SUMMER HEAT

By Atonia Walpole

Part Six:

Davin lay in his bed staring at the ceiling again. Something awoken him and he had an uneasy feeling. Was it Myra? Had something happened? He wished for the umpteenth time he’d bought her a cell phone. She could have kept it hidden. When they got to Raleigh there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He had money, had a nice house just waiting for her.

He went to the bathroom and washed his face, again feeling uneasy. It was going to be a long day. He felt as though he was holding his breath until her phone call would come through telling him she was safe at her mother's. He would go get her then.

Myra had stopped crying. Standing at the kitchen sink, she saw his truck, the old pickup parked outside the garage. She ran over to the row of nails on the kitchen wall looking for the keys. Thinking he might just have left them in the truck, she ran outside and looked. No keys! She kicked the truck. Why did he have to take her car today of all days? He never drove her car.

She went back inside and dragged the suitcase down the steps, setting it just inside a coat closet where she would be able to get to it in a hurry.  Pouring a glass of tea, she went out on the porch swing to wait for him to get back.

Jean Hart finished up her letter to her sister then found a stamp. Davin was in the dining room with his laptop open in front of him, but she didn’t think he was getting much work done. She could hear him up and down and pacing around.

“Davin, I got a letter to mail. Do you think the mailman’s been yet?”

Davin looked at his watch. It was still early. Mailman didn’t usually come before ten. “I’ll take it up, Mama,” he said, feeling for the key to his bike in his front pocket.

Myra went inside for a refill. It was already hot in the house and the sun wasn’t even full on yet. She thought she heard his bike and ran to the front door. He was already at the mailboxes by the highway.

Davin stuck the letter in the box and raised the flag. He noticed the flag was up on Seldon’s box and peeked inside to see if it was mail. He wasn’t expecting a signal today. The box was empty. He looked down toward the house, frowning. Something was wrong. He couldn’t see her car but if it was in the garage…? He couldn’t take the chance. Mounting his bike, he raced down the highway.

Myra was at the end of their drive, yelling as he rode away. He hadn’t seen her. “Davin!!” she screamed his name.  Gathering her wits ,she ran back in the house to the phone. She had his cell number but had never called it, not wanting his number to appear on their phone bill that Wayne poured over every month to see who she’d called.  It rang and rang.

Jean heard the phone ringing on the dining room table. He’d left his phone and by the time she could get up and get to it the ringing had stopped.

Myra called her mother. “Mama, can you come and get me?”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I gotta get out of here. I got a bad feeling, Mama.”

“Are you all right? Is Wayne there?”

“No, he’s gone into town, took my car. I’m stuck.”

“Why would he take your car?”

“I don’t know. He was going to see about the air conditioning.”

“Hold on a minute.” Sylvia stepped out her door and looked across the street where Alfred had his heating and air conditioning repair shop, giving a quick glance up and down the street. “I don’t see the car on the street, Myra. Get a hold of yourself. What’s going on?”

“I was leaving him today and coming to your house. Davin is coming to get me and now I ain’t got a way to go.”

“Well…I can’t leave the shop, Myra. I got two perms goin’. He’ll be back and you can do whatever it is you’re going to do. Now…Myra, your life ain’t in danger, so get a grip.”

“Mama!” She was near hysteria.

“I have to go now, Myra. You’ll be all right.”

“Everything okay, Ms Sylvie?” asked the patron in the chair.

“Oh. yes, everything is just peachy, Mrs. Johnson.” Sylvia bit down on the roller so hard it made her lip bleed.

“Let me have one of them gas cans and can you fill ‘er up?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Seldon. Shore is hot today,” the man said, filling the gas can.

“Yep, and I reckon it’s gonna get hotter.” He handed over a few bills and put the can in the trunk of Myra’s car.

Wayne stopped long enough to open the bottle of water he’d bought and take a drink, then he headed out toward town. He turned at the light and drove up the dirt road by the fire station, parked next to the broken-down fence and stepped out. It had been a long time since he’d been at the mill, probably thirteen or fourteen years. He walked over and looked at the pond for a moment, then made his way into the ruins of the old mill itself. He wandered around inside, looking up at the rotted roof. Looked like the timbers would come down if they had a blow, he thought as he  kicked stones and sticks that littered the floor. He took a breath and went back to the little alcove, stopping to look at the mattress on the floor. He looked back again. That was one of his mama’s quilts thrown over it! He started to grab it up and then backed away, a fire already starting in his gut.

