Breeding Ground (20 page)

“I don't remember very clearly how it happened, but I ended up proposing to Tara, and we got married right quick at the justice of the peace. I was raised Baptist, and I would've liked a church wedding with my folks there and all, but there wasn't time to spare. So we went to Germany, and she got a job in the PX, while I was attached to the quartermaster corps doing something like I do for G.E., working pretty much as a purchasing agent.

“Tara was real excited to be in Europe, and she started studying German and French, just a little to get by, and wanting to travel every weekend, and we did a lot, seeing castles and what not, till we had Giselle. That's how she got the name. Tara was real impressed by Paris and wanted a French name.

“But almost as soon as we got married, things began to change. She started out cooking and doing dishes and all, with me helping too, like I used to do at home, but real soon after we got to Germany she stopped doing much of anything. And then when she got pregnant – and she was the one who wanted a baby, she wouldn't hear of putting it off – she stopped doing anything at home. And quit her job real quick.

“I didn't mind much. Not then. I grew up on a farm, and I know how to pitch in and help. 'Course, I didn't see where it was going. And she said she was sick all the time, and I felt sorry for her. Other stuff changed too. She started saying I wasn't interesting enough. I talked about mechanical stuff too much, cars and bikes, and sports too. She'd always been a night owl, but pretty soon she was staying up all night. She'd wake me up and start a fight about something real insignificant, and she'd say the same things over and over, hour after hour, and not let nothing lay.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun. Fighting all night with no sleep.” Alan shook his head, and drank half of his coffee.

“I never could've pictured it. My folks were nothing like that. But I figured when you married it was for life, and I tried to be patient and figured things would change. She seemed real insecure, like she needed encouragement and attention all the time, and I figured after a while she'd see I was bending over backwards, and she'd feel more relaxed.

“Then Giselle was born, and she was so cute and so sweet, and she was so helpless and dependent on us, I was happier with her than I ever expected. And Tara was too, in a way, to begin with. But she got real insistent on going out all the time, getting sitters we couldn't afford, and going out with other folks.

“One time I remember I told her, no, I was tired and I wanted to stay home. The next day there was brass coming in, and I had to go to this real important meeting, and I said I was staying home and going over some figures and getting a good night's sleep.

“Well, come the morning, I put on my dress uniform, and the pants had been slashed by a knife. A couple of buttons had been cut off too. Tara was sound asleep then. I realized later she was taking lots of sleeping pills, not every night, but overdosing when she did, and Giselle was bawling her eyes out. I had another uniform from the cleaners in the car, and I put that on and got Giselle cleaned up and fed, and then took her over to the neighbor's who watched her from time to time.”

“What did Tara say about cutting up your clothes?”

“She lied about it to begin with. Eventually she admitted it, and said she'd been super sick with a headache, sick to her stomach too, and she didn't know what she was doing. That she'd been having a hard time and felt depressed like, since Giselle was born, and she didn't know why she'd done it.

“I know women can get like that after a baby comes, and I just tried to overlook it, but deep down I was scared and had been awhile. I could see by then that something was wrong with her, and I was in over my head. I came to see she lied all the time. About small stuff even, stuff that didn't matter, almost as though she loved the lies. Like she took pleasure in making fools of folks. Or like she wanted to keep the world away from knowing the first thing about her.

“I was doing everything around the house and taking care of Giselle the whole time when I was home, but Tara didn't think that was the least bit strange. It was like she thought she was owed it. She'd lie around in her old clothes and hardly get cleaned up.

“But when we went out with other folks, she'd spend a lotta time getting dressed and putting on her makeup and acting real perky and cute. When she was home though, she'd say nasty mean things. Things she knew would bother me that you wouldn't say to a dog. I'd tell her to stop and think before she spoke, and I'd leave if it got too bad and take Giselle with me.

“There was dangerous stuff too, that scared me plenty. Twice when I was driving in traffic, and she was mad about something, she shoved the gear shift into another gear, reverse once, and ruined the transmission.

“That's crazy.” Alan sat up straighter, staring hard at Dwayne.

“Yeah, it surely was. My work was suffering, I know that. Even though it was a big relief to be there, to be able to think about something else and get away from that sick feeling knotting up my stomach. I was taking heat from my boss some, 'cause I made a couple mistakes I never should've. And I felt like I was almost at my wits' end.

“And then there came this night when we went bowling on the post with three other couples. One of the guys she'd go off and talk with whenever we were together, kinda the way she had with me when she was living with Rusty. So they both went off to the restrooms, and they were gone a good long time, so I went looking, and caught them outside leaning against a wall, making out like there was no tomorrow.

“As a rule I don't drink. Never have hardly at all, from one year to the next. But that night I poured down three beers right together and told her we were going home.

“When we got there and the babysitter left, Tara started screaming, calling me all kinds of filthy names, saying I was stupid and boring, and the worst thing she'd ever done was go and marry me, and that I was such an embarrassment to her it was more than she could stand.”

Dwayne stopped, and stared at the table, turning his glass of iced tea in his hands without looking as though he'd noticed. “Giselle was in bed asleep. She'd learned to sleep through most anything. And it's a good thing she slept then, because I made the worst mistake of my life, and I wouldn't have wanted her to see it, even as young as she was. Tara said something really vicious, and I grabbed her by the arm and slapped her twice across the face, then I shoved her away from me, and she fell on the floor.

“I was horrified as soon as I did it. And I tried to help her up, but she wouldn't let me touch her. She went and grabbed Gigi, and ran out to the neighbors, and they called the MPs. I still can't believe I did that. But I did. And they threw me in the post jail and kept me there for a week. Tara went to the post hospital and got herself patched up. Her lip was cut, and her arms were bruised pretty good. And she took Giselle and flew home to the States to her grandparents in Knoxville.”

