terribly ill. It seems he left a note saying that he wanted to die at home. They think Clayt will want all of you to come back and decide what to do.”
Robert Lee glanced at the calendar. It was only the middle of the month, and he was a little behind in his sales quota. “Maybe we ought to wait,” he said. “We don’t know how this will turn out. He could linger. You know how they are about time off down at the lot.”
“But if you explained—”
He ignored her. In a sales job, you didn’t explain. “And if there is a funeral, we’ll have to budget time for that, and then there’ll be things to see to afterward. That will take even more time.” He wouldn’t have said such things out loud to anyone but his wife. With outsiders, even with his brothers, he would express a willingness to go home at once, and to stay for as long as necessary, because that’s what you were supposed to say and feel, but the fact was that he had a real job, and, like it or not, the amount of time that he could be away from that job was limited. Life wasn’t like a soap opera, where feelings were everything, and everyone could afford to have them.
It was all right for his younger brothers to drop everything and run back home. Charlie was a country singer, and Garrett was career army, on the government payroll with all kinds of benefits and time off and free health care, paid for with taxpayers’ money. Clayt, the back-to-nature dilettante, had no career to jeopardize, but he lived back there anyhow, so no sacrifice would be called for on his part. It was easy for Clayt to insist that they all come home. Only Robert Lee would be caught in the pinch of family demands—as usual.
“Rudy says we ought to go, Robert. You should make peace with the dying.”
“I’m more at peace with Daddy than the rest of the family, I reckon,” snapped Robert. “Is Rudy going to sell cars for me while we go gallivanting off to Tennessee?”
Lilah sighed. “You have to trust Providence, Robert.”
“I have to use my vacation time,” he replied bitterly. “I wish the Lord would schedule disasters for weekends.”
Lilah listened to empty air again and smiled, but Robert turned away. He had no interest in the clever reply of an angel.
* * *
It was nearly midnight when Chief Warrant Officer Garrett Stargill got home, but he wasn’t surprised to see the lights on in the kitchen. He knew Debba would be waiting up for him, because she always worried when he was scheduled for a night jump. He had long ago ceased to be flattered by her anxiety. He had given up explaining to her that he was too experienced to be in much danger, that he enjoyed the thrill of parachuting into a sky full of stars, and that he was probably safer in free fall than he was driving the two-lane road home from the base. Pointless to say any of this to Debba, because terror was Debba’s vocation, her constant companion in life. Take her out of one obsession and she would latch on to another. Now that he had survived the parachute jump, she would go back to worrying about terrorists, or germs in the tap water. He scarcely listened anymore.
He let himself in through the kitchen door, calling out loudly, “It’s me, Deb!” He had steadfastly refused to let her buy another gun, but he was always careful to make noise when he came in, telling her it was him, in case she had acquired one on her own, at some military family’s yard sale, perhaps. Pistols were easy enough to come by in a neighborhood of army personnel, or in Tennessee, in general, for that matter.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway, tiny and wraithlike, wrapped in a chenille bathrobe and looking twelve years old, with her face scrubbed pink and her hair in pigtails over each ear. “Hi, Garrett,” she said with the tremulous smile that made him want to shake her. He knew that he had once found her vulnerability appealing, and her curveless body sexy, but he could not remember why.
“Everything
Robert Lee glanced at the calendar. It was only the middle of the month, and he was a little behind in his sales quota. “Maybe we ought to wait,” he said. “We don’t know how this will turn out. He could linger. You know how they are about time off down at the lot.”
“But if you explained—”
He ignored her. In a sales job, you didn’t explain. “And if there is a funeral, we’ll have to budget time for that, and then there’ll be things to see to afterward. That will take even more time.” He wouldn’t have said such things out loud to anyone but his wife. With outsiders, even with his brothers, he would express a willingness to go home at once, and to stay for as long as necessary, because that’s what you were supposed to say and feel, but the fact was that he had a real job, and, like it or not, the amount of time that he could be away from that job was limited. Life wasn’t like a soap opera, where feelings were everything, and everyone could afford to have them.
It was all right for his younger brothers to drop everything and run back home. Charlie was a country singer, and Garrett was career army, on the government payroll with all kinds of benefits and time off and free health care, paid for with taxpayers’ money. Clayt, the back-to-nature dilettante, had no career to jeopardize, but he lived back there anyhow, so no sacrifice would be called for on his part. It was easy for Clayt to insist that they all come home. Only Robert Lee would be caught in the pinch of family demands—as usual.
“Rudy says we ought to go, Robert. You should make peace with the dying.”
“I’m more at peace with Daddy than the rest of the family, I reckon,” snapped Robert. “Is Rudy going to sell cars for me while we go gallivanting off to Tennessee?”
Lilah sighed. “You have to trust Providence, Robert.”
“I have to use my vacation time,” he replied bitterly. “I wish the Lord would schedule disasters for weekends.”
Lilah listened to empty air again and smiled, but Robert turned away. He had no interest in the clever reply of an angel.
* * *
It was nearly midnight when Chief Warrant Officer Garrett Stargill got home, but he wasn’t surprised to see the lights on in the kitchen. He knew Debba would be waiting up for him, because she always worried when he was scheduled for a night jump. He had long ago ceased to be flattered by her anxiety. He had given up explaining to her that he was too experienced to be in much danger, that he enjoyed the thrill of parachuting into a sky full of stars, and that he was probably safer in free fall than he was driving the two-lane road home from the base. Pointless to say any of this to Debba, because terror was Debba’s vocation, her constant companion in life. Take her out of one obsession and she would latch on to another. Now that he had survived the parachute jump, she would go back to worrying about terrorists, or germs in the tap water. He scarcely listened anymore.
He let himself in through the kitchen door, calling out loudly, “It’s me, Deb!” He had steadfastly refused to let her buy another gun, but he was always careful to make noise when he came in, telling her it was him, in case she had acquired one on her own, at some military family’s yard sale, perhaps. Pistols were easy enough to come by in a neighborhood of army personnel, or in Tennessee, in general, for that matter.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway, tiny and wraithlike, wrapped in a chenille bathrobe and looking twelve years old, with her face scrubbed pink and her hair in pigtails over each ear. “Hi, Garrett,” she said with the tremulous smile that made him want to shake her. He knew that he had once found her vulnerability appealing, and her curveless body sexy, but he could not remember why.
“Everything
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