Second Chances (8 page)

“Where is Blythe's dad?” I asked her, but she needed little prompting, launching into the story with a sense of unburdening herself.

“We met in high school, but we didn't date until a few years later. We were together for about a year, while I worked at the bowling alley and he was in the National Guard. We never got married, but after I got pregnant I thought we finally would. I found out at Halloween. I remember calling Mom to tell her and she was making pumpkin pie. God, she was so mad at me. I figured Blythe would be so excited…” Her voice trailed off, her slim shoulders sagging a little. I knew exactly how she felt. That was just what I'd thought when I'd gotten pregnant the first time. I wanted to touch her hand but held back, instead lacing my fingers together and listening as she continued. “But he wasn't thrilled. He left for a while, right after I told him, and then I was almost eight months along by the time I saw him again. It was in the spring, and he seemed to have made up his mind that we'd make a go of it, and so we moved in together into this place. That was April, 1980. Junior was born a couple weeks later, on May 10th. We named him after his dad, but Blythe always called him ‘Junior,' and so does everyone else around here. Blythe tried at first, I think, but it was hard on him. He was working nights then, and he couldn't sleep with a baby crying all day…”

“I'm sorry,” I said softly, and I was. I knew. I knew exactly.

“Do you wanna see a few pictures?” she asked, as though reading my earlier thought, and I nodded eagerly.

Minutes later she had produced a couple of albums, and I opened the first to see Christy as a much younger version of herself, grinning and cradling a newborn. My heart lurched; that was my Blythe, of course, and the next snapshot was of Christy and the man who was obviously Blythe, Senior. He was tall, towering over Christy as they stood together in the sun over 20 years ago, and good looking, but in a scruffy, disreputable sort of early-‘80s way, with thick sideburns, a goatee, bushy dark hair and mirrored aviator sunglasses. He was smiling with a lot of teeth, and I found myself struggling to find a glimpse of my Blythe in him. Even if I hadn't heard the story Christy had just told, I'd have guessed he was an asshole. I turned the page and there he was again, no shades this time, and I could see Blythe a little in his features, though his eyes were dark and he was less handsome than his son. Christy looked over my shoulder as I flipped the pages, gesturing with her glass as she made observations.

“Junior's dad left us before he even went to kindergarten. Mom and Rich wanted me to move to Minnesota so Mom could help take care of him, but I never could get enough courage to leave our hometown. I figured I didn't know anybody up there, and what would I do, live with Mom and Rich? But sometimes I wish I would have gone.”

My heart melted to see Blythe as a little boy, adorable and chubby-cheeked, obviously well loved by his mother, despite their clear poverty and the lack of a dad. I allowed myself to acknowledge that he looked exactly as I'd pictured our imaginary little boy. Christy recounted making him Halloween costumes, and going to Christmas concerts, and visiting Landon in the summer of 1985, the last time she'd been north. My heart stuttered again, imagining that…that was the same summer I had married Jackson. God, that was weird as hell. I would have been 17, just graduated from high school, embarking on a hopeful new life; Jackson and I would have left Landon for Chicago just as Christy and Blythe arrived for their summer visit that year.

I sipped my drink and closed my eyes for a moment, again feeling the sense of disorientation. When I opened them, Christy was again studying me openly. No time like the present. I grabbed the bull by the horns and said with sincerity, “I love Blythe. I love him with all my heart.”

Her gaze shifted away and she pressed her lips together and rubbed them in the fashion of someone who has just applied lipstick. My heart wrenched, waiting, but then she fixed her eyes again on mine, pretty blue-gray eyes so much like her son's, and said, “I know. He loves you too. I've never seen him this way.”

“You don't want to kill me?” I asked softly. “I have three daughters, you know, and if I thought for an instant—”

But she cut off that sentence by touching my left hand lightly with her fingertips. Simultaneously she said, “No, of course not. When Bly is serious about something, I know it. He's a good boy, and I get the sense that you're a good woman.”

