Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian Read online

  That was before I met Andrew. The first thing he ever said to me was, “I’m Andrew and you’re Beautiful.” He sounded just like one of the Kennedys, his accent and all. We were in the college auditorium and I’ll never forget. We had to sneak around at first to date, him being an instructor and me being a freshman. But I finally brought him home to meet everybody at Sunday dinner. I was nervous but he acted real calm. He taught psychology, still does, so he knew how to calm himself. Everybody was there. Mama, Daddy, Sarah, Jack, and even Aunt Kate. She was between boyfriends. We could always tell because she’d show up for Sunday dinner saturated in Virginia Slims and acting real restless, “like a worm in ashes,” Daddy would say. Mama had fried chicken. That was when it was still okay to fry things. I remember it was chicken because somebody said “You are what you eat.” Then Aunt Kate said, “Maybe that’s why I feel mad as an old wet hen.” Not even Daddy would mess with Kate in a mood like that but Andrew didn’t know.

  He spoke up and said, “It’s been scientifically proven that wet hens don’t exhibit temper.” I don’t know if it was his accent or what he said but Kate’s mouth fell open. I was just glad she wasn’t chewing. Andrew didn’t seem to notice. I guess he thought he was impressing the family because everybody was staring at him. He took a sip of tea and said, “Kate,” which seemed kind of familiar just having met her, “do you mean ‘mad’ as in ‘angry’ or ‘mad’ as in ‘crazy’? If it’s crazy, then you may be right. A wet hen might show psychotic tendencies. I don’t think there’s been a study on that.” He pushed his sweater sleeves up a notch like he’d made a point.

  Kate leaned forward and said, “What I mean is I’m mad as hell, pissed off, fucking angry!” Andrew reared back like he’d been singed. Mama jumped up to get more tea. Sarah and Jack quit rubbing each other under the table. Daddy looked like he might laugh. I thought for sure Kate would leave the table, but she sat right there gnawing her chicken down to the pully bone.

  I just wanted to die, but after dinner things got a little better. Kate went home to smoke, Sarah and Jack went home to finish what they started under the table, and Daddy and Andrew went in the living room to talk. I stayed in the kitchen with Mama. When Andrew left he thanked Mama for dinner and Daddy for all the gardening tidbits—“tidbits” was Andrew’s word—and he left. I didn’t see him for about a month after that, and I got to wondering if I ever would again.

  But he showed up pretty soon all love sick, saying, “Donna, I can’t live without you even if … even if …” He never did say “even if” what. We got married at Beulah Land. It was a pretty wedding. I can see the front pew now. Mama was sitting there in ice-blue chiffon kind of dazed-like, tired I guess, but Daddy was crying. He was slumped over, trying to hide it, but I could tell. Heck, everybody could. His shoulders were heaving and he’d let out a snort ever so often. At first it looked like he was snoring or laughing. But he looked up once and his face was as wet as Jack’s had been the day we pelted him with oats. Sarah was crying too. She was my matron of honor. She had on a long blue gown, about two shades deeper than Mama’s but they didn’t clash or anything. It had a full skirt and tiny waist and short puffy sleeves like Cinderella’s ball gown. She kept saying stuff like, “Oh, Nonna, you’re so pretty!” and “Oh, Nonna, are you sure he’s it?” She cried too. Not many of Andrew’s relatives came, being so far and all, but he didn’t care and neither did I. It’s funny how you get kind of selfish when you’re in love. You know other people are caring about you but all you can think about is each other. It was a nice wedding.

  About the time I got married, Sarah and Jack started trying to have babies. They tried for a long time but Sarah kept miscarrying, one after the other. It seemed like every year she’d get pregnant and a few months later she’d miscarry. She kept getting thinner and thinner. Dr. Sams, he was our family doctor, he finally told her and Jack not to try anymore, another miscarriage could kill her. But Sarah kept on. She tricked Jack into two more pregnancies before he wised up and got a vasectomy. We’re not supposed to know about the vasectomy but Sarah told me and I told Andrew. That was four years ago. Or five, I guess, counting the year she’s been gone.

