A Chance of a Lifetime (25 page)

Instead of stepping up like a man, Calvin asked, “You like grilled chicken and baked fish?”

Diez shrugged. The T-shirt he wore was an old one of Calvin's. Where it had been loose a few weeks ago, now it was almost snug. “When you're used to eating one meal a day, you learn to eat anything. And I do like fish. The only kind I'd ever had before coming here was the fish sandwich at McDonald's. They don't deserve the same name.”

“No, they don't.” Calvin got himself a bottle of water from the refrigerator and offered one to Diez before taking a seat across from him. It hurt his gut to hear the kid talking so naturally about going hungry. It was a sin, in a country where there was so much food that obesity ran rampant, that some people couldn't scrape together even a decent meal a day. “You won't ever go hungry here.”

Discomfort flashed across the boy's face, accompanied by longing and distance in his eyes. “Yeah. One last feast for Thanksgiving, and then…”

Calvin felt every bit as uncomfortable. Normally, when he felt that way, he clamped his mouth shut and just refused to go where the conversation went. He could do that now. He was good at it. But avoidance never helped solve any problems. Avoidance wouldn't tell Bennie what she needed to know, or Diez, either. “And then what?”

Diez sniffed, swiped his arm across his nose, and shrugged. With the return of his smug attitude, Calvin realized it had been missing the past couple weeks. He'd behaved like any kid under Elizabeth's, Justice's, and Gran's influence. “Dude, I told you, I'm headin' south. I'm gonna find me a beach to live on.”

“And you're going to get there by…what was it? Hitchhiking?”

“Yeah. You'll be up here freezing your as—self, and I'll be kicking back in the sunshine,” he boasted. The kid could control his physical responses—the smirk, the body language—but he couldn't keep the fear completely out of his eyes. He knew he'd struck gold here. Did he think it was temporary? That the Sweets' gratitude would wear off and they would push him out the door? Was that why he planned to leave before they could ask him to?

It wasn't temporary, and their gratitude would never wear off, and they'd already formed a bond with Diez. They wouldn't let go as easily as he seemed to think.

Instead of warning him of that, Calvin asked, “When was the last time you hitched a ride?”

“I dunno. Five, six years ago.”

“Oh. When you were…what? Eight, maybe nine? And you were with your sort-of father. And you went…to the grocery store? The liquor store? Maybe to hang out at a bar for a few hours, hiding you in a back room or in the alley out back?”

Diez didn't answer, but his deep scowl and the growl that came from his mouth were answer enough.

“Hitching cross-country's not quite the same. Putting yourself in a situation where nobody knows where you are or who you're with…Could be a nice mom and pop on the way home from church. Could be a thug who likes hurting people for fun, or it could be a raping, murdering pedophile with a penchant for fourteen-year-old Latino boys.” Calvin matched his scowl. “Hitchhiking is the single stupidest and most dangerous way to travel.”

Heat and anger flooded Diez's face. “I'm not stupid. I'm broke. There's a difference. It ain't like I can walk into the bus station and buy a ticket with money I don't have.”

Calvin glanced at the clock. If the pastor hadn't started to wind things up by now, Gran would do it for him. An old lady needed a regular schedule, and eating on time occupied prime spots on that schedule. The cold wind would cut down on churchyard chatter, so he figured ten minutes or less after the final
Amen
, the family would be walking in the door.

“So you're just sticking around for one last big meal before you take off.”

“I've got places to go, things to do, people to meet,” Diez said breezily, but he couldn't meet Calvin's gaze.

“You don't like it here?”

He resorted to a shrug, as if the answer could go either way.

“Aw, come on. You've got a room of your own, plenty of food, clean clothes, someone to look out for you.”

With a snort, Diez jerked his gaze upward. “Who was the one sitting in the dark with a gun to his head? Oh, yeah, that was
you
.
I
look out for myself.”

The words echoed in Calvin's head.
Sitting in the dark with a gun to his head.
All these weeks later, he had trouble forming the image. He remembered the details: the drive to the abandoned park, the walk from his car to the concrete table. Water had soaked his shoes and the hems of his jeans, and the table had been damp beneath him. He'd pulled out the pistol, had found himself at peace for the first time in years because he'd finally found the courage to end it. He could remember all that, lifting the gun to his temple, the impact of Diez's tackle knocking him from the table to the ground, the sharp ache of his arm breaking.

But he couldn't put images to it. It was hazy, unreal, such a shameful final act that he'd planned.

Calvin was distantly aware of sounds outside: engines shutting off, car doors closing, first two, then three others. Gran must have gotten a ride home with Mama and Bennie. He unfolded from his chair and stuck out his hand. “You're right, Diez. You did look out for me, and I haven't thanked you for that yet.”

