The chew witch lived up in the hills, on one of them dirt roads that never had any gravel on it in the first place, because nobody had the money to spread it or care enough to. Her real name was Clara Lou or Lou Claire or something like that but everybody called her the chew witch because my cousin Kathy Jo once called her that when she was five and didn’t know better, and it stuck better than gum up under the railing at the grocery. Our grocery, that is, where I spent many a summer afternoon bored to near death, picking paint and gum off the railing outside. Or trying to anyway. Some of that stuff was stuck tighter than the nickname that Kathy Jo gave poor old Lou Claire….or you know, maybe it actually was Clara Lou. It was definitely a double first name just like almost everybody I knew who comes from the holler. In my family there was Mary Sue and Jenny Kate and me, Peggy June. Our Momma and Daddy ran the only grocery for about 15 miles round, at the base of one of them smaller hills that’s not quite one of the mountains of Appalachia, but pretty darn close. We sat outside that grocery store at the railing for half our lives it seemed like, waiting for anything exciting to happen. Nothing ever did.
Unless the chew witch came in. That’s the only place I ever saw her. She never came to church or went to get an ice cream cone or a soda across the street at Pete’s, and who knows how she put gas in the rickety old black pick up. I never saw her at the gas station up by the state highway. That truck was missing a bumper and three hubcaps, and looked like it might just shake all to pieces, it’s pistons and hoses flying out from underneath it all over the road if she hit a bump too hard. It was mighty sight to see, the old chew witch working that clutch as she came down the hill in to the grocery store parking lot, truck belching more than my uncle Alvey, who was always sneaking away when Momma wasn’t looking to have another beer in the cooler. She’d slide that big old pick up-and when I say, old, I mean that truck was probably older than my daddy-nearly right up to where our toes were hanging over the railing, and she would climb down and just give us the dirtiest look, like we were in her way. Kathy Jo called her the chew witch because she was always chewing when she came in, and she looked mean as a snake. Kathy Jo was old enough to run the register when me and my sisters were still too young to do anything but sweep up and stay out of Momma’s hair, which is why we spent so much time outside at the railing, just watching for something to happen. If the chew witch showed up though, we would quickly find something very interesting inside, so we could watch her as she shopped.
She never bought anything that looked like she could make a meal from- just odd ends and bits and part that maybe sorta might go together if she was hungry. Looked like she was hungry all the time, honestly; she was such as skinny old crone. Mommas said it’s because she chewed too much tobacco and didn’t eat enough food and I believed her. She always left a big steamy pile of nasty tobacco spit in her parking space before she climbed back into her truck. I didn’t know hardly any ladies that chewed tobacco, so it made send to me that Kathy Jo would have noticed that at age five, and fixated enough on it to make it part of her no so pleasant nickname. And as for the witch part- well, let’s just say nobody ever liked a weird old lady who lived alone.
I was maybe 12 or 13 years old when she came in the store on blazing hot day in July. She bought two cans of beans and a bag of flour. It was one of the small bags too, not the big five pound one like most people bought. I had been watching her from behind the rack of potato chips when Momma spooked me by whispering in my ear to mind my own business. I knocked the rack over when I jumped, and then I had to clean up that mess, Momma fussing that I might have crunched up all the chips. Jenny Kate and Mary Sue laughed, but Kathy Jo just gave me a mean look, like I was doing something wrong. When the chew witch left the store, I went up the register to fuss at Kathy Jo to mind her own business, but before I could say anything about it, Kathy Jo began lecturing me, like she was in charge or something!
“There’s nothing special about her, Peggy June. She’s just an old lady who lives up the holler. Why do you spy on her?”
“‘Cause she’s a weird old lady that live up the holler!” I said, feeling my face flush. I didn’t like to be corrected or embarrassed and I’d been both in the last five minutes.
“Well, maybe you ought to get to know her then, and she’ be less weird,” Kathy Jo grumped at me.
“Maybe you should get to know her,” I said, crossed my arms as I pouted. I didn’t have a better come back than that. Kathy Jo was a bit smarter than me, so even if I did, she’d have been clever enough to turn it back around on me in some way that would make me look worse than I already felt.
“Well, maybe I will! Besides, she told me just now to tell you and the girls to knock it off.” Kathy Jo always called the three of us sisters that girls, like she was an adult or something. She wasn’t. She was only 3 years older than me.
