The Song of David (39 page)

Henry came bursting into the house, Millie’s name on his lips, and I raced down the remaining stairs, intercepting him.

“Henry, wait!”

Henry jumped and turned, startled at the vehemence in my voice. There was no way I was letting anything interrupt what was going on behind that door.

“Don’t go in there. Millie’s with Tag. And we need to leave them alone for a while.”

Henry looked at the closed door and looked back at me. He nodded his head slowly. I got us both a cold can of Coke from the fridge and handing one to him, put my arm around his shoulders and steered him back out of the house. We sat out on the deck, putting our feet up on the railing so we could watch Georgia work while we downed our drinks. I loved watching Georgia work.

“Axel has never ridden a horse,” Henry remarked, clearly thinking about the evening before, when Axel and Mikey had delivered Tag’s truck, uncertain of where to stow it in Salt Lake, with everything up in the air like it was.

“Nope. Did you show him how it’s done?” I knew Henry had shown off a little, but I wanted to give him a chance to talk about it. Tag hadn’t come down when the guys arrived. It was a miracle he was talking to Millie now.

“Yep. I show him things, he shows me things,” Henry said, nodding. “I’m part of the team.”

It was my turn to nod. Tag had assembled an amazing group of guys. And the coolest thing about them was how they all treated Henry.

“There is no ‘i’ in team,” Henry said suddenly, seriously, as if repeating something he’d heard at a school pep rally. Or maybe he’d heard it in the gym.

“Nope.”

“There is no ‘i’ in Tag Team either,” he added.

“Nope. There isn’t,” I agreed.

“Are we Tag’s team?” he asked.

I started to explain what Tag Team was, the label, the fighters, the gym. And then I stopped myself. “Yeah. We are. We’re Tag’s team.”

“Because we love him?”

“Yeah,” I said, getting choked up all over again. I was so tired of being overcome with emotion. But Henry had a way of sneaking up on me and saying the obvious, and saying it in such a way that it seemed profound. In Vegas, Millie had explained Tag’s condition to him the best she could, and he had come to me asking to go to a barber so he could get his hair cut like Tag’s. I hadn’t really known why he’d wanted to. I’d just thought it was just a case of hero worship. But Millie had been stunned by Henry’s desire to cut his hair. Apparently it wasn’t something that came easily to him. I realized now that it was his way of lending moral support, of being part of Tag Team. I watched as Georgia climbed over the fence and started toward us, grateful that I’d have her moral support momentarily.

“There
is
an ‘i’ in David, though,” Henry said simply, as if that negated the whole “I in team,” argument.

I laughed—a loud bark of relief that had him tipping his head toward me in curiosity. “You were doing so well, kid. I thought you were going to inspire me,” I snorted, still laughing, and relieved to be doing so.

“There isn’t an ‘i’ in Henry,” he said blandly.

“Or Moses,” I added, unable to stop chuckling. “We’re the selfless ones,” I explained.

“There’s an ‘i’ in Georgia,” Henry said, as Georgia joined us on the deck.

“Yep. And don’t I know it. Me, me, me. All the time,” I said, pulling on Georgia’s hand and bringing her in close to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my lips gently.

“Where’s Millie?” she asked, not taking my bait.

“She’s with Tag,” Henry volunteered. “And we’re leaving them alone.”

Georgia’s eyes shot to mine and her eyebrows rose.

“Oh yeah?” There was hope in her voice.

“Yeah. And Millie wasn’t being gentle,” I added softly. But Henry still heard.

“There’s no such thing as a timid fighter,” Henry parroted. “That’s what Tag says. And he says Amelie fights every damn day.”

“Hallelujah and praise the Lord for that,” Georgia said, sounding just like my great-grandma Kathleen. They were both small-town Levan girls who had spent a good deal of their lives as neighbors. So I guess it wasn’t surprising.

“Amen,” I agreed.

“Muhammad Amelie,” Georgia joked. “Floats like a butterfly . . .”

“Stings like a bee,” Henry and I finished.

“I’m going to go check on Kathleen,” Georgia said, easing away from us. I knew she was going to eavesdrop at the guest bedroom door on her way to Kathleen, but I didn’t call her on it, hoping she’d report back. Henry stood too and wandered back out to the corral to commune with Sackett, who walked to the fence to greet him.

From the corner of my eye I saw a pulse, a shimmer, like the air above the black top on a sweltering day. My neck got hot, and instead of resisting, I opened myself up to the summoning flicker, curious instead of afraid. It wasn’t Molly this time.

I recognized her, though I’d only seen her once before. She showed me lace. Just lace. A billowing swath, and then she was gone. But I understood, and for the first time since Tag disappeared, the vise around my heart eased slightly.

I TRADED ONE room for another, holing up in different parts of my best friend’s house. But this time, I wasn’t hiding. I was healing. Or hoping. Maybe that was it. Maybe I was allowing myself to hope.

No one came knocking. No one brought food or slid notes under the door. Even Henry. He was taken care of, and Millie and I both knew it. So we stayed locked away, together.

