Night Light (25 page)

She left them at the door and came back with the kids’ bags. Thrusting them at Doug, she said, “I put the bikes in their apartment. I should’ve sold them. Have a nice life. Someday you’ll get yours.”

The door slammed.

Doug stared at the wood grain for a moment, his jaw clenching. Deni waited, expecting her father to let out a rare curse or kick the door, like she wanted to do. But he didn’t.

“Hard to feel sorry for her, huh?” Deni asked.

Her father’s lips stretched tight over his teeth.

“She’s kind of like that Haman guy in Esther,” Deni said, “with her wicked scheme coming back to bite her. She deserves what happened to her.”

He sighed then and turned away from the door. “Come on, let’s get the bikes.”

She followed him to the Gatlins’ door. He opened it with Aaron’s key and rolled the bikes out.

“We shouldn’t help her with all the others who live here, Dad. We should let her clean up her own garbage and walk five miles for water.”

“We can’t do that, Deni. Whatever we do for the others, we’ll do for her too.”

Deni blew out her frustration. “I knew you’d say that. But anybody would understand if we didn’t include her.”

“It’s not anyone I’m trying to please, Deni. It’s God. And I have my marching orders.”

forty-five

T
HE PARTY DIDN
’
T START UNTIL EIGHT O
’
CLOCK
F
RIDAY
night, after the sun went down and the temperature cooled. Citronella candles, every one the neighbors could gather, cast a sweet glow around the place. Several of the musicians in Crockett had gotten a band together and were playing from a truck bed in the street. Jeff had been invited to join them on his guitar. Someone had lifted a piano into the truck bed, and musicians with fiddles, guitars, trumpets, saxophones, and drums accompanied it as they played everything from bluegrass to rock and roll. The road had become a dance floor, and everyone from ages two to eighty-five was making use of it.

Determined to feel festive, Deni had made herself put on makeup tonight and had washed her hair before she’d come. Instead of the T-shirts and shorts she’d been wearing every day for the last two months, she’d pulled on a pair of her jeans and a red silk blouse. The jeans were now so big on her that they threatened to fall off, but she laced a belt through the loops to hold them up. She supposed everybody’s clothes were loose these days.

A few months ago, she’d have killed for the body she had today. She’d have paid big bucks and worked out for hours a day, stepping and cycling, to get into this kind of shape. Now it came naturally. She wasn’t complaining. It was just too bad Craig would never see it.

She sat in a lawn chair sipping the cool water from their well, watching the neighbors they’d gotten to know so well over the last few weeks. Eloise, the dear lady who lived across the street, had been too weak to walk over, so Kay had brought her in a borrowed wheelchair. Deni watched her mom serving the cancer victim, who seemed to be having a wonderful time.

On the street, Judith and Brad, her next-door neighbors, danced and laughed. It had been a long time since there had been so much laughter in this neighborhood.

On the grass near the lake, Beth had rounded up most of the neighborhood children and was working on the play she had written. It was an ambitious undertaking — a musical about David and Goliath — but it was a nice diversion for the children.

Mark sat next to Deni and Chris, his chair tilted back on two legs. He was still something of an outcast here, so he stuck close to the two who accepted him. There were others who sat quietly like outcasts, their faces soft and longing. Amber Rowe seemed that way as she sat nearby, watching her children spin and play. Her husband had left her and moved in with some woman just before the outage; since then, he’d been around only once or twice to see the kids and had done little to help her survive. Amber was clearly still mourning.

And Cathy Morton, the doctor’s pregnant young wife, sat by herself, watching her husband with jealous eyes. Deni couldn’t blame her. He’d been known to wander, and he hadn’t quite grasped the fact that his wife needed security at this vulnerable time in her life.

Deni followed Cathy’s gaze to the doctor and saw him coming toward them. She hoped he wasn’t coming to talk to her.

The doctor, who had the look of a California surfer dude, had Chris as his target. “Hey, Chris. Want to dance?”

Chris glanced uncomfortably across at Cathy. “Doc, I think it would be better if you danced with your wife.”

