Dogwood (22 page)

Two days after the attack at the station, while I was taking my mother to a doctor’s appointment, our house was ransacked. We came home to a tidal wave of dust and debris. Whoever had done it didn’t seem to discriminate. They’d gone through every room upstairs.

“They must want you out of here really bad,” Mama said.

I sat on the dust-covered couch. “Maybe they’re right.”

She got that steely-eyed look I remembered seeing as a kid. “You can’t let them win.
We
won’t let them win. You understand?”

I waited for Karin’s call that never came. I threw out hints for her that were only picked up by a few older women lying in their beds with nothing better to do than call some stranger at 3 a.m. I didn’t have much else to do, so I listened.

I had kept my injuries from my mother for a couple of days, but there was a blurb in the
Cabell Record
mixed in with a few car break-ins and a domestic dispute. She looked at the back of my head and gasped, saying I needed stitches. I told her I was fine; I poured a gallon of Betadine on it, then repositioned my father’s John Deere hat and kept working.

It took me several weeks to get up the nerve to go to the Ashworth house in the daytime. It was the early fall when the weather turns cold one day and gives you a taste of what’s to come, then switches back to the heat and humidity and makes you plunk your jacket in the corner a few more weeks.

I’d settled into that routine of working life where each day had a certain ebb and flow that felt right. I was getting my voice back, feeling the strength and power return, and I wasn’t as tentative on air. It felt good to have calloused hands
and
work at a job that was so nonphysical.

I hadn’t planned on going to the Ashworths’, but driving back from 84 Lumber, I turned toward Summerdale, passed over Interstate 64, and found myself in the neighborhood. It looked a lot different in the daylight. The lawns were still nice and green, but I noticed some neglect to the houses with younger families. Maybe they didn’t have the money to live in such a neighborhood. Mailboxes were missing letters and flags, and a few homes had cars parked on the street.

The Ashworth house sat at the end of the cul-de-sac, and I parked in the roundabout, the truck knocking a few seconds after I turned off the ignition. I made sure there was no one outside the surrounding houses, no one who might recognize me.

I was out of the truck and to the driveway when a kid on a Big Wheel raced out of the shadows of an open garage next door. He wore a NASCAR shirt and a #3 Dale Earnhardt hat. He stopped a few feet from me, and I squinted into the setting sun.

“You here to see Mr. and Mrs. Ashworth?” he said. He held a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one hand. It looked like a gun.

“Sure am. They still live here?”

“Right yonder,” he said. “Nice people.”

“What’s your name?”

“Little Wendell. My daddy’s name is Wendell too, so they call me Little Wendell so they won’t get us mixed up.”

“Well, Little Wendell, I’m glad to meet you.”

“What’s your name?”

I hesitated, and it was in that split second that I glimpsed
movement in my peripheral vision. Someone had come onto the porch and stared at us.

“My name’s Will. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some talking to do.”

“Okay,” Little Wendell said, taking a bite out of the barrel.

It was Mrs. Ashworth on the porch, her hand on one of the pillars holding up the portico. The columns always looked like the entrance to some Southern mansion that seemed out of place here. It might fit on a Georgia plantation or maybe in Montgomery but not in Dogwood. There was always something forbidden and uninviting about the place, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Robert?” Mrs. Ashworth called to the open door, not taking her eyes off me. “You’d better get out here.”

I slowed, getting only halfway up the walk before Mr. Ashworth came through the door. He looked the same, a little weathered perhaps, like a creek that widened while you were on vacation. He’d always had a little paunch in front, and it didn’t seem to have grown much. His hair had receded, revealing brown spots commensurate with his age, and he seemed a bit slower to focus. He had always seemed sharp to me, like having a conversation with him was a challenge of wits.

Mrs. Ashworth, though she was heavier and had added lines of worry around her face, showed a hint of the beauty I recalled. Her strawberry blonde hair had flecks of gray that sparkled in the fading sunlight. I thought about telling her she was as pretty as a picture or, as Atticus did to Mrs. Dubose in
To Kill a Mockingbird
, flattering her about her flowers, but I didn’t.

