Stones in the Road (33 page)

“So you’d cut your nose off to spite your face?”

“And a whole lot more.”

“You Southerners are so passionate!” she exclaimed. “I find it refreshing. They would adore you in Boston, Wiley. Those old ladies with their hankies—they’d eat you up! We’d throw you the biggest wedding Boston has seen in many a day, I can assure you. You’ll find that we can be very passionate too, in our own way. Whom should we hire to sing at your wedding?”

“Sorry?”

“Come on now. If you could pick one celebrity to sing at your wedding, who would it be?”

“You can’t do that.”

“Sure we can. Frank Sinatra sang at our wedding. You remember, dear? My father hired him. Oh, I loved that man! So tell me, Wiley. Who would it be?”

“You can just hire whomever you want?”

“That is how it works, darling. Throw around enough money and they’ll all come running. They’re a bunch of whores, you know. They’d eat your toenail clippings if you paid them enough. That is, after all, what they do. Jackson says you like that old time country music. We could hire Reba McEntire. What do you think of that? I’ve heard she’s rather good.”

“Reba? Really?”

“Of course, darling. You pay for her plane ticket. First class, of course. Pay for her hotel. First class, of course, and there had better be a whole hell of a lot more waiting for her on arrival at the hotel than a fruit basket, I can tell you that. Send the limo, write a check, and then you own her for the next two hours and she’ll do whatever you want.”

I had the feeling that Mrs. L was pulling my finger, but I played along. “Well, how about Lee Greenwood. He could sing
I.O.U
.”

“See? How hard was that?”

“I’m not sure he’d want to sing at a gay wedding. Some of those guys are so straight they must have two-by-fours shoved up their asses.”

“And where would you go for a honeymoon?”

“Dollywood,” I said straight off.

“Dollywood? What on earth is that?”

“That’s Dolly Parton’s theme park. It’s up in Tennessee”

“Dolly Parton has a theme park? Stephen, are you listening to this?”

“We love Dolly down here, so don’t you say anything evil about her,” I warned.

“Isn’t she the one with the huge breasts?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked. “By now, she’s probably bent double like a little old dwarf with her giant breasts dragging on the ground as she waddles around on the stage.
I Will Always Love You!
I’m surprised she didn’t have those things chopped off ages ago. You could paint stripes on them and you’d have a parking lot.”

“You are so mean!” I exclaimed, and I meant it. She was also a lot like Papaw….

“And that’s why everyone loves to sit next to me. I’m sure Dolly is a very nice person. Why don’t we have Dolly sing at our little wedding?”

“She was in
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
,” Mr. Ledbetter pointed out. “Now
that
was a great movie.”

“I’m not sure you’d know a good movie if it won an Academy Award, darling, but that’s another story. So why don’t we have Dolly sing at our wedding? What do you think, Wiley?”

“There isn’t going to be a wedding, Mrs. L,” I said frankly.

“Don’t be a poopy pants. Reminds me of what they say about politicians and babies’ diapers—they should both be changed, and often, and for the very same reason.”

“Honestly,” I said. “There’s not going to be a wedding.”

“Of course there is.”

“You’re pretty confident for someone who doesn’t really know me.”

“I know your type, darling. You’re a fighter, not a quitter.”

“Too bad your son wasn’t a quitter.”

“He will be. You just need to push him over the edge. Give him something to quit for. Something tells me you’re good at pushing people over the edge.”

“He hurt me,” I said, surprised at how hurt I felt just mentioning it. “He
really
hurt me.”

“So punish him a little. Hurt him back a little.”

“I thought I was,” I pointed out.

“Good for you. But don’t close the door.”

“You really are a meddlesome old woman, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Of course, and you wouldn’t want me any other way.”

For a while, we watched the boys play. Noah was so incredibly happy, scampering around, and oblivious to everyone but his papa and his cousin.

They were good together, Noah and his papa. Jackson gave him things I couldn’t, one of those things being a childlike heart. Jackson was one of those guys who could get down on the carpet and see things at their level. He never tired of playing cards or Xbox or Monopoly. In some ways, he was like a child himself.

“My son is the fighter in the family,” I said at last. “Not me.”

