Passing Through Midnight (13 page)

Speechless, her mouth opened, and she blinked several
times while streaks of red-hot embarrassment ran up her neck. Which was
worse? Getting caught as a pool shark or getting caught on the verge of
an amourette?

Matthew laughed hard and happy at her reaction, then
shooed her away good-naturedly. She was too big a distraction from his
cooking.

She walked into the family room but didn't make it to the
pool table. She didn't need to practice anyway. Instead she got
sidetracked looking at the trophies and ribbons and thinking of the
poor dead cows who won them—and of Fletcher, proud and cocky,
counting out the first money he'd earned on his own. That made her
smile.

She moved on to the framed pictures on the walls. There
were photos of Gil and the Averback boys, duplicates to those she found
in one corner or another at the house. Shots of Matthew as a young man
alone, with a young Gil, with Gil and his parents. Several of his
parents alone too. But none of Matthew with a woman, she noted. Hadn't
he married? If she were her mother's age, she'd marry him in a
heartbeat.

Hmmm?… Nah…

There was a formal portrait of Gil and Beth from their
wedding. A collage of the young family. Beth pregnant. Fletcher as a
baby. Gil with a toothy grin. One of Gil and a toddling Fletcher alone.
A stunning auburn-haired woman with Gil and Fletcher at the age of nine
or ten maybe. Matthew and the three of them in front of the house. A
few of the woman alone, and one of her in the porch swing, looking
pregnant and very beautiful.

She was looking at the long, dark red hair as she touched
her own short crop. Baxter's hair might eventually be that dark, she
thought, noticing that he had her eyes as well. Her hand came slowly
down across her cheek. She felt the soft, but not smooth reminder of
what she wasn't anymore—a not-too-bad-to-look-at woman. She
sidestepped to take a closer look at Beth. No scars there either.
Young, healthy, flawless skin.

"He thinks it's important for the boys to know they had
mothers," Matthew said, his voice a gentle roar from the doorway. "He
pumps Beth up with more courage than she ever dreamed of having and
tells Fletch that leaving him was the last thing she ever wanted to do.
And maybe it was," he said sadly. "He talks about that other one as if
she were a delicate orchid that would have dried up and died in the
sunshine."

She wanted to know more about "that other one" but
couldn't bring herself to ask.

Matthew was not only charming and lovable, he was very
astute.

"She was a friend of Gil and Beth's from school. From when
they were kids. She was sweet on Gil all along, but she never did
anything about it till after Beth died. I'll give her that much. She
was married to somebody else for a while, moved away to Tulsa for a
spell. Came back. No husband." He was thoughtful for a moment. "I think
she thought Gil was going back. Pick up where he'd left off at school,
return to his dreams. But it was a long time. Seven years. He had
Fletch. His folks were getting older. He'd taken on most of the running
of this place by then. Everyone was expecting him to stay
and… his dreams had changed. Everything was different for
him after Beth."

"But she kept coining around, telling him he was
stagnatin' here, encouraging him to leave. When that didn't work, she
changed her tactics. Said she was in love with him and wanted to get
married." He glanced away, as if reconsidering telling her the next
part. Then he looked back at her and gave a slight nod of his head. "I
think he wanted to believe her. Part of the life he wanted with Beth
was family. A wife and children, a home. He knew he could still have
that part of his dream. He was still a young man. And, like I said, it
was a long time since he'd known any happiness. By and by, he married
her. And in she started again."

He got comfortable in the doorway and went on.

"He took her to Paris for their honeymoon. Three weeks
she'd wanted. In fact, anything she wanted she got. She wasn't back a
week before she was telling him at supper, in front of the boy, that
she hated living here. She was bored. She had nothin' to do. She needed
to get away for a while. New Orleans it was, and then it was New York.
He let her go because he thought it would make her happy." He paused.
"That girl went through money faster than we could print it up in the
basement," he said with a laugh, though she could tell he didn't think
it was funny.

