So Long, Chester Wheeler(46)

“Well, look at you,” she said. “Getting right in the middle of this.”

I thought, Look at that. We’re still doing it. Telling each other where to look.

“Maybe I misunderstood,” I said. “But yesterday I volunteered to be something like a go-between, which of course makes me the world’s biggest blundering idiot. But at the time you both seemed willing enough to let me.”

The moment just simmered there for many seconds. Possibly a full minute. I felt as though I was watching her process everything. She seemed to be trying to wrap up her irritation so it could be put away in a drawer and saved for some other occasion.

“Okay. Here goes. Why did I take the kids? I took the kids because I was afraid for them to be with you. We tried visitation, just in case you’ve rewritten history and are about to say we didn’t. But you were bitter, and you were drinking heavily—”

He cut her off.

“I was bitter and I was drinking heavily because you ruined my life, leaving me for another man the way you did.”

“I get that,” she said. “But dangerous is dangerous and safe is safe. The story behind why doesn’t change the odds of an accident.”

“Great,” Chester said. “You ruin a man’s life and then tell him he can’t have his own kids because he’s upset about it.”

Sue slammed her fist down onto the glass-topped table. Hard. Everybody jumped. She even seemed to have startled herself. I sat poised a moment, waiting to see if the glass was going to hold.

“Now, you listen to me, Chet Wheeler. You shut up and listen for one time in your mean little life. It was not a decision I made lightly. Johnny came home from a visit with you and told me you’d been drinking all day and then you loaded them into your car to go someplace. I don’t remember where. And you drove right through a damn red light and almost caused an accident. He was terrified. You know how sensitive he is. He had nightmares for weeks.”

“I hadn’t had that many,” Chester said.

“You’d had enough to drive right through a red light! And besides, you don’t drive your kids around if you’ve had any!”

Silence. Chester was staring at his own legs again. That went on for a surprising length of time.

Then he said, in a fairly quiet voice, “You took my dog.”

“She was not your dog,” Sue said. And not quietly at all. “She was the family dog. The kids adored her, and they would’ve been heartbroken to lose her, especially in the middle of a divorce. And besides, she deserved to be safe, too.”

“Great,” Chester said. “That’s great. That’s just great. So I lost everything. And Mike got it all.”

I noticed a tingling sensation around my ears. Then I noticed I was standing, but I wasn’t clear on when I’d gotten up. I hadn’t felt myself do it.

I turned my attention fully on Sue.

“You left him for Mike?”

I watched her face flush red while she wasn’t answering.

“Wait a minute,” Chester said. “Wait just a damn minute. What do you know about Mike? Sue, did you tell him about Mike?”

She ignored him and raised her eyes to me. I saw a sardonic twist to her mood underneath the embarrassment.

“Way to zip your lip, bunkie,” she said.

“Right. Sorry. But . . . you left him for Mike?”

“You’re being a little judgy, don’t you think?”

“Right. Sorry. Maybe. But you left him for Mike?”

“Can we move on from this?”

“No. We can’t. This is shocking news.”

“Yeah, to you!” she shouted. “Everybody else at the table’s known about it for decades.”

I sat again. Plopped down, really.

“That’s just so cold. Were you sleeping with him behind Chester’s back?”

“Yes,” Chester said. “She was.”

“That’s just . . .”

“Why do you know about Mike? What did she tell you about Mike?” Then, to Sue, “Why did you tell him anything about Mike?”

“Well,” Sue said. “That was interesting while it lasted. But I think that concludes this episode of Fun with Your Ex. I think you guys need to leave now.”

It was her house, and her decision, so I got up and wheeled Chester back to the RV.

“You got us kicked out,” he said on the dreaded concrete walkway.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. It was just such shocking news. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“And that,” Chester said, “is probably the only thing you and I have in common.”





Chapter Fifteen:




* * *





Grays

Chester and I sat in the RV for most of the morning, all the curtains down, the AC blowing a gale. I was vaguely thinking I’d need to drive the Winnie to a gas station soon, because even though we hadn’t been driving, we’d been running the generator.

At first we didn’t talk much at all.

Then I said, “Oh, you need to take your pills.”

And I jumped up to get them all together and pour him some apple juice.

“I don’t want them,” he said.