Asked For (19 page)

Lana scurried the rest of the way up the steps.
Thank you, Jeanie.

****

She came. Not less than two months after she’d written that she was learning to drive, and not more than ten minutes before Cletus was to arrive home from work. Jeanie was in a truck, her father’s truck, pillows and blankets stuffed behind her so she wouldn’t bounce so far or hard that her feet and hands would fly off the pedals and steering wheel.

“I did it! I told you I would,” Jeanie squealed. She dropped down from the truck and held the door open long enough for Lana and her older children to see inside, see the menagerie of rolled up linens and the remains of a sandwich strewn across the seat. “Are you surprised?”

Cletus’ truck rumbled in the far-off distance. Jeanie didn’t hear it or recognize it, her ears too full of her own boisterous excitement.

“Jim didn’t come with you?” Lana was surprised Jeanie would make such a long trip alone so late in the day.

Jeanie swiped her hand through the air. “I told him to come, but he said he was busy. He always says he’s busy. So I came without him.” There was hurt, or maybe just annoyance, beneath Jeanie’s easy dismissal of Jim’s refusal to ride along with her. Cletus’ truck rumbled nearer, Harold looked off toward the road.

Magdalena inched to Lana’s side, watching Jeanie the way a mouse gauges a cat.

“You’ll eat with us, won’t you?” Lana asked. Of course Jeanie would. She’d end up staying all night. No one would expect her to drive back so far after dark.

“Oh, I meant to get here sooner, but I stopped at my cousin Lilly’s house. She’s not far from here, and I hadn’t seen her in ever so long. I guess we chatted too much, and it got late. Do you mind if I eat here? I had a sandwich with me, but I ate it already.”

Jeanie ran on, barely acknowledging Lana’s nod. Cletus reached the end of the lane. Harold ran to the edge of the house and peered around its corner to watch his father come up the drive. Magdalena wrapped herself in Lana’s skirt, peering out at Jeanie from a gap above its folds.

“Magdalena, what are you doing?” Lana shook her skirt, but Magdalena held on. Jeanie wouldn’t know, she wouldn’t understand or even realize, what a threat she was. Cletus’ truck came around the corner. He let off the gas when he saw them, and as he paused, the truck ambled forward, its engine rumbling submissively, like a tiger subdued. He pulled it next to Jeanie’s father’s truck and shut off the engine. Lana felt her skirt tug downward as Magdalena wound her fists tighter into the fabric.

“My truck’s as big as yours!” Jeanie shouted as Cletus stepped out. She laughed, she sparkled, she meant no harm, but she caused it. Lana saw it, and so did her oldest daughter.

“She’s a bad driver,” Magdalena spouted from within Lana’s skirts. “I could do better. Watch!” Magdalena broke free of the gathers and darted to Jeanie’s truck. She was on the running board and hanging from the handle before Lana could grab her. Cletus was quicker. He was out of his truck and, with what seemed like one long, sweeping movement, rounded Jeanie’s vehicle and scooped his daughter into his arms, pulling her free of the door’s handle. It was graceful, and so natural. Lana had never seen such a movement before. She saw her own awe in her daughter’s face, admiration overpowering the surprise at being snatched away from her mission.

Cletus set Magdalena down. He didn’t notice how prince-like he’d been in his daughter’s eyes, how warm his arms made her feel when they were wrapped around her. Lana felt them along with Magdalena, felt the place a father’s arms were to be. They felt good, they felt safe, they made the girl in her feel alive and whole. Cletus told Magdalena to leave the truck alone and stop telling lies about Mama’s friends. The warmth vanished. Magdalena’s awe subsided. She stared at Jeanie from the spot her father had left her, her face returned to stone. Then she marched to the house.

Cletus didn’t apologize to Jeanie. He didn’t look embarrassed or angry. But he stood at attention as Jeanie sputtered to a start and gained momentum, explaining how it felt to drive all the way from her house to theirs. Lana studied the two of them, uninterested in Jeanie’s narration but wary now, just like her daughter had been, as she watched her husband’s reaction. Lana slid her fingers to her stomach, then to below her navel. She rested them there over the new life that was just beginning.
Please be a boy,
she prayed silently.
My husband wants another son, and I need to keep us together, all of us.
She watched. She prayed. She wished Jeanie would go home.

