Where the River Runs

by Patti Callahan Henry

  “You don’t drive because you’re the most sober, son. You drive because you’re just plain sober.”

  “I know, Dad. I know.”

  “Okay, here’s what we do.” Beau paced the kitchen. “I’ll call Harland. He’ll handle the legal side—his brother is the best DUI lawyer in the state. I’ll have Coach Mac call the college. We’ll work this out.”

  “I don’t know if we can, Dad.”

  “Son—you did screw up. You did.” Beau leaned against the counter. “But I know this isn’t what you normally do. I know this isn’t . . . how you are. We’ll figure it out.”

  B.J.’s voice broke. “I’m sorry, Dad. I know what you’re going to say—I can hear it: I have to pay for what I’ve done.”

  “I’ll call you later. I’ll call Harland.”

  Beau hung up the phone and stared at me. “Shit.”

  I ended the call on the other handset and set it on the counter. Beau turned away from me and walked toward his office, where he’d do what he did best—use his contacts and friends to accomplish a goal. If all mistakes were to be paid for, if everything had a consequence, how would he make our son pay?

  You can’t get straight wood from crooked timber, said one of the many Gullah proverbs I had typed and listed in my file. I sat back on the barstool and stared at my warped reflection in the stainless steel refrigerator. Maybe I should have seen something like this coming—just because we ignore things does not mean they disappear. They hide in the deeper places and emerge when we need them the least.

  I hung up my clothes and sank onto the bed. With the suitcase unpacked, it was time to read the mail. Beau had been on the downstairs phone for two hours and hadn’t once come up to talk to me, explain what was going on. My sweet son in a cell for DUI. The news sat on my chest heavier than the disinterest that seemed to come from my husband, weightier than any of the confusion I’d felt during the past two weeks. Normalcy was unraveling; life was coming apart at seams that I’d thought were sturdy.

  I stood and walked to the bedroom door, bumped into Beau entering the room. He regarded me with what appeared to be disapproval. “You’re not ready?”

  “For what?”

  “We’re having dinner at the club with Harland and Alexis and . . . all the rest. I told them you were coming home today, and they all want to see you.”

  “Beau, you did not tell me this.”

  “I guess I forgot while you were telling me I make you unhappy, and B.J. was telling me about his DUI.”

  I leaned against the doorframe, feeling drained and empty. “That is not what I said. Please tell me about B.J. Tell me what happened and who you’ve been on the phone with for hours.”

  “Let’s get ready. We’re already late and we’ll talk in the car.”

  Beau brushed past me and I stayed still until I heard the shower running. Then I went into the closet and stared at my wardrobe. I chose a pair of baby-blue wide-leg pants with a simple white button-down. I slipped on my clothes and stared in the mirror. I needed to fix my makeup, and the shirt could probably use some ironing, but some small Meridy inside me rebelled. I swished on some lip gloss and went down to the kitchen to finish my wine. What else was there to do?

  I needed to talk to my son. I picked up the phone and dialed his cell. His voice came warm over the line and I closed my eyes, imagining him next to me in the kitchen, wearing his baseball uniform and smacking his gum while he told me about his day.

  “Mom . . . I’m sorry,” he said as soon as he heard my voice.

  The strictness of my mother within me rose and I opened my mouth to lecture him about responsibility and wise choices, but I opened my heart instead. “B.J., I love you. It’ll be fine.”

  “I was hoping you’d answer the phone—I tried your cell.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to . . . I don’t know. . . .”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t tell Dad?”

  “Maybe that’s what I was hoping for.” He sighed. “But I know . . . this time . . . you’d have to.”

  “Yes, B.J., I would’ve.”

  “I know. . . . I’ve just completely screwed up.”

  “We all make mistakes. This is just one of the bigger ones. One that has much larger . . . consequences. But no one was hurt. The car wasn’t wrecked.”

  “You and Dad don’t make mistakes.”

