Good Dirt

Bridge

Bridge

H enry’s dad had been playing bridge with the same group of guys since before Henry was born. These men had played twice a month through marriages, children, a divorce, at least two stock market crashes, 9/11, one sexual harassment complaint, and several divisive political races. Four men would play while the other two watched. Then they’d switch out a pair of players, and so on. Henry wasn’t really into bridge, but he would stop by on occasion to say hello, as he did one week before he was scheduled to marry Ebby.

Henry knew the bridge group’s rules for avoiding conflict in their friendship. They were similar to the ones that Henry’s mom had insisted on for dinner-table conversation at family gatherings: no politics, no religion, no shoptalk, no sex. Except for the sex talk. There was plenty of that at the game table down in the basement. And there was some shoptalk. Being two lawyers, two investment bankers, one insurance man, and one physician, they never named their clients or colleagues, but they did share stories, from time to time.

On that evening, the men were ribbing Henry about his pending nuptials. One of them made the inevitable comment about how beautiful Ebby was, followed by a crack that felt somewhat inappropriate to Henry about producing grandkids for old Charles there.

“Refills, gentlemen?” Henry asked at that point, eager to move beyond target range until he could make a polite exit. He had just pulled opened the fridge door when he overheard the men recalling the long-ago shooting that had compelled the Freemans to sell their former home, pull Ebby out of her old school, and move to a different town.

Even now, the Freemans’ misfortune continued to exert an almost mythic magnetism, Henry thought. The little black girl who had survived a suburban tragedy. The gunmen who had never been found. The victim’s parents and neighbors who had never, in all these years, given a media interview about the shooting, their extreme reserve only adding to the intrigue around the crime. They were living in times, Henry thought, when it seemed unnatural to hold one’s grief so close to one’s chest. Only a family lawyer had ever made a public plea for information in what he and the police had described as an apparent robbery attempt gone wrong.

Henry hoped the bridge group would soon move on from the topic as they shifted their focus back to the cards in front of them. Then he heard the exchange that raised his antennae.

“A real shame about that jar,” said one of the guys. Henry looked up, a tray of ice in his hands.

“Jar?” said another one of the men. “What jar?”

“An antique. Family heirloom.”

Henry held his breath at the sink, listening. Why would any of them know about the jar? Henry himself only knew because Ebby was obsessed with it.

“The jar was broken, you know, during that robbery.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Seriously historic stuff. Slavery days. Signed by the enslaved man who made it.”

“Wow.”

The jar had mattered to Ebby’s family, of course. And sadly, Ebby now associated its destruction with her brother’s death. Yet no one but Ebby had ever mentioned it to Henry. And a broken piece of pottery wasn’t the kind of thing that was ever going to make the news when a kid had been shot in his own home. The police had never reported it, nor had the family’s lawyer, from what Henry had read. So how would a friend of Henry’s father’s know anything about something that had never been mentioned publicly?

Unless they knew something about the crime that other people didn’t.

There had to be an explanation. Henry wanted to ask, but he didn’t have the courage. He didn’t want to think there might be some kind of connection between his father’s friend and the Freeman shooting. Those men in the game room had known his dad since they were all kids. Still, there were a lot of unanswered questions about what had happened.

The crime remained unsolved. There had never been any arrests. And it went without saying that when someone went to the trouble of breaking into a home of that value, in that kind of neighborhood, in broad daylight, they had to mean business. And there was a good chance that they weren’t operating on their own. That it was part of a larger, well-coordinated effort to relieve victims of significant sums of cash, jewelry, or artwork.

Whatever the circumstances, the only question that mattered to Henry now was, why would someone in his father’s close circle of friends know enough about the shooting to say anything? Sure, it was ridiculous to worry about it. Why would anyone in that room need to be involved in a crime like that? Only, Henry did worry. And if he didn’t ask, if he didn’t clear up his questions, then how was he going to face Ebby, day in, day out, without saying something to her?

But telling Ebby was out of the question. Henry knew this. She was Ebby. She would make a scene. Demand answers, immediately. Threaten to tell her parents. And could he blame her? Ebby had watched her brother die. She and her parents had lived all these years without seeing justice done in Baz’s killing. Of course she would want to know more.

Not that Henry had to be one hundred percent honest with Ebby. Honesty in a couple was overrated, anyhow. Every couple had secrets between them. Of this, Henry was sure. But some secrets could not be kept without consequences. And this was that kind of secret. Some things, if left unsaid, could erode the fabric of a relationship, like acid.

Even if Ebby were never to know, Henry would know it.

At first, Henry was convinced it was best to keep his doubts from Ebby until he could figure out what to do. Then he felt guilty for not saying anything to her. And finally, he began to resent Ebby. Strange, wasn’t it? When faced with one’s moral wobbling, a person often looked about to cast blame elsewhere. That same week, at their rehearsal dinner, even as he stayed by Ebby’s side—holding her hand, joking with their respective parents—Henry was wondering why life with Ebby had to be so complicated to begin with.

Looking back, now, Henry sees this was the final push that he had needed to acknowledge his growing doubts over the wedding. He had loved the idea of marrying Ebby. But increasingly, he was worried about what living with her would require of him. Yes, he and Ebby had been through some ups and downs in their two years together. Whose relationship hadn’t? It’s just that Henry had come to feel that, all else being equal, he would always have to deal with that much more, because of Ebby’s traumatic past.

Ebby’s nightmares, her night sweats, and her skittishness had all subsided in recent months, but for how long? Then there was her insistence on keeping her brother’s clock radio with her and letting the alarm go off in the mornings. And now she was planning to carry Baz’s photo down the aisle at their wedding. How sweet, Henry had told her, but actually, he disliked the idea. Why did her brother’s memory always have to be there in the middle of things?

The night before the wedding, Henry finally admitted to himself that he wanted to call off the ceremony. He needed to know for sure that things could be different with Ebby. He needed things to be easier. Less complicated. But it was too late to rethink their plans. His suit for the ceremony was hanging on the outside of the closet door. It was a late-1950s, Cary Grant–ish kind of look, custom-tailored to go with the dress that Ebby had inherited from Granny Freeman. And if Henry hesitated now, he would lose Ebby altogether. And who, except Henry, had been given the gift of Ebby?

Ebby’s thighs.

Ebby’s morning pouf of hair, unclipped.

Ebby’s overstuffed bookshelves.

Ebby’s penciled notes, filling the margins of her favorite books.

Ebby’s delight in Henry’s photographs.

Ebby’s modesty about her own writing.

Ebby’s heart.

Ebby had opened her heart to Henry. Confided in him. And Henry was the one who’d insisted on getting married. But his view of things had changed. At two in the morning, the day he was due to marry Ebby in her parents’ garden, he packed a bag of clothes, grabbed his camera and car keys, put his smartphone on airplane mode, and drove out of Connecticut. He kept telling himself he could turn back, but he didn’t. In all these months since then, he has never run into Ebby, though he’s tried to contact her, more than once. Now he’s come face-to-face with her, so far away from home. Is this some kind of sign?

Henry’s dad had raised him to believe that becoming a man meant learning to take things in stride. Finding ways to forge ahead. He’s been trying to do that since he ran out on Ebby, but it doesn’t change how he handled things. Standing in the woods on this summer morning, listening to the heartbeat of the world, Henry feels all the chatter in his head falling away, leaving him to face an uncomfortable truth. This, too, may be what it means to be a man: being willing to square your shoulders and look someone in the eye, even if it turns out to be the eye of a storm.