"Take one of these," she said, pushing open the door with her foot.
He saw immediately that "one of these" meant one of the two children she carried in her arms. He took little redheaded Julia, because she was already reaching for him. Meggie and Jack's daughter didn't seem to mind being handed over in the least, and he didn't mind holding her, not really. Neither of the children was a stranger to him.
"Lillian – " he said, but she abruptly turned and went in the opposite direction, leaving him standing. "Lillian?" he called as she disappeared down the hall and into another room with the remaining child. "Lillian!"
"What!" she yelled back. That was followed by a yelp of pain and the loud clanging of metal – and a word best not said in front of small children, even if they weren't talking much yet.
He looked at Julia. "All right," he said to her. "We're going in. You get to be my backup."
She grinned around the fingers she had in her mouth.
"Lillian?" he called again, carrying Julia down the hall. The house smelled of baking bread and roasting meat and some other entirely wonderful food aromas he couldn't quite identify.
Lillian was in the kitchen, holding the baby boy and trying to do something with one of the four pots that steamed and bubbled on the stove. A pot lid still wobbled upside down on the floor.
"Don't just stand there," she said. "Do something!"
"I thought I was," he said, glancing at Julia. "You need a pot holder," he suggested, because she was about to run afoul of another hot lid.
"Oh, thank you very much, Becenti. Just look at this – I don't know what to do with all these things!"
"Well, give me the boy," he said, not certain if little Tad Begaye was one of the "things" or not. "Yah-ta-hey, Tad. How are you doing, son?" he asked the little one as Lillian handed him over.
Not too well, he decided from the expression on Tad's face. The boy was only seconds away from bawling, and Becenti had no idea what to do about it. He was reasonably comfortable around children – he'd had to be in his line of work – but he wasn't a parent. He opted for trying to talk Tad out of it, soothing the boy – soothing both children in case this kind of thing was catching – in quiet Navajo. Surely, they must understand some words. Jack Begaye was their father and Winston Tsosie, their adopted grandfather.
It seemed to be working for the moment, and he turned his attention back to Lillian.
"Where's Lucas? I need to see him."
"He's not here," she said without turning around.
"Where is he?"
She gave him a look this time, and surprisingly, she answered.
" – cut his hand while he was working on that old truck. Lucas and Sloan took him to the clinic to get some stitches."
"Who cut his hand?" he asked, because she said the name into one of the pots.
"Will cut his hand – you know, my nephew by marriage – the budding hataalii – the one who lives here. I said I'd watch the kids, but I forgot Sloan was doing this – this – -food thing. I don't know what to do with all this stuff!"
He didn't understand the problem. And of course he knew who Will was and that the boy was studying with Eddie Nez to become a medicine man. It was he, Becenti, who had negotiated the community-service sentence for Will Baron when he had gotten himself into trouble by agreeing to haul liquor onto the reservation to pay for his apprenticeship. Unfortunately, Eddie Nez's reputation as a healer had long ago been usurped by his reputation as a bootlegger.
"Turn off the burners," he said abruptly, because it seemed he was going to have to get involved in this cooking thing or put out a fire. And in spite of everything, he couldn't keep from smiling.
"I'd like to know what is so da – darn funny!"
"You are," he said. "You know, only a lawyer could make a big home-cooked meal sound like a major shortcoming."
"It's not a big home-cooked meal. It's one of Sloan's nostalgia dinners. She does this every so often. She gets hungry for Southern food and she cooks all these foreign dishes – I don't even know what half these things are. Sloan cooks all this – " she waved her hand over the pots " – and she scares the hell out of Lucas every time she does it."
She abruptly stopped. He stood there holding both children, still trying hard to understand.
"Your brother is afraid of Southern cooking," he said finally.
"No" she said in exasperation. "He's scared it means something."
"Like what?"
"Like she's had enough of living on the rez with him and she's so homesick she's going back to North Carolina."
"They've been married a long time, Lillian."
"Yes, but it doesn't keep him from getting that look."
"What look?"
"The look he had when he was a little boy and got shipped off to the BIA boarding school. The look he had when the white woman anthropologist dumped him."
The children were growing heavy, and he sat down at the table with a child on each knee. He didn't know about Lucas Singer's boarding-school look, but he did know about the white-woman-anthropologist one. Becenti had come as close to watching a man self-destruct as he ever wanted to come during that episode of Lucas Singer's life, his own recent plunge into self-pity and despair notwithstanding.
"What did you want with Lucas?" Lillian asked. "He's supposed to be on vacation."
There was just enough emphasis on the word "supposed" to annoy him even more than he already was, because he was here for a legitimate reason, one well apart from wanting to see her or holding Begaye babies.
"It's important," he said.
"I'm sure it is. You look like hell, by the way. What's the matter, Becenti, aren't you sleeping?"
"I'm sleeping fine," he said, even though it wasn't precisely the truth. Sometimes he didn't sleep "fine." Sometimes he woke before daylight, thinking about her.
They stared at each other. She was the one who looked so tired – aside from being upset – and he realized that she didn't want him to see it, because she abruptly turned away.
