Chapter 15

I wound up fixing supper by cutting slices of summer sausage and eating them with extra sharp cheddar cheese and Cecelia's French bread. I washed it all down with Coke, and finding that there was nothing on TV that interested me – no new thing – and that I wasn't in a mood to read, which was a very unusual thing, I went on to bed. Normally I don't go to bed that early, but though I do get enough sleep since I married Cecelia, sometimes the habits of my youth seem to kick in and knock me out earlier than usual.

I woke up sometime in the night as the bed moved. I reached over to Cecelia's side and there she was, warm and slender and, realizing I was awake, reaching back. We wrapped ourselves around each other and kissed, and I ran my hand – gently, so as not to pull – through her loosened kinky hair, and down the muscles of her back. I traced the knobs of her vertebrae, gave her a fierce squeeze, and must have fallen back asleep, for the next thing I knew I was waking up again, as Cecelia slipped out of bed to turn off her alarm clock.

Benjamin Franklin told us that early to bed is early to rise, and that morning at least I proved it true. I got up and got dressed, and was fastening the snaps on my shirt when Cecelia returned from getting Darlia up. In her nightgown – filmy stuff that she won't even go into the dining room in, no matter how much she's relaxed over the years – she seemed almost a child, with her slender build and unobtrusive figure. I don't normally gawk at her – well, maybe I do, or gaze or something – but I did just then. After 11 years she still is the most beautiful person on earth to me, and I couldn't resist taking a step and wrapping her up and squeezing her as fiercely as I had the night before.

"What does this possessiveness portend, Darvin?" she asked, smiling gently.

"Just that I love you more than I can ever say. I get this craving for you, like someone who's run out of air craves oxygen with his whole being. And when I see you..." I held her by the shoulders as I trailed off, and leaned in and kissed her.

"In that case, my husband, I shall keep you – not that I was ever likely to discard you; where would I find someone else who could look at my ungainliness and think not of twigs, but of beauty? However, I do need to escape your embrace; Darlia and I have plans and I cannot pursue them in my nightwear."

"What y'all got planned?"

She gave me a glance as she began unfastening the nightgown and turned to the closet to pick out clothes. "Your pronunciation is as atrocious as your grammar and your diction." It was an old joke, and the small smile was the usual accompaniment. "Whachawl is not how I am accustomed to hearing Anglos speak – not that I have, in some years, heard many Anglos who used 'y'all' in the first place. As to your question, we had decided to simply drive around Albuquerque and see whatever sights present themselves."

"How 'bout I drive her around? It's been a bit since I spent time with just her."

"That isn't necessary, Darvin – I have no objections to spending time with Darlia."

"I know you don't, C – shoot, you'd climb over the Rockies in your birthday suit to be with her; you love her as much as I do. But you get to see her every day, more than I do when I'm working." I shrugged. "I'm not complaining, at least I don't mean to, but lemme have this one."

"I'm sorry, Darvin – I didn't intend to be an obstruction. It was merely that I did not wish to put you to trouble you did not need to go to." She pulled out a hanger with a sea green silk blouse on it, and considered. She must have liked the idea, for she peeled it off the hanger and tossed it onto the bed. "But for you to voluntarily awaken this early, without the alarm, and then cheerfully accost me with a plan to take Darlia for a drive is, if not entirely unprecedented, then nearly so. If I'm not careful I'm going to suffer the delusion that you wish to eat breakfast." She now pulled out a hanger with a pair of white jeans, and laid the jeans next to the blouse.

I gave a pretend shudder. "Me, eat breakfast? Bite your tongue, woman! I no more eat breakfast than I breathe bleach."

She finished unfastening her nightgown and shrugged it off, smiling broadly at me. "I believe I remember a morning in Red Hawk when you not only ate breakfast, but did so in public." She pulled the jeans up her legs; they conformed closely all the way down rather than flaring over her calves and ankles.

"I was ill that day. My wife made me do it. I wasn't there, and you can't prove I was. The black helicopters had corrupted my morals. I was under the influence of mind-altering drugs that someone had secretly stuck in my Coke. It was someone pretending to be me. Stop me when you hear an excuse that isn't too unbelievable."

