Where Dolphins Go

by Webb, Peggy

  Watching them, Susan's heart hurt for her sister. Jo Lisa was wonderful with children. A natural. Why was it that her sister shunned connections? Surely someone somewhere had offered this warm, loving person something more than a brief tumble in his bed.

  "It sounds like a circus in here." Bessie came through the door bearing cookies in one hand and a small package in the other.

  "It's magic, Gran'ma."

  "Can I interrupt this magic for a cookie break?"

  Bessie took up court beside the bed. Jo Lisa and Susan shared a cookie with Jeflfy, then stood apart at the window.

  "Where in the world did you get the dolphin recording?"

  "I called Bill McKenzie. He was kind enough to stop his work and help me make a tape of the sounds."

  "You did all that this morning?"

  "Nothing's too much for my nephew."

  At the bedside, Bessie handed Jeflfy the small package.

  "What is it, Gran'ma?"

  "A rainbow."

  "A rainbow?"

  "You don't believe me? Open the package."

  Bessie helped her grandson tear into the paper. He stuck his tiny hand into the box and came up with a row of rhinestone buttons strung together with red yarn. As if nature sought to compensate one of God's children, the sun broke through the clouds and shot sparks off the buttons. A rainbow appeared on the white hospital walls.

  "Look, Mommy. A rainbow." Jeflfy held the string of buttons aloft, bright rhinestones, shaped like hearts.

  A memory stirred. Beside her, Jo Lisa went very still.

  Jeffy swung the buttons and rainbows danced on the walls. Mesmerized by the string of rhinestone hearts, Susan walked slowly toward the bed.

  "What unusual buttons, Mother. Where did you get them?"

  "From Jo Lisa's blouse."

  Time spun backward, and she saw the heart-shaped rhinestone button tumbling from Brett's pants pocket.

  At the window, Jo Lisa made a sound like a small animal in pain.

  Slowly Susan turned to face her sister. Horror was stamped on Jo Lisa's face, and pity and guilt. Susan clutched her heart with one hand and the bed rail with the other.

  "Jo Lisa?" she whispered.

  "Susan." Jo Lisa held her hand out in entreaty. "Please .”

  Please, please, please. The truth flooded Susan and she was drowning, drowning as surely as Brett had when the ocean closed over his car. Scenes from her past played across her mind like a torn, jerky movie reel. Brett and Jo Lisa together ... the way they'd sometimes look at each other at family dinners and break into smiles when nobody else was laughing, the times he'd driven her to work then come home late because of car trouble, their abrupt disappearances, the spontaneous errands they'd invented, going to pick up ice cream for everybody then coming back disheveled and flushed.

  Susan covered her face with her hands. Oh, God. Not Brett and Jo Lisa.

  "Susan." Bessie put a hand on her arm. "What's the matter with you? Are you sick?"

  How could she be sick? Her son was the one sick. She had to be healthy and strong and wise and calm.

  Across the room, Jo Lisa made a move toward her.

  "No." Susan held her hand out to stop her sister.

  "What's the matter?" Bessie's tone had changed from concern to suspicion.

  Susan didn't want a scene, not in front of her son. From somewhere in the deepest recesses of her being she dredged up enough courage to get through the moment.

  "I'm all right, Mother. I just need a little air. Do you mind staying with Jeffy until I get back?"

  "All I've got is time. Take as long as you want."

  Susan hurried from the room without looking at her sister. If she saw Jo Lisa's face one more time, she might scream. Blindly she made her way down the hall and into the elevator. People were staring at her, and it wasn't until she got to the car that she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks. She didn't bother to brush them away; she merely drove. Drove and drove and drove until finally she was back in her own front yard, back at the house that had been her home with Brett, the home he and Jo Lisa had defiled.

  The numbness began to wear off and rage took its place. Susan barreled from the car and raced toward her flower beds. Their beauty mocked her. How could she have been so naive, so trusting?

  Sinking onto her knees in the dirt, she began to jerk flowers out by their roots and fling them into a heap.

  "No, no, no," she screamed. Crawling on hands and knees she went from bed to bed, leaving a wake of devastation.

