Jonny hit the second step and jumped the rest of the way to the sidewalk. Kent reached to steady him. “Take it easy, pal. You don’t want to crack your noggin again.”
Celeste watched Kent fold the child’s hand into his.
Oh, Kent, he loves you. I love you. Will you miss us the way we’re going to miss you?
****
After Kent left for the field, Celeste went to tuck Jonny into bed. “I had a good time today,” he said, relinquishing his comic books without the usual protest.
“I did, too, Jonny.”
“Miss Ruby’s pie really did have meringue a foot tall.”
“Maybe not quite.”
“It was fun taking a walk, too. It was like we…” His voice trailed off.
Celeste knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Like we what?”
Jonny scooted down in the bed and turned his face away from her. “Like we were a real family,” he mumbled. “You know, a mom and a dad and…” His voice trailed off.
Celeste rested her hand on his hair. “I guess it was like that.”
“I wish Kent wasn’t leaving.”
“I do, too, but he’ll come back to visit.”
“It’ll be just you and me again, won’t it?”
“You said we were a team.”
“Yeah.” His yawn was mostly contrived. “’Night, Mom.”
Celeste leaned over and kissed his forehead. “’Night, Jonny.”
In the hall, she leaned against the door and pressed her fists into her eyes.
****
Kent came by the store on Monday. “I’m leaving for Brownwood a little early,” he said. “I’ll park my car there and catch a bus up to Ft. Riley.”
“Why don’t the two of you take a little break in the employee lounge,” Mr. Thomas suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” Kent said. “Thanks.”
“And lock the door,” the man called after them.
Downstairs Kent cradled Celeste in his arms. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll call when I can.”
“All right.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “I love you, Velvet. It’s been good for us lately.”
“I think so, too.”
“I know we still have some things to work out.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to tell you I can be part of Jonny’s life, the way he needs a man in his life. Not unless I’m sure I can do it. That would be worse than nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I think he’s kind of attached himself to me, and other times he seems to be holding me at arm’s length.”
“I think he senses things might be changing for all of us, and he isn’t sure that’s what he wants.”
“You’ve done a good job, Velvet. A great job, as a matter of fact.”
“I wasn’t sure I could be a good mother. I hardly remember mine. But Coralee filled in with me, and I’ve seen her with Barbara. Pearl’s a wonderful example, too.”
“I think you had it in you, and when the chips were down, you pulled it out.”
“Maybe I did.”
He kissed her again. “I’m going to say something I probably shouldn’t, but you probably know it already. I still want you, Velvet. Want you more than I ever did. But I’ve been faithful to you. A little late, maybe, but faithful all the same.”
“You didn’t even know me when…”
“Yeah, I know, but I always knew you’d be there. I remember Dad telling me how important it was to believe there was one right girl for every boy. I guess he thought Mother was the right one for him. They seemed happy enough, even if she did call the shots. For what it’s worth, I wish I’d waited for that one girl—for you.”
He kissed her once more, then held her away from him. “Gotta go, Velvet. But I’ll be seeing you.” He touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “Count on it.”
****
Kent called to let Celeste know he was back in Brownwood, a civilian again, and had a few loose ends to tie up before he could get to San Angelo. When she told Jonny, the news unleashed a torrent of questions she knew he’d been holding in. “Are you going to marry him, Mom? Is he going to live here? Can I stay, too?”
Celeste took a deep breath. “Jonny, you’re always going to stay here. This is your home. We’re a family. A team, remember?”
“But if you get married, maybe you’ll want babies.”
“I hope I’ll have them, if and when I get married. You’d like a brother or sister, wouldn’t you?”
He scowled. “Maybe.”
“Well, it’s not going to happen tomorrow.”
“But are you going to marry Kent?”
She took another deep breath, then another. “We’ve talked about it, but we have some things to work out first. He’s got to go to school and be a lawyer, like he’s always wanted.”
“He said that would take a long time. I asked him. He said six or seven years. You’ll be old then.”
She laughed. “Not really, but you’ll be almost grown up.”
“If you and him got married, would he be my dad? I wouldn’t mind having a dad, not if he was nice to me like Kent.”
