4
Quentin and Willie headed directly for the Blue Whale Bar And Grill at the wharf to ask around and found J.R. sitting in the same spot Willie once sat when he came to town with Jason McGuire. His son was named for him. Without saying a thing about the up-coming trial, the three of them ordered beers and watched the football game on the TV. Three beers, two bowls of peanuts and pretzels later, they returned to Collinwood together. Thirty-five years old, J.R. had been carrying that horrible secret since he was five-years-old and now his family was aware it. Lizzie avoided him for once, and Christopher asked if he wanted to play a video game. At midnight, he decided he didn't want to sleep, and he went back behind the estate toward the carport, looking for his old basketball hoop, but there were too many cars parked to shoot baskets. There was Uncle Quentin's mini-van, Aunt Carolyn's Escort, Lizzie's convertible and the household station wagon blocked inside by his corvette, and it had a dead battery. After poking around inside, he found himself in the illumination of the security light over the back of the garage, bouncing a softball off the back wall, trying to smack a tiny round window twenty feet off the ground looking into the second floor loft of the former carriage house. After almost an hour, he noticed a presence coming to meet him. It might have been the ghost of Josette from the Old House, or it might have been the deceased blonde housekeeper from 1897 who puttered through the attic, but between pounding the garage wall, he noticed she wore a long pink flannel robe and had short blonde hair bobbing over her shoulders. His mother had come looking for him.
"J.R, " She started. "It's after midnight. Come on in and go to bed…"
"Can't…" J.R resisted. Carolyn sighed a bit, her breath forming in the cold night air.
"Honey…" She looked back at him. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No…" He pounded the wall again, catching the ball as it bounced off. Rolling her eyes, Carolyn rubbed the back of her neck, shivered in the cold night air and sighed a bit.
"J.R…"
"My whole life!!!!" Her son suddenly screamed, pounded the wall with the ball and caught it again. "I can't get any where with girls! Am I stupid? Am I ugly? Have I been unconsciously screwing myself over?!" He pelted the wall again and caught the ball. "Jamison has girls all the time, sometimes at the same time… William gets a wife… what about me?! What about me?? It's all because that stinking blonde forced me to watch her undress!!!" He pounded the wall even harder, missing the window and rushing back to catch the ball. Just barely catching it, he pounded the garage again, dislodging part of the paneling but not hitting the window.
"J.R, honey, I'm sorry…" Carolyn lightly trembled and felt her heart breaking. "I'm sorry for not being a better mother and knowing what was happening. I'm sorry for not protecting you better… I'm sorry I ever hired her."
The softball pounded the wall and shot backward off it.
"But it's not your fault…" The petite blonde matriarch of Collinwood looked to her five-foot-eleven son. "It's my fault. I should have spotted that girl for what she was a lot faster, and Gloria should have known the difference in right and wrong. That she used my little baby to… that she did anything to you… it's not your fault."
"Mom…" J.R. pounded the softball off the garage wall and looked to her. "Why don't girls like me? Am I a jerk?"
"You're not a jerk." Carolyn looked into her son's brown eyes. He had her face, but his father's color. "You just stayed a kid a lot longer than your cousins. You're still trying to have fun whether it's the crank calls to the Blue Whale, trying to perpetuate UFO landings, blowing up your sister's chest, going around impersonating city employees or selling those photos of your sister to those magazines."
"You know about that?"
"We'll talk about it tomorrow." Carolyn shifted her weight and shivered a bit. "Honey, you will grow up when you are ready. Personally, I wish it could happen a lot faster, but… I'll give you all the time in the world you need."
"Mom, I want a girlfriend." J.R poured his heart out to her. "Why didn't you ever try finding me a girlfriend like you did for William?"
"Because your cousin grew up…" Carolyn started to turn back for the main house then hesitated. "If you want me to find a nice girl for you, then you have to decide what's more important. Making up stories about little creatures that multiple when they get wet or actually going out and meeting a girl who might like you?"
"Maybe I can find a girl who appreciates my jokes." J.R. hurled the softball one last time at the window, hitting it square to the center and shattering the glass raining into the top loft. He hit it. He actually hit it! His jaw dropped in shock, and he looked to his mother and back again. Carolyn stopped, paused and looked back at the gaping hole in the garage.
"This will be our little secret…" She mumbled tiredly, gestured for her son to walk by her and passed her arm over his shoulders, practically herding him up to the house.
Off the estate, over and beyond Rose Cottage where McGruder Road created the short cut from the Collins property over to Seaview Drive was the off-estate home of William and Ally Collins. The Harridge's cat out for the night had encroached on the property and was up on the back deck looking over the wide backyard with glowing eyes. The Temple's bull-mastiff was barking into the night for the nightly cacophony and chorus of barking dogs. First, the Tisdale's bulldog trussed up in their house and then the Stewart's pregnant female rottweiler. In her upstairs front bedroom, Ally woke to the noises. Her hand reached over to ask William to get her some water, but this time as she reached over, he wasn't there. Her burden was heavy, her guilt stabbed through her chest and a deep remorse filling her soul. She wanted to scream and curse herself, but she couldn't. Her emotions had been spent crying into her pillow. Why didn't she just do the right thing and keep it a secret like her husband wanted? She had outgrown her law career, her husband and family were important to her, but she still felt driven to do the right thing and now it might have cost her. She had repeated her husband's deepest darkest secret to her boss and the Hancock County Circuit Judge! Just what was she trying to do? A tear sliding down her face, Ally lifted to her feet to roam the house and haunt it like the ghosts of Collinwood. Her silver pajamas glittering in the partial illumination, her red slippers daintily snug to her feet, she shuffled barely awake and hardly alive around her marital bed and toward her open bedroom door. In the hardwood floor of the hall, her slippers made noises toward her daughter's room. A Hannah Montana poster on the door, it was lightly ajar as Ally scanned over to Lainey in her bed decorated by Little Mermaid bed sheets, across the Barbie-covered and crayon and coloring book littered floor to Georgia curled up in her bed. Both the little angels were running wild in their dreams. Tiny Lainey moved a bit and faded away again. Ally took a deep breath and started on her way to the back stairs, but something made her look back again. The door to the spare bedroom across the hall was ajar. It was usually kept closed except when family or friends stayed. She looked at the door a mere moment and turned for it again, her right hand extending to it, pressing lightly to the door to widen it far enough to look inside the room. Across from her on the covers of the canopy bed, William laid asleep and closed off to the world. Ally stood looking at him for what seemed hours stretched from minutes before she pushed herself further. There was a lightning of her heart to see him again, and a glimmer of emotion in her eyes to see him again. Quietly and silently, she started to reach to him… then drew back afraid. She had violated his trust tonight. She was responsible for embarrassing him. Unsure what to do, she drew back… fighting the urge to hold him, stepping back to the wood trunk at the foot of the bed. It creaked open under her hands, allowing her to pull out the comforter inside it. With the large wrap falling open, Ally pulled it apart and draped it over William's sleeping body.
"I'm sorry…" She whispered breathily into his ear as she leaned over him. She pulled it over his leg, up over his shoulder and then stepped backward once more, gliding lightly backward, hurriedly but slowly, pulling the door with her and carefully closing it, delicately allowing the latch to slide into place with a light click.
