Trigger Warning: miscarriage and drug use
"Mommy, I'm hot. Can we please swim at the beach?" Through the rear view mirror, I can see that Ray is squirming in his car seat again, pulling at the belt over his chest like it's strangling him instead of just securing him.
"No, honey, remember? We're not at home anymore, there are no beaches around here." I respond, trying to hold back my smirk as he's now trying to chew his way out. The car rattles again from idling for so long at this stop sign, but I can't quite remember if it's a left or a right on Belleview to get to Mr. Cohen's.
"Then why are we here?" Ray asks after a few moments of introspection, those blue eyes detaining my gaze with a cocked eyebrow like he knows it all. He gets that from me. He looks just like Richard, but he's all me in just about everything else.
"To see Meemaw and Papa. Now hush." I catch him roll his eyes at this, because at four years old, he's already figured out all of my parenting tactics.
I haven't been here in years, a decade in fact, but everything looks the exact same as it did when I left. Untouched by any redevelopment, Tulsa will never be any more significant than it's always been. I've wondered where I'd be today had I stayed here, but now that I'm back, I feel out of place, even with this fond nostalgia tugging at every corner.
Left, it's to the left, I remember now because you had to pass by the creek to get to Jim's snow cone stand right across from the DX. I make my turn after waving on the posse of cycling ten-year-olds who are desperately trying to pass as delinquents.
That familiar blue and red sign of the DX comes into view just as I turn the corner, and my heart flutters a bit in my chest at the memory it triggers of a time long ago when I would wait for his shift to end. I can still taste that cherry sucker on his lips just as well today. I didn't know I still held onto that until now. I wonder what he's doing, after all this time. In my mind, he's off on a ranch of his own with some horses and kids or something, playing cowboy. I think that's all he's ever really wanted to be, a cowboy. I always knew he'd be a good daddy, and I wanted him to be to my children, but a single foolish night changed that for the both of us.
As soon as Ray's unclipped from his carseat, he catapults his way out and past me, already sprinting towards the lonely patch of green grass on the side of the DX brick wall. "Watch for cars!" I nag instinctually to which he ignores me instinctually.
There's a young high school aged boy clad in that same blue uniform and cap of my youth, standing at the pumps with his head down to avoid the heatwave and blowing dirt. It's just after noon, shouldn't he be in class? "Excuse me?" I call to him and he immediately straightens his getup to greet me.
"Can I get you a fill, ma'am?" his voice is soft and kind, and all of fifteen. His name tag has 'Sam' scribbled with Sharpie, and he looks like no other name would suit him better with that blonde hair and sweet freckles.
"I was actually hoping for someone to look at my car. Does Mr. Cohen still do mechanical work?"
He crinkles his brow, clearly confused, "Mr. Cohen? He doesn't work here anymore, but my boss is in today, he's real good with cars. Can I get him for you?"
"Yes, that'd be fine." He jogs around the back of the garage where the office used to sit.
I'm a bit disappointed that I won't be seeing Mr. Cohen's friendly face. I wonder if he would recognize me now, remember me as well as I remember him as that sweet old man with an incomparable amount of patience to put up with all us teenagers always hanging around his shop.
The sound of the breeze makes me realize that I can no longer hear Ray narrating his game, and sure enough, that patch of grass I imprisoned him to is empty. Most mothers would be in panic at this point, but this is just what Ray does. Escape. Another thing he gets from me.
I fiddle with my wedding band in a focused search, scanning the area for preschool-sized hideout spots. We're surrounded by open land, the road and the DX are the only things in sight, so I can't help but be proud of his creativity.
Maybe he's under the car again, that one got me good a couple of weeks ago. Just as I'm about to check on all hands and knees with my nice corduroy dress and all, there's a familiar eruption of hearty laughter from the garage.
"This kid's good!" that voice stops me in my tracks and ignites my memory in a way I can't quite place yet. I shake it off.