"I hate cooking," she said, moving to take a very large pan of bread rolls out of the oven – without first making sure that she had some place cleared to set it down. It ended up more or less on top of two pots. "I don't know what's keeping everybody. Somebody should be back by now."
"So where are Meggie and Jack?"
"They went to get my mother and Winston Tsosie. Sloan doesn't do a nostalgia dinner halfway – You're not leaving, are you?" she asked in alarm, apparently because he stood.
"Yes," he said, surprised.
"No, don't go!"
"You've got everything under control – "
"No, I don't! I have to feed Tad and Julia. I can't feed two children at once."
"Trust me, Lillian, it's done all the time – "
"What if Julia starts crying or something? What if they both start crying? You have to help me! I can't – It's – I'm just not used to this, okay? I don't know anything about little children. I don't know anything about all this foreign food and ovens and bread – Stop laughing at me! Are you going to stay or not!"
"What is the matter with you? I've seen you cook fry bread on an oil drum. I've seen you tear somebody apart in the courtroom. If you can handle that, you can handle two little kids and four pots. This damsel in distress thing isn't like you."
"Well, I can't help that – And you stop laughing, too," she said abruptly to the children, coming close enough to give them both a kiss. "Poor babies. Stuck with addled old Auntie Lillian – and crabby old Becenti."
"Watch it," he said. "Crabby old Becenti is all you've got."
She laughed, a lighthearted and altogether pleasant sound he immediately realized he'd been starved to hear. But their eyes met, and her laughter ended. For a moment, he thought she was about to cry, and he'd seen her do that before, too.
"Does that mean you're going to stay?" she said, fiddling with a pot that didn't have a bread pan on it.
"Just to get the children fed. I have t
hings I have to do – "
"Great!" she said, cutting off his self-declared importance. "What do you think they can eat?"
Not much in Tad's case, they soon realized. He was only six months old and he was breast-fed. Lillian eventually located the bottle Meggie had brought for him in the refrigerator. All in all, feeding two children and getting out of the tribal council meeting was more trying than he'd anticipated, but eventually it was done.
"I'm wondering who fed who?" Lillian said at one point, because he was wearing as much of the sweet-potato dish as they'd decided was suitable for Julia to consume.
"About six of one, half a dozen of the other," he said. "Actually, the sweet-potato thing was really good. Sloan's an excellent cook."
"I'll tell her you said that."
He had assumed that children, once fed, went to sleep, but that was obviously not the case. There was still the matter of washing faces and hands, changing clothes and diapering, and Lillian singing more times than he wanted to count, "Stand By Me." Or at least he thought it was "Stand By Me."
"Don't you know something else?" he asked at one point.
"You're just going to have to suffer," she said. "You're lucky it's me singing it and not Winston. Besides which, it's a Baron family tradition – singing the babies to sleep with old songs."
"Sort of like the Navajo, I guess," he said to keep the conversation going. Regardless of her slightly off-key singing, he preferred talking to being completely ignored.
"Exactly. Meggie says the Baron lullabies are usually circa World War II torch songs, but "Stand By Me" works for these two."
And so it did. Both children were soon asleep, Julia on a low twin bed in the Singer spare bedroom and Tad on his cradle board. There was no sign of anyone in the family returning, but even so, he knew he was free to go now.
He helped Lillian put most of the "nostalgia" food into the refrigerator and wash the few dirty dishes that had accumulated instead. And when that was done, he still didn't leave. He sat down at the kitchen table, and after a moment's hesitation, Lillian sat down as well.
"We aren't going to talk about it, are we?" he asked quietly.
"No," she said. He could feel the effort it took for her to look at him.
"Why not?"
"If you'd wanted to talk, you wouldn't have left Santa Fe the way you did."
"No strings, no commitment, no complications. How much room does that leave for talking?"
She didn't answer him.
"So you and Stuart are doing okay now?"
She didn't answer that question, either. Once again he thought she was going to cry.
"What's wrong? Tell me," he said.
"Nothing," she said tonelessly.
"I never lie, Johnny. I wonder who said that?"
She made an attempt to get up, but he caught her arm.
"It's not your problem," she said, trying to pull free.
"But there is one."
"No," she insisted. "Let me go, Johnny."
"Look at me," he said. "Lillian – "
She gave a quiet sigh and forced her eyes to meet his. He immediately saw the plea for help in them, and the desperate wish to be left alone.
"Did you think nothing mattered to me but going to bed with you?" he asked. "Did you think I could be with you like that and not care anything about you? Or is that the way it was for you? Tell me. I'm trying to understand what it was we had."
"We didn't have anything, Johnny. Nothing."
"That's not true and you know it."
"Johnny, please! You're the one who left."
"What choice did I have? The girl said you and Stuart Dennison were back together. You made all the rules and I told you I wouldn't intrude."
"Then what is this all about?"
"It's about the way you look at me. Do you think I can't tell something is wrong? Maybe I can help. If nothing else, I owe it to you to at least try. Tell me what's wrong with you. I told you before. You can talk to me."
"No."
