Accidental Happiness (26 page)

“Are you okay, hon?” Her hands were cupped around her mug, our coffee long grown cold.

“I’m fine.”

The talk seemed to have played out. I had images of Ben struggling with Reese and some new illness that he may or may not have understood. I couldn’t imagine why Reese would have left. Why she would have taken off with that hanging over her. God knows, Ben was good at taking care of things. Life had to have been easier for her with him.

My cell phone rang and I got up to get my purse. The bourbon had taken a toll on my coordination, but it also eased some of the demons that had been causing a stir inside me.

“Hey,” Derek said after I answered.

I looked at the clock and realized it had been hours since I left him on the porch of Lane’s house.

“Oh God, Derek. I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m with Maxine, my mother-in-law, and I lost track of time.”

“It’s okay.” He didn’t sound exactly okay. But then, I wouldn’t have been either. “I got Charlie to cover the security rounds for me tonight. I thought we were going to do something.”

Irritation. Frustration. I didn’t blame him for sounding ticked.

“Let me call you right back,” I said.

Maxine was clearly planning to spend the night. There’d be no reason for her to drive home and then come back in the morning. I felt as if I ought to stay with her, but I wanted to be with Derek too.

“Go do something with him,” she said before I could speak.

“We’ve already had cocktails,” I said, raising my coffee. “What are you doing for dinner?”

“I’m going to ride out for a greasy hamburger, something I almost never do, and then watch
West Side Story.
It’s on Bravo tonight. I have my plans, and you’re not included, dear. Go, have fun. It’s the best thing you can do for me.”

“Maxine—”

“I’m glad you drove out this afternoon.” She cut me off. “It’s good to spend time with you that isn’t so full of sadness. But you are dismissed. Go on out with this guy, Gina. Go out on a date. Ben’s not coming back. It kills me to say it, and I know how much you wish it wasn’t true. But he’s not. And honestly, it’s harder for me to see you waiting on him to come home than to know you’re out having fun with someone who must be wonderful because your taste in men is flawless.”

Her eyes were full of tears, but she was right. We were different than we’d been a month ago. The odd part of it was, I was different than I’d been three days before, although I wouldn’t wish those days on anyone.

“Okay,” I said. “Even if I argued longer, I’d lose. Ben had to get it from somewhere.”

“You’re damn right he did,” she said, smiling. “One request.”

“Shoot.”

“Leave the critter with me. I’ll be like a grandmother babysitting her while you’re out.”

We both stopped talking for a second when she said that. Thoughts of Angel, of her place in our strange domestic circumstances, remained present, but unspoken.

“Well, I love my dog, but thinking about her as a grandchild makes us both look pretty pathetic.” I tried to joke our way past it, but my timing was off. “Come Christmas, don’t go wrapping up a bunch of squeaky toys for her.”

“Seriously, she’ll keep me company,” she said, having lost her banter. “And she’ll let me know if someone’s around. I’ll buy some dog food when I go out.”

“Okay. Deal. I’ll get her from you tomorrow.”

“Call him back,” she said, eyes steady, serious as she looked at me.

“As soon as I get in the car. I promise.”

She smiled again, and when I hugged her good-bye, she felt as small as a child.

27

Reese

R
eese drove out to the highway, away from the marina. It was hot, but she turned off the air conditioner and rolled down all the windows. In her thin camisole with the barest of straps, she felt the late sun coming in sideways, touching her shoulders, her cheeks. She’d put her clothes back on at the Ship’s Store, but had put on nothing underneath. Her bra and panties were tucked in her purse. She wanted to feel the soft cotton against her breasts, remind herself that she was still very much alive, and too young to think of her body as damaged and old.

Wind rushed in as she accelerated, skimmed her bare arms, making her aware of her skin, aware of the way her nerves had obeyed her for a change, offered pleasure she so badly needed. Charlie was a good kid. With a little instruction, he would be a terrific bed buddy. She wondered if she could let that happen. If she should. She didn’t need life any more complicated than it already was.

“Where do you have to run off to?” he had asked as she left him. “I get off at five o’clock this week, remember? I’m taking over night rounds for Derek tonight, but that gives us a few hours.”

“I’ll see what time I get back,” she said, glad to feel in control. “I have something to do first.”

The teenager working the cash register looked up when they emerged from the storeroom. He got a goofy smile on his face and then looked away. Charlie had no roll of cash register paper with him. He didn’t even pretend the situation wasn’t as it seemed.

“I bet your errand could wait,” Charlie said as she was heading for the door.

“I need to break a date.” She smiled up at him.

“With who?”

“With a preacher,” she told him, and left before he could find any more words.

She’d said it loud enough for the teenager to hear her too. The world had rarely delighted her in recent months. Sometimes it seemed as if it had been years. But at that moment she’d felt nearly giddy.