After staring at his hand a moment, Diez stood and accepted it. Once again, his face was hot and red, and his only response was a jerky shrug.

As the front door opened, Justice's voice booming as he invited the ladies in, Calvin released Diez's hand, then leaned close. “Don't take it on yourself to decide when it's time to head south and break my mom's and Gran's hearts. You do that, I will track your skinny butt all the way to the Gulf Coast and take great pleasure in kicking it all the way back home.”

Savoring the wide-eyed shock that crossed Diez's face, Calvin turned just in time to see Bennie stroll in the door, bringing up the rear. She gave Justice one of her usual smiles, all bright and happy, and thanked him for holding the door, then shrugged out of her coat to reveal a sapphire blue curve-hugging dress that was somehow perfectly appropriate for church and still made it hard for him to swallow.

Man, it had been hard to turn down her offer of going to his place last night. Standing there with her arms around him and her cheek pressed to his chest had been the best, happiest few minutes of the past five years of his life. He'd felt like he
belonged
there, like no one, no memories, nothing, could possibly interfere with such an incredible moment.

He'd been wrong, of course. He couldn't take her to his apartment without telling her everything. One look at the sign outside his building, she would know he hadn't been honest with her. One good look at him, and she would guess what he'd hidden. She thought things were already complicated between them? Wait until he threw PTSD and a suicide attempt into the mix. Until he told her that while thousands of other troops had struggled with their last breaths to survive, he'd done the opposite and tried to throw his life away. It was a slap in the face to J'Myel and every other casualty.

And it would always be a problem. It wasn't something that healed and went away, leaving only a few bad memories in its place. The shrinks had warned him that PTSD could manifest at any time. It could improve or get worse without warning. It could become harder to cope with, the depression harder to control. It could disappear for weeks, months, even years at a time, only to return stronger than ever.

It did a lot of things, but what it did not do was go away once and for all.

Bennie had a right to know before she got any further involved with him. Before she might fall in love with him, consider marrying him and having kids with him. If she was signing up for the long haul, she deserved to know about all the possible bumps and detours in the road ahead.

And with Bennie, under normal circumstances, she would always sign up for the long haul.

God, he wished he could be normal for her.

E
ven more than Christmas, Thanksgiving had always been Bennie's favorite holiday. Maybe it was the lack of pressure to provide gifts or the tighter focus on family itself; she wasn't sure, but she'd always loved the day, and this one had been no different.

Before the family had arrived, she and Mama had visited Lucy, home from the hospital. Her color was good, her mood maybe a tad less cheerful than usual though she tried to hide it, and she'd basked in the pleasure of all the pampering being done by Joe and her mother. The heart attack had been a fluke, she said, payoff for seven years of not caring for her body, but the cardiologist declared she was as healthy as a brand-new heart attack patient could be. She was going to be okay, she'd insisted.

Of course you are,
Mama had agreed with a smile filled with grace.
The Lord and I have discussed this.

Then it had been back home to meet Aunt Cheryl and her boyfriend, an engineering professor at OSU. They'd been together longer than most people stayed married, though Mama hadn't yet quit hoping for a wedding ceremony someday. Uncle Roland, his wife, his sons, and their families had arrived soon after, caravanning up from Ada. They had all eaten too much, talked too much, and sat in the living room for too long, but after darkness settled, they'd piled into their cars and returned home.

Now it was just Bennie and Mama. The house was spotless—Pickerings were good about cleaning up after themselves—and quiet and just the tiniest bit lonely.

Settled into her chair, Mama gave a heavy, satisfied sigh. “On days like this, I miss my family like crazy. And on days not like this, too.”

“I know you do.” Mama had taken a huge step, leaving South Carolina with three young children and settling in a place where she didn't know anyone and didn't have the support her family was so good at providing. She'd done it because she'd felt a need for a new start, she said, and because divorce hadn't freed her completely from the irritation of her ex-husband.

That was how Bennie thought of him when she bothered: not as her grandfather but as Mama's ex. Mama rarely spoke of him, and it was even rarer when she said anything negative about him. Though Bennie had never met him, in her opinion, it said more than enough that he'd refused to pay child support, hadn't come to any graduations or weddings or to her daddy's funeral, had never acknowledged his grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

“I've been blessed, though.”

“Hmm.” Bennie sipped her coffee. Tonight it was an Italian blend, soothing and familiar.

“I've got my health, my family and friends, my church, and renewed hope for getting more great-grandbabies while I'm still young enough to play with them.” Mama gave her a sly smile. “My eyesight may not be what it was twenty years ago, but I've seen the way you and Calvin look at each other.”