Davin had raced at top speed down the highway, slowing when he turned off the old rutted dirt road. He brought the bike up to where he usually parked beneath a stand of trees and got off. He stopped, listening, and turned, seeing Myra’s car. She usually ran out to meet him. That uneasy feeling he’d had all morning returned and he called her name.  “Myra, My-ra!” He ran over to the mill and up the broken stone steps. “Myra?”

“It ain’t Myra today.” The blow came hard to the side of his head and he went down on his knees. The kick that came after knocked him backward. Years of abuse had taught him how to roll and he used that knowledge now. Wayne didn’t let him get up, kept hitting him and kicking him around the floor until Davin grabbed his foot and brought him down. Soon the stone floor was slick with blood from both of them. Wayne was bigger than Davin, taller and brawnier. Davin made it to his feet and staggered backwards. Wayne pushed him and he fell, rolling to the opening where the old waterwheel used to be. A final kick sent him down, down into the water and the rocks below.

Wayne wiped his face with his shirttail and staggered toward the door. He went out to the car, got the gas can and poured its contents over the alcove. Dropping the gas can, he struck a match.

“What the hell was that?” Frank Simmons the fire chief and his firemen were playing poker in the fire house.

“Dunno. Sounded like an explosion.”

The four men dropped their cards and walked outside, looking down the street around the sides of the firehouse until one of the men spotted smoke.

“Looks like the mill,” he said as they all scrambled to the fire truck.

Sirens were blasting as the truck pulled out, did a half u-turn and headed up the dirt road. The businesses along main street emptied as everyone came out for a look.

Sylvia patted Mrs. Johnson’s new do. “That sounds like a fire truck,” she said and walked to the door. Mrs. Johnson followed along with two other women in various stages of hair-dos.

“Oh, my God, look! Smoke! It’s the mill!” Sylvia felt her heart hit the floor. Her hand went to her mouth. She was praying Davin wasn’t there. Myra’s bad feeling began to take her over. She turned, looking at her patrons…could she…but she had to. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I have to go out for a while. I’ll call Janie in to finish you up…I’m sorry…family emergency.” She picked up her phone and called in the shampoo girl.

“Well…I never…” followed her out the door as she ran for her car. She pulled out her phone as she backed out, calling Davin’s house.

“Jean, it’s Sylvia! Is Davin home?”

“No, he rode out to the mail box, oh, I guess about an hour ago now and hasn’t come back. I reckon he’s just riding.”

“Yes, well, I hope so, Jean. The mill is on fire.”

“Oh, dear! Well, he never said anything about going down there.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”  Jean turned down the dirt road toward the mill. She could see flames now. When she pulled up and got out she saw Myra’s car.

“Frank!” she yelled over the commotion. “Frank, have you found anybody? That’s my daughter’s car.”

“Ain’t nobody in there,” he yelled back. Nobody alive, he thought.

“It’s Wayne, Wayne Seldon. He was driving her car today.”

Frank yelled to his men. There was nothing they could do about anything inside. It was engulfed in flames.

“I’m sorry, Sylvia,” he said, patting her shoulder.

He might not have been in there, she thought, she hoped.

She went back to her car, shut the door and walked over to Myra’s car. The trunk was open and she saw a bloody print on the trunk lid. The trunk smelled like gas. She began to shake.

By now the police had arrived and moved her away from the car to the shelter of a tree where she sat down in the grass.  The flames had been doused to a smolder. The police had questioned her about the car and she'd told them what she knew.

They found a body and called the coroner. “I can’t tell you who it is,” the policeman told Sylvia. “He’s burnt.” 

“Well, who does this bike belong to?” one of the young officers asked from behind Sylvia. She screamed.

An ambulance pulled up, brought in from Caughman. The two paramedics got out and walked up to the policeman. “Whatcha got?”

“Dead body so far.”

A shout was heard down by the spillway. Frank Simmons had walked along the banks and spotted a body on the rocks. “Looks like he went over the spillway,” he frowned, moving out of the way for the paramedics to get down to him.

They got a thumbs up, but Frank waited to see who it was. He walked back to where Sylvia was rocking herself back and forth. “Sylvia, they’ve found Davin. He’s alive.”

She burst into another round of tears. “His Mama, somebody will have to go for her. She’s had a stroke and can’t drive.”

Frank stood up. “Be right back.” He went over to talk to the police then returned. “Sylvia, I’ll go get her. You want to come, too?”

