Writing Free

Chapter 50

     I woke to the blurred vision of Bix’s haggard face with a two-day growth of beard, but when I tried to call his name, my throat felt on fire.

     “It’s all right, love. Don’t try to talk. You’ve been intubated for almost two weeks, but the doctor took the tube out this morning, and you’re being moved out of ICU to a regular room any minute now.”

     I frowned. Where the hell was I? And where had I been for the two weeks Bix was talking about?

     Two more nurses and an orderly came in then. Terror overwhelmed me as the bed began to roll, but I was too weak to even raise my hand to protest. Even Bix’s hand holding mine, and Peggy’s soft, encouraging voice at my head didn’t help as white walls flashed by. I caught a glimpse of two or three metal poles on either side of me.

     Finally, the movement stopped, and I watched the poles positioned, not missing how Peggy’s eyes darted around them. Bix smoothed my hair back from my forehead. “You’re all right, love,” he whispered. “Peggy’s been here all along, so you know she’s had her eye on everything.”

     “You’re in Houston, Peaches,” Peggy said as she finished her surveillance.

     I glanced from her to Bix.

     “I know you don’t remember anything,” she went on. “Button is here, too. Vic went to Denton for her himself. He’s back at the ranch, but Button is staying with the Fordhams. She’ll be here to see you later this afternoon. And if you’re wondering why Bix looks so bad, he didn’t leave this hospital except to shower and change clothes occasionally for the whole ten days you were in ICU.”

     I managed to mouth, “What happened?” and just forming the words exhausted me.

     I watched Peggy and Bix exchange glances. “You explain it to her,” Bix said.

     “Only if you go home and get some rest before I have to call a code on you.” I couldn’t see all of Peggy, but I could visualize her little feet planted defiantly, daring him to oppose her.

     He shook his head. “No, I can’t leave…”

     Peggy jerked her head toward the door. “She’s fine, but you’re not. Go. Don’t come back until tomorrow morning. The nurses have already promised me a cot in here, so I’ll be here all night. Go, Bix.”

     He looked down at me. “Mari, I…”

     “Go,” I mouthed and closed my eyes.

     When he’d gone, Peggy cranked up the bed slightly and held a straw for me to sip some water. It eased the burning in my throat only slightly. Then she pulled a chair close to the bed and began to talk. I didn’t understand all of it, only that some sort of tumor on my spine had virtually exploded in an instant. “Dr. Best was picking out the pieces for seven hours,” she said.

     “And you arrested twice, which is why you spent all that time on life support in ICU. You must have collapsed after Button left on Sunday. Bix told me he’d planned to come back to Danford on Tuesday, but he woke up Sunday night in a panic and got up and started packing. He got to Danford about sun-up on Monday morning and found you on the floor of your bedroom having one seizure after another. He called Aaron, who got you to the hospital and realized you needed more than our hospital could provide, so he arranged for you to be airlifted to Houston. I came in the plane with you, and Bix followed in his car. When Dr. Best figured out what was going on, Vic drove to Denton for Button and brought her here. And that’s it in a nutshell, except that you’re going to be just fine. It’ll take a while, but Dr. Best says that tumor had probably been growing since you were a child, You’re going to see a big difference in your health now that it’s gone.”

     She gave me more water, and I fell asleep mid-sip.

     When I woke again—I had no idea whether it was morning or evening—it was to the sound of Button’s angry voice at the foot of my bed. Bix stood the other side of the room, and Peggy had taken a position between the both of them.

     “You did this! You’re responsible for everything, so just get out. We don’t need you. We never did!”

     “Button,” I managed to croak.

     She turned. “Oh, Mother, you’re awake! Well, don’t you worry about a thing. I’m going to take care of you from now on. I’ve quit school, and next year, if you’re better, I’ll think about commuting to San Angelo.”

     “No,” I heard myself say. “Bix…”

     He started for the bed.

     “Get away from her!” Button screeched. “Don’t you dare touch her! This is all your fault.”

     “Button Matthews, you close your mouth!” Peggy said.

     “And you get out, too, if you’re going to take his side,” Button went on.

     Peggy flinched as if Button had struck her. “You listen to me, Button. Your mother would be dead if it hadn’t been for Bix. If he’d waited to come back until Tuesday as he planned, she’d have lain there seizing for who knows how long...the big seizures that can kill you...until she died right there.” She grabbed both of Button’s arms and propelled her toward the door. “Pam is out there in the hall and probably heard all of this. You ought to be ashamed. You leave this room and tell her I said to take you home until you’re ready to apologize to all of us—your mother, your father, and me, too. Don’t you dare come back until you’re ready to do that!”

     “Peggy, don’t,” I heard Bix say. “I’ll go. Button should be with her mother.”

     But Peggy, once on a mission, never quit, and Button disappeared through the door. I heard raised voices in the hall which fell silent abruptly. Bix, his face much like the once I’d seen in the middle of the old football field that night when he’d held a gun to his head, came to my bed and took my hand. “Mari...oh, Mari…”

     Tears rolled down Peggy’s cheeks as she came back. “I’ve never shamed Button or any of the children like that. But I wasn’t going to let her stand here and…” She scrubbed at her eyes and busied herself checking various tubings and monitors before she said, “I’m sorry, Peaches. You know I love Button to pieces. I was there when she was born.” She laid her face gently on my hair. “I wouldn’t hurt her for the world.”

     “Thirsty,” I said to stop the words tumbling out of her. We’d all marveled at how the scared little rabbit of high school days had turned into a tough nurse who got things done and a nurturing mother whose children rarely stepped out of line for fear of hurting her. But her tender feelings still bubbled up, and she was the krolik again.

     She held the straw to my lips. “I think they’re bringing you some broth a little later. That will go a long way getting you up and going again.” Her forced smile told me she’d be a long time forgetting what she’d said to Button even if Button needed to be silenced.

     “Pam is waiting for me in the car with Button. I’ll be back tonight, Bix. You look a lot better after being out of here for a few hours—even if you called up here half a dozen times to check on Mari.”

     He leaned over and kissed me again.

     “Just help her with the broth when it comes, and don’t forget to go down for something to eat yourself.” She leaned across the bed toward him. “I know what Button said hurt you, but she’s wrong. Mari does need you.” She kissed my cheek. “Be good, Peaches. I know that’s really hard for you, but do it anyway—for me.”

     I managed all the warm chicken broth that Bix spooned into me and actually felt slightly human. Button’s words echoed in my mind. She hadn’t actually told me to make a choice, but she’d almost dared me to do it. But how could I? As I’d said, she was my reason to live—but without Bix, I’d only be existing. For a brief moment, I was angry he’d come back into my life.

     The phone beside the bed rang then. Bix listened, then held it to my ear. “Button,” he said.

     “I’m sorry I said what I did,” Button said in a voice that told me she wasn’t sorry at all. “I’m going back to school, so I’ll be out of your way. Out of his way, too.” Then she hung up.

     One look at Bix told me he’d heard everything she said. He held me around all the tubes running into me as best he could while we both wept hopelessly.

     A nurse came in and told me she was giving me a sedative. It knocked me out immediately. Sometime later, I became vaguely aware of someone feeding me more warm broth, but I didn’t care who it was. I didn’t care about anything, even living. I’d lost the daughter I loved with all my heart, just like I’d lost Tom, Mary Nelle, my tiny baby boy, and Edward. I hadn’t lost Bix before because we’d never had each other. But now we did, and and I was going to lose him, too.

I just want to die. Why didn’t I die years ago? Why did I let myself believe I could be happy?

Blackness closed in around me once again, and I hoped it was death.

     When I opened my eyes again, Dr. Comer was sitting beside the bed. “Hey,” he said. “Long time no see.”

     “Why are you here?” I realized my throat didn’t hurt anymore.

     “Jim thought you might need to talk.”

     “I need to die.”

     “Why?”

     “I’ve lost everything, and this time it’s not coming back.”

     “Why?”

     “Is that all you can say?”

     He chuckled. “Marian Matthews, you were one of my success stories a dozen years again, and you still are. You don’t want to die. You never did. You just want to hide from life.”

     The words that came out of my mouth shocked even me, but he laughed. “That’s more like it.” He pulled the chair closer to my bed. “I know what happened with your daughter. What she said to both of you. While she needs to be put across someone’s knee and whacked a few times, it’s perfectly normal reaction to this new scenario. I mean, how do you expect her to react after all these years?”

     “Like she did, I suppose.”

     “You suppose right. Oh, she’s mad as hornet, but about now I bet there’s some guilt kicking in. She wasn’t raised to strike like a coiled snake, was she?”

     “No.”

“     As for Jim Matthews—or Bix, whichever you prefer—I’ve had some really good sessions with him. Apparently he was an arrogant you-know-what, but when he had his come-to-Jesus moment, he came.”

     “You’re Jewish,” I spat. “Why are you talking about Jesus?”

     He laughed again. “I’ve read the New Testament as well as the Old. I like what it says.”

     “Maybe you fixed me years ago, but maybe you shouldn’t have. I blew it again.”

     “How did you blow it?”

     “I always do.”

     “Oh, spare me the pity party. Listen, I have it on good authority that the team of doctors who worked on you didn’t give you a snowball’s chance in July of coming through this, but here you are. Everyone’s rallied around you, and Jim—Bix--would have driven off a bridge if you hadn’t made it. Oh, yes, I know what he almost did in the middle of the old football field. He told me. I know what you’ve done, because you told me years ago. Second chances don’t always come along, but you’ve got a third one or maybe a fourth. That man loves you completely, and I have a feeling you love him. You’ve got another lifetime ahead.”

     “Without my daughter?”

     “I don’t see her staying gone forever.” He got up. “I sent Bix downstairs to eat and walk around. He’ll be back to say goodnight before your tenacious little nurse friend Peggy kicks him out for the night. You sleep on all this, and when you wake up in the morning, you tell G_D thank you that you did. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to hassle you again.”

     Bix came back shortly after Dr. Comer left. “Was he your idea?”

     “Yes.” He sat down and took my hand. I considered jerking it away, but he’d been hurt enough. “I almost lost you from the surgery, Mari, and now I’m losing you again. I was grasping at straws, I guess."

     “You’re free to get lost.”

     “I’d rather not.”

      “You’ve got your life back. Go live it.”

     “I don’t have a life without you.”

     We stared at each other for a long time before I said, “I wish you could hold me.”

     He smiled slightly. “I wish I could, too.”

Chapter 49

     By the time Button arrived on the six o’clock bus, I’d put myself back together and welcomed her home without considering that things might go south when I told her about her father and me. In fact, I put it out of my mind altogether while she flitted between Shelley Friedman’s and the ranch. Having to work helped me to keep my bearings. Finally, on the last night, she brought up the subject herself.

     “Chrissy says that my father has been here several times.” She folded herself on the floor and rested her head on my knees. “Rub my head.”

     We’d spent many cozy evenings sitting like this. “What else does Chrissy say?” I asked carefully. Whatever Chrissy passed on came straight from Francie.

     “She says Dr. Aaron is really mad at you.”

     “I can’t help what Aaron Barnes is, and I certainly don’t care.”

     “Why is my father hanging around?”

     “Is that what he’s doing—hanging around?”

     “Come on, Mother, tell me the truth.”

     “I’ve always told you the truth, Button, and you know it. So I’ll tell you the truth now, and you’ll just have to accept it. I had to hit rock bottom before I could get my life together and be the mother you needed. Your father has had his moment of truth, too. He doesn’t harbor any ideas of being accepted as your father again after so many years, but we’re trying to put our marriage back together anyway.”

     She sat up like lightning had struck her. “Mother! You...you can’t! I mean, after everything he did to you!

     “He did nothing to me, Button. What I did, I did to myself. I barricaded myself behind pills and alcohol, and he barricaded himself behind striving for perfection and arrogance.”

     “Oh, Mother, I can’t believe I’m hearing you talk like this!”

     I took her face between my hands. “We married for convenience, Button. He needed a socially-educated wife to help him jump start his career, and I wanted a baby. Things didn’t work out very well for either of us, although he has achieved his goals as a sought-after attorney, and I have you.” I tried to guide her head back to my lap, but she jumped up and retreated to the sofa, where she curled herself into a knot of misery.

     “Neither of us wants to hurt you, Button. That worries your father most of all. He says he won’t come between the two of us.”

     “He already has!”

     “How? Explain to me how he’s made a difference in our relationship.”

     “He...he just has! He didn’t even believe I was his child!”

     Fear chilled me. “Who told you that?”

     She shook her head.

     “Was it Francie?”

     She dropped her eyes.

     “His life had been so full of loss that he had to make everything perfect in his life as an adult. I wasn’t, and you weren’t, so he shut himself off from both of us. After the accident, he came to the hospital and threatened to take you away from me as punishment for humiliating him—although he couldn’t accept that everyone knew or at least suspected that I was a closet drunk.”

