by Nancy Rue
“Like I said, I’m giving it a few more weeks. Making sure I don’t show any symptoms of post traumatic stress. Meanwhile, I’m finding things to do. Speaking of which—you hungry?”
Ethan frowned. “Not if you’re cooking.”
“Ouch. Come on, I’ve got geoduck marinating.”
“I hope you cook it better than you pronounce it. It’s gooey duck, not gee-oh duck.” Ethan’s smile spread, crinkling his eyes. “Let me take you to supper. I don’t need your miracle cure for appetite.”
“That hurts, sir,” Sully said. “That really hurts.”
There were not one, not even two, but four vintage automobiles parked in front of the fish house Ethan pulled up to. Sully let out a long, slow whistle.
A 1967 silver Corvette Stingray. A cherry red ’57 Ford Fairlane. A Camaro Supersport, 1966, blue. And a gold 1966 Pontiac GTO. Black vinyl top.
“I knew you’d like this place,” Ethan said. “They all come here.”
“They” were hard to pick out once Sully followed Ethan inside. The restaurant was dimly lit except for the candles in glass buoys, encased in fishnet, that reflected off the vinyl tablecloths. As far as Sully could tell, there was one of every kind of person drinking from plastic tumblers and licking their fingers as they ate fried onion rings, shiny with grease.
When they’d slid into a booth and Ethan had ordered a platter of what he referred to ruefully as “cholesterol on the half shell,” Sully peered out the window at the Oldsmobile.
“Somebody’s done a nice job with that,” he said. “What do you want to bet it has the original tuck-and-roll upholstery?”
“Is that good?” Ethan said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You should know. You used to spend hours on your cars.”
Sully nodded at the waitress, who set two mugs and a pot of coffee on their table.
“We’re taking a trip down memory lane.”
“Have fun with that,” she said. She winked at Ethan.
When she left, Sully nudged Ethan’s hand. “I see the women still flirt with you shamelessly.”
“She knows who’s leaving the tip. You work on cars anymore?”
Sully shook his head and poured the coffee. “No time. You take two sugars, right?”
“Black these days. Too bad.”
“What is?” Sully said.
“I know of a ’64 Chevy Impala going up for auction this next week. Estate sale. It would give you something to do while you’re monitoring yourself for whatever—”
“PTSD.” Sully sipped at the coffee and surveyed Ethan through the steam. Kaye’s look was pointed.
“Anything to entice me into staying here so I can see this woman,” Sully said. “Right?”
“All right, I admit it. From what I hear—and what I know of you personally—I really believe you could help her, Sully.”
“You know this is ironic, don’t you?”
“How?”
“You’re the one who tried to talk me out of going into psychology. And ‘talk’ might be too mild a word.”
Ethan cupped his hands around his mug, and Sully mentally kicked himself. Over the years he’d become proficient at steering Ethan away from this topic, and now he’d practically driven him there himself.
“I thought it was too soon after Lynn,” Ethan said.
“Now that I’m over,” Sully said.
“I want to believe that. Then you tell me you nearly had a breakdown because you lost a patient, and I have to wonder.”
Sully set his mug firmly on the table. “I was already under a lot of pressure when that went down. I’d taken on too much, hadn’t had a vacation in—well, ever. It was the proverbial last straw, and I had to delegate and get away.”
Ethan took a drag from his coffee.
“This has nothing to do with anything except what it is,” Sully said.
“You’re the psychologist. You didn’t get where you are without knowing your own mind. Which is why—”
“You want me to see your professor friend.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s haunting me. I had to let her resign—I told you.”
“Right.”
“And she has to take the consequences for her actions. I see that.” The line between his eyebrows deepened. “But I feel responsible.”
Sully twitched his lips. “Maybe you’re the one who needs therapy.”
“I might before all this is done.” Ethan glanced across the room. “Let me just say this, and then I’ll leave it alone.”
