by Arlene James
The cabinets looked fine, 1,000 percent improvement if he did say so himself, but the work was nowhere near being finished. He went down on his knees and began scraping the ancient linoleum away from the floorboards with a spackling trowel, which he’d sharpened for the job. When he felt something touch the sole of his boot he warily moved into a crouch, pulling one foot up beneath him, and looked over his shoulder.
Becca was standing barefoot among a scattering of screws from a box he’d left on the seat of a chair he’d pulled away from the table to serve as a kind of workbench. In her arms she held baby CJ, red faced and wailing as she pried screws out of his fists. Realizing at once that the one-inch screws were small enough to be swallowed, Dan shot to his feet.
“He okay? Any in his mouth?”
Becca jostled the crying baby while using her thumb to force his chin down and get a look inside his mouth. She turned a calm face to Dan. “No, I don’t think he’d gotten that far with them.”
But he could have. The hair rose on the back of Dan’s neck. That baby could have swallowed a whole box of screws. And Dan would’ve had to stumble over him to even know. Incredibly, he watched her apologize.
“He shouldn’t have been in here. Jem spilled her cereal and I was distracted with…”
Dan turned away. He knew it was rude, but he just couldn’t bear to let her apologize for his failings. Another man would have heard the child there. This only reinforced his resolve to keep his distance.
Disappointment hit him, as profound and deep as on the day he’d finally understood that he was never going to hear again. On that day he’d sat through an awkward consultation with his doctor conducted almost entirely in writing, then he’d gone quietly into his hospital room and sobbed, only to look up and find that a nurse had entered without his knowledge. That had seemed the crowning humiliation and a harbinger of what his life was going to be like from that point on. Turning his back on that embarrassed nurse had been his only option that day. Getting away from Becca was all he could think to do now.
“Done for the day,” he announced, and started gathering up his gear. He dumped what he could into his portable toolbox, slapped the drill case under his arm, grabbed the flat metal squaring tool and headed for the door. Becca caught him by the arm as he passed her. Her small hand fit perfectly into the bend of his elbow and sent heat radiating up and into his chest. He forced himself to look at her face, seeing distress—and understanding. He felt bare, naked, raw. Whatever he expected her to say, it wasn’t what he read on her lips.
“The cabinets look wonderful.”
He nodded and pulled away before she could say more, moving quickly through the house and out to his truck. He didn’t stop moving until he was once more safely behind the door of his own home. Just him. And the silence.
Chapter Six
Becca settled the baby more comfortably on her hip and sighed as she stared through the screen door at the level new floor of her porch and the empty road beyond. It had been days since she’d laid eyes on Dan. He was invariably gone when she got home in the evenings. Obviously he was avoiding her, and she didn’t know why. She suspected that it had to do with the kids, even though that didn’t make much sense to her.
Right up until Monday he’d been patient to the point of indulgence with them, but she was beginning to wonder if it didn’t have more to do with his natural politeness and his circumstances than with Jemmy and CJ themselves. When Dan gave you his attention, it was necessarily intense. The lack of hearing and his dependence upon lipreading required him to lock his gaze on you, and the piercing blue of his eyes made the contact almost tangible. Unfortunately, a child wouldn’t understand that such focus might not be personal. From Jemmy’s and CJ’s ends, the connection went right down to the core of their own need.
She hadn’t realized how much they wanted a daddy. Even now Jemmy’s memories of her father were pale, like a movie on a fuzzy TV. CJ had no memories of him at all. He was born into a world without daddies, at least as far as he knew. Yet he worked as hard for Dan’s attention as Jemmy did, driven by some innate craving for a father figure.
Though while they both naturally gravitated to Dan, he continued to hold some part of himself aloof. From everyone. Oh, at times she’d sensed the possibility of more between Dan and herself, a deeper knowing, a magnificent sort of emotional connection, but circumstance had made him an artist at pulling back into himself, and he had definitely pulled back from her and the kids.
Maybe she’d read him all wrong. Maybe he just didn’t like kids and was too polite to say so. And maybe it had more to do with the shock and self-condemnation she’d seen in his eyes when he’d realized that CJ had gotten into that box of screws.
She sighed again and turned away from the door. The half-finished porch depressed her.
Oh, it was lovely how he’d squared it up with the front of the house. For the first time the floorboards were neat and level. The corner posts rested not on the ground itself but on a foundation of cement blocks, which had in turn been set on footings of gravel laid into a trench hardened with lime. He’d even built a skirt around the lower edge of the floor so critters couldn’t set up housekeeping underneath. Once a skunk had gotten in there and made the house unlivable for nearly a month. She wouldn’t have to worry about that happening again. But without the shelter of the roof, the incomplete porch made the house feel abandoned and hopeless in a way that the old, rickety one never had. It made her feel abandoned and hopeless.
Foolish notions, she told herself. No child of God was ever hopeless. She was proof of that, and Dan Holden was part of it. He’d come just when she’d needed him most, just when her faith in her ability to provide a stable, comfortable home for her children had begun to waver. She couldn’t shake the notion that the timing had been as right for him as for them. Hadn’t he said that he’d needed to be needed, to know that his life had purpose and value?
