by Howe, Violet
Logic wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be distraught, overly dramatic, and indignant. Cabe wasn’t cooperating.
“Alright, never mind. Sorry I bothered you.” Okay, maybe I was being a little childish, but oh well.
“Well, alrighty then. Aren’t we in a great mood this evening? Sorry if I didn’t say what you wanted to hear,” he said.
Oh, how I hated when he was right and sarcastic at the same time.
“I gotta go. Talk to you later.” I hung up. Without saying goodbye. Without giving him a chance to say goodbye. Like a thirteen-year-old pouty girl.
My phone rang immediately.
“What?” I said.
“Did you really just hang up on me over something as stupid as Dweeb Davis’s ex-wife going to church? Are you freakin’ kidding me right now? Do you want me to come over there and bend you over my knee?” he asked.
“As much as you would probably derive intense pleasure from that, no, I don’t think that’s what I want at all. I want you to be a dutiful friend and be upset about what I’m upset about.”
“I am a very dutiful friend, which is why I am telling you that you have absolutely no reason to be upset. Now tell me goodbye properly. I won’t see you for days. You’re leaving me here all alone for Christmas, and I refuse to be hung up on.”
“I’m not leaving you here all alone. You have your mother and your sister. I’m sure some cousins or other relatives will stop by.”
“Whatever eases your guilt.”
“Aargh. You’re such a pain in my butt.”
He laughed, and I smiled. I swear I will never get tired of hearing his laughter.
“I’ll miss you, buddy,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah. I know you will. Call me when you get there. If you have any trouble on the road, I can be right there. Well, it may take me a couple of hours depending on how far you get, but you call and I’ll come running.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to bring your car?”
“Yah, yah, yah,” he said, mocking me in a nasal tone.
“Goodnight, Cabe,” I said, still smiling.
“Night.”
I felt 100% better. How does he always do that?
Sunday, December 22nd
Great weather today for driving! Although the slight chill in the air when I left morphed into a frigid blast by the time I got halfway to Mama’s. I refused to close the convertible roof, though. The gorgeous blue sky and fluffy white clouds were worth wearing a couple extra layers. Besides, I just turned the heater on high and kept the windows up.
I hate to say it, but Cabe was right. I worried for nothing. The cantata went fine. The packed church held so many people I hadn’t seen in forever. People I forgot I even knew. They knew me, though. Coming up all night to hug me and tell Mama how pretty I looked, which made her beam. So nice to make her happy a change!
Dwayne stood just inside the doors as we entered, probably waiting on me to get there. He wrapped me in a huge hug and grabbed my hand to lead me to his mama, but I pulled it away and pretended to adjust something with my hair clip. It felt like too much to be holding hands in church like we were seventeen again.
Martha Jean’s frail appearance shocked me. The strong, hefty woman in my memory worked alongside her boys on the farm and at the lumber mill, tough as an ox. My mind refused to accept the pale, scary-thin waif in the wheelchair before me as the woman I remembered. She smiled when Dwayne spoke, and I could tell she recognized me. She didn’t say anything beyond hello and nice to see you, though, and I had to look away from the pain and misery in her eyes.
Dwayne sat with his mama, and I sat with mine, which alleviated any awkwardness and gossip from us sitting together. As it turns out, Ellain stayed in the back helping with the kids and their costumes. Which was fine by me.
As I write this from my old bed in my old bedroom, I feel like I’m having a flashback in some weird dream sequence. Mama hasn’t changed a thing in here. My tie-dye rainbow comforter. The big peace sign poster from my hippie throwback phase in high school. So many memories in this room. A lifetime. Every ceiling tile, every plank of pink paneling, the curtains, the closet doors. So familiar to me. Like I never left in some ways, but at the same time, like I’ve been gone forever.
The bulletin board on the wall still has photos pinned to it, yellowed and curled from the sun coming through the window day after day. I barely recognize the girl in those pictures. So young and carefree. She had no idea what life had in store for her. I can’t help but wonder as I look at those pep rallies, parties, and trips to the river if I would have done things differently if I’d known what would happen. Would I have left here on my own if I hadn’t been running from Dwayne? If I had known how that relationship would end, would I have stayed in college and finished my degree? Would I still have gone to Orlando? What career would I have now?
Back then, I made choices for my life based on Dwayne’s. If he’d been out of the picture, what would I have picked? What would I have done? I can’t imagine I would have ever ended up doing weddings. Or meeting Lillian and Laura. Or Cabe. Hard to imagine my life without them all in it. And yet, it could have very easily been so. Different choices. Different turns.
I guess that all things considered, my life is pretty cool now. I don’t intend to thank Dwayne or give him any kudos for breaking my heart, but all in all, it turned out okay. For me, at least. Him, not so much.
I’m going to sink under these covers and enjoy being home. It feels safe. It feels good.
