Chapter Thirty Three - Louis Berry's Novel - Erstwhile

Chapter Thirty-Three

The porch of their home was awash with the sounds of waves crashing onto the shore and of seagulls squawking. Susan was inside and Richard sat on the lanai in a bamboo chair; his legs resting on a matching ottoman. The cushions of both were adorned with large, colorful flowers. The elements had taken their toll on the fabric, but the chair fit Richard’s frame perfectly and was comfortable.
He sat with one of his many Hemingway novels resting in his lap. It had been several minutes since he had turned a page. Too many thoughts occupied his mind to allow him to concentrate on the story. The gun that was once loaded and aimed at his head was un-loaded and buried under six feet of sand near the wave-break. Richard knew that in no time the sand and salt water would render it useless and it would never harm anyone.
It was late in the afternoon. He had gotten home early that morning, before Susan arose and quickly bur-ied the gun. The peace that he finally felt allowed him to sleep soundly throughout the day. The winds whipped around the gulf waters, driving the surf onto the shore. He occasionally looked up from his book and watched the seagulls as they congregated on the sand and the pelicans as they plunged into the surf looking for an evening meal. He was so engrossed in it all that he did not hear his wife ask a question.
“Would you like to go for a walk on the beach?” Susan asked.
Only after a couple of seconds had passed did he realize his wife’s voice was present in the back-ground of his mind. He turned his head to see her standing in the doorway between the house and the porch. She closed the French door behind her as she moved into the room.
“Would you like to go for a walk on the beach?” she repeated, but with the same enthusiastic inflection in her tone as if she asked for the first time.
“Sure.” He stood, placing the book on the chair behind him.
The couple made their way to the door that opened onto the beach. Richard opened it for his wife. She walked through, down four wooden steps and onto the sandy dunes behind their house. He followed.
The sand was thick and soft and with every step it poured into their shoes. They made their way down the calf-path worn through the sea oats and over the dunes. The delicate oats swayed tumultuously in the stiff afternoon breeze. Susan led the way. Richard, at-tempting to be a gentleman, deferred to his lady.
When they reached the water’s edge they both removed their shoes, dumping the sand that had collected in them back onto the beach. They then turned and walked parallel to the breaking waves. The pile of rubble that was once the paper mill could be seen, on a point, in the distance. Giant barges were anchored at the old mill dock waiting to haul away the remnants of what was once a proud structure.
Several sandpipers foraged for food in the moist sand of the wave-break. Richard watched as they plunged their long, narrow beaks into the sand. More times than not the birds would immediately repeat the task, having come up empty.
The couple strolled casually, silently down the beach as the surf washed over their bare feet, and then ebbed back into the gulf. Both carried their shoes in their outside hand.
Susan had allowed circumstances to influence her into becoming someone that she was not happy with, as had Richard. Although it was apparent in her mind that there was something happening between her husband and Talitha, the only thing she was sure of was that she was guilty of infidelity. She had no idea how to tell him, but knew that she had to be honest, or the secret may destroy her, slowly eroding the fabric of her being from the depths of her soul. How to approach a conversation like that was not easy. So, she took what she felt was a reticent, benign leap into the conversation that needed to happen. “I’ve been thinking about every-thing that has happened since we’ve been here.”
“And?” Richard’s response was direct. Knowing what he knew, he also wished to leap headlong into the conversation.
“Ever since we arrived in town I’ve felt like we were cast as outsiders. It’s almost as if these people are struggling against convention to maintain an outdated way of life.” She chickened out, not facing her issues but deflecting them onto the people of Erstwhile.
“You know, you could be right. I hadn’t thought about that,” Richard said, acquiescing to his wife. He was equally afraid to address the real issues that had haunted their marriage since their honeymoon. After all, he had been unfaithful to the one woman who made his life make sense.
She was too nervous to think about the depths to which their relationship had sunk. Until their move she had never felt more loved by anyone. It was her fault that Ralph was allowed to intrude into their relationship and left the door open for others. Susan could only find the strength to steer the conversation where it needed to go by pushing a direct question onto her husband. “What have you been thinking about?”
“My past. Who I am and the kind of man I want to be,” he blurted out without hesitation.
That was not the answer she expected, but Susan knew that as much time as he had spent thinking during their time in town, and as logical as his mind was, he had a very good reason for replying the way he did. “Can you help the girl,” she said, “understand why you are thinking about your past?”
