chapter Fifteen
The restraints have left interesting marks on my wrists. I rub them to get the blood flowing again. “The Biloxi Mob?”
Heather sighs, obviously not appreciating that I’ve repeated the same question three times. “Yep, born into it, raised to carry on the legacy, and educated to assist them in legal matters.”
“And engaged to calm down turf wars,” I add.
“Pretty much. Walter was a nice enough guy, but I’ve seen what Mama turned into. I didn’t want the same pressures.”
“And your daddy?”
“Willing victim, at least at first. My parents married for love, but when they moved back here to Mobile, he couldn’t provide Mama with everything she wanted so she began leaning more and more on her family back in Biloxi. Pretty soon she was neck deep in it. My grandfather set up the antiques store for her to make a few legit dollars, but on the condition that it served as a meeting place for his Mobile operations. She obviously said yes. Then she got greedy.”
“So she wasn’t always a monster?”
Heather shrugs. “I don’t think so. She was a good mom when we were little, but nothing was enough, you know? She always wanted more. Daddy was happy the way things were. I remember them fighting about that.”
She saunters out to the kitchen and I follow. Opening the fridge, she bends over—still half naked—and pulls out a couple of beers. The sight makes my gut turn.
“Want one?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nope, I had enough last night.”
A smirk curls the side of her mouth. “Hair of the dog?”
“Nuh-uh. Take a look outside.”
We both peer out the back door. The deck is covered in bottle after bottle, most with bugs crawling around drinking up the sweetness of the leftover droplets. I still can’t believe I drank all that by myself.
I watch Heather press her fingertips to the glass. “That explains your state this morning,” she whispers. “It kind of scared me to see you like that.”
I figure now’s a good time to figure out what the hell kind of game she was playing earlier, as well. “Didn’t scare you in the middle of the night.”
“Hmm?” She turns to me with wide, innocent eyes.
“The middle of the night, when you crawled on top of me and licked my bloody chin before riding me like a champ.”
Her blinks come rapidly, each one a tiny hammer driving in the truth I feared.
Isaac,” she says in a calm voice that scares me more than yelling, “I was at my brother’s last night. That’s why I didn’t come home—Geoffrey wanted to talk about the situation with Mama and Daddy. Ended up falling asleep at his place.”
“You’re joking, right?”
She shakes her head. “So, I know we never actually discussed being exclusive or anything, but after everything you said at the funeral home…”
Dread, cold and heavy, freezes the blood in my veins. The realization that she’s serious makes me a little dizzy. “I don’t…don’t know who it was, then. Thought it was you, but you saw how much I drank. Pretty sure I locked the door. Only other person to ever come here in the middle of the night was J–”
“Don’t even say her name. I don’t want to hear it.” She stomps out of the kitchen to the base of the stairs.
“No! It wasn’t her. I would’ve remembered the long red hair.”
“Then who was it, Isaac? You know what? None of my business. I was right to keep you at arm’s length. My mistake for thinking you’d grown up a little.” She turns, but I grab her arm.
“Listen to me, I don’t know who it was. I thought it was you. You saw how many bottles I went through. It’s a miracle I could function today.”
She holds up her free hand. “Don’t. I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me! I want to figure out who the hell snuck into my house and crawled into my bed! Did you give my key to anyone?”
Her eyes dilate for a second. “Oh, don’t you dare turn this around on me. I had nothing to do with it.”
“How do I know that? You’re perfectly normal one minute and then bat-shit crazy the next. How do I know you didn’t set me up?”
“You are the most paranoid person I ever met.”
“Because of your mother!” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Not because they’re not true, but because Heather’s suffered the same damage.
“I was a fool to think this would work. I need to get some things, then I’m leaving.”
“Leaving? You’re leaving because I got drunk while mourning my uncle and someone took advantage of it? That’s great, Heather. You’re a real sweetheart. Glad I can count on you to stick around when the going gets tough. You call me paranoid but you’re running just like I did. You’re no better than me.”
“F*ck you.”
I watch her bare ass stomp up the steps. I’m torn between two things: wanting to run after her, grab her, and shake her until she sees reason, or standing my ground like a man until she sees how childish she’s being. Can argue both ways, but the latter wins out. I’m not going to feel bad for giving Uncle Robert a proper send-off, and I refuse to beg. I’ve been with someone who didn’t want to be with me. Not doing that again.
When Heather realizes how stupid she’s being, she can crawl back and apologize.
