Passing Through Midnight (17 page)

They slept in the palm of the earth, cocooned in a single
blanket of love, keeping each other warm, secure, and contented.

By June no one was too surprised to see Dorie accompanying
the Howlett family to the Prairie Heritage Day festivities. They'd been
spotted at the twin theater and twice at Colby Bowl in the past two
weeks. It might have been assumed that the Howletts were merely being
neighborly by inviting Dorie on their family excursions, but there were
so few blind people in Thomas County that there wasn't a single book of
braille in the library, and anyone who could see,
knew
what was going on… and it wasn't a common practice they had
with
their
neighbors.

Looking very much a family, they stood together on the old
cobbled main street while half the Colby populace marched in a parade
and the other half cheered them on. Members of the chamber of commerce
came through on the back of a white convertible leased from Tubbs and
Sons Ford. The Colby High School band sent chills up Dorie's spine,
playing "God Bless America". The fire department drove its huge, shiny
fire engine down the street with the sirens blaring—Baxter
went wild. Even the local cab company had an entry—a cab. But
it was the waving and cheering and intense goodwill and high spirits
that proved to be the main attraction that day.

The wheat stood tall and golden in the fields and most of
the secondary crops were planted. Colby seemed to be releasing a
collective, yet somewhat pensive, sigh of well-being. The merchants on
Franklin Avenue opened their doors wide. Some displayed merchandise on
the sidewalks, while others lent the space to craft makers to sell
their wares. Balloons bobbed and part-time vendors sold popcorn and hot
dogs and sodas and caramel apples and just about anything else a happy
person could want to eat.

Dorie and the Howletts followed the parade down Franklin
to Fike Park on foot. They had a cooler and a picnic basket full of
fried chicken and potato salad, and spent the warm, lazy afternoon
talking to neighbors and herding Baxter from one carnival ride to the
next.

One ride in something called The Mixer, and she was
quickly labeled chicken—clearly having lost her youthful
exuberance for near-death thrills shortly after birth.

So, she stood outside the chain railing, watching Baxter
go round and round in nauseating circles. The sun hot on her back, the
sky deeply blue above, her soul sighed with a serenity she'd never
known before.

Colby was Smalltown, U.S.A., at its finest, Dorie decided,
her heart warming to golden fields and the tall silos beyond the
railroad tracks. It was a wholesome place, a safe place, a good place.
And she was becoming as deeply attached to its people, its lands, and
its purpose, as she was to the little red-haired boy screaming
delightedly in The Mixer.

She was thinking of how much she'd changed since that
first cold February afternoon, not just physically, but emotionally and
maybe even spiritually—if hope and faith counted. She felt
the resurgence of her old strengths, along with something new,
something vital, something…

There, on the other side of The Mixer, was Fletcher
—with a girl. Dorie craned her neck to get a better look at
this young female-type person who had her hand firmly clasped about
Fletcher's.

"Hi."

"Hi." She responded to Gil's voice automatically and
without taking her eyes off the girl.

"What's wrong? You look like someone just ran off with
your favorite toy."

"Some girl is holding Fletcher's hand," she said, making
it sound like the crime of the century.

Gil followed her gaze with his, then smiled. "Aw. Molly
Lundgren. She's a babe."

"A what?"

"A babe," he repeated, laughing at the scowl he got for
his effort. He held his hands up in self-defense. "I'm quoting
Fletcher."

"He's holding her hand, Gil." She fought a sudden and
irrational urge to beat the girl away from Fletcher with a big stick.

"He would have been holding it last year, but he was two
inches too short. This year he's an inch taller than she is."

"He's only fifteen."

"Sixteen in July. After that I suspect he'll be doing a
lot more than holding that girl's hand. I'll probably never see my
truck again," he added wistfully.

"Gil, this isn't funny. Fletcher should go to college,
travel, see the world, do things. He's too young to have a girlfriend."

