Despite Celia’s reassurances, Del had half a mind to put the car in drive and go get a nice dinner at a restaurant where he wasn’t nervous about who might say what to whom. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Do I mind meeting your family? Why would I mind?”
“The boys can get . . . a little curious. You know?”
“About the fact that I’m black?”
His nerves became more pronounced. “Well, there could be that,” he conceded.
“Did you happen to mention that I was black?”
“I did,” he said. “Not that it really matters. I just thought it might make it a little easier on everyone.”
Celia laughed. “You’re like a seventeen-year-old girl on a prom date. Color is a fact of life, Del. The people who say they don’t see color, or race, are the people who do. We see good-looking people and funny people, obnoxious people. Why shouldn’t we see something so obvious as color?”
“I’m not sure anyone is going to see black or white with what you’re wearing tonight.” Celia wore a maroon skirt with pleats that reached to just above her knee, and a matching jacket and white shirt.
“Too much?” she said.
“Too beautiful,” he said.
She leaned across the car and kissed him. “Relax. As for your nephews and what they might say, I grew up with three brothers, and I raised my own boy. I don’t think they’ll intimidate me too much.”
“Right,” Del said, exhaling but not relaxed.
Celia started to push open the passenger door. Del reached across the seat and touched her shoulder. “You know there’s going to be a natural bond.”
“Is your sister black?”
“You know what I mean,” Del said. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”
Celia smiled. “The only way to get through this, Del, is with a strong family, a strong faith, and strong friends.” Her eyebrows arched. “I can’t help with the first two, but I can help with the third. It’s not an obligation; it’s what I know my son would want me to do.”
Del leaned across the car and kissed her. “Now, did I mention my nephews?”
Celia slapped at his hands.
They walked hand in hand to the front door. Del reached for the doorknob, but the door pulled open before he had the chance to knock. Stevie stood in the entry shoving half his shirt into his khaki pants. He had his shoes on, but untied. No doubt he’d run upstairs from their room in the basement when he heard Del’s car. He gave Del a brief glance but his real interest was Celia.
“Hey, Stevie,” Del said.
“Hey, Uncle Del.” Stevie said it as if Del were an afterthought.
“You look good,” Del said.
“Mom made us get dressed up,” he said, still staring at Celia.
Mark hurried around the corner into the living room. His shirt was not tucked in and he had his shoes in his hand. He scowled at Stevie, then he too stared at Celia as he approached the front door.
“Hey, Mark.”
“Hey, Uncle Del.”
“Stevie, Mark, this is Celia.”
Celia stuck out her hand and the boys reciprocated.
“Nice to meet you,” they said.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” Celia said. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. I’ve heard you are exceptional baseball players. Del promised to take me to a game soon.”
The boys beamed. “We play on Saturday,” Stevie said.
“Uncle Del’s the coach,” Mark said.
“I heard,” Celia said. “Maybe he’ll invite me.”
The Little League had been short on coaches. Del had agreed, so long as he didn’t have to wear the pants.
Stevie looked to Del. “How come you haven’t invited her, Uncle Del?”
“Yeah, where are your manners?” Mark said.
“Yeah, where are your manners?” Stevie said.
“You’re like a stereo,” Del said. “Where are my manners? You two goofballs have left us standing out here in the cold. All right, step back and let us in.”
The inside of the house was spotless, the coffee table cleared, the couches free of food crumbs and newspapers. Soft jazz played from the speakers. “You guys cleaned up in here,” Del said. “It looks good.”
“Mom made us.”
“Yeah, Mom made us.”
“It smells terrific,” Celia said.
“Mom’s cooking manicotti,” Stevie said.
“We never get manicotti unless we have guests,” Mark said.
Maggie walked out from the kitchen. She wore blue jeans, a light-pink blouse, and flats. When she saw Celia, she smiled. “Hey,” she said to Del, pecking him on the cheek. “I was just checking on dinner.”
“It smells terrific,” Celia said.
“I hope you like Italian food,” Maggie said.
“Who doesn’t like Italian food?” Celia said. “You’re going to have to teach me how to make it.”
Maggie smiled and gestured to the couches. “Come in. Sit down.”
Del and Celia sat on the longer of the two couches.
“Stevie, bring out the hors d’oeuvres,” Maggie said.
“The what?”
“The hors d’oeuvres,” Maggie said.
“The plate with the olives and the prosciutto?”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Yes. Mark, bring the wine and the glasses.”
“Do we get wine?”
“No,” Maggie said.
“It’ll stunt your growth,” Celia said.
The boys froze. “It will?”
“I knew a man who was six three. His son drank wine at dinner and never got taller than this.” She held her hand about three feet off the floor.
The boys’ eyes got as big as saucers. They looked to Del for some type of confirmation or refutation but he just shrugged as if to say, Don’t ask me.
The two boys turned and ran into the kitchen.
“I hope Del warned you about the two of them,” Maggie said.
“They remind me of two of my brothers. Eleven months apart. One never did anything without the other.”