Though I can't see the commotion, I can certainly recognize the sound of my son's mischief. Right on cue, I can see Ray's little feet from behind one of the cars parked in the garage for inspection.
"Raymond Clyde McCalister, you get over here right this minute." I use my mom tone, the one reserved only for the times when I absolutely need it because Ray knows to listen to it. Those worn out tennis shoes, the ones that are only a month old, stop in place where I can see them now that I'm practically in the garage.
"Uh oh." That familiar southern drawl continues on like the low hum of an engine, this time in a hushed whisper, "You best be hiding, she don't sound too happy. Over here, I'll cover for you." Ray and those sneakers tip toe towards the back of the DX in the direction of that voice and I'm not sure if I should laugh or be furious at whoever is telling my kid to disobey me.
I plan my attack carefully, as not to spook Ray before he sees me coming. You only get one chance to capture my little monster. In one careful jump, I make myself known by the side of the car just in time to see Ray about to round the front of the hood. He freezes, snapping his face from me then back to the voice, beckoning it for help to which it shouts...
"Run for your life, kid!"
But I'm too fast. Thank God I've got that on my side, I don't know what I'll do when this kid grows up, but for now I'm already bent over, sweeping him off his feet and into my arms in one graceful glide before he even takes a step.
"I've got you now, you sneaky little fox!" I snarl playfully, burying my face into his belly and making those chomping noises that make him giggle. When I feel his little body shake in my hands with laughter, I almost lose my composure too.
"No, no, no!" he giggles, fighting my tickles and writhing around in my arms before I can even set him back on the ground. As soon as his feet hit the cement, he's off again, torn between gasps of air and leftover laughter.
My eyes follow him around the corner, but suddenly there's a familiar face right there before me and it's like hitting a concrete wall, full force. I would know the laid back posture of that lean frame anywhere, and the bottle of Coke dangling from those hands, and that golden hair too, even if it's longer now and not slicked back with grease. He's even got some grime on his cheek, scuffed from dirty hands, and I guess some things never change.
Despite my racing mind, I'm motionless. Mesmerized by that face that is as much the same as it is different. Some of the softer features of his youth have set in more defined, like his jawline and his cheekbones. Nevertheless, he's grown from God's gift to a teenage girl, to God's gift to woman with those looks. I'd hoped he get at least a little less attractive with age, but twenty-six has made him a different kind of sexy.
"Sandy?" he says with the same southern drawl that was just coaching Ray's misbehavior.
"Soda?" I echo. We're four feet apart but completely still. Frozen like popsicles as Ray likes to say. He flashes that irresistible smile at me and I feel those sixteen-year-old butterflies in my stomach all over again.
"You look great." he gives me a decent look up and down, before combing his fingers through his hair, his nervous tick.
Just then, that kid from the pumps appears from the back door, out of breath, breaking our trance. "There you are, Pops, I've been looking all over! You've got a customer."
"I've got it from here, Sam, thanks." Soda says.
"Oh, and Pops? I was wondering if I could talk to you sometime about maybe getting some more hours? Tryna earn some extra dough." he says with a hushed tone of discretion.
Soda gives him a pat on the shoulder, "Yeah, let's talk after your shift. Don't let me forget."
Sam gives me a slightly embarrassed smile and then returns to his post out by the pumps. I can feel Soda's eyes on me before I fully turn back to face him, just as quickly as he was to break from our reverie, he's back in, all the way now.
I must look just as confused as I feel because he follows up with, "That's Sam. He's working on college applications. Did you know you have to pay just to apply?"
I raise my eyebrows in acknowledgement, but that's not what had thrown me off. "Pops?" I question, trying to figure what the hell I might have missed.
"Just another nickname for Sodapop. They get a real kick out of making me feel old." He chuckles a bit. "What are you doing back in Tulsa?"
"I'm just visiting my folks." I find myself tucking my hair behind my ear, hoping he doesn't remember that it's my nervous tick. "Ray's never been to Oklahoma, so I thought I'd bring him... to see where I'm from."