Sully doubted that, but he nodded.
“This woman is a gifted teacher, and in my view she’s only beginning to get into the depths of her spiritual journey. I’ve seen it over and over—the minute a person starts to get it, genuinely get it, something puts her to the test.”
“So, what if she just didn’t pass?”
“Then she needs another chance.” Ethan looked startled at the vehemence in his own voice and cleared his throat. “I can’t give it to her,” he said. “But you of all people can. And not only because you’re the best in your field. But also because you’ve been where she is.”
Sully frowned into his coffee cup.
“She thinks she is the complete cause of the mess she’s in,” Ethan said. “She’s taking total responsibility, even for the pieces that aren’t her fault. I’m afraid of what that’s going to do to her.”
He put his hand up to stop the waitress, tray teetering, a few feet away. “I was afraid of that for you,” he almost whispered. “You say you’ve gotten past it, and I trust that. Which is why there’s nobody better than you to give this lady another chance at her life.”
Ethan leaned back and gave the waitress a wan smile.
“Looks like that trip down memory lane got a little heavy,” she said.
Sully looked at the heaped-high plates she slid onto the table. “Can you bring us a bucket to wring that shrimp out into?” he said.
“I can tell you’re from the South,” she said, making a less-than-successful attempt at an Alabama accent. “So don’t be telling me you can’t handle a little grease.” She winked at him this time. “I’ll get you some extra napkins.”
Sully examined a tangled pile of fried-ness. “Is this calamari?”
Ethan didn’t answer. Sully looked up.
“She has a thirteen-year-old daughter,” Ethan said.
“Who, the waitress?”
“Dr. Costanas. For what it’s worth.”
Sully stabbed his fork into a gleaming breaded shrimp. “I’ll think about it, all right?”
“That’s all I wanted to hear.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I didn’t go to church that Sunday. Rich hadn’t been for over a year, but for me to miss would signal I was trapped under something heavy.
I knew people would question Christopher and Jayne and they’d have to hedge and lie, but those same folks were less likely to guess the truth from my absence than they would from my son sitting beside me in a pew, casting judgmental looks to rival the Reverend Jonathan Edwards. Christopher still made it no secret he considered me the ultimate sinner in the hands of an angry God.
So I opted to stay home when he left with Jayne, looking as she had for days—like she’d been shot but she didn’t know how to fall down.
I wanted to help her, but she had a moat around her I could have swum in if she’d let me get close enough—but not with Christopher as her self-appointed bodyguard, shielding her from the evil mother. I wondered as I stood chopping onions that Sunday morning if he thought she might catch adultery from me.
When Zach was making me feel like I deserved the pleasure he gave me, I tried to find another name for it, but even the Bible wouldn’t let me. One of the few times Jesus even talked about marriage was to mention that a spouse was justified in divorcing an unfaithful partner.
That had driven me to break it off. I didn’t want to blatantly defy God. I didn’t want a divorce. I didn’t want to m
ake Rich hurt.
That same fear and guilt and shame kept me making perfect hospital corners on the beds and ironing the boxer shorts and cooking three meals a day whether anyone ate them or not. It was my reason for peeling potatoes and wondering where I’d put the garlic press.
This meal might put Rachael Ray to shame, but I knew it would do nothing to assuage the guilt. I hoped that stew by pie by cheese-drenched casserole I could convince my family I loved them and was going to spend the rest of my life proving it.
The pot roast bubbled on the stove and an applesauce cake was taking golden shape in the oven when I heard Christopher’s pickup roar into the driveway. The way he screeched to a stop was over the top, even for him.
I listened as he slammed every door between himself and me, until he stood before me, breathing like a locomotive. Jayne crept in silently and looked around as if she were searching for an escape hatch.
“Is this him?” Christopher said and slapped a newspaper onto the counter. When I saw the picture on the front page, I stopped breathing.
