Black Stump Ridge (16 page)

“You were his best friend.” Amanda hissed.

“Charlie?”

“My father.” She stepped toward the bed. “He loved you like a brother. He invited you whenever our family took trips. You went camping with us on Padre Island. We went fishing at Lake Mathis – you, him, my brother, and me. We all loved you.”

Fred shook his head, confused at her vehemence. “And, I loved all of you. Those trips are some of my favorite memories.”

“How
dare
you sit there and tell me he was gay!”

“Weren’t you listening?
I
didn’t say he was gay.
He
said he was gay.”

“Right! Is he here to confirm it? No! It’s bad enough he’s dead. Now you’re telling me he wasn’t really a man? A good husband to my mother? That can’t be! He was good to us! He was loving and kind! The next thing I know, you’ll be telling me he didn’t love us.”

“What? No! Not at all! He loved all of you. That wasn’t the problem.”

“My father wasn’t gay!”

Amanda stormed from the room. The door slammed behind her; he heard her clattering down the stairs. A moment later he heard the car door slam. The engine revved. He heard gravel flying as the car roared out of the parking lot. Tires squealed on the pavement. Seconds later, all was quiet.

Fred sat on the bed. He stared at the empty chair as Amanda’s parting scream echoed in his mind. He absently swiped at his cheek unaware of the tear he’d brushed aside. He picked up the bottle and tilted it back. After taking a long drink, he set the bottle on the floor next to the bed. He continued to stare at the chair.

Why had he agreed to do this? He knew too well how painful it would be. Hadn’t he lived with it for twelve years? Look what it had done to him. He shook his head. This had to stop. When she came back — if she came back — he’d tell her to go away; that he wasn’t going to do this any more.

The chair blurred. He closed his eyes. No, not any more. It was time to let go of the past. To let the dead rest in peace.

If only they would give
him
peace.

•

Amanda lay on the bed in the dark motel room. Night filled the room but she turned on no lights. She drew comfort from the darkness. Her head hurt. Her eyes ached from crying.

How could he have been so cruel? Why would he say such terrible things about her father? Such horrible lies? Her father wasn’t like that. He and her mother had been happily married for almost twenty years. They were devoted to each other. Amanda couldn’t remember a single fight – not even a harsh word – in all of that time. She’d never seen him drunk, never abusive.

Memories flooded her mind. She smiled as she remembered her father teaching her to ride a bicycle. She saw him laugh, his arm around her mother’s waist, as Amanda and her brother eagerly opened Christmas presents. She saw her father standing next to her on an old wooden dock as she reeled in a fish. All of them — her parents, Uncle Fred, her brother — sitting around a campfire in front of the tent laughing and joking as they roasted marshmallows. She heard the surf crashing on the other side of the dunes.

Gay? Her father? No way!

•

The funeral. Sitting in the vestibule, her mother on one side, her brother in the middle between them. A crumpled, wet handkerchief in her left hand. A strange face, a pale young man with dark hair, bending slightly at the waist as he offers his condolences to them.

The scene shifts to the graveside service. She is sitting in the front row underneath a flapping canopy. Before her a coffin, its lid draped with flowers, rests on chrome rails above the waiting hole. The overwhelming, sickly-sweet smell of flowers makes her stomach churn and threatens to make her puke. The minister stands at one end, his final words a meaningless, incomprehensible, insectile drone. The mourners file by, each one gently taking her hand or bending to briefly touch cheeks or both. All of the sympathetic words and comforting phrases slash her like razors. Each “He was a wonderful man” and “I’m so sorry for your loss” hammers at her. She feels a scream building inside her but knows she must keep it inside. For her mother and brother. For all of these well-meaning people.

The next mourner is a man – a young man with pale skin and black hair. Tears blur her vision, but she still notices his beauty. She remembers thinking that he looks like a model. His murmured words slip past her, as does he, to be replaced by the next sympathetic face.

•

Fred opened the door. Amanda stood before him, her purse in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. Her bloodshot eyes glared at him above the dark circles on her cheeks. Her hair hung in unkempt disarray.

She shoved the bag into his hands as she pushed past him into the room. He glanced at the label on the bottle’s neck as he closed the door. Jim Beam. Either it was a peace offering or she meant to continue – most likely both.

“You look like shit.” He set the bag on the nightstand.

“Thanks.” She looked around, grabbed two empty glasses, set them on the table, and opened the freezer. “It’s good to see you, too.”

She took out an ice tray, dropped two cubes into each tumbler, and then returned the tray to the freezer. She turned, picked up the glasses and held them out.

“Are you just going to stand there? Open the damned bottle and pour us a drink.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” He took the bottle from the bag, but didn’t open it. “I’m somewhat of an expert in bad ideas. They’re the story of my life.”

“Just pour the fucking whiskey. I’ll decide what kind of idea it is later.”

The obscenity hit him like a slap in the face. “Listen, Amanda, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Do what? Drink? You going AA on me all of a sudden?”

“No. Not that. I don’t think it’s right to keep dredging up all of these memories. The past is dead and gone. I think we should just leave it that way.”

Amanda slammed the glasses down on the table. The ice rattled. She snatched the bottle from his hand and broke the seal.

“How dare you!” she hissed. She poured whiskey into both glasses. The ice floated in the amber liquid. She put the bottle on the table and grabbed up the tumblers. Bourbon sloshed over her hands and spattered on the tile floor. She held one out to him. “If you can sit there and say those things about my father, then you can damn well have a drink to his memory with me.”

“Amanda.”

“Don’t Amanda me.” She held up her glass and waited for him to respond. When his glass touched hers, she said, “To my father, the finest who ever lived, and a wonderful man.” Her glass clinked against his.

