by Arlene James
“Oh, I won’t get tired of her,” Mattie replied, gathering her hair into one hand and pulling it aside. She jiggled the baby. “We’ll just play and play, won’t we, angel?” The baby patted Mattie’s cheeks and put her nose to Mattie’s, babbling and drooling at the same time.
Bolton chuckled. “I think I’ve been dethroned. Well, maybe we’ve acquired another baby-sitter in the trade.”
“Oh, could I?” Mattie said eagerly. “I’ve been looking for a part-time job, and I love kids!”
“Consider yourself hired. I’ll speak to Clarice, and one of us will call you.”
Mattie put her head back, hugged the baby tight, and spun around in celebration. The baby giggled with innocent joy.
Evans followed Bolton toward a large ice chest sitting beneath a tree. It was comforting to see Mattie so happy—and disturbing to think of her as being employed. Bolton seemed to sense his conflicting emotions.
“Maybe I spoke too quickly,” the minister said. “Perhaps you don’t want Mattie baby-sitting.”
Evans shook his head. “It’s not that really. It’s just…” He shook his head again, at a momentary loss for words. “She’s, um, been talking about getting her own car, and I’m just not ready for that yet.”
Bolton bent and reached into the ice chest, coming up with a cola, which he handed to Evans before going back for another. “I think I know how you feel. Letting go really is hard to do.”
Evans popped the top on his drink. “You don’t seem to have much trouble with it.”
Bolton straightened, laughing. “You should’ve felt the bottom drop out of my stomach when my kid practically threw herself out of my arms and into Mattie’s.”
Evans sipped his drink, smiling. “Yeah, I remember that feeling well. Seems like it was only yesterday that it happened to me.”
Bolton sighed. “That’s the way of it all right. I suspect those memories, the immediacy and intensity of them, are God’s way of sharpening our joy—and also of teaching us how impermanent this life is.”
“You can say that again,” Evans agreed. “It not only changes, it changes fast. Trust me.”
Bolton slugged back about half his drink, sighed with pleasure and smiled at Evans. “I think you’re a man whose friendship I should definitely cultivate. You can terrify me about all the traumas I have ahead of me.”
Evans laughed, relaxing. “If I were you, I’d run like the dickens in the opposite direction, bury my head in the sand and live in blissful ignorance as long as possible.”
Bolton lifted his drink in a mock salute. “Sounds like the voice of experience to me.”
They butted cans, then turned and wandered beneath the trees. Neither man doubted he’d made a friend.
It was some time later that Bolton introduced Evans to Griff Shaw. “Another member of the brotherhood,” he said. “Men with daughters who wrap them around pretty little pinkies without even trying.”
Griff laughed. “Oh, man, ain’t it the truth. We don’t stand a chance. That gal of mine has led me around by a ring in my nose right from the very beginning. Worst part is, I love it.”
Evans liked him already. He was definitely all cowboy, from the crown of his hat to the soles of his boots. He was also open and friendly and outgoing, inviting Evans to sit on his blanket and share his barbecue when Bolton spotted another new arrival that needed a welcome. “My wife’s off visiting somewhere, but she’ll be around soon. Where’s your lady?”
Evans smiled gently. “My wife’s deceased.”
Griff swept off his hat. “Oh, I am sorry.”
“Thanks, but it’s been a long time now.”
“Never remarried, huh?”
Evans shrugged. “Never found another right woman.”
“Yeah, it takes the right one, all right,” Griff agreed. “Now you take me. I didn’t think I’d ever get married—even after I found the right one! My reputation kind of preceded me, and I had to battle it before I could convince her. Actually, what saved it for me, I think, was Danna. That’s our little girl. She adopted me as her daddy before I even knew that’s what I wanted to be. Man, she is something! Bright as a new penny, sweet as candy, pretty as a picture. Got practically the whole rodeo circuit eating out of her hand!”
Evans laughed loud and long. Now here was a smitten father! “No wonder she got her aunt Amy to promise to quit smoking!”