Uncle Luther had once given me good advice on a fishing trip we took to East Lynn Lake, Kentucky. He said that a person picking a wife should be careful to examine the girl’s mother because that’s generally what his wife would wind up like. It was strange advice coming from someone who had never married, but when I
tested the theory out on old photographs and yearbooks, I found he was right.

I had seen my share of ugly mothers in our hometown, ones who attended their children’s school plays and recitals, but I had never seen a more beautiful mother than Mrs. Ashworth. She had an almost regal look, as if she could pass as a sister to some European countess.

Her eyes seemed more tired now, though, and her skin a bit pale, but she did not look as ravaged by the years as most ladies of the town. Her ankles were puffy and I noticed some varicose veins, but those were her only flaws. That and the look of worry that had come over her face when I stepped into their yard.

“Will?” she said, almost as a statement of horror rather than a question.

“It’s me, Mrs. Ashworth.” I touched my John Deere hat and nodded to her husband. I still bore some marks of the attack, but at this distance I figured they wouldn’t be able to tell.

“You can stay right there,” he said. “We don’t want you coming here.”

I stopped a few feet from the porch stairs, below these two who stood ramrod straight, like sentries guarding the castle of the wicked witch. I noticed peeling paint over the doorway and on the porch railing. The eaves sagged in several places, and it looked like the roof near the chimney had sustained some water damage. The house wasn’t falling apart, but it was certainly showing its age.

“I don’t mean to cause trouble,” I said, my voice soft and even, though my heart was beating wildly. Why hadn’t I called and gauged their feelings? This was more of an ambush than a visit. “I saw Bobby Ray not long ago—”

“He told us,” Mr. Ashworth said.

“Well, I was just driving by from the lumber yard and took
the turn—it was kind of familiar. I wanted to ask about Karin. Is she doing well?”

Mrs. Ashworth put a hand to the railing for support and shook her head like an umpire calling a ball too far outside the strike zone. “Haven’t you caused us enough pain? Haven’t you done enough to this community without coming back here and torturing us?”

Mr. Ashworth put an arm around his wife, and I caught a glimmer of the past. I remembered them standing on the porch as Karin and I drove to school, looking every bit the doting mother and father.

“The letters I sent,” I said. “When I saw her at the prison a few months ago, she said she never received them.”

“We never should have let her do that,” Mr. Ashworth snapped. “They said it might help, but they were wrong. It put her into a downward spiral.”

“She seemed fine when I saw her.”

Mrs. Ashworth moved to her right, to the top of the stairs. “If you have any love for our daughter and an ounce of decency left, I suggest you get in that truck and drive as far away from here as you can. And stop harassing people. How you can drive up and down these roads after what you did I’ll never understand.” She put a hand to her mouth and leaned into her husband.

“It’s beyond me,” he said. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s beyond any of us,” she added into his chest.

It was like unloading a wagon full of hay for them. Once they started tossing the bales from the top, the whole thing had to come down.

“Those poor people have stayed in this town after losing everything they loved,” Mr. Ashworth said. “Why can’t you have more respect for the dead? Why don’t you just leave?”

I had taken their most potent artillery fire to the heart. Part of me wanted to retreat to the safety of the world I’d created, but the
longer they looked at me, the more it felt like they were waiting for some kind of response.

“I understand. Believe me, I’ve thought about packing up and going where people don’t know about my past. But the truth is, I love your daughter. I’ve loved her since the first day I met her. And I suppose I’ll love her till I die.”

“Which won’t be much longer if you stay here,” Mr. Ashworth said.

I put up a hand. “I’ve heard the talk. If it were me in their shoes, I might think the same thing. But I’ve paid my debt, and I can’t let people push me around because they don’t like the way the law treated me. If they can do that, we don’t live in America. My dad fought along with you, Mr. Ashworth. He talked about what a fine soldier you were—”

“Leave your father out of this,” he said. “You’ll never be half the man he was.”

