(2008) Down Where My Love Lives (60 page)

She shook her head and sipped again. The caffeine did little to raise her eyelids.

I looked at the weeds around us. "You want some help?"

She smiled and let me off the hook. And while that was nice, it reminded me of how much Maggie had withdrawn.

A little later I drove to Walterboro, stopped by Dr. Frank's office, and then found a hat store that I'd heard about in the whispers around church. An elderly lady helped me find what I needed, wrapped it in a box, and sent me on my way with a remembering look in her eye.

Evening brought a blessed cool breeze, a warm shower, and some welcome cloud cover that blocked out the late afternoon sun, dropping the temperature into the upper seventies. Understanding that she was allowed to change her mind at a moment's notice and without reason, I was not surprised when Maggie told me she wanted to get out of the house. We cleaned up, dressed, and drove the four miles to the church property.

A blue circus tent had been erected above the cement foundation, which had been cleared of ash and rubble and new portions poured. Another tent stood alongside, and beneath it sat tables loaded with food.

Cars lined the roadside, and despite the impromptu service, women showed up wearing their favorite and newest hats. Amos had assigned a young deputy to direct traffic, and elsewhere young men in coats and ties were escorting ladies across the dirt parking lot to folding chairs beneath the tent.

Maggie stepped out of the van and looked both ways across the highway before I could get her attention from the rear of the van. "Honey?" She walked around the side, and I handed her the box. "Didn't want you to feel underdressed."

She accepted the box, untied the bow, and lifted the hat from inside. It was a blue sun hat with a broad white band and feathers on one side. Miraculously, it matched both her eyes and her dress.

I held the tail of the ribbon while she settled the brim on her brow, forcing tears out of the corners of her eyes. I pulled my white handkerchief from my pocket and gave it to her, and she dabbed her eyes. She kissed me on the cheek-which told me she was sorry-and hooked her arm inside mine-which told me that she loved me-and we crossed the street.

We took a seat near the back while those around us filled up. Amos looked spry in his coat and tie, which Amanda no doubt had matched because he hadn't displayed that much style in his entire life.

Amanda was busy with the flower arrangement and white tablecloth spread across the folding table up front. Her tummy had grown some more. She was now into the full-on pregnant woman waddle, and she glowed from head to toe. She saw us and hurried down the aisle to hug Maggie.

Maggie smiled, teared up, and placed her palm across Amanda's tummy as though feeling the ripeness of a melon. Amanda gawked at Maggie's hat while I marveled at my wife.

I watched her-the way her shoulders moved with the tilt of her head, the way her smile lit up the six people around her, the way her hair, tucked behind her ears, framed her face like baby's breath. I thought about the way her heartbeat sounded the rhythm for our dance atop the magnolia floor. I wanted to tell her all this but didn't know how. Just because something is broken doesn't mean it's no good. Doesn't mean you throw it away. It just means it's broken, and broken is okay. I wanted to tell her that broken is still beautiful, still works, still wakes me in the morning, and at the end of every day past and those to come, I can love broken.

The choir, a purple mass of matching robes and sweaty faces, appeared and started swaying and humming. The congregation stood, ladies fanned themselves with bulletins, and the choir began clapping and singing a responsive hymn, proving once again that they had more rhythm in five minutes than I'd had in my entire life. We swayed, sang, and clapped until fifteen minutes later when Pastor John stepped up and the choir lowered their voices to underscore his.

He stood several minutes, smiling and looking for an entrance. Finally he raised his hands, the choir dropped their voices even more, and he said, "If you're with the fire department, please raise your hand."

We did.

He laughed. "Well, if you needed a reason not to end up in hell, now you've got it."

The laughter spread like a wave. It felt good.

Pastor John tucked his Bible beneath his arm. When he looked up, his face was soaked, but it wasn't with sweat.

Up front, Li'l Dylan said, "Daddy! Daddy!" Amos picked him up and bounced him on his knee.

