by Billie Letts
As Caney wheeled into the room, she closed the door, then stood awkwardly before him, one hand stuffed into the pocket of her jeans.
Then in a rush, she said, “How about some coffee?”
“Sounds good.”
He wanted to watch her as she moved around the cramped kitchen, but feared she’d look up and meet his eyes, so he pretended interest in her apartment, though there was little to see.
The place was neat, but small and shabby. Not much furniture—a frayed sofa and a mismatched chair with a rip in the cushion, two end tables and a cheap red lamp covered by a faded plastic shade. Leaning in the corner, a skinny Christmas tree, bare except for a half dozen candy canes, stood guard over three gift-wrapped packages on the floor.
“I made this a couple of hours ago, so it’s liable to be pretty strong,” she said as she handed him a cup, then settled with hers in the chair.
“So…” Caney didn’t know where to go from there.
“How’s everything back at the Honk?”
“About the same, I guess. Bui’s trying to teach Spot some tricks, but he’s not making much progress.”
“And the gelding?”
“I ride him most every day. Just make sure to keep him away from gunfire.”
They were quiet then, staring into their coffee. Suddenly, from a nearby apartment, the sound of rap music blared, followed seconds later by hard thumps coming from somewhere overhead.
“How about you, Vena?”
“Me? I’m fine. I work at an animal shelter, just part-time right now.”
“Well, saving animals is something you’re good at.”
“Mostly I’m a janitor and caretaker. It’s a no-kill shelter, so—”
“What made you come to San Antonio?”
“Oh, you know. Boat go where boat go.”
They laughed then, a relief from the tension.
“How long you been here?”
“Since I left the… Almost seven months.”
“Wouldn’t figure you to stay in one place that long. You planning to be here for a while?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you put up a Christmas tree, so I guess you plan to be around at least until tomorrow.”
The sound of a siren close by gave them an excuse not to talk, at least for a few seconds, but when it died away, Vena put her coffee on the table beside her, then picked at a frayed tear in her jeans.
“I’m glad to see you, Vena.”
“Are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Because you left?” He shook his head. “You were honest with me about that, told me from the beginning you wouldn’t stay.”
“I started to leave you a note.”
“Couldn’t find a pencil?” Then, forcing a stiff grin, he leaned forward and set his cup on the table beside her.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“How about ‘good-bye’?”
“Yes.” Vena pulled at her lip. “I owed you that much.”
“You didn’t owe me a damn thing.” Abruptly he backed away and rolled across the room to the window where he watched a mangy dog drinking from the plastic swimming pool.
“Caney, I tried to write to you a couple of times.”
“Is that right?” he asked, his tone verging on sarcasm.
“I wanted to tell you why I left.”
“Oh, I think I know why.”
Unnerved, Vena lost her grip on the handle of her cup, sloshing coffee on her jeans.
“Living in the back room of a run-down cafe. Flipping burgers, waiting tables. Same thing one day after another. I couldn’t expect you to want that.” Absently, he stroked the leaf of a small ivy plant on the windowsill. “I’m surprised you stayed as long as you did.”
“You’re wrong about that. I liked being there, being with you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You disappear without a word, put five hundred miles between us…”
“You were good to me, Caney. Too good, I guess. And that scared me.”
“Kindness kills, is that it?”
“Look, Caney. I can’t blame you for being mad, but—”
“Damned right I’m mad!”
“Then why the hell did you come here?” she said, her voice rising with anger.
“Why the hell did you ask me to?” he yelled.
They glared at each other from across the room, and in the uncomfortable silence that separated them, they could hear a woman outside yelling in Spanish and, from nearby, the whimper of a baby.
Caney pulled his cigarettes from his pocket, tipped one from the pack, then, as an afterthought, offered it to Vena.
She shook her head. “I don’t have any ashtrays, but I’ll get you something.”
She came back from the kitchen with a jar lid. When she handed it to him, their fingers touched.
“Thanks,” he said.
She opened the window and, standing beside him, stared outside.
“Caney, I’ve spent my life running away. I ran from home, from my sister, from a husband. Then I ran away from you.
“But all that time, I didn’t know the person I was trying to leave behind was me.”
She turned, put her hands behind her and leaned against the wall.
“See, I never believed anyone could really love me, didn’t think I was good enough. So I ran from people who cared about me.”
She shifted, rolled her head to the side and looked Caney in the eyes.
“I figured I was doing you a favor.”
She started to walk away, but Caney took her hand and held her in place.
“Vena, I didn’t know the girl who had a skull tattooed on her arm or the girl who had an abortion in Santa Fe or the one who went to jail in Abilene.
“I fell in love with a woman who walked into my life carrying a three-legged dog, who put me on a horse and showed me a world I thought I’d lost… a woman who wrapped her arms around me and taught me to dance again.”
Vena drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “And I fell in love with the man she danced with.”
Afraid to trust what he’d heard, Caney searched her face for the truth… and found it in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Vena? Why didn’t you say it when we were together?”
