Chapter 2

I got home about six that evening, having stashed Cinda in a good hotel. I'd made sure her room was several floors up, and talked to what they used to call the house dick. He'd had a discussion with the manager and the desk clerk, and though I didn't expect Bestwick to show up there – how could he know where she was? – if he did, the hotel would have no record of her ever being there. They knew me there; the hooker I'd kept from becoming a victim of her murderous pimp had stayed several days there while I persuaded him to leave her alone.

Cecelia was sitting at the dining room table, forking ham into her mouth; Darlia was around the corner to her right, working on some mashed potatoes. The smell of the ham hit me as I came in the front door and I realized how hungry I was. Of course I'm never too full to turn down Cecelia's cooking. I didn't marry her for her food, but I knew just how great a cook she is before I ever even thought of marrying her. Our first real date had been dinner at that very same table, back in 1994, or maybe it was 95 by then. After 11 or 12 years, I don't remember.

I sometimes can't believe how talented my wife is. She cooks – well enough that if she ever opened a restaurant she'd have a line around the block waiting to get in. She takes care of our finances with the skill of a professional, which in fact she was when we met. She sews a lot of our clothes, so many that we've taken to discussing how we might manage to set her up a sewing room without dispossessing me of my study. She works out almost every day, and in consequence is strong enough that she never has to ask me for help hefting 100 pound bags of rice into the house. And she is my favorite counselor, the one who gives me the advice I heed the most; I've said from time to time, only half jokingly, that she's the best pastor I've ever had.

Just now she looked at Darlia, who had her back to me, for she was sitting in my usual place, and said, "I think a strange man has come in."

Darlia turned around in her chair and looked at me. "He is really strange, Mommy. He's almost as strange as Daddy."

"Strange my left foot, Weightlifter," I said. "I'm the most normalest man you've ever seen."

Now Cecelia put her fork down and looked hard at me. "Anyone who can utter such a lacerated version of the English language may be many things, but normal is glaringly absent from the inventory." And she smiled, the smile that Helen of Troy would have killed to possess.

"Shoot, C, you just have this really warped idea of normal. You probably think David Bowie's weird too."

"Is he the one who used to go on stage as Ziggy Stardust?"

"That's the guy." While we'd been talking I'd hung my hat on the rack by the door, and put my light jean jacket on a hook underneath the hat. Now I walked over to the sofa and sat down to pry off my boots.

Sitting on the sofa I couldn't see the table, which was behind me, but Cecelia's voice followed me. "In that case, Darvin, I would have to say that while he was not in the mainstream of normality, he was far closer to it than you are."

With my boots off I stood and looked at Darlia. "You gonna sit there and let your mother skin me alive like this?"

"Sure, Daddy – that's my job!" Darlia's smile isn't Cecelia's – it couldn't be, for their facial structures are completely different – but it's beautiful, and she gave it to me full power.

I addressed the air. "One of these days I'm gonna learn that however much one man may equal 25 women—" here there was a snort of disagreement from Cecelia "—with two women conspiring against me I'm lost before I start."

Cecelia picked up her fork again, but before turning to her plate gave me one last jab. "Darvin, if you really believed that women are inferior and men are superior, you wouldn't love me or Darlia half as much as you do. You have betrayed yourself by your actions; your disparagement is a sham. Get a plate and eat."

I grinned. If I've got to lose an argument, I can't think of anyone I'd rather lose it to. I got a plate, and sat down beside my daughter, and ate.

After supper Cecelia and I sat on the sofa while Darlia sat in Cecelia's rocker reading one of her Little House books. I'd put George Strait in the CD player, and his Texas voice sent country music – real country music – gently into the evening. I had my feet on the marble slab that serves as the top to our coffee table, and my hand in Cecelia's. My permanent tan is dark because I spend so much time outside, but it still isn't as dark as Cecelia's milk chocolate skin, and my hand seemed pale as she held it.

"I've got me a case that's gonna keep me out at all hours, C," I said.

"Many of them do."

I grinned. "True, true. But not all of them are like this. Actually I'm not even sure that 'case' is the right word for this one."