Marilee didn’t think it would be very nice to say that Willie Lee had money. She reached over and took his hand. “Be here in his life, Stuart, whenever you can. We welcome you.”
Stuart looked at her, and then stared at the floor. “I guess that’s still the one thing I can’t do, any more than I ever could. You see, I don’t have long to live.”
Marilee wondered if she had heard correctly. Surely not.
He was looking at her.
“What?” She drew her hand from his.
“I’m dying, Marilee. I have maybe six weeks to three months.”
He gazed at her for some moments, in which she stared at him, having no idea of what to say; in fact, a certain roaring began in the back of her brain and spread to her ears, so that she heard his voice just above it, as he told her that he had an incurable cancer, already spread to his liver and other places, and that even if he could have been offered treatment, he wouldn’t have taken it, because what sort of life would he be given?
Of all the things he might have said to her, of all the things she had imagined, such as him walking out without a word and not returning, or him going crazy and running off with Willie Lee—only she had never really believed this, simply thought it up in angry moments—or getting a phone call to tell her he had dropped dead out on some photo-shoot in the far reaches of Tibet or glitzy Monaco, this was one thing she had not imagined.
So why had he come back? She listened as he told her, in a roundabout fashion. She listened, and she looked at the coffeepot and cups on the tray he had brought in, and she thought of the colorful bouquet that sat now on the kitchen table, and the brand-new washer and dryer, which she was using almost maniacally, and the giant vase of roses. And the way he had danced with her.
Thinking of all these things, the roaring grew louder in her ears and her hands knotted into fists in her lap.
“My father died of cancer,” he told her, his face drawn and his eyes on the coffee table. “In a nursing home. I went to see him. He was in a bed pushed against a wall.”
He looked at her. “I didn’t understand anything then. I didn’t understand that the way I lived was the same way he had lived, not forming any attachments, and that then in the end, there isn’t anyone. I don’t know how I’ll face that. I don’t know how I’ll face any of this.”
So he had come to her. And brought presents.
He gazed at the coffee table.
“What do you want from me?” said Marilee, who sat with her spine ramrod straight, her hands in fists in her lap.
His head came up. He frowned and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I just thought that I wanted to see you…and Willie Lee.”
He looked at her, at her hands. “I know I don’t deserve anything from you, Marilee. God knows, I know I’m asking a lot, but…I was hoping to just be with you, as much as I can.”
“You are hoping to be with me.”
An uncertain expression passed over his features.
“I am getting married, Stuart. In one month.”
He nodded, again looking pitiful. “I know,” he said in a hoarse, low tone. Then he chuckled. “If I could have, I would have had better timing.”
She counted to ten, but the words came out anyway. “We are divorced, Stuart. We have been divorced for nine years. I am marrying another man. I am going to be his wife. I don’t quite know how I can say to him, ‘Oh, by the way, my ex-husband needs me to be with him for the first months of our marriage.”’
It was sarcasm, and it cut like a knife. She saw him wince, as if from a blow. She hated herself for allowing her anger to have control. Compassion fought for a place, but so did the urge to lift the sofa cushion and beat the living daylights out of him.
“I have Willie Lee and Tate and Corrine to think of. And my own life, Stuart. I’m not putting all of us aside for you. I’m not doing it.”
She was on her feet and speaking loudly with the last of it. Totally at a loss, she turned and strode around the couch and into her bedroom, where she managed to keep herself from slamming the door, at the last minute thinking of the children.
She plopped down on the bed; then after a minute, she got up and checked the drawer of her bedside table for some chocolate. Finding none, she slammed the drawer closed.
She paced for some minutes; then, turning out the light, she lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She thought she heard the front door open and close, but she wasn’t certain, and wasn’t about to open the door and look and possibly have to face him again. She felt imprisoned in her own bedroom. She felt as if she could hardly breathe, and as if she, too, were fighting for her life.
She tossed and turned and cried into the pillow. She reached for the phone half a dozen times but did not call Tate. She didn’t want to wake him. She wondered at him not calling when he came in, but likely he had come in late, figured she would be asleep and decided not to wake her.
Her not calling him was more than not wanting to wake him. It was shame at her attitude. Shame at showing her anger at a dying man. Surely Tate would think her heartless. Or else he would be outraged at Stuart, and she couldn’t bear that.
Stuart did not mean that he wanted to be with her. What he meant was that he didn’t want to be alone. He had come to her to take care of him, as he had always done. To use her. And his presents had been bribes, not presents at all.
He was dying.
What concern was it of hers? She was getting married. She had a new life ahead of her with a wonderful man who didn’t deserve to be put second.
But Stuart was the father of her son. He was a fellow human who needed help in a horrible trial. He had no one else.
What about Tate and Willie Lee and Corrine? What about their lives? Was everyone simply to put their own lives on hold for this man who had never cared about anyone or anything but himself?
What about my own life?
The pillowcase and bed sheet were damp with her tears and sweat. She dragged herself up and slid down on her knees beside the bed. Folding her hands together, she rested her forehead on them and prayed, “Help me, God. Help me to know what to do, and to do it.”
