On Tenterhooks

ON TENTERHOOKS

GREEVER WILLIAMS

This book is
a
work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events
or
persons, living or dead, in entirely coincidental.

ON TENTERHOOKS. Copyright © 2012 by Greever Williams. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact the author through
www.greeverwilliams.com
.

For
my beautiful wife and our children
.
Everything I do and everything I can do is because of them.

Tenterhooks
—
Centuries ago, when raw wool was woven into cloth, the cloth contained impurities
,
such as dirt and oil. After weavers
 
stretched, pulled and twisted the cloth to
 
make it stronger, they
 
washed and placed it on a wooden frame, a tenter, to dry in the sun. A series of sturdy nails around the perimeter of the tenter, known as tenterhooks
,
held the cloth in place and kept it from shrinking. The product was a cloth made more flexible and sturdy as a result of the process.

On Tenterhooks
—
In a state of nervous, painful
anxiety
or suspense
.

Chapter
1

Five weeks dead was still dead. Dead wife. Dead soulmate
.
Dead heart within him. Dead calm in the empty house around him. And everything stayed dead, until the dreams came
. . .

“
Some choose to walk alone as they wander through the backroads of their life
!” Julie sang.

Steve couldn’t help
laughing
.
Julie
was out of tune and
stretching for
the
right
notes as she belted out
the
Sex ‘N Cigs
anthem
,
shouting out the lyrics to keep
up with the
volume
of
the car
stereo and the pounding
rain on the roof and windshield
.
He
sank
back into the passenger seat and enjoyed the show
,
while s
he
tapped
the steering wheel in time with the
drumbeat
, waiting for the
traffic
light
to
turn green.

After Steve had given her t
he
satellite
radio last
Christmas
,
Julie had locked
it
on the
classic pop station
.
Listening to the song, he smiled as he thought back to
the
ir early years together. H
e was glad to see that
the song
kept her spirits up after another long day at work.

Here she was, late coming home from work as usual.  (“The reward for good work is always more work!” she would often remind him). She was drenched, with droplets of water beading
on
the shoulders of her white linen jacket.  The rain had smudged the mascara around her eyes, and she had already thrown her soaked high heels into the back seat. The driving rain, the late hour, the wet clothes
—
none of it fazed her. She just sang louder.

“
I look at you, you look at me and think about the things we’ve done!
”

Steve
wanted to reach over
, pull her tight and kiss her with
the hot
passion he felt in his gut
, but that would mean
ruin
ing
her
performance
. She was gorgeous to him
in every sense of the word
and h
e
savored
this moment
, preserving
it
as
one more
reason
why she
would always be
his universe.

“Come on, let’s go!” Julie shouted at the traffic light
over the music
.

“Doll,” Steve said. “I don’t think that light can hear you.”

There were no other cars at the intersection
,
and the rain was
now a pounding vibration
.
If Steve had been driving, he would’ve
darted
through the red light
.
But not Julie
.
H
e didn’t even bother to suggest it
.

When the light changed and Julie started across the intersection, he saw oncoming headlights coming up fast on Julie’s side of the car. Time slowed, but somehow the radio continued to blare:

Together we’re better, forever we’re str
ong. United as one we can never
go wrong.

Steve
yelled
for Julie to go faster, but his voice was much too low
for her to hear
over the blasting stereo and the fat pounding raindrops.
As he reached across to grab her arm, a suddenly syrupy air trapped him in a slow-motion replay. He screamed her name.

When Julie finally saw the oncoming
lights,
she raised her arms to shield her face.  Behind the wheel of the other car, Steve saw a man in a black suit, whose snarl revealed the large teeth of a rabid, snapping beast.  His bulging eyes narrowed as his bony fingers melted into the steering wheel itself. He growled and forced the car forward with all the power his engine could provide.

Loud as it was, the sound of the music and the rain couldn’t compete with the bench grinder squeal of metal on metal.  Glass, rain-soaked shoes and Julie’s body flew into the air. Steve couldn’t hold her.  Her screaming stopped abruptly, but his throat roared with a single, unending howl.

We’ll walk hand in hand up to death and beyond.

He saw the glass and felt it strike his face and arms. The ruined front end of the other car ate through Julie’s sedan like a clenched first through butter.  He tasted electricity on his tongue, searing his throat.
The car, the seat, her body smashed into Steve’s lap
,
and he felt himself breaking apart
.

We’re better together, it’s where we belong.

Darkness.

Steve woke up on the floor next to the bed, his throat raw
.
Bed sheets bound his legs, and he clutched a sweat-soaked pillow in his lap.
The dream had consumed him again: burning throat, stiffening neck and a head that
was thumping with a pulse that stretched his skull like a balloon.

Julie had died nearly five weeks ago, two days after Valentine’s Day. The pain was oppressive.  The bed was too big, the house too quiet and empty.  He found himself dazed, wandering the silent rooms from time to time as if he might find some comfort among the echoing spaces. Instead, he found painful reminders.  Her pink, plush bathrobe
draped
on
the back of the bathroom door. In the kitchen, her collection of cooking spices with their red tops were still packed tightly into the rack
,
like giant shotgun shells begging to be fired.  Her favorite candy-red coffee mug still hung on the wall by the sink.

“Fix me some coffee
baby;
I just need five more minutes in the cozy covers.”

Even when he looked out the window, he saw the rose lattice they had installed last year.  The roses had already begun to bloom in the early spring warmth, but the fragrant red buds she had loved only seemed to mock him. 

“If we ever have a girl, we should name her Rose, ‘cause we all know she’
d
be beautiful.”

His wife was gone, forever.  A rusty, jagged blade seemed to have ripped through him just short of the killing blow
—
leaving him ragged and wounded.  He had cried more in the last four weeks than in his whole life. The dream ensured that he awoke most mornings fatigued, muscles aching.

He had gone thr
ough the motions of the funeral, politely accepting
condolences from family and friends
.
After parading
for the crowd like a diligent show dog
, he had shut himself in and
shut
the world out
, rarely leaving the house.

His boss had been professionally sympathetic, promising to cover his work until he could return
.

“You’ve got nearly six weeks
.
That should be good
.
Let me know if we can do anything else to help.”

There was clinical care in his tone, like a doctor with a poor bedside manner, addressing Steve’s grief with detached observation and precise calculation. Steve knew that Randy cared, but was convinced that six weeks was the exact amount of time a man would need to recover. 

Still,
Steve
appreciated the time and the hands-off approach.  He had no interest in discussing his feelings with Randy, or anyone for that matter.  Grief was a private thing and
he
was a private person.  Aside from Julie, no one knew his plans, dreams or favorite things.