“You and he,” Celeste corrected.
“Okay.”
“Being a dad is a big responsibility.”
“I’d be a lot of trouble, I guess, huh?”
“I don’t mean that. You’re not any trouble at all. But it’s different with us. We’ve been together a while and worked things out. Like you said, we’re a team.”
“Yeah, we’re a team, Mom.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Celeste didn’t repeat the conversation to Kent when he called a few days later to say he was driving to San Angelo the next morning. “I can pick Jonny up from school, if that’s all right.”
“He’d like that. The bell rings at three-twenty.”
“Then I will. See you soon, Velvet.”
“Soon.”
****
Over supper, Jonny leveled a barrage of questions at Kent, this time about the new warehouse and what was in the other buildings on Oakes Street. “He doesn’t quit, does he?” Kent asked when Celeste came back from putting Jonny to bed.
“He’s curious.”
“He’s just plain smart. Really smart.”
“He likes school.”
“I did, too. Not math, though. The rules drove me crazy, when I could do it all in my head.”
Celeste chewed her lip. “You told me that before. And Jonny said it, too, about pluses and minuses and boxes and carries.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s what he said.”
“You said you’d paid off the hospital bill,” Kent said, changing the subject.
“All done, thanks to the money you gave me.”
“I’m glad it helped.” He patted the couch. “Come over here, and turn out the lights on your way.”
“What if Jonny gets up and wanders in here?”
“If he’s like most nine-year-old boys, he’ll say ‘Oh, yuk,’ and run for cover.”
“I guess I don’t know much about boys.” Celeste curled herself beside Kent.
“You forgot one of the lamps,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. That’s for insurance.”
Kent nuzzled her ear. “I remember the afternoon I saw your face after your father knocked you around. For days after that, all I could think of was how to keep you safe.”
“You found a way—the room with Mrs. Clay.”
“I’ll be honest—I was glad he died. It meant he couldn’t ever hurt you again.”
“I wasn’t glad. More like relieved that it was over…and a little sad that things wouldn’t ever be right between the two of us.”
He laced their fingers together. “I’ll only be here until Christmas. That doesn’t give us much time to work things out.”
“You keep talking about working things out, Kent. I don’t really have anything to work out. I mean, this is my life, here with Jonny. I want you in my life, too, but only if you really want to be here.”
“My dad was great, and I always thought I’d be like him.”
“But you’re not sure.”
Kent didn’t say anything for a few minutes. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away. “I had a friend in school. Well, not a friend, exactly, but we were in the same class. His stepfather beat the crap out of him on a regular basis. The police would go out and haul the guy in. He’d spend the night in jail, and then Benny’s mother would go bail him out and take him home again. The child welfare people even went out one time, but the guy ran them off with a shotgun, and they never went back.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“That afternoon I saw you, after your father beat you up, Benny flashed through my mind, and I swear, I might’ve killed your father if you hadn’t pulled me off of him.”
“I don’t believe you could’ve done something like that.”
“Maybe not, but you were scared enough then I was going to. Anyway, Benny’s stepfather finally killed him, and then he got put away for good. Some of the neighbors ran the mother off, too.”
“She should’ve protected her son.”
“At the time, I thought that, too, but maybe she couldn’t.”
“You were making a point.”
“Just that I wonder if I’d ever hurt Jonny. Not beat him, you understand, but there are other ways to do damage to a kid. He’d know if I didn’t really accept him…love him…especially if we had kids of our own, and I want that, Velvet.”
“I want a baby, too,” Celeste murmured. “Your baby, Kent. Someday.”
“I did what I did to Claudia…”
“You weren’t responsible for her death.”
“I might’ve put her in the position of feeling desperate about having to raise a child alone.”
“Do you think she was desperate or just determined to get you one way or the other?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I think it does.”
“I don’t want to see her every time I look at Jonny.”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes. I resent the hell out of her, Velvet. At the same time, I’m ashamed of what I did.”
“Being sorry for doing something you shouldn’t have is a good thing, but one mistake doesn’t have to ruin your life.”
