The look on his face told me exactly what I could get him.You. Our daughter. Our life.
“Some coffee? Or iced tea?” I prompted.
“I’ll take coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.”
The percolator was still on, so I pulled out a mug. I remembered exactly how he took it. I heaped in three big teaspoonfuls of sugar without asking.
He flashed a white smile, showing off the dimple that exactly matched Rebecca’s.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything.”The way your lips feel on mine. The way the sunlight glistens on the hair on the back of your hand.
“Tell me again—how do planes go up?” Becky asked.
“Do you have a piece of paper?”
When Charlie walked through the kitchen door twenty minutes later, he found Rebecca sitting on Joe’s lap, biting her lip in concentration as she folded a paper airplane.
Charlie froze in the door. The color drained from his face, leaving his lips looking bluish.
He’d never met Joe—never, to my knowledge, even seen a picture of him. Oh, I suppose he could have seen a photo from our weekend together if he ever went through my stuff—and later, I had reason to think that he might have, because I learned he was jealous like that—but at the time, I thought it was either something in the way I acted, or the crackling of chemistry in the air, or the similarity in the way Becky and Joe looked.
“Hi, Daddy! Joe’s showin’ me how to fold planes.”
“Joe?” His face grew paler still.
“Charlie,” I said, stepping forward, wanting to get between them. “This is Joe.”
Joe slowly set Rebecca on her feet and rose.
Charlie leaned hard on his cane. “I—I thought...”
“He was in a POW camp,” I rushed to explain.
The two men stared at each other, two bulls protecting their herd, ready to charge.
“My camp was the last to release prisoners,” he said. “They kept me at a hospital in Hawaii for nearly a year. I just got home, and when my aunt gave me the things the army had forwarded, I found Addie’s letters.”
“Becky, you need to go see Poppy and Ammy,” Charlie said harshly.
“No! I wanna make more paper airplanes with Mr. Joe.”
Joe leaned over the table to look her in the eye. “I need to talk with your mom and Charlie.”
I noticed he didn’t say “your father.”
I think Charlie noticed, too, because a nerve twitched in his jaw. “Why don’t you take her over, Addie, while Joe and I get acquainted.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. I’m not sure what I feared might happen. Maybe I thought they’d kill each other. I only know I was terrified of leaving them alone together.
“Why don’t I call and see if Mother can come and get her.”
“I really don’t want your parents involved. Do as I say, Addie.”
I’d never heard his voice like that, although I would in the future. It was an order, dark and ominous, and something in his tone told me it would be deeply dangerous to resist. I might have resisted anyway, except for the fact that I didn’t want to create a scene in front of Rebecca.
I nodded and wiped my hands on my apron, then tried to take it off. It took me a while to unknot it, because my fingers were trembling.
