Saving Tess

by J. Lynn Bailey

  Patty finally says, “What shall I do?”

  Perhaps this is a trick question, but maybe it’s not. “Well, honey, I suppose you’d go.”

  “What about taking my own car?”

  Mabe wants to laugh. Patty really is quite literal, and Mabe enjoys this about her. “Your husband wouldn’t drink to the point where it makes you uncomfortable, would he?”

  “Oh, no. Ron isn’t a real drinker.”

  “Wonderful. Then, go.”

  “You think it’s all right?”

  Mabe thinks on it. “Do you want to go, Patty?”

  “I do. But, well, it’s just … I wonder if Ron will expect something from me.”

  “He is your husband, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, why would it be wrong, Patty? People consummate their relationships all the time. Every day in fact.”

  “What?”

  Mabe sighs. “Sex.”

  “What?” By Patty’s tone, Mabe can tell she’s taken aback.

  “What exactly are you talking about, Patty?”

  “To drink, of course.”

  Now, Mabe is taken aback. “Oh. Doesn’t Ron support your endeavors not to drink?”

  “Well, I haven’t really told him.”

  “What do you mean, you haven’t told him?”

  “I haven’t told him that I think I’m an alcoholic.”

  “You mean to tell me, you haven’t been drinking for some time now, and he doesn’t know that you’re going to AA? What do you tell him when you meet with me?”

  “Ladies’ luncheon.”

  “Well, Patty, the first thing you need to do is get honest with your husband, and this weekend seems to be the perfect time. Call me when you return home.” And with that, Mabe hangs up the phone. She hasn’t really needed to get tough with Patty, but sometimes, that woman worries her.

  Just as Mabe sets the phone back upon the stairs, Chief McBride’s police cruiser pulls up to the house.

  Mabe’s heart seizes. Her entire body goes numb.

  I’m going to prison, she thinks in her head. Somebody finally identified me.

  “Ms. Muldoon,” Chief McBride says, making his way from his car and down her walkway.

  Mabe thinks Ms. is probably acceptable, being that it has been quite some time since her husband, John, passed.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” floats out of Mabe’s mouth, like a tongue slithers from a snake. Mabe slips off her gloves. “Would you like some iced tea?”

  “Yes, that’ll be wonderful.”

  Mabe retrieves the iced tea from inside, shaking like a leaf, and returns to her porch, where Chief McBride is sitting in one of the old rocking chairs.

  “Sunny days don’t come too often in the fall,” the chief says. “Thank you.”

  Mabe sits down next to him, setting her tea down on the table that separates them. “No, no, they don’t.”

  Don’t panic, she tells herself.

  But her hands and insides are vibrating so bad that they’re liable to vibrate right out of her body and dance into the sky.

  “Listen, I’m sure you’ve heard, but there was an anonymous tip that came into the police department about a woman in her seventies or so being on the scene the night Tripp and Conroy died. You wouldn’t happen to have heard anything about that, have you?”

  God, Mabe feels, has put her at a crossroad. She could tell the truth right now and clear the awful air that’s been following her, eating at her conscience for eight long years, or she could continue to lie because the fear tells her she must.

  “No, I haven’t. But it sure is awful,” pours from her mouth.

  Chief McBride takes a sip from his iced tea. Sets it down next to Mabe’s. “I think the person was just stuck. Saw what happened and panicked. Don’t you?”

  The blood rushes to Mabe’s face. Say something, Mabe. “Maybe.” She tries to act casual, but inside, her body is absolute chaos. She wonders why she hasn’t already dropped dead from a panic attack—or worse, a heart attack.

  People can die from those.

  “Anyway, I best be on my way.” The chief stands. “Let me know if you hear anything, Ms. Muldoon?”

  Yes, if Mabe Muldoon doesn’t die first.

  24

  Tess

  After Casey leaves for the weekend, I feel like a small piece of me is gone, and I hate how this sits with me. It brings back old feelings of grief and loss and loneliness.

