Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [80]
Lola glanced at him like she hadn’t even noticed he was still there.
—Here’s the final word, Lola said. I can’t help you out. Sounds like you’re maybe exaggerating some. I heard he got off. Sometimes, juries get it right. And that doesn’t mean I’m not sad about Lily. But when I left, I left. I’m not looking back. And I’m not looking for a family. I’ll fix you some ham sandwiches and let you talk about the good old days if you care to. And then pretty soon, it will be time for all of you to get in the car and head out home.
Luce said, Hell, we can eat a hamburger on the road without having to listen to another word of your shit.
—Well, Stubblefield said, I guess that about says it. Dolores and Frank, go give your granny a big goodbye hug.
The children didn’t attend to the suggestion in any way other than to flick each other a glance.
Lola took a final lungful of her Kool and flipped the sparking butt at Stubblefield and went into the house. The butt bounced off Stubblefield’s chest, and the screen door bounced off Lola’s still-fetching ass before clapping shut.
And yet, before they could load up and drive away, Lola stuck her head out the screen door and shouted, I never loved a damn one of you.
ON THE WAY BACK NORTH, Stubblefield took A1A, to let Luce and the kids see the ocean. He hadn’t slept but a few snatches in days, and he was all drained of adrenaline and had switched to take-out coffee. His vision and hearing and thoughts seemed kind of gritty.
Somewhere after St. Augustine, he pulled Luce across the seat to him and said, That was all my mistake. I thought it would be a safe place. It’s not how I expected it to go.
—It’s what I ought to have expected. But I let myself start hoping. That was the mistake.
Stubblefield drove awhile, Atlantic on the right and palmetto scrub on the left, and tried to line his thoughts up. He said, There’s a kind of person that wants you to carry their trouble. If they can, they heap it every bit on you and walk away without a guilty look back. And if they can’t do that, they lighten their own load by handing off a piece of woe to anybody who’ll take it. You two girls didn’t have a choice but to take what your mother dished out. All the rest were fools that let themselves get altered in their thinking by the prettiness of her.
—She is, isn’t she?
—You had to get it somewhere.
They crossed the St. Johns on the ferry and went up Little Talbot and then across the inlet to Amelia, flying fish leaping almost as high into the air as the car windows as they drove over the low wood bridge.
Stubblefield checked his wallet and did some figuring. They could stay awhile at his old beach town with the fort and the lighthouse and the shrimp boats. It wouldn’t be quite like the dream date on the Gulf he had imagined. No beer-joint oysters or beach-music jukebox dancing or night swimming. No being young and free. Mostly being scared and not knowing what to do about it.
But, through a stretch of beautiful autumn weather, they rested and walked on the beach. The children ran up and down and threw shells at each other and waded in the cool water until they flopped in the sand exhausted and happy. For brief moments, they let Luce wrap them in towels and sneak in a hug before they squirmed away.
One afternoon, near sunset, Stubblefield built a small driftwood fire, which delighted the children. They sat calmly, watching the flames. In a while, Dolores got up and collected dead dune grass from the beach and came to Stubblefield, sitting at the fire with Luce. Dolores bundled four long stalks in her hand, and lightly whacked him on each shoulder. Very ceremonial, like a knighting. Then she threw them in the fire and backed away, her dark eyes looking just over his shoulder. She stopped and stood, waiting for something to happen next.
Stubblefield went to the tide line and collected ribbons of seaweed and twisted and plaited them, using old Boy Scout rope-making skills. He knotted the ends to form a small circle and set it on Dolores’s head. She immediately shook it off,