“More wine?”
Harden swallowed. “Just a little.”
The cabernet shimmered under the dancing candlelight, and the weekend’s anguish lifted above the massaging lighted spheres. The children were miles away, at Uncle Lance’s. Tonight would be one of gentleness, warmth. The darkening night outside brought them a secluded asylum. No intrusive arms could reach inside and subdue them.
Yet Andy noted that Harden’s eyes, reflecting the candlelight, narrowed, and his lips had tightened over his fork. With the passing of the awfulness, his mind loosened, sought solace. Andy foresaw he wanted to unburden himself even before he opened his mouth to speak.
“They’ll need days to get back to normal,” he said without lifting his gaze off his plate. Andy understood he’d meant Mason and Olivia. “Like the last two times she showed up unannounced. Always the same. I work so hard keeping the family together. Each of Lillian’s arrivals threatens to unravel all my efforts. I feel I have to start at square one.”
Andy continued to eat and watch Harden from under his brow, encouraging Harden to continue with his eyes widened. He knew from Harden’s past confessions that he intended to separate Mason and Olivia from their mother until—or if—she recovered from her addiction to crystal methamphetamine.
“She got the drugs from dealers in Chicago. Did I ever tell you that?” Harden flashed Andy blue eyes. “They sometimes travel to the boonies and peddle it, mostly to teens. They convince them they are bored living out here and that the drugs will bring sparkle to their humdrum lives. They are like the old snake oil salesmen, but with much more dire consequences. Most people rally together and chase them out, but some manage to leave a mark. Like with Lilly. I tried to keep the family together for the kids’ sakes, but I realized they’d be worse off with her around.”
Andy had never learned the exact details of Lillian’s fall. They’d stopped sharing years before her addiction took hold of her. Lilly never said much to Andy about hating life at Burr Oak Farm. He’d read through her demeanor and understood she had disconnected with most everything in life. But he had chosen to pretend none of it mattered.
Her announcement that she planned to marry Harden and move to Dover County had shocked the entire family. Andy had bit his tongue from making sarcastic comments. Wild, fun-craving Lilly, a farmer’s wife?
But in a way he’d envied her decision to cut ties and start fresh. But she hadn’t really. The first suspicions came from her unpredictable phone calls. Neither he nor his mother had taken them seriously. The next time he’d seen her, she had looked like she’d lost twenty pounds and had her spirit sucked out of her.
Lilly had yearned for adventure her entire life. Bright lights, music, laughter. Anything to drown out the reality of the present. She was never happy unless her life emulated glamour. She’d once told Andy, shortly after Mason’s birth, “My life is nothing like those people on MTV’s Cribs.” He pictured her nursing Mason, her eyes riveted on the television, her only source of companionship while Harden toiled at work, day in and day out.
Andy admitted he’d started to appreciate the rural flavor of Iowa and the farmhouses and estate homes that dotted the prairie of hardworking, genuine people. The vineyards on rolling green landscapes that erupted lush, spilling with abundance, like a horn of plenty, and the small towns with towering steeples and state-of-the-art public libraries. It had a clean, rustic feel to it.
The smell of cow poop and biting grasshoppers had begun to energize him. Even the people’s honesty and down-to-earth daily routines stirred him into accepting their world. He’d thought such lifestyles and attitudes had disappeared from American life. He’d only missed it living in the city.
He’d become narrow-minded and disillusioned. But what about Lilly? Iowa had failed to solve her problems. Didn’t Harden just say that drug dealers from Chicago often traveled to rural communities to get them hooked?
“Olivia and Mason must know how bad off she is by now,” Andy said, keeping with Harden’s hushed manner. “Surely they understand why they shouldn’t see her, despite how badly they want to.”
“I had no choice but to kick her out,” Harden said again, raising his voice slightly, wanting the entire world to understand, as if he believed Andy still needed convincing. “Lilly drained our accounts of over ten thousand dollars before I could accept what was really going on.”
