by Sharon Sala
Ben grinned. “If it was me, I would.”
Red folded his arms on his desk and leaned forward.
“So, lover boy, if you’re so on the mark, exactly what do you have planned for you and the china doll?”
Ben’s grin faded. “That’s different. She just got out of the hospital, and we’re not dating. Besides that, I could hardly take her out, even if we were. She’s in hiding, remember?”
“Yeah, I guess. But it seems like you could do something. I mean, she’s really had a rough month.”
They went back to work, but the seed had been planted in Ben’s mind. A short while later, he called home. His mother answered.
“Mom, it’s me. Just checking on everyone.”
“We’re fine. China is napping, and I’m considering it. Dave is puttering around out in the barn, looking for something to fix a broken shutter.”
“Tell him there’s some stuff in the last granary on the right.”
“Okay, I will,” Mattie said. “Will you be home late?”
“No, and that’s why I’m calling. Have you started anything for supper?”
“Not yet. I don’t know why, but I just can’t get in the mood. I’ll come up with something before the evening is over.”
“How about if I bring something home? Maybe Chinese? It’s New Year’s Eve. Thought we might have a little celebration of our own. Tell Dave he’s welcome to stay and see the New Year in if he wants.”
Mattie was silent just a moment too long.
“What?” Ben asked.
“Well, Dave sort of asked me out to eat tonight. I told him I’d see.”
Ben’s pulse jumped. A whole night alone with China. He couldn’t have asked for anything more.
“For Pete’s sake, go, Mom. We don’t need babysitters. I’ll bring Chinese for us, and you and Dave go kick up your heels.”
“He said there was a dance at the Elks lodge, although I probably should say no. I don’t have a thing to wear.”
“Mom, for the last time, accept his invitation. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. I know you get lonely out there by yourself. Nothing would please me more than to know you had someone in your life.”
He sensed her embarrassment, but to his delight, she finally agreed.
“Good, it’s settled then,” he said. “Tell China what’s going on when she wakes up. And if she doesn’t like Chinese food, somebody better call me before I get off work. I can always pick up something else.”
“All right, son,” Mattie said. “And thank you.”
“No, Mom. I should be thanking you for putting up with all of this.”
“You already did. And if the truth be told, I admit that I’m enjoying the hustle and bustle of someone else in this house.”
“Is China opening up to you any?”
“Not about personal things, no. But we get along fine. There’s just one thing that bothers me about her.”
“What’s that?”
Mattie hesitated, then blurted it out. “Did you know that girl thinks she’s ugly?”
Ben frowned, remembering the day she admitted that her stepfather, Clyde, always said she was homely.
“Yes. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“She’s absolutely stunning. All that black hair and those big blue eyes. I can’t imagine what has happened in her past to make her think something like that.”
“Just be patient with her, Mom.”
Mattie chuckled. “You’re the one who tries my patience. I hardly know she’s here.”
Ben smiled. “Hey, I do what I can,” he said.
Mattie laughed. “Come home safely.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there around six-thirty or seven.”
Fifteen
Mattie was behaving like a teenager, tossing one outfit after another aside while trying to find something to wear for her date with Dave. She’d dragged China into her room on the pretext of asking her for advice, but truthfully, she felt guilty about going out, and she wanted someone to talk to—to keep her mind off what she was about to do. All these years, the guilt of making love with Dave when her husband had been dead only a week had weighed heavily on her conscience. Rationally, she knew it had happened because of a need for emotional release, an affirmation that she was still alive although her husband was not. And instead of accepting the weakness for what it was, she’d blamed herself and Dave for something that was no more than an act of desperation.
“So, what do you think about this one?” Mattie asked, holding up a dark-navy sheath.
China frowned. “Too somber. I like the dark-pink one better.”
Mattie groaned. “I can’t make up my mind.”
China smiled. “Yes, that much has been obvious for the past fifteen minutes. May I make a suggestion?”
Mattie threw up her hands. “Anything!”
“You go shower and fix your hair, and let me pick out what you’ll wear. When you’re finished, you come out and put on the outfit I’ve laid on your bed. You put it on without fussing and go out and have a wonderful time.”
“Oh, no,” Mattie moaned. “My hair! I’d completely forgotten. How am I going to wear my hair?”
China got up from the chair and pushed Mattie toward the bathroom.
“Go away,” China said. “You’re making me nervous. Do your hair like you always do. Pretend you’re going to church or something. It’s not going to matter to Dave what you look like, and you know it. He’d be happy if you went in what you’re wearing.”
Mattie looked down at her rumpled jeans and sweater and then sighed.
“You’re right. Oh lordy, you’re right.”
She started toward the bathroom, then stopped.
“China… dear?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
China grinned. “It was my pleasure.”
Still Mattie hesitated. “You know, when I was younger, I’d always planned on having a large family, at least three children, maybe more. When I lost my baby, I lost my dream. Adopting Ben was the best thing we ever did, but as I look back on the years, I wish we had adopted a dozen. I always wanted a daughter. Someone like you would have been perfect.”
