Ardently Yours (Trust & Tequila)
1. Head Above Water
Head Above Water
Charlotte
December 1994
“ Every woman needs three things: Self-respect, a strong heart, and a shovel in the trunk of her car.”—Charlotte Miller
M y father shuts off the key to the ancient brown Ford F-150, and silence invades the cab. He sits unmoving, his weathered knuckles white on the steering wheel. Waiting. I press my cheek against the frigid glass of the passenger window and rest my hand against my swollen belly. Baby Girl kicks against my palm. Even my unborn child is telling me to stop sitting here and open the damn door .
I can’t. Not yet. My courage disappeared somewhere in the fifteen miles between my family’s farm and here. Somehow, I left the person I was—the one with the backbone of steel—standing on our front porch and growing smaller in the distance with every turn of the winter-tread tires.
“I’ll turn the truck around. The thing with your friends at the theater was enough. We can go down by the river where we used to fish,” Dad says in a gruff voice. “We’ll say goodbye there.”
Today isn’t about saying goodbye. It never was. “It’s the last time I’ll see him. They have no right to keep me away.”
From her position in the middle of the bench seat, Mom rubs my shoulder. “If this had happened two weeks from now, you’d have already been married. You could have protected him from these people .”
Her face is pale under her brown curls, but furious color burns high on her cheeks. Anger is so much easier than the rest of it.
“That kind of talk isn’t going to help anyone,” Dad says.
Mom hesitates before speaking in a calmer tone. “You might not see him in there. You have to be prepared for that. It’ll depend on if . . .”
“ If . . .” The oxygen in my lungs freezes solid, a heavy weight trapped behind my ribs. Before this moment, I hadn’t let myself think of the possibility. Breathe. Just breathe.
My brother Max’s black pickup pulls into the lot. Max and my sister Teresa, a virtual carbon copy of our mother, climb out of his truck, solid doors thunking closed behind them. The two of them head in our direction.
At some point this morning, a plow truck scraped away the ice and snow, leaving only the crunch of road salt beneath their feet. I shove my door open and lumber out to join them.
Max towers over my five-foot-seven height. He’s traded his usual T-shirts and flannel for a button-down stretched across his barrel chest and a black sport coat worn with his newest Wrangler jeans. In place of his Pabst Blue Ribbon hat and bushy red beard, he’s combed his hair and trimmed up to be presentable. Not for the people here, I know. For Steve.
Brow heavy, Max offers his arm, and Teresa comes around to the other side to take my hand.
“Do we have a plan if they try to force us to leave?” Teresa asks.
“No one is laying a finger on you girls. They’ll have to go through Dad and me first, and that ain’t happening,” Max rumbles.
“They can’t pretend they’re martyrs if they do. Just don’t give them anything they can use as an excuse,” Mom says.
My best friend, Rochelle, parks her compact car. We wait for her to join us. When she reaches me, she takes my face in her slender hands, her dark eyes serious as she searches mine. I stiffen my spine and nod. She swallows hard, nods back, then steps behind me.
Mom and Dad step in front of the four of us. The advance guard. I keep my chin up as we head for the front doors of the sprawling red-brick church.
Six of us against hundreds of them.
It’s been five years since I set foot in this place as a naive fifteen-year-old. I never think about it. Except . . . sometimes . . . when I cross a path that sparks a flash fire inside me before I manage to stomp out the flames.
The moment we step through the second set of doors and into the gleaming lobby, a hush falls over the murmuring crowd. Then they erupt with whispers and muttered gossip loud enough to be heard across a room. I recognize the sound of the pastor’s wife’s voice. “I can’t believe she has the nerve.”
I don’t flinch. My fiancé is dead. I refuse to care what they think. It would be like fussing about the grass needing to be mowed while the house burned to the ground behind me.
I turn away from Bianca Polford, the way she did to me five years ago. Fifteen-year-old me had begged that woman to tell the truth. Face bone-white, she’d looked at her feet and hadn’t said a word. I didn’t hear from her again until she found out I’d tried to file a police report against her husband.
Expression blank, I step forward, and we hang our coats. Then my family and I enter the immense sanctuary. A giant projector screen hangs behind the altar, flashing photos of Steve as a child.
Across the expanse of the high-ceilinged, windowless room, I search.