Griff’s smile abruptly waned. “You know my sister-in-law?”
Evans nodded. “We live next door to her.”
“Oh, your daughter must be Mattie!”
“That’s right. I take it Amy’s mentioned her.”
“And how,” Griff said, plopping his hat in his lap and leaning back on his arms. “She’s real taken with that kid, though I guess she’s not a kid in the same sense as mine. Amy says she’s seventeen going on thirty.”
Evans groaned and dropped his forehead to one drawn up knee. “I guess I let Mattie grow up too fast after her mother died, and now I’m regretting it. I’m not ready for my little girl to be a young woman!”
Griff grinned and fitted his hat onto his head again. “I don’t think you have to worry too much about Mattie. She seems real smart from what Amy says. My wife thinks she’s a godsend. Heaven knows she’s brought real change to Amy’s life.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “Or somebody has.”
Evans shook his head. “Don’t look at me. Amy can’t stand me. She and Mattie are thick as thieves, though. Mattie did help her clean up her house and get it organized. She’s real good at that kind of thing. Speaking of good influences, though, I’d say your daughter started it by getting Amy to quit smoking.”
Griff shrugged. “It’s hard to deny Danna anything, she’s such a sweetie. But Danna and Joan have been after Amy to stop smoking for a long time. I think Amy just finally started pulling up out of that depression she’s been living in.”
“Depression?” Evans echoed.
Griff stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Jo says it started even before her husband got sick. She didn’t think much of the fellow, said he was selfish and controlling. Apparently he was some older than Amy. He married her young—over her parents’ objections, I take it—and made her into just what he wanted her to be. Jo thinks Amy was unhappy almost from the first but couldn’t or wouldn’t admit it. She says Amy convinced herself they had this great love and held on to the notion all the tighter as things got worse. Since he died, Amy’s wallowed around in this dark pit of grief and guilt, and now that she’s starting to climb out of it, she’s afraid. Anyway, that’s the way Jo sees it. She even thinks Amy would’ve been better off if he hadn’t left her fixed well enough to get by without a job. Having to support herself would have at least gotten her out of the house.”
Evans lifted a brow thoughtfully. It made a certain sense. In fact, it matched well with what he’d observed of Amy himself. And it gives you an excuse to go back for more, he admitted silently. Maybe it wasn’t you at all. Maybe it was the fear.
He tamped down the flare of hope that he felt, telling himself that it didn’t really make much difference why Amy didn’t want him around, only that she didn’t. Or did she? He doubted she knew what she wanted, which, he realized with a flash of insight, was one more thing she had in common with Mattie! She had certainly reached out in that direction. Maybe what Amy needed was the same thing that Mattie seemed to need, a friend of her own age and experience, someone who at least knew what she’d gone through in losing a spouse. He couldn’t seem to befriend his own daughter—and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be—but he could at least try to befriend Amy. He might even be able to reestablish certain ties with his daughter through Amy as a mutual friend.
And maybe later friendship would blossom into something more. Maybe Amy would find that she shared this attraction he felt. But that could come later. Right now, he’d serve them all better by being a good neighbor and friend.
Oddly enough, Evans felt as if some of the cloud over
his head had lifted. When he caught sight of Mattie sitting on the grass surrounded by half a dozen entranced children, he smiled and pointed her out to Griffin Shaw with pride. Griff returned the favor by pointing out that one of those entranced kids was his own little daughter, who was everything he’d said she was, her copper-bright hair glistening around a perfect little face lit by a secure, happy smile.
When Griff’s wife, Joan, returned from her round of visits, Evans got to his feet and met her with genuine eagerness. She had the same bright hair as her daughter, but the eyes, the nose, and the chin were all Amy. Even the build was similar.
