Dancing With Velvet (21 page)

Well, I guess that’s all. I’m glad I met you, no matter what.

With all my love,

Velvet

She sealed the letter in an envelope with Kent’s name on the front and put it in one of the small cubicles in the desk, then pulled down the roll top in a gesture of finality.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Celeste called Mrs. Lowe, told her about Kent, and asked to be excused from the Canteen on Saturday. When the woman burst into tears, guilt gnawed at Celeste until she felt actual pain.
I’m living a lie,
she thought as she hung up.
My whole life has been a lie. Maybe that’s how I’ll live forever. Maybe it’s what I deserve.

Mr. Thomas tried to send her home from work on Saturday morning, but she refused. “I’m better off here, keeping busy.”
What would he think of me if he knew I hadn’t written to Kent the whole time he’s been gone? What would he think if he knew Kent probably despises me…if he’s even alive to do that?

Opening the parlor drapes on Sunday morning, she caught a glimpse of a car pulling away from the curb in front of the house. Moving farther to the right, so the porch column didn’t block her view, she noticed a small boy standing on the frost-covered lawn and looking around in bewilderment. He wore short pants and a torn sweater, and clutched a brown paper grocery bag. Though still wearing her robe and slippers, Celeste rushed from the house.

A slightly older version of the boy in the sailor suit lifted wide blue eyes toward her. “Grammy said to give you this,” he said, holding out a piece of paper.

“I’ll read it in the house,” Celeste said, reaching for his chapped, icy hand.

Inside, she unfolded the paper and realized it was a birth certificate. On the back, scrawled in pencil, were the words, “You took her place, now you can take her brat.”

“
She said I belonged to you now.” The soft words, resigned, unquestioning, hurt Celeste’s heart. At least August Riley hadn’t dumped her on the street somewhere.

“Are you hungry?”

He nodded.

“Let’s go in the kitchen and have some breakfast. It’s warm in there.”

She noticed how he edged toward the space heater she’d lighted as soon as she got up that morning. His skin, an unhealthy gray—whether from grime or something else—looked ready to flake off his thin arms and legs.

When he swallowed two bowls of oatmeal before she got halfway through one, Celeste steeled herself to see it come back up. “Do you want something else?”

He looked around.

“More milk? Toast?”

He nodded.

She made cinnamon toast, a favorite from her own childhood, and refilled his glass of milk. He made short work of everything she set in front of him. “How old are you, Jonny?”

“Six.”

She checked the information against the birth certificate. He’d turned six on the last day of August.

“Do you go to school?”

He shook his head.

“To church?”

He shook his head again.

“What’s in the bag?”

“My stuff.”

“May I see?”

He shrugged.

She took out a pitiful assortment of underwear and socks, three short-sleeved shirts, a second pair of short pants, and a pair of faded pajamas.
At least I had what I needed, even if I worked to earn the money for most of it. He’s just a baby and can’t help himself.

He leaned his elbows on the table. “What’s your name?”

“Celeste,” she said. “Cece.”

“Okay.”

They regarded each other for a long moment. She tried to see Kent in his face, but he was all Claudia, including his blonde hair and blue eyes.

“What else did your grammy tell you?”

“Nothing.”

“Just that you belonged to me now?”

“Yep. Do I?”

“I guess you do.”

“For always?”

“For now, anyway. We’ll see what happens.”

****

She left him splashing in the bathtub while she called Coralee, who she knew would be getting Barbara dressed for Sunday School. When Coralee repeated the story to Big Ben, he got on the phone immediately. “I’m going to call my lawyer there in San Angelo. Adam Colley. He’ll come out and help you make heads or tails of this.”

“What will happen to the little boy?”

“Colley will see that he goes somewhere, a children’s home, probably.”

“No!” The explosion from Celeste’s lips surprised even her.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Celeste said, “but he’s already been thrown away twice.”

“You aren’t thinking about keeping him, are you? You can’t.”

“Maybe…he might be all I have left of Kent.”

Big Ben blew out his breath in a tired whoosh. “Coralee told us about all that. But keeping the boy out of guilt, Celeste…”

“It’s not guilt. At least I don’t think it is. It’s just that we’re sort of alike. Both of us came up short.”