Crawling on hands and knees, she got back into the bed and slept at last.
Twenty-One
Life lessons…
She awoke and lay there for timeless moments, staring at the grey first light filtering through the window blinds. Then, like one awakening from the dead, she drew herself up from the warm bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and slid her feet into slippers and her body into her robe. She looked at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Even in the dim light she could see that her eyes looked like slits in a cantaloupe.
She was at the kitchen table, sitting with a steaming mug of coffee in two hands, when Tate came in the back door. He stopped in the laundry room doorway, regarding her with surprise.
“You’re up.”
“Yes,” Marilee croaked in a hoarse voice. She had to admire that Tate was made of stern stuff to smile at her, with her looking like the wrath of God.
He came over, bringing with him the aromas of mocha and sweet rolls—two bags from the IGA deli. Setting the bags on the table, he kissed her quickly. “I can’t stay. I’ve got the Methodist men’s breakfast meeting this mornin’. I forgot all about it, until Pastor Smith called me to remind me that I was speakin’.”
She nodded. She caught the warm, adoring light in his eyes and had to look away.
“I’ll see you down at the paper later,” he said, in a gently lowered voice, as if respectful that she was not fully awake. He knew her well. He tenderly kissed her forehead and left, closing the back door softly behind him.
In her mind, she raced to the door to call him back and to pour out her situation to him. In reality, she sat, knowing, for one thing, that she was incapable of fast movement.
Oh, she wished she had been able to tell him about Stuart. At the same time, she was relieved not to have to speak of it just yet.
> Such thinking was too much for so early in the morning. She tossed the rest of her coffee down the sink, poured the mocha from the deli’s foam cup into her blue earthenware one and carried the sweet brew into the bath.
She ate a Hershey’s Kiss and opened another while she looked up the number for the Goodnight Motel and dialed. A craggy voice answered.
“May I have Stuart James’s room, please?” She had no idea at all of what she would say to him. Some sort of apology seemed in order, although she was feeling a rising urge to beat him with the telephone receiver.
“Whats’zat?”
She raised her voice. “Stuart James’s room, please.”
“Wait a minute.”
She waited.
A woman’s voice came on the line. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to Stuart James’s room, please.” That sounded silly. She wanted him, not the room. She really didn’t want him. Possibly she wouldn’t get him.
“I’m sorry, he’s not here.”
She gripped the receiver. “Do you know when he’ll be back? Can I leave a message for him?”
“He isn’t comin’ back. He checked out this mornin’.”
“Oh. Did he leave a forwarding address…a number where he can be reached?” Speaking to him had become imperative to her.
“No. There’s no reason for him to do that, I don’t guess. Is this Marilee James?”
“Yes.”
“Well, honey, your ex’s done gone. I’m sorry. But I want to tell you how much we enjoy your pieces in the paper. That series you did on detention centers was real interestin’. Our nephew is out here in this one that just opened. He goes home on the weekends.”
“Thank you…thank you very much.” Just as she replaced the receiver, she realized the woman had still been talking. She felt so rude.
She only realized she had been sitting for some moments at her desk when Corrine came up beside her and said in a small voice, “Are you all right, Aunt Marilee?”
She saw that Corrine had the anxious expression she had so often worn during the first months upon coming to live with them, and which could on occasion still crop up. No child should have so much nameless anxiety.
“I’m just fine, honey.” She put her arm around Corrine and hugged her. Then, knowing security came only from honesty, she said, “I have a problem, but it isn’t anything you can help with, sweetheart, and it is not life-threatening.”
She saw the anxiety ease on the child’s heart-shaped face. “Is it one of those life-lessons, like Aunt Vella sometimes says?”
“Yes, dear…yes, it is.” Marilee chuckled.
“Maybe you should let God handle it,” Corrine said in a helpful manner.
Marilee hugged the dear child again. “I’m trying, honey. I’m tryin’.”
Being with the children always made her feel stronger. Perhaps this was because she determined to appear courageous and not worry them; she was, she thought, as she rounded up children, backpacks, purse, keys and cheerfulness for the drive to school, a good enough actress to win an Oscar.
The children were deposited at school, and that left Marilee alone with her own thoughts, which quickly generated regrets and fears. As she drove to the newspaper, her spirits sank to her toes.
She had been cruel to Stuart. Oh, not in her decision that she could not change her life to suit his, but in her much less than sympathetic response. An angry response, understandable, but not acceptable.
She had to speak to him. The urge came over her so strongly that she realized her eyes kept searching for him along her way, as if she could find him right there on the corner of the IGA parking lot. Oh, God, please let me have the opportunity to make things right. Just how she would accomplish this feat, she wasn’t certain. She only knew that she had to speak to him. To show him that she did care. To right a wrong she had committed.
The hopeful idea popped into her mind as she approached the Voice building that Stuart might have left a message there. She zipped into a space head-in to the curb and strode inside, on the short walk from her Cherokee having come by the absolute certainty that she would find a message from him, because this made perfect sense. Surely he would leave her a message and not just run out on her again.
Now why would she think that? He’d run out before. Running was what he did.