Richard struggled desperately to organize his thoughts so that he could effectively communicate, but the forefront of his mind was filled with so many things, realizations about his life experiences and the challenges he had faced. Regardless of the outcome of their relationship each one would continue to face ob-stacles for the rest of their lives. He rubbed his twitch-ing eye vigorously trying to get it to stop. “It would be very easy for me to focus your attention onto factors other than the truth. The genesis of everything that has gone on since we came to town goes back decades.” Richard searched his mind for the best manner in which to continue. “Have you ever had a conversation where you felt like you spoke very profoundly, but the people you were talking to didn’t hear what you said?” Susan nodded and allowed him to continue. “When Jeff Cun-ningham wrecked his car into the telephone pole on Maine Street I had a conversation with Clyde Wilson about how Jeff didn’t let this town down, he let himself down. I don’t think I realized until early this morning that I was just as guilty as Clyde. Up until that point I blamed you for causing me to question our relation-ship.”
Susan was stunned. She still had no idea what she could have done to cause her husband to withdraw from her and carry on a torrid affair with a local. He looked at his wife, hoping for a glimmer of understand-ing in her eyes. It just wasn’t that easy. The couple walked silently as he searched his mind for what to say next. He felt as though he knew what needed to be said, but he knew there was a big difference between knowing and effectively communicating.
They walked as crabs began to emerge from their holes in the sand to search for food. The cool breeze off the gulf blowing against the side of their fac-es and the sun’s warmth on their backs offered a re-freshing contrast.
Susan knew that she needed to allow Richard to think about what he was going to say, but she asked the question. “Tell me about your past and the kind of man you want to be.”
“I’m trying to find the right way to say what it is that I have to say,” he confessed.
“Perfectionist.” Her accusation was tinged in jest.
Richard smiled. “If I were such a damned perfectionist would we need to have this conversation?” His mood turned somber as he continued. “You and I have had many discussions about our pasts. There is no need to re-hash it all. What I did not realize until this morning is that every challenge I’ve ever faced still defines me to a great extent.”
Susan listened as he paused. When he said nothing, she replied, “I think we both may have come to the same realization.”
Richard watched the sandpipers as they ran away from breaking waves, and when the waves receded, the birds would run back toward the waterline and nervously plunge their beaks into the sand. He leaned over and picked up a shell, stood and threw it as far as he could into the gulf. He watched and waited until it splashed into the water. Then he stepped on a ledge of sand created by the high tide from the night before. The sand was soft and collapsed when he placed his weight on it. He stumbled, but did not fall, then continued to walk, thinking about how to say what it was he had to say, buying time with his purposeful stunt. Still not feeling comfortable with what he had to say, Richard picked up another shell and heaved it into the gulf.
Susan jogged a couple steps ahead, turned back and looked into his eyes. “Please. I can see that there is something else bothering you. Tell me what it is.”
Richard reached toward her with his left hand and she reached with her right. They clasped hands by interlocking fingers. Richard thought to himself how nicely their hands fit together; how natural the gesture felt. It had been a long time since they had walked anywhere hand-in-hand.
They continued in silence, each concerned with how they would overcome their indiscretions and move forward; together or separately. They walked past a beautiful young, tan girl walking in the opposite direction. She wore an orange bikini that contrasted nicely with her dark skin. Her figure was one to die for and one that he found pleasing to watch. Her breasts were sufficiently large to strain the strings that held her bikini top. They bounced with every stride and shimmied with each step. Richard resisted the urge to turn and take a final look as she passed.
Moments later they came upon a small yet wide stream of water flowing from under a bridge at the highway into the gulf. Susan looked up stream, toward the highway, and allowed her eyes to follow the brown water down and into the gulf. She could not help but wonder to herself if the decades of mill operations was still having an effect on the quality of the water. Her eyes came to rest at the surf line where the merging of the two discolored the natural blue-green gulf.
Richard asked, “Do you think we can make it across without getting our feet wet?”
“I’m sure we can.”
With that they retreated two steps. Still hand-in-hand they took a running start and leaped across the dingy stream. Richard’s left heel barely touched the water. Susan’s entire left foot plunged into it; up to her calf. “Gross!” she exclaimed.
Richard laughed. She let go of his hand and walked briskly to the water’s edge and did a quick dance in the surf, washing the gunk from her feet. She looked at him. “Whew! That was a close call. I may have disintegrated before your very eyes if I hadn’t washed that crud off my feet.”
Richard did not respond. He merely smiled and held out his hand so that she could take it once again and continue their walk.
The silence lasted longer than it had before. Both of them were remembering things about their past that they had tucked away long ago; incidents that went a long way to shaping who they were. Susan had something on her mind that she desperately wanted to share with her husband, but she knew he had a lot to bring into the open, so she remained silent, allowing him all the time he needed to think, and to speak.