  What I can’t understand is why Sarah didn’t tell me she was taking off. I mean, good Lord, I’m her sister! She did mention the vet a time or two. Michael was his name. “Nonna,” she said, “you should see his eyes. They’re dark as night.” But the few times I saw him, he was wearing a cowboy hat pulled down so low I couldn’t even tell if he had eyes, much less what color they were. I guess Sarah got a lot closer. But she never said anything about leaving, not to me. That’s what hurts. That and missing her so much.

  JACK

  It’s not like I didn’t love her or take care of her. Twenty years of paying Duke Power bills, good God, that ought to count for something.

  Tommy told me I’d been warned. He told me the first time I brought Sarah home, she had the same look as my mother. I couldn’t even remember my mother’s face, but Tommy said, “Cat eyes. Watch out.” Just before Sarah left, her eyes kept reminding me of something way back in my brain, maybe it was my mother. Guess that’s what attracted me to her in the first place. Those green eyes, like marbles. And a mass of auburn hair. Sarah wore it longish and pulled back with one of those ponytail bands. But when she took the band off, her hair would leap out like a wild animal. The first time I saw her hair fly out like that, I wanted to grab it all up in my hands and just hold on to it. Andrew would probably call that primitive instinct. Maybe so. But I miss her hair, smelling like wild flowers, soft against my chest.

  The things we’ve been through in twenty years. Like starting out at Mimosa Trailer Park. I was a rookie salesman at Jimmy Whittaker’s Auto-Rama then. I got the customers nobody else wanted. The tire kickers, the be-backers, the half deaf, the Consumer Guide experts. The boys would say, “Go get ’em, Jack!” and I’d know I had a challenge on my hands. That’s when we were living at Mimosa, Trailer #17. God, I hate mimosa trees. There were five of them. Sarah thought they were pretty with that little pink, puffy stuff that blew all over everything. Trash trees. That’s what they are to most everybody except a few Southern romantics. What I hated was the way they messed up my car. I was driving a Karman Ghia at the time. Nothing expensive but it looked classy. Except with that pink crap plastered all over it. No matter where I parked, that stuff would get on it. I’d have to cover up the car every night or wash it off every morning when those mimosas were in heat.

  But Sarah liked it there. Women are supposed to hate living in trailers. Not Sarah. Said it made her “feel like a gypsy.” She liked the people too. Most of our neighbors were either young couples—some married, some shacked up—or old retired folks. I remember one couple, Judy and Roy, I never did get their last names. They weren’t married. The girl worked for the Outside Inn and she always wore a tight red sweater and a short little black skirt, the kind you keep hoping they’ll bend over in. I guess she wore something different on the weekends or on her day off but I didn’t see her much then. Roy thought he was Super Salesman. He was always pushing something—World Book, club aluminum, knives.

  One time he demonstrated this cutlery set for Sarah and me. Some steak knives, a butcher knife, a paring knife, an ice pick, a pair of super-duper scissors. We couldn’t afford them but he said he got credit just for showing us. Sarah said she didn’t much like looking at “all those weapons,” but she kept stroking the handles, touching the blades, pressing her fingers against the points until one of them drew blood. She tried to hide it, but I saw her flinch, saw the blood pool up. Roy apologized for them being so sharp, but you could tell he thought it was a selling point. Then he took two quarters and cut them almost in half with the super-duper scissors. He bent them out like butterflies and stuck a little hole in each quarter with the ice pick. Sarah ran wire through the hole and made earrings. Those were her favorite for I don’t know how long. But everytime she wore them, in my mind I could see her fingers dripping red. I can’t
remember when she stopped wearing them. Last I heard Roy was selling Amway, and Judy was selling real estate. Sarah still writes Judy, or did. Don’t know if they ever got married.

  Sarah did her best to fix up the inside of Unit #17. We had this tiny bedroom with a double bed that touched three walls. Sarah always slept by the window so she could see out. One night I came home, and there she was—barefooted, jeans, India blouse that never looked ironed, all wrapped up in a rainbow. She’d gotten this huge rainbow poster from the Dixie store—she was still working there at the time—some fruit punch advertisement, no, 7UP ad, I think. She cut out the rainbow and was about to glue it to the wall, the one at the foot of the bed. I helped her and it really looked nice, but I asked her why she didn’t put it on the opposite wall, above the bedstead. That seemed the logical place to me.

