The Widows of Wichita County (12 page)

Tears came then. She leaned her face into his suede jacket and cried as he circled her with his warmth.

He did not say a word when he lifted her up and carried her to the wooden swing on the porch. With a quilt wrapped around them both, he held her close.

She cried for a while, then rested her head against his damp jacket and closed her eyes, enjoying the slow motion of the swing. The whispered sounds of the wind made it seem like they were totally alone on the planet. Their breath was smoky with frost but she was not cold. Off into the night, she heard the breeze cracking ice from the branches of mesquite trees.

She cuddled closer.

When finally, she stood to leave, he made no protest, but kept his arm across her back as he walked her to the fence.

“Th-thank you,” she said as she climbed up the ladder.

“Anytime,” he whispered.

She was almost home when she turned around and saw him still standing at the walkover. His outline was tall and lean. She could not help but smile. Zack Larson had kept his word. No strings. No questions. Just a hug.

A hug that warmed her still.

November 14
County Memorial Hospital

M
ost of the time he felt like an alien life-form that had crashed to earth and primitive humans were trying to discover what to do with him. Their methods were painful and heavy-handed at best. At worst, the marrow in his bones still smoldered from the long dead fire.

His vocabulary increased to include words like
eschar.
He'd heard one of the nurses explain to Crystal that eschar is a nonviable tissue that forms after a burn injury. It has no blood supply therefore antibodies can't reach it. So,
eschar
makes a fertile breeding ground for bacteria.

He was lost in the hell of an old
Twilight Zone
episode. Before long, they'd stash him in the basement and grow mushrooms off his charred skin.

Even the spray baths they gave him weren't called baths, but
wound debridement.
Twice a day a nurse would up his pain medicine enough so he could endure the process, then she'd clean him, removing dead tissue. Only, she called the black infected skin
devitalized tissue,
as if calling it
dead
might be too personal.

His bodily functions became the small talk of the
people around him. Folks used to ask about the weather or the news, but now they told each other of his urine output for the day. The constant risk of hypothermia loomed like the plague and worried everyone until he wanted to scream.

He longed to escape, to run away where the talk was of other things. But even when he dreamed, the nightmare of his reality crept in, just beneath the surface, waiting to shatter any peace he might find.

Crystal was always around, asking questions until he wanted to jump from the bed and choke her, even if it cost him his last thread-hold on life. She started a notebook of details, so every time a bag was changed she was there, like a reporter, recording amounts and dates.

Sometimes he ignored her completely, acting as if he didn't hear her talking to him or touching his hand. Sometimes she possessed the only sanity in the chaos. He'd hold her fingers long into the night.

When his mind cleared enough for him to think of anything but the pain, he let his thoughts wander to the way her breasts looked. Crystal had the most beautiful round, full breasts. He had always considered himself a leg man, but no man could help but worship such perfection.

He hadn't asked her again to open her blouse. Not that he hadn't thought about it. But with his bandaged hands, he knew he wouldn't be able to feel her, even if he did touch her. And the tear he'd seen slide down her cheek the night she'd sat there with her top wide open…the tear bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

“Shelby?” She broke into his thoughts. “Shelby? Are you awake? I'm sorry I was gone so long.”

He had not even noticed. Time was no longer measured in minutes and hours, but by injections.

“I had to go see Mr. Morris again. He had lots of
papers he wanted me to look over. I wasn't sure if I should read each page or just glance at them, so I stared at the words until Elliot asked if I was satisfied.”

He did not open his eyes.
She was calling Morris by his first name. That was fast, even for Crystal.
The bed shifted slightly as she sat by his side.

He was not dead yet and she was already looking for husband number two. Elliot wouldn't be a bad choice if Crystal could snag him.

“I signed all the places where he'd marked, and Elliot told me this increase in salary should make Trent happy.”

When he groaned, she patted his hand. “Now don't worry. The office girls say Trent has showed up for work every day since the accident. Sometimes he doesn't get there until ten-thirty and leaves for lunch by eleven, but at least he's trying. He even put a hard hat in the back window of his BMW. The girls think he's planning to visit the other drilling sites.”

Trent would look ridiculous at a site. Tiptoeing around so that he didn't get oil on his Italian-made shoes.

Crystal chatted on about stopping in to buy two more dresses from Helena. The older woman was quickly becoming Crystal's best friend. Helena Whitworth was always dropping by the hospital but usually only talked to Crystal or one of the nurses.

The few times she'd talked to him, he noticed that she still spoke of her husband, J.D., as if the old soldier were still alive. No one else seemed to notice that Helena had yet to bury J.D. in her mind. In Southern towns, a little craziness was tolerated as a character trait. Some said only the insane settled in West Texas, so most folks around here must be descended from crackpots. Helena
Whitworth talking of J.D. as if she'd had supper with him the night before drew little attention.