***
Uncle Robert’s closet looks like Mr. Rogers and Colonel Sanders had a textile orgy. Herman was kind enough to give me the whole week off so I could tie up all the loose ends, so here I am sorting through my uncle’s belongings. Most of this stuff will go to the church or another charity, but some of it is too hideous to inflict on anyone. The “keep” pile is on the bed. The rest goes into the contractor-sized garbage bags I bought at the home improvement store.
Once I’ve cleaned out several decades of sweater vests and plaid shirts, I move to his dresser. It’s old and worn, the wood faded on one side from the sun streaming in the window. Just like before, it feels like a violation, even though Uncle Robert knew when he left me the house and its contents that I’d eventually have to sift through them. I start with the long shallow drawer in the middle.
Inside sit three perfect rows of rolled handkerchiefs. Some are monogrammed, some hand-embroidered with little music notes, leaves, or geometric patterns. Those go into the “keep” pile. Another drawer reveals old photos and newspaper clippings. Underneath those is a red photo album. Not unusual, except that it has my name on it.
I move to the bed to examine it more carefully. The cover cracks when I open it and the pages inside have yellowed. Under the murky film is a picture of me at about four or five, judging by the clothes. I’m sitting in Uncle Robert’s parlor at the piano that now belongs to me. He’s standing next to me with a huge grin on his face and his arm around my shoulders. We look like two peas in a pod. The next page contains a program from my first piano recital. All the pages feature a picture, a ticket stub, a memory of time spent with Uncle Robert.
The last page makes my eyes burn. I can’t believe he kept it. I peel back the film and gently remove the brittle staff paper I wrote on more than two decades ago. Mama had told me Uncle Robert’s birthday was approaching and I wanted to do something special for him. We didn’t have enough money for me to get an allowance, so instead of buying a gift, I wrote him a birthday song. It was my first non-required composition.
I had no idea he’d held onto it.
I start a new pile on the bed for things to “definitely keep,” and after a few more drawers, I’ve added two more photo albums and a box of cards I made for Uncle Robert over the years. They run the gamut from barely recognizable crayon drawings to computer-generated cards I thought were very avant-garde in the 1980s.
The most interesting find is Aunt Angela’s jewelry box. With no children and not being on speaking terms with her niece, I guess she had no one to give her stuff to, so Uncle Robert held on to it. I’m thinking it should all go to Christie, Tiffany, and their daughters. The pearl bracelet I’m going to have cleaned, restrung, and sized for Jayne, just like I promised.
A knock on the door echoes through the house. I put down the jewelry box, shove the albums and pictures aside, and trudge from the bedroom to the central hall, which still smells like eucalyptus even though I’ve thrown out most of the dusty bouquets. I was expecting a nosy neighbor or maybe one of my sisters. Didn’t expect to see Heather again so soon.
“You were right,” she says as soon as I open the door. “You have every reason to be paranoid and I’m so sorry for accusing you of…whatever it was I accused you of.”
I scratch my head, a bit distracted by her short skirt. “What brought this on?”
“Can I come in?”
“Might as well.” She steps into the small foyer and wraps her arms around her middle, not something she usually does. “Everything okay, sweet pea?”
“No, not at all. I need to explain some things to you, and I don’t know how you’re going to take them. One thing in particular,” she says, and begins fidgeting with the sunglasses perched on her head.
“Worse than you being a mafia princess?”
She nods. “Way worse.”
I muster up as much sarcasm as I can. “Fantastic! Can’t wait to hear it, but you’ll have to talk while I sort. Been going through Uncle Robert’s things all day.”
Her soft footfalls echo mine as we head back to his bedroom. I sit on the bed and make room for her, but she declines. “I’d rather stand, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” She hugs her elbows and glances around the room, eyes landing on a photo album in the “keep” pile. I push it closer to her. She flips through a few pages then sucks in a breath.
“So it’s true. Look.” She hands me the album, whose pages are open to two well-aged newspaper clippings, obituaries for a Kay Dodd and a Warren Carter. Listed as one of their children is Mrs. Angela (Robert) Cline. Listed as a brother to Warren Carter is a Gary Carter. “That’s my granddaddy,” she says.
“So we are related.”
“Just barely, and only by marriage. Here’s the part I want you to read.” She points to a paragraph further down in Warren Carter’s obituary.
I read aloud, “‘Mr. Carter was once a well-respected businessman in Biloxi but moved to Mobile, the ancestral home of his beloved wife, with whom he spent many happy years.’ Yeah, so?”