“Yes, yes.”

Part 7:

Myra brought a pan of ice water out to the front porch where she sat with a cloth, alternately bathing her face and crying. She had to get herself together...she had to. She had to be ready to go. Taking deep breaths, she held the cold cloth to her eyes. It had been hours since she’d seen Davin ride up the road. He hadn’t been back.

She saw dust flying and stood up, knocking the pan of water over her feet. Running out in the yard, she tried to make out the car. It sped down the road toward Davin’s house. Myra started running.

Frank Simmons helped Mrs. Hart into his fire chief’s car, placing her in the back with Sylvia. She’d been upset at first but now seemed to have herself together, sitting in the seat fidgeting with her handkerchief.  He started up the road but before he got to the forks he saw Myra running toward them. He stopped. She was red-faced. Something was wrong with her...then he knew. “Get in.”

Myra was barely coherent. “What?”

“It’s Davin, honey, he’s been hurt. They’re taking us to Caughman. That’s where the ambulance has gone,” Mrs. Hart said.

“NOooo!” she wailed.

“He’s gonna be all right, girl. Just busted up a bit.” Frank patted her knee.

Between Frank and Sylvia the story came out. “Now the body ain’t been identified, Myra. It might not be Wayne. You don’t know,” Frank explained.

“I know. I know it’s Wayne. I know what he tried to do.” She dropped her head, thanking God he didn’t succeed.

Frank turned to her. “You’ve got Davin now, Myra,” he said softly. He knew the two of them well. He’d been around for a long time, run them out of more hidey holes than he could shake a stick at and kept Myra from climbing the water tower while he talked Davin down.

“Where’s his bike?” Myra asked.

“Some of the boys took it to the fire station. It’ll be safe there for awhile,” he said, pulling into the hospital parking lot. “Your car will be impounded, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t care about the car. It wasn’t mine anyway.”

It had been a long day by the time they got Davin to a room in ICU. It was only a precaution, they said, for the night. Perhaps tomorrow they would move him to another room. His broken bones had been set, he’d had surgery on his left arm, stitches on his cheek, his ribs were taped, but it was the bleeding kidney that kept him in ICU.

Frank and Sylvia were out in the hallway. He wanted to go home but didn’t want to leave them all there with no way to get back. Sylvia knew Jean was tired and needed to go home, and then there was Myra.

“I’m staying. I don’t have a home to go to. Everything I have in the world is right here.”

“You have a home with me,” Sylvia said.

“You have one with me, too. Davin would want that,” Jean added. “I wonder, Sylvia, if it would be an inconvenience for you to stay with me tonight?”

“Not at all, Jean. I’ll pick up my car, go by the house and come on out. I’ll be glad to.”

“Mama, there’s a suitcase in the hall closet by the front door. I’d like that if you could pick it up for me. I don’t ever want to set foot back in that house again.”

“Of course, dear.” Sylvia wasn’t sure she wanted to go there herself.

After they all left, Myra pulled a chair over to his bedside. She moaned when she first saw him. There seemed to be tubes everywhere and he was bandaged extensively. But he was alive and he would heal.

“However long it takes you to get well, Davin, I’ll be right by your side. I’ll do everything for you until you can do for yourself. When you’re well, we’ll run away to a foreign land and live on rainwater and berries. We’ll bathe in the streams and sleep covered in leaves under the stars and we’ll never ever, ever have to say good-bye.” She kissed her fingers and placed them on his lips. His eyelashes fluttered but didn’t open and she knew deep in his drug-induced sleep he had heard her.

Davin was in the hospital for ten days then brought home in an ambulance. Bessie and Myra cleared out the dining room, brought a bed downstairs and set it up. Bessie and Jean fashioned some curtains to fit over the French doors for privacy.

The town was divided. Some thought the wrong one had died and others thought the right one had. Myra had Wayne cremated and wanted no service at the church for him. Some of the church members thought differently and had one anyway. Myra did not attend. Wayne’s death was ruled accidental and Myra was surprised to learn she was to receive a sizable insurance settlement.  The farm would be sold as soon as the court would allow it.

Davin and Myra began to make plans for their future. “I have a house in Raleigh, a nice house. It seems strange that you’ve never seen it.”

“I wonder if I ever will…sometimes. I don’t want to stay here in this town.”

“Neither do I. I’d like to get as far away as possible. The doc says it will be a year before I’m fully recovered, but once I’m mobile, look out!” Davin smiled.