If Steve knew Jeremy Polford was the one leading this service, he’d be rolling in his casket. He was obsessed with the idea of finding enough evidence to put him away. Steve said men like Polford never commit those crimes only once and move on to live blameless lives.
Polford can rot in hell where he belongs. The sooner the better. But today I’ll sing the hymns. “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.” I’ll murmur the words “The lord is my shepherd,” and I’ll separate the evil on the pulpit from my belief that Steve is in a better place. I have to.
I force myself to look at the gleaming wooden casket covered in yellow roses where it stands in front of the stage.
It’s closed. Mom was right. His little Dodge Shadow was crushed by a semitruck. It was fruitless to hope for anything else.
The weighty and ever-present thrum of pain narrows into something razor-sharp. I push it down and lift my chin.
Steve’s father John, looking like an older version of his son—one the world will never know—makes eye contact with me across the distance, raking a furious glare from the top of my head to my feet and back up again. According to John, Steve leaving this church was my fault. Their son avoiding them and staying with my family on his college breaks were, of course, also my fault. John’s belief that this baby isn’t Steve’s is built on one simple, and, for him, irrefutable foundation: He doesn’t want it to be true. Therefore, it isn’t.
My sister’s hand tightens on mine, and she mutters under her breath, “Ignore that asshole.”
When Steve’s mother Pam takes a step toward me, her fingers outstretched and her face wreathed in pain, her husband’s hand comes to rest on her shoulder. She freezes and closes her eyes. After a moment, Pam turns back to stand beside him just like she always has.
Maybe it’s the right decision. When this is over, she’ll go home with her husband, and they’ll mourn together. If she made a stand, she’d lose everything she has left to lean on. Her family. Her church. Her husband.
Mom leads the way past the last curved row of red-cushioned chairs. We stand behind them.
Jeremy Polford climbs the stairs to the stage and steps behind the microphone. “Today we celebrate Steven Hunsic’s return to the arms of our heavenly father and seek comfort in the knowledge . . .”
Polford is in his early forties, and his gelled-back, straw-colored hair looks as slick as his smile. Most people think he’s handsome and kind.
I don’t give him the respect of paying attention to his hypocritical words. His resonant tones are nothing but a hum hiding beneath the pulse that pounds in my ears and on my tongue. There’s a fist in my throat and a stinging in my sinuses, but my eyes are dry.
I’m here for Steve, but not to grieve. That will come after. Today, I stand beside him, as a man he despised presides over his funeral.
The pastor runs his eyes over the assembled crowd, his face arranged into one of peaceful, joyful acceptance as God welcomes one of his children home. The man’s green-eyed gaze snags on mine. I stare back with every ounce of venom in my heart. I see you, asshole.
As though Polford hears my thoughts, he falters in the middle of his sentence, losing his place and clearing his throat. A pulse pounds in his temple, visible even from this distance, as his face flushes with temper. His eyes narrow on mine before he breaks eye contact. His attention flicks back to all the faces looking to him for comfort, and he offers them a lift of his shoulders and a beatific smile of benevolence.
Everyone who noticed his slip will say he was caught in a moment of grief with the rest of them. But I rattled him. It’s not enough, but it’s something.
Pastor Polford’s attention has moved on, but my scalp prickles in awareness. Some slight movement to my left catches in my periphery. People have been staring at me from the moment we entered the building, but this is different. Whoever is watching me is dangerous. I can feel it.
My fight-or-flight response was triggered before I stepped foot into this place. That has to be the reason for my paranoia. I scan the crowd anyway.
A dark-haired stranger, looking older than my twenty years by more than a decade, sits alone in the back row to my left.
The broad-shouldered man’s attention is on the pastor. Rather than appearing to be enthralled by Polford, the stranger’s expression is so cold it’s as though he carried winter into the sanctuary with him. Goose bumps erupt on my arms, and I rub them away.
His dark suit fits him like it was custom made, and the shiny dress shoes and gold watch on his wrist are shockingly out of place in a rural community like Blackwater, Pennsylvania. He should look civilized. Instead, there’s something almost savage about him.
Without warning, he turns in my direction. Eyes narrowing, he dips his chin. I pretend not to see his attempt to engage with me.
It took all the courage I had to walk into this building today, and it will take all my strength to cope with life tomorrow. I have nothing left to worry about a stranger who looks like he could own this town and every person in it. Or to wonder what he wants with me .