“You like the Aragon family, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” he said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his wool slacks. “They’ve been remarkably accepting of me. More so than that stubborn daughter of theirs.”
“Don’t worry, cuz. She really likes you. And she trusts you. That’s saying a lot for Elvia.”
His emerald eyes darkened. “Benni, what is it with her and men?”
Remembering the married sabbatical replacement professor who so calculatingly seduced then dropped her our senior year at Cal Poly, I shook my head. “That’s not for me to tell you. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine.”
“Are you all right?” he asked, pulling his hands out of his pocket and laying them on my shoulders, massaging them gently.
“Don’t worry. Daddy and I have done this every year since I can remember. Situation normal.” Except that it wasn’t this year, and somehow Emory had sensed that.
“I’ll call you later,” he said, his face creased in worry.
“Get back to your dinner. They’re going to eat up all the guacamole.”
MY FATHER’S TRUCK was already parked in the cemetery parking lot. I left Scout in the cab and glanced around. Three other cars were there, and a small family group walked, laughing and talking, toward a grave near the back. Across from them, nearer the highway, my father held his hat in his hands, staring at my mother’s headstone. Above me, a squirrel chattered and ran down the gray trunk of an old pine tree. The dense smell of the hothouse roses in my hands overwhelmed the faint scent of pine and fresh cut grass. My boots sank slightly in the soft soil, and though I tried not to think about it, it occurred to me I was treading across a multitude of bodies to reach my dad.
“Hi, Daddy.” I kissed his cheek, then immediately sank to my knees, unwrapping the cellophane around the roses. As I arranged them in the sunken vase that my father had already filled with water, I strained to hear the conversation of the other family group, who seemed to be telling some amusing story about the person they were visiting. I envied their easy laugher, their fond memories. But in the brisk wind, tasting of rain and wet dirt and something sharp and pungent, like mustard, I silently picked dead leaves off the roses and trimmed the stems with my pocketknife. When I finished, I stood up next to my father.
“They’re real pretty, Benni,” he said as he did every year. “She would have liked them.”
“Why?”
He turned to me, his wind-reddened face surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I mean why would she like them? Were pink roses her favorite flower?”
He looked away, putting on his hat and pulling it down to shadow his face. His shoulders hunched slightly under his canvas Carhartt jacket. “She liked them.”
“Yes, you said that, but why?”
“Benni, I don’t know, she just did.”
In the long silence, we could hear a rumble of thunder behind us. My father looked up at the dark sky. “Looks like we’re in for some more rain.”
I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my Levi’s jacket, trying to think of a way to coax him to talk about my mother.
“Daddy, about when you and Mama got married . . .”
“Benni, why do you keep bringing that up? It’s old business.”
“I’m just curious is all. There’s so much I don’t know about her, about the both of you.”
“She loved you more than her own life,” he said, his normally laconic voice sharp and defensive. “That’s all you need to know.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, feeling like the most horrible person in the world for making him go through this, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “I need to know more. I want to know about the circumstances surrounding my birth.”
“What do you mean, circumstances? We got married, and then you was born. That’s the circumstances.”
I inhaled deeply and said, “I was a normal baby?”
“Of course you were a normal baby. You was as normal as they come.”
“How much did I weigh?” I knew, but I wanted to see if he’d lie.
“I don’t know. It’s written down on your birth certificate. You was born a normal weight. You was normal all the way around. We thanked God for that.”
“Except I was born seven months after you and mama were married.”
He looked at me, his face flushed with anger and embarrassment. “Your mama was a good woman. We got married. Don’t you be thinking bad about her now. Not now or ever. She was a good woman.”
“I’m not making any judgments about her morality, Daddy, but she was pregnant when you got married, and I wanted to know—”
“I’ve had about enough of this. I think I’ll just skip dinner and go on back to the ranch.”
“Daddy,” I called after him. “Wait, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply she wasn’t a good person. I just . . .”