Zach’s official faculty photo, his eyes bright in his intelligent face, totally unaware of the turmoil surrounding him. I felt an unfamiliar flicker of anger, which whipped into fear when I read the headline: MISSING PROF PROVOKES QUESTIONS.
“It doesn’t mention you sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I looked at Christopher. Only two hot spots of red at the tops of his cheekbones colored his dead-white face.
“I’m only worried for you all,” I said.
Christopher thumped Zach’s picture with his fingers. “So this is the guy you cheated on Dad with.”
I opened my mouth, and then I closed it, because I could feel Rich behind me prickling nettles up the back of my neck.
“Chris, throw that in the fire,” he said.
He was between Jayne and any viable means of escape. She slipped up onto a counter stool and wrapped her long, loose skirt tight around her legs and the stool’s. I wanted to pick her up and carry her out of there. I wanted us both out of there. I didn’t have to look to know that Rich had finally reached his boiling point.
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Let’s burn it and get on with our life.”
“What life?”
I did have to look then, to see whether that had come from my husband or my son. Rich’s face was so hard it frightened me.
“Are they writing about our so-called life in the Sunday paper now?”
“There’s nothing about us in there, Dad,” Christopher said. “Not yet anyway.”
“Stop this, Christopher,” I said.
“What do you expect him to do?” Rich’s voice descended to a dark place.
Jayne whimpered.
“I think you and I should take this upstairs,” I said to Rich.
“Oh—so suddenly you want to protect the kids.” He took a step toward me. “Let me tell you something, Demitria—if you gave a flip about Jayne and Chris, you would have paid attention to them, you would have been here, instead of giving those college kids everything that belonged to our children.”
His finger was in my face, his breath hot on me. I thought wildly that he might hit me. It was the first time the idea had ever crossed my mind.
“Can you look me in the eye and honestly say that if you hadn’t been so wrapped up in that college and your career and those kids, that this ever would have happened?”
I couldn’t say that or anything else. My heart throbbed in my throat.
Rich hissed. “I don’t know—maybe you would have.”
He snatched up the paper and glared into Zach’s face. The anger in his eyes glittered and hardened until it wasn’t anger anymore, but cold hatred.
“Christopher,” I said. “Would you and Jayne please go on upstairs?”
“You want us to, Dad?” Christopher said.
Rich wiped the newspaper from the counter with the side of his hand, narrowly missing Jayne, who sat still as a cocoon on her stool.
“You’re not the woman I married.” Rich snarled toward the face now mocking him from the floor. “I thought you were on my side.”
Once again I looked at Christopher. “You and Jayne, upstairs.”
“No need—we’re through here,” Rich said. “I’m going to go stay at the station.”
“Why should you leave?” Christopher said.
Rich turned from the doorway, chest rising and falling like lava. Panic seized me.
“She’s the one who screwed up.” Christopher jabbed a thumb at me, and for an instant the son who looked like me was the image of his father. “I don’t see how you can teach Bible classes and miss the whole part about adultery. It’s like a major theme.”
“I know, Christopher,” I said. “Your father and I have already been through this.”
“Yeah, but I still don’t think you get it.” He tossed his blonde hair back. “We can’t pretend this never happened. It’s like you want to say you’re sorry and have us all say, ‘That’s okay, Mom,’ and then— I don’t know—” He wafted a hand toward the pot on the stove. “We sit down to Sunday dinner like the Brady Bunch.”
“All right,” I said. “I think that’s enough.”
Christopher made a sound with his breath, the kind that wiped out all conclusions but his own. “You gave up the right to decide what’s enough for me when you stopped acting like a mother.”
I yanked every tendon whipping my head toward Rich. He said nothing. He didn’t even look up from the newspaper, now scattered across the kitchen floor like streamers from a party gone terribly awry.
“You know what, Dad?” Christopher said. “If you go, I go. I’m not staying here with her. Jayne shouldn’t either.”
Still nothing. No reaction from Rich as our life went through the shredder.