She gave China a quick hug and then escaped to the bathroom, leaving China speechless.
Someone like me? China walked to the mirror. The woman looking back at her was all eyes and too thin. And when she thought about what she looked like beneath her clothes, her stomach knotted. No one would want someone like me.
But as she moved about the bedroom picking up the clothes Mattie had tossed aside, the sweet words of praise kept echoing in her heart. Even though she didn’t really believe them, they’d been nice to hear.
When Mattie came out a half hour later, her hair in hot rollers, her robe flapping about her ankles, China was gone and her room had been picked up. One complete outfit was lying on her bed, with matching shoes on the floor beneath it.
Mattie sighed. It was the most daring outfit she owned. A black velvet pantsuit with a rather audacious neckline. The shoes were gold, but with nearly flat heels, which would be perfect for dancing. Even the little black shoulder bag lying next to it was just large enough for a compact and lipstick and a few dollars for emergencies.
With an anxious heart, she began to dress. But by the time she had finished her clothes and her hair, her anxiety had turned to excitement. She looked at herself in the mirror and then did a quick pirouette. For a woman pushing sixty, she decided, she looked pretty darn good. Then she heard the sound of a car driving up and glanced at the clock. That would be Ben. The plan was to leave now with Dave, go to his place so he could change, and then the evening would start from there. She grabbed her bag, gave herself one last look, then opened the door.
As she passed China’s room, she noticed her door was ajar. Wanting to thank China again, she peeked in. China was sitting in a chair by the window, her hands folded in her lap in quiet repose. Mattie started to speak when China turn
ed. The tears on her face said it all.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mattie said. Moments later, she was at her side. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No. You look beautiful.”
“Somehow this seems wrong,” Mattie said. “I’m going out to a party, and you—”
“This isn’t about me,” China said. “This is about you and Dave and a lot of wasted years, okay?”
“Okay,” Mattie said, then held out her arms. “How do I look?”
China smiled. “Like a woman in love.”
Mattie looked a little stunned. “I don’t want to look that good,” she said. “At least, not just yet.”
“Time is precious. Let yourself be happy.”
“I’ll be late coming home, but I promise to be quiet,” Mattie said. “Tomorrow is Ben’s day off, so we can all sleep in. Take care of yourself, dear, for me, as well as for you.”
“Yes, I will,” China said, touched by the woman’s concern.
Mattie kissed her goodbye and then waved again as she left.
The room seemed empty after she’d gone. China turned back to her post at the window, although it was already dark outside and there was nothing to see but an occasional set of headlights from a passing car on the road beyond the ranch. The sudden yip of a coyote on a nearby ridge sent a shiver up her spine, and she had to make herself stay still, although she was haunted by an image she couldn’t forget. Her child—a child who had never known the sweetness of a single breath of air—lay alone in the dark, in a box, very deep in the ground. In her heart, she knew the baby was with God, but she hadn’t been able to turn loose of that pain. Maybe if she’d had a chance to say goodbye…
As she sat, she heard laughter from the front of the house and then, a few minutes later, the sound of a car leaving the yard. That would be Mattie and Dave, off for the night. She struggled with herself, trying to unload the depression. Ben would be looking for her any minute, and she didn’t want him to see her cry.
She got up from the chair and washed her face, then contemplated brushing her hair. But the effort was still too painful, so she gave up the thought. As she was leaving the bathroom, it dawned on her that she and Ben would be alone. She shivered. There was no denying the fact that she was attracted to him, and as good as he’d been to her, she was afraid to trust her own judgment. Then she heard him calling.
“China? Where are you?”
She lifted her chin and walked out of her room.
“I’m here,” she called.
He met her just outside the kitchen. “Wait,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“I have a surprise.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “Really?”
“Yes, really. Now close your eyes and hold out your hand.”
She did as he asked, letting him lead her into the kitchen.
“Okay,” he said. “You can open them now.”
She smelled the surprise before she saw it, and still her delight was real.
“Oh, Ben, Chinese? I love Chinese food.”
“Great. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got a little bit of everything.”
She smiled as she saw all the boxes. “That’s for sure. How many boxes are there, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe thirteen or fourteen, counting the one with the fortune cookies.”
“Oh, I love those. Let me see.”
“No fair,” he said. “They come last. Now sit your sweet self down. I’m the chef tonight.”
China sat, and as she watched him digging through the boxes with such pleasure, her mood began to change. Dejection shifted, giving way to brief moments of peace. For tonight, it was enough.
“Here,” he said. “You have to eat with chopsticks.”
“I don’t know how.”
He grinned. “Neither do I. But tomorrow is a whole new year, and we should have at least one new skill to go with it, don’t you think?”
“It’s a grand idea, but chopsticks? Don’t you think something enlightening would have been more in order?”
“After the day I’ve had, this is just about all the challenge I care to handle.”