Andy peered at him. Harden had told him that once. At the time, he had said nothing. “I’m so sorry, Harden. I know how bad things have been for you. I wish I had done more.” Was that a bold-faced lie? Had Andy only wanted to suppress and bury all that he understood about his drug-addicted older sister and renounce any association with her?
I had my own life to lead, didn’t I?
“What really worries me, in a selfish way,” Harden said, “is that when they grow up they’ll prefer her over me, after everything. They already hate me for keeping her away. Even with all the teasing Mason gets from his friends because of his drug-addicted mom, he still longs for her.”
A sharp remorse pinched Andy’s insides. “He wishes she was different and probably pretends on some level she is. Any kid would. A kid’s imagination is sometimes all that can save him. But they won’t be kids forever, Harden. They’ll grow up and realize you did what was best for them. Harden, many fathers in your position would have handed their kids to foster care. There’s no way Mason and Olivia won’t love you for that. They must know you’re better for them than she is.”
“Kids grow up and cling to resentment,” Harden stated toward the glossy tabletop that captured the candlelight. “I find even myself having a hard time getting past things my parents did. Little things like not allowing me to go out on a Saturday night with my friends. And here I am all grown up with my own kids, and sometimes, out of nowhere, I find myself fuming over it like they’d just punished me yesterday. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“I do that too sometimes, but my parents never really made the effort to nurture me and Lilly. You’re different, Harden. Olivia and Mason will see that someday, if they don’t already.”
“Am I really that different? I’m so busy with work. I brush them aside more and more. Haven’t I sent them away just today?”
“Who said being a single parent was easy? You also spend most of your free time with them.”
Harden took several bites of his meal, washing down each one with a swig of wine. From the enthusiasm of his chewing and drinking, he still relished the taste in spite of their conversation’s gravity. “I blame myself for what’s happened. I brought Lillian to this farmhouse. It was my dream, not hers. She got lost here. At least she didn’t start the meth until after Olivia was born. I guess life out here was too slow and boring for her. I never considered that.”
“A place can’t drive a person to drugs,” Andy said, wanting to believe his own words.
“But boredom can, can’t it?”
Andy recalled their youth, how his capricious sister had bounced from one toy or game to the other, and once she’d reached her teen years, she seemed unable to spend time at home for more than an hour at one stretch without going nuts.
“Lilly was easily distracted even as a little girl,” he said, biting into his steak with determination. “Wherever she was, she wanted to be somewhere else. Where she wasn’t, she wanted to be there. You could have moved to Hawaii and she’d have found an excuse to hate everything. Sure, she liked to party, but parties come to an end. She’d be displeased anywhere.”
In an instant, Andy realized his alliance stood rooted with Harden rather than Lillian. She was possessed by something that took her from him and everyone else. Andy needed to protect Harden, steeped in the reality of those struggling to survive. Lillian marched with the dead.
Harden gazed into Andy’s eyes, as if he understood for the first time too. Andy returned his fixed stare, smiling upon him warmly. He swallowed, dabbed the sides of his mouth with his napkin. Harden’s somber countenance prompted Andy t
o say more. Anything to alleviate his misery.
“You keep telling me to stop feeling guilty for not doing enough for you and the kids,” Andy said. “Take your own advice, why don’t you? Life elbows you in the face, you have to take it. Just like how locusts and droughts once decimated farmland like this. Or even the floods that happen today. It’s just part of life, right? You can’t blame yourself for any of those things.”
Harden’s pupils shrunk behind the flames of candlelight. Shadows outlined his features, and his expression turned faraway once again. “When I first met her on vacation in Cancun,” he murmured, “she seemed so exotic. A city girl. I was a country boy looking for adventure away from the grind of college. She was a spitfire who looked great in a bikini.” He chuckled and shook his head. “We partied a bit. Drank too much, even smoked some local pot. I could take it or leave it. I know that dating someone you meet on vacation, especially a tropical resort where people party, is not always a good idea. But we hit it off, we really did. There were warning bells, of course. But aren’t there always between two people getting to know each other? I really thought she was the one. I thought I found her. How is anyone to know things like that?”