“If I could believe that, I wouldn’t be worried about what I might do to Jonny.”
“At least you’ve gotten this far thinking about it.”
He began to kiss her. “Let’s just stop talking about it. About anything.”
She folded her arms around his neck. “That’s a good idea.”
****
Kent came for supper every night, often bringing groceries with him to help keep the pantry stocked. Afterward, he helped Jonny with his homework. Celeste thought maybe Jonny’s need for help was more a ploy on his part to get Kent’s attention. She liked Kent’s attention, too, after Johnny went to bed.
Kent described his job like it was a favorite hunting dog. “You really like what you’re doing, don’t you?” Celeste asked one night while she mended a pair of pants for Jonny and sewed some buttons on one of Kent’s shirts.
“I know the business inside and out. It’s a good feeling.”
“Being a lawyer will be a good feeling, too.”
He got up and walked to the window, then back. “I’ve been thinking about that, Velvet.”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
“I don’t know if wanting to be a lawyer was just a dream I had to get me away from home, or if I really wanted to be one. Seven years would be a lot of time to waste on something I didn’t really want once I got it.”
“Like the blue velvet dress.”
“What?”
“I really wanted that dress. It was going to change my life, and I worked hard to earn the money to get it. Then, when you didn’t show up for the next dance at the Roof Garden, I hung up the dress in the back of my closet and realized I hadn’t wanted the dress so much as I’d wanted what it represented.”
“Freedom from your father?”
“More like freedom from myself. I was in such a rut. I dreamed of a handsome prince who was going to carry me away to his castle, where we’d live happily ever after. What I decided I got was fifty dollars down the drain.”
“So maybe I wanted to be a lawyer because I saw it as a way of setting myself free from a life I was unhappy with.”
“I can’t answer that for you, Kent. You have to decide. But whatever decision you make, I want you to be happy.”
****
Celeste knew the question was inevitable; still, when it came, she felt unprepared. “Mom, what is Kent’s whole name?”
Taking refuge behind the open refrigerator door, she said, “Here, pour the milk.”
Jonny did and handed it back to her.
“What is Kent’s whole name?”
“He’ll be here in a little bit. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Okay. But it said Goddard on his uniform. Like me.”
“I see.”
“Yeah.”
He’s so reasonable. I don’t know what I’d do if he weren’t.
“Is Kent going to the ranch with us when we go for Thanksgiving?”
“He’ll go home to be with his family in Brownwood.”
“I thought we were sort of like family.”
“He has a mother and a brother, you know that.”
“I wonder if he knows my grammy.”
Celeste forced herself to breathe.
How do you explain to a nine-year-old boy that he’s not even supposed to be here?
“Go turn on the lamps in the living room. It’s getting dark. Do you have homework?”
“Spelling words.”
“We’ll get on them right after supper.”
She meant to warn Kent, when he came in through the kitchen door with a bag of groceries, but Jonny heard him and came running. “Hi, Kent.”
“Hi, yourself. How many licks did you get in school today?”
“Aw, I never get licks.”
Kent set the paper bag on the cabinet. “I got a few.”
“You didn’t neither.”
“Did, too. I brought a snake to school when I was in the fourth grade. Or maybe it was the fifth. Whatever, I slipped it in the teacher’s desk, and when she opened the drawer, she hollered so loud the principal came running. I got three good licks with his wooden paddle. More when I got home.”
“What kind of snake? I saw a green garden snake in the backyard.”
Celeste bent down to get eye-to-eye with him. “Don’t you even think about doing something like that.”
“Bet it was funny,” Jonny said, going off into a fit of giggles.
Celeste smacked Kent’s arm. “Thanks for giving him ideas.”
Kent laughed. “He’s not going to take a snake to school, Velvet. Relax.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
She held her breath through the hash made from Sunday’s leftover roast, waiting for Jonny to spring his questions on Kent. When it didn’t happen by the time she served chocolate pudding for dessert, she relaxed a little. More to get them out of the kitchen and away from her hearing in case Jonny remembered what he wanted to know, she sent them to the parlor and told Jonny to get his spelling book so Kent could call out the words.