“Because I didn’t know then that I could let you love me.”
“And you thought you could stop me by leaving?”
“Yes. But something happened, Caney, and I got another chance.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
THOUGH THE SUDDEN and inexplicable disappearance of Caney and Bui seemed unlikely to be related to that of Big Fib, there were those few who, on hearing the news, ran to their windows to scan the sky for spaceships.
But others, more grounded in reality, surmised that aliens would not have taken the bus, which was also missing, nor would they have granted Caney the opportunity to write the note he left on the counter for MollyO.
Me and Bui are taking a little trip. Might be back soon—might not. Close the damned place down.
The note didn’t shed much light on the mystery, but it helped to calm MollyO’s initial fear that a kidnapping had taken place.
She didn’t have time even to consider not opening up for business, though, since Life had gotten to the Honk ahead of her and, finding the door unlocked, gone inside, turned on the lights and started the coffee. By the time she arrived, Soldier and Quinton were already there, huddled with Life at the counter, puzzling over Caney’s message.
Minutes later Galilee phoned, still confused over a cryptic call she’d received from Bui the night before. Then she caught a ride over with Brother Samuel, explaining that she preferred to wait in the company of others as troubled as she was.
Wanda Sue, with her uncanny sense of a story in the making, showed up before nine, and within an hour she had the word out, which brought a steady stream of the concerned pouring in for more news.
Everyone who walked through the door that morning
had some theory on Bui and Caney’s unexplained departure, theories that ran from the absurd to the less absurd to the divine.
Life reckoned they’d gone to Arkansas to dig for diamonds because of a recent story about a woman who’d uncovered a two-million-dollar stone. Hooks figured they went deep-sea fishing in the Gulf, something he himself had always dreamed of doing, while Soldier thought they’d gone to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington where he’d been once with his brother.
But Galilee believed they were on a quest, their path laid out by the hand of God. And several times throughout the day she quoted Scripture in support of her conviction: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”
Having heard the news downtown, Carl Phelps dropped by just to check things out. But he saw nothing to suggest anything of a criminal nature in Caney’s note which was, by then, crumpled and creased and smudged with fingerprints.
But since he was there and it was nearing noon, he ordered lunch. And Galilee, finding comfort in cooking, was just serving him a plate of fried catfish and hushpuppies when the call came.
They all knew it was Caney when MollyO answered, then waved them to silence.
“Where…”
Her voice was anxious, her face creased with worry.
“But why…”
Life dropped a spoon, which clattered to the floor.
“When…”
Bilbo’s chair creaked as he leaned forward.
“Are you…”
Wanda Sue lit a cigarette.
“I’ve been worried sick…”
Peg coughed.
“Okay,” she said, then recradled the phone, the call having lasted only forty-eight seconds.
“He sounds tired,” MollyO reported to those assembled. Then, with the disappointment of a journalist who’s just missed her story, she added, “He didn’t say where they were or what they were doing. But they’ll be back tomorrow sometime around noon.”
Her account left them quiet, and as they started to drift away, they looked as puzzled as they had when they’d come.
Later that evening, with the cafe empty except for Life and Galilee, MollyO decided to decorate. She didn’t know what to expect when Caney and Bui returned, but whatever it was, she would be waiting to offer them a bit of Christmas cheer. And she hoped that wherever her Brenda was, someone would be waiting to do the same for her.
By the time she closed up that night, the Honk had a tree with twinkling lights, walls adorned with cardboard bells and ceiling fans draped with aluminum stars. Frizzy-haired Barbies were posed atop napkin holders, silver icicles were strung across the room, the nativity scene was arranged on the counter and the Oriental-looking baby Jesus was tucked snugly into his bamboo bed.
Christmas morning found Sequoyah shrouded in dark, low-lying clouds threatening rain, but with the temperature in the mid-sixties, there’d be no snow to brighten the day.
By seven-thirty Galilee was in the kitchen with MollyO where two turkeys were already roasting in the oven, a pot of noodles stewing on the stove, and mincemeat and pumpkin pies cooling on the counter.
Kim came in at nine, as promised, and she, along with Life, was preparing to handle business in the dining room.
By eleven folks were beginning to arrive, as hungry to learn the whys and wherefores of Caney and Bui’s secret expedition as they were for the food coming out of the kitchen.
Soldier brought his wife, and they were joined by their son, Danny, hoping the mystery would lead to a story for the next issue of the paper.
Quinton and Hooks came in together—Quinton wearing a tie and jacket for the occasion, Hooks still in his fishing clothes.
Wilma surprised everyone when she showed up not only with Rex, looking robust and hardy despite the half dozen prescription bottles he placed on the table, but also with her grandchildren, who, notwithstanding her tales of their wild and weird ways, were quiet and well behaved.
Henry Brister brought his new family, three small children and the pretty, young wife. But now, skillful with his metal thumbs, Henry needed no help cutting up his turkey or buttering his bread or scooping bites of mashed potatoes onto his fork.
