Small Blessings (35 page)

Who knew? At this moment, who cared? Tom wrapped his arms around Rose and kissed her back unreservedly, heart, head, passions all funneled from his lips to hers. Then he stepped back, keeping his hands firmly on her shoulders, needing to look at her, look into her. “Are we beginning to fall in love, Rose?” he asked.

“I … I don't know,” she said, looking right back at him. “I think maybe, yes, we might be. I know I want to keep kissing you.”

Tom smiled. “And I, you.”

He no longer felt any need to monitor how he was doing or even what he was doing. He drew Rose to him and kissed her again, longer, deeper. The kind of kiss that subsumed everything else into it.

Henry giggled. “You two are
kissing
!”

Tom and Rose broke apart, but Tom captured Rose's hand and held on to it firmly. “Yes, we were, buddy. And you better get used to it.”

Henry continued to giggle.

 

chapter 17

The four of them were on their way home from Sunday dinner at Golden Corral. Henry (strapped into the new safety seat Agnes had thought to buy) and Rose were in the backseat of Tom's ancient Subaru Forester, Tom and Agnes in the front.

Agnes, who'd eaten two brownies and a big bowl of ice cream, was in full planning mode. What they had to do, she declared, was develop a comprehensive plan to settle Henry quickly into his new life. This included setting up doctor and dentist appointments, enrolling him in peewee soccer, encouraging him to make friends and invite them over; all the things good parents did for their children. They needed to be able to show Mr. Brownlow that Henry was in a good place, not just a legally justified place. Their first priority should be to enroll him in school.

Tom and Rose nodded in agreement. Henry failed to respond. He was absorbed in looking at
Celtic Football Club, 1887–1967 (Archive Photographs: Images of Scotland Series),
a book Tom had discovered among the piles shoved into the corners of his attic office.

They were stopped at a red light. “How do you feel about starting school, Henry?” Tom asked, turning around to face the boy.

“Fine,” Henry said without looking up.

“What about enrolling Henry in Ed House?” Rose suggested. “I'll bet Henry'd like being able to walk to school. And the teachers there seem really nice.”

Ed House, as it was unofficially called, was a K–3 school run by the college's Education Department. As Education regularly claimed more majors than any other department, the staff-to-student ratio was unreal.

“What a good idea,” Agnes said. She approved of Ed House because it welcomed children from the entire area, not just the campus.

It was a long red light. Tom was still regarding Henry. “You have
been
to school, haven't you?”

Henry looked up long enough to give Tom the what-a-dumb-question eye. “I finished first grade at Westside Elementary School in Picayune with all check marks,” he said. “Of
course
I've been to school.” Then he went back to his book.

*   *   *

Tom telephoned Betty Price, the Ed House administrator, as soon as they walked in the house and got the all-clear for Henry to attend. Agnes was adamant that, if possible, he should start tomorrow.

“So,” Tom said, as the four of them sat down to play Parcheesi, “Henry? How would you feel about going to school tomorrow?”

Henry placed his four blue Parcheesi pieces in their nest and thought this over. “Fine. If you and Agnes and Rose will walk me over.”

“I can,” Tom said. “I was planning to, as a matter of fact. And I'm sure Agnes will. But Rose has to work tomorrow.”

“Actually, I don't,” Rose said, looking up at him and smiling. “I have tomorrow off.”

Tom's heart did a double backflip. The promise of the ages was in that smile.

“I'm sorry, Henry,” Agnes said immediately, “but I have to be somewhere tomorrow.”

“Where?” Tom asked in surprise.

“Somewhere,” Agnes said firmly. “And I have to be there early.”

*   *   *

Monday morning, Henry, dressed in his college T-shirt and blue jeans, wearing his Nikes and carrying his brand-new soccer ball, woke Tom up at six forty-five, announcing he was ready to go to school.

Tom, jerked out of a sweet, charged dream involving Rose Callahan, tried hard to refocus himself on the here and now. “It's a bit early, isn't it? School doesn't start until eight thirty.”

