Until the Devil Weeps

by W E DeVore

  He set the tray down on the nightstand and helped her to sit up, arranging the pillows behind her back. “Your favorite, too.”

  As he moved the tray to her lap, she picked up her beer and took a swallow to dull the sharp pain that radiated through her sternum. She tasted her gumbo and her stomach growled for her to continue. “Tell me what happened with Elaine.”

  Sanger took a big bite of food, using it to stall for time.

  “Aaron, just tell me,” she pressed.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “She came to the hospital to see you. Me. We were sleeping. She took it the wrong way.”

  Q took her own bite of food and said, “What do you mean, she took it the wrong way?”

  “She got jealous. I think it had more to do with Derek than me. I lost my temper. I was tired…”

  She sighed at Sanger’s reticence to tell her the entire story and took another sip of beer. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened. It’s probably fixable.”

  “I don’t want to fix it,” he said. “She’s in love with Derek.”

  She smirked at him. “I doubt that’s true, he’s not very lovable.”

  Sanger laughed. “She didn’t like the way they ended it. I think she only dated me to get back at him and make him jealous.”

  “Also, doubtful. That would be a waste of time. He doesn’t do jealous.” As she scrutinized her friend, she saw the strain she’d placed on him for the last month. “Please, tell me.”

  “I was sleeping – next to you. It was right after they stopped the IV meds and started physical therapy, you were hurting, cold all the time.”

  Q shivered. “I remember. I was there.”

  “Well, she took it the wrong way and left.”

  “What does that have to do with Derek?”

  “You remember that huge bouquet of white flowers he sent?”

  “’A hundred Archangels for my Archangel?’” she asked ruefully. “How could I forget that? Leave it to Derek to find a flower called an Archangel.”

  “I guess they came while she was there, she read the card. Anyway, she came over to the house later while I was washing some nightgowns for you, and she got angry, wanting to know how much longer I’d be at the hospital… wanting to know why I was taking care of you instead of letting your family do it. Then she says - and this is a direct quote - ‘Derek’s sending her a hundred flowers at once now, she doesn’t need you, Spot.’”

  Q flinched, knowing how badly Jeffries using Derek Sharp’s derogatory nickname for Sanger would hurt him. “What did you say?”

  “I told her I couldn’t answer for Derek, but you and Ben were my family and I’d made a promise to him that I intended to keep. Then I told her to get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Don’t you think you overreacted a little?”

  “I don’t.”

  She studied his face, trying to read his thoughts and failing. He took a bite of his gumbo and she waited for him to continue speaking. When he didn’t, she asked, “What promised did you make Ben?”

  Sanger shook his head slightly before turning to look out the window. “That’s between me and Ben.”

  “Southern male code of ethics?” she guessed.

  “Something like that.”

  “I will never understand that bullshit.”

  He grinned at her. “Good, it was carefully designed so that you wouldn’t.”

  Q chuckled. “That was a joke, Aaron. Don’t go getting funny on me, now.”

  “I think you’re safe.” He took a pull on his beer.

  “Okay, so Jeffries called you my lap dog…”

  “Guard dog, goddamnit,” Sanger interjected. “Why do you always make that more insulting than it already is?”

  “Because it annoys you.” He laughed out loud and she said, “So, she calls you ‘Spot’ and then you just threw the woman out of your house? Nothing else?”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “Nothing worth mentioning. We had a fight. We broke up.”

  “So, that was it? That wasn’t much of a fight. Go over there and apologize. I'm sure she’s over it now.”

  “But I'm not,” he said. “I don’t want to be with someone that cruel.”

  “You lost me, cowboy.”

  He hesitated. “Just trust me on this one. She went for the jugular. That’s a deal-breaker for me.”

  “Bullshit. I go for the jugular and you still love me.” She winked at him and sipped of her beer.

  “No, you call me out on my bullshit.” He smirked and said, “Which is more like kicking me in the balls. Totally different.”

  Sanger’s joke caught her off guard and the swallow of beer she held in her throat went up her nose. Q choked and pinched her sinuses. “Jesus, Sanger. Warn me if you’re developing a sense of humor, will you?” When he didn’t reply, Q finally said, “Seriously, what did she say?”

  Exhaling hard through his nose, he replied, “Nothing I’d care to repeat. I don’t want to be with someone like that. It’s done.”

  “Aaron, before all this happened, you told me you were in love with her. I saw the two of you. You’re good together. Go work things out. You were both under a lot of stress. People say things they don’t mean...”

  “No. I’m over it now, anyway. Come on, let’s play a game of cards or something. Eat your gumbo before it gets cold.”

  Q took another bite of food. “You are the most stubborn sorry excuse of a mule I’ve ever met, cowboy. Why can’t you let yourself be happy?”

  “I’m fine, really. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

  “Liar, liar pants on fire.”