“Well, at least we agree about that.”

Mrs. Ashworth put an arm around a column. “You’re too late. You know about Karin. Ruthie Bowles said she talked to you. I figured you’d understand and leave instead of coming back and upsetting her.”

“I don’t want to hurt her in any way. But you also know—”

“Then leave,” Mr. Ashworth said.

“—that I still feel the same. I love her with everything in me. I think of her every day. I pray for her every night.”

“You pray?” Mr. Ashworth said, incredulous. “You should ask the Lord to forgive you for what you’ve done and leave us in peace. Leave
her
in peace. You don’t know what you’re doing, son.”

“I have asked God to forgive my mistakes. And I believe he has.” I looked at Mrs. Ashworth, and the emotion caught in my throat. “Why didn’t you give her my letters?”

“The worst decision she ever made was being your friend. We don’t control her life now, but we’ll do everything we can to
keep you away from her. We’ve already talked with the police about a restraining order. You will not harass our daughter. You will not have contact with her of any kind, Will Hatfield. Do you understand?”

“The very thing that might help the most—”

“Is you leaving this town, this county, and this state for good,” Mr. Ashworth said. “Now do not come back here. And do not make contact with our daughter.”

The two retreated behind their white door and slammed it. Mrs. Ashworth broke into muffled sobs.

I stood a few moments, taking in the feeling, then turned for my truck.

Several neighbors had come out of their houses. A mother whispered, “That’s him” to a middle school–age girl. Little Wendell had finished his sandwich, and his mother chased him back up their driveway and into the garage, glancing behind her as if I might follow.

A man in khakis and a collared shirt approached. “Those are good people. Why don’t you leave them alone?”

“Amen to that,” someone said.

I stared at him a few seconds, not trying to be mean but just trying to take in the hatred and not give it back. I wanted to say something. Everything in me wanted to defend myself. But I held back and just got into the truck.

The neighbors returned to their houses, looking at me as if I were some loose circus animal they wanted to see but couldn’t stand to look at.

In my rearview mirror I saw a curtain part in the front win
dow of the Ashworth house. A face appeared but I couldn’t tell who it was.

Sometimes when you follow your gut, good things happen. I had a feeling this one would come back to haunt me.

Ruthie talked about what I should do with my time in the closet, which was becoming more frequent. I couldn’t sleep next to my husband, so I withdrew to the safety of soft lights, books and journals, and a small radio Ruthie gave me. It was my one contact with the outside world. I couldn’t stand the noise and news of the TV. People throwing chairs at each other or revealing the most personal things to complete strangers.

When I was in high school, Will worked at the local country music radio station. My parents listened, but I hated it. Will invited me there on several occasions, and some nights I would sit in the production room and read magazines or write mock news stories about my family. He even recorded some of them and threatened to play them on the air.

During songs we talked. I always thought I was helping him with the boredom, but I suppose he was helping me as well. When he worked overnight, I’d tune in to hear his voice. He always sounded older and somehow wiser. Will had an incredible vocabulary. I guess it was from reading all his mother’s books. He always seemed to be a bit further ahead than me, than our whole class, except for the social part. He was a social misfit, and I could tell he was self-conscious about his clothes and his hair. But he was always genuine, and even on the radio he would give little pieces of himself.

One night it was unbearably hot in the closet, so I turned off the light and just lay on my cover, fanning myself with a maga
zine. I plugged the earpiece in and turned down the radio. It felt soothing to listen to voices coming from so far away. Traffic news in Chicago. A thunderstorm in Des Moines. Someone being executed in Texas.

There were strange call-in shows that dealt with space aliens. Those creeped me out, and I couldn’t listen for long. One station rebroadcast Rush Limbaugh, played for the truckers who didn’t catch his show during the day, but that wasn’t what I needed. Something in his voice made me sad. Like there was a lot of pain amid all that opinion.

