Waltz of Shadows

15

Morning was arriving by the time I reached my subdivision. The moon was still visible, fading out like a honey-colored throat lozenge sucked too thin. Cauliflower clouds swelled out of the arriving blue as if ripening, rolled across the heavens at a medium boil, made soft shadows that tumbled along the slate-colored highway and subdivision blacktop and concrete drive that led up to our house.

I parked in the garage and didn’t go inside right away. I stuffed the videotapes under the car seat, went out the side garage door and stood for a moment and watched the morning bloom. I wanted to commune with nature a spell before Beverly ripped my head off, split my gut and stuffed me with hot stones and sewed me back together.

Eventually I got up my nerve and went in the house through the back door.

Wylie, his porcupine in his mouth, nearly knocked me down. I kneed him in the chest and he went away, disappointed as usual. I stopped in the kitchen, afraid to turn the corner, lest I meet Beverly face to face.

Sammy was already up for school, and he appeared on the scene shortly after Wylie left. When he saw me, he said, “You’re in some deep shit.”

“Hey!” I said. “Don’t talk like that.”

“That’s what Mama said.”

“Well, she shouldn’t have said that. She’s just mad. She gets mad she doesn’t know what she’s saying. You’re not mad, you know what you’re saying.”

“Okay, Daddy. I’m just telling.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“What happened to your face?” Sammy asked.

“I banged myself up a little,” I said. “An accident. I’ll explain later.”

Beverly came around the corner and looked at me. The sparks that jumped behind her eyes made me think of the Bride of Frankenstein.

“Hi, hon,” I said.

“Don’t hon me, mister.”

That mister stuff was always a bad sign.

“What happened to your face?”

“An accident,” I said.

“You’re close to having another one, mister.”

“Something came up,” I said. “I can explain it. Kind of an emergency.”

“Your mother called after you left, so I knew you should have been back. When you didn’t show, I got worried some. Not a lot, but some. I don’t like to worry. And then you came in late and didn’t leave a note. I know you were here. I woke up about three looking for you, came down and saw you’d left the pay, Daddeanut butter out. You didn’t screw the lid back on the jar or put the fork in the dishwasher.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The peanut butter dried out a little, and you laid the fork on the table, and now there’s peanut butter all over the table cloth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And you didn’t call.”

Sammy was watching all this with great interest. He moved his head first to his Mom, then to me. Wylie had also reappeared. He too was watching, the porcupine between his teeth. I knew that I was, at this very moment, contributing to the education of boy and dog on how to handle domestic affairs.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Oh, boy. I’ll say, you’re sorry, all right. Take Sammy to school. When you get back you’re gonna get it, mister.”

Sammy got his backpack and we went out and got in my truck. “Mama hates that part about the peanut butter,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I leave it out all the time.”

“I know,” I said.

“It’s all right, Daddy. She’ll get over it.”

“I hope so.” I opened the garage door with the remote and cranked up the truck and eased out.

· · ·

When I got home Bev was gone. She had driven JoAnn to school. I made sure the coffee was going, then waited on Bev by playing toss the porcupine with Wylie. It made his day. He was so excited I thought he was going to shit himself. He didn’t want to quit playing when I heard Bev drive up, but I went and washed my hands at the kitchen sink and ignored his pushing against my leg.

I dried my hands and poured a couple of cups of coffee and waited for Bev to come in.

When she did, I said, “We got to talk.”

“I’ll say,” she said.

Wylie recognized the signals. He and his little yellow porcupine went away.

“What happened to your eye and lip?”

Bev got her cereal and a bowl and poured her milk and ate, not getting in a hurry about it. When she finished we took our coffee outside on the deck.

It was warming up. The day was bright. There were birds happily singing everywhere. I guess none of them had nephews who were in trouble.

We sat in the deck chairs, and while we sipped coffee, I talked. I told her everything Bill had told me, and I told her what Bill and Arnold and me had done last night, about the mistake in the rooms, everything. I didn’t mention her Mickey Mouse gloves.

While I was on a roll I told her about the time I had gone with Arnold to the liquor store and what had handkey Mappened there, and I couldn’t look at her when I talked about it, but I found a lizard on the deck railing to talk to, and I addressed the story to him and his face showed no evidence of shock or surprise. He took it well, as if that was exactly the sort of behavior he expected of me.

When I finished, I said, “Now you know the kind of guy you married.”

“You think after twenty years I don’t know the kind of guy I married or thought I did? You could have told me all this. You should have. Instead of me, you went to Arnold, your half-brother. A person you haven’t had anything to do with in years.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“We been worrying the hell out of each other for twenty years. Why stop now?”

“I figured when I had it all thought out, I’d tell you.”

“But you didn’t mind telling Arnold before you had it thought out. Right?”

“Can I just say I’m stupid and get out of this?”

“I’ll tell you what you can do. You can let me know how all this is going, and consider me a partner like you’ve always done before, and you can quit trying to protect my feelings all the time.”

“All right,” I said. “Starting now.”

“Then you can start by telling me what’s next.”

“The lawyer,” I said.

“I presume the lawyer is Virgil Griffith?”

“He’s the only lawyer I know personally.”

“He’s good. Least, I always hear he’s good. What comes to me, though, darling, is how do you explain to him the way you got those tapes? It might be said that the evidence was obtained illegally, and is therefore useless. Breaking and entering and theft are still illegal. Right?”

The kind of warm feeling you get when you’re a kid and realize you’ve just filled your pants came over me.