“He got it from you,” Mrs. Ledbetter said.

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t doubt that at all. He’s really a rather remarkable child.”

“I thought you said he was retarded.”

“Did I say something offensive? I can’t imagine!”

“You’re retarded,” I said.

She laughed and sucked on her vape pen.

J
ACKSON
WALKED
us to the car. He held Noah’s hand. Noah beamed with furious happiness. His smile said we were all together again, and he hoped it would stay that way.

Say good-bye
, I said when we reached the car.

Noah lowered his eyes and stopped smiling.

Jackson glanced at me and also lowered his eyes.

“Well, this is awkward,” I said.

“Thank you for letting me see him,” Jackson said rather stiffly.

“No problem,” I said.

“I miss you, Wiley.”

I pretended I didn’t hear that.

“Really,” he said, lifting his eyes and staring at me. “I miss you.”

“I know,” I said. “But I’m mad at you.”

“I know.”

“I mean, I’m really mad at you.”

“I know you are, and you have every—”

“I’m so mad at you that I can’t forgive you—and I don’t think I ever will. Had it been anything else, we wouldn’t have this problem, but you had to pick the one thing you know I absolutely cannot stand—and then you had to do it in front of my child.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he said.

“Then what was it like?”

“He was supposed to be sleeping! I wouldn’t have done something like that if I knew he was watching!”

“You shouldn’t have done something like that at all!”

“I fucked up. Tell me what to do to make it right.”

“There’s nothing—”

“I’m going to a rehab program now, and I’ve talked to that woman at the DHS. I can do this, Wiley, if you’d give me a chance.”

“I already gave you a chance,” I pointed out. “And I made it very clear to you that I was not going to spend my life with a drug addict. If you love your drugs so much, fine! Go right ahead! Suck the whole goddamn world up your nose. I don’t care. But don’t expect me to stand by and watch you do it.”

“You don’t understand!”

“I’ll tell you what I don’t understand. You had the whole world thrown at your feet, but it wasn’t enough. You can go anywhere you want and do anything you want to do. You’ve never had to worry about where your next meal is going to come from, or how to pay bills, or how to afford another pair of hearing aids, or what to do if your car breaks down. You spent your childhood traipsing around the pyramids or skiing in Vail or wearing a frikkin’ tiara. But it’s not good enough, is it? No, you’re not happy! Got to have some happy pills because you’re not happy! You’ve made it pretty clear now that Noah and I are not enough for you. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but it ain’t us.”

“But it
is
you,” he said miserably.

“If it was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Please listen—”

“My daddy was like you. Had all kinds of time to go out and get stone cold drunk and carry on and stumble around like a goddamn fool, but he was too busy to take me and Billy fishing or to go to our ballgames or to give a shit whether we lived or died. You think I want to marry someone who’s going to do the same to me and my son?”

“It’s not going to be—”

“It’s going to be just like that,” I shot back. “After what Noah’s mother did, you think I want a repeat performance?

“I fucked up, Wiley. Please! It’s not like you’ve never fucked up, is it?”

“Not like this,” I replied.

“So Noah is deaf because… you didn’t fuck up?”

I fell silent.

“Am I so different, Wiley? You screwed up. But you fixed your problem. You made it right. Why can’t you let me make this right? Why can’t you see that people change?”

I said nothing, absently fingering my engagement ring, which suddenly felt very heavy and awkward.

“Kayla getting pregnant was a real wake-up call for you. Maybe this is my wake-up call, Wiley. And you know what? I’m glad you caught me. I’ve been fighting with this thing for so long, and maybe this is what I need to make me see what I’m doing and to find a way to stop it. There’s something wrong inside of me, Wiley. I know that! I’m not perfect like you—”

“I’m not perfect.”

“I’m not as strong as you are. Something inside of me is broken. And maybe you’re right—maybe my life has been too easy. In fact, you
are
right. I’ve never had to fight for anything in my life. But I’m going to fight for you and Noah. I’m going to make this right—you’re going to see. I’m going to prove it to you.”

“You’re not listening,” I said, removing my engagement ring and holding it out to him. “This is over, Jack. This is finished. Nothing you say or do will ever fix this.”

