Page 81 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

I took another sip of wine and was very glad I’d decided that grape juice didn’t count against my no-drinking resolution. Neither did Callum-dick. Those were the two exceptions to the rule.

“Did you ever tell Callum the truth?”

“The truth?” I repeated. “The truth about what?”

“About the Clemons boy.”

It didn’t surprise me that Callum’s mom knew about Jerry. It wasn’t like it was a secret. Nothing in Firefly was a secret. Everyone in town knew that Callum saw Jerry coming out of my house; he confronted me about it and left to go back to Arizona the same night.

What did surprise me was that she would bring up what I’d done. She’d never spoken to me about the circumstances of our breakup before. I wasn’t sure why she was bringing it up now.

“He knows,” I assured her as I took another sip of wine.

“He knows thatnothinghappened between you and Jerry?”

I was mid-swallow, and the liquid that was going down my throat decided to travel down the wrong pipe, which caused meto cough and sputter as I asked, “What…do you…how did…you…how…did…you…know that?”

The only person who knew the truth about that night was Zoe, well, at least until I told Daphne and Ashley the other day at the Coffee Bean. But before then, only Zoe knew. I wasn’t even sure Jerry knew what really happened. From what he told people, he was blackout drunk.

“I didn’t.” Mrs. Knight patted my back, and once the coughing stopped, a water bottle magically materialized from her purse. She twisted off the top and handed it to me. “Not for certain, anyway. Not until right now. But, I’ve always had my suspicions.”

“What?” I took a drink of the water. “How?”

“Well,”—She leaned back in the chair—“the night in question, I couldn’t sleep with everything I’d just found out?—”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A sincere smile spread across her face. “I knew Chuck wasn’t a perfect man, and I happily stayed.”

“You knew?—”

“No,” she quickly corrected herself. “I didn’t know how far it had gone or who with,but I knew he had real feelings for someone else. I could see how guilty he felt. It’s a woman’s intuition; I think you always know. I could have found out if I wanted to. All I would have had to do was ask him. But the truth is, I didn’t want to. I wasn’t willing to throw away thirty-five years. People might judge me for that, but I loved him. He was good to me.” Tears formed in her eyes. She didn’t get just a little misty-eyed. Her bottom lids filled to the brim before huge drops of emotion slid down her face. “I came from a family where there was, well, I didn’t have a good home life. There was a lot of…abuse.” She took in a shaky breath before continuing. “I ran away two weeks after I turned fifteen because I was safer on the street than I was in my own house. Somehow, I managedto graduate high school and go to college. I met Chuck freshman year. I was at a frat party, and I got drunk. I ended up waking up in a room with three guys who were…” her words trailed off.

I nodded in understanding.

She took a deep breath and continued, “I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I managed to knock a lamp over on the nightstand, and Chuck happened to be walking down the hall at that moment and heard it over the music. He opened the door, and I remember seeing his face, and, at first, I was scared because I didn’t know him. What if he was….” She took in another shaky breath. “But when Chuck saw what was happening…well, I have never seen anything like it. All three of them ended up in the hospital, two in intensive care, all with various injuries, including broken jaws, broken arms, a broken nose, six broken ribs, one suffered permanent brain damage, one lost vision in his left eye completely, and one lost fifty percent of his motor skills.” More tears spilled over and down her cheeks as she took another sip of wine. “Once they were all on the floor not moving, Chuck wrapped me up in a blanket and held me until the police came. I had to go to the emergency room to be examined and then to the police station. When they tried to make me go in the ambulance, I didn’t want to ride with the two paramedics because they were men. Chuck made it clear that either he was going in the ambulance,orhe was driving me to the hospital, and those were the only options. They let him drive me, and they followed in the ambulance.

“When I got to the hospital and had to get examined, Chuck stood on the other side of the curtain so I could see his silhouette. He refused his own medical treatment because I didn’t want to be left alone. It ended up that he had two broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, and a dislocated shoulder, but he didn’t go see a doctor until I was back in class the following week. After the hospital, I had to go to the police station to makea report. He drove me, and when they told me I had to go into a room to give my statement independently, I started having a panic attack, and he put his sweatshirt on me so I would have a part of him, and he told me to smell it if I got scared, and then he stood on the other side of the door so I could see his shoes under the crack.

