One More Knight

“I’ve got nothin’ to say to you.” The boy flung the words like knives, and Troy felt each and every one of ’em right in his own heart.

Charly didn’t flinch, though. “That wasn’t what I asked,” she said in a stronger voice. “I said I’d like to talk to you. Maybe you could just listen to what I have to say?”

While she was saying that, Cutter’s chin pushed up and then jutted out, and Troy, watching, felt a shiver of recognition that almost-almost-made him laugh. It reminded him so much of Charly, the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her, coming down the hallway that night he’d bailed her out of jail. Lord, he thought, if the kid had very much of his mother in him, then Charly was in for the fight of her life.

“There’s nothin’ you have to say that I want to hear.”

“Maybe you should hear me out before you decide that,” Charly countered. She cleared her throat. “Look, my father and I just talked. We both said some things that needed to be said. And…it was a good thing. Maybe a new start. Don’t you think you could…give us the same chance?”

She hadn’t touched him, but he shook himself away from her as if she had, taking a step backward and holding up his hands. “Look,” he said, “I’m glad you and Pop talked-I really am. That’s between you and him, all right? And if that’s what makes him happy, then…fine. But you and me? That’s somethin’ else again.” He turned from her, enough so Troy could see his face plainly, and the struggle that was going on inside him-the struggle between the little boy he’d been and the man he wanted to be.

“I’m not tryin’ to be mean,” he said in a man’s voice…a boy’s mumble. “All right? I just want to make sure you understand, I don’t want you in my life. I don’t need you, okay?”

“Cutter-”

The hand came up again, demanding silence as he fought his inner battle for control. Finally he pulled in a sustaining breath. “There was a time I did. I used to say my prayers every night-‘God bless my mama and keep her safe and bring her back.’” In spite of all his efforts, his voice cracked. He drew another breath. “But that was when I was little, okay? I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need a mother, and if I did, it wouldn’t be you. Dobie and Pop, they’re my mama and daddy. You had your chance, and you blew it when you walked out on us. You’ve got no place here. So you can just…finish up your business and go, okay? Go back to…where you came from-I don’t care. Just… leave us alone.”

Troy watched as the smooth young face seemed to crack like old china, finally letting loose the tears the kid had been trying so hard to contain. And he thought, That’s one more thing he’s gonna have a hard time forgiving her for.

As for himself, Troy was discovering that there was nothing in this world quite like the pain of watching somebody you care about-somebody you love-get hurt. He’d had things happen to him before-like his dad dying, buddies getting killed-but at those times, it seemed like there’d been a kind of a buffer, a sense of unreality, of shock, that he guessed must be nature’s way of protecting people from things that might otherwise be more than they could handle. Here, there was nothing between him and the pain, nothing at all. He could see it like a crushing burden pressing down on Charly’s head and shoulders, and feel the weight of it in his own chest. And added to it, the sharp, cutting agony of helplessness, of wanting so badly to help her, and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.

He was barely aware of it when Cutter brushed past him, heading for the exit. His eyes were on Charly, and he was moving toward her like a man wading through a swamp.

“Hey,” he’d just managed to say through the muck in his throat, and was reaching for her, had just touched her shoulder when they both heard a sound.

They turned at the same moment to see Dobrina standing in the doorway. She hesitated a moment when she saw Troy, then gave him a polite nod and came on in. She had a big handbag over one arm and another, smaller one, clutched to her chest.

“You been in t’ see your father?” the housekeeper asked, zeroing in on Charly with her fierce, deep-socketed glare. “He’s been askin’ for you.”

Charly whispered, “Yes, ma’am,” and brushed at her cheeks as if she had no right to tears. Then she cleared her throat and said in a stronger voice, “Yes, I did, Aunt Dobie. We had a good talk. Um, Cutter just-”

“I saw him leavin’.” The woman’s voice had the hard-edged, angry sound of too much emotion. “Best to leave ’im be, for a while. Just leave ’im be. He’s young, you know-he don’t understand…” She paused, her head moving from side to side, as if she’d lost her way. Then she looked down at the pocketbook she was holding and thrust it at Charly. “Here, honey, I brought you your purse.” She lifted her head up. To Troy it looked as if she was bracing herself.

