DISCLAIMER: The following is a story very near and dear to my heart. It is based on truth, but names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved. Potential triggers include cheating, divorce, and abandonment.

Arbaléte

By C. Martinez

She was born in Teague, Texas, but she spent most of her life not really being “from” anywhere since her family moved around a lot. Her daddy was a carpenter, and her mother stayed at home. She always said she was an only child and so was her brother, because she was 14 years old when he was born. She didn’t have many close friends. They were never in one place long enough to get to know anybody anyway.

Prudence Chastity Montgomery was born on July 30, 1934. She said her mother had named her twice, because really “prudence” and “chastity” were the same thing. She grew up in World War II America and graduated from Pasadena High School in Texas. She married a man named Philip who fought in the Korean War, and became Mrs. Prudence Montgomery O’Malley– Pru, he called her– and together they had three children. Two boys, and a girl: Peter, Phil Jr., and Penny. They settled down in Texas City, and had the perfect life, the perfect house with a perfect white picket fence and a greenhouse out back. Philip was into orchids.

She remembered the smell of those orchids fondly. Pru often found herself in the greenhouse thinking about what her life might have been like if she hadn’t married so young. Not that she was dissatisfied with her life as it was, no. She loved her family dearly. She loved her husband and she loved her children. But the line between chance and fate so often blurred for her, and the thought of what could have happened fascinated her.

“I don’t want to die knowing that I never lived,” she’d said to her friend, Meryl. The two were sitting on Pru’s front porch on the wooden swing her father had made for her as a wedding gift. The summer night was warm and clear, and the Texas stars shone bright in the moonless sky. They rocked back and forth, gently pushing the floor away with their bare feet.

“Oh hush, Pru,” Meryl said. “I’d give anything for a life like yours.”

“But don’t you ever wish you could see the world?” Pru gazed absently up at the stars. “I feel so small, Meryl. So very insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”

Meryl placed her hand on top of Pru’s. “You’re everything to those kids sleeping in there,” she said, gesturing with her head over her shoulder to the window behind them.

“Those kids are everything to me, honestly.”

“Walt and I got into a fight again last night,” Meryl said after a moment.

“Yeah?” Pru said. “Did’ja hit him?”

Meryl laughed a little. “No, but I sure wanted to. He makes me so damned mad sometimes. It’s not like any of this is my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Pru said. “Don’t let him put that on you.” She shifted to face her friend.

“Walt hasn’t touched me in months,” Meryl said. “He doesn’t even notice me. I just think… I think he’s having an affair.” She dropped her head into her hands. “Pru, what am I going to do?”

Pru couldn’t give her a good answer though. She just looked into the teary eyes of her friend, and her heart broke a little for her. Who was she to be so indifferent to the picture-perfect American life she was lucky enough to fall into? It really was a good life, for which she was eternally grateful. But an emptiness gnawed at Pru, like a cicada slowly sucking the life out of a sapling before it even had the chance to flourish.

~

“Let’s run away together.” Walt was lying across the full-sized bed in nothing but his baby blue boxers smoking a cigarette, the musty floral comforter thrown haphazardly to the foot of the bed. A post coital fog mingled with the scent of smoke and Pru’s perfume in the air.

“Run away?” Pru gasped. “That does sound thrilling.” She was standing in front of the vanity in the hotel bathroom brushing her hair. Her pink silk nightie clung to her curves in all the right places. “Where on Earth would we go?”

“To Paris,” Walt said, sitting up. “Or the Caribbean. Or somewhere north, in the mountains. Where no one would know us, and we could start our lives over.” Bringing his feet to the floor he stood and crossed the small room to the bathroom door. “Wouldn’t you love that?”

“I’d love anywhere you were,” Pru said, smiling curtly at his reflection in the mirror and twirling the brush in her nimble fingers.

Walt reached out and pinched Pru’s supple bottom and she let out a little shriek and popped him lightly on the arm with the brush. Then they ran playfully back to the bed and fell to the springy mattress in a heap of giggles and affection. Walt reached up to touch the perfect porcelain skin of Pru’s cheek. He gazed into her pale green eyes for a moment, then closed his, and drew her lips into him for a tender kiss that sent a rush through Pru’s body and touched a place deep in her heart that was unfamiliar and alluring.

Pru exhaled as their lips parted. “Meryl suspects, you know.” She hated to kill the mood, but they needed to address this. “I don’t think she knows it’s me, though.”

“Darling, we can’t keep going on like this and expect them not to notice.” Walt brushed a strand of hair out of Pru’s face.

“Phillip hasn’t noticed a thing.” She rolled her eyes. “I daresay he never will. Not even if I did disappear with you tomorrow.”

“One can only hope so.”

Pru Smiled. “Right. Where to then?”