She took out a cigarette, rolled up the windows so she could light it, and decided air-conditioning would feel good after all. The first rush of nicotine went to her head, made the afternoon’s pleasure complete. If Preacher Andrew had a beer stashed away at the rectory, the day would be all but perfect.

“He’s still at the church.” The wife stood at the door of her home. Reese knew enough about country churches to figure out the neat little house with the flower bed directly across the street from church property was free housing given to the preacher. She could have lived in a house like that, if all of the plans her bastard father had put in play for her had actually come to be.

“There but by the grace of God go I,” she mumbled, staring into the neat little living room just inside the front door.

“What?” Diane Hanes looked puzzled, a little bit disturbed.

“Nothing,” Reese said. “I was just thinking about going to church when I was a kid. So Preacher Andy’s not home?” She threw in the nickname just to get a rise. From the look on the woman’s face, it had done the trick. The humorless Mrs. Hanes made a point of glancing down at her rumpled clothes.

“He’s still at the office, getting ready for the evening Bible study.” Diane Hanes nodded toward the church, stepped back as if she was done with her part of the conversation.

“Could you call him for me?” Reese asked. “Tell him to come outside?”

The woman just stood there. Reese wondered if she’d heard the request.

“A quick ring?” She tried again. “Let him know somebody’s here.”

“It’s right across the street.” For a moment, confusion seemed to override the woman’s irritation.

“I know,” Reese said. “But I don’t do churches. It’s kind of a phobia.”

“A phobia of churches?” Diane Hanes obviously planned to stand all day, sorting out the details of Reese’s request. It wasn’t that complicated.

“Just call him, please.”

“All right.” She stepped away from the door. From inside, the sound of laughter came from the television. A sitcom. This time of day, a rerun, Reese figured. She looked to see if there were children sprawled out, watching, but no one was in the room. Absent onlookers, the TV played on in cheerful oblivion.

“He says to walk on over,” the wife came back and told her. “He’ll meet you outside.”

Reese saw him come out of the side door before she reached the parking lot. She could feel the wife’s eyes from across the street. That was okay with her. She’d never minded an audience.

“Preacher Andy? Where’d you come up with that?” He was smiling, obviously not bothered by whatever his wife told him.

“You seem more like an Andy to me,” she said. “Andrew sounds like the guy who stays after school to finish his science project.”

“What’s Andy doing?”

“He’s busy at football practice.”

“You got me there,” he said, walking out toward the playground. “I cared a lot more about football in high school than I did about science. So, what can I do for you?”

She followed him past a tetherball pole, sat down on a swing—the same one where, earlier in the day, she watched Angel manage to overcome the constraints of her injured arm. She wondered if a better, more cautious mother would have stopped the girl.

“I have a change of plans tomorrow,” she explained. “The cottage Angel and I have arranged to move into has come available early. We meet with the realtors in the morning and then move in, I guess. I didn’t want you showing up at the marina.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” He didn’t say the obvious. That she could have called. She didn’t even know what she hoped to accomplish by driving all the way back out to the church. She only knew the idea of talking with him had seemed to make her feel better.

He sat down on the swing next to hers. She felt the entire structure shimmy as he settled his weight. He had a solid quality about him that reassured her.

“Is there anything else on your mind?” He turned sideways to face her, straddled the seat, and leaned back on the rope. He looked and sounded casual, but his tone said that he took the conversation seriously.

“I’m not a good person,” she said. “I want to be better for my daughter than I am. But I can’t seem to be exactly who I want to be. I keep making all the wrong choices. Sometimes I even like the wrong choices.”

She thought about Charlie. The smooth tan that covered the length of his torso.

“We aren’t the ones to judge,” he said. “God doesn’t ask us to judge other people, or ourselves.”

She winced at the platitude, felt dismissed by it. She expected something more, something better from him. Maybe he was like all the others.

“Yeah, well, I just spent the last hour before I came here screwing around with a guy—a kid, really—in the storage room of a marina store. He’s almost a decade younger than I am. And I’m the one who suggested it. We did it twice.” She kept her voice matter-of-fact, made direct contact with his dark, unblinking eyes. She tried to read his thoughts as she said it. “I think that’s a no-brainer for bad behavior, don’t you?”

“I’ve seen it all, Reese. At some point in my life, I’ve done most of it.” He was shooting for world-weary, but he seemed a little hard-pressed to find his voice. “We all have our weaknesses. Our fallen moments.” His breathing was off, coming with some effort. Good. The bastard was human, after all. “As much as you’re trying to shock me, I doubt you will. You won’t do much to rattle God either. He’s seen more than I have, and has forgiven it.”

The last part was pretty standard fare, but his effort had an honest quality.

