Dooley Is Dead Page 6

  Her strong pony legs pumped hard to keep up as they walked through the yard to the cleaning table.

  “But the fish has been swimming in the lake. Isn’t he clean already?” the child persisted.

  Matthew sighed. The three-pound bass swung dead on the chain between them. He hated this part. In fact, when he’d taken Lissa out on the promised fishing expedition, he’d hoped they’d catch nothing. He despised killing fish. Enjoyed eating them, though.

  “Look, Lissa. Cleaning means I have to cut the fish up. I have to peel off its skin and slice it open. It’s not pretty.”

  Matthew felt her big blue eyes questioning him as she chewed her lower lip. Point was, Lissa was a city girl from Las Vegas. Unlike Matthew’s daughter, Ginny, Lissa wasn’t accustomed to the raw, blood n’ guts of country life.

  “But the fish is dead, right?” she said.

  “Yep.”

  “Then he won’t care if you cut him up, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then why can’t I watch? Maybe I can help?”

  Like mother, like daughter. Matthew was squeamish about dissecting any of God’s creatures, but as a child, Ginny had been fascinated by the process. She was the kind of kid who loved eviscerating frogs for her science projects and had eventually taken over the family fish cleaning responsibilities. Thankfully, Ginny had never gotten into guns or hunting.

  “Okay, you can watch.” Matthew conceded. “But if you don’t like it, you can leave.”

  “Cool.”

  So they stood side by side at the rustic wooden table as the sun slid closer to the lake, staining the water on the far shore golden. Matthew sliced and diced, despising every moment, while Lissa watched spellbound. She was especially enchanted by the cutting off of the head and tail. She poked at the glassy eyes with a stick while Matthew worried.

  He worried about Ginny, who had been strange and withdrawn ever since she returned without Lissa’s birthday cake. Ginny had refused to come fishing with them, and while he and Lissa were out in the boat, Ginny had restlessly paced the dock. She kept fiddling with her cell phone, attempting to call God only knew who.

  While he and Lissa had drowned worms, Ginny did a series of vigorous laps from dock to dock, but the exercise did not calm her incessant pacing, her obsessive phone calling. She tossed tennis balls for Ursie, but remained utterly unable to relax. Her perpetual, nervous energy reminded Matthew of Ginny’s behavior during her difficult teenage years, and he hoped his daughter’s current problems were not quite so profound.

  Finally, when he and Lissa had arrived triumphant at the dock with their prize-wining catch, Ginny barely acknowledged their arrival. She waved them away and made another phone call.

  What kind of mother ignored her child’s first fish? Forgot her child’s birthday cake? As Matthew pondered these unanswerable questions, Ursie nosed up to the cleaning table and sniffed the fish offal. The dog backed away, a look of disgust on her long black face.

  “How come Ursie won’t eat it?” Lissa asked.

  “Maybe she’ll like the fish better once I roll it in my famous pepper batter and fry it up on the griddle?”

  “Yum, that sounds good. My mama can’t cook.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Can you cook, Grandpa?”

  “You betcha.” He winked, then rolled the bass fillets into one of the sheets of aluminum foil he kept in the tackle box. He shoveled the fish guts into a plastic bag for the garbage, then turned the hose on the table and washed it down.

  “Now what, Grandpa?”

  “Now you take that shower.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Well, I’ll take a shower, too. We don’t want to smell like stinky old fish, do we?”

  Lissa wrinkled her nose and shook her head. She folded her little hand into his as they moved towards the house, Ursie trotting behind. The child’s fingers fluttered like butterfly wings inside his big paw, triggering powerful memories. Once Ginny had held his hand like that. Her small bare feet had padded in his footsteps as they trudged through the same grass, avoided stepping on bees hiding in the clover, back when Daddy could make everything right and keep everyone safe. In those days, Matthew’s wife, Lynn, would be waiting in the kitchen to pan fry their fish. But then the cancer stole it all away, proving Daddy could not protect anything at all.

  Matthew and Lissa paused at the dock, where Ginny was still pacing with the cell phone glued to her right hand.

  “Hey, Ginny,” Matthew hollered. “You best get ready for dinner now.”

