Cavedweller (61 page)

“I hope not, boy.” Emmet stood up awkwardly. “I surely hope not, but you take my advice and think about things while I get her.”

When she came through the door, Nolan felt all his air go out of him. Dede looked as if she had shrunk. Her face had narrowed, and the dark shadows under her eyes made her look years older. Most striking was the way her mouth and chin seemed to have softened.

“Nolan,” she whispered, and he thought his heart would break. Dede had never sounded so cowed in all her life. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, no,” he pleaded. “I’m the one. I...”

“Nolan, stop it. For God’s sake, stop it.” Dede’s mouth twisted and her chin shook. “I can’t stand it if you act like that.”

“Like what?” Nolan made himself look away from her. “Like I love you? Like I still love you?”

They were both silent. Dede shifted on her feet and then pulled a desk chair over to Nolan’s wheelchair.

“We shouldn’t do this,” she told him once she was sitting in front of him. “You should stay away from me until you know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Nolan said. He kept his eyes on her hands where they gripped her thighs. There was a bruise on the back of her right hand, a small blue shadow. He wanted to cover that spot with his palm and try to comfort her, but he knew not to touch her. Nolan curled his fists around the wheels of the chair.

“I am not going to change, Dede. I am never going to change. I love you, and that’s all there is to it.”

Dede shook her head. “Oh, Nolan,” she whispered.

Involuntarily Nolan reached for her, the hand stopping in the air when she flinched. He curled his fingers and closed the hand. “It’s all I can say, darling,” he told her. “If you were to shoot me again, I’d say the same thing, but I think it might be a whole lot easier on both of us if you didn’t.” He watched her lift her head and look into his eyes.

“I think we could try talking a little more,” he said. “Maybe you could tell me what hurt you so bad.”

Dede looked at him, her eyes searching his, her chin still quivering. Her eyes flooded as he watched. Her hand came up to where his waited in the air. Her fingers laced through his. “Oh, Nolan,” she said again. “I don’t know how you happened to me. I don’t understand it, but if you are sure, then I’ll try. I’ll try to forgive myself.”

“Yes,” Nolan said. He pulled her hand to his chest and pressed her fingers above his heart. “Oh yes.” Dede leaned forward and put her lips to Nolan’s. Very gently she kissed him. With a sob he pulled her onto his body, dragging her onto his lap. “Oh, Dede,” he sighed. “You don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do anything. We can just go home and hold each other until they all forget what happened.”

“No, no.” Dede kissed Nolan’s eyelids, his temple, and each side of his face. “That judge does not like me, Nolan. He’d love to keep me in jail and I need to get out of here.” She pulled back and grimaced. “You need to know one thing,” she said. “I’m pregnant. I’m about three months gone and it looks like it’s going to stick.”

Nolan’s mouth gaped. “Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, Dede, how wonderful!” He kissed her again, but she searched his face closely.

“Are you sure?” she asked him.

“I’m sure,” he said. “Our baby,” he whispered then. “Our baby will be the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“I won’t marry you, Nolan,” Dede said. “I love you. No lie and I’ll live with you. But I won’t marry you. I won’t marry no one.”

In reply Nolan put his mouth over hers and kissed her. His hands stroked her shoulders and slid down to caress her back. “Dede Windsor, you are the most difficult woman I ever met, worse than my mama. And you know damn well I’d rather live in sin with you than be carried off to heaven with any other woman in the world. Only thing you need to know is that I will want to be a real daddy to this child.”

Dede shrugged. “All right, but you got to do the messy part ’cause I hate stink. You do the diapers and mop up after it. And once it’s weaned and I’m legal again, I want to take that truck-driving class they offer up in Chattanooga.”

Nolan sighed happily. “Deal,” he said. His hands slid under her blouse.

Dede’s hands caught his. “I thought about getting rid of it,” she said, and put her hand on her belly. Nolan put his hand on top of hers. They sat for a moment, both of them looking at her belly.