Darkness descended outside, and the stars came out. Millie couldn’t see them, but I told her they were there, fat and bright in the sky outside the big bay window in the guest room. I told her how I’d lain beneath those stars as a boy, sleeping out on the trampoline in my backyard in Dallas. I told her how, ten years later, Moses and I had stretched out on the deck of a boat going down the Nile River in Africa. I’d looked up at that never-ending expanse, and I’d recognized that old feeling. The very same feeling I’d had as a kid. I didn’t feel insignificant under the stars. I felt huge, like the heavens revolved around me. I was bigger than the stars. I was bigger and brighter, and the world was mine. I was so enormous I could hold up my thumb and completely blot one out, hold up my hand and obliterate a whole section of the sky. Such power. Such size. I wasn’t David, I was Goliath.

As I laid in that bed with Millie, the drapes pushed aside, staring out at the winking stars over a tiny town I’d never called home, that feeling surged inside me once again. I was relevant. I was significant. I had wanted to disappear, if only so the cancer could disappear with me. But the stars whispered that there was no such thing. You don’t ever disappear. You just change. You leave. You move on. But you never disappear. Even when you think you want to.

Millie didn’t laugh. She didn’t tease me about feeling God-like. She just listened to me talk, my fingers climbing up and down the smooth skin of her back, tracing the curve of her hip and the length of her leg that was thrown across mine. And then I pulled her into me, my hand at the base of her spine, and she caught her breath and said my name, and I felt God-like all over again.

I DON’T KNOW what time it was when we finally spoke again. We had slept for hours and awoke with growling bellies and dry throats, but stuck our faces beneath the bathroom tap and guzzled water to ease our thirst, just so we wouldn’t have to leave the room. Then Millie’s mouth found mine, her lips wet and cold, water clinging to her chin and sliding down her breasts, and we began again. Sometime before dawn, I attempted to slide out of bed, untangling myself from my sleeping beauty only to have her come fully awake and sit up, reaching for me, panicked.

Her fear made me sad because I had created it.

“Shhh, Millie. I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’ll be right back,” I whispered, kissing her forehead and smoothing her hair. “Lay back down. I promise you I won’t leave again. Not on purpose. Not ever again.”

She nodded and sank back against the pillows as I pulled on my jeans, but when I came back several minutes later, her eyes were open and she was waiting, listening for me, the sheets pulled up over her body, one arm curled under her head.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Your mighty hunter has brought meat. And bread. And cheese,” I grunted in my best caveman voice.

“And Miracle Whip?” she interrupted.

“Gross.”

“You know I like Miracle Whip.”

“And Miracle Whip,” I said, handing her a sandwich on a plate, complete with Miracle Whip, just the way she liked it.

I scarfed down three sandwiches in the time it took her to eat one and cracked the top on a can of soda, listening to the bubbles for just a second in quiet appreciation of Millie’s favorite sounds.

When we were done, I padded back to the kitchen and set our plates in the sink, put the sandwich fixings back in the fridge, and closed the tie on the bread bag. That’s when I spied the keys to my truck on the counter and paused, considering. I swept them up and was out the front door, inside my truck, and then back in the house in less than a minute, grateful that the house was still quiet and Millie hadn’t chased me down.

Millie was brushing her teeth and her hair at the same time, wearing my discarded T-shirt and looking like salvation, even in the dark. I sat on the bed and watched her, enjoying her, but she’d heard me come in, even over the running water. She knew I was there.

She climbed back into bed, snuggling down, and I thought about tugging my T-shirt over her head and kicking off my jeans, but some things required pants and I kind of felt like this was one of them. I crawled up behind her and wrapped myself around her, pulling her back against my chest. Then I whispered into her hair.

“Will you marry me, Millie?”

“What?” she gasped.

“Will you marry me and let me be Henry’s brother? I want you to be part of Tag Team.” I was parroting Henry’s proposal, trying to be cute, but my heart was in my throat and my hands felt slick against my T-shirt. I was glad I hadn’t pulled it off her. I pressed on. “Statistically, athletes with families have more purpose, better mental health, more stamina and overall improved performance than athletes who aren’t married.” If it wasn’t word for word what Henry had spouted off to me, it was close. But she was silent, and I couldn’t see her face.

“I was gonna ask you a month ago. I bought a ring. It was still in the glove box in my truck,” I explained, rushing over the words. And now it was in my pocket, in my jeans, waiting for her to give me an answer.

“I know. You told me,” she whispered.

“The tapes?” I asked, realizing I had indeed told her.

“Yes.”

“If none of this had happened, if I’d asked you two weeks ago, before all this went down, what would you have said?” I asked, my heart fat in my chest.

“No. I would have said no,” Millie said quietly.

My stomach lurched a little, and I pulled her closer even though I wanted to let go. My heart was pounding.

“Why, Millie?”

“Because I thought you needed more time,” she said.

“You thought
I
needed more time?” I asked, incredulous.

She nodded, one quick jerk of her head, and her hair tickled my lips. I waited for several seconds, processing.