Winter's Child

I quit, cold turkey, two years later when Mother was dying from lung cancer. It was part of my attempt to bargain with God: Please let her live and I’ll never light another cigarette, never drive over fifty-five, never get in thebackseat with another boy, never skip church again, please?

Giving up cigarettes was the only part of the vow that I stuck with.

But then God didn’t keep His side of the bargain either.

The toaster dinged and the fragrance of nicely browned bread mingled with the aroma of bubbling chicken gravy.

But thinking of bargains and litter reminded me. “If it warms up some, Minnie and Doris want us all out Saturday morning to clean up our own stretch of road. It’s getting pretty messy.”

“I’d love to help y’all,” Dwight said with a grin, “but Rouse’s killing will probably eat up most of my free time unless we clear it fast.”

“You think he was shot by someone in his wife’s family?”

“Well, he did beat her up pretty bad this time,” Dwight told me as he ladled hot chicken over his toast and helped 2 himself to salad. “Her brother took her to the emergency room last night and she and the kids are staying with him right now.”

“How’d she take the news?”

“Started crying as soon as we told her. Hard to say if she was crying for herself or the kids.” He added some bread-and-butter pickles to his plate and passed the jar to me. “The brother and sister-in-law weren’t shedding any tears, though. Richards couldn’t understand everything they said, but the gist seemed to be that it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving dog. They started right in planning the wife’s new life, how she would move in with them and take care of all the children while her sister-in-law goes to work in the brother’s lawn care business.”

“The brother have an alibi?” I asked, nibbling at a slice of pickle myself. Their crisp sweetness was made for hot chicken sandwiches.

“Said he was on the job till full dark. Richards will check it out tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” That reminded me. “Portland asked if we could babysit tomorrow night so she and Avery can go to a movie. It’ll be the first time they’ve both left the baby.”

“And they’re going to trust us?”

“Who better? You’ve practiced on Cal and I’ve been babysitting nieces and nephews since I was twelve. Besides, they figure that if there’s an emergency, you could get help faster than anybody else in the county.”

“On one condition. Avery got a boxed set of early Marx Brothers movies for Christmas.”

I groaned. He knows I hate slapstick as much as he hates chick flicks, yet he keeps trying to get me to sit through endless reruns of Laurel and Hardy or FawltyTowers.

“Did he tell you that Portland’s mother gave her the original Love Affair ?” I asked sweetly. “The 1939 version with Charles Boyer and Irene Dunn?”

“They shot that damn thing twice?”

“Four times, if you count Sleepless in Seattle,” I said.

“I’ll make you a deal. If you can watch Duck Soup without laughing, I’ll watch Irene Dunn fall under a taxi.

Hell, I’ll even get you your own box of Kleenex.”

We were clearing the table and loading the dishwasher when Dwight’s cell phone rang. He frowned at the number displayed on the little screen.

“Shaysville,” he muttered.

I glanced at the clock. Shaysville, Virginia? Nine-fifteen on a school night? It could be only Jonna, his ex-wife and mother of his eight-year-old son, Cal.

Dwight’s voice was carefully neutral when he answered, but it immediately turned warm. “Hey, buddy,”

he said. “What’s up? And how come you’re still up?”

He listened intently and I saw a frown begin. “Where’s your mom, son? . . . Did she say when she’d be back? . . .

Is Nana there? . . . Okay, but— . . . Tomorrow? Sorry, buddy, but— . . . No, I’m just saying that if you’d told me earlier, maybe we could have worked something out.”

There was another long pause, then his shoulders stiffened in resolution and his voice became reassuring. “No, it’s fine. I can do it. How are the roads? It snowed up there last night, didn’t it? . . . What’s your teacher’s name 2 again? . . . Ten o’clock? . . . I’ll be there. I promise. Now you scoot on into bed, you hear?”

He laid the phone down with a sigh.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Not really. Jonna’s out somewhere and her mother came over to sit with Cal, but she fell asleep on the couch so he took advantage of the situation to stay up later than usual and to call me even though Jonna told him not to.”

“Not to call you?” I started to get indignant on his behalf.

“He wants me to come to his school tomorrow morning. Says he promised his teacher I’d be there. Jonna told him he couldn’t expect me to come running up without any notice, but—” He shook his head ruefully.

“But he knows his dad,” I said. “I’ll set the clock for four-thirty, okay?”