I throw his phone back on the bed. Walk to the bathroom and get changed into shorts and a T-shirt and think of Austin’s hand in mine.
I walk out, and Garrison says, “Fuck no. Come on, man. One beer. Then, you can walk back to your room and be alone.”
I grab the volleyball I’d packed, throw it down on the floor, and begin to balance on top of it.
Garrison drops his head forward. “Ugh, come on. Just one.”
“Why do you want me to go so bad?” I push through the pain that’s now settled in my ankles with the balance on the ball.
“Because women—buckle bunnies—will flock to you tonight. They have seen the ride and now the video that has somehow exploded over the internet. I can be your sideshow and get some ass.”
We’ve been riding bulls on the circuit since we were eighteen. Both young and dumb and thinking with the wrong head.
“Fine, just one beer.” I step off the ball and go change into a long-sleeved plaid button-up shirt, Wranglers, the belt buckle my dad gave me when I won my first bull-riding event at eighteen and my black cowboy hat. “Let’s go.”
6
The Ladybugs
It’s early when Erla wakes and walks to the kitchen, makes her coffee, and prays that it won’t be too quiet in the house today. Prays that the city might have road work that includes a jackhammer close to her house or maybe rain or thunder, just so things aren’t so quiet.
She sees the letter she wrote on the counter.
Her resignation letter to The Ladybugs.
Erla wonders if her memory and her irritability are a direct result of grief or if it’s the fact that she’s done with dealing with people’s crap. Life is short—she knows this to be true.
She pours a cup of coffee, sits down in her chair, and waits for the sun to rise.
Life was supposed to be simpler when she got older. Don wasn’t supposed to die before her. They’d agreed one night when they got lost in each other’s arms that he was supposed to outlive her because they both knew Erla simply wasn’t strong enough to withstand the grief.
Don was such a wonderful father to Devon. A father he didn’t have to be and when Devon was born, Toby, her biological father, never asked any questions. He knew he couldn’t be the father that Devon deserved. Erla also knew that she’d never have to ask Toby to sign over parental rights because he was a good man; he was just brokenhearted. He has the kind of broken heart that can never be fixed. Some things one can never unsee. She knows that Toby thought highly of Don and knew he’d be a great dad to Devon.
If only Devon could see these things. Sure, Erla can understand why Devon is angry that she and Don didn’t tell her who her biological father is, but it was all for good reason.
Erla takes a sip of coffee as Millie jumps down from Don’s chair and into her chair. Wedges herself between the arm of the chair and Erla’s hip—something she used to do with Don.
Erla still hasn’t talked to Devon since she left Dillon Creek for yet another country to photograph another piece of the world.
And besides, it isn’t Devon or Scarlet, Erla’s granddaughter, who is going to fix Erla’s grief. Sure, it was nice to have them here even if Devon was a million miles away in her thoughts. Devon and Scarlet had their own grief to figure out. Erla does hope that one day, Devon will understand that Erla and Don did what they did to protect Devon and to give her a good life. It isn’t Devon’s fault that Toby can’t stay sober, and why have a little girl carry that guilt?
Oh, no. Did I pay the water bill for August?
Craig, down at the water company, was so good about calling her to remind her last month.
It simply slipped her mind.
But the peculiar thing is, her memory has gotten much worse lately. In fact, just last week, she forgot to deposit Don’s retirement check, and boy, did that cause a mess at the bank.
The checks she’d written for their car insurance, their homeowners insurance, and the gas bill bounced.
Her debit card had been declined at The Flowerpot when she purchased seeds and potting soil.
It wasn’t until she marched into the bank that she found out it had been her mistake.
Scarlet mentioned some direct deposit ordeal, but Erla liked knowing when money was coming in and going out. It seemed like a bit of a hassle to set up the direct deposit with the online stuff anyway, and she’d just rather not deal with it.
What happened to the old-fashioned way of doing things? Erla thinks to herself.
Next to her chair, on the small table that sits between her and Don’s chair, she takes a pad of paper and makes a note to remind herself later this morning to call Craig down at the water company.
The small, slight pain returns to her chest. It’s the one she’s been having for a few weeks now, and she’s filed the pain away as anxiety. Erla was never one to get anxiety, but since Don died, she feels every minute of it.
She hasn’t told anybody about it either because worry won’t do anyone any good.
At Don’s funeral, Dr. Cain offered her medication to help with her nerves, but Erla wasn’t about to start taking another pill for another ailment if she could help it. Besides, pills for mood make her head feel like it is in left field. And she isn’t going to end up like Percy Kettenpom, who dropped dead in the nude in his living room because he had taken one too many mood enhancers. Granted, he was ninety-seven years old, but why he was naked, God only knows.
Dying isn’t what Erla is scared of. In fact, if she had a choice, she’d choose death. It’s the naked part that frightens her the most—and not being in control of her mind.
Erla misses the old days when doctors didn’t prescribe medication just for simple chest pains and whatnot.
When people read the actual newspaper in print and not on a computer screen.
When Sunday was a day for family and church and small-town potlucks.
When Neighbor Dorothy came across the radio waves and families gathered around it.