He points outside where Ray had escaped, "Ray?" I nod and his grin widens. "Is he yours?"
I nod again. I can see he's realizing that the math doesn't quite add up, and I already know what his next question will be, but he beats me to it before I can change the subject.
"Does Ray got a big brother?"
That intimate pang hits my stomach hard and somehow unexpectedly. My hand has already reached for my belly as it always does, in instinctive protection, whenever this conversation comes up. No matter it's been almost a decade, it hits just a hard every time. I swallow it back down.
"Just Ray." I've always been good at saying a lot in my silence. He studies me like he's decoding my brevity through my eyes, just like old times. He frowns a little, I think because he's figured it out now that the child that got me to leave Tulsa isn't the same one that brought me back.
"I'm so sorry, Sandy." his voice is soft, like his heart's been genuinely broken by it too, which I guess makes some sort of sense. I ache again for that child I never got to meet but somehow still fell in love with. I've gotten good at choking that sorrow back down to deal with it in a time when I'm alone. A time when I'm not surrounded by all of these cars and garages and bittersweet memories. But Soda's looking at me with sympathetic eyes that make me feel like he might actually get it. I had forgotten how safe he used to make me feel, all those years ago, how he could understand whatever was going on in my head just from an uninterrupted gaze.
That was his magic and his curse for me, because sometimes you need to be able to hide from everyone. Soda doesn't let you. He insists on being right there with you in the mud and gunk whether you asked him there or not.
He takes the first step towards me, but leaves it at that, knowing my guard is up after that landmine explosion in my heart.
"How are your brothers?" I deflect.
"So good." he beams in pride, respecting my new course of conversation. "Pony got himself through college, now he's working in New York as a writer, already published a whole book. And Darry finally got married to Debbie Thompson, believe it or not. He co-owns Conoway Roofing now, but mostly works as a police officer."
So many of the memories that I've boxed away force their way to the surface. I remember Pony in all his earnest daydreaming, always quietly following behind Soda whenever he wasn't keeping to himself. Sounds like he grew out of that and into his own. I can't imagine him as the twenty-something he must be now, big wig in New York with a fancy publishing deal. I'm certain he hasn't lost any of his humility. He and Johnny were the same that way.
Johnny, ouch. Had I accidentally forgotten all of that? Or did I make myself forget to spare myself the heartbreak?
I shake my head of it again and think instead of Darry, who intimidated me so much at first in his football glory and ambition and perfect posture. It was months before I caught him crack a smile. Then one day, he helped get my brother's car out of the mud with his father's truck when Soda was at work. That's when I saw Darry's truth, that he's always trying to do what is good and right, and there's not many with that kind of integrity.
I can't help but smile with Soda here, thinking of how far they've come after knowing where they had been when I left. That smile falls a bit as I think about Mr. and Mrs. Curtis. They had welcomed me in for everything that I was at a time when I couldn't rely on my own parents to do the same. My chest tightens as I remember how much I also lost on the night that took them. The few months after were hell for me too, having to watch Soda fight to keep his brother's spirits up one moment, then holding him and his wracking sobs as close to me as I could the next.
And the fights between us that were born from our grief and exhaustion. We were always passionate in love and war, and those heated arguments where we said things we regretted is what started us down the path towards destruction. I called him lazy and he called me selfish, and neither were completely true. And yet they festered under our skin and pushed us further from our once perfect understanding of each other. It became a cycle.
We were both breaking, but then I broke him more in order to get out.
"You own the DX?"
"Still here." He says without an ounce of shame, shrugging his shoulders to display his kingdom of grease and garage that surrounds us. "Mr. Cohen wanted to retire, and I thought why not? I'm here a few days a week and help Darry the rest during their peak season, but I like it best here. A lot of these kids are just looking for a place to be, someone to tell them they can be somebody. If I can be that person, I want to." He doesn't say it's because he never had that. He would never rag on his brothers like that.