He turned to look at me, the deep lines of his face dark with anger. “We made our mistakes back then, little girl, but we did right by you. Don’t be judging us now.”
“I’m not,” I said, my eyes hot and burning. “I just wanted to know. I wanted to know about who I was, how I came to be.”
“You are the daughter of Ben and Alice Ramsey. That’s who you are. How you came to be is our business. Let the past stay there.”
His back was stiff as he walked away from me. I wanted to run after him, beg forgiveness, take back everything I said. But another part of me was angry—angry that he wouldn’t talk to me about this, angry that there were secrets that concerned me and that no one would talk about them, angry that this man who taught me to ride, showed me how to shoe horses, patiently explained over and over how to doctor sick calves, might not even be my biological father. That my father might be a horrible, manipulative man who had changed everything in my life by leaving me his estate. A man who might be a murderer or a drug dealer or both. Daddy’s truck pulled slowly up on the highway, belching white smoke in the cold evening air. I watched him, my heart heavy as concrete, until the truck was out of sight.
I turned back to my mother’s headstone, wanting to react. I wanted to yell and scream at her for . . . I didn’t know what. Loving two men? Desperately marrying the first one who asked? Not leaving me some kind of instructions on how to live? Leaving me when I was so young and vulnerable.
As if she had a choice, a voice deep inside me said. But I pushed that sensible voice aside, not wanting to feel anything but the anger that caused my chest to burn like fire. She left me before I could ask her all the things a daughter needs to know—what was it like when she was pregnant with me, who gave her her first kiss, what her relationship with her own mother was like, how she coped with her mother dying.
Another distant roll of thunder sounded, and the rain started slowly, then picked up in speed, as if someone knew that I, who hated to show emotion, needed a substitute. Soon rain was streaming down my cheeks as if it were my own tears. But still I couldn’t cry.
I jumped when I felt the hands on my shoulders.
“Just me, sweetcakes,” Emory said.
I leaned my head back against his chest and gave a long, shuddering sigh. “Daddy just left. He’s real mad at me, Emory. I pushed too hard, like I always do. He ...”
“He loves you, Benni. He’ll be all right.”
I turned and looked up at him, his blond hair wet and plastered against his forehead. “Your jacket’s going to get ruined.”
“It’s wool. I imagine the sheep spent a fair amount of time in the rain.”
I tried to smile but couldn’t. He brought out a linen handkerchief from an inside pocket and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I wiped the rain off my face.
“Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
Slowly, as the rain continued to soak both of us, I told him, in broken sentences, all my suspicions about Jacob Chandler, my mother, and my father.
When I was finished, his eyes w
ere shiny with the tears I couldn’t seem to shed. “I had no idea.”
“Apparently neither did I.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What can I do, ask my father for a blood sample to compare our DNA? He won’t even talk about what happened when he and my mother got married. He thinks I should let the past stay in the past.”
“Maybe he’s right.”
I scowled at him. “Easy for you to say.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Do you realize that if Daddy isn’t my biological father that I don’t have one person on this earth who’s related to me by blood? That Dove isn’t ...” A painful lump formed in my throat.
“That’s not true,” he said quietly. “You have me.”
I looked up at him, realizing what he said was true. We were related on both sides of my family. The lump eased, and I swallowed, tasting salt at the back of my throat. The rain slowed to a soft drizzle, and I shivered in my wet jacket. “Thanks, Emory.”
“You need to get in dry clothes,” he said.
“I’ll run the heater on high driving back.”
“No, go by your house and change clothes. I insist. Remember that bronchitis you had in February. You don’t need a relapse.”
“Yes, Mama Littleton,” I said, smiling weakly. “You do the same.”
“I will. Elvia and I have a date later on, so I was heading home anyway.”
“How did the dinner go?”
“No one grates cheese like I do, though I do believe I’m going to purchase Señora Aragon a food processor for Christmas. All in all, I think I held my own.”