Joan was a no-nonsense sort with a heart like melted butter and an inner strength that Evans somehow recognized as akin to his own. He was prepared to like her at once but understood that her own judgment concerning him would be delayed until she was satisfied that he was all he seemed. As a man who made no apologies about who and what he was, Evans had no qualms about that. He wished Amy could be so open-minded. It didn’t take long for him to realize that Joan had already met Mattie, about whom Amy had apparently spoken very highly.
“Amy’s right,” she said flatly, after being introduced to Evans and having Mattie pointed out. “She’s a natural. In fact,” she went on, dropping down onto the blanket next to her husband, whose arms immediately slipped around her, “I’d say Amy doesn’t know the half of it. From here, Mattie looks like a natural mother as well as a homemaker.”
“Whoa!” Evans laughed. “Let’s don’t rush her. She’s still a kid herself.”
Joan exchanged a look with her clearly adoring husband before smiling almost secretively. That smile unsettled Evans, as it seemed to indicate that he wasn’t being realistic, but he knew his own daughter, didn’t he? Who could know Mattie better than he did? He was busy convincing himself that Mattie was indeed the child he believed her to be, only vaguely aware that the Shaws were carrying on a conversation around him, until Joan leaned forward and laid a small, pale hand upon his forearm. His attention and gaze snapped around to her face.
“We really do owe you a debt of thanks,” she was saying, “and I don’t mean just for the yard work and other things.”
He could only blink at her. “Oh, that. That’s nothing, just neighborly concern.”
“Call it whatever you like,” Joan said meaningfully, “but I can’t help thinking you’ve had something to do with Amy finally beginning to come out of her shell.”
He shook his head at that. “If that’s really happening, it’s more a matter of timing than anything else. Believe me, your sister harbors no affection for me. Mattie’s the one with the influence.”
“Maybe so,” Joan said, unconvinced. Her eyes were teasing, sparkling. “You certainly do seem to rub her the wrong way.”
Evans grimaced at both the meaning and the implication of that remark. “Amy’s just so darn prickly,” he complained, and Joan laughed outright.
“My point exactly.” Before he could challenge that, she launched into a long discourse about the church and its many services and programs, ending as Bolton Charles returned by saying that they all hoped Evans and Mattie would soon join them formally.
Bolton seconded that. “In fact, I was wondering if you’d let me call on you next week to discuss that very matter.”
Evans agreed readily, and they set the visit for an afternoon later in the week. Afterward, Bolton decreed it time to get the eating done and move on to the games. Evans stood watching the activity and a sense of peace stole over him, a sense of rightness and belonging, of home. He mentally released the hurt and worries and aggravations that had bedeviled him, and for the first time since he’d come to Duncan, he really felt that he was exactly where he should be, that all would be well. Eventually.
Amy stared a long time at her reflection in the mirror. Well, you almost blew it, girl, she told herself sardonically, over a little thing like a kiss. Her conscience kicked her smartly, and she shook her head. All right, it wasn’t a little thing, that kiss. It had been a swift plunge into reality, followed by a desperate flight into denial facilitated by destructive old habits. Well, not too destructive, she mused, eyeing her reflection critically.
She had lost a little weight, but of course she needed to lose more and to tone up her muscles. Her skin was clean and unblemished, if almost pasty pale, and her hair was both shinier and longer than it had been in quite some time. She wondered if she ought to cut it and decided that it didn’t matter really. The weight was the important thing just now. She took a deep breath, tightening her resolve, and noticed how her eyes seemed a touch brighter than usual, or was it simply that her mood had finally lifted after a veritable orgy of recrimination, self-pity and regret.
She turned away from her dresser mirror and wandered over to the bed, but she wasn’t really tired. God knew she’d spent enough time with her head beneath the covers of late. She wasn’t absolutely clear that she had come to any real understanding with herself. Perhaps her marriage had not been the idyll she had wanted to believe, but her grief and despair at Mark’s death was as real as anything could be, and she still could not quite reconcile his death with the world as she knew it. Maybe it was the way he had died, the long, lingering, debilitating illness that had taken him from a strong, vibrant, even overpowering man to a fragile, pathetic and, yes, petty weakling.
