Sarah drew in a sharp breath. "He wasn't hurt, I hope"
"Not a scratch." He turned and pointed to his patrol car parked in front of the house. "He's asleep in my backseat."
Sarah shot up and tightened her robe around her waist, then loped barefoot down the porch steps and over the wet lawn toward the car.
"Now, wait a minute, Sarah..." Randy shouted, but she was halfway to the car.
Will was asleep with a blanket tucked around him. Very gently she peeled back the blanket and lifted him to her breast. He awakened just a little and whimpered, and his tiny limbs shuddered; then he fell back asleep.
Jack and Randy were in a low conversation when Sarah came up to them with the baby in her arms.
"Where's the father?" Sarah asked.
"Well, now, Sarah, if you'd hung on a bit, I was get-tin' to that part. I was tellin' your grandpa here that John Wilde's out of town, out in California, and we got ahold of him and he asked us to bring the little tyke to you, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind," she answered.
"Won't be for long," added Randy.
"I'll keep him as long as it takes," she said, with a glance over her shoulder.
Jack twisted around in the swing. "You better check with your grandma before you go takin' on anybody else's baby."
"I'll take care of him," she said again, quietly, but with a firmness neither man missed. "He won't be in anybody's way."
Then she went inside and left the two men staring at the ground. Jack asked Randy if he had a cigarette on him and Randy did, and they smoked in the dark. By the time they finished their cigarettes the fog had rolled back and the clouds had spun away. The stars sparkled brightly in the blackest of skies, and the night was a marvel of beauty to behold.
CHAPTER 22
It was just after noon and a spring storm was moving in from the south as John drove down 177 toward Bazaar. Heavy clouds flew overhead like timid souls fleeing the wrath of the storm. When he drove up their driveway the sky had turned an ominous black, and he dashed up the front steps just as the rain began to fall. He rapped lightly on the screen door frame and peered through the mesh into the shadows.
He heard Sarah's voice call, "Come in."
John went inside, set down the playpen, and slid the bag off his shoulder. He found Sarah in the kitchen. Will was strapped firmly to her chest with a dish towel. He had seen photographs of Kenyan mothers wearing their babies like that.
"I'm so very sorry," she said.
If his eyes betrayed any weakness, it was only for a moment. When he spoke he made sure there was nothing in his voice that hinted at the brightness in his heart.
"Thanks for taking Will. I don't know what we would have done."
"It's okay." She was pouring coffee into a mug and she held it out to him. "I'm glad I can help."
John took the mug from her and her fingers brushed his.
"How's Susan?"
"She's fine. Physically. A fractured wrist. That's all." He took a sip of the hot coffee. "Considering how bad it was. She's very lucky."
"What happened?"
"She went out for a drive. Thought it might help put Will to sleep. She said she turned around to check on him, and when she looked back at the road..." He paused. "She'd driven right into a patch of fog. Couldn't see a thing. I guess there's a bend in the road right there."
"Yes, there is. I know it well."
John's eyes were on his son. The child's cheek was resting on her breast, and he was deep in sleep.
"Thank God he wasn't hurt," muttered John.
"Oh, yes," she said.
There was another pause.
"Have you had any sleep?"
"No. Spent the night at the airport waiting for the flight."
"Sit down."
There was such sweet firmness in her voice; it calmed him immediately. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.
"Have you had lunch?"
"I'm not hungry."
She had her eyes on him for a moment, then she stepped over to the refrigerator and pulled out a covered dish.
"We've got homemade chicken salad."
"I'm really not hungry."
"I'll make it for you all the same."
There was silence while he watched her lay out two slices of bread and spoon the chicken salad over them. "I can keep him as long as you need me to," she said. "What about your job?"
She dropped a handful of chips onto the plate and turned to place the sandwich before him.
"Water? Iced tea?"
"Water's fine."
"Joy and I already discussed it," she replied as she filled a glass with water and set it down in front of him. "I can take him into work with me."
"I'll pay you. We'll work something out."
"Don't worry about it."
"I'll pay you," he insisted, through a mouthful of chicken salad.
"Eat your sandwich."
Sarah looked down at Will; he hung there in the dish towel, his bare arm dangling, and she lifted it and kissed it and said gently, "He has the most beautiful skin I've ever seen. The color is absolutely exquisite."
John looked up at her and wiped his mouth with the napkin she handed him. Then he smiled and said, "I think so, too."
When he had finished she cleared away his plate and John picked up the bag with Will's things and the folding playpen and offered to take them where she wanted.
Sarah hesitated a long moment before motioning him to follow her upstairs. She paused at the bottom of the narrow staircase and turned to him and said, "It's not very tidy right now. Not really suitable for a baby. But I'll rearrange things."
The stairway opened into an alcove underneath the eaves. A small bed, still unmade from the night before, stood against the wall. At the foot of the bed was an old oak dresser, its top buried under clutter, and a straight-back chair shoved under a dormer window served as a catchall for her clothing. There was a monastic simplicity about the room.