The last drop of coffee went down the wrong way, making Bennie cough as she set the cup aside. She knew better than to deny there was anything between her and Calvin. Mama really did see everything. She didn't sound displeased or worried by it, though. That was good.

Then Mama snorted. “Even Emmeline can see it, and she's practically blind.”

“Oh, she is not.”

Mama shook her finger. “Just because she's not here doesn't mean you have to do her arguing for her.”

“No one can argue like her, that's for sure.” Bennie wondered how Calvin's Thanksgiving Day had gone. They'd met at his aunt Mae's house, no doubt with chaos abounding. If the whole family showed up, there would have been easily sixty, maybe seventy, people. And they were loud, boisterous, emotional people—like Bennie's South Carolina family without the Southern drawl.

It would have been the first time he'd been together with all of them in years—the first time for Diez, too. It would have been fun to get a peek at the boy's face about ten minutes after they'd walked in, before he'd had a chance to adjust to the abundance of noise and love.

“So how do things stand with you and Calvin?”

Bennie risked picking up her coffee again. “It's complicated.”

A great laugh burst from Mama. “Of course it's complicated. It involves a man
and
a woman.” After a moment, she sobered. “Love's not complicated, Benita. It's as simple and as natural as breathing. It's the logistics of it that can get out of hand. I used to look at Montgomery sometimes, and my heart would just swell with all the love I felt for him, and then sometimes he'd make me so mad that I'd look at him in his sleep and think, ‘I could kill him and hide his body and nobody would ever be the wiser.'”

Bennie chuckled at the thought of her round, gentle grandmother bringing harm to anyone. It was about as likely as Ilena actually becoming the 800-pound gorilla she thought she was. “Aw, you wouldn't have killed him.”

“No,” Mama agreed. “Though I probably should've whacked him a few times with my wooden spoon.”

Outside the window behind Bennie, the wind rustled through the trees, squeaking the chains holding the porch swing a few times. It had been a gorgeous day, the sun bright, just a bit of a chill in the air. She'd taken Uncle Roland's five grandkids exploring, wandering through a wooded lot, jumping over ditches, standing at the fence watching Mr. Harley's bull graze, but the temperature had dropped as quickly as the sun had. The only downside of Thanksgiving for her sun-and-heat-loving body was that it made winter official.

“Is it J'Myel?” Mama asked.

Bennie kicked off her slippers and drew her feet onto the seat. “Do you think it's odd, me being interested in my dead husband's best friend?”

“You being interested in your live husband's best friend…that'd be odd. Besides, they weren't friends when J'Myel died.” Mama pulled her quilt higher around her and the habit made Bennie smile. Mama had lived through a lot of years where frugality wasn't a choice. Times were much better now, but she kept them that way in part by holding on to most of those penny-pinching habits. If Bennie offered to raise the thermostat, she'd say,
Why turn up the heat, sugar doll, when I'm cozy under my granny's quilt?

“Did you ever find out what happened between them?” Mama went on. “Because I've got a thought or two on the matter.”

That caught Bennie off guard. “And how did you come by these thoughts?”

Mama tapped one thick fingertip against her temple. “Pulled them right out of my brain. I store all kinds of tidbits away until I need them again someday. 'Course, most of 'em I don't ever need again, so my head's so full to overwhelming of useless bits that I hardly have room for the necessary stuff.”

“That's why you always win at
Jeopardy
.”

“Yes, ma'am. And because Alex Trebek is still so pleasing to the eye.” Mama reached into the basket beside her chair and pulled out three skeins of yarn: cream-colored, dusky blue, and barn red. She'd started the piece the night before, the yarns baby soft, the needles thinner and more delicate than she normally used. Her gaze stayed on the yarn as she worked a row. “One time, back in the beginning, when J'Myel came home for a long weekend, he said Calvin couldn't come because he had finals coming up. Him and I, we were talking while he waited for you to get ready to go wherever you two were going, and I told him I hoped he would follow Calvin's lead and get his degree while he was in the Army. He gave me one of those looks his mama used to smack him for and told me in grammatically incorrect and obscenity-laced language that he had no intentions of ever getting a college degree.”

Bennie cringed. One of their families' golden rules had been you didn't disrespect an adult, and you certainly didn't cuss at one, Mama and Gran above all. If Golda Ford had heard that, tough soldier or not, she would have dragged him home for a butt-chewing. If Bennie had heard it, she probably would have wrestled him to the ground, twisted his arm behind his back, and made him apologize before turning him over to Golda.

