The Sweet By and By (25 page)

“What is your wounded wing, Max?”

“That I actually lived a life without you.”

She answered with an airy, breezy exhale. “Mr. ‘Chattanooga's Most Eligible'? I don't believe it.”

He gripped her arm, pulling her chair between his knees and kissing her. Closing her eyes, Jade released into the moment. “I can't lose you, babe. You're on every page of my future. I'm ready to settle down, have a family, be one with a woman.”

“I'm yours.” She stroked her hand over the contours of his face. “You have to believe me.”

“The past is the past, over, gone, locked door. Right?”

“Nothing back there but a bunch of broken skeletons.” She wrapped her fingers around his. “How mighty can a bunch of skeletons be, anyway?”

“Exactly.” He lifted her chin to see into her eyes, letting her see into his. “I can endure back pain, the antics of an intrusive mom, and a hectic law practice, but Jade, not a life without you.”

The rain hit harder and faster on the window.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.

“So do you want to hear the rest of the story?” So much of her past had spilled on her present path, why not get it all out, picked through, then swept away.

“If you want to tell me, yes.”

“By November of '96 . . . wow, and here we are getting married in November. I didn't put it together until now.”

“Good, we'll erase his horrid memory with our own beautiful one.”

Jade ran her thumb over his fingers. “After the night I blurted out the truth in his parents' kitchen, things went well for a few days, but . . .”

Twenty-one

The Colters' house, November 1996

“If you'd stay in town once in a while, Beryl, instead of gallivanting all over God's green earth, you'd know what your daughter was up to or not. Are you married now? Oh, right, a musician. I heard the girls talking at the PTA.”

Jade hunched against the overstuffed cushion of the Colters' family room sofa and stole a peek at Dustin. Two weeks ago in this same room, he'd stood toe to toe with his dad, defending her, their marriage.

But then he disappeared. He changed his hall routine and transferred out of Mrs. Glenn's math class to Mr. Hancock's. Jade hadn't seen him in a week.

“What's your excuse, Carla?” Mama shot to her feet. “You're home all the time, apparently gossiping, while your son talked my daughter into forgery.”

“She seduced him.”

“He's lucky she even looked his way.”

“Carla, Beryl,” Mr. Colter interjected, his words sharp at first, then soft and slow. “Blaming one kid over the other isn't going to solve this.”

Mama smacked her gum and jutted her hip, acting like a floozy, showing the plump of her breasts over the cut of her top. Jade's cheeks burned when she caught Mr. Colter looking before he dashed his gaze to the floor.

“All right, Rowdy.” Carla crossed her arms. “What's your solution?”

“Get an annulment. Straightforward and simple.”

“Annulment?” Mama fired. “Without asking the kids? Rowdy, they got married on purpose.”

“They are too young, Beryl,” Carla interjected, powering each word with emotion. “They don't know what they want in life, what it takes to make it in the world. Dustin has a wrestling scholarship to Northern Iowa.”

“Jade isn't going to stop him.” Mama whirled around. “You want to go to college, too, don't you, baby?”

Oh, Mama. Don't be so trailer trash
. “They know, Mama.”
Dustin, please, look at me.

He remained slumped in his chair, swinging his knees to and fro with his chin in his hand, memorizing the carpet pattern.

“Didn't we raise you better?” Mrs. Colter swatted at him.

“Yes,” Jade said, surprised by the sound of her own voice. “That's why he wanted to marry me. Because you raised him to respect women.”

“Oh, mercy.” Mrs. Colter exhaled, hand to her forehead. “Do I even want to ask what that means?”

“Mom—” Dustin spoke for the first time since Jade walked into the house.

“If the kids want to be married, let them be married.” Mama spread her hands, peering around, waiting for the bandwagon to fill up. “We raised them to think for themselves, be decent human beings—who are we to tell them they're wrong?”

Mama, can you please not be a '60s hippie for once? It's 1996. The world has changed. Give a real argument.

“Beryl,” Carla started, “you've been married three times. Do you really want to give these kids relationship advice?”

“Bite me, Carla.”