“Hey, I’m just being friendly,” he said, “trying to bond with my nurse, that’s all.”

She forced a smile. “I just don’t feel like dancing right now. It’s too hot.”

He moseyed off into the crowd, and Deni gave Chris a look. “What’s up with that?”

Chris rolled her eyes. “I like working for him. I mean, it’s the only place I can get a job right now. But sometimes I feel like he’s coming on to me, you know? I just don’t trust him. I mean, maybe his intentions are good, maybe he
is
just trying to be friendly, but I know his history.”

A lot of people in the neighborhood knew his history, ever since his wife had almost thrown him out of the house because he’d been sneaking around at night, visiting a girlfriend on the other side of the neighborhood. Cathy had been so hurt. She had been five months pregnant at the time, and as her stomach had swollen ever bigger, her paranoia and distrust of her husband had also grown. If not for the outage and the fact that they had no place else to go, Deni wondered whether the marriage would be over by now.

“I’ve tried to make friends with Cathy,” Chris whispered. “She’s there all the time, watching him like a hawk. It almost makes me think I should quit the job, but I really need it and I’m helping a lot of people. I don’t want to quit.”

“Maybe you need to try to be less cute when you go to work,” Deni said on a giggle.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Blacken out a tooth, pull back your hair, wear some coke-bottle glasses.”

Chris laughed. “I don’t think you have to be particularly attractive for Derek Morton to hit on you. He’s just that way.”

“So — is he hitting on Judith?”

Chris sought out the black nurse dancing with her husband. “No, she’s a little old for him. He doesn’t seem interested. I think Cathy feels safe with her too. I feel like I should tell Cathy she doesn’t have to fear anything from me. I’m not after her husband. I think he needs to straighten up and take care of his wife. But I can’t really say that to her. Hopefully when the baby comes, it’ll change his attitude and he’ll start taking a little more responsibility for his family.”

“He’s a good doctor, though,” Mark said. “Most of the neighbors don’t know what they’d do without him. My mom had strep throat, and he helped her a lot. Could have gotten really bad if we hadn’t had him here. And poor Eloise might have died by now.”

“And that’s why I haven’t quit my job. That, and the fact that it’s helping my family survive.”

“Your family’s already rich,” Mark said. “How much did you make off those apples you sold at the football field?”

“Enough to buy a horse and a goat.”

Deni’s eyebrows shot up. “You got a goat? Does it give milk?”

“You bet it does.”

Deni sighed. “You’re so lucky. Who knew investing in apple orchards would have such a payoff?”

The music moved from a country theme to slower love songs, and that sad feeling started to creep over Deni again. Chris got up to talk to some of the neighbors, and Deni was left with Mark, who noticed the change in her mood. Leaning back on two legs again, he asked, “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah, just a little sad.”

“About Craig?”

“Isn’t it always about Craig?”

He gazed at her. “Am I going to have to read your letter and interpret it again?”

“It would take a lot more imagination than you have, Mark, and it would be pure fiction.”

“I doubt that.”

She forced a smile. “I think it’s really sweet of you to try to make me feel better about him, but you don’t have to do that anymore. I wrote him the other night and broke up with him. He’s probably gotten the letter by now, so I guess it’s official.”

His chair fell to all fours, and all humor drained from his face. “Oh, Deni. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed the knot in her throat. “It’s okay. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“How do you know?”

She combed her fingers through her hair and pulled it off her damp neck. “The outage has clarified a lot of things for me. This is just one of them.”

“Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

He looked so shaken, she almost felt sorry for him. “Come on, Mark. Surely you have an empty platitude or two.”

He smiled then. “Let’s see. It’s better to have loved and lost … If you love them, let them go.”

“Yeah, love that one,” she said. “How about, absence makes the heart grow fonder? That’s a real winner.”

He thought for a moment. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

She laughed. “Can we stay on the subject of love and leave the poor birds out of it?”

She loved the way his laughter transformed his eyes. “See there?” he said. “You’re gonna be all right.”

