The Heart's Voice

by Arlene James

  John took the glass and helped himself. After taking a long swallow, he topped off the glass and turned back to Dan. “Real sweet, just like I like it.”

  “Jem, too.”

  “Where do you think she got it from?”

  Dan chuckled. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. It’s my break. Every day but Tuesday and Thursday I work a split shift—four or five hours after opening, four or five hours in the evening to close. I usually go pick up the kids and take them home with me till Becca comes, then I go back to the store. Figured I’d just hang out with you today instead.”

  Dan blinked at that, but John didn’t notice; he’d turned toward the hallway. Bemused, Dan followed him toward the living room. When John reached the center of the hall he winced and looked back over his shoulder. “When you gonna fix that screech?”

  “Screen?”

  “Scree-ch.”

  “Oh. The squeak.”

  John pointed at the floor. “That’s no piddly squeak, son. That’s a banshee in your floor.”

  “Soon,” he said, figuring he’d better get to it quickly before something significant gave way.

  John nodded and continued into the living room. He switched on the television before taking the armchair, making himself right to home. Dan figuratively shook his head. Looked as if he had company.

  Life had sure changed. Not so long ago, his was the only face he saw in an average day, and only then for as long as it took him to clean up. He’d forgotten what it was like to have people in his life on a routine basis, friends dropping by, others to consider before he started some project or took himself off to bed. It was more complicated this way, but it was also richer.

  “Where’s the kids?” John asked when Dan looked back to him.

  Dan glanced at the monitors clipped to his belt. “CJ’s sleeping. Jemmy’s out back. Checking on her now.” With that he left the room, retracing his steps. When he reached the center of the hall he stopped to feel the give in the floor. Better get under there as soon as possible. If John was going to be around for a while, and it appeared he was, maybe he could slip under there today to take a look.

  He went out to find Jem playing with her turtle. He had a hard time figuring out how she could get such enjoyment from a creature with so little personality. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it paid her no mind and couldn’t speed off, since she seemed to jabber nonstop to it as she constantly changed the direction in which it plodded. She was looking forward to the rabbit he’d promised, and they’d built a hutch this morning, but he’d had no opportunity to go shopping. Thankfully, she seemed content with the possibility of getting one for now, and he figured it was a possibility so long as her mama didn’t catch wind of their scheme too soon.

  “Jem,” he called, and she looked up with a smile that squeezed his heart. “Your grandpa’s here.” He watched her get up off the grass and run to put the turtle back in its pen.

  “Do we have to go, Danny?” she asked as she ran up to him.

  There it was again. Her pet name for him. He smiled and smoothed a hand down the back of her pale head. “Naw, thought you’d like to know he came for a visit.”

  “Oh, goody,” she said, slipping her hand into his.

  They turned and walked back to the house, where she crawled up into her grandfather’s lap and settled down to watch a game show. This was how it should be, Dan thought. Becca had to see that eventually. God had shown him; He would show her.

  “John,” he asked, clearing his throat, “do you mind watching the kids awhile? Want to check under the house about that squeak.”

  “Sure, son, you go ahead,” John said, tilting back his head. “Better you than me.”

  Dan handed over CJ’s monitor and went to change, being careful not to wake the napping boy. Looking in briefly, he found the babe sleeping on his stomach, two fingers in his mouth and his rump sticking in the air. Things had gone easier for them all today, thankfully. He went quietly down the stairs, along the hall and through the kitchen, snatching a flashlight from the utility room as he headed out the back door.

  The foundation skirt opened in the back right next to the water spigot. Dan removed the portable section and set it aside before going down on all fours. He could understand why this sort of thing unnerved some people, but he’d done his share of tunneling and working in close quarters during his time in the Corps. This was nothing compared to some of the work he’d done setting up demolitions and ferreting out explosives. Oddly, that experience served him well now that he’d turned his efforts to building. Funny how life turned out sometimes.

  When he’d been whole, he’d taken some extreme chances, often volunteering for the most dangerous jobs. Many times he’d remarked that it was the element of danger that made what he did exciting. Now he was thrilled to stand and watch a little girl talking to a turtle. He took pride in making a lunch she’d eat on the first try and keeping her baby brother happy. Just this morning he’d coaxed CJ up into an independent standing position. Soon the little fellow would take his first steps, and Dan wanted to be there to see it, right alongside his mother.

  That was something else he figured he’d better take care of soon, though when he thought of it, his heart pounded as it never had when he’d put his life on the line. Flopping down on his belly and crawling into the dark unknown seemed like a piece of cake in comparison.

  Becca looked at Jessica with pure horror. “How long?”

  “Five hours,” Jessica told her. “When I got here this morning, he had him a kind of little sled thing with tools and a bag of cement on it all ready to go. Said something about a squeak in the floor.”

  Becca knew all about that squeak in the floor. Dan had explained at dinner last evening that a wood support pier had dried out and shrunk, leaving the floor joist to sag. It hadn’t cracked yet, but soon would if he didn’t get it shored up. When he’d tried to wedge a block of wood in there, however, the beam had started to crumble, so he would have to dig and pour a cement footing for something called a jack pier. She couldn’t see how anyone could dig a hole and pour cement under a house without tearing up the floor first, but he’d just shrugged and said there were ways. He’d spoken briefly then about a time when he and his team had actually tunneled beneath a building with their hands under cover of darkness and in dead silence. He hadn’t said what for, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know, but she’d pointed out then that he hadn’t been working alone.

