"Dave McVee? I must've missed him during my action-figure stage."
"He's a person and, though he's a hero, has never been a toy-that I'm aware of."
"Ah." He refilled their glasses and enjoyed the way the lights played over that porcelain skin, those clever cat's eyes. "High-school crush? First love?"
"Neither. Hero, first and last. He saved us."
When she said nothing more, Duncan shook his head. "You know you can't leave it there."
"No, I suppose I can't. My father was killed when my mother was pregnant with Carter. My younger brother."
"That's rough." He laid his hand over hers. "Seriously rough. How old were you?"
"Four, nearly five. I remember him, a little. But I remember more it broke something in Mama that took a long time to heal, and it never healed all the way. I know now, being a trained observer who's educated in psychology, that his death likely laid the groundwork for her agoraphobia. She had to go out to work, had to haul us around. No choice at all. But for years she kept mostly to herself."
"She had a choice," Duncan disagreed. "She chose to do what needed to be done to take care of her family."
"Yes, you're right. And she did take care. Then she met this man.
She met Reuben. He'd come by, fix things for her. Little household things. I could see, being a girl of almost twelve, the flirt was on between them. It was odd, but my father'd been gone a long time, and it was nice, too, to see her get all flushed and foolish."
"You wanted her to be happy."
"I did. He was nice to us, at first Reuben was awful nice to us. Playing catch with Carter out in the yard, bringing us candy, taking Mama out to the movies and such."
"But he didn't stay nice. I can hear it," Duncan said when she looked at him. "I can hear it in your voice."
"No, he didn't stay nice. They'd slept together. I'm not sure how I knew it, even then. But she opened herself up enough, after all those years, to be with him that way."
"And that's when it changed?"
"Yeah. He got possessive, proprietary, critical. He'd pick on us, all three of us really, but make it like a joke. Carter, especially Carter got the digs. Boy couldn't find his ass with both hands, ha ha ha. A man never grew balls reading books. And so on. He started coming over every night, expecting Mama to have dinner hot on the table, shoo us off so he could grope her. She wouldn't, and he'd get pissy. Started drinking a lot. I expect he always did, but he drank more at the house than he had at first.
"And this is terrible dinner conversation."
"I'd like to hear the rest. My father drank more than his share, so I know what it's like. Finish it off."
"All right. One day he came by when Mama was still at work. It was just Carter and me. He'd been drinking, and he popped open another beer, then a second one and pushed it at Carter. Told him it was time he learned to drink like a man. Carter didn't want it. God, he was only seven. Carter told him to go away, leave him alone, and Reuben smacked him, right in the face, for sass. Well, I sassed him then, you can believe it."
The old rage bubbled straight up. "I told him to get the hell out of our house, to keep his fat hands off my brother. Well, he smacked me, too. And that's when Mama came in. I'll tell you something, Duncan, up to that point I loved her. She worked so hard, she did her best. But
I never thought she had any backbone. Not until she walked in and saw me and Carter on the floor and that son of a bitch standing over us taking off his belt."
She paused a moment, took a sip of wine. "He was going to use it on us, going to teach us a lesson. Mama lit into him like ball lightning. Of course, he was twice her size, and drunk, so he knocked her clear across the room. She was screaming at him to get out, to stay away from her babies, and I told Carter to run, to run to the neighbor's, call the police.
When I was sure he'd gotten far enough away, I started screaming, too, saying the police were coming. Reuben called me and Mama names I wasn't yet acquainted with, but he went."
"You kept your head." His hand gripped hers on the table now, a solid link. "You were smart."
"I was scared. I wanted the police because the police are supposed to help. They came, and they talked to my mother. I don't want to say they talked her out of filing charges, but they didn't encourage it. They took his name, said they'd go talk to him. They probably did. I don't know all that happened, just some. I know he went by her work, apologized to her. I know he came by the house with flowers, but she wouldn't let him in. I'd see him sitting outside in his car, just sitting there watching the house. And once, at least once that I saw, he grabbed her when she was outside, tried to pull her into his car. I called the police again then, and some of the neighbors came out, so he took off again. And Mama, she took out a restraining order. That's what they told her she should do."
"They didn't arrest him."
"I think they may have put him in holding for a few hours, and they gave him a stern talking-to. So a few nights later, he got liquored up, got his gun, and he broke into the house. He hit Mama so hard she still has a little scar here." Phoebe traced her fingers over her cheek. "He held the gun to her head, and he told me and Carter to go around, lock all the doors, the windows, close the curtains. We were all going to sit ourselves down, have a long talk.
"He kept us in there almost twelve hours. The police came, after a couple hours, I think. Reuben shot a few holes in the wall for sport, and the neighbors called the police. He yelled out he'd kill us all if they tried coming in. The brats first. Pretty soon, the police shut off the power. It was August, it was hot. Then Dave got him on the phone and kept him talking."
"He talked him into letting you go?"
"He kept him talking. That's the first rule. As long as Reuben was talking to Dave, he wasn't killing us. He would have; I could see it. Carter and me. Maybe not Mama because he'd gotten it into his head she belonged to him. But Dave got him talking about fishing. A long conversation about fishing, and kept us alive. But after a while, Reuben got himself worked up again. He was going to hurt Carter, I could feel it. So I distracted him, the way Dave had with the fishing. Between one thing and another, I got into the bathroom, unlocked the window in there, and I told Carter-bullied Carter-into going in first chance, getting out that way."
"You got your brother out," Duncan murmured.
"Reuben had a serious hard-on for Carter. He was going to hurt him." She told him then about fixing the meal, the sleeping pills. And of sitting in the hospital while they stitched up her mother's face, talking to Dave.
"He kept my family alive."
"And you got them out. Twelve years old."
"I wouldn't have had a family to get out if it hadn't been for Dave.
We moved into Cousin Bess's house after that, the house on Jones Street. Dave kept in touch. Lots of longer stories in all of that, but Dave talked to me about hostage and crisis negotiation. He thought I'd have a knack for it, and the perspective of what it's like on the other side. I wanted to please him, and it sounded exciting. So I trained, and I found out he was right. I have a knack for it."
She lifted her glass, half toast. "It's no lottery ticket, but it put me where I am."
"What happened to Reuben?"
"He died in prison. Pissed someone off enough for that someone to shove a shiv into him multiple times. As a moral woman, as an officer of the law, I'm obliged to deplore that sort of thing. I went out and bought a bottle of champagne, not quite up to these standards, but a very decent bottle. I enjoyed every drop of it."
"Glad to hear it." He gave her hand a quick squeeze. "You've had an interesting life, Phoebe."
"Interesting?"
"Well, you can't claim to have lived in the rut of routine." She laughed. "No, I don't suppose I can."