“I guess you could look at it that way, but you’re a young single woman. No judge is going to give you custody of a little boy who’s not even remotely related to you.”

“He might be Kent’s.”

“And you’re not married to Kent. He’s not even available to claim paternity and give permission for you to be the boy’s guardian.”

“His name’s on the birth certificate. I could tell them he left him with me when he went overseas. Nobody has to know different.”

“For starters, how are you going to get him a ration card so you can feed him? How are you going to put him in school? Get him taken care of if he gets sick?”

“I don’t know, but there’s got to be a way. Please, Big Ben. Please tell your lawyer that I want to keep him.”

****

By the time Adam Colley came back from Brownwood at the end of the week with notarized papers, signed by Claudia Peters’ mother, giving Celeste guardianship of Jonny, Celeste had settled into her new role—though she wasn’t sure exactly how to describe just what that role was.

“You’re just his guardian,” the lawyer stressed to Celeste when he brought the papers she needed. “The grandmother could take him back.”

“She threw him away. Dumped him on the street like a sack of garbage.”

“I’m not saying she would, but that sort of person, well, you never know. She could come after you for money.”

Celeste laughed. “She wouldn’t get much.”

“Adopting him would give you more leverage, but without his father’s say-so, you can’t do that. Even if he did, you’re single. Adoptions are granted to married couples.”

“I told you Kent doesn’t think he’s Jonny’s father.”

“Didn’t he admit to the possibility?”

Celeste felt her face grow hot. She looked away from the older man and nodded.

“The name on the birth certificate is pretty damning, even if it’s not factual. I wonder why the mother didn’t take him to court for child support?”

“She wanted him to marry her. I guess she didn’t want to antagonize him.”

“Miss Riley…Celeste…I have a daughter your age, and speaking to you as both an attorney and a father, I’ve got to say you’ve gotten yourself into a mess.”

“I can’t throw him away.”

“He’s not really yours to do anything with. It wouldn’t be throwing him away to turn him over to child welfare. They’d find him a home.”

“An orphanage.”

“If that’s all they can manage. I’ll admit people want infants, not six-year-old boys.”

Celeste shook her head. “If he’s Kent’s, and I’m going to believe he is, he’s all Kent left behind.”

“Well, do it your way. If you run into any problems, you know how to get in touch with me.”

****

Jonny took up residence in August Riley’s room. It needed work and an investment of some money to become a little boy’s room, so Celeste fiddled with her budget to see what she could manage. When Coralee suggested selling the large bedroom suite and using the money to get a smaller set for Jonny, Celeste wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself. With some advice from Mrs. Aikman, Celeste got a fair price from a secondhand store on North Oakes. She even let Jonny weigh in on a single bed and a chest of drawers. Mrs. Aikman’s son-in-law, home on leave, helped put up new wallpaper.

Pearl ran up a bedspread in a cowboy print and sent matching drapes and a quilt. Awed by his new riches, Jonny spent a lot of time in his room playing with the set of plastic cowboys and Indians Celeste bought with her discount at Woolworth and the toy cars she found at the same secondhand shop where she’d sold the furniture.

Her first priority had been to get him some decent clothes so he could go to school. Celeste took the guardianship papers to San Jacinto, the elementary school she’d attended just down the street, and enrolled him. The principal, his own patriotism enhanced when he’d been deemed too old to enlist, listened with obvious sympathy to Celeste’s smooth explanation of doing a favor for a friend overseas, and promised to take good care of Jonny. “I’m counting on that,” she said as she left his office. “I really am.”

She walked Jonny to his classroom and handed him his new school bag, bulging with supplies. He’d slept with it the night before. “Remember to wait for Mrs. Aikman,” she told him. “She’ll be here to walk you home.”

He looked up at her with eyes that had become more alive with every passing day. “I remember, Cece.”

“And be good.”

He nodded. “I’ll be good.”

She ruffled his carefully-combed hair, then smoothed it down again. “Okay, pal. I’ll see you.”

“I’ll see you,” he echoed.