     “Don’t! Don’t say anymore.”

     I transferred myself to the sofa and closed my fingers around one of her arms in a death grip. “You brought this up, Button, so now you’re going to hear the truth. To keep him from carrying out his threat, I told him you weren’t his child. He knew I was lying, but he used my words to file for divorce and shut us both out of his life forever. I’ve done many things I’m ashamed of, but I never slept around.”

     “Don’t, Mother!” She tried to pull away from me, but I dug my fingers into her arm.

     “You are my daughter, Button, and you are Bix Matthews’ daughter. We fought a war with each other, and in many ways, you were the casualty. I told him, when he asked for my forgiveness, that I’d forgiven him right after I forgave myself. I also told him that signing me into the psychiatric ward, even if was for the wrong reason, was the right thing to do. It saved my life and allowed me to come home to you. We’ve had a good life, Button. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been good. I know you believe that.”

     “That’s why I don’t want him in our lives! He’ll ruin them again.”

     “I love him, Button.”

     “And you don’t love me anymore?”

     “I love you more than ever. You’re my reason for living.”

     “Then why do you need him?”

     “I’m a woman. I need to be complete.”

     “You mean...sex?” Her voice dropped on the last word.

     “That’s part of it. It’s how families are made. You know that. The relationship between a man and a woman, then their relationship with their children...you’ve seen it all done right at the ranch. Dutch and Miss Grace, Tank and Francie, Vic and Peggy. You’ve seen the lives filled with so much joy, and you’ve benefited from it. Now...now it’s my turn, Button. We can be a family again if we want to be.”

     She shook her head so hard, it seemed to fly off her shoulders. “No! I’ll never accept him! You have to choose, Mother. You can have me, or you can have him, but I’ll never forgive him for anything he’s done.”

     Shock loosened my grip on her arm, and she sprang up and made a run for her room, leaving me with my world crashing around me one more time.

     Somehow I managed to call Bix later that night and put on an Academy Award winning performance. He didn’t ask me if I’d talked with Button. I was sure he didn’t want to know the ugly truth. Instead, he told me about his plans to arrive back in Danford on Tuesday. “That will give you a day to recoup from Button’s spring break,” he said lightly, although I recognized the heaviness underlying them. “I’ll set up shop in the guest room and try to stay out of your way.”

     He hesitated. “Just your bed.”

     “I need you, Bix. It frightens me to need you so much.”

     “What we’re doing is frightening to me, too. I love you, Mari. I can’t imagine life without you.”

     I put Button on the noon bus the next day. Her hug was brief and noticeably tense, and she didn’t return my I love you. As soon as I walked through the kitchen door, the usual nagging ache exploded in my lower back. The last thing I remembered was stumbling toward the bedroom and collapsing on the floor.

Chapter 48

    The next morning after a sumptuous breakfast provided at the hotel, we headed downtown. Bix wanted to see the Nimitz Hotel, now a museum. Unfortunately, when we’d finished a leisurely tour of the first floor, we discovered that the elevator wasn’t working. “You go on up,” I told him. “I’ll be fine right here. And don’t hurry—I always keep a paperback in my purse for just such contingencies.”

    He was on the point of insisting we leave when four fresh-faced young men, obviously college students on springs break, approached us. “You want to go up?” one of them asked, grinning at me.

    “The elevator’s out of order,” I said.

    “You don’t need an elevator when you’ve got us.” All four pretended to flex their muscles.

    “Why not? But if you drop me, I’ll cut out your gizzards.”

    Bix stood in speechless panic as two of the boys made a seat with their crossed arms and started up the stairs, while the other two followed with my chair. “Mari! Mari, this isn’t a good idea,” he said as he followed.

    At the top, the boys set me gently back into my chair. “We’ll be around to take you down,” their spokesman said. “Best ride in town.”

    Bix glared at me. “Mari, they could’ve dropped you, and going down…”

    “You’re being an old poop again,” I said, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze.

    The way he shook his head told me I hadn’t convinced him.

    The boys loped toward us as we came back from the last exhibit. “Going down? Need a lift?”

    I looked at Bix. “If they don’t take me, I’ll sit up here until I mummify.” Finally downstairs, I thanked them. “What’s your alma mater?”

    “A&M,” they said together.

    “All my nephews and nieces went there. You’re the best. I knew I could trust you.”

    “We sure didn’t want you to cut out our gizzards,” one of them said. “Whatever those are and wherever they’re located.”

    I laughed. “Your gizzards are safe. Now enjoy the rest of your spring break, remember that intelligent young men don’t get soused, and get back to school safely. Understand?”

    Nodding and laughing, they ambled off tossing several, “Yes, ma’ams” over their shoulders.

    Bix pushed my chair onto the sidewalk in silence. “Mari, you’re outrageous.”

    “Are you just realizing that?”

    He kissed the top of my head. “I guess I can live with it.”

    “I guess you’ll have to.”

    “Where to next?” I asked as he put me into the car.

    “It’s a surprise.”

    “All right.”

    “We have to make a quick stop first.” He drove to a delicatessen we’d passed the day before, parked and jumped out. When he came back, he was carrying a hamper which I felt sure was big enough to feed half the town.

    “A picnic? How exciting!”

    He looked pleased with himself as he stowed the hamper in the back seat. “Enchanted Rock State Park. We won’t go mountain climbing.”

    “That’s nice to know.”

     Our joined laughter was music to my ears.

    Unfortunately, the skies opened up as we parked near a table, and a hard rain pounded the car. “Just my luck,” Bix muttered.

    “I think it’s cozy,” I said. “Open that picnic basket and serve up lunch.”

    The rain slowed to a gentle shower just as we finished eating. Bix drove out on the highway toward Austin, saying he’d passed a particularly beautiful mass of wildflowers on the way up from Houston. We sat on a pull-off enjoying the view.

    “I wish we didn’t have to go back tomorrow,” I said finally.

    “I know, but there’ll be other times...I hope.” He reached for my hand and brought it to his lips.

    “I hope so, too.”

    “What are you going to tell Button?”

    “I don’t know. We’ve always been able to talk, and she’s a reasonable person, but it’s always been just the two of us. Bringing in someone else isn’t going to be something she’ll take to immediately.”

    “Especially when that someone is the father who denied and ignored her all her life.”

    “It’s over, Bix.”

    “Not for her.”

    “No, not for her, but it can be. Tank and Vic always stood in for her as father figures, but I always thought perhaps it bothered her that they were just stand-ins.”

    “I’m glad she had them at least.”

    “They gave her something of themselves, which was important, but she has you in her, too.”

    “How?”

    “Not being able to see beyond the end of her nose—at least, about this situation.”

    “I guess I never could either.” He stretched. “Do you want to go back to any of the shops before we call it a day?”

    “No, but on the way out in the morning, I want to get peaches to take back to Miss Grace and some for Sue. Button likes them, too.”

    “I’ve seen several stands along the road,” he said. “We should be able to find all you want.”

    We slept in and didn’t hurry getting on the road. Stopping to select peaches took time, so it was almost dark when we pulled into the driveway. Dutch’s truck was parked in the back. “Company,” Bix murmured. “Is that good or bad?”

    “Our welcome home dinner,” I said.

    Inside, Miss Grace stirred something in a pot on the stove while Dutch sat at the table reading the newspaper. “There’s the gal,” he said.

    Miss Grace put her arms around me. “Welcome home, Marian dear. From the looks of you, I’d say you had a wonderful time.”

    “We had the time of our lives,” I said. “Bix is getting the luggage...and he’s not sure about all this.”

    Dutch got up to hold the door as Bix came up the ramp. “Loaded down there, Son. Did the gal take everything she owned for two days?”

    Bix’s smile seemed uncertain. “I guess she did.”

    “Anything I can help with?”

    “There are two boxes of peaches in the car,” I said. “One for the ranch, and one to share with Sue Friedman. You’ve made chicken and dumplings, Miss Grace.”

    “Your favorite.” She patted me. “Go do whatever you need to do, and give supper another ten minutes.”

    I could see Bix relax as we ate. Dutch drew him into the conversation like he’d been there all along, and Miss Grace delivered the coup de gras with Bix’s favorite chocolate pie. Afterwards, Bix carried their peaches to the truck. “Thank you for dinner, Miss Grace,” he said. “It would’ve been Burger Barn for sure.”

    Miss Grace reached to pat his cheek.

    “Don’t be a stranger, Son,” Dutch said.

    Bix’s eyes were suspiciously bright when he came back up the ramp. “I can’t believe…” he began.

    “They have our backs,” I said, going to his arms. “You can bet they do.”

    I was slicing peaches at the sink and dictating a grocery list to Bix when Aaron burst through the back door. “Where the hell have you been?” He towered over me menacingly.

    “I didn’t know I had to file my itinerary with you,” I said.

    He turned on Bix. “And you! You should’ve known better!”

    “A little late for a house call, wouldn’t you say?” Bix asked. “Was that a gallon of milk, Mari?”

    “You could’ve killed her, dragging her off that way!”

    “I didn’t.”

    “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” The knife spun out of my fingers onto the floor, and Bix jumped up to retrieve it.

    “It’s all right, love,” he whispered, rinsing the knife and handing it back to me. “Aaron, I think you should leave.”

    “I suppose you’re going to make me!” Aaron advanced on us.

    Before I realized it, Bix had grabbed Aaron’s arm and all but thrown him out the back door, slamming and locking it. “He’ll probably sue me for assault,” he muttered.

    “I suppose you know a good lawyer if he does.” I sank into a kitchen chair.

    “I suppose I do.” He rested his hands on my shoulders. “Leave the peaches, cupcake. You can finish them tomorrow while I’m at the grocery store.”

    Later, lying beside him, I said, “Thank you for being there for me.”

    “He has no right to treat you like that. Keeping the peace isn’t your responsibility.”

    “I know.”

    “Keep the door locked while I’m gone tomorrow. Don’t let him in if he comes back.”

    “That's easier said than done."

    He stroked my hair. “We had a good time, didn’t we?”

    “I can’t remember ever enjoying myself so much, not recently anyway.”

    “We’ll go all the places you’ve never been...do all the things you’ve never done.”

    I buried my face against him. “Just love me, Bix. Love me forever.”

    “How can I help it?”

    Bix proved to be an efficient shopper and put the groceries away without a misstep. I’d finished cutting up the peaches while he was at Piggly Wiggly and set Sue’s aside for her. Then I’d made chicken sandwiches from Miss Grace’s leftovers. We dragged out our lunch as long as possible, but finally Bix said he needed to leave before Chrissy turned up to do my cleaning. “I could’ve cleaned, too,” he said.

    “And earned Chrissy’s undying enmity. She likes the extra money. My house and her chickens keep her flush.”

    “I’ll let you call me while Button’s here.”

    “She’ll be in and out, but calling here probably isn’t a good idea. I’ll call after I go to bed at night.”

    He gathered my hands into his. “I’ve been thinking about after she leaves...maybe I could come back…”

    “You want to play house?”

    “Something like that.”

    “And be a dirty old man?”

    He smiled a little. “I can try.” He kissed my fingers. “I’ll work from here and fly out of San Angelo if I have to be in the office. I think my calendar is clear until June anyway. And I’ll stay at the Spur so…”

    “You’ll stay here.”

    “Mari, it wouldn’t look right.”

    “I don’t care how it looks. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll tell Steve, my principal, that you’re going to be here...that we’re working on things. He’ll handle any gossip, but I doubt there’ll be much.”

    “I’d think people would talk...a lot.”

    “Some will, but it doesn’t matter. And I’ll talk to Button.”

   “Mari, don’t do anything to spoil your time together.”

    “I’ll talk to Button.”

    I started to cry as soon as Bix carried his luggage through the kitchen and out to the car. He came back and held me until my sobs had diminished. “I’ll can’t live with hurting you again,” he said. He brushed my lips with his. “And you’ll enjoy Button being home. I don’t know how things got to this point so quickly, but selfishly, I’m glad they did.”

    “I’m glad, too.”

    “I’ll call you tonight when I get in.”

    I cried again, but finally he kissed me for the last time and drove away.

Chapter 47

     He was gone the next morning when I woke, but the smell of coffee told me he hadn’t gone far. Then he poked his head through the door. “Breakfast in bed?”

     “Just coffee, juice, and toast and the basket of meds on the cabinet. “

     I had time to slip on my caftan which he’d placed conveniently across the foot of the bed before he reappeared with a tray and slid it across my lap. “There you go, cupcake.”

     “Cupcake?”

     He shrugged. “When I looked at you still asleep this morning, you reminded me of a cupcake with its frosting slipping off. He smoothed my hair.

     I rolled my eyes. “I don’t get the analogy but never mind.”

     “I checked out of the Spur last night, but I can’t stay here all week. Would you like to go somewhere?”

