I stood up and decided the best thing to do was nothing. Ben was six years older; of course he had relationships. I had two myself in college, although they had been more about timing than passion and I had not left them with any clue as to what all the fuss was about. So of course Ben had them as well--I would probably consider it odd if he didn’t. I hadn’t wanted to think about it. That might have turned into a discussion I wasn’t ready for.
I realized I had been quite the hypocrite when it came to Ben and his sexual history. He knew nothing of mine and obviously wished to keep it that way. He had even been pleasantly surprised nothing had ever developed with Jared. So there would have been no judgment if I had that fling. Displeasure perhaps, and definitely jealousy, but he indicated he was playing the long game. He had talked of our future together enough to let me know it was a game he expected to win; to win me. He had never exacted any promises of fidelity from me in the interim, and perhaps he had his own reasons.
I called Harlan a few hours later per his request and he thanked me for finding the fingernail. “It did come from the body,” he said, “there were scrapings but no match to anything so far. Still, it’s enough there to keep the case open. You coming to town again soon?”
“I can.”
“Stop by here when you do all right?”
I agreed and we hung up, I was still a little mystified but knew Harlan would tell me more when he was good and ready. He hadn’t sounded as though it was pressing. While the old Gretchen would have rushed uptown first thing in the morning the new Gretchen slipped into bed to stare at the ceiling. It was lovely, but DAY 2 might as well have been emblazoned on the tongue in groove pattern of my ceiling. That was all I could see ahead of me. We had parted three days ago, Ben had been gone two days and I could no longer be sure how high that imaginary number on my ceiling would reach, or if someday, I would simply stop counting.
I had to prepare for that.
I had to protect myself somehow from that.
Facebook Post: “I remember some of my mother’s advice when I was growing up. They were cryptic remarks like “walk like your shoes don’t hurt.” Over the years since her death I have come to appreciate and understand them all. A grimace on your face only draws attention and does nothing to stop the pain.”
Chapter 11
I spent a few hours tossing and turning that night until at last I sat up in exasperation. I shook my head, looked at my watch, and went padding downstairs to look for a few Benadryl to ease me back into the darkness. I swallowed them and took Mosey out in the moonlight hoping it would buy me time to sleep in if the capsules did their job.
Mosey nudged me a few hours later than usual the next morning. A male I could depend on, I smiled, scratching him behind the ears. Smiling is good I thought. It tricks your brain into thinking you are happy, or so I heard once on NPR. It certainly wouldn’t make me feel worse.
So I would smile; hell I might even laugh and by God as long as I had these terrible images of a faithless Ben coming at me like sniper fire I might even dance. To be perfectly honest, I had been enjoying my little verbal dalliance with Jared. That was as far as it could go, but it was certainly more fun than picturing Ben with another woman.
I decided to fetch the picnic basket from the Rover while my dog took his interminable time sniffing out the perfect shrub. There was the blanket, which I shook out and folded more neatly. I decided to leave it there. The basket was still in the corner of the backseat where Ben had flung it. I looked at the pattern, the woven wood, the absolute perfection of detail in the lined interior. There was no question now that I had examined it closely that it was custom made. I blushed to think of the work that had gone into it, and what Ben’s attention to the smallest detail might portend in …other areas. Suddenly it made me immeasurably sad to look at it and I wondered when Irinia would track him down and what would happen when she did.
I took the basket inside, cleaned and replaced all the beautiful serve ware, put the cutlery into the tiny pockets and placed it on top of a kitchen cabinet, along with some other cherished objects I had stationed there. They were all things which delighted me as I ventured into the kitchen every day. Maybe having the basket permanently within sight would lessen the surprise attacks of longing for him.
Before the Irinia call I had certainly kept myself amused, and busy. Busy I could still do; the rest would come in its own time. I could catch up on the animals, check the inventory of feed—all the things I occupy myself with when there has to be too much death.
I was glad Lucy was out of town for the day. She and Rod were picking up the twins from camp. Otherwise I would undoubtedly call her and she would optimistically send some great hulking delivery man over on some pretext, or even worse; Jared.
Finally, the chores were done and I finished my errands. It had been a quiet day and now it was time to forage for supper. The fortune cookie in my take out container said, “All answers will be revealed shortly.”
I don’t actually believe anything about psychics, tarot cards, horoscopes and the like. But I taped it to my fridge anyway.
I was looking for a t-shirt to wear to bed when Anita called.
“I wonder if you could do me a favor?” She asked.
“Sure, what do you need?”
“Herb called me, he asked me to come over, now, he sounded intense and I’d rather not go alone.”
“I’ll pick you up in twenty,” I promised, then struggled back into my jeans.
I got there as quickly as I could. Anita was waiting on the porch and jumped in.
As I drove to Herb’s I could feel Anita’s tension and asked her if she was afraid of Herb.
“No, of course not!” She said, surprised. It’s just more of a bad feeling, he didn’t sound like himself. We’ve been spending a little time together since we had Mae in common and he was the first person in town to welcome me here. I got the job offer from the high school just when I needed a change and he was still substituting. He was my first real friend here.”