~

Some sad twangy love ballad Pru didn’t recognize was playing on the jukebox when they walked into the diner. They’d just left another one of Philip’s HAM Radio Festivals in Baton Rouge and were grabbing a bite to eat before the long drive home. Of course, Pru enjoyed attending the festivals too, and so did the kids, because they sometimes got to talk to important people on the other side of the world. Penny was most fascinated by that. It was all she could talk about as the family sat down in a booth with rusty red vinyl seats and a polished linoleum table.

“That was SO COOL!” she said, her tiny mind blown. Phil Jr. had slipped into one side of the booth first, and Penny scooted in beside him.

“Shut UP already, Penny!” Peter said as he slid in on the other side. “We were all there. We all got to talk to him.”

Philip sat down next to Peter and picked up the menu in front if him. A futile move, Pru thought as she sat down across from him, because he always got the same thing at every diner they ever went to: boring old bacon and scrambled eggs with two pieces of dry whole wheat toast. She rolled her eyes, knowing that he wasn’t looking at her anyway. He was now reading every line of every item on the menu and would probably ask the waitress at least two questions before ultimately deciding on the same thing as always.

“Evenin’ y’all. My name’s Maisy, and I’ll be takin’ care of y’all tonight.” The waitress had appeared out of nowhere and startled Pru. “Can I get y’all somethin’ to drink to start?”

Pru started to speak, but Philip cut her off.

“We’ll have two iced teas, unsweet, no lemon,” he said gesturing to his wife. “And the children will each have milk.”

“Actually,” Pru interjected as Maisy started away, “I’ll have the lemon with mine.”

When she turned to look back at her husband, he was looking at her with confusion in his deep brown eyes.

Pru shrugged. “I just want something to make my mouth pucker, is all.”

Philip returned his attention to the menu.

Since her chosen seat had put her facing the door of the diner, Pru caught herself zoning off into a people-watching state. She could vaguely hear the kids talking about the General they’d just spoken to in Australia over the radio, but she wasn’t paying much attention.

The sound of the bell over the door pulled her out of her reverie as it opened, and two new patrons walked in. She recognized them immediately even though they were silhouetted in the setting sun shining outside behind them. It was Walt and Meryl. They’d been at the festival too. Pru shifted anxiously in her seat.

Philip looked up and followed her gaze over his shoulder.

“Ah! Friends!” he said. “Please, join us.” Philip stood and grabbed two chairs from and unoccupied table and set them up beside their booth.

“Oh, no, we can’t,” Walt said. “We’ve got to get back out on the road. Just planned to grab something to-go.” He snuck a glance in Pru’s direction, but she played her part well and gave nothing away.

“Pru, we must talk knitting the next time we get together,” Meryl said. “I have a project I want to run by you. I’m writing a pattern.” She twisted a little and patted her big red bag, which no doubt held her needles and at least two, maybe even three skeins of yarn.

“Absolutely. We’ll talk shop. Did y’all have a good time at the festival?”

“Oh, yes! Walt showed me how to change channels and send Morse code.” She held up a skinny finger and tapped out the DIT-DIT-DIT DAH-DAH-DAH DIT-DIT-DIT that would have sent the message S.O.S.

“Let’s get up there and order, Honey,” Walt said, taking Meryl by the waist and leading her towards to check out counter. “We’ll see y’all back in TC.”

“Drive safe,” Philip said.

Maisy came back just then with their drinks and took their orders. Before she’d even finished Walt and Meryl were out the front door again with their to-go bags swinging after them. The song coming from the jukebox went on mockingly, something about sailing away with me.

~

A few weeks after the festival in Baton Rouge, they met up at the hotel again. They’d waited so that they could avoid suspicion. Pru was already waiting in the room when Walt opened the door, and she ran to him, savoring his tight embrace.

“I’m ready,” Pru said. “Let’s do it. Let’s run away.”

“You’re serious?” Walt held her away from him slightly so he could gauge the expression in her wild eyes.

“Yes, of course I am,” she said. “These last few weeks have been just dreadful, and I can’t pretend anymore.” She took his hand and walked with him to the bed and sat down. “And you make my heart fly in ways Philip never has, never will. I was so young when I married him. So preoccupied by who I was supposed to be that I forgot who I wanted to be. I wanted to go on adventures, see the world.”

“I’ll show you the world,” Walt said, running his rough hands into her curly auburn hair and pulling her lips to his.

After parting they devised a plan. They’d meet in Galveston at the Flagship Hotel and from there they would fly south together. Walt had suggested the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean. He knew of a fellow who owned a little seafood shack on the beach and could give them a room for a few weeks for cheap while they found a more permanent living situation.

They decided one month from tonight would work nicely. That would give them enough time to save up some money for plane tickets and settle other travel affairs. They agreed not to meet at the hotel again. Pru said it wasn’t right and Walt agreed. They couldn’t help that they loved each other, but they didn’t have to be so dishonest and manipulative about it.