  We came back from Oregon.

  Our brothers died.

  Casey left.

  And I lost myself.

  Emmitt and his crew are working on the roof, and thankfully, it’s almost finished. Amid the hammers and tools and working at warp speed it seems, I decide to make dinner for the crew before they go home. Mostly, it looks like younger single guys on his crew without a pot to piss in.

  I look down at my watch. “It’s too late to make dinner.” I reach for my phone and notice a text message from Casey.

  Me: Lock the doors at night. I’ll be home late Sunday night. I love your hair.

  I laugh out loud. When Casey and I were young and exploring each other’s bodies, learning about each other intimately, we knew I love you was a big statement. We somewhat knew the ramifications of love, the price we’d pay for love, but we really had no idea. Anyhow, instead of I love you, it could be:

  I love your jeans.

  I love your hair.

  I love the way you move.

  Casey though was the first one to say it.

  I love you, I say the words in my head and then out loud. I smile as the statement presses against my chest, lies like a piece of lace, dainty yet sturdy. And for just a moment, I allow my head to play out a future with Casey.

  Us.

  Holding hands.

  A front yard.

  A white picket fence.

  Children.

  And the thought fades quicker than it appeared because I can’t go there yet. Guilt twists in my gut like a rag.

  And home. Where is that? Is that in Dillon Creek, where my parents despise his parents? Where everyone knows our past? Where our brothers died and everyone cried and the whole town mourned? Where a town divided right down the middle and the people moved with it, silently taking sides?

  Or is home here in Ketchikan, where no one really knows us? Where grief doesn’t plague us at every corner we turn? Where we’re not remembered as those who lost their siblings? We’d just be a young couple who’ve taken to a beautiful place.

  The wind starts slowly, and the whine of the old girl—the house—brings me out of my thoughts.

  “Didn’t like that much?” I say to her.

  I text Casey back.

  Me: I love your walk, and will do.

  I think about adding a heart emoji but delete it at the last second.

  I text Olive, as I can’t prepare a dinner quickly enough before Emmitt and his guys have to leave.

  Me: Hey, Olive. It’s Tess. Where’s a great place to get pizzas?

  She texts me back.

  Olive: Paul’s Pizza Shack. ;)

  Me: Thank you. ;)

  I grab my purse, a raincoat, and head out the door.

  Before I begin my descent down the hill, Emmitt calls from the roof, “Hey, Tess! Please, take my truck. We’ll be done here in an hour.” He tosses the keys down to me. He laughs. “We’ve been watching you two walk downtown. Winter’s coming. Come the beginning of December, you won’t be able to make the walk up that hill with all the snow.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You gonna steal it?”

  I laugh. “No.”

  “All right then.”

  I nod, shove his keys in my pocket, and head downtown in his truck.

  As I wait for the pizzas, Paul’s Pizza Shack is everything it advertises. It smells like fresh dough, and when the wind blows, the pizza shack shakes and shimmies.

  I try to stay away from the thoughts that have been stewing in my h
ead most of the day. The woman in the picture that Casey swears I look like. Emmitt’s words when he asked if I remembered the winters. The familiar scent of the Isner house. It’s all just coincidence, right? That’s what I tell myself. But why do I keep sitting in these thoughts? Thoughts I can’t seem to let go of. Why would Ike bring Casey and me here? Why would he give us this house free and clear?

  Against my better judgment, I text my mom and ask her to send me some baby pictures, just to prove Casey is being overly cautious.

  “Tess?” I hear my name being called.

  I take the five pizzas and head home.

  “You didn’t have to do this, Tess,” Emmitt says, taking a slice from the box.

  The rest of the guys eat hungrily, shaking their heads.

  After they finish, I thank them again. The guys are up ahead, loading into their trucks.

  Emmitt turns to me. “Thank you, Tess. That was really nice of you.”

  “It was my pleasure, Emmitt.”

