Down South

  ~~~~

  On his third day of retirement, Michael Lloyd finished his morning workout, kissed his wife of forty-two years, then strolled the trimmed flagstone path to his back garden shed where, between his hanging orchids and his prize African violets, he put a gun in his mouth.

  He left no note, no reason why, just empty questions and my sister Annie, who now shuffled papers at Michael's desk and tried to pretend her husband wasn't dead.

  "Dementia," she said. "It was early yet, but still. . . he knew. A vital man like him could never have tolerated slipping away bit by bit."

  "How can you be sure?" I said. "Had he seen a doctor?"

  She blew her nose, then dabbed at her swollen eyes.

  "Not that he told me," she said.

  "So how could he be sure? Something that important, you don't keep to yourself. You tell somebody. At the least, you see a doctor."

  "He tried not to call attention to it, but a wife. . . a wife notices little changes. He'd been moody lately. Private. Forgetting things. Where he put his favorite tie. . . his cuff links. . . where he left his briefcase. He'd run to the store for milk, be gone an hour, and forget the milk. Imagine that?"

  I clicked my tongue and shook my head.

  "He was always such a sensible man," Annie continued. "I know winding down was a strain for him, and I tried to understand, to make things easier here at home. . .."

  Wordlessly, I squeezed Annie's rounded shoulder and felt solid comfort underneath.

  I wasn't close to Michael, never had the chance to say goodbye, and those were my regrets. He was a good provider, a family man, which, when all was said and done, was a decent epitaph for a man's life. He worked, avoided unpleasantness, was kind to his children, and he died.

  Annie had lived the American dream, the ideal life. Michael hadn't been a man to simply aim down the path that seemed to shine before him; no, the road he trod had been well-calculated and executed. She'd been his anchor all the years he'd built his law career and poured his energies into a thriving practice.

  I'd secretly envied her.

  My Tom was a decent man, one with more enthusiasm than capability, a gentle soul, but rarely on intimate terms with opportunity or common sense. More often than not we survived on money he hadn't yet made. If Tom ever had to choose between his favorite hunting dog and me, I held no illusions about which of us he'd pick.

  Annie had given me an ear enough times over the years, now it was my turn to do the same for her. She needed to talk, to sort through the tangled skein of her emotions, emotions balled up for so long that, now as the threads unraveled, she felt powerless to weave them into sense.

  I had no other answers, so I did what I could for my sister——I listened.

  When Annie paused to dab her eyes again, I said, "Michael was thinking of you and the boys. To spare you. I know he was."

  They were meaningless words, but Annie didn't seem to notice as she nodded and talked on, her quiet voice filling the room along with the familiar aroma of oregano and simmering tomato sauce.

  Through the living room's lace curtains, I saw her boys, now grown men, smoking on the front porch and their wives talking to the grandchildren in hushed tones. Grandma Lloyd and the girls had commandeered the kitchen amid clinking pots and watery voices.

  Annie turned to me and said, "The guns. . .."

  "What about them?"

  "I want them out of this house. . . every last one. After the funeral, call your friend? The gun collector?"

  "Sure, sweetheart," I said. "I'll do it first thing."

  "Michael had so many weapons. I don't know why he kept them."

  "I'll get you a good price."

  "It's not the money——"

  "I know. Put it out of your mind. Just leave everything to me. After the funeral, I'll cart them all out of here. Don't you worry."

  She smiled, patted my hand, and sniffed again. "Thank you. I'm glad you're here, Sissy. You're the one person I can always count on. I can always trust you with anything."

  I didn't find it an odd thing for her to say at the time. We were sisters after all. We had spent our lives supporting each other through private trials and whispered truths.

  A day or so later, after the funeral, on an evening when Annie was out of her house, Tom and I went over and loaded our car, just as I had assured her we'd do. He lit a fire in our fireplace to ward off the light chill in the air, then we spread guns, rifles, and shotguns on our dining table and settled in to catalogue and tag.

  We saved the ammunition for last. When we were down to the remaining few containers, Tom passed me a box.

  "Here," he said. "Open this."

  His voice carried an undertone I didn't fully understand, but his prodding gaze piqued my curiosity. I put down my pad and pencil and reached for the box with both hands. I had expected the box to be heavy with a couple of racks of bullets, so the airy lightness of the sturdy cardboard caught me by surprise.

  "It's empty," I said, hefting the closed box in my palm to punctuate what seemed to me to be a keen grasp of the obvious. "Toss it in the garbage."

  Tom shook his head. The grim set of his jaw and the tempered deliberation with which he said the next words shot a frisson of apprehension down my spine.

  "Look inside," he said.

  I peeled back the lid, saw a piece of black lace, and pulled until an ethereal top spilled out of the box on a whiff of musky perfume. The skimpy fabric was pricey, new, young and sexy, and about the size I might have worn three children and a lifetime ago.

  "This is too small to be Annie's," I said. Then an ugly suspicion hit me and I sucked in a breath. "You don't suppose. . . Surely, Michael wasn't one of those men who liked to dress in——?"

  "Does that look like it would fit a six-foot guy who weighed two hundred pounds?"

  I watched Tom empty the rest of the ammo boxes onto the table, and I parroted him in confusion as out tumbled a hotel's match book, a pair of black lace panties, a tube of red lipstick, a drink coaster. . ..

