South of Hannah

By David Norman

Cole Howland has it good. He has Suzette, his girlfriend of six years; he has his career as a jazz musician and occasional academic; and he has Lily, Suzette's piano prodigy daughter and Cole's musical lifeline. But when he returns from touring to find that Suzette is leaving him for another man, his world disintegrates. Hooked on a vicious cocktail of heartache, jealousy, and jazz, Cole's grip on his life is faltering. Kicked out of his band and with his drinking spiralling out of control, Cole is struggling to hold it together. Things can only get better when Hannah, a scholar and jazz aficionado, comes onto the scene. But Suzette's fiance is set on Cole's destruction, and Lily is slipping through his fingers. Cole will discover those things he could never live without, and he'll have to fight for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impress Books
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781911293248

Book preview

1

They’re blowing through the outskirts in his father’s car. The alignment is shot to hell and the steering wheel buzzes so bad, Cole Howland has to jam his kneecap under the shaft to keep the Buick from veering into a ditch. Lily squirms in the back seat, jostling for a better look at the cows. Beyond the windshield, the sky is a trout’s belly spackled with cirrus clouds. Billboards flash ads for cheap housing developments, car dealerships and gun shops, ads for retirement communities whose names boast of the very utopias their golf courses have helped eviscerate. Fairview. Tierra Linda. Alta Vista.

Are we lost? Lily says as they pass a browning field of piebald heifers.

Of course not. This here’s the scenic route. Cole shakes his head at the honeycomb subdivisions, gated entrances with dancing, multicolored balloons. He’s driving her to the ravine where his favorite musician, Hal Torrence, once composed a pastoral tune praising the countryside and lamenting the city sprawl. From what I can see, Cole says, looks like his worst fears have come to true. Few months from now, there won’t be any country left. The backroad takes them farther south. The new houses momentarily give way to more farmland.

What about the cows? Where will they go?

Somebody will take them, I’m sure.

Corn stalks poke up in measured rows. From beneath the dead pecan leaves, broomweed and green-eyed daisies have burst into color. They’re tearing through land shackled by ballast and railroad ties, land divided by barbed-wire fences and taller game-proof fences where oil-company execs used to fly around in private choppers with Ruger semiautomatics, mowing down oryx, rag stag, and mouflon. Nothing belongs here anymore, Cole thinks. Not even the cows.

Will they go to the people who took Ludwig? Lily says.

Cole tenses. Ludwig was her English bulldog. Her mother found him in the neighbor’s pool. Drowned. How he got there, nobody knows, but his stubby legs couldn’t paddle, his head was too big to keep his small body afloat. Suzette wanted to tell her the truth, but Lily had a recital coming up. How would the humoresques he’d selected for her to play sound in the hands of a kid who’d just learned her poor little Ludwig had suffered a slow, terrible death?

"You know, I believe they will join Ludwig at the farm."

The big farm in the east?

He lets out a breath. Sure, you bet.

Half an hour later, they leave the Buick in the parking lot, grab a couple of brochures at the Discovery Center, and hike the main trail to Devil’s Creek. Cole shows Lily where to find the smooth pieces of limestone that don’t break apart in your hands when you lift them. The rocks lie along the shore in sandbanks, inches beneath the clear water.

What’d I tell you? He scoops one up and sidearms it across the bend. The rock hops three times. Three ringlets startle the surface. In a shaded cove on the far side, a mosquito cloud lifts and thins out. Isn’t this place cool?

It’s okay. Her knees are bent and she sticks her tongue out. She mimics his stance but squeezes her rock too hard, thinks too long. When she lets the rock fly, it hits a cypress branch overhead and plunks into the shallows at her feet. A wild, puny toss.

It’s all right, he says. Hal Torrence didn’t skip rocks till he was ten.

Lily shrugs. When am I gonna play his music?

Soon. She has no idea what she’s getting into, Cole thinks, but there’s no need to alarm her about the technical difficulties of Hal Torrence’s songs. Don’t want to rush into it.

When am I gonna be ready?

Patience, kid. I’ll let you know.

What’d he do here, she says, besides throw rocks?

Walk around mostly. He’d have his sketchbook out. Write ideas for songs. You got yourself a sketchbook, don’t you?

She shakes her head.

Ask your ma to buy you one. You’ll need to pin down those melodies—he taps his left temple—while they’re still buzzing around.

Lily twirls and stomps. She’s a twig of a gal, nine come November, with short pale legs and big owlish eyes. Mud slides up around her sandals and splatters her ankles. In navy shorts, argyle vest over a white T-shirt, and huaraches with shreds of grass trapped in the side buckles, she’s not exactly dressed for a hike, but she threw on what her ma left out for her on the bed, and Cole didn’t want to make a fuss.