“Oh.” Henry thought for a few seconds, then brightened again. “You wanna go play soccer until then?”

Tom sat up. So
this
was parenting. “Maybe I should take a shower and then we could have some breakfast?”

“I already ate. Cheerios and orange juice. My mawmaw always says if you don't eat a good breakfast before you go to school, you won't learn as much.” Henry delivered this wisdom in a singsong voice, obviously repeating something that had been said to him on a regular basis. Then, very softly, with no warning, “I miss my mawmaw. I don't understand why they had to go help other people instead of staying home with me.”

“Oh, Henry,” Tom said, holding out his arms. He had no answer for that one. People did what they did.

Henry hesitated, then stepped forward. Tom hugged him, soccer ball and all. “I don't know why,” he said into Henry's cloud of hair. “All I know is that I'm very, very glad to have you here.”

Henry stood there for a full moment, not moving, not responding at all. Then he stepped back. “Can I have some more Cheerios?” he asked, almost happy again.

*   *   *

Rose left her cottage at ten till eight to walk to the Putnams'. She was dressed in a new white T-shirt, her best skirt, a swoop-hemmed, rusty red cotton number bought on extreme sale from Sundance, and her cowboy boots, bought years ago in Austin. She had ironed the skirt and polished the boots, as this was a special day. She and Tom were to walk Henry to school, then walk back to the Putnam house and—Rose felt pretty sure this would happen—have sex for the first time.

As Rose headed down Farmhouse Lane, it came to her that she felt more as though she were
going
home rather than
leaving
home. Evidently, when she wasn't paying attention, “home” had stopped being the cottage and started being the Putnams'. She reached the end of Farmhouse Lane, crossed the road, entered the campus proper, waved and nodded and chatted her way along.

This is like living in a village,
Rose thought. Or at least like living in a village the way she'd always imagined it; a place where people had no choice but to know one another, where you couldn't go anywhere without having chats about the weather or people's children or how insufferable skateboarders were. Would such serial sociability feel suffocating after a while? Perhaps. But she, conditioned to be anchored to a place by employment, would have drifted away long before that happened. Karma was karma.

Still, when Rose rang the doorbell and Tom opened the door and took her into his arms and Henry danced around and shouted, “Rose is here,” and Agnes called out, “Morning, Rose,” from the kitchen, Rose felt something dangerously close to heartbreak at the thought of the three Putnam house resident stilled, captured, and framed on some faraway bedroom wall.

“Rose,” Henry said, “you got dressed up!”

“I did,” she said, leaning over Tom's arms, which still encircled her. “It's a big occasion, so I put on my big-occasion outfit.”

Tom smiled down at her, and suddenly—whether from insight or fear—Rose's vision of the two of them zoomed out to her usual, comfortable no-nonsense perspective. She'd known happy times before she'd come here, and she would know happy times again after she left. The thing to remember was that, when dealing with her own heart or someone else's, her reach really must be kept in line with her grasp.

A new firmness enveloped her; Rose felt almost, but not quite, calm. She was what she was; honest, forthright, caring, just not, in the end, someone who allowed herself to become
involved
.

Rose stepped back from Tom's arms, turned to Henry, and offered her hand. “You think Agnes has any coffee left?”

Tom gave her a look, as though he'd heard her thoughts. But surely, if he had, it was all to the good? It would be a terrible mistake for this lovely, kind man to imagine that she, Rose Callahan, could be part of his future.

*   *   *

The three of them crossed campus hand in hand, Henry in the middle, Rose carrying his lunch in her free hand, Tom carrying the soccer ball in his. “
Every
kid plays soccer at school,” Henry had announced with authority.

