The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (146 page)

In a choked voice Gordon haltingly read aloud his list of confrontations. “The time you accused me of lying when I told Dad what you’d done, I felt anger, shame, and pain. That day at the lake when you made me swear on my life that if I ever …”

When his brother finally had a chance to respond, it quickly became clear there was no real villain here—it turned out that Tom, too, had been molested at an early age—only wrongful acts with consequences that had multiplied exponentially over time.

Marc wrapped it up in time for lunch. There was a collective sigh of relief as they all gathered up their things and headed for the door. When the last person had filed out, he looked about the empty room, the carpet littered with crumpled tissues reminding him of a battlefield. Yet if anyone was defeated, it was he. The work that had sustained him in the aftermath of Faith’s illness was showing signs of wear and tear; tiny cracks had appeared in his armament, letting in the thoughts and feelings he’d managed for the most part to vanquish by using the tools of his trade.

He drove home at the end of the day amid a breaking thunderstorm. The rain hadn’t started in earnest yet, but sodden gray clouds hung low overhead, lightning flickering like a faulty circuit to illuminate the fat droplets gathering on his windshield. He’d been planning to stop for a bite to eat, but thought better of it. He’d be lucky if he made it from his driveway to his front door without getting soaked. The thought depressed him even more than the afternoon’s group. He still wasn’t used to eating alone. But each time he sat down in front of the TV, a bowl of reheated chili or slice of leftover pizza in hand, he’d picture his mother shaking her head in disapproval. It had been one of Ellie’s most firmly held beliefs that such practices were for “those who didn’t know any better.”

On impulse he decided to pay a visit to Faith. Not that it would necessarily lift his mood, since he never knew what to expect. Sometimes she’d be in a good frame of mind, even upbeat, other times agitated and depressed. To his everlasting shame he often prayed for the latter, as he did now. For in the absence of all hope, he’d be able to move on.

Shirley wasn’t at the nurses’ station when he arrived; she was off duty tonight. A dour gray-haired nurse he didn’t recognize informed him that visiting hours were over. Perhaps if he’d phoned ahead, special arrangements might have been made, she told him with a pointed glance at the rules posted on the wall.

Too weary to argue, he simply continued on down the hall, not running or even walking particularly fast. His shoulders sagged, the rain that had soaked his hair running in warm rivulets down his neck. When she caught up with him, red-faced and indignant, he ignored her as if she’d been a fly buzzing about his head, not even breaking his stride.

A patient who’d stepped out into the hall, a henna-haired woman with a feather boa around her neck, shrank from him as if he were a potential rapist, clutching the lapels of her pink satin robe, while a gaunt young man who resembled a concentration camp survivor with his hollow eyes and shaven head gave him only a cursory glance as he passed.

He found Faith lying on the bed in her room, listening to Schubert on the CD player he’d given her. She sat up, and he thought he saw a flicker of alarm, then her expression smoothed over. “It’s all right, Adele,” she said in a clear firm voice. “I spoke to Dr. Fine. He said it was okay.”

The old battle-ax went on ranting for another minute or so … rules were rules … how was she expected to do her job if people didn’t … they didn’t pay her enough to … but at last she retreated into the hallway, muttering to herself.

“Whew.” Faith let out a breath, breaking into her old impish smile. He noticed when she got up to switch off the CD player that she’d put on a few pounds, and was encouraged by it.

He smiled, walking toward her. “I’m in Dutch, as my mother would’ve said.”

“Don’t pay any attention to Adele.”

“What’s her problem?”

“She’s scared, that’s all.”

“Of what?”

“That one day it’ll be us patients running the asylum.”

“It might be a welcome change in her case.”

Marc felt his apprehension recede. She was having one of her good days. Except for the shadows like old bruises under her eyes, she was almost her old self. He sank down beside her on the bed, fighting the urge to stretch out and close his eyes.

“You look tired,” she said, her brow wrinkling with concern.

“It’s been a long day.”

“Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“In this heat?” The temperature hadn’t dropped below ninety degrees all week.