Wanda Sue came dressed in a red sweatshirt with a picture of Santa, a finger to his lips, cautioning, “Don’t spread this around—but I’m watching you.”
Bilbo and Peg took a table near the door—she still hooked up to her oxygen and he, though he hadn’t smoked for months, slapping his empty pocket now and then, looking mildly surprised when he discovered his pack of Carltons was missing.
Brim Neely stopped by to pick up two dinners to go as his wife was feeling poorly again, and Carl Phelps and his deputy took stools at the counter where they ate quickly in case a call came in.
Just before noon, with the Honk nearly full, the clouds opened up and loosed a downpour, a deluge which made it impossible to see more than a few feet beyond the front window, so no one saw the bus pull in.
When the front door flew open a few minutes later, the wind-driven rain blew in and so did Caney, the back and shoulders of his shirt soaked through, his hair plastered to his head, rivulets of water running down his face.
And just behind him, Bui, more wet than Caney, held the door open while he tried to shield someone from the rain with a tented piece of black plastic with which she was draped and almost hidden except for her jeans and red boots.
“Merry Christmas,” Caney said as he wiped his shirtsleeve across his face.
But there was hardly a murmur from those assembled when Bui lifted the dripping plastic away and closed the door.
Vena seemed not to notice the eyes trained on her as she tucked the corners of a blue blanket around something she cradled against her chest.
Wilma and MollyO exchanged a quick glance, both of them remembering the day just over a year ago when they’d first seen Vena coming toward the Honk, clutching an injured animal in much the same way.
She smiled at Caney as she bent and gently slipped the soft bundle into his arms.
“I’d like you all to meet someone,” he said as he peeled the blanket back to reveal a tiny sleeping baby with a shock of black hair, one curled fist pressed against its face.
“This is my son, Caney Paxton the Second. But we call him Pax.”
Then, as if he knew he was the focus of attention, Caney Paxton the Second squinted one eye open and yawned, his mouth stretched into a dime-sized O, and kicked one leg free of his blanket, his foot slipping out of a sock no bigger than a thumb.
MollyO was the first to lift the baby from Caney’s arms, tears spilling down her face as she thought of Dewey whose love had been passed on from his heart to another’s, and now to this one she felt beating against her own.
Then Life slipped in beside her, enfolded her and the baby in his big arms and rocked them gently, his cheek resting against hers, his lips grazing the top of the baby’s head.
One by one the others rose from their places, hugging Vena and shaking Caney’s hand as they waited to meet little Pax.
And as he was passed from one to the other, he offered no complaint, his serene expression unchanging as if he accepted that this was what his life was to be—a succession of hands cupping his bottom and rubbing his back, fingers tracing the curve of his toes, lips pressing against the soft flesh of his cheeks… each testing and touching and tasting some part of him.
Hooks, holding him gingerly in his good arm, declared that he had the hands of a fisherman. Quinton, awkward with babies, commented that he had a good poker face, a look that would give away nothing when drawing to an inside straight.
Wilma proclaimed that the baby had his daddy’s eyes, but Wanda Sue argued they were clearly his mother’s.
Galilee held the baby’s pink face against her black one and whispered, “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Bilbo, recovered from his surprise that Caney’s equipment worked just fine, put a quarter in the jukebox when he got hold of Pax. Then, in the center of the floor, he danced the Beto Shuffle, holding the baby securely to his chest.
And through it all, Caney smiled, waiting for his baby to be returned to his arms.
Bui, the last to leave, had intended to go after he brought in the bassinet, the rocking chair and the boxes they’d moved from San Antonio. But when he finished, Caney motioned him to the kitchen where Vena was getting ready to give the baby a bath.
They watched her with the fascination of boys at their first magic show as she slipped the baby into a small plastic tub on the kitchen counter, held spellbound by her wizardry in handling the tiny, slick body. They were sure it was only by enchantment that she could soap and rinse the squirming creature, then, as if by levitation, lift him—dripping legs bicycling the air—before she caused him to disappear into a large, fluffy towel.
They followed her to the bedroom where she opened act two by obscuring their view with a cloud of baby powder, deceptive cover for close sleight of hand—the trick of diapering. She flipped the baby’s legs up in a sudden and smooth motion while, undetected, she slipped a diaper under its bottom and, before the powder had settled, magically secured the diaper.
How she managed to propel the baby’s limbs into the sleeves and legs of terrycloth sleepers the size of a work glove was beyond their comprehension, but knowing a true magician never reveals her secrets, they didn’t ask.
Then, for the finale, she settled Pax against her in the rocking chair, opened her shirt and performed the ultimate feat as the child found her breast.
Caney was in the cafe when Vena tiptoed out of the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her. Her hair, still wet from the shower, was wrapped in a towel, and she was wearing a soft flannel gown.
“Is Bui gone?” she asked.
“Yeah, just a few minutes ago. He hugged me twice, looked like he was about to cry.”
“Why?”
“He said it was the miracle of babies. Ours. His. All babies.”
“He’s a sweet man.”