He takes another step towards me, and damnit I'm not so sure I'll be able to keep myself off of him if he gets any closer- even as a happily married woman. "How you been all this time?"
I take a breath to steady my pounding heart. "Great. I got married to my husband, Richard, six years ago in Florida. Then we had Ray a couple of years later, he'll be four and half in a couple of months."
"You still in Tallahassee?"
"Orlando." My face turns red a bit knowing how much I've gained in the last decade while it seems like he hasn't moved an inch.
"He's a ham." Soda laughs, gesturing back at Ray who's now sizing up Sam by the pumps with an inquisitive look on his face. "He's got your eyes. I should've known he was yours the second he came waltzing in like he owned the place."
"He's got my temper, too." I add since Soda knows exactly what I'm talking about.
"Well God help the woman he marries." he slaps his grease rag over his knee spiritedly. "How your folks been? I know your dad's been a little sick."
I had forgotten that Tulsa is so small that no one's business is ever private. "Yeah. Early onset dementia."
He scratches the back of his head and shakes it. "I'm sorry to hear that. He just came by the other day for an oil change, happy as a clam, as always."
It all makes sense now, that Dad had asked me to take his car in because he knew Sodapop Curtis would be here, and he knows I still carry heavy guilt for how things ended between us. It's because I never told either of my parents that Soda wasn't the father, and I never will.
He throws back the rest of the Coke, then tosses the bottle into the garbage behind him, and I notice the pictures he's got on his bulletin board above. Among the miscellaneous photos of his brothers and his friends (and holy shit, Ponyboy and Darry have aged just as well as their brother), there's one of him in a moment of laughter with his arm wrapped around that brunette Grace Walker from our school. I have so many questions, but I keep them to myself.
"So what's the trouble with your car?"
I clear my throat to give myself a chance to remember why I came here in the first place. "There's a rattling noise sometimes, but it seems to be running just fine."
"Hm, why I don't I take a look at it. Mind if I pull it into the garage?" he's outstretched his hands towards me, but I've been distracted by that tattoo just below the lock of his elbow.
'#0444 5th Inf. Div.' inscribed on a helmet on some combat boots stares back at me and something else under it in Vietnamese, I think. My heart sinks as I put the pieces together. We received a letter in '69 excusing Richard from the draft since he was pursuing his PhD, but we'd never really feared it in the first place, joking that he was too valuable for the government to use as canon fodder. It all suddenly feels very unfunny. I imagine the three Curtis boys in that worn out house, getting the same government parchment and seal, but with a much different message. I can almost see Ponyboy crumble, Darry going rigid, and Soda shutting down in that moment.
I hate myself a little because I'm so thankful that I didn't have to see it happen in person.
"Keys?" is what breaks me out of my daze. He follows my stare down to his arm, then runs his fingers over the dark blue ink and raised letters in his tan skin, cupping his palm over the lock of his elbow not quite fast enough to keep me from seeing those scars over his veins. Jesus Christ. "Got back five years ago, but I swear, sometimes it doesn't feel like it's been more than a couple of months." He says it with such acceptance. I never understood how he could rebound so quickly to whatever he was given. But something tells me this may have been a burden that sent him off the deep end. Not everyone could see it like I could, but Soda has always been a time bomb, just waiting for the right ingredients, I guess they finally came together.
As he looks back up at me and all of my new context of him, I can see much more than I had in my first glance. His eyes have that liveliness that I remember at fifteen, his smile still just as kind and inviting as it is mischievous. He's hardly aged a bit, except for those wrinkles under his eyes, proof that he's done much more smiling than anything else. But behind that, I can see the weight of the last few years. Like I said, I'm quick. Quick enough to catch that millisecond when his eyes change for a moment and show he's been shattered and carefully glued back together, but the cracks still show even if he is standing tall.
"I never knew." I admit, unable to completely swallow this information. "I'm glad you're back, safe and sound."
He fidgets with the ratchet socket between his fingers, still just as restless, I guess.