Cecelia giggled at me, and put her arms into the sleeves of the blouse. "If I didn't already know your insanity through long experience, I would at this moment be dialing the number of the nearest establishment where the sleeves of the inhabitants' jackets tie in the back. Darvin, I don't know why you're so happy this morning, but whatever the cause, do not alter your mood. I love you anyway, but I truly do love you when you're sunny. As to your plan, by all means carry it out. After all, you are Darlia's father, not – as you might put it – some tramp who has found his way in off of the street."

I stepped over to her and began buttoning the blouse for her – not as easy a task as it sounds, for I'm used to snaps, and I was doing it from the outside instead of the inside. "Cecelia, I know that sometimes I'm tough to live with. I get temper fits, and I sometimes get pretty blue, and I never know when it's going to happen and so I can't warn you. The fact that you've stayed with me in spite of all this is the best proof that you love me – and it makes me love you even more than I already do, which I would have sworn was impossible but is happening anyway." Sometimes my emotions get the better of my distaste for run-on sentences, not that I'm often an example of grammatical perfection. Fastening the last button, at her throat, I said, "All joking aside, thank you for letting me take Darlia. I'm in the mood to do it, and I'm sure you can find something to do around the house with the extra time."

She took my hands and raised them to her lips. "Lack of things to do has never been my problem, my husband. I believe I work longer hours as a housewife than I did when I earned a salary in exchange for my labor. I can indeed use the time – if nothing else, I can dust that Black Hole of Calcutta you call your bookcase." Her smile told me – if I had needed the reminder – that she was joking. "By all means, escort our daughter. She loves me, but she loves you too, and she will receive vast enjoyment from your presence – and from the privilege of riding in the Blazer's front seat."

"Coolness. I don't know when we'll be home ... but you knew that, I guess. Lemme finish getting dressed, and I'll go see how she's doing this morning."

She did, and I did.

Darlia goes to a Christian school called Calvin Academy which, because the founder wasn't rich when he started it, is way up on Paseo del Norte, in an area which was empty scrub land 20 years ago. Now the area's developing, and the land the school stands on is worth considerable money. There've been offers, and Dr. Chalmers could have taken the last one and rebuilt closer in with money left over, but he's stubborn, and doesn't want to leave what he's already accomplished. Nor would I want him to, even though it would shorten the commute. I'm sort of stubborn too, and I've got the money to help us both be successfully stubborn. I decided to start by heading up that way, since it had been a little while since I'd been there.

Darlia's used to the drive, for she's never gone to school anywhere else. She likes it as well as any kid likes school, I guess. She might like it better if she had a taste of the Albuquerque school system, but we've decided against that. There are people who come out of Albuquerque Public Schools who are as intelligent as anyone, but I've met too many graduates who appeared to have no education at all to subject Darlia to that. I've got a lot of self-education, and value a broad spectrum of learning – and neither APS nor, from what I can gather, any other government school system really provides that. At Calvin Academy, Darlia learns the traditional three Rs, plus Greek mythology and the Bible and science and literature and other things that once were standard but now aren't. Naturally she's not learning algebra and studying Faulkner at nine years old, but I don't know too many children her age who even know Saturn has satellites, much less their names. Shoot, there are college graduates who might not know that Saturn has moons.

I had a John Coltrane CD in the player that morning, and as we drove I turned it on, but low enough that Darlia and I could talk. But she was quiet that morning, just humming quietly to herself along with Trane's sax. After a bit I asked, consciously imitating Cecelia's style, "Has the feline confiscated your tongue, 'Lia?"

She looked at me. "Who are you, and where is my Daddy?"

I laughed. "Yeah, that ain't how I talk, is it?"

"No, it's not."

"But you know I can talk just as fancy as Mommy whenever I want to."

"But you never want to."

I laughed. "Ain't that the truth!" Actually it sounded more like dat and troof, the way I slurred it. I'm from California, but I lived in Oklahoma and Texas long enough to pick up some things, which occasionally find their way into my speech. "So, why so quiet?"

"I'm just a little bit tired, Daddy. I played with Gazelle yesterday and I'm still worn out."