  “I thought about that, it hanging over our heads,” she said, “but I’d rather see it when I wake up.” She back-flopped onto the bed and rested her feet against the wall. “Now, I can touch it with my toes!” I jumped on top of her and we dedicated the new rainbow then and there.

  We stayed at Mimosa two years. Guess the rainbow is still in Unit #17 if the trailer’s standing. Sarah wanted to take it with us but she couldn’t get it off the wall without ripping it. She did tear one end a little, but glued it back. “I’ll have to leave it for the next couple,” she said, “so they can touch the rainbow when they make love.”

  I learned a lot those first two years at Whittaker’s. I read every bit of literature that came out—motors, wheelbase, structural advantages on each model. I’d always thumbed through Consumer Report and Consumer Guide, but I started studying them until I could out quote customers who came in with the latest issue. I could even tell them which loafbread they ought to be eating. It paid off. I got return customers. They’d be back to trade before their twenty-four months finance was up. These days, return customers tend to wait longer, three or four years. But back then, I had buyers like Dr. Sams. He’d trade in his Cadillac as soon as the new-car smell wore off.

  I earned enough to get us out of the trailer and into an apartment complex, a town house. The guy who owned the place was a friend of Kate’s, probably more than a friend. He offered us half rent if Sarah would collect the other tenants’ rent and field their complaints, call the plumber, stuff like that. Sarah jumped at the chance. She got to meet all the tenants and she was really good at handling complaints. Except for one, I remember. Pairs of apartments were like mirrors so the bedrooms butted up against each other and the dividing wall was cracker thin. The bedrooms were practically touching. The couple in #21 enjoyed romping around and shouting obscenities at each other while they made love. The couple in #22, however, didn’t quite see it as a turn-on and beat on the wall the whole time. They both called Sarah and complained about each other. Sarah mentioned it to Donna. Donna told Andrew. At the very next Sunday dinner he spoke up.

  “Sarah,” he said, “Donna tells me you’re having trouble with two couples at your apartments,” he touched his collar, “over sexual expression.”

  Donna looked down fast and started rounding up her English peas. Sarah turned her head toward Andrew and kind of shook it. But Andrew didn’t seem to notice.

  “Everyone has a right,” he said, reaching across Donna Jean for the rolls, “to sexual arousal by preference.”

  All the women turned beet red, except for Kate. Finally, Joe spoke up, “Lonita and Thomas just got back from Disney World.”

  “Had a wonderful time,” Mrs. Crawford chimed in, “Lonita said the ride with dolls and boats was her favorite. She said ‘It’s a Little World.’”

  “It’s a Small World,” Andrew said.

  “Ain’t it though,” Mr. Crawford said, “but Thomas said Sea World was better.”

  Andrew rolled his eyes and went on, “My point is, it’s harmful to restrict one’s method of coupling, whether it’s shouting obscenities or banging on the wall. It kills creativity.”

  Mrs. Crawford jumped up, mumbled something about dessert, and shot toward the kitchen.

  “Vivienne, we don’t need no pie yet,” Mr. Crawford said, not looking up.

  Mrs. Crawford slammed it on the table. “It’s here in case anybody gets finished fast,” she called over her shoulder and headed back into the kitchen.

  “For God’s sake!” Kate said, reaching for the pie, “just buy them some earplugs! Vivienne, got any ice cream to go on this pie?”

  Times at the apartment and even at Mimosa were mostly good. Until the babies. But that was after we moved into a house over on Oak Street. Sarah was working for Dr. Sams by then. Front office stuff—keeping the books, making appointments, telling people they’d have to wait. It didn’t pay that well but we got our medical care free. Which was good considering the problems Sarah had with the babies.

  I know it was worse for her, at least the miscarrying part, but they were my babies too, and I cried after each one, not where she could see me but she knew. The first one about scared us both to death. Sarah didn’t just come right out and tell me she was pregnant that first time. What she did was put this little blue rattler in my lunch. When I opened up the bag, there it was, no note or anything, just that little rattler. At first I thought I had the wrong lunch but everything else looked like the usual, a ham and mustard sandwich, a little bag of chips, a cookie, a paper napkin with XXX inked in one corner.