“You have to take a leap of faith with people. Either you trust someone or you don’t.”
“Funny thing, the worst part of it all was that day last spring telling Mason and Olivia we were divorcing. Maybe it’s the Catholic in me, but I never conceived telling my children that.”
Determined to ease the mood, Andy said in a singsong voice, “As John Steinbeck once wrote, ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’ Now eat up and have some more cabernet.” He topped off their wine glasses, unconcerned if he spilt any.
“I’m getting a little light-headed,” Harden said, grinning at his overflowing wineglass.
“Just as good. Go ahead. Enjoy. You deserve it.”
Harden sipped, wiped his mouth, chuckled. “Remember that time Lilly and I came to Streamwood, just before Mason was born, and you and I got to drinking beer? We got really wasted, if I recall. I think that was the last time I really got drunk.”
“In those days, two beers would’ve set me off. I was about ten pounds lighter.”
“That was a fun time.” Harden’s gaze fell to the candles. “So many responsibilities ahead of us. You in college, me fresh out of grad school with the baby coming, yet we still acted like immature kids in some ways.”
The wine, in addition to the dimmed lighting and the night pushing in on them, tempted Andy’s courage. “That was the same trip you….” He poked his fork at his asparagus. “Oh, never mind.”
“You can’t start something like that and then stop. Tell me.”
Andy shook his head. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Spit it out, Andy. What did I do that has you turning redder than a cabbage?”
Andy set his fork down with a clink against his plate and breathed. Bolstered by the cabernet and Harden’s prodding, he said, “That was when you kissed me by the kitchen sink.”
Harden’s eyes turned into gaping blue holes. “I did what?”
“Don’t you remember? I was washing dishes, and you came in for another beer. You grabbed my shoulders, swung me around, and kissed me on the lips.”
Harden peered toward the ceiling. A flush germinated over his protruding jowls. “Christ, I think I do remember that.” He chuckled and lowered his eyes to his plate, avoiding Andy’s gaze. “What was I thinking? I must’ve been drunker than I realized.”
“That’s what I thought,” Andy said, and he looked away from Harden and began eating again. “We’d been acting goofy all afternoon. Poor Lilly, being pregnant, could only laugh with us.”
“Who knows,” Harden said, shrugging and sniggering, “maybe that’s why I did it. Lilly’s pregnancy made her less affectionate.” Harden’s laughter seemed to raise the ceiling, the same unrestrained laughter that Andy had relished while ogling him at the corn roast.
“You were attracted to my dashing charm. Admit it,” Andy said, chuckling alongside him.
Harden rested his fork on his plate and checked his laughter until he coughed. “Maybe I always wanted to know what it was like to kiss a man with a cleft chin.”
Andy snickered. “I’ve always liked your jaw muscles.”
“My jaw muscles?”
“The way they protrude.”
An abrupt silence pierced the table faster than the flicker of the candle flames. Andy wanted to replace the resulting discomfort with some levity. “Hey, I bought a dessert,” he said. “Don’t let me forget. Should be enough leftovers for the kids unless you pig yourself full.”
“What did you get?”
“What else? Your favorite.”
“Baked Alaska? How did you remember?”
“Same way I remembered you like your steaks medium rare. I’d have baked it myself, but I wouldn’t have had time.”
Red blotchiness popped over Harden’s neck and forehead. “You go to so much trouble around here, Andy. You’ve been a godsend.”
“I like to help,” Andy said. “I have a lot of time to make up to you and the kids.”
“Do we have to go through that again?” Harden said emphatically. “I never once expected you to do anything extraordinary once Lilly and I split up. I’m just glad you’re here now.”
“I’m glad I’m here too.”
They finished their meal without mentioning Andy’s guilt or Harden’s kissing him again. After emptying the bottle of cabernet and downing two thick slices of the store-bought pie, they left the smoke from the snuffed out candles curling toward the ceiling and retired to the porch with the second bottle of cabernet.
