"It's early yet," Sam said, checking his watch. "We could still make that movie if we hurry."
"Perhaps another time." Leah smiled and tugged her sweater more closely around her shoulders. "Besides, I need to spend a little time tonight with my son."
Sam looked around her, into the house. "I'm real good with kids, you know."
"Are you?"
"Heck, I got this way of communicating with them. Guess 'cause
I'm
nothing but a big kid myself at heart. Your boy play sports?"
"No." She shook her head.
"One of those intellectual types, huh? Probably spends his time on a computer."
Leah looked around, into the house. She could hear water running. Shamika walked out of Val's bedroom, his pajamas tossed across her shoulder as she moved toward the bathroom, singing along with Bert and Ernie.
"I really should go, Sam. Shamika is getting Val ready for his bath."
"I'm real good at giving kids baths." He smiled into her eyes, and Leah realized that the aspect of returning to his efficiency apartment to watch television on this Friday evening when the rest of the single world was humming with activity was as appealing to him as a stomachache. She knew the feeling all too well. The emptiness. The sounds of clocks ticking in the silence. The hours that dragged on, measured by late movies and reruns of
Andy Griffith
and
I Love Lucy.
Leah smiled back. "All right, Sam. Maybe it's time for you to meet my son."
He hitched up his pants and slapped his hands together as Leah reached for the screen door.
Shamika came out of the bathroom, drying her fingers on a towel emblazoned with Cookie Monster. She stopped in her tracks when seeing Leah and Sam, hands falling still amid the terry folds of the towel. "Hi," she said. "You're back early." She looked around Leah, and smiled at Sam. "I was just getting Val ready for bed."
"Then we're just in time," Leah replied, removing her sweater and tossing it over the back of a chair. She kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot toward Val's bedroom. "Coming, Sam?"
Sam, the used-car salesman with two normal teenage kids back in Austin fell in behind her, rolling up his sleeves, relaying his girls' escapades in the bathtub—how Debbie once poured so much Mr. Bubble into the water she'd filled up the entire bathroom with suds, and Lynda, the little minx, locked herself in the bathroom when she was only two and the water was running in the tub. They'd been forced to replace the carpet, not to mention remove the lock from the door.
Valentino Starr lay on his bed, naked but for his diaper, his legs twisted into odd curvatures due to the rigidity of his muscles. He let out a squeal when he saw her, and his arms floundered helplessly in an attempt to reach out to her. His blue eyes twinkled and he smiled with only one side of his face.
"Mama home!" he yelled.
"Yes, mama is home!" She grabbed his face and kissed his cheek.
He squealed again, and managed to turn his head, pressing his lips against her cheek. "Mama hold me?"
"Mama's going to bathe you."
"Val no bathe. Val rather stink."
"No Val of mine is going to stink." She tweaked his nose, then blew a raspberry against his stomach. He squirmed and bucked, filling the tiny room with laughter.
Leah slid her arms under his shoulders and lifted his upper body slowly, giving his rigid muscles time to gradually relax so he could bend at the waist and sit up. His head fell back onto her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his chest for support. Only then did she look up at Sam.
Standing in the door, he stared at her with a look of shock and despair.
"Sam, this is my son, Val. Val, can you say hello to Sam?"
Without moving his head, Val peered at Sam from the corners of his eyes. "Sam," he repeated, smiling broadly.
Sam opened and closed his mouth, looking like one who had just discovered that the trapdoor beneath him had dropped open with no warning.
"Would you mind taking his feet for me, Sam? We'll carry him into the bathroom before removing his diaper."
Nodding, Sam moved cautiously to the bed, eyes roaming the room, refusing now to focus on Leah or Val. He took Val's feet and they lifted him from the bed, made their way out into the hall where Shamika was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, towel draped over one wrist.
"Had I known I was going to get the night off, I'da got myself a date," she said.
Leah laughed. "I'm sure it's not too late. Randy's place is really humming tonight."
"Randy's nothing. I've got a good mind to head out to Mojo's, where the truckers are good-looking and the jukebox is rocking."
"Be my guest. I can hold down the fort here."
Leah and Sam shuffled Val into the bathroom, where Shamika removed his diaper and tickled his tummy, causing him to shout and laugh.
Last year Leah had saved enough money to purchase a tub chair—a thousand-dollar plastic seat that allowed Val to sit reclined in the water, strapped for security into its curvatures, which had been formed specifically for his body. She buckled Val in and reached for a washcloth and soap, glancing around at Sam where he sat on the closed lid of the toilet, staring at her with hound-dog eyes.
"Thanks. I can take it from here. Why don't you go get to know Shamika while I finish up bathing Val. I'll call you when it's time to get him out."
He nodded. Then nodded again. Slowly standing, he walked from the room.
A collection of rubber ducks bobbed in the warm bathwater as Leah gently washed her son's body, crooning to him, smiling as his eyelids grew heavy, as they always did in the tub. The warm water relaxed him and eased the rigidity somewhat in his muscles, allowing him to more easily mold to the chair.
