Faithful Unto Death

by Stephanie Jaye Evans

  She smiled. “Just don’t forget to fill me in—or you might be in that group for more than moral support.”

  I pulled her close for a kiss and a squeeze, but when her hands slid up my chest, she felt the lump in my pocket. She pulled Jo’s locket out and I didn’t get that kiss.

  “Why do you have this, Bear?”

  “Three minutes, Annie Laurie, let me—”

  She sat down and put the paper bag with the thermos and tablecloth at her feet. “I don’t believe I’m going to group tonight, Bear. You aren’t leading, are you?” She knew I wasn’t. “You aren’t going to go to hell for missing a group this once; sit down and tell me what’s going on.”

  “I hate to miss Jim’s group. He’ll be looking for me—”

  “It’s better you disappoint Jim than you disappoint me. I want to know why Wanderley was here again and I want to know why you have Jo’s locket and …” Annie Laurie opened the locket with a pink fingernail and stared at Alex’s young face. “Oh, my Lord. Do we have a problem, Bear?”

  I sat down. I told her I thought maybe we did.

  Sixteen

  I’m not going to go into the discussion we had with Jo that night. I’m calling it a discussion; that may be something of a misnomer since an objective observer might be excused for mistaking the exchange for an all-out screaming match. Not that I screamed any. I yelled some, but only after the kind of provocation that would have had the Apostle Paul throwing hissy fits. (I need to think of someone else. The Apostle Paul is known for his hissy fits.)

  Let me sum it up. Jo wasn’t talking. Okay, that’s not quite accurate, either, because she said plenty, mainly to let me know that a suspicious mind was an indication of a guilty conscience, and yeah, she was talking about me there, and that she hadn’t broken any rules as we had never specifically forbidden her to use her second-story bedroom window for ingress and egress (and she used those words, too; “ingress” and “egress,” I mean).

  She wouldn’t tell us where she had gone; she wouldn’t tell us what she had done; and she wouldn’t tell us who she had been with, that last being on the principle that her personal relationships were just that, personal.

  I think I started doing some of the yelling right about then, Jo not backing down an inch, grit-toothed and clench-fisted and looking for all the world like a black cat spitting at a dog.

  She told us that, furthermore (and she used that word, “furthermore”), “Furthermore, Nana gave that necklace to me and you don’t have any right to take it away.”

  I said I hadn’t taken it away from her, I had taken it from a Sugar Land cop, and he had taken it from Alex Garcia in an interview room of the Fort Bend Juvenile Detention Center and would she perhaps care to explain those circumstances to her Nana, because I just happened to know her number by heart and I would be only too happy to dial it for her. And I took her cell phone from her desk. And no, I did not confiscate it. I took it for safekeeping because our rule has always been if you misuse it, you’re going to lose it, and the girls understood that from the beginning when I bought them the dang things.

  Jo said she hadn’t given the locket to Alex, she had loaned it to him because he was so sad, and in any case, she and her Nana had a perfect understanding and she would talk to Nana on her own time, but thank you so very much anyway, and I said had she taken up Masterpiece Theater or Jane Austen or something because she sounded like someone in a costume drama. And that’s when Annie Laurie, who’d been trying to get a word in edgewise, said, “Why, Bear, she talks just like you.” And then I yelled at Annie.

  So you can see why I’m not going to go into that night’s discussion.

  I’d already had a good run but Baby Bear hadn’t and he’d missed out on his afternoon romp, too, another thing that was Jo’s fault. I stowed Jo’s phone in my underwear drawer and left the two women of the house to commiserate with each other for having the terrible fate of being related to me.

  My afternoon run on the levee had taken me from the church to the house, north to south. Tonight Baby Bear and I ran south from my house. If you follow the levee this way, you’ll eventually end up past Oil Field Drive, which is cow country in some areas and sportscaster megahomes in others. Well, there’s one sportscaster out there anyway. Merrie went to his kid’s birthday party.

  I wouldn’t be running that far this evening. I wanted to run off steam, not run away. Had it not been for the full moon, the sidewalk would have been the smarter choice for a jog. The levee is unlit except for the lights shining out of the homes that back up to it.

