Replacing Gentry (8 page)

Bodie popped the handle on the driver’s side—the door opened with a soft whoosh—and stood back like a gentleman so I could slide in. The door sealed closed beside me like a bank vault. Inhaling, I savored the fragrance of a new car, of fine leather and affluence. I’d come a long way from my ten-year-old Land Cruiser in need of new shocks and a paint job, to heaven on wheels.

Bridger slipped into the front seat, Bodie in the back.

“Everyone got their seatbelts fastened?” I said. No response. Glancing over at Bridger, I saw that he was gazing dolefully off into the distance. “Did I say something wrong?”

Bridged swallowed. “No. Our momma used to always say that whenever we went somewhere. She was a Nazi when it came to seat belts.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean,” I started to say, but then Bridger snapped out of his melancholy, reassuring me with a gloomy smile.

“Don’t worry about it, Marlie,” he said, pointing down the drive. “Come on now, let’s go.”

I felt like I should say something about Gentry or ask them how they were feeling, but then the opportunity to do so seemed to have come and gone in one short breath. I couldn’t go back and recapture that moment; my only choice now was to go forward.

Locating the satellite radio, I switched it on. “Just one more thing.” I tuned it to my favorite station, and then allowed a satisfied smile as the sound system boomed out the chorus to
The Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes.
An instant protest from my passengers ensued. Bridger’s face twisted in disgust. In the backseat Bodie made gagging noises.

“What is this? Eighties music?”

“My car, my music,” I said with gusto. “And this weekend we’re in luck. All Elvis Costello, all the time.”

There were more objections as I fed the name of the cemetery where Gentry was buried into the navigation system. I drowned out their complaints by turning the music louder. “Seatbelts?” I checked again, and this time, received only groans I assumed meant that they were secured. We were on our way.

As I navigated the windy, tree-lined streets, the rain began to fall, pelting my car with pea-sized drops that hit the glass in prismic circles, before splitting into smaller drops and shooting off in opposite directions. The car held with precision to curve after curve as we pulled out onto Highway 150 and headed south. So confident, in fact, had I become in my car’s performance capabilities that I ignored the slight slippage the tires had experienced on the last few curves. I also dismissed the fact that the sky had grown so dark the car’s headlights had turned themselves on and that my visibility had suddenly been reduced to just a few yards.

And then in an instant, it was there.

One second I was steering into a tight curve, the next the car was barreling straight for something in the middle of the road. My foot had barely shifted to the brake when I realized that it wasn’t just a something—it was a woman. With black hair, wet and plastered against her head and shoulders, her eyes pierced the strands obscuring her face. The red fabric of her dress flowed around her legs and ankles as if on a light breeze.

I slammed my foot against the brake pedal. The car slid sideways, the front end turning back the way we’d come, the tires gliding effortlessly on a layer of water. I cranked the wheel and to my heightened panic, the car banked tighter the other way, spinning us in a complete circle.

We’re going to crash!

With a blur of green flora filling my vision, somehow, I remembered that one must turn into the direction of the skid in order to right the car again. Without another thought, I defied my natural instincts and cranked the steering wheel toward the skid, slamming my foot again to the brake. A second later the car stopped spinning, righted, and skidded to a rocky stop on the other side of the road. My eyes bugged and staring straight ahead, I gripped the steering wheel, my foot pressing the brake to the car’s floor, too afraid to release it just yet.

A bolt of lightning struck directly overhead. The white of my knuckles flashed blue. Stunned by our sudden trip to the wrong side of the road, the boys and I sat in complete silence a split second before a roll of thunder vibrated the car and its contents back to life.

“That was awesome!” Bodie called out.

I leaned my head back, my eyes falling closed as I sent up a silent
thank you
to heaven. In the background I could hear the boys excited voices, reliving the last few perilous moments of our trip.

I reopened my eyes. Remembering the woman, I looked around for any sign of her. She was nowhere to be seen. “Boys, do you see that woman anywhere, the one who was in the road?”

Bridger cocked me a confused look. “Marlie, there wasn’t anyone in the road.”

I quickly assessed his expression for deception and when I was fairly sure he didn’t know what I was talking about, restated just to be clear. “You really didn’t see her? The woman? She was in a red dress—”

“Uh, Marlie? You hydroplaned,” he said like he thought I was losing it. “Happens all the time around here. You’re gonna have to slow down a little when it’s rainin’.”