  “Yeah, hurry up, Mama. Grandpa’s cooking our fish.”

  For one brief moment, Matthew’s eyes locked with his daughter’s, and time warped them both backwards through the years. Les temps perdues---times lost. He sensed a softening in Ginny’s wary glance and wondered if she remembered any sweetness from her childhood. Or had the betrayal of her mother’s death dissolved any residual tenderness? Those days were like a fragile effervescence that had washed ashore across harsh sands, then got sucked back out to a sea of bitter brine, all iridescence forgotten.

  Lord, Matthew, get a grip. He squeezed Lissa’s hand. Lissa was not Ginny. This child was nothing like the sullen young woman who lifted her hand to shade her face from the sun, and Matthew saw the softness in Ginny’s eyes harden.

  “Y’all eat without me. I’m not hungry,” Ginny yelled.

  “C’mon, Mama, it’ll taste awesome!”

  “Lissa’s right,” Matthew shouted. “I’m fixin’ your homecoming dinner, so take one last swim and get your stubborn butt on up here!”

  “Up yours, old man!” With that, Ginny Troutman carefully placed her phone on a deck chair, stuck out her tongue, held her nose, and jumped in the lake.

  Lissa giggled nervously.

  “Don’t worry, Grandpa. Mama will come.”

  “I reckon so.”

  * * *

  The odd sensation of déjà vu followed Matthew into the guest room where Ginny and Lissa were staying. As he rummaged through the child’s suitcase, helping her choose a new outfit to wear once she was clean---bright red shorts and a blue polka dot blouse, panties with tiny green turtles printed on the cotton---he remembered similar fashion statements from Ginny’s childhood. He brushed the sand off Lissa’s feet, gave her a fresh washcloth, new bar of soap, big fluffy towel, and got her started in the shower.

  Eventually he moved into the master suite, stripped off his filthy clothes, and buried them in the hamper. He laid out clean khakis and a soft blue shirt on the king-sized bed, where he should be sleeping with Diana, and his heart ached with regret. At the same time, Matthew vowed to put the past behind and concentrate on the future.

  After all, Diana was not Lynn. She was nothing like his lost wife. Where Lynn had been soft and compliant, Diana was spunky and independent. Less sugar, more spice. And Matthew loved them both.

  He stepped into the pulsing shower and willed the hot water to wash away the pastel years. It seemed he always thought of Lynn in pale, muted tones---the gentle rose, fern green, and violet hues of a tinted sepia photograph. While Diana was vivid color and sharp definition, less comfort, more challenge.

  Diana was the passionate surprise of Matthew’s middle age, and he never saw her coming. She was the clear, cold north to his clouded, sultry south. Sun to his moon. And in the years he had courted her, Diana had proved to be a skittish, proud, untamable filly. So that now, just when they were both ready to share the same corral---Diana would never wear a bridle and bit---Matthew’s past had intervened and sent her galloping back to her own pasture.

  He laughed out loud at the silly metaphor. One thing Matthew knew about himself---he was a sentimental romantic, prone to overblown rhetoric, at least in the secret passages of his mind. Diana was the sensible one, the down-to-earth realist, and more than once she had brought him back to terra firma with a huge thud. He fully expected her to do so today, to arrive with the birthday cake she’d promised to buy and help put his
world back in perspective. He needed Diana. Needed her badly.

  Because yesterday when his past intervened, it had not come clad in benign watercolor hues, but rather clothed in the violent darks of a hurricane. And while Matthew could not begin to fathom the trouble Ginny brought with her, he sensed the winds of change were powerful enough to blow his life apart.

  TEN

  The shopping cure…

  Diana eased her white Crown Victoria, nicknamed Queen Vic, into a parking place outside the Super Target on River Highway. The shopping center was still crowded late Saturday afternoon, but in general, the flow of consumers was homeward bound to cookouts, twilight boat rides, or whatever other activities normal people enjoyed during a glorious weekend at the lake.