  Elkins Road crosses the levee this way. I would pass right by the golf course, right by the ninth green, where Graham Garcia had died less than forty-eight hours ago. Garcia wasn’t much older than me. Correction: He hadn’t been much older than me. He was dead now. I’ve seen a lot of death; ministers do. I haven’t seen much unexpected death. Some car accidents. Some heart attacks. Never murder.

  I was thinking along those lines, my feet pounding the levee, my head somewhere else, Baby Bear keeping up easily, when the dog gave a low growl and took off like a bullet. Okay, not exactly a bullet, but like a large, hairy dog on a mission.

  He left me in the dust and I was hoping it was a nutria he was after and not some poor, lone jogger who was about to get a toothy, slobbery, Hound-of-the-Baskervilles surprise. I heard a cry and a grunt and I knew it wasn’t a nutria, and I put on more speed than I thought I had left in me. I came past a bank of trees and saw, to my utter horror, that Baby Bear had some guy on the ground and appeared to be worrying his neck. Baby Bear was making disgusting chewing noises. I had visions of battalions of lawyers descending upon me. I’m not proud of that self-centered thought, but it was my first.

  The fellow was struggling to get up, saying, “Baby, get off me. Jo! Call him off! He’s getting spit all over me!”

  I reached one hand down, grabbed Baby Bear’s collar, and hauled him off. With the other hand I grabbed the guy’s upper arm and hauled him to his feet. Baby Bear hadn’t been tearing the guy’s throat out; he’d been showing him the sort of affection he usually reserves for family members.

  Alex Garcia was standing in front of me, his long blond hair glistening with dog drool, using the tail of his shirt to wipe dog slobber off his face and neck. He looked stunned to see Jo’s dad instead of Jo. I was feeling stunned, too. My mind was putting puzzle pieces together.

  I said, “Let’s walk a ways, Alex, seeing as you’ve come all the way out here to meet someone who I’m pretty sure is not going to show. In fact, you better hope she doesn’t show.”

  He said, “Oh, no. Well, I wasn’t here to … I was only …”

  I had hold of the back of Alex’s shirt and I turned him and sort of propelled him back the way he had come.

  I said, “No, you weren’t only anything, you were out here to meet Jo. Not for the first time, either. She didn’t give you away, you know, in spite of the beatings.”

  He stopped. “You didn’t—”

  That made me mad. “Son, can’t you take a joke? You have California blood, maybe? I do some hollering sometimes, hardly ever, but I have not laid a hand on a woman in my whole life. Not the way you’re thinking.”

  I gave him a little shove to start him moving in the right direction again. That direction being away from my house. The idea of me hitting one of my girls. Alex thinking I might really have hit Jo, though—it made me pause. Honey had said Graham didn’t hit her, but she wouldn’t be the first woman to shield her husband.

  “Your father,” I said, “he wasn’t rough with your—”

  He pulled away from me.

  “I’ve never even heard him raise his voice to her. So I guess he did better than you, since you ‘holler.’ From what I hear.”

  I’m not saying I didn’t have that coming. Still, that kid didn’t have a clue what kind of restraint it took for me not to do more than yell, what with him sneaking up the levee to entice my fourteen-year-old daughter out to meet him. The thoug
ht made me tighten up my grip on his collar. What I really wanted to do was give him a shake and explain to him in no uncertain terms exactly what I was going to do to him if he met Jo behind my back again. I guess I did give him the tiniest shake, a friendly shake, which turned him toward me, and in the blue moonlight I could see his face, his startled eyes looking up at me.

  He’d been crying. His face had that thin-skinned look and his eyelids were swollen. He wasn’t but a few years older than Jo. There was still a lot more boy in his face than there was man, in spite of the light dusting of beard on his cheeks. So if he’d been crying, well, Alex had a right to those tears. His daddy was dead. Murdered. He’d been treated like a criminal. And he’d had the misfortune to meet up with Jo’s dad instead of with Jo. I let go of his collar and put my arm around his shoulder. I got us walking again, Baby Bear snuffling at our feet, pleased as peaches that he’d found a friend to join us. Baby Bear loves company.

  I said, “You’re right, Alex. It’s a bad thing for a man to yell at his wife, and I have yelled at Annie Laurie. Been real sorry afterward, of course.”

