Page 3 of Hide My Heart
I keep my eyes to the splotchy red and brown patterned floor as Hunter signs me in. The waiting room is half full of people, but I don’t stare. Shadows huddle on the chairs, flipping through magazines or facing the flat screen TV tuned to a talk show.
“Amber McKay,” a nurse calls all too soon.
This is it. I don’t look at Hunter. I don’t look back.
I go.
TWO
Nate
Divine, Idaho. Population 818. Founded1880. A single street town with a church on one end, a saloon and motel at the other, and the police and city hall smack dab in the middle.
I’m Nate Riley. I was born here. I wanted to leave, but I’ll likely die here.
I wipe the frost off the window of my family’s tavern. It’s still early but not too early for Pastor McKay and his picketers.
One sign reads,The wages of sin is death.
Another one proclaims,Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.
But the third one has my goat up. It says,Rileys, scourge of Divine. Go back to the devil.
“They never give up,” my mother says, stepping behind me. “A whole long line of McKays preaching against the Rileys.”
That would be me, the last of the Rileys. I run my hand down the lacquered knotty pine wall panels and straighten the dartboard. Riley’s Tavern was reopened after prohibition ended in 1933 to the chagrin of the Preachers McKays who tried their darndest to make Divine a dry town like the historic Colorado town of Greeley, where most of the McKays hailed from. Heck even Greeley was forced to open up to liquor concerns in the 1970s. But here was old Preacher McKay and his troops trying to turn back the clocks in Divine, the teetotaler’s last stand.
“It’s freezing out there.” I flip the switch for the ‘Open’ sign and unlock the door. “Maybe I should invite them in for a hot apple toddy.”
“Good luck.” My mother wipes her hands on her apron. “I ran into Mrs. McKay at the grocery store. Seems she has a new grandson, a strapping baby boy. Future preacher, she says. He cries so loud their ears ring.”
Sweat dampens my neck whenever my mother goes on and on about the McKays and their fertility. I get it. I really do. Ever since Dad died, leaving the motel and bar, she’s been bugging me to produce an heir. No need to rub it in. I’m the only remaining son of the only remaining son. We Rileys are just as fertile as the McKays, only trouble is we can’t seem to stay alive as long as they.
Maybe there’s truth in Preacher McKay’s jibe about the righteous prospering and the wicked perishing.
The door opens, blowing in a draft of freezing air. It’s late November and bone-cold out there. You have to wonder about the sanity of those fire-breathing church members.
Our two resident yokels, Phil and Devin, step in, shaking off the snow and rubbing their hands. I greet them and they amble toward the bar.
“There ought to be a law against them crazy fundies,” Devin, the former high school quarterback, says. “Why doesn’t he go help the poor or something?”
“It’s no wonder his precious daughter ran away as soon as she turned eighteen.” Phil, who owns the Harley shop, props himself on a barstool and cracks a peanut shell between his fingers.
I pull the tap for a draught of Guinness, tilting a pint beer glass for a good aromatic head. I remember Amber McKay only too well. She was the only girl in that family of preacher boys.
Whereas the boys went out every Saturday morning door-knocking to win souls for Christ, Amber was relegated to selling the family’s apples at the Farmer’s Market. That’s where I got to know her despite her family’s attempts at isolating her from evil influences.
You’d think they would have watched her more carefully, but her grandmother let her wander around the booths, and since our family had a drink stand selling apple cider and healthy drink concoctions—no alcohol at the Farmer’s Market—I was their best customer, dumping their fresh apples straight into the juicer.
“Anyone ever hear from her?” Phil slams his beer glass on the varnished countertop, indicating he wants a refill.
I shrug as I pull the tap. “Mom’s gossip network came up empty. Even her parents don’t know where she is.”
“Hope she ain’t dead.” Devin tilts his head back and finishes his beer. “Or maybe she’s walking the streets in Vegas.”
“Payback for the preacher.” Phil cracks his knuckles. “He’s out there protesting a little beer and his daughter’s playing the whore.”
Steam fills my sinuses as I lean over the bar. I want to shove my fist up their noses. “Don’t you ever come in here and talk about Amber that way. She’s probably found a job and is going to college.”
