Endless Chain (6 page)

“You were obviously a very brave girl,” he said.

She thrust out her cone, to give him a friendly lick.

Adoncia blocked the thrust. “Father Kinkade will not want a bite,” she told Maria.

“Just call me Sam,” he said.

Another knock sounded, and this time Adoncia went to answer it. Diego stepped inside, sweeping Adoncia close for a kiss. He was medium height, with a wide-shouldered square body and muscular arms. His round face was brightened by a shy smile, and his short black hair stood out from his head like burrs on a chestnut.

He released Adoncia and grabbed Fernando, who had run straight for him. He lifted the little boy off his feet, tossing him in the air to the sound of frantic giggles. Rapid-fire Spanish ensued.

“I should go,” Sam said. He looked uncomfortable. Elisa wondered what made him feel most out of place. The obvious poverty here? The crowded room? The people who were now chattering eagerly in a language he did not understand?

“I’ll introduce you to Diego first.” She waited for a break and made the introduction. The two men shook hands; then Sam said goodbye to everyone and started for the door.

Elisa went with him, stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind her. Outside, where it was a little quieter, she let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

“You must have come for a reason,” she said. “Your Sundays are busy. You must have finished with church only a short time ago.”

“I wanted to talk to you, but I should have called first. I was just heading back from the nursing home and thought I might find you here.”

“Nursing home?”

“I went after church to check your references. I’ve been too busy to do it before.”

“We can talk right here if you’d like.” Happy shrieks from inside drowned out the last word.

“Have you had lunch?” he asked.

“No, but we ate a late breakfast.”

“Do you have time to get some coffee, then?”

“Plenty of time.”

“I can wait if you need to do anything first.”

“I’ll just tell Adoncia. I won’t be a moment.”

“They seem very happy together. Already a family.”

Elisa thought he sounded wistful, and that surprised her. She thought of the struggles Adoncia and Diego faced, and Sam’s words surprised her even more.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

He nodded and started toward a mud-splattered SUV parked just in front.

Elisa had expected coffee at Arby’s or McDonald’s on West Reservoir Road, where nearly all Woodstock’s fast food restaurants congregated. Instead, they started back toward the church in Toms Brook.

“I can’t think of any place where we won’t be constantly interrupted except my house.” He glanced at her. “Do you mind? The choir is practicing for a concert, and there are at least three rental groups using the building, or I’d take you to my office.”

“You live near the church?” She thought he’d told her as much.

“Just far enough away that people have to think twice before dropping by for keys or casual conversation. The minister they built the house for made sure of that.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. He pulled up in front of a neat brick house with gray shutters and a matching wooden fence enclosing a shallow front yard. A felt banner in brilliant jewel tones hung from the front door.

“Peace,” she read out loud.

“The junior high school group made it for me last Christmas, and I can’t bear to take it down.”

The front porch was a mass of blooms in different sized and colored pots. “You like to garden.”

“Plants don’t talk back to me.” He got out and came around to open her door, but she had already let herself out.

Sam unlatched the gate and waited for her to precede him. “I’ll warn you about my dogs.”

She stopped, and he nearly ran into her. “You have dogs?”

He skirted her so he was in front. “A problem?”

“It’s just…” Her heart was pounding too hard. She took a deep breath. “No, it’s just…”

“You don’t like them.”

“No. I—” She shrugged. “I’m a little…I was attacked in…in my hometown. I had a full course of rabies shots.” She made a face. “I’m a little dog shy.”

“I would imagine you are.” Sympathy was clear in both his face and words. “I can promise these dogs won’t attack. They’re not exactly well mannered, but they would only love you to death.”

“Well, good.” She stood a little straighter. “I’ll be fine.”

“I can put them in the dog run, if you’ll just wait here.”

“No. I’d like to meet them.”

He searched her face, then nodded. “Let me go first, so I can calm them a bit.”

She did, waiting until he had unlocked the door and disappeared inside for a minute before she opened the door to join him.

She was met with a blaze of color. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she certainly hadn’t expected this. The foyer was an extension of a dining area in the middle of the house, with walls painted a warm gold. The living room on her left—a nook more than a room—was a deep sage green. Beyond the dining area was a family room painted a stormy blue. Every wall was covered with photographs, posters and paintings. The mantel on the brick fireplace was crowded with keep-sakes.

Sam was kneeling on the floor just in front of a small dining-room table, his arms around two huge dogs. If the breed had a name, the name was mutt. Both dogs had patchy fur, misshapen ears, long pointed snouts. A dog about one-tenth their size was leaping up and down, trying to lick Sam’s face.

“I’ve got the big guys, but you’re on your own with the little one. That’s Abednego, Bed, for short.”

Bed spied her at that moment and ran to greet her. Heart still pounding, Elisa stooped to pet the dog. Bed was white, with large black spots, a stump of a tail and a grin. Elisa fondled her ears, and the dog wagged her entire body in response. “Abednego?”

“From the Old Testament. The Book of Daniel. Shadrach—that’s this one. Meshach—this one—and Abednego.”

“My Bible skills are rusty.”

“They were three Jews who refused to worship the golden idols of King Nebuchadnezzar, so the king had them thrown into a fiery furnace. Later, when he looked into the flames he saw four shapes there. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and a mysterious figure. Some say it was their guardian angel, and some say God himself. When the three men emerged, not a hair on their heads had been singed.”

“Long important names for dogs. Even large dogs.”

