The Marriage Agreement

Marsh stared at the scar, remembering things he’d just as soon have forgotten. He breathed deeply, ordered his fists to relax, reminded himself that he was a grown man now. He’d gotten beyond all this old garbage. He didn’t have to play Blake Bravo’s sick cat-and-mouse games anymore.

Blake dropped his hand, so that the hair hid the scar again. But he wouldn’t shut up. “Let nature do it for you,” he suggested in that papery whisper of his. “It’s not going to be that long.”

Marsh dragged in one more long, slow breath. The deep breaths were working, to a degree. His heart rate had slowed, his hands had relaxed.

He said in an even tone, “Dad. It’s been an experience, getting in touch again.”

Blake winked at him. “That it has, my boy—and do you think you’re leaving town now?”

It would have given Marsh great satisfaction to answer, I don’t think I’m leaving. I am leaving.

But he wasn’t going anywhere—except to find himself a decent hotel. Evidently, Marsh still possessed some shred of filial emotion. He would stay, for a few days. He would be there if the end did come.

“No,” he said. “I’ll stay in town for a day or two.”

“That’s right, you will. They cut me open, cracked my chest bone like a pecan shell—did I tell you?”

“You did.”

“Three days ago, that was. Quintuple bypass. And a little plastic valve. I can hear that valve, whooshing open, swinging shut, when it’s quiet, when I’m alone…. All that cutting they did, all those fancy repairs. They won’t be enough. I’ll be dead. And soon.”

Marsh just shook his head, even as a soft voice inside him whispered that his father was right.

“Shake your head all you want,” Blake said. “You’ll see if I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Your doctor said otherwise.”

“Doctors.” Blake let out another gutter expletive. “What the hell do they know?” The question was purely rhetorical. Without waiting for an answer, Blake switched to the next item on his personal agenda. “And now, for your other surprise…”

Marsh simply did not want to hear it. “I think you should rest now.”

“Rest. Hah. Fat lot of good rest’ll do me.”

Marsh turned for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find a place to stay.”

“You can stay at the house.”

An image of the dreary shack hidden among the oaks and hickories down a dirt road out east of town flashed through Marsh’s mind. “No, thanks.”

“No great love for the old homestead, huh?”

“I’ll see you later, Dad.”

“Wait.”

Marsh shouldn’t have, but he paused, his hand poised on the doorknob.

“You’ll need my keys. Even having a heart attack, I had the sense to lock up what was mine.” The whispery voice had pride in it now. “I called the ambulance and locked up and went out to wait on the front step. By the time they got there, I was curled up on the ground. But I locked up what was mine, you can count on that.” He tipped his head in the direction of a tall cabinet near the door to the bathroom. “Keys’re in my pants. In there—and you remember the rules. I know you do. You won’t go nosin’ around in my things till I’m gone for good, will you?”

“I said I’m not staying at the house.”

“Take the damn keys, anyway. I’m never going to be using them again.”

Marsh turned the steel doorknob.

“I’m not finished,” his father said.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me later.”

His father went on as if Marsh hadn’t spoken. “That girl,” he whispered. “That pretty redhead. The doctor’s daughter…”

Marsh stood absolutely still, his face a mask. Whatever the mention of Tory did to him, he wouldn’t give Blake Bravo the satisfaction of seeing it.

Blake was grinning again. “You call her. You remember the number, don’t you? It hasn’t changed.”

Marsh pulled open the door. “I’ll be back to check on you. Tonight, probably.”

“Call her,” his father commanded again. “You’ll see. You’re going to love it, the redhead’s surprise.”

Marsh gave his father no chance to say more. He stepped out into the hall, drawing the door shut in his wake.

Five minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his rental car. He left the hospital parking lot and drove south until he came to Gray. Then he turned west. Without even having to think about it, he worked his way over to Main at the point where Main became a two-way street.

Norman, Oklahoma. His hometown. It all looked…bigger. More prosperous. The streets were more crowded than he remembered. But in a basic sense, it was the same. He still recalled which way to turn to get where he wanted to go—which was toward the interstate, where he knew he’d find a large hotel.

He passed the high school, noted that they were putting a new front on it. The wooden statue still stood at Main and Wylie. Somebody’s ancestor, a Union soldier in the War Between the States, carved from a tree trunk by a chainsaw artist, if Marsh remembered right.

A couple of blocks past the statue was the first street he might have turned on, if…

Marsh did not turn onto that street. Nor did he turn at the one after it, or the one after that, though any one of those three would have taken him quickly to the handsome brick house where his high school sweetheart—the girl he’d sworn to love forever, the girl who’d sworn the same to him—had lived.

His father’s raspy whisper echoed in his brain.

Call her. You’ll see. You’re going to love it, the redhead’s surprise….

Marsh told himself he was ignoring that whisper. There was no surprise. His father was just doing what his father always did: trying to stir up trouble wherever he sensed an opportunity.

Marsh told himself a few other things: that he would not call her. That he had set her free of him years ago, that she probably would only slam the door in his face if he showed up out of nowhere right now. That he’d come back to his hometown because his father was dying and for no other reason.

That bygones needed to remain bygones.

Sleeping dogs should be left to lie.

Water under the bridge must just keep flowing on its way.