Accidental Happiness (5 page)

4

Gina

I
woke up, registered bright sun through the thin curtains of my boat. A small breeze came through, but even so, the air inside the boat had to be 90 degrees. I tried to recall why I was sleeping in the middle of the day, then remembered. The little girl. The gun. Reese Melrose in the hospital corridor asking me to call Benjamin.

I wanted to go back to sleep, but the hazy moment had passed and I’d come fully awake.

Georgie was curled on her rug at the head of the berth.

“Hey,” I said. “I bet you need to go out.”

Her ears perked up. She’d heard the word
out
and there was no turning back. I pulled on my shorts and my shoes and headed outside.

“Wait up!” Lane called over from her yard. She came up beside me as I walked along the dock. “I’ll go with you.”

At sixty-three, Lane had been alone for two years. I recalled meeting Harlan, her husband, once or twice around the docks, before he died. He’d been a lawyer, a quiet, deliberate man. To me, Lane was just the woman who lived in the house by the marina before I moved in. In two months’ time she had become my family. No, she’d become better than my family. My own mother tended to be useless in close proximity, whereas Lane always knew what to do and how to do it.

“I came over before, but I didn’t want to wake you. You had a long night, darlin’.”

She wore jeans with the ease of a teenager. Her short, wash-and-go hair was still damp from the shower.

“You’re not kidding, a long night. Did you hear? The little girl, Angel, she’s gonna be okay. They were moving her into a room when I left.”

“I saw her,” Lane said. “This morning.”

“You did?” I glanced at my watch. It was just past noon.

“I figured the mother, Reese, would need a change of clothes, so I called the hospital and asked her what I could fish out of her car for her. A toothbrush and cigarettes ranked high on her list.”

“I’ll bet. That’s nice of you,” I said, tugging Georgie away from a fire hydrant. We began walking again, instinctively left the area around the docks, moved toward the road that wound around the marsh. “Did Reese get any sleep? They were going to pull a cot in for her, which is a good thing, since I don’t think she had anyplace to go.”

“Yeah, she said she rested for a few hours.” Then she paused. I stopped by the edge of the marsh while Georgie explored a crab shell.

“Who is she, exactly?” Lane asked. “Was she really married to Ben?”

I had sketched in some of the details for Lane in the frenzy of the previous night, or early morning, depending on how you looked at it.

“Yeah. Her name is Reese Melrose,” I said.

Lane cut a glance my way. “Still?” she asked.

“Apparently so. They were married for six years, had been together since college. She skipped out on him without much explanation, then sent him divorce papers from an island somewhere. I don’t know how she made it happen, but it was legal and he was free to marry me by the time I met him, which was all I cared about. I know they talked once in a while. He sent her money sometimes.”

“What’s she doing back here?” Lane looked sideways at me again.

“I don’t know, but I guess I’ll find out. She doesn’t know about Benjamin because she asked for him, wanted me to tell him she’s here.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Lane mumbled under her breath.

I began walking again with Georgie in the lead. She raised her leg over a rock like a boy dog.

“You pathetic, confused animal,” I said, shaking my head.

“She’s liberated.” Lane reached down to scratch the dog’s ears. “I do remember you telling me he was married before, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. What about the girl?”

“I don’t have a clue. I didn’t know she had a kid. Benjamin certainly didn’t know. Reese asked me if we’d split up. She figures something is up since I’m living on the boat. Jesus, Lane. I thought I was done having to tell people.”

I sucked in air, tried to keep the tears from coming, but it was too late.

“Aw, sweetie,” Lane said, her hand on my arm.

“I’m okay.” Marsh air, thick with salt, felt heavy on my skin. Low tide heightened the pungent smell of the shore. “I just thought the surprises were over, that’s all. I’ll be okay.”

After the funeral, I realized that living in the house,
our house,
was making me a wreck. That’s when I moved onto the boat, thought I was making progress. Standing by the side of the road, holding a dog leash I couldn’t even see through my tears, I figured I still had a ways to go.

“Just breathe,” Lane said. “Let it pass.” She didn’t try to touch me, didn’t say everything would be all right.

Georgie was tugging to go faster, so I willed myself back together, felt like Humpty Dumpty, patched up with all the cracks still showing.

“Anyway,” I said. “I didn’t tell her, and I didn’t get anything figured out last night about why she’s here. Everything was all about Angel and doctors. I told her I’d come by today and we’d talk. They’re letting the girl out this afternoon, I think.”

“Any theories at all about why she just showed up like that?” Lane asked.

I shook my head. “Not really. Money, maybe. I don’t know. It’d be pretty ironic if she came to get Benjamin back, huh?” I said it without thinking, just blurted it out, and the air seemed to stop around us, an unnatural silence. I glanced over at Lane, and the laughter took us both by surprise. Dark, cathartic humor that brought me sudden, momentary peace. “Oh, God,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “Everything’s so screwed up.”

“Well,” she said, her long legs matching my stride as we moved forward. “After Harlan died, I tried to do everything the same way, only without him. It was too hard, too sad. I’ve felt better since I stopped trying, started making things up as I go along.”

“So what’s the moral of that story?” I asked.

“Hell if I know, “ she said.

I laughed. God bless her, she could make me laugh.

The road curved back, ran through the marsh, built up with a solid path along each side. Egrets glanced up from feeding, but didn’t bother to move. Georgie strained at her leash to reach them, her scope well short of success.

“I guess,” she added, as if she’d considered my question anew, “I’m telling you to do what feels right. This has to be one from your gut.”

“I don’t know, Lane. Last night brought so many urgent feelings back to the surface.” I needed to put the words into open air. Try them out. “I’ve tried so hard to make life normal again, and I’d come up with this sterile sadness. But I was functioning, at least. Now . . . I don’t know, I feel scared, but I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of. I’ve run through all the things that might be freaking me out—other than the girl’s injury, which is enough, I guess. It seems like more than that but I can’t pin it down. I have this fear that Reese could claim something, some part of my life.”

