He waited, and she knew he was hoping to somehow get through to her, somehow make her understand, but she shuffled once more in her bag to escape the truth of his words. It would be so easy to say, yes, she’d been wrong, what did it matter, yet deep inside, as much as she yearned for him, hungered for his touch, the betrayal had been too great.
“But you, Carrie, in your perfect world, you’ll never get that call, will you? You’ll just write it out, won’t you?”
“Is that it? Are you finished? Because I really would like to be alone now.” A sense of loss snaked through her body, an emptiness, a knowledge this love she had found was over.
She held the sight of him for a moment, the creases and lines of his face, the black velvet eyes, the way his hair fell over his brow. She tucked it in the pocket of her memory for some future time she might be able to review it, to think of him.
“No. I want to ask you one other thing, and I’d like you to think on this real hard. When you saw Leigh Anne, when you saw what kind of a woman she was, did you wonder, did you ask yourself how the two of you could have a relationship with the same man? Did you feel so damn superior to her, the mere thought she had been my wife just disgusted you? Is that not the real reason you fled? I mean, if she had been some upper class beauty, you wouldn’t have minded that little white lie, would you? But it really bothered you to see some worn out, rough looking gal—”
“Oh, you are such a frigging psychologist, aren’t you, Ray? You have a frigging answer for everything.” She threw her tissue into a bin as the anger came out like an abscess releasing its pus. “You’re such a great psychiatrist and mind-reader—oh, and father—you don’t even see what’s going on in front of your own eyes.”
Confusion crossed his face. “What’s going on in front of my eyes? What’s that supposed to mean? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Jake, and I’m talking about Robbie, Ray. Jake came to me because he couldn’t go to you, couldn’t hurt you with what he had to say, what he wanted to get off his chest for so long. He wanted to be able to tell you it wasn’t because of you Robbie joined the army, it was because of him…only he couldn’t tell you the truth behind it because he knew it would hurt you so.”
“What truth? What are you talking about?”
Carrie hesitated, knowing the pain it would cause him, even now reluctant to let him hurt like that. Indecision twisted her insides, yet Jake’s secret could no longer be kept—for all their sakes. She lowered her voice. “Robbie was in trouble, Ray. He’d been running drugs up from Mexico—”
“You’re lying!” he shouted.
“You think so? Well,” she said backing away from him, escaping the anger and pain etched on his face. “Ask Jake. You think you have two perfect sons, don’t you? You think serving in the army makes every man absolutely honest and true. Well, Jake’s been protecting you from knowing this for…what? Five years now? Jake loves you so much, Ray. To protect you from knowing about Robbie, he’s got himself into trouble with that Ty. But, oh, yes,” she said gathering a cutting edge to her voice, “what do I know? I only create perfect worlds. I can only deal with those.” She waited as he stared at her, stared uncomprehending, not wanting to believe anything she said. “Are you going to leave now or shall I call security?”
Ray opened the door and stood with his hand still on the handle. His gaze met hers before he glanced around the hotel room, suddenly aware of the contrast between Carrie’s expensive luggage standing on the cheap carpet, her cashmere sweater flung over the regulation hotel chair, her expensive cosmetics strewn over the nylon bedspread.
“What was it, Carrie, that possessed you to stay here for a night?” The sense of loss that had been evident had given in to spite. “Airlines didn’t have any first class tickets left? Only economy until tomorrow?”
“Get out!”
****
Arriving home in the late evening from Austin, Jake thought nothing of the fact the house was dark. His father and Carrie occasionally went out to eat, or for an evening ride, leaving him to eat whatever Mabel had left for them. But there was something eerie this time about the quiet, something almost too black about the dark. He strolled down to the stables to just check the horses.
Creaking open the stable door, his gaze traveled down the row of stalls and found all the horses accounted for, but he couldn’t shake himself of the feeling something was wrong.