  She took a long gulp of the Starbucks coffee she’d picked up at the corner and hoped the caffeine would jolt her system, override the sluggish effects from all that wine she’d drunk with Liz. On the other hand, how much more jumpy did she want to be? Ever since the panicky phone call from Matthew, her nerves had been on high alert. How could Ginny have forgotten to buy her daughter a birthday cake? Hadn’t the cake purchase, along with the delivery of the wedding gift, been the whole purpose of their outing together that morning? What kind of bubble-headed mom would screw up her daughter’s birthday?

  Or maybe Ginny’s bubble-headedness was the natural result of many recent conflicts? First Ginny had encountered Diana, a strange woman she’d never met, about to move in with her dad. Diana had first-hand experience with that strong, possessive bond that sometimes developed between daughters and their daddies. In the aftermath of Diana’s contentious divorce, her own daughter, Mandy, had sided with Robert, Diana’s abusive ex, and no reasonable argument or emotional appeal could convince Mandy to see Diana’s point of view.

  Ginny had been a vulnerable sixteen-year-old when she lost her mom, so the girl might have seen Matthew’s anguish and felt a maternal, or even wifely need to protect and comfort him. So maybe the horrible argument between Ginny and Diana was rooted in jealousy. God knew their contentious parting had left Diana badly shaken, so she was dreading her imminent reunion with Ginny.

  She took another swallow of coffee and a deep breath. Yet according to Matthew, Ginny had been a rebellious, bitter child after her mother’s death. She hadn’t loved him too much. Instead, she hated him enough to run away six years ago and never look back. She broke his heart and left him drowning in guilt. Matthew blamed himself for wallowing in an all-consuming grief that caused him to close Ginny out and drive her away.

  Bullshit. Diana finished the last drop of coffee, crumpled the paper cup, and jammed it into the car’s side pocket. She hated psychobabble and second-guessing. All day she’d been trying to excuse Ginny’s rude behavior---first to Liz, now to herself. Fact was, Diana didn’t have one clue what made Ginny tick.

  Most likely there was a simple explanation. Maybe the girl was exhausted after her long trip from Nevada? Maybe she was frustrated because she’d been unable to deliver Lori’s gift? Or maybe she was just plain pissed because her ex- boyfriend was marrying someone else?

  Diana did not know the answers, but she did care. Because Ginny’s unexpected arrival affected Diana’s future, too. Suddenly Ginny was the monkey wrench in Diana’s works. How long would she stay? Where was Diana expected to spend the night? Was she destined to bounce back and forth between Matthew’s house on the lake and her condo in Davidson forever? She was now only three miles from Matthew’s, and with each passing mile, her emotions got stretched thinner, like a rubber band at the breaking point.

  She left Queen Vic’s air-conditioned interior and stepped out onto the steaming blacktop, telling herself she should be thankful for this shopping center, so convenient in an emergency. Only two years ago it had been a pristine pine forest, and while her inner conservationist hated the development, her outer pragmatist gave silent thanks. She yanked a shopping cart from its cage and wheeled it into the store.

  Okay, first stop the bakery. Diana had been agonizing during the drive about what kind of cake to buy a child she barely knew. In the end, she took what was available---chocolate with strawberry icing---and asked the woman behind the counter to write “Happy Birthday, Melissa” on top. As an afterthought, she ordered a musical theme to be added to the cake, including a little candy guitar.

  “Can you get it ready while I shop?” Diana asked.

  “No problem, ma’am.”

  As she moved away from the bakery, Diana feared the worst. If Ginny forgot Lissa’s cake, had she also forgotten to buy the girl some presents? Certainly Matthew had not had the opportunity to get his granddaughter a gift, and Diana wanted to give Lissa a little something, so she decided to visit the toy department.

  “So what do you choose for a six-year-old girl?” she asked the white-haired woman stocking shelves with plush stuffed animals.

  “That depends…what does she like?”

  Diana drew a blank. “I have no idea.”

  “Is she a little princess, or a tomboy?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  Diana realized she was pathetically ill equipped to make a decision. She had been out of the loop so long, she didn’t know what modern kids preferred. The elderly clerk did her best. She showed Diana boxes of plastic fairy dolls and a brightly colored polyethylene shell called a bilibo that Lissa could sit on, rock in, or use for a doll cradle, but Diana couldn’t relate.

