When We Were Married Ch. 05C

He turned his gaze down at Colman and sneered.

"That pig wife of yours is going to be harder to swallow, no pun intended, but I'll fuck her just for the pleasure of getting pictures and sending them to you.

"And when you come after me with the big-ass gun, I'll have security blow you to hell. You're going to be easy, because at least you've got balls and you won't be able to stand me turning your wife into a whore. Maitland is such a pussy he'll just lay there and take it."

I put my hand on Colman's gun hand and squeezed.

""You are welcome to fantasize as much as you like, Mr. Sutton. But you're never leaving the confines of the state penal system again while you're upright.

"And the only hot sex you're going to enjoy is some inmate's big cock stuck up your ass or down your throat. Probably two of three of them at the same time. And probably coal black because I hear they love good looking white boys like you."

He just shook his head and kept smiling.

"It's a date. See you in court, Angel of Death.

As Colman and the deputy led Sutton in the jail, a late model Caddy swung into the parking lot. A white haired old man got out from behind the driver's side and helped a little old white haired lady out of the passenger side. Leaning heavily on a cane and the old man, she limped toward me. Her gaze chilled me.

"Mr. Maitland, you are going to be sorry you did this."

"Hello, Mrs. Sutton. I expected you to be along pretty soon. Come to lend moral support to your son. I can't blame you."

"You are filth, Mr. Maitland. Just like that bitch wife of his. She deserved everything that was done to her. I just wish I could have seen it."

"You know her baby was your grandson?"

"That piece of trash was no relation to me. And I'm glad it was tossed into the woods for animals to eat."

I looked at her and for once words failed me.

"I was 49, Mr. Maitland, when I became pregnant with William. All the doctors told me to abort him. My husband -- my fortunately dead husband -- tried to make me abort him. But I refused. It was hell, but I bore him and he lived.

"He has always been mine and I have always been his. Someday we will be buried in the same grave, together for eternity. Nothing can ever separate us. Certainly not a miserable ambulance chaser like you."

I just stared through the ice at her, feeling sorry for the miserable old man who must have been a boyfriend. Although God knows I couldn't imagine have the nerve to try to shove a penis up inside that frozen vagina.

"Thank you, Mrs. Sutton. I was feeling a slight degree of pity for you. No matter what, no matter how twisted and just plain mean you have been, no matter that you're lying to help your son get away with beating a woman and embryo to death, I told myself that you're a mother and mothers have blind spots for their sons.

" But, I don't have any pity for you any more. You're the reason he's the monster he is today. You molded him into the man he is. If there was any way, I'd have you on the gurney with poison being pumped into your veins alongside him."

If she had had a weapon in her hands, I would have been apprehensive.

"But it's better this way, Mrs. Sutton. You're old, but tough. I think you'll hang on long enough to see him taken to the Death Chamber at Raiford. I think they'll probably let you be a witness. If I can, I'll be there. I want to see your eyes when his eyes close for the last time.

"I'm going to be thinking of Sheila and her baby. I'm going to be thinking of what went through her mind as he beat her and her baby to death. And I hope to God, he hurts like hell as he's dying and you feel every bit of his agony.

"And then I hope you burn in hell with him."

I turned and walked away from her although I could feel her gaze burning into my back all the way into the Jail.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2005 1 p.m

The beach curved out and bent to the right as the coast curved away to the south down beyond St. Augustine. We were on a stretch of isolated white sand beach tucked in away behind an undeveloped spit of land between St. Augustine and Marineland. There was a newish-paved two-lane highway a few hundred feet away but we could have been on a deserted island.

There were three or four long palm trees that storms had toppled in past years and the action of wind and water and sun over the years had basically fossilized them.

As the beach eroded, they were left behind, stark black monuments set against the blinding white sand and the clear blue ocean beyond.

I loved Matanzas for its wildness and those boulders set in the sea, but this didn't even seem to be on the same earth that existed a few miles away. I'd taken Debbie and the kids here when they were little and those visits were among the greatest memories of my life.

Aline looked up and down the beach. She was wearing a fairly skimpy red bikini but wore shorts and a shirt over it. We leaned against one of the tree trunks. We could have been the only people on earth. I wished we were.