“I had no idea you were this close,” I said.
“Well since Mae’s death he’s been pretty upset of course, she said quietly, “but I can’t think why he would call me at this hour.”
We pulled in quickly and knocked. There was no answer. I tried the door, it was unlocked. I looked back at Anita and she nodded.
We found Herb in the kitchen. A camera was on the table and he was just sitting there quietly with two plates before him.
“Didn’t expect to see you here, Miss Gretchen.”
“Anita needed a ride,” I said. “I can wait outside if you like.”
“You think you can shoot a video with that thing?” He asked, nodding toward the table.
“I can,” I said carefully after glancing over at it.
He handed an envelope over to Anita. “Open this later ok?”
“Herb,” she prodded, “what is this about?”
“Can you start recording now?” He asked. “I would be mighty grateful if I could just talk and Anita could sit by me.”
I picked up the camera, pressed “record” and he punched in some numbers and began to play a voicemail from his cell phone.
It was Mae’s voice, and she sounded irritable.
“Herb, I thought I was clear from the beginning this is my book. I promised a footnote sourcing you and that I will deliver, but I can’t jeopardize things with my publisher. There are too many people who would start wondering why they need me at all if they found out I was basically just finding one good source. They might decide to change the terms next time. I am the author. Now I don’t want any bad blood, so come over and let’s be civil about this, Anita is coming and I know you like her, so I’ll make one of your recipes, the wild carrot stew. Be early if you want to make sure it’s fit to eat. Call me.”
I started to lower the camera. “Did you call her back or just show up?”
He motioned for me to keep recording and looked at Anita.
“I guess you never r
emembered where I saw you first.”
She shook her head, puzzled.
“My wife had been in a car wreck and died in Burke County. I went to the police station to get her effects afterwards and you were there with your Mama. She had come to bail your stepfather out of jail. I was sitting there beside you while she was counting out the money and you had bruises all over you, arm in a sling. I struck up a conversation with you and your Mama turned to look at you and had a black eye.”
“We bailed him out of jail more than once.”
“Yep, you told me so. I asked you if you were glad he was coming home and you just looked down and said you guessed so, that your Mama needed him home.
We talked a good bit, and then your Mama came and sat while she waited for him to be released. I told her about my wife and your Mama was a real sweet lady. She told me where she worked and that her husband worked the second shift at the furniture mill there in Drexel. She said he was just as good as gold to her when he wasn’t drinking but there was a bar nearby and sometimes he stopped there and tied one on. She seemed real convinced that if the bar hadn’t been where it was that he would have been a good man all the time. She had only called the police on him because he had started in on you again. Most of the time she would just take you and run to your Granny’s house but he had started taking her car keys.
You just looked at the floor the whole time she talked. Then when they called my name your step daddy, he came out so we passed each other. I looked back and the terror in your eyes was something awful. As a teacher I saw a good bit of awful things.
I was on bereavement leave from the school. I could not seem to get you and your Mama out of my head. It didn’t seem fair and it wasn’t fair that I had lost my wife neither and I think I just had this quiet rage building up in me for days with both those things just snarled up in my head.
After awhile I couldn’t stand it. It was a Wednesday and I drove up and found the bar. There used to be a lot of dry counties round there and blue laws you know, and I had a student whose uncle made moonshine over in McDowell County; just enough to get people through a Sunday and whatnot. Might not have been legal but they were nice folks. I stopped off and bought a couple of jars and visited a bit and went on home.
I opened one and doctored it up. The next night I drove down and got there about midnight and your step daddy wasn’t at the bar and I have to say I was glad. I went home and made my mind up to just forget the whole thing. But I was drawn back the following night. I just had to set something right. And there he was, just like it was all meant to be. I sat down beside him. We talked awhile and every time his glass got low I bought him another round. He was an affable enough man at first but the more he drank the uglier he got, talking about you and your Mama; especially you. I have to say the more he talked the more committed I was. I didn’t think you’d survive him.
We walked out together and I gave him a bottle of shine and I drank from another. Just so it wouldn’t be a passing back and forth thing you know. I helped him into his truck and took the keys. When the poison started taking effect I just pushed him over and shut the door. I took his jar and his keys with me. I didn’t want anybody tracing anything back to the people who operated that still. It wasn’t like law enforcement didn’t know about them all, heck they were customers too when they were in a bind.”
He stopped talking and blinked as if he were coming out of a haze.
“What about Mae?” I asked him.
“You know about Mae.”
I waited.
“I went over like she asked; told her I’d been having stomach trouble but I dug up the plants for her stew except I dug up the wild hemlock of course, you know that. I had my gloves on and such. While I was outside I made the wildlife call to their machine and when Anita here phoned to say she would be delayed I suggested Mae try the stew first. I waited until she had commenced eating and I told her the book would be our little secret but I didn’t want to hear from her no more. She could call it a wedding present, but I was through. And I left.”
