“Mama,” Savannah’s voice registers at a slight tremble, “is it true?”
“Ahem,” Buffy clears her throat at a feminine purr. “I guess it was foolish to think you girls would never find out.”
“You had a child before you married Daddy?” Vangie interrupts.
Buffy looks at her, slightly perturbed at her assumption. “No, Evangeline. Noah is your father’s.”
“Daddy had a son before he married you?” Vangie asks, the confusion stirring in her expression.
“How old is this Noah?” Jac looks to Savannah.
“Thirty-three.” Savannah waits for the calculations to begin.
“Thirty-three?” Jac quickly deduces an age that puts him smack-dab between Vangie and Savannah. “Daddy had an affair?” Jac’s eyes are wounded, the news tarnishing the image, the fond memory and reverence she holds for her father.
“Mama, say it’s not true,” Vangie pleads, unwilling to believe the man she idolized all those years would ever break the bond, the ties to his family. Buffy does not reply. “Mama. Say it’s not true,” Vangie repeats, her voice now at a whisper.
“Say something,” Jac pipes, staring at Buffy.
Buffy stands, busying herself with the teapot, returning it to the stove for rewarming. “I wish I could tell you that it’s not true,” Buffy finally speaks, her voice detached.
“Would you please come back to the table? To hell with the damned tea,” Jac’s voice rises.
“Jac,” Savannah scolds. “Give her a moment. Some time to digest.”
“What’s to digest? If it’s true and Daddy cheated on her, she’s had thirty-three years to digest it!” Jac’s voice on the rise, one more reason to hold her fussy, overly modest mother in contempt.
Her boisterous daughter’s disrespectful reply of something she knows nothing about causes Buffy’s usually
unruffable
feathers to rouse. She picks up the antique teapot, heaving it into the garbage can. “You propose a
strong
woman would have left her husband over one infidelity, tearing her otherwise beautiful family to shreds? Is that it, Jacqueline?” Buffy speaks, her tone controlled yet biting.
Jac, Vangie and Savannah sit abnormally speechless, having never witnessed their demure mother lose her temper.
“What has it accomplished? The truth,” Buffy continues. “Other than replacing a pleasant image of your daddy with a distasteful one. You girls were always so close to him. Adored him. And he adored you.” Her eyes begin to water with the reciprocal memories of her children and their doting father. “Will you forfeit all of those good times because of one unsatisfactory choice your daddy made?”
“Uh,” Jac finally releases the air from her lungs. “No. We’re not going to forget all the good times. But it would have been nice to be given the choice to know our brother,” she chokes out the word, still half disbelieving.
“Your daddy wanted to tell you. All of you,” Buffy admits. “I told him not to for fear that you would look at him the way you’re looking at me now.” She chokes back tears at the disappointed faces staring at her.
Jac gets up from the table, pacing, holding back the urge to shoot off at the mouth.
You can’t cover everything up, Mama. For the love of God, would it kill you to loosen up! Be honest with yourself? Stop thinking about what everyone else thinks. The only reason you didn’t want to tell us the truth was because you would have had to tell everybody then. The freaking cat would’ve been out of the bag. What would the neighbors think about perfect Buffy Bondurant and her perfect little family!
“Well, spit it out,” Buffy challenges Jac.
“Don’t!” Savannah and Vangie intercept in unison, their eyes begging of Jac to refrain.
Jac huffs and puffs, sitting back down at the table, unwilling to be the cause of more turmoil. Fulfilling her big sister role, she mediates, “How did he know where to find you? Noah.” Jac looks to Savannah for answers.
“My column.” Savannah says.
“Why now?” Jac continues.
“He’s settling back in the States. After being abroad with the Marine Corps the past sixteen years. He served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Savannah reports proudly. “He got promoted to drill sergeant. At Camp Lejeune. About seven hours east. In North Carolina. He’s on leave for a few weeks and thought it would be a good time to look us up.”
“How did he know about us?” Vangie asks. “I mean, if he was a secret. I’m assuming we were a secret, too.”
Savannah looks to Buffy, knowing the next piece of the puzzle she delivers may sting a little bit. “Daddy wrote him every now and then. His mama kept the letters and gave them to him when she thought he was old enough to understand. Right before he went off to the Corps.”
Buffy leans against the stove now for support, another betrayal her late husband committed. From her understanding, Bernie had no contact with Noah or his mother.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Savannah consoles.