I put my arms around his neck and hugged him. “I’m sure you did, Emory.”
It was almost eight o’clock when I pulled into our driveway. I could see Gabe in the kitchen window putting away a sack of groceries. Part of me had hoped he wouldn’t be home, that I could slip in and change clothes without speaking to him. Another part of me wanted to fling myself into his arms, rest in the comfort of their strength and love.
“Gabe, it’s just me,” I called, coming in the front door followed by Scout.
He walked out of the kitchen, his face concerned. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Emory called you, didn’t he?”
He nodded, not denying it.
“What did he say?”
“Only that you’d been out to see your mother’s grave. That you were having a hard time.”
Suddenly, without warning, I felt myself start to shake. Before I could stop them, sobs swelled up from deep inside me, and my legs buckled. Gabe caught me before I hit the floor, holding me close to his dry, solid body. I buried my face in his sweet-smelling T-shirt and let the tears flow freely. Scout whined and nudged his nose between our legs, upset at my burst of emotion.
“Scout, lie down,” Gabe said. The dog obeyed him immediately, sensing that this was no time to argue.
Murmuring softly in Spanish, Gabe helped me into our bedroom, closed the door, started peeling off my wet clothes, drying me with a thick white towel. Soon I was under our flannel-covered down comforter, my freezing body pressed up against his warmth. Tears trailed down my cheeks while I tried to explain about my father and my mother, about Jacob Chandler and who I thought he might be. Disjointed apologies tumbled out of my mouth for what I’d done, what my family had done, how hard it must be for him . . .
“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger on my lips, stopping me before I could get a coherent story out. “It doesn’t matter. Just lie here with me.” He held me close, my face wetting his chest as I cried for him and all he’d had to suffer in his life, the ugliness he’d seen, the humiliation he’d experienced, for the mother I would never have, the father I never knew, and for the one I did.
He kissed my lips, my cheeks, licking the salty tears staining my face, his large, familiar hands stroking a slowly rising heat into my arms and legs. I arched toward him, aching to feel his strong heavy body on me, inside me, to forget all the things I’d learned in the last few days, to lose myself in this pure physical moment, to never have to go back and think about who I thought I was, who I might be. At that moment, all I really knew for certain was I would go anywhere on earth with this man.
His broad hand cradled the small of my back, lifting me toward him. When I cried out, his voice murmured words of reassurance, “Tu puesto es aquì. Ahora y siempre. Todo serà bien.Everything will be okay. No te preocupes, estoy aquí. Te amo, te amo. I love you. Mientras yo vivo sólo a ti amaré. ”
Filled by his warmth, I lay spent and exhausted in his arms, wanting just to sleep for days and, when I woke up, to be living somewhere else, anywhere other than this town where everyone thought they knew everything about me.
His rough knuckles gently caressing my cheek startled me awake. “Sweetheart, it’s almost eleven. You have to go.”
I bolted up, gripping the sheets to my chest, confused for a moment about my surroundings. Gabe sat on the edge of our bed dressed in jeans and a dark sweatshirt. He touched his lips to my temple. “You have to go,” he repeated.
Still drowsy and disoriented, I lay back against the pillows. This is where you belong, I told myself silently. This is your bedroom, this is your husband. “No. I don’t care about the house or anything of Mr. Chandler’s. I give up. Let the government have it all.”
He studied my face a long time before answering. “I can’t let you do that. As much as I’d like to, I can’t. You have to be back in Morro Bay before midnight.”
“Just like Cinderella,” I said, my voice bitter.
“Benni, I don’t know what happened between you and your dad at the cemetery, but whatever it is, I know one thing for certain, you’ll never forgive yourself if you quit now. I want you to stay here with me, heaven knows, I want that with every fiber of my being. It goes against everything I am to let you go back to that house. But this thing, whatever it is, has to be resolved before you can go on with your life. Until then, we can’t go on with ours.” He leaned over, kissed my lips, then the hollow of my throat. “I’ll be here waiting. My life is braided with yours, niña, in a braid so tight nothing will loosen it. Remember that.”
