Quest and Tillie Novel – Well, now there were two women in the world who knew what my husband sounded like when he was coming. Me.And Mary-Lou Dawn, the blonde he’d just pulled his manhood out of, ripping off the protection as he groaned and pumped himself a few times, shooting his load all over his hand and her hip. Unable to completely comprehend what I had just witnessed, I looked down at the two extra large iced teas I held in my hands and launched one at my husband, hitting him square on the side of the face. Big mistake. I threw the other large drink, hitting him right in the balls. As my husband gasped for breath, clutching his balls, Mary-Lou grinned slyly at me, not in the least bit embarrassed at all, finally triumphant after all these years. I looked at my husband and told him calmly, “We’re done.” Two words to end nine years together. Two words to end a marriage of three years. Two words to end a love that had been called epic, destined, forever.
Then on the heels of those two, final words, I left his autobody shop quick as I could. That is to say, running my a-ss off. I could feel the panic starting to hit me, could feel the shaking begin, little tremors starting from deep inside me that would work their way out to become major earthquakes that would soon wrack my entire body. Hold on hold on hold on. Even as I chanted my mantra to myself, I could hear my husband’s deep, devastated voice bellowing my name, over and over, begging me to stop, but he had to waste precious seconds pulling up his jeans from around his ankles before he could chase after me. Yanking open the driver’s door to my SUV, I leapt up into it, started the engine and threw it into reverse in almost the same motion. I floored it as I saw my husband racing toward his truck, Mary-Lou Dawn following behind him. Think think think. “Call mama,” I directed my car, declining my husband’s incoming call. He hadn’t wasted any time. Unless you counted the last nine years of our lives. She answered on the first ring, and I barked at her in short, staccato sentences. “Mama, open the garage door. I’m coming in hot. Be ready to close it right away. Do not let Quest in.
Do not answer his calls. Do not tell him I’m coming there.” Then, unable to prevent it, a little sob escaped my throat and she heard it. And because she was my mama, she knew something very, very bad had gone down. She just didn’t know exactly how bad, but she could tell from my voice it was bad enough to trigger a panic attack. “You stay on the line with me, Tillie.” She didn’t want me in meltdown mode while I was clearly driving. I heard her murmuring, either to my father or my little brother, then she was back with me. “You hold it together, young lady,” she spoke sharply to me. “Yes, Mama,” I said, but that didn’t sound convincing, so I took several deep breaths to buy myself a few more moments. “I’m…I’m about five minutes out.” “Tell me five things you can see,” she said immediately, having heard the shakiness in my voice, and I knew she was going to my grounding techniques. Name five things you can see. Name four things you can hear.
Name three things you can smell. Name two things you can touch. Name one thing you can taste. “I can…I can see the road. I can see the big oak tree that got hit by lightning. I can see the Thompson’s prize bull. I can see — Mama! I lost count! How many was that?” “That was three, Tillie. You need to tell me two more.” Her calm, familiar voice reached out to me like a hand smoothing down the hair on my head. Looking at the screen, I saw my husband’s name pop up as an incoming call. “I see Quest’s name on my screen! He’s trying to call me again!” “That’s four, Tillie. One more, sweet pea. Give Mama one more thing you can see.” “I see…I see three turkey buzzards sitting on a fence.” “That’s good! Now tell me four things you hear.” Sniffing, I answered. “I hear the engine; I hear pebbles hitting the underside of the car. I hear the wind rushing past because my window’s open. I hear…I hear Quest trying to call me again!” “That was four, darlin’. Well done. Now tell me three things you can smell.”
“I just passed the Anderson’s pig farm, so I smell that. I smell the storm that’s coming. I smell the fresh-mowed grass by the Baker’s field.” “You’re almost home, Tillie. Two things you can touch.” “I’m touching the steering wheel. And I’m…touching the screen to decline Quest’s call.” “I see you on the hill. You’re almost home. Tell me something you can taste.” “My tears, Mama,” I choked on a sob. “I can taste my tears.” Somehow, I managed to pull into my Mama and Daddy’s garage and throw my SUV into park and cut the engine before I leaned on the steering wheel and completely lost it. I heard the garage door going down, then Mama and Daddy were there, Daddy pulling open my door and helping me down. He wrapped his arms around me while I sobbed incoherently against his chest, Mama rubbing my back and clucking softly to me. “What happened, Tillie? What happened with you and Quest?” “He cheated on me. I saw him. With Mary-Lou Dawn at the shop.”