“He refused to leave me alone with male police officers to give his statements, and they had to call in the only female on the force to come and sit with me while he did. When we were done, he drove me back to my dorm and told me I needed to sleep. He could see that I was scared, so he sat outside my dorm room for eight hours while I slept. And the next night, he did the same thing. He sat outside my dorm room every night for the rest of the semester. Not only that, he walked me to every class I had. I found out later he dropped classes and rearranged his others just so he could be available to walk me to mine. If I wanted to go to the movies with my friends, he’d go see the movie too. He wouldn’t sit with us; he’d just be there in the back, like my personal bodyguard. When I had to study at the library, he’d blow off plans with his friends to walk me back to my dorm. During winter, spring, and summer break, he knew I didn’t have anywhere to go, so he paid for my train ticket, and I came back here and stayed on the farm. We worked on the farm during the day and went to bonfires on the beach at night; we went to the pier, the drive-in, and rode bikes on the canals.

“In all that time, he never tried to make a pass at me or even give me any indication that he was interested in me. I was totally in love with him, but I thought he must be gay. It wasn’t until I saw him making out with Regina Lawson sophomore year that I knew he wasn’t. I broke down crying and ran out of the party. Someone must have told him I left because he chased after me and caught me in the middle of the quad. It was pouring rain, so he pulled me up the steps into the gazebo. He thought somethinghad happened to me. I was embarrassed about my feelings for him, and I didn’t want to tell him why I was upset, but I was scared he’d go back to the party and start hurting people because if you would have seen the look in his eyes, how protective he was of me, he wouldnothave stopped until he found out who hurt me. When I finally told him why I was crying, I could see the pain in his eyes. It killed him knowing he was the one who hurt me.

“I told him it was my fault and that I’d get over it. I told him that he shouldn’t feel bad, but that I just needed space from him. I started to walk away, and he said, ‘Two hundred and fifty-eight days.’ I turned around, and he sat down on the outer bench of the gazebo. I’ll never forget how his shoulders slumped in defeat as he looked up at me and said, ‘Eight months, two weeks, and three days.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought I must be having a breakdown or something, or I wasn’t hearing him correctly over the rain, so I walked closer to him and said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘That is how long I’ve been in love with you. I have loved you for two hundred and fifty-eight days. I have loved you since the moment I wrapped you up in that blanket and carried you out of that room. I have loved you every second of every minute of every hour of every day since. I love you so much that I know I can’t ever be with you.’ He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I held him while he told me he was too fucked up and I was too perfect, and he could never be with me. We stayed in that gazebo until the sun came up, talking and arguing about whether or not we could be together. It was hours and hours of me trying to convince him that he was good enough for me.”

I felt myself getting choked up. That didn’t seem at all like the Chuck Knight I knew.

Nora must have read my mind because a whisper of a smile pulled at her lips. “I know he came off as this larger-than-life,confident, charismatic guy, and he was. But he had his own demons. Buzz is amazingnow, but he wasn’t the easiest man to grow up with. He drank a lot when Chuck was a kid. Chuck had to walk on eggshells around him. He spent most of his childhood trying to be not just good enough for him but perfect, and healwayscame up short.”

It was crazy hearing that since it was exactly how Callum felt all his life.

Nora sniffed and wiped her face. “Chuck said he loved me too much to risk hurting me. He said that he couldn’t live with himself if he did that. He said if we were together, hewouldfuck it up; it wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of when, and not only would he hurt me, he would lose me, and he couldn’t lose me. He wasn’t going to risk that. And that morning, in that gazebo, when the sun was coming up, I made him a promise; I told him that he would never lose me. I told him that I knew he wasn’t perfect and that I didn’t need him to be perfect. I told him all I needed him to be was my safe place.” More tears filled her eyes. “I told him that I had lived nineteen years beingterrifiedall the time, never being safe anywhere, and all I wanted from him was a home that I felt safe in, where I knew no one would hurt me or my family. He promised me that. He said heknewhe could keep that promise, and he did. I was never scared in my home, and I know that he wasn’t the best dad to Callum; I wish that he was better, but I also know that my son never went to bed scared. I know he was never scared when he heard footsteps coming up the stairs or the front door opening. I gave him a home that he never had to be scared in, right?”

“You did. Callum wasneverscared of his dad.” I assured her.

And if he knew all this, I had a feeling he would see his dad in a much different light.

More tears fell down her face, but she wiped them away and took a deep breath. “Anyway, enough about me and Chuck; back to you.”

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