Kansas Troubles (38 page)

“You’re right,” she called over her shoulder to the driver of the truck. “All it took was prayer. That’s my granddaughter and grandson right there.”

“
Abuelita
!” Gabe said, laughing. “You made it!”

The passenger door opened, and she handed me her flowered suitcase. “I forgot Kathryn’s address, but Brother Dwaine said all we’d have to do is ask the Lord and He’d lead us to the right place. And He did!”

A laughing, sonorous voice called after her. “Well, the Lord and Rand McNally.”

I just stood there shaking my head as Gabe, with his good arm, helped her down from the truck’s cab.

She waved to the man in the truck, who was wearing a silver-gray pompadour and face-splitting smile. “Thanks for the ride. Remember to drop by the ranch if you ever make it out West. I’ll fry you up a rib-eye that’ll make your taste buds sing ‘Amazing Grace’ backwards.”

A thundering laugh reverberated from the cab. Brother Dwaine gave the truck’s air horn a long, ear-shattering blow and pulled slowly out onto the highway.

She turned to me. “Come over here and hug my neck, honeybun. I’m starved. What’s for supper? Are the boys here yet? And what kind of trouble have you two youngsters gotten into these last couple of weeks?”

We told her part of the story as we drove back to Kathryn’s, where Arnie and Daddy had beat her by half an hour. They, apparently, hadn’t lost Kathryn’s address. We went through the story one more time, then declared it subject
non grata
.

Arnie, Daddy, and most of all, Dove, kept us amused the rest of the day, each telling their own particular “road story.” Dove had just about decided that people were probably as tired of Charles Kuralt reruns as she was and were ready to see a more mature lady hit the road and give a report on America.

“Anyone in particular you think they should cast?” I teased. Gabe and I relaxed on the floor, he leaning against the wall, me with my head in his lap. Seeing the familiar faces of my family was just the medicine I needed. Even Daphne had gotten into the spirit of things and lay down about two inches from my thigh, her head on her paws. When I reached over to stroke her, a low growl vibrated from her throat. I snatched my hand back and joined Gabe in laughing. I guess like most of the Ortiz family, she just couldn’t be rushed.

The next day, Friday, Becky came by and told us to come with her and Angel, that they had a surprise for us. Dove and Kathryn, who to my amazement had taken an instant liking to each other, came along. We ended up at Shepler’s Western Wear in Wichita, where Becky said she and Angel were buying Gabe the proper clothes to wear to our wedding reception the next day. The party, in honor of me and my family, had a Western theme, and
no one
was getting out of dressing up for this one. According to his sisters, Gabe was getting his first pair of Wranglers and boots whether he liked it or not.

“We’re going to make a cowboy out of you, if just for a day,” Becky said firmly.

“Impossible,” Gabe said just as firmly.

I laughed, and told Becky, “If you can get him into cowboy gear, you’re a better woman than I am.”

With a sister gripping each arm, he was dragged into Shepler’s huge men’s department. “Help,” he called to me and Dove, a comical look of terror on his face. From across the store we watched with amusement as they threw shirts and jeans over the dressing room door to him and argued about boots and belts. I took possession of his American Express card and decided if he got a new outfit, then so would I. I settled on a gauzy white broomstick dress printed with tiny red horseshoes. It was short enough to make Dove
tsk
under her breath and mumble to Kathryn that sure wasn’t how she’d raised me. I rounded out my outfit with a matching pair of handmade Lucchese boots in a bright crimson. Not ruby slippers, but they’d get me home, anyway.

“While I’m here,” I said to the salesclerk, giving Dove the eye, “I have a hat I left to be cleaned and blocked. Could you see if it’s ready yet?”

Dove had the grace to turn slightly pink. “I see a real nice-lookin’ shirt over there that might near fit Ben. May as well pick it up for him.”

“Good idea,” I agreed.

While our purchases were being wrapped, I wandered over to see how Angel and Becky were faring.

“You’re just in time,” Becky said. “I think we’ve finally got the right look. Okay,” she yelled into the dressing room. “You can come out now.”

“I’m not coming out,” I heard him grumble.

“If you don’t, we’re coming in to get you,” Angel called.

