The Devil Has Dimples (22 page)

“Maybe she was lying.  Women who cheat, and men too, lie. 
They lie to themselves and to the people who love them, why not lie to someone
else, it’s in their nature.”

He filled up the glasses with tea and returned them to the
table, while I filled up both of our plates and set them down.

I pushed the biscuits into a basket, and placed it next to
Grant.

He smiled, took a sniff, then smiled again.  “They smell
good.”

“Yes, they do.  Are you going to talk to your father?”

He sighed.  “I’ll guess I’ll have to.”

“As far as we can tell, Maudie didn’t fool around.  And I
think I know the reason for that.”

“You do?”  He asked.

“I think so.  She was a good person.  A friend to everyone. 
Except those who ‘fooled around.’  She was loyal in that way.  Why would she
sleep with your father?”

He looked at me with that calculating gleam in his eye. 
Apparently, he hadn’t thought of that.

“How did Angie manage to tell you this?”

“She came to my office on a legal matter.”

“A real matter, or something that really didn’t need your
attention?”

Smiling, he said.  “Ever think about becoming an attorney?”

“No.  Baking biscuits from scratch is hard enough.”

“Her reason was feeble.  I guess her real purpose was to
drop that information on me.”

I dug into my food.  Suddenly famished.  “That poses another
question, why?”

Grant thought for a moment.  “Revenge.”

“Perhaps.  I wonder what your father ever did to her?”

“Good question.  I’ll have to ask him.”

I pulled apart a steaming biscuit and slathered some butter
on it.  “I’d ask him about the ‘affair’ too.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”  He smiled, then began to eat in
earnest.  “We’ll go after we eat.”

I sat there for a moment, listening to his little moans of
enjoyment.  What I really wanted to hear were his big moans of enjoyment.

* * *

Lenny didn’t seem that happy to see us.  He opened the door,
saw us standing there, turned around and left the door open.

Grant grabbed my elbow and led me inside.

Margie was coming from the kitchen, drying her hands on a
towel.  She shrugged and looked at Lenny’s retreating back.

When she was closer, she whispered.  “He’s been like that
since he slapped you, Grant.  What happened?”

Grant looked down at his feet.  I guess he was feeling
ashamed.

“I accused Lenny of being Sara’s father.”

A bucket of ice water couldn’t have shocked her any more. 
She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

“You didn’t!”  Margie said.

He glanced up and looked at her.  “I did.  I need to ask Dad
some questions.”

Margie was mad.  “I think you need to apologize first.  Both
your father and I have taken enough abuse from you.”

He glared.

“I have my reasons,” he said.

Margie snorted.  “You think you do.”

She led the way into the living room.

Lenny sat on a recliner.  The television set was off.  He
glanced in our direction, then turned his head away.

“Apologize, or get out.  I’m tired of your anger, Grant. 
It’s time to cut bait.”

Grant walked over and stood over his father.  His hands were
in fists.  “You didn’t deny it.”

“Deny it!  What in the world were you thinking?  I’ve never
fooled around on your mother.  Or on Margie.  I have more respect for myself.”

“Respect for yourself?  Is that why you couldn’t wait until
my mother was cold in the ground before you remarried?”

“Do you want to know why I married Margie?”

“No.  This isn’t about Margie.”

“Like hell it isn’t.”  Lenny dragged his hand through his
hair .  “You’ve been sporting a pouting lip ever since I introduced you to
her.”

“That was a few months after Mother died.”

Lenny sank into the recliner.  Deflated.  Tired.  He seemed
old for the first time.  His hands rubbed his face for a moment, then sat back.

“Sit down Grant.  It’s time you heard the truth.”

Grant looked around, lost for a moment, then sat across the
room from his father.

“It’s about time.”  Grant said.

I wanted to knock him.  I knew the truth.  But he never
wanted it before now.

“Your mother was sick for five years, Grant.  Five horrible
and wonderful years.”

Grant looked stricken.  “Five years?  She was only sick for
a few weeks.”

“Think about it Grant.  You were only nine when she took
ill.  We didn’t want you to know.  We tried to give you a decent normal
childhood, and we did it for as long as we could.”