She still couldn’t understand how God could allow such a thing to happen, especially as she had prayed and begged and tried so hard to believe in His mercy. Mark himself had told her that she was not being realistic, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was her own fear that had defeated them both in the end. Did God punish us for our fears? In nearly three years now, she had not figured out an answer to that question. Perhaps it was time to look elsewhere, to Reverend Charles, perhaps? She felt instinctively that he would be willing, even glad, to discuss the matter, but she didn’t think that she could quite bring herself to ask it of him. She could ask Evans—if he was speaking to her.
She wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t. She had reacted with bald foolishness to his kiss, and she could admit to herself now that she regretted doing so. Even as she made the admission, however, she whispered a plea for forgiveness, not to God, but to Mark, then she threw herself on the bed in fresh misery. She was tired of being married to a dead man, tired of imagining his disappointment in her, tired of feeling disloyal simply for living. She just wasn’t quite certain how to break the cycle. Quite deliberately, she directed her thoughts back to their former track. Perhaps she couldn’t break free of the emotional bondage in which Mark or God or both had placed her, but she could do something about her appearance.
She hadn’t slept well and had used that as an excuse for lounging around most of the day, but what she really needed was not rest but exercise, and by golly she was going to get it. Buoyed by determination, she sprang up and threw off her bed clothes, jerking on in their place a soft bra, a roomy T-shirt, a pair of knit shorts, thick socks and her athletic shoes. She whisked a brush through her hair, then grabbed an elasticized headband from a drawer and slipped it on, tucking it behind her ears in order to keep her hair off her face. That done, she swept out of the house and across the yard, turning on the sidewalk to move swiftly down the street toward the intersection.
The day was hot but her determination was hotter. She lifted her chin and swung her arms at her sides, setting her destination as the park that fronted 81 near Beech and the Halliburton Football Stadium. She was sweaty and out of breath by the time she stepped into the shade beneath the sheltering arms of the welcome old trees in the park, but experience told her that if she sat down now, fatigue would overtake her and she’d lose the determination that had driven her thus far. She allowed herself a few quick gulps of water from a public drinking fountain then fell into stride once more, walking back and forth beneath the trees for some minutes before turning for home.
She was trembling by the time she turned down her street but proud of herself for sticking with it. If he
r skin felt clammy and red-hot at the same time, she supposed it had to do with the perspiration pouring from her and a light sunburn. Next time, she told herself as she blindly put one foot in front of another, she’d remember to use a sunscreen and bring along a water bottle. She was dragging herself across her yard when she stumbled and went down, sitting hard on her bottom as the world tilted and spun.
“Good grief!”
She didn’t recognize the voice as Evans’s, but when her vision cleared, it was focused upon him as he hurried away from his drive toward her. She saw the lawn mower turned on its side and the running water hose beside it with which he’d been cleaning the blades. She looked down at her hands planted in the grass and realized cheerfully that he’d mowed her lawn again. She smiled up at him as he drew near, noting as she did so that her neck felt weak and rubbery.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” he demanded, yanking her up and wrapping his arm around her waist.
“I went for a walk,” she said inanely as he half dragged, half carried her back the way he’d come.
“So I noticed,” he growled, letting her down on the little slope that fell away to his drive. “Didn’t it occur to you not to start this sort of thing in the heat of the day?”
She lay back on the grass, panting weakly. “Guess I’m more out of condition than I thought.”
“You’ve nearly given yourself a heat stroke, you little idiot. Lie still and let me cool you off.” He was back with the hose in two seconds, splashing the cool water over her legs. She bolted upright when he raised the hose to her hips. “Don’t,” he ordered sternly, letting the water run over her shoulders, chest and back before lifting it to her head. “You’ll dry off soon enough in this heat. Now sit there and drink.” He thrust the hose into her hands and watched, hands on hips, while she gulped down the rubbery tasting water. “That’s enough,” he said, grabbing back the hose and letting the water pour over her head again.