"It's like another world," she said, reaching out to drape her arms around me. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"It's not on any maps, but I've always thought it's one of the most special spots on this coast. The only people who know about it are people who grew up here like me or tourists who stumble on it by accident. This is something I could give a French visitor that you couldn't get from any tour."

We lay in each other's arms and smelled the salt breeze coming in off the ocean. There were a lot of things we could have been doing, but nothing that I wanted to do more than hold this woman and stare out at the whitecaps rolling in toward the shore.

Finally, I kissed her on the forehead, pulled her to her feet and we walked through the sand, back through a strip of wooded land and found ourselves back at my Escalade parked on the shoulder of the road, which was deserted.

"Where to now, my personal guide?" she said smiling.

"A little history lesson, Ms. des-Jardins, that someone from Europe might appreciate."

It was only noon and even in early September, the cramped, crowded, tiny little European brick-paved streets of St. Augustine were crowded with cars and strolling tourists from all over the world.

I parked a few streets over from the Castillo de San Marcos and we made our way past the restaurants and the little shops selling fudge and souvenirs of the Old City. In places the little streets were barely wide enough for two small cars to get past each other.

She stopped at one corner and looked one way and then down the other street. Something flashed in her face that she didn't want me to see and she looked away as if a store awning advertising Authentic 19th Century Salt Water Taffy was the most fascinating thing in all the world.

I let her stand there alone for a few minutes and I could tell from the way she breathed that she was holding in sobs. I came to stand behind her and put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her back to me. I let her hide her face and her eyes because I knew what I'd see if I forced her to look at me.

This was too much like her real life. Although this was anachronistic today even in Paris, it had the feel of France and Italy and Belgium. I knew it brought back memories of other days and I knew who she remembered standing next to, who she remembered holding her in his arms.

After a few moments she wiped her face and without looking back at me, said, "I am sorry, Ma chérie. I was just...just remembering....how Andre looked when we took him to a small village on the Portuguese coast last Fall. It looked like this, without the tourist shops. He ran along the beach making a mess of his new clothes and harassing the fishermen working on their nets in the sun."

She turned and buried her face against me.

"I'm sorry. So sorry. But I miss him."

I didn't say anything. Just held her. And it didn't matter that she was lying. She missed her son. And her husband. And her life. Which was far from here. But it had been my choice. This was part of it all. And no matter how bad it hurt to know who she should have been with, I had made the deal with the Devil to take the bad with the good of having her here.

We walked hand in hand to the Castillo de San Marcos, or as everyone in North Florida has called it since well before I was a twinkle in my daddy's eye, The Old Fort. Its rolling green approach was covered with kids and picnicers. We walked up to the entrance and I paid the $14 for two tickets and I led the way.

I wasn't a professional guide, but I had been in here so many times as a kid I felt like I could have done a professional job. I took her through the powder magazine, a dark prison cell, the chapel and guard rooms. The walls seemed to close in, the coquina walls felt colder than the underground location could account for.

When I'd been a kid I sometimes fantasized that there were real ghosts here. I imagined that the short -- even shorter than me -- dark haired men in the funny armor and their eyes in paintings both disturbingly cold and at the same time fiery, had left behind their spirits when they had died of disease or enemy attacks.

I knew it was all bullshit, but there had been a lot of pain and dying inside and outside these rugged walls and if there was anyplace in Northeast Florida that deserved a few ghosts rattling chains, the Old Fort would have been the place.

Or sometimes, I thought when I became a teenager and old enough to have my heart broken by the some luscious young lady who didn't see the stud I was underneath the nerd costume I wore, I imagined a dark-haired Spanish soldier with a cool goatee coming down with a fever and dying of a broken heart when the woman he loved returned to Spain with a rival.

When I got a little older, I realized that lovesick soldier would probably just purchase a whore, camp follower or possibly one of the Creek, Choctaw or Seminole women who'd been captured by slavers. I got to be very cynical after the tenth time I saw the love of my life walk away with some idiot who just happened to be tall enough to pat me on the head condescendingly as he took my girl away.