Carla had better watch stepping in the ring with Mama. With one cutting glance, she could leave a person bleeding.

“Hold on now.” Mr. Colter worked to be the neutral, wise party, but have mercy, he was about to step into a catfight.
Ain't safe, Mr. C
. “I think we can find a compromise here. Beryl makes a good point, Carla. The kids did get married. Legally or not, right or wrong, they made a gutsy move. Must have been for some reason.”

“Well, then,” Carla quipped out of the side of her mouth, shooting her husband a look. He'd pay later for not backing her 100 percent.

But when Mr. C smiled at Jade, she felt his heart to defend
her
.

“All right, Jade, Dustin, what do you say?” Mama barreled down the open communication lane. Gig waited for her at Granny's, not too happy about cutting the last week of their bar-hopping musical tour short to deal with his wife's teenage daughter. “Jade, speak up. Do you want to be married to Dustin?”

More than anything.
She peeked at him, wanting some kind of clue before she wandered onto the high wire without a net. But his eyes were still aimed at the floor.

“Dustin?” Mr. Colter shoved his son's shoulder. “What about you? You proposed, gave her a ring. Do you want to be married?”

Mr. Colter, don't, please. Couldn't you leave us alone, let us talk about our relationship in private?
If she'd learned anything in their brief marriage, it was to let Dustin brood for a bit, then he'd open up enough for her to dig down to the true intent of his heart. She knew Dustin better than she knew herself.

“Dustin, think about this, son. You're too young.”

“Carla.” Mr. Colter broke in hard.

After a second, Dustin stood. The knots in Jade's gut multiplied like crazy.
Say it, Dustin. Say, “Dad, let Jade and me talk alone.”

Instead he reached for his hat and slipped it over his head with the bill in the back. “No, I don't.”

The last thing Jade ever heard from Dustin Colter was the bang of the kitchen door.

Mama slammed the driver's side door shut and cranked the truck's engine. “You're better off, Jade, better off. What in the world were you two thinking? If he wanted sex . . . That's it, isn't it? Mother's religious crap got to you. ‘Wait for marriage.'”

“I told him he didn't have to marry me.” Curled on the old floorboard, dirt crunching under her legs, Jade buried her face in the torn vinyl bench seat and let go of the sobs she'd been holding in her chest.

“Listen, it's going to be all right.” Mama popped the clutch, manhandling the truck down the drive. “Cry it out, cleanse your soul.”

“Mama, please stop.” Jade popped open her door before Mama had a chance to brake and hung her head out the door, emptying her stomach. When she eased back into the cab, Mama gently drove forward again.

“You'll get through this.” The gears whined as she powered up the engine and shifted.

Jade shivered as her sobs waned. But silent tears flooded her cheeks. “I don't want to get through this, Mama. I want to be married to him. I love him.”

He was home. Now where would her heart live?

“Then why didn't you say so? Goodness, Jade, speak up for yourself. Do you want me to turn around?”

“No—Mama, no.” The idea of facing Mrs. Colter again cut a deep swath through her heart.

“Well, maybe he'll come around.” Mama fished in her purse, producing a napkin, shoving it under Jade's cheek. “Are you pregnant?”

“Mama—”

“You did have sex with your husband, didn't you? And by the way, I'm not ready to be a grandma.”

“Can this not be about you for once?” Jade clenched her jaw as she wound the napkin around her fingers.

“You know what I mean.” Mama thumped the wide, round steering wheel with the palm of her hand and muttered a few four-letter words. “Can you believe that Miss Priss, Carla? Hasn't changed one bit since high school.”

The old engine rattled as Mama slowed for a stop sign, grinding the gears when she shifted into first.

“She was nice to me.”

“Sure, until you married her son. Boils my butt she acted like it was all your fault.”

“I'm not pregnant.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah—” Pretty sure. Dustin didn't have any condoms the last time. He kept forgetting to buy more. Jade talked to him about visiting the free clinic in Des Moines so she could go on the pill, but once summer football started, time got away from them. Dustin assured her that condoms were doing the job. Then school started, and he began ever so gradually to drift. And forget.