“The other thought that comes to mind was on your wedding day. We were making small talk about the future, and he told me he wasn't going to live a loser life in Tallgrass. He said that once his enlistment was up, he was taking you away from here. His daddy was in Seattle, and he had friends in Chicago, and you could live with one or the other until he got on his feet.” Mama's gaze turned shadowy, gazing at the fireplace though no fire burned there. “I told him he might want to discuss that with you because you would likely have a lot to say on the subject, and he said there was no need. The decision had been made.”

Butterflies tumbled in Bennie's stomach. She felt foolish that other people had known her husband's plans for their future when he'd never breathed a hint of them to her. Her lack of desire to move aside, his arrogance in believing the decision was his and his alone, would have surely caused a blowup.

Though it had been his decision alone for the two of them to end their friendship with Calvin, and she'd gone along with that.

“Mama, why didn't you tell me this back then?”

“Because you were in love,” she said simply. “He wasn't the one I would have chosen for you, but it wasn't my place to choose. He'd changed his mind about a few things since leaving home, and I figured if you were determined, you could change it back. Besides, how could I know that you weren't secretly pining to escape this town just like him?”

“Never. This is my home,” Bennie answered. She stared at the fireplace for a moment, too, remembering their wedding day and how happy she'd been. How hopeful. “He never said a word to me about moving away or getting out of the Army. I knew we'd have to move away for a while once he came back from Afghanistan, until he could retire, but I could manage that. But to stay away?” She shook her head so emphatically that her curls bounced around her face. “That never would have happened.”

Mama nodded as she knitted, loops forming and sliding along the needles. It would be a perfect time for Bennie to ask for her first lesson, but she was satisfied at the moment to just watch.

“You asked if I thought it was odd, you being sweet on Calvin,” Mama said after a while, “and I told you J'Myel wasn't the one I would've chosen for you. I could see you with Calvin—not just now but back then. Golda and her ex and Justice and Elizabeth set the best examples they could for their boys, the same way I did for you. We taught you right from wrong, to be respectful and courteous and compassionate, to accept responsibility for yourselves, to always strive to be a better person. It's not my place to judge, but I'm only human, so I'm going to give my opinion anyway.”

When she paused, Bennie's nerves tightened all over her body. She knew J'Myel had had his flaws. They all did. But she'd loved him in spite of them, and it disquieted her a bit that the other person she'd loved so much hadn't quite approved of him.

Mama let the knitting rest in her lap as she met Bennie's gaze. “J'Myel fell short of the man he should have been. He needed more loyalty, more maturity, less arrogance, less fun-seeking, and more responsibility-taking.”

Bennie couldn't argue even one point. The arrogance had been charming in its way, all bold and forward and right up front for everyone to see. He'd been, oh, so confident in himself, but once they'd begun living together, once they'd had children and obligations and responsibilities, would that arrogance have gotten old?

And he
had
been all about the fun, live for today, let the future take care of itself. It wasn't a bad attitude for a single man, but once he added someone else to the mix, that attitude would wear thin, too. Heavens, he'd actually intended to move her to Seattle to live with his father or to Chicago to live with his buddies. Anyone even mildly acquainted with her would have realized that was never going to happen. How had her husband managed to convince himself otherwise?

Because he'd needed more loyalty, maturity, and responsibility-taking.

“You've got all those qualities, Bennie. You're exactly the woman your daddy wanted you to become.”

Tears pricked at Bennie's eyelids at the unexpected praise. Her heart warmed to Mama's next comment.

“And Calvin has those qualities in spades.”

Calvin didn't know how long he'd been sitting on Mama Maudene's porch swing when a dim figure stepped out of the shadows on the street and turned up the sidewalk. Diez still looked a little shell-shocked from his long day with Gran's four children, ten grandchildren, and her herd of great-grandchildren who wouldn't stand still long enough to be counted.

“What are you doing here?” Calvin asked quietly. Mama and Bennie were likely in the living room, enjoying coffee and one last serving of dessert. He'd been quiet when he'd come up the steps, and he'd stayed quiet, not sure whether he wanted to ring the bell or just enjoy the solitude for a time, because he was feeling a little shell-shocked himself.

“Miss Elizabeth was worried. She thought maybe you'd tripped and broken something. I told her I needed the air so I'd walk back toward your aunt's.” The down-filled jacket Diez wore was new and rustled with every movement he made.

Calvin's smile was grim. He appreciated his family, he really did, and all the attention and affection they'd shown him had been overwhelming, but after six hours of it, he'd needed a break. Everyone had tried to give him a ride back to his parents' to pick up his car, but he'd insisted on walking. Like Diez, he'd needed the air. The quiet. The time to breathe and think and be the only one in his world for a while.

Somewhere along the way, his need to be alone had morphed into a need to be with Bennie, leading him straight to her house, right up the steps, and to a seat on the porch swing. Not leading him to the courage to ring the bell.