  They ate in silence until Q drained the rest of her beer and pushed her tray to the other side of the bed. Sanger looked at the half-eaten bowl of food and said, “You can’t keep doing this. You have to eat.”

  “I did eat. I’m full. I’m also tired.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “And I’d like to be alone now, Aaron. It’s time for me to be alone. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  He said his goodbyes and picked up the tray as he left the room. When Q turned her head to the window, a sparkle of gold caught her eye in the warm afternoon light. Reaching for it with her hand, she found a long, blond hair on the pillow next to her head. She took it in her fingers and held it to the light before enclosing it inside her hand.

  Ben.

  August: Denial

  Q’s phone rang for the seventh consecutive time in as many minutes and she rolled over on the couch to retrieve it from where it had fallen to the floor.

  “Leave me alone, fuckwad,” she yelled at the picture Derek Sharp’s leering face on the screen. She tapped the ‘dismiss’ button and lay back down. Her head was pounding and she scowled at the empty bottle of wine on the coffee table with disdain. A bubble of nausea swelled up into her throat and she blindly stumbled to the kitchen, struggling to reach the bathroom on the back porch to throw up the remaining alcohol in her stomach.

  Feeling mildly better despite the constant throbbing at her temples, she opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Ibuprofen. She popped two into her mouth, drinking them down with some water from the faucet. Glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she tried to remember when she’d showered last.

  She had come home from physical therapy yesterday morning in a funk. Frank, the physical therapist she’d chosen because he was a friend, had decided that the best way to motivate her to strengthen her shoulder was to tell her half a dozen of his favorite memories of when he’d worked at the Cove for Ben. The more he talked, the more her left hand involuntarily trembled, and the more he insisted that nothing was physically causing the tremor, the angrier Q got.

  As soon as she’d come home, she’d tried to play piano, thinking it would help, but when her fingers wouldn’t cooperate, she’d decided to get good and drunk instead. And because Ben had owned a nightclub, their bar at home was stocked with enough intoxicants to make her task that much easier.

  Smelling the residual trac
es of her pity party evaporating through her skin, Q stripped out of her exercise clothes and stepped into the small shower, letting the water wash away the remnants of her hangover. Her stomach growled angrily, making it known that real food was going to have to be ingested, whether her brain was opposed to the idea or not.

  She wrapped herself in a towel and wandered into the kitchen towards the refrigerator. Pulling out the latest care package from her mother-in-law, she peered inside. Fried chicken, potato salad, and greens greeted her and she blinked back the upwelling of sweet Sunday memories of Ben standing beside her at his parents’ home, helping his mother and sisters prepare the same meal.

  Ripping a chunk of meat off a leg quarter with her teeth, she leaned against the sink, eating with her fingers until her stomach stopped airing its litany of grievances against its misuse and her headache finally abated. She had just closed the container and put it back into the fridge when the doorbell rang. Glaring in its general direction, she washed her hands and made herself a glass of ice water before heading to answer it.

  When she opened the door, she found Sanger and Yvie wearing worried expressions on her porch. Sanger’s eyes widened as soon as he saw her and he quickly looked away. “Clementine, you shouldn’t answer the door like that. You still haven’t fixed your gate.”

  She tightened the towel around herself and replied, “You shouldn’t come over without calling first and I don’t give a shit about the stupid gate.”

  Yvie pushed past her into the house. “We’ve both been calling you since yesterday. Where the hell have you been?” Her eyes scanned the room, landing on every empty glass and overturned bottle. “Have a party, did you?”

  “I’m going to go get dressed,” Q replied, walking upstairs to escape her sister-in-law’s lecture before it started.

  Once she was in the safety of her bedroom, she took a good look at herself in the mirror of the antique vanity at the foot of the bed. Squinting at her reflection, she decided that she looked slightly better for the alcohol-induced coma she’d drunk herself into twelve hours earlier, no matter what kind of reprimand she was sure to face when she went back downstairs.

  Tugging on a pair of shorts and a Morbid Angel t-shirt, she returned to the living room to find Sanger pacing the room and Yvie saying, “Well, do you have a better idea?”

  “A better idea for what?” Q asked.

  They both turned to her and Sanger said, “Sit down, Clementine.”

  She glanced from him to Yvie and sat on the couch. “What?”

  “I’ve made you an appointment with a grief counselor tomorrow,” Yvie said. “I’ve been going and it’s been helping. I think it would help you, too.”

  “No,” Q replied flatly. “I’m fine.”

  Yvie sat beside her and said, “No, you’re not. You barely eat. You barely speak. You’re not playing music….”

  “How do you know, Yvonne?” Q asked. “You’re not here every minute of every day.”

  “You telling me I’m wrong?” she demanded.

  Q turned her face away and clenched her jaw. “It’s barely been two months. Jesus. What do y’all want from me?”