     I swallowed the last of the pills. “Get the hell out of Dodge, you mean?”

     He laughed. “Right.”

     “Fredericksburg.”

     “Why there?”

     “Sue, Anna Lee, Pauline, Peggy, and Francie go every year.”

     “Why don’t you go with them?”

     “Why do you think?”

     He shook his head. “Not the wheelchair again.”

     “It infuriates Francie. She sees it as giving up or something. I’ve never been sure exactly what.”

     “Fredericksburg it is. I’ll call my secretary Marcia and ask her to get in touch with the travel agency we use. Being spring break in a lot of places, we might have a problem finding a hotel.” He reached for the phone.

     “First floor,” I said.

     “Of course.”

     I was dressed and packing the suitcase Bix had retrieved from the hall closet when Marcia called back. “We have a first-floor room at the hotel the travel agent found,” Bix said. “It’s rated five-star and close to downtown.”

     “It didn’t necessarily have to be five-star,” I said.’

     “It was the only room available in town.”

     “Oh. Well…” I snapped the suitcase shut and went into the bathroom to pack my toiletries and makeup.

     On the way out, I realized someone from the ranch might come by, find me gone, and panic. “I’d better call the ranch,” I said.            Fortunately, Miss Grace answered the phone. “We’re going to Frederickburg for a few days,” I said, not clarifying the we. I was sure Peggy and Vic had shared with her and with Dutch.

     “That sounds lovely,” she said. The fact that she didn’t use my name told me that Francie was in the room.

     “We’ll be back Thursday evening because I have to get things ready for Button this weekend.”

      “Yes, of course.”

     “I’ll leave the name of the hotel on my kitchen table in case of emergency.”

     “I’m thinking good things,” she said softly. “Only good things. And I'll be praying over your miles."

     Then I called Button’s dorm and left a message saying I’d be out of pocket for a few days and to call the ranch if she needed something. Bix wrote the note I’d promised Miss Grace, propped it against the napkin holder, and took my arm. “Anything else before we go?”

     “Just shove me out the door before I change my mind.”

     “I’ll understand,” he said.

     “I know you will, but I’ve paid my dues. It’s time for me to do this without guilt.”

      He held me for a few minutes in silence, then opened the door and waited for me to walk through it.

     The wildflowers bloomed abundantly along the highways and in the fields, and I drank in their beauty. In Fredericksburg, our hotel room seemed extravagant, but I knew I’d relish the luxury. Bix offered to let me nap after the drive, but I couldn’t wait to get started sightseeing. After lunch at a German-style restaurant, we set out. Bix managed my chair with ease and commented on the way back to the hotel that he didn’t think we’d missed a single shop.

     I was glad enough to let him bring in supper and relax on the soft sofa complete with ottoman while we ate and watched Perry Mason. “Is there anywhere he’s not?” Bix asked as I settled in.

     “I don’t think so. And I’ll figure out who’s really guilty in this episode, too.”

     “You probably will. I’m glad I don’t have to face you in court.”

     Later, he helped me in the shower which wasn’t built to accommodate my needs like the one at home. I turned back the covers on the king-sized bed and snuggled down while he took his turn in the shower.

     “Silk pajamas, my my,” I teased gently as he slid in beside me.

     “I like the feel, and they’re not real silk.”

     “I like the feel, too.” I turned with difficulty to rest one arm on his chest. “I’ve enjoyed today, Bix. Thank you.”

     We lay in silence for a while before he said hesitantly, “Mari, do you want to make love?”

     “Do you?”

     “I’ve thought about this all day, and I can’t stop thinking that last night was just a fluke.”

     “It wasn’t,” I said. “It will happen again, and it doesn’t have to be tonight or tomorrow or a week from now. As wonderful as last night was, it was the intimacy I craved more than the sex, and that’s what we have now.”

     “Intimacy was the one thing I couldn’t give you. It made me too vulnerable.”

     “I think I always knew that.”

     “I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to fall in love with you, Mari. I never knew what it meant to love after my father died. I respected Mother and was fond of Laura, but love was foreign to me.”

     “A part of me always loved a part of you—the part you’re finally learning not to hide.”

     He took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t want to hurt you again. I don’t want to come between you and Button or interfere with what you have at the ranch.”

     “We’ll work it out,” I murmured around a yawn. “We will.”

Chapter 46

     The room grew dark as he held me in silence. When my trembling ceased, I sat up. “I’m sorry,” I said stiffly.

     “Don’t be.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “I’ll get that appointment for you for a second opinion, and we’ll go from there.”

     “Why we?”

     “I started all this, so I’ll finish it.”

     “You don’t have to.”

     He took my face in his hands. “Mari, I want to.” He gazed at me for a long moment. “You really do have tiger-gold eyes.”

     I laughed then. “So I’ve been told. They’re an anomaly.”

     “Are you hungry?”

     “Are you? I can make some sandwiches.”

     “I’ll run up to Burger Barn. You just sit tight.”

     We ate greasy burgers and fries while we watched another re-run of Perry Mason. “Why do you like this program so much?” Bix asked as he began to clear up the remains of our supper.

     “I like figuring out who did it.”

     “You figured this one out. Are you sure you haven’t seen it before?”

      “First time.”

     “You’d make a formidable foe in the courtroom, I think.” He carried things into the kitchen and came back. “I should go. It’s been a long, unpleasant day for you.”

     I struggled to my feet and crossed the room to stand beside him. “I’ll see you out then.” My voice sounded calm even to me, but panic churned inside of me. He was leaving, and I didn't want him to go.

     We started through the swinging door, but as he held it for me, his hand brushed my breast. I reacted by grabbing it and holding it fast.

     He paled and jerked away, and rejection replaced panic.

     “No...wait, Mari, you don’t understand...I...I can’t.”

     “What does that mean?” My voice rose.

     “It means...it means I’m...impotent.” His words faded away.

     “You’re…”

     “Don’t you remember that last night I ever spent in your bed? I...I couldn’t…”

     I searched twelve years of memories. “I never blamed you for leaving my bed when I was drinking.”

     He flinched. “You were stone cold sober that night, Mari. It was me.”

     “And all these years you’ve believed you…have you seen a doctor?”

     “I can’t do that.” His shoulders slumped. “I’m worse than you ever imagined. I’m not even a real man.”

     I stepped back. “Go check out of the Spur and come back. We have some things to talk about.”

     “How will that help?”

     “You’ve confessed your last dirty little secret to me. Now you deserve to hear mine. Go, Bix. I’ll be here.”

     In the time he was gone, I changed into a silky emerald green caftan, turned down my bed, and switched on a single lamp...the lamp I couldn’t close my eyes without know it was on. In the kitchen, I retrieved the remaining half bottle of white whine and a glass and took them into the living room. Then I went back to wait for Bix.

His eyes enveloped me as I stood there. “Mari...dear God...don’t do this to us.”

     I took his hand, led him into the living room, and poured a glass of wine. Then I sat down across from him. “There was one tape I asked Dr. Comer not to give you. I destroyed it myself, because I didn’t want anyone to know, but you need to.”

     He shook his head. “I don’t…”

     “Shut up, Bix,” I said softly. “Just listen.”

     By the time I finished telling him what Dan Kroll had done to me over the years, he looked physically ill. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, but no words came out.

     “No one knows, Bix. Just Dr. Comer and now you.”

     He closed his eyes for a moment. “If I’d been Vic, I’d have killed the man who hurt Peggy.”

     “He didn’t.”

     “I know that. He’s not capable of violence toward another human being. I remember seeing him take some nasty hits on the football field, then turn around on the next play and help the same guy up when he went down himself. But I’m capable of it. I wish...if your mother hadn’t killed Dan Kroll...if he was still alive tonight...I’d do it myself.”

     “It’s over, Bix. For me...for both of us. We are what we believe, and for too many years I believed I was worthless. You’re sitting here now believing you aren’t a real man. It’s time to let everything go.”

     “I was unfaithful to you during my time in Nuremburg after the war.”

     “I know.”

     “How?”

     I smiled. “Some things a woman just knows. Did you love her?”

     “No. She lived with her parents in the basement of a bombed out building and worked as a stenographer for the American team putting the war crimes trial together. I provided food for her family from our commissary, and she provided for my paltry physical needs.”

     “I was unfaithful to you, too. Every time you touched me, I thought of Tom and wished he was in my bed and not you.” I paused. “Drink your wine, Bix. Remember how I got you half-drunk one night before you left for Korea? It was my last chance, and Button was the result.”

     He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

     “Finish your wine.”

     Bix wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t exactly sober either after he’d killed the bottle and carried me into the bedroom. He fumbled with my brace but managed to get it off. “Don’t be in a hurry,” I murmured as he slipped my caftan over my head.

     Later I lay drowsily in his arms and felt true peace for the first time in my life. “Mari, are you all right?” he asked.

“If I die of happiness before morning, at least put my caftan back on before you call Friedman’s.”

     He chuckled. “Was I that good?”

     “You were magnificent, but don’t let it go to your head, and don’t tell anyone what killed me. They might hang you for murder.”

     “They don’t hang people in Texas anymore.”

     “No?”

     “No.”

     I stroked his chest. “Bix, don’t do this tonight, and leave me tomorrow.”

     He turned his head and put his lips against my tousled hair. “Never, my love. Never again.”

Chapter 45

      When Button called later, I was working on my needlepoint while Bix worked on his files. She talked non-stop about spring break and how glad she would be to come home. Finally she said, “What did you do this weekend, Mother?”

     “Oh, not much,” I said, feeling unaccountably guilty for lying to her.

     “Well, when I get home, we’ll do something special. Maybe we’ll go to San Angelo for a movie. I’ll drive.”

     “That sounds nice.”

     “It’s only another week.”

     “I know, precious. I’ll be glad to see you.”

     “Do you miss me, Mother?”

     “You know I do.”

     “Maybe I should go to school in San Angelo next year.”

     “Why?”
     “I could commute.”

     “I don’t think so.”

     “But you said you missed me, and. . .”

     “And it’s time for you to be out of the nest, Button.”

     “But. . .”

     “We’ll have all week to talk about this,” I said. “Remember this is on my phone bill.”

     Bix put aside his work as I hung up. “She doesn’t want to go back next year?”

     “She’s just homesick.”

     “You’re very close, aren’t you?”

     “Yes, we are.”

     “I saw some wine in the refrigerator. I think I’ll get a glass. Would you like anything?”

     “Pop a top on one of those Cokes for me.”

     When he came back, I said, “Sue got the wine for me at the package store. Danford’s still dry. Please take it back to Houston with you. If Francie ever sees it, she’ll have a fit.”

     “You don’t like it?”

     “I despise it. For the record, Bix, I never liked anything I drank. Dead was better, but drunk would do.” The pain in his eyes made me regret those last words. “I’m sorry I said that, but I thought you should understand the wine was for you, not for me.”

     He nodded. “I understand.”

     “You were never much of a drinker,” I said.

     “There’s not much I like except for white wine.” He leaned forward. “Mother opposed spirits in all forms. I remember Dad took me fishing one time and put a couple of beers in the creek to cool. He cautioned me not to mention them to Mother.”

     “You loved your father very much,” I observed.

     “I idolized him.” He sat back and sipped from his glass again. “He used to read aloud to me at night even when I was old enough to do it myself. We were reading The Last of the Mohicans when he was arrested. Every afternoon after school, Sheriff Hatcher used to sneak me into the jail the back way, and Dad would read to me through the bars.” His voice broke. “I hated those bars so much, but at least I had that time with my father.”

     “And he had that time with you.”

      “He told me everything would be all right, and I believed him. So when he was convicted, I was in a state of shock, if an eight-year-old can be in shock. The day he was transferred to Huntsville to begin his sentence, Mother and I and Laura, who was still just a baby in arms, went downtown to tell him goodbye. Seeing that proud man brought out in handcuffs was more than I could take. I turned and ran...I never said goodbye.” He buried his face in his hands. “I was a  coward then, too.”

     I moved as quickly as I could to sit beside him on the sofa. “You were eight years old,” I said, touching his shoulder lightly. “Only a little boy.”

     “I’ve never forgiven myself.”

     “I’m sure he understood.”

     “The first time we were able to afford the train to visit him, I told him I was sorry, and he said he did.”

     “Were you able to visit often after that?”

     “Only two or three times. Mother had gone back to work to keep us fed, but that’s about all she could do. The church ladies brought food baskets regularly, but I considered it charity and felt ashamed.”

     “I’m sure they didn’t feel that way.”

     “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

     “It matters because it’s still gnawing on you.”

     He leaned his head back against the sofa and reached for me. I went to his arms willingly, and not just to comfort him. Then I felt his tears dripping on my forehead. “Get it all out, Bix,” I whispered.

“Men…” he choked.

     “Don’t cry? Real men do. Real men aren’t ashamed of their feelings.”