“Jayne and I are on your side.”
Like a fingernail across a chalkboard, a line was scraped almost audibly between us, between me and my family. My husband was wrestling with his hatred and losing. My precious daughter sat staring at the countertop, face like an eggshell. One more angry word and she would crack into tiny pieces.
“Nobody’s leaving,” I said, “except me. It isn’t fair for you to have to leave, Rich. And until we can all get a handle on our feelings we can’t talk about this the way we need to.”
I heard myself speak. I watched myself pack a suitcase. I felt Jayne’s cold cheek against my lips when I kissed her good-bye. I saw Rich’s silhouette in our bedroom window as I pulled out of the driveway, and I knew the stubborn set of his shoulders.
But it could not have been the real me who left her own home and drove to the Suquamish Clearwater Hotel in Poulsbo and checked herself in. The real me didn’t have a family that would let her go.
All I could think of as I lay pulsing with fear on a hotel bed that night was that nobody had tried to stop me.
CHAPTER NINE
Dr. Ethan Kaye was at his best, Sully decided, when he managed a set-up without saying a word. The sign on the easel outside the tent read ESTATE AUCTION: PROPERTY OF EDITH ALLEN ESTES. Sully had to give his old friend credit.
He had already salivated over the ’64 Chevrolet Impala on blocks that Ethan had sent him here to see. Holy crow—according to the sheet it didn’t run and hadn’t for ten years, but the body was perfect: no dents, no dings, no rust spots. A little buffing out, and she’d be a thing of beauty. He was so ready to get under that baby’s hood he could already feel the wrench in his hand.
The fact that it was being sold by the Estes family—that was Ethan Kaye at work. Sully grinned and ducked into the tent. No doubt this was the same Estes Ethan was battling it out with at the college. He and that other character—what was his name, Saint Bernard?—the two of them were clearly out for Ethan’s job. Jackals.
All right. He owed Ethan anyway. He could get the lay of the land for him.
Sully took a paddle from the young woman inside, who looked like she’d rather be elsewhe
re having a root canal.
“You know how to use this?” she said, face impassive. Only her string-of-beads earrings moved. Even the highlights in her hair stayed motionless as if they’d been ordered to.
“We’re playing Ping Pong, right?”
“Funny.” She appeared to be beyond eye rolling. “Will you be bidding?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sully said.
“Do you know how?”
“I do.”
“Then sit anywhere,” she said, and waited, clearly done with him.
Sully noticed after he sat down that all the women running the gig were the in-control type. Although he was sure there were a few hired hands mixed in, the core of them had to be of the same breed, possibly Estes. Every mane was some shade of yellow, though Sully was sure most of them hadn’t seen a natural blonde strand in their dos in decades. They all moved fast, as if they didn’t have time for any nonsense, but he was still struck by their eyes, large, blue, and sardonic.
He stretched himself up to full viewing height and checked out the crowd. Ethan said Wyatt Estes was a successful businessman, so Sully wouldn’t expect him to be here overseeing the auctioning off of a relative’s china. Still, he couldn’t help scoping for a man who looked like he had big bucks and a college on a yo-yo string. He didn’t see any guys like that—but the Estes women all fit that description. Including Paddle Girl, who appeared to be giving some poor man bidding instructions. Holy crow. If he didn’t get it within the next seven seconds, she was going to slice him open with those eyes.
Interesting. She had a layer right beneath that smooth surface that might erupt occasionally—but Sully’s guess was she never got it all the way out. He grunted. He could never resist a quick analysis.
Paddle Girl faded into the background when the bidding started for the Impala. There were a few lowballers who obviously only hoped for parts. Sully cringed at the thought of her being ripped up. A few of them made ridiculous bids but fell off, muttering to each other when two serious buyers jumped to attention. They apparently knew the potential of the lady and hung in as long as they could—until Sully grew tired of playing and jumped it to $5,000.