He sobered and examined the lay of the hardwood floor for
several seconds before he went on. "You'd have thought the sky was
falling the day she found out about little Bax." He shook his head in
utter disgust. "I could hear her screaming all the way out to the barn.
She was sick of being tied down to the farm. And sick of being tied
down with Fletcher. And she sure wasn't getting tied down with no new
baby. She wanted to get rid of it."

He wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb and
forefinger. She watched him grow tense with suppressed anger.

"Gil tried to reason with her," he said. "For weeks he
tried. But her mind was made up. She told him he couldn't stop her,
that he'd never been able to keep her from doing what she wanted. She
said he was weak and spineless, and then told him she'd been having an
affair with some young buck in town."

"Oh no." She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together
in pain. It was as if someone had pricked a hole in her heart and her
chest was filling with unbearable sorrow. In her mind she could picture
the entire episode as if she'd been there to witness it. The look on
Gil's face. The confusion and hurt.

"He showed her weak and spineless about then," his uncle
was saying with no little pride. "He took back everything he ever gave
her. Left her sittin' on a copper mine without a penny to her name.
Told her he wouldn't pay for an abortion, but if she stayed and
delivered him a healthy child, he'd give her everything he had beyond
the farm itself. And then she could leave."

She turned her head to look at the lovely woman in the
picture, physically unflawed and wondrously pregnant, and felt her to
be the ugliest human being she'd ever seen.

"What was her name?" she asked for the record.

"Joyce," he said, adding ironically, "We called her Joy."

"When did she last see him?"

"When he was three days old." Her eyes darted to Matthew
in disbelief. Baxter's mother had no idea what a beautiful child he
was? She didn't know he was smart and happy and full of energy? How
could she not know? How could she not wonder? Her questions were
answered with a big body shrug. "She handed him to Gil, took her money,
and left."

"Not a word since?" He shook his head. "Was there
ever?…" she gasped, shocked at what she was about to ask.

"Was there ever any question of him being Gil's boy?"
Matthew asked quietly. When she would neither admit to nor deny the
question, he answered it anyway. "It never mattered, one way or the
other. He was always Gil's boy."

She gave him a small smile and a nod, feeling a
bittersweet satisfaction with the conclusion of the story.

Then she wondered, "What was Gil studying at school? What
did he want to do, if it wasn't farming?"

Matthew laughed. The sound rattled the windows.

"You ask him sometime. It'll embarrass the hell out of
him."

"Why? What was it?"

"Nothing to feel awkward about, but he always did. Even as
a kid. You ask him," he said, giving her a wink before he returned to
the kitchen, still chuckling as he walked down the hallway.

If Gil's boyhood ambitions were nothing to feel awkward
about, dinner most certainly was.

With the finely honed olfactory organ of the pubes-cent
male, Fletcher could smell sex in the air. Or so it seemed to Dorie,
who would glance up from her plate to catch him staring at her. It
wasn't a resentful stare, or approving either. It was…
judicious perhaps, waiting to make a fair and sound judgment dependent
on her behavior, more specifically her behavior toward his father.

But what about him? She had a fair idea of the impact Joy
had left on Gil. She identified with certain parts of it, having been
"discarded" herself. But what about Fletcher? Had he fallen in love
with her too? Trusted her? Built dreams around her? Did he feel
betrayed or rejected by her? He was old enough to know and remember.
Did he feel any responsibility for her actions? Had she damaged his
capacity for mother-love or his instincts to bond?

She didn't sense any of that in him. There was
unquestionably a certain protectiveness toward his father
—with or without his permission to drive, it
seemed— and toward Baxter, even if he was a pain in the neck.
She glanced briefly at the curly redhead beside her, then back to
Fletcher.

No, Fletcher wasn't adding or subtracting. He wasn't
awarding her his friendship or withholding it. He was watching and
waiting.