Maggie grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

Pastor John raised his chin and began, "I've been asking the Lord to forgive me for the things in my past that brought this upon all of you. I have asked before, and I will ask again, please forgive me."

The choir swayed and hummed a melody, and Pastor John placed his Bible on the altar. He palmed the sweat off his cheeks, dabbed his eyes, and returned his handkerchief to his pocket. Finally he picked up his Bible again, turned toward the back, and read, "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying."

Maggie's fingers wrapped more tightly about mine.

"There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Maggie dropped her head and fought back a sob, and I started looking for an exit.

"Behold, I make all things new."

Maggie dropped her head, stood, and hurried between the chairs and out the back of the tent. Pastor John waited while I followed her out. She ran across the parking lot toward the river, hit her knees, and buried her face in her hands. The moss hanging from the oak above looked like arms swaying in the wind, reaching down to sweep the riverbank.

I knelt next to her, and she fell against me. Finally she managed a breath deep enough, and I helped her to her feet. We made our way across the parking lot toward the van.

Midway through the cars, an SUV pulled up to the back of the tent, and the driver got out. He was tall and broadshouldered, and his skin was dark as night. Although I couldn't see his face, his body posture told me that he wasn't here for church. Maggie, too, picked up on it and stopped walking.

The man walked up to the back of the tent and began striding confidently down the middle aisle toward Pastor John. I led Maggie to the side of the tent where we could see and hear inside.

Pastor John saw the man, stopped midsentence, and said, "Welcome, James."

The man called James stopped and laughed loudly. 'Thought I'd stop in and see how the flock was doing, Preacher."

Amos, sitting in the front row and still holding L.D. on his knee, tensed like a dog before a fight.

Pastor John never skipped a beat. He pointed to a seat down front. "There's always room for one more."

James laughed. "No, no, I think I've given you enough of my money for one lifetime."

Amos's deputy slipped out the side and around the back. He stood at the rear of the tent, speaking into a radio clipped to his uniform shirt.

Pastor John addressed the congregation. "Friends, this is James Whittaker. James and I were once partners, stealing everything we could get our hands on and even some things we couldn't."

Not a foot shuffled; not a person could be heard breathing. If Pastor John was afraid, he didn't show it.

James smiled. "You know, John, after twenty years in prison, I learned something very important." He twirled in the aisle, walked toward the front, and pointed at him. "In the end, we all get what we got coming!"

Pastor John nodded and stepped forward again, now just a few feet from Whittaker. He looked him in the eyes. "Yes, we do."

Whittaker looked down his left arm where Amos sat two feet away-ready to pounce. Had L.D. not been on his lap, I think he would have. Amanda sat next to him, her arm hooked inside his-both holding on to and holding down.

Whittaker looked at L.D., then at Amos. He leaned closer and said, "I don't think he has your eyes." Then he turned and walked sideways across the front of the altar and out the side of the church. He weaved among the ropes that held down the tent.

I don't know the cause-it had something to do with the smug look on his face. The look sparked something I hadn't felt in a long time. Somewhere inside me, deep down, something snapped. I stepped in front of him, started at my toes, and threw everything I had through my fist and into his face. It was the hardest I'd ever hit anyone in my life.

His head jerked sideways and blood trickled off his lip, and faster than a cat, he backhanded me four feet in the air, over a tent rope, and flat on my back, where the stars spun in circles above me.

I looked up, tried to balance on an elbow, thought I might vomit, and saw a black freight train flying sideways through the darkness.

Amos's body-tackle toppled Whittaker like a bowling pin. The collision sounded loud and painful-like two Mack trucks meeting head-on in an intersection. Amos landed on top, fended off a vicious right, and then landed his own squarely on Whittaker's chin. Two seconds later he had Whittaker facedown and hogtied. Little mud bubbles were circling around Whittaker's nose and popped every time he exhaled-which was often as he fought the thick zip ties that bound his hands and feet.