Charly reached for the purse, murmuring thanks and sniffling a little, but instead of handing it over, Dobrina shook her head and clutched her arm with one strong, brown hand. “The Good Lord forgive me for takin’ it-and for puttin’ that bottle a’ whiskey in your car, too. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did.” Then she drew herself up, proud and fierce once more. “Maybe it wasn’t my place to interfere, but I wasn’t about to let you leave again. No, sir-not after the way you and your father were talkin’ to each other, just yellin’ and hurtin’ each other, and nobody speakin’ the truth. There’s been enough a’ that in this family. And enough, I say, is enough.”

With that, she let go of Charly’s arm and reached into the big handbag she had slung over hers and pulled something out. It was a book-Troy could see that much-about the size of a prayer book, green leather, embossed in gold, letters he couldn’t quite make out. But he heard Charly give a little gasp of recognition as Dobrina placed the book in her hands.

“I found this,” the housekeeper said in a cracking voice, “after you went away. Maybe I shouldn’t have read it-I expect that’s somethin’ else the Lord’s gonna have to forgive me for, and you, too-but I thought…well, I thought maybe there’d be somethin’ in there to tell us where you’d gone.” She laughed soundlessly through the tears that had begun to stream down her smooth, nut brown cheeks. “Well, there was, I guess. Yes, there was somethin’, all right. But honey, California’s a mighty big place.

“I never told your father, nor Cutter, either. It wasn’t my place. That’s yours, Charlene, honey-yours to keep or to share. That’s up to you. But that boy a’ yours-he needs to know the truth. Time he knew the whole truth, child-about his daddy-” Charly gave a small, involuntary gasp “-and how it was with you all. You give that book to Cutter to read, honey. You give it to him, now. It’s time.”

She patted Charly on the arm and turned away, nodding, while Charly stared at her, her face bone white and glistening, like a marble statue in the rain.

“Miz Phelps?” The young ICU duty nurse was standing in the doorway, looking like a little girl in her lavender cotton scrubs. “Ma’am, the cardiologist would like to talk to you. Long as you’re here…”

Both women started forward at the same time. The nurse flicked a glance at Charly as she beckoned the housekeeper past her. “I meant Mrs. Phelps-sorry about that.” And to Dobrina, she said, “Ma’am, if you want to, you can just go right on in.” She gave Charly an apologetic smile and went back to her station.

She left behind her a stunned and vibrating silence. And then the air exploded from Charly’s lungs.

“Aunt Dobie? When? How long have you-?”

“Nineteen years last April,” Dobrina said with quiet dignity, standing straight as a pillar with her hands clasped loosely at her waist. She lacked only one of those tall, pointed crowns, Troy thought, and she could have been a golden statue guarding the entrance to an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. “One year to the day after you left home.” Her chin rose a fraction of an inch higher. “It was his idea. I nevah asked for it.”

He heard a peculiar creaking sound and realized it must be Charly, trying to swallow, trying to speak. And then she was moving toward the other woman, slowly and wobbling a bit, like someone just getting on her feet after being sick for a while. “I’m…glad…Aunt Dobie. I really am. I’m just…surprised. I never-I didn’t know my father…”

“No, you didn’t,” said Dobrina softly. “Nor your son, either. It’s time you did, child. Time you did.” She patted Charly’s hand once more, hesitated for just a moment, then continued on to the ICU and the husband that needed her.

“Oh, boy. Wow. I can’t believe it. Married. Oh…boy.” Charly kept it up, a breathless, whispered monologue as she and Troy hurried through the hospital corridors. “My father and Aunt Dobie. Wow.”

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Troy asked when they were outside on the concrete apron, blinking in the