Mourning Dove Read online

  Mourning Dove

  by Donna Simmons

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Simmons, Donna

  Mourning Dove / Donna Simmons

  ISBN: 978-1-4951-4054-9

  Copyright © 2015 by Donna Simmons

  For Dea

  my beloved daughter

  Mourning Dove would not have been possible without the tragedies of life smacking me in the face. It still would not have been possible without the talents and supports of many people who believed in me and slogged through many versions of my manuscript. Thank you first and foremost to my husband Bill who always knew I could do it and who listened to dialog and details finding flaws I totally missed. Thanks too to Caren Klein, Mildred Schmalz, Brenda Reimels, Faith Follum, Dea Cleveland and Julie Clapp for being there when I needed you most and for reading and editing again and again. My thanks go also to Mary Swift, Ally Nathaniel, and Joel Friedlander for tips on navigating the publishing and printing end of things.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  EPILOGUE

  The Lost and Found of

  Love, Respect, and Power

  CHAPTER 1

  Sara watched the pattern of roses: pink, white, and blood red disappear as the mahogany casket began its descent into the hole. Her tears were frozen to her cheeks, her hands as numb as her heart. She refused to move from her spot under the canopy until...until what, she thought. It was unthinkable to leave him behind.

  Most of the mourners had gone, family, friends, the curious, and two men in black suits and pristine white shirts she supposed from the funeral home, probably freezing from the near zero temperature and no overcoats.

  “Sara, it’s time to go,” Ron whispered as he squeezed her elbow.

  She pulled away. Her husband felt like a stranger to her now. Betrayal deeper than a sexual misadventure, deeper than deceit, simmered just below the surface of her control. How could he believe the official cop out cause of ‘death by suicide’? She wouldn’t believe that, not in her lifetime – never!

  When Ron reached out for her again, she turned and walked back down the hill to the black limo on the gravel path, rigid in her anger, disbelieving in her shock. Sara closed her eyes and her mind to the very thought that her son was dead.

  ***

  The crack of gunfire woke Sara from a sound sleep. Her heart pounding, she exhaled the shakes from her nightmare, unfolded her clenched fists, and waited for the strength to slip from bed. Ron’s snoring marked the difference between them. Somehow he could turn the heartbreak off when he slept.

  Downstairs, with a cup of Earl Grey, she curled into the old rocker by the kitchen door and waited for the knot in her chest to fade. In her dreams, she could feel her son’s pain, and his anger, as if his death ended her life, too. In reality she supposed it had. She felt like a ship without a rudder in a fog of depression. Restless and undecided, she replaced her nightgown with a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed her bag and walked out the door.

  For six months she’d been haunted by nightmares. Sara couldn’t take it any more. By daybreak she was perched on the rocks of Odiorne Point talking to a son who wasn’t there. “Damn it, Carl!” she screamed into the sea mist, “You weren’t supposed to die first!”

  ***

  As the sun rose higher in the sky Sara drove the winding road back to the house, showered and headed for the office of the company she and her husband had started from scratch. Stafford Sound Systems sold high end entertainment systems to those who could afford them. It gave him focus for his life. It filled her days with boring routine.

  “Ron, I’m leaving,” she spoke from the doorway to his office.

  “Hmm?” His response was a delaying tactic not much different than a hand waving a pesky fly from his face. Sara looked around the chaos of Ron’s office that looked like the frenzied efforts of a dozen rhesus monkeys. Paper, catalogs, speaker components, and cabling were scattered over every spare surface. Then she looked back at her husband. “Ron, you need to listen.”

  He finally glanced up with distracted annoyance etched on his face. “Well what is it?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you later.” He waved his arm in dismissal and refocused on the proposal he was writing.

  “Please turn away from the computer screen and look at me. This is important. I’m not coming back.”

  It was another full minute before he looked up again. “What did you just say?”

  “I said I’m leaving. I’m not coming back.”

  This time he pulled off his glasses, tossed them on top of the scattered pile of papers littering his desk, leaned back into the black leather chair she’d bought him last Christmas, and finally focused on her.

  “What do you mean, you’re not coming back? It’s only…” he swiveled around to look at the big industrial clock on the wall behind his desk, “Oh, it’s past noon. Do you want to pick up some lunch? No, you said you weren’t coming back. If you need to do errands, take the rest of the day off. I’ll see you at home.”

  “I’m not doing errands. I’m leaving. I’m going away.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He combed his fingers through the curly black hair of his receding hairline.

  She walked across his cluttered office, took a pile of catalogs off a metal folding chair, and sat down. Hunched over, her hands clasped between her knees, she looked up into the warm brown eyes she’d fallen in love with a lifetime ago.

  “I’m leaving,” Sara said for the fifth time, her heart pounding in her chest. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve had enough.”