“Wiley, please!”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be mean, but there are some mistakes you just can’t make right. Please, take it.”

“No!”

“Take it,” I said forcefully. “I don’t want it.”

“Wiley, don’t!”

“Daddy?” Noah said, worry in his voice.

“Don’t do this, Wiley!” Jackson muttered.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” I said. “I really do, Jack.”

“But I already have,” he said, tears in his eyes.

At this point, Mr. and Mrs. Ledbetter strolled over, looking rather concerned. I handed the ring to Mrs. Ledbetter, who frowned.

Can’t Papa come with us
? Noah asked, looking up at me with wretched pleading in his eyes.

I shook my head.

Please
? he begged.

Why don’t you and E-l-i- get in the car?

Why is Papa crying?

Please get in the car
.

“No!” he muttered unhappily. He turned to Jackson, wrapped his arms around him, and hugged him tightly.

“Wiley, what’s going on?” Mrs. Ledbetter asked.

“Y
OU
ARE
such
a tom-fool idiot, Wiley Cantrell!” Tonya exclaimed, taking another swig on her can of beer before issuing a heavy sigh. We were seated at her kitchen table, and it was close to midnight. There were seven empty beer cans sitting on the table between us. Noah was asleep on the couch.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” she asked. “Can you spell i-d-i-o-t? No? How about m-o-r-o-n? How about big gigantic huge tremendous asshole?”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Have I? You are one piece of work, Wiley. Tell me something. Why is everything about you? You, you, you! Oh, don’t you get tired of
you
? The man fucked up! Give him a break! But no, not you! That would be too easy. So it’s about how he makes you feel because he takes drugs, so his drugs must be more important to him than you are. Or whatever the hell it is you’re going on about. But is it really about you, Wiley? Is it so hard for you to understand that someone can love you, but they can also be really fucked up and have some really big ugly problems that have nothing to do with you? Look at those pasty white nightmare parents of his! Who wouldn’t be fucked up with a mother like that, and that cold pasty fish of a father talking about Obama being from Kenya and we ought to get those fatso kids off food stamps?”

She took another long sip of beer, belched, pretended she hadn’t.

“Maybe,” she went on rather expansively, because most of the empties sitting on the table between us had been put there by her, “maybe this drug thing is about his mother. Ever think of that? He’s never going to make that bitch happy, so why should he even bother. And maybe… just maybe, Wiley Cantrell!… maybe he’s found something in you to help him get over his damn fool self and straighten up and fly right. But no! You have to give him his ring back! If I’d been there, Wiley, I would have smacked your ass right into next week. I’d have said, you gon’ sit your ass down and we gon’ have a twenty-dollar holler and you gon’ listen and I gon’ tell you how it’s gon’ be.”

I put my head on the table, groaned.

“But I wasn’t there,” Tonya went on. “But I’m here now, ain’t I? And I ain’t gonna sugar mouth you, Wiley. You know what your problem is? Do you?”

I grunted.

“I realized this when I read your book,” she said. “Your problem is that you ain’t never forgiven yourself for what happened with Kayla. Taking meth. The birth defects. You’re still whining and carrying on about that, because you ain’t never forgiven yourself for doing that. Know what? Maybe you
are
the reason Noah had birth defects. Yeah! It might have been you, sucking on that crack pipe, getting some girl pregnant. You might have every reason in the world to blame your damn self. Why some gay man gonna be having sex with a girl, I’m sure I don’t know. And yeah! Maybe it
was
your fault. Maybe you’re exactly right. But like RuPaul be saying, If you can’t forgive yourself, how the hell are you ever gonna forgive somebody else?”

“I think it’s
if you can’t love yourself
—”

“Whatever!” Tonya retorted. “You’ve been doting on that boy since the day he was born, wrapped up in your guilt, trying to be the Superdad of the World, trying to make it up to him, hoping and praying he’ll forgive you for what you did and scared he won’t, scared he won’t love you when he finds out the truth about his big old meth head Superdad, scared he’s gonna hate your guts. So Mr. Jackson comes along and does himself some drugs, and you’re out of your mind, and you can’t forgive him. But who’s fooling who?”