Outside, rain slammed against the window in furious bursts. The storm had broken the heat spell though he doubted he’d get much sleep tonight.

Faith regarded him with an expression he knew all too well: half exasperated, half resigned. She knew something was eating at him, but would wait until he was ready to tell her—or until she lost patience. It had been like that when his mother was dying: She’d endured his brooding silences, waiting until Ellie was in her grave before saying with the same quiet firmness with which she’d just addressed the nurse, “I’m sorry about your mother—I loved her, too—but I’m afraid shutting me out isn’t an option anymore. We’re in this together whether you like it or not.”

“I finished those books,” she said now, glancing at the pile of paperbacks he’d brought her last time.

“Any in particular that you liked?”

“The Larry McMurtry—it made me think of Wyoming.” She looked wistful all of a sudden.

His chest constricted. They’d talked about buying a house there someday. The first twelve years of her life, before her family had moved to Oregon, they’d lived in Jackson Hole. She and Marc had spent their honeymoon in a log cabin by Jenny Lake, where he, too, had fallen under Wyoming’s spell.

“We’ll get back there one of these days,” he said lightly.

“No, we won’t.” The sad certainty with which she spoke was like a cold blade through his heart.

“You don’t know that.”

She shook her head. “It’s no use fooling ourselves, Marc.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I know it doesn’t seem that way right now, but one of these days you’ll be coming home. You have to believe that.” He hoped it sounded more convincing to her than it did to him.

Her mouth twisted. “In some ways that scares me even more than the idea of spending the rest of my life in here.”

A memory of their honeymoon surfaced: They’d been out hiking and had come across a dead rabbit caught in a tangle of barbed wire; it had torn itself to shreds trying to escape. Faith was like that rabbit in some ways. “You wouldn’t be alone,” he reminded her. “You’d have me.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Marc.” She went on regarding him with those sad, knowing eyes, making him wonder who the crazy one was here. Outside, the storm rattled against the window like someone trying to get in—or out—rain sheeting down its reinforced glass to cast a ripply film of shadow over her face. She asked softly, “Who is she?”

The words went through him like the lightning that flared just then, setting off a low buzzing in his head. He thought about denying it. But she fought so hard for every scrap of reality that to leave her thinking she’d imagined it would be the ultimate cruelty. After a long moment, he answered, “No one you know.”

Faith drew in a breath, her bruised eyes seeming to grow larger, more luminous. “Are you in love with her?”

He let his silence speak for itself.

She just sat there staring at him, a range of emotions playing over her face.

With a groan, he pulled her to him, burying his face against her neck. She smelled sweet, but it was the hot- house scent of someone who rarely ventured outdoors. Faith didn’t pull away, nor did she return his embrace.

“I’m sorry …” he said in a choked whisper.

“Would you have told me if I hadn’t asked?” She spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s all right, Marc. I don’t blame you.”

“I never expected it to happen. I know how that sounds but—”

She drew back to place a finger to his lips. “It’s time we faced this. We should have done it years ago.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’ve filed for divorce.”

He let out a startled, disbelieving laugh, remembering when they’d been newlyweds and she used to joke that if they ever got divorced, he’d have to take her as part of the settlement. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he told her.

“I don’t want to be rid of you.”

“Then—”

“I want to see you … just not for a while.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “This isn’t about you, Marc. If I’m ever to get well enough to go home, it has to be for
me.
I can’t do it for both of us. I’ve tried. It … it’s too much.”

“Faith—” He reached for her, but she gently pushed him away.

“Please. Just …
go.
” When he made no move to leave, she lay down on her side with her back to him, knees pulled in toward her chest.

Marc felt as though he were literally being torn in two. A part of him had wanted this, yes. Prayed for it, even. Not just for this Sisyphean struggle to end, but for it to be someone else’s decision. Shouldn’t he have been relieved?

A good sentry doesn’t abandon his post,
he thought.

But if what she said was true, then it wasn’t his battle.

At last he rose. Faith lay so still she might have been sleeping. Gently, so gently it might have been the wind stealing in through a crack, he leaned down and kissed her forehead, then quietly slipped from the room.