“Oh?” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “What’d she say?”
Kathy Jo leaned over the belt and looked at me pointedly. “She said, ‘tell your cousin that she can follow me around all she wants, but she won’t see anything really exciting unless she follows me home.’”
I didn’t know if it was a threat or an invitation or something else. But it did put an idea in my head.
“Mr. Sanburn?” The woman’s voice was watery through the ringing in his ears. He was awake, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything. Everything was white. The woman called to him again. This time turned his head towards her voice. Her dark hair contrasted with the pure white of her coat, her blouse, her name tag. The letters meant something he didn’t immediately recall. He stared, searching his memories.
“Greta,” he said to himself, as his brain put together how to read.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Sanburn?” Greta asked. She lowered her face and inch or two nearer to the table, her eyes warm with compassion.
Sanburn lifted himself slowly, propping for a moment on his elbows before sitting all the way up. Greta pulled back, waiting patiently for his answer. He assessed himself. His head felt strange, but his whole body was relaxed. He felt lighter than he had been felt when he entered the room earlier that day. “I feel good,” he said, surprised.
“You look like it,” Greta said. “We can always tell if the procedure had an effect.”
Sanburn slid his legs off the table, dangling them for a moment before letting the rest of his body roll off the side. His feet on the floor, he raised his head high, turning his face upwards for just a moment, placing his hands on his hips and trying to really feel his own feelings. Yes. Definitely lighter.
“I’ll take you to Dr. Guldenshuh now,” Greta said, grasping the handle of the instrument cart. She waited for him to take the first step before following him from the procedure room.
The hall was just as clinically white as the procedure room had been. Greta parked the cart against the wall, just outside the procedure room. “This way,” she instructed, walking ahead of him to the left. He followed slowly, amazed at the transformation. Just that morning he had been morose, nearly talking himself out of coming. He had contemplated staying in bed, not showering for the third day in a row, and subsisting off stale cereal while he doom-scrolled through the latest news. It seemed impossible that had been just this morning.
Dr. Guldenshuh’s office was at the end of the hallway. Greta stopped outside of the door and waited for his approach. He had been lagged behind her, lost in his wonder. When he arrived beside her, she smiled tenderly, almost motherly, then turned the handle. “After you,” she said.
Sanburn moved through the open doorway into the office. Dr Guldenshuh sat behind her desk, her glasses at the end of her nose, writing furiously in a notebook. “Hello. Have a seat,” she said, not even looking up. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Unlike the rest of the facility, the psychologist’s office was rich and warm. She had large, lush, dark wood furniture. The wingback chairs looked like they belonged near a fireplace in a manor house. There was a glorious high pile carpet laid across the floor. Sanburn felt safe in this office. It reminded him of home—not his home, but a home he would like to have.
Greta took a seat in one of the wingbacks, and Sanburn took the other. Dr. Guldenshuh shut her notebook, pushed it aside, and then began sifting through a file folder that had been laid on the corner of the desk. She studied one of the pages for a moment, nodding to herself. Then she looked up at him, smiling widely. “You woke very quickly,” she said. “I trust you are feeling alright?”
“Yes, I think I feel fine,” Sanburn said. “Maybe a slight headache,” he added, as Dr. Guldenshuh continued to stare.
“Very normal. I suspect it will subside by this evening.” Dr. Guldenshuh put away the folder. Then sat back in her chair. “I’d like for you to tell me about Andre, Mr. Sanburn.”
“Andre,” he breathed. “Andre was a wonderful man. A wonderful brother. I miss him terribly.” The words were true, but they lacked the dark agony that had punctuated them previously.
“Would you mind if Greta recorded your brain while we talk, Mr. Sanburn?” Dr. Guldenshuh asked.
“Of course not,” he answered.
Greta rose from her chair, and went across the room towards a shelf that held a variety of equipment. Sanburn knew from his previous sessions that these were instruments that helped them map his memories and his track his brain waves. Great picked up two small silver disks, along with a white backed tablet and returned to his side. He tuned his head to the side, allowing her to place one of the disks on his neck. Then he turned the other way, letting her repeat the process. The metal was cool against his skin. He enjoyed the feel of it. The thought surprised him. He enjoyed it? He couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed something.
Greta sat down again in the wingback next to him. She typed on the screen for a moment before she announced, “All ready, doctor.”