     He pulled me closer and let go of a lifetime of grief and anger.

     I don’t know how long we sat there together before he jumped up abruptly and left through the kitchen. But as the minutes ticked away, I had a moment of panic wondering if he would return. He did, looking totally wiped out. “I should go back to the hotel,” he said.

     I couldn’t say I didn’t want him to go.

     “What are your plans for spring break?”

     “Aaron set me up with an orthopedist in San Angelo,” I said. “My regular six-month appointment is scheduled for tomorrow.”

       He shifted his feet. “I...I could drive you if you life.”

     “Don’t you have to get back to work.”

     He didn’t look at me. “I scheduled the week off.”

     “Well, I don’t mind if you drive me.”

     He nodded. “What time is your appointment?”

     “Eleven-fifteen.”

     “Then I’ll be here at nine-forty-five to give us plenty of time.” He gathered his papers from the coffee table in front of the sofa and left in a hurry.

     When the nurse called me back, Bix stood up to come with me. “We don’t need you,” the woman said pointedly.

     Bix’s eyes never left hers. “I’m coming with her.”

     In the examining room, I changed into a gown in the privacy of a curtained cubicle and came out hesitantly. Bix helped me onto the table and adjusted the gown around me. “Are you warm enough.”

     “This won’t take long,” I said. "It never does."

     But as usual, the doctor kept me waiting almost half an hour. I was glad enough to have something to lean back on this time, even if it was my ex-husbands chest. Bix didn’t say anything about the wait, but I had the feeling he wasn’t pleased.

     Dr. Coulsey seemed surprised to see Bix in the examining room. “You should step out,” he said.

     “I’ll stay,” Bix said. His tone of voice reminded me of the old Bix, but this time it was appropriate.

     The doctor shrugged. “As you please. Well, Mrs. Matthews, how are we today?”

     “The same, I suppose.”

     “Let’s just have a look, shall we?”

     He opened the back of my gown and ran his fingers over my ragged spine. “Pain?”

     “Some.”

     “I can write a prescription for…”

     “Thanks, no.”

     Then he lifted my leg and looked it over without even taking off the brace. “We’ll skip the x-rays today,” he said. “Just follow the same instructions as before—use your chair as much as possible and be careful. Make another appointment for six months.” Then he was gone.

     I started to slide off the table, but Bix’s hands on my shoulders restrained me. “I’ll get your things,” he said. He fastened my bra under the gown, helped me slip the sweater over my head, and steadied me as I pulled up the slacks he’d already started on my legs. Then he lifted me down, handed me my purse, and took my arm. “I believe we’re ready,” he said.

     We passed the desk without stopping. “Oh, Mrs. Matthews,” the receptionist called. “You forgot to schedule another appointment.”

     “Mrs. Matthews won’t be returning,” Bix said without turning around. He opened the door for me and finally, in the corridor, gave way to an anger I’d never seen in him. “He’s an arrogant young pup!” he exploded. “He reminds me of myself, and…”

      “He’s not that bad, Bix.”

     “Maybe he’s worse. He treats you like you’re not even important enough for his time, and he does nothing for you! Why do you even…”

     “To keep the peace,” I said. “Aaron wanted me to…”

     “I want you to…” He paused. “I’d like for you to consider coming to Houston this summer and seeing someone who knows what he’s doing.”

     “The damage is done. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

     He started forward. “Then you don’t need to waste your time with him.”

     In the car, he sat hunched over the steering wheel for a long moment. “Mari, I did it again. I’m sorry.”

     “What exactly did you do?”

     He turned to me. “Tried to impose my will on you.”

     “What I saw was someone trying to protect me,” I said, laying one hand on his arm. “I’d never have made the break myself. Thank you.”

     “Do you mean that?”

     “I never say what I don’t mean.”

     He sat back, his shoulders relaxed. “What about keeping the peace with Aaron?”

     “If I know Aaron, he’ll be on my doorstep in the next forty-eight hours with a declaration of war.” I laughed. “I wish     you’d still be around to give him a cold stare and a legal summation.”

     He looked away, then back. “Oh, I will, Mari. I’ll be right there.”

     We ate at Lubys again, and then we browsed the mall. Bix bought some socks, and I looked at—but didn’t buy—a selection of sweaters on clearance. “My closet is full,” I said when he wanted to buy me one. “I’m still wearing clothes I had a dozen years ago. They never seem to go out of style.”

     “I have too many clothes. Too many, too expensive, too look at me, I’m important.”

     “You need to look professional. I just want to be comfortable.”

     He shook his head. “Do you want to look at anything else, or are you ready to go home?”

     Bix put a DeBussy album on the stereo and settled down with his files again. I got out my needlepoint. A few minutes later, Aaron broke into our companionable silence when he burst through the swinging door from the kitchen.

     “Do come in,” I said, dreading what was to come.

     “I knocked!”

     “I suppose I didn’t hear you because of the music.” My hands began to shake, so I put down my needlepoint.

     “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

     “Needlepoint.”

     “I had a call from Coulsey. You said you weren’t coming back.”

     My throat felt dry. “I’m…”

     “She’s not,” Bix said.

     “What are you doing here?”

     “At the moment I’m organizing an opening statement for a case I have going to court next week.”

     “Don’t be a smartass! He turned on me again. “I made another appointment for you, and I want you to keep it.”

     “I believe I said she wasn’t going back,” Bix said evenly. “Coulsey is an arrogant young pup who does nothing for her.        I’m going to arrange for an orthopedist in Houston to see her.”

     Aaron’s face turned as red as Miss Grace’s prize tomatoes. “Coulsey’s a good doctor!”

     “I didn’t say he wasn’t. A second opinion is always a good thing.”

     “I heard you’d been hanging around, Mr. Big Lawyer. Maybe it’s time for you to shove off.”

     Bix glanced at me. “I have the week free, so I’ll be here.”

     “Haven’t you done enough damage?” Aaron advanced menacingly.

     “You asked me that once before,” Bix said, his voice betraying no emotion. “I did a great deal of damage to Mari, to myself, and certainly to Button. While it can’t be undone, Mari and I are moving forward from it.”

     Aaron grabbed Bix by his shirt sleeves and hauled him off the sofa. “Get out!”

     I sat frozen to my chair. Bix towered over Aaron by a good six inches, but he wasn’t a violent man. Bix shook him off.      “I’m not going anywhere, but you are.” His voice had turned icy cold.

     Aaron glared at him and doubled his fists.

     “Not a good idea, Aaron,” Bix went on. “A very bad idea, as a matter of fact. I won’t hesitate to file assault charges.”

     Aaron backed up a few steps. “You’d do it, too. You’d go after the only surgeon in Danford and laugh about it.”

     “No one’s laughing, Aaron. Goodnight.”

     Surprisingly, Aaron whirled and stormed out. Bix straightened his shirt. “What’s his next step? The ranch?”

     “I don’t know. I…” Suddenly my entire body began to shake the way I remembered it doing when I was drying out in the psych unit years before. “I…”

     Bix had me in his arms in seconds, wrapping me in the afghan from the back of the sofa, and cradling me against his body the way he’d done the night he’d brought me back from the horrible scene at the old football field.

     “Hold me,” I whimpered. “Please, Bix, hold me.”

     “I’ve got you, Mari,” he murmured against my hair. “You’re all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Chapter 44

     Bix called from Houston the next evening. “Thank you for last weekend.”

     “You thanked me already. I enjoyed it, too.”

     “I was thinking about the rodeo in March. Would you like to go?”

     “I’ve never been to a rodeo?”

     “You...why not?”

     “Think about it, Bix. I can’t do all the walking, and I won’t ask anyone to push my chair, especially on the midway that’s always knee-deep in dust.”

     “I...I could manage...if you want to go.”

     I sighed. Where was this going? Did I really want it to go anywhere?

     “It was just an idea,” he said when I didn’t say anything.”

     “Are you sure about managing my chair?”

     “I think so.”

     “All right, but if you changed your mind, I’ll understand. I’ll be on spring break when the performances start, and Button’s spring break is the week after that.”

     “I haven’t been to a rodeo in years, so I thought it might be nice.”

     “I’m sure it will be.”

     “Then I’ll be in touch when I get the tickets. Goodnight, Mari.”

     I berated myself mentally as I hung up. What the hell was I doing letting him waltz in and out of my life with roses and candy and now tickets to the rodeo? I clicked the tv remote and tried to lose myself in a Perry Mason rerun.

     A week later, I came home from school to find a large box with a Lord and Taylor label sitting at my back door. I was trying to wrestle it into the house when Jake ambled up the driveway. “I’ll get that for you, Aunt Peaches,” he said. He set me aside gently. “Where do you want it?”

     “Put it on the bed in the guestroom,” I said, following him inside.

     “What is it?”

     “I haven’t a clue.”

     “Are you going to open it?”

     “I might.”

     He laughed and took out his pocketknife. “Allow me.”

     There were four boxes inside the larger one. Inside the first one was a pair of designer jeans which just happened to be my size. The long-sleeved shimmering silver silk shirt in the second one dazzled us both in the afternoon sun from the window, and a third smaller box held silver and turquoise earrings that dangled just far enough to reflect in the shirt.”

     “I can guess what’s in the last box,” Jake said. “Boots.”

     “Not for me.”

     He opened it and produced a pair of turquoise leather boots. “Jumping Jehosephat!” he exclaimed.

      I jerked them out of his hands. “They’re lovely!” The smell of new leather was intoxicating.

     “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the lady was duding up for the rodeo.”

     “If you know anything at all, you won’t repeat this at the ranch.”

     He raised his hand. “I solemnly vow.”

     “What did you come over for anyway?”

     “Sweetheart wants to know if you want some tomatoes and pickle relish when she and Aunt Francie can next week.” I’d always loved the way he and Randy called Peggy Sweetheart, a spin-off from their daddy’s Sweet Girl.

     “Yes to the pickle relish. Why didn’t she just call me?”

     “She just hollered at me as I was on my way out to the truck. It’s my week to come in for the mail.”

     “How’s the correspondence from Tyler these days?”

     He smiled. “Encouraging.”

     “When are you going to put a ring on that girl’s finger?”

     “As soon as she lets me.”

      “Then convince her.”

     “I’m trying, Aunt Peaches.  Gemma's pretty independent.” He leaned into my face. “Just like you. Who’s trying to butter you up with these fancy clothes, and is he succeeding?”

     I felt my face grow warm. “None of your business, Jake Tankersley.”

     He smiled knowingly. “Go for it, Aunt Peaches.”

     “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about!”

     He grinned and started for the door at a lope.

     “Thanks for your help!” I called after him. “And if you say anything about all this, I’ll murder you!”

     “Everything’s beautiful,” I told Bix when he called a few nights later.

     “Does it fit?”

     “I haven’t tried anything on yet except the earrings, but the sizes are right. How did you know?”

      “I called Sue Friedman.”

     “You don’t even know her!”

      “She was very nice about everything, and it’s all right. I swore her to secrecy.”

     “I don’t see how I can wear the boots though, and they must have been very expensive.”

     “If we take your chair, you won’t need your brace, will you?”

     “I hadn’t thought about it. Did you select everything yourself?”

     “I confess to having had some help. My secretary Marcia was bribed with a half-day off, after which we met her husband at Antoine’s for steak and lobster.”

     “She has excellent taste.”

     “I’ll tell her that. She ended up with a shirt just like yours, and Bill said I couldn’t ever take her shopping again.”

     “The blouse alone must have cost half what I make in a month.”

     “You’ll look lovely in it though. Who was the poet who wrote, Spend all you have for loveliness. . .buy it, and never count the cost. . .”

     “Sara Teasdale.”

     “I knew you’d know.”

     “Authors are my job, of course.”

     “I’m looking forward to March, Mari.”

     “So am I.

     And I am, I thought as I got ready for bed later. Maybe I was looking forward to it too much.

     I didn’t tell anyone, even Valerie, about the box, and though I knew Jake would keep my confidence, I was sorry he knew. The more I thought about them, the more possessive I felt of the clothes I’d never have bought for myself but couldn’t wait to wear.

     I was dressed and waiting for Bix when he arrived on the appointed Saturday afternoon. When the jeans hadn’t fit over my brace, I’d discarded it and used my crutches to get around. Bix’s face lit up like a little boy at Christmas when he saw me, but he didn’t say anything.

     “Everything fits perfectly,” I said. “Thank you again.”

     He picked up the boots sitting beside my recliner and slipped them on. There was something disturbingly intimate about the way he rested each foot on his knee as he did so. I stumbled clumsily as I got up, but he took my arm without a word and steadied me.

     “I’m not used to anything but oxfords,” I mumbled.

     “You’ll be fine.” In the car he said, “You look lovely, Mari.”

     “My wardrobe was chosen with particular care.”

     “You haven’t mentioned mine.”

     “I’ve never seen you in a pair of jeans in my life.”