Crystal buzzed around him like a fly. Making sure he was comfortable, she said. But in truth, the state no longer existed for him.

He closed his eyes and walked the rig in his mind once more, as he had that morning, seconds before it blew. Every detail was still fresh in his mind, from the way the wind whistled across the land kicking up dust in little whirlwinds, to the sound of the drill as steady as a heartbeat.

Howard Drilling had needed another investor, so he brought J.D. and a young banker named Kevin Allen out. Nothing worked like a meeting at the site. The rancher, Davis Montano, stood in the center explaining the workings of a rig like he knew something about the industry. No one stopped him. As long as they were on Montano land he could talk all he wanted.

The crew had found the beer and were all leaning against the car enjoying a long break. They were too far away to say thanks, but one lifted his bottle in salute. A moment later the whole world seemed to explode.

He went over the scene again, repeating every detail. There must have been something amiss—something different about that morning that he should have noticed. He had been standing several feet from the others, feeling a difference even if he could not pinpoint it. The blast knocked him off the rig and sent him rolling across the dirt. He hadn't seen the others die, hadn't heard a sound, only the blast, and then the silence when the rig stopped. Moments later the wind caught the fire.

In that one moment of total nothing, he knew he was dying. He was above the pain. But for some reason, he
dove back in, letting the agony of it all take him full force.

Why hadn't he stayed in the calm? That one question haunted him and might yet drive him mad.

Thanksgiving
November 26

S
ome holidays are meant to be enjoyed, others endured. Helena had always thought Thanksgiving fell more into the endured category. It was too close to Christmas to really be excited about seeing everyone, and the weather often hampered, though rarely canceled, the event. For her, the only good thing about the day was that with its passing came the busiest shopping season of the year.

She spent an hour trying to convince J.D. to come along with her to Patricia's annual spread. But, as he had for years, he insisted the day belonged to her family. He would only be an outsider, unable to relate to the husbands, who called a rifle a gun, or the children who thought Martin Luther King was a general in the Civil War.

Helena laughed as she drove down Main, past stores already decorated for the next holiday. J.D. was her family, her world. How could he think otherwise? He just wanted her to go so that she could return with stories. They would open a bottle of red wine and watch the sunset as they laughed at her tales of the twins and their families.

Then, as they always did on holidays, they would make love. Maybe not wild and abandoned as they had in their fifties, but with no less pleasure. J.D. had a way of making her feel young and loved as no man ever had. While they were still breathless and wrapped around one another, he would whisper “Happy Thanksgiving” or “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Birthday,” like their lovemaking was what made the day special.

Glancing over at the courthouse, Helena noticed Meredith's old Mustang parked near the side door. She had asked the little schoolteacher to dinner at Patricia's. Both of her daughters had had children in Meredith's class, so Helena knew they would not mind the extra company.

Meredith refused, saying she planned to work on the filing system over the break. She had been working at the courthouse part-time for as long as Helena could remember.

Helena made a mental note to call Crystal as soon as she got to Patricia's house. Shelby's cook was making a feast and having it delivered midafternoon to everyone who worked the Thanksgiving shift at the hospital. He could easily drop a plate off at the courthouse for Meredith.

She almost wished she had taken Crystal up on her invitation to join them. It would be a nice change from enduring Thanksgiving with her daughters. Randi was driving in from Memphis for the weekend. And as far as Helena knew, Randi had no family of her own—that she still claimed, anyway. Her former in-laws hadn't bothered to invite her. After all, now Jimmy was dead, she was not really a part of them anymore. But Crystal had remembered her, even wiring her the money for gas.

Randi's career as a singer had not taken off as expected, but Crystal swore it would only be a matter of
time. Randi wrote that she had met a manager in a bar where she worked. He was now handling her bookings. She had told Crystal the bar also sold boots along one wall.

Helena shook her head. She was only a small-town businesswoman, but she would always be able to recognize a snake. She hoped Randi could. In her opinion, a man who never went in a bar wasn't to be trusted any more than a man who called it his second home or office. And a Western-wear store that had a dance floor and bar was too wild for her taste.

She pulled into the drive of her daughter's house. Patricia had a way with flowers in the spring that made the place look bright and welcoming, but in the winter the untended beds made the house look like it was sitting on a huge brown nest.

There was the usual menagerie of bikes and toys scattered along the drive and in the grass. But at least in the winter the brown circles in the grass, left by the plastic pool, did not show.

