Marshal’s Law #10: It doesn’t take a very big person to carry a grudge
“Let me stay tonight,” he whispered against her lips.
Outside her door, they kissed. His arm locked around her back and his fingers threaded into her smooth curls, she was pliant in his arms. Hot strokes of her tongue met his. Her leg rose over his pants. They aligned and he groaned.
“I can’t believe I’m losing you, too," she said against his lips. The words were like ice water. Forehead to forehead, he stopped the kiss. Eyelash to eyelash, he panted. What did she just say? “Why didn’t I see this sooner?" she said. "Why couldn’t we have just enjoyed this? For just a little while before it all had to end . . .”
“We’ll only be separated for a little while,” he said. “Just let me get things settled first.”
In the porch’s pale yellow glow, her eyes blanked, as if she hadn’t understood him. “And then what?”
What did she mean ‘And then what?’ He felt like something was lodged in his throat. “And you and the kids can join me.”
When she blinked again, the tears were swimming thickly over those lavender-blue eyes again. They pearled onto her thick, dark lashes. “Oh, Marshal, no. We can’t.”
A kind of frost stole over his skin. Had it escaped her attention that he’d asked her to marry him tonight? Except that he hadn’t. Kay had interrupted them. He’d never actually managed to say the words. Either time stopped or his brain was spinning out, cause he couldn’t track thought or seconds. All he could consider was that he’d just found her . . . and with her, his smile, his laugh, his reason to pull his stiff body out of bed every morning.
Overhead, the stars blurred in his sights. False promises bloomed behind his lips. He’d find a way. They’d keep the farm. It would be just like before. It would be better. But the words wisely died before he could say them.
“Yes we can,” he said instead, keeping his voice low and steady. Their eyes locked, he tried to show her the truth of it.
“How can we? You’re leaving Marshal. Moving I-can’t-even-count-how-many states away . . .”
“But you said it was time for a new dream, a new life.”
“For you,” she said emphatically. “Marshal, I can’t start a new life. My great-grands lived in this area. I was born on just the other side of the Colville Bridge and I’m going to be buried in the cemetery right off of Main Street, beside my husband. You think that I can just up and leave? Tear my children away from their roots? That’s like ripping up an oak.”
Marshal stared at her as if the words were slow to his ears. “You don’t trust me, do you? Like Kay said.” Disbelief charred his voice. A cold autumn wind rustled his hair.
“Of course I do.”
“That’s not the way it looks from my front porch.” He’d managed a few backwards steps and gotten some distance between them. It didn’t stop his thoughts from spinning like a gal-dern top.
“Of course I trust you,” she said and reached to touch him. “I couldn’t let . . . I didn’t want anyone but . . . oh, Marshal. You’ve opened my eyes to so much and we’ll always be friends.”
“Friends?” he echoed and he fell back another step, out of the reach of her hand. “And, what? I’ll listen to your exploits with all your other ‘friends’?” He sneered the word, the anger building until the vein in his neck pulsed. “No thanks, darling. I’ve been through enough hell for one lifetime.”
She looked as if he’d struck her. “Marshal . . .”
“You know, maybe you’ve opened my eyes a bit, too. Maybe I’ll find somebody . . .” but he couldn’t finish.
She looked a bit robotic, taking off the ring he’d set on the wrong finger. She held it out, biting her quivering lip. He laughed bitterly as he took it; then spun on the heel of his boot to stalk away.
Maybe one day he’d find someone; someone that’d fill this empty place in his life.
Then again, maybe he was better off not knowing he needed it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
Monica stood in the middle of her mother’s living room -- no, she revised, her living room-- and tried to organize the chaos of boxes as friends carried them into the house. It was hard to concentrate with the pain in her chest. Conversely, it was easier to bear the pain with the smash-busy activity around her.
“Looks like this is the last load from the farm house,” Nancy announced as she bustled in. It had been her job to supervise affairs at the other end.
Beau followed her- thick and boisterous. He mopped a creased brow with an old handkerchief and ran his hands through his already unkept steely grey hair, but he laughed with heart and smiled with his eyes. “Too bad Marshal skipped out on you so quick,” he said. “We sure could’ve used his back today.”
