Kelsey Roberts - Unlawfully Wedded

“You would have laughed, Mama.” He heard Tory’s voice and followed it. She was framed by the light from the window, her back to him. “You remember when I was ten and I started to develop? That nasty David Coultraine paid two of his friends to hold my arms while he peeked down my blouse? And I screamed that I’d hate all boys until my dying day?”

She paused, as if awaiting a response that never came.

“After I stopped crying, you told me one day I’d be swooning over boys. Well, you should have seen me last night. I fell right into a man’s waiting arms, just like you said.”

J.D. nearly jumped back when she turned and moved to the bed, sitting on, but barely rumpling, the neatly tucked bed coverings. The woman didn’t move, he noted. She gave no indication that she was even aware that her beautiful daughter sat at her side. J.D. swallowed the lump of emotion in his throat.

“The doctor said he told you about Daddy,” Tory said as she continued her monologue. The pauses, he quickly realized, were the result of a long history of these one-sided conversations.

Tory lifted the woman’s limp hand. Something glittered in the light. J.D. moved closer to pull the object into focus. It was a ring, a copy of the one that the cops had found with the skeleton. From its placement on the lifeless hand, he guessed it was her wedding band.

“He didn’t leave us, Mama. No matter what else, he didn’t run off.”

Tory took the hand to her face and forced it along the side of her cheek, simulating a loving, motherly stroke.

“That day after he left,” Tory began, her voice dropping to a hard-to-hear whisper, “you told me he wasn’t coming back. You sat me on top of the bar and told me that.”

J.D. could easily imagine the scene. He felt it in the twisted knot of his stomach.

“Please, Mama,” she begged, holding the hand to her heart. “Please tell me you didn’t kill him.”

J.D. backed out of the doorway slowly, soundlessly pulling on the door as he made his exit.

Confusion caused deep lines of concentration to tug at the corners of his mouth. Glancing down the corridor, he spotted Dr. Trimble flipping through a chart near the nurse’s station. J.D. reached him in three purposeful strides.

“Dr. Trimble?”

The man peered at him over the top of his half glasses. His graying eyebrows thinned above his clear brown eyes.

“I’m J. D. Porter,” he said, offering his hand. “I came with Tory.”

The doctor nodded, apparently approving on some unspoken level. “Nice of you to come along. I’m sure today has been particularly difficult for her.”

“Yes,” J.D. agreed quickly.

“Of course, she’d never admit it,” Trimble added with a wry smile. “But I’m sure you already know that about her.”

“Sir?”

“She has this incredible capacity for only focusing on the positive. Heaven help her if she ever loses that defense mechanism.”

J.D. stifled a groan. This guy sounded exactly like his brother. Why the hell couldn’t they just say it in plain English? he wondered.

“About her mother,” J.D. began.

The doctor nodded, making him wonder if the gesture was some sort of technique taught in medical school. Wesley nodded a lot, too.

“Mrs. Conway didn’t respond when she was informed of her husband’s fate,” Dr. Trimble said.

“Stroke?”

The doctor’s eyebrows drew together and he regarded J.D. with sudden interest. “Tory hasn’t explained her mother’s illness?”

J.D. shook his head. “You know Tory,” he said with a shrug.

His seemingly innocent remark appeared to relax the other man. “I suppose it’s still quite difficult for her to verbalize her feelings.”

“Very,” J.D. agreed.

“I’ve suggested counseling on several occasions,” he said as he placed the chart on the counter and pulled the glasses off the bridge of his nose. “Especially after her grandmother died. I felt, and still feel, that Tory is unwilling to accept the finality of her mother’s condition.”

“Cancer?” J.D. said.

The doctor smiled sadly. “Nothing quite so socially acceptable, Mr. Porter.”

“AIDS?”

The doctor’s laugh was even sadder than his smile. “Tory’s mother has suffered a complete and total personality break. It is my opinion that she will never recover.”

“Personality break?”

“Nervous breakdown times ten,” Dr. Trimble explained. “She hasn’t moved or spoken for almost fifteen years.”

“Sweet Jesus,” J.D. uttered between clenched teeth.

“I don’t think Jesus will listen if you speak to Him in that tone,” a familiar female voice said.

J.D. spun on the heels of his boots, feeling his face burn under the accusation in Tory’s eyes.

“I wasn’t trying to pry.”

“Not much.”

“I think it might be good for you to share your confidences with your friend,” Dr. Trimble told her.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m in the company of a friend.”

J.D. heard the shuffling of paper behind him as the doctor continued. “I know this is probably an awkward time, Tory, but you need to contact the business office on your next visit.”

J.D. watched what little color there was drain from her face. Her thick lashes fluttered before her eyes closed tightly. Without making a sound, she sucked in several deep breaths and nodded to the doctor.

“I’m ready to leave,” she informed him in a frosty tone.

J.D. followed her from the building, knowing he should apologize, but unable to find the appropriate words. No more grant; no more father; and the next worst thing to no mother. The reality of her life pierced some private part of his heart. He unlocked the car door for her and held it open.

“I forgot my paper,” he said just as he slammed the door.

He disappeared into the building and came back ten minutes later with the paper tucked beneath his arm.

“I could have suffocated in here,” she told him when he slid behind the wheel. “If I were a dog, you might have thought to leave the window open a crack.”

“If you were a dog,” he told her as his finger flicked the underside of her chin, “you’d be better trained.”

* * *

TWO WEEKS AFTER the discovery of the body, Tory was dutifully back waiting tables at the Rose Tattoo. It was Friday, she thought with a resigned sigh. Payday for most folks, which usually meant decent tips for her. The week she’d taken off had cost her dearly. She’d be pulling double shifts for the rest of the month just to meet her bills. Forget luxuries like food.

“Evening, girlie.”

“Hi, Grif,” she said, smiling at the old man’s watery blue eyes. “The usual?”

“And keep ‘em coming.”

Sliding a napkin in front of him, she tugged the pencil from behind her ear and made a note on her pad. Grif—short for Cliff Griffen—had occupied that particular table every Friday and Saturday night for nearly twenty years. Tory liked him—liked the comfort his continuity brought.

Placing her tray on the side bar, she waited until Josh the bartender sauntered over, towel draped over one shoulder.

She said, “Dewars and water—”

“Easy on the water,” they said in unison.

“How is old Grif this evening?”

“Fine,” Tory answered just before popping an olive in her mouth.

“You aren’t supposed to do that,” Josh chided. “They’re for paying customers.”

Good-naturedly, she stuck out her tongue, careful to hide the gesture as she moved off, drink balanced in the center of her tray.

“Miss?”

“Be right there,” she promised the man before depositing the drink in front of Grif.

Quickly, she retraced her steps. “Yes, sir?”