It was earlier than she ever arrived, and Charlotte was the only one present.
“Do I have messages?” Marilee stopped in front of the reception desk.
Charlotte, without a word, handed Marilee one slip of paper. The message was from yesterday afternoon, from Iris out at the MacCoy Green Acres Senior Living Center, who said she would fax in the upcoming report for the March activities.
“Stuart didn’t call this morning?”
Charlotte looked up and blinked. “No.” She looked curious. “What’s the matter?”
Marilee, starting to speak, felt tears well into her eyes, and the lump in her throat choked any words. This amazed her, even as she saw Charlotte’s eyes pop wide. Marilee James never cried, at least not in public.
With Charlotte staring at her, Marilee blinked and swallowed and tried to get herself together.
Then Charlotte was on her feet, saying, “Marilee, I have to quit…. I just can’t stay here around Sandy. I just can’t.” With the last, Charlotte’s face crumpled, and she went into tears, too.
The mention of Charlotte quitting, combined with the sadness over Stuart, caused Marilee’s mind to produce a heavy dark blanket of sadness about the entire state of life on earth, and she burst into full-fledged sobbing. Words came then, on the order of, “Oh, Charlooottte…”
She started around the reception desk, where Charlotte met her, and the two women fell together, sobbing.
Sheriff Neville was coming out of the Main Street Café just as Tate parked head-in to the sidewalk, right beside Marilee’s Cherokee.
“Hey, Editor. How-you this mornin’?” Sheriff Neville shifted the toothpick sticking out from his lips from one corner of his mouth to the other.
“Too good,” said Tate, whatching the toothpick. “I’m a man gettin’ married—weddin’ is still on for March 21.”
“Well, we’ll see.” The sheriff grinned, and the toothpick stayed right in the corner of his lips. “Maybe you’ll come to your senses.”
“Any news for the paper?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Things are right quiet. Oh, tell Marilee that Morley Lund got those skunks cleaned out around his place. We had to go over there yesterd’y and get him to stop usin’ his firearm in the city limits. He misaimed and shot out his neighbor’s garage window and like to have got the man in the behind, too. But before we got there, Morley had sent those skunks runnin’, two of ’em straight to heaven. The vet’s new wife came with humane traps and said she’d see to roundin’ up any more that happened along. She got Mrs. Lund’s prize Pekingese right off the bat.”
By the time he finished, the sheriff, who enjoyed playing the small-town hick to the hilt, was grinning widely.
“Have you ever considered writing up these tales, Neville?”
“I believe that’s your job…but maybe I could help you out on occasion.” Giving a wink, he added, “Adios,” and headed on along the sidewalk, while Tate strode into the Voice, his steps quickened by the sudden, gleaming idea of writing a book based on characters drawn from Valentine. In a flash he had imagined the book and its outstanding cover, and seen himself autographing it for lines miles long. The networks would even come to cover the event.
The fantasy vanished from his mind in the manner of being shot clean to smithereens, however, when he stepped through the glass door and saw Marilee and Charlotte, clinging to each other and crying to beat the band.
The sight of any two women in such behavior would be startling, but with these two usually reserved females, it was immensely unnerving. All sorts of horrible scenarios required to work up this emotional display passed through his imagination.<
br />
God, don’t let it be any of the children. The thought caused a weakening in his knees.
Tate closed the door with enough force to get the women’s attention.
Upon seeing him, they made visible efforts to get hold of themselves. When he finally spoke, he asked in a careful tone, “This isn’t about something happenin’ with one of the children…or your mother, Charlotte?” Better Charlotte’s mother than the children, truth be known; he was a practical man.
Both women shook their heads. Marilee, sniffing, said, “It’s…it’s…oh…” She got two tissues from the box on Charlotte’s desk, handing one to Charlotte.
Feeling a firm hand was needed, he said, “Let’s go into my office and have some coffee.” He took Marilee’s elbow. She was shaking.
Charlotte hung back, so he said, “Charlotte, how about you, too?”
Thankfully she did not argue. Perhaps she was too worn-out from crying.
Tate got three cups of coffee from the pot that Charlotte had already brewed. He was surprised that his hands shook. It was a heck of a note that these women had been able to upset him so much—he, a seasoned journalist who had covered and dealt with all manner of crises, from murders and fatal accidents and riots.
Although, on his own, in his solitary life, he had never been as vulnerable as he was now, as a man who loved a woman and children and friends. Love and connection made a man vulnerable.
He returned to his office. The women sat on each end of the leather couch, dabbing at their eyes with a tissue. As he passed them their coffee, he heard voices entering the City Room. Stepping to his door, he saw June, Imperia and Reggie coming in the rear entrance from the alley. He called to Reggie to please handle the reception desk and phone. “Charlotte’s in conference in here. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
Reggie’s eyes widened, and then she nodded. He shut his door and pulled the visitor chair around to face the couch.
“Now, let’s talk out what is goin’ on here,” he said. “Marilee, why don’t you go first?” He was closer with Marilee and felt he could respond to her easier. He would have to work up to Miss Charlotte.
At the Corner of Love and Heartache Page 23