“Oh, hell,” Dede said finally. “We can’t do no worse than everybody else, right?”

“No,” Nolan assured her. “Probably not.”

Y
ou remember the day Randall died?” It was almost full dark and Delia was sitting at one of her spool tables behind the house under the strings of colored lights. She had a glass of water with sliced lemons floating in it. From up the street came the sound of a clarinet solo; from the house, Amanda and Cissy arguing, M.T.’s booming laugh, and little Michael teaching Gabe to sing ”Jesus Loves Me.”

“Oh yeah,” Rosemary said. She smiled and fingered the glass in front of her, half full of scotch from a bottle Nolan had provided. She didn’t want the drink. She wanted to sit here with Delia in the peaceful quiet. The air was still warm, the breeze through the pecan trees a smoke-scented comfort.

“I was pretty crazy.”

Rosemary nodded. “Of a kind,” she said.

“I don’t think I knew what I was doing, packing Cissy up to bring her back here.”

“You were thinking about Dede and Amanda.”

Delia leaned over the table. Her face was tense, her eyes distant. “I was trying not to go crazy, but I did anyway. What kind of a woman drags a child that young all the way across the country when she’s just lost her daddy?”

“You’ve taken good care of all of them.”

Delia shook her head. “No, I’ve just barely managed to make up for some of what I’ve done. And even that’s not certain.”

“They love you.”

Delia’s mouth opened, then closed. She set her glass on the table. “I wish Dede would marry Nolan.”

“She won’t marry nobody, but I think she’ll stick with him.”

“Makes me feel so old.”

“You an’t old.”

“Yes I am. I’m old as a rock.” Delia sat back in her chair and shoved her hands down in the pockets of her jeans. “And I’m going to lose them. Cissy will go off with you. When Dede’s probation ends, she’ll move in with Nolan, and God knows where they’ll wind up. This house will be empty.”

Rosemary’s smile broadened. “Grown and gone, and the mama left behind. Oh, it’s a tragedy, it is.” The screen door opened and swung back to close with a loud thwack. Little Michael stood in the light spilling out of the doorway. Behind him Gabe leaned against the screen, his arms up and spread, his fingers pushing into the mesh.

Rosemary nodded in their direction. “Something’s always coming,” she said.

Delia looked back at the boys and her face softened. Her eyes glittered. “Rude boys,” she whispered. She smiled as her grandson started down the steps.

“We should write some new songs,” Rosemary said. She picked up the glass and emptied it onto the grass. She watched as Little Michael ran to Delia and reached up to her extended arms. Rosemary turned the glass upside down on the table, tilted her head back, and nodded up toward the lush expanse of gently moving leaves.

“Yes, it’s time for some new songs.”

I am deeply grateful for the loving help and support of my friends and family during the completion of this work. I want to thank particularly Carole DeSanti, Joy Johannessen, Jim Grimsley, Amy Bloom, Jewelle Gomez, Diane Sabin, Sydelle Kramer, Lillian Lent, and, most of all, Frances Goldin. For any of them, I would happily climb into a hole and out again.

Joy Johannessen has worked with me as a thoughtful editor and astute critical reader for more than eight years, and I have been blessed to have her insights. It was she who helped me sort the wheat from the chaff in the enormous volume of raw story from which
Cavedweller
was drawn—and to do that she took time from both her work and her family. I am deeply grateful. Joy is a gifted woman, and I only wish she were a twin so that there could be more of her work in the world.

When I had run my family into the ground, there were three sites to which I retreated to work on
Cavedweller
—the MacDowell Colony, which helped me realize all over again that I am too old to run on ice, the La Rose Hotel in Santa Rosa, California, where they let me spread chapters all over the floor and hide out for days at a time, and the Sabin-Gomez home in San Francisco. Every writer should have such nurturing places to go.

Thank you, all of you.