Richard stopped and played around with some shells on the ground with his feet. He then bent over and picked up a couple for no other reason than to pass time. Susan dropped her hand away from his and walked ahead of him. After a handful of steps she stopped and looked back. He needed the distance, however small, to act as a buffer between them and the truth that scared him. He looked at his beautiful wife and smiled. They came together, held hands again, and walked silently allowing the millions of thoughts racing through their minds to subside.
The couple released their clasped hands and Susan exclaimed. “My God! Do you realize how far we have walked?”
Richard stopped and took note of their surroundings. They appeared strange to him. He had never seen the beach from this vantage point. Then he noticed a restaurant on the highway where he and Susan once dined. Pointing to the restaurant, he said, “That restaurant has to be five miles from the house.” Looking back down the beach toward their house he proclaimed, “It’ll be dark before we get back home.”
“Then we’d better start walking now,” she said.
Susan changed direction and began to walk, quickly. Her husband followed. Richard knew they needed to resolve all of their issues before they got home. He wanted their home to be the sanctuary that his wife described when they first met; everything that was not completely about them had to be left on the beach.
A lump formed in his throat to the point that he was unable to swallow. Only once had he ever admitted to a woman that he had been unfaithful, and that ended badly. If he could turn back the clock and spare her feelings he would, gladly accepting whatever other fate was deemed necessary. This relationship would succeed or fail on its own merit. “During our marriage we’ve talked a lot about the challenges that each of us have faced,” he reiterated. “Not until recently did I realize that my way of dealing with adversity was to accept defeat and move on. I faced a great conflict knowing that I had no desire to move past my relationship with you.” That was the closest he would get to telling Susan about his near suicide.
Her thoughts moved away from her own infidelity as she began to picture her husband with Talitha. It angered her, yet again.
He continued. “When I drove to the store the first day we were open, I found a letter that you had written to Ralph in the glove-compartment of your car.”
Suddenly, Susan’s anger turned to disbelief. “I had forgotten all about that.” She closed her eyes and shook her head as she spoke. “I never intended to mail it. I wrote it for the therapeutic value it possessed.”
“When I found it, I understood that there was no way that I could ever be the love of your life.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She acknowledged her understanding with a nod.
“Then I found a picture of you and another man on the nightstand in our guest bedroom. It became apparent to me that you keep all of your old relationships close to your heart. When we met I knew that we were meant to be together forever. I knew that somehow our souls were connected and for the first time in my life I was sure that there would be an eternity, and that I would spend it with you. When I lost that, I had no desire to be around you.”
“Who were you with?”
“No one. I spent most of my days and a few evenings trying to drown the pain associated with the realization that I will never be important to anyone. The irony is that you were the only woman that I ever want-ed to need me. When I lost you, I almost lost it all.”
“Do you mean to tell me the nights you spent away you were at the store?” Susan’s heart sank. She felt even more horribly, knowing what she had done.
Richard was afraid that if he did not continue, he’d never be able to confess. “Out of nowhere you seemed to develop this in-your-face attitude. You be-came a woman that I didn’t know. That only exacerbated my fear about our future together.”
“Richard, I … ”
“I need to keep going, or I may not be able to do this.” He paused, briefly. “When I thought I had lost you, I did what I would have always done, in the past. I ran away from you so there would be no way to be hurt by you.”
“And?”
“And I found comfort in the arms of another woman.”
Susan vigorously nodded her head. She quickly forgave her own infidelity, as anger beamed from her eyes and her pursed lips. “It’s that Talitha, right?”
“No,” Richard said.
But she was sure of it! Why would he lie now, after confessing an extra-martial affair? To protect Talitha, that’s why, she thought.
“I met a woman at the bar at Buster’s. We hit it off and ended up making love on the beach.”
“Making love? So it’s love? What’s her name?”
“Love? No love. I don’t even remember her name,” he said. “I just thought that characterization was better than saying we fucked on the beach, which was all it was.”
“You don’t even know her name! That’s rich.” Susan was clearly hurt by his admission.
Richard paused. He wanted her to calm down a bit before he finished. “Susan, given everything that has gone on between us, I know that our love can be unconditional and eternal, and can be that one true love forever.”
Susan did not respond. Her only reaction was to increase the distance between the two as they walked down the beach toward home. They took parallel paths home, but did not speak another word to each other that night. The addiction, which gripped her, instilled an inflated sense of self, and objectivity was its casualty. It was up to Richard to break its hold on his wife and show her the path that would lead her away from her physical dependencies.