Bridge To Happiness

by Jill Barnett

  “Aren’t you the black pot talking to the kettle? Spider is twenty five years older than you are.”

  “And you’re old enough to be that cowboy’s mother.”

  “Not quite,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “What could you possibly have in common?” she asked me.

  “What could you possibly have in common with Spider?”

  “Sex, Mother,” she said to shock me. “Spider is great in bed.”

  “So is Rio,” I shot back.

  “Oh, God . . . ” She made a face and held up her hands.

  Scott groaned and Phil said, “Too much information, Ma.”

  “Well, where the hell did you think I was for the last two days? Holding hands with him? Your generation did not invent sex.”

  “But you hardly know him, and you slept with him?” Molly looked appalled.

  “I slept with your father the first night I met him.”

  They all looked at me stunned, part horror in my daughter’s case, and shock or awe or a mix of the two, I wasn’t sure which, with the boys.

  “That was back in the Sixties,” I said, slightly embarrassed because I didn’t exactly mean to admit that to them. “You had to have been there. And frankly, who I sleep with really isn’t your concern, especially now that you’re adults. I would consider it Mickey’s concern since he still lives at home, but it’s too early in my opinion for us to all play meet the family.”

  “Who you date is our concern, Mom,” Scott said. “You’re a wealthy woman.”

  “Who can make decisions for herself,” I said.

  “Like getting drunk and cracking her head open or getting herself thrown in jail,” Molly muttered.

  I turned to her. “Or dating the wrong man.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “I meant you.”

  “If the shoe fits,” was her response. “And Spider and I are not dating.”

  “He broke up with you?” I glanced from her to her brothers.

  “We’re engaged.” Molly held out her hand and twisted a band ring around. A large oversized pink diamond surrounded in more stones sparkled from her ring finger.

  I wanted to throw up. “But he’s already been married three times.” I looked to her brothers with the hope they would at least acknowledge some risk in this. They weren’t listening to anything I said about her, just like before. “What is wrong with you two?” I was getting so angry with them. “Can’t you see the problem in this?”

  “Right now we’re only worried about you,” Scott said.

  “Look Ma, we know who Spider is.” Phil’s voice was calm. “But we don’t know much about this . . . Rio guy.”

  “Well, you don’t need to. Back off of me and try to talk some sense into your sister. This is her whole life. It’s a huge decision. I’m dating Rio, not marrying him.”

  The longer I looked at them, the more I could tell nothing I had said eased their already-made-up-minds.

  “I looked him up on the internet,” Scott admitted.

  “You Googled Rio?”

  “Yes,” all three of my kids said at once.

  I stepped back, a little surprised.

  “He’s had a pretty wild life, Ma.” Phil gave me a concerned look and Scott nodded. That might have been the first thing the two of them agreed on since Mike died, I thought miserably.

  “And a bad marriage,” Molly added.

  “One failed marriage, not three,” I said, and she at least had the good sense to look down.

  “There’s a huge gap in his history,” Phillip said.

  “Yeah,” Scott agreed. “There’s been nothing about him for years.”

  “Perhaps because of the life he lives now. Did that cross your mind? Rio was young when he became famous way too fast. He let the limelight go to his head. My God, he was just a kid when he hit it big. Think about Mickey. Think about yourselves at that age. It didn’t take that long for his life to fall completely apart, and he’s worked hard to turn everything around. If there’s one thing I certain of, he’s a good man.”

  I hated being forced to defend Rio, who didn’t need defending, and if he did, he could do so himself. He never verbally apologized for the mistakes he had made, although he had come close the afternoon at the ski lodge. But his jokes about them always carried edges of regret.

  His humility was real and not just something coy bred from the polite South; it came from having been in the lowest places, and from understanding how easily you could make the wrong choice and ruin a life. I believed he carried with him self-condemnation and dark memories in a place deep in his heart. I also believed his occasional go-to-hell-look was instinctive; a defense against a past he regretted so greatly, but knew he could never change.

  “At least Rio has a learning curve,” I said. “I don’t see that Spider Olsen has changed, or even tried to.” I faced my sons. “And neither of you had any trouble at all with Spider and Molly, but you question me about Rio? I didn’t raise you to practice that kind of a double standard.”

  “You’re our mother,” Scott said.

  “She’s your sister,” I shot back.

  The doorbell rang before any of us could say another word, and I looked up startled. Though I hadn’t expected him, I knew who was standing on the other side of the door. “I’ll get it.” I walked over and let Rio inside.

  He leaned into me and took my hand. “You’re not going to face them alone, darlin’.”

  “This isn’t going to be fun or easy,” I said quietly.

  “I didn’t expect it would be,” he said and gave my hand a squeeze.

  We walked into the great room together. “Scott, Phil, Molly, this is Rio.”

  Rio moved toward my sons, who stood and shook his hand, and I saw that he kept eye contact with each of them, said their name with a nod of acknowledgment, before he turned to my daughter, who hadn’t budged from the sofa. “Molly,” he said kindly, and she was stubbornly silent.