  Sanger sat in the chair across from them and rested his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “It might help to talk about it.”

  She sucked some chicken out from between her teeth and pursed her lips in annoyance. “Talk about what, exactly, Sanger?”

  She stared him down, daring him to say it out loud. Sanger’s mouth flattened and he replied, “Ben’s murder. Jasper’s death. You getting shot. You need to talk about it.”

  Q folded her arms. “Will talking about it bring them back?”

  Yvie heaved a long frustrated sigh and said, “You need to do something. Play some gigs at least…”

  “I can’t!” Q exclaimed. She held out her left hand and it instantly began to tremble. “Look at that, will you? That fucking bullet hit a nerve or something. It doesn’t work right.”

  Sanger reached over and took her hand in his. “The doctor said there’s nothing wrong. It’s all in your head.”

  “I know that, Aaron,” Q snapped. “Frank lectured me for an hour about that yesterday at physical therapy. I came home and tried to play but it won’t work right. I can’t move my fingers like I used to. Something’s wrong and nobody will listen.”

  He tightened his fingers around hers. “That’s what I mean. Talk to somebody…”

  “A shrink, you mean,” she stated. “I’m not going back to therapy. It never did me any good anyway.”

  Yvie abruptly stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Fuck it. We’re going with Plan B. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

  She scooped up the empty bottles and glasses from the table and carried them out of the room. The clanking sounds of Yvie furiously cleaning the kitchen drifted into the living room and Sanger gave Q a sympathetic smile.

  He picked up her phone from the table and handed it to her. “Better go get your shoes on and brush your teeth. She’s serious. You’re not getting out of it.”

  The doorbell rang and she looked at him in confusion. “Getting out of what?”

  “Plan B,” he said, standing up to answer it.

  Q followed him to the front door, shoving past him to open it. Derek Sharp stood on her porch dressed in a tight, black long-sleeved t-shirt and tighter black slacks. As he flashed his shark-tooth grin, his eyes drifted down to the front of her shirt.

  “Morbid Angel?” he guessed, squinting as he struggled to read the font. “Seems about right. You ready?”

  “What in the good fuck are doing here, Cincinnati?” she asked.

  “I’m here to take you to the studio,” he replied. “Didn’t Spot tell you?” He threaded his body between the two of them, taking confident strides into the house, and calling over his shoulder, “Love your new heroin chic look, angel. Go get your shoes on. We have an album to finish.”

  Q looked to Sanger for help, he said, “He called while you were upstairs. It was Yvie’s idea, but I think it’s a good one. If you won’t talk to a shrink, you need to get it out somehow. This might help.”

  “But I can’t…”

  A crashing arpeggio of Debussy came thundering from the grand piano in the living room and Q turned to see Derek sitting at the bench. His face was indifferent, his eyes tracking the movements of his fingers with disinterested detachment. He glanced up at her and yelled, “Get your ass in gear, Q. Or I’m calling in your contract and suing you for everything you’ve got.”

  Her mouth fell open in surprise. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would so,” he said.

  “But you can’t…”

  “Oh, but I can,” he insisted.

  Yvie came back into the room and Derek tilted his face up so that she could kiss his cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking his face in both her hands. “Really.”

  He winked at her and continued to play. Yvie let go of Derek and approached Q. Putting one hand on her hip, she pointed to the stairs with the other. “You have ten minutes, then I’m telling Aaron to cuff you and throw you into the back of Derek’s car. Go put your shoes on. Brush your hair and teeth and pull your motherfucking shit together. You’re going back to work.”

  Q let out an exasperated sigh, but did as she was told. Derek was right. She was under contract to complete an album by the end of the year. Thankfully, the contract didn’t specify anything about the quality or the content of said album because right now, she didn’t care about either.

  When she returned downstairs, the living room was empty except for Derek, who was leaning against the front door. The sounds of dishes being washed with some amount of force emanated from the kitchen. He tilted his head towards the street and she followed him out to his midnight blue Porsche where it was parked in her driveway. As he got in behind the wheel and started the car, she resolutely opened the passenger side door and sat next to him.

  He stared through the windshield at her porc
h. “I’m only going say this once, Q, so please listen. I’ve been where you are. You have to trust me when I say I know what this feels like.”

  “What what feels like, fuck face?” she asked, not believing for a minute that a middle-aged, self-described ‘ethical non-monogamist,’ like Derek, could know what it feels like to have their spouse murdered in front of them and their child ripped from their body.

  He turned to regard her and a raw, wounded innocence settled over him. Q’s stomach twisted in guilt when she saw it. Derek focused his eyes on hers and he said, “To lose everything you counted on. To hear the person you love most in the world murdered. To be injured, and bleeding, and afraid, and all alone, and completely fucking impotent to do anything to stop it. Sound familiar?”