I gasped when he walked out wearing the most sheepish look I’d ever seen on his face. Across the store, one of the female clerks let out a loud wolf whistle.

His faded, prewashed Wranglers fit him snugly in all the right places; a deep turquoise Western shirt with white pearl buttons made his blue eyes glow against his dark olive skin. With glossy Roper boots, a black cowboy hat, a silver belt buckle you could fry an egg on, and his thick sexy mustache, he looked like the star of a Western movie.

“Wow,” I said, scanning him from boots to hat.

“George Strait,” Becky said, “eat your heart out.”

“Don’t even think I will ever wear these clothes again after tomorrow,” he warned me, his face flushing an attractive burnt sienna.

“Wow,” I repeated.

“So what did you buy?” he asked on the drive back.

“Something she shouldn’t be wearing in public,” Dove carped. I almost fell out of my seat when Kathryn smiled and gave me an amused wink.

Gabe grinned. “Oh, yeah? Sounds interesting.”

I complained in front of the mirror the next day as we got ready for the party. “I wish my legs were tanner, then maybe the bruises wouldn’t show as much. But I refuse to wear pantyhose in this weather.”

“Dove’s right,” he said, looking at my outfit with both a warm-blooded male appreciation and husbandly uncertainty. “That dress is pretty short.”

“With the way you look in those skintight Wranglers, Friday, ain’t nobody going to be looking at me.”

“These things are embarrassing,” he said, inspecting himself in the long mirror. “Becky and Angel made me buy a size too small.”

“Nope,” I said. “They’re perfect. That’s how cowboys wear them when they dress up. And today you’ve promised to be a real cowboy.”

At that moment, a pained look swept over his face, and I knew he was thinking about Dewey. I also knew that if and when he was ready to talk about it . . . and anything else, it would have to come in his own time. I didn’t have the right to push him to open up any faster than he felt comfortable doing. I had the right to ask—and I would keep on asking—but intimacy had to be freely given, just like love.

I slipped my arms around his neck, kissing him hard. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whispered.

He took my face in his hands and looked at me for a long moment. “I wouldn’t want to live without you,” he said.

At the party, for the first time since we’d been in Kansas, we relaxed and just had fun. Everyone got into the spirit of Becky’s theme, and there was enough denim, leather, and pearl buttons to outfit an Alan Jackson road show. The highlight of the evening was the opening of our wedding presents. Some were practical, like the towels that Janet and Lawrence bought us; some were funny, like the matching T-shirts from Angel that said “There’s No Place Like Home On the Range” along with a Victoria’s Secret gift certificate made out to Gabe. Others were touching, like the antique Wedding Ring quilt from Becky and Stan. When all the presents appeared to have been opened, I looked over at Otis, who had been the last person to arrive at the party. He was holding a tiny gold box in his hands. The smile on my face was so big, I thought my face would splinter.

“What are you and Otis smirking at each other for?” Gabe asked.

“I think there’s one more present,” I said.

Otis passed the box to Gabe.

“You open it,” Gabe said.

“No,” I said. “This is one you have to open.”

He untied the ribbon slowly, his face puzzled, until he lifted the lid of the shiny box and took out the worn truck key. For a minute, I thought I might see my new husband cry for the first time. Without a word, he stood up and walked out the front door. The old Chevy pickup was parked behind our rented Camaro.

The rest of us followed Gabe out, crowding behind him on the porch.

“Oh, Otis,” Kathryn said, her hand on her chest. A tear slowly made its way down her cheek.

Otis cleared his throat and stuck his hands deep into his pockets, trying not to show the emotion he was feeling, too. When Gabe turned to thank him, he said, “Thought since you live out there in cattle country now, you’d be needin’ yourself a truck.”

During the next half hour, the men did what all men do when one of them gets a new vehicle—they walked around it, admired the paint job, kicked the tires, checked under the hood. Dove, Becky, Angel, and Janet wandered back into the house to get the steaks and chicken ready to barbecue. Eventually the only two people left on the porch were Kathryn and me.

“It’s been a rough two weeks for you,” she said, resting her hand on one of the posts.