The days that followed were harder than he could have imagined. He went to work each day emptied out and came home filled with the pain of others. Pain that shielded him against his own, muffled the rage and sorrow that pounded at him with thwarted fists. He stopped shaving and when his stubble became a beard, trimmed it only so that he wouldn’t appear a raving madman. His eyes were mildly but perpetually bloodshot from lack of sleep. Though the urge to drink was faint, like the clanging of a distant bell, he phoned his sponsor late one night.

“Jim? It’s me, Marc. Did I wake you?”

There was a brief silence at the other end, and he pictured Jim squinting with one eye shut at the clock by his bed. “It’s after midnight,” he growled. “Of course you woke me up, you son of a bitch.” A low, sustained chuckle. “What gives? Engine giving you trouble again?”

Jim Pennington, mechanic to the stars—the only one to whom the likes of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise would entrust their Jaguars and Bentleys—had done eight years of hard time at Lompoc for running a chop shop before he sobered up, in more ways than one. That had been twenty-five years ago and he’d been on the straight and narrow ever since.

“Car’s fine,” Marc told him. “I’m not so sure about me.”

“Okay I’m listening.” The jollity went out of his voice. Jim, with whom he had less in common than with anyone he knew, was the one person he could confide in.

“Faith filed for divorce.” Marc had told him about Anna, and now hastened to add, “It’s not what you think. She says I’m holding her back.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Okay, what do you
want
then?”

“I want her back.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know that either.” Marc dropped his head against the back of the recliner in which he sat, holding a tumbler of tonic water, sans gin, on one knee. The room was dark, illuminated only by the light in the kitchen that he’d forgotten to switch off. “And here I thought I was supposed to have all the answers.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Doc.” He heard the rough affection in Jim’s voice. “None of us knows shit.”

“ ‘We have come to accept that we know only a little,’ ” Marc quoted from the big book of AA.

“You know what your problem is, Doc? You think too much.” Jim referred to the program he worked as the meat and potatoes variety. “Stop trying to figure it all out and just go with your gut.”

“That’s what got me into this mess to begin with.” If he hadn’t followed his instincts, he wouldn’t have rushed to Anna’s aid. But how could he be sorry for that?

“Dude, did it ever occur to you that this so-called mess might be the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Marc stared into his glass at the ice cubes gleaming silver in the light that sloped from the kitchen doorway. “Maybe you should think about switching careers,” he said with a smile. “You’d make a good shrink.”

“And you’d make a lousy mechanic. You can’t talk an engine into running. You got to crawl underneath and get your hands dirty.”

Marc sighed. “I thought I wanted this divorce. And now all I want to do is crawl into a hole.”

Jim was silent for so long, Marc thought he’d gone back to sleep. Then in his deep rumble of a voice, coarsened by his years of drinking and the two-pack-a-day cigarette habit he had yet to break, he said, “When I was doing my time, the only thing that kept me sane was the thought of going home to my wife. But soon as I got out I saw the truth—we were just two drunks hanging on to each other to keep from falling down.” Marc heard a voice murmuring sleepily in the background. Jim had remarried, a woman he’d met in AA. They had two kids, one in college, and were happy, as far as Marc knew. “What might’ve been right at one time isn’t always in the long run. Shit happens; things change. You got to face it, dude. You aren’t the one working the levers; you’re just the guy that got caught in them.”

“Thanks, Jim. I can always count on you to put things into perspective,” Marc said with the appropriate dash of irony.

“For five hundred bucks, I’ll throw in a new muffler.”

“I might take you up on that. I don’t like the way mine’s been sounding lately”

“Want some free advice, Doc? Get yourself a new set of wheels.”

“Is there supposed to be a metaphor in this?”

“No, but I’ve got a friend who can give you a honey of a deal.”

“I’ll think about it.” Marc gave a dry chuckle. “Now go back to sleep before Irene kills me.”

“Sounds like you’re doing a pretty good job of it all by yourself.”