“To Johnny,” he echoed. He put the glass to his mouth and took a swallow, watching her over the rim.

She lifted the glass to her lips and drank the whiskey down. Her eyes squeezed shut. She shivered as the liquid burned its way down her throat. She opened her eyes. Tears glistened at the corners. She hurled the glass against the wall. It shattered. Glass shards and ice showered the floor.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up before I go. I’ll get you another glass, too. I’m sure I can find a cheap set somewhere around here.” She grabbed the chair and dragged it across the floor until it rested by one corner of the bed. She sat down. She looked up at him, her hands folded in her lap. “Before we continue, I have a few questions.”

“Look, Amanda. I’ve been thinking.”

“Sit down. It’s too late for cold feet. We’ve come this far. We’re going on to the end.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“It’s a simple word. Two letters. It means I’m not going to do this anymore.”

“Spare me your sarcasm. We started this…”

“You started this. I didn’t want to.”

“Okay. I started it. I twisted your goddamned arm or appealed to your guilt or however you want to justify it to yourself. The point is, we’ve opened the box. The genie is out. We can’t go back.”

Fred shook his head. “I’ve already hurt you enough. Maybe too much. It has to end here.” He downed the rest of his drink and set the glass on the nightstand. “Now.”

Amanda looked down at her hands. For a long time she said nothing. Finally, she spoke, her voice low.

“Yeah. I was hurt. I still am. The things you said about my father, well, I wasn’t ready to hear them.” She looked up. “But, after I left here, I did a lot of thinking. And, remembering. A lot of remembering.”

“Amanda, I’m so sorry. I wish I could take back the things I said. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know that, Uncle Fred.”

He winced. She hadn’t called him that since, well, since before that awful trip. “Amanda, please.”

“Please what? Please don’t call you Uncle Fred? You’ve always been my Uncle Fred. All of my life. Nothing’s going to change that. Not even a few unpleasant truths.” She looked at him intently. “But, like I said, I started remembering a lot of things. Things I’d tried to forget. I remembered the funeral. And, the burial.” Her voice caught. She swallowed and then continued.

“There was a man there. He came to both. I’d never seen him before. I don’t think my mother knew him, either. She didn’t seem to recognize him. I thought he was just someone Daddy knew from work. Daddy had a lot of friends. He was that kind of a man. I only knew you and Dave and Peete and Charlie. Maybe a couple of others. The point is, he looked a lot like that person – Michael? – that you described.”

“It’s possible,” Fred allowed. “As you recall, I wasn’t there. I was still in the hospital. They wouldn’t let me attend.”

“I know. And, I understand. I really do.” Amanda stopped and took a deep breath. “My questions don’t have anything to do with that. What I want to know is, were you in love with my father?”

He stared at her dumbfounded.

“Think about it. I’ve known you all my life. You and my dad, well, you were always doing things together – going places for a day or two – and you were like a part of the family.”

Fred laughed. “We were friends. We liked a lot of the same things. We enjoyed fishing and hunting. I loved your dad, but that doesn’t mean…”

“I know that. But, there’s something else. Something that never occurred to me until last night.”

“And, that was?”

“Well, I always knew you were divorced.”

“Lots of people are divorced. That doesn’t make them gay.”

“True. But in all of those years, I never saw you with a girlfriend. I don’t even remember that you dated anyone. Never.”

Fred started laughing again. Amanda stared at him as he lay back on the bed. Hearty rumbling laughter rocked his body. After a long moment his mirth slowly subsided. He sat up, wiping his eyes.

“Thank you, Amanda. I needed that. I haven’t laughed like that since, well, since that weekend, to tell the truth.”

“I’m glad you’re so amused, but you haven’t answered my question.”

“I know.” Fred still chuckled, although not as heartily. He picked up his glass and held it out to her. “Would you fix me another drink, please, since you’re closer to the bottle than I am?”

She hesitated, then took the glass.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me a question like that before. I’ve been asked about my feelings towards other men’s wives – justifiably in a couple of cases – but never about someone’s father.”

She poured the drink and handed it to him.

“Thanks. First of all, you were a child, and my dating life wasn’t something I’d want to discuss in front of a child.” He sipped from the glass and set it aside. “If you must know, I dated quite a few women during that time. Oh, I don’t mean I was a Casanova, or a Don Juan. Nothing like that. Most of the time, my relationships only lasted for three or four dates. The few that lasted longer, well, let’s just say that I wasn’t an easy man to live with back then. I tended to be pretty self-centered. I carried a lot of emotional baggage from my former marriage. I held it closer than a miser holds his gold. Of course, I didn’t see it, then. I blamed the women. I think I used it for a shield. I was afraid of being hurt again.”

He sighed and spread his arms wide. “And, now, what woman would want me? I drink to hide from my memories. Sometimes my screams wake me in the middle of the night. I look like I’m seventy or eighty instead of the fifty-three I really am. My health is gone. I’m on disability. I can’t hold a job. I’m a real prize these days. I can only interest a woman fifteen minutes at a time – if I have the right amount of cash to give her first, that is.

“No, Honey, I wasn’t in love with your father. Hell, these days I can’t even say I love
me
. The doctor I have to see every three months so I can get my check insists I have to love myself before I can make any real progress in getting better. What I can’t seem to make him understand is this: I don’t even
like
me. How in the hell am I supposed to love me?

“I certainly didn’t love Johnny. At least, not the way you’re wondering. He was my best friend. I loved him like a brother.” Fred’s voice softened. His words came out strained and choked. “And, I miss him. God, how I miss him.”