“What do you plan to do?” Myra asked, cocking her head.

“Marry you. Something I should have done a long time ago.”

“You don’t have to. I’m with you forever anyway.”

“I don’t care. I don’t ever want anything to part us again. Light me a cig?”

Myra lit his cigarette and moved an ashtray to his stomach. "We’ll get married,” he continued, “as soon as I can stand and, well, consummate the affair. We’ll get a map and toss a penny. Wherever it lands, that’s where we’ll go.”

“What if it’s Antarctica  or Ohio or some desert somewhere?”

“We wouldn’t have to stay, but we’ll go there. It’ll be fun. We deserve it, Myra.”

“You do,” she said.

“No, you do.” Their foreheads touched.

“You,” she kissed him.

“Don’t start something I can’t finish, Myra. That’s not fair.”

Myra giggled. “I could finish it for you.”

“I’d probably bust these ribs open again. I’d rather wait. Think how special it will be. No, don’t think! No, best not to think about it at all.” He lay his head back on the propped-up pillows.

It was six months before Davin was able to get about and another two weeks before he could consummate a marriage. He had several cracked vertebrae in his back and a disk problem that the doctor said may need surgery at some time. Davin had enough of hospitals and doctors and therapy rooms.

Jean and Sylvia planned the wedding. It would be a small affair held in the living room of Jean’s house. The dining room was now a dining room again and it was a good thing because people heard about the impending ceremony and invited themselves.  The house overflowed out onto the lawn. Sylvia said she must have permed every head in town and had little time to touch up her own roots. Jean suggested she wear a hat. Nobody would know the difference.

“Be still, girl,” Sylvia ordered, trying to button up the back of Myra's wedding gown. She had insisted on a real wedding gown, saying her first marriage wasn’t. She'd worn a summer dress.

“I’m so nervous and I don’t know why. It’s Davin who’s downstairs.”

“He looks so handsome in his tux, Myra. The scars hardly show at all.”

“I love him, scars and all, Mama. He’s got more inside than out and I think I know most of them.”

“There now!” Sylvia moved around in front of her daughter, catching her breath. “ I can’t believe how lovely you are! You’re shining, Myra.”

Davin paced from one end of the crowded living room to the dining room and back. He still couldn’t stand for very long but he was so pumped he couldn’t sit.

“Have you got the ring?” Frank Simmons asked.

Davin felt in his pocket and smiled. “Yes, haven’t lost it yet.”

“Well, let’s get his show on the road. Let me find brother.” Frank’s brother was a JP and was going to perform the ceremony.

A lump caught in Davin’s throat when he saw Myra. He wanted to cry, he wanted to laugh, he was so full of emotion he had to be prompted to say his vows. Myra wore a smile that didn’t stop until they were pronounced man and wife and he was instructed to kiss the bride.

They were out on the lawn with a cup of punch and they joined their left hands so that their rings touched. “We are one,” Myra sighed happily.

“We’ve always been one but now it’s legal,” he smiled, kissing her softly on the lips. “Um, have we socialized enough? Do you think we might just sneak away?”

“I’m up for it. Where have you planned to take us tonight?”

“As far as we can ride. You’re up for that, right?”

They ran upstairs and changed into jeans and leather jackets then sneaked out the back door. His bike had been brought out by one of the firemen. Davin hadn’t ridden since his near death but he was confident he’d have no problem. He looked for an extra helmet for her and she walked over, staring at the wall of the garage.

“Davin, look, there’s a map. Remember what you said?”

He reached up, pulled it off the wall and spread it out on the ground. “I don’t have a penny.”

“Oh, wait!” Myra pulled off her boot and sock. “It’s a sixpence. Your mother gave it to me to put in my shoe. It’s for luck, so I kept it in the boot. I guess it will work. You flip.”

“What if you don’t like where it lands? Then you’ll say if I had flipped…”

“Oh, give me the sixpence!” she chuckled and flipped it. It rolled around and around. “It’s going off the map…oh, wait.”

“Well, that’s far enough. Australia?”

“We have to be specific. Whatever little podunk town it lands on.” Myra squatted down trying to read the name of the town. "It doesn’t have a name. How old is this map?”

“From high school.” Davin couldn’t squat. “Well, what’s close to it?”

“Broome?”

“Well, mount up, kid, we’re goin’ to Broome!” Davin laughed, giving her bottom a pat.

THE END

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