"This is where you sleep?"
"Yes."
The alcove had a sloped ceiling, and John had to stoop slightly as he stood beside her. Through the dormer window he could see the dark rain clouds scudding by.
He stepped past her into the bedroom.
"We do have a crib," she said. "Down in the basement. I'll bring it up this afternoon."
John set down the bag and leaned the playpen against the wall, then looked around. Sarah had paused in the alcove to lay Will on her bed, and when she appeared he said, "So this is what he was writing about."
"You mean Anthony?"
"In his letters."
"Yes."
"May I?"
"Of course."
The hardwood floor creaked as he carefully made his way across the room, lifting his feet to avoid the paint-caked glass jars and bowls that were scattered around. As he passed from one painting to another she named the grasses and the flowers for him. He was stunned that she had found all this color in the drizzled browns and greens of the prairie. She explained how difficult it was to find some of them, that several of the wildflowers were especially rare and grew only on real prairie, in the conservation projects or along the edges of pasture outside the fences where the cattle couldn't get to them.
The rain fell in a downpour, pummeling the roof, as he quietly studied a gouache of a pink filamented prairie smoke. He said, "Why do you hide all this?" He turned to look at her. "You do, don't you?"
A faint nod.
"Does anyone know you paint?"
"Yes. But nobody comes up here. Not anymore."
"You mean no one ever sees this?"
She shook her head.
"You must know how good these are."
She paused, gave a tired shrug.
"You don't believe me?"
"It's not that." She hesitated.
"What?"
"I don't like people to see what I do."
"Because of what they might say? Their criticism?"
She
shook her head. "No. Because of what they might see."
His eyes held on hers, and it seemed to her the blue grew very intense; then he turned and walked to the center of the room, where the easel stood, and bent over to look closely at the painting of a clematis.
Sarah said, "Da Vinci thought if you look closely enough at a stone, at the variations of color as light touches it, then you'll see there all of God's creation— mountains, woods, plains, hills... even the expressions of the human face. He said the same applied to the sound of bells. Listen to church bells, he said, and in a single stroke you'll hear every sound in every language ever uttered on earth."
John straightened and said, "You know what I see when I look at this flower?"
"What?"
"I see an entire landscape." He paused, and then added, "I see you."
The smile hovering on her mouth faded.
"I think I've never seen anyone as clearly as I see you," he murmured.
They both stared at each other for the longest time. Thunder rolled in the distance, and a car rolled in the driveway and then the screen door slammed. Ruth called out Sarah's name, but Sarah did not answer.
Finally John approached her and looked down into her eyes and hesitated a long while before he raised his hand and brushed her hair back from her face.
"How's your head?" he whispered. He found the bruise and touched it with his fingers. Her eyes closed at his touch, and John lowered his mouth to kiss the raised place above her eyebrow. When she felt his warm, dry lips against her skin, she thought the world had slipped away.
"Are you in love with Billy Moon?" he whispered.
She opened her eyes at the question, hesitated a long while, and then she answered softly, "I thought I was."
He swallowed heavily.
Her lips were poised and parted, waiting for him. He wet his own lips nervously with a flick of his tongue and then, ever so slowly, he lowered his mouth to meet hers.
There was in that kiss such tenderness and desire longing to be expressed that neither of them could breathe. The world withdrew from around them and sounds receded into the distance—the water running in the kitchen downstairs, the driving rain, the old beams creaking in the wind.
When at last John withdrew, there was a glimmer of sadness in his eyes, and he brushed her hair from her face and took a step back. She looked down then because she did not want to see the guilt on his face. She said nothing, nor did he. She kept her eyes lowered, her hands clasped in front, at her waist, and she did not look up when he left the room, nor when she heard his footfalls on the steps.
CHAPTER 23
Clarice felt responsible in no small part for the accident, felt it never would have happened had she been in the car. But what really devastated her was that Susan chose to convalesce up in Lawrence at the home of John's parents.
Clarice had long been aware of the special bond between her daughter and Nancy Wilde. Even before her marriage to John, Susan had seemed to fit into their family as naturally as if she were their own flesh and blood. On more than one occasion, Clarice had found herself outvoted and outmaneuvered by Susan and Nancy Wilde, and there were times when she felt her daughter was not her own. By their complicitous smiles and their disregard for her meekly tendered suggestions, by their increasing familiarity and enthusiastic solidarity, Clarice knew they saw her as an unnecessary outsider with poor taste and insufficient education. Often she would force a bright smile and nod (perhaps a little too eagerly) in agreement with them, watching as her daughter moved into yet one more degree of separation. Clarice would never forget how she had sat in Nancy Wilde's kitchen while they planned the wedding, blinking back her hurt while they talked of florists and engravers, trying desperately to steady her trembling hand and silence the rattling saucer when she raised her coffee cup to her lips.