“Honey, you’ve got to stop analyzing this thing as if you can make any sense at all. It’s like Ben’s accident. A bizarre event. But that’s all.”

I wanted to make her understand the fears, but they didn’t have a form or a name on which I could draw to make her see.

“There are all these feelings and I don’t know what to do with them. She can’t, can she?”

“Can’t what, hon?” Lane looked a little frightened.

“She can’t take Ben away, can she?” It was a crazy question. One that I could answer for myself. “He’s gone. I know that. What could she do to me now?”

“She could never have done anything. You know that.” Lane treated me like a sane person, whether I acted like one or not.

The strangest part of it, I didn’t even say to Lane. She
would
think I’d gone nuts. But on some level, even though it was an unspeakable night, it felt good to feel
something
again. Even fear, anger. With emotions directed at
anything,
other than Ben’s death, his absence. I felt almost human for the first time in months.

“In some way, Lane, last night seemed like something I was waiting for, anticipating . . .” Then I stopped, remembered what Reese had said to me. “She even asked me why I had the gun, if I was waiting for them. Maybe I was.”

“Gina, I gave you that gun. You weren’t waiting for anyone, and you know it.”

“Not for them exactly,” I pushed forward with my thoughts. I needed to try them out. “But for something . . . for something to begin.”

“You didn’t hurt anybody on purpose,” Lane said. She put her hand on my arm. She was missing the point. But then, so was I. I didn’t know any more about what I meant than she did.

“Just let it go,” she said.

“I know, I’m overanalyzing,” I said finally. “That’s all.”

“It’s called grief, Gina. You’re allowed to feel bad. You lost your husband. And on top of that, all this has thrown you for another wild spin.” Her eyes were straight on mine. “But hon, you have to understand that it’s not rational, this feeling that you anticipated that fiasco last night. They came onto
your
boat. You didn’t go looking for anybody. These feelings, they’re just aftershocks.”

“How do you know that?”

She didn’t hesitate, not for a second. “Your husband is dead, Gina. The worst has come and gone. That’s the only decent thing to come out of all the hurt. Ben can’t die again, and you’ve paid your dues on that one. Same for me.”

“What about Angel?” I asked. “The bullet grazed her shoulder, but it could have been a lot worse. And now I have to look at her, see her with the bandages and the shoulder she can’t move . . . It just doesn’t stop.”

“The child is fine,” she said, stopping to make her point. “Things happen in life, Gina. And they’re not cosmic, they’re not related. They just
are.
And what I’m trying to say is, nothing can be worse than what you’ve already weathered. And look at you, you’re still putting on your shoes every day, making breakfast, walking the dog . . . That’s all you can ask of yourself right now.”

It was an odd brand of comfort, but I let it settle on me—the idea that just getting up in the morning carried the ring of success over failure.

One of the egrets moved, startled me by going airborne in a swift, unexpected rising. I watched it stream low over the sea grass and felt a turn in time, an occurrence short of remarkable, but in the general direction of good. In all my gut feelings about the night before, that was one thing I’d yet to determine. If Lane was wrong, if it did fit into some cosmic plan, some purpose of the soul, was it leaning toward a better end of the spectrum, toward getting me back to myself somehow?

Faint hope lingered as I watched the bird grow smaller in flight. I turned to face the path that led back to the marina. I wanted to tell Lane, but the words would have fallen short. So without saying anything more, we walked the flat stretch of road that would lead us home.

“So is Benjamin out of town?”

Reese’s accent recalled old movies, languid belles, contrasted with her bohemian dress. I looked down at my tan Capri pants, realized I didn’t own anything with even a blush of color.

We sat in a restaurant, a bistro to be exact, in the old section of Charleston. It was still early afternoon, and I’d picked her up from the hospital parking lot half an hour before, had a devil of a time getting her to leave Angel, but I didn’t want to have the discussion with the child in earshot. And even though all the reports were good, it made me uncomfortable to look at the bandages.

But Reese didn’t appear any worse for the wear. She’d showered at the hospital, changed into an outfit that Lane had brought. With the exception of being clean and dry, it looked nearly identical to the one she’d had on the night before.

“Gina?” She spoke up again, and I realized I’d spaced out into my own thoughts without answering her questions about Ben. I wanted to tell her anything but the truth. “Where is Benjamin, Gina?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m a little off.” She waited. My escape routes had been exhausted, but I still didn’t have the words, much less the heart, to tell her. “I’ve got to talk to you,” I said finally. “There’s a lot of stuff I have to tell you. Just let me go to the bathroom and I’ll fill you in on everything.”

I stood up, glanced around for the ladies’ room. Inside, salmon-colored walls gave my skin a brighter tone. At a glance, I almost looked healthy. I splashed water on my face, tepid, midsummer tap water that failed to refresh. Then I rubbed on a little rouge, a little lip gloss, made my way back out to the table.

“The waiter came by,” Reese said, “so I ordered the bisque for both of us, along with iced tea. Hope you don’t mind.”

“That sounds good,” I said, admiring her ability to recover from the night’s ordeal. She seemed like a different woman from the one I’d seen the night before, absent the paralysis of fear.

“And you said you wanted trout for an entrée, right?”

I nodded. I hardly remembered mentioning the menu, but trout sounded fine.

“Okay,” I said, then stopped to get a full breath. “You asked about Benjamin.”

“He’s not around,” she said. “I’ve figured out that much out for myself. Are you two on the outs?” She tossed off the remark. I thought she looked pleased at the possibility, but I could have been seeing what I expected, nothing more.