By the time she got out the front door, she was in tears without understanding why.

****

After considering it from every angle, she confided the entire complicated situation to Veda. “I knew something was wrong right after Kent left,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Cece. What can I do to help?”

“Just be my friend—and Jonny’s, too.”

“Always.”

“If Kent comes home…”

Veda grasped Celeste’s hands. “We’re going to believe that he will.”

“If he does, there’s Jonny.”

“I don’t know why it’s so hard for a man to admit his mistakes and go on, but it is.”

“Maybe it’s because we expect them to be perfect.”

Veda laughed. “A prince, not a toad?”

“Right.”

“Well, they’re not. When Kent comes home, he’ll have to make a decision, that’s all. I hope he’s man enough to make the right one for all of you.”

Celeste didn’t want to tell Mr. Thomas the whole story, but there didn’t seem any way to get around it and still make the case for having Claudia’s child in her home. He listened without commenting. When she finished, he said, “I commend you, Miss Riley.”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“For the boy, yes. For you, I wonder. You’re a young woman with your entire life ahead of you. You have no guarantee that if…that when Kent Goddard comes home, he’ll accept the child. I believe you said he’s denied him thus far.”

“It’s hard for him.”

“To own up to what he did? Oh, yes, it’s very hard, I’d think. I’m not condemning him. Young people make mistakes, and we know Miss Peters was, well, persuasive.”

“She’s dead, and Kent may be dead, too, but Jonny’s here, and he deserves a home.”

“I agree, and I think you’ve done an unselfish thing to take him in. But as you know, I have daughters of my own. I have to consider what you’re doing from the standpoint of a father who wants a happy life for his children.”

Celeste took the daybook out of the safe and sat down at her desk. “Thank you, Mr. Thomas. You’ve been very good to me, and I—“

“If ever Mary and I can help, you know we’re here.”

“Thank you.”

The next week he raised her salary by two dollars a week. “It’s not much,” he said, “but it’s all I can do for now.”

“I didn’t expect more money. I just told you because I felt like I owed you the truth.”

“I know that, Miss Riley, but you can use the extra money. Take it and use it for Jonny, at least for now.”

****

At Thanksgiving, she and Jonny, who by now looked more like a child instead of a waif, took the bus to Sterling City to save gas coupons. She felt relieved, though not surprised, when the whole family welcomed him like he’d been part of them forever. Barbara, by virtue of being two years older, took Jonny under her wing. On the ride home, he announced that he liked everybody and thought Pearl was a lot nicer than his grammy.

“Maybe she did the best she could,” Celeste observed.

“She didn’t like me. She said I was a bas…”

Celeste clamped her hand over his mouth. “That’s not a word nice little boys say.”

“Am I a nice little boy?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Okay.”

****

When everything looked settled, she wrote to Neil.

I took him to my doctor for a check-up. He’s underweight and a little anemic, but otherwise he’s okay. The doctor gave him a tonic, and I’m working with him every night to help him catch up in school. His teacher says he’s smart and works hard. He likes school and is making friends. My neighbor, Mrs. Aikman, walks to the school to meet him every afternoon. It’s just a few blocks, but I don’t feel comfortable letting him walk all the way by himself just yet. He stays with her until I get home right after four. I just told her I was taking care of him for a friend overseas. These days, everybody wants to do something “for the boys,” so she’s agreeable and doesn’t ask questions.

On Saturdays, when I only have to work half a day, he stays here and listens to the radio or plays with his toys. (I’m not sure he ever had any before. He puts them in a box in the closet every night as if he’s afraid they’ll disappear!) He knows he can go to Mrs. Aikman if he needs anything. I think he must have spent a lot of time by himself, because he doesn’t seem to need people around all the time, and he doesn’t get into trouble when he’s alone.

I know the big question in your mind is why I’m doing this. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you Kent told me, on his last night, that Jonny could be his, even though he still insisted he wasn’t. But his name is on the birth certificate Mrs. Peters sent along with Jonny, and the lawyer, who helped me take care of the paperwork, said that makes it official from a legal standpoint. When Kent comes home—and I’m going to believe he will—we’ll just have to work things out from there.