  I laughed across the phone lines and wished, desperately wished, I could reach out my arms and wrap them around my adorable son. “We don’t? You have got to be kidding.”

  “I can’t think of one you’ve made,” he said.

  “Okay, my goal this week will be to make a list of all my mistakes. . . . You’ll enjoy them.”

  “Yeah, like you forgot the butter at the grocery store or something terrible like that, Mom.”

  “No, like I was grounded half my senior year, that your grand-mother caught me asleep on the beach after she’d called the police because she thought I ran away, that—”

  “No way, Mom. You’re making all that up.”

  I stared across the kitchen and out the window to the backyard. How many times had I sat out there on the teak chairs and watched B.J. hit baseballs, talked to him? Had my pretense and facade been so intact that I’d never shared anything real or honest with my son? The thought nauseated me.

  “Not making it up. Ask Grandma,” I said.

  “I will.” He laughed. “Hey, Mom, thanks for calling. I’ve been pretty . . . down. I feel like I’ve screwed up all my dreams.”

  “No, Beau. You’ve learned a lesson.”

  “I love you, Mom.” B.J. said this so rarely that his words filled my heart to overflowing.

  “I love you too.” I hung up the phone and leaned against the window. The Lady Banksia roses were in bloom.

  “Who was that?” Beau’s voice startled me. I turned to him.

  “What?”

  His face was all screwed up in the look he had when he was sick with the flu. “Who did you just say ‘I love you’ to?”

  “Our son.”

  “Oh.” He grabbed his car keys from the counter. “Let’s go, okay?”

  “Who did you think it was?”

  “I don’t know, Meridy. You’d just finished telling me how unhappy you are with me, how you want to leave me, and I just—”

  “That is not what I said. You didn’t hear me, Beau. I didn’t tell you I was unhappy with you.”

  As Beau drove the car down the driveway I touched his leg. “Please tell me who you called about B.J. Is it going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know. Harland said his brother would defend him. His alcohol content was the minimum, so he said he should be able to help. I did talk to his coach and there is a chance he’ll lose his slot. But he’s had absolutely no other demerits. He’s never even been late to practice. His coach said he’s been the perfect rookie—doing everything that was asked of him and more. He even helped the other guys who are his competition for the lead pitcher spot. He’d been perfect until now.”

  “We taught him that.”

  “Taught him what? To drink and drive—please, Meridy.”

  “No, to be perfect.”

  “What?” He turned in to the valet, put the car in park and stared at me.

  “Nothing.” I opened the car door and stepped out.

  He walked ahead of me into the dining room, where we greeted Harland and Alexis, Betsy and Mike, at the same table as the last time we ate there. Alexis hugged me. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair down—it looks nice.”

  “Oh . . .” My hand flew to my hair; I pulled on the ends of it. I felt misplaced, crooked, as though someone had dropped me into the wrong picture.

  Betsy hugged me next. “How are you?”

  “Great. Just great.” A numbness washed over my thoughts—almost as if I were watching myself from the golf course through the window.

  I sat down at the table and asked all the appropriate questions, smiled in all the right places. Th
ey began to discuss vacations and children, and Alexis asked Betsy, an interior decorator, what she could do about the hideously ugly wallpaper Harland’s ex-wife had put in the master bathroom. Should she paint over it or rewallpaper?

  I thought Harland would certainly flinch or show some emotion at the mention of Cate in such a derogatory way. But no one except me seemed to notice. It was as if she’d never been there, as if Cate was just some old homeowner who didn’t use the right decorator, instead of who she was: a friend and a wife. My hands shook beneath the table, my mouth went dry as I realized that it could just as easily be I who was replaced. Now you see her; now you don’t. I could just as easily disappear from this vaporous world I thought so important and they’d discuss how I had never picked out the right shoes to go with my skirt.

  Betsy patted my hand. “Meridy, you’re so quiet tonight. Tell us about your beach trip.”

  Alexis tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “Did you finish the thingie you were working on?”