I blinked back at him a time or two. How could Bridger not have seen her? Sitting back against my seat again, I gazed through the rain-spattered windshield at a mailbox in the shape of an oversized golf ball perched atop a green tee. We’d missed hitting the mailbox by mere feet.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said, reassessing the necessity of this trip. Given what had just happened, my good sense was telling me that heading back to the house was the responsible decision.

But then, when had I ever been inclined to opt for the safe choice?

Chapter Nine

A
cts 8:26: Arise and go toward the South.
Clearly,
 God-fearing Christians in the early days of the US settlement had taken this scripture to heart. Driving through the Tennessee countryside I was amazed at the sheer number of enormous churches. The sanctuaries, come Sunday, would be brimming to capacity.

My hands were still shaking as I parked the RX under the awning of a century-old oak tree. Gazing out through the windshield, I looked up at a Gothic-styled church. Surrounded by rolling green lawns, the massive structure could have consumed an entire city block had it not been sitting just east of one of Nashville’s most affluent neighborhoods. Christ’s Faith Presbyterian Church, a sizable stone sign read.

Faith: a trust, hope, and belief that is not based on proof. Growing up, I’d asked my father,
Why should I trust in someone, or something, I don’t know? Someone who I can’t see?
His reply was always the same.
Because faith is not knowing. How much greater is our faith, our obedience, when we can’t know?
We must believe.

In my youth I’d worked hard on my faith, to see the Lord’s hand in my life and in the lives of those around me. Finn, I’d thought, had been a gift from heaven, a reward for my obedience. I had loved him more than anything, possibly even more than God.
Was that why he was taken from me—as punishment?
I had wondered in those first weeks and months after the break-up. I’d pleaded with God for forgiveness and waited for some sign, a feeling even, to let me know that he’d forgiven me—that I wasn’t alone.

And then Finn had died and my punishment made permanent. Surely, I’d suffered enough? But then as the months wore on, I’d felt nothing, nothing but alone. No Finn, no chance of ever having children of my own, and no higher power to comfort me, to open a new door to something better—a lesson hard-learned—a challenge overcome.

I was just alone.

“Marlie, this way,” Bridger called out. He and Bodie were heading over to the far side of the church property.

Following a pace or two behind, I saw a myriad of headstones that peeked up through the grass, shaded in a loose grouping of trees. As we entered the cemetery, my eyes scanned the numerous memorials of lives that had been reduced to a beginning and an end. Overhead, a passing breeze touched the branches and brought the occasional splat of lingering raindrops.

“Which way do we go?” I asked the boys. It seemed we’d walked too long in no specific direction.

“I don’t know,” Bridger said, scratching the back of his neck. “I think that way.” He pointed off to the right.

“No,” Bodie disagreed. “I think we passed it.”

I caught up to them. “Wait a minute. You guys don’t know where your mother’s buried?”

They shrugged. “Well, it’s not like we’ve been here since the funeral,” Bridger said, scanning the area again.

“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled. “Your dad, your aunt, grandma—
no one
ever brings you here to visit your mom?”

Bridger gave me an impatient look. “That’s what we’re sayin’. We never come.”

A myriad of questions surfaced in my mind, but they were more appropriate for Daniel; I filed them away for another time. The issue at present was to locate Gentry’s grave. I thought back to some of the names I’d noticed. I knew it was common in the South to give baby girls either their mother’s maiden name or a distant family’s given name as a first name.

“I seem to remember passing some Gentry’s a little way back. Is she buried with her family, or yours?”

They shrugged again.

“Well, I’m guessing your family has a plot in here somewhere, and I would think that’s where she’s at. So let’s split up and start looking for Cannons.”

We fanned out to widen the search. Along the way I passed some Coopers, and assuming Daniel’s sister was also named after their mother’s family, I figured I was stepping over some of the boys’ relatives.

“Over here! I found Great Grandpappy Dewy Cannon!” Bodie called out.

Bridger and I changed course to meet up with him. By the time we made our way over, he’d moved a little further on. We found him gazing down at the front of a polished granite headstone. “Gentry Sutherland Cannon, devoted wife, loving mother, social advocate” was etched into the stone along with a rendering of her beautiful face. Next to her memorial was an empty slab with grass growing around the edges.

