Coming Home to Texas--A Clean Romance

by Kit Hawthorne

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TONY HEFTED THE window into the opening, rested its bottom edge on the sill blocks and pushed it gently into place. He checked for level and plumb and measured both diagonals, adding shims as needed to square things up. It felt good to be back at work. The FFF was usually one of the high points of his year, but this time around it’d been emotionally exhausting, and the aftermath was even worse. He was happy to be back here with his tools and materials, putting things to rights, and not getting ambushed by women.

  “Good morning, Tony.”

  The tape measure flew out of his hand.

  He spun around and saw Dalia standing behind him on one of the plywood panels that had been laid across the porch joists.

  “Sorry,” she said. “My mistake.”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I’m just glad the tape measure didn’t hit you.”

  Good morning, Tony? What was that supposed to mean? Why did she sound so businesslike and polite? How long had she been standing there watching him, with her hands folded in that weirdly formal way?

  “Um... Would you care for some coffee?” she asked. “A bagel?”

  A bagel? What was this, New York City? He almost made a crack about how she’d lived in the big city too long. But no. He couldn’t joke with her like that. Their last meeting had been, well...

  “No, thanks, I’m good. We went to that taco-kolache-espresso place in town, you know, the one with the big metal rooster next door? They’ve got a boudin kolache that’s really good. I mean, I haven’t actually tried it, but...I hear it’s good.”

  Why was he rambling? He wasn’t even sure what boudin was.

  “Could I speak with you alone, please?”

  “Sure.”

  She took a quick look around at Alex and the other workers. “Alone.”

  Okay, she was starting to seriously freak him out, with her bagels and coffee and Could I speak with you alone, please?

  “All right,” he said. “Alex, would you take over for me here?”

  “Sure thing,” Alex said.

  Dalia walked through the empty door opening into the house. He followed her across the living room, into the short hallway...

  Tony gulped. She was holding open the door to her old bedroom.

  He’d never actually been inside this room before, never caught more than a glimpse of it through the open doorway. Mr. Ramirez had laid out some vivid and painful consequences that would befall Tony if he ever set so much as a toe across the threshold.

  He squared his shoulders and walked on through.

  The room was severely neat, with what looked like the same furniture she’d had in high school, and the same quilt on the bed. Dalia turned the desk chair around to face the bed and sat there, while gesturing for Tony to sit on the bed itself. He did, gingerly, on the very edge.

  This whole thing was surreal. It felt a lot like that time he’d been called into his elementary school’s principal’s office—with his mom, no less—after he’d climbed onto the roof of the cafeteria. That man sure could put some menace into bland words. Antonio needs to find a more constructive outlet for his energy and develop better impulse control.

  Dalia took a deep breath.

  “I want to apologize for whatever I did—and I don’t doubt that I did it—that made you think you couldn’t tell me the truth about what happened on spring break. What you said about being scared of how I’d react—I wish you hadn’t felt that way, but I understand why you did. I know I can be a rigid and uncompromising person. I made you afraid of me, and I’m sorry. Not that what you did wasn’t really stupid! It was. But being stupid isn’t the same as being unfaithful. I know this doesn’t change anything that’s happened, but I want you to know how sorry I am.”

  Tony’s eyes stung. For her to be humble and sorry was something he’d never looked for, never imagined. Dalia had never apologized to him before, for anything, ever. Nothing strange about that; he was the one who was always messing up. But now that he heard her say the words, he suddenly felt like a weight had been lifted off him.

  Then she said, “However.”

  She packed a lot into that however. After she said it, she took a long pause. Tony just kept quiet and waited. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming.

  She spoke slowly, like she was choosing her words carefully.

  “I want to know how we got from you being afraid to tell me the truth, to me thinking you cheated on me. That day in the lumberyard, you said you never did. Is that true?”

  “It’s true.”

  For a second there was a break in her self-control. She took a quick breath, let it out and lowered her head.

  Then she looked him straight in the eye again.

  “Okay. I believe you. So why did I think for six years that you did? I might have jumped to conclusions, but that can’t be the whole story.”

  “Yeah, it’s not. I, uh—You have to understand, I didn’t know right from the start that I was going to lose the vision in the eye completely. I held out hope for a long time. Weeks. I thought I’d heal up good as new and you’d never need to know. But then—Wow, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Why don’t you pick up with that one phone call, when your vision started to go? What happened after that?”

  “Okay, yeah. Well, so I went to the ER in Corpus Christi, and then they admitted me to the hospital, and an ophthalmologist came in to do the surgery.”

  “What was it like?”

  “Oh, man, it was the worst. Did you know they don’t put you under for eye surgery? They give you a local, and a sedative, but that’s it. They’re operating on your eyeball and you’re awake for the whole thing! I talked the entire time, just a string of nonsense. I don’t think the surgeon liked it much. He didn’t like me much, period. He was pretty grim—he had, like, the worst bedside manner ever—but he said there was really no way to give a prognosis until the post-recovery vision test. I just had to wait and see.”

  “How long?”

