as he climbed the ladder. Placing the end of the tape at the top of the seam near the ceiling, he began pressing it into the damp mud. Truth to tell, Charlie didn’t have much heart to serve as a marriage counselor for Brad Hanes this evening. Obviously he hadn’t done such a bang-up job as a husband himself.

  “It’s all about Thanksgiving,” Brad said. “Her mother expects us to go to their house, and I told Ashley I’m not eating a turkey cooked by that obnoxious mother of hers. After working in the family snack shop for so many years, the woman can’t cook anything but chili dogs and onion rings. I told Ashley I figured we’d go over to my mom’s place but—right on cue—she burst into tears at that. Boo hoo hoo. ‘You don’t like my family,’ she says. ‘You hate my mother. You don’t respect my father.’ Blah, blah, blah. On and on until I couldn’t stand to hear another word.”

  Charlie paused with the tape and reflected on the battles he and Esther had initially fought over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the other traditional holidays. Those times had been nightmares for sure, especially after the babies were born. Both their families got involved, each putting on the pressure, until it began to feel like World War III. Come to think of it, that was one reason Charlie had pressed for the move to Washington DC and the postal inspector position. Anything to get away from their parents.

  “So I go outside and I’m getting into the car,” Brad was saying, “and here she comes, running after me, tears streaming, sobbing so loud the whole neighborhood can hear. She starts pounding on the window until finally I roll it down. That’s when she grabs my shirt and tells me if I ever go to Larry’s again, she’ll divorce me. She says I’m a drunk. Hah. She doesn’t have any idea what she’s talking about. You want to know what a real drunk looks like? You should’ve seen my dad. Now there was a fall-down-and-puke-on-the-lawn alcoholic. He couldn’t hold a job. He treated my mom like dirt. He smacked us kids around. He used to—”

  Brad cut himself off and spat on the floor. For once, Charlie couldn’t blame him.

  “Anyhow,” the young man continued, “I’m not a drunk. Ashley has no right to keep me from Larry’s if I want to go. It’s my bar, and it’s where my friends hang out. People there treat me right, especially the women. I told Ashley that too. I said if she didn’t watch her mouth, I’d find someone to take her place. And I would, too, Mr. Moore. Don’t think I wouldn’t.”

  “You really believe you could find a woman better than Ashley?”

  “You bet I could! Ashley’s nuts. Crying all the time. Blaming me for everything. She says I don’t do nice stuff for her. Well, I bring home a paycheck, don’t I? You’d think she might be a little grateful for that. No, she just whines at me. ‘You used to take me to the movies, Brad. You used to buy me flowers. You used to dress up when we went out to eat. You were always so sweet. You always listened to me.’ Yakety yak.”

  With his trowel, Brad dug a mound of mud from the pail and hurled it at the wall. The mud hit the seam dead-on, and the kid gave a victory whoop. “I used to play first base, Mr. Moore. Did you know that? And I was quarterback, too. There was nothing I couldn’t do back in high school. I was it. I was something. Ashley couldn’t get enough of me. Now, nine times out of ten she pushes me away. Says I’m mean. I’m too rough. I’m not gentle enough.”

  Brad scraped the drywall mud as he spoke. “I told her, ‘I’m an athlete, you lamebrain. You expected me to turn into a ballroom dancer or a piano player once we got married?’ These hands are callused because I use ’em all day long. I work hard. Ashley says what’s the point in working so hard if I’m just going to drink up half my paycheck? But that’s a lie. At least I’m not buying beads and string and junk like that. I don’t know, Mr. Moore. If you ask me, it’s hopeless. After that fight the other night, I’m figuring I’ll get this room finished and put the house up for sale. Ashley’s already talking about moving back to her parents’ place. That’s fine with me. She can sling hamburgers and make necklaces until her dying day. I’m going to have a life.”

  Stepping down from the ladder, Charlie ran the rest of the tape along the damp seam to the floor. He and Brad were almost finished with the mudding and taping, and it wouldn’t be long before they could paint. The room was really beginning to take shape, and Charlie had come to appreciate Brad’s workmanship and enjoy the camaraderie between himself and the
younger man.

  But this evening, Charlie could hardly even think what to say in response to the sudden flood of anger and resentment Brad had expressed about his marriage. How could Charlie blithely encourage another couple’s relationship when his own suddenly seemed to be hovering on the edge of a steep cliff?

  “You’re never going to find a better woman than Ashley,” he said finally. “I can promise you that. You might find a different gal, sure, but she’ll come with her own set of irritations. You can count on it.”