“Very good,” Dr. Guldenshuh said. She wheeled her chair out from behind the desk, rolling to rest next to Sanburn. He was comforted by her presence. “Now, tell me about Andre, please,” she said. Her voice was smooth and inviting. He smiled. He smiled. Then, he began to retell the stories she already knew.
Greta smiled to herself as she hung her lab coat in her locker at the back of the clinic’s breakroom. They had done good work today. She had thought Mr. Sanburn was beyond help when she first saw his scans. Dr. Rudolph was a masterful memory surgeon though. The way he had rewired Mr. Sanburn’s brain still gave her chills of excitement. She took her overcoat from the hook inside the locker, donning it slowly as she reminisced.
She turned at the sound of the lounge door opening. Dr. Rudolph was moving towards his own locker. He looked tired. He caught her eye. “Long day,” he sighed.
“What you did for Mr. Sanburn today was just short of miraculous,” Greta said.
Dr. Rudolph smiled, then shrugged. “Yes. He was a difficult case. I just hope that it sticks.”
Greta frowned. “What do you mean?”
Dr. Rudolph regarded her with a tense stare, almost looking as if he were calculating the benefits of answering her. “Greta, this work we do…it’s rarely permanent.”
Greta felt her heart sink, her stomach knotting. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Dr. Rudolph was still staring at her, his filled with sadness. “It works for them for awhile,” he said, “but they always seem to need to come back eventually. For another treatment.”
Greta tried to swallow her shock. “Dr. Guldenshuh has never mentioned this.”
He shook his head, then rubbed a hand over his face. “No, I suppose she wouldn’t want anyone to know.”
Greta was frozen, thinking about the science she had learned here. “Why?”
“Why what?” Dr. Rudolph asked. He moved to his locker and stripped off his white lab coat.
“Why doesn’t it stick?” she asked.
Dr. Rudolph’s answer was slow in coming. “Because they don’t learn how to do it themselves.”
“Learn what?” she asked.
He turned to face her. His overcoat was draped over his arm. “When we fix a patient in this way, they never unlearn all the toxic thinking that got them into the mess they’re in when they come through the door.”
“Toxic thinking?” Greta blinked. “Most of our patients have trauma, Dr. Rudolph.”
“Yes, I know,” he said. He moved towards her slowly. “And if we were practicing cognitive therapy 50 years ago, we’d teach them how to break the hold that trauma has over them. But now, we simply take it away. They learn nothing from it and end up back in the clinic waiting room.”
She thought about what she had seen over the last year working with Dr. Guldenshuh and Dr. Rudolph. “But…I’ve not seen any repeat patients.”
Dr. Rudolph smiled slowly, sadly. “This is the third time we’ve treated Mr. Sanburn within the last 8 years.”
All of Greta’s thoughts failed to coalesce as words. She simply nodded and looked away.
“But,” Dr. Rudolph continued. She looked back at him. “This is still better.”
“Is it?” she asked. “If it isn’t permanent, why?”
“Instant relief,” Dr. Rudolph said.
Greta nodded, understanding. “I see,” she whispered. She moved past him, feeling heavy. “Goodnight, Dr. Rudolph.”
“See you tomorrow!” he said brightly, as if he had not just shattered the pedestal on which he had stood.
Greta exited the clinic, moving out into the cold night, wondering how long it would be before Mr. Sanburn was back on the procedure table.
(Find chapter 1 and a description of the project here.)
It is 1:07 am and she cannot sleep. Her body is begging for rest, but her thoughts will not turn down the volume. When she closes her eyes, all she can see is the dark blue cross in the test result window. So, she keeps her eyes open, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what everyone will say when she starts to show.
This is a third baby. She will start showing well before she is ready to tell.
She has told no one except Jesse. Not her mother, not her sister Cindy, not Brett and Finn, her sons. Not her best friend, Anna. Not her oldest friend, Martha, whom she is sure will be the first to shame her for it. Not her favorite cousin, Kristen—the one who would never judge her, even if she admitted she’d been sleeping with her minister for the past year and half. She thinks that perhaps she should tell Kristen. Kristen would listen without condemning her. Kristen might take her shopping for new maternity clothes and nursing bras. Kristen would have a lot of nasty things to say about anybody who has nasty things to say about her.
She sighs. Kristen is also likely to let it slip to her sister, Jessica, who will tell their mom. And when Aunt Rachel finds out, then so will Rebecca’s mom.