“He also moved to Mobile to get out of the mob. He and my granddaddy had a falling-out that got pretty ugly from what I understand. When he fell in love with Kay Dodd, he made a clean break and moved here to Mobile.”
“This is ancient history. I still don’t see what it has to do with now.”
“This is where the rivalry started,” she says. “This is why my mama still has a grudge against your family.”
“I don’t get it. So they fought. Big deal.”
She sighs. “My mama was a daddy’s girl. Whatever he said, she believed, and if he put it in her head that the Mobile Carters were trash who turned their backs on their family and moved in on his territory in Mobile, then that’s what she believed.”
“So…this was an old-school turf war?”
“For my granddaddy, yes. For my mama, I think it’s more personal.”
“Personal?”
“Look at this picture of your Aunt Angela. She and my mama were cousins.”
“I’ll admit the similarities are kinda creepy. Can’t believe I didn’t see it before, but then I was little when she died.”
“But there’s one huge difference.” When I shrug, she continues. “My mama married for money and status. Angela married for love.”
“Then I really don’t see why they didn’t get along. Your mama’s all about money and status. She got what she wanted.”
“But she had to really work and sacrifice for it. She had to marry my daddy—who she didn’t love—in order to get it.”
“Okay, I’m still not following. Uncle Robert made next to nothing as a musician. He certainly wasn’t rich.”
“No, but your Aunt Angela was. Her daddy did very well after he moved to Mobile. Nearly put my granddaddy out of business. My mama had to marry into money to keep the family afloat, while your aunt got the best of both worlds.”
“Look around you. They lived in this tiny house their entire lives together. They didn’t have any money.”
“Have you checked the bank account he left for you?”
“Haven’t had the chance yet, no.”
“I think you’ll be surprised.”
“Okay, so your mama hated my aunt, and my uncle by proxy. That’s why she hates me?”
“That, and you tried to date her daughter, who she was grooming to take over the family business. When she found out about how far we’d gone, well…”
“Last straw, huh?”
“I think she wanted to humiliate you. That’s why she did what she did in the driveway that night.”
My mind flashes back. Yeah, I was definitely humiliated.
Heather takes a deep breath. “That’s also why she crawled into your bed the other night.”
Down the hall, a clock ticks. Outside, rain pelts the windows. And yet I swear I hear the sound of my balls shriveling like the discarded foil wrapper on a candy bar.
“Isaac, are you okay?”
I nod, though truth be told, I’m still trying to process this bomb she’s dropped. “How do you know it was her? Are you sure?”
She digs in her purse and pulls out her phone. “Geoffrey was in on it. He didn’t really want to have a brother-sister talk the other night, he just needed to keep me away from you. Take a look.”
She hands me her phone and there on the screen is the explanation for the bright light I saw before passing out. My eyes are at half-mast and my hair’s a mess, but yep, that’s me in bed with Marcie Swann.
“Scroll,” Heather says.
In the next picture my eyes are closed, but I have my arm around the naked psycho. The third is a vulgar picture of our, uh, union. I say a silent goodbye to my boys, who will never descend again.
“Isaac–”
I hold up a hand to make her stop. “Excuse me, I need a few minutes. I’ll be back.”
I walk straight down the hall, out the front door, and into the unrelenting rain. Only the naïve would dare hope it could wash me clean, but I trudge down the driveway toward the sidewalk all the same.
One phrase repeats in my mind with every step I take: I slept with Marcie Swann. I slept with Marcie Swann. I slept with Marcie Swann. I slept with…
A car races by, splashing a plume of water that dowses me in muddy run-off. For a second I wish it would hydroplane—but only for a second, before I come to my senses. I can’t undo that errant thought, and I can’t undo getting splashed. Neither can I undo getting f*cked by Marcie Swann.
I can, however, decide what happens next. I think of Baby Jayne huddled on the sofa at the visitation and how I swore Marcie Swann wouldn’t infect another generation of our family with her poison. The woman is clearly unhinged and should be stopped, no matter the consequences.
This is bigger than me. It’s about a psychotic woman willing to exact revenge on people who weren’t even born when she was supposedly wronged. It’s about a woman willing to hurt her own daughter time after time in order to satisfy her need for vengeance. It’s about finally standing up to the woman who stole my young adulthood and took away my freedom to decide my own course in life.
No more.
This ends with me.