New Husband. Old One Gone novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Who Was Driving

Bryce storms the Ropewalk and swears her brother was at the wheel, so Rosie marries Sawyer under the bare bulbs in front of him, and her mother tells her not to come home.

Nobody in the Ropewalk moved.

"Say that again," I said.

Corey's knuckles went white on the cane.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I should've come to you two years ago. I was scared."

"Tell me," I said.

So he told me.

Jesse's truck was last in line, and the lieutenant was riding in his cab.

Corey was strapped to the bench in the back with the duffel bags, half asleep.

"She got bored," he said. "I heard her say it. 'This is the slowest night of my life, Gwaltney. Pull over. Switch with me.'"

Jesse pulled over at 2:04.

Then the truck went fast.

"Too fast for that road. I yelled up at them. Nobody heard me."

Then the curve, and the ditch, and the sky where the ground should be.

When Corey came to, he was hanging sideways in his straps with his leg wrong under him.

"She climbed out the driver's door. Over the top. Her lip was split open. I watched her through the canvas."

"Where was Jesse?"

Corey looked at the floor.

"In the sand. He'd gone out the passenger window."

"Captain Lanier got there first," Corey said. "He ran up the line. He looked at her lip and at the driver's door, and he took her by both arms."

His voice went flat.

"He said, 'Gwaltney was driving. Do you understand me, Lauren? Gwaltney was driving.' And she said, 'Yes, sir.'"

I put my hand on the iron column next to me.

"In the hospital he came to see me," Corey said. "Brought me a magazine. He said I had a concussion and my memory was scrambled. He said a corporal who remembers wrong doesn't get a medical retirement."

"And you signed."

"I didn't sign nothing. I just never said it." He wiped his face with his sleeve. "That's worse, I know it is."

Out on Front Street, a car door slammed.

Then another.

Then a lot of them.

Bryce came through the iron doors first, in his dress blues, with my ring still in his fist.

Lauren came right behind him.

Then the six groomsmen, then Mama in her lilac suit, clutching her purse, then half of the church.

The videographer came too. Of course he did.

Bryce took one look at the yellow ribbons and the hex nut on the cake.

"What is this, Rosie?"

"A wedding," I said. "Somebody threw me one."

Bryce saw Corey behind the table.

"Corporal Spruill," he said. "You look well."

I walked down the middle of the room, under the bulbs, until I was close enough to smell his aftershave.

"Who was driving, Bryce?"

The room went so quiet I heard the river through the windows.

He didn't blink.

"Jesse was driving, sweetheart. You've read the report. I wrote you a letter about it."

"Corey says Lauren was."

Bryce turned and looked at Corey.

"Corey Spruill has a traumatic brain injury and a drinking problem. I know because I signed his paperwork. He's been in every bar on the base road since he got out." He looked back at me. "I'm sorry he found you today of all days."

Behind him, Lauren made a sound.

Her eyes were full.

"I loved that boy," she said. "Everybody loved Jesse. He used to bring me coffee on watch. I think about him every single day, Rosie."

She pressed her fingers to the little white scar on her lip.

I looked at that scar for a long time.

Then I turned around.

"Sawyer. Is your minister still here?"

The minister stood up from the second row of folding chairs, a round little man with his Bible under his arm.

"I'm here, honey."

Sawyer came down the aisle toward me. He'd been hit by a board.

"Ro. You don't have to do this to make a point."

"I'm not making a point." I held out my left hand. "You promised me a wedding, Pickard. I'm calling it in."

He looked at my hand.

He looked at me.

"Gwaltney, are you sure?"

"I'm sure he's not my husband."

Bryce said, "Rosie, this is a stunt, and you'll regret it by Monday."

I didn't look at him.

Sawyer lifted the hex nut off the cake with two fingers and wiped the frosting off it on his good pants.

The minister said the county would get its paper Monday morning, and that the Lord didn't keep office hours.

He said the words.

Sawyer said "I do" in a voice that cracked in the middle.

I said it loud enough for the back row.

He slid the brass nut onto my ring finger. It went over the knuckle easy. It always had been too big.

"You may," the minister said.

Sawyer looked at me like he was asking.

I took his face in both hands and kissed him, quick and hard, under the bare bulbs.

His crew went off.

Somebody rang his granddad's dock bell.

Over Sawyer's shoulder I watched Bryce, still holding my ring.

He didn't move. He only watched.

Then the crowd parted, and Mama was standing in front of me.

Her hands were shaking on her purse.

"That man brought your brother home," she said. "If you shame him like this, don't you come home tonight."

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