I sounded like a game of Clue: it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. Only this time it was Quest in the autobody shop with his manhood. In Mary-Lou. At that, Daddy smooched the top of my head, handed me over to Mama and walked into the house without a word. That was my Daddy — a man of very few words. – Mama let me cry for a few more minutes, held tight in her arms, before urging me to walk inside. From the kitchen, I could see Daddy sitting on the couch in the family room, looking out the huge picture window that had a clear view of the driveway leading up to the house. His shotgun lay across his legs. I figured I’d had a fifty-fifty shot of Quest not knowing if I’d gone to our rental home first or to my childhood home. Since he wasn’t right behind me, he’d assumed I’d gone home first, which gave me about ten minutes to try to talk Daddy down. Once Quest figured out I wasn’t home, he’d come straight here.
“Daddy, you can’t kill him.” Daddy’s hazel eyes looked into mine, and I wanted to start crying all over again. People may have mistaken my father for an emotionless man, but they didn’t know how to read him. Right now, Daddy was ready to kill a skunk. Or a snake. I was inclined to let him, but I didn’t really want him going to jail, even if it would be justifiable homicide. Maybe he could just shoot Quest’s d-ick off. See how much use Mary-Lou had for him after that. “Why not?” he asked seriously. “Because I don’t feel like dealing with the sheriff,” Mama cut in, using a tone she rarely used but when she did? You’d better listen. “You are not to kill that boy when he pulls up, Holt Jackson. Do you hear me?” Mama and Daddy loved Quest Sullivan, but that didn’t mean they weren’t willing to maim or possibly kill him.
Since I’d been sixteen years old and Quest had been seventeen, Quest had been a part of our family, and I’d been a part of his. We’d been inseparable since our first date and Quest had looked at me with those serious green eyes of his and told me he was going to marry me someday. My heart had skipped a beat to be sure, but I’d believed him. With those pretty green eyes and dark brown hair, Quest was the boy every girl wanted, but I was the one who’d somehow caught his attention. He’d been my first love, and, hard to believe, I’d been his, too. And, up until today, we’d been each others’ first and only in everything. My breathing hitched at that thought. “Tillie Sullivan,” my mama’s voice snapped me back to the present, “You go sit down and think about your breathing.” Since I hadn’t had a panic attack in three years, right before my wedding when I thought about being the center of all that attention, I was thinking maybe I’d outgrown them.
Apparently, seeing your husband drilling another woman brought one on. Who knew? When I felt myself wanting to laugh hysterically, I knew I needed to focus on grounding myself again. Mama gently pushed me down on the couch to sit beside my Daddy, and then she shoved a soft pillow on my lap, knowing that touching a soft object could help me focus on my breathing and soothe me. Daddy reached over and grabbed my hand, and just his solid touch helped me. Another five minutes passed and my breathing had calmed enough that Mama lost that look in her eye. “That boy’s hauling a-ss,” Daddy said quietly as we all watched out the window to see Quest’s beautifully restored 1963 Ford F-100 come tearing up our driveway.
We lived in a relatively small town, most of the men blue collar workers who had farms, or feedstores or garages of some sort. Some were plumbers and electricians or builders, but it was a hard working community. Quest’s Daddy owned Sullivan Motors, and Quest grew up around engines and cars and had started restoring old cars, with his Daddy’s help, when he was just thirteen. By the time he was eighteen, he’d developed a reputation as the person to go to if you needed body work done. As a sideline, he bought old, classic cars, made them like new and sold them for a nice profit. He had a waiting list for his services and when Quest was twenty, his Daddy had loaned him the money to start Sullivan Autobody.
In two years, Quest had paid back that loan. But Quest wanted more, so we’d been planning to open Sullivan Restoration and make his sideline into full-time work. I was a loan officer at the bank and had been coming to surprise Quest after I finished for the day with the news that his business loan had been approved and so had the loan for the house we wanted to custom build. Once our dream house was built, we’d been planning to start trying for a baby. Now there was no need for a home loan, and no need for a baby.
No need for a marriage. I looked down at my left hand. No need for my rings. I’d managed to pull them off on my wild drive home and had thrown them out the window, where they probably bounced a few times before coming to rest among the tall grasses and wildflowers. Quest had restored and sold three cars to pay for my engagement ring. “I need guys to see you’re taken,” he’d said when he proposed with the three-carat rock. No need for that any more. We saw Quest get out of his truck and run for the front door right before the banging started.