From the living room came sounds of adult conversation, an oddity that somewhat unnerved her. Closing her eyes, she floated on the tones as easily as Val's ducks did on the water. Laughter. Footsteps. The tunes from
Sesame Street
cut off abruptly, replaced by television chatter.
Her mind drifted back to earlier that evening, and she was again drawn close to Johnny's body, so familiar after so many years. He'd held her the same, like a treasured possession, their bodies swaying to music, their faces painted by candlelight.
"Come home with me," he'd whispered.
Come home with me.
"Mama sad?" Val asked.
Leah blinked, spilling tears down her cheeks. She quickly blotted them away with the washcloth, smiling into her son's concerned eyes, which seemed a thousand lifetimes wise. "No, Mama's not sad. Val makes Mama very, very happy."
Bath
done, Shamika and Sam returned, bundled Val up in towels, hoisted him to his bed and proceeded to vigorously dry him. As Leah tugged his pajama bottoms up his legs, Shamika buttoned his top, discussing hers and Val's plan for tomorrow. No school meant fun day. Perhaps they would go to the park, or down to the fish hatchery. If Mama had no emergency calls, maybe she would join them. Would Val like pizza for supper tomorrow night? If he was good and cooperated with his exercises in the morning, she might even make homemade pizza, because that was his favorite, with diced-up pieces of pepperoni and sprinkled with M&M's.
Leah tucked Val into bed while Shamika and Sam returned to the living room. Sam had relaxed enough to ask questions: what, exactly, was the extent of Val's cerebral palsy and mental retardation? What had caused it? Turning out the overhead light, Leah sat on the edge of Val's bed, watching his eyes grow drowsy in the pale beam of the smiling plastic clown on the wall. With shadows kissing his face and his blanket tucked under his chin, she could almost imagine he was as normal as a million other seven-year-old boys, dreaming of Saturday freedom, of parks and playgrounds, of gathering daisies…
She kissed his brow and tiptoed from the room, closing the door silently behind her.
Sam had taken the rocking chair near the window. Shamika sprawled on the sofa, feet propped on the coffee table cluttered with magazines, an empty cola can or two, and a stack of Val's folded clothes, fresh from the dryer and smelling like fabric softener.
"How about coffee?" Leah asked, smiling at Sam.
His old cheeriness had returned and he waved one hand in the air. "Decaf if you have it, hon."
"Not me," Shamika yelled. "Give me the real thing. I'm just liable to cruise on out to Mojo's here in a little while and I'm gonna need all the pick-me-up I can get."
"Just what the heck is a Mojo's?" Sam asked Shamika as Leah turned back to the kitchen.
After putting the kettle on and locating the two jars of instant coffee, Leah dove into the refrigerator, shoving aside leftover Spaghetti-O's and Saran-wrapped peanut butter sandwiches until locating the last of the cheesecake she had purchased four days ago at an Albertson's deli.
"Leah?" Shamika called.
"Just a minute. I've just found dessert—"
"Leah, I think you'd better come here, sweetie."
Something in Shamika's tone made Leah frown. Leaving the fridge door open, the plate of cheesecake wedges in her hand, she walked to the living-room door. Shamika and Sam were standing still as scarecrows, staring down at the television, where a reporter stood before the blackened wreckage of a burned-out automobile, doing her best to talk over the shrieks of fire engines and the roar of helicopters.
"It appears the accident took place around two hours ago. As you can see, the bend in the road is extremely sharp, and the investigators on the scene are guessing that they were simply traveling too fast to handle the curve safely."
"Connie, can you tell us if alcohol could have been involved."
"Police won't speculate, Jan. We do know that Dolores and Johnny had earlier spent the evening with friends at Randy's Bar and Grill. From our understanding they left the bar around
, which would put the time of the accident around nine-fifteen, nine-thirty at the latest."
"Thank you, Connie. We'll go now to the hospital, where Carl Simpson is standing by. Carl, have you any word yet on the condition of Johnny Whitehorse and Dolores Rainwater?"
"Jan, the doctors and nurses here at the hospital are keeping a pretty tight lip regarding Johnny and Dolores's condition. Shortly after the ambulance arrived here there was some speculation that one, or both, had been killed instantly, but that rumor has not been confirmed or denied by anyone so far. We do have some witnesses, however; two young ladies who happened upon the accident and called 911 on their car phone. Ladies, did you observe if, in fact, there were survivors of this terrible crash?"
"We really couldn't see much of anything other than the fire. We had no idea who it was even, not until we heard the police telling the paramedics. Oh God, I can't believe it's Johnny."
The girl turned away, her hands covering her face.
Carl looked back at the camera. "There you have it, Jan. I suspect that soon as word of this tragedy gets out there will be a great many more like her showing up here. As for myself, the thought of losing such a fine colleague as Dolores breaks my heart."
"Leah?"
Leah turned her head, did her best to focus on Shamika's face, only vaguely aware that the cheesecake and plate lay in a heap on her feet. "What are they saying?" she asked. "Are they saying that Johnny is dead? Is that what they're saying?"