All a Man Is

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She kept thinking about what he’d said to Matt at the hospital. I wanted us to be a family for real. He’d also talked about how a person could love more than one person at a time. But...thinking back, it seemed to her that a lot of what he’d said had focused on thinking of them as his family. If he asked her to marry him, as she assumed he would, Julia didn’t think, no matter what, she could bring herself to say no. He was too good to her and so good for the kids. She could not imagine living her life without him when she had the alternative of living it with him.

  But that didn’t keep her from wishing she could know for sure that he would have loved her, just her, whether Matt and Liana were part of the package or not.

  And then there was the trial. She’d taken to eyeing the calendar daily, mentally checking off the days until he had to go. A week from tomorrow was August 4. He’d said they would probably want him that week, and it seemed likely he’d choose to fly out on the fourth, as it was a Sunday. So he’d be there for Liana’s birthday party and then gone the following day. And even if the trial lagged and he didn’t have to go quite that soon, he still had to go eventually. She was scared to death that Roberto Perez would find a way to keep Alec from testifying. Alec’s very confidence in himself heightened her fear. Would he really let himself be kept in seclusion and guarded by federal agents, the way he should? Or would he take the threat too lightly?

  The few hours of sleep she and Alec had gotten today hadn’t been enough to make up for what they’d lost the night before, though, which meant she did sleep, and deeply. She awakened to the sound of voices. Straining to hear, she decided it was the television and relaxed. Liana was up.

  Julia stuck her head in the living room and found her daughter curled on the sofa watching a favorite DVD rather than a television show. Julia bent over the back of the sofa, kissed the top of her head and said, “I’m going to take a quick shower.”

  “Uncle Alec said you promised waffles this morning.”

  “I did, and I’ll deliver.”

  “Cool!”

  “Let him in if he gets here, but look out the window to be sure it’s him before you answer the door, okay?”

  Liana rolled her eyes, looking disconcertingly adolescent.

  By the time Julia emerged, feeling like a new woman, Alec had indeed arrived. His dark eyes surveyed her, and his approval of her shorts and skimpy T-shirt was obvious.

  Over the breakfast table, he talked to Liana about her brother. “I think you’re going to find he’s different. He got some things out he needed to say to your mom and me, and that’s going to make a difference.”

  Her high forehead crinkled. “What things?”

  Alec shook his head. “I think right now it’s better if Matt can keep that private. I don’t blame you for being curious, but I’d suggest you don’t push it with him. If he wants to tell you, he can, but let him do it in his own way, when he’s ready.”

  Liana looked astonished and indignant. “But I want to know!”

  Amusement crinkled the corners of Alec’s dark eyes. “You always want to know everything, sweet pea. But this time—” He shook his head. “You want the old Matt back, don’t you?”

  She gaped, then looked at Julia. “Mom! Why can’t I know what happened? He doesn’t have to know I know.”

  Julia’s laughter came more easily this morning than it had in a long time. “I hate to say it, daughter of mine, but you have a big mouth. You’d say something, and then he’d be mad that we told you.”

  “Humph.” Liana crossed her arms and glared at them.

  Alec laughed, too. “I like you better smiling than glowering.”

  He swept them out the door a few minutes after. Julia hadn’t even finished cleaning the kitchen and didn’t care. Matt was waiting for them to pick him up. He looked pathetic with the sling, the bandage on his head and, yes, a pair of black eyes.

  He was also, if possible, even more subdued this morning and got grumpy when in the backseat his sister persisted in begging to be the first person to sign his cast.

  “You’ll do it in some girly colors and then I’d have to tell everyone my sister wrote on it,” he said disagreeably.

  Julia sighed, but caught the grin twitching on Alec’s mouth. Well, okay, the squabble probably was standard-issue brother-sister interaction. And besides, Liana was being kind of a pain, in revenge going on about her horse camp starting tomorrow and how especially with a broken arm Matt wouldn’t be able to do anything.

  “He can’t swim,” she said with satisfaction, “or ride his bike or—”

  “Knock it off,” Alec said mildly before she could continue. “One of these days you’ll injure yourself and you don’t want your brother gloating, do you?”

  Fortunately, Sophie was sitting on her front steps, apparently waiting, because she bounced to her feet as soon as the car turned in. Given permission, Liana raced off to her house. Andrea’s car was in the driveway, so presumably she was home. Julia couldn’t help noticing that Alec had gotten out and looked around carefully before he let her go.

  When Matt climbed out slowly, he gazed toward Alec’s empty driveway. “Are you going to have to drive Mom’s car from now on?” he asked in a small voice.

  “No, I talked to my insurance agent yesterday,” Alec said. “The rental company is supposed to deliver a comparable vehicle by midday.” Of course, he had to explain that a comparable vehicle meant an SUV. And no, the agent hadn’t seen the Tahoe yet, but would be looking tomorrow morning. Julia already knew that the officers who had seen it had told Alec it was a miracle Matt had escaped with relatively minor injuries and that the Tahoe would never drive again.

  “Will they replace it?” Matt asked almost meekly.