Monday, December 23rd
Mama and I spent most of the morning at the grocery store and in the kitchen. She got the brilliant idea of hosting Christmas for the entire extended family at our house since I’m home this year. While I appreciate the sentiment, I don’t think Mama’s in a financial position to be supplying food for the whole bunch, and I certainly could have done without all the prep work. Believe you me, working alongside my mama in the kitchen is nothing at all like cooking with Cabe. And I’m not even allowed to drink some wine to help the process along. Aargh. She gave all my aunts and cousins a list of what each of them should bring, but she still felt she needed to make enough food for an army since she’s hosting.
I made my escape when Dwayne called to say he left work early and wanted to meet up sooner than we had planned. I think if I’d been going anywhere else with anyone else, Mama would have told my butt to stay in the kitchen with her. She’s all misty-eyed thinking we’re getting back together, though, so she seemed all too willing to excuse me from my duties.
We stopped by Martha Jean’s, which was hard. I didn’t know what to say. It’s hard enough to make small talk with someone I haven’t seen in years, but to see his mama so uncomfortable and in pain made it even more awkward. We left there and visited his grandma, who greeted me like the prodigal child returning from war. My own mama showed less enthusiasm to see me than Mrs. Dolores.
When we left there, Dwayne turned and twisted along familiar roads, familiar routes. The miles we’d ridden hundreds of times before were peppered with subtle changes here and there. We listened to our music, laughed at old jokes and recounted stories of days gone by. The surreal déjà vu feeling persisted as I felt myself slipping back into the shell of the girl I used to be, at once unsettling and yet familiar. She emerged within me almost like an alternate personality, someone I’d kept hidden but could now appreciate and experience once more.
He turned down a little dirt road, and I started laughing.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
This little dirt road led to a whole other set of memories probably best forgotten. I wasn’t nervous at all, though. I felt totally at ease, more-so than I had in years. I knew he wouldn’t take me anywhere I didn’t want to go.
He pulled off in the little clearing I knew so well, but the overgrowth and unkempt state amazed me.
“I guess no one comes out here anymore, huh?” I stepped high over tall grass and fallen logs, thankful like ne
ver before that Mama had saved my boots for me.
“Nah. There’s a new swim hole up river a bit, and everybody pretty much goes there. Every now and then one of the old-timers still come here to fish, but the last flood washed it out so much you can’t swim here no more. Too dangerous.”
Everybody spent the entire summer here back in high school. In fact, any sunny day was an excuse to be on the river bank with a blanket and a cooler. Sunning, swimming, and perhaps sneaking an adult beverage or two.
Dwayne stopped walking near the bank, and it took me a minute to get my bearings. The flood had changed the course of the river. Moved it a little closer to the road. The long, wide, sandy bank of our youth was nowhere to be seen. Deep under water from the look of it.
He reached back and took my hand as he started walking again, and I let him. It felt good. It felt natural in our old stomping grounds. I had gone back in time and the world spun right again. He carefully navigated the bank, stepping over tree roots and then turning to help me over, one time even lifting me off the ground and over a twisted, gnarly piece.
I had no doubts where he was taking me, and I silently hoped the river and the ravages of time hadn’t marred it. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I crossed the last oak and let go of Dwayne’s hand to duck under the leaning tree and enter our secret spot. We found it years ago while exploring along the river bank looking for a fishing place. We weren’t the first ones to find it, or the last to visit it from the occasional beer bottles and food wrappers we’d find from time to time, but it had been our secret place. A special place we called our own.
The old tree leaned far to the left, away from the bank, undoubtedly the victim of a previous flood. Its roots twisted and buckled up out of the dirt, rising high enough on one side to meet the low-hanging branches that had turned downward seeking the water and the sun as the tree leaned. The two had eventually intertwined to form a small shelter at the base of the tree, a fortress of sorts with roots for walls and a dense canopy above that blocked out all the sun.
The large, flat, river boulder we called the floor was covered in soft, green moss—the only thing that could survive in the damp, shaded darkness. Dwayne plopped down on the ground and patted the moss beside him. I noticed as I sat that the shelter looked almost exactly as it had before. Granted, the lack of sunlight probably kept the overgrowth at bay, but someone had tended it well.
“I still come out here,” he answered my unspoken question. “Always have. It’s like the only place I can clear my head. Forget everything and just be. I love the sound of the water flowing. The wind in the trees. Birds, crickets. The world as God intended it to be. No traffic and nobody raising hell at me.”
I turned and looked at him, wondering what his marriage had been like. Had he been happy? Had he regretted it? Had he really wanted her badly enough to throw me away? And had it been worth it? I still think no one walks down the aisle thinking they’ll break up in the end. So what was the turning point? When did it become a mistake instead of a miracle? When did he know it wasn’t what he thought it would be?
“Do you think you’d ever get married again?” I asked him.
If I thought about how it would sound, like maybe I was asking for myself, then I probably wouldn’t have said it. But it was already out before I thought it through.
He lay on his back gazing up at the tiny patches of sky through the leaves. He looked younger somehow. Less haggard, less tired. Still skinnier than he should be, but the old Dwayne materialized from somewhere within the tormented man on the ground beside me.
“I guess so. I still believe in it. I think it’s a good thing, marriage. Mine just didn’t work out, that’s all,” he said without ever looking over at me.
“How you can say that? I mean, how can you still think it’s good, after what happened?”