"No, he's not. I'd have to say his hormones kicked in
right on time," he said proudly. As an aside, he added, "Actually they
kicked in a couple years ago, and they've been stewing and raging until
he could work up the courage to act on them. But no, I think it's about
time for a girlfriend to enter the picture. Poor little devil."

"Poor little devil?"

"Well, look how long it took me to find someone like you,"
he said, grinning, thinking he'd slipped smoothly past that sticky
wicket. Glancing over her shoulder, he caught sight of something far
more interesting than his son's innocent love life. With one arm on her
waist he tried to lead her away from The Mixer.

She wasn't budging.

"Have you talked to him about girls? Does he know to
protect himself? Does he have… ?" She glanced about to see
how far her voice was being carried.

"Condoms?" he asked in a sneaky whisper, his face bent to
hers.

"Yes. Gil, this isn't funny. You have no idea how devious
girls can be. Smart, good-looking, personable boys like Fletcher are
always the ones they go after first."

"Speaking of smart," he said, trying once again to
distract her, "Ivan Levitz is in the dunking booth. Let's go get him."

"Gil, are you listening to me? This is important."

He stopped and turned to face her. The concern in her face
made his heart ache in the nicest way. He smiled at her.

"Of course I'm listening to you," he said, his hands
reaching out to take hers, their fingers intertwining most naturally.
"And do you know what you sound like?"

"A shrew?"

"Hardly. You sound like a mother who doesn't want to let
go of her little boy."

"I do?" He nodded. "Oh. I'm sorry. I… I just
thought… I'm sorry. I have no right to interfere or to tell
you how to raise your son. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. That's not at all what you were doing. You were
expressing your concern for my son, and I thank you for that. But I'm
afraid he wouldn't thank either one of us if we tried to come between
him and Molly. He's not a little boy anymore. He's a young man
—it's time for him to learn for himself how devious women can
be."

"Not all women are devious," she said defensively.

"You just said they were."

"No, I said some could be," she argued before catching the
amused twinkle in his eyes. She made a disgusted noise with her teeth
and shook her hands free. "So, who's Ivan Levitz? Oh! Baxter's still
getting his brains scrambled on this thing," she said, turning back to
The Mixer.

"No. He came off a few minutes ago. He's there," he said,
pointing upward. "On the Ferris wheel."

"Doesn't anything scare him?" she wondered aloud, half
weak with her own apprehensions for the boy. "How do you keep track of
them in a crowd like this?"

"Practice. Come on, before someone else gets Ivan."

As it happened, Gil and Ivan Levitz had grown up together
and were old friends and sometime rivals. Ivan's crowd-drawing appeal
consisted of the fact that he was now the high school principal.

Gil bought and used up three big
softballs—twice— without hitting the bull's-eye
that would knock the plank out from under Ivan and send him plunging
into the cold water in the tank below.

"Let me try," Dorie said, exasperated. Six balls. It was
pathetic.

"All right," he said, laying down a dollar and holding up
three balls. "But you have to throw 'em hard. None of those
weak-wristed girl throws. Just keep your eye on the bull's-eye and
throw as hard as you can."

His attitude snapped at something crazy in her mind. You
see, not only did Grampa Devries have a passion for billiards, he
smoked long, fat cigars and played a ruthless game of darts.

Dorie looked down at the balls in Gil's hand, her tongue
in her cheek, her female pride burning a hole in her brain. The park
reeked of beer and burnt hot dogs; of truth, justice, and the American
way…

"One ball," she said.

"One ball?" he asked with a get-serious expression on his
face.

"One ball. Your call."

"Are you betting me that you'll down him with one ball?"
Plainly, he wasn't believing his ears.

"Yes." She held her head a little higher when passers-by
began to gather around them and murmur among themselves.

"Well… what are you betting?" he asked.

"What do you want?"

He stared at her in disbelief. She could almost see the
catalog of prizes he was contemplating, then he looked around and
started to blush.

"All right, ah, let's see." He glanced to his right to
find that both his sons and his uncle had joined the crowd. His own
pride was now on the line. "Are you sure you want to do this, Dorie?"

"What do you want?" she asked again, calm and confident.