We walked to an upper level where we could look out over the Bridge of Lions and the Matanzas Harbor. The sun was blinding on the choppy waters as an early Fall nor'easter blew the wind ahead of it. In a few hours the sky would be overcast and then the sky would fall in, but right now it was Florida at its best.

I grabbed Aline's hand and said, "Let's go down."

We walked out onto the rolling hillside that led from the Fort's entrance to the street.

"I've got to do this," I said, and I started trotting. Holding her hand, she stumbled and then as long legged as she was she started to catch up with me. Then we were racing and laughing like crazy, laughing like kids while tourists and mothers and fathers and small children just stared at us. Finally, just before we ran out of grass and tumbled onto the bricks, I fell to my knees and dragged her along with me.

She was laughing so hard she could barely speak, but she managed to say, "What....what...what was that all about?"

"I loved to do that from the time I was nine or ten. My friends and I would go up to the Fort and run down as fast as we could and try not to sail out into traffic. Of course, nobody ever drove more than 15 miles an hour by here, but even so it's a wonder any of us survived."

"You are crazy, a crazy man," she said, kissing my check.

"That's me, a wild and crazy guy."

For just those few seconds I hadn't felt every second of my 42 years. It had felt good.

#####################################

THREE HOURS LATER

I tried to untangle my tongue so I could catch my breath. I thought that Philippe's ghost had gone back into whatever limbo he'd come out of because I couldn't feel him between us. She lay back on the couch naked to the waist, her breasts dripping with my spit from the sucking I'd been giving them for the last 10 minutes. We could have fucked, but we both were putting it off.

"Oh," she said finally. "What time did you say we had that reservation at The Top Floor?"

"7:30. We have 45 minutes. Plenty of time."

"Well, I need to get in and get a long bath and....get some things done."

I just gave her a look and she gave me a shrug."

"Wait and see."

I leaned back on the couch and let go of her. The Top Floor is a restaurant located on the 15th floor of the Barnett Bank Building. It takes up the entire floor and through its windows you can see all of Jacksonville spread out below and around you.

Jacksonville, and all of Florida, for that matter, is about six inches above sea level so there's nothing to block your view for miles around.

It's one of the most impressive sights in the city and I wanted to share that with Aline on my birthday. And the food isn't bad, if you like steak and potatoes. I'm not a huge steak guy, but it felt appropriate for such landmark birthday.

As Aline stepped into the bathroom my cell rang. I almost didn't check it, but there was always the chance that it was important.

I saw the number and realized it had to be Kelly. I couldn't imagine Debbie calling me on a Saturday night.

"Dad, hi."

"Hey Kelly. What are you up to?"

"BJ and I wanted to check one more time. Neither one of us is out tonight and we wanted to give you one last chance to change your mind and go out tonight for your birthday."

I waited a decent interval to reply and then lied my ass off.

"I'm sorry baby. I know this sounds like an old recording, but I have been hot and heavy on some important cases the last week. I'm in my underwear at the condo watching a movie on television and I'll probably be snoring before 9. I'd fall asleep on you.

"The date's just a number. Give me a couple of weeks and we'll go out and do something special, something you guys will enjoy. Can you give me a raincheck?"

"Okay. I'll find something to do tonight. You get some rest. You've an old man, now you know."

"Don't rub it in. I promise, I'll contact you when the smoke settles and arrange a nice night out."

Something entered my head then and it popped out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop myself. I found myself lowering my voice, even though there was no way Aline could have heard me in the bathroom, over the running water.

"We can all get together. You, your brother, your grandmother and grandfather. Even...tell your mother she's welcome if she wants to come out for dinner with us. Tell her...I promise...truce. We're going to have to learn...to be around each other...someday."

The other words in my head wouldn't come out. It would be the first time in nearly 20 years I had a birthday party where she wasn't. I knew that was the reality of it now, but it suddenly hit me all over again. I was in my apartment with a beautiful naked woman and I was missing my ex-wife.

"I'll tell her, dad. I...think she might like that. Okay, I'll let you go. Get some rest."

I clicked the phone off. And sat on the couch wondering if I was doing the right thing. But we'd have the rest of our lives together. I had less than two weeks with Aline, and it would probably have to last me for the rest of my life.