It is 1:12 am. She decides not to tell anyone else until after she sees a midwife. If she can keep it to herself. This secret feels more invasive to her. It feels like it will grow until she can’t contain it. She catches herself biting her nails as she thinks. There may not even be a heartbeat. Hasn’t she heard that an estimated 1/3 pregnancies aren’t carried to term? It feels like a cruel thing to hope for. She can’t let herself think it; it feels too shameful.
She turns over in the bed, laying on her left side, as she knows is best, though the baby is little more than the size of a blueberry at this point. What week is it? She tries to count them, but needs a calendar. She reaches for her phone, looks at the calendar app. Week 6, she thinks. She should call the midwife tomorrow.
She sets the phone down on the bedside table. It is 1:18 am.
She knows Jesse will still be awake. He rarely goes to bed early. She picks up the phone again, easily finding his texts. She types out a question. Are you awake? Her finger hovers over the send arrow before she taps the screen.
He is calling her. When she sees his name float across the screen her heart flutters. She slides her finger across the surface to answer. “Hey,” she says thickly.
“Hey,” he answers.
“Did I wake you?” she asks. She knows she did not. His greeting was energetic.
Jesse laughs. “No,” he says. Then, a pause. “Are you okay?”
She hesitates. It is a such a bizarre question. Yes, she is okay; she is just thinking too much and can’t turn off. No, she is not okay; she is worried about her reputation and his, about his job, about having a baby at age 39, about another secret taking over her life. “I don’t know,” she says.
She can hear him shifting, and she wonders if he is sitting on his couch or lying in his bed. “What are you thinking about?”
He knows her. “How to tell the truth.”
Jesse is silent for too long. She doesn’t understand what this might mean. For a moment, she thinks she’s lost the connection, but then she hears his breathing. She waits until she can’t stand the silence. “I’m only 6 weeks. There’s still time if we wanted to…”
“No,” he says before she can finish, and she is grateful she doesn’t have to say the awful word: terminate. It is ugly. She hates herself for even thinking it.
Relief floods through her. “Thank you,” she says, crying now. “I didn’t want to, but I don’t know how to go forward.”
“We’ll find a way forward, Rebecca,” he says.
She wants to believe him, but belief is a tricky thing. It doesn’t simply spring up from inside you when you need it. It needs to be cultivated and tenderly managed. It must be curated and nurtured. She has not done enough of that since Alan died, and she has not received enough nurturing from others to make up for her lack of attention. “Will we?” she asks, her voice frail. She is cracking, the tiniest splinters beginning to slide from her. She is afraid this will break her in the way Alan’s death broke her. She is already fractured. How can she survive a second shattering?
“You’re not alone, babe,” he answers.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand. She rolls to her back and stares at the ceiling. “I just want to sleep,” she complains. “I can’t.”
Jesse is silent again for a time. “Do you need me to come over?” He is quiet, almost apologetic. She hears his uncertainty.
He has never spent the night with her. She has never allowed herself to ask it of him. “If you come…can you…stay?” she finally manages.
“Okay,” he answers quickly. “I’ll be there in a little bit.”
She wants to ask him how long a little bit is. Is that 15 minutes? Is it a half hour? But she swallows the questions, and says instead, “I’ll leave the door open for you.”
“Okay, babe,” he says. It sounds like he is getting up, moving around the room. “Bye.”
“Bye,” she echoes. She drags herself from the bed, padding up the hallway to the living room, then turns to the right towards the foyer. She unlocks the front door and opens it wide. She considers turning on the porch light for him, but she instead presses her face to the glass of the storm door and shuts her eyes. A tear runs down her cheek. They will all be so angry with me, she thinks. She pushes the thought away, wipes her face again and slowly moves back to the bedroom.
It is 1:27 am. She is staring at the ceiling again. Now she is more awake than ever, wondering when Jesse will be here. She lifts her phone from the nightstand, opens her text messages again. I’m in the bedroom, she writes. She sends it before she can reconsider. She is tired. She closes her eyes, but everything is still blue behind them. She can hear her heart beating in her ears. She takes deep, centering breaths to try to still herself. She imagines herself filled with light, and the light spilling out into the room around her. The meditation soothes her. She calms, but she is still restless. She turns over in the bed.