“Yes,” I said. “But there were good times, too.” I turned and faced her. “We didn’t get to know each other very well, but I’m glad we met. For Gabe’s sake.”

She studied me with her clear, no-nonsense eyes. “My son isn’t an easy person to love.”

I lifted my chin slightly and met her direct gaze, knowing she wouldn’t fall for any feigned protestations. “No, he isn’t.”

She smiled slightly. “Neither was his father. And he
is
so much like his father. Gelio and I had some fights that would, as my father used to say, peel the paint off a barn door.”

I felt my eyes widen, surprised by this woman for the second time in two days.

“Yes, he really upset the apple cart in this old schoolmarm’s life, no doubt about it.” For a moment, her eyes filmed over. “But for all the passion in our fighting, it didn’t hold a candle to the making up.”

“Yes,” I said, smiling in agreement. “There’s always that.”

Her lips tightened, as if to say, Enough of this nonsense. “So, Benni Harper, do you love my son?” The question was put with the same tart inflection I could imagine her using when she demanded that one of her fifth graders name the first ten Presidents of the United States.

I answered without hesitation. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

She dropped her head in an approving nod. “Well, I guess a mother can’t ask for any more than that.” She started for the door, then turned around. “One more thing. About your name.”

Involuntarily I stiffened. Just when we’d made some kind of bridge, here was a stick of dynamite all fused up and ready to blow it to smithereens. “What about it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“I want you to know I agree with you and I told Gabe so. I asked him how he would like it if I remarried and changed my name to Terkle or Lundquist or Perkins. He, of course, was horrified. He said that would be an insult to his father’s memory. I said he was absolutely right. I told him that the only thing you have left to honor Jack with is his name and that he didn’t have a right to take that away. Gabe, after all, has you.”

I looked up at her, my heart pounding as hard as if I’d sprinted a mile. She had said what I’d never been able to verbalize. In the last year and a half, each time I’d taken Jack’s name off bank accounts, insurance policies, next-of-kin listings, it felt like he died over and over again. I guess I realized unconsciously that soon there would be nothing left of him except the engraving on his headstone. She was right—Jack’s name was the last thing on earth that he had left. Unlike Gabe, who had a son to carry on his name, Jack had only me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You don’t have to thank me, Benni,” she said, touching my shoulder lightly. “Just take good care of my son.”

After the men were done admiring the truck, Gabe came over to me. “Let’s go for a ride,” he said.

“But we’re going to eat in a minute.”

“They’ll save us some. I want to show you something. Actually, there are two places I need to go.”

The first stop was someplace I’d been wondering about since we’d arrived in Kansas. He pulled into the El Paso Cemetery and drove slowly down the gravel paths, stopping when he came to the right spot.

“Come on,” he said, opening the door and taking my hand.

It was an old-fashioned cemetery, the kind that looked just like what it was instead of trying to fool people into thinking it was a park or a golf course. We crisscrossed through rows of graves until we came to his father’s. It was an upright black marble stone with a rounded top.

Rogelio Tomas Ortiz—January 30, 1923-June 12, 1966—Dearly loved and missed by his wife, children and friends—Vaya Con Dios
.

Gabe stood for a long minute staring at the grave. Looking at the dates, I realized for the first time that Gabe was now the same age his father had been when he died.

“When my father and I were alone, he would speak only Spanish to me,” he said in a low voice. “He never told me about how important my Mexican heritage was . . . I mean, he never actually said the words. But he showed it to me. In that way and in lots of others. That’s why I was raised Catholic. It must have been a deal he and Mom worked out early, because until the day he died, I would go to Mass with him every Sunday, and Mom and the girls would go to the Methodist church.” He smiled to himself. “As a teenager, I used to complain about it because I thought the Methodist girls were prettier than the Catholic ones. Anyway, I heard they kissed better.” He looked at me and winked. “Of course, if I’d only known then what I know now about Baptist girls . . .”

“Better not let Dove hear you say that,” I said, laughing. I punched him on his good arm. He slipped it around me, pulling me close. In the white-oak trees surrounding us, a flock of birds rustled the leaves. We both looked up. He looked again at the headstone and started talking quietly, almost as if to himself.