Erla swears the invention of the television was when society began its slow and steady decline.
What happened to books and printed publications, for God’s sakes? Now, there are Kindles, and i-things, and smartphones!
The pain in her chest slowly starts to subside when she walks to the kitchen and drinks a small glass of water.
Maybe Erla just doesn’t fit into the modern times.
She glances at the resignation letter on the counter again.
Sure, Delveen and Pearl could be small-minded and trivial. But does that mean that Erla has to walk away from something that has meant so much to her? No, it does not. She convinces herself to leave it there for the day before making a final decision on her future with The Ladybugs.
Mabe is worried about Erla, and the worry follows her into the late morning while she prunes her roses. Grief can be wild. One minute, you think you will live, and the other minute, you want to die.
Guilt can also be wild, she thinks to herself as she snips an old stem from her rose bush.
Could she come clean about what she saw the night Tripp and Conroy were killed? Or would it just drudge up more wounds, more broken hearts, and unneeded sadness?
Mabe Muldoon was the first person on the scene the night of the accident, and she just left. Just drove away.
What would make the difference anyway?
She has felt it on her conscience since the night it happened, and if it doesn’t matter, then why does she feel it so deeply?
Which leads to her next thought. If it does matter, why can’t I bring myself to say anything?
Fear.
Betty Lewindowski is her sponsor from the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that Mabe secretly attends. Betty told her that a clear conscience makes for a soft pillow. After attending AA meetings regularly—a soft comfort, part of a less lonely road on Monday nights at seven thirty p.m. at the Catholic church—Mabe has come to the conclusion that she is an alcoholic. But just for good measure and as an added precaution, in times like these—
the summertime, when it is light out until late into the evening—Mabe wears a scarf and sunglasses as a disguise into the meetings.
But everybody knows Betty started AA in Dillon Creek, and she never flaunts it. She’s always at the church to start the coffee every Monday night. Mabe isn’t sure what the fuss is all about with her and AA meetings, but maybe that fuss just existed between her own two ears, and really, nobody else gives a lick about what she does or doesn’t do.
Mabe doesn’t have a clear conscience. She doesn’t sleep well at night.
It seems that my worries are better served toward helping Erla, she thinks to herself, or it’s just an excuse to not deal with my own guilt.
What if she comes clean?
Who would she come clean to?
The Atwoods?
The Morgans?
Chief McBride?
Betty?
Mabe stands back to look at the progress of the rose bush and realizes she’s stripped it bare.
Perhaps this is what she’s supposed to do—strip herself bare (metaphorically speaking because nobody wants to see a seventy-something woman naked)—so that she can grow.
Who the hell knows, but Mabe isn’t excited about metaphorically growing today—or tomorrow for that matter.
She stands back and admires the chop job she just did on her rose bush.
Mabe’s phone begins to ring from her front porch steps. She removes her garden gloves. “Hello?”
“Mabe, this is Betty Lewindowski.”
Mabe isn’t sure why Betty has to announce her full name when she calls her. There is only one Betty Lewindowski in Dillon Creek.
“Yes, hello, Betty.”
“Listen, there’s a new gal from Fortuna who needs your help. A housewife and kind of like you.”
“What do you mean, kind of like me?” Mabe eases down onto the steps with a grunt.
“The hat-and-scarf type, you know. She’s not quite sure she’s an alcoholic, but everybody knows she is. Anyway, here’s her number.”
She didn’t waste any time in giving Mabe the woman’s number.
Betty had a knack for setting her up with newcomers—the crazy ones too.
Patty C. was the escaped mental patient from Simpervirens Mental Health Facility in Eureka. She happened upon our meetings one night, and Betty thought they’d be a great fit until she was arrested for grand theft. Mabe had brought that woman to her house, and she could have robbed her blind! To this day, they’re still not sure if Patty C.—short for Cupcakes, as she introduced herself—was her real last name.
Mabe had a hunch it wasn’t.
And let’s not forget about Sharon B. The one-eyed widow from Petrolia. Come to find out, in a fit of rage, she had two good-working eyes and one heck of a temper. Mabe wasn’t so sure Sharon needed AA. But she needed some sort of twelve-step program. Ended up killing her husband for cheating on her.
“Anyway, here nor there, wait for her to call you. If she doesn’t want it bad enough, she won’t call,” Betty reminds Mabe and hangs up.
Betty has no phone etiquette, and it drives Mabe mad.
At least you could say good-bye, she thinks to herself and hangs up.
Oh shoot. Mabe didn’t get the woman’s name. Oh well. She’s sure she’ll know when and if the woman calls.
Mabe’s phone begins to ring again.
“Hello?” Mabe answers.
“He-hello?” A soft voice is on the other end.
“Oh, hello. Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. From AA. The name’s Mabe. What’s yours, sweetheart?”
“Patty.”
Oh Lord. Not another Patty. This is going to be a long day.
Mabe wipes the sweat from her brow. “You, by chance, didn’t do a stint in prison for grand theft, did you? Or murder your husband? Either way, I’d be fine with it as long as you’re honest.”
“Prison?” she whispers softly. “The only four walls I’ve been confined to is my house.”