  “And he knew you had to leave before noon?” she asked Jessica.

  “He said if I’d fix the kids’ lunch, he’d come in at eleven forty-five and feed it to them.”

  “But he didn’t come in.” Becca bit her lip worriedly.

  “And I’ve just got to go,” Jessie said, handing over CJ. “I’m sorry to bring the kids to the store like this. I was supposed to be at the school by one, and I did try to get his attention with a flashlight first. Didn’t do any good to holler for him.”

  “Dear heaven,” Becca said, wondering if he was hurt and trapped under there.

  Jessie gave Becca a mildly censorial look and said, “You really ought to get a phone in your house.” She made a face and added, “Everybody but me has a cell phone.”

  “I don’t,” Becca muttered, spreading her feet to balance CJ’s weight on her hip. She was much too worried about Dan at the moment to really think of anything else, let alone correct Jessie’s assumption that Dan’s house was any part hers or that she and the kids would be there long enough to warrant putting in a phone. “Thank you, Jessie, and I’m sorry about this.”

  As the girl hurried away, Becca turned and called for Abby. Jem had already run back to the deli counter to filch a taste of something from her grandpa. Abby appeared, an anxious look on her face at the sound of Becca’s voice.

  “Could you watch CJ for a minute? I need to go check on Dan.”

  “What on earth?” Abby began, taking her grandson into her arms.

  “He
’s been under the house for hours, and he knew that Jessica had to leave by noon.”

  “You don’t think he’s been hurt or passed out under there?”

  “I just don’t know. It’s awful hot out. What if he’s got heat stroke?”

  “Take the car,” Abby said. “And maybe you ought to take John, too, just in case.”

  Becca shook her head, already hurrying away. John would be next to useless in this kind of situation, and Abby couldn’t handle the store and the kids on her own. She’d find out what had happened, and if necessary go next door and phone for emergency assistance.

  After parking the sedan behind his truck, she rushed around back to find the gaping hole in the foundation skirt. A water hose ran from the spigot outside under the house, its tautness telling her that it had been employed for some purpose. Going down on her hands and knees, she called out to him, even knowing that he couldn’t hear her. Peering into the dark, she saw nothing. Could he have gone into the house?

  Quickly she shimmied backward and pushed up to her feet. Then she ran across the covered patio and into the house, through the laundry room and the kitchen. The hall was empty, too. For the sake of thoroughness she continued across the hallway into the formal dining room, which was seldom used though the pocket doors between it and the living room were routinely left open. No Dan. She ran for the entry, stuck her head into the study and then climbed the stairs as fast as she could go. She swung into the master bedroom and right on into the bath through the open door. No one.

  Back out into the hall she went and through the remaining bedrooms and the second bath. Where could he be? The apartment.

  Dashing down the stairs and out the back of the house, she ran for the garage, praying aloud, “Oh, God, oh, God, please let him be okay. Oh, please. Oh, please.”

  Her leg muscles burned with the effort of racing up those steep steps, but she didn’t slow until she came to the door. Wrenching the knob, she thrust the door open and literally leaped into the living area. A glance showed her nothing to alleviate her fears. The bedroom and bath proved similarly unhelpful. She was almost sobbing as she ran out again, leaving the door open behind her. She pounded down the stairs, across the drive and through the yard, hitting the ground on knees and palms in front of the foundation opening.

  It occurred to her that she should’ve located the flashlight that Jessie had used, but she wasn’t going to waste any more time looking for it. Instead, she dropped to her belly and dug her elbows into the soft dirt just inside the opening, pulling her body forward and into the dark. Blinded by the sudden shift from bright sunlight to inky darkness, she couldn’t see a thing.

  Craning her neck, she butted her head against a floor joist, driving her teeth together with jaw-cracking force. She ducked down and crawled on, gradually becoming aware that it was cooler here than outside in the sunshine. She heard a rustle of movement, and the word snake instantly popped into her head.

  Galvanized, she picked up the pace, heedless of her now raw and aching elbows. She didn’t bother calling out, knowing that it was wiser to save her energy for what might await ahead. A flashlight suddenly blinked on.

  “Becca?”

  The light swung around. No longer blinded, she recognized shapes in the gloom: a board on runners stacked with tools, a small shovel and round plastic tub, a large, thick paper bag empty of its contents, levels, rubber mallet, hammer, long, heavy rubber gloves. She saw, too, a scattering of chat or gravel and a number of miscellaneous bits of lumber. In the midst of it sprawled Dan’s long, muscular body, one arm flung out, chest gently rising and falling. At least he was alive. Thank God.

  “Where are you hurt?”

  “What?”

  “Where. Are. You. Hurt?”

  He flopped over onto his belly and skewed around. “I’m not. Just resting. What’s going on?”