  “Two to four weeks. The recovery period was rough. My eyes were all red and swollen—both of them, because the good eye did this sympathetic thing where it swelled up, too. There was all this stuff to do with ice packs and weird sleeping positions. The one bright spot was I got Percocet. Ha ha!”

  It had seemed funny enough before he said it, but once the words were out, they just sounded sad, and Dalia did not look amused.

  “Did you go through all that alone?”

  “Oh, no. Alex was with me. I called him from the ER, and five hours later he was there. He’s the only one who knows, actually. Well—other than you now.”

  “Seriously? You never told anyone? Your grandparents? Your mom and dad?”

  “Mom had just gotten remarried. I didn’t want to bother her. Dad would’ve been worse than useless. And my grandparents had enough to worry about on the ranch. Honestly, I just didn’t want to talk about it. Plus, at that point I was still hopeful. Like I said, I...I thought I’d get my vision back and everything would be okay.”

  “But what about the guys who went to North Padre with you? What’d you do about them?”

  “Told ’em I was sick. That wasn’t hard to believe, the way I’d been drinking. They were too busy partying to pay much attention. And as soon as it was okay for me to travel, Alex got me back to the dorm. My roommate had dropped out of school by then, so Alex stayed in my room. Made sure I took my meds and did everything the doctor said.”

  “But didn’t you miss class?”

  “Well, sure. But for a college athlete to miss a lot of class and then show up with bloodshot eyes is not that unusual. I could’ve made it up later. The coaching staff could’ve arranged something, assuming I’d be able to play again. At that point I wasn’t able to do much of anything, other than sit around and think, and talk to you on the phone once in a whil
e.”

  “I remember. No wonder you sounded so weird.”

  “Yeah. Well, so the recovery period ended, and I had zero vision in my right eye. And I kept right on grasping at straws. I still had time before summer training camp, and we wouldn’t have our physicals until after that. I thought maybe I could memorize the eye chart, I thought I could adapt, I thought my eye could still heal. But I couldn’t keep fooling myself forever. It didn’t matter how great of shape the rest of me was in. With no depth perception, I couldn’t land the ball anymore. And with no peripheral vision on my right side, I was a sitting duck for getting sacked. I was finished. So I tried to feel you out about the whole thing. We were talking, and I said, what if I didn’t go pro? What if I didn’t even play college ball anymore? What if I didn’t finish school? And you asked if I was flunking out. And I said no, I was just thinking out loud. And you said, ‘Well, don’t. You’re not good at it.’”

  He could hear the bitterness in his own voice. He’d never forgotten those words. They’d felt like a slap in the face.

  Dalia picked up where he left off. “And then you said, ‘You know what? Never mind. I don’t know why I even try to talk to you.’”

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one who could still recall the exact words of the conversation.

  “I thought you were just picking a fight,” she said. “And so I said, ‘This is about spring break, isn’t it?’ And you...you didn’t say anything. There was just this long silence that made me feel sick to my stomach. And then you hung up. You hung up on me, Tony.”

  “I wasn’t picking a fight, not at first. It was a last-ditch effort. I was asking because I really wanted to know if the two of us still had a shot. You could have said that it didn’t matter, that you loved me no matter what I did for a living. And then I could have told you, and maybe, just maybe, you would’ve forgiven me and things would have been okay. But that isn’t what you said. And I knew then that we were finished. So yeah, I pushed you away. There was no point in telling you the truth about what happened. I’d just have to hear a lecture about how stupid I was, and then you’d break up with me anyway, so why not skip to the credits? It was better for you not to be dragged down by me.”

  “Better? How can you think that? I thought... Tony, I thought you cheated on me. I mean, come on. It sure sounded like an admission to me.”

  “Yeah, but you know what? I think you were ready to believe it because you expected it all along. And that’s what I don’t get. Out of all the things I could have done, all the reasons I might have been acting weird, the one thing you zeroed in on was that I’d been with another girl.”

  “Well, yes. Naturally that was the first thing I thought of.”

  “Why naturally? Do I have Cheater printed on my forehead?”

  “Well, no, of course not. It’s just...”

  She looked at him like it should be obvious. He waited. She held out a hand toward him, gesturing, like he was Exhibit A. He held both of his hands out, palms up, like, What?

  She stood, looked up at the ceiling and sighed in that impatient way that meant Tony was being obtuse.

  “Well, look at you, with your outrageous good looks and your ridiculous charm. I don’t think you even mean to flirt half the time—it’s just your way. You can talk to anyone and make them like you without even trying. You’ve got this...this body, and this face, and this charm, and I...I’m not all that. I’m just me. I’m not...pretty enough for you. I never was.”

  He felt his jaw fall open. “Not pretty enough? Are you kidding me? Why would you think that? Didn’t I tell you how beautiful you are, like, a million times when we were together?”

  “Of course. But you would say that, and make it sound sincere. That’s just how you are.”

  He rose to his feet. “It’s just the truth, is what it is! Dalia, you are the most amazing woman I have ever known. You’re beautiful and smart and hardworking and disciplined. You’re the whole package. I’m the one who’s not enough. I’m not smart enough for you and your successful family. But I never cheated on you, and I never wanted to. There was never anyone for me but you. Never. Not then and not now.”

