Chapter 22

We spent several days in Dallas, relaxing – getting the closest to a vacation we'd had since Harry showed up outside the motel. We'd enjoyed our weekend in Oklahoma City, but a weekend trip and several days aren't the same – just ask anyone whether he'd swap his week's vacation for just another weekend. We walked, we went to various places around the city, we tried out restaurants, we wasted time ... Cecelia and Darlia even got into the hotel's swimming pool, which surprised me. The surprise was all about Cecelia; I know she can swim, but I'm so used to her being in long pants or skirts, and long sleeves, even around the house, that seeing her in a bathing suit was a shock. I know she has a bikini somewhere at home, but I don't think I've seen her in it more than two or three times since we've been married. But she went out and bought herself and Darlia one-piece bathing suits one morning, and they spent two or three hours splashing around in the pool. Cecelia soaking wet looks much the same as always, the only real difference being that the water on her skin sets off the definition of her muscles even more clearly. Darlia, on the other hand, turned into some sort of water creature – an otter, perhaps. Her heavy brownish-blonde hair streamed out behind her as she swam, and whenever she climbed out of the pool it hung in a single dripping mass down her back, darkened by the water. I've known her whole life that she's beautiful, but with her hair wet and hanging down her back, brushed straight back from her forehead, and her golden brown skin glistening with water, I realized that when she grows up she will be fit to win beauty contests ... if one ever exists which rewards women who have some meat on their bones. For Darlia has never been skinny; if she didn't work out so diligently she'd probably be chubby, and as it is her strength hides beneath a smooth layer of what they call subcutaneous fat, the layer of fat under the skin that makes even fit women look softer than men. Where she gets this build I don't know, for I'm mediocre, and Cecelia's all muscle and bone and nothing on top of it.

Where she gets her beauty I know. Cecelia isn't attractive by most people's standards, but once I got to know her I realized that her thin face, her broken-milk chocolate complexion, her hawk-like profile, are indeed beautiful. Only her coloring and her nose and her hair are really African; some mixture in her genes, whether white or Indian, makes her a uniquely exotic woman, and though Darlia doesn't look like her mother, that exotic beauty comes through. The only part of our daughter that really looks like either of us is her nose – it's as broad and flat as Cecelia's. But her skin, her hair, her eyes – everything else is a mixture, and just how this particular mixture came about is beyond me. Nor am I too concerned with the how; I just love looking at her, and feeling the clench in my gut that tells me just how much of an impact she has on me.

It's the same clench that I get when I look at Cecelia. I love my wife – desperately, passionately, completely, absolutely, without reservation. She could be as ugly as the backside of a cow and I'd still love her, because what I love is inside as much as outside, if not more so. I love Cecelia the person, and the beauty of her exterior is merely an added benefit. And when I look at her I sometimes feel such a powerful rush of emotion that I can barely control it; I want to jump and shout, or sob with joy, at the knowledge that I love her and she loves me.

That Sunday we visited the black church I'd been a member of when, in 1992, I'd moved to Albuquerque. I hadn't been back to Dallas at all in those 14 years – I've stayed mostly west of the Sandia Mountains – and I doubted that any of the people there would remember me, or even have known me back then. But Cecelia grew up in a black Baptist church, and it was the day before Juneteenth, so that's where we went.

Juneteenth is the commemoration of the official reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas, the last Confederate state to hear it. On June 19, 1865, Union troops began enforcing the Proclamation in Texas, and over the years Juneteenth has become a nation-wide celebration. When I first encountered it, though, I was in Dallas, and to me Juneteenth will always mean Dallas and Mt. Hermon Baptist Church. Even though I preached the Juneteenth sermon in 2005 at Mt. Tabor Baptist Church in Leanna, where Cecelia's family's been going for decades, I still associate the city and the holiday.