  Relief flooded her. Thank You, God. She touched his face with her hand, somehow needing that physical connection to finally put her fears to rest. Sweet heaven, what would she do if anything ever happened to him? She thought of Cody and what it had meant to lose him, and the horror of also losing Dan brought hot tears to her eyes. Anger quickly followed. “What do you mean, you’re not? You’ve scared the life out of me!”

  “Scared?”

  “You were supposed to relieve Jessica at eleven forty-five!”

  He shoved his wrist into the light beam, checking the time on his watch. “Oh, man.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, the flashlight between them. He’d been working and lost track of time. That’s all it was. She was ashamed to say that she’d panicked and assumed the worst, but all she’d been able to think at the time was that she might have lost him, too. How she could lose something that wasn’t even hers she didn’t know.

  Finally he said, “Let’s get out of here. Go on.”

  She turned, with some difficulty, and began crawling for the opening. Her muscles felt weak and depleted. Dan pulled ahead, taking the flashlight with him, and got through the opening first. When she finally pushed her upper body out into the sunlight, he reached down and hauled her to her feet. She came to rest against his chest and he held her there, his strong, capable hands clamped around her arms just above the elbows.

  “Sorry, honey. Time stands still in dark and silence.”

  She dropped her gaze. “We thought you’d gotten hurt under there.”

  “Just busy. Lost track of time.”

  “You’re telling me! It’s going on two.” Okay, it was almost half past one. In principle it was nearly two, which didn’t begin to explain why the sap was grinning at her.

  “You came to rescue me,” he said, linking his hands in the small of her back.

  Suddenly she realized how close they were standing, their bodies actually touching, and her heart thumped pronouncedly. She attempted to step back, grumbling, “I came to read you the riot act.”

  He just grinned and pulled her against him again. Lifting his hands to her face, he slipped his fingers into her hair.

  “You came to rescue me.”

  He bent his head, and somehow she was on her tiptoes, so that their mouths met and melded into sweetness. Cupping her head, he tilted it. Love poured out of her, an endless supply, too long pent up and yearning for expression. Finally he pressed his forehead to hers.

  “Don’t close up tonight, do you?”

  “No.”

  He lifted his head and let his hands fall away. “Home about six?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “At the store.”

  “Send them back with John.”

  “All right.” She backed away, feeling slightly dazed and disoriented.

  “Better change,” he said meaningfully, and she looked down at herself.

  “Mercy!” Well, what had she expected after dragging herself through the dirt? “Just look at me!”

  He lifted his gaze to hers and said loudly, “You’re beautiful.”

  She couldn’t help laughing, even as her heart flopped over inside her chest. “I am?”

  He just smiled.

  It spread through her then—a rare, wonderful knowledge. Everything had changed. The world had fixed itself somehow, as if God had smiled and pronounced creation perfect. All of her worries, all of her fears—some of them unnamed and so unacknowledged until just now—all of her confusion was swept aside in the space between one breath and the next. She didn’t know how or why yet. In fact, she had no answers at all at the moment. Yet everything was right, just fine, exactly as it should be.

  “I’ll get cleaned up,” Dan said, moving toward the apartment.

  She stood there like a complete idiot, caught in some heavenly snare, until he disappeared across the drive. Turning suddenly, she hurried into the house to do the same.

  “So’d you get finished?”

  Dan shook his head at John Odem and explained. “Concrete has to cure. Then put in a pier jack.”

 
John shuddered. “Don’t know how you do it. Don’t even want to know.”

  Dan shrugged. “Used to it.”

  “When you gonna finish Claude Benton’s roof?”

  “Tomorrow, hopefully.”

  “I told him you’d get to it soon as you could when he came into the store today. He said not to worry. Want me to let him know you’ll be there in the morning?”

  “Yes, thanks.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “About the kids…”

  “What about ’em?”

  Dan lifted a hand to the back of his neck. “Could you stay with them till I get back?”

  John nodded. “Sure. Where you going?”

  “Duncan. Important. Be quick as I can.”

  John Odem dangled his hands at the ends of his arms, as if shaking the feeling back into them, and said, “I reckon we can manage something.”

  Dan took a deep breath. “Thing is, don’t really want ’em here when Becca gets home.”

  John’s eyebrows went straight up. “Care to tell me why?”

  Dan looked him in the eye. “Question to ask. In private.”

  John’s eyebrows climbed higher. “About time, I’d say. Dixon’s at the store now, talking to Becca. He wants to bring a fellow out to look at the property, says he’s going to build a feedlot.”

  “That so?” John nodded sagely, and Dan asked, “How do you feel about it?”

  “Her selling the place?” John shrugged, his gaze skittering away from Dan’s. “That’s her business.”

  “Cody’s land,” Dan pointed out gently.

  John Odem sighed. “Keeping it won’t change anything. She could use the money for college funds for the kids. I reckon Cody would want Frank to have it.” But it was the end of Cody’s dream, and they both knew it. John clapped a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “It’s as it should be. I wouldn’t change it if I could, and that’s the truth. No father could take heaven from his son, and I can’t say God hasn’t provided what we’ve been missing.”

  Dan had to look down to hide the sudden sheen in his eyes. “Thanks, John.”