I thought about my own fears and the walls I’d put up. Not wanting to be vulnerable or be hurt. How could he even think of getting married again after what Ellain did to him? How could Cabe? How could anyone? I couldn’t imagine throwing myself into such a heavy commitment again after someone betrayed me like that.
He turned his head toward me. His face looked funny from my angle, like it was upside-down and out of proportion.
“Because there has to be good, Tyler. Look at all the people that are married. Marriage isn’t bad just because some of them don’t work out. The people in the marriage screw up. That don’t make marriage itself bad.”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking away from him at the flowing water. “Seems like a lot of people are divorced. I would say I know more divorced people than married.”
“Well, then you need to meet new people. Love makes the world go ’round, darlin’. Loving somebody and giving them your heart is about the scariest thing you can ever do, but it’s the best damned feeling in the world. Ain’t no way I’d give up on loving just because somebody screwed up. I ain’t gonna let them screw me up because they are.”
I looked at him and wondered how on earth he could say that to me. I’m sure he spoke based on his own recent experiences, but I couldn’t help but feel like he had called me out. Like somehow he knew I shut myself off to other people because of what he did to me, and rather than apologize, again, for what he had done, he placed the blame on me for harboring it. Now, maybe he didn’t mean that at all, but that’s what I got out of it. It really made me think.
I slowly took in the gorgeous scenery around me. The dark, brown, muddy water swirling and churning past us. The gentle sway of the oaks and pines in the cold December breeze. The perfect blue sky peeking through here and there, without a cloud in sight. I sighed and inhaled the peace around me.
I never in a million years thought I’d ever be sitting here again. Let alone with Dwayne Davis. Just to think of this place would pretty much put me in a fetal position with intense pain and heartache. But here I sat. In no pain at all. It was simply a place. They were just memories. Moments in our past, mine and his. I watched the river carry a branch past me, dried leaves struggling to hold on and stay afloat as the water dipped and turned them about. Like my memories. Moving past me suddenly and carried away to a place they’d never been. I could see this place separate from the man now. I felt a new appreciation for its beauty and serenity.
I looked over at Dwayne, lying on his back with his eyes closed, and I saw him for what he was. A man. An overgrown boy I used to love. Someone who had loved me and made sweet memories with me, but then made a choice to love another. Maybe that choice didn’t end like he thought it would, but he was still willing to love again, and he had two daughters he adored.
I couldn’t hold the past against him any longer. I couldn’t use his mistake to keep holding myself back either. So in a conscious and deliberate act of thinking, I forgave Dwayne Davis. I let him go. I allowed him to be human and make mistakes and let me down. I allowed him to move past what he had done and still be someone I enjoyed talking to. I allowed him to just be him, separate from me and my life.
About the time I had finished mentally separating us, Dwayne sat up and put us together. He leaned over ever so gently and put a light kiss on my cheek and then my lips. Softly. Tenderly. Like we were back in high school with him unsure if I’d say no.
He cupped my cheek in his hand and pulled himself up to get closer to me. His tongue rolled against mine, and I focused on being present in the moment. Not trying to go back. Not trying to remember what had been or recapture what was gone. Dwayne was there, I was there, and we were kissing. And that was okay. I didn’t need to question it, analyze it, or have it be anything other than a man and a woman who shared an attraction for each other. It was like I’d stumbled into some out-of-body counseling experience where I could see everything so clearly and be able to look at it in a completely different way than before.
Evidently, we weren’t both in that place of Zen. Dwayne leaned back an inch or so and looked at me, smiling his crooked little grin that used to drive me wil
d.
“Let’s pick up where we left off, darlin’. Let’s love each other. Hold each other. See where this thing can take us,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
I felt no anger, no pressure, no confusion. I felt nothing but peace.
“Dwayne, we can’t pick up where we left off. We left off with you marrying somebody else, and my heart shattered in a million pieces on the floor. You can’t pick that up, honey. It’s impossible.” He started to speak but I lifted my fingers to his lips. “We’re two entirely different people now. You’ve had a wife. And kids. And bar fights. I’ve had,” I tried desperately to come up with something in my head to equate to wives and kids and bar fights, but I came up empty. It occurred to me that although there’d been many wonderful experiences in my life since I left, in many ways when Dwayne moved on with his life, I shut mine down. I realized how wrong I’d been to do that. How much I had cheated myself.
“I’ve had my own experiences,” I finally finished. “All the things we’ve been through have changed us and shaped us, Dwayne. We don’t even know each other anymore. Everything since we started talking again—every time we’ve seen each other—it’s all about the past. About what we used to do, who we used to be. We aren’t those people anymore.”
I felt like I was channeling Oprah or something. Like these brilliant, insightful words were flowing from my mouth while the real me jumped up and down in the background saying, “Yeah, yeah, that’s good, that’s real good.”
He pulled way back to look at me, his forehead scrunched up as he processed what I said.
“So then let’s see if the people we are now hit it off,” he said.
I laughed softly. “We live in different worlds, honey. We have different goals, different lives. You’re not moving down there, and I definitely ain’t moving back here!”