Monica’s chest seized. She hadn’t even heard from Marshal. She wouldn’t dare call him, not after the way she’d hurt him; but she’d sent him a text. Just one. “I’m sorry.”
He hadn’t answered her.
Beau’s smile fell and his thick hand fell heavy on Monica’s shoulder. “Aw, I’m sorry, dove. I didn’t realize . . .”
Monica stiffened her spine and smoothed her expression. “No need for apologies. And thank you for all your help today.”
Beau shrugged. “Seemed the least I could do, seeing as you gave up that pretty little farm on my advice.”
“It was Marshal’s farm,” she corrected. “It was just our home. We can live anywhere.” The bravado in her voice was a lie. She already missed the slope of rolling hills, the call of the horses, the low of distant cows, the racket of Luke’s chickens. Everything had been sold off or hauled off.
Now she had a yard. Yards could be good: less mowing, fewer chores.
The dog skulked from the kitchen and up the stairs, its whip-like tail tucked between its legs. Monica’s eyes followed the old hound. He looked lost.
“Well, I guess I’ll just see about helping with those last boxes,” Beau said and backed away. He hefted a sigh that sounded suspiciously sad before turning away.
Monica couldn’t take the pity. This was her choice. Sure, it smarted a bit but change was always hard. “So you’re really going to shack up with him?” she asked her mother.
Nancy laid a hand on Monica’s arm. “I know it must seem fast to you, but I’m old. I don’t have time for all these games you young people play.”
“Games?” Monica repeated, her voice incredulous.
“I love you, I love you not. I love you enough to do this but I can’t love you enough to do that.” She lifted her chin fractionally, but the defiant set of her jaw wasn’t unfamiliar to Monica. “I love Beau. He loves me. The rest is . . . an adventure. We’ll just have to figure it out as we go.”
“You love him? Like you loved dad?”
“No baby. I won’t love anybody like I loved your father.”
Turning away from her mother, Monica blinked, trying to keep the tears at bay. Her throat felt thick and she swallowed. Still she couldn’t trust her voice.
“Honey, it won’t ever be like that again. Not ever,” Nancy said from somewhere close behind her. Hands fell onto her shoulders, squeezing as if they could wring out Monica’s sadness. “But that doesn’t mean that this love is in any way less than the love I shared with your father. It’s just . . . different.”
“Different,” she said. Marshal had been . . . different. Jason loved her with things: dinners and theater tickets and gifts. He loved their children with the farm, with pets, with toys.
Marshal was entirely different. It was quiet conversations. It was time. And, at the end, it was his touch- soft, lingering touch. He was endlessly touching her and, she had to admit, she liked it. Jason had never touched her that way . . . like it was a natural extension of their conversation, like he wasn’t right with the world unless one hand was somewhere on her.
She squeezed her eyes tight and gruffly ordered herself to stop thinking of him.
“Have you heard anything I just said to you?”
Monica sighed and turned to face Nancy. “Sorry, mom. Thinking.”
“I said, ‘You aren’t really going to let Marshal get away from you, are you?’”
Monica pulled from a strength she didn’t know she had, right in the core of her soul. “He’s already gone, mom.”
“And you’re just going to let him go?”
Monica’s heart twisted. “What would you have me do? Chase after him?”
“Yep.”
All her bravado melted. “Mom, I can’t do that. My life is here.”
“Your life is exactly where you make it,” she argued. “For instance, my life is going to be in Florida. With Beau.” She shifted a little when Monica stared. “Don’t look at me like that. Oh,” she complained and wrung her hands. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
Monica hastily fixed her expression. “No, mom. Of course I understand,” she said. “I mean, at first, yeah, I kinda resented Beau. I didn’t want to admit anyone could take dad’s place.”
“He didn’t . . .”
“I know, mom,” she said. “And I want you to know that I’m happy for you. I think he’s been good for you. Maybe, one day, I’ll find someone, too.”
“Oh, baby, but you have.”
This was too hard. It was still too soon, the hurt too fresh. Marshal had never made any promises to stay. Monica had never made any promises to follow him. Still, the separation hurt. After all, she’d only known one love and that man had promised to stay. Monica simply didn’t know how to love temporarily.
