It’s disguised beneath tattoos and a patched leather riding vest, but it’s there, and it’s powerful. Hart reaches over the side of the bar pulls a bottle from an interior shelf and pours himself a finger of honey-brown whiskey. He doesn’t bother putting the bottle back, just swills the contents in his glass before taking a small sip, his shoulders relaxing at the taste.
“Tell me about her,” I ask, leaning further into the bar so I can better read his face.
“Love is a powerful thing. It consumes you, makes you do foolish things,” he says softly. “When you’re in love everything is heightened, all your senses. The air smells fresher, the whiskey tastes sweeter, and the sight of an old dirt path looks for the entire world like the smoothest stretch of road on earth. But we forget; there’s another side to those feelings, a darker side.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean jealousy, fear, betrayal. All them things come with love too.”
Hart takes another sip of whiskey and closes his eyes. He looks like he’s remembering something or maybe trying to block a memory from resurfacing. I can’t tear my eyes from his face, from the emotion I see there. I don’t know if I’m scared that he won’t continue or scared that he will.
“I had a young lady once. I was head over heels for her and she was quite taken with me as well. I asked her to marry me and when she said yes, well, I was about the happiest, stupidest fool in the whole wide world. But her daddy, well, he didn’t like me none, thought his daughter could do better than some greased-up biker from the wrong side of town.”
Hart pauses to finish his drink, leaving me hanging on every word. He matches the bottom of the glass with the sweat ring embedded on the bar’s aged wooden surface, giving a sober look to the bottle in front of him.
“So what happened?” I prompt, impatient.
“She told me she didn’t care what her parents had to say about me, that she loved me and still wanted to marry me, even if that meant going against their wishes.”
“What’d you do?”
“I did what I thought was best for her. I left town. I didn’t want to be the thing that tore apart her family and besides, her daddy was right. I was no good for her or anybody else.”
“But she loved you,” I say, a hint of anger ringing in my accusation.
Hart slowly nods his head, grimacing at the memory of his lost love. “She did, and I loved her too. Thought I was doin’ the right thing for her, leaving like I did. I went to Dallas and stayed with a friend of mine who’d gotten out of this town. I thought if I could make something of myself I could go back to her and show her old dad I was good enough to marry his daughter. I was proud. Proud and stupid.”
I lean back, away from Hart. I don’t need to see his face anymore. I know the answer to my next question. “She didn’t wait for you, did she?”
Hart reaches for the whiskey and pours himself a double this time, knocking back the shot in one gulp. Courage for the cowardly. “No,” he says simply. “She didn’t.”
I look around the dim bar. Luanne’s gone, probably escaped into the kitchen. Aunt Jo is sitting at a small table under the one good lamp in the whole dingy place, sorting through receipts and a cash deposit. She’s working quickly, her old hands counting out the dollars through bifocal lenses perched at the end of her nose. I look to my left and see Hart staring at her, watching her sort and stack with a trace of longing in his murky eyes. Every movement is absorbed and catalogued. It’s as though he wouldn’t be able to catch a breath if she wasn’t in the room with him.
I didn’t notice it before, but now that I look closer at him, I can see his resemblance to Sam. The strong jaw and handsome sweep of cheekbones are nearly identical to that of his great-nephew. Forty some-odd years ago it might’ve been Jo sitting right where I am now, seeking answers from a different old-timer. But she didn’t wait for him. She married Luanne’s Uncle Rodney, a small man with a roaring laugh and roaming hands. He died a couple of years ago. I wonder if Rodney knew his wife had