“What has He forgiven you for, Preacher?”

“Things that I haven’t managed to forgive in myself,” he told her. “Why are you so mad at God?”

The question took her off guard. She thought about getting up to leave, going back to her car and forgetting about whatever it was she thought she could accomplish by driving out to see him. But he was right. She felt angry. And sitting one swing over was one of God’s primary chess pieces in this neck of the woods. Part of her wanted to devastate the good preacher in order to satisfy that rage; another part of her wanted something from him, some kind of absolution.

“You’ve got a meeting tonight,” she said, deciding to end the conversation after all.

“Not for an hour. Just talk if you want to. Whatever you’ve done, I’ve done worse. I’m in no position to judge, I promise you.”

“You go first,” she said. “What are you still paying for?”

He sat for a moment, looked across at his house, then over at the church. He took a deep breath, turned back to her.

“Infidelity,” he said. “When I was still in the military. I haven’t made a point of telling anyone except the pastor search committee about it. But I haven’t ever tried to hush it up either. You asked, so I’ll be honest.”

She could see that. She could see him falling for somebody wrong. He may have thought it would surprise her, but she, of all people, knew that preachers could act as sorry as anybody else.

“Is that why your wife looks at me the way she does, why she’s looking out the window at us right now?”

“Yes.” He didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure it is. She has every right to doubt me. It was years ago, and we’re working hard to get through it, still.”

“Were you a preacher then?”

“Yes and no. I’d been to seminary, then thought I wanted to be career military, so I didn’t have a church at the time.” He stopped, as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he said, “So that’s it. My fallen moment. You seem to have something you need to get out. If that’s the case, I’m here.”

His confession didn’t get to her, but his insight—it rattled her very soul. He seemed to know so much more than she’d told him.

“A question first,” she said.

He nodded.

“Do you believe that when you reject something God has asked you to do, that He punishes you? That terrible things wouldn’t happen if you’d gone along in the first place?”

He rocked slightly, back and forth, still facing her. She closed her eyes for a moment, felt the motion in the structure of the swing. She wondered if he was aware of her breasts, free inside her camisole; if he was afraid he would give in, make the mistake he’d made before. Then she stopped herself. She had other things to accomplish. Bringing him down wouldn’t solve it, not in the long run—although the temptation remained.

“People have a lot of opinions about judgment,” he said finally. “If you’re asking what I believe, I think that it’s the nature of this world for things to happen, good and bad. How we deal with the stuff that happens, good and bad, defines our relationship with God. I think sometimes things happen to influence our choices, but not to punish us.”

She nodded. Wondered if it could be true. Bad things, good things, all random. One just as likely to happen as the other. Angel had happened, hadn’t she? That outweighed any of the bad over the years.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“About what?” She felt her hands, her fingers, holding on to the swing. The tender part of her palms against the rough skin of the rope should have registered. But her hands had gone numb, and she planted her feet on the ground in case she lost her grip.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said. “You’re starting to find cracks in whatever’s holding it in. I know the feeling, Reese. You’ll be better once it’s said.”

She heard the call of a bird, the low, puffing baritone of an owl somewhere in the woods behind her. The sound coincided with her own voice as she began to tell him. That sound would remind her, she was sure, of the moment, both terrifying and free, when she began saying the words she’d never intended to say, to anyone, much less a near stranger. But there was an odd symmetry in telling this man—who was so similar to, and still so different from, the person who had caused it all.

And as she spoke, the scene lived in her head, came back new. She kept a tethering gaze on Andrew Hanes. If she let herself fully remember with all the color and detail of reality, she would need a way back. He would have to be the way back.

“I was fourteen,” she said. “Living with my father after my mom left us . . .”

The house smelled of collards. Her father had cooked them for lunch, seasoned with peppers and chunks of ham in the pot. To most, this was the side dish, something to go with a roast or a casserole. But for her wild-eyed father, it was a meal, the only one he knew how to prepare from scratch. She always wondered who taught him—and why? His mother? Her mother? The lunch—Sunday dinner, he called it—was long over, but the smell remained, and she was sure it would follow her to the evening’s church revival where he’d insisted they go.

The service would be held at a large church in Columbia, more than an hour’s drive away. It would be televised, the way most of this evangelist’s red-faced rants were. Her dad knew the preacher, had driven miles to hear him, to talk with him, on several occasions, and gave money every time the man showed his face on TV. Her dad had never insisted that Reese go before, but that night he said she had no choice. She’d get in the car, he announced with an eerie calm, or he’d take that record player she couldn’t seem to live without and toss it at the dump, along with every record he could find in her room. He was crazy enough to do it, so she put on her pale blue dress and waited for him to say it was time to go. Thank God, no one she knew would be there.