He had more purpose and value than he knew, because the fact was that she missed him. She missed his steady, pleasant manner, even his terse conversation and that air of wounded pride, for if Dan Holden had anything in abundance it was pride. Considering that fact, she wondered how he managed to cope with his handicap at all and suspected that it was only by the grace of God and his own deep faith.
Perhaps that faith was why she felt a serenity with Dan that she’d never known with Cody, whose exuberant personality had brought fun and adventure into her life, but little peace. Cody’s own belief had been sincere and absolute, but his happy-go-lucky nature had not lent itself to serious contemplation, and she had the feeling that Dan had done a whole lot of that, at least since he’d lost his hearing.
They did have one thing in common, Cody and Dan. They were both strong, masculine men who somehow made her keenly aware of her femininity without making her feel weak or foolish, as her father and brothers often had. She hadn’t realized how important that was until she’d lost it. Now she could have a chance for that again, with Dan, if only he felt the way that she did. She just didn’t know. She didn’t even know how to find out. Abby always said that the only thing to do when a body didn’t know which way to go was to get down on your knees, so that’s just what Becca did.
By Sunday she was certain that God didn’t mean her to give up on Dan Holden yet.
Once more she watched and waited for him, and when he finally appeared in church she summoned her nerve and signaled for him to join her, but Dan pretended not to see and reverted to his old pattern, taking a seat in the back pew and slipping out before anyone could engage him. She realized that she was going to have to force a confrontation, but it wasn’t until after dinner that Becca decided to visit him at his house again.
She looked at Abby, who’d just mentioned that she was going out back to sit in the shade with Jem, and simply said, “I’m going to Dan’s.”
Abby’s smile communicated understanding. “I was wondering how long you’d let it go.”
“I don’t want to pu
sh, but I have to do something. He just suddenly pulled back, and I don’t even know why.”
Abby nodded and patted her cheek. “You’re good for him. That much is plain.”
“Not to him, apparently.”
“Well, maybe somebody needs to set him straight.”
“I’m not sure anyone can.”
“God can, if He wills.”
“But I’m the one who has to talk to him,” Becca pointed out.
“I’ll say a prayer for you,” Abby promised.
Becca smiled, hugged her mother-in-law and went out.
Not until she was halfway across the front yard did she decide to walk. It was only about a half mile to the Holden place, and she needed the time to gather her thoughts. She’d reasoned out a calm, careful approach that went right out of her head the instant she realized that a strange car was parked in front of Dan’s house. She almost turned around, but it was too late for that. Dan was on the porch with two visitors, and she’d already been seen. Dithering for a moment, she didn’t know what to do, whether to wait until the couple left or interject herself into the situation. Then one of the visitors, a woman, turned and smiled at her. A moment later Dan lifted a hand and waved her forward.
Becca felt embarrassed and horribly conspicuous as she moved up the walkway and climbed the porch steps, but then she noticed that Dan was speaking to the strangers in sign language. Intrigued, Becca moved closer. Dan rested his hands on his hips for a moment and gave her a look that said he didn’t quite know what to do with her before quickly beginning to sign again. This time, he also spoke.
“Linda, Max, meet Becca.” He spelled out her name, his fingers flashing the symbols at lightning speed.
The woman, a tall, thin brunette, looked at Becca with palpable interest. “Hello,” she said warmly, her hands casually interpreting her words into sign language. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m sorry to intrude,” Becca apologized. “I didn’t realize Dan had company.”
“Oh, we’re on our way out,” Linda said, continuing to sign. “Max and Dan became friends in therapy last year, and we just wanted to stop by on our way home to Oklahoma City and see how he’s doing.”
Becca looked at Max. “That’s nice.”
Linda signed for Max and said to Becca, “My husband doesn’t read lips very well. He doesn’t have the knack, and since he cannot speak, we communicate by sign language.”
“I see.”
Max spoke to his wife with his hands, and Linda turned to Dan. “We really have to be going,” she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek.
“Good to see you,” Dan told her.
Then he signed something and shook Max’s hand as Max smiled and nodded and Linda said to Becca, “I hope we’ll see you again sometime.”
“That would be nice.”
Just before they started down the steps, Linda looked back over her shoulder. “I’m glad Dan’s doing so well.”
“Very well, I think,” Becca said, glancing at Dan.
He lifted a hand in farewell to his friends, then took Becca by the elbow and steered her unceremoniously into the house. The instant they were out of sight and earshot, he backed up about three steps and folded his arms.
“What?”
Becca bit her lip. Now that the moment had arrived, she wasn’t sure how to begin, so once more she dithered. “I—I didn’t realize that you had company.”
“Even I have friends,” he said, managing to sound sarcastic.
“Well, of course you do,” she snapped. Bowing her head, she tamped down her impatience before looking up again. “They seemed very interesting people. I take it you were in therapy with Max?”