“Monica, darling, why are you doing this?” Nancy asked. “Why are you letting something as insignificant as geography come between you two?”
“It’s not,” she said, her tone turning sharp. “We’re friends . . .”
“Mom,” Luke called from upstairs. The distress in his voice jerked both women away from the conversation and had them mounting the stairs faster than their weary legs should allow. They found him at the threshold of his new bedroom. “It just doesn’t feel like my room,” he said.
It’d once been Roxie’s but, repainted and crammed with his stuff, there was no indication it once belonged to his aunt. Monica opened her arms to showcase everyone’s hard work. His bed was set up and his television was on; his dresser was in a corner and his desk was piled with books. The room wasn’t complete, but it had everything his previous room once held. “Marshal and I painted it the color you chose,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound quite so desperate.
He skulked to the window and leaned against its frame, staring into the green backyard. “It’s just not the same.”
Of course not, Monica thought. It’s not our farm. But, aloud, she kept her voice chipper. “This is going to be great. Living in a real neighborhood, you’ll get to see your friends more. It’ll start to feel like home in no time.”
The old hound dog walked in the room, turned a circle and lay down; only to shift and rise again. It left the room soundlessly.
“See? Even the dog doesn’t like it here.”
Monica sighed. “He misses Marshal.”
“So do I.”
Ashley leaned in the doorway. “Hey, mom? Can I stay at Taylor’s house tonight?”
Monica turned, surprised. “Taylor’s house? You don’t want to spend your first night in . . .”
“Come on, Mom,” Ashley whined. “I’ve slept in that bedroom since I was a baby. It’s not like this is a new house or anything.”
Luke grimaced and fell onto his bed. “Yeah, well, that was when it was grandma’s house. It’s different now.” He frowned acutely. “Now we can’t go home.”
Disappointment stabbed at Monica. She couldn’t make this better. Her son’s bitter grief, her daughter’s . . . what was it? Did she truly not care or did she pretend so that maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad?
“I’ll call Taylor’s mom,” she said. “If she says its okay, then I’ll just see you at church tomorrow.”
The kids blinked at her. “Uhm, mom? Today is Sunday. We’ve been moving all weekend.”
“Right,” she said and rubbed a track on her forehead. “In that case, no. Tomorrow’s school.”
“Can’t we stay just one more night at the farm?” Luke begged.
“Your bed is here.”
“But I don’t want to stay here.”
From behind them, a sharp clap interrupted their strained conversation. Roxie bustled in. In hoop earrings and tight jeans, she dared to make moving fashionable. “Come on, kids,” she said with a toss of her overly blonde ponytail. “I want you at my place tonight.”
“Fine by me,” Luke said and snatched a handheld game.
“Sure, okay,” Ashley agreed.
Neither sounded thrilled.
The trio of women followed the kids a bit more slowly, each heavy in their own thoughts. No one but the friends that called their good-byes dared to break the sad silence. Small talk simply took too much effort. They stopped by the back door.
Roxie’s hand landed on Monica’s shoulder. “Give ‘em a little time to get used to it. They’ll come around.” And then they were gone- all of them, leaving the house empty and echoing.
This was the right choice, Monica reminded herself, managing to keep a relatively firm tone. Four generations, living within spitting distance; there if we need each other. Nobody has this anymore. It’s so precious. I have to keep us together. But, from the kitchen door, the dog whined a plaintive sound.
The irony of her isolation wasn’t exactly lost on her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
On his kitchen table, Marshal’s book of crossword puzzles lay open, with its cover folded under the bulk of the book. Over half the answers had already been scrawled into the boxes with a slanted, distinctly feminine scrawl. In ink. The rest were penciled in with his angular print.
He hadn’t touched the book in weeks. He’d worked crossword puzzles for too many years to give up the habit but it did something dang unpleasant to his chest to pick it up. So it sat, mocking him, daring him to call the woman that had laughed over so many of these puzzles with him.
He pushed away from the table and gathered his empty cereal bowl and coffee. Seemed a bit useless to brew an entire pot for just him, for just this one cup- so he’d taken to instant. It was gritty. He grimaced at the last swig and stared into the dregs, hating them.