They went to bed that night without making love. The love they had made in their arrangements to be together had been enough to satisfy them for the time being. As they pulled the ugly floral comforter over themselves, Walt reached up and turned off the light. Pru laid her head on his chest, and as she drifted into her dreams, she swore she could already taste the salty air and feel the warm sun on her face.

~

Penny was standing at the stove browning a pound of ground beef while Pru chopped an onion. Philip sat in his recliner in the living room watching Gunsmoke. The boys were in the garage arguing over a name for their new band.

“Penny, can you come here for a sec?” Pru had tears in her eyes, but she blamed them on the onion.

Penny tapped the grease off the wooden spoon on the edge of the pan then set in on the counter next to the stove and turned to her mother. “Yes ma’am?”

“You remember how to finish this, right?” she asked. “Just cook up some rice thr-“

“Throw it in the pan with the meat to fry up.” Penny finished her mother’s sentence. “Add the onions and spice mix, and cook another 15 minutes or so. I remember.”

“Good,” Pru said. “I forgot something at the store, baby. Can you get this on the table for your daddy and your brothers?”

“Yes ma’am,” Penny said with a smile. She turned back to the stove and continued stirring.

“I’ll be right back,” Pru said to her daughter, then grabbed her coat and headed for the back door. On her way out she picked up the suitcase she’d hidden there behind the radiator, and with one final look back at the long silky strawberry blond hair of her only daughter, she turned and left.

About an hour later Penny and her family were sitting at the dinner table, five plates set with food steaming and slowly getting cold.

“Where’s your mother?” Philip said to Penny, the aggravation in his voice palpable.

Penny shrugged her bony shoulders. “She said she was going to the store, and that she’d be right back.”

“Did she say how long she’d be?” Penny looked at her father with wide eyes as he spoke. “Well, damn! Does she want us to eat without her?!”

“I don’t know,” Penny said.

Philip let out an exasperated breath. “Would someone please pass the salt?”

Together they ate, and Pru didn’t come home that night. Nor the next, or the one after that.

~

“No one’s even called for me, Walter,” Pru said in a flourish. “Not one call. I thought for certain the children would miss me terribly.” She paced back and forth in the hotel room.

“Honey, they don’t know where you are,” Walter said. He was sitting on the bed with his feet up, slippers on, reading the Galveston paper.

She stopped pacing. “I should call.”

As she moved for the phone Walter sprang up from the bed to block her path.

“Are you sure about this, honey?”

“Yes, I need to tell them where I am, Walter. They’re my family.”

Just then the phone rang behind them. Walt answered.

“Hello?”

“Phone call for Mrs. Prudence O’Malley, sir,” said a nasally voice on the line. “May I connect you?”

“Oh, yes,” he replied, lowering the phone and handing it to Pru with a deep sadness in his eyes. Pru took the phone but looked at Walter and caressed his arm with her free hand as she brought the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” Pru said.

“MOMMY!” It was Penny’s voice on the other line.

“Baby! How are you? And your brothers?”

“When are you coming home, mommy?

Pru hesitated to answer. She looked into Walt’s eyes.

“Where’s your father? Is he home?”

“No, he’s at work,” Penny said. “He called home and said someone told him you were at the Flagship Hotel in Galveston. Are you really in Galveston, mommy?”

“Yes, baby, I’m in Galveston. And I’m okay.” She paused. “Listen, baby, tell your father that I am not coming home for now, and that we will talk about it later.”

“Okay, mommy. I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby. So much.” Pru’s voice cracked on the last word. They said their goodbyes and hung up the phone. Pru looked at Walter, who had been watching her patiently the whole time. As she released her grip on the receiver, she crumpled into his waiting arms, crying. They made their way to the bed and he held her there softly, stroking her hair as she wept.

For several minutes they lay in silence. Pru pondering the depth of what she’d done, and Walter pondering their future together. When Pru’s tears had all but dried up he spoke to her in a sultry and endearing voice.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go look at boats,” he said.

“Is that so?” Pru shifted in his arms to look up at his face, her eyes red and puffy.

“Yes, dear. Sailboats, to be exact.” He cupped her cheek and rubbed some leftover wetness away with his thumb.

“Oh, sailboats,” Pru said. She rolled her eyes and then smiled.

“We’ll name it Arbaléte, the shot through my heart.”

“Oh, Walter, you’re really laying it on now.”

“What? I’m perfectly serious.” Walter looked at her with a mockingly straight face.

They fell asleep after making love, both wrapped around each other as though separation might wake them from their perfect dream.

In the morning, they did go get a sailboat. They sailed to the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean, and together Pru and Walter dropped their anchor.

This is a fictional post

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

These are their stories!