  She turned to the saleswoman. “I’ve decided to choose something on my own. Something old-fashioned, you know?”

  “Suit yourself, Miss, but is this child your granddaughter?”

  Diana was taken aback. “Not yet…”

  The old gal gave her a knowing look. “I see. Well, I hope you don’t buy the wrong gift.”

  “I think I’ll manage.” But inwardly Diana was clueless.

  She dug deep and came up with the classic options---rainy day toys/sunny day toys. Any kid needed both. Matthew was a closeted watercolor landscape painter, and his work was quite good. He kept this talent under wraps, but Diana figured some children’s art supplies were in order. She chose plain pads and coloring books, crayons, poster paints, and a variety of brushes. Now on those drizzly lake days, Grandpa could entertain Lissa in his studio.

  Diana wanted to give the girl a sunny day gift, so she selected a colorful inner tube float, a nest of sand baskets and digging tools, and a straw hat decorated with a band of sunflowers. Perfect.

  But was it too much? By the time she retrieved the cake, took out her credit card, and the checkout boy totaled it all up, Diana wondered: Am I trying to buy this family with gifts? Nonsense. She added six birthday balloons and some candles before calling it quits.

  By the time she loaded her purchases into her trunk, except for the cake, which she carefully placed on the front seat, Diana’s nerves were no longer stretched like a rubber band. The shimmering heat had retreated, making it much easier to breathe. And the parking lot was nearly empty, meaning the traffic had cleared, making the final voyage to Matthew’s a five-minute straight shot.

  She could do this. Like her mama Vivian always said when tempers flared and life seemed too difficult: “Take the shopping cure, darlin’, and you’ll feel just fine.”

  So Diana twisted the ignition and actually smiled as she drove west into the setting sun.

  ELEVEN

  No secrets ’round here…

  Diana’s mood plummeted when she pulled into Matthew’s driveway and saw his face framed in the kitchen window. He was standing at the sink watching for her, and even at that distance, with the dramatic sunset burning behind the house, she saw the uncharacteristic slump of his powerful shoulders.

  She braced herself as the screen door slammed and Matthew, followed by Ursie, burst from the house and loped towards her car. Before she could exit, he opened her door.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you, Diana.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He helped her out, gathered
her into his arms, and suddenly he was kissing her. She felt the smooth, cool skin of his freshly shaved cheeks and his warm, welcoming lips. He smelled of aftershave and soap and was wearing her favorite blue shirt, so soft in her arms. She wished the embrace would never end, but too soon he eased away and searched her eyes.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” he said.

  “Yeah, I missed you, too, but what’s happening?”

  Matthew shifted foot to foot. “I’m not sure, but Ginny’s acting strange. She’s moody and withdrawn, but she won’t talk about it.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve tried to include her, but she wouldn’t even come fishing with us. She’s not herself.”

  “Look, Matthew, she’s been gone six years. Do you even know who she is anymore?”

  He paused, glanced at the sun as it dropped below the horizon and out of sight. “Maybe I don’t know her at all.” He walked around the hood of the car and spotted the special package on the front seat. “Good, I see you got the cake.”

  “Yes, but is the coast clear to take it inside now? I don’t want the birthday girl to see all her stuff before tomorrow.”

  “What stuff? Is there more?”

  Diana blushed as she led him around to the trunk. She opened it and captured the strings to the six balloons before they escaped. “Maybe I got carried away?”

  Matthew laughed and began rummaging through the shopping bags. When he discovered the art supplies, his dark eyes betrayed his emotions. “Good choice, Diana, how can I ever thank you?”

  She reached up with her free hand and pulled his head down to deliver a deep, probing kiss all her own. He tasted both salty and sweet, so she figured he’d been cooking up something special in the kitchen, and all her anxieties began slipping away until Matthew abruptly disengaged, leaving her breathless.

  “What?” she gasped. At the same time, she felt something tugging at the knee of her slacks. She glanced down, expecting to find Ursie, but instead discovered Lissa standing there. The child was grinning so wide Diana found herself staring at the endearing gap between her two front teeth.