And how could I leave Aline alone, a secret from my family while I went out for a birthday celebration. On the other hand, how could I introduce Aline to my kids and say, "By the way, kids, this is the married lady that is cheating on her husband with me. She's a really nice lady."

Maybe they could do that in Europe. But not in Jacksonville, Florida. I shook my head just thinking about it.

I yelled at Aline, but she had a small casette player she'd brought with her going in the bathroom with some French pop tune and I was sure she couldn't hear me. I went to the closet, pulled out a nice pair of slacks and a V-necked blue pullover. The Top Floor was expensive, but not formal.

I was slipping some black loafers on when the doorbell rang.

Who the hell would be at my door on a Saturday evening? I wondered if something had happened at the jail with Sutton, or...it could be anything. But the phone hadn't beeped while I was on the phone with Kelly to indicate another call was holding.

The universe did a 180 and I felt like Alice falling through the Looking Glass. I had reached the door and looked through the peep hole.

Even though this wasn't a bad neighborhood, it was still downtown Jacksonville and I wasn't opening the door without knowing what was waiting on the other side. I recognized what I was looking at, but my eyes weren't transmitting the signals to my brain.

Before I could move, a key turned in the lock and I moved backward without thinking as the door opened outward.

"Surprise..."

"Hi, Dad...we...."

"Dad....I thought..."

"Bill, Happy Birthday son..."

They all stared at me in my slacks and pullover and shoes and I stared back.

"Hi....Kelly..BJ....Mom...Charles....Roy?

...Cathy?.....Clarice....Ricky......Amy"

I couldn't believe it but I said, "Debbie??"

I stared at my son and daughter at the front of the parade, followed closely by my mother and my stepfather, my ex-mother and father-in-law, my ex-sister-in-law, her six-year-old daughter Amy and 8-year-old son Ricky, and MY EX WIFE? What Circle of Hell had I been dumped into?

"Dad...what...I thought..."

"Yeah, Dad," Kelly said, "You said you were going to bed. We came by to surprise you and take you out for a cool birthday dinner."

"Yes, son," my mother said, advancing on me like a stalking lioness. "We thought we were going to have to get you dressed and take you out. But it looks like you beat us to it. Where were you going, and why didn't you want us to know about it?"

I didn't realize that she was backing me into my lair until I realized I'd passed beyond the couch and the whole expedition was inside my condo.

"Boy, this place is really small," Ricky said, looking around.

"Sh....baby, no...." Clarice said.

I heard a sound behind me and I realized that my entire life had been building to this moment. The door to the bathroom was turning and as it opened outward I heard a Cranberry's tune we had heard at O'Brien's. When Aline realized how much I loved it, she'd downloaded it.

As the door opened and I spun around in dreamlike slow motion, I heard:

You know I'm such a fool for you

You got me wrapped around your finger

Do you have to let it linger....

She stepped out like Botticelli's painting of Aphrodite rising from the sea, all pink and white and jet black wet hair hanging around her shoulders. With the Cranberries spilling out behind her, she advanced toward me on catlike feet, her attention focused on the pink slit of her shaved pussy which she was holding open with her thumb and index finger.

"Do you like? I thought we might...test it out...before we-"

Only a few times in my life have I seen a person's jaw literally drop. She stared at me and what stood behind me and her voice died away.

"Mommy, that lady doesn't have any clothes on."

It was one of those moments when you can hear the blood pumping through your carotid artery, you can hear the elements inside your apartment's AC system humming, you can hear the individual breaths of a half dozen human beings against a canvas of silence.

And then Aline was scrambling backwards, shifting her hands from her groin to her breasts and back again, gaze flashing from one set of astonished eyes to another as she disappeared into the bathroom whose door slammed shut.

"...do you have to let it linger...."

Somehow the old Vaudeville punchline about "slowly I turned..." rang in my head as I turned to face my parents and children and inlaws and outlaws. I couldn't read Charles' expression, but there was surprise and the beginnings of a small smile on my mother's face; shock and sadness on Cathy Bascomb's face mirrored in her husband and daughter, Clarice.