The Water Keeper(77)

Gunner and I walked up behind him and stood two rows back. He spoke to me without looking. “Mr. Murphy, I’d like you to meet my wife.”

I wound around the headstones and stood next to him. He pointed. “Celeste.” The stone read “Mary Celeste Pettybone.” He spoke softly, as if he were afraid to wake her. “She died ten years ago. Age of seventy.” He sucked through his teeth and continued, “Came to see me every week. Drove six hours one way.” He wiped his eyes again. “For forty years.”

I just looked at him.

He laughed. “I tried to divorce her, tried to tell her to find another man, even stopped coming up to see her for a while when she’d visit, but . . .” He trailed off. “She never quit. Not on me. Not on us.” He stared out across the stones. “Forty years.” Another shake of his head. “Wrote me letters. Told me ’bout her job at the diner. Cleaning houses. She got hired at a hotel. Good job. Twelve years. Then when the arthritis set in, she . . .”

He stared down. “I wasn’t there when she . . .” He wiped his eyes. “They came and told me in my cell. Said she had died. That’s all.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that, she was gone.” He was quiet a long time. “When I was young and full of vinegar, I used to talk about the day my ship would come in. The day I met her, it did. She was my whole world.” He shook his head. “Life is hard. Harder than I expected. On both sides of the bars.” He knelt down and dusted off her stone. “Celeste, I want to tell you that you’re a good woman. The best even. And I’m sorry. Sorry for . . . not being there when you needed me. And for everything in between. I’m . . .”

Clay fell quiet. He leaned on the stone and lifted himself off his knees. Then he unfolded his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. I let him cry. His shoulders shook, suggesting he’d been holding those tears a long time. Finally, he straightened his new suit and donned his hat. He spoke softly. Staring at the earth. He glanced at me and back at the stone.

“Celeste always talked about seeing me in a suit. When I got out. How we’d go to dinner. Dancing. I hope she likes it.” Standing in the sun, Clay wobbled. I caught his arm, and he leaned on me. He coughed. A deep, productive cough. I couldn’t tell if it was returning or leaving. The only thing apparent to me was that whatever had kept Clay alive until this moment, whatever had gotten him through prison and from prison, was gone.

We stood there over an hour.

Having said his goodbyes, we turned and began walking toward the gate. He was a good bit taller than me, so when he spoke his shadow fell across me. “I want to thank you for getting me here, Mr. Murphy.”

“I’m sorry it wasn’t a good bit sooner.”

He opened the gate, then stared behind us. A long minute passed. “Me too.” Another suck through his teeth. “But not nearly as much as her.”

Standing in his shadow, I knew I was watching a beautiful love story play out in the air around me.

We walked back to the hotel while Clay leaned on me. More so than usual. A light rain dusted our shoulders. After a couple of blocks, he spoke. “You figured out what you’re going to tell Ms. Summer if and when you can’t find her daughter?”

“No.”

He looked at me but said nothing. His face said plenty.

Summer sat poolside when I returned in the early afternoon. A novel on her knees. Number thirteen. Fumbling with her hands. The sun was falling and the crowds were filling the waterside bars en route to Mallory Square for the sunset ritual. Staring at Summer, two things caught my attention: the book and her bathing suit. A bikini. And it’d been a while since I’d noticed a woman in a bathing suit.

“Nice suit,” I said when she caught me looking. Red-handed. A razor cut on her ankle suggested she’d shaved her legs.

Self-conscious, she fiddled with her straps. “Is it too much? It’s all I could find. They didn’t have a one-piece.” She reached for a towel.

“Not too many people trying to cover up in Key West. Down here more clothes come off than on.” I sat across from her. “Can I ask you something?”

She waited. Sweat had formed on her top lip, and her bare shoulders showed the remaining effects of the oysters the night we’d first met. They were healing, and it struck me again that she hadn’t complained a bit. Not once. “Why do you work so hard to cover up what so many would show the whole world?” I waved my hand across all the shapes and sizes of the pool deck. Most wore suits that were a few sizes too small. Wearing a memory.

She set the towel down. Summer was beautiful. A class all by herself. She just didn’t know it. Or, if she had at one time, something or someone had convinced her it was no longer true. When she spoke, her honesty was disarming. “Being known . . .” She raised her knees and pulled her heels closer to her bottom. “Can be painful.” She folded the towel and eyed all the sunbathers. “Sometimes it’s just easier to be an extra on the stage than the lead.”

I glanced at the book. “Any good?”

She smiled and gestured at four women poolside who were reading the same author. Then she pointed at the men who were with the women. “If all these guys knew how to love a woman the way”—she tapped the cover—“this guy does . . .” She leaned back and shook her head. “The world would be a different place. Although”—she set the book aside—“seems wrong to be lost in make-believe when my daughter is . . .” She turned and eyed the Gulf.