"There were some bumps along the way, but I'm a much better driver now." His smiles before cueing me again with wiggling fingers for the car keys. As I put them in his hand, I can feel his warmth under the grease, and it still feels a little bit like home.
XXXXXX
"Mama, Sam says that the beach is only one state away." Ray lectures me in geography even though he doesn't know a thing about Texas. He starts pulling at the blades of grass beneath our seated bodies, considering his proposition carefully. "I think we can still get to the beach before dinner, if we hurry."
He goes behind my back with two little fist fulls of grass, and drops them over my head like rain. I pull out a couple of bigger handfuls and toss them behind me so he can feel their shower too. That little titter of his lets me know I've hit him, and when he circles back around to me, his shaggy red hair is seasoned with green.
"Gotcha." I say. Ray points behind me as he starts to jump up and down in excitement.
"Mama, it's the cowboy!" sure enough, Soda's already rolling up in Dad's car next to the patch of grass we've been playing on for the last twenty minutes. He leans out the window with one lazy elbow, and smiles back at Ray who's already tugging on his arm, begging to outsmart the high five, down low, too slow routine that Soda's got queued up. I guess Soda knows to go easy on him, because Ray slaps Soda's hand hard when he gets to the 'too slow' part. Ray squeals in pride.
"Hear that?" The rattle is gone, and just the rumble of the engine fills the air around us. "Turns out there was just a rock caught in your heat shield. Easy fix." He munches on the toothpick in the corner of his mouth as he kills the engine and gets out. I chuckle quietly to myself knowing that Dad probably knew that was the issue all along, and sent me here anyways.
"That's great, thank you." I pick up Ray before he can rip Soda's arm right out of its socket in all his vivaciousness. "What do I owe you?"
Soda shakes his head with enthusiasm, waving his hands dismissively at me. "It's on the house."
We're staring again. Only a couple of seconds of thoughtful silence have passed, but Ray's decided we've become too boring for his attention, so he twists out of my hold once more and darts off to create more grass piles of ammunition.
"I always knew you were gonna do something big. You were never supposed to stay in Tulsa." he says right before the stillness swallows us whole, and I can hear the small dose of bitterness even in his sincerity.
This is my chance. I've wanted this encounter for years. I've practiced speech after speech in my head to justify what I did. To tell him that I thought my life was over when I heard about the baby, and about the shame that surrounded me everywhere I went in this tiny, suffocating town. That I loved him, but when I heard about the baby, I had to grow up so fast, and I just knew we would never make it in the state we were in.
But now that I've got him right here in front of me, I've lost all my eloquently drafted words.
"I'm sorry, Soda." is all that comes out of my mouth, and actually, it's the perfect summary of it all.
He raises his eyebrows, eyes wide, ready to assure me that it's okay. I wish he wouldn't. "You were doing what you had to do." I should've known he never needed a worthy vindication or passionate groveling in exchange for forgiveness. But my absolution doesn't diminish the fact that I still hurt him. Bad. "I wrote you... when you got to Tallahassee. Did you get my letters?"
I still have them all, bound up by string in a shoebox in our bedroom closet next to the wedding album. Six month's worth of letters. I read them, over and over when I first moved because they were my saving grace. Proof that I was still capable of being loved by someone else in a time when I didn't even love myself. But I didn't write back because I knew it would lead him on, and I had made up my mind by then that I had to end that chapter. Soda knows when my mind's made up, there's no backtracking.
"I was trying to protect you." I say, and while it's the truth, it's still a poor argument against a decade long silent treatment. "I tried calling you a bunch of different times, but I never got past the first few rings. I just couldn't get over the thought that you might hate me, and that you would have every right to."
He lets out a deep sigh solemnly, wringing the oil rag in his hands. "I wish you had waited for an answer. I've never hated you, Sandy. I just wanted to know what I did wrong."
"It wasn't just you." I interject, 'just' is the keyword there. The tears I've shut inside for years finally start to well up in my eyes. "It was everything else. Your parent's accident. My mother and all her strictness. Socs and Greasers. I felt so stuck in a life I didn't know how to live. The two of us were fighting all the time. Then the pregnancy happened."