Her smile settled softly on her lips. “So are you gonna dance with me or what?”

Still grinning, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

The band was playing “Unchained Melody,” drawing dozens more dancers to the street. Zach Emory, Jeff’s friend, stood like Elvis on the edge of the truck bed, belting out the lyrics.

Mark’s hand was rough and big as he pulled her among the dancers. Hers felt small inside it.

Craig’s hands had been soft.

He turned and pulled her close, and for the first time she was aware of the height difference between them. He stood a good eight or nine inches taller than she. He held her right hand out and put his other hand on her waist, and danced the way their grandparents had danced at the USO in pictures she’d seen years ago. There was something charming about that.

They swayed to the rhythm of the music, and she enjoyed the pleasure on his face. He didn’t gaze into her eyes or make her feel uncomfortable. Instead, he spoke softly, which made her move closer to hear.

“Look at the Huckabees dancing,” he said. “Did you know they’d been married thirty years? They celebrated their anniversary last week.”

“Is that right?” she asked. “I didn’t know that. You know, my parents have been married twenty-five this year.”

“It must be nice, having parents that have stayed together.”

She knew he was thinking of his own parents’ divorce. “How long has your mom been married to your stepfather?”

“Thirteen years,” he said. “They have a great marriage. I’m proud of that.”

They danced for a while, and she realized that they had gotten even closer. She moved her hand up to his shoulder and felt his breath on the side of her face.

“You look really pretty tonight,” he said against her ear.

The words sent a jolt through her heart, and she felt her cheeks blushing pink. This was crazy. She used to be the biggest flirt in town. If a guy had said that to her before, she would have had a ready comeback … She would have tossed her hair back and said something bordering on suggestive. But her heart felt so fragile …

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

They were quiet for the rest of the song, and she found herself feeling at home in his arms. That surprised her. They’d been such close friends in high school, buddies who hung around at football games and went out to eat after youth group. He had dated some of her friends, but there had never been any chemistry between the two of them.

Not until now.

As they danced, her depression over her breakup began to lift, and joy fluttered like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon. When the song ended, they stayed on the street. She didn’t want to sit down.

As the band launched into an acoustic rendition of “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Mark pulled her toward him again. The crowd pressed in around them, dozens of others cheek to cheek. She felt his breath in her hair, his hand on her back.

Something was happening in her heart, and she didn’t know quite how to feel about it.

When the song came to an end, Mark took her hand in his and led her back to their chairs.

“I’ll get you a drink,” he said.

She nodded and watched him walk toward the table where the water pitchers sat. A slow smile curled across her lips.

Chris came and sat down beside her. “Well, well.”

Deni tried to banish her grin. “Well, well,
what
?”

“Is something going on with you and Mark?”

“I don’t know. But it’s over with Craig. It’s time for me to move on.”

Chris couldn’t hide her smile. “I never would have pictured you and Mark together a few months ago, but now it seems like the perfect match.”

“Well, don’t jump the gun,” Deni said. “I don’t really know how I feel.”

He turned back toward her, one of the lanterns lighting his face as his eyes caught hers. She looked away. “All I know is he’s a good dancer. And a good friend.”

He came back toward them, carrying three cups.

“Here you go, ladies,” he said in his best Rhett Butler voice.

Deni accepted the cup — and the reprieve from her broken heart. Things were beginning to look up.

D
ENI STAYED LATE TO HELP CLEAN UP AFTER THE PARTY WHILE
M
ARK
helped the musicians break down. Perhaps the neighbors were beginning to warm up to Mark a little. She hadn’t noticed as many whispers tonight.

It was hard not to notice how hard he worked for the good of the community, but he kept a low profile, humbling himself and not trying to force the issue.

When he’d finished helping the musicians, Deni folded up the last of her own family’s lawn chairs and started to carry them home. He jumped down from the truck bed and came to rescue her. “Here, let me help.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

He took all six chairs and walked with her on the dark street around the block to her house. “That was really fun tonight,” he said.