China tried to pick up a bite with her chopsticks. When it fell back on her plate, she frowned.
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
“Want a fork?”
“No,” China said. “I can do this.” She bent to the task.
Ben watched for a minute, admiring her concentration. When she suddenly crowed with delight and got a bite of stir-fried shrimp in her mouth, he fell a little bit further in love. The meal continued in the same vein, with more laughter and jeers and the occasional flight of a bite of stir-fried rice. It wasn’t until China opened her fortune cookie that the evening changed.
She was smiling as she broke the cookie in two. When she pulled out the fortune, she waved it beneath his nose in a teasing fashion.
“Mine will be better than yours,” she said.
He grinned. “We’ll see about that.” He broke his open as well and began to read.
“‘You are having dinner with the woman of your dreams.’”
“It doesn’t say that,” she muttered.
“It does. Here, read it for yourself.”
She looked, then sat back in disbelief. “You made that happen.”
“No, I didn’t. I swear,” Ben said. “Read yours. If I’d fixed it, it would say, ‘You are having dinner with the man of your dreams,’ right?”
“I guess,” she muttered, and turned hers over to read.
She scanned the bit of paper and then went suddenly pale. It fell from her hands as she got up from the table and quietly left the room. Ben picked it up and read it.
There is a thing you have left undone.
He read it again, still uncertain as to what had upset her, then went to find her. She was back in her room, sitting in the dark. He went to her. Her face was in shadows, but he could tell she was crying. Tears were thick in her voice.
“China, I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
“Then talk to me. I can’t help unless I know what’s wrong.”
“My life is out of control.”
“I know, but it won’t always be.”
“I’ve always taken care of myself, and I feel so helpless, even worthless.”
“No, honey. Never worthless.”
“You don’t know. You can’t understand. I don’t belong anywhere. I don’t have an address. I don’t have a job. There is no one alive who remembers anything about me. I let myself fall for some pretty words. I let myself get pregnant, and then I let that baby die. I wasn’t even there when she was put in the ground.” China stood suddenly, her voice rising as she continued to talk. “Do you know how that makes me feel?
Ben hurt for her in so many ways. “No, but you can tell me. You can tell me anything and I will understand.”
She grabbed him by the arms, her fingers digging into his flesh.
“I play at being all right. I pretend that things are getting better. But I need to see my baby. I need to see the place where she’s at. I don’t know anything about the… about how you…” She took a slow, shuddering breath. “Tell me what you know, and trust me, whatever you tell me can never be as bad as what I’ve imagined.”
Ben was afraid—so afraid of what he was about to do. But China was right. She, above everyone else, had the right to know what had happened to her own child.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“She was very, very small, a little over three pounds, I think. The coroner said she died instantly.”
“How?”
“One of the bullets ricocheted off a rib and into her.”
China moaned.
Ben took her in his arms. “I picked out a little white casket with an angel on the lid. We wrapped her in a pink blanket.”
China sighed. “To keep her warm.”
It was all Ben could do not to cry. “Yes, it w
ould have kept her warm—very warm.”
She laid her face against his chest as the panic began to recede.
“I need to see,” China said.
“Cemeteries are locked after dark, and taking you there in the daytime would be a risk I’m not willing to take.”
“It’s not your risk to take, it’s mine,” China said.
Ben tensed. She had asked nothing of him until now. But this? Should he dare?
“Please,” she begged.
He sighed. “They will unlock the gates at sunup. I’ll take you then. Most of the city will probably be sleeping off the aftereffects of ringing in a new year.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” China said.
His voice rumbled deep against her ear. “Don’t thank me yet. I won’t rest easy until this is over.”
She looked up at him then. “Now you know how I feel.”
***
Midnight came and went. A couple of hours afterward, Dave brought Mattie home. Ben heard the car drive up, and a few minutes later the front door opened, then closed. He heard his mother pause in the hallway, probably to take off her shoes, because afterward he could no longer hear her footsteps. A bit later, he heard the bedsprings creak as she crawled into bed.
He got up then, walking barefoot through the house, checking all the doors and windows one last time, but he knew that no amount of caution in this house was going to offset the danger of taking China back into the city, yet he could not refuse her. Until she said her goodbyes, she was never going to heal.
As he passed her room, he noticed the door was half-open. He stopped and looked in. She lay on her back with one arm outflung, the other beneath the covers. He hesitated, then walked to her bed, lifted the covers and gently put her arm beneath the warmth. She sighed, then started to turn, wincing aloud in her sleep as pain pulled her back. Without waking her up, he put a hand beneath her back and helped her turn. She settled into a comfortable position with a soft, quiet sigh.
Ben straightened, satisfied that all was well, and then paused at the foot of her bed to watch her sleep. In the dark, she looked a bit like a child, but he knew there was a strong, resilient woman beneath all that pain. He gripped the footboard with both hands until the tips of his fingers ached. There in the dark, in the quiet of the night, he made her a promise to keep.