  He starts to walk away again, his age resting in his bones. He stops and turns. “Oh, I’ll stop by tomorrow morning. A little something for you and Casey. It’s not much, but it’ll get you through.”

  “What is it?”

  He tips his hat. “You’ll just have to wait and see,” he says and disappears into the dusk.

  After I clean up the kitchen, I grab a glass of wine, my laptop, and think to myself that we might possibly need internet. I can use my phone as a hotspot, but also, it might make more sense for us to pay the monthly fee for Wi-Fi.

  I double-check the chimney with a flashlight before I start another fire, just for good measure.

  The wind begins to kick up, and the rain dances against the roof.

  “Why is it so windy here?” I say out loud, partly to her—the house with bones of steel—maybe for an answer, but maybe just so that she knows how strong I think she is.

  Her bones whine against the wind. The roof withstands the rain, even in the process of getting a new one. Maybe her way of saying, It’s what I needed, and thank you.

  I sit down on the sofa, and my mom finally responds to my text from earlier.

  Mom: Hey, babe. Why would you need pictures?

  My mother loves my baby pictures—any pictures for that matter. She’s always first to share with anyone who will look, so this response is odd to me.

  My mother has a way of sniffing out things and getting herself involved when she doesn’t need to, so in an effort to keep her nose out of my business, I lie.

  Me: I was invited to a baby shower, and the host needs pictures of us for some game.

  She always likes when I make new friends.

  Mom: Oh, that’s wonderful! I’ll e-mail them now.

  E-mail? Why e-mail?

  Me: Why e-mail? Can’t you just take a picture of the picture and send them over text?

  Mom: You don’t want them to look pixilated, do you, when you print them for the game?

  Oh shit. Right.

  Me: Right. Thanks, Mom.

  Mom: Call me tomorrow, so we can catch up?

  Me: Yeah.

  Mom: I love you, baby.

  Me: Love you too.

  I pull up Google on my laptop with a hotspot on my phone and type in Chilkat blankets.

  It talks about how they’re made with goat’s wool and cedar bark weft and hand-dyed with wolf moss. A man created the design utilizing clan symbols, and a woman wove the blanket with her hands on a loom. The blankets were used for special occasions, dances, ceremonies, honored guests, a death of a chief or a person of high-ranking Chilkat Tlingit society. It takes a year, sometimes two, for a person to make the blanket and it’s only given to those with Tlingit bloodlines or those who an elder trusts.”

  I roll this sentence over and over and over in my head.

  Tlingit bloodlines or trust.

  Tlingit bloodlines or trust.

  Tlingit bloodlines or trust.

  Esther doesn’t know me from Eve. But the visit—the feelings return to me, the feelings of home and comfort, and her scent rushes in. Like we’ve met before. But my mind cannot rationalize this.

  How would I not remember meeting Esther before I came here?

  Why would she give me this beautiful, handcrafted blanket that is so important to their tribe?

  The questions sit in my mind like a fire being stoked.

  Quickly, I run downstairs, maneuver around Emmitt’s tools and supplies, and grab the picture from the wall. I run back upstairs and head back to my laptop, setting the picture down next to me.

  I check my e-mail and notice I’ve received one from unemployment.

  Unemployment.

  As in I’m no longer employed. I no longer have a job. I’m no longer needed.

  The lump in my throat is swallowed and sits in my stomach as I fill out the forms the unemployment office needs and e-mail them back.

  The memory of the video of the little boy and Casey pops into my mind.

  Casey would have made a great father.

  What were Casey’s thoughts when he was looking into the eyes of the little boy?

  Does Casey know he’d be a good father?

  Do I know if I’d be a good mother?

  Push your tears down, Tess.

  Regret starts to creep up my throat.

  Allow it. After all, this is a fallout of your past decision-making.

  I try not to unpack the memories, force them to stay down but I can’t, so they slowly start to unfold.

  Ten little fingers and ten little toes and the little round face.

  They took him almost immediately.

  I begged for just a moment with him, with us.

  “It’s not a good idea, dear,” the nurse softly whispered into my ear. “Begin your healing.”