Should’ve beens stirred his sleepy brain. Or maybe they were shouldn’t’ve beens. He shouldn’t have bought this house. It was hollow. It echoed, waiting for the family he’d meant to fill it. He shouldn’t have taken this job. He was well and far away from everything and everyone he loved. But, more than any other: he shouldn’t have taken Monica to bed. He crossed a line and ruined a friendship.
He could handle all the rest, if only he held that friendship.
His phone glared at him from the counter. All he had to do was call . . .
He stalked away from the cheeky piece of machinery.
One month and one week after his move, Marshal was still using boxes as tables. They were piled everywhere, the house hardly more than a warehouse. He ignored the mess and pulled on his coat, popping the collar to shield his neck from the increasingly colder climate. He jammed the wool Stetson onto his head and pulled the brim low. The sun rose hours ago and it was still below freezing outside- darn cold for just November.
The phone rang as he was reaching for his keys.
“Blu’s dead.”
There was a strangled sob with the boy’s announcement but nothing more. Marshal fell to lean against the kitchen counter and ran calloused fingers through his already ruffled hair.
“I’m sorry, boy.”
Luke’s breathing hitched on the other end. He struggled mightily against the tears, but he was losing. “Weren’t my dog anyhow. He followed you around . . .”
“He was yours. He slept on your bed.”
“Nuh-uh, not since we left the farm. He found an old flannel of yours and curled up with it by the back door, like he was just waiting on you.” The boy’s accent got thick in his grief. He sucked in a shuddering breath before quietly wailing, “He died waiting for you.”
The accusation in his voice stung Marshal. “He was an old dog.”
“He was a good dog and you left him. You left us.” The boy had the presence not to raise his voice but Marshal heard it like it was screamed. “I couldn’t even dig a grave.”
There was so little Marshal could do. The boy needed a firm hand on his shoulder. He needed someone to tell him that this is the way things go. Death is a part of life. Except the boy knew all about this circle of life and death- it just didn’t ease the sting any.
“No one expects you to tunnel through Kentucky limestone. A grown man can hurt himself just trying to set fence posts.”
“Mom took him. Loaded him into the car and took him to the vet, like they can do anything for him now. The vet. How stupid is that? But that’s what she done. The dog needs a grave, Marshal. Needs a place to rest, just like my daddy. Needs a stone or something, so we’ll remember him. Fifteen years that dog’s been tailing us. Momma said he was fifteen. Said that he was old and that’s the way things like this go. That we should be happy he died easy-like. But she took him to the vet.” His voice broke. “That dog . . . now I ain’t got nothing from that farm.”
Marshal held his tongue. Telling the boy that there would be other dogs would be tantamount to treason. There would be no other dogs like Blu, his father’s hound. There would be no farm like the little place on Stoner Creek. Life was irrevocably different and there wasn’t anything that could ease the sting of that.
“Everything’s wrong,” he continues. “Ashley keeps breaking curfew. All she and Mom can do is scream at each other. Roxie’s in the hospital. She got beat bad by her boyfriend. And Grandma’s leaving.”
“Marshal, I’m trying,” he promised, his voice husky through the phone’s earpiece. “I’m trying to be the man my mamma needs . . . but I can’t even dig a grave for my dog.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After the phone call, Luke called real regular. It kinda helped. It kinda didn’t. His sons were grown, capable. They didn’t need him anymore. But, reconnected to one of the people he cared about, Marshal found the days easier to bear. He never knew when Luke would call or what he would take to spouting about.
He was angry that his Aunt Roxie had been hurt and felt powerless to keep her safe.
“Do you realize that they don’t even put a cast onto a broken rib? Aunt Rox said that it hurts like the dickens. She can’t even lie down to go to sleep and she’s always having to breath into this . . . thing . . . to make sure she’s getting enough air.”
He read more than an eleven year boy ought to know about broken ribs and deep tissue bruising and shared it all with Marshal.
“Son, I believe you’re going to be a doctor,” Marshal announced after one particularly lengthy recounting of bruising, why it happens and how long it can take to heal.
“You think so? I always thought I’d join the army or something.”
“Well, the army needs doctors, too.”