  "Susan." Jo Lisa had come up behind her and was standing with her hands clenched at her sides. A yellow taxi disappeared down the street.

  “Go away.”

  "I can't, Susan. I have to explain."

  "Explain? EXPLAIN!" Susan stood up, dragging two gasping flowers in her hands. Their roots trailed dirt down the side of her slacks. "How can you explain sleeping with my husband?"

  Jo Lisa paled. Susan was without mercy.

  "That is what you did, isn't it, Jo Lisa? You slept with my husband?"

  They stared at each other, sisters who had suddenly become strangers, enemies. Jo Lisa took a step backward.

  "I didn't mean to hurt you, Susan. I never meant to hurt you."

  Until then, Susan had hoped she was wrong. With the admission on her sister's lips, there was nothing she could do except believe.

  "He never loved me, Susan. He loved you. He always loved you."

  Susan felt like a mongoose charmed by a cobra. She wanted to run but she couldn't. Mesmerized she stood in the dirt listening to her sister.

  "It was just sex with us, Susan. That's all. It never meant anything to him ... to either of us."

  "Why? WHY?"

  "It was all my fault. I chased him until I wore down his resistance. I used to corner him after work and cajole him into having a beer before he came home. One thing led to another and he ended up in my bed."

  "How could you do that to me? I loved you, Jo Lisa. I always loved you."

  "It's easy for you to love, Susan. You're perfect."

  "I'm not perfect; I'm human. Do you hear me? I'm human. I don't want to be perfect anymore and to have courage and be called strong. I want to scream and rage and claw your eyes out." Susan sagged, and the flowers dropped from her hands. "I want to claw your eyes out, Jo Lisa," she whispered. Sobs shook her.

  Jo Lisa hugged herself. Thank God. If she had touched Susan, she wouldn’t be responsible for what she’d do.

  "I'm sorry, Susan. I'm so sorry."

  "He was my husband, Jo Lisa. Mine. And you took him."

  "You always had everything . . . the looks, the talent, the love and respect of our mother, the perfect little home, the perfect man. I was jealous, Susan. I had to prove to myself that just once I could be better than you . . . and so I took your husband."

  A dark cloud passed over the sun, and rain began to fall, a light mist at first, and then gradually a downpour. Sodden and sad, Susan and Jo Lisa faced each other, their chests heaving with emotion. Rain slashed them, standing out like rhinestones on Jo Lisa's pale skin. Her eyes, dry and empty, glowed like green lanterns in the gray day.

  Susan's once-proud flower beds became muddy puddles, and the dirt she'd collected in her rampage liquefied and ran in brown rivulets down her arms and over her shoes and down the sides of her slacks.

  Jo Lisa's beautiful body was clearly defined by her wet clothes, and Susan envisioned her husband's hands on her sister. She closed her eyes to shut out the vision, but it persisted. She saw the two of them tangled together in hot, sweaty, clandestine love. Had he taken Jo Lisa in the backseat of the car where he'd first made love to Susan? The car. Oh, God, the car. . . . He'd driven it off into the ocean, and Jo Lisa hadn't even stayed for the funeral.

  She opened her eyes and looked straight at her sister.

  "You killed my husband."

  Jo Lisa went deathly white.

  "You killed him." Susan stalked her, relentless. "He came home that day
, came home and brought me a yellow clock." She moved closer, her hands balled into fists. "He was wearing those pants . . . the ones with the rhinestone button in the pocket." She was so close now that she could smell the feint musky scent of Jo Lisa's perfume. God, how she hated that perfume. How she hated her sister.

  'You killed him." She smashed her fist into her sister's face.

  Jo Lisa sucked in her breath, then her chin went up defiantly.

  "No, Susan. I didn't kill him. He came to my bed and I gave him what he wanted. He was so eager for me, he tore one of my buttons. He gave you a clock, Susan, but he gave me a everything else."

  Jo Lisa turned and walked away, her hips swaying in the tight wet jeans and her high heels sinking into the sodden ground. Susan sank to her knees and beat her fists on the ground.

