DeeRay Deloplane had spent the better part of the last twenty years repairing his life from a series of unforced errors that had come close to killing him. The primary means of this rehabilitation had been putting as much distance between himself and his troublesome past as possible. Since his rebirth had involved abandoning a wife and three kids, some might have suggested that his reinvention was built on a shaky moral foundation, but DeeRay had long ago made peace with his past, and had learned to live with very few regrets. He had a reasonably profitable car mechanic’s business that he ran out of what used to be a 7/11 store, on the outskirts of Worcester, Massachusetts, which was as far as his bus fare would take him two decades earlier when he had fled his wife, Starla, in the dead of night after a particularly ferocious fight that had left each of them exhausted and bleeding profusely. The fight had been about money, most fights with Starla were, primarily the fact that DeeRay wasn’t making enough of it fast enough to please her. With three young mouths to feed and her insistence on being a stay at home Mom, she often had a point in their frequent money fights, especially considering DeeRay’s fondness for beer and vintage Corvettes, neither of which he could afford. It had always been DeeRay’s contention that he and Starla might have been ok if they had only had one kid. They might have been able to survive with twins even…but having triplets had been a bridge too far for two people who were both basically kids themselves.
If DeeRay had been a more religious man, or religious at all, maybe he would have carried around a more respectable level of guilt for abandoning three kids before they were even five years old. But, he had to admit that he hardly ever gave them much thought. Truth be told, the only time they ever entered his mind was whenever he was forced to write a support check to Starla. Just like death and taxes, Starla Deloplane, who had a nose for money like a coon dog has a nose for escaped convicts, eventually tracked him down with the help of a relentless Richmond lawyer. After six months of threats and counter threats, the lawyer was able to extract a series of monthly checks out of DeeRay, written on Deloplane Auto-Repair’s extra wide and fancy looking checks, most of them written in the dainty handwriting of his bookkeeper and wife number two, Priscilla, who never complained about money, since her Daddy had boatloads of it and showered his only daughter with all of her heart’s desires. DeeRay would sometimes stare across the table during Sunday dinner at his father-in-law and think that since leaving Virginia he had become the luckiest man in the world. Instead of being burdened with three unruly children and an argumentative, money-grubbing wife, he had managed to meet and marry a woman who not only woke up every morning of her life, horny, but also had a filthy rich old man who could be talked into loaning his new son-in-law money to buy the old 7/11 and turn it into a garage.
Eventually the monthly support checks ended, and the Deloplane’s of Massachusetts were in high cotton. DeeRay’s communications with Starla had dwindled to the rare phone call to inform him of Robert’s latest run-in with the law. Of the three, Robert was always the one getting in the most serious trouble, and it had been this way since the day all three of them had been born. DeeRay’s communications with his kids had been largely limited to the even more rare phone call…usually every other Christmas and the occasional birthday. The last time he had laid eyes on any of them had been on the day of their high school graduation, which the triplets were grudgingly allowed to participate in only with assurances from all parties that each Deloplane would complete two summer school classes still required to actually receive their diploma. To assuage the rare rumblings of guilt, DeeRay would fold a fifty dollar bill into an envelope from the garage and send it to each kid with a perfunctory note:
Don’t spend it all in one place,
Dad Deloplane
But, DeeRay Deloplane had always known that eventually he would pay the price for abandoning his children. Although, it would have appeared to most observers that he had gotten away with it, his gutless flight from responsibility, every passing year brought with it a strange and disturbing feeling that his comeuppance was closer at hand. Along with this gnawing fear, there was also a longing, the haunting thought that his choices had robbed him of something. After the triplets, there would be no more children. For a women so enamored with sexual intercourse, Priscilla had let it be known early and often that she had no interest in motherhood, which was fine, except when the holidays rolled around, or their birthdays. That’s when the longings would come, heavier each year.
Then he had gotten the call back in September from Starla, informing him that his son had died a murderer. The details horrified DeeRay, and immediately the guilt became unbearable. Priscilla, who possessed all the empathy of a Teamster foreman, scolded her husband for blaming himself and threatened to leave him if he agreed to travel to Virginia for the small funeral service that Starla had arranged for her unmourned son at the local Baptist Church the family seldom attended. DeeRay made the drive anyway, standing off by himself at the graveside, afraid of how his remaining two children would react upon seeing their father for the first time in seven years. The small crowd paying their respects all looked like thugs to DeeRay, with their shaggy hair, tattoos and ripped jeans, dressed more for fighting than mourning, DeeRay thought. These were the sort of friends a boy without a proper Dad falls in with, DeeRay thought. The tears that came weren’t for his son, they were an admission of the hash he had made of his life. He was reaping what he had sown, skipping out on his family like a whimpering coward.