  With Molly, this wasn’t about him, not really. This was about her father, and about me, and my choices which she worked very hard at not agreeing with. She, of my children in that room, I realized all too late, honestly felt betrayed by me, and I was sorry I snapped at her.

  “Careful,” I said to cut the tension. “She’s already called me a cougar.”

  “You?” Rio burst out laughing, then looked at me, slid his arm around my waist and his face turned serious as he looked at my children. “The truth is she met me at the back door of the stage with her panties in her hand.”

  For just an instant, the look on my kids’ faces was priceless. “He’s kidding,” I said. “I told him what you boys said New Year’s Eve.”

  “Sorry,” Rio said, not looking the least bit apologetic. “Too good a moment to pass up. The truth is that I chased after your mother. It wasn’t the other way around.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re here,” Scott said, giving Rio a direct look that reminded me so much of his dad. “For our mother.” Scott had just drawn a line in the sand, a deep line.

  “Okay,” Rio said easily, sitting down next to me on the sofa. “Fire away. Ask me whatever you want, whatever you need to know about me. I’ll tell you the truth.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  I sipped wine as my children grilled him on every subject, questions I hadn’t asked and answers I hadn’t known. They wanted to know his roots and background, about those days as a country star; questions about everything from cocaine to his net worth, a figure which made Molly gasp, Phil choke on his beer, and Scott ask even more pointed questions, like why the hell he sang in a casino lounge.

  If there was a sure thing to bet on in this world, it was that Rio loved to sing, and he said as much. Performing wasn’t about show business and limelight. “Music needs to be heard, and the stories the songs tell should be shared with as many people who want to hear them,” he told my son. “I have something to say in my songs.”

  Every time someone played a
recording of one of Rio Paxton’s long list of songs on the radio, every time someone sang his lyrics on TV, Rio was paid. He had been active behind the scenes in recent years, recording and producing some of the biggest groups to come into Country Music and some top albums, for which he was paid a whole hell of a lot of money. But his work was important to him, not as a claim to fame, but simply how he felt about the music.

  It was late when my kids were done with him, and we left them sitting uncomfortably quiet and pensive and perhaps a little more accepting. I wasn’t really sure.

  Outside, I walked with him over to the driver’s side of his truck. He leaned against it and pulled me into his arms, then wrapped me inside his heavy fleece coat and slid his hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

  I felt his lips on my forehead and we stood like that for an immeasurable amount of time, hearts beating against each other, and I felt so incredibly good. It was probably twenty degrees out and the moon was big and white and almost full; it was hazy around the edges, as if it were rimmed in dry ice, as if it would burn you if you touched it.

  I took a deep breath of frozen air and watched the frost cloud float upward when I exhaled. “I wonder if you have any idea how much I adore you for what you just went through for me.”

  “I’m a selfish bastard, darlin’. I want you, so I did it for me.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah . . . yeah . . . ,” I said and he tilted my chin up with his knuckle and kissed me so tenderly I almost wanted to cry. I couldn’t stop the way my body fit against his or the passion that flared so hot and fast between us, passion and something more than that, something I just felt, and still had trouble accepting and being comfortable with. This was all so unexpected and new and fresh and wonderful. And I was scared.

  He pulled back after a minute and ran his thumb back and forth across my lip. “I’ll miss you tonight.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  Once inside, he rolled down the window and started the truck.

  “Call me when you get home. I want to know you’re okay.” The words came without thought, and at that moment I understood exactly where my heart was. I was afraid I would lose another man I loved.

  I walked back toward the house and I could hear my sons’ raised voices inside. When I opened the door, the two of them were like bulldogs facing off nose to nose. They both had the same expressions. Molly wasn’t in the room.

  “You’ve lost the company more money this year with your chicken shit choices than I ever did with SKISTAR,” Phillip shouted.

  “Well, it’s damned easy for you to stand here and criticize me, Phil. You didn’t have the make those decisions. Do you know what Dad would have done? Is it all just so easy for you?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve got it so easy. You and your wife pop out kids like rabbits . . . in the damned dining room. You don’t even need a goddamned hospital, while I almost lost my wife just trying to carry one baby. She cries every night because she can’t get pregnant. Yeah, my life is so easy. What can I do right? I can’t drive, and apparently I can’t fuck right either.”

  Scott fired back. “And isn’t it all too easy to look back now and say I should have taken the American Express endorsement deal, or worked out the new insurance contract for the company. Or to say that we could have made more money if I expanded the clothing lines. The list of what I should have done is as long as my arm!” Scott drove his hand through his thick hair and spun around and faced his brother. “And who the hell are you to call me a coward, to say that I’m afraid of risk? That’s bullshit. You are supposed to be the wild one, the risk taker, the gambler. You are the hip, cool brother, not the square conservative one. I’m a coward? So tell me Joe Cool, why is it that you won’t drive a car since Dad died?”

  Molly came down the stairs, clearly stunned by her brothers’ fight.

  “Fuck you, Scott.” Phillip shouted.

  “You brought it up, asshole.”