  “Not those women at the bar. They’re fine—”

  “Good gravy, kid, you’re not serious about taking up with a barfly, are you?” Charlie’s ire rose as he spoke. “You want to marry some dame that can’t think of any better way to spend her time than drinking and flirting with married men? You’re upset because Ashley expects you to soften up and treat her nice. Wait till you hook up with a gal whose pastime is drinking beer and dancing the two-step. You’ll come home wanting dinner, and she’ll be over at Larry’s with some other man.”

  Charlie shook his head as he continued. “You said you want to have a life, Brad? Well, you’ve got one. So what do you want out of it? You want to be sixty years old and still drinking at Larry’s? Married to some toothless hag who’s trying to look twenty-five? Or have three or four divorces under your belt? That’s the direction you’re headed, buster.”

  The two men stared at each other across the darkening room. Brad tossed his trowel to the floor.

  Charlie dropped the roll of tape into the toolbox. He let out a hot breath and pointed his finger at the younger man. “If you let Ashley get away, you’re dumber than I thought. Where to spend Thanksgiving isn’t important. Drinking at Larry’s bar isn’t important. Ashley’s beads don’t really matter, and neither do your hardworking hands. What matters is that you kids found each other, loved each other, and made a vow to keep on loving each other no matter what. Now get yourself over to the country club and apologize to Ashley for being such a dad-blamed fool.”

  “A fool?” Brad’s chest swelled.

  “Yes, a fool, and don’t argue with me. You called Ashley a lamebrain? You’re a total numskull when it comes to women. You’re even dumber than most men. So stop strutting around like you have the world on a string just because the floozies at some bar give you the eye. Any man can walk into a tavern and land himself a one-night stand. But you’ve married yourself a sweet little lady who used to think you hung the moon. You really want to be a man? Pull yourself together and hang that moon back in the sky for your wife.”

  Without waiting for a response, Charlie stormed through the door and out toward his golf cart. Ridiculous kid. Life was too short to have to listen to the kind of nonsense that Brad Hanes could spout. And he complained about Ashley being a talker? Brad jabbered like a blue jay. His head was so swollen that his brain had just about quit working.

  “‘I used to play first base,’” Charlie mumbled as he drove along the road toward his house. He could imitate Brad’s bragging voice to a tee. “‘I was the high school quarterback. I bring home a paycheck. I work hard. All the women at Larry’s treat me right.’”

  “What are you muttering about now, Charles Moore?”

  Charlie looked up to find Esther walking toward him, sweater around her shoulders and purse hanging on her arm. In the waning sunlight, her silhouette looked small and fragile. She was limping a little, as if the arthritis in her knees was bothering her again. White hair aglow, she paused and smiled at him.

  “I thought I’d come get you,” she said. “Dinner’s in the oven.”

  Disconcerted, Charlie stopped the golf cart and reached toward her. “You shouldn’t have left the house at this hour, Esther. It’s almost dark. You could have fallen.”

  “I wanted to bring you something.” Her breath shuddered as she took his arm. “Drive me down to the lake, Charlie. Will you?”

  “We’ll need a flashlight in a few minutes. Where’s Boofer?”

  “I left him at home. This is just between you and me.” She leaned against him as they rode to the commons area and then stepped out onto the crisp, brown, wintry grass. Her voice sounded small in the growing darkness. “How was work? Have you finished the drywall?”

  “Nearly,” Charlie said. “That Brad Hanes is as dumb as a box of rocks. No wonder Ashley’s frustrated. I don’t know how much more of him I can take.”

  “Ashley said Brad graduated near the top of his class,” Esther protested. “Oh, are you talking about the fight they had the other night? Did Brad tell you about their argument over where to eat Thanksgiving dinner?”

  Charlie had to chuckle. “Is there any neighborhood gossip you don’t know, Mrs. Moore?”

  “Not a drop.”

  “I guess Ashley must have confided in you,” he said. “Did you give her some good advice?”

  “Yes. I told her they should do what we did. Simple as that.”

  Consternation furrowed Charlie’s brow. “What did we do?”

  “We had all the holiday meals at our house, silly! Don’t you remember? We decided that if our parents wanted to celebrate with us and spend time with Charles Jr. and Ellie, they had to come to our home—not the other way around. It was the perfect solution. No arguing, no fighting, no problems. When I told Ashley about it, she was so relieved she burst into tears.”

  “I understand she does that a lot.”