I flipped to the FM band and scanned past the classic and alternative rock stations and about fifteen different varieties of country. There were a few Christian stations as well on either side of the dial, some playing music, but most featuring preaching programs. There were so many answers to questions I’d never considered but none to the ones that burned within.

At the right of the dial, past the station in Charleston that always played the most obscure rock songs, was the little country station in our town. It sounded the same, had the same music I remembered as a teenager, the same tired lyrics about cheatin’ hearts and women doing men wrong and men doing women wrong and drinkin’ and fightin’ and being proud to be an American. I still couldn’t stand the music, but there was something comforting to it, something familiar, and I lingered there, the twang and the steel guitar bringing back good memories.

When the announcer came on—he called himself Mark Joseph—something fluttered in my chest. At first I thought it was just the heat in the room, but as I listened to his voice, warmth spread through my body.

I listened closely, and a phrase that rolled off his tongue reminded me of someone. And then I put it together.

“Will,” I whispered.

It was really him. The next set confirmed it when he made some
joke about all the troubles the singers had been going through in the past few songs.

I sat up, knees tight against my chest, sweat rolling from my underarms, and it was the best feeling I’d had in ages. Not even talking with Ruthie got me this excited.

I listened throughout the night, drifting in and out of sleep, and cursed when I woke up to the morning man giving the farm report and prices of hog futures, pork bellies, barrows, and gilts. I’d missed Will’s good-bye—the sign-off.

There was something thrilling and forbidden about listening to a former boyfriend in my closet, alone, my husband and children in the same house. Will had touched my life in so many ways when I was younger, yet he was the one man I had been reluctant with.

I spoke with Ruthie later that day, and she was glad that I’d heard him. “What kind of feelings did it stir up?”

“It felt so good I feel kind of guilty.”

“Why would it be wrong?”

“I’m betraying my husband for thinking about something that can’t be. And my children. What would they think if they knew their mother was locked in a closet thinking about an old flame?”

“Old flames don’t die easily, especially the really hot ones. Not even time extinguishes those.”

“Ruthie, you know I trust you more than anyone. But what should I do? I know nothing can come from it. Nothing good, except something to occupy my time and keep me company at night.”

“You’re worried about the illusion.”

“What?”

“We talked about this. Life is filled with illusions. That the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. That you’d be happy with some man who doesn’t snore or have love handles. A lot of women idealize their past relationships and think,
What if? What if I’d married that guy who made it big in computers? What if I hadn’t chosen the loser I’m married to now?
You ride that rail
long enough and you’ll convince yourself the illusion is real, that someone you knew twenty years ago is the real thing and what you have now isn’t worth saving.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you wanted me to listen to Will. You went with me to see him.”

Ruthie grasped my shoulder as tightly as she could. She touched her head to mine and just stayed there a moment. Then she pulled away, and it was as if she didn’t have to say anything. She was speaking with her eyes. But, of course, she was Ruthie. She spoke anyway. “My point is that in all of this, you have to see what’s real. You have to be able to distinguish what
is
from what isn’t.”

“I’m trying so hard.”

She hugged me. “I know, girl, and you’re really close. You’ve come a long way, but there’s still a bit more road to travel.”

“I’m glad I have you.”

Ruthie nodded. “I’ll treasure this time always. But there are some things you have to do alone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s time, Karin. It’s time for me to back away and let you go.”

I pulled away in horror. “What do you mean? You’re the one who has gotten me through this. You’re the one—”

“No, it’s been you all along. And it’s time to stop leaning on this old buzzard and fly.”

“Are you leaving? Where will you go?”

She looked at me through misty eyes. “I’ve tried to be a good friend to you. But Richard has helped me see that you’re leaning on me rather than going forward, and though it pains me, I need to step back a little.”

“Richard told you to do this? But why?”

“Think about the things we’ve talked about. Think hard about the past. So much of it carries the key to your future. And know that I will always love you.”