I used to think my dad was a pirate. Lily looks up at him. That’s not true, is it?

Course not. What d’you think he is now?

Engineer. She nods. Bet you he’s an electrical engineer.

* * *

They leave Devil’s Creek, scramble up a steep bank, and follow the path to a footbridge. Someone has placed a lost key on one of the cedar posts. Behind them, cyclists have cut trails in the dirt with their mountain bikes.

Lily grabs the key off the post. What were you and Mom arguing about last night?

Cole sighs. Grown-up stuff. Nothing for you to worry about.

Recently he’d returned from a month-long tour with Jimmy Fletcher’s band, gigging in New York and Boston, and they’d spent an extra week in the Berkshires playing for this Russian tycoon who wanted to entertain business clients in his hilltop villa. The money was good, the music was good, the drinks were good. But Suzette had come to resent his absence. She really let him have it last night for staying gone so long.

Cole takes the key from Lily and sets it back on the post. When your ma and I haven’t seen each other for a while, it takes some time for us to find our groove.

A few trees along the main trail are painted with red dots for a scavenger hunt. Arrows chalked onto the footpath point the way to buried treasure.

Lily drops a stick off the bridge, and it sails down through the air and floats on the current. They veer from the trail and pass clumps of prickly pear and uprooted oaks. Floods sweep through every now and then and leave tangles of branches with city garbage hanging from them like ornaments. Grocery bags, six-pack yokes, polystyrene cups, plastic bottles. You can see the floodline, four or five feet high, on the trunks of elms that grow out of the creek bed.

At the bottom of a narrow slope, they reach a sinkhole in the limestone. Cole picks Lily up from under her shoulders and sets her down on the other side, and then he jumps over himself, kicking in the gravel with his heel, an old habit. He hears a rustling as the gravel vanishes into the hole. When he looks up, Lily’s staring at him. The sunlight on her argyle-sweater vest brings out the amber flecks in her eyes. Sometimes, depending on the light or what she’s wearing, her eyes appear yellowish or hazel. Today they’re the color of new pennies.

He guides her past a mesquite shrub bristling with thorns. Don’t want to step there.

When they return to the water’s edge, Lily goes looking for another stone to throw. She loves the outdoors. She doesn’t mind getting her knees dirty or her legs speckled with mud. Sometimes in the park near their apartment, she’ll dig out an ant or pill bug and feed it to a spider by dropping the sucker into the web. The spider will crawl out from its hiding place to inject its poison and spin its web around the stunned prey, sheathing it in a silk cocoon.

Cole’s poison is a flask of Wild Turkey he carries in his hip pocket, taking a sip every now and then, enjoying the sour taste on his chapped lips, the warmth blooming in his chest.

What’s in there? Lily says after he’s taken a long pull. Didn’t Mom say you weren’t supposed to drink alcohol?

You’re right. He puts the flask in his pocket. Let’s keep walking.

They venture farther into the ravine. Lily drags the toe of her sandal through the mud, nudging pebbles into the water, then turns to make sure he’s still following her. She seems to be chewing over something in her mind. Finally, she stops at a narrow turn where someone has built a crossing with three flat stones. You and Mom gonna call it quits?

He feels a catch in his throat. Course not.

If you do, can I come live with you?

Won’t have to. I’m staying put.

Her eyes catch him again, focused in the ravine’s filtered light.

Hey, kid. Don’t go thinking it’s got anything to do with you.

I know.

They return to the creek and follow the water’s edge toward the old mill. Used to be a ranch house by the mill. Cow trails still lead from a barbed-wired fence down to the water, but the cattle and house are long gone. What remains is a stone foundation half swallowed by undergrowth. A longhorn skull lies in the center, sun-bleached, with small rocks piled around it.

Live oaks and ashe junipers, what they call cedar in this part of the state, cast a mottled shade over the banks. Lily’s tipping over a large stone that looks more like a chunk of concrete, maybe part of the foundation that has gotten washed off—it has pebbles and glass caked to its underside—when a cottonmouth shoots out of the creek, slides through the mud, and comes to rest between her feet, under the rock she’s lifted.

Don’t you move, Lily.

He struggles to keep his voice calm though his heart is already clocking in his chest. Lily usually does as she’s told. Smart girl. She’s been out in the woods so many times, camping and hiking in the hill country. Doesn’t startle easily.