  “If you need help in the office, hire an assistant.”

  “It’s not that. I just can’t live this life anymore. I need to get away. I feel like my insides are screaming at me, ‘Run, Sara! Run now!’”

  He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s just the grief.” He rubbed his left hand over his eyes, a sign he was trying to ease the tension of an incoming headache. “It’ll pass. I feel the same way sometimes. You should go to the support group with me.”

  “I don’t think it’s the grief. It’s been six months since Carl…” She turned her head and glanced out the casement window beside his desk. On the wide sill in front of it, Carl’s stone stood as a monument to the life he lost. Just under three feet tall, mounted on a mahogany base, the stone looked like a miniature granite monolith. It was a souvenir of their son’s graduation trip to Europe. Crushing pain built again in her chest and her eyes stung with unwanted tears as
she bowed her head.

  “Ron,” she looked up again, “what I really wanted to do was just leave you a note and go, but I can’t do that, not after all these years. I’m dying here! I’m floundering in a soup of despair and disorganization. I feel trapped; I need to go, to get away.

  “I’ve paid all the household bills and the business accounts here in the office are all up to date. I’ve called Account Temps to get you temporary help ‘til you find someone who fits. They’ll be sending over some candidates in a couple of days.

  “I didn’t want to leave you like this, but I have to go or I’m not going to survive. I’m choking on my life here.” She stood again and turned toward the door of his office, intending to leave before she completely fell apart. “I’m stopping at the bank to withdraw half of the balance in the savings account. I need some cash 'til I figure out what I’m going to do for employment. I’ll make arrangements for my things when I find a place to live.”

  “Are you seeing someone else? Is that it?”

  In the doorway to the reception area she stopped, “No, there’s no one.”

  “Can’t we talk about this, then? Why don’t we go away this weekend and try to work it out.”

  “We’ve tried that before. And, when we come back everything reverts back to the way it was. I need to change my life. I know there’s never really a good time, but I feel I need to make that change now. Move away, start over, block the pain.”

  Looking up at the ceiling, she willed the tears to drain into the back of her throat before they spilled down her cheeks.

  “If you won’t go to the survivor support group, I can set you up with a counselor, just one-on-one. You need to work through your grief, not block it.”

  “I’m sorry Ron.” She walked out of his office.

  “Sara!”

  Turning back, she saw her husband, standing with his hands fisted at his side, tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, too.”

  She grabbed her purse from the reception desk and walked through the front door. She could feel the sting of tears running down her cheeks, her vision blurring. She fumbled through her purse for her car keys. “God, I should have left a note.”

  Climbing into the forest-green convertible Ron surprised her with two years ago she struggled to get the key in the ignition. “Please God let me get out of here before he tries to stop me.” Sara could see him watching from behind the ficus in the front window of the office. Then she couldn’t see anything at all. Tears poured out for what seemed an eternity. He never tried to stop her; he just stood behind the plant and watched even when she finally drove away.

  ***

  When Sara drove out of the lot, Ron wiped the wetness from his cheeks. He walked back to the reception desk, scanned the Rolodex for the O’s, and dialed the number of the bank. While he waited, the beat of his heart felt like a drum pounding in his chest. “Please don’t let me collapse now!”

  “Ocean National, Lorraine speaking, how may I help you?”

  “Hi Lorraine, this is Ron Stafford, may I speak to” he scanned the Rolodex card for the name of the branch manager, “Dan Weeks.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Ron focused on the ceiling and the pounding inside his chest, hoping his own tears would clear as he waited for the branch manager to come on line.

  “Dan Weeks. How may I help you, Mr. Stafford?”

  “Hi Dan, my wife is on her way over there to make a withdrawal from our savings account. Is it possible for you to close the account for me instead? I know it’s highly irregular to do this over the phone.”

  Two minutes after he finished his business with the bank the Stafford white utility van pulled into the drive. Allen Cook, his engineering and installation assistant, stepped out of the van with a pizza box balanced in his right hand, his keys dangling from his teeth, and his black canvas tool bag slung over his right shoulder. He turned and lifted a six-pack of Mountain Dew with his free hand and hipped the door closed.

  Watching him, Ron remembered when Allen first joined the company, apprenticing as an undergraduate from the engineering department at UNH. Ron had the designs and the political savvy to connect with high-end clients. Allen was the workhorse, determined to stay at a project until it all worked, no matter how long it took. He also had a craving for sugary soft drinks and a hollow leg when it came to food, but he was loyal, dedicated, and smart. Ron had suggested to Sara just that past Sunday that they bring him on as a full partner before the end of October.