He sauntered back to the house, wondering whether his dad was going to be sitting there in the dark again, Carrie asleep, but there was no Dad, no Carrie. The pickup wasn’t out front. A good sign. But then neither was Carrie’s rental car. He flicked on the lights, headed into the kitchen to start getting the grub together, but was hit by the odor of cigarette smoke hanging in the air like an uninvited guest. A washed ashtray sat there on the drying rack. Jake stared at it several seconds while his brain churned around and he tried to make sense of it. Could be a number of people who come to the house. But most wouldn’t smoke inside. He lifted it, turning it around in his hands as if there might be evidence of the user of this object, then placed it back down and strode down the hall.
The lights in his father’s bedroom made a showcase of the emptiness of it, as if a tide had rolled in taking out debris scattered along a shore. A quick glance in the bathroom confirmed what he feared.
And then his phone rang.
“Jake?” came the voice. “It’s Mike Mulligan. I think you better come and collect your dad. He’s flat out on the floor and there’s no way I want him driving home.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jake’s night had been torturous, and he awoke feeling as if he’d been the one on a binge. He’d managed to get his father home with the help of Mike Mulligan, dragged him down the hall and left him to sleep off his bender. Now, fearing he would never be able to tell the truth about Robbie, the slain Alamo and his own questionable involvements, he made his way wearily down the hall to face his dad.
“You wanna tell me what happened?” he asked his father as he placed a cup of coffee on the bedside table at seven a.m.
Getting up on one elbow, his father stared at him, bloodshot eyes straining at Jake as his dry mouth opened and shut before he could speak. “Why didn’t you tell me, Jake? Why didn’t you tell me ’bout Robbie? And you now…why?”
Jake collapsed onto a chair in a corner facing the bed and grabbed a swallow of his own coffee. A finger of chill ran down his spine despite the hot liquid; numbness paralyzed him. It was out. Out at last. “So, she told you. All right, but tell me first what happened with Carrie. Was Mom here?”
His dad shuffled like a cripple into a sitting position and grated the stubble on his face. “Yeah, Leigh Anne was here. She told Carrie we weren’t divorced and she might want to come back—”
“Would Carrie believe that, that Mom might come back, or that you’d take her back?”
“Carrie thought we were already divorced.” His father reached across for his cup, but his hand was shaking and he dragged it back. “Damn it,” he said. “I said such terrible things to that poor woman, such terrible things.”
He ignored the last remark. “Carrie thought you were already divorced? All this time she thought you were divorced?”
Jake’s tone held his disbelief as his dad slowly nodded in confirmation.
“I told her the first night we met I was divorced—it was just a passing remark to someone I hardly knew. I just never got round to correcting it. What difference could it make? We hadn’t discussed marriage, so it didn’t seem important. It was a matter of time. I’d told her I loved her, Jake. She knew there was no way I was going back to Leigh Anne or was gonna let Leigh Anne come back. I’m sorry to say that to you, ’bout your mama, but there just wasn’t.” He threw his legs over the side and moaned into a full sitting position before reaching again for the coffee, taking it in both hands with a shudder and getting it to his mouth. When he’d managed to put it down, he drove himself to stand and stumble
d around the bed to the bathroom.
Jake waited for the flush before he called out, “You know, I really liked Carrie. I just never understood what you two had in common, how that all worked out.”
His father came back out and stood a second, regaining his balance before making his way back to his cup of coffee. “She’s not who you think she is, Jake. She doesn’t want anything, Carrie. She has all this money and success and it really means nothing to her. I think all she ever wanted was to be loved. I think that was the shock of her husband leaving her. All she wanted was someone to love her for herself. And then she had all this success and everyone just wanted to know Carrie Bennett, the author. Except me. I just wanted Carrie Bennett. And she was so damn easy, you know. She wanted nothing—”
“She wanted nothing because she already had it, Dad.”
“No. She really didn’t want anything. Oh, she loved her house and she loved some things she had, I guess, but she was so easy. Little things pleased her. Not like your mama. Nothing was ever good enough for Leigh Anne. Nothing I ever did, no matter how hard I tried, could ever please that woman. But Carrie...it was the difference between night and day.” He grimaced again. “Why was that white lie so important? It was only a matter of time.”
