“Do ya want to cut it down and burn da stump?” Jean-Pierre’s eyes are intent on my face.
“I don’t know,” I admit morosely. “I can’t see things clearly. I’m hoping y’all can help me. Do I open up my chest, take out my heart, and hand it to him knowing he might not want it? Or worse, that he might stomp all over it like he did the first time?”
Neither of them says anything to that. The only sounds to break the silence are the low, mournful moan of the breeze across the rooftops and another soft call from the whippoorwill.
Eventually, Jean-Pierre ventures, “Me, I don’t know much, but I know dis. Love is supposed to cherish and support. It isn’t supposed to disregard or disrespect. You want to fill your life and your heart with folks who leave a mark, cher. Not a scar.”
The simple truth of his words cuts into me, sharp as a gator’s tooth, and makes me wonder, Did Cash leave a mark or a scar?
Thinking back on all the times he was so sweet to me, like when I was sick with the flu and he came by Aunt Bea’s house to leave a package of gummy bears—my favorite candy—with a note that read, “Life without you would be un-BEAR-able, so get better soon.” Or the time, exactly one year after we met, that he taped a sign to my locker. In big, black Sharpie for the whole school to see, he’d written,”Cash Armstrong has loved Maggie Carter for 365 days.” I would say, unequivocally, that he left a mark.
Then I think back on the night he left…
Yep. That is definitely a scar.
“You know I love you, right?” Eva asks.
“Uh-oh.” I wince. “Anytime you start a conversation that way, I know I’m in for it.”
Her expression is like the woman herself—kind. “You tend to spend a lot of time living in the past and putting a lot of emphasis on what was. I think maybe that stops you from seeing what is.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
______________________________________
Luc
Running away from your problems is a race you’ll never win.
Still, sometimes the only thing you can think to do is beat feet and avoid your issues altogether.
Since I have no idea what to say to Cash about today’s doctor’s visit, and since I’m of two minds when it comes to his grand plan concerning Maggie, I dodge both subjects and instead touch on something that’s been bugging me since the night of Jelly Bean Jenkins’s second line.
“I lied to Maggie May.”
We’re on Cash’s stoop, and a cool breeze rushes past us, shaking the palmetto tree in the courtyard next door. Music echoes from Bourbon Street. The melody and lyrics are new to me, but the rhythm is ancient. (Rhythms are always ancient.) And the smell of frying andouille sausage drifts through the open front door of the house across the street, filling the air with its unmistakable spice.
Cash’s face is limned in the golden glow of the streetlights. Instead of addressing my admission, he glances up as if searching for something.
“What?” I tilt my head back, scanning the star-studded sky. “What d’ya see?”
“Nothing yet. But pigs are bound to fly by any second now. Next, the salmon will sing in the streets. And finally, hell will freeze over.”
“Oh, ha-ha.” I nudge him. “Smart-ass.”
“That’s me.” He snaps me a sarcastic salute. “Add it to my long list of sins.”
“Can’t. That list is already full.”
He grins, and for a moment I see a hint of the man I knew from before the bombing. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll bite. What did you lie to Maggie about?”
“Why I never got married.”
He frowns. “What’d you tell her?”
“I gave her this lame-ass explanation about how tough the military is on relationships. Said I’d watched our teammates couple up and flame out. Claimed that since I only aimed to get married once, I reckoned I better wait until my loyalties weren’t split between family and country.”
“That’s not true?” His eyebrows arch.
“It’s a partial truth. But it’s not the whole truth.”
“So what’s the whole truth?”
I shrug and shake my head. “That’s the thing. I don’t rightly know. It can’t be ’cause I never met any nice women. I’ve met plenty. And it’s not ’cause, as you say, I was too busy practicing procreation to ever get around to actually doing it. I’d love to have had a rug rat or two. But there was always something holding me back from making a commitment.” I lift a hand and let it fall. “Why didn’t you ever try to settle down?”
He stares out at the street, absently fingering the scar on his head. “I guess I don’t really know either. Maybe it was Maggie. I had this image of her, you know? The perfect woman. No one else could measure up.”
Maybe that’s what it’s always been for me too. Although, I don’t plan on admitting it to him anytime soon. Confirming his suspicions about my feelings for her won’t do either of us any good. As my daddy used to say, it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.
A hobo with a set of close-set raisins for eyes accompanied by a scruffy dog wearing a lopsided bandanna walks up to us. Cash pulls out his wallet, hands the man a five-spot, and gets a hat tip in thanks for his generosity. Across the way, a trio of men are headed up the block toward Bourbon Street, arms slung around each, drunkenly singing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” And jogging around the corner in a three-piece suit is a musician on his way to or from a gig. His trombone case swings jauntily from his hand.
Good ol’ New Orleans…
This city is America epitomized. A hodge-podge of classes and cultures. Like any good seafood gumbo, the magic is in the mix.
“When it comes to the end or the means, which do you think is more important?” Cash asks after a bit.
I eye him. “Is this the portion of the programming where we dispense with the bullshit?”
