Jilted (9 page)

“Momma, Ansel doesn't belong here.”

Tuesday afternoon, Ruthie and I stood on the front lawn of Trapp's beige brick nursing home. We had promised Velma we would check out the facility, but now that we were here, we couldn't bring ourselves to walk the last few steps and through the door. Even from our perch twenty yards from the entrance, I could smell the telltale scents of disinfectant and body odor. On the front porch, a shriveled woman sat in a wheelchair, listing heavily to one side. The welcoming committee.

“No, he doesn't,” I said as I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. I didn't want to lose Ansel, but almost worse than losing him would be visiting him in a place like this while he slowly withered. “We should check on home care.”

Diverting my gaze from the woman on the porch, I thought how nice it would feel to pound my fists against the nearest car bumper. I pushed the thought away as a ray of sunlight bounced off the shiny grill, causing me to squint at the brightness. The sun seemed out of place in such a dismal setting, but when I stopped to examine the parking lot, I noticed the neatly trimmed hedges, the hanging flowerpots, the tree-lined sidewalks. Clyde would say there's always good among the bad. Clyde said a lot of things—without ever speaking much at all.

We wandered to a wooden bench beneath a pine tree. The bench had been recently whitewashed, yet
Go Panthers!
had already been scratched into the clumpy paint. Ruthie and I sat side by side, and I spoke quickly, not wanting to think about Ansel anymore. “You probably heard the rumors about Clyde and me.”

Her right eyebrow curled into a question mark, pulling the corner of her mouth along with it. “Yep.” She gazed at her fingernails, flipping her palm over to inspect the cuticles. “But what about Daddy?”

I held my breath.

“I mean I'm glad you're with Clyde and all, but—”

“I'm not
with
him.”

“Whatever.” She smiled as though she knew better. “But … I mean … there's no way Daddy's coming back, right?” Her smile faltered.

Until that moment I hadn't realized she was still hanging on to the notion. When Ruthie was small, she would ask me every few days when her daddy was coming home, and generally I would answer her impatiently, wishing she would stop asking, stop waiting, stop hoping.
Stop reminding me.

“He almost came back once, Ruth Ann.” Instantly I regretted having started the conversation, because the thought of sharing one of my secrets, even with Ruthie, made me feel as if I were peeling away the plates of protection I had placed around my heart. And without them, I might be exposed to the elements, like a brand-new butterfly crawling out of its cocoon, only to be swept away by a dust storm.

Her eyes grew wide. “When?”

“I got a letter from him several weeks after he left. I still have the silly thing.” I studied my Converse sneakers, tapping them against each other, wanting to keep the details buried where they belonged. I carefully selected a few tidbits of information to help Ruthie make peace with it all. “He apologized for believing Neil's word over mine and said that once he had calmed down, he realized I would never be unfaithful.” My lungs weren't getting enough air, and I consciously took a deep breath before continuing. “He said he was coming back, and we could talk. Go from there.”

Ruthie stared at me as though my words made a difference.

“I thought he meant it, Ruth Ann.” I laughed nervously. “He said he had been a fool to believe Neil's lies, and that he was ready to give up the bottle, but he needed me to help him.”

Her eyebrows quivered. “I don't remember him coming back. Ever.”

“He didn't show.” My words were knives, and I regretted the wounds they left on my daughter. “I never heard from him again.”

Ruthie froze for ten seconds before she laughed unconvincingly. “It's just as well. I mean … it's been so long, and you … you probably don't love him like that anymore.”

My heart broke. Right there on the bench in front of the nursing home, it shattered because Ruthie clearly still clung to a childlike dream that Hoby and I would get back together. All those years I had been locked away, drowning myself in bitterness, my daughter had been waiting for her daddy to come home.

I looked into her eyes. “No, Ruth Ann.”

In the lull that followed, a pickup drove past us on the street, its gears racing loudly as the driver shifted out of sync, trying to force something that should have come easily.

Ruthie smiled too widely. “I guess I always imagined him coming back and making everything better. Just driving into town in his red wrecker, but that's ridiculous. That truck would be really old now.” She shook her head as though to clear the memories away like cobwebs. “And I really do like Clyde. You two are perfect for each other. Everybody says so.”

A steady rhythm beat in my ears, filling my mind, my heart, my soul, because I had no idea what would happen between Clyde and me. Multiple scenarios played out in my mind, but none of them had a happily-ever-after ending. I squinted at her. “Everybody?”

“Yes.” She laughed through the word, and it became a light shush that floated on the breeze and bounced around my shoulders. Then her gaze jerked toward the street. “Now I've seen everything.”