Chapter 22

Lana 1936

It was the first time she’d ever really seen Mr. Morgan up close. She knew of him, knew Cletus’ opinion of him, and had vague recollections of how he looked when she’d been to town once or twice before. He was a reputation more than a memory, an emblem of right versus wrong. She wondered if Mr. Morgan knew how the two of them had been inextricably tied in Cletus’ mind, her and him together, a pair against her husband. They had been tied, but not quite as much now, now that she was pregnant again, hopefully carrying a son that would put her back on Cletus’
s
side.

Cletus nudged her forward. Walking was difficult, as she slogged from right to left. She tilted back a little to counter the bulk she carried in front, throwing her even more off balance. She prayed her doctor wouldn’t be at this dinner, a town council dinner she thought was to make peace amongst its members. She’d never told him she was pregnant. She hadn’t told Grandma, either. Lana had worked too hard to get this far, and Ella’s glares at Cletus were damaging enough. He didn’t need any more reasons to avoid her as a wife.

“Over here.” Cletus’ fingers were at her back, his attention more frequent, and often gentler, as he waited for the birth of his son. He propelled her toward a cluster of people she didn’t know. She rarely came to town, and she felt awkward being here now, the size of a cow with calf.

Faces turned their way, some with smiles, some with half smiles, and others with nothing at all. For Cletus there were nods from the men, most of them without smiles.

“Ow!” She clamped a hand over her mouth and bent forward. The low jabbing pain surprised her, and she stopped.

“Come on.” Cletus’ fingers pressed at her back. He was nervous about this dinner, the peace dinner. He wanted it to go right. Right, his way.

“I’m sorry.” She straightened, slowly, until the pain subsided.

She saw him as he broke from the cluster. His hair was dark, so was his complexion, and she knew it was Mr. Morgan. Lana was taken by his eyes. They were even kinder than she remembered, eyes that smiled, while those of the woman with him were observant.

“Cletus,” Mr. Morgan said. They shook hands. Then Mr. Morgan looked Lana’s way as he nodded toward the woman beside him. “This is Ida, my sister. And you are Mrs. Paine.”

“Lana,” she said, at the same moment Cletus said, “Yep.” Her protruding belly gave them an excuse to stand apart, away from each other like sparrers might do while they sized each other up. She blushed and tried to shrink back a half step behind Cletus, her stomach still jutting into the midst of their foursome.

“When is the baby due?” Ida asked.

“Any time now,” Lana answered. “It’s our sixth.”

“Sixth! Glory be! You don’t look old enough for six children!” Ida sized her up. “Six! So what do you think this one is? Boy or girl?”

“Boy,” Lana answered quickly. “I mean, a son.” She looked up at Cletus. He nodded, and she smiled.

Ida began to talk about having babies, something she hadn’t experienced yet, still being unmarried, but she was hopeful. Ida paused, then went on. Listening to her was like listening to Jeanie, a running monologue of voice and sound. Lana watched Ida, enjoyed the easy way she spoke, comfortable and rambling on, indifferent to whether her brother agreed or not.

Lana stole peeks at couples around the room, men with their wives, and how they behaved. She’d had no model to go by other than Ella and Carl, and the imaginations Jeanie had put into her head when they were girls. Lana eyed the crowd of men, tall, short, rough, chuckling. Did any of them make love instead of just babies? Did other wives feel frightened, confused?

Cletus jabbed her in the back with a finger. She yanked her head his direction. He nodded to Mr. Morgan.

“I was saying that with so many children you might enjoy a meal free from cooking,” Mr. Morgan said—again. She could tell by the frown Cletus gave her. “Bring everyone to the restaurant. My treat.”

Ida looked startled, her brows pinched together as she glanced back at Lana.

“Oh, Mr. Morgan…” Lana began.

“Glen. Please call me Glen. And don’t argue. Just come and enjoy.”

Ida frowned at her brother as Lana smiled.

“I doubt you can afford to feed all of us.” Lana looked up at Cletus as she spoke. He threaded his fingers around her arm. It was pleasant. She knew he didn’t mean it that way, but it was, and she smiled even more.

“Gather round,” a man called. “Time to eat.”

Couples paired off, searching for seats at the square of tables. Lana followed Cletus; he led them away from Mr. Morgan.

“We won’t be eating at his restaurant,” Cletus said as they found their seats. “It’s just a ploy, and I’m not falling for it.”