Lenny had tears in his eyes.  “Do you know how hard it was
to keep a smile on your face when your life is crumbling away?”

I handed him my hanky and he used it, rubbing his eyes dry
and blowing his nose. 

He gave a deep sigh and continued.  “It meant everything to
your mother that we keep her poor health hidden until we couldn’t anymore.”

He looked up at Grant.  “All those trips to visit her
mother, she was in the hospital in New Orleans.  Thank God for Maudie, she
would take you in so I could visit her without you knowing.”

“Why didn’t Maudie ever tell me about any of this?”

Lenny sighed deeply again.  He looked directly at me.

“Maudie kept a lot of secrets.”

Then he continued.  “She felt it was in your best interests,
that’s what you don’t understand.  We loved you too much to have you hurting
too.  We all wished that we could live each day in ignorance of what was going
to happen.”

A long silence fell over the room.  I picked at a piece of
lint on my pants, waiting.  The quiet was so profound you could hear the clock
on the bookcase, ticking away, a reminder that time does go on.

“And the horrible and wonderful part, what did you mean by
that?”  Grant asked.

Lenny shook his head.  The pain on his face touched my
heart.  This was a man who spoke from his heart, a man who loved deeply and
long.  A man who raised a son, much like himself.

“Horrible because the woman I loved with all my heart was
dying and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.  Not a damn thing.”

“And the wonderful part.”

“Because we knew that each and every day was a precious gift
to us.”  He looked at Grant, with hope in his eyes.  “That there wouldn’t be
second chances.  There was only now.”

Grant was still angry.  “So if your love was ‘so precious’
why were you married at the end of three months?”

“Because your mother told me to.”

Grant jumped up.  “What kind of bullshit is that!”

Lenny sighed, resigned to telling the truth, at last.

“It isn’t bullshit, it’s the truth.  I loved Margie since
the day I saw her in the first grade.  When I was six years old, I told her I
was going to marry her, and I would have if her parents wouldn’t have stepped
in.  Tell him Margie.”

Lenny’s gaze was full of love as he looked at his wife,
anyone could see it, it was almost as if it had a life of its own.

“Tell him everything.”

Margie lowered her face and looked at her hands.

“It’s true, we were childhood sweethearts, up through junior
high and high school.  It was our senior year when my parents realized that we
would be getting married as soon as graduation was over.  They always thought
it was ‘puppy love’.”

She sat on a chair next to Lenny and interwove their fingers
together, giving him a sad smile.

“The day after graduation they booked a tour to Europe.  I
went along, planning my wedding the whole time.  Then came the phone call.”

“We were in Paris, Daddy called home and looked grim as he
put down the receiver, he took me by the hand and told me that Lenny was killed
in a car accident.”

I gasped.  What kind of father would do that?

“I was devastated.”  She squeezed Lenny’s hand.

I reached forward and took her free hand.  “Go on.”

She smiled wryly.  “They suggested I go to college in
California.  Their plan backfired.  I refused to come home, ever.  I stayed in
Paris, and went to school there.  Got a job as an interpreter.  I cut off all
ties to Boggy Bayou, and I never came home again, until our twentieth high
school reunion.”

Lenny smiled then.  “She made quite a stir.  I walked in,
and she fainted.”

Lenny picked up the tale then.

“Her parents told me that she found a new love in Europe. 
They never would give me her address, and none of her friends heard from her,
so she was lost to me, love was lost to me, until Lorraine came along.  I’ve
been the most fortunate man in the world to have two such wonderful women to
love.”

“After my faint, Lenny, Lorraine and I talked.”  Margie
said.  “Lorraine was so understanding, she cried for the both of us.  I left
town the next morning.”

Lenny squeezed her hand.  “I didn’t know it, but Lorraine
managed to get Margie’s address and she wrote to her.”

Margie chimed in.  “Every month.  She wrote me, telling me
all about Boggy Bayou, Grant, Lenny and herself.  At first I was angry. 
Lorraine had everything that I wanted.  Everything that I thought I deserved. 
She was everything that I wasn’t.”

Lenny patted her hand.  “Now, now.  You know better than
that.”