My mood took a few seconds to shift, but I followed her gaze and saw Clyde walking down the sidewalk pushing a stroller. “Oh my.”

Ruthie suppressed a laugh but then giggled, and I couldn't help but join in. Clyde was so tall, he had to bend slightly to reach the stroller, and plastic grocery bags hung from the handles. A half gallon of orange juice lay across Nathan's lap.

The baby gripped a long packaged stick of beef jerky, waving it in the air, but when he hit himself in the face, he started crying.

“We better help,” Ruthie said.

“We'd better hurry.”

We jogged past the hatchback and Ruthie's El Camino, hurrying away from the shadows of the nursing home and into the sunshine of babies and strollers. And Clyde.

“What on earth?” Ruthie called to him.

He had stopped and was bent over to tend to Nathan, but when he heard us, he seemed to cringe before looking our direction. “We're just on our way home from the United.”

“Why are you on foot?” I asked.

“Well, now … my car's still on the blink.”

He lifted Nathan from the stroller, but the child still fussed, pulling at his diaper. “Boo-boo,” Nathan whimpered.

Clyde ducked his head and motioned to the bags. “I think I got too much stuff. The kid kept pointing at things.”

“I'll take you home,” I said.

“Aw, Lyn. We'll be all right once he settles.”

Ruthie sniffed. “Smells like he needs attention.”

Clyde's mouth hung open momentarily, but then he held Nathan higher and sniffed while the child squirmed and arched his spine.

Ruthie raised her voice to be heard. “He did that once when I was with Fawn. Something in his poop was burning his backside. He wouldn't stop until she cleaned him up and soaked him in the tub.”

“Boo-boo, Cyde,” Nathan moaned, giving his pants another tug.

Clyde's eyebrows wrinkled as though he just realized he held an alien from Mars.

I grabbed three grocery bags and headed to my car while Ruthie folded the stroller.

“Where'd you get this old thing?” she asked over Nathan's wails. “It's not Fawn's, is it?”

“Naw, I found it at a garage sale in Roscoe. Comes in right handy when we decide to take ourselves a walk.”

Ruthie laid it in the back of the hatchback next to the groceries. “Hate to run off at a time like this, but I'm due at work.”

I waved to her as she headed to her own car, and then I turned to Clyde, still standing motionless on the sidewalk. “I'll have you home in thirty seconds.”

“But I don't have a car seat for the little guy. Fawn wouldn't like it.”

Nathan's face was turning red and blotchy, and he drew in ragged breaths between his cries. “This is an emergency,” I said. “Come on.”

We buckled ourselves into the car, and as I drove, I watched Clyde out of the corner of my eye, surprised by the way he held the baby firmly against his shoulder, trying to comfort him with soothing tones.

As we turned onto Main Street, Clyde cursed under his breath, and anger burst into my head from its convenient resting place between my shoulder blades. I glared at him. He never spoke that way in front of Nathan, and Fawn would have a conniption if she heard him do so.

But when I saw what Clyde was looking at, I almost cursed, too.

Neil Blaylock stood on the sidewalk in front of city hall talking to Lee Roy Goodnight, and as we passed, he craned his neck to watch us.

My nerves rattled, not because we'd been caught with Nathan out of his car seat or because Neil would surely tell Fawn all about it, but because Neil should have looked furious. He should have been concerned for the safety of his grandson, but instead of anger, his expression was calculating, as though he were putting together pieces of a 3-D puzzle, and he had just found one that fit perfectly.

In the past two years, I'd never had reason to go inside Clyde's trailer, but now I stood in the middle of the living room, snooping a little while he tended to Nathan. The furniture looked worn, and the carpet radiated the faint scent of pets, but other than a few newspapers on an end table, the place was neat. Next to the front door, there was a hole in the wall, but when I looked closer, I noticed the thin paneling and figured it could have been an accident. Maybe.

When I heard bathwater running, I trailed my fingertip across the splintery edge of the hole, then went to help Clyde.

An hour later we had Nathan cleaned up and powdered, and by the time JohnScott and Fawn arrived, Clyde had cooked four steaks on the grill and convinced me to stay for dinner. As we sat down at the small table in the kitchen, I realized I was uncharacteristically nervous in front of my nephew and Clyde's daughter.

“Aunt Lynda, can you reach that stuffed giraffe?” JohnScott motioned to the counter behind me, and I stretched for the toy, then handed it to Nathan who sat in an outdated high chair that I assumed was another of Clyde's garage-sale finds.

“Hopefully that will keep him quiet long enough for us to pray.” JohnScott held his hands palms up on the table.