  “It’s a curriculum—and I’ve almost finished. I’ll probably go back there. . . .” A need to escape overcame me. “Excuse me, I need to make a quick phone call.” If I said I was going to the ladies’ room, which was where I was going, Alexis and Betsy would follow me.

  I opened the handicapped bathroom stall, where there was a bench. I slumped onto the paisley seat and lowered my head into my hands. I hadn’t even been home for five hours and here I was hiding in the bathroom.

  The slam of the outside door caused me to look up. Women’s voices came to me in my hiding place.

  “What’s up with her?” It sounded like Alexis.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s just upset B.J. got a DUI.” That was definitely Betsy. I leaned toward the stall door. Nothing like overhearing a conversation while one hid in the bathroom—pitiful.

  “Well, her poor, adorable husband. God, I would never leave him alone for a week. He told Harland he thought she was only going for the weekend . . . but then she just kept staying away. Harland said Beau seemed really irritated . . . and now she says she’s probably going back. Something is up with them. Well, I guess people aren’t always what they seem—she’s always been so perfect, but you never know what goes on behind closed doors.”

  An electric tingle began deep in my throat. I stood up. I started to open the door when I heard Alexis say, “Well, if Beau gets lonely, I know someone who will have no problem taking care of him.” She laughed.

  “Alex, that is not funny . . . ,” Betsy answered.

  “Well, obviously perfect little Meridy is falling apart. Did you see what she was wearing? Her hair is a . . . mess and it looks like she just rolled out of bed.”

  “I like her hair down and she’s probably upset about her son and she just got home. . . .”

  “She’ll ruin Beau’s chances if she’s not careful. You can’t have a son in jail and a wife who runs away all the time and be a senior partner. I think it looks like she just woke up and—”

  I threw open the bathroom stall door; it banged against the far wall. A botanical fern print fell to the floor. Both women gasped, stepped back. “I did just wake up. Thanks, Alexis.”

  Alexis stepped toward me, touched my arm. I shoved her hand off my shirt and walked toward the door as gracefully as I could on my stiff legs. On the threshold I turned back around. “Will you please tell my adorable and lonely husband that I have gone to get the car?”

  I walked through the corridors of the country club in a fog of anger and embarrassment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was making any sense. I didn’t belong here; I didn’t belong at home anymore.

  As the car pulled up to the curb, Beau came up behind me. “What are you doing?”

  “Didn’t Alexis and Betsy tell you? I’m falling apart.” The anger that I’d hidden now came out full and ugly.

  “What are you talking about? You can’t just leave in the middle of dinner.”

  “Yes, I can. You can stay or come home with me. I’m leaving.”

  “Okay, let’s calm down here.” Beau waved the valet away with his hand. “You can’t just walk away.”

  “Am I messing up your job opportunities?”

  “That is not fair, Meridy. What is going on here?”

  “I’ve made a terrible choice. I need to go back to Seaboro. . . . I’ve let a friend take the blame for something I did, and just because he says it’s all right . . . it’s not. Telling the truth is part of who I am, who I’m supposed to be, so I can quit just faking it.”

  “You’re not making any sense at all.”

  I stared at the man I’d been married to for twenty years. This was not the place to tell him everything I carried within me. He wanted to go back inside.

  “Beau, I’m going home now. You can stay and talk to your friends or come home and I’ll try to tell you what I’m going through.”

  “I can’t just walk out without paying the bill. I can’t just leave Harland when he’s helping with B.J.’s DUI and . . . that would be beyond rude.”

  “What his wife just said about me in the bathroom was beyond rude.”

  “This is about Cate and Alexis?”

  “The substitute wife? No, it’s about everything, Beau, everything before and after Alexis.” I grabbed the car keys from the valet and got behind the wheel. I didn’t even look to see if Beau was coming. He wouldn’t be. Maybe it was an unfair test. Utter humiliation washed over me.