Andy allowed Harden the porch swing, and he sat on the steps, looking into the descending darkness. Stars glowed like tiny orbs of taper candles from distant light years. Someone else in the universe, perhaps another lonely being, was concocting a silly dinner for two.
He joined Harden in polishing off his glass. They both licked their lips, breathed deeply. The night comforted Andy, yet made him antsy. Gray shadows cast from the porch lamps crept up on Andy and seemed to prod him. Chilly knuckles kneaded his nape, despite the mugginess.
Sweet corn scent rode high on the wind, and the entire countryside seemed to thrust upward and meet where Harden and Andy sat. Nighttime encapsulated their corner of the world. Andy imagined putting it in a tiny vial and wearing it on a silver chain around his neck. Perhaps the wine helped shrink everything into charm-sized nuggets.
Andy would be prepping for his South Side Saturday tour about now. Thrills came in many forms. Tonight, hot mounds of cash and the buzz of carting suburbanites and foreign tourists into the sticky crime-ridden streets of Chicago would be replaced by corn growing, crickets chirping, and the dumb bugs smacking against the inside of the lamp globes.
Andy tried to feign nonchalance when Harden got up from the swing, sat next to him, and topped off their glasses. He rested the crook of his arm on Andy’s shoulder. “I guess a man can’t predict what will happen to his future,” Harden said. “Not with my kids or anything else. I guess we all have intuition, but at some point, you have to trust someone, like you said, right?”
“That’s true,” Andy said, sipping his wine. “I’m glad you’re coming around and not beating yourself up over everything that’s happened.”
Harden stood with a reverberating crack of his joints. “Easier to give advice than to take it.”
He walked inside the house, the slap of the storm door swallowed by the night.
After rinsing out his wine glass in the kitchen sink, Andy found Harden sitting on the edge of his bed upstairs, his gaze on the carpet, still looking as if he were brooding over Lillian’s visit. Andy stood at the threshold, watching him. “Harden, are you sure you’re okay?”
Harden looked up and tweaked a smile. “I’m okay. A lot on my mind, that’s all. Don’t worry. Thanks again for an amazing dinner.”
Andy stepped inside the be
droom. The photograph of Lilly and Harden in Cancun leered at him from the bureau. Overhead light reflected off the glazing and blurred Lillian’s face. Harden must have noticed him staring at it.
“I keep it mostly for the kids’ sake,” he said, gazing at the photograph with Andy, his voice distant. “That way they can see her in a good way, with her bright eyes and happy smile, a time before they even knew her. Poor Olivia, most of her life has been during Lillian’s drug abuse.”
Edging closer to Harden, Andy said, “She’s handling things well. She’ll get over this latest setback, you’ll see. Both of them will. You’ve done a wonderful job raising the kids.”
Harden stared back to his hands in his lap, and he began twiddling his thumbs. “I just want everything to work out okay. That’s all. I just want to know in the end everything that I’ve done was right. What I would do for a little relief from the constant worrying about tomorrow.”
Andy stood planted before Harden. He peered down at his head, with his blond hair combed to the side, conventional and sleek. A hint of his spicy cologne wafted from him. Harden had preened himself for their night together. Like he might any date. Had he done it out of habit, out of desperation? Did Harden wish Andy was Lillian or one of his women friends, like his coworker Lucinda Jamison?
His heart beating inside his ears, Andy sat beside Harden, like Harden had with him moments earlier on the porch. But Andy refrained from placing his arm on his shoulder, despite his muscles crying out that he do so. Instead, he leaned against him to keep himself from falling forward. “Harden….”
Andy felt Harden flinch, but his head remained downturned. “What is it?”
Tremors raced along Andy’s body. He did not speak. Impulsively, he clasped Harden’s bare forearm. Each pounding throb, each course of blue vessels streaming with heated blood sent shockwaves through Andy. He looked toward Harden’s profile, with his wonderful, plump jowls. “Please, just let me, Harden.”
The South Side Tour Guide Page 16