Daniel’s final resting place,
I assumed. A quick inspection revealed no available plots.
So where does that leave me when my days on earth are through?
Here I stood one week after my wedding, a legal union that had bound me for life to another human being, and yet I’d never felt more forsaken. The ground beneath my feet suddenly felt like quicksand, pulling me to a barren chasm below.

Bridger knelt and placed his bouquet on the grass in front of his mother’s headstone. Bodie followed suit, then they both stood and gave me a mournful look I interpreted as needing a few moments alone. Hesitating, I was reluctant to leave them. Plus, this was the closest I’d come to actually being in the presence of the woman whose secrets I was anxious to discover.

I motioned to nowhere in particular. “I’ll just be over here if you need me.” I took a few steps backward before turning to leave.

“Thanks, Marlie,” I heard one of the boys mumble.

Overhead the clouds were receding, folding back to reveal a heavenly blue. The sun heated the rainwater, causing it to rise in a fine mist from the grass around my feet. As I walked, I wondered about the people who were buried here and the stories they could tell. The South had such a rich history with generations of families dating back to before the Civil War, and all resting together in one spot. Out west, life was transient with families fragmented by generations of wandering—searching for something better, somewhere else. For the Southerner, there
was
nothing better, nothing more appealing than family and roots. I wanted this—to be a part of something that would last long after I’d passed.

Keeping one eye on the boys, I entertained myself by perusing the names on the headstones. Clementine. Ida Dee. Imogene. Ordnella. And one named Tennessee. “No doubt where he came from,” I said out loud, though my personal favorites were, Fairy and Clairy, twin sisters by the looks of it. “I hope the kids in school didn’t tease you two too badly—”

“It isn’t polite to mock the dead.”

My feet literally left the ground as I spun toward the voice of a woman. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was here.” I pressed my palm to my thumping chest. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

Wearing dressy blue jeans over high wedges and a starched button-down, she appeared to be a few inches taller than me and very slim. Dark designer sunglasses obscured most of her face. A silk scarf draped over her head and crisscrossing around her throat fell like streamers down her back.

“Some would even say it’s bad luck,” she continued her reprimand, her lips, a full tight bow, holding back a smirk. “You should be careful who you offend. Even the dead have ears.”

There was something about her height and weight, her mouth, and the way she stood that made me think we’d met before.

“I’m sorry, do I know you? I’m Marlie, Marlie Evans . . . I mean, Cannon. Marlie Cannon.”
Why am I stammering?

She smiled. “I know who you are, Marlie Evans . . . Cannon. I thought you’d be prettier,” she said pushing back the scarf to reveal a mane of glossy dark-brown hair. “But do
you
know who
you
are? Really?” she asked while slowly removing her glasses.

As her sunglasses fell away from her face, the tiny hairs on my neck and arms began to stand up like dominos falling in reverse.

“Do you recognize me now?”

My hand flew to cover my mouth an instant too late to silence my shock. Taking a step back, the heel of my espadrille caught in the uneven grass and threw me off balance. The shape of her eyes, the upturn of her nose and the mole on the left side of her cheek—all equaled one person.

“Gentry?”

The name caught on my tongue.

She raised a shoulder. “Sure, why not,” she answered, but the look in her eye, the tone in her voice, said I was missing something.

Giving her a closer look, I determined that with the exception of her eyes being different colors—one brown, one indigo—the woman before me perfectly resembled the portrait over the fireplace.

But it couldn’t be her, could it? What were the possibilities? The ramifications? Too many what-ifs to process at one time. Then as if the presence of this Gentry-esque woman wasn’t enough, the unnerving feeling she’d brought with her had every self-preserving instinct telling me to flee. And, at the same time, I couldn’t move. If there was any possibility that she was, in fact, Daniel’s ex-wife, I needed to know.

In order to properly assess the situation, I knew I had to remain calm. Self-assured. Objective. “You can’t be her. It isn’t possible.” I forced my eyes to hold hers, my voice to sound steady. “So who are you really, and what do you want?”

“Directness. An admirable quality,” she said, like my frankness was an unexpected but amusing twist to her sordid game. “What do I want? I want to save you time and possibly heartache.” Her eyes flicked toward Bridger and Bodie. “You’ll never save them, you know.”