  Those last few sentences came out before he knew he was going to say them. The air seemed to shudder with the shock of it. Dalia stood there, all stiff and taut like she’d fall to pieces if she relaxed even a tiny bit.

  Then her eyes filled with tears.

  Tony could count on one hand the times he’d seen Dalia cry. On the playground in fourth grade when she broke her arm. On the front porch that time when he’d shown her the board where he’d written Tony loves Dalia. At her dad’s funeral. And now.

  He put his arms around her and felt hers go around him and hold on tight. It felt good—like getting into a hot shower the morning after the first cold front of the year. It was the most amazing feeling of comfort and release. He laid his cheek against the top of her head and breathed deep of that juniper berry scent. He could have stayed that way forever.

  But then she took a deep shuddery breath and pulled away, and it was like the hot water ran out after two minutes, leaving him shivering. He ached with wanting to hold her again, but he let her go and stood there quietly while she got her face back under control.

  An awkward, excruciating silence passed. Tony wasn’t good at awkward silences. He always wanted to fill them, but he couldn’t think of anything to say to fill this one.

  Dalia sniffed and drew herself up straight.

  “But I heard you got cut from the team because you were skipping workouts and stuff.”

  “Yeah, that’s not wrong. I did. The coaching staff never knew what the real problem was.”

  “What? Why on earth not? Why didn’t you tell them about your eye?”

  “Because I’d rather have them think of me as a brilliant but undisciplined player than know the truth—that I just couldn’t do it anymore. It’s one thing to be the guy who refuses to get his act together. It’s another thing to be the guy who can’t perform no matter how hard he tries.”

  “And you think the first one is better?”

  “Well, yeah! I mean if you’re just a goof-off, then there’s still hope for you. Everyone believes that if you’d just buckle down and apply yourself, you’d be great. But if you go all in, if you do your best and your best isn’t good enough, then what else is there? You’re just some guy, nothing special. And everyone knows it.”

  She shook her head, clearly not convinced but willing to let it go for now and get on with the story.

  “So you got cut from the team. And without your scholarship, you were finished in school also.”

  “Well...it was a combination of things. Alex thought there might still be a way to work out some sort of arrangement, financially. He was researching grants and stuff, and making me study for finals. But then that plan tanked.”

  “Why? What tanked it?”

  “Your package. It showed up Monday morning, just before my first exam.”

  She dropped her face in her hands.

  “Nothing else felt important after that,” he said softly. “I was just...done. So I flunked out, came back home and moved in with my dad. I know, terrible idea—but I didn’t have a lot of options. My mom and her new husband were living in Longview. Rick’s a pretty good guy, but I don’t think he would’ve been thrilled at taking in his wife’s washed-out twenty-year-old son at that point in their marriage. Alex was living with my grandparents, and he tried to get me to move in with them, too, but that would’ve meant getting up at the crack of dawn, working cattle, mending fence, and I just wasn’t up to it. Not the work itself so much as my grandfather. He’s a good man, but he’s not the easiest person in the world to get along with, especially when he thinks you’re a slacker. Dad was basically the only one who was excited to have me around. At that point I didn’t have much left to lose, and the idea of a nonstop party seemed pr
etty good. There was nothing to rein me in, no reason whatsoever to stay in shape or keep my nose clean. Just good times.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “Yeah, it was. It didn’t take me long to find out that I could sink lower, that I did have something left to lose. Finally I realized I had to do something productive with my life, and the first step was getting away from my dad. That was hard. Not just, like, the emotional side of it, but the logistical side, too. I didn’t have enough money for a place of my own, so I actually lived out of my truck for a couple months. I hired on with a roofing crew. Man, was that rough. I have never worked that hard in my entire life. It was mind-numbingly hard. But somewhere along the way, I started to like it and get good at it. I learned to frame and trim. Then I started taking on small jobs on my own, and one thing led to another. By then Alex was going to automotive technology school and wanted to live in town, so we moved in together. And it got to where I was bidding bigger and bigger jobs, and before I knew it, I was a general contractor.”

  “Hold on a minute. You started out as a roofer? Wasn’t that dangerous, walking around on roofs when you didn’t have any depth perception?”

  He shrugged. “Not any more dangerous than firefighting.”

  She stared at him. “I forgot about that. You’re a firefighter, and you’re blind in one eye. How is that even allowed?”

  “Allowed? You realize we’re volunteers, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but it’s not safe. Surely you have to make some sort of disclosure of any preexisting physical conditions before they accept you.”

  “Nope. Anyway, it’s not that big a deal. Once you put that helmet and SCA mask on, your peripheral vision’s pretty much shot, anyway. You have to keep your head on a swivel to watch for flames sneaking over your shoulder.”

  “You are not making me feel better.”

  He smiled. “You worried about me?”

  It came out sounding flirtier than he’d intended. Careful, he told himself. Don’t be dumb. Don’t ruin it.

  Dalia scowled. “I’d prefer that you not die a fiery death, yes.”