“Why? Mad?”
Roger started to say something, but I put a finger to my lips and stared him down, ex-philanderer to philanderer. Then I took Karen and Ethan each by the hand and walked out, head high, Stinky tucked under my arm.
*
After a fast-and-furious ride, during which I refused to answer any of Mary’s questions or explain my actions; and after I yelled, “Shut up, will everyone just shut up?” several times at the top of my lungs; and after I refused to go back and get Karen’s things at the hotel or pick up the other van; and after I raised the volume of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” then raised it even higher after Mindy screamed that the fucking music was eating her brain; and after I almost ran another minivan off the road because they were driving too slow and/or I was driving too fast; and after Mary grabbed my arm and yelled, “John, you’re going to get us all killed,” and I yelled, “No one is getting killed, okay, no one’s getting killed”; and after I turned off the music and thought, I’m probably going to get us all killed, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel, where drained, exhausted, and slightly dizzy, I worried if I was finally having the major breakdown that I was destined to have on this trip.
“Put the bear down, John,” Mary said after we were at our table. “Let go of the bear.”
“Put it down, Dad,” Mindy said. “Nice and easy, nice and easy.”
“What?” In my frenzy, I hadn’t realized that I had been clutching Stinky Bear since the fight. I slowly placed him on the table where Ethan snatched him up.
“Stinky!”
I cleared my throat.
“What was that all about?” Mary asked. She was genuinely worried, her eyes searching my face, and this long-lost look of concern made me want to start crying, bury my face in her soft shoulder. I was about to lose it.
Karen saved me the sentimentality. “You know, it was really stupid what you did back there. Hitting him. Leaving my things at the hotel. Leaving the van. I don’t need rescuing. This has nothing to do with you. Nothing!”
Though I had thought I was done with histrionics, I pounded the table and hissed, “What do you want me to do, huh? Shake his hand?”
“You acted crazy!” Karen said.
“She’s right, John. You shouldn’t have hit him,” Mary said.
“Yeah, Dad, that was kind of Nicholas Cage of you,” Mindy said.
“Crazy? Crazy is running off to a man who cheats on you days before your wedding. Crazy is … is … lying about where you were going like some, silly, teenage girl. We were worried sick about you!”
My outburst caught Karen by surprise. She looked down at the table, and I saw her swallow hard. This wasn’t exactly the father-daughter moment I had envisioned earlier that day.
“Hey, I’m sorry. This whole trip, everything. I’m just tired.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled it away.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
Karen looked up, then back down again and said, “I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“What?” I asked. “Are you kidding? Who cares about him?”
“I hit him. I hit him pretty bad with a bottle. The glass broke. He was bleeding. I thought he was going to die.”
We were all, understandably, confused by what seemed to be some kind of confession. I shooed the waitress away and asked Karen, as calmly as I could, what the hell she was talking about.
She kept her eyes on the table as if she were reading from a script. “We had to go to the emergency room. He was cut pretty bad. His neck. He turned when I swung at him. Turned his head. They were going to call the police, the doctors were, but Roger talked them out of it. I thought I’d killed him when I first did it. Blood was everywhere. I hit him hard.”
It was Mary who responded first, speaking softly. “Honey, what are you talking about? When did this happen? Last night?”
“Sprite!”
“When we were in Charleston. The night I found them. That night. He and I, we had a fight. In the suite upstairs. You were in your room.”
“Jesus,” I said, and reached for her hand, which she now let me hold.
We all sat there in silence for a second or two. Then Karen started to cry.
“Oh, baby,” I said.
She covered her face and, between terrible sobs, said, now in a high soft voice I hadn’t heard in years, “I thought I loved him and I almost killed him. I was going to marry him. Marry him! Why did this happen? I thought I loved him. Look at me. Look what’s happened. All of this, why did this happen? How do you plan for something like this? I was supposed to be married. Married. How do you plan for this?” She rushed out of the room.
“Oh God.” Mary threw her napkin down and chased after her.
“Where. Mom. Be?”