  Jo Lisa kept on walking.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Paul stood with his back to her, buttoning his shirt. Jean remembered the times she'd buttoned it for him. She remembered running her hands over his chest and tangling her fingers in his chest hair. He'd smile and kiss the side of her neck, then they'd get giddy with love and end up in the bed or on the carpet. Sometimes they'd make it out the door only to end up on the top staircase.

  She made a move toward him, then changed her mind. They couldn't go back. They couldn't even go forward. It was over for them, completely over. Their marriage had died the same day as Sonny, and soon one of them would have to either resurrect it or bury it.

  She went to her dressing table and fastened in her pearl and sapphire earrings. A touch of blue to brighten up a drab day. Outside the rain beat against the window..

  "Are you worried about the trial, Paul?"

  "No. Whatever is going to happen will happen. Worry won't change it."

  When had he become so stoic? The day he'd been summoned back to her side, the day she'd begged him not to leave?

  "I'll be there rooting for you. I want you to know that. I believe in you."

  "Thank you, Jean." He pecked her on the cheek.

  They were so infuriatingly civilized. She picked up her purse with the pearl clasp and fished out her car keys.

  "I'm leaving early to pick up Maggie. I hope you don't mind going to the courthouse by yourself."

  "Be careful, Jean. The roads will be slick."

  Of course he didn't mind. He probably preferred being alone, alone with his daydreams of Susan Riley. Jean clenched her hands around her purse and tried to remain calm.

  After the trial. She'd wait until after the trial to have it out with Paul.

  "See you later." She blew a kiss in his direction, but he made no attempt to catch it. Resolute, she hurried down the stairs. She was not going to cry. She was through being weak.

  In the garage, she slid onto her leather seat and sat in the car to collect herself. For a fleeting moment she considered how easy it would be to lock the garage doors and turn on the engine. She would just drift off to sleep.

  No. She was through taking the easy way out.

  Jean eased the car out of the garage and went to pick up Maggie. Before heading off to the courthouse, they sat together at Maggie's kitchen table drinking coffee.

  "How's it going with Beth Ann?" Jean asked.

  "She's getting better, I think. Slowly." Maggie stirred two lumps of sugar in her coffee. She'd put on weight since Christmas, and new lines were etched around her mouth. "I never knew how she felt. Bill and I were so happy, so absorbed in each other, and Beth Ann felt totally left out. Unloved . . . God, Jean, how could I make my own daughter feel unloved?"

  "You didn't do it intentionally, Maggie. You're being too hard on yourself."

  "That's what Dr. Walters says."

  "He's right. You should listen to him."

  They sipped in silence while rain pattered against the windows.

  "Everything's going to turn out all right, Maggie."

  "I hope so. I really hope so." Maggie finished her coffee, then gathered the cups and put them in the dishwasher. With her back to Jean, she asked, "How are things with you?"

  "I'm afraid we're not going to make it, Maggie."

  "Yes, you will. All you have to do is hang in there. Paul will come around."

  "I don't know anymore whether I want him to come around."

  "Jean!" Maggie spun around. "How can you say that, after all you've been through?"

  "Look, Maggie. We've both tried. God knows, we have. But it's simply not working."

  "Give it time, Jean."

  "How long, Maggie. A year? Two years? Ten?" Jean stood up and gathered her purse. "The fact is, there's something essential missing between Paul and me, and all the time in the world's not going to put it back."

  "Do you still love him, Jean?"

  Jean swallowed the tears she felt clogging her throat. "I don't know, Maggie. I don't know."

  Maggie squeezed her hand. "You'll be okay, Jean."

  "So will you."

  As they walked together, arms linked, to Jean's car, she prayed that it would be so ... for both of them.

  o0o

  Jo Lisa stood on the beach staring out over the ocean. With the rain beating down on her head, she relived the past.

  Dead. Brett was dead.

  She pictured him guiding the car over the beach, deliberately shutting her out of his mind as he headed toward the water.

  Dead.

  She pictured the look of surprise on his face as the first wave caught the car and pulled him toward his watery grave.