He turned his face from a long, licking tongue. “Shad and Shack are brothers. They barely escaped alive from a burning house and were badly singed, unlike their biblical predecessors. I took them when the owners said they couldn’t care for them or pay the vet bills, and planned to have them put down. Bed was abused by local boys who had nothing better to do last summer. I barely rescued her in time.”

“Lucky dogs, then.” She looked up from petting Bed. “Do you rescue everything?”

“It’s gotten me in trouble.”

She wondered what kind of trouble. She got to her feet, and so did he. One by one he let the dogs go, and they came to her to be petted, too. She ruffled their ears, not even needing to stoop.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“I’m okay.” And she was. The dogs were no longer strangers.

“I’ll just get coffee going.”

She’d had two cups already that morning. She shouldn’t have more, but she ignored her own silent advice. “Do you need help?”

“You can keep me company if you’d like.”

She followed him into the kitchen, where a gentle breeze rattled the plantation shutters on double windows. The walls were a rich terra-cotta color, but the items on the walls were most interesting. “Lunch boxes?”

He turned from retrieving the coffeemaker from a cabinet. Clearly his addiction to caffeine was not as pronounced as hers. “What lunch boxes?” he asked with a smile.

The one wall in the room that didn’t hold cabinets had been covered with shelves. She estimated fifty lunch boxes were on display. “There are more lunch boxes here than in a school cafeteria.”

“I have even more.”

“More?”

He opened a new can of coffee. She recognized the familiar figures of Juan Valdez and his faithful mule. Even if Sam wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, at least he bought Colombian.

“I probably have a hundred lunch boxes.” He glanced at her, possibly to see if she was laughing yet.

“It’s a slice of popular culture.” She walked closer to examine some of the collection. “The Flintstones. Scooby Doo. Superman.” She leaned closer to the familiar caped figure. “That one is older than the others.”

“One of my favorites.”

“They make your kitchen come alive.”

“Thank you. I was waiting for you to ask me why I have them.”

She cocked her head. “I can only assume you eat lunch often.”

He fished through several drawers before he came up with a measuring spoon and began to scoop grounds into the filter.

“My mother and father worked hard for everything they had. There were three children, me, and my brother and sister, Mark and Rachel. We had everything we needed, but if we wanted something our parents saw as a luxury, we never got it. Lunch boxes were a luxury.”

He was telling the story without a trace of self-pity. She realized she was smiling.

He went on. “One day, when we were all grown up, Mark, Rachel and I were sitting in a restaurant trying to top each other with terrible stories of our childhood.” He went to the sink to fill the pot with water. “There
were
no terrible stories, but there
were
two empty bottles of good Merlot on the table, which made the exercise worthy. I told them my worst memory was the year I had to take my lunch to school wrapped in newspaper, because Mom decided newspaper was cheaper than buying lunch bags.”

“And this reminded you to go out and buy a hundred lunch boxes?”

“No, but for Christmas Mark and Rachel each bought me one. In one fell swoop I got Pac-Man and
The Empire Strikes Back.
” He glanced at her and smiled a little. “You have no idea how badly I wanted Pac-Man when I was in first grade.”

He poured the water into the coffeemaker and replaced the pot before he turned it on. “The joke spread. Pretty soon everybody was giving me lunch boxes. I still get them. I’d be buried in them, except that I use them as prizes in Sunday school.”

She was entranced. “Prizes?”

“Every year we have a lunch contest on the last Sunday in June. All the children bring the strangest lunch they can think of. But it has to be something they’ll eat. Six winners get their choice of lunch boxes, at least the ones I have on display. Pac-Man’s off limits.”

Elisa laughed. “This is a church school?”

He lounged against the counter as the coffee began to brew. “Actually, I tell them the lunch box story, pretty much the way I told it to you. Then I tell them how much sweeter it is for me to have these lunch boxes now, that waiting for them made them that much more special. The kids get the message. Sometimes you can’t have everything you want the minute you want it, so you have to wait. And when you do?” He shrugged. “It means more.”

She wondered if, when the kids became teenagers, Sam’s story made them pause in the race to explore their sexuality. If so, it was certainly a novel approach to sex education.

“I use a different box every day,” he finished. “In case one of the kids happens to be around.” He allowed himself a grin. “Actually, I’m lying. I use them because they’re fun. And Mom would not approve of me having anything I don’t use.”

She liked his memories. She liked his parents and his sister and brother. She was increasingly sure she liked Sam. She was just as sure that she needed to keep her distance. He would be an easy man to confide in.

“Cream? Sugar?” he asked.

“Nothing. The darker the better.”

“I’ve never quite acquired the taste.”

“That’s probably because what passes for coffee in this country is the cheapest beans badly roasted and stored too long.”

“You’re lucky. I thought about serving you instant.”

She watched as he reached for mugs and poured milk from the refrigerator in his. Then he added coffee and took the mugs into the family room.

The walls here, as in the other rooms, were covered. But here the artwork was clearly that of children, fastened on the walls with plastic pushpins. She suspected the Sunday school children again, or perhaps nieces and nephews. This was a man, like Diego, who loved kids.

Sam set the coffee on the low table in front of a comfortable-looking ultrasuede sofa. “I’ve told you about me. Why don’t you tell me a little about you?”

She joined him and lifted her mug for a sip while she settled on a story. “My father was a teacher. In fact, he taught English, but there was illness and bad luck.” She shrugged. “I set off to find my own way in the world to relieve my parents of their burdens.”