     “I’ve never worn them. They’re rather stiff.”

     “And a little tight in the tush, but you have a nice one.”

      He stared at me with obvious discomfort. “You were always rather outspoken.”

     I laughed. “I have a nice one, too, but unfortunately, no one will see mine since I’ll be sitting on it all evening.”

     He turned the key in the ignition in silence.

     After the performance, we made the rounds of the carnival booths. The dust was packed after three days, so my chair wasn’t too difficult to push. Bix won a huge bear by throwing baseballs at wooden milk bottles, and it sat on my lap for awhile until I saw one of the glee club members and his date and convinced them to take it home and love it. 

     “Who’s the hunk, Miz Giz,” asked the girl whose name escaped me momentarily.

     “My ex-husband,” I said.

     She stared, blushed, and turned away.

     “And if you tell anyone you saw us, I’ll cut your tongue out!”

     When she turned around, she was smiling. “I’ll never tell, Miz Giz!” She giggled and walked away clutching the bear like it was her best friend.

     “Miz Giz?” Bix asked.

     “Don’t you remember what Anna Lee told the Hardegree twins she’d do to them if they dumped me out of the bell  cart while they were pulling me onto the field?”

      “I don’t think so.”

     “She told them she’d cut out their gizzards.”

     Bix’s eyebrows went up.

     “When I first started playing for the Glee Club, they practiced in the basement. And, as there was no ramp and no elevator, some of the boys always carried me down and back up. I told them that if they dropped me, I’d cut out their gizzards.”

     “Oh, I see now.”

     “Everyone calls me that at school. Even some of the faculty.”

     “Do the boys still carry you downstairs?”

     “Good heavens, no! A few months into the year, one of the board members happened to come by just about the time they picked me up and started down, and he almost died on the spot. The next week, there was a ramp.”

     “That’s a relief.”

     “Not really. It’s rather steep, so I have to have someone holding onto the back of my chair when I go down. And then someone has to push me up, of course. The boys are always complaining that they’re going to rupture something.”

     “Surely they don’t say that!”

     “Oh, Bix, you’re what Button calls an old poop!”

     He shook his head.

     “Look, Bix, there’s a carousel! I want to ride!”

     “On one of the horses?”

     “Of course.”

     At the same time, I recognized one of the football players loping toward us. “Hey, Miz Giz, Jack said you were here!”

     “Yes, I am, and I want to ride on the carousel.”

     He grinned. “No problem.” He turned around and signaled still another team member. Together they lifted me out of the chair, carried me up the steps, and plunked me on a golden palomino with a flowing mane and a pink saddle. “There you go, Miz Giz.”

     Bix, looking rather panicked, scrambled up beside me. “Mari, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

     The boys jumped off. “We’ll be here waiting for you!” Sean called. "Don't try a dramatic dismount in motion!"

     I rolled my eyes at him.

     Bix grabbed the pole as the carousel started up and slipped the other arm around my waist. “You always were stubborn and unpredictable,” he muttered.

     It was after ten when we arrived back in Danford. The glow of the fun I’d had was fading a little with weariness and the nagging ache of my back. “I need a shower,” I said.

     “You don’t look like you feel well.” He set me down on the edge of the bed and took off my boots.

     “I’m just tired, Bix, but I had a wonderful time.”

     He followed me as I headed to my bedroom. “Can I do anything for you?”

     “You can run the shower. But hand me my robe first.”

     He did both. “Would you like for me to stay until you’re settled?”

     “If you like, but I’ll be all right. I’m used to doing for myself.”

     “I’ll just sit out here.”

      When I was decent, I called him. “I forgot my crutches.”

     He came in with them and helped me up from the vanity stool. When I was settled in bed, he brought me a glass of gingerale and my basket of meds. “What is all that for?” he asked.

     “Blood pressure, muscle relaxer, potassium supplement, iron, hormones. . .”

     He put up his hand. “All right.”

     “Well, you asked.”

     “I’m sorry I did. Are you all right?”

     “I told you I was fine.”

     He reached for the lamp to turn it off.

     “Leave it on,” I said quickly. “I’ll. . .I’ll turn it off when I’m ready.”

     At the door he paused. “Goodnight, Mari.”

     “Goodnight. Leave the bedroom door open, and lock the back.”

     I was asleep before he was down the hall.

     His face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes the next morning.

     “How did you get in?” I asked bluntly.

     “I didn’t leave. Well, I did go back to the Spur for some fresh clothes and my shaving kit, but I spent the night in the guest room. I’ll make the bed up fresh for you before I leave.”

     “I don’t care about the bed, but why in the world would you stay here all night?”

     “I was rather concerned about you.”

     "I told you I was all right.” This was a new Bix, a stranger to me.

     “Well, now I know you are. I made some coffee. Can I get you some?”

     “Coffee, juice, and toast,” I said. “There’s a tray on the cabinet.”

     He came back in a few minutes bearing the tray. “I could get used to this,” I said lightly.

     “You think so?” He took his cup and sat down in the chair he’d pulled near the bed. “Did you sleep well?”

     “I was out like a light. How about you?”

     “Yes. I tried to pull my car far enough around back so that the neighbors wouldn’t see it.”

     “I don’t care what they saw!” I retorted.

     “You have to live here, Mari.”

     “They see Tank’s truck here every Saturday morning, and so far the gossip mill doesn’t have us in the middle of a torrid affair!”

     He looked at me with reproach.

     “I quit worrying about what people thought a long time ago.”

     “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

     “The sooner the better. Your coffee’s not bad.”

     “It’s about the only thing I make for myself.”

     “You didn’t burn the toast, but it could use more butter.”

     He started to get up.

     “Oh, Bix, I’m teasing you. It’s fine. It’s just to take my meds with anyway. They don’t sit well on an empty stomach.”

     “Is your blood pressure still a problem, Mari?”

     “It always has been. Aaron says it’s a genetic oddity.”

     “But the medicine controls it?”

      “Most of the time.”

     “I suppose you see Aaron Barnes.”

      “He’s a good doctor.”

     Bix nodded. “I know he is.”

     Later we made breakfast together in the kitchen, and Bix cleaned up. “I’ll go on back to the Spur,” he said. “I’m sure you have things to do.”

     “I don’t mind if you stay,” I said too quickly.

     He hesitated. “I have some files in my car. I might look at them while you do whatever you need to.”

     I nodded. “Whatever you like.”

     As I dressed later, I wondered again what he was doing in my house--my living room--my life--and this time at my own invitation. 

Chapter 43

     Whenever things were quiet in the library the next day, I thought of Bix and wondered how his meetings with Vic, Peggy, and Pauline were going. I knew none of them harbored any bad feelings towards him. Yes, he’d acted boorishly, but they didn’t hold grudges.

     I grabbed the phone by my recliner when it rang just after seven that evening. “Bix?”

     “Is it a convenient time for you to talk?”

     “Of course. I want to know what happened. Are you all right?”

     “I spoke with Pauline first. The shop was closed…”

     “She’s always closed on Mondays. I should have told you.”

     “But she answered the phone and agreed to let me come by at noon. Her husband was home for lunch. They insisted      I eat with them.”

     “And?”

     “I told them what I’d come for. They were both...surprised.”

     I felt sure they’d been more than surprised and covered it well.

     “Pauline said she didn’t hold anything against me,” he went on. “She was honest. She said she remembered what I was like in high school.” His voice broke a little. “But she said she couldn’t imagine losing a child, so she hadn’t taken offense when I ignored her.”

     “Pauline says what she means.”

     “Afterwards, Buck insisted I come with him to see the changes he’d made in the old feed store. Then he told me what you’d done for Pauline after she found out she was pregnant with Kip’s baby.””

     “I never meant for anyone to know, but of course she told her husband.”

     “It was a magnificent thing for you to do, Mari. And dangerous if your family had found out.”

     “They were just glad she was gone. No one wanted her or her baby, but because it was Kip’s baby, too, they felt obligated to do something. And I don’t mean charitably obligated. It was to protect the name.”

     “Buck said he’d never have met Pauline otherwise, and that they’d had a good marriage and raised two fine daughters.”

     “That’s true.” When he didn’t reply, I went on. “So that situation worked itself out.”

     “Yes.”

     “What about Peggy and Vic?”

     “Vic had left a message saying they’d meet me in town about five this afternoon. He has a key to the church. They were waiting for me outside.”

      “Did you know that Vic still goes to early Mass every Sunday, but after that, he’s one of the pillars of the Baptist Church?”

     “Vic could always handle anything. I envied him for that.”

     “So you spoke with them, too.”

      “Vic’s different than he was in high school. He admitted that he was as angry as I was most of the time...about his own father, what happened to Peggy, and a lot of other things. Then he said he never reached out to me as a kindred soul because he felt I’d reject him. And I would have. I told Peggy how I’d felt when she was...assaulted...and how I only helped Vic in the kitchen at the boarding house because I felt you’d backed me into a corner...and how I’d looked down on them and on their children, especially Robbie.” His voice broke again. “I said I regretted all of it.”

     “Go on.”

     “Vic was as honest as Pauline, but he said the past was the past and that all we could do was move on.”

     “I told you that.”

     “Peggy said she resented how I’d treated you, Mary Nelle, and Button, but she went on to say that we’d all paid for our mistakes, and she wanted me to put things behind me now and have a happy life. I don’t even know what happy is.”

     “You’ll find out, Bix. Getting rid of all this garbage is a good start. I had it to get rid of, too.”

     “Vic shook my hand, and Peggy hugged me before I left. I think that was the hardest moment of all.”

     “I’m sure it was.”

     When he spoke again, he’d regained control of his voice. “I’m going back to Houston early tomorrow. Thank you for yesterday. Thank you for caring.”

     “I do care, Bix.”

     “Maybe one of these days I’ll understand why. Goodnight, Mari.” He hung up.

     I put the receiver back in the cradle and sat very still, fearing to shatter the moment. I wasn’t quite sure what kind of moment it was or why it needed protecting, but something almost unbelievable had happened. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I felt a tiny bud of joy inside. Whoever Bix had been, whatever he’d done, it was over.

Chapter 42

     We chatted about inconsequential things on the forty-five minute drive to San Angelo where I directed him to the    new mall.

     “What happened to downtown?” he asked.

     “It’s dying, which is a shame.”

     “Yes, it is.”

     He was parking when I suddenly remembered I hadn’t brought my wheelchair. He seemed to read my mind. “It’s in the trunk,” he said.

     “My chair?”

     “You said you used it when longer walking distances were involved.”

     “But how did you…”

     “I sort of helped myself to it from the trunk of your car. If we were in Houston, I’d probably preach you a sermon about keeping your car locked.”

     “No one locks up much in Danford.”

     “I’ll get your chair.”

     “Thank you,” I said with sincerity as he helped me out of the car and into the chair. “This will make all the difference. We can do the entire mall if you like.”

     Once I’d taken care of the items I needed—makeup and Button’s favorite hand lotion which she’d mentioned was running low—we did just that. Taking in all the shops in companionable silence and at leisure helped me let go of the tension which had been building since I agreed to spend time with Bix. It wasn’t a good idea, but maybe there was a purpose in it. Maybe, as he said, we could make peace once and for all.

     At four, we decided to eat at Luby’s in the mall. It was almost empty, so we had a choice of tables. Bix carried my tray to a table near the windows overlooking the parking lot and went back for his own. We ate in near silence, but over coffee and dessert, the conversation picked up.

     “This isn’t exactly candlelight and fine dining,” he remarked, “but the food is excellent.”

     “Sue Friedman and I always eat here when we come shopping. She pretends everything is kosher.”

     “Kosher? Oh, yes, of course.”

     I laughed. “She kept a kosher kitchen until both the Friedmans died, and she still prepares all the traditional dishes for Shabbas and the holy days. The Birnbaums are gone, too, but their son runs the department store and the secondhand store next door. He and his family always do Shabbas with Sue and Milt.”

     “The Jewish community has shrunk then.”

     “Francie used to come in on Saturdays, too, but after the children got older, she stopped.”

     “Why?”

     “Because they’re being raised in the Baptist Church, and she said she didn’t want to confuse them. But it bothers her, I think. Miss Grace said she shouldn’t give up her heritage, but she just sort of let things go.”

     He signaled the waitress for more coffee. “I only went to church for Mother’s sake. I never listened, never believed.”

     “Because of your father?”

     “Yes. Bitterness was my faith.” He finished his pie. “Do you believe, Mari?”

     “Yes.”

     “Why? You have more reason than I do to be bitter.”

     I gave him a shortened version of Button’s experience. “I gave God a chance for her sake.”

     “Do you think it made a difference?”

     “All the difference in the world. Faith isn’t a difficult concept. Prayer is just conversation with a friend.”

     “Do you pray?”

     “Daily.”

     He shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever achieve that.”

