Tract Seven:

Summer 2010, continued

The Wheels on the Bus

“Let’s see what grounds we can find for the dissolution of your marriage.” Fresh out of law school, the young attorney efficiently typed some commands on her laptop. Her round face, muted with a thin layer of powder, was soft and eager. Leo had followed a hand-painted sign outside the Studs and Suds Laundromat and an arrow pointing to the upstairs office. Candice Kane was beginning her practice and offered Leo a bargain basement deal. The other attorney that Leo called, because she learned from her dad and Uncle Paul that one always had to have at least two quotes before deciding, had given her a staggering initial consultation fee. One that would take over a week’s worth of wages to pay. And that had just been for the first hour.

Finances aside, Leo knew she made the right choice when her counsel, exuding a confident, no-nonsense aura, stuck out her cushiony arm for a firm handshake and welcomed Leo to her “starter” office. She was unapologetic about the appearance of the newly acquired space and its sparse furnishings. The room guilelessly held a collapsible card table sporting a pink and purple paisley patterned cloth, which served as her consulting desk and work area, two folding chairs, and a single sleek, black metal, vertical, lockable three-drawer file cabinet. Solicitor Kane listened carefully and respectfully. She waited until Leo finished her sentences and thoughts before asking probing questions.

“Since he’s going to fight you on the divorce, our best bet is to find grounds for a judge to grant you one. The first reason for a fault-based divorce in Oklahoma is abandonment. That one is out the window. You left him. Did he ever cheat on you, commit adultery?”

Had he? There were nights he didn’t come home, but she always assumed he was out drinking with his friends. He was a big flirt; Leo knew this going into the marriage. There were co-workers and women he talked about in lascivious terms, but this was nothing new. She had no proof of anything. She shook her head. The cell phone in Leo’s pocket vibrated, but she refused to look. She knew who was there. Jake, again.

“Impotence?” Her attorney peered through pink plastic-rimmed glasses at the computer screen before her and continued to read, “Extreme cruelty? Fraudulent contract? Habitual drunkenness? Gross neglect of duty?”

The questions made Leo’s head spin. What had his duty as a husband been? Where was that defined? And if he had requirements, did that mean she had some legal responsibilities as a wife? Ones that she had known nothing about, and if this was true, had she, in fact, failed him? And yes, he drank and smoked pot, usually daily, but he still managed to work. When he was fired, usually because of a misunderstanding between him and the boss, after a week's vacation or so to recharge, he always found a new job. Extreme cruelty: what constituted that? Besides the night she left, she had never physically been harmed by her husband; even then, the half-hearted kick hadn't been so bad. He hadn’t left a mark. Yes, there were times she was terrified of doing something to set him off. Everyone in his sphere knew his temper was legendary, but if you accepted him, you accepted his outbursts. His words were often hurtful and demeaning, but did that constitute cruelty? This all seemed too much.

“Leo, take a breath.” Her attorney leaned across the folding table to touch Leo’s shaking shoulder. “It’s okay. This can seem overwhelming, but I am here to help you with the legal legwork. You’re going to get through this.”

Leo nodded, though her shoulders slacked with apprehension. The vibration in her pocket resumed an insistent reminder. Focus, Leo, she told herself. “Well, maybe there’s something.” She took a small sip of water. “I didn’t know this when we got married, but apparently, he’s on probation.”

Candice’s pink lipstick mouth widened into an almost perfect O. “Now you’re talking. I can look him up on the offender information system. What’s his full name?” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She leaned back, breaking into a full-on smile. Her eyes, magnified through the lens, glinted. “Your soon-to-be ex-husband has a conviction, assault, and battery. He was released on probation in December of 07.” Two months before, Leo had run into him outside of Ned’s. “And you didn't know this when you married him?” Leo shook her head. “And if you had known this, would you have agreed to matrimony?”

Leo paused. Would she have still married him? With the insight she now possessed, she knew she would have turned and walked (well, biked) away. But then, over two years ago, having felt betrayed by her father and desperate for escape, she couldn’t be sure. Still, here was a way out.

“Leo, you cannot prevaricate on this. You must be sure. I need you to say this out loud. You have to convince yourself and me.”

Another assertive reverberation from her pocket.

Why don’t you leave me alone? That’s all I want, Jake, for you to let me go, to let me get on with my life. But you never will. Not until I make this permanent. Leo took a deep breath and looked resolutely, no equivocation here, into her attorney’s eyes. “No, I wouldn’t have married him if I’d known he’d just been released from prison.”