  I was still holding the rattler when the phone rang. “How’s your lunch, Jack?” she said and burst into giggles. It hit me like a new Mercedes. “You’re pregnant!” I shouted. I dropped the receiver, ran through the showroom yelling, “She’s pregnant!” and drove straight home to hold her. That was Sarah. She could never come right out and tell you something. She had to make it dramatic or mysterious.

  She wasn’t much over three months when she lost the first one. We’d already told all the Crawfords and my father, Tommy, too. Sarah had asked Dr. Sams if sex was okay and he said I probably couldn’t shake the baby loose with a stick of dynamite. I remember that’s what he said because I liked the comparison. Sarah said being pregnant made her feel sexy so we kept making love like always. But the night she miscarried, she said it didn’t feel right. I quit right then. But it was too late. She rolled away from me, pulled her knees up tight against her abdomen, and started crying, “It hurts, Jack! It hurts so bad!” I slipped up close behind her and put my arms around her. That’s when I felt the blood, cold and wet, covering my thighs. I threw back the sheet and saw a red pool, growing each time she cried out. I wrapped her in the bed spread and took her straight to the hospital. But they couldn’t do anything.

  Dr. Sams came by the next day. He said it was nature’s way of getting rid of defects—those were his words—and we were probably lucky. I’m no psychology expert like Andrew, but even I know that’s not the thing to tell a grieving woman. Whether it’s true or not. I told Sarah I was going for some coffee. Then I went out in the hall, put my face against the concrete wall, and cried like I was six years old again. When I came back, she looked like her mind was somewhere else but I could tell she’d been crying too. We never cried together.

  That was the first one and probably the hardest I guess. After that we knew what to expect. Sarah would put old sheets on the bed as soon as she found out she was pregnant. I never looked for a rattler in my lunch again, just old sheets. That and no sex. One time she went six months. Now that I think about it, I guess that one was the hardest to take. After that, I didn’t want to try again. But Sarah would beg. “I’ll make it to seven months next time,” she’d say. I can’t remember how many she lost after that. I’m good with numbers, but I kind of lost track.

  I finally went under the knife and put a stop to it. Lovemaking wasn’t much for a while. Sarah was willing enough, just not eager. Any man knows the difference, but I got by. That was years ago, five to be exact. If that was why she left, she’d have taken off five years ago, wouldn’t she?

  Maybe a regular doctor wouldn’t
be so hard to take or an actor like when the Carradine brothers were filming a movie over in Clayton. Or a good-looking jeweler, if there is such a thing. He could have lured her away with rings and bracelets. Sarah loved opals and gold loops and etched-out pins. But a horse doctor! I can’t make sense of it.

  What really gets me is the way she was in bed with me those last weeks. Every night if I wanted. She acted like she did twenty years ago when we couldn’t get enough of each other. Just the same. That’s why I still think that horse doctor may have doped her. That’s the only way she’d have left me. You hear about horse tranquilizers all the time. Hell, he may still be drugging her and that’s why she hasn’t come home. Or maybe he’s got her addicted and she’s physically dependent on the bastard. I know that’s only a slim chance, about a two-to-four percent chance, but I can’t blame her completely. At least not hate her. I mean, how would you feel if you hated someone for a whole year and then found out they’d been drugged?

  Another thing. Sarah loved to write letters. Cousins, friends, people from the Mimosa days, she’d send them these long letters telling them I’d earned us a trip to Hawaii at the car lot or that I’d made a big sale like the July 4th Sell-a-thon. Sometimes she’d have me sign the letters. And she’d write me notes and put them in my lunch bag, back when I was still taking my lunch. One time she put a note in my sandwich, right between the ham and cheese, and I ate it. It was little, I guess, and I never saw it, or tasted it either. Don’t know what it said. Maybe she was kidding when she told me I ate it. She’d say things like that sometimes. I never knew for sure. But the point is, if she was leaving she would have written me a letter telling me where she was going and why. Then she would have signed it XXX. Other people just don’t know her like I do. That’s why I still think she may have been drugged and kidnapped or wifenapped, if there is such a word.