  Never had I felt a hole so deep inside me.

  Never had I wanted something back so bad in my life.

  Tears began.

  The deep ache in my heart formed.

  And my body shook with sadness.

  I’m jolted awake by the wind. No, not the wind—the old girl’s reaction to the wind. I sit up and feel the darkness around me, except for the small embers from the fireplace that keep breathing.

  It was a loud bang.

  Maybe something fell downstairs.

  Maybe something fell off the roof.

  Looking behind me, I see something in the shadows near the kitchen.

  My heart begins to pound.

  My breathing become tiny and small so as not to disturb the quietness. I tiptoe to the fireplace, where the embers still burn. I take the fire poker and turn to the kitchen.

  I’m a rather-not person. The women in the movies who ask, “Who’s there?” are not my people. I’d rather not see the perpetrator. And what are the odds that the bad guy actually comes forward? Never. They never do.

  My hands tighten around the iron weapon. I step to the kitchen and peek over the counter.

  It’s then that beast unfolds itself, and I scream as the raccoon jumps from the counter and scurries out of sight.

  I try to catch my breath as I run to the front door and open it, praying to God the raccoon doesn’t have rabies or some awful mutated disease.

  Breathlessly, I whisper, “Hey, here’s a way out.”

  After waiting a few moments, I carefully sneak to the last location I saw the raccoon.

  I hear it before I see a black-and-brown ball of fury take off toward the front door, and just in time, I watch as its tail is the last thing I see heading outside.

  25

  Casey

  “You’ve setting a precedent, Casey, but no pressure, right?” Garrison rubs some clear gel on his shoulder.

  “What is that, old-man shit?” I laugh, grabbing my rope for the first ride. I drew Top Ten, a bull that’s new to the PBR but is quickly gaining a reputation for being a force to reckon with.

  “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. Makes me feel like I’m eighteen again.” Garrison throws the gel
shit in his riggin bag. “So, what about Tess? You guys shacked up or what? Building a future together and all that shit?”

  I’m not sure Garrison will ever settle down. Hell, I’m not sure he’ll ever mature past the age of twenty-two. But he’s loyal.

  “I don’t know,” is all I say.

  “Come on. You don’t expect me to believe that bullshit, do you, man?” A low whistle escapes through his teeth, and a slow laugh follows. “You’re different. You’re different in a way I’ve never seen you. You’re actually packin’ that damn phone around now. Checking it. You’ve got this stupid love-drunk face you wear. Ain’t my first rodeo, Atwood.”

  I laugh out loud. “Love-drunk?”

  Garrison nods. “Love-drunk. Look, I don’t really know too much about your past—like, your childhood and shit. But I’ve seen a lot of buckle bunnies come after you—some really hot ones—and you’ve always had this wall up between them and you. Like some shit is holdin’ you back. Anyhow”—he stands from his sitting position on the bench—“you ever want to talk about it … don’t bring that shit to me.”

  I let out a slow, easy laugh.

  Garrison does too. “Kiddin’ aside, man. I ain’t ever been in love, but if you do want to talk, I’m here. Not sure I can help much in the love department, but I’m here.” Garrison slaps me hard on the back. “Let’s ride, cowboy!” he yells.

  “Garrison!” Travis, a PBR official, comes into the locker room. “You’re on next!”

  “Let’s go!” Garrison slaps his own face.

  I prefer the arena when it’s quiet. When it’s just me, the smell of cow shit, the dirt, and the sound of the bulls pushing themselves around in the bull pens behind the chutes. I make it a ritual to get to the arena early, way before the staff, the crowds, the cowboys, before the lights come on, and before the arena is staged.

  I get right with God.

  Visualize my ride on the chosen bull for the event.

  Dance through the steps.

  He leads.

  I follow.

  Balance.

  Left hand up.

  Roll the hips.

  But right now, it’s nothing like that.

  The arena is jacked.

  The lights are bright.

  The music is loud.