“Perfect. I can argue that the marriage contract was fraudulent. There wasn’t full disclosure as to what you agreed to. Oklahoma is a no-fault divorce state now, but some judges want more. If Jake makes it difficult, having this cause will only strengthen our case. Right now, I am a cheap date unknown and underestimated. But I was top in my law class. I know my stuff backward and forward, and I will relentlessly advocate for you, Leo Lightfoot. I will fill out and file the ‘Petition for dissolution of Marriage’ papers. Jake will be served shortly. He won’t know what hit him.”

Leo walked down the steps and through the humming laundromat, feeling like she had just gone through a heavy-duty cycle herself. Starting the divorce process stirred all kinds of emotions. But the wheels on the bus were in motion now, and she had to brace herself for the firestorm to come. She forced herself to look at the messages. Nothing new; what did she expect?

When she first left their marriage, his texts started the way they always did after they fought—Miss U. I need U. Cum back 2 me. Over the ensuing weeks, they became more militant. U R MY wife! U CAIN-T leave! U will B SORRY! She learned never to answer her cell phone when he called. He only did that after he’d worked up an alcohol-induced rage. Seething with incensed vitriol, he was incapable of reason. His sole intent was to let Leo know what a pathetic wife and human being she was. She was the sole reason everything in his life was falling apart. As she thought about him, she became taut, stretched with layered tiers of anxiety and foreboding, reducing her, once again, into insignificance.

She biked unsteadily through the buttery soft afternoon toward Verona’s Italian Eatery. Jennifer would be there, the fried ravioli appetizer already ordered, waiting to hear how the meeting with her attorney had gone. They’d talk and catch up as they had done every week since Leo returned to Tahlequah, sharing a late lunch. Then Leo would attend back-to-back classes on campus before her shift at the restaurant started. This is my life was a mantra she had been repeating since she left Jake behind. He is in the past. Don’t give him power over you.

****

“Don’t give me grief, Ray. Take your lunch break now.” Despite the industrial-size fans that blew through open doors, the food manufacturing plant temperature was well above 110 degrees, and droplets of moisture beaded across Hope’s forehead.

Ray started to protest. One of the processing machines was down for service maintenance, putting them behind schedule. He could skip lunch, work through and help them get caught up, but arguing with his sister wasn’t worth the effort. When there weren’t enough workers, Hope would take over for them while they took a respite.

“It’s my responsibility,” she told her brother when he first objected. “Let me do my job.”

He felt guilty, but she was stubborn. She was the older sister she constantly reminded him, if only by ten minutes, and when she looked at him firmly, with her arms crossed over her chest, he knew the cause was lost.

Ray stepped outside, his paper lunch bag in hand, into the soup of Oklahoma summer. A heavy humid heat oppressively sank around him, blanketing the day, rendering all limp. Even a meager hot wind did not have the energy to stir the nearby bur oak tree’s leaves into action. When Ray took a bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a loud concussion rocked the factory behind him. The noise sounded like someone had shot off a grenade. But that wasn’t possible. He stood locked in place, conveyed instantly back to another time. He looked around, stunned. Where was he? Oh my God, where was his weapon? Did he leave it behind? Sergeant Sledge would make him pay for this.

Had his gun been blown out of his hands? Where were his comrades? Were they wounded somewhere? Every muscle in his body was taut, ready for fight or flight. From where did the explosion originate? Even as his body physically responded and prepared for action, his brain registered the world around him, which lay still and unaltered. In a split second after the detonation, chaotic turmoil raged inside him. Just as his intellect pulled him back, attempting to ground him, he heard a blood-curdling scream emanating from the facility's interior. A pitched, piercing wail caused him to run toward the source of the blast. The keening came from Hope.

“My baby, my baby,” she was on the ground, rocking back and forth, with fleshy blood on her hands and face splattered all around. He could not process the images before him. The scene looked exactly like the direct impact of an improvised explosive device on a human body. Yet his sister sat before him, seemingly whole.

“What happened, Hope?” He dropped before her, trying to focus, to perform a cursory assessment. Her pregnancy still appeared intact, and even as he was taking her radial pulse, he could see a quick flash of movement beneath her mint green knit maternity top.

