Chapter 5
“What does he think he’s doing?” she demanded,walking blindly past the garage, past Peaches’s cottage andthe little outbuilding beyond it. “Doesn’t he understand?Doesn’t he see what’s going on? My God, I didn’t... I didn’twalk him and cry with him and hold him in my arms sothat...so that he could...do this to me. So he could...”
For twenty minutes Tony just walked her, just listened toher spew out nonsense in a voice any mother would understand. He felt her shake and he heard her curse about everything and nothing in particular. He felt her come apart,there within the protection of his arm, and then pull herselftogether again, all without her even knowing that he was theone walking her around in the gathering dusk where the cicadas thrummed and the birds settled to sleep in the trees.He walked her across the meadow to the big woods behindthe houses and along the edge of the big woods, but he didn’t go into the big woods. Not anymore. Not whendarkness was falling as thickly as it did here in the South onthis sultry summer night.todefuse enough to go back in to
But he listened and he murmured and he waited for her todefuse enough to go back in to face her family withoutbreaking. He walked and he fought to keep the distance heneeded, because what he really wanted to do was kiss her.Quiet her with his hands. Gather her to his heart.
But he didn’t kiss her. He walked. Just as he would withone of the guys, arm around her shoulder, heads close together, eyes never still, voices hushed and urgent andfrightened.
It took a good twenty minutes, but finally, just as Tonyhad hoped, Claire began to slow a little. She sucked
inshaky, settling breaths and rubbed weary hands over herface as if washing away the pressure that had forced her from her house. She walked instead of fled, her hands quieter and her posture easing.
“He just doesn’t understand,” she finally said, and it was more than a statement. It was a prayer. Tony heard it, justas he’d heard it a hundred times before, and his heart brokefor her all over again.
“Then tell him,” he said, the first real statement he’dmade to her since he’d guided her out that creaky screendoor.
That brought her to a dead stop near the little white framebuilding Peaches occupied when he wasn’t working full-timeon the inn. The nearby river had sent a mist up through the trees, and it diffused the remaining light into pearly mauve.The wind was still, and the world beyond them silent. IfTony tried, he could pretend Claire was a sprite he’d foundin enchanted woods, her hair the color of sunset, her skincreated from old mother-of-pearl. But no sprite could havecarried the sadness in those great, soft eyes, and that waswhat confined her to the real world.
She didn’t answer his statement. She came awake. Suddenly realized what she’d done, who had helped her do it.“Oh, God,” she said, eyes stark, hand to chest, posturethreatening escape. “I’m sorry.”
Tony smiled for her. “For what?” he asked. “Being human?”
Claire gave her head an agitated shake, looked over towhere light spilled from her windows onto the dewy grass.“Why did you let me do this? They’re never going to... whatam I going to tell Johnny?”
“I told you. Tell him the truth.”
“Not again,” was all she’d say, her attention still back inthat house. “Not again.”
Tony wished with all his heart he knew how to ask for anexplanation. He wished he had the insight to simply understand. Andy would have been able to do it, to simply touchClaire on the arm and pluck out all her secrets. But then,Andy had been one of the first storefront counselors to everserve in the vet centers, one of the last left now that the establishment had taken over. He’d defused a thousand vetsfrom their violent dreams and deadly reflexes. Andy hadseen the worst, knew it just by the smell of a man’s sweat.
Tony was only a contractor who had stepped in too farover his head. A lousy builder with a hammer and a degreein architecture who found himself getting far more involved with this one person than Andy had with his hundreds.
“Would you... would you mind staying till tomorrow?”she asked, her voice hushed with guilt.
“I’d be happy to,” he answered simply. “Besides, after you taste that pasta sauce, you’re either gonna want therecipe or you’re gonna come lookin’ for me about three inthe morning when you still can’t get to sleep.”
Claire didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at him. She just nodded and turned back to the house where herchildren and her friend waited. And Tony, feeling about asuseful as whiskers on an eel, followed right behind.
They’d gotten to the door when she stopped. “Thankyou,” she said.
Still she didn’t turn. Tony didn’t mind. He understood what it felt like to feel exposed. He couldn’t imagine being so vulnerable in front of someone you really didn’t know.He couldn’t imagine having to walk back in to face yourchildren afterward.
So he waited with her as she gathered her composure, andin the gathering dark, he smiled to that fall of strawberryblond hair. “My pleasure,” he answered, and meant it.
Dinner was quiet. Tony noticed that Johnny fidgeted, thathe didn’t exactly face Tony at any time when they talked, butat least he didn’t bring up the subject of ROTC again. Jessbubbled and giggled and chattered as if it were solely up toher to fill in the spaces in the conversation. Claire, still paleand stretched, smiled at her daughter and joined in as if shehadn’t just been inches away from screaming.
They talked about school and they talked about what ittook to rebuild a historic house, and they talked sports. Overat his edge of the table, Peaches watched them all in nearsilence, his contribution a series of worried glances half-disguised as glares, and a few monosyllabic answers whenpressed. He ate, though. He finished what everyone elsecouldn’t and wiped his plate clean with his bread before heshoved his chair back from the table.
“It’ll do,” he pronounced.
He never once spoke to Tony. Never said a word. He justwalked on out the back door as if that was all that neededto be said. So later, after dishes were done and the kids werein working over some kind of scheduling problem with theirmother, Tony walked out into the misty, thick night andknocked on Peaches’s door.
Tony was by no means a small man. Nevertheless, he felt dwarfed by the man who came to answer the door.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Evidently it was all he needed to say. Peaches pushed openthe screen door and stepped back to allow Tony past.