“But?” I prompted hesitantly.

She sighed. “But you and I both know it's not as easy as that. And he might have to back to jail for a while. I don't know. Fuck, I hope not. He doesn't deserve it.”

“What happened last spring?” I asked, enormously relieved that she had accepted the news so graciously.

Her face twisted for a moment and then her gaze shifted up and to the left as she recalled past events. Finally she said, “I was dating a guy I met at work. Junior didn't like him, but I couldn't understand why until the night he slapped me for the first time. I didn't say anything because I knew Junior would be mad. Bly's always had a bad temper…that's what got him into jail in the first place, for taking Tony's car that day. Tony was his boss at the time, they worked construction together. Has he told you much about it?”

I nodded, though ‘some' would have been a more accurate answer.

“Well, it was all tangled up. Bly is not a criminal, and I'm not saying that because he's my son. He's just not one. Believe me, I've dated real criminals, so I know the difference.” She laughed briefly, then nodded at my glass and asked, “Do you need another?”

“Sure,” I told her, and she moved again around the kitchen, fixing us a second round. The digital clock on the microwave read 12:37, but I couldn't think about bed yet. And I still had to call Jilly tonight.

Christy resumed her story after a long sip. “Well, Bly was dating Tony's younger sister at that time, Julianne. She was a pretty girl, but I didn't like her. I couldn't explain it exactly, just a gut instinct.”

I'd heard about his ex-girlfriend Cindy, but this name was new, and there was a sudden part of me that didn't want her to keep going. But I kept my mouth shut.

“Tony and Bly weren't best friends, but they got along pretty well until this one time Tony accused Bly of taking his tools. Blythe didn't do it, and wouldn't have. It turned out to be a misunderstanding, and Tony did apologize, but there was a rift after that. A mistrust. Tony would come over for barbeque some nights that summer, when Bly would be here with Julianne, and they all seemed to get along, but I could tell it was different. And then, what do you know, Julianne got pregnant.”

I felt as though she'd slapped me. Or poured scalding water over my face. For a moment there was a roaring in my ears and then all I could hear was Blythe, back in the jail in Landon, saying, “But there are some things you don't know about me.”

“Oh shit, he hasn't told you that,” Christy was observing, pulling me back to the current moment. Her voice and face were both stricken. “Shit, I didn't mean to spring that on you. Shit.”

“He has a child?” I asked then, my voice faint.

Christy's face twisted again, but this time with something akin to pain. She said, “No, but it's because that woman, that Julianne, went and had an abortion. Didn't even tell Bly she was going to do it.”

I felt a fraction of breath return to my lungs. But then the weight of what she'd said pressed down on my heart. I reached and curled my right hand around her left, kitty-corner from me on the tabletop. I said, quietly, “I'm so sorry. What a horrible thing to do.”
Oh Blythe, Blythe.
I was aching with sympathy for him, but was human enough to also wonder why I hadn't heard this from him.

But he certainly must have his reasons. And I was flawed enough, in my own ways, to understand that.

“It was horrible, totally cruel. She drove herself into Oklahoma City and then called Bly to tell him the news. He went crazy. And Tony was freaking out because Julianne gave him this sob story that Blythe had made her get an abortion, which was the furthest thing from the truth. They were at a job site, for Christ's sake, and Tony told him he was fired and then punched him. They got into a fistfight and Blythe beat him pretty badly. And then took Tony's car to get to the city. But he didn't make it because Tony called the police and they got him first.”

A jagged lump had formed in my throat as I examined the pieces of this story that I had never known. It was far worse than Blythe had alluded in the past few months. Now I began to understand why he didn't want to talk about it, why his hometown could never be the same, as he'd told me that night we'd taken the canoes out for a midnight ride.

“Oh my God,” I finally said, low, my throat dry in a way that could not be eased by my drink. Not at the moment.