Stevie carried in a plate loaded with Italian meats, olives, crackers, an eggplant spread, and various cheeses. He set it on the coffee table. Mark followed with a bottle of Chianti and three glasses.
“I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble,” Celia said. “This looks terrific.”
“Uncle Del got it,” Stevie said.
Del gave him the evil eye. This was supposed to be Maggie’s dinner party.
“Yeah, he, like, lives at Salumi,” Mark said.
“It’s his favorite restaurant,” Stevie said.
“At least he used to when he was fat,” Mark said.
“Thanks a lot,” Del said. He’d lost nearly twenty pounds.
The two boys laughed.
“He must really like you if he’s losing all that weight,” Stevie pressed.
Del cleared his throat. Celia held a hand over her mouth. “This is an Italian spread,” Del said, and he poured the three glasses of wine.
“Are you Italian?” Stevie asked Celia.
“Can I be an honorary Italian?”
Stevie shrugged. “I guess so.”
“She’s African American,” Mark said, popping an olive in his mouth and grabbing a piece of cheese.
“Is that so?” Celia said.
“We learned it in school.” Mark shrugged as if it was no big deal. He rolled a piece of prosciutto around two olives, eating it. “But you can be Italian.”
“All right, you two,” Maggie said. “You’re like a swarm of locusts. Leave some food for the guests and go finish setting the table.”
The two boys got up from their knees, grabbed a handful of olives and slices of meat, and went into the kitchen.
“Sorry about that,” Maggie said. “They can get a little personal.”
Celia smiled. “My son was a lot like them at that age.”
Maggie lost her smile. “Del menti
oned you lost a son. I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you. I’m very sorry about Allie.”
Maggie nodded. Her eyes watered but she fought back the tears.
“It’s okay,” Celia said. “You’re going to cry.”
Maggie wiped the corner of her eyes with a napkin. “Does it ever get better?”
Celia set down her wine and put out a hand, taking Maggie’s. “You know I’d be lying if I said it did, right?”
Maggie nodded. “I know.”
“In time, though, you learn how to live with the pain. You learn how to live with all the memories, and you learn not to fear them. You learn to embrace them, to welcome them.”
Maggie started to cry. Celia got up and sat beside her. “It isn’t going to be better, Maggie. It’s going to be different, and different is okay. You just have to learn how to embrace it. Like anything, it takes time. What you have to realize is that crying is God’s way of helping us wash away the pain. So don’t you ever apologize for crying; it’s a reminder to us all that we’re human, and that we love our family with our entire being. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
Maggie smiled and wiped her tears. She inhaled a breath. “Your accent, where’s it from?”
“Georgia,” she said. “And it can get thick as syrup at times.” She smiled at Del, who sat on the couch with a tear in his eye. “Other times, people hardly even notice.”
“I notice,” Del said, raising his glass.
“It’s beautiful,” Maggie said.
“Yes, she is,” Del said, and he heard the snickers of two little boys who’d snuck back into the room behind him.
Tracy held Dan’s hand as they walked the dogs along the trails behind their house, which was actually a backward way of looking at it. Once off leash, the dogs walked the two of them. The rains of March had passed. April offered spring and, now that she was off the night shift, more sleep and more time with Dan.
She was busy, gathering the evidence that Celia McDaniel would use to charge Detective John Owens, and she imagined she would remain busy for some time.
Somewhere in the fading light, Rex and Sherlock thrashed through the underbrush, taking in all the different smells and sounds of the second-growth forest. Birds chirped and trilled, and overhead the trees knocked and creaked in the breeze.
Ordinarily, after a day working downtown, this was Tracy’s nirvana. This evening, though, she felt queasy and light-headed. Maybe it was the accumulated lack of sleep. She’d always had trouble switching back to working days after a month pulling night shift.
She stopped and took a deep breath of the fresh air, but she had a metallic taste in her mouth and had all day.
“You okay?” Dan asked.
“Queasy,” she said. “And I feel like I’m having hot flashes.” She fanned her jacket, then unzipped it. The cool air felt refreshing.
“You want to turn around?” Dan asked.
“If we do, we’ll pay the price with the two of them running around the house all night. I’m all right. The cool air actually helps me feel a little better.”
They started walking again. “Maybe you got a bug. The flu is going around.”
She shrugged. “It could be menopause. My mom went through it early.”
Dan stopped walking. “You know it’s okay, right? I mean whether we have children or not. I’m okay with it just being the two of us, so long as I have you.”
Tracy smiled. “It will never be just the two of us, not with Rex and Sherlock, and Roger.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
“There’s not really a choice, is there?” She squeezed his hand as they walked. “In time, I’m sure it will be fine. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t conceive, but things happen for a reason.” She thought of Leah Battles. Be careful what you wish for.
Tracy couldn’t mask her disappointment that she could not conceive a child, but she had a good life now. She had Dan and a place to call home, a career that gave her a purpose, and a feeling that she was doing something for the greater good.