  Partly my conscience and partly because Annie Laurie saw to it that I was real sorry.

  Alex breathed in the night air, trying to get a hold of himself. Sounded like he was choking. Baby Bear leaned his weight against Alex’s legs as he walked, trying to show support, about to knock him down. I had a strong arm around him, letting him know he could count on me. Between me and Baby Bear, Alex must have felt the teensiest bit squeezed.

  “Mr. Wells?” His voice was tight, like he was having trouble breathing.

  “Yes, son?” I could tell the boy needed to talk, needed to open up to someone.

  “Could you take your arm off me? You’re kind of sweaty and—”

  “Oh!”

  I let him go. I’d slipped on the same workout clothes I’d used to run home from the office earlier, and I must have been ripe.

  The kid took a step or two away and bent at the waist, hands on his knees, in the position of a badly winded runner. He was gasping, clearly relieved to be inhaling the warm, humid night instead of warm, humid me and Baby Bear. I should have been offended but I thought it was funny. A serious musking was a good punishment for a boy who had come sneaking around my house, after my daughter.

  “Listen,” he said, straightening up, “I’m, ah, I was, ah …” He started walking backward.

  But we’d come to one of those improvised benches the road crews had constructed here and there on top of the levee so they’d have someplace to eat their lunches. A piece of planking nailed between two convenient tree trunks, that’s all it was. It was a good place for us to sit and talk on a mild March night like this. If it had been a month or two later, the mosquitoes would have made the night a misery.

  “Alex, come sit down here a minute and let’s you and me talk.”

  He was still backing up, his hands in his back pockets, elbows akimbo. “No, I, ah—my mom, she’s …” Baby Bear kept giving Alex affectionate nudges, sticking his cold wet nose up under the kid’s loose shirt and sniffing interestedly.

  “You go on and call your mom.” I sat down on the bench, feeling it bend a little. “You’ve got your cell phone, haven’t you? I mean, that’s how you were going to let Jo know you were out here waiting for her. I don’t guess your generation does anything as low-tech as throw pebbles at the girl’s window, do you?”

  Alex hesitated, his big white sneakers half-buried in the tractor ruts. Baby Bear stood on one of his sneakers and worried at the other. Baby Bear’s favorite game is “Steal the Sneaker.” He was having trouble getting Alex’s off and he was producing a ton of drool. All Newfies drool. It’s part of their charm.

  I said, “Son, you don’t need to be afraid of me. It’s not like I’m going to eat you. Baby Bear might eat you, but I won’t.”

  It was a cheap shot, but with a boy young as Alex, it could have worked. Alex surprised me. He gave me a half-smile, and shook his head like he’d expected better of me.

  “Mr. Wells, not wanting to talk to you isn’t the same thing as being afraid to talk to you. And Jo’s dog loves me. Right, Baby?” Alex grabbed Baby Bear’s nape and gave it a rough shake. Baby Bear grinned up at the kid, happy to concur. Alex had been spending a lot of time with my dog. I hadn’t known that.

  Then he surprised me again. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. Not, it turned out, his mother’s.

  I said, “If you’re calling Jo, she won’t answer. I took her phone away.”

  Alex said, “Jo?”

  Which meant Annie Laurie had given Jo her phone back, thank you very much for the unified parental front.

  He didn’t drop his voice, didn’t turn his back. “Listen, I’m out on the levee with your dad—no, don’t come—Jo, I’m asking you not to come—I know that, but obviously he doesn’t. We’re going to talk for ten or fifteen minutes, then I’ll call you from the truck. Not more than half an hour, I promise. Okay. I love you. No matter what.”

  So. All right, then. I felt like he’d made his position pretty plain there, and as far as he was concerned, I could like it or lump it.

  Alex snapped the phone shut and slid it in his back pocket. He gave Baby Bear a push and walked over, his sneakers shushing through the weeds and kicking up puffs of gnats. He stopped in front of me and stood feet apart, arms akimbo. That was to make him look more imposing. I saw it on the National Geographic Channel. They were showing frill-neck lizards, but it’s the same thing.

  Baby Bear sat down in front of Alex and then scooted back until his bottom was on top of Alex’s feet. Baby Bear likes lots of physical contact.