“Maybe.” He hitches a shoulder. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. If you do something bad, but it’s for a good cause, does that make it okay?”
I give his question the proper consideration it deserves. Eventually, I admit, “Dunno. I reckon it’s probably a measure of how bad the bad thing is compared to how good the good thing is.”
“So you think there are times when it’s okay to hurt someone if, in the long run, things will be better for them?”
I cut him a skeptical glance. “Are we talking about how you treated Maggie May ten years ago, or how you aim to treat her going forward?”
“You know me. The past isn’t something I like to take out and examine too closely. I prefer to keep it packed up in an imaginary roller bag and drag it along behind me.”
“So we’re talking about how you aim to treat her going forward.” An uneasy feeling unfurls in my chest.
“She asked me what I want from her,” he mumbles, turning his flask over in his hand, running his thumb along the initials stamped into the metal.
“And?” I prompt. “What’d you say?”
“Told her I don’t want anything.”
“So I’m not the only one who’s been lying to her.”
He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t want anything from her.”
“Doncha think you should let her decide that for herself? She’s a grown-ass woman, capable of making up her own mind once she’s got all the facts.”
He scowls at me. “You’re not going to let that go, are you? You still think I should tell her what happened to make me leave.”
“I do.” I nod. “I absolutely do.”
“No.” He jerks his chin side to side. “Her memory of what we had is so shiny and clean. Telling her what was really going on back then would be like throwing dirt into a freshly washed glass.”
“You’ve never given her enough credit. Besides, I think you want to maintain the illusion more for yourself than for her. I think, when you get right down to it, it’s your pride that’s holding you back.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. And eventually, the silence s
tretches between us until the distance is too far to overcome.
Chapter Twenty-nine
______________________________________
Maggie
Let go of what was. Accept what is. And have hope for what can be.
I’ve let go of Cash. Or…at least I’ve let go of the idea I’ve been desperately clinging to since the day he came back. The idea that we might be able to pick up where we left off.
It took some time—and the sage wisdom of Eva and Jean-Pierre mixed with a bottle of apple wine—but I finally opened my eyes and read the signs that have been in front of me all along. Like how Cash has never explained himself—and I know, I haven’t come out and asked, but if he felt for me now what he felt for me back then, I wouldn’t have to ask. He’d want to resolve the issue so we could put it behind us and move on. Like how he’s never tried to hold my hand or steal a kiss. Like how he’s never once said anything about wanting more than friendship.
I’ve accepted that I’ve been selfish, focusing on what I want from him instead of what he needs from me, which is compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. I’ve accepted that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If friendship is what he wants, then friendship is what he’ll get. And to prove it, I spent the last two days googling the best neurosurgeons in the country, because obviously the local guys are complete quacks.
I mean, really. Who thinks alcohol is an appropriate pain reliever?
No one. That’s who.
I homed in on the surgeon who seemed to be the most respected in the field, and sent him an email explaining Cash’s condition, begging him to take a look at Cash’s medical records and scans. I made sure to include that I would pay for the expertise.
Money talks, right?
Thanks to the extra I’ve been socking away into my retirement fund, I have some greenbacks to spare. Not much, but hopefully it’ll be enough. And what are friends for if not to do everything in their power to help each other out?
And finally, I have hope for what can be, a future of camaraderie and companionship, of laughter and love—even if it’s a different kind of love than the one I’d hoped for.
That’s right. Look at me! Being all adult and stuff!
I turn down the dirt road leading to Luc’s swamp house in my hybrid SUV—I’m one of those people. When you live close to the ocean like I do, you get to see climate change firsthand.
Lowering the windows, I breathe in the thick swamp air. It plays with the boughs of the cypress trees, allowing brief glimpses of the fat bayou moon.
There’s something about the dark water on either side of the road. Something about the flash of eyes in the night and the long, lonely howl of a coyote in the distance. The bayou is alive and constantly whispering. For those who know how to listen, those like Luc, it shares its soul.
Pulling up to the back of his house, I’m reminded of all the long, hot hours we spent here as kids, laughing and singing, dancing and dreaming. Pretending we were more grown up than we actually were.
I’m relieved to see Smurf is parked next to the short pier that extends from the bank to the house’s back door. I didn’t think to text before coming. I guess I always picture Luc running straight home after working on Cash’s house—he loves the swamp so much. My relief is short-lived, however, when it occurs to me that just because he’s home doesn’t mean he’s alone.
Sally Renee could be here.
I don’t try to identify the emotion that shoots through me. Instead, I grab the cocktail napkin in its square shadow box frame and the binder full of letters and exit the vehicle.
If she’s here, she’s here. I came to deliver the letters and the napkin, and by God that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
After jogging around to the passenger side, I’m greeted by an exuberant bark. I brought Yard with me because the silly mutt loves to go on car rides, and he doesn’t get the opportunity very often. There’s no need to drive in the French Quarter. Everything is within walking distance.