The tables were filled with platters of fried chicken, bowls of mashed potatoes, baskets of rolls, ears of corn, and more. It was a meal no different from what she made at home, but it smelled so much better, just because it wasn’t her own. When they were settled, she waited for Cletus to fill his plate before she filled hers, but he surprised her by dishing food for her first, then taking care of himself. She eyed the food hungrily. She was starving, she always was, especially now that this boy was so large inside her. Cletus never knew how hungry she felt. He never asked, and she never told him. She wondered now if he had somehow guessed, for he filled her plate to heaping and nodded that she should dig in.

Another pain tore through her abdomen, sharper than the first. It obliterated the pleasure of sitting next to her husband, of having him touch her, wait on her. She wouldn’t allow this pain to destroy the occasion. She clenched her teeth and gripped the edge of her seat until it passed.

“Think Ella’s doing okay with the kids?” she asked Cletus through her tightened mouth. It didn’t sound as casual as she wanted. A tiny sweat had broken out with her pain, leaving her skin cool. Cletus nodded.

She picked up her fork. The hum around them was soothing, and she listened, stowing away the pain and its memory, relaxing into the voices and conversations. She began to eat.

“Why didn’t you go big time?” A man across the way asked. He was looking at Cletus. Her husband stared back, a faint tinge of pink coloring his face. “You were the best. You should’ve gone on.”

Cletus shook his head, he looked down at his plate. Not the way he did when she spoke to him. He was still in this conversation, he was just dodging it, not bored.

Stories of baseball erupted around the room, her husband the star of them all. Lana stared at Cletus, a man she suddenly felt she didn’t even know.

“You played baseball?” she asked. He nodded. He was taller than any man in the room, longer and leaner, and probably meaner. He must have been quick when he was young. “You were good?” She leaned forward into his gaze. He shrugged. She remembered how he’d moved around Jeanie’s father’s truck when he snatched Magdalena from its running board. It had been graceful, smooth, and certain. Why hadn’t she guessed? He had a gift. He had talent. He hadn’t even told her.

“He was the best,” Mr. Morgan said from another table. “From what I hear, there was no one like him.”

Lana looked at Mr. Morgan, and he winked. It was a fun wink, one meant to tease Cletus rather than her. Mr. Morgan leaned back in his chair and draped one arm across the back of Ida’s.

Lana smiled, then she glanced around the room, eavesdropping on tales of baseball, watching men and women enjoy their food. In spite of the enthusiastic bluster baseball brought to the crowd, it was still a strained gaiety, an almost false bravado. She hadn’t detected it earlier; she’d been too in awe, too curious about other couples. But now she saw it, the forced effort to make peace she had suspected would be there, the almost challenging tone as the men fired questions, almost accusations, at her husband about why he hadn’t played baseball.

Cletus had built bridges, he’d been a war hero, he’d been a husband, and a father. All before her—before her and their nearly six children. When had he played ball? Or hadn’t played ball…

“That was a long time ago,” Cletus finally said to someone at another table. It wasn’t angry, but it closed the discussion like a hammer going down. He stared around the room, men and women stared back at him. He wasn’t himself. That’s why he’d filled her plate. He was nervous, and she was his anchor.

He looked lastly at her, his pale blue eyes begging her not to ask. She didn’t have to. Baseball fit somewhere around the death of his son. She could see it now. He had buried that dream with his family. She wanted to lay a hand on his arm the way Jeanie had on Jim’s. She wanted to say with her touch what she couldn’t in this crowd or even at home, but the pleading in his eyes warned her not to.

She gave him an invisible nod and turned to gaze around the room again. She no longer wondered what sort of husbands these men were. They were businessmen now, men with stores near her husband’s, who wanted him moved. She glanced along the tables, searching through their frivolous conversations that she knew had calculated motives, until her eyes lit upon a man who was watching her. He was very well dressed and immaculately groomed. He was older than she but younger than Cletus, slender, with thinning hair, and staring straight at her.

Cletus’ arm pressed against her. She felt his tautness, saw white on his knuckles as he gripped his butter knife. “Don’t look at him,” Cletus whispered. “That’s Kline. He makes trouble.”

Kline. She’d heard his name in Cletus’ grumblings. She tried to pry her look away from Mr. Kline’s, but it was powerful, magnetic. Cletus’ leg pressed against hers, and she managed finally, to pull her head away and turn another direction. Mr. Morgan was there in the path of her gaze. She stopped as he nodded, the glitter gone from his look. He was watching, paying attention, but saying nothing. At least not with his mouth. In his eyes she saw a whole conversation.