“He served three months of a nine-month sentence. And then was on parole for about a year. But nothing much happened until last spring when he came over here one night and Ron was drunk…shit, I was drunk too…and Ron had roughed me up, caught me by the hair. Bly saw the tail end and he just reacted. He grabbed the lid off the charcoal grill and slammed Ron across the face.” She covered her own face for a moment. From behind her palms she said, “It was horrible. But in his way, Bly was doing the right thing again, defending me.”

“He would,” I said, and it was true. He defended the people he loved. I wanted to run back out into the night and chase his truck, find him. My heart stung with the desperate need to find him.

“I managed to get Ron to drop any charges, the bastard,” Christy went on, her hands back on the tabletop. Her mascara was smudged and she suddenly looked more her age. “But now that doesn't seem to matter on top of the parole violation. This is my fault and I'm so sorry, Joelle. I want him to be happy more than anyone, I can tell you that with all my heart.”

I made a small sound, touched by her words. But at the moment I couldn't find my own; the question I was dying to ask was like a husk in my throat. At last I managed, “Where is…Julianne now?”

“California,” Christy said. “Her mother lives out there, somewhere. She's never been back, and I honestly don't know about Tony. I hope never to see that son of a bitch ever again. I'd take a frying pan to his head. The girl's too. Don't get me wrong, I believe a woman should have control of her body, but to go and do such a thing, when the father wanted the baby. Would have cared for it. Hell, I would have raised it if I'd realized she didn't want it.”

“Christy, I'm so sorry,” I said again, feeling grossly inadequate, at a total loss. “But thanks for telling me all of this.”

“Are you angry?” she asked then, softly. Her eyes were so very much like her son's.

“No, God no,” I told her, honestly. “I just wish he would have told me.”

“He will. It's just so hard for him, still hurts him. He blames himself.” She sighed then, deeply, before adding, “I need to hit the hay. Thanks for talking, Joelle. It makes me glad to see my boy so happy. He's never been in love before, I want you to know. But he's in love with you.”

My heart glowed at her words, forcing out some of the bleakness wedged there by her story. I said softly, “I love him too.”

She patted my hand and minutes later had shown me to my room…Blythe's old room, which would be mine for the night. I took a moment in the tiny bathroom between the two bedrooms, brushing my teeth and washing my face like usual, studying my eyes in the medicine cabinet mirror above the smooth round basin of the sink. The whole bathroom was tiled in a stone-washed blue, and all of the towels were rich cobalt, though frayed at the edges. Christy must be fond of the shade, as her living room furniture was likewise covered in navy-blue denim.

Oh God, Bly, my sweet, sweet man. Did you stand here that first night after you'd gotten home from jail and wonder what in the hell happened? And spent those terrible nights in a cell knowing your girlfriend had aborted your child without your consent. God, the baby wouldn't even be a baby by now, but instead close to two, tearing around, calling you ‘Daddy.' Oh Blythe…

How did one move beyond that? In a million years, I would never have guessed that he harbored such a memory.

Later I curled beneath the covers in Blythe's old bed. The room was small; I had a hard time imagining Bly sleeping in this space. I smiled slightly at the thought, bending my legs beneath the covers, gazing up at the ceiling light above the bed as Blythe had probably done a thousand times in this exact spot. There was a narrow, curtainless window that faced west; I could see the moon in its arch toward that horizon, and stacked my hands under my head to watch it, despite how tired I was after everything that had happened in the past 48 hours.

The next thing I knew it was
morning, and Blythe's voice was coming from the kitchen. I rolled to one elbow and knuckled my eyes. The room was dim in the early-morning light, but the uncovered window allowed me to see the pale sky with its promise of a sunny day. Bly was saying, “Don't make breakfast, Mom, we'll go out,” and Christy responded in a murmur too low for me to catch. A second later there was a tap on the bedroom door, and my heart turned a cartwheel; before I could speak Christy said, this time audibly, “Junior, don't you dare, Joelle is sound asleep. She and I sat up talking until the coyotes came out.”