He worried about his sister and practiced his fledgling wisdom on Marshal’s ears. “She keeps saying that she’s sixteen, like that’s some magical number or something,” Luke whined. “I mean, I know mom has been . . . difficult lately but curfew? Grades? That hasn’t changed. And this time, mom ripped the radio right out of her car for it.”
“Who are you talking to?” Ashley demanded, her voice faint and distant.
“Marshal.”
“Give me that,” she said to Luke; then, her voice clear and close, she said, “You’ve got to do something. Talk to her. Something. She’s out of control!”
Marshal cleared his throat a bit. “Your mother?”
“She won’t let me go anywhere! Do anything!” she wailed. “I’m sixteen years old! My friends are . . .”
“It don’t matter a dime what your friends are doing. This is about you.”
Ashley growled a sound that was almost tearful. “I knew you’d be on her side.”
In his chair, Marshal leaned forward as if he could persuade Ashley just by the tilt of his body. “Now you listen to me, pop star,” he said, softening the firm tone with her nickname. “There is absolutely no one on this Earth more on your side than your mother. Do you understand me? The rules and expectations she lays out for you are like guardrails, meant to keep you from harm.”
“So you don’t think I should date?”
“If I were there, I’d greet them at the door with my rifle.”
A soft, almost silent laugh answered him. “And I suppose you think I ought to be bringing in straight A’s.”
“You’re a smart kid. Your grade card should show it.”
Ashley snorted. “What about curfew?”
“Nothing but the MegaMart is open after nine. You give me a good reason why you should be out after that.”
Ashley huffed. “You’re worse than Mom! She at least gives me until ten!” Marshal could almost hear her pouting on the other end before she added, “She won’t let me go to the party at Denny’s place.”
“And what are they doing at that party?”
Ashley made a few choking starts to her sentence before she managed to say, “I wouldn’t do all that! I just want to go hang out with my friends!”
Marshal shook his head, even if Ashley couldn’t see it. “You be careful who you claim as friends, pop star. Good ones will rub off on you and take you places. The wrong ones will bring all kinds of trouble, whether you join in their foolishness or not.” He took in a slow breath and let it out. “I know you want to buck but your mom loves you, girl. Give her a few more years, good years, before you’re off and gone.”
For a long minute Ashley was silent on the other end of that phone. He half expected her to say that he wasn’t her dad and to take a flying leap for trying to be. Instead, she said, “We sure miss you, Mr. Marshal.”
The sadness in her voice pierced him and he lowered the lids over his eyes. “I miss you too, pop star.”
More than any of the others, though, Luke worried for his mom. It was the subtext of nearly every conversation, until one day . . .
“Mr. Marshal, don’t you like my mamma no more?”
Caught in the middle of slicing a tomato- one from the grocery store and probably about as tasteless as cardboard- he’d slipped. The knife’s edge hit the board with a thump. “Course I do, boy. She’s a real good friend.”
“Then why don’t you talk to her? Like you talk to me?” he asked.
Marshal wasn’t able to answer. His pride had gotten itself bruised up in that brawl. He just wasn’t up to hearing that she didn’t want him again . . . no matter how much he missed her.
“How’s your ma doing?”
“She cries when she thinks we’re not looking.”
The news hit him cold. Sure, he’d caught that things were rough- moving from the farm and everything- but . . . tears?
“You saved me from tears, Marshal,” she’d said, clasping that old pearl against her heart.
Then the question, the one he’d promised himself that he’d never ask, rushed right out of his mouth. “She seeing anyone?”
God help him, she wasn’t. All that talk of opening her eyes, of finding someone new- it’d been just talk and bluff. He’d forced himself away from her all this time and for what? Best he could figure, it was just misery for the sake of misery.
He found the pearl crammed in the back of a drawer and started scheming. There was so much to do and he couldn’t do it from here. Some things just needed to be said face-to-face.
So when Kody called and tried to make conversation, he was distracted. When asked if he’d come home for Thanksgiving or maybe Christmas, Marshal had dismissed him. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but he had a lot on his mind.
In hindsight, he realized that maybe he should’ve paid a bit more attention, maybe even told his son all that he was planning; because Kody misunderstood. And Kody decided that enough was enough. It was time for an intervention.