Helena's three oldest grandchildren came running out to meet her. She loved them dearly but rarely had time to see them. When the twins had been small, Helena had fought night and day to get her business going. Even when she had been home, she was usually slaving over the store's books. She had missed their childhood just as she was missing her grandchildren's—but only with a passing regret.

Climbing from the car, she reached for the bag filled with toys Mary always prepared for her. Helena might not cook, but she never showed up empty-handed.

J.D. teased her that Mary secretly hated buying the gifts and got her revenge on Helena by always including at least one toy that made noise. Last Easter, she'd found
huge eggs for the boys that contained harmonicas, and plastic chicks for the girls that made chirping sounds.

It had taken J.D. and two bottles of wine to calm Helena's nerves that night. Harmonica-playing chickens even haunted her dreams.

Today, Helena was happy to find books about juggling with bags of soft balls attached. She handed them out and made her way past the husbands, who were glued to a football game on TV as though hypnotized. They were a nice pair, but Helena could not remember having a conversation with either of them in years.

“Momma!” Both daughters hurried from the kitchen.

“Momma, you look so nice.” Patricia wiped her hands on her apron.

Paula touched the wool of Helena's suit. “That's a real fine suit on you. The color makes you look younger. No one would ever think you were a day over fifty.”

“She doesn't look old enough to be our mother as it is now,” Patricia bragged. “When we were little, our friends used to think Momma was a model, remember?”

For the hundredth time, Helena wished her daughters could wear the sizes in her store. They had open accounts but only charged a bag or a scarf now and then. Helena felt she had a lifetime of knowledge about clothing and no one to pass it down to.

“Mary tells me you both have been helping out at the store.”

They grinned, proud of themselves.

“We think you'll be pleased, Momma. We've been trying, hoping to take some of the load off your shoulders.” Paula took Helena's coat and umbrella and put them by the door. “Is it raining?”

“Not yet,” Helena answered. “But you know I like to be prepared.”

Paula led Helena toward the kitchen. “Mary even let us do some of the ordering. We had a great time.”

Helena wanted to ask more questions, but she saw that the table was already set. She was always a little surprised at what good cooks they had both become. Paula made breads and pies better than any bakery in town. Patricia managed to set a pretty table even though the napkins were paper. Holidays were important to them and therefore Helena always tried to be on her best behavior.

She surprised herself by enjoying the dinner. Nowhere in town had a better meal than the one her daughters cooked. They were both pleased when she asked for not only seconds, but thirds.

Two hours later, as they stood side by side in the kitchen doing the dishes, Helena said almost sadly, “I've had a wonderful time, but I need to start back.”

Paula leaned over the sink and stared out the window. “If it rains, it might freeze after dark, but you've got a few hours yet, Momma.”

Helena pulled off her apron and laid it across one of the kitchen chairs. “You outdid yourselves today, girls. This was the best Thanksgiving dinner ever. I'm sure J.D. would enjoy a plate. I'll make him one.”

Neither daughter said a word as Helena filled one of the plastic plates with food. When she finished, she kissed them both and headed toward the door.

At the tiny table in the front entrance, she set the plate down and slipped on her coat. The noise from the TV would have drowned out any goodbye she wanted to make to her sons-in-law, and all the children were watching a movie in the back of the house.

As she lifted J.D.'s plate, Paula's voice drifted from
the kitchen. “Don't worry about it, Pat. She's just dealing with his loss the only way she knows how.”

“She's not dealing with it at all. She hasn't removed anything that belonged to him. The other day I was in her bedroom, and his reading glasses are still on the stand beside his chair.”

“I did like old Doc Hamilton suggested. I've told her several times that J.D. is dead when she starts talking about him. But she doesn't seem to hear.” Paula sounded like she was about to cry. “There is nothing more we can do. Our mother is taking her dead husband a plate of food and we're all acting like that's just fine.”

Helena ran out the door before she had to listen to more of such nonsense.

By the time she got home, Helena felt a little out of breath. She put J.D.'s food in the kitchen and hurried up the stairs to change out of her dress clothes and into something more comfortable.

Once in her bathroom, she pushed a full bottle of blood pressure medicine, atenolol, aside, thinking her blood pressure must be low, not high, since she felt so tired lately. Tonight, she would not bother with the captopril pill, either. She really could not remember why the doctor had suggested she take it in the first place. All she needed was a glass of wine and she would feel fine.

She went back downstairs for the warmed meal for J.D. but climbing back up the stairs, Helena moved at a slower pace than usual.

“I'm tired,” she whispered. “It has been a long day.”

The door to their bedroom was open and she smiled, knowing J.D. was already waiting for her.

“I'm back,” she yelled, and as she entered the room she could hear the cork on the wine popping.