He laughed, just outside the door, and as much as I longed to call out to him, push back the covers and pull him into bed, I knew in a million years I couldn't do that. At least not at the moment. Then Rich's voice joined the group, and I knew I better get my ass up and moving. I found my brush by leaning over and rooting through my bag, then grabbed my robe from the floor, snaking my arms into it before daring to emerge further, mostly because the window was uncovered. There was a small mirror on the wall above a chest of drawers, and I brushed through my hair; it was the consistency of cornsilk here in the dry air of Oklahoma, nothing like the humidity of the lake country back home. I debated wearing my robe to the bathroom, but felt too exposed, and in the end dressed in my clothes from last night, minus underwear, toting my overnight bag as I left the bedroom. I would shower and then put on something clean.

Everyone was in the kitchen, talking, and I felt absurdly shy for a moment as three heads turned towards me. Blythe grinned and came over at once, and my shyness dissipated instantly into gladness as he caught me in a quick, hard hug and whispered, “Morning, baby,” against my left temple.

“Morning,” I returned sleepily, as he drew back and used both hands to smooth my hair. I looked hard into his eyes, the memory of my conversation with Christy foremost in my thoughts, but I had to wait for him to tell me on his own. Or at least refrain from mentioning anything until we could be alone. I resisted the urge to pull his head to me and cradle him.

“You sleep okay?” he asked, his eyes all over me since his hands could not be at the moment. From the kitchen, Christy said, her voice full of teasing, “Bly, let her have some space. Jeez, son.”

He was dressed in a jeans and a faded red t-shirt that advertised what was undoubtedly a local restaurant, a place called Brandt's Behemoth Burgers, hair tied back in its usual fashion. He looked incredible. He said, “According to Gramps, this has to go today,” motioning to his ponytail.

“What? Why?” I asked.

From behind Blythe, Rich responded, “He needs to look more clean-cut. Joan suggested it when we talked this morning.” Leave it to my mother to horn her way into something over a thousand miles from her current location. I reached, again a little shy with both Rich and Christy looking on, and gathered Bly's long dark-blond hair into my right hand, twisting my fingers around a strand.

“You won't mind?” he asked, the right side of his lips tipping into a half-apologetic grin.

“No…well, maybe a little,” I amended. “I do love your hair.”

“Bly, it's a good idea,” Rich said. “And it'll grow back.”

Bly winked at me and planted a quick kiss flush on my lips. “Hurry and get ready, and we'll go get breakfast.”

Thirty minutes later we were seated at a diner in downtown Brandt; it was just like Landon was for me, as in everyone who tinkled the bell coming into the place knew Christy and Blythe and stopped to make small talk. Rich was across from me and while Bly and Christy were chatting with an elderly woman, I leaned forward, my menu bent at a 45 degree angle against the table.

“What else has Mom said?” I asked him, and the skin around Rich's kind brown eyes crinkled into a web of wrinkles as he smiled at me, knowing exactly what I meant.

“Honey, she's just worried for you. And your sister is angry that you haven't talked to her yet, just the girls. But you'll hear about that soon enough,” and he winked at me before lowering his gaze to regard his own menu. “I'm missing Shore Leave and Ellen's breakfast right about now.”

I felt a flash of homesickness as he spoke, but at that moment Bly rubbed his hand along my spine, gently and almost absently as he continued his conversation with Christy and the grandmotherly woman who stood by our table. His hand was warm, and comforting, and I realized in the same instant that my idea of home had been altered. My daughters would always be mine, but they were growing up and would make their way into the world before I knew it. Here with Blythe was my home, so to speak, and I tipped my head against his shoulder for the length of two heartbeats.

Rich drove
Christy home after breakfast, while I remained with Blythe downtown. First on our agenda was his haircut, which Christy arranged over the phone.