  I returned to a house that was incredibly full of things to do, demanding my time, yet it was also completely empty. Yes, Alexis was gossiping, but she was right about one thing. I looked like I’d just woken up—I stared in the mirror at the wrinkled cotton shirt, my hair down and unstyled. But I’d woken up inside too.

  My mind turned to my son. What if something worse had happened to B.J.? Mrs. Garrett’s face flashed through my mind. Danny’s parents’ distress and grief must have been more terrible than I could ever imagine. Danny was an only child, as was B.J. I doubled over with the grief that must have surrounded them, probably still did. There was something I should have done a very long time ago: go see Danny’s parents.

  The phone’s ring startled me. I stared at it as if it might bite me. Mother’s voice came over the line. “Tulu is in the hospital, Meridy.”

  “What?” Her voice seemed to come from underwater.

  “She’s fine. I think. She fell off her porch today. I’m not sure I got the entire story, but she was unconscious for a few minutes, so they took her to the hospital. They are just keeping her overnight for observation. She’s refused any X-rays or tests, but the doctors say she’s going to be okay.”

  “Oh, Mother, I’ll be there tomorrow. Will you tell her I’ll be there tomorrow?”

  “Meridy, you can’t come back tomorrow. You just got home.”

  “I was coming anyway . . . I think.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow. Of course, if it’s okay with you.”

  “Yes . . .”

  I hung up feeling the weariness that comes of emptiness, finished the laundry and packed. I crawled into bed wanting the Beau who’d knelt before me on a portico and proposed, who’d stood in the front lawn with a cold margarita and an obnoxious palm tree shirt, who’d rushed out into the field to hug his son who’d just pitched a no-hitter.

  But when Beau came home, a cold tension saturated the room. My suitcase sat sentinel at the bedroom door to roll out in the morning. He pointed to it, opened his mouth, closed it, then turned away from me and walked into the closet.

  “Beau?”

  He turned to me but didn’t answer.

  I sat up in the bed. “Tulu fell—she’s in the hospital. I’m going back to Seaboro tomorrow. I’d like it if you went with me.”

  “You know I can’t do that. You know that.” His hands were in tight fists at his sides.

  “I need to . . . go see her.”

  “Meridy.” He slammed his fist into the doorjamb. “You were going anyway.”

/>   I searched for words to say to him to alleviate this situation, to please him, to make him understand. All the times in my marriage when I had struggled to explain how I felt seemed to have drained me of any words that might remain now. There was nothing to say and everything to say. I rolled onto the pillow feeling I needed to start with the truth and the past and work toward the present.

  Water ran in the sink. Beau getting ready for bed sounded familiar and comfortable until he walked out of the room and I heard the guest bedroom door click shut. His anger prevented him from coming near me, prevented him from listening to me even if I did speak. Then I waited for the dawn, which lingered beyond the horizon longer than it ever had as I searched for the truth. I was as much and even more than who I was when I’d set off the firecracker. And now I would not be less.

  PART III

  “Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being.”

  —SAINT AUGUSTINE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You can recognize a person’s tribe by the way he cries.”

  —GULLAH PROVERB

  Sissy’s new white Jaguar was parked under the live oak, moss brushing the leather convertible roof. I groaned. Just what I needed—I thought she and Penn weren’t coming until next week. Mother hadn’t said a word about Sissy being there.

  I had planned on telling Mother about the fire, but not with Sissy’s honey-laced curls straightened into a bouncy bob and her lip-lined pout and Chanel suit on a two-hundred-degree day. Somehow the moisture and heat here never affected Sissy, while my hair wilted and my clothes sagged before I reached the porch.

  I opened the front door and called out for either Mother or Sissy. A rustling came from the library and I opened the double French doors. A gasp stifled itself in the base of my throat; Sissy was crumpled on the edge of the couch. Her hair fell in loose curls to her shoulders. She wore a pair of jeans and a wrinkled peach button-down blouse.