At least anyone who did know and remember me wouldn't expect me in a suit. I'd discarded all my suits when I left Red Hawk – actually, I left 'em hanging in the closet, where they'd been since I'd resigned from the police department – and had never worn one to Mt. Hermon, even though black churches tend to be very conservative in that regard. But any such person might not expect me to be so resplendent; with Cecelia making most of my shirts these days, I have a selection that makes even me look good. I selected one with a purple yoke over a black base ... or body, or whatever the name is for the main part of a cowboy shirt. The purple repeated at the cuffs, and the snaps were purple as well. It might have been gaudy, but cowboy shirts seem to be a different sort of animal – what's gaudy in a dress shirt is merely colorful in a cowboy shirt. And I like 'em colorful; though I don't wear something like I've been describing every day, I really dislike plain shirts. I learned that when I was a kid, and Anna brought home a white shirt one day. I only wore it when I had to, and from then on she and Tony made sure to get me shirts with some color in them.

That shirt, and an almost new pair of jeans, and my fancy boots, and my good bullrider, made me into as pretty a sight as I'll ever be. The effect comes from the fact that the clothes distract you from my own appearance; the only remarkable thing about me is my mustache, a real walrus type that nearly hides my mouth and actually grows down below my jaw line a bit. Cecelia tells me that of all the things she had to get used to when she married me, the mustache was the hardest to learn to live with. Daddy has a mustache, and Albert has one and also a little tuft of whiskers between his lower lip and chin, but no one in Cecelia's family has ever had anything like my big cowboy mustache. And though I come from cattle country, I'm not actually a cowboy myself; though I can ride pretty well, and have even punched cows a bit, it's not my idea of what to do with my life. But if I ever get a hankering for gut busting hard work, I'll just go apply at the OX Ranch in Lanfair Valley...

Darlia chose white that day. Her dress was the kind I love, with a high collar, sleeves down to her hands, and a hem that brushed the floor. There was lace at the collar and cuffs, and the buttons were mother-of-pearl. She didn't braid her hair that morning, but tied three or four white ribbons in it so that they trailed down along her back and across her chest, and fluttered behind her in a breeze. It was a new thing for her, and when I saw it I was in awe. Darlia comes up with some imaginative ways to do her hair, which is one reason Cecelia and I don't insist on her cutting it; she takes care of it, and makes sure that it looks good.

And Cecelia was lovely. Her dress was also floor length, a black that set off her chocolate skin. She'd fastened the neck with a gold pin, and she wore her gold and ruby necklace outside, one of the ways she dresses up or marks special occasions. Instead of the clip or rubber band that she usually uses to form the short ponytail at the base of her skull, she'd borrowed a piece of ribbon from Darlia – this one black – and the ends hung down the back of her neck to just below her collar.

The diamonds in the two noses twinkled in the light, and when we got outside they caught the sun and, small though they were, sent it in rainbow shards across the parking lot. Those diamonds were one of Cecelia's inspired decisions; they were like the perfect vase which, instead of calling attention to itself, makes the flowers in it appear even more beautiful than they already are. Every time the diamond flashed in Darlia's nose or Cecelia's, I looked – and saw the face of one of my beloved women.

Church was a lengthy affair, as we expected. Black churches don't always begin their services on time, but they don't rush to let out either. You don't drink a lot of caffeine before going to a black church, not if you know what you're doing, or else you'll find yourself having to get up and find the restroom two or three times before the final prayer. It turned out that one elderly gentleman did remember me – mostly because of my mustache, I think – and introduced me to the pastor and the associates. A black Baptist church may only have one preacher on staff, but any preacher who joins the church is automatically an associate minister, and sits on the platform, and will have a part in the service every now and then. I'd learned that the hard way when I was there as a member; when I'd been there not a quite a year I surrendered to preach, and it took two or three pointed invitations to sit on the platform before I realized that was where they expected me to be every service.

Because I was a preacher the pastor invited me to sit on the platform, and I kissed Cecelia and Darlia and found a seat. One of the associates offered me the chair next to the pastor's, and being perhaps a little bit wiser now than I was at 26 I simply thanked him and sat down; he moved to the end of the row. When the pastor sat down he asked me, "Have you got a hip pocket sermon?"