The storm door opens. She hears Jesse shut and lock the front door. He comes towards the bedroom slowly, moving almost silently through the house. She waits, glancing at the clock. It is 1:42 am. She sees his shadow fall across the doorway and then he is standing there, just inside her bedroom door. He sets something on the floor—a bag. She wonders what he brought with him for the morning, and how she will hide him from the boys when they wake. She watches him slip off his shoes in the dark. Then he moves towards the bed and takes off his shirt. He slowly slides between the sheets next to her.
She curls herself into him. He is warm and she feels immediately comforted. “Are you sure you can stay?” she asks, her face pressed against his chest.
“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he answers.
She doesn’t ever want him to leave. She never wants to get up from this bed. “You’ve never stayed before.”
“You’ve never asked before,” he replies.
She shuts her eyes as Jesse presses a kiss to her forehead. His hand moves through her hair. He whisks away some of her anxious thoughts. She feels her body releasing the tension she has held all day.
“I don’t know what to do,” she admits.
“Try to sleep,” he says. His voice is smooth. It reminds her of butter—rich and wonderful.
“Aren’t you worried?” she wonders aloud, some frustration leaking through.
He tightens his arm around her. “Of course, I’m worried, Rebecca.”
She loves the way he says her name. It enshrouds her with feelings of safety and love. “We can’t keep this secret too, Jesse.”
He is quiet. She turns over, facing away from him. He scoots closer to her. She presses her body against his. He wraps his arm around her and his hand comes to rest on her hip. “Are you sure you want me to…to have it?” she whispers into the dark. She has already suggested this once. It is easier not to look at him as she asks.
Silence stretches between them. “Do you want to?” he finally asks.
She can hear the fear in him, can feel him tighten as he questions her. “I do,” she answers honestly. “And I don’t.” He shifts beside her. His silence feels like a wound in her chest. “Jesse?” she asks into the darkness.
“I want this,” he says, and his voice is thick with what sounds like grief, but it might be disappointment. “But if you don’t, then I won’t ask it of you.”
She is curious now. She lifts her head from the pillow, turns back around in the bed so she can see the outline of his face in the dark. “What do you want?” she asks, her whisper hovering near his cheek.
“This,” he repeats, touching her face. “A life with you. A real life. Not a secret one.”
She feels warmth slide through her, filling her from her toes to fingertips. “How?” she asks. This is always the question they can’t answer. How do they make a life together when they aren’t supposed to be together at all?
He kisses her, and the question falls away from her mind. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “There are consequences no matter what we do.”
She lays her head on the pillow. “It’s not fair,” she says, voicing the very idea she promised herself she would never dwell on. “It’s such a stupid rule.”
Jesse hums in reply. “It’s to protect the congregation,” he says.
“But you were mine before you were the pastor,” she says, angry now.
Jesse shifts beside her, turning his head. “I was yours?” he asks.
She can’t decide if he thinks this is funny. She hears the amusement in his tone and feels embarrassment bubbling inside her. “I just mean…you wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for me. We’ve been friends for twenty years.”
He is rubbing his hand over his beard. “I don’t think when they wrote the rule they were thinking of a situation like this. They were thinking of that choir director.”
He is referring to the biggest scandal in the history of the church. Amos Gilly and Deborah McDonnell. She thinks of her father, sitting at the kitchen table after the news of their affair got out, spooning his oatmeal into his mouth between his methodical words. Well, if there isn’t a rule about it, there should be one now. So, the personnel committee had written one down: Staff members are not to engage in romantic relationships with church members. Consequences of non-compliance include disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
“We’re not having an affair,” she says quietly. “My husband is dead.” The words still taste like acid.
He presses another kiss against her forehead. “I don’t like it either,” he offers.
She lets the anger roll through her, taking her complaints as it fades. There is no point in wishing for something different, or for an exception. They are unlikely to receive any mercy. She wonders where she will go once they force her from the congregation. Will she even want to go to another church? Will the boys understand what is happening? She resists the urge to cry. She is too tired.
“Brett is usually up by 7,” she says sleepily, still worrying.
“I set an alarm for 6:30,” Jesse says, nuzzling against her now. He kisses her again. “I knew you’d be worried about it.”
She would smile but it feels like an effort. “You’re so good to me,” she whispers. She turns over again, and lets him clutch her tightly. She relaxes against his touch. His breathing is steady, and it calms her. She glances at the clock. It is 1:56 am. She closes her eyes, and now everything is dark instead of blue.
The Quick and the Dead 