  Had he tried to escape? At the very last minute did he remember that he loved her and try to turn his car around and drive back toward the shore?

  She'd lied to her sister. She'd loved Brett. Not in the beginning. At first it had been a game with her, a game to prove to herself that she was better than her sister, at least in this one way.

  Struggling under the burden of a sick child and a wife who spent most of her energy in child care, Brett had been ripe for the picking.

  And she'd picked him.

  Every time he'd been alone, she was there waiting for him. She'd worn clothes to entice him, lavished compliments on him, flirted outrageously with him..

  She remembered their first time. It had been in the front seat of his car. They'd left the rest of the family and gone to pick up hamburgers. It had been dark and raining.

  She'd moved close, rubbed her hands on his legs.

  "Jo Lisa . . . Stop that." Playfully he had slapped her hands away.

  "Why?" She ran a fingernail down his zipper. "Don't you like it, Brett?"

  "I like it, Jo Lisa. I like it too much." They stared at each other, and the windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm in the rain.

  Suddenly he swerved onto a back road, racing the car recklessly over potholes and mud holes until they came to a small turnoff into the trees.

  They grabbed at each other. Hunger made them wild, guilt made them desperate. Then afterward they’d pulled apart and stared straight ahead.

  "Jo Lisa. I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me."

  "I don’t either.” That was only partially true. She’d wanted him to like her, but has she really meant to go that far?

  “Susan can never know.”

  “She won’t hear it from me.”

  "Promise?"

  "I promise."

  They straightened their clothes, and he started the car.

  "It won't happen again, Jo Lisa."

  They'd both known it would, even then.

  And it had, repeatedly. They were wild for each other. Once they'd even made furtive love in the bathroom at Bessie's house while the whole family sat around the dining room table eating turkey.

  She'd loved him all right, and he'd loved her, loved her to death. His death. In the end he hadn't been able to bear the guilt. He'd spared Susan the pain of saying good-bye, but he hadn't spared Jo Lisa. They'd made love on her bed with the windows open and the smells of spring filling the room.

  "I'm leaving, Jo Lisa."

&nb
sp; "Where are you going?"

  "Leaving and never coming back."

  With her skirt hiked over her hips and her rhinestone buttons pressing into his chest, she'd tried to make him forget all the reasons he had for going. And when it was all over, she knew she'd failed.

  He'd held her face in his hands and gazed into her eyes.

  "Jo Lisa, I can't decide if hell is in leaving you or in keeping you." He'd kissed her softly on the lips and walked away without looking back.

  Jo Lisa knelt on the beach and picked a seashell out of the sand. Its pearly pink center gleamed in the palm of her hand. Still wearing her high heels she walked out into the sound and washed the seashell. Waves lapped at her ankles and sand sucked at her shoes. On the horizon she could see the outlines of the barrier islands. They seemed deceptively close, as if she might walk there.

  For a moment Jo Lisa thought about keeping on walking. The water would eventually close over her head and the tides would carry her away, perhaps to the same place they'd carried Brett. Then the two of them could be together, sinners, joined in death.

  She pushed her wet hair back from her face, then felt her cheek. It still stung where Susan had hit her.

  What was she going to do about Susan?

  Slipping the seashell in her pocket, Jo Lisa turned and walked back onto the beach. Overhead a laughing gull called. She took off her shoes and made her way to Beach Boulevard. The rain washed her tracks away so she might never have been there at all.

  Standing on the edge of the beach looking back, Jo Lisa wished it were that easy to erase the past.

  o0o

  Susan arose slowly from her muddy yard and gazed around as if she had stumbled onto enemy territory. Which way to turn? Which way to go?

  She lifted her face, hoping the rain would wash away her hurt. The gesture was futile. Nothing could take away this kind of pain.

  Creeping along as if she were breakable, she went inside and stood under the shower, clothes and all, stood while the water washed the mud down the drain, stood while everything she'd believed in went down the drain with it.

  o0o

  Nurse Cindy O’Connell was on the witness stand. She hated the position she was in – caught between two doctors, both telling a different story.