Bodark Creek - 45. Chapter 45

And then something terrible happened to Pat’s husband Eddie. He was riding his motorcycle in town. That meant he wasn’t going very fast. Though Pat told me Eddie never rode fast. “It just seems that way because his motorcycle’s so noisy.”

“And unprotected,” Dock put in.

“It’s not that bad,” Eddie insisted. “And I can always maneuver ‘cause it’s so small. I can get around almost anything.”

Except he hit a pothole just down the street from the courthouse. And he must have lost his balance long enough for a car to nudge him. Then he never got his balance back. So he and his bike fell in the path of another car.

Joann called me. Eddie had been brought into the emergency room, and one of the nurses called her right after she phoned Pat.

“It’s horrible, Mama,” Joann said. “Just terrible.”

“What happened?” Martin asked me. By then, we were already on the way into town.

“All Joann could say was ‘His head was hurt. He maybe even fractured his skull.’ But she was only repeating what she’d heard.”

Pat was very quiet when we found her. Eddie was in the operating room, and Pat was waiting outside. She wasn’t crying, but she couldn’t sit. And she couldn’t stay still.

“I know what’s going on in there,” she said. “I know that I don’t have a husband anymore.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” I told her.

“I know that even if he lives, he’s never going to be the same.”

There was nothing I could say to that, and maybe nothing anyone could say. Pat knew more about doctors and medicine than anyone in our family, even Joann. Though Eddie did come out of the operating room alive. But he didn’t last very long. Not even enough to see the rest of his relatives.

Del called them. He got the first number from Pat, then tracked down the others. There was Eddie’s mama and daddy. And his two sisters and a brother. And their husbands and wife. Eddie also had two children from his first marriage, though they were mostly grown.

They all came. Some of them stayed with us at the house, and some with Del and Neal. Before the funeral, there was talk about taking Eddie back to the family cemetery out near Longview. “The thing I worry about most,” Eddie’s mama told Pat, “is that you’re gonna marry again. I know you don’t want to think about it now, but you’re a young woman. You’re going to want a family. And I just can’t imagine Eddie lying out there, lonely, forever.”

“I promise, if I ever marry again,” Pat said, “that I’ll still be buried alongside him. I’ll put that in my will now and never let it be changed.”

You’re a really nice woman,” Eddie’s mama said. “It’s a shame the two of you couldn’t have more time together.”

“It’s a shame we didn’t have children,” Pat told me later. “Eddie was just warming up to that.”

It was something Pat had never talked about before. I guess we were all just waiting to be surprised when she made an announcement.

“No, it was a definite decision,” she said. “Eddie knew I wanted to have kids. We talked about it even before we got married. But he already had two. And he felt he’d be an old man before any new ones got raised.”

I had to laugh at that. I reminded her that my daddy was still having children when he was over fifty. Walter was, too.

Pat laughed. “I used to tell Eddie that. But he said just because there were two fools in my family was no reason to make him a third. Still, I wish we had even one baby.”

Though Pat wasn’t one to worry over things she didn’t get done. Except maybe about her nursing classes.

“I don’t need to be reminded how little time we have here. I don’t work in a hospital for nothing. But I would like my RN before I die. And while I’m not planning to hurry that any time soon, either was Eddie.”

“It might be a good time to take those classes,” I mentioned. “Help keep your mind off things.”

“I don’t want to forget him. And it’s only really bad when I don’t get his phone calls every day. We used to talk two and three times. He call on his break in the morning. Then again at lunch. Then again on his break in the afternoon. I can take coming into a lonely house, because for years I came into a lonely apartment. But who’d have thought I’d have my cats longer than I’d be with my husband?”

So Pat signed up for two nursing classes. Then she let them go.

“It’s like very other time I’ve tried to finish. I want these courses. I like them. And I always arrange things so I’ll have time to be there. But I never leave time for homework. And there’s so much studying and memorizing for tests. And it’s so embarrassing. The people at the college must think I’m the world’s biggest idiot. Always signing up for classes then dropping them.”

“I’m sure they don’t think that,” I said. “After all, they know you work hard at the hospital.”

Pat couldn’t deny that. “Yes, I work with a lot of nice people.”

They’d all been very kind after Eddie died. Pat always seemed to have friends. One of the administrators she worked with even started slowly going out with Neal. Pat introduced them, then Neal asked her out. And though he said they had a good time, they didn’t seen each other again, not for a while.

“She’s just not Valerie,” he finally said. “She’s all right. She’s fine. But she’s not what I want.”

“You’re not going to find Val again,” Joann warned. “Or anyone like her. None of us are gonna be fifteen again.”

“It was just so easy,” Neal said. “We fell in love, and everything happened.”

“You have to work at marriage,” Joann advised.

“I know that,” Neal said. “I learned that fine. And I want to try again.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Uncle Neal, why don’t you have any children?” Del’s daughter Lisa would ask. “Don’t you like them?”

Lisa was maybe six, so she didn’t understand about Neal’s son Danny. She also asked questions the rest of us knew better to forget. And the truth was that Neal spoiled Lisa and her brother Daniel more than any of us. And he went to visit his son Danny whenever he could.

“But I’m a little afraid of getting married again,” he told Susan. “I can’t do everything wrong twice in a row.”

“You didn’t do everything wrong,” Susan said. “You might not have done anything.”

But Susan thoughts about Valerie were pretty much kept to herself. She did introduce Neal to a number of her friends. But he’d always come home saying, “I don’t know.”

“What are you looking for?” I’d ask.

“Insurance,” he’d say. “Isn’t that funny?”

“What did he do wrong?” I finally went and asked Susan. “You knew Valerie best.”

“We spent a lot of time together,” she admitted. “And I knew what she was thinking. Almost from the start, I could tell she was interested in Ron. But I could never see why.”

“Couldn’t you have stopped her?”

“Maybe,” Susan said. “But I doubt it.”

I’m sure Susan was telling the truth. She wasn’t the kind of person who’d lie, except to spare someone’s feelings. And the one time she didn’t do that, she really hurt Neal.

Then one evening Neal came home and said, “Mama... Daddy... I’m getting married again.”

“Who?” we asked. “When?” He hadn’t been seeing anyone special.

“Marie,” he replied. She was the administrator friend of Pat’s.

“That’s wonderful,’ I said. “We’ll have to have a party.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go doing that just yet,” he said, laughing. “Marie doesn’t know.”

“You haven’t asked her?” That was a surprise.

“I haven’t even seen her for a couple of months. But I’ve been thinking about her a lot. And she’s the kind of person I should be happy with. She’s really nice, and she’s great with kids. So I just have to set my mind to asking her.”

“He’s setting himself up to be really unhappy,” Martin cautioned Del and me.

“I don’t think so,” Del said. “Neal knows himself about as well as any man. And he knows what he needs. The last time, the wild card was Valerie.”

“I hope you’re right,” Martin said.

“I know it.”

And four months later, Neal and Marie were married. Within two years, they had two sons, Bryan and Brandon.

“I’m not missing out on children,” Neal said.