She freezes with her leg in the air, knee bent, the toe of her huarache still holding the rock, its shadow covering the cottonmouth. The snake’s oily black, maybe three feet, much thicker and nastier than your average bullsnake.

What kind is it?

He tells her. The snake lies beneath the rock, not yet taking up its defensive coil. Long as she doesn’t startle it, he can grab her. I’m coming to you.

He’s heard cottonmouths are shy and will strike only if threatened but that kind of logic doesn’t mean squat when you got one between your legs. That rock, though, coming down on its head. Shit. Either Mr. Cottonmouth will continue on its way or bite Lily’s ankle. Send her over to Methodist, assuming they have the antivenom in stock. What he hasn’t counted on is for the fucker to stay put. Like it owns that piece of shade. Like it’s saying, This here’s my territory. You make your move.

Can’t hold it, Lily says. Rock’s getting heavy.

Don’t drop it. Wait for me.

He crawls along the trail until he’s about three feet from where she stands, her knee bent, foot trembling. He says, All right. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna count to three— And he points to a patch of crabgrass behind her that looks soft enough. On three, he says. I’ll grab you, and we’ll jump.

I’m scared.

Don’t I know it.

Her foot is shaking bad. The tears are welling in her eyes. Silently, the cottonmouth draws in its tail and curls beside her ankle. He still can’t see the head, whether it’s moving, but he bends his knees and holds his arms out.

He jumps and catches her, and they fall hard against the crabgrass. The concrete hits the ground with a dull thud, and when he turns the snake is gaping at them, its mouth pink-white behind a pair of needle fangs. Cole draws Lily’s legs up into his arms to shield her. The cottonmouth uncoils, slithers through the mud, and slips silently into the creek.

They scramble up the embankment and in the first clearing he checks her legs for bite marks, even though he knows she’d be hollering bloody murder if the snake had bitten her. On the footbridge, he brushes the dirt off her shorts and knees. He dries her tears with his thumbs. She says, Were we almost dead? Her chest rises and falls with dry sobs.

Nah, we were all right. His hands are shaking as he uncaps his flask and takes a long sip. But maybe we don’t tell your ma about the snake.

Lily nods, sniffling. She would totally flip.

Later, after she’s calm, Lily finds another stick and drops it over the rail. From the bridge, they watch the stick hit the water, bob to the surface, and float away.

2

Piano practice goes smoothly that day until Suzette barges in with three of her girlfriends. Cole hears laughter and smells them in the hallway, their expensive floral perfume. The women holler and stumble into the kitchen with shopping bags. While Lily runs through a stride pattern, stabbing some rootless voicings with her left hand, Cole hears the familiar pop of a wine bottle uncorked. High-pitched laughter. He waits until he can’t stand the noises, then slides off the bench. Lily stops abruptly. Don’t go in there, Cole. She’ll get mad.

I’m gonna ask her to pipe down.

No fighting. She shoots him a frightened look, hands in her lap.

Relax, kid. I’ll be right back.

In the kitchen, Suzette doesn’t look surprised to see him, but for the benefit of her company she says, Oh, hello. Were we too loud?

She crosses her legs at the ankles and bends her right knee. She’s wearing a new pair of shoes and a mint-green dress. Like ’em?—she shakes her foot strapped in its new heel—Big sale at North Star. Cost me practically nothing. Despite her cheerful tone, her expression remains alert like she’s ready to strike if he disapproves.

Cole doesn’t take the bait. Her feistiness (he used to call it passion) is precisely what made her so attractive to him all those years ago. Hello, ladies. What’s going on?

Shopping and wine, Suzette says. Best cure for a hangover.

Well, can you dial it down a notch? We’re trying to practice.

Huddled around the island table, the girlfriends haven’t spoken since Cole came in. He doesn’t remember their names, but he recognizes them from last night. This was fun, one of them says, breaking the silence, "we should be going, though. Another woman cuts in—Really, such a fun time but gosh, how late it’s getting"—and they both begin stuffing the new clothes into bags on the island table where they’ve set four wine glasses.

Suzette turns fiery. Hey, nobody’s jumping ship!

Suze, Cole says. Can I talk to you alone a sec?

He and Suzette step into the living room. She sends Lily outside to play while Suzette and Cole discuss Lily’s practice schedule. It’s Saturday, Suzette says. "Can’t she take a break? Look at her. She wants to have fun."

Beyond the French doors, Lily has found her former babysitter. The teenage girl is tossing a frisbee with her boyfriend by the swimming pool. Lily races toward the couple. The boyfriend sends the frisbee flying, and Lily chases after it over the grass.

Something happen while I was out of town? Cole says.