“A jar of warm chokecherry jelly exploded in her hands, probably a defect in the glass, or maybe some food bits were trapped under the lid during processing,” Pearl Whitehorse was talking on the phone with a 911 dispatcher. That accounted for the pulpy grisly appearance of the residue around her. Another employee rushed over with a plastic bucket of water and a clean cloth and placed the container next to Ray. He gently wiped a significant laceration on Hope’s forehead and asked Pearl to hold pressure there while he dipped his sister’s hands in the pail of water.

He talked to her in murmurs. “You’re going to be okay. Your baby is fine.” He deftly examined her appendages. Sharp pieces of glass were embedded in the skin, and blood oozed around the insertion sites. The top dermal layer of several of her fingertips had been peeled away. He palpated lightly for dislocations and broken bones, all the while reassuring her, “You’re all right. Your baby is safe,” until the paramedics arrived.

****

“Your sister wants you to pick up the hand-tossed pizza she ordered at Persephone’s.” Gabrielle stood at the door to the garage, Ray’s improvised living quarters. Inside was musty and dark. Ray sat in the back corner, in the blue plastic chair he had hauled inside. He took another swallow of peppermint schnapps.

“Just leave me alone.” He slumped forward, his elbows on his knees. For goodness’ sake, couldn't they just let him be? He and Gabrielle had been by Hope’s side in the emergency department all afternoon while the medical team debrided the glass from her hand, skillfully stitched up the two-inch gash in her forehead, and gave her intravenous fluids to address the pre-term contractions she was having due to dehydration. Finally, after a reactive non-stress test and a reassuring fetal ultrasound, after the emergency room doctor was confident that both mother and baby were clinically stable, they were discharged to recover at home. Wasn’t that enough? He needed a few hours to process what transpired.

How could he explain to Hope, to Gabrielle, or to anyone who might listen how the sight of the gelatinous chokecherry jelly mixed with his sister’s blood that clung to everything after the blast looked just like the pieces of human flesh he had to recover after the series of detonations in Afghanistan? The substance stuck to the surrounding landscape, adhering to the trees, and the bushes, so you couldn't tell to whom the flesh belonged or where the body part came from. Rows of body bags waited for the fragmented remains. Even when you pulled security while others resumed the task of specimen collection, part of you was grateful you were standing on the berm, alive and still breathing, while the other part of you fiercely wanted to take the place of someone who had a wife and children at home. What happened was horrific. If someone had to die, you wished it had been you. You yearned for the nightmare to be over, for it all to be done.

While serving in an active war zone, Ray thought being home would change things, but returning hadn’t made a difference. When you thought that life might be getting easier, that maybe you were going to scrabble through the quagmire—a visualization, a singular sound, a smell would bring the experience crashing back. Was there another way of escape? The allure of amnesia, total insensibility, and unconsciousness was overpowering.

Gabrielle was still there, waiting for his response. He yelled in her direction, “You go get the pizza.” He took another drag from the bottle he opened ten minutes ago. How did his sister know? Did she have Spidey's senses?

“It’s not that I don’t approve of drinking,” Hope told him weeks before she asked him to help at the manufacturing plant. “It's just that I’m terrified of you doing something irreparable. When you drink, you go so far down that rabbit hole nothing can reach you.” What she didn’t say to him, but what Ray knew she could see, was how in those moments when Ray self-medicated, he was trying to fill the raw, seared-open depths of despair.

Gabrielle took a measured breath, still speaking through the screened door, making eye contact impossible. “I’m not going to leave her alone, doctor’s orders. Besides, knowing that you’re in here drinking yourself into oblivion is causing Hope way more stress than that whole jar exploding in her hands did. Believe me. If I had my way, you could do your thing, drink until you blackout if that’s what you want.” She hesitated, as if unable to assess the efficacy of her words, then pushed forward. “It’s not that I don’t care about you. I do. You're connected to my partner in ways I’ll never fully understand, and I get it. The problem is when you do your thing, it impacts your sister. Hope and this baby are my future.” She wavered a shadowy silhouette. “Please, Ray. Just go get the damn pizza.”

He screwed the cap back on the bottle and sighed heavily. “Give me the keys.”

“Not happening. You’ve been drinking.” She was resolved. “It's a mile there. You can handle the distance. You knock that out running every morning on your way to meet Miguel.”

“The pizza will be cold by the time I get back.” He let the screen door slam behind him.

Gabrielle gave him a weak smile. “That’s what microwaves are for.” Written on her face, in her weary eyes, was gratitude, for this one small gesture, for giving Hope one less thing to worry about.

Ray took a deep breath, felt in his back pocket for his wallet and cell phone, looked down the long and winding drive that led toward town, and took the first step.