     “You have to want it,” I said. “Just concentrate on getting your life together for now.”

     We drove around town in the dark until he said he’d better get me home so I could go to work the next morning. I felt a sense of regret when we turned onto the highway. “It’s been a lovely day,” I said. “Thank you.”

     “I’ve enjoyed it, too.”

     “And I still have chocolate to eat and the roses to enjoy.”

     “I called the ranch when I got to town and asked Miss Grace to have Vic call me when he could. He may have left a message at the hotel.”

     “Are you really going to go through with this purge?”

     “It’s not a purge so much as an acknowledgment of what I was...still am...but what I want to be.”

     “Vic and Peggy will be kind, you know that.”

     “I know.”

     “And so will Pauline. The daughter she had with Kip is named Marilee—for me and for Anna Lee. Buck’s wife died in childbirth and left him with a daughter they’d named Katherine. She was three when he married Pauline, and Marilee was only eighteen months old, so they’ve grown up together as sisters.”

     “Whatever happened to Kip? The last I heard, he’d dropped out of the University before Vic and I got there.”

     “He did. His parents went back to Virginia, and he just drifted around for a while. He joined the Navy in forty-two, saw action in the Pacific, and came home afterwards, but he never settled into anything. I don’t know where he is now.”

     “A lot of boys couldn’t get back into life after their wartime experiences.”

     “Kip was like me—brought up to believe he was better because of family money. He used Pauline. But I had Edward, and he taught me about real people and living life. I didn’t live up to him, but I think he’d be pleased with where I am now.”

     “I know he would. What about his son?”

     “Ned is a sophomore this year. Friendly, well-liked, on the honor roll, plays sports—and violin like Valerie. He’s very talented, and says he’s going to be a doctor.”

     “A doctor!”

     “That’s what he says.”

     “I don’t even know what Button’s studying.”

     “Occupational therapy. TWU has a good program. She’s had to learn to make a lot of adaptations with only one hand, so she’ll be very good with others who have to do the same. She also works as a counselor every summer at a camp near Kerrville for children with multiple kinds of handicaps.”

     “I didn’t know that.”

     “She loves every minute of it.”

     “If...if you do decide on a car for her next year, I’d like to give her the money for it.”

     “That’s between you and Button.”

     “Does she know…”

     “That we’ve been in contact? No.”

     “That’s probably best...isn’t it?”

     “For now anyway. At least for now.”

     He made no move to come in when he delivered me to my back door later, just said he’d put my wheelchair back in  the trunk of my car. “Call me if you want to talk about how things go tomorrow,” I said.

     Something flickered in his eyes. Something like hope. He nodded. “Goodnight, Mari.”

     “Goodnight, Bix.”

     I was already sitting in my darkened living room trying not to weep when I heard his car drive away.

Chapter 41

     Button’s four-day Thanksgiving break didn’t make me forget about Bix, but I didn’t have time to worry about him either. He’d always landed on his feet. He’d do it again.

     By the time I put Button on the bus back to school, reminding her that it was only a few weeks until she’d be home again for Christmas, I’d managed to put the scene at the football field out of my mind. Then, that night, Bix called.

     “I waited to call until I felt Button had left,” he said, his voice still not sounding like him.

     “She left this afternoon.”

     “I hope she had a good time.”

     “We both did.”

     A long silence ensued. “I saw Dr. Comer. He actually saw me after hours on Monday.”

     “Did it help to talk to him?”

     “I’m only getting started...or so he said.”

     “Well, these things take time, Bix. I was in the psych ward for a month before I spoke to anyone, and then I didn’t stop talking for the next three. I had a lot to get rid of.”

     “I guess I do, too.”

     “Then keep working on it. What did you do with the damned gun?”

     “It’s unloaded and put away.”

     “I didn’t even know you had one.”

     “I’m not going to use it, Mari. You were right—it was the coward’s way out.” He paused. “I’m not going to keep you. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and to tell you I was getting help.”

     “Thank you for that.”

     “Goodnight, Mari.”

     The soft click told me he’d hung up.

     Bix faded from my mind in the preparations for Christmas and later during Button’s long break. She and Shelley, home from the University where Milt and Sue had gone, were in and out of my house, the Friedman’s, and the ranch. But when the time came to go back to school, she actually seemed happy. I tried to pretend I was, too.

     Then Bix called on the last day of January. This time he sounded more upbeat, but I still felt apprehensive about the contact. He told me he was seeing Dr. Comer regularly and that he’d destroyed all the tapes. That information did provide relief. He needed to listen to them, but no one else did.

     We talked about inconsequential things for a few minutes, and then he hit me with, “I wonder if I could come back, maybe for Valentine Day.”

     “Why, Bix? You don’t owe me anything.”

     “On the contrary, I owe you the fact I’m still breathing.”

     “Well, I owe you for getting me help a dozen years ago so I could get my life back together, so we’re even. Just leave it at that.”

     “All right,” he said softly. “I don’t want to do anything that would make you uncomfortable.”

     “I’m not...why Valentine Day? That’s the day for love, and there’s been too much lost between us.”

     “Maybe because of that. The loss I mean.”

     I was definitely at a loss for words, but I knew letting Bix Matthews back into my life would be a mistake. I’d kept his name for Button and me out of respect for Jo and for the injustice done to Bix’s father, but that was all. I’d never wanted anything to do with him once I was finally free and on my way to sanity again.

     “We can’t get back what we never had,” I said.

     “No, we can’t, but maybe we can make peace with each other.”

     “Why would we need to?”

     “Dr. Comer said I needed to make peace with everyone I’d wounded. I’ve written to Laura, but there’s Vic and Peggy.”

     “Why Vic and Peggy?”

     “I treated her shabbily in high school and afterwards, and I looked at their children as throw-aways, especially Robbie. Pauline, too. She rode a bus for hours just to fix Mary Nelle’s hair at the funeral home, and I never even spoke to her, much less thanked her.”

     “Pauline’s back in Danford. Her husband had a heart attack, and they couldn’t farm anymore, so they came back here. She opened a beauty shop, and they live upstairs. The girls are grown and out on their own, of course. And Buck bought out Don Jenkins at the feed store. There isn’t anything he doesn’t know about anything to do with ranching and farming.”

     “Everybody survived well then.”

     “So will you, Bix. No one expects you to come crawling.”

     “It’s what I expect of myself.”

     I sighed. “All right, come in February, but don’t…”

     “I don’t expect anything, Mari. I really don’t.”

     A quick look at my calendar told me that Valentine Day fell on Sunday. “The fourteenth isn’t a good day,” I said. “It’s Sunday, and I play for both services at church. But I could take a personal day from school on Monday. Mondays are always quiet in the library.”

     “Monday then,” he said, a note of eagerness in his voice. “Would you like to go to San Angelo?”

     “It would be safer than dodging all the prying eyes in Danford. If I take off, we could go early. I wouldn’t mind doing some shopping. You probably haven’t seen the new mall.”

     “An early dinner will get you home earlier since you have to go to work the next morning.”

     “Yes.”

     “Maybe I’ll try to stay over and see Vic and Peggy and Pauline.”

     “If you really want to.”

     “Frankly, I’m scared to death, Mari, but it has to be done.”

      “Then I’ll see you on the fifteenth,” I said. “Drive safely.”

     He showed up mid-morning on Monday with a dozen roses and a box of chocolates from one of the most expensive shops in Houston. His largess embarrassed me a little, but I thanked him and let him help me arrange the roses in a vase on the grand piano. “I’ll binge on the chocolates later,” I said.

     I’d chosen my clothes carefully—a pair of forest green wool slacks and matching sweater large enough to disguise my crooked back a little. He didn’t comment, but his eyes told me he liked what he saw.

     “Your jewelry is in my wall safe,” he said as he held my coat for me.

     “I don’t want it.”

     “Perhaps Button will want it someday.”

     “She’s welcome to it.”

     He held the screen while I locked the door, then took my arm as we walked down the ramp. “What happened to your little silver sports car?” I asked when I saw the Lincoln Town Car sitting in the drive.

     “I sold it.”

     “Why, Bix?”

     “It was a way to show off, that’s all. Besides, this car will be more comfortable for you...won’t it?”

     “I might’ve gotten into the other one but getting me out could have required a block and tackle.”

     He laughed. “I noticed you still drive your old Town Car.”

     “How many miles can I put on it in Danford and the occasional trip to San Angelo?”

     “It’s at least twelve years old.”

     “Thirteen. Floyd at the garage takes good care of it.”

      He kept hold of my arm as I slid onto the leather seat of his new car. “How does it feel?”

     “Like a soft lap,” I said. “Not that I ever sat in one growing up.”

     He didn’t speak again until we turned onto the highway. “You look lovely in that color. It goes well with your hair and eyes.”

     “Actually, if it wasn’t for Pauline at the Beauty Box, I’d be Barbara Stanwyck’s sister.”

     It took him a few seconds to make the connection. “Your hair is white?”

     “It went white almost overnight in the psych ward.”

     His face paled. “I...I never realized…”

     “Dr. Comer says it happens sometimes. But Pauline works her magic every four weeks, so I’m fine.”

     “There’s so much I don’t know...never wanted to know.”

     “It’s all right, Bix. It’s way past too late for regrets and recriminations. Let’s just enjoy the day.”

Chapter 40

     Will and Jake drove Button to Denton in September. “Once the boys see Button with her two burly big brothers, they’ll treat her with respect,” Jake said as they took took a break from loading Button’s things in the covered bed of the pickup.

     “It’s a girls school,” I said. “No boys.”

     “Yeah, but I’ve heard about the curb creeps and the drag drips from my better half, Libby,” Will said.

     “The what?” Button looked clueless.

     “The boys that hang around trying to pick up the girls,” Will said. “Libby said they were thick as fleas on the street in front of the dorm. She lived in Capps, too.”

     Button rolled her eyes. “So you and Jake will put the fear of Fido in them, huh? And you’re my cousins, not my brothers.”

     Jake winked. “They won’t know that.”

     “I don’t remember being bothered,” I said. “But I went to school back in the dark ages, of course.”

     They left early the next morning under gray skies threatening rain. For one brief moment, I thought Button was going to back out, but I pushed her down the ramp. “Call me collect tonight,” I said. “But just tonight. After that, you’re on your own.”

     “Mother, I…”

     “Go,” I said, on the verge of tears. “Go now before we both go back in the house and lock the door.”

     Will climbed into the driver’s seat, and Jake all but lifted Button into the middle. “We’ll come by tomorrow, Aunt Peaches,” he called. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her all tucked in and scare off any predators. Granny didn’t bring us up going snipe-hunting for nothing!”

     I waited until they’d backed out and disappeared down the street before I limped back inside, collapsed in my recliner, and sobbed for an hour.

     For a week, Button called every night, crying and begging to come home. “If you still feel this way at the end of the month, we’ll talk about it,” I told her. At the end of the following week, of course, she called back full of herself and her new friends, classes and activities. I didn’t say I told you so.

     Missing her was another pain in my soul, but I hid it from everyone. Work helped, and I spent some weekends at the ranch where Miss Grace kept me busy. But I marked off the days until Thanksgiving on the calendar in my kitchen.

     The weather turned suddenly and unusually cold in November. Listening to the wind howl around my empty house at night often brought me to tears. Then on a particularly nasty Friday night in the middle of the month, Bix called. Something in his voice made me uneasy, but I was in no mood to be nice.

     “Mari, I have to talk to you. I...I need to talk to you.”

     I resented having my pity party interrupted. “This isn’t a good time, Bix. I was about to go to bed.”

     He was silent so long that I thought he’d hung up. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you another night if…”

     “Oh, what is it, Bix?” I demanded. “Just spit it out.”

     “I’m sorry for what happened at Button’s graduation.” His words tumbled out hurriedly.

     “I am, too. I still don’t know why you came.”

     “She sent me an invitation.”

     “On a dare from Shelley.”

     “I see.”

     “She said she also wrote to you and thanked you for the generous check and said she didn’t want you to buy her a car.”

     “She did. I...maybe I was trying to buy my way back into her life.”

     “Why now, after all these years?”

     “Maybe I was trying to...to hurt you again. I don’t know.”

     “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

     “No. I...I listened to the tapes a few nights ago.”

     The tapes. I’d managed to put those out of my thoughts, but now here they were. “All of them?”

     “It took me almost twenty-four hours. Why did you tell Dr. Comer to give them to me?”

     “Because we agreed you were sicker than I was,” I snapped. “I told him you’d probably throw them away.”

     “I didn’t. I put them in the vault at the office and made myself forget about them.”

     “Is that where you are now, your office?”

     “I’m at the Spur.”

     “You’re here in town? You came back?”

     “I hoped you’d talk to me...face to face.”

     Exhaustion flooded me at the thought of another confrontation. Should I just get things over with once and for all or tell him to get the hell out of town and stay gone? Finally, I said, “Come on over, but use the back door.”