Buffy forces a smile. “It’s okay, honey. Go on.”
“He carries a picture of us.” A passing beam graces Savannah’s lips. “That one.” She points to the wall in the adjacent living room displaying the youthful, teenaged Bondurant sisters, their hair and fashion laughable as per nineties couture.
“How do we know this guy is who he says he is?” Jac questions, the thought of a brother comforting. However she is unwilling to be played for a fool.
“There’s no mistaking the similarities.” Savannah looks to Vangie. “He’s got yours and Daddy’s olive skin and dark hair.” Vangie subconsciously runs her fingers through her rich, espresso-colored locks. “Mine and Daddy’s green eyes.” She glances at Jac taking note of her wide, full mouth and angular jaw―a regular Kathy Ireland. “And yours and Daddy’s smile and jawline.”
With the confession, Buffy’s knees buckle as she lets loose a petite groan, tears dispensing over the apples of her cheeks. Jac rushes to her, helping her to a seat at the table.
“I’m so sorry, Mama.” Savannah’s eyes well up watching the turmoil the revelation brings to her mother.
Buffy takes hold of her hand across the table. “It’s alright, baby. It just hurts…all over again, that’s all.”
“I don’t know what to feel,” Vangie exhales. “I feel bad for Noah. Poor guy. I feel bad for you, Mama. And I’m…” she stumbles over her words momentarily, finally letting them out, “pissed off at Daddy. How could he do this?” She swallows tears of her own. “And worst of all, I think Payton may be having an affair, too.” Defeated, she lays her head down on the table, her arms and hands lobbed atop of it, ashamed and embarrassed by her own admission.
“Vangie,” Buffy consoles, “now, why would you think that? Payton is a good man. A good provider. He loves you and those girls to pieces.”
“Daddy was a good man,” she says, looking up at them, damp mascara clumped under watery eyes, her lips and forehead distorting with her cry as she processes such an equation. “If Daddy cheated, any man could.”
Jac heads for the front door, jostling her keys from her pocket. Vangie sprints in front of her, throwing herself against the large frame. “You can’t go accusing him, Jac. I don’t have any proof. Just a few emails, that’s all. And a weird feeling.”
“I’m not going to accuse him, but it can’t hurt to ask. Now move.” Jac waits patiently for Vangie to remove herself from in front of the door.
“You can’t go running to everybody’s rescue, Jac. We’re not in second grade anymore. Payton is not Jimmy Bruschi. You can’t go punch his lights out because he pulled my pigtails!” Vangie scolds, a smile unwillingly forming on her stressed lips with the comical elementary memory. “Besides, he has Luka and Zoey. You can’t make a scene in front of them.”
“Argh,” Jac huffs, retreating, knowing Vangie is right. “Well, Savannah…if you had any doubts about finalizing your divorce, surely you know you made the right decision now.” Jac shakes her head, fed up with the deception of marriage and relationships in general. “I’ll die an old maid before I’ll commit myself to some man who will ultimately disappoint.”
Savannah drives in her Jeep, the top off, a light rain falling. Nearly numb from the conversation at her mother’s house, the rain does not affect her. Wetting her hair, her clothes, the interior contents of the Jeep, she simply keeps on driving. Her mind flip-flops between pain and sympathy for her mother and Noah, and a bubbling anger and resentment at her beloved father. Tears pressing at the backs of her eyes, the treasured image of her father now tarnished, she looks over at the authentic Pittsburgh Steelers
Terrible Towel,
the keepsake given to her by the
giant
of a man from a live football game attended together.
She picks up the towel, raising it high above her head as the wind whips it around in her hand. Gulping and quenching an audible cry, Savannah opens her hand, the
Terrible Towel
tumbling away, somewhere in the streets of Savannah―staying painfully true to her column, symbolically
taking out the trash.
The sun now setting, not that she would have noticed, what with the dreary wet day. Savannah pulls up in front of an uncommon house, surprised she remembered the way. Sitting in her idling Jeep momentarily, she wrestles with her internal compass, prompting herself to turn around and go home.
The garage door to gym boy Brody’s residence opens, startling her as she is caught in the act. Inside the dimly lit spacious shop, she identifies a familiar, attractive form. Brody, recognizing her ride, gives her a laid-back wave, an invitation to come inside. Turning the key, Savannah obliges her foremost impulse as her Jeep powers down.