“I used to work with her at Bob's,” Christy told Bly while we were still eating breakfast. “You remember Maggie, right?”

Bly nodded, his mouth full of toast.

“She'll do a good job,” Christy reassured.

Twenty minutes later Bly was seated in a swivel chair in the small, sunny salon. An old Faith Hill song played on a small radio at the front desk, propped beside a tall, clear-glass vase jammed with sunflowers. I stopped to admire them before settling onto a faded-yellow wing chair in the waiting area.

“You want it all gone?” Maggie was asking, her tone incredulous as she held up Blythe's ponytail with one hand, a pair of skinny, hot-pink scissors poised in the other.

Blythe, his long legs crossed at the ankle, arms braced on the edges of the chair, winced slightly. But he affirmed, gamely enough, “All of it, Maggie. Military short.”

The vinyl wrap that covered him from neck to hips crackled as he shifted again, angling a glance my way and shaking his head. The expression in his eyes was one of defeat. I blew him a kiss.

“But Junior, you have such great hair,” Maggie lamented, flipping his long ponytail this way and that. Her own hair was wispy and feathered, highlighted with alternating tones of red from ruby to rust. She caught me in her gaze and added, “Don't you think it's a shame to chop it all off?”

“I do love his hair,” I told her, and Blythe grinned at me, his slow, steamy grin that made my knees weak. If I hadn't been sitting, I would have faltered a little. I smiled back at him, primly, and added, “Can I touch it one more time?”

I was half-kidding, but Maggie stepped back and spread her hands wide. I crossed the room and joined her behind Blythe's chair, turning him to face the mirror before I slipped the band from his hair and used both hands to gently comb it loose. He did have gorgeous, thick hair and I wanted to bury my face in it once more. But I didn't dare with an audience. I looked up to meet his gaze in the mirror and arranged his hair over his shoulders.

“Shit, Maggie, you have to cut it before I lose my nerve,” he said then, catching my right palm and kissing it quickly.

“All right, but for the record, I'm against this,” she insisted, scraping together the hair I'd just loosed and gathering it back into a bundle. She offered me the scissors. “You want to do it?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I'll just watch.”

“Wait, I'll surprise you,” Blythe said then. “No peeking.”

I agreed and headed outside to window shop. The day was hot, angling towards scorching, and I was glad I'd chosen a sundress and sandals. There was a breeze, but it kicked up dust and did little to contribute to cooler air. I rummaged in my purse for my sunglasses and then proceeded down the sidewalk. There was a drugstore a few doors down from the salon and I entered under the tingling bell. The floor was checkered in black and white, like an old-time diner, and two teenage girls who reminded me a little of Tish and Camille were working behind a long counter, complete with an ice-cream case. I couldn't resist and went to check out the flavors; one of the girls said, “We've got fresh strawberry today,” and her accent (talk about adorable) and the heat of the day sold me.

“I'll take a sugar cone, please,” I told her, and ambled around the store as I ate it; I was admiring a display of baby gifts when a hand slipped over my belly and I squeaked a little, even knowing it was Bly.

I turned in his arms and drew in a sharp breath.

“Oh my,” was all I could manage to say.

“You like it?” he asked, both hands around my waist now, and I nodded. Holy hell, I liked it.

His cheekbones were thrown into prominence, the angles of his face in relief without his long hair. What was left was about two inches long, and Maggie had arranged it with stylish indifference in mind. His hair looked darker without all of the sun-bleached length. Sunlight streaming in through the wide front windows caught him from behind, further dazzling my eyes. I swore his eyelashes were long enough to cast shadows over his face. His blue-gray eyes crinkled merrily at the corners as he grinned and said, “Your cheeks are on fire, baby.”

“And my ice cream is melting,” I said, my breath a little short.

“Here, let me,” he said helpfully, plucking the cone from my hand and twirling it around on his tongue.