Thank the heavens, Mabe thinks to herself.
If Mabe has learned anything in AA, it’s to feel people out before she invites them to her home.
“What’s your story, Patty?”
There’s a silence that falls on the other end of the phone line. “I-I’m not sure if I qualify for AA,” she starts.
“There are no qualifiers, dear. The only requirement is that you want to stop drinking.”
“I do.”
Mabe hears the brokenness in her tone. The loneliness. After all, she, too, has experienced both.
“I drink after my children and husband go to bed. It’s just wine. Listen, I need to go. My husband just came home. I’ll call you later.” Patty hangs up.
7
Tess
It’s cold when the plane lands. My phone says the temperature is forty-two degrees, and the sun is slowly beginning its descent.
Forty-two degrees at home is warmer than forty-two degrees in Alaska, I’ll admit. Maybe it’s the humidity that hangs in the air at home while the temperature in Alaska comes straight from the towers of mountains neighboring Ketchikan.
I brought just a sweatshirt for the flight, and I slide it over my head as I disembark the airplane.
The airport ferry leaves on the half hour, and it’s no more than a ten-minute ride, according to Ketchikan visitors website, so it allows me just enough time to grab my suitcase and board the ferry.
When I called ahead of time to rent a car, the man on the other end of the line laughed.
When he was finished, he said, “Ma’am, there are only four ways to get to Ketchikan, Alaska: bush plane, ferry, a cruise ship, or your own boat.” He followed up with, “I suppose you don’t have your own boat?”
I think he enjoyed my naivety more than I did.
Stepping off the plane at dusk, I barely make out the silhouette of green that surrounds me. The trees sit neatly against the tall mountains, enclosed almost exclusively by water. The streaks of clouds that lie across the sun-setting sky like race tracks beckon me deeper into the unfamiliar state.
I feel the ruggedness upon me and push down the fear that starts to creep into my throat, strangling me from behind.
The beauty should call to me, but it doesn’t.
The smell of salt and the fresh mountain air and the sound of seagulls make me feel both at home and far away at the same time.
Making my way inside the terminal, I hold open the door for an elderly couple with their son, who’s in dress blues—I believe, the Marines—but the soldier refuses to allow me to hold open the door.
“You first, ma’am,” he says and takes the door.
I nod. “And thank you for your service.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
Ma’am—like I’m some old lady holding on to old politics, carrying a newspaper and complaining about the state of the nation, like my mother. My mother is a ma’am.
I’m a miss.
But this man is maybe eighteen. Probably returning home from boot camp or basic training.
To him though, I am a ma’am, and this makes me feel old as I make my way to baggage claim.
His parents seem older, too old to have to have a son at eighteen. Maybe they’re grandparents. Maybe they started having children later in life, but my curiosity has been piqued.
Their quiet reunion moves me.
They’re speaking a different language among themselves that sounds intoxicating and beautiful.
The elderly woman is beaming at the young man as the elderly man has his hands shoved in his pockets, speaking to the soldier, smiling. As if they have missed time and are soaking up all of the small moments life gives them together. Content in this moment, grateful for what they have together, the soldier lifts his green bag from the belt, and they exit baggage claim.
I can’t help but notice the elderly woman has taken several glances back at me, perhaps because since I landed, I haven’t been able to take my focus from
the three of them.
For some reason, I have a hunch they’re going to the same place I am, so I follow them outside.
A waiting boat is out front, and there’s a woman tending to a rope.
“Is this the ferry to Ketchikan?” I ask.
“It is. First time to our neck of the woods?” she asks.
“It is.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Maybe a little of both.” I try to smile and swallow any uncertainty.
“You know what they say about Ketchikan,” she says.
“No, what’s that?”
“Once you get ketched, you never go back.” She laughs. “So, whether you’re here for either or both, you might just fall in love with our slice of heaven and never leave.”
“I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you”—I glance at her name tag—“Willow.”
Wheeling my bag onto the ferry, I take in the views once more.
In many ways, Ketchikan reminds me of home.
The mountains of trees.
The rugged terrain.
The unforgivable ocean.
And the body of water that sits between the coasts.
Willow takes the microphone and begins. “Welcome to Ketchikan, Alaska! My name is Willow, and I will be your two-to-five-minute tour guide based on which way the wind blows. The body of water you’re on right now is the Tongass Narrows, which serves as Southeast Alaska’s Inside Passage. This being the quickest boat ride you’ll probably ever take, you might see pods of whales—typically humpbacks or killer whales—bald eagles, and the occasional dolphins. Or Finn, the town drunk. Not in the water, hopefully, but on the boat, as he tends to wander. I wouldn’t recommend taking a dip in these waters unless you have a wet suit.”
I chuckle to myself as my mind drifts to Toby Lemon. I suppose every town has one. But I also wonder if Finn is well taken care of by its town like Toby is in Dillon Creek.
“And that concludes our trip.”
The travelers laugh as Willow continues to talk about the history of Ketchikan and of Alaska for a few more minutes.
It’s getting darker and harder to see our surroundings, but Ketchikan is brightly lit from where we are.
Saving Tess Page 6