“But,” he shook his head thoughtfully, “I went home and started worrying about unintended consequences. I dug up some wild carrot and made another batch. The next night I walked to her house and went in the back. I sure was relieved to see that pot in the refrigerator. I just switched them out. It occurred to me whoever cleaned the floor might die if they weren’t careful, so I mopped. Then I figured the best way to control who went in there next was to hire you.” He looked at me grimly, “I’m no fan of yours but you hadn’t done anything wrong and you wear that getup and all. I didn’t want your death on my conscience.”
“You’re not in my fan club? I’ll alert headquarters and stop your newsletter. But thanks for choosing not to poison me. By the way, that’s a pretty elastic conscience you have. So I guess I should be grateful? And what about Anita here? Anita, you grateful?”
She shook her head, “Herb, you have no idea about unintended consequences. What it does to a child to pray for someone to die, and then it happens? The guilt? And do you think a woman marries an abusive man by accident? They don’t. It’s a subconscious recognition of a pattern they’ve been through before. All I am going to say is you had no right. You think you did a good thing but you have no idea how you changed the course of my life.” She laughed bitterly, “Anything could have happened. Maybe I would have been killed, maybe he would have stopped drinking, and maybe my mother would have showed some strength and courage and chosen me over him. She was pregnant when he died. She lost the baby. Whether it was the shock or something else I will never know.”
She stopped and folded her arms.
“What about your wife?” I asked. “You poisoned her just enough to keep her from the man she loved. She never had children because she thought she had mental problems. There are generations of children that will never be born because you wanted what you wanted at any expense.”
“The berries weren’t meant for her.”
“He was your friend,” I continued, my voice steely, “And you didn’t just steal her love, you stole possibility. You see your life’s work as being salvation from poverty and hunger. I look at your life’s work and see a swath of cadavers. Not just the two you killed, but everything, all the things those people were capable of, nobility, children, redemption. You have ruined lives in ways that cannot be counted. Anita might have had a brother and he might have turned into a mean drunk or cured Parkinson’s or written a poem that inspired someone to become an even greater poet, or just looked a certain way at a kid with a gun that made the kid change his mind.”
“The point is Herb, you fucked with the IF. You don’t fuck with the big marvelous IF. I know because I am one. I am the miniscule statistic of people who stop being practicing addicts, whose existence brought out true heroism in my parents, heroism they may never had a need to exhibit if I hadn’t been born. I’m not much, I know that. But what I am is that tiny drop of hope in an ocean that can seem full of despair. You never had the right to interfere with the possibility of anything like that.”
He interrupted, “But my book—”
“Will be published, and by making this confession you have insured that it will get a lot of attention. Despite everything else you have done, that is a wonderful thing.”
I moved slowly toward him. “I just want to zoom in a little closer before you do what you intended to do tonight. That makes sense right?”
He looked down at the two plates before him. Each with a taproot vegetable on it.
“What I want to do here is make sure everyone knows they can trust the book,” he said firmly.
“Hang on a second Herb,” I said moving closer, “I want to set this on something, my hands might start shaking when the reaction starts okay?”
I went behind him and opened up a couple of cabinets and drawers and looked quickly at their contents. I found what I needed, an iron skillet and noticed some tape. I laid the duct tape out on the counter behind him.
> Anita was looking at Herb steadily. “Did you make sure I got this job too?”
Herb didn’t meet her eyes or reply.
I was afraid to waste any more time so I broke the silence. “Okay Anita, I can’t seem to find anything, you think you can hold the camera?”
I tossed it to her and she caught it easily.
“You must have played softball.”
She nodded. “Actually it was my stepfather who taught me.”
“See there Herb, one of the unintended consequences. Maybe she kept playing because she wanted to hang onto that part of her stepfather that showed he did care about her. That would be one of your good unintended consequences.”
“I didn’t turn it off,” I said to Anita, “I’ll just sit down a minute and you let Herb say his piece.”
“But—”
Out of Herb’s line of vision I winked at her, an action so incongruous with everything that was about to happen she seemed to realize I had a plan. And somehow based on our tenuous connection founded on a commitment to life—albeit wildlife—she raised the camera and nodded at Herb as I moved back around as though I was about to take a seat.
“Chop, chop Herb; that battery won’t last forever.” I said and stood facing him just off to the side I hoped, of the video frame.
He cleared his throat and spoke to the camera. “The version of the book I stamped “final” is sitting on my desk. I expect people will want to fact check it and that is more than fine. But what I am about to do will show you my faith in what is in the book. Inform yourself and you and your children need not go hungry. He indicated the two plates. “First I am going to eat the wild carrot then the other.”
“Hang on a second,” I said. “What about if you close your eyes and I move the plates around and then you show that you can still easily tell one from another? That would make your reader feel more secure. They are bound to be nervous otherwise. I know I would,” I said dryly, “considering someone died.”
“Mae’s death was no accident” he said “but I want no doubt about my expertise so that may be best.”
2 Maid in the Shade Page 14