Brody works, running a piece of wood through a planer, his latest creation. Savannah’s scent fills his lungs as she enters the garage, drawing his attention. “She lives,” Brody says, flashing her an audacious smile, jesting about her noticeable absence from the gym. The upturned grin disappearing with her drenched appearance, replaced with concern. “You make a habit of riding around with the top down in the rain?” He sizes her up, her tall, lean frame sporting a lightweight sweater over skinny jeans, a pair of brown leather riding boots nearly to her knee. Much like her hair, everything she wears is damp not wet, a mixture of the wind and the rain.
“Only when I’ve got too much on my mind to notice,” she says, smiling back at him, her body giving in to a shiver.
“Experienced a few of those nights myself,” Brody admits. Disrobing from his jacket, he wraps it chivalrously around her shoulders and rubs his large hands briskly down her arms, generating heat.
“Mmh,” Savannah emits a thankful approval, welcoming the warmth and essence of the jacket, carrying with it Brody’s pleasing aroma.
“You want to talk about it?” His kind eyes narrow with genuine compassion.
Savannah shakes her head. “No. What you’re doing seems much more interesting.” She motions to the wood project he’s working with, having had all the solemn conversation she can stand for one night.
“It’s a guitar,” Brody deftly takes her cue, distracting her mind from her current quandary. “Well, it’s going to be when I get done with it.”
Savannah runs her hands over the intricate grain of the wood. “It looks like flames.”
“Good eye,” Brody compliments. “It’s flaming cocobolo. This piece is from Costa Rica.”
Savannah looks at what appears to be a standard slab of wood. “And it’s going to be a guitar when you’re done?”
“Yep. One of my clients, he tours with a rock band. Wants something kinda unique.”
“That’s pretty amazing, you know.” Savannah scans him, standing there in a form-fitting, long-sleeved Henley top and a pair of Lucky jeans, a low profile gray beanie casting the same hue over his usual steel blues.
A drop of rain collecting at the top of her hair releases, landing on her full mouth. Her reaction mimics Brody’s, his tongue slowly lapping moisture from his own bottom lip, subconsciously yearning for contact with hers.
Pulling her attention from his rugged, tempting jaw, she further comments on the wood, “It’s so smooth.”
“Soft as polished stone,” Brody remarks, coming up behind her. He puts his hand over hers, guiding it to the sanding tool he uses to flush out any rough areas in the wood. Moving it in a slow, circular pattern along the grain, he presses his form more firmly against Savannah, his front tethered to her back. Finally asking the question he has pondered every day with her absence from the gym, “You avoiding me?” His mouth curled up at the ends, enjoying Savannah’s reaction, a faint purr at his closeness.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she spars playfully. “Just some family drama, that’s all.” Her hand works under his making silk out of wood. “Besides, you never called.”
His hunky frame nearly swallowing her from behind sends a delightful chill up her spine, Savannah arches her back further into him. Brody bends his head to her neck, his words deep and low, his lips teasing the flesh there as they talk. “You told me not to.”
“And it’s good that you didn’t,” she confirms, sucking in her breath with the growing pressure of his mouth at the side of her jugular.
“Now that I know it bothered you, next time I’ll call…even if you tell me not to.” He works his lips up to her ear, his voice at a palpable whisper.
“Never said it bothered me,” Savannah murmurs, his provoking lip service soliciting a fire down below. She nestles her bottom tighter against his front, assessing his appetite. Brody does not disappoint, meeting her curiosity with a strong arm wound around her middle, he solidifies their carnal contact, his member having fully risen to the occasion, quite uncomfortably confined in his jeans. “Best…to keep it…casual,” Savannah continues, her stream of consciousness delightfully broken up with each caress of Brody’s hands and lips.
“No strings attached,” he helps her out, finishing her thought, while untying the strings holding her sweater at the back of her neck. The lightweight material falls from her shoulders, gathering at her waist.
“Uh-huh,” she whispers. “No expectations. No disappointment.” Sucking in her breath at his absence, Brody keenly hits the button on the garage door opener, shutting them in, secure from the eyes and ears of the outside world. Savannah exhales, gratified with his return. His coarse, large hands rubbing her skin from back to front, settling over the button of her jeans, efficiently working away at the denim.