Chapter 15
Taz
The bell over the door at Rita's Feed & Supply has been ringing the same way for thirty years.
Same dusty chime, same slight delay before the second note hits.
I've heard it a thousand times since I was a kid trailing after my dad, learning which grain was for which animal, which salt blocks the horses preferred.
Today, the sound feels different. Hollow.
Rita's behind the counter, reading glasses perched on her nose, flipping through an invoice. She looks up when I walk in, and I watch her face do what I've never seen it do. It closes. Just shuts right down, like someone pulled a curtain.
"Morning, Rita," I say.
She doesn't answer. Just goes back to her invoice.
I grab a cart and head down the first aisle, past the chicken feed and the worming paste and the leather conditioner that smells like my childhood.
My boots echo too loud on the concrete floor.
There's a guy I recognize from the cattlemen's association over by the fencing supplies, and when our eyes meet, he turns his whole body away from me like I'm contagious.
Fair enough.
I load the cart with what I came for. Two heavy-duty box fans, because her grandmother's farmhouse has never had air conditioning and it's a newborn's first summer.
A case of canning jars. A roll of window screen for the nursery window that never did fit right.
A bag of the good birdseed for the feeder outside her kitchen, even though I'm not sure she'll ever let me close enough to fill it.
When I wheel the cart up to the register, Rita still hasn't looked at me.
"Rita," I try again.
Nothing.
"I'd like to check out, please," I say.
She keeps her eyes on her paperwork. "You'll have to wait."
"All right." I leave the cart where she can reach it and step back from the counter. She turns the invoice over without reading it.
I stand there, feeling the weight of it. The weight of what I've done pressing down on this town, on every person who watched me grow up, who came to my wedding, who brought casseroles when my dad died.
"These supplies are for Molly," I say quietly.
"For Molly and the baby. Clementine. She's five weeks old now, and her mama's trying to run a farm and a honey business and take care of a newborn all by herself because I—" I stop.
Start again. "Because I was stupid. Because I let her down in ways I'm still trying to understand.
But right now, today, I'm just trying to buy some fans so Molly's house doesn't cook with a newborn in it. "
Rita's hands go still on the invoice. She's quiet for a long time, and when she finally looks up, her eyes are hard.
"That girl called my daughter three weeks ago and cried her eyes out on the phone," Rita says.
"My Cassie had to close up her shop early to stay on the line, because Molly couldn't stop shaking.
Couldn't barely talk. You know what she kept saying?
She kept saying she didn't understand how the man she loved could do that to her. "
Her words knock the wind out of me. I grip the edge of the counter.
"I know," I say.
"Do you?" She sets the pen down. "Because from where I'm standing, Tazio Williams, you look like a man who had everything and threw it away for some Hollywood trash who couldn't keep her legs—"
"That's not what happened," I say.
Rita's eyebrows shoot up. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not defending myself," I say, and I have to work to keep my voice steady.
"What I did was wrong. I was careless and stupid and I didn't protect my wife when I should have.
Kendall got too close because I let her.
I didn't see what she was doing until it was too late.
But I never—" I stop, because this isn't the place to explain the drugging, the fake evidence, the whole twisted scheme.
"I never touched her, not once, not ever. "
Rita stares at me. "That's not what I heard."
"I know what you heard. It's not true. And Molly knows it now too, because I proved it to her.
" I swallow. "But it doesn't matter if you believe me or not, Rita.
It doesn't change the fact that I should have been paying attention.
I should have noticed my marriage was failing before my wife had to leave me to figure it out. That's on me. That's all on me."
The silence stretches out between us. Rita's fingers tap against the counter, one-two-three, a rhythm I remember from childhood when she was deciding whether to give me a sucker for being patient while my dad talked feed prices.
"You really didn't sleep with that woman?" she asks.
"Never," I tell her. "Not drunk, not sober, not once."
"Then why in the hell did she say you did?" Rita demands.
"Because she wanted what I have. My family, my life, my wife." I meet Rita's eyes. "She almost got it, too. Came closer than I want to think about."
Rita looks me over, boots to hat. Then she reaches over and punches the numbers into the register.
