“Mom?” Johnny said, frowning. “You okay?”
Claire startled, flushed. Patted at her skirt with hands thatshook. Fought fresh tears that wouldn’t do anybody anygood, because she knew Johnny was about to hurt her afterall. “I’m sorry, honey. Pete is always welcome here. Youknow that. If he wants to stay, we’ll just get him a bed. Butfor right now, how ’bout we just take it one day at a timeand see what he wants?”
Johnny watched her for a moment. “You’d really dothat?”
Claire blinked. “What, honey?”
Her son shrugged. “Just take him in like that. Withoutany questions.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Well, yeah. But...I don’t know, most moms wouldn’tjust invite a kid in for life, ya know?”
Claire managed a smile. “I like Pete,” she said. “I don’twant him to have to face this alone.”
For a moment, Johnny looked away. Looked back up, hiseyes big and liquid and uncertain. “You’re getting prettyinvolved, aren’t you?”
The real reason he’d sat down. She could see it in his eyes.
“With whom?” she asked. “Tony?”
“Yeah. Tony.”
Claire’s heart stumbled and righted itself. She tried hard to push patience past the overwhelming sadness she’d beenbattling all night. She thought of Tony, even now over in theinn with both girls, showing them how to put in plumbing.Making a task a game and giving Jess a sense of accomplishment, when she’d had so few of them to celebrate in herlife.
Claire thought of that small bed he’d welcomed her to, the big bed she hadn’t had the courage yet to share. She thoughtof small silences and gentle hands and the delicate balancehe kept with her.
“I like him, too,” she admitted evenly. Even after tonight. Especially after tonight.
Johnny’s eyebrow arched in disbelief. “I think you’vegone way past ‘like’ here, Mom. You’re telling him thingsyou’ve never told anyone. Even us.”
A clutch of fear, a surge of regret and worry. She waswearing out beneath the emotions that had been unleashedand she didn’t know what to do about it.
“He understands things you don’t,” she told her son, tooafraid to even reach out and brush his hair back for him asshe always did. “Besides, I’ll bet you tell Gina things youdon’t tell us”
That fast, his throat colored. “That’s different.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. What we have to talk about isn’t as important aswhat you have to talk about.”
“Such as?”
Again he hesitated. Again he straightened himself as if gathering courage to face her. “Such as you say you won’tlet me fly. You’ve never told me why. Not really. I mean, ‘no’ is one thing, but you have a major problem with it.”
“Not flying,” she assured him, trying to hold still. Battling sudden memories she should have handed him intactas explanation. Memories that would only terrify a mother,because no boy really believes he could meet such an end.No man believes he could return from a war without hislimbs or his eyes or his sanity. But a mother does. A mother prays every waking hour of her life that such a thing shouldnever happen to her child.
A mother who has never even seen war. Who has neversmelled it and awakened to it night after night when the jetsscream overhead at treetop level and the choppers fragment the silence and the boys cry out in small voices.
A mother who has seen that prays with every breath.
“Not flying,” she repeated, finally reaching out if only tostabilize herself with the feel of him safe here in her kitchen.“Flying warplanes. Putting yourself in that kind of danger just to fly. Every pilot I took care of wanted to fly as muchas you do. Every one. They were no older than you, andbaby, that’s just too young to die.”
“Who says I’m going to die?”
Claire was on her feet now, trembling, too tired, too exposed. “I can’t take that chance, Johnny. I can’t. I spenttwenty years trying to survive what I saw in Vietnam, and Idid it because I had you and Jess. Don’t you understand?Every time I see a story about an injured soldier in NorthAfrica, I see your face on him. Your eyes. All those soldiers I took care of in Chu Lai looked just like you whenthey went over there. They didn’t when they came home.”
He was on his feet, too, red faced and rigid. “You’renever going to give your permission, are you?”