  “I’ll lose some money,” Alec said. “Because I’ve been driving it for four months, it’s considered used. It’ll cost me if I want to start with another new one.”

  Matt seemed to shrink. “Oh.”

  “I can afford it.” Alec clapped him on the back, but lightly. “Although I may deduct what I lose from how much I’m willing to contribute to buying you a car when you get your driver’s license.”

  “If you get your driver’s license,” Julia said sternly, glad Alec hadn’t sugarcoated the reality of what Matt had done.

  Alarm flared on her son’s face. “They can’t keep me from driving, can they? I mean, when I’m sixteen?”

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t know about the Department of Motor Vehicles, but I can.”

  He opened his mouth. Their gazes held. After a long moment, he slowly closed his mouth.

  Alec laid a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Let’s go in.”

  “Did you get fed at the hospital?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah.” Matt sounded dispirited. “But the eggs were gross. All I ate was this little box of Cheerios.”

  “I left the waffle iron out. Want one?”

  “You mean, you’d make me one?”

  She discovered she didn’t like to see him quite so humbled. “Yes,” she said gently. “I cooked for you even when you were being a snot, didn’t I?”

  He lifted his head. “I guess so.”

  “If you’re heating up the waffle iron again,” Alec said hopefully, “I wouldn’t mind seconds.”

  He made coffee, poured Matt a glass of orange juice and got out the butter and syrup again while Julia produced two more waffles. Man and boy both devoured theirs with astonishing speed.

  “I guess you won’t buy kayaks now,” Matt said when his plate was empty, eyeing his uncle sidelong.

  Alec raised his eyebrows. “That depends. You need to show us that things are going to be different.”

  There was no familiar flash of defiance or anger on her son’s face. He only nodded with apparent docility. “I couldn’t paddle anyway.” He sounded depres
sed.

  “Not for a few weeks,” Alec agreed. “You know I’ll be away for a little while anyway.”

  The reminder chilled Julia. Matt only nodded. Neither adult had made him aware of the danger Alec would be in during this trip to Los Angeles.

  Matt’s expression was desperate when he looked at Julia. “Were you really going to divorce Dad?”

  She set down her coffee cup. “Are you sure you want to talk about this now?”

  “It’s all I can think about.”

  “All right.”

  Seeing her hesitate, Alec said, “Would you two rather talk without me here?”

  “That’s up to Matt,” she said. “I don’t have anything to say you can’t hear.”

  Matt hung his head and mumbled, but they both heard him clearly enough. “I guess I don’t mind.”

  Alec nodded and stood to replenish his coffee. Julia shook her head when he lifted the carafe.

  She looked at her son. “Matt, it’s taken me time to realize something.”

  He lifted his head, and the eyes that caught hers were almost as deep a brown as Alec’s. She could see Josh in his face, but increasingly saw Alec there, too.

  “I blamed your dad’s job for all our troubles,” she began. “I was resentful because I thought he was choosing it over us.”

  “He did!”

  Julia shook her head. “In the end, he chose it over me.” She emphasized the me, wanting to be sure he heard. “But he loved you and Liana, you know. I think he’d have kept being a good father within his limitations even once we were divorced. There was nothing that made him happier than teaching you to surf, kicking your butt at...I don’t know, whatever video game you two used to play for hours.”

  “We played a bunch of different ones.” Now he sounded sullen.

  “There was a lot he enjoyed doing with you. I don’t want you to forget that. He loved being with you.”

  His shoulders jerked. “When he was home.”

  “That part had to do with his job,” she agreed. “But this is what I finally realized—if your dad and I had loved each other enough and had a good marriage otherwise, I could have lived with his job. What he did is important. Our country needs people like him. He could never tell me where he’d been or what he did when he was away, but a few times I had a pretty good idea. I think his team rescued those American aid workers in Mali, for example. Every one of them survived and came home. How could I not be proud of your dad for pulling something like that off?” She saw something ease on Matt’s face and was glad. The fact that he was listening so closely gave her hope, too. “The job was hugely important to him. I think in a way it was his identity. He didn’t know what would be left if he gave it up.”

  “So—you didn’t love him?” her son asked.

  “Of course I did. But I think now I was too young when I married him to be sure what I wanted. I compared him to the boys I knew back home and even the college boys I’d dated, and was dazzled. It turned out we didn’t have an awful lot in common. For both of us, I think the stresses wore away at what we felt for each other. If he had gone back into the regular navy or asked for a transfer to training at Coronado when I asked, I suspect he’d have felt resentful and that would have done more damage. All of that doesn’t mean I didn’t still love your dad enough to mourn when he was killed. The part we have to remember is that he died doing a job he loved. He didn’t die because he quarreled with us. He was killed by this country’s enemies. Both of us need to be proud of him for risking so much every time he went. He wouldn’t want us to feel guilty. Your dad didn’t dwell on things like that. He’d have said, ‘Forget about it,’ and taken you fishing.”

  Matt gave a choked laugh, but tears were also streaming down his face. “I miss him!” he wailed.

  Sitting closer to him, Alec wrapped an arm around him. “Yeah,” he said, his face against Matt’s head. “I do, too. We all do.”