“If you are, let me know. The sooner, the better. We can get it taken care of. It's no way to keep a man, Jade, being pregnant. He'll go off to college, and you'll be stuck slinging hash at a truck stop from midnight to seven, growing old and tired before you turn twenty.” The truck gained speed as Mama made the final shift into third. “He's a cruel, stupid boy, Jade. I'm shocked you fell for him. You seemed to be so keen about people. In a few months, you'll be moved on.”

Jade wiped under her eyes with the napkin, then blew her nose. “I'm not you, Mama. I can't just move on.”

“You'd better learn. Don't waste your life pining. You'll turn pathetic.”

Jade shoved off the floorboard, plopping down on her side of the old bench seat, moving away from the torn, sharp-edged vinyl poking through her jeans and biting her skin. “Are you mad?” She pressed her face against the window. The cold glass felt good.

“No. It's not like I didn't do things that shocked my mother when I was your age.”

“Or now.”

“Hush, because I can be mad if you want. I wouldn't have legally tied myself to a thughead jock, but I did a few things that would've curled your Granny's hair if she'd known.”

“Like what?” Jade had heard Granny arguing with Mama over her choices, but the details had never been colored in. “When you were my age?”

“Sleeping in Golden Gate Park with my cousin Carolyn during the Summer of Love, getting high, doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. There was this one soldier on his way to 'Nam—”

“Okay, okay. I don't want to hear more.”

“I fell in love.”

Jade situated against the door. Mama cruised right by Granny's place. “With who?”

“A marine named Andrew MacGregor. He was wounded in Danang and got to spend the rest of his life in a government-issued wheelchair. Thank you very much, Lieutenant MacGregor, for your sacrifice; here's your consolation prize.”

“What happened?”

“We met in the Panhandle, where the Diggers handed out breakfast to whoever wanted. He wheeled along beside me for the rest of the summer.” Mama's story drifted. “My first love.”

“Did you want to marry him?”

Mama drove on in quiet for many miles. “He shot himself. A few months after I came home to finish school. His death sent me on a journey. Who was I in this big universe? What did I believe? Who did I want to be? What was my generation doing to make things better for the next? I graduated from high school and spent a year at Iowa U, then got caught up in protesting and sit-ins, marched on Washington against the war, went to Woodstock, didn't even know what a legendary event that would turn out to be, drifted, tried to find myself.” Mama's palm made a squeaking sound against the wheel. “Gig is probably driving Granny crazy.”

The engine inhaled as Mama worked the clutch and downshifted. She muscled the truck down a narrow gravel road to turn around.

“Mama, do you ever think of dying? Like what really happens—?”

“He isn't worth it, Jade. No boy is ever worth your life. Andrew was disturbed about the war and, I can admit this now, really strung out on drugs.”

“I'm not going to do anything, Mama. I just wondered, what happens when we die?”

“Women become queens of their own planets with gorgeous male servants.” Mama shoved the cigarette lighter into the dash. “Hand me my cigarettes, Jade-o.”

“Har, har.” Jade hunted around in Mama's purse for her cigarettes and tossed them to her. “Do you think Granny's church is right? That we have to know Jesus to get into heaven?”

“Does it look like I believe?” Mama cracked her window, dragging deep on the fiery stick.

“Aiden said Jesus made a difference in his heart and stuff doesn't bother him anymore.” Jade tried to escape the sinking sensation in her middle.
If true love doesn't last, and hearts can be broken over and over, what's the point? Was Jesus for her?

“Good for Aiden. Whatever it takes to get you through life, do, believe.” Mama tapped her ashes out the window. They jumped and twisted in the truck's wake like red-hot fireflies. “But that's not you and me, Jade. We're like the gemstones we're named after. We make our own destinies, our own way. People and things don't define us; we define ourselves. Don't let Mother cram her religion down your throat.”

“What if we don't know how to define ourselves? What if we make wrong choices?”

“There are no wrong choices. Just a series of journeys and adventures.”

Exactly what Jade feared.

“Granny made homemade pot pie”—Mama's tone fluctuated—“and a chocolate cake.” She jabbed Jade's leg lightly. “You love pot pie and cake.”