     The Bix Matthews who walked through the swinging door from the kitchen wasn’t the one who had stood in my living room in May. His eyes, sunken into his face, appeared to have seen the worst, and his shoulders slumped noticeably. Had listening to those tapes done this to him?

     “Sit down before you fall down,” I said.

     He almost collapsed onto the sofa.

     “Why listen to those tapes now, after all these years?”

     He shook his head. “When I saw you in May...what you’d made of your life...I was angry with you.”

     “Of course, you were. You expected me to be in the gutter, didn’t you? Well, I almost made it, if that’s any comfort.”

     He winced. “I’m sorry.”

     “Sorry? The great Bix Matthews is sorry?”

     His head dropped, and I shivered with guilt. Why was I doing this? At my lowest, I’d received nothing but love and support. The least I could do was refrain from beating him up verbally.

     He didn’t look at me. “The other baby...the one you gave away...it was Rosie.”

     “Yes.”

     “Do Peggy and Vic know?”

     “No one knows, and I don’t want them to.”

     He nodded. “No, of course not. I understand.” He took a deep breath. “That weekend in DC before I shipped out—that’s when it happened.”

     “Yes.”

     “I didn’t know you were there until I saw you on the street.”

     “Your mother didn’t write to you?”

     “No. Why...why didn’t you let me know when…”

     “Bix, I had no idea how to get in touch with you, and if you’d known, what would you have done?”

     “I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.”

     “It was better this way.”

     He nodded again. “Yes.” Then his eyes drifted to the three oil paintings of our children. “Three more. I buried two and denied the third.”

     “Did you really believe Button wasn’t yours?”

     “I wanted to hurt you.”

     “You did. And I lied to you so that you’d let us both go.”

     “I know.”

     “It was all a waste, wasn’t it?”

     “Our marriage?”

     “Everything. I thought I had it all, but now...now I see myself for who I really am.”

     “Who are you, Bix?”

     “I don’t even know, but what I feel about what I’ve done to you...to Button…”

     I sat forward. “Listen to me, Bix. You didn’t do anything to me. As a matter of fact, you saved my life by signing me into the psych ward. Maybe you did it for the wrong reasons, but I’d already tried to commit suicide three times. Eventually, I’d have gotten it right. What I did, I did to myself. I started drinking and taking pills long before you and I ever crossed paths in DC. I made the choice, not you. Maybe you can blame yourself for other things, but you can’t take on my bad choices.”

     He met my eyes. “I...I need for you to forgive me and then…”

     “Oh, Bix, I forgave you long ago, right after I forgave myself. I had to. It wasn't a choice, not if I was going to finish healing and move on with my life.”

     He stared at me before dropping his head again. “A waste. A waste.”

     Then, before I realized it, he’d sprung up from the sofa and disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen.

     It was all a waste. The words echoed in the room. All a waste. The hopelessness in his eyes, the way his shoulders had slumped dejectedly, the monotone in which he spoke… Replaying the scene, I knew exactly where he was going and what he was going to do if I didn’t stop him. Struggling out of my chair, I grabbed the car keys and a light jacket from the hook by the back door and my cane from beside the cabinet and stumbled down the ramp.

     As I’d known I would, I found his car parked close to the stands of the old football field. The chilly wind tore at me fiendishly as I limped past the gate and onto the track that was fast being taken over by weeds. Bix stood in the middle of the expanse, but for my leaden, aching body, he seemed a million miles away.

     Somehow I got over the rough ground. When I was close enough, I called his name, and he looked up, staring at me with dull eyes.      “I said I’d come back,” he said. “I’d come back when I was so high that no one could touch me, and I’d take my revenge on the ones who convicted my father. And I took it, didn’t I? They’re gone, and I’m still here. What was it you said once—that when your mother blew her brains out, she killed you, too, only no one knew it because you were still walking around?”

     “Bix, come back to the house,” I said. “You’re tired. You can’t think straight about all this right now.”

     “My mind is very clear,” he said, and then I saw the flash of metal. It was still half inside the pocket of his expensive tweed overcoat, but I knew it was a handgun. I stepped closer, and as I did, he whipped the gun all the way out and brought it to his temple.

     “Dear God, Bix, don’t do this!”

     “I read somewhere once that women don’t choose guns when they attempt suicide.”

     My mouth was dry, and I couldn’t swallow. “I planned to use a gun the next time,” I said. “I told Dr. Comer so.”

     “Yes, it was on one of the tapes,” he said, looking past me.

     “But I didn’t, Bix. I got things together for Button and me, and everyday I’m thankful that the pills and the alcohol didn’t work.”

     “This will,” he said.

     “Please, Bix, give me the gun.” I held out my hand. Fear turned my body ice cold, and my knees threatened to give way. I didn’t know why I was still on my feet, and I stood still, not daring to move and risk tumbling over.

     “Go home, Mari,” he said. “You got it together, and I’m glad. I’m really glad. But I can’t, don’t you see? Mother said once that she’d rather see me dead that the way I was. . .the way I am.”

     “She didn’t mean it,” I said quickly.

     “She meant it, and I never forgave her. I deliberately put off coming to Danford when you telephoned that she had only a few hours left. I waited until I was sure I wouldn’t make it in time.”

     “She wasn’t alone. Laura and I were with her.”

     “Yes, well, that was as it should have been. She always loved Laura. . .and you.”

     “She loved you, too, Bix. She was proud of everything you accomplished.”

     He shook his head. “I’m already dead, Mari. All that’s left is to stop breathing.”

     “Think of what this will do to Button,” I pleaded.

      “What difference will it make to her? I denied her for most of her life, and she made it plain that the damage was done.”

     The pain in my back and hips was becoming unbearable. “Then for god’s sake, do it another way! I can tell you how! If the nurse hadn’t come in when she did, I’d have bled out quietly. I’ll show you how to do it, but don’t blow your skull apart in the middle of a deserted football field! They’ll have to postpone next week’s junior high game while they pick your brains out of the grass!”

     “Go home, Mari, unless you want to watch,” he said.

     “Then do it!” I screamed at him. “Do it and get it over with! I’ll go home and wash off your blood and figure out how to tell Button why I was in the middle of the old stadium with a pathetic, cowardly fool who didn’t want to live because his life wasn’t perfect! Do it! Do it!” The outburst cost me my precarious balance, and I sank to my knees in the damp, brown grass.

     Suddenly Bix was on his knees beside me, lifting me up.

     “I hurt,” I moaned. “Oh, god, I hurt!”

     He picked me up easily and carried me across the field and put me into my car, then slid behind the wheel. I leaned my head against the window and bit my lips trying not to scream as he drove out of the rutted parking lot.

     At my house, he carried me inside and put me in my recliner, then went to the bedroom for a blanket and wrapped me in it. My teeth were chattering though my body felt on fire from the pain. “Do you have something. . .” he started.

     “That gun in your pocket would do it!” I moaned. “It would put me out of my misery, but nothing else will!”

     He knelt beside my chair. “Mari, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

     “Now you can go back and finish what I interrupted,” I lashed out.

     He took the gun out of his pocket and laid it on the coffee table.

     “You want me to show you another way?” I managed to get my arms free and pushed up the sleeves of my blouse to show him the neat white scars on both wrists. “Look! Look at them! A razor blade and some time will do the trick!”

     He caught my wrists and held them. “Mari, don’t!”

     I was shivering violently. “Coward!” I screamed at him. “Coward!”

     Suddenly he picked me up and carried me to the sofa and sat down holding me tightly. I beat his chest with my fists, but he was solid and immovable. Gradually I gave in to the warmth of his body against mine, and my shivering ceased. His hands moved firmly along my ragged spine, kneading the muscles until they relaxed. Then he lifted my legs onto the ottoman and tucked the blanket around them.

     I started to protest, but he guided my head back to his chest and began to stroke my hair. As he caressed me, I felt drained of all strength and will, lost in the moment of deliverance from the unspeakable thing he had almost done.

Chapter 39

     Button wasted no time changing clothes and grabbing her bag, already packed, for Shelley Friedman’s overnight. She didn’t even take time to open the envelope with the check Bix had given her. “See you tomorrow,” she said, kissing me quickly. “Enjoy your peach and quiet.”

     “I’m sure Milt and Sue will enjoy theirs after this is over,” I called after her as she slid into the car.

     When she’d gone, I changed into a caftan, opened a bottle of soda, and eased into the recliner. I hadn’t even gotten settled yet when the doorbell rang. No one ever came to the front door, but I got up and went to answer it.

     Bix stood on the doorstep. “Am I interrupting anything?” he asked, his voice haughty as usual.

    “Not a thing,” I said. “Button’s off to an overnighter at the Friedman’s.” I unlatched the screen and pushed it open. “Come in.”

     I watched him look around the room. “Very nice,” he said.

    “We like it. Sit down, Bix. Can I get you something to drink?”

    He eyed my soda on the lamp table. “No, thank you.”

    We sat facing each other for a silent moment that seemed longer than it was.

    “You’re not using a wheelchair,” he observed.

    “Only when the walking distance makes it necessary.”

    “I see.” He swept the room with his eyes again. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

    “Your generous settlement made the house possible, of course. I’ve been the school librarian for a dozen years, so I have a steady income.”

    “I see.”

    “Why did you come, Bix? To find something wrong with the way I lived so you could say I told you so?”

      His expression hardened. “Button didn’t even recognize me.”

    “You haven’t had any contact with her since she was five years old. What did you expect?”

    He rose and went to stand in front of the three oil paintings behind the piano. Painting my children, dead and living, had been therapeutic for me. “They’re very good. Did you do them?”

    “Yes.”

     “Mary Nelle looked like me.”

    “Yes, she did.”

    “Why did you paint the baby?”

    “Why not?”

    “He was dead.”

    The word jarred me. “He was alive inside of me,” I said. “And I held him later.”

    “Why?”

    “I can’t explain it.”

    “It seems. . .morbid. . .unhealthy.”

    “Maybe so, Bix,” I said, wanting to avoid the quarrel I knew he was looking for. I noticed, though, that he stepped forward just a little to examine his son’s tiny face.

    “You had another baby,” he said, not turning around.

    For a moment I couldn’t speak. “How did you know?” I said finally.

    “Apparently it was in your old medical records. Aaron found the information when he took over from Dr. Barnes. When this baby died, he asked me about it. Was it Tom Seward’s?”

    “No,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “No, she wasn’t.”

    “Was it stillborn, too?”

    “She was full-term,” I said. “I gave her up for adoption.”

    He turned around. “You gave her away?”

    “What else could I do, Bix? I was unmarried.”

    “How could you do it?”

    “Give her up or sleep with someone I wasn’t married to?” I rather enjoyed the shock in his eyes.

    “I think my question was clear,” he said coldly.

    “It was a long time ago. I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.”

     “I suppose no one else knows either.” He was obviously relieved. “Well, your secret’s safe with me.”

    “Thank you.”

    He sat down again. “Why is Button going to TWU?”

    “We visited there last spring, and she liked it better than a larger school.”

    “If it’s a question of money. . .”

    “It isn’t.”

    “I suppose Dutch. . .”

    “I’m paying Button’s expenses,” I said. “She can go where she pleases, but she wants to go to TWU.”

    “Because you went there?”

    “Not really.”

    “She’ll need a car.”

    “Not this year.”

    “Why not?”

    “She needs to get used to being away from home, and if she had a car, she’d come back every weekend. I don’t want her on the highway.”

    “You could set limits for her.”

    “If she doesn’t have a car, the limits won’t be necessary. She’s agreeable to waiting at least a year.”

    “I’d like to buy her one.”

    “Thank you, but no.”

    “Shouldn’t that be her decision?”

    “Perhaps, but you can’t buy your way back into her life at this stage of the game.”

    “Do you think that’s what I’m trying to do?”

    “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, Bix. I don’t know why you came at all.”

    “She invited me.”

    “She never thought you’d come.”

    “Obviously.” He smiled sardonically. “She didn’t even know who I was, although I must say she handled herself well. She’s like you in that respect.”

    I let that pass. My back was beginning to ache, and I shifted myself in the recliner, wincing unwillingly.

    “Are you all right?” There was a small note of concern in his voice.

    “I’m fine.”

     The concern disappeared instantly. “I’m curious to know how you can afford to send her to college on a school librarian’s salary.”

    It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that my finances were none of his business—not of his damned business—but that would have only angered him. What I wanted to do was wound him as he’d wounded my daughter. “A year after we came back, Dutch Tankersley adopted me,” I said, watching for Bix’s reaction. “I’m entitled to a quarter of the ranch profits and the oil royalties. As I said, Button can go to school wherever she wants to.”

    The thrust had found his avaricious soul. “He. . .for god’s sake, why?” He jumped up and began to pace.