Margie gave a weak smile.  “I resented her monthly letters
at first.  I would place them on the mantle, until I couldn’t ignore them
anymore and then devoured them.”

Margie smiled a real smile.

“Then I began to look forward to them.  It wasn’t about
Lenny anymore.  I loved him still, but that was an old memory.  What Lorraine
was giving me were new memories, she was holding out the hand of friendship in
those letters, and I came to wanting them.  Wanting her in my life.”

Margie let out a deep sigh.

“She was the best friend I ever had.”

Silence overtook the room again.  The clock once again
letting us know that time moves forward.

Margie looked at Grant.

“I loved your mother.  When she wrote me of her illness, I
couldn’t bear to hear the news.”

“But I still don’t understand why you had to get married so
soon after her death,” said Grant.

Lenny coughed.  “It was my fault.”

“No.  It was mine.”  Margie interjected.

“No, Margie.  I’m taking the full blame.  And it’s time
Grant knows the truth.”

“Margie came for the funeral.  I don’t know if you remember,
but she was there.”

Grant replied.  “No.  I didn’t know.  It’s hard for me to
remember that day.  It was such a blur.”

“I stayed with Maudie.  Lorraine had given her my phone
number and she was the one who called me to come to the funeral.”  Margie said.

“I was going to leave right away, but Maudie encouraged me
to stay.”

“Why would she do that?”  Grant asked.

“Lorraine managed to convince Maudie that I would be
Lenny’s  salvation, and yours.”  Margie gave a wry smile.

Lenny looked at Grant as he said.  “She was my salvation.”

He walked over to her and placed both hands on each of her
shoulders.  “I was drowning in pity.  Self-pity.”

Margie resumed the conversation.  “I took to going to church
late in the afternoon.  One Sunday, Lenny was there.  Kneeling at the altar,
crying.”

She pushed her hand through his hair, smoothing it down,
caressing his head.

“It was pitiful.”  Her eyes searched Lenny’s face.

“I couldn’t stand it, so I walked over and placed my hand on
his shoulder.”

Lenny said.  “She told me that I didn’t have to be alone.  I
cried even harder.”

Margie murmured so low, Grant could barely hear her.  “I
knelt down beside him and began to cry too.”

They enclosed their arms around each other.  Finding
peaceful reassurance in their embrace.

Grant glanced at me with a new look in his eyes.  Was he
finally getting it, that they loved each other.  His gaze shifted back to them,
thoughtful, appraising, wanting.

“I took him back to Maudie’s, she was gone, and we made love
for the first time.”  Margie said.

“I came to realize that Lorraine was smarter than all of
us.  She knew we belonged together, that’s why she kept the channel open.” 
Lenny said.

“We were going to wait for at least a year, for your sake,
Grant.”

“So why didn’t you?”  Grant demanded.

“I became pregnant.”  Margie said.

“What?”

I watched the interplay on both of their faces.  You could
tell that Margie was embarrassed to be discussing this subject.  Grant seemed
shocked.

“Margie was pregnant, and I wasn’t going to have any child
of mine branded a bastard.  We got married.”  Lenny said.

“I had a miscarriage on our honeymoon in San Francisco.”

“No one, except Maudie, knew the real reason and I didn’t
think it was anybody’s business.”  Lenny said.

“Not even mine?”  Grant said.

Lenny looked at Grant defiantly.

“No, son.  Not even yours.”

Grant’s eyes showed a flash of anger, then the light went
out, defeat settled in.

“What did Maudie think of the affair?”  I asked.

“She said the strangest thing when I told her I was
pregnant.”  Margie said.

“What?”

“She said, history repeats itself.”

That
was
strange.  “What do you think she meant by
that?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I always remembered the exact
words.  History repeats itself.”

We all sat in silence a moment.  The clock moved on. 
Tick. 
Tick.  Tick.

“Maybe she was referring to herself.”  Grant said.

I snapped my head in his direction.  “What do you mean?”

“Pregnancy.  The circumstances.  Maybe the same thing
happened to her.  History repeating itself.”  Grant said.

I sat there staring in his direction, but not seeing him. 
What if he was right?  What happened in Maudie’s past that could be ‘history’
repeating itself.