“Luc!” I call as I grab Yard’s leash, holding on tight when he hops to the ground. I’d never forgive myself if he ran off to get eaten by an alligator or trampled by a wild boar.
Our arrival has scared a raccoon out of a tree. The masked bandit scampers across the clearing before disappearing into some underbrush. Yard goes crazy, spinning in circles on the end of his leash and barking his fool head off.
“Shush,” I scold him, reeling him in so we can march down the short pier toward Luc’s back door. I knock, but I’m not surprised when he doesn’t answer. If he was home, he’d have come running when I hollered his name.
Retracing my steps, I step off the pier and head toward the water, being careful not to get too close. Alligators can torpedo out of the swamp and snatch a person in their ironlike jaws faster than green grass shoots through a goose. Craning my head, I squint against the dark and search for Luc’s pirogue, the long, narrow canoe he fashioned from a single tree trunk.
MIA. Which means he’s probably out night fishing. Or maybe he poled over to visit his father’s mausoleum, which sits on a tiny island at the edge of the property.
“Son of a biscuit,” I curse, not looking forward to sitting in the car and waiting for him to return home. The swamp is always a magical, mystical place. But at night, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s full of black magic and otherworldly creatures out to snack on my blood.
“Let’s see if the back door is open.”
I’m talking to hear my own voice, but Yard doesn’t know that. He pants up at me cheerfully, his whiplike tail going in circles.
That’s his answer to everything. A smile and a tail wag. And strangely, most times it’s the right answer.
To my immense relief, the back door is open. Hitting the light switch, I step inside and blink.
Luc hasn’t only been working on Cash’s cottage. He’s been working on this place too. Which is a surprise, because from the outside, it isn’t any different than it was ten years ago. It’s still a large rectangle with a tin roof that’s sloped on all four sides like a pyramid—the design is more aerodynamic and less susceptible to lift during a hurricane. Built out over the bayou on stilts, it’s whitewashed and rather dull looking. The only thing that glints or shines on it are its windows. Two on each side.
Used to be, the inside matched the outside, sparse and more than a little drab. Arranged like a studio apartment, it’s one big room, with the kitchen at the back and the living room and bedroom at the front. The only interior door is the one that leads to a tiny bathroom just big enough for a pedestal sink, a toilet, and a standup shower.
The layout hasn’t changed. But everything else has. There’s new mint-green paint on the wooden walls. Shiny new appliances and cabinets and countertops grace the kitchen. And colorful rag rugs warm the wooden floor that’s been stripped, sanded, and refinished. The space where a threadbare plaid couch used to sit is now occupied by a leather sofa that’s the deep, rich hue of chicory coffee. The brass bed, which used to be covered by a faded blue comforter, now sports a beautiful quilt and crisp, fresh sheets.
I always felt like the place was a camp house at best, a fishing shanty at worst. But now? It actually feels like a home.
There are touches of Luc strewn about. His guitar is on a stand in the corner. His work boots are by the door to the front porch—one is tipped onto its side, making the pair look drunk. I’m drawn to three photographs hanging on the wall. When I get close, I gasp.
It’s a memory.
It’s…us.
I can still hear the irritation in Luc’s voice when Cash couldn’t—or wouldn’t—get his pose right…
“What’s wrong with you?” Luc grouched. “Is that your idea of artistic?”
“It’s as artistic as I get,” Cash declared. “Just take the damned picture.”
Luc looked at me for help, but all I could do was shrug.
“Fine,” Luc grumbled, snapping the photo.
Now here it is on the
wall. The frame on the right shows eighteen-year-old Cash with a string of twinkle lights strung around him, looking annoyed and a little put-upon as he stares out at the bayou. His hands are shoved deep into his pockets. There I am, too, in the middle picture frame, my hair blowing in the wind. A full moon shines down on me as I try to please Luc with my dancing pose. And there’s Luc in the frame on the left. He definitely looks the part with his raised arms lit up with twinkle lights, a supplicant to the night.
Luc was always the creative one, coming up with fun ways to document our lives together. And these three photos, simple as they are, accurately capture who we were. Cash, all brooding and argumentative. Me, trying my best to make each of them happy. And Luc, so sensitive and imaginative.
Smiling, I take one last look at the photos before ambling over to the sofa. Luc has repurposed an old travel trunk as a coffee table. I set the framed cocktail napkin and the binder full of letters atop it and notice an open leather-bound journal.
I reach for it, intent on closing it, but then the two simple words centered at the top of the page catch my attention. In Luc’s decisive scrawl, he’s written: I Dream.
These are his private thoughts. I shouldn’t read them. I know I shouldn’t. I tell my hand to flip the cover shut, but the silly appendage mutinies. My eyeballs join the insurrection and quickly scan the rest of the words on the page.
In air heavy with the scent of dark water
Sweet with the smell of mangrove
I dream
Deep in the belly of the bayou
Where cattails sway and alligators play
I dream
In tough times and endless days
Through old torment and new suffering
I dream
With a broken heart that has not healed
Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1 Page 24