    “My health was precarious,” I said. “Even I wasn’t sure if I could work.”

    “I gave you a generous settlement! Well-invested, it would have kept you for life!”

    “Kept me how, Bix? Living at the ranch?”

    “I naturally assumed. . .”

    “Of course, you did, but that’s not what I wanted. And Dutch doesn’t like unfinished business. He adopted Vic after the war, and he’d planned to do the same for Mary Nelle and me, and later for Button and me, but I always went back to you. This time he knew I was going to stay, so he made the offer, and I accepted. Not for the money, you understand. Odd as it seems, I didn’t even think of that at the time. All I wanted was Button’s security. If anything happened to me. . .”

    “I could have gotten her anyway, Mari.” He spoke harshly. “When it comes to the law, I’m the best there is.”

    “You never wanted her. You didn’t believe she was yours.”

    He kept pacing, one fist pounding the other palm behind his back.

    “I kept the Matthews name for both of us,” I said more gently. “There was no dishonor attached to it, and I wanted Button to understand that. But I shed Kroll for Tankersley, as much to please Dutch and Miss Grace as to get rid of something that never belonged to me in the first place.”

    “So it is Dutch Tankersley’s money that. . .”

    “I turn the ranch profits back to the common fund,” I said quietly. “Dutch sees that the oil royalties are invested well, and they’ll pay for Button’s education and take care of me when I can’t work any longer. But it’s my money, Bix. I’m a Tankersley, maybe not born and bred, but a Tankersley all the same. Tank and Vic are legally my brothers, and they were willing to share with me.”

    “You did this to spite me!” Bix’s eyes were wild with fury. “Because I denied her. . .because I cut you off from what I earned. . .”

    I felt wary of him. “You’ve worked hard for what you have, Bix. I don’t want any of it, and neither does Button. You never entered into any decision I made after I came back to Danford, except for keeping your name for Button, of course. Stripping her of it would have been a petty thing to do, even if you didn’t think she had a right to it.”

    “Does she?” He came close to my chair. I could see him trembling with rage. “You told me yourself that she wasn’t mine. . .that day after the accident, you said...”

    “I’d have told you anything to make you let us go,” I said quietly. “But she’s your daughter. I was never unfaithful to you.”

    “So you lied. Why should I believe you now?”

    “I don’t care if you believe me or not, Bix. It’s over.”

    “Over?” He moved closer, and there was something menacing about the way he towered over me and brought his hands slowly out from behind his back. “I could kill you,” he said in a low voice. “I swear I could kill you.”

    “I’m sure you could,” I said, not flinching. “I threatened to do the same for you once, actually, as I’m sure you remember, and you deserved it. Still, isn’t this scene a little embarrassing? Two educated, supposedly mature adults making threats like underworld characters?”

    He paled, then flushed, and his hands dropped to his sides as he moved away from me.

    Without warning, the familiar pain of an impending angina attack began to claw its way through my chest. I fumbled in the drawer for the bottle of nitroglycerin tablets, but Bix was too angry to notice.

    He whirled around and started for the door just as my fingers closed around the bottle. As I lifted it out, it fell from my trembling fingers and spun away crazily. “Bix,” I called hoarsely. “Bix, help me!” But the door slammed, shaking the house, and I was alone and helpless.

    I was nauseous with the pain, and the blackness of unconsciousness was closing around me when I heard the familiar patter of Peggy’s tiny feet and her voice calling, “Peaches, you in there? It’s just me.”

    Then she was beside me. “Oh. . .oh, Peaches!” She retrieved the bottle from the floor and slipped a tablet under my tongue. As the pain receded, I tried to focus on her pale, worried face. “Better?” she asked, putting the chair back a notch.

    I could only nod.

    She went into the bathroom and brought back a cool cloth to sponge my clammy face and neck. “You haven’t had an angina attack in two or three years,” she said.

    “I’m all right,” I managed. “I dropped the damn bottle.”

    She frowned disapprovingly. “Was that Bix leaving as I drove up?”

    “Yes”

    “Did you quarrel? Is that what brought this on?”

    I closed my eyes. “You have a habit of turning up at just the right time, little krolik,” I said.

    She giggled. “Sue sent me over to get you. We made enough sandwiches to feed the entire high school, but she had some nice cool cucumber sandwiches tucked away. She knows how you like them.”

    “Is Francie there, too?”

    “She was for awhile, but she took Chrissy home to finish packing for 4-H camp. That starts tomorrow.”

    “I’d forgotten.”

    “And Milt and Vic and Tank are replaying the state championship game on the back porch, which is the only place there aren’t any kids.”

    “That was thirty-five years ago,” I said.

    She giggled again. “They don’t know that!”

    “Well, I hate to pass up the cucumber sandwiches, but the only place I’m going is to bed.”

    “Yes, you are, and I’m staying the night with you. I’ll call Vic and tell him to ride back to the ranch with Tank.”

    “I’m fine now,” I said irritably. “You don’t need to stay.”

    “Well, I’m going to,” she said, putting her lips together so that she looked more like Miss Grace than ever.

    “Peggy, I . . .”

    “I’ll borrow Button’s jammies and her bed, and I won’t bother you unless you need me in the night.”

    It took me a long time to walk from the chair to the bedroom, knowing that Peggy couldn’t stop me from falling or pick me up if I did. When I finally sank onto the bed, exhausted, I was glad enough for her to bring my gown and help me into it, and I fell asleep almost as soon as she left the room.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

     The next dozen years brought many graduations, weddings, and more babies—great-grandchildren for Dutch and Miss Grace. The ranch house threatened to burst at the seams during holiday gatherings.

     Having Valerie and Ned close by was an added blessing as I put my life back together. She had completely remodeled the Kroll house, using the downstairs for her decorating and antique business and the upstairs for living quarters. But because the walls held too many bad memories for me, we usually spent time together at my house.

     Grover died when Ned was nine. Though he had been in failing health for several years, Valerie and I made sure he always felt useful by asking if Button and Ned could visit with him in his cozy quarters while we ran uptown.

     His funeral, attended by both black and white, was a tribute to the man many still remembered as Dan Kroll’s chauffeur, but most remembered him for himself—a kind, gentle, sharply intelligent man who had given his entire life in pursuit of what he termed his duty. First, he had made my life better when I was growing up, and then he had stepped in for Mr. Edward’s son.

     Valerie and I stood together at his grave, Ned and Button pressed together in front of us, and wept at the passing of an era.

     I continued to correspond with Bix’s sister Laura and her husband Kel who were missionaries in Surinam, and they had come to see us on their furlough the summer before Button started high school. Unfortunately, they would arrive back in the United States too late for graduation, but at least the ranch crew would fill up two rows at the exercises.

     Button sent fewer than half a dozen graduation invitations. “Everyone knows I’m graduating, and they’ll be there,” she said.

     I insisted that she mail one to Babbie, Pauline, Mrs. Flowers (who sent us a card every Christmas), and Whit Chambers. She also addressed one to Bix which I mailed without comment.

     She had two invitations to the prom. I took her to San Angelo for her dress. She was a vision in the emerald green satin gown which met with Miss Grace’s grudging approval after a few adjustments. Donny brought her an orchid for her wrist and one for her hair. I took an entire roll of film while she dressed and before she left.

     She took exams the last week of school, lamenting that if she’d graduated a quarter of a century earlier that she’d have been exempt. I provided sympathy and snacks while she studied late into each evening. As she’d expected, she was named valedictorian and announced that she planned to give the best speech ever.

     “Just keep it short,” Ned told her one night when he and Valerie had dropped by.

     She stuck out her tongue at him and flounced off to her room.

     This was the first year that graduation was held at the new stadium, Button’s class having the distinction of being the one to finally outgrow the auditorium. Ned, prompted by Valerie, put my wheelchair in the trunk at the last minute. “It’s a long way to walk, Aunt Peaches,” he chided me gently. “You’ll need it.”

     We saved two rows near the front. Ruthie, as pregnant as Francie had been eleven years earlier, herded her three boys into place with an experienced hand, then sat down heavily and fanned herself with the program. “Lordy,” she whispered to me, leaning across Will’s entire family and mindful of Dutch and Miss Grace sitting on the other side, “if that walk from the car doesn’t bring this baby tomorrow, I don’t know what will!”

     Grace Ann, home from graduate school, leaned across her three tow-headed nephews. “Aunt Cissy told her she’d murder her if she had that baby before she got back to Robert Lee!”

     Down the row, Rosie bounced Emmy on her lap while Vic made foolish noises at his first grandchild. I’d always known I’d made the right decision to relinquish her, but times like this only reinforced my satisfaction.

     Peggy reached across Vic to tickle Emmy’s bare toes. “I never saw a child hate shoes the way this one does,” she giggled.

     I could have said that I took every opportunity to go without mine before polio forced me into oxfords to accommodate my brace.

     Randy and Jake were deep in conversation about something. So different and yet so close, I reflected. Blood didn’t make brothers, at least not in their case.

     I saw Francie push her unruly curls out of her face and noticed that they were whiter in the early evening sun. Tank leaned over and whispered something in her ear, and she smiled, showing the dimples that had only deepened with age.

     Ned came back after stowing my chair under that stands. “I’m next,” he gloated, nodding across the field where the blue-robed graduates were gathering.

     Though Valerie smiled, there was something sad in the way her lips parted in sudden realization that her baby, like mine, would be leaving the nest, too.

     Milt and Sue sat down behind us then, and as I turned to say hello, I saw a familiar face far up toward the top. It was Bix. Before I could react, the band began to play Pomp and Circumstance, and the class of 1970 began its slow march around the track.

     Thirty-five years, I thought. I’d lost too many of them, but tonight made up for everything. My bright, beautiful daughter had reached a milestone in her shining life, and there would be so many more.

     Button caught up with us just as Ned arrived with my chair. “We’ve got to hurry,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve got to change for the party.”

     “Which one?” I asked.

     She curled her lip. “Oh, Mother, you know which one! I’m going to Shelley’s.”

     “How did she talk Milt and Sue into an all-nighter?”

     “She just did. Oh, Ned, you’re so slow with that! Just kick the footrest down.”

     He glared at her. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, Miss Know-it-all!”

     “And you don’t know anything!” She shoved him aside and turned my chair expertly. “Let’s go!”

     I glanced back to where I had seen Bix, but he was gone. Button wouldn’t have recognized him anyway, but I wondered if the others had seen him. I didn’t have to wonder long. When we got to the parking lot, Francie descended on us breathing fire.

     “Did you see him?” she demanded. “After all these years. . .”

     “Shut up, Francie,” I said.

     “See who?” Button asked.

     “Never mind,” I said.

     “How did he even know. . .and what gives him the right to. . .” Francie went on.

     “Shut up, Francie,” I said again. “Just shut up!”

     Suddenly I saw Bix walking toward us. I looked at Button, but she was looking at a stranger. Thankfully, Francie fled before he reached us. Stopping just short of my chair, Bix nodded at me distantly, then let his eyes travel over Button. “Congratulations, Button,” he said coolly.

     She looked at him, then at me, then at him again. “Thank you,” she said politely.

     His mouth drew itself up into that tight, condescending smile I’d always despised. “I’m Bix Matthews, Button. I’m your father.”

     Button bested him. She straightened to her full height, squared her slender shoulders, and held out her hand. “Hello,” she said as if she were speaking to a total stranger. “Thank you very much for coming to my graduation.”

     He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and took out an envelope. “I thought perhaps you’d want to choose your own gift,” he said. “I’m not knowledgeable about what young ladies want these days.”

     She hesitated only a moment before she took the envelope. “I still need a few things for college,” she said. “Thank you.”

     “Where are you going to college?”

     “I’m going to TWU. Mother graduated there, you know.”

     “I’d forgotten. Why not the University?”

     “I don’t think I’d enjoy a large school,” she said easily. “Mother and I went to Denton last summer, and I liked the campus. It’s very good academically, too.”

     “I see. Well, good luck then. Perhaps you’ll let me know when you finish there also.”

     “Yes, I will,” she countered. “Thank you again for coming.”

     Dismissed, though not admitting it, he nodded at me once more, turned, and walked unhurriedly across the lot to a small silver sports car. When he’d driven away, Button handed me the envelope. “Let’s go home, Mother,” she said. “I’m going to be late.”

     “You’re never late to an all-nighter,” I said.

     We looked at each other. “Oh, Button,” I said, “you’re a chip off the old block whether you like it or not!”

     “Which old block?” She burst out laughing.

     “Take your pick.”

     She leaned down and kissed my cheek. “I already have. Oh, Mother, he’s such a pompous. . .” She leaned closer to my ear. “Ass,” she whispered.

     “Button, I’m shocked, and if Miss Grace heard you use that kind of language, she’d get out the lye soap!”

     She shoved my chair ahead of her. “There’s probably none left after you.”

     I laughed, but the tears were too close for comfort.