“What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t remember my lines for my play.”
Caleb looked in his rearview mirror as his son looked down.
Evie asked, “How many lines is it?”
“Five.”
“Oh, that’s not bad! Get your paper out and write them down until we get to your school. That helped me a lot. Then, we can rehearse them together here in the car.”
Caleb looked at her and chuckled with a smile.
Zack lifted his head and pursed his brows. “You’d do that for me?”
“Well sure! And if you’re alright with it, I’ll come and watch it. If you forget your lines, I’ll mouth them to you.”
Caleb about put a stop to that. He always taught his children to stay strong and be independent, but it was Evie’s way of trying to bond with his son. And so, he tried to take a back seat as hard as it was.
Evie looked at Caleb with a smile. “That’s if it’s alright with your daddy. Don’t wanna make him madder than a wet hen.”
Caleb chuckled and held her hand. “It’s alright with me.”
Zack scribbled his lines down and began practicing them with her. Caleb looked out at winter’s presence with the gray skies and wet roads. Somewhere the little critters of the wild countryside would be burrowed and warm. The cows they passed by lay down like large lumps of coal. A minute later, the windshield wipers came on for the little drops that started to fall.
They dropped off his children and, on the way out, he was quiet.
Evie wasn’t even worried that he was mad. He was deep in thought. That handsome face leaned on his knuckles with his elbow resting on the door. His adorably warm company sweater that she helped him find that morning was snuggly looking on his tight muscles.
But instead of going to drop her off at home, Caleb took a left turn and headed straight into Laysville town center.
Evie panicked a bit and sat forward. “Where are we going?”
“The Songbird Café.”
She looked around, perplexed. “Why?”
“Because,” he began in that thick honey accent, glancing at her, “I want people to see us together.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, stroking it lovingly. Even though he kept looking at the road, fixed in thoughts and emotions, he could see her gazing into his eyes out of his peripheral vision.
The way she always looked at him burned his roots to the ground. She turned his rotten roots into beautiful fruit. Ashes to ashes he fell into her love. He couldn’t stand properly when she looked at him, so passionate and focused, as if her looking at him gave him the very breath he needed to breathe. Caleb couldn’t understand how she was so satisfied with him. And perhaps, he never would. But she would remind him every day. He hadn’t had a quiet ride to his kids’ school in ages. And justlike that, Evie had brought within their family a quiet and calmness they all so desperately needed.
They reached the café and parked, but before Evie could get out, Caleb told her to wait. He leapt out of his truck and grabbed an umbrella in the back, opened her door, offered his hand, and shielded her from the rain.
He was covered in true and unbound happiness, and no one could come into his world but her because of it.
Her pale face glistened as she looked up to him. And they kissed with her hands to his stomach. Caleb pulled her by the waist closer to him and pressed her against the truck while trying to shield them both from the rain.
If the world would burn, let it.
If the sky would fall, let it.
If a wave crashed through the town, they wouldn’t even know.
She whimpered as she was pressed against that big pickup truck and reached up to pull him closer. She lifted her leg to his hip. He let go of the truck and grabbed her leg to hold it for her. The rain fell hard and racked against the umbrella in percussive notes, drumming in rhythm with their hearts.
The people inside the café all stared outside the window, but that didn’t stop Evie or Caleb.