Dan kissed her and they continued toward home.
“Did you talk with Leah Battles?” Tracy asked.
“I did.”
“And?”
“She seems competent. It will take her a while to get up to speed on criminal and civil procedure outside of the military, but she’s had an awful lot of experience on her feet. I liked her.”
“Are you going to hire her?”
“I already made her an offer.”
“What did she say?”
Dan smiled. “She said she’d think about it and get back to me in a week.”
Tracy laughed. “I told you she was a pistol.”
“She has several months before her commission expires,” Dan said. “She’s not in any rush. But I’m fairly certain she’ll accept. I can’t see her working for one of the large law firms.”
They finished their walk and returned home. For dinner, Dan had made his famous enchiladas. They came out of the oven bubbling cheese and red sauce, and bursting with flavor. After just a few bites, however, Tracy set down her fork.
“Still not feeling well?”
“I think I’m going to lie down. I’m sorry. I’d rather eat these when I can enjoy them.” She stood and picked up her plate and fork.
“I’ll clean up,” Dan said. “Just leave everything.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She paused, feeling again like she could throw up.
Dan started to get up. “Let me help you.”
She waved him off. “No. It’s fine.” Then she laughed. “It’s only a few feet to the bed.”
She went into their bedroom, changed into a T-shirt, and climbed under the covers. Sherlock and Rex had already found spots on Dan’s side of the bed, curled into balls and trying to look as small and inconspicuous as possible so they wouldn’t get booted. They were not allowed on the bed when Tracy and Dan went to sleep, but occasionally they’d sneak on early in the morning. Tracy didn’t bother to move them. She enjoyed their company.
She awoke after dark. The clock on the nightstand indicated it was just after 2:00 a.m. Dan snored lightly beside her, and the dogs grunted from their beds on the floor. She hadn’t heard Dan come into the room, and she hadn’t heard or felt Rex or Sherlock get off the bed, which meant she’d really been out of it. Now, however, she feared she might be up the rest of the night.
She got out of bed and shuffled out of the room and into the bathroom, which was lit by a night-light. She felt better than she had earlier, still a bit light-headed, but not nearly as nauseated. She shut the door three-quarters, and sat, but didn’t immediately go to the bathroom. She looked at the cabinet beneath the sink and wondered. Then it dawned on her that she might have one more.
She stood, flipped the light switch, and rummaged in the cabinet until she’d found the box. Inside, one pregnancy stick remained. She removed it, but didn’t immediately open it. In her heart, she knew the odds were stacked against her. They’d had no success on the Clomid, and Dr. Kramer had said the chances she could get pregnant on her own were less than good.
She was tired of getting her hopes up only to be disappointed. She shook that thought. Her father would have called it a defeatist attitude. If she expressed doubt before a shooting competition, he’d tell her not to compete. “If you go in thinking you’re going to lose, you’ve already lost. If you go in thinking you’re going to win, you’ll be disappointed if you lose. So just go in to the competition with the attitude that you’re going to compete, which is all you can control anyway.”
This wasn’t quite like that, but she really did have no expectations.
She thought of Dan, of that night when she’d been content to just go to sleep. The night he’d held her and told her that she was all he wanted in this world. They’d made love, not to make a baby, just to
be close.
She unwrapped the pregnancy stick, peed on it, and set the stick on the top of the tank while she went to the sink to wash her hands. She dried them on a hand towel, glancing in the mirror behind her at the stick. She wasn’t going to have any expectations. She wasn’t going in thinking the results would be positive or negative.
She walked back to the toilet, but no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t quiet her heart, which was pounding.
That could be the flu.
She reached and picked up the stick, staring at it.
Two parallel lines.
She closed her eyes. Tears spilled over, running down her cheeks. She fought against the urge to both laugh and to cry, to shout out. There was a long way to go, she knew. Pregnancy sticks were unreliable and could produce false positives. She needed to make a doctor’s appointment. Then there were the chances of a miscarriage, much higher for her because of her age.
She needed . . . She needed . . .
She needed to stop. She needed to just stop and enjoy this moment.
She smiled and looked out the bathroom door, to their bedroom, to where Dan slept, though not for long.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The subject of this book is troubling, especially for parents. I never fully understand the subject I am writing about until I have written the first draft of the novel. Often my novels start with an idea, spurred by a newspaper or magazine article. In this case, however, the idea came from real life.
In the year prior to writing Close to Home, I read of multiple students at a local high school dying of heroin overdoses. The loss of a person so young is always tragic. The loss of that person, often after years of the torment heroin wreaks on the entire family, is shocking. As I researched this topic, I was surprised and dismayed at the long-term and long-range ramifications of the legalization of marijuana. I had no idea that the loss of marijuana income had led to the Mexican, South American, and Chinese drug cartels plowing under their marijuana fields to plant poppies and to flood the United States market with cheap and affordable heroin. This came at an unfortunate time in the United States, when so many people had become addicted to prescription opioids.
Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5) Page 33