Chapter 12

The next morning an unusual thing happened – I woke up naturally, before Cecelia got up. Even after learning from her that going to bed at a reasonable hour makes getting up much easier, I'm still not a morning person. But working nights early in the week had gotten me sufficiently off my usual schedule that I went to bed earlier than normal, and here I was awake at 6:30 while Cecelia slept on.

Our back yard fence is high enough to ensure privacy, so we just have thin curtains over the windows on the back side of the house. The moon was dark at that time of the month, but the people over the fence have a light in their yard that burns all night, and enough came through the window from that light that I could make out Cecelia's form and face. She has a face that is serene in repose, but sleeping it was more than serene – it looked almost like a child's face, it was so smooth and peaceful. I knew that her skin, if I touched it, would be soft, and that if I looked closely enough I'd see the small lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth that came from smiling. One arm was outside the covers, and in the sleeveless nightgown she was wearing it was slender, enticing, looking softer and rounder in the faint light than it really is. The dark hid the defined musculature that I knew was there, and I could almost believe that my wife was in her teens.

Almost, but not quite. We're only two weeks or so different in age, and however young Cecelia looks, she's 41. But looking at her I felt like she was a young girl, and the power of the emotion that overwhelmed me made me feel like a teenager too. I put out a hand and gently stroked her cheek, and ran my fingers over her shoulder and down her arm to her hand, which I squeezed gently. I've been sleeping next to her since 1995, it's such a familiar fact that when she's not there I still can't use her side of the bed, and yet it was as though it was the morning after our wedding.

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep again, not as well as I'd slept during the night, so I carefully climbed out of bed and slipped on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. I closed the bedroom door behind me and padded down the hall, the carpet soft against the soles of my feet. Because I wear boots all the time my feet are soft, callused only on the heels where boots have been rubbing all my life, and I could feel the carpet in a way that I doubted Cecelia, with her harder feet, could. She wears shoes, certainly – she's got more pairs than I do by a long shot, and in much greater variety – but she's never entirely lost the habit of going barefoot in hot weather. She learned it walking through the cotton fields of southern Alabama, and it's one of the things that connects her to her childhood. For that matter she's frequently barefoot in the house, where we keep the temperature comfortable.

The carpet ended at the dining room and what we call the back hallway, which is really just the area between the utility room and the kitchen. The name you call something doesn't necessarily reflect the thing's actual nature. We only have one actual hall in the house, but somehow we've put the word on that little area, and it's stuck.

I walked across the tile of the kitchen, my feet making faint slapping sounds. There was orange juice in the refrigerator, and I poured myself a glass. We all like the real thing – when she can get enough good oranges Cecelia squeezes it herself – and I savored the pulp. There was still raisin bread from Tuesday's baking, and I cut myself a couple of slices and popped 'em into the toaster. While they heated I got out the butter – the real thing, not margarine, which, I remember, Anna had always called "oleo." I can remember when soft margarine was a new thing...

The toast popped and I buttered it. I sprinkled some cinnamon on the melting butter – no sugar, since the bread was sweet enough already – and carried the plate to the other side of the counter, where I sat down. I'd finished the Hemingway book the night before, and now I pulled C.S. Forester's Beat To Quarters from the stack. I'd decided not to go with Strip Jack after all – from one day to the next my taste in next books is liable to change, and it had. I'd first encountered Beat To Quarters years ago as a Reader's Digest condensed book under the title Captain Horatio Hornblower, and I reread it every so often. It's the first of the Hornblower books that Forester wrote, and it's the best too, at least I think so.

I had the light on over the sink, which shines on the counter too; the rest of the house was dark, except for the hall light, which I'd left on. I ate my toast, and read my book, and after a bit I heard Cecelia's alarm going off. Normally I don't hear it. Our schedules are frequently different, and so we each have an alarm clock. After 11 years we sleep right through the alarm unless it's ours – she only wakes up for her alarm and I only wake up for mine. It was tough when we first got two clocks, but it was either that or fight over what time to set one clock for. Knowing that Cecelia would be getting up now, I walked into the living room and checked to see what was in the CD player. It was Ana Gabriel's Vivencias album. I'd listened to another of her CDs while guarding Cinda, but this one was my favorite. I picked up the remote and turned on the player, and pushed Play.

I'd been able to hear the Cecelia's alarm through the closed bedroom door, but I couldn't hear her moving around, though I knew she was getting dressed, putting her hair in the short ponytail that's the only hairstyle – if you can call it that – I've ever seen her wear, brushing her teeth, all the usual morning things. When she came out of the bedroom she went into Darlia's room, and got her up.

When she came out of the hall I grabbed the remote and turned off the CD player. She put a kiss on my cheek and, when I turned my head to meet her, on my lips. Neither of us said anything as she went into the kitchen and got the coffeemaker going, and started making breakfast. As she stood with her hand on the refrigerator door she turned and looked at me. "Since you've taken the unusual step of being awake before me, are you going to be consistent and eat breakfast?"

"Not hardly. One weirdness is enough."

"It is not weird to eat breakfast, Darvin. It is, rather, the normal course among average people."

"Yeah, but I'm way above average."

She gave me a fake glare. "You are above average in the same way that I'm a white man," she said. And she opened the refrigerator, thinking she'd had the last word.

Not being brilliant, I pursued the matter. "I had no idea, Cecelia, that you were a white man. Thanks for letting me know."

The reaction was everything I'd hoped for. Her shoulders shook, and she gave out some snorting noises – strangled laughter. One of the first favorable things I'd noted about Cecelia, years ago, was that she likes my jokes – not a common attribute. She had to close the refrigerator, and turn around and lean her back on it with both hands over her mouth, trying to get control again.

When she did, I waved a finger at her. "I've known you since 94, C, and if I counted up the times you actually, really, all out laughed, I wonder if I'd use all my fingers. But when you do, it's something enjoyable to see."

"Darvin, were I not in the grip of this misbegotten amusement, I would make you pay for this. But since I cannot, at present, summon up the requisite umbrage, I shall defer my vengeance and simply tell you, at present, that the sparsity of my laughter is due to the lack of sufficient cause. Perhaps you will concede that your talents do not lie in the area of standup comedy."

"But I do all right at sitdown."

That set her off again. Knowing that I was storing up, if not wrath, then certainly payback for myself, I decided to quit before I got any further behind. I dogeared my book, which I'd had my hand on all during the by-play, and got down from my stool. Going around the counter into the kitchen, I put my hands on Cecelia's shoulders, which shook with subsiding laughter. She had her hands over her mouth again, and her eyes were bright as she looked at me. "Cecelia, my love," I said, "whatever we may say when we're joking, here's something that ain't no joke: I love you."