The Truth About Mallory Bain (2 page)

The time came for me to sign my name. I turned my gaze downward to avoid Chad's disapproving glare. However, a subtle movement in the corner of the room made me twist partway, expecting to see a man studying me from the fringes. I saw instead a transparent figure of a man change into an undulant haze of gray until the form dissipated into nothing.

I froze in place, my eyes fixed upon a vacant chair. I might have dropped to the floor had I not been sitting already. Enduring ordeals such as finalizing a divorce was enough to make anyone feel uncertain. Stress caused the vision. I'd seen nothing more than refracted light streaming through the transom above the door.

“Ms. Bain.” My attorney seized my attention.

“I hope we're done,” I whispered.

“Close.”

Chad was finishing his response to a question the judge had asked.

“No, I did my time with them. I donated enough of my life to their cause.”

Still seeing the gauzy vision in my head, I swallowed hard and refocused. I leaned toward my attorney, “He's making it sound as if the statute of limitations ran out on our marriage.”

“He might feel that way, considering the child support decision is on the table. Life with this young man wasn't the picnic you signed on for, I'm sure.”

He knew my marriage had ended one weekday afternoon last December, when a neighbor and I stumbled upon my husband at the mall, strolling along hand-in-hand with his ‘Just a friend from work.'

The hearing was getting tense. Chad was tense. I needed a distraction. It puzzled me how Jack had slipped into obscurity without telling a soul where he'd gone. He may have known Chad longer, but he'd known Ben and me better. Jack should have said where he was going. Now both men were gone out of my life, and I missed saying goodbye to either.

But now Caleb and I were free to explore our future with the promise of good things to come. Both Ben and Jack would be pleased if they only knew. Our future was a blank journal, filled with pristine pages where we'd preserve memories of our unchartered journey through life. No sooner had I folded my hands in my lap and closed my eyes for a moment when I heard a prompting, a whisper brushing my ear, spoken in a familiar yet unidentifiable man's voice.

“Take Caleb. Find comfort for him. Cradle him in the embrace of your loving family.”

Before the ink dried on those divorce papers, I surprised myself by deciding to leave Memphis. I phoned my mother from the courthouse steps. We'd be home within a week, moving north to Minnesota as early as the Wednesday after Labor Day. She was delighted. I hesitated, but then texted Dana about my change of heart. She didn't respond.

I
t came as no surprise when my new ex-husband ditched us on moving day. He texted “Have a nice life” and slammed the door on us for good. Chad let us down again, wanted us gone. I decided the feeling needed to be mutual and forced a reassuring smile for the sake of my little boy. Caleb's downcast expression told me he struggled to believe my excuse that Daddy Chad probably had to go into work early. My eyes ached from fighting back a flood of tears.

I set Caleb's dinosaur backpack on the seat beside him and closed the door. I'd show him a positive attitude and not let him know how badly Chad had hurt me. I slid behind the steering wheel and turned the key. I blinked away that wall of tears and backed down the driveway.

We'd been on the road all day heading north to Minnesota— north to no job was foremost on my mind. I'd lost nearly all of my former friends either to Chad's side or the passing of time—except for Dana. And thanks to Mom, we'd have better than a nice place to live with her in our family home set in the gorgeous Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis.

I tried making the trip exciting by singing songs Caleb had learned last year in kindergarten, playing “I Spy,” and counting horses, pigs, and cows. A bald eagle soaring over a large pond became the highlight of our animal sightings. The eagle gave him cause to compare it to prehistoric meat-eating reptiles and Mesozoic birds of prey. He prattled on and on until a group of motorcycles sped by.

After our late supper at a diner on the outskirts of Waterloo, Iowa, he soothed himself to sleep by tapping a small plastic
motorcycle against the car door while singing, “The wheels on Daddy's bike go round and round, round and round, round and round.” His last bit of energy drained, he angled his body to adjust his head on the soft pillow, and within minutes, he was snoring. By then, “The Wheels on the Bus” tune had become a nagging ear-worm stuck in my head.

He did quite well, despite having reached the limit of his tolerance for having little to do during the long trip. I asked a lot of him when I suggested we drive all day. He said he was excited about moving into Grandma Diane's great big house.

We entered the homestretch, driving north on I-35W through southern Minnesota. I was exhausted from staying awake and alert, and from maintaining Caleb's calm. I needed my eyes open and fixed on the road. I needed to prevent our trip from becoming a short drive into the ditch or a pricey adventure, squandering precious dollars on a few hours of sleep in some bedbug motel.

Each time we blipped past a highway light, the backseat lit up, then darkened again. I feared the change in lighting might tempt Caleb awake. Once awake, he'd find us still miles from Grandma's. He'd beg to sit up front or plead with me to stop for food he'd nibble at and never finish. When all tactics failed to help him escape the car, Caleb would howl, “Mom, I gotta pee!”

But night was the best time to regain those hours lost on pit stops and I took full advantage of the speed limit on the long stretches of empty interstate.

Yet the moment I pressed down on the gas pedal, a man's voice shouted,
“Mallory! Don't!”

My eyes snapped open. When had I closed them? I was too tired to remember. I lowered the window halfway and gulped in the cool air.

No more than two miles ahead, a jackknifed big rig blocked my lane. An ambulance pulled out in front of us and sped down the freeway, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

I slowed the car to a stop until a patrolman waved me on. I coasted into the left lane, past the line of orange cones and flares. An abandoned wreck sat dead on the shoulder a short distance in front of the semi, its trunk crunched up to the driver's seat. A pickup angled backward in front of the totaled car, one headlight shining upward into the blackened sky. Two men stood beside its hay-filled bed sitting inches from the ditch. Although seen in a glance, one of them reminded me of Ben and an old heartache resurfaced.

