Page 26 of Smoky Mountain Dreams
Name the time and place. I’ll be there.
Jesse typed in the name of the semi-swanky Mexicanrestaurant on the parkway. It would be swarming with tourists, but it had theadvantage of an open-air bar on the roof, made tolerable in the chilly autumnnights by the small gas firepit in the middle of every table. There was alsothe added bonus of the mechanical bull in the main restaurant downstairs. IfChristopher drank enough to be convinced to ride it, Jesse definitely wouldn’tmind watching him try. Seeing his hips buck and slide would be an excellentprelude to actually getting Christopher to ridehim,and if all went well, Jesse hoped that would be a likely outcome.
Great. 7 pm it is. See you tomorrow.
“I made a date with him. Happy?”
Amanda smiled like her face might break. “Yes!”
“Good, because you’ll have to watch the kids.”
An hour later, Amanda had left to “hamster,” and Jesseglanced at the clock. It was time.
As he drove toward Sevierville, his stomach knotted as italways did. He hated Thursdays. It got easier, but it was never easy. Still,nothing would ever stop him from going. “In sickness and in health, as long aswe both shall live,” he’d sworn, and despite how close he’d been to breakingthat vow before the accident, he wasn’t about to break it now.
The nursing home was his least favorite place on earth. Itwas full of bad memories and a never-ending sense of hopelessness—a place withantiseptic in the air, faded paintings of flowers on the walls, and rubbershoes squeaking on worn linoleum. But he went to check on Marcy’s care and dothe little things that Ronnie, living two hours away with her husband and kidsin Johnson City, had never done, like pick up her dirty laundry and drop offfresh, soft pajamas. In some ways these tasks were pointless, and in otherways—personal, intimate ways—so necessary.
As he passed the nurses’ station, he waved to Natalie andJason with the bunch of grocery store flowers he brought every time. He used tobring more expensive bouquets, but sometime over the last five years he’dadmitted that just bringing flowers at all was a concession to a fantasy thatfueled Ronnie’s fire. He’d stopped bringing the finest quality arrangementsbecause he understood Marcy couldn’t see them, or smell them, or even know theywere there.
But he refused to come empty handed, although Marcy was nolonger even at the party. She’d left the party years ago now, but she was stillhis wife.
“Hey there, Mar-mar,” he said, entering Marcy’s room andputting the flowers on the bedside table.
Curled on her side, she was awake—or at least her eyes wereopen. He sat in the chair next to the bed and found it warm. Someone had beenhere with her not too long before. Either Tim or Nova must have been visiting.God knew it hadn’t been Ronnie, since she only came to see her sister if shewas flanked by news cameras, and things between them hadn’t been that heatedsince the judge handed down his verdict.
Maybe it was one of the local church volunteers who read topatients. Marcy couldn’t hear them, though. Not even a little. Brain scans haddemonstrated that quite convincingly.
“The kids are doing great,” Jesse said, like he always did.He still talked to her like she could understand him even though Ronnie hadused that habit against him during their last court battle.
Remembering the way he’d seen the kids with fresh eyes a fewdays earlier, he elaborated, “Brigid’s going through an awkward stage, but Iknow she’s gonna come out of it prettier than ever.” He left off his worryabout Brigid’s solemnness and his inability to understand her. “And Will’sstill like a bolt of lightning. Happiest kid in the world. You’d love hissmile. I wish you’d gotten to see more of his smile before…before this.”
Marcy’s skin was white, almost translucent from lack of sunexposure, and her hair was a brittle, dull blond, nothing like the shiny halohe’d threaded through his fingers on their honeymoon, kissing the honey coloras it twined around his knuckles. She’d been pregnant with Brigid then, andravenous. She’d eaten so much on their first night in the honeymoon suite thathe’d joked that she was going to spend his entire fortune on room service ifshe wasn’t careful.
He swallowed thickly. He remembered so much when he was nearher, and he hated that it wasn’t out of shared joy, but because of howdifferent she was now. How broken and empty. No, he remembered it because ofhow different theybothwere. He lived in a world sovery far away from the life they’d planned together.
“So…I have a date.”
Marcy remained curled on her side, one hand gnarled up nextto her face, and another clenching rhythmically by her thigh—reflexes that usedto lead him to hope, but there was no getting past the last brain scan he’dconsented to look at. Her cerebral cortex had been nearly entirely replaced bycerebrospinal fluid now. Not that you could convince Ronnie or her pastor ofthat. Devil’s tricks, they said. Lies.
“Remember when you met me?” Jesse leaned forward, tuckingthe blanket around her body and running a hand over her forehead. There was noresponse to his touch. She didn’t moan or lean into his fingers, and her eyesremained vacant. “We both thought I was as gay as they come, and then…well, itturned out that maybe I was bisexual?” He wasn’t sure why he was thinking aboutall of this now, but the memories unspooled in his mind.
It’d been in Italy. He’d been fucking Edoardo for aboutthree weeks, and Marcy had recently given the boot to Brent. She was makingnoises about going back home, and Jesse had been desperate for her to stay.
“It wouldn’t be the same without you, Mar-mar,” he’d said,falling on his knees dramatically. “Please stay. Please.”
They’d been everywhere—and had done nearlyeverything—together since Tim brought Jesse home toshare amealthat first time. They’d only been separated when Marcy firststarted dating Brent. She’d refused to leave Gatlinburg without the dork. It’donly taken Jesse a week of traveling alone to send Brent a pre-paid card andsome airline tickets to surprise Marcy with the gift of joining Jesse inGreece. And from there they’d gone on and on together, the three of them, untilMarcy got sick of Brent’s stupid jokes and lackluster performance in bed.
“Stay,” Jesse had begged her.
“And what? Watch you screw every guy you deem worth sleepingwith? Going to bed on my own just to wake up hung-over and miserable? I’m tiredof living it up. I miss my parents, Jesse. I miss my home.”
“I miss home too, Marcy,” he’d said. “But I’m not ready.”
“Because you’re not done showing up your dad. Even now thatyou sold out of the company.”
“I’m not—”
“You can say you’ve got oats to sow and asses to plow, andyou can say that it’s because Edoardo isn’t boring yet, but it’s really justyou proving to that old bastard again and again that he still can’t tell youwho to be or what to do. But for how long? What was the point of all of this,Jesse? You were supposed to be studying with all these big name internationaljewelers and learning your trade.”
