She knew he had a wife, but she also knew he wouldn’t be here if things were going right at home.
Tonight when she left the cafe she looked for him, and at first thought he wasn’t there. She looked hard into the shadows by the old hotel, and finally, as if the very darkness were solidifying there, she saw him step out slightly into the street. His hair dark and clothes dark. His face… dark. It was as if he had carried the shadows out with him. She blinked her eyes and looked, and looked, but could find no faint glimmer of light in his perfect darkness.
She could have cried. For now she was afraid of him.
Chapter 21
It was a quiet Sunday afternoon at Uncle Ben’s house. A veritable feast of a dinner at three, followed by a walk to burn off some of that delicious country-style food, and then lounging around on the old wooden lawn furniture Ben had set up under the oak. Lannie and Tim, Ben’s kids, circled the chairs like enormous flies, one of them occasionally plopping down into Reed’s lap with a giggle.
He hadn’t had a Sunday like this in years; he and Carol and the kids had gotten into the bad habit of watching TV on Sundays, and Alicia usually couldn’t make it until a mid-afternoon meal, so they had lunch at noon and dinner at six. It didn’t seem right. One meal on Sunday, a big meal like this one—that was the way to do it. Reed was so contented he didn’t bother to stifle the belch he felt climbing his belly. Lannie and Tim giggled insanely, Ben began to laugh, and suddenly Reed found himself joining them, so enthusiastically he didn’t think he could stop. It felt good; he couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that.
He looked over at Ben, who was gazing at him with a wide smile, his eyes twinkling.
“So whose canary did you eat, Uncle Ben?”
Ben chuckled. “It’s just good to see you laughing, Reed. I was afraid you’d lost the knack.” He sat up in the lounger. “And it’s good to have you spend a nice, normal day in the Creeks. You haven’t had one since you’ve been here. You know, we don’t spend all our time gettin’ eat by bears and chasing Hector Pierce in his birthday suit all over creation.”
Reed laughed. “I should hope not. I was beginning to wonder if things had changed that drastically over the years. There’s been a lot of excitement around here lately, more than I could have found back in Denver.”
Ben stretched his legs and sighed. “Yep. Sure has… since just before you got back.” There was an awkward pause. Reed looked past Ben at the garden, all harvested out. Lannie and Tim were playing among the brown and gray cornstalks. Lannie was going to be a beautiful woman: she had fine delicate features, high cheekbones, and long, lustrous brown hair. A bit on the thin side, but she held herself well. Besides, she was only nine years old. But damn if she wasn’t going to be a heartbreaker when she grew up. It made Reed wonder what he might expect to see in Alicia in a few years. Alicia had some of the same characteristics, although she was a bit chunkier. Baby fat. He actually didn’t look forward to her losing it—now he could cover her belly with one hand and it made a soft, rounded bulge like a ball. He loved that. And they had this game where if he pushed on it she would puff up her cheeks, hold it, then blow all the air out in an explosion of bubbly laughter.
For a moment he wondered if he’d be around to see her lose that baby fat. Stop it. Stop it.
Tim was quiet, dark, a lot like Michael, and, Reed suddenly realized, a lot like almost all the Taylor men at that age. He’d seen pictures of his father and grandfather when they were boys—pale faces below broad swatches of raven black hair, their dark eyes seeming to pierce the camera lens. An intense look about them, so that it made you wonder if they knew far beyond what they should know. Reed had that same look in his early photographs. Of course, a lot of young boys with those kinds of features gave him that impression, Reed reminded himself.
Ben was different; he hadn’t fit the Taylor mold in a lot of ways. He’d always been sandy-haired, jovial, open and friendly to almost everybody. Reed could remember when he was young wanting to look more like his Uncle Ben. He hadn’t consciously realized the drastic difference in character between his Uncle Ben and the other Taylor men until years later, when it made him uncomfortable that he resembled his father and grandfather so much.
“You there, Reed?”
Reed jerked in his chair. He could hear Ben chuckling a few feet away.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Just daydreaming.”
“I know what you mean. Sunday’s a good day for it, all right. Fact, any day is, if you ask me. Folks round here work so hard sometimes they start takin’ themselves just too serious. And that ain’t good for you. Gotta put aside some time for daydreaming. Fact is, sometimes daydreaming is one of the most important things a body can do, if you ask me.”
Reed looked at his uncle. He’d forgotten how well put-together the man was, how wise for this place and time. He’d met few men in his life he admired so much—odd that he was just now beginning to realize that.
Simpson Creeks was a normal place. His Uncle Ben was supremely normal, and healthy and generous. Reed had almost forgotten that over the last few days. Strange things were happening, but they were essentially isolated incidents. This was an essentially ordinary place. Just like home. Home in Denver.
On their honeymoon he and Carol had gone back to her hometown. Reed had loved the feeling of the small town, the friendliness of people and architecture, the quiet, restful atmosphere. That’s the way small towns should feel—he didn’t get enough of those qualities in Denver. Now Simpson Creeks had that small-town feel for the first time since he’d been back—here, in his uncle’s backyard.
Martha brought out cookies and tea. The family sat around, and indeed Reed was feeling like part of this family, eating and drinking, listening to the crickets starting up late in the afternoon, feeling the cool breeze slipping under the trees, smiling at each other.
“Why, Reed, you’ve grown up into a handsome young man!” Martha squinted over her tea glass. She needed glasses, but had always thought they made her look ugly so she didn’t wear them in front of other people, just in bed to read, Ben had told him. She wouldn’t even let the kids see her wearing them. This uncharacteristic touch of vanity in his aunt amused and touched Reed. “Not that I ever had any doubts, mind you!”
“Why, thank you, Aunt Martha.”
“No… you’re better lookin’ than any of the other Taylor men by far.” She winked. “‘Ceptin’ Ben here, of course.”
Ben laughed. “You’ll turn my head talking like that, Martha. I’m liable to sweep you off your feet and take you up to that waterbed I’ve been hidin’ in the attic as a Christmas surprise!”
“A waterbed! Ben Taylor, if you’ve gone wasted our money for some oversized balloon, I’m gonna…” She stopped, looked puzzled a minute, then smiled almost imperceptibly. “Old fool.”
Ben and Reed went for another walk after the cookies had digested, and Reed would wonder for a long time after that just why they did. Uncle Ben took him farther up the Big Andy this time, up two connecting hollows and halfway up a ridge. It took them an hour just to go one way. Reed was out of breath by the time they reached a resting place on the ridge, and dizzy from the thin air.
Actually Ben had been maintaining a steady monologue the whole time; Reed had caught a line here and there, but mostly his mind wandered during the exertion.