“So, why don’t you go after her?”
His father shook his head as a flash of pain creased his face. “I did go after her—I followed her to the airport hotel where she was staying. That’s when she told me ’bout you and Robbie. And—oh, Lord. I said such awful things, Jake. We both did. I think we need to give it time to heal. Such terrible things were said. And I need to clear things up here. With you. We need to get this out now, Jake. Once and for all. What you’ve been carrying around with you like...like some poison eating you up, slowly running through your system. You think I didn’t notice? I don’t know what I ever did to you to make me seem so unapproachable, but I’m sorry as hell for it.”
Jake sat staring into the pool of his coffee cup for several moments. “I don’t know either, Dad. Really I don’t. It wasn’t ever anything you did, that’s for sure. I just didn’t want to disappoint you, I guess. And I didn’t want you to think you had failed us somehow, that Robbie doing what he did somehow reflected on you. It didn’t. I just didn’t want you drinking again either.” He listened to his father’s snort at this. “Can you promise me this is the end, now? You want Carrie back, but you can be sure as hell she won’t walk on back through that door if she has an inkling you’re drinking. You stopped once. You can do it again.”
His dad lifted his coffee to his lips and peered at Jake before he stared into the cup as if it could tell his future. “It’s a deal. I’ll go back to AA,” he said as he took a sip and put it back down. “Now, tell me the whole damn story.”
****
Carrie threw the suitcase on the bed and collapsed beside it. For the entire flight and taxi ride to her apartment, she had sat, zombie-like, an empty shell, a tree stripped of its leaves. There was such a vacancy, such hollowness, a vacuum inside, it was impossible to think. Talk, at check-in, with the flight attendant, with the taxi driver, and the doormen at her building, who cheerily greeted her, had been so sparse and monosyllabic, they probably thought her unconscionably rude. She went through the journey on automatic pilot, more than bereft, more than empty. She had aged one hundred years in less than a day. In short, she might as well have been dead.
If loneliness were the problem, she could call any one of several friends, starting with Diana Shawcross, and they would come running to her side within the hour. But she didn’t wish to see anyone, didn’t want to talk. Her feeling of betrayal, of abandonment, was so complete, all she now wanted was sleep. Sleep, and to hide herself away, hibernate for a very long time, because that would stop her brain going, would stop her rewinding the scene in the hotel room.
Had she and Ray really said such horrible things to each other? Ray, who was always so laidback and even-tempered, who always saw the funny side of a situation, who had been so affectionate and caring, had shouted at her, had criticized her and, worst of all, had lied.
And she had hurt him in return, and for what? Why? Had one white lie been so truly terrible? Was there really such a huge difference between the Ryders being separated, on the verge of divorce while obviously living apart, to being actually divorced?
“I don’t think that was it,” later ventured Paige, who patiently listened to the whole sorry tale while Carrie sobbed to her over the phone. “I don’t think that was it at all.”
“Then what was it?”
“It was because you felt you belonged there, Ray was yours, life there was yours, and suddenly that stupid woman came along and told you otherwise, so you felt threatened. And I guess you then blamed Ray for having put you in that position, for having not protected you.”
She could hear some music in the background and Paige speaking to someone else in a lower voice.
“What are you doing?” Her tone was suddenly alert.
“I’m learning how to make Welsh Rarebit. Or maybe it’s Welsh Rabbit. I’m not sure.” There was a load of giggles to follow.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were having guests or whatever.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother. Deirdre and I are just grabbing a quick dinner before heading back to the books. It’s only cheese sauce on toast really.”
“I know what Welsh Rarebit is, Paige.”
It suddenly struck Carrie she was alone on this one, no one had the answer, the answer had to come from her or Ray.
“Look, I better let you get on. I’m sorry. I think I might go out to the beach tomorrow.”
“You’ll be cold and miserable. And there’s no one there.” There was a second’s silence. “I know you like it there out of season, but I really think it’s better for you to be in the city with friends at the moment.”