"Forty-seven eighty-nine," she says.
The relief that washes through me is embarrassing. It's just box fans and jars. It shouldn't feel like absolution. I pull out my wallet and hand her three twenties.
"You hurt that girl again," Rita says as she makes change, "and I will personally make sure you can never buy so much as a salt lick in this county. You understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am," I tell her.
"Good." She hands me my change and a receipt. "Now get out of my store. You're scaring away the customers."
It's the same at the grocery on Ojai Avenue.
"Thirty-one fifty," the cashier tells the register, not me, and drops my change on the counter instead of in my hand.
At the hardware store, old Mr. Hernandez keeps me waiting while he dusts a shelf that doesn't need dusting.
"Take your time," I tell him. "I always do," he says. Fair. All of it's fair.
The drive out to Juniper Hill takes me past Molly's farm, and I have to force myself not to turn in before the hour she agreed to. My mother arranged a fruit drop-off with her this morning. The fruit and vegetables are already in the back, with the stuff for the soup I want to make her.
But the sight of the curtains drawn tight on the road side of the house, the barn door dragged shut on her truck, makes my chest ache in a way I can't name.
I'm almost to the turn for the main road when I see the figure walking along the shoulder. Az.
I pull over. Roll down the window.
"Need a ride?" I ask.
Az turns, and when she sees me, her expression goes from neutral to what might generously be called contempt. "I'd rather walk."
"Fair enough." I don't drive away. "You live up at Juniper Hill now, right? That's another mile up the county road. It's supposed to rain."
"Then I'll get wet," Az says, and keeps walking.
I deserve that. I know I deserve it. But I get out of the truck anyway, because I'm tired of running from conversations I don't want to have.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I ask.
Az laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You want to talk? To me? After what you did to my friend?"
"Yeah," I say. "I do."
She stares at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have. "You've got some nerve, Williams."
"Probably," I admit.
"Eli worried for two days when Molly called from the farm with a newborn and nobody beside her," Az says, and jabs a finger at my chest. "Two days. Do you know how worried we were?"
"I can imagine," I say.
"No, you can't," she snaps. "Because if you could imagine it, you wouldn't have done what you did in the first place."
The words land where they're supposed to. Right in the center of my chest, right in the soft spot that's been bleeding for weeks.
"I was careless. I was arrogant. I thought I knew what I was doing, thought I could handle Kendall's friendship without it becoming a problem, thought my marriage was solid enough to survive anything." I shake my head. "I was wrong. About all of it."
"So what," Az says, "you want a medal for admitting you screwed up?"
"No. I want—" I stop. Take a breath. "I want to earn my family back. I know I can't just apologize and have everything be fine. I know it doesn't work like that. But I love Molly. I love my daughter. And I'm not going to stop trying just because it's hard."
Az is quiet for a long moment, arms crossed over her chest, studying me like I'm a puzzle she's not sure she wants to solve.
"Eli thinks you're telling the truth," she says finally. "About not sleeping with that woman."
"Because it's true," I say.
"He also thinks you're an idiot who doesn't deserve Molly's forgiveness," she adds.
"He's probably right about that too," I say.
Az's mouth twitches. It's not quite a smile, but it's not a scowl either. "You know what I think?"
"What?" I ask.
"I think you're a shitty person." She holds up a hand when I start to respond. "But I also think you might actually love her. Which makes this whole situation even more pathetic, because if you loved her the way you say you do, you wouldn't have let it get this far in the first place."
"I know," I say.
She tilts her head. "Knowing and understanding are two different things, Williams, and you're only starting to figure out the difference."
I don't have an answer for that. She's right. I'm still learning what I did wrong, still uncovering all the ways I failed her that I never even noticed at the time.
"I'm going to keep trying," I say. "That's all I can tell you. I'm going to keep showing up, keep proving myself, keep doing the work until she believes me. Or until she tells me to stop."
Az shifts her weight, and her face softens, just slightly.
"That's the right attitude," she says. "Keep it up, and maybe someday you'll be worthy of her again."
She turns and starts walking up the road. I watch her go, then get back in my truck and drive.