No, why? Suzette bites the nail of her index finger.

"She asked me if we were gonna call it quits. Call it quits. Those were her words."

Help me cut this, please. Suzette pulls at the tag on her dress.

Cole takes the pair of scissors she’s handed him and cuts the elastic.

You’ve been gone a while, she says. Takes time to readjust, that’s all.

That’s what I told her. And I promise, Suze. I’m gonna be around. No more long tours. I know how kids at school tease her for not having a father.

Girls really rub it in, the little brats.

Some fathers aren’t worth the boots they walk in.

Watching Lily run, Cole recalls their encounter with the snake and figures it wouldn’t be out of place if she twists her ankle or falls into the pool in front of her ma. You don’t catch two lucky breaks on the same day. She’s old enough to go unsupervised, but the parent in him still flinches at the thought of her walking alone to Josie Grossman’s house or crossing Broadway Avenue to meet her friends in the park for hopscotch or ice cream.

Well, she’s playing for Jimmy soon, he says. We need to practice.

Where’d y’all go this morning?

He turns to the window. The frisbee’s red disc slices a wide arch in the sky. For an instant, suspended at its apex, it eclipses the sun. Then it floats toward the poolside cabana and Lily runs faster and jumps, but the frisbee glides past her and curves over the shallow end, straight into the boyfriend’s hands. Went for a hike.

That how she got those scratches?

What scratches? Cole finds himself drifting to the liquor cabinet where he’s set his flask. He stops himself, aware of how much Suzette’s stifling presence, coupled with the fact that he’s not performing, makes him want to drink. Look. All we need’s another hour.

"Another hour? You had her all morning."

Where’s this hostility coming from, Suze? You sure nothing happened?

Yeah, I’m sure.

He releases his grip on the knob of the liquor cabinet door, takes a deep breath, and exhales. Just try to keep the noise down, okay?

Can’t promise anything. She hurries across the room, slips back into the kitchen, and leaves the door swinging on its hinges.

He slides open the window by the bookshelf, calls for Lily to come inside, and goes to the piano, where the metronome ticktocks a maddening andante.

When Lily skips inside and plops onto the bench beside him, she’s sweaty and out of breath and wears the faint scent of chlorine. She swings her bare legs under the bench, tapping the piano’s underbelly with her toes. Did she find out about the snake?

Nah. Let’s get back to it, kid.

While Lily plays, the kitchen noises resume. Spoons clink against glasses. The fridge alarm beeps. Shopping bags rustle. Cole retrieves his flask from the cabinet and takes a quick pull. Lily hammers away, but she stops when she notices he’s not paying attention.

Want me to change the dynamics?

Sorry. He forces a smile. Yeah, try it a bit louder, okay?

She leans into the keyboard and raises her elbows as she plays. Next time, he tells himself, he’ll take her to his father’s music shop. Treble in Mind has an old upright inside a practice room that doubles as a broom closet. It’s cramped in there, but the piano stays in tune and at least they’ll be free of interruptions.

Cole takes a sip from his flask and the whiskey coats his gullet. He crosses the living room, goes to the piano, and gives Lily a few notes for the exercise she has on the stand.

What about the Torrence songs? Lily says after she finishes the exercise. She bites her lower lip, staring up at him. He wants to tackle the new tunes with her, but after his exchange with Suzette, he’s too distracted. Something doesn’t sit right with him.

Next week. He pats her on the shoulder. Let’s stop for today.

* * *

That night, after Lily has gone to sleep, Cole finds Suzette alone in the bedroom lying on top of the comforter with an Igloo icepack and a hand towel on her forehead. A glass of water sits on the bedside table, the inside of the glass spotted with tiny bubbles.

God, she says without taking the icepack or towel off her forehead. Wine was a bad decision. I have the worst headache imaginable.

He stands over her. His heart is beating fast, knowing what he needs to ask her, a knot of worry doing its cruel somersault in his stomach.

Suzette sits up. The icepack falls against her pillow. She catches the towel and places it under the icepack to keep her pillowcase from getting wet. What?

You know what.

Well? She stares at a painting on the wall, Edward B. Gordon’s Am Flügel.

I’m not gonna ask it.

The room is so quiet Cole can hear himself breathing through his nostrils. His mouth is clamped shut. He stares at her a moment. She’s sitting up in bed watching him with a look of feigned confusion. The back of her left hand is pressed against her forehead.

Because of last night? she finally says. Because—?