  “Stop it! Both of you!” I walked into the fray. “Is that true, Phillip?” My mind scrolled backwards over time and I tried to remember if I could remember Phillip driving. What I could remember were two instances when he weaseled out of driving, one of them at Christmas and Keely was driving her car at Thanksgiving. “Do you not drive?”

  “He doesn’t drive anymore?” Molly asked, as surprised as I was.

  Scott was still fuming but he nodded.

  “You don’t drive anymore because of your dad’s accident?”

  “It started then,” Scott volunteered.

  That Phillip was stonily quiet pretty much told me it was true. Molly was eyeing him curiously and she seemed to have dropped her animosity a little.

  I felt like a failure, standing there with my three oldest children all of whom were having deep troubles. I hadn’t been paying attention. Scott knew what was going on with Phillip but I hadn’t noticed. Phillip had been deeply traumatized by his father’s accident and I didn’t notice.

  My son who stopped by to check on me, teased me and watched out for me. The most sensitive of my four, the one who covered all of his tragedies by joking his way around them. I had no Pledge cans for him. I hadn’t even noticed what was going on. I grasped my middle son’s hand. “It’s okay Phil. It’s okay.”

  He raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were moist and his lips thin as a needle. My son was lost, deep in those eyes I knew so well, my son was lost and afraid and alone. He broke eye contact and said, “Drop it, Ma.’

  I took a deep breath and said firmly, “You both have to stop fighting. You two are the company now. It’s both of you, profits and loss, mistakes and brilliant new ideas. But you stop this, now. Neither of you are leaving until you work things out.”

  “Come on, Molly.” I took her gently by her stiff shoulders and led her toward my room. “You and I are going to talk. In my bedroom.” I stopped and turned around. I looked at my sons. “I mean it. You two work out this horrible dark thing between you.”

  In the bedroom and I said to Molly, “Okay. Sit down.”

  She did.

  “So you want to marry Spider?”

  She nodded, twisting engagement ring on her finger.

  “You know how I feel about him.”

  “But you aren’t marrying him. I am.”

  “That’s true,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Molly, marriage is not easy. Believe me. You’re going into this with the deck stacked against you. Even if the age difference weren’t a problem, his marriages have been. He has failed three times. What makes you think this time with you will be different?”

  She shrugged but wouldn’t look me in the eye. “No one can predict the future. I could marry someone who has never been married and we would have a thirty three percent chance of getting a divorce.”

  She was right. But Spider? I took a deep breath and knew it was time for me to back down. “Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “We’re getting married in three months.”

  “Three months? Why so soon?”

  “We made the decision. I don’t want a long engagement.” She looked at me squarely. “Are you refusing to help me with the wedding?”

  My mind went back to another time, another place, in a white kitchen with ivy wallpaper and another question Are we really arguing about my wedding?

  I closed the distance between us, just a mere couple of feet, I sat down next to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Never.”

  And I sat there holding her for a long time, my hand cupping her head like I had when she was colicky and crying in the middle of the night. Only now, my baby stood on her own two feet. I forced back the tears I could feel rising in my throat. “I’m not certain we can get the dress ordered in three months.”

  “I know you, mom. You can work miracles. You can get anything done.” Molly stepped back out of my arms and looked at me with a look I hadn’t seen in a long time. She needed me. “I thought if you would come home right away we can start planni
ng everything.”

  My only daughter was determined to marry the wrong man, for what I was certain were the wrong reasons. Mike could have talked some sense into her. But he wasn’t here and she needed me. Planning a wedding was important, a rare mother daughter moment. Our fragile, unraveling relationship needed all the mother daughter bonding it could get.

  “I thought that we could go home tomorrow,” she said.

  Tomorrow. I thought about Rio, but that was only that new part of me who loved the peace I had with him. My kids needed me.

  Maybe this would be good for us. Some distance might make me less confused about how quickly my heart had become so tangled with his.

  My sons were still yelling in the other room and Molly looked at me. “I brought some bride magazines. Will you look at them with me?”

  Did she think I would refuse? I slipped my arm around her shoulders and smiled. “Sure.”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder. We sat there, my chin resting on my prickly daughter’s head. She pulled away after a few minutes and hugged me, something she hadn’t done in a very long time and stood up. “I’ll run and get them.”

  I watched her walk away, fully aware that she was not certain about this marriage. Underneath all that attitude she was scared.

  “Molly?”

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “It will be okay. Everything will be okay.” But in my heart, as I listened to the shouting and cursing and name-calling by my sons in the other room, I was certain I was wrong.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next day was too quiet. All through the morning. No shouting. No raised voices. Apparently for my sons working things out meant utter silence and one word answers. There was a strategy known to larger families—avoidance tactics when you didn’t want to be confronted by those who knew when you were lying. With two stories and a large house, Phillip and Scott stayed a step ahead of me and Molly was the distraction, talking to me about nothing while her brothers disappeared separately on some trumped up task, like changing the heater filter or checking the propane tank.

  We closed up the house, and I had thought we were to leave at the same time, but when I walked outside, only Scott was standing by my car, his car next to mine, his collar pulled up tightly as a light snow drifted down. Molly’s car was gone, the tracks in the drive still deep.