  “Hi Ron, the Snowe job is complete. I stayed until I was sure Mrs. Snowe could handle the system on her own. She gave me a fifty-dollar tip. I tried to turn it down but she wouldn’t have it. So, I bought pizza for us to celebrate. Where’s Sara? Did she already go out for lunch?”

  “She’s gone.” He watched his freckle-faced assistant continue to shed his load.

  “I got pepperoni, sausage, and mushrooms, so we can all be happy. When will she be back?” Allen tried to catch a bead of sweat before it ran into his eyes and placed the pizza box down on the top of a glass display table, almost flipping the pizza onto the floor.

  “She’s not coming back.” He watched the sweat pour off Allen’s flushed face. “I thought you were going to take the van down to the car dealer to get the A/C fixed.”

  “They can’t take it ‘til Friday. By that time this Indian summer heat wave will be over, but hey! What can you do?”

  Allen flipped the top off a Mountain Dew. “Sara’s not coming back today? Is she all right? She’s been awfully quiet lately.”

  “She’s not coming back,” Ron said. It was interesting that Allen knew more about Sara’s moods than he did. “She left me.”

  “Left you? Just like that? Just quit the business and left you?”

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  Allen stopped a slice of pizza half way to his mouth. “Holy shit!”

  CHAPTER 2

  From his motel room window, Matthew Farrell watched the woman swimming in the pool. She appeared to be alone. He slipped a key card into her motel room door, entered and quietly closed the door behind him. The room was neat, beds untouched, two closed suitcases tucked under the clothes rack, a brown leather purse on the desk, and laptop beside it. He slipped a listening bug under the lip edge of the nightstand between a pair of double beds. Glancing out the window, he could see she was still doing laps.

  He opened the purse on the desk and pulled out a wallet containing a driver’s license, social security card, health card, VISA card and American Express. In the picture section was a snapshot of a man and this woman, a family shot including a young boy, and one of a young man in cap and gown. The last photo was of two young women laughing into the camera. In a fold, a hundred-eighty bucks in twenties and a receipt from the motel were neatly folded. He checked the window again, made a slice in the bottom of the lining of the purse, and slid a tracker between the lining and the leather.

  He checked the bathroom; a cosmetic bag sat on the counter. When he opened it, its contents included a small bottle of ibuprofen, makeup, deodorant, toothbrush, paste, and a hair pick. She traveled light, he thought. On a hook behind the door was a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. He checked pockets and came up with a handful of soggy tissues and a set of keys – a Chrysler key with a remote and three possible house keys. He re-stuffed the pockets, moved the bathroom door back into place, set the suitcases on one of the beds, and swiftly worked his way through both of them. An envelope tucked inside one of them held a grand in fifties and a bank check.

  He’d been in here too long. Repositioning the luggage under the rack and purse on the corner of the desk, just as they were, he unlocked the door joining the two rooms and locked the door from the other side.

  A few minutes later, he walked outside from the room next-door wearing black bathing trunks, aviator sunglasses and a black baseball cap on his head. Stretching out on a plastic chaise lounge, he picked up a copy of Time Magazine someone had left behind. In the fading light he wa
tched the woman as she slowed her pace.

  When she finally stood up in the shallow end, she ran shaky fingers through wet curls. The lift of her arms showed off her full breasts. He admired her generous curves accented by the black one-piece suit. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. She climbed the steps out of the pool and came closer to where he sat. He noticed a splatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose and green eyes that looked bloodshot.

  ***

  Reaching down for her towel, Sara noticed a man with mirrored sunglasses sitting on a chaise by the pool. She couldn’t determine his mood, but she could feel him watching her. The glasses hid his eyes and a baseball cap most of his head. He had a black beard and a mat of hair across his chest. He was tan, lean and muscular, like a panther resting before the hunt. In another time, she might have been interested. When she passed him he nodded to her with a slow grin on his lips. Two fingers on the bill of his cap acknowledged her leaving. She reached the room and secured all the locks, just in case.

  After a hot shower, Sara sat on the bed wearing an oversized T-shirt, jeans and a towel wrapped around her wet hair. Picking up her cell phone, she called the only friend who would understand her position. “Cass, how are you?”

  “Sara, I'm knee deep in the chaos of a new school year. You know how it is with art teachers. I carry my studio on my back from school to school and always leave something behind. More importantly, how are you? I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

  “I’m calling from a motel in Portsmouth. I could use a friend. Oh God…wait a minute.” The receiver dropped to Sara’s lap when she reached for a tissue.

  “Sara, what’s wrong, honey? Why are you at a motel? Where’s Ron?”

  “Oh Cass, I left him.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I’ve been coming unhinged on the inside for months. I’m having horrible nightmares. Ron is all wrapped up in his work, his committees, and his clubs; He’s just not there for me. Everywhere I turn someone or something reminds me of Carl. What’s left of my heart just keeps crumbling away.”