So it’s true. He heaves a sigh, shakes his head, and goes downstairs. In the kitchen, at the end of the counter, rests the box for a new toaster she bought that morning during her shopping spree. Beside the box lies her cell phone with a YouTube demonstration video on pause. The toaster sits plugged into the wall socket. Its brushed steel matches the kitchen’s backsplash.

Cole’s about to go to the living room, pull his Wild Turkey from the liquor cabinet, and nurse another glass of whiskey when an idea occurs to him. Right away he feels guilty, spying on her this way, but he wants confirmation.

He picks up her cell phone and scrolls through her list of missed calls. There’s one with a Golden Oaks area code. He doesn’t recognize the number. He types: u okay?

And waits. Seconds later, a message pops up on the screen:

Missing u, babe. Wanna come over?

He tosses the phone on the counter, goes to the cabinet, pours the whiskey, and downs it fast. Suzette’s phone buzzes. He waits in the kitchen, heart clocking in his throat, waiting to see if she’ll come answer it. The thing buzzes again and it slides toward the toaster. Cole takes his whiskey and the bottle to the corner of the living room. He sits there for a while, drinks a second whiskey, then a third. Finally, he stumbles into the kitchen. On her phone, there’s a large bubble of text, several bubbles, from the man Suzette has been sleeping with, but Cole’s eyes are bleary. He doesn’t read it. He puts her phone in the toaster and hits the lever.

One of the buttons says

PEEKABOO

. The feature causes the phone to rise briefly on the rails and descend without shutting off the coil. The phone buzzes inside the toaster. A ribbon of smoke rises from the slot, sending up a burntplastic stench. He worries he’ll cause an explosion. The lithium battery. When he reaches for the plug, his fingers, wet from his drink, touch the socket, and the voltage shoots through his arm. He sinks to the floor on pins of nausea.

A few minutes later, he lifts the toaster with the ruined phone still inside and tucks it under his arm. He goes into the hallway. Lily’s asleep in her room with the covers pulled up to her chin. He’s about to close the door when her eyelids snap open. She blinks, rubs her mouth, stretches her arms. She raises her head and her frightened face stares up at him, same look she showed him in the ravine.

What’ve you got there, Cole?

He starts to make up a story about the toaster but changes his mind. Instead, he watches her a moment, feeling sad, his heart aching, worried, wondering when he’ll see her again. You know you’re the most amazing girl on the planet, don’t you? Lily smiles at him. He bends down and kisses her forehead. All right, he whispers. Go back to sleep now.

Half an hour later, he’s taken the Buick on the highway up to Bridgemark, where he rents a small apartment for when he’s doing research, when he’s teaching late. Suzette and Cole have this arrangement, they’ve had it for years, only now he gets the feeling he’ll be staying there for a while. Until he can figure out what the hell’s going on with her and this other guy.

In Schertz, he pulls into the shoulder of an overpass, gets out with the toaster and phone still in it, and dropkicks it into a ditch where it shatters beautifully, a piñata of silver candy.

3

One week later, he’s playing through another poisonous hangover at the Golden Oaks Lounge, rehearsing with Jimmy Fletcher and his Miracle Jazz Band. My bad, Cole says after watching his hands skitter across the keys for the third time.

No problem, Brother C. Let’s take it at bar six.

Bar six.

Jimmy raises his hand and counts off, Uh, uh. Uh-uh-uh—

Big Red leans forward and shuts his eyes, tapping the high-hat.

Cole is sweating as he anticipates his turn to solo. Red’s kick drum pounds in his skull. He reaches out with his right hand for a light Ahmad Jamal lick. He feels the pressure of Suzette’s betrayal, his inability to confront it, all that whiskey bubbling in his veins.

Ever since that night he saw the texts on Suzette’s phone, he has woken in a panic at his apartment in Bridgemark, heart racing. Once he dreamt he was down in the ravine with Lily and he was the snake. He saw Lily’s foot pulling away, the concrete slab coming down on his head.

At the keyboard, Cole finds the notes by ear, but his fingers won’t get there. His thumb catches the edge of Enatural, his fingers cramp and his hand slips to his thigh.

Jimmy raises one arm and makes a fist, cutting them off.

My bad. Cole wipes his forehead with a bandana. Sorry, folks.

Play the fucking changes, he tells himself. Doesn’t have to be fancy. Do that F to B-flat thing, da-duh, play it again, da-duh, then vary it. He wishes he could sit this one out but he needs the Miracles. They help him forget that his girlfriend of six years has been cheating on him.

If only Jimmy doesn’t can his ass for losing the time.

Come on, man. Ten more bars.

Jimmy makes a fist again, shakes his head, and the ugly silence whistles across the bandstand, out over the empty chairs and across