Amos's suit was smeared with mud and soaked with sweat, and the seams behind his shoulders were stretched taut. He squeezed the sides of Whittaker's cheeks so that they'd have a better chance of being cut by his teeth. He pointed Whittaker's face at me and leaned over him, whispering low enough that the folks sitting a few feet away in the folding chairs couldn't hear him. "That is my best friend on the planet. You ever do that again, and I'll finish this fight."

Whittaker outweighed Amos by maybe eighty pounds, but Amos's adrenaline seemed to be making up the difference. He pulled back my eyelid, studied my pupil, slapped me gently on the face, and then picked up Whittaker like a sack of potatoes, dragged him to his deputy's car, and flung him onto the backseat.

Amos and Amanda followed Maggie and me home and helped get me settled in the loft. My eye was turning black and puffy, but my jaw was still connected. And I still had all my teeth. Amanda gave me something for the pain, and while my arms and legs turned to noodles, the three of them stood over me and talked in whispers.

"You be all right?" Amos asked.

I tried to nod, but my words sounded as though I'd just come from a drill-happy dentist. "I've been hit harder."

Amos shook his head. "I doubt it." He pulled the door behind him and whispered in hushed tones, "We can hold him tonight, until he makes bail, then ..."

Amanda spoke up, louder. "Amos, this is not going to stop."

He poked his head back through the door and nodded at me. "Keep your guard up."

"You too."

They left, and I climbed right out of bed and watched their truck's taillights disappear. Then I fumbled my way down the steps, hobbled across the yard, and found Blue standing on the front porch, stretching. I walked into the house, using the hallway walls like curbs, unlocked my writing closet, and pulled out the Winchester. I slid a shell into the chamber, clicked the safety on, and walked back into the barn.

ABOUT MIDNIGHT MAGGIE GOT OUT OF BED AND STOOD A long time in the shower. Long after the hot water ran cold, she turned off the stream and stood dripping, eyes closed, leaning against the post that held the showerhead and shaking her head.

I watched from the loft and saw only what one eye and one slit allowed. Maggie's lips were trembling, goose bumps traveled up and down her arms, and her shoulders were tilted at an angle. I climbed down out of the loft and handed her a towel.

She wrapped it around herself, tucking it beneath her arms but not bothering to dry with it.

"You hungry? I could fix some-"

She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. I turned to cross the yard and find something in the kitchen when she called, "D.S." It'd been a long time since she called me by that name.

Maybe it was time. Maybe I could come clean and tell her the stories I'd been hiding. I stepped closer, into the single bulb above the shower. "Maggie, I know how you-"

She stood straight, her back rigid, and pointed her finger at me. `Don't tell me you know how I feel!"

"Honey, I was just saying-11

"You don't know anything! You can't possibly!" She dropped her towel and stood clutching her stomach as if she'd been shot. "You don't know what it's like." She held out her fingers. "Three of your own!"

She clutched her stomach again, and I walked closer.

She held me off. "What kind of a woman am I!? What good is-" She pounded her stomach and chest and squeezed the taut skin. "Why!?"

She fell to her knees and beat the pallet that served as the shower floor. I picked up the towel and draped it over her shoulders. Blue hung his eyes over the loft, afraid to come down but troubled by the sound. Her crying quieted Pinky, who had started to complain about her lack of a midnight snack.

I turned around, kicked the stall, and told her to hush.

Maggie collected her towel, climbed naked up to the loft, and shut the door behind her.

I walked to the house and into the kitchen, where I percolated some coffee, threw some ice in a ziplock, and then walked back to the barn and nursed both my eye and my caffeine need at the base of the loft. I looked across the yard at our house, draped in a blue tarp, smelling like smoke, and by most definitions sitting in shambles. I looked up at the closed door, thought about Maggie tossing tearfully inside, and then considered the state of our lives, which was by most definitions much like our house.

I shook my head, spat, poured out the cold coffee, and wiped my eyes-loss is a painful thing.