"Lillian- – !"
"No!"
"Are you in some kind of legal trouble?"
"No, I'm not."
"Then – " He abruptly stopped "What happened to your forehead?"
She immediately reached up to touch the new scar that was clearly visible. "Nothing. I bumped my head."
"Dennison didn't do that, did he?"
Her incredulous look did a great deal to reassure him.
"Sorry," he said. "If you won't say, then I have to guess."
"What you have to do is mind your own business."
"Lillian, neither one of us is particularly good at that. Ewen if we hadn't been lovers."
"You're the one who hid out in a hogan for over a year," she said evenly.
"And you're the one hiding now."
He heard a car door slam, then another, and then two more. All the family must have returned.
"Lillian – he began, trying to squeeze in one more question before they came inside. He wanted to know if he could see her again, talk to her, and he wanted it badly enough to risk asking.
But she got up and went to hold open the back screen door.
The injured Will came in first, holding a heavily bandaged hand carefully upright, and then Sloan and Lucas, and eventually Jack and Meggie. And, finally, Dolly Singer and Winston.
"What happened to the dinner?" Will wanted to know. "Hey, Lillian, you and Captain Becenti didn't eat it all, did you?"
"It's in the refrigerator, Bottomless Pit," Lillian said, glancing at Becenti. "The kids are asleep," she said to Meggie and Jack.
"You're going to stay and eat with us, aren't you?" Sloan asked Becenti. "It won't take long to reheat – "
"No," Becenti said quickly, and he didn't miss the look of relief on Lillian's face. "I just needed to get something from Lucas." He realized suddenly that everyone was looking at his uniform. "Julia fed me enough to know what I'm missing," he said. "But I have to go. Lucas?"
He got the statistical report he came for, and he tried to corner Lillian on his way out. She immediately got busy elsewhere. It was Winston who walked outside with him.
"Has Dolly got a reason to worry or not?" the old man asked without prelude.
Becenti gave a quiet sigh. "Yeah," he said.
Chapter Twelve
Lillian had no idea why she'd thought that a trip home to Window Rock would help. She had supposed it would provide her with some needed rest, if nothing else, and perhaps induce her mother to stop worrying. And maybe she herself would stop worrying, at least for a little while. She had foolishly thought, too, that if she stayed in the inner circle of her family – and no one got into any legal trouble – she wouldn't run into Becenti.
Becenti
Of the sad eyes.
What a shock it had been for him, having her answer Lucas's door. It had been a shock for her, as well. The truth of the matter was that neither of them liked unexpected surprises – and she certainly had a surprise in store for him.
I should have told him. When he asked what was wrong, I should have told him.
Just as she should have told him that she hadn't just abandoned him and gone running back to Stuart. She should have tried to make him understand that J.B. had been telling the truth only as she knew it, and that it hadn't been the real truth at all.
But there was no point in telling him any of that now, and she couldn't tell him she was pregnant. She was hardly used to the idea herself. Even after three positive home pregnancy tests and the ultimate, definitive blood test she'd insisted upon. Even after a doctor's exam and the prescriptions for prenatal vitamins and iron and the obvious put-ward signs. Her days were filled now with relentless bouts of nausea and fatigue. Her breasts hurt, and she wanted to sleep all the time. And when she wasn't asleep, she wanted to cry – about everything. World hunger or the depleted ozone layer or the buzzer on the dryer going off. It didn't matter. She was an emotional and physical wreck. And she was still trying to untangle Stuart's le
gal affairs, still waiting for the other shoe to drop regarding his imprudent land dealings, aside from the fact that she was so worried about his illness. He had finished the first round of treatment. It had left him much sicker than he'd been at the outset – and scared. She didn't know what she could possibly say to him that would help, but it was obvious that he expected her to say it. He wouldn't even let her mention J.B. Greenleigh. The entire situation left her exhausted and short-tempered and highly negligent when it came to holding up her end of a conversation with anyone – on the phone or in person. Even so, the last thing she had expected was her mother to arrive, intent on dragging her back to Window Rock. But she went, because she'd never needed her family, so much in her entire life.
I'm a coward, she thought, because she hadn't told Dolly about the baby, either. She hadn't told anyone.
I just have to get used to it – if I don't have a nervous breakdown from all this other stuff first.
Then, then, she would prepare the family, make announcements, tell Becenti. He had a right to know that he had a child coming. And she wanted him to be reassured that his life wouldn't be disrupted. Her plans for the baby absolutely didn't include him. She didn't want or need his money or his forced commitment. She would have the child and she would take care of it. After the initial shock, there had been no question in her mind about that. None. Even no, she had no idea how she would manage. She knew only that she would worry about the specifics later. For now, she would just have to take it one step at a time, first things drill. Now, it took every bit of strength she had not to throw up in the middle of the morning court sessions; she couldn't concentrate on much else. But she would manage. Somehow.
Becenti is good with children, she suddenly thought.
He'd fed Julia, diapered Tad, worn the sweet potatoes on his chest with a certain finesse that still made her smile. Who would have thought crabby old Becenti would be like that?
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