  I snatched up the matches.

  "I recall this name," I said. "Annie talked many times about Michael staying there. Business seminars or some such." I swept my hand in a flourish over the table. "But all the rest?"

  The silence swelled between me and Tom. He sat quietly, subdued, waiting for me to catch up to him, the creases in his forehead deepening.

  "No," I whispered, struggling to cobble together the two personas and reconcile them with what had once been Michael's reality in my mind. "I can't believe it."

  Tom nodded, stripping away all my idealized notions about love, respect, and everlasting devotion. I folded into myself, sagging against the chair cushion.

  When I finally found my voice, it sounded hollow to my ears.

  "Michael knew Annie would never touch his guns," I said. "Would never go near any of these boxes, let alone open them. He knew his mementos were safe."

  "But?"

  "But what?"

  "Ask yourself this. . . why didn't he chuck them in the garbage that morning?"

  For a moment, I collected glimpses of the staid Michael I thought I had known, mentally assembling them into a whole.

  "Yes," I said, worrying the thread of that thought. "That was unlike him. Michael did little without thinking it through first."

  "Exactly. He had to assume someone would find the boxes eventually. Why risk being found out?"

  "Maybe he didn't want his secret kept. They say confession's good for the soul. Maybe he wanted someone to find out. Someone to know the truth. What do you think?"

  Tom canted his head at an inquiring angle. "I think he wanted you to."

  "Me?"

  "Sure. He couldn't very well stand up at the Thanksgiving table and come clean about a clandestine activity he was engaged in. Living with deception is the easy part. Answering the questions his betrayal prompted. . .now, that's harder. You handle hard real we
ll. Always have."

  The shock of that was enough to dispel the sedate image of my sister's husband. On an indelicate snort, I imagined him having his. . .fling.

  Did she leave him, this floaty petite thing with the expensive tastes? Did she tease him, and toy with him, and then tire of enduring his pathetic old existence in her young life?

  I imagined Michael begging this faceless plaything to take him back, while downstairs, his gray-headed wife ate breakfast in her comfy robe and slippers. He probably fondled his keepsakes one last time before he chose which gun.

  Annie. Oh, Annie.

  Tom grazed my cheek with his scarred knuckle, lifted my chin, and softened his voice. "You're not thinking of telling her, are you?"

  "I don't know what to think." I kissed his palm and sought his strength. "I've never lied to my sister. Don't ask me to now."

  "I'm not asking you to do anything. Saying nothing isn't lying."

  "A lie of omission? You're splitting hairs."

  He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs.

  "No, I'm trying to make you see sense."

  I jumped to my feet. "Where's the sense in letting my sister go on making a saint out of him? Look at this stuff. Her life was a lie!"

  "We don't know that."

  "Don't her sons have a right to know the truth about their father? He wasn't a devoted husband, or a considerate family man, or a role model. He lied to them; he lied to all of us. He played around, and then couldn't grow a spine to face the music."

  "I'm not excusing him. But it's for Annie and the boys that I'm asking you not to say anything."

  I shook inside from the force of my fury, my gaze steady on Tom. His sophisticated argument was wreaking havoc with my indignation, this from a man I thought I knew.

  "You and I are okay," he said. "I don't want to fight."

  "Then don't. She's my sister. This is my family. I'll do what's best. I'll handle it."

  Tom bowed his head and turned away, disappointed, I knew. But before I could say anything more, the telephone purred.

  I answered. Annie's guarded voice greeted me from the other end of the line.

  "You got them all?" she said.

  "Yes, sweetheart."

  "It's done then?"

  I heard an odd note in her tone, as if she wanted to pass some kind of understanding to me. Did she know? Had she suspected? No, of course not. This was Annie, my sister. She would have come straight to me, wouldn't she? She would have shared with me, just as we'd always done. Together, we would've formulated some sort of exit strategy.

  Suddenly, I felt uncomfortable, like an eavesdropper who'd stumbled upon an intimate argument. Tom touched my arm, his heart shining in his eyes, his expression pleading.

  I teetered between screaming and crying.

  In that second, I thought of Michael leaving his wife and sons and grandchildren with the legacy of his infidelity and cowardice. Sure, I might feel better speaking up, but would it serve the family good?

  Would it really?

  "Yes, sweetheart," I said to Annie, erecting a momentary illusion in my mind. "It's finally done. I've taken care of everything."

  In the end, I said yes, because I couldn't say no.

  I heard Annie let out a slow breath. "I knew I could trust you to do this for me. Thank you, Sissy. . . and I'm sure Michael thanks you, too."

  I hung up the phone and turned to see Tom staring at me, his silence filled with questions.

  "She's accepted his death," I said. "No point in ever mentioning what we found."

  "That's my girl," Tom said, and hugged me.

  "What should we do with these?" I said.

  Tom glanced to the blazing fire and then back to me. I nodded.

  For years, Michael had been the practiced promoter of his own myth. Now, we were in this together. We would rearrange Michael's history.

  I scooped up the empty ammo boxes and their scattered contents, walked to the fireplace, and quietly tossed them in.

  Then I watched them dance in the flames until there was nothing left to tell.

  * * * * *

  ~~~~

  Story 3

  The Story of Julia

  short fiction

  ~~~~

  In memory of

  Ray-Ray

  1970 - 1974

  Scooter

  1987 - 2001

  Cody

  1998 – 2009

  and

  Jagare

  2000 - 2011