Susan's retreat to Lawrence after the accident was more than Clarice could bear. With John frequently up in Lawrence with them or in California, and Will in Sarah's care, Clarice again found herself alone. Much to everyone's surprise, she did not sink into a depression. Instead, she called her brother down in Dallas and asked him to find her a good rehab center. Said she'd pay whatever it cost, stay as long as necessary. She wrote her daughter a long and maudlin letter apologizing for how she had botched up her life, then, disgusted with her own self-pity, she tore it up again. Joy drove her to the airport early one morning, and on the way out of town they stopped by Sarah's house so Clarice could say goodbye to her one and only grandchild.
Joy thought the whole incident had been a wake-up call, and she had great hopes for her friend's rehabilitation. But bets were made at the Cassoday Cafe that week, and most folks thought the odds were not in her favor.
May arrived, the growing season, and the land was restless with change. The wind swept across the grassy ocean and the prairie moved like the sea, rising and falling in swells of ever-shifting tones of green. The warm wind stirred the grasses into perpetual motion, coaxing birth and renewal from the land. Patches of tiny blue bird's-foot violets that seemed to have sailed in overnight blanketed the greening slopes. There were sudden bursts of color all around in wild, unexpected places.
Joy wheedled her sister Jeannine into working a few days at the cafe, and she added hours to Amy's schedule so Sarah was able to cut back to part-time. When Sarah did come in to work they set up Will's playpen in the kitchen, but more often than not he was bouncing around the dining room on Sarah's back, yanking at her hair and staring wide-eyed at the customers. John neither called nor passed by, but he sent her money and a brief note expressing his thanks and saying he was leaving for Berkeley and would see her when he returned. But he did not say when this would be, and so the days passed slowly by and Sarah lived each one in anticipation of seeing him again.
He gave her no warning, just showed up one Saturday morning out of the blue. It was a perfect day for it, warm with a cool breeze that played with the white curtains at her windows so that they seemed to beckon him inside. The sprinkler stuttered on the front lawn, dashing cool water over his face as he hurried up the sidewalk. No one answered his knock, but the front door stood wide open, so he went inside and called her name. He heard music coming from her room and he went to the bottom of the stairs and called again, and then she heard him and answered, told him to come on up.
There was nothing she could do, dressed in shorts and one of her grandfather's old shirts and covered in paint as she was, and so she just sat there with a rapturous smile on her face listening to his approaching footsteps.
She sat poised on the very top of a ladder in the center of her room, smiling down at him. Her auburn hair shone with the soft radiance of the morning light, and her beauty struck him speechless. She put down her palette and asked him if he'd hold the ladder steady while she climbed down. He set down the tulips he was carrying, a large bouquet wrapped in clear cellophane with a pink ribbon tied around the stems, and walked slowly toward her with his head thrown back, studying the ceiling.
It was not just the ceiling—the entire room had been thoroughly purged. The walls had been swept clean of her work and washed in a whispery blue, and over this was sketched in pencil the outline of fields of grasses and flowers. It was the beginning of a mural.
"Look," she said as she touched the ceiling, directing his gaze to a face peering out from behind the shoulder of a large figure only hazily sketched.
He stood below her, his hands on the ladder.
"It's Will."
"You recognized him."
"Right away," he said, his smile broadening into a grin. "Couldn't miss him."
"He hasn't quite got those fat little cherubic cheeks," she said as she cautiously made her way down. When she reached the floor, she dipped under his arm and tried to turn a bright smile toward him, but she was trembling inside.
"Thank you for the tulips," she said.
"I see they're wasted. You have a room full of flowers."
"They're not wasted," she replied
. "Thoughtfulness is never wasted." She crossed the room to where Will sat in his playpen in a pool of toys, mouthing a plastic horse.
"Did you see him?"
When the child saw Sarah approach he dropped the horse and crawled to the rail to meet her. She knelt down and peeked at him playfully through the mesh panel, pressing her nose through the netting, and he smiled and reached out and pressed his palm against her nose.
John stood transfixed by what he was seeing. Sarah reached down and picked him up, and Will came eagerly into her arms.
"He looks good."
"Yes, and he's eating," she said brightly. She shifted him to her hip, and he perched there, easy and comfortable and content. Will's eyes did not leave her face. There was something primal in the way he read her, following her movements and gestures and words. Suddenly, for the first time, John sensed an intelligence in the child, a wordless, natural intelligence that had escaped them during those first months.
Sarah rummaged through a cluster of glass jars full of pencils and paintbrushes, and finally came up with one tall enough for the tulips. She emptied it and handed it to him and asked him to fill it with water, pointing to the small bathroom off the alcove.
He returned with the tulips in the jar and set them on the card table in the midst of all her paints and brushes and rags.
"That's a good place for them." She smiled. "Right in the middle of all my mess."
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