Even though I no longer got caught with food in my mouth during the prayer, I still felt awkward participating in the ritual. My right hand met JohnScott's solidly, but my left barely slid into Clyde's. I bowed my head, keeping my eyes focused on Clyde's fingers that wrapped completely around my palm and covered the back of my hand.

“Dear Lord,” Clyde began, “thank You for this food and for these friends.”

My gaze traveled from Clyde's wrist to his bicep, where his tattoo teased from the edge of his shirtsleeve. It looked like the number
nine
, but I had never seen the whole tattoo.

Nathan squealed in the high chair and clapped his hands, spurring Clyde to finish quickly. “And thank You for the little guy, who keeps us all on our toes. Amen.”

Clyde rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb, then let his fingers trail away. His soft touch made the skin around my wrist itch, and I pressed my hand against the edge of my chair until it stopped.

“He's not so little anymore,” JohnScott said.

Clyde smiled at Nathan. “Still seems pretty small to me.”

The two of them, side by side, made quite a contrast, and I found myself wondering if Nathan would look more like Clyde the older he got.

“Little fella,” Clyde said, “you be good for your momma and JohnScott.”

The baby giggled as if the idea was absurd, and then he squealed again. “Daddy!”

Clyde rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Does he call you
Daddy
?”

“Yep, Fawn's been encouraging it lately.” JohnScott looked at his wife, then back to Clyde. “We figured he could call his biological father
Dad
. It may sound awkward for a few years, but when he's older, it'll suit better. And he can call me
Daddy
till I'm old and gray, and it won't bother me.”

I grunted. “I can't imagine Tyler Cruz being called
Daddy
. Now or ever.”

“No, it don't really fit,” Clyde agreed. “He doing all right?”

“Good,” Fawn said. “He's working on his ranch again. And his mental health is stable.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Fawn dug into her baked potato, then scooped a spoonful onto the high-chair tray. “Thanks for grilling out, Clyde. I haven't had a steak in a while.”

“Me, neither,” he said. “Everything down at the Queen is cooked in oil.” He glanced at me. “And Dixie only serves chicken-fried and salisbury steak. It's about time for an honest-to-goodness T-bone.” He forked a steak from the platter in the middle of the table, but then his eyebrows quivered.

JohnScott laughed out loud. “Those steaks are bleeding all over the plate.”

“Eww …” Fawn pressed a hand to her stomach. “I like mine well done.”

Clyde rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “I can't always tell when meat's done. When I grill the hamburgers at work, I watch the clock, but I guess steaks are different.” He smiled sheepishly. “They're the same color either way.”

JohnScott snickered. “If I'd remembered you were color-blind, I never would've risked eating here.”

Clyde swooped up the platter and stomped to the back door, calling over his shoulder, “Five more minutes ought to do it.”

“Maybe more,” JohnScott crooned.

Nathan stared at the back door as it clicked shut. “Cyde?” He slammed his hand on the high-chair tray, sending chunks of potato bouncing to the floor.

Fawn reached for his hands. “He'll be back once the steaks stop mooing.”

Silence fell over us until JohnScott started telling Fawn about a pistol one of the other coaches had bought. Bless my nephew for filling the silence.

He leaned his elbows on the table. “Makes me want to get my concealed-handgun license.”

“Seriously?” Fawn asked. “If you are, I am too. That way I can pack heat in the diaper bag.”

“You two are nuts,” I said. “I've never wanted a gun.”

“I can't picture you shooting a gun, Aunt Lynda,” JohnScott said.

My nerves calmed as a happy memory came to mind. “I shot your BB gun that year at Christmas.”

“I don't remember you shooting it. I remember you spilling the ammo in the grass.”

Fawn picked three chunks of tomato out of her salad and tossed them on the high-chair tray. “My dad let me shoot his pistol once when I was a little girl, but I don't think I've shot a gun since then.”

JohnScott formed Nathan's hand into a finger gun while Fawn insisted he “stop that right now.”

My thoughts scattered.

I remembered that pistol of Neil's. He had brought it back from TCU his freshman year, bragging that it had belonged to Buddy Holly and had even been in the singer's overnight bag when his plane crashed. He expected his parents to buy a glass display case, but Gerald Blaylock had the gun appraised and discovered his son had been duped. After that, Neil kept it stashed in the glove box of his pickup, and he and his friends—Clyde and Hoby included—used the thing for target practice on the side of every barn in Garza County.

JohnScott sighed as his laughter faded. Then he looked at me. “So … you and Clyde?”

I took a sip of tea and shrugged a little. “I don't know. Maybe.”

Fawn's gaze bounced between the two of us, and she tried to hide a smile. “We don't mean to pry. We just want you both to be happy.”