Dwayne stopped speaking and stared down at the table.

Alan tried to think of what to say and couldn't come up with a thing.

“Because of what I did, I only get to have Giselle with me four times a year, and my folks have to be with us too. It's the worst thing I ever did. I'll never be free of it, and I still can't forgive myself. But you know what?”

“What?”

“The thing that haunts me the most out of everything is Gigi's living with Tara every day, hearing how she lies, seeing Tara go from one man to the next, getting Tara's own twisted picture of the world, and how we're supposed to live. The only thing that matters is what Tara wants, and how she's gonna get it, and what man is going to take care of her next. She acts sick to get attention, and she's sliced her wrists before, not enough to do much, but to get attention from a man she was with.”

“Poor Gigi.”

“You said it. I mean, I don't think Tara'll hurt her or anything like that. But you know what I found in my quarters when I got out of jail in Germany? She'd smashed the windshield of my car with a baseball bat. And later, when I ended up moving, when I took the pictures off the walls, there were holes under most of them. She'd taken a hammer to the walls, so I'd find the holes later, when she was long gone. I mean, that is not a normal thing to do.

“And to have Giselle there, watching what she does! She's such a great kid. She's got so much enthusiasm and curiosity. It just makes me wantta tear my hair out. Especially since it's my own fault I don't get to raise her myself.”

There was silence in that kitchen for what felt to Alan like a very long time before he stopped the recorder and looked across at Dwayne.

“Turn it back on again, just for a minute. There's something else I want to say.”

Alan threw the switch.

Kruse spoke again in the same slow, even voice without a lot of emotion. “I want this Spencer Franklin to know I don't wish Tara any harm. I figure she's been turned the way she is by some kind of physical problem, or something in her past maybe, and part of it probably isn't her fault. I'd like to think she could get better, and maybe she could if she'd look for some help, though I don't expect she will.

“But he's got to understand that what she does is she picks a man and watches him real close. She's really good at seeing what he needs and what he wants, and making herself look like that's just what she is. She makes him think she's been treated horribly and been a terrible victim, one time after another, because she's so sweet and gentle and fragile, and she makes a man want to take care of her.

“But that's not what she is at all. And I don't want anyone else to put himself through marrying Tara and finding out who she is when it's way too late. I don't go around talking about her, ruining her reputation and all. But if I can warn someone else, and help him not to get buffaloed like I did, it's worth my taking the risk to do it.

“I'd like to see Giselle with a good daddy, someone who could help her, but once a man's married to Tara, his life changes in ways he can't control, and he won't be able to help Giselle either. That's all I have to say. But if Mr. Franklin wants to meet with me, I'd be willing. And I'd put him in touch with the father of her other daughter, and let the two of them talk if he wants.” Kruse turned the recorder off and pushed it across to Alan.

“Thank you. I don't know what Spencer will want to do. But you've done what you can.”

“How do you think Gigi's doing? I phone her three times a week but I won't get to see her again till this June.”

“I don't really know. I've only seen her once and she seemed fine then. She was at Spence's barn watching his horses.”

“Tara won't want them around if she marries him. She hates horses. She had to work around them as a kid and she wants nothing to do with them.”

“Then that'll be her Waterloo. Spence really loves them.”

“Or his. Time'll tell. She can wear you down.”

Excerpt From Jo Grant's Journal:

…Toss is a great guy, and we can talk horses and how to run the farm but not a whole lot more. Nothing about books or art or architecture or the kind of music that matters to me.

Anyway, Maggie's due to foal soon, and Toss keeps saying he's going to sleep in the foaling barn. Except this time he's in a wheelchair. Not that that would be different. Two mares birthed this week, and he was there both nights. Buddy woke him and hauled him out there and kept him from climbing out of his chair. One little guy we euthanized. He was born with such a bad club foot we didn't have a choice…

W
hen Alan was in Cincinnati, Buddy was on the Winchester Road heading south from Paris toward Claiborne Farm.

He drove between the square gray-stone gateposts down a wandering drive lined with trees to the farm office in a big white house, where he told the woman who scheduled the breedings that he was there to see Charlie Smalls, who was supposed to be on his lunch hour.

She told him Charlie was expecting him and was down behind the stallion barns eating lunch under the trees.

Buddy thanked her and left, before he swallowed and spit and started feeling queasy, as he walked down and around a soft hill between green lawns and spreading trees, nodding to one groom and explaining to another why he was there.

Claiborne didn't want folks wandering in and walking around. There was too much to lose sticking their heads over stall doors and cropping grass in paddocks. But being a friend of Charlie's was different, and being the brother of an exercise rider might've helped too.

He saw Charlie before Charlie saw him – a short, strong, gentle-faced man, who knew more about caring for horses than anyone else Buddy'd met. It was like he had some sixth sense. Like he could read a horse's mind, and the horse knew it in his bones too and trusted Charlie to care for him and do what was best.

Charlie's broad black face broke into a huge grin, all strong white teeth and smiling eyes, as soon as he saw Buddy. He waved him over and moved his lunchbox to one side so Buddy could sit across from him at the old wooden picnic table and have a place to put his arms.

Charlie said, “You sure are a sight for sore eyes! How you been doin'? I hear your wife's gonna have twins.”

They caught up on family matters and the big news in the Thoroughbred business, and then they both fell silent.

Charlie poured iced tea from a thermos while he watched Buddy, waiting for him to get to it. “I got a paper cup and the top of the thermos too, if you'd like you a drink of sweet tea.”

“Thanks all the same. I had some in the truck.”

Another silence, and more staring off into space by Buddy before Charlie tried again. “So is I way off base, figurin' you was comin' to see me for some kinda reason? Not just to say hey?”