“Took therapy from Max.”
“The sign language.”
“Yes. Not everyone can lip-read. Max was born deaf.”
“I see.”
“He doesn’t miss sound,” Dan went on. “Never knew it.”
“So he doesn’t feel sorry for himself,” Becca reasoned, realizing belatedly what she’d implied. “I didn’t mean that you do.”
Dan parked his hands at his waist and changed the subject. “Something wrong?”
“You tell me.”
He made a face, as mute as his friend Max.
Becca licked her suddenly dry lips and looked around the neat foyer, taking in the large, lovely house even as she tried to find the right words to begin what promised to be a difficult conversation. Her house, in comparison to this, was a tumble-down shack, and the Kinders’ wasn’t much better. Dismayed by that knowledge, Becca searched for some way to reconnect with this man who had somehow lodged himself inside her heart.
“Would you teach me sign language?”
Dan stared at her for a full fifteen seconds before saying flatly, “No.”
“Why not?” At last the words tumbled out. “What’s gone wrong between us, Dan?”
He blinked and frowned. “Nothing.”
“You know that’s not true.”
He shrugged as if to say that he didn’t know what she wanted from him.
“You’re avoiding me,” she accused, “and I don’t even know why.”
Bowing his head, he brought his hands to his hips and said slowly, “Becca, it’s best.”
Flexing her fingers, she fought to keep her hands relaxed at her sides and waited until he looked at her. “I don’t believe that.”
Suddenly he threw up his hands. It was the first time she’d heard him shout, and she covered her ears, knowing that he couldn’t realize how loud he was. “I’m not fit for you!”
She stomped forward, making him look at her. “That’s not true.”
“It is!”
Wincing, she automatically covered her ears again, then dropped her hands almost at once, but not before a look of sheer agony came over him.
“I can’t even hear myself! People stare when I’m too loud. Don’t fit in. A freak.” He closed his eyes. “Easier alone.”
Her hands at his shoulders, she shook him until his eyes popped open. “You’re not a freak.”
“Not a whole man.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Not the man for you.”
“How could you possibly know that? You haven’t even given us a chance to find out!”
He leveled his gaze and enunciated each word carefully. “You’re a mother. I can never be a father.”
So that was it. She felt an odd sense of relief. It wasn’t her, then. It was his fear of inadequacy. “You think you can’t be a father because you can’t hear. That’s baloney.”
He shook his head, an agonized look on his face. It was the same expression he’d worn the day that CJ had gotten into that box of screws. “Kids get hurt, cry for help. If my child were in danger, I wouldn’t know!”
“That was my fault with the screws,” she told him, “and I can hear just fine. There must be ways to minimize the risks.”
“Can’t think of any. I’ve tried!”
Stepping closer, she looked up into his face. “Things have a way of working themselves out if you just give them a chance.”
He swallowed and said, “I have to accept my limitations.”
“And sometimes you have to at least try to move beyond them,” she countered.
He shook his head stubbornly. “Not fair to the kids, you.”
“Your deafness is not a problem for us. So you can’t hear, so what?”
“So what? CJ almost swallowed screws. I didn’t know!”
“You couldn’t be expected to.”
“My fault,” he insisted stubbornly.
“Next time you won’t leave them in reach.”
Dan shoved a hand over the top of his head and said desperately, “I don’t get half what Jemmy says.”
Becca reached up and placed her hand in the hollow of his shoulder just above his collarbone. “Dan,” she told him, “what you hear with your ears isn’t nearly as important as what you say with your heart. Think on that, will you? And while y
ou’re at it, think on this.” Going up on tiptoe, she angled her head and brought her mouth to his.
For an instant she thought he would pull away, but then his arms came around her, and for a brief, sweet moment she knew the joy of being held again, of being wanted again. Suddenly she remembered that she had instigated this, that he was too polite to do anything but kiss her back, and chagrin at her own forwardness made her break away. Appalled at what she’d done, she turned tail and left without even a word of farewell.
Dan was loading his tools into the back of the truck when Becca drove up to the house with the kids. She parked the car, got out and looked at him frankly, letting him know that she was surprised to find him still there. He was surprised himself, but he couldn’t deny that he’d wanted to see her again. He’d missed her, much more than was wise, since she’d come to his house four days ago, since she’d kissed him. He stopped what he was doing and watched as Becca moved to the back door of the car and reached inside to free the children from their safety restraints.
Jemmy piled out first, pushing past her mom to reach the ground. She stood leaning against the car fender, watching Dan warily, her bottom lip stuck out. He felt like the biggest heel in the universe, but he didn’t know yet what to do about it. He was so afraid of doing the wrong thing, the selfish thing.
Closing the toolbox, he waited for Becca to speak. She approached with CJ on her hip, moving in that twisted, leaning gait that she somehow made look graceful and natural. She studied the completed porch before switching her gaze to his face.
“Looks great.”
He nodded and let the feeling of a job well done flow over him. “It’ll look better painted.”