"We would've figured it out." he says honestly.
"I didn't want that for you. And all that shit I was going through didn't even touch the shit you were going through, but I was scared, and I needed someone who could take care of me, and you just couldn't then."
I wonder if he knows just how absent he had been near the end of our relationship, even if he looked so happy go lucky on the outside.
"I would've taken care of you." I know that in truth he probably would've, and he'll never know how much I loved him when he asked me to marry him even after he knew what I'd done behind his back.
"I know." I check in with my wedding band, reminding myself of all the good I have now. "We weren't ready to deal with that kind of pressure back then. I hated myself for how I ended it, but Soda, I wouldn't change a thing."
I can hear Ray sending his grass blade soldiers into battle from behind me in Soda's silence. Finally, he shakes his head, "Me neither."
It's so strange to be so in love with the separate lives we lead, and yet still yearn a little for the giant mess that could've been.
"I never forgot about you, and I never stopped loving you." I admit, and I know that he understands that my love for him has become a love of the memory, and not one of a hopeful future. I wouldn't trade the life I have now for anything.
"Hey, Pops!" Sam calls from the pumps where an old red VW beetle is idling with little old Mrs. Patterson in the driver's seat. She was old when I was sixteen, she must be ancient now.
Soda turns to see them, and gives them a full bodied friendly wave and full faced grin. "I'll be there in a jiffy, Mrs. Patterson!" He faces me again. "So this Richard guy, he treats you all right?"
I nod, "He's the love of my life."
"And you're happy?"
I nod again, and he smiles like he's relieved before I dare to ask, "Are you?"
He looks back at the DX up the street from us and rubs his tattoo once more, subconsciously this time. "I'm grateful. That's enough for me." And it's so Soda to be so raw and beautiful at the same time. Whatever it was that knocked him down before, certainly hasn't kept him down. The Curtis boys are secure on top of that steep mountain they've climbed, and I could cry because that's really all I've wanted to know all this time.
Soda hands me back my keys, cupping the other hand on top of mine. "It was good to see you, Sandy. Truly."
"You'll tell your brothers I say hi?"
"You bet." he lets go of my hand and gives me that signature wink, then opens the door to the driver's seat for me. "Tell your parents if they need anything at all, they knows where to find me."
My little bundle of energy is still talking aloud over in the patch of green, his father's red hair catching the sunlight just right to make my heart flutter. "Your Highness, the carriage leaves in ten seconds, with or without His Majesty!"
He leaps off the ground, coming at us full force as if he thinks I'd actually leave him here. But before he gets to the door, he barrels into Soda's legs and wraps his arms to squeeze them in tight. "G'bye, mister!" in the same second, he's clicking himself into his carseat.
"G'bye, Sport." Soda leans in the window to give him a little salute. He takes a step back, giving me a small wave, leaving me with a grin this time instead of the tears we had parted with last time.
As I drive past the pumps to get back onto the road, I can hear Soda talking to Mrs. Patterson. "I don't believe I've ever seen a woman more beautiful in this Tulsa heat." she laughs as bashfully as two-packs a day will let you, and I'm sure all ninety years of her are fawning over him. Some things never change.
"Speaking of beautiful, when are you going to marry that Gracie Mae?" Mrs. Patterson asks, and I crane my neck to hear his response, but Ray speaks first.
"Is he a real cowboy, Mama?" he asks, watching the DX shrink behind us.
"Just an old friend." Maybe it'll be a story for when he's older, maybe it's something I keep just for me.
He looks back at me in the rearview mirror to me with a satisfied look, "I like him."
Phew! Writing for Sandy was a challenge! I'm a little self-conscious of this piece, because I have worked and reworked it a bunch trying to find a groove I never quite found. Still, this is a site for growth and I love feedback, so here it is!
Thank you for reading, as always! Sending love to each of you :)