Starla had been cold towards him when he had shown up at the funeral home the previous day. She had recognized him standing beside his Corvette in the parking lot, too afraid to come inside. As she approached him, she noticed that he looked much better than she would have thought after so much time. His hands were rough and red from a mechanic’s abuse, but the rest of him hadn’t aged as much as she had. This was one more thing she had to resent about him.
I suppose I should thank you for coming, was all she felt was appropriate to say, although at any other location and occasion, she could have come up with a hundred things to yell at him. DeeRay could hardly look at her, the guilt and remorse practically oozing out of every pore.
Finally he managed, How are you holding up? You need anything? How are Rich and Bertie dealing with everything?
Do I need anything? You mean like money? No, I’m good DeeRay. I had insurance on him, so we’re all good. Starla’s eyes filled with tears.
After the last rose had been thrown onto the casket, DeeRay’s kids turned to leave the graveside, seeing their father for the first time. To his profound horror, they both ran to him and held him tight, tears flowing, the air filled with cries of Oh, daddy…daddy…a greeting that DeeRay knew he didn’t deserve, and one that had him weeping at the spectacle of such a ghastly reunion, every Deloplane crying and hugging each other as if they had been separated by the ravages of war, or biblical famine or some other cosmic pestilence instead of his own petty selfishness. When Starla joined in on the ill-timed group hug, DeeRay found himself fighting a new urge to make a break for the Corvette and leave them all in the lurch for a second time.
By the time they all settled in at the house for the covered dish supper, everyone seemed to have recovered from the awkward outpouring of emotion graveside, and had now moved on to sad indifference, a much more familiar playing field. Strangers kept interrupting attempts at conversation, passing along their condolences, and confusing DeeRay with Starla’s two more recent husbands, neither of whom, DeeRay noticed, were in attendance. The fact that he was the only former husband of Starla Deloplane to attend their son’s funeral provided DeeRay with the smallest fig leaf of comfort that could possibly have been hoped for under such circumstances. Truthfully, DeeRay had always been grateful to Starla for running off two other husbands over the years, since it provided him with the reassurance that maybe it wasn’t all his fault.
As he walked to his car to leave, Starla had followed him. They both leaned against the Corvette, searching for words that fit the moment. As usual, Starla went first.
Nice car. You always had a thing for Vette’s, didn’t you?
Yeah. This one was a mess when I bought it. I spent a year working on it at the shop. I could probably make some money if I sold it, but I don’t want to.
Uncomfortable silence. A cigarette was lit. More silence.
I knew he was going to end up killing somebody, DeeRay. It wasn’t just the drugs, it was him…he had a dark heart. I used to blame it on you. I thought that if you hadn’t left like you did, maybe he would have turned out different…but the truth is, he was just a bad seed.
Well, if he was, it was my seed. You can blame me all you want. Actually, it would make me feel better if you did.
Why would that make you feel better?
Because that’s what I deserve.
What’s done is done, DeeRay. We can’t go back and have a do-over.
Another long silence fell over them as the sun slipped behind the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance.
You sure you don’t need anything? I’ve got plenty enough money to help you out with the funeral if you’re like.
Relax, DeeRay. I’m not broke anymore either. You know I’ve got the best divorce lawyer in Richmond on my Christmas card list. I’ve taken practically every nickel from the two after you, thanks to him. It’s been kind of like a cottage industry for me.
They both laughed together, at the same time, about the same joke for probably the first time in twenty five years.
So, you heading back to Massachusetts in the morning?
Yeah. I need to be getting back. Priscilla swore she would leave me if I came down here, so I better get that patched up.
Starla put her arms around her first husband, the father of her children and gave him a long, tender hug, saying nothing. Thank you for coming DeeRay…I mean it. After he got in the car, he rolled the window down, searching for something to say. Starla, who could never let silence hang too long began talking to no one in particular, DeeRay thought later…
…the thing is, even though I knew Robert would end up killing someone, I always imagined it would be one of his drug buddies, or one of his dealers. Why couldn’t it have been one of them? Why did he have to kill that Rigsby woman? I mean, of all the people in the world, why did it have to be such a fine and beautiful woman like her? You know, I’ve read up on her and her family. They were from Richmond. She had a couple of grown kids, and a rich, successful husband who owned a big business somewhere. They were driving an Escalade. I saw a picture of her on the Internet. Such a lovely woman. The funny thing is DeeRay, my son ended up killing exactly the kind of woman I always wanted to be.
It’s a terrible thing, Starla…but like a great woman I knew once said, what’s done is done. There’s nothing you can do to fix it.
I suppose so.
Starla watched him back out of the driveway, then followed his tail lights until they disappeared.
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