I realized that my disjointed rambling when we were making love hadn’t made sense to him. He deserved an explanation. He deserved the truth. “I . . . it’s . . . my dad ... and you and what you’ve . . .”
He weaved his hands into my tangled curls and made me look straight into his deep set eyes. They were gray with fatigue but resolute. “Not now, Benni. Tell me later, when you’ve had time to think about it. Right now, we just need to get you back safely to Morro Bay.”
A rush of love for this man struck me like a blow, and the thought of life without him filled me with an overwhelming despair. In that moment, I knew, if something happened to him, if he died before me, I’d simply want to die, too. “It’ll all be over soon,” I said. “One way or another. I promise.”
He stood up, holding out a hand to me. “You’d better get dressed. I’m going to follow you to Morro Bay.”
At Mr. Chandler’s house, Gabe walked through it, turning on the heater, checking the place out, his eyes vigilant and searching. Finally satisfied, he locked the door behind him, and through the front window I watched him drive away, the sound of his Corvette growing fainter until only the sound of the wind remained.
I lay in bed, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. The night wind rustled the bushes outside my window, while next to me, in his cedar-chip bed, Scout snuffled and growled in his sleep, his front paws busy and diligent, digging dream holes to China, or maybe dreaming of the strange man whose scent still permeated this room. The man who had invaded my life so completely. The man who might possibly be my father.
14
I LEFT FOR Los Angeles at four a.m. While I dressed, I realized that during last night’s turmoil, I’d forgotten to tell Gabe where I was going today. Not wanting to wake him this early, I called his office and left a message on his voice
mail, giving him my destination, but not why I was going. His promise that he’d step back and let me do what I needed, explaining it all to him when I was ready, removed a huge weight from my shoulders. Slowly we were working out this balancing act of a relationship, this struggle to be our separate selves while trying to become connected. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this enigmatic, often exasperating man who filled a place in my heart that no one ever had, but I also couldn’t lose myself in him, something so tempting at times with his confident, unwavering view of life.
I knocked on Rich’s door, feeling awful for waking him, but I didn’t want to leave Scout alone again.
Bleary-eyed, he brushed aside my profuse apologies. “I’ll watch el lobo. You just be careful, comprende?”
“Yes, sir.” After a few minutes of wrangling with a stubborn Scout, who didn’t want to leave me, I was on my way south down Interstate 101.
The drive was easy and pleasant through Santa Barbara, Ventura, Oxnard, and Camarillo. Then I hit Thousand Oaks. It had been years since I’d driven down to the L.A. area. Like most Central Coasters, I tried to avoid it as much as possible. As I gripped the truck’s steering wheel and inched behind the thousands of cars on their way to jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties, I remembered why. The only good thing was that the molasses-slow traffic gave me plenty of time to think about what I would say to Gloria Carrell. It was a little past ten-thirty when I found the correct off-ramp and pulled over in a strip mall parking lot to check my Thomas Bros. street map again. Gloria Carrell’s house was only six blocks away. I called her on my cell phone, hoping she hadn’t given up on me. She answered on the first ring.
“Ms. Carrell? This is Benni Harper. I’m sorry I’m late. I forgot how bad the traffic is down here. I’m only a few blocks away.”
“That’s fine, Ms. Harper. I work at home, so it’s no problem.”
I pulled up minutes later in front of a fifties ranch-style house across the street from a busy red-brick hospital. An older Dodge van was parked in the driveway, and evidence of teenagers—basketballs and soccer balls, in-line skates and a fat-tired bicycle—was splashed across the front lawn. Gloria Carrell was obviously watching for me, because she was waiting on the tiny front porch before I could get my truck locked. She appeared about my age and was tall and dark-haired with a face full of rust-colored freckles. Her denim overalls were worn white in spots from age. She wasn’t smiling, but her expression was mild and congenial.
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