“Now you're just being cruel,” I said, pretending to be irritated, and he grinned even more, his eyes truly devilish.

“Come on, I'll take you on a tour of my hometown,” he invited.

“Have a good day!” one of the girls behind the counter called as we headed back outside.

“Oh, we will,” Bly murmured just for my ears, still licking at the strawberry ice cream. He caught my hand in his as we walked, asking, “So, it looks all right?”

“Are you just fishing for a compliment?” I teased him, swinging our joined hands.

He angled me a teasing look, crunching on the cone now.

“You are gorgeous,” I said then. “But not just on the outside.” For the first time since this morning I truly allowed myself to think about everything Christy had told me last night.
Blythe, sweetheart, tell me yourself. Trust me enough to tell me
.

“Aw, baby,” he said then, finishing the last of the cone in one bite. He stopped and turned to me, hugging me hard to his chest for a moment, there on the sidewalk of his hometown, the sun beating down on us.

“You are, you know,” I told him, and he smoothed hair back from my forehead, inadvertently displacing my sunglasses.

“Sorry,” he murmured, settling them back over my eyes and then punctuating the word with a soft kiss.

He drove me around for the rest of the afternoon, pointing out everything that I requested, from his high school to the place where he'd had his first job (the local grocery store, a place called County Beef).

“They sell everything, not just meat,” he'd explained, and I punched his arm.

“I tried wrangling one summer,” he said, after we'd ordered fries from a drive-through window.

“As in horse wrangling?” I asked. I'd kicked off my shoes and was sitting with my feet propped on the dashboard, the greasy container of fries we were sharing balanced on my knees. Both of us were doing everything to keep the shadow of Bly's appearance before a judge from our thoughts.

“Yeah, there's lots of beef ranchers in this area, and I worked at one of the local places before senior year. It was tough work. I'd never really been on a horse, but I thought it couldn't be that hard. Boy, was I wrong. Mom had a regular who helped me get the job. It was his brother's place and they needed extra hands.”

“Did you wear a cowboy hat?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.

“Why yes, I did,” he said, and I didn't have to look his way to know he was smiling.

“Do you still have it?” I asked next.

“What are you saying?” he teased.

“I've never worked anywhere but Shore Leave,” I said then.

“What about when you lived in Chicago?”

“My only job there was raising the girls. I probably should have found a job after Ruthann was in school. Even just for the sake of seeing other adults, making friends. To this day my best friend is still Jillian.”

Bly shrugged. “That's cool. I think you're lucky if you have one best friend, instead of a hundred acquaintances that don't actually give a shit about you. Besides, I'd say she feels the same about you. Before you got to Landon last May, she talked about you all the time.”

I smiled, missing her; how in the hell had I managed to live apart from my family for over a decade and a half?

“And I asked her questions about you all the time, just to hear more about you. God, I was already fascinated by you, even when I hadn't met you.”

“You were, really?” I asked. “I mean, you've said that before. I can tell you I was fascinated the moment I met you. But then again, I hadn't heard about you until the minute we arrived.”

He caught my knee in one hand and squeezed, and I snatched it away before he could start tickling me again. “Don't you dare! I'll choke,” I warned, holding up a french fry to illustrate my point.

“I just want to touch you,” he said, coaxing me with his tone, easing his palm over my leg again. I allowed it this time. He smoothed his fingers over my skin, gently. “When you came into the café that first night it was like you'd taken all the air out of the room.”

I admitted, “I felt exactly the same. You know it. But I didn't dare acknowledge it. I thought about you every second and I felt guilty as hell.”

“Every second?” he teased. I peeked over at him to see his lips curve into a self-satisfied grin. “I thought so, even if you totally ignored me all the time. But I sensed how you felt. You watched me when you thought I couldn't tell.”

I squeaked in indignation, even knowing what he said was true. I admitted, “I did. I couldn't stop myself, and it was like being tortured.”