Gil, on the other hand, could hardly contain himself. It
was most distressing. The soft, sensuous skimming of skin as the food
was passed. The sudden touching of knees under the table. The gentle,
almost nervous little smiles. The smoldering glances through a fringe
of dark lashes… or was she doing all the smoldering? Was she
reading too much into a casual touch, a passing glance? Could anyone
else see the electrical sparks arcing and snapping between them, or was
it only her?

She lost pathetically to Fletcher when he challenged her
to a game of pool after supper. When Gil tried to give her a few
pointers in a hopelessly well-matched game with Baxter, she thought
she'd go out of her mind with his body leaning over hers, his hands
instructing her fingers, his breath on her cheek, the reverberation of
his voice in her ear.

She felt like the flag on a rope in a game of tug-of-war.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Nervous, trying to stay calm. Excited,
trying not to read too much into it. Eager, trying to take it in her
stride. Afraid, trying to be brave. Timorous, trying to be proud and
bold.

Taking her leave that night was more like an escape.
Matthew and the boys were sprawled in front of the TV while Gil walked
her out to the car.

In silence.

Her heart was racing and she felt her limp was pronounced
and cumbersome even though she was easily keeping up with his long,
unhurried stride. She was pensive, and her mouth was dry. She wished
for something composed and sophisticated to say.

"Well…"

"So…" they started together, then laughed
selfconsciously.

"Dinner was great. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

It was dark already. Not much to see. But they tried to
scan the entire state of Kansas before their gazes met again.

"So," Gil said, trying to sound unruffled, his hands
timidly finding hers in the darkness. "Will you be out stargazing again
tonight?"

"Yes. Maybe. Probably. I guess. I'm not sure."

He shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked down at
their entwined fingers.

"Dorie." He used her name like a plea for understanding. "I
get into all sorts of trouble when I try to guess what other people are
thinking. I…"

"You mean women?"

He nodded and smiled a little. "I mean especially women."

"Then talk to me the way you would a man or the way you
would to the boys. Plain and flat out. And I'll do the same to you."

He gave this some thought, then decided to try it.

"Later, after the boys are in bed, if I come to your door,
will you let me in?"

It was the best he could do. She could hear it in his
voice. His words were as plain as he could make them without being
crude—he couldn't be crude. It wasn't what he was feeling.

He was like a blind man groping in the darkness for her.
Feeling his way carefully toward tenderness and harmony with another
human being. With her. A sudden jolt rocked the core of her world. Her.
Not any number of women in town or one he might meet tomorrow or the
kind who hung around bars waiting for men like him. He'd picked her to
reach out to, as if she were someone special, as if he believed she had
what he needed and would give it to him.

What a responsibility!

"Dorie, If I come, will you let me in?" he asked again,
gently demanding an answer. "Yes."

Ninety minutes later there came a soft rapping at her
front door. Her heart stopped, and her knee joints turned to putty.

A late-night liaison with a Kansas farmer wasn't what
she'd left Chicago for. What was she supposed to wear?

Since Philip, she'd taken to sleeping in torn T-shirts or
undressing in an exhausted semicoma and falling into bed naked. The
nicest but not at all seductive nightwear she owned was a pair of
emerald-green satin pajamas and a matching paisley robe that her mother
had given her when she'd discovered Dorie had nothing but a frayed
terry bathrobe in which to convalesce.

She wore them now, smoothing them out with shaky, clammy
hands. It was her way of telling Gil that she knew why he had come and
that she knew what she was doing. She hoped.

The screen door was at his back when she let him in. He
looked a little unsure at first, but took in her bed-ready attire with
a quick glance and gave a small approving nod as if to say, Now this is
what I call communication!

She waved him in wordlessly and closed the door, jamming
both her trembling hands into the pockets of the robe.

"I…" She had to clear her throat. "I don't have
any wine or beer… I sometimes take pain medication for my
leg…" she offered as an excuse. "I also don't drink it that
much. Um. There's coffee and juice… or water. Good water
here," she added nervously.

"I don't need anything," he said, looking at her. What he
did need was plain to see in his eyes, and it was making her jittery as
a cheap wind-up toy.