It was one of those energizing days that come with the change of seasons. Knots of students chorused, “Hi, Professor Putnam! Hi, Rose! Hi, Henry!” as though the three of them had been a fixture on campus forever. In fact, no one seemed startled anymore by the sight of him walking hand in hand with Rose and Henry. Marjory was dead; long live Professor Putnam, and whoever.
Do they even remember her?
Tom wondered, giving yet another nod and smile to an assistant professor of chemistry heading past on his way to the Quad. Just as the three of them were crossing the miniature formal boxwood garden attached to the president's house, some internal imp reminded Tom that he and Rose had yet to say things to each other that perhaps, given the circumstances, they needed to say. Or at least, he needed to say his things and see how she responded. The truth was that Rose mostly still showed him only what she showed the rest of the world. Still, there had been enough glimpses behind the curtain to give him hope. And he would gladly settle for hope after so many years of combating despair.

Impulsively he squeezed Henry's hand. “Swing me!” Henry shouted happily. And they did.

*   *   *

Ed House was tucked in behind the president's house at the top of the road that led down to the college lake. As they passed the Dean Dome, Russell stepped outside onto his portico and turned to lock his door. Which was unusual. No one on campus ever locked anything.

“Hi, Professor Jacobs!” Henry called. “I'm going to school.”

Russell either didn't hear Henry or didn't want to hear him. He fussed on with his door, still with his back turned, flanked by the urns of geraniums. Those geraniums marked an aberration in Russell's behavior. He'd always been as regular as Old Faithful in replacing them with mums the second week of school. Russell's hair had gotten shaggy as well, Tom noticed. He'd always worn it long, but romantically so, not raggedly.

“Hello, Russ,” Tom called out. “Come with us to take Henry to Ed House for his first day.”

“I'm going to be in second grade,” Henry added. “If you come, you can meet my teacher.”

Finally Russell turned to face the three of them. Years ago, when Tom had been playing croquet in Charlottesville, there had been a slight earthquake. He would never forget his reaction. His first thought had been:
This is just wrong.
That was how Russell looked now; as though seeing the three of them together on a Monday morning was just wrong.

Henry broke free, ran up to Russell, took one of his hands, and pulled it gently. “You feel all right?”

Russell snatched his hand back. Then, looking at Rose, he reached into Henry's hair and gave a yank.

“Ouch!” Henry backed up. “You pulled my hair!”

“I did not,” Russell said. “My hand got tangled.”

Henry wasn't having it. “You did
so
pull! Look, you've got my hair in your hand.”

“Sorry.” Russell put his hand in his jacket pocket. “I have to go now—I'm late for a meeting.”

What is all this about?
Tom wondered, as he watched Russell's eyes drift downward until they rested on Henry. “Henry, I—” Russell began, but then broke off abruptly and hurried down the portico steps. “I have to go,” he muttered as he strode past Tom and Rose.

Tom watched him go. Was Russell losing it? He felt Rose's hand on his arm. He turned to find her looking up at him.

This,
Tom thought,
is it. If I'm going to have a relationship with Rose Callahan, I have to trust not only her, but life. I can either give up right now or go forward, accepting that whatever is going on with this woman might end gloriously or it might end badly.

A line from an old Doobie Brothers song floated into his head.
You'll always have a chance to give up, so why do it now?

Why indeed,
Tom thought, catching up Rose's hand.

*   *   *

He and Rose walked back together, not hand in hand, but something closer, their world a separate one from everyone else's.

They didn't talk much. Tom wholly gave himself up to the swishing sound of Rose's skirt, the smell of her lavender shampoo, the sight of her boots appearing and disappearing beneath the hem of her skirt.

“You do know, Tom,” Rose said, “I won't be here much longer. My job at the Book Store isn't very secure.”

Tom was too happy to let the future bother him. He could
think
about it, but he wasn't going to
feel
about it. Not right now, anyway. “Something will work out,” he said.

Rose touched his arm, stopped him, made him look at her. “Just so you understand that I'm not a permanent fixture around here.”

“Okay.” The future could jolly well take care of itself. It always had, after all.

“You need to hear me, Tom. I don't want to make you unhappy.”

He laughed. He couldn't help it. “Oh, Rose,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, “I'm
good
at being unhappy. Please, please just let me enjoy you right here, right now.” He watched her eyes as he spoke, trying harder than he'd ever tried before to peer into someone's soul. He thought he saw promise, hope, warmth, caring—all the things he hungered to give and receive.