  “What woman doesn’t? I don’t know a female worth her salt who won’t break down and sob now and then. Surely you and Brad have figured that out by now.”

  “Maybe we both fell off the turnip truck yesterday.”

  “Not you, Charlie. You’re very wise. Much smarter than I am.”

  He could hear Esther swallowing again and again while they strolled down the length of the dock. She sniffled as she clung to his arm on the swaying wood plank flooring. Was she trying not to cry?

  Charlie began to worry. What was this trek to the lake all about? Did Esther have a big announcement to make? Maybe after almost fifty years of marriage to a dull man who didn’t know how to give a present better than a gas station snow globe, Esther had decided to run off with her artist friend.

  The thought of losing his wife made Charlie nauseous. No matter how upset he’d been with Esther, he didn’t want to lose her. Not to another man. Not for any reason.

  As they arrived at the end of the dock, he sat down on his favorite fishing bench. “What’s going on, Esther? What are we doing down here?”

  Instead of answering, she opened her purse and lifted out one of the glass pickle jars she always saved. Charlie could see some sort of gray substance inside—maybe pepper—filling it halfway to the top.

  Holding the jar up in the last rays of golden-orange sunlight, Esther turned it one way and then another. “Ashes,” she announced finally. “Cody helped me. I explained to him that there are some things in life that you wish you could do all over again. People make mistakes, I told him. By the time we’re old, sometimes we have regrets, and the best thing to do—if we can—is to set everything right again. Cody seemed to understand. So he found the chain to open the damper in the fireplace, and then he helped me put everything into a big pile on the grate. We stacked all of it—the magazines, the sketches, the letters. I struck the match, and Cody and I sang a hymn as the fire took hold and burned it up. You know what we sang? ‘Just As I Am.’ Like Patsy’s store. Cody had reminded me that everyone has a black blot. Evidently Pete Roberts was talking about his blot the other day. Cody said that Pete actually cried a little bit, so it was okay for me to cry too. I was crying more than a bit because I felt so awful, and Cody put his arm around me and patted me on the back. Wasn’t that sweet? He’s such a dear boy.”

  Charlie had held his breath most of the way through the speech. Now he let it out in a rush as he spoke his wife’s name. “Esther …” “It took me a while to admit you were right,” she went on, unscrewing the lid of the pickle jar as she talked. “I didn’t want to let
go of my memory and all the little things that had once been important to me. Oh, I had given myself all kinds of excuses to hang on to that stuff. He was just a friend. Charlie wouldn’t mind. I suppose I even blamed it on you—I told myself that if you’d been more attentive in those early days, I would never even have noticed George. And besides, the artwork is valuable now.”

  She shook her head. “But you did mind, and in my heart I knew you would—otherwise I wouldn’t have kept it hidden.” She paused, and again it sounded as if she was swallowing and sniffling. “Charlie, what you said the other day … it was absolutely true. A married woman should not have any kind of friendship with another man. There, I’ve said it. No matter how innocent it seems, it’s just plain wrong. I saw the hurt in your eyes the moment you first spoke his name.” She sighed. Her voice grew small again. “I never meant to hurt you, honey. But I did. And now I realize what a dark blot my actions cast on our marriage. It wasn’t your fault; it was mine. I’m so sorry, Charlie.”

  Before Charlie could respond, Esther knelt on the dock and dumped the contents of the pickle jar into the lake. The ashes swirled for a moment, spreading over the surface of the water. And then they vanished. She rinsed out the jar, put the lid back on, tucked it into her purse, and sighed again. “All these years, I’ve thought if we just put the past behind us and kept looking forward, we’d be fine. I’m sorry it took me so long to see the problems with that. I hope and pray you’ll forgive me and believe how very much I love you. I always have loved you, and I always will. Shall we go home to dinner now? Cody and I just put a meat loaf in the oven.”

  As Esther moved to leave, Charlie caught her arm. “Sit down with me here a minute longer,” he said, patting the old bench. “I want to make sure I understand this.”

  “I’ve told you everything.” She seated herself beside him. “I’m so silly, you know. Oh, you won’t believe what I did today. Remember our plan? After my set-and-style, Patsy was going to take me over to the grocery store for a few minutes to pick up some things for our Thanksgiving dinner next week. Well, she did, so I was pushing my cart down the aisle and studying all the different kinds of cranberry sauce. I chose one, put it into the cart, and kept on going. Suddenly, a lady started calling out to me, ‘Hey, hey! That’s my cart!’”