My head spun, double-checking the boys’ position. They still lingered around Gentry’s grave about forty yards away.

“Who, Bridger and Bodie? Are they in danger?” I asked, though I was fairly certain she was speaking metaphorically.

She took a few casual steps over to a steepled tombstone and ran her hand over the weathered stone. “Oh, everyone’s in danger, sweetheart. But then you already know that, don’t you?” she said, eyeing me as a cat does a mouse.

Another breeze swept by, the chill nipped my skin, prodding to my bones. The vivid contrast of her eyes, mysterious and cruel, reached inside me, studying, as it seemed, my innermost thoughts. In spite of my best efforts to remain calm and controlled, I felt insignificant—vulnerable—in her presence.

“I don’t know,” I stuttered, “what you’re talking about.”

Her head tilted quizzically to the side as she asked, “Why are you here, Marlie? What
exactly
are you trying to prove?” Her lips lifted a touch on each end.

I repeated her words in my head. Why had her questions or accusation as the case may be, sounded familiar? “I have nothing to prove to you or anyone else,” I said with as much indignation as I could muster.

“You really don’t know, do you?” she observed as if the objective of her game had unexpectedly shifted. “Interesting.” Taking a few well-placed steps closer, she appeared to be trying to stay out of the boys’ line of sight. “And Electra hasn’t warned you?”

I thought back to mine and Electra’s few, brief conversations and came up empty. “Warned me about what?” I asked, feeling as though I were falling further into a puzzle I couldn’t possibly solve. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you will,” she said and then waited a beat before bestowing another clue. “But then why worry about it when you already have so many things to think about, to distract you from the truth.”

I decided to play along. “What things?”

Like a serpent, she began to glide, winding slowly, brushing her fingertips from one gravestone to another, while making her way closer to me. “Things like money. Only, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. You have plenty now. Don’t you?” She paused to take a momentary glance in my direction. “It’s nice, isn’t it? Fancy cars and sparkling diamonds.”

“I suppose, but money isn’t everything,” I disagreed. “The things that last like family, friends—that’s what’s important.”

“That’s right.” She snapped her fingers in mock recognition. “And the quest for love—the need to be wanted, accepted—that’s number one, isn’t it?” She held up a slender finger before clicking off the rest of her list.

“Then career, children, husband . . . nowadays women can have it all, can’t they?” she added with a tired sigh followed by a pitiful glance. “Only, what about women like you, the ones whose wombs have been forsaken? What about them, huh?”

She laid a finger to her chin, pretending to think. “Oh right, they find a ready-made family—someone
else’s
family. Isn’t that right?” She finished with a patronizing sneer.

Johnny!
This conversation sounded eerily similar to the one Johnny and I had had at the reception. But why? What could either of them hope to gain by highlighting my insecurities?

“Tell me who you are!” I demanded, clenching my fists in frustration. “What do you want?”

She crossed her arms and consulted the sky. “What do I want?” she repeated a few times before turning her focus back to me, her features hard with malice. “I want to watch you suffer.”

She stepped forward, her eyes darkening, looking back at me with a menacing glare. “I want to see you turn tail and run,” she said, her words spewing repugnance, sending my head spinning with a feeling of déjà vu.

But then, I knew exactly where I’d heard that tone before, except she wasn’t a cadaver or a foolish college prank. She was a living, breathing human being standing right in front of me.

“I mean, look at you,” she continued, “Your mind is so preoccupied with the silly distractions of a life that will inevitably end. End and then be forgotten,” she added, her tone growing harsh, bellowing in my ears. “So, you see, there’s no sense in fighting. Why waste the opportunity to enjoy all the perks life with a man like Daniel can afford you?”

And just like the warning the cadaver had issued, her words tumbled down on me until I couldn’t breathe. But unlike that night at the ball, I would not pass out.

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said keeping my voice controlled but insistent. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Who I am, is not important. It’s who you are that concerns us both.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“You will, and when you do, I hope you’ll do what’s best. There’s no use in playing the hero. Heroes live lonely lives that end tragically,” she stated, matter of fact.

“Wouldn’t it be better for you, for your new family, if you simply learned to fit in? Think how easy, how blissful, the rest of your life could be if you would just swim with the current and not against it?” she said, her voice withdrawing as she began to back away.