  “You wanted to talk?”

  I scooted aside on the bench, my nylon running shorts picking up some splinters from the unsanded two-by-four. “Sit down, Alex.” I patted the bench but he shook his head.

  “No, I’ll stand—I’m not sure it can hold us both.”

  Another Clydesdale moment for me, but I smiled anyway.

  “They didn’t keep you long, up at the station.”

  “They didn’t have any cause.”

  “That what your lawyer said?”

  “She did, but she didn’t need to. I could have told them myself. I’m not stupid.”

  Not stupid, ignorant. There’s a difference.

  “Your grandfather came to see me today.”

  “Which one?”

  “As it turned out, I saw them both. Your grandfather Parker made an appearance at the juvie jail and caught me up.”

  Alex gave a snort. “That wasn’t an appearance. I heard it was a full-blown scene. I heard HD has been kicked out of the Miss Congeniality contest.”

  “You always call your granddaddy HD?”

  “Everyone does. Everyone but Mom.”

  “He is a piece of work, your grandfather. Does he always come off like that?”

  Alex worked his hands under the collar around Baby Bear’s scruff, kneading and pulling the loose skin. Baby Bear made little grunting noises. That’s a contented noise for Baby Bear.

  “He doesn’t. No. He never used to. He’s always thrown his weight around, but not like this. He’s … I don’t know. We’re kind of worried about him. When I was a kid …”

  When he was a kid?

  “HD is the greatest thing on earth. I’ve met Muhammad Ali, Yao Ming, Tiger Woods, tons of those guys—HD would make a donation to their favorite charity, and we’d get invited to some function. HD took me to Scotland to play Turnberry and Saint Andrews. It’s not like I’m even that good a golfer. I’m about fifth on the team.”

  So much for the negative three handicap.

  “But HD thinks I’m the next Jack Nicklaus.” Alex gave a laugh. “He’d pull me out of school in the middle of the day and take me to a business lunch at Tony’s. He said listening to negotiations was a better education than anything I could learn in school.”

  Baby Bear gave a great yowling yawn and shook his head, making his tags jingle. He settl
ed down in the grass and Alex knelt next to him.

  “It made my dad crazy. He wanted Mom to take HD off the safe list at school so he couldn’t take me out without their permission. Dad said sitting around watching old men drink martinis and eat quart-sized bowls of seafood gumbo was not an education. But it was. I learned a lot.”

  The bench gave a crack when I shifted my weight but it held.

  “Yeah? What did you learn at Tony’s?” I’d been there. Once. Thirty-four dollars for a Philly cheesesteak. I don’t care if it is Kobe beef.

  “Ha! For one thing, putting a drink in a martini glass doesn’t make it a martini, there’s no such thing as a chocolate martini, and only girls drink vodka martinis. How’s that for an education?”

  “You could write a Chelsea Handler book with that kind of education. I think I’m with your dad on this one.”

  “Who is Chelsea Handler?”

  “Never mind.” My sister-in-law, Stacy, loves those books. I read a chapter of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. I don’t think I’m the target audience.

  Baby Bear rolled over and offered up his belly for Alex’s ministrations. Alex started a slow tickle over the expanse that made Baby Bear wriggle and groan with pleasure.

  “HD got Jenasy a Mini Cooper when she turned sixteen. He bought me that truck last birthday. Dad hates it. Dad was okay with HD getting Jenasy the Mini, but he wants me to drive a used Volvo. I mean, he wanted—”

  “I know what you mean, son.”

  “Jenasy was always Dad’s princess.” He blew through his nose. “But after HD said what he wanted to give me for my birthday, Dad gave me this big talk about how much gas was going to cost me, and how he was afraid I would wipe out an entire trailer of immigrants with that truck, and all about conspicuous consumption and all, so I said, okay, whatever he wanted, and then on my birthhday, HD comes roaring up the front drive in that truck, big bow on it like in a car commercial, Fredrick following him in the Bentley, and HD hands me the keys and a gas card. Not one of those twenty-five-dollar gas cards, either. A credit card in HD’s name. I’ve got a bottomless gas tank.”

  He put his sneakers against Baby Bear’s back and shoved. “That’s enough, Baby.”