“I don’t want to see friends, Paige. I’m going to have to make some revisions on the book soon. They’re trying to rush this one through. I might as well be out there in the peace and quiet.”
“Have it your way,” her daughter said with some resignation, if not disinterest. “But remember, you’re going someplace where Ray has been. He’ll haunt you.”
“He’ll haunt me wherever I go. He’s in my head.”
“Well, I really feel you ought to phone Ray and talk to him. Try to sort things out. You love the man, and he loves you. This is just…really stupid.”
“No, Paige. No, it isn’t. It’s sad is what it is. Sad it’s happened, and sad it can’t be fixed. You can’t take back a lie, and you can’t take back all those horrible things we said. It’s not as if they are floating around and can somehow be swallowed again, and the memories aren’t going to go away. It’s over.”
****
When Jake had finished telling his father about Robbie, Lucinda, Ty and himself, just the way he had told Carrie a couple of weeks before, his dad said the same thing she had said, came to the same conclusion to go to the sheriff.
“Well, this puts me in one helluva position, Jake.” Dex played with a pencil while listening to his story, tapping the eraser on some papers every so often and then doing baton twirls around his fingers. He tapped it down several times now, eyeing Jake with a thoughtful squint across the expanse of the cheap metal desk in his office. The caterpillars above his eyes danced as he peered at him. “See, it’s like this now. You’ve admitted to a crime. You speculate Ty Sheldon has killed your dog in retribution for not continuing to commit this crime—a felony—but, as you know, we have no proof of this, nor do I have proof Ty has them drugs or is dealing them. See what I mean? All I know for sure from this conversation is what you’ve admitted to doing yourself.”
“You know damn well, Dex, Ty has dealt drugs,” interrupted his dad. He shifted uncomfortably on his folding chair from the corner.
With the odor of stale coffee and musty air, his father’s gut would be churning, but then, so was Jake’s—but for different reason
s.
“He’s been charged before and he’s out on parole now,” his father continued.
“I know,” countered Dex. “But we have no proof he’s done it again. See, it’s Jake’s word here against Ty’s, if I ignore the fact of his confession. It’s just Jake saying he thinks Ty has drugs. What good is that? I can get a search warrant, but you know sure as hell, Ray, there ain’t gonna be no drugs in his place. He’s too damn smart for that. And now, if Jake here is confessing to bringing in drugs across the border, he’s gonna be in a mess of trouble, so what do you want me to do? What the hell am I supposed to do with this bit of news?”
The silence was punctuated by the drone of a fly. Dex got to his feet, grabbed a spiral-bound notebook from his desk, and took a wild swat at the insect, leaving a bloody mark on the institutional green wall.
“Anyway,” he went on as he lowered himself back into his rickety desk chair, “I’m not even sure I can get a search warrant. ‘On what grounds’ is what the judge would ask me. So, all I could do is tell him on the basis of Jake’s confession. I cain’t lie. Is that what you want? We’re opening a whole dang can of worms here.” He tapped his pencil several times, eyeing Jake once more. “You should of brought a lawyer with you, Ray, you know that.”
“I been dealing with enough dang lawyers over the past few months. We don’t need another one.”
Dex turned back to Jake. “How much marijuana did you say you brought in?”
He shrugged. “’Bout a five pound loaf I’d think. I fit it in my satchel, so it couldn’t have been much.”
“Well.” The sheriff grunted and leaned forward a bit. “It could mean two years in jail and a ten thousand dollar fine. So, that ‘not much’ could cost you some. It’s a felony, Jake.” The chair creaked as he sat back again. “’Course, the fact you came on in here to admit it of your own free will when you could’ve gone and got away with it, and the fact you’re a Vet and served your country would weigh pretty heavy in your favor, I’d say. But I can’t swear to that. Nothing is certain. Depends on what judge you get and what mood he—or she—is in that day. Man wakes up and has an argument with his wife, it sorta puts a whole different shine on the day. You see what I mean? You committed a felony and that, as they say, is that.” His gaze danced from one to the other. “So, what do y’all want to do?”
Dances of the Heart Page 22