  Julia was crying now, as well. Her vision blurred, as if she was seeing through a rain-washed window, but she couldn’t look away from the man holding the boy, their hair the same tousled, shiny shade of dark brown. Seeing them so close together reinforced her awareness of the blood they shared and increased her sense of gratitude. Having Alec would mean everything to a boy who’d lost his father.

  Alec finally handed Matt a cloth napkin from the table. He used it to wipe his cheeks and give his nose a resounding blow. He looked both pathetic with those black eyes and absurdly young when he crumpled the napkin and gazed at her.

  “What did you mean when you said ‘within his limitations’?”

  Julia had to cast her thoughts back. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. She didn’t want to disillusion either of the kids. At the same time, maybe everything would have been different if she’d been honest since Josh died. She thought Matt was old enough to understand.

  So she talked a little about her frustration and her feeling that Josh was too often more friend than parent, leaving her, always, to be the bad guy, and how unfair that was.

  Matt listened, unblinking. When she finished, he sat for a moment without saying anything. When he finally did, he glanced between her and Alec.

  “Are you two, like, getting married?”

  Alec’s dark gaze flicked to her, then back to her son. “You were pretty angry at the possibility.”

  Matt’s shoulders moved uncomfortably. “I didn’t really mean it. You know.”

  “Good.” Alec wrapped him in a neck lock that apparently qualified as a hug, because it had Matt grinning sheepishly. “As for getting married, your mom and I haven’t talked about it yet, but I think she knows my vote is yes.”

  Her heart gave one of those sharp, almost painful squeezes. “You,” she said to her son, “are not to say a word to Liana, because we haven’t talked to her yet about anything like this. Okay?”

  “She doesn’t know why I, um, flipped out like that?”

  “No, she doesn’t,” Julia said. “Alec and I do need to talk between ourselves about the future, but probably not until he gets back from L.A. He’s leaving—” She transferred her gaze to him. “When are you leaving? Do you know?”

  He grimaced. “Looks like a week from today. They’ve started jury selection already. That’s a long and involved process for a trial of this magnitude.”

  “I can imagine.” She frowned. “Will they be sequestered?”

  “Probably,” Alec answered. “Both for their safety and to be sure they can’t be pressured.”

  She shuddered. He saw and made a quick movement, but didn’t follow through on it, not with Matt beside him.

  He had to explain to Matt what sequestration meant, and she saw her son’s face grow grave. He was old enough to grasp the implication. If the jurors faced possible threats, so might the witnesses.

  “Oh,” he said finally. “Are you... I mean, do you have to go?”

  “Yes. It’s part of my job. Investigating is the first stage, and making the arrest is the second, but that’s all wasted if an officer doesn’t testify at the trial to help ensure a conviction. In this case, the guy who is being tried is a real scumbag. I want to see him go to prison for a long, long time.”

  Matt gnawed on his lip. “You’ll only be gone, like, a week, though, right?”

  “That’s my hope. But prosecutors can’t be sure how fast things will move and exactly what day they’ll need me. I have to be in town and available.”

  “Will you see Nana and Granddad while you’re there?”

  “Maybe.” Alec smiled. “I plan to try.”

  Julia had been watching Matt, who, despite the questions, seemed to be flagging. “Do you need another pain pill?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Can I watch TV?”

  “Of course you can.” She stood, smiling. “Let me grab your pillows and an a
fghan so you can get comfy on the sofa. Alec, you have the pills, don’t you?”

  He doled one out. By the time she returned to the living room, Matt had picked out a DVD, and Alec had put it on for him.

  Then Alec stretched. “Damn it, I’d better go mow the lawn.”

  Feeling guilty, Julia said, “I could do that, you know.”

  He shook his head. “Walk me out.”

  They stepped out onto the small front porch, Alec pulling the door almost closed behind them.

  “Hey,” he said softly, “that went well.”

  “It did, didn’t it?” She was still having trouble believing she might have her son back.

  “Don’t try to surprise me by mowing someday. I don’t want you exposed outside for any length of time any more than I want either of the kids out here.”

  “No, but I could do the back,” she offered. “Now that the fence is up.”

  He shook his head. “You do enough.”

  They had a brief skirmish over who worked harder, but he held firm. She wasn’t sure whether this was a gender-role issue—only boys and men did the hard yard work—or whether it was all his need to protect. Either way, she decided not to argue too much. Mowing was boring, and it would be a great job for Matt once they could be sure nobody wanted to hurt him. When Liana was a little older, Julia would insist on her doing her share, too.

  Alec’s gaze rested on her. “You’re worrying more about my trip to L.A. than you need to.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Because of Josh.”

  “Maybe.” Yes. “And because somebody already tried to kill you or Matt.”

  He tilted his head in acknowledgment. They stood for a moment, neither saying anything, a sudden awkwardness between them.

  Are you two, like, getting married?

  I think she knows my vote is yes.

  He bent his head and nuzzled her hair. “I don’t suppose you’d like to leave your bedroom window unlocked tonight,” he murmured.