The sound of Caleb's voice startled me. “There's lights flashing, Mom.”

“It's a bad accident.”

“Like my dad's was?”

I'd never given the scene of Ben's death much thought. I hadn't been there. Losing him was painful enough.

“I don't know, Caleb. But we're safe.”

“My backpack fell on the floor.”

“Leave it. You aren't undoing your seatbelt, are you?”

He paused. “No.” He yawned noisily.

An hour or so later, we pulled into Mom's driveway. I parked a few feet away from the side door of the house to make unloading our suitcases easier after I settled Caleb into bed.

I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, relishing the pleasure of a non-moving car. Our trip was finally over. But that man's voice had come out of nowhere, spoken clear as a bell. He prevented me from falling into a deep sleep. Pressing pedal to the metal, I would have crashed head-on into the back of that semi and added a fourth vehicle to the pile-up. Wherever his mysterious voice came from, he had saved our lives. There had been a familiarity to its timbre, but not enough to be identifiable. I laughed off the idea I'd heard the voice of an angel and faulted my childhood years of catechism for that fleeting notion.

I peered into the rearview mirror. “We're here, buddy. We're at Grandma's.”

Snoring.

I exited the car and tapped on his window before pulling open his door. I scrunched down on the narrow strip of seat beside him and rubbed his shoulder.

“Hey. Time to wake up.” He stirred but kept his eyes closed. “I'll help you.”

I slipped my hand though one of the straps on his backpack, now laying on the seat beside him, and lodged it in the crook of my arm ahead of my bulky purse. When I lifted Caleb out of the car, he laid his face against my shoulder. I rested my cheek against his sweet-smelling hair.

Family enters the Bain house through the side door, except on holidays or special occasions, when everyone is greeted around front. I pressed the lighted doorbell twice and we waited. Cradling Caleb in my arms, with my bent knee pushing up on his sagging bottom, I knocked on the metal storm door, held it open against my hip, and tried turning the knob of the inside door. Locked. I pounded harder and passed the time humming “The Wheels on the Bus.” I hitched him higher to hold him more securely in my arms and pushed my thumb against the bell again.

He wiggled in my arms. “Somebody's talking.”

I closed my ears to the rustling aspens and listened to the sound directly behind us. Low talking—hollow murmurings of a man standing close enough to finger the back of my hair. I twisted around with a scream rising in my throat, and noticed nothing peculiar apart from a strong fresh scent, a soapy masculine smell unlike the sweetness of my child's hair.

My heart pounded while I skimmed the gray faces of the closed garage doors and my blue sedan. No sign of anyone lurking out there, and not behind us on the concrete steps leading up to the porch where we stood. I looked across the driveway to the ornamental trees and saw nothing beyond the ordinary.

“You're getting heavy.” I set Caleb down in front of me. “Angels do not smell like soap,” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” I pressed the bell again. “Where on earth is Grandma?”

Stress was the trigger in the courtroom. This time, fatigue. I brushed off the coincidence that we both mistook the wind whisking through the leaves for a man whispering close enough to grab us. I rang the bell, pushing harder and faster, as if pressing harder and faster would bring Mom to the door. Moments later, she peeked out from behind the curtain. The lock turned and the door swung back with a scrape.

“I'm sorry. I fell asleep,” she said.

“Not a problem. I know we're late.” I pushed the door closed and gave the deadbolt a sharp turn before hugging her amidst a gush of tears. “I've missed you so much.”

“And I've missed you both.” She stooped to hug Caleb. “Look at this child, getting taller by the day.” She stood up and cupped my face in her hands. “You're distraught, babygirl.”

I patted her arm reassuringly. “My mind was playing tricks on me in the dark. It's nothing. I'm just tired.”

I nudged Caleb through the formal dining room into the spacious living room.

Mom lifted his backpack from my arm. “I'm glad you made it here safe and sound. What a haul in one day instead of two.”

I jumped in, “Two days with him strapped in his booster would have been too much. Right, buddy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I should tuck him in, though. It's late and he's still tired.”

“No, I'm not!”

“Are you hungry?” asked Mom.

He shook his head.

“Upstairs, then. We can visit tomorrow,” said Mom.

She followed us, pacing herself to keep up. We paused in the hallway outside my former room.

“Put him in Aileen's room,” Mom suggested. “He'll be closer to you there. Rick came over and set up his bed after supper. He spent all last weekend painting the room light brown to complement those dinosaurs we keep hearing about.”

“He's the best brother. I'll call tomorrow and thank him.”

After tucking Caleb in his bed, with brand new dinosaur sheets and matching comforter, I stretched the kink out of my lower back.

“Mom. Thank you for all this. He is going to love this room.”

“We had fun putting it together for him.” She tugged on my sleeve. “Settle him in and show him how to find your room. I'll go down and brew a pot of relaxing tea for us.”

“I won't be long.”

“It's supposed to get chilly tonight.” She patted the folded blanket at the foot of the bed. “Maybe more rain. It's been an awfully wet summer—barely used the sprinklers this year.” She hugged Caleb one more time and kissed his cheek before leaving.

“How about this. Dinosaur sheets and your own bed. Real nice of Grandma and Uncle Rick to set this up for you.” I went about tucking him in again. “There's a door on the other side of your dresser.”

“I kinda see it.”

“We share a bathroom. There's another door inside the bathroom. It opens into my room.”

“Uh-huh.” He stretched upright and looked around the room. “Where are my toys?”