He was searching her face for some sort of message, like
get
me out of this
or
help me, I'm in over my head
.
But it simply wasn't there.

"For crying out loud, Howlett," hollered Ivan from his
perch. "Tell her what you want. You were never that shy in high school."

The gathering sent up a roar of laughter.

"Okay," he said, straightening his shoulders. "A weekend
in Kansas City, the best of everything, you pay."

"Only if I lose."

"Right."

Stepping around to position herself for the throw, she
scanned the crowd and asked, "Anybody want to buy his new combine to
pay for this trip? It's only a year old."

Again the laughter went up. They were highly amused by the
city doctor who was once a gangland moll, who fainted at calvings,
backed spreaders into ditches, made quarter-ton truckloads of cookies
every week, and still thought she could outthrow someone like Gil
Howlett.

With comic aplomb, she wound up for the pitch and then
stopped.

"A weekend in Kansas City. That's all you want?"

He grinned. "I can be a very expensive date," he said,
noting the namby-pamby way she was holding the ball, and feeling much
better.

With barely a glance at the target, she threw the ball and
stepped back from the wave of water that lapped over the side of the
tank when Ivan went in.

All the women—and a few of the more liberal men
—clapped and cheered at Dorie's good fortune. Matthew winked
at her, and the boys were exuberant. Gil, however, looked as if he
thought he might have been set up.

She shook hands and tolerated several well-meant pats on
her back. By the time she turned to the dunking machine, there was a
middle-aged woman sitting on the plank and the high school kids were
lining up eagerly.

"Who's this?" she asked Gil, her face shining with good
health and happiness.

"Mrs. Aris," he said, wishing he could hold a grudge
against her for longer than three or four minutes. "Fletcher's favorite
algebra teacher."

"Oh, wow! Okay, Fletch, a free wash and wax if I get her,"
she said, picking up her remaining two balls.

"Deal," he said, his grin stretching ear to ear.

"Oh, Mrs. Aris," she called. "You gave a good friend of
mine a great deal of grief in your algebra class this past
year…"

"So, how many other tricks have you got up your sleeve?"
Gil asked sometime later as they stretched out on a blanket in the
shade. They'd both eaten too much chicken, and finding it too much of
an effort to move, they were pacified to lay quietly and listen to the
bees buzz.

"I can't remember. Look for me, will you?" she asked,
flinging her sleeveless arm in his direction.

"Smartass," he muttered, then chuckled.

"No," she said, holding up one lazy finger. "Now, I told
you it was my mouth that was smart. My ass isn't good for anything
but—" She went silent when his hand clamped down over her
mouth.

"For crissake, Dorie, we're in the middle of a park."

She circled his palm with the tip of her tongue, and he
pulled it away as if he'd been electrocuted.

"You're blushing again," she told him, grinning wickedly.

"That's why you talk like that, isn't it? To see me blush."

"Mostly. That and the way your eyes get round and shocked
when you realize what I've said."

"You're a hussy, Dorie Devries," he said, smiling at her
indulgently. "You're going to spoil my innocence."

"Not here in the park, I'm not. You'll have to wait until
later tonight, after you put the boys to bed."

They were laughing together when they heard the first
wail. Like all maternal animals who can discern the cry of their own
offspring from the cries of other young animals, Dorie and Gil sat up
and immediately started looking around for Baxter. They got to their
feet, listening for the direction of the next bloodcurdling shriek.
They started running at the same time.

They found him on the sidewalk, limping like a fife player
on the Fourth of July, hollering at the top of his lungs through a
torrent of tears. Dorie was several yards away before she saw the blood
on his knee and came to an abrupt halt.

Stomach acids burned at the back of her throat as she
watched Gil kneel before his son through a tunnel of darkness. He
examined the knee quickly and then wrapped his arms around the boy to
comfort him. She stood mute, her hands trembling, her mind in a dither.
Baxter was hurt, it was all she could think about—Baxter, her
sweet Baxter, with the bright blue eyes and the devil's grin and the
freckles across his nose.