But they didn't know what would make me happy. I didn't even know.

The door opened, and Clyde held the tray above his head before setting it on the table. “Let's try this again.”

JohnScott boldly cut into his meat and shoved a forkful into his mouth. “Now that's a steak, Clyde. That's a steak.”

Fawn laughed. “In spite of that, I'm wondering if you should look for a job that doesn't involve cooking.”

“Aren't too many options around here.” Clyde glanced at me. “Troy Sanders has been pestering me about working on the wind farms, but I'm not sure what I think about that.”

I had just taken a bite of potato, but I now found it difficult to swallow. Was Clyde actually considering working on the turbines?

Fawn tore off part of a roll and gave it to Nathan. “That's a big step considering your PICS.”

“Aw, now …” Clyde salted his salad with a vengeance.

“PICS?” I asked.

Fawn looked from my eyes to the saltshaker in Clyde's fist. “Sorry. I didn't know it was a secret. It's just something I studied in a class last semester.”

After a long pause where no one seemed to breathe, I snapped, “Well, I don't need to hear anyone's secrets, that's for sure.”

“It ain't a secret,” Clyde spoke quickly. “It's post-incarceration syndrome, that's all.” He chopped his fork into his baked potato, mixing in butter and grated cheese. “When I first got out, I had some trouble, but things are better now.” He stirred his potato long after it was mixed, not meeting my gaze.

JohnScott leaned forward and cleared his throat. “The birthday party was a success, don't you think?”

“Bir-day!” Nathan lifted both hands above his head as though he were calling a touchdown, and then he rubbed butter deep into his dark curls.

“All things considered,” Fawn said, “it went all right.”

The party had been strange, and Fawn knew it. Neil and Susan spent an hour traipsing after Nathan with their flashy gifts while the Pickett side of the family chatted in our lawn chairs, trying not to make fun of them.

Clyde's movements stilled, and he looked at his daughter. “Maybe I shouldn't have come. I could've given the boy my gift anytime.”

“No way.” JohnScott shook his head. “Neil will not dictate the guest list for our son's birthday parties. I'm glad you were there.”

He didn't say as much, but I had the feeling it was easier for JohnScott to stand up to his father-in-law when Clyde was around.

“Your parents doing all right?” Clyde asked Fawn.

“I guess.” She looked doubtful.

Clyde set down his fork and slowly finished chewing. “We saw your dad in town earlier, and he didn't look any too happy with us.” He lowered his head. “I already told you I had the boy out of his car seat.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Fawn said. “In my book, a screaming baby trumps a traffic law any day.” She glanced at JohnScott, who gave a subtle nod. “I'm not sure I should say anything, but I've been worried about my dad.”

My gaze met Clyde's for a brief moment. Maybe this was the
antsy
behavior.

“I'm not sure there's really a problem,” JohnScott said. “He seems stressed to me, but that's all.”

“He's different now, though. Mom, too.”

With my finger I wiped a line of condensation from my glass. “How?”

“He's been talking crazy lately, and Mom's freaking out. He says he might sell his livestock and the ranch and move away.”

So that was it.
My mind instantly cluttered with questions. The thought of the Blaylocks moving away from Trapp seemed as far-fetched as the pope moving in. Still, the idea nudged my heart with hope … and apprehension.

Fawn glanced at Nathan, then lowered her voice. “I think Mom's a little scared.”

A sick feeling filled my stomach, not quite nausea but close. I'd seen that scared look on Susan's face before—scared of Neil, scared of her circumstances, scared of life—but in the past few months, she had seemed better. More confident.

Nathan held his cup over the side of the high-chair tray, then dropped it. Immediately he peeked over the edge and giggled at the cup where it lay under the table.

JohnScott bent to retrieve it. “We're worried there might be abuse there again, but Susan denies it.”

“She always did,” I snapped.

Fawn squinted at me, but then her eyes softened. “You're right, but this seems different somehow.”

JohnScott pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. “We better get Nathan home.”

“I'm sorry to bother you guys,” Fawn said. “I just don't know what to think.”

She started unbuckling Nathan from the high chair, but Clyde laid a hand on her arm. “We should pray.”

Fawn looked startled for only a second before she lifted her hands.

This time when we bowed our heads, I slipped my hand firmly into Clyde's and let my fingers wrap around his pinky. Two prayers in one night was a record for me, and praying for Neil felt downright backward. But as I listened to Clyde pray for the man who had done so much damage to my life—to all our lives—an unfamiliar emotion settled around my shoulders like a mink stole.

I was concerned for Neil Blaylock.