Chapter 21

I had intended to be up and at 'em the next morning, but I'd neglected to set the alarm, and Cecelia let me sleep. Of course I hadn't told her my plan, but I suspect she'd have let me sleep anyway; she knows me better than I know myself, and upon reflection I realized that she'd have known how much I needed the long sleep.

It was late in the morning when I woke up. The blinds in the bedroom window were open – there are thin curtains over the blinds, and our back fence is so high that no one could see in anyway – and the light poured in from a sun that was still in the east. Our bedroom is on the east side of the house and gets the morning sun, which doesn't bother me at all. Sleeping during the day is a problem for me, but if I go to bed at night and then the sun rises, it doesn't bother me unless it hits me in the eyes.

I started to get dressed, and then reconsidered. I settled for a pair of cutoffs and a Baltimore Ravens t-shirt, the Ravens being the team I follow when I follow football – not that I follow the game much. If it weren't for Edgar Allan Poe I would never watch a football game at all, but when they named the team after him I got a bit interested. What I really am is a fan of NASCAR's NEXTEL Cup series – what I still think of as the Winston Cup – but they had run the last race of the season in November and wouldn't start again till February.

I wandered out into the living room. Cecelia was sitting at her desk, apparently reading her e-mail. I came up behind her without peeking at the screen – her privacy's just as important as mine – and kissed her on the top of her head. I wrapped my arms around her, and she wrapped herself around my arms, and we both squeezed for a moment.

Without either of us speaking, I let go and wandered into the kitchen. I thought I might have another bagel or two. I got the bagels and cream cheese out of the fridge and commenced toasting. While the first bagel toasted I grabbed my book from the coffee table, where I'd dropped it the night before. Pegasus Descending was proving not to be my favorite in the Robicheaux series – something seemed to be missing from it, some spark or spirit – but that didn't make it bad. No author can turn out perfect books every time, as Ernest Hemingway proved. And I've never yet read a book in the Robicheaux series that I didn't like, even if some are better than others.

The bagel finished toasting and the toaster popped it up. I smeared the cheese on thick and carried the saucer of bagel, and the book, to the table. I commenced to eat and to read, listening with half an ear to Cecelia clicking away on her keyboard. I've offered to let her put her desk in my study, but she says that her computer was there in the living room before she met me, and my theological library needs the space, so that's settled. She doesn't give orders often, and she couches that one in terms of merely stating natural law, but when she does give an order I pay attention. She's always got good reasons.

We're like that. In her sphere – running the household – she knows what she's doing and I mostly stand from under. And when it comes to leading the family, that's my sphere no matter how fumbly I sometimes think I am, and when on rare occasions I give an order in that sphere, Cecelia pays attention. But mostly neither of us gives orders. There's no need to. When we disagree we talk about it, and usually we find that one or the other is right and we go that way. And the fact that we each have our own money makes things easier. When I went to get the Blazer, for instance, it wasn't necessary for us to discuss it and see if we could fit it in the budget, for I had enough money of my own to buy several Blazers cash on the barrel head. The same was true when, a few years ago, she traded in her conservative and aging station wagon on her arrest-me-red Mazda.

The clicking from Cecelia's computer stopped, and I looked up from my book. There she was – my wife, the glory of my days. She was wearing a blouse in what I call just-barely-pink, with long sleeves that buttoned so far down on her wrists that actually the cuffs were down over the base of her hands. It was, as with all her tops, too large for her, so that she would have seemed lost in it were it not for the force of her personality. She had on a white skirt of some soft cloth that swirled around her feet when she walked; it was literally floor length, so I couldn't tell what, if anything, she had on her feet. I'd noticed when I kissed her head that she'd pulled her hair back with the gold clip I'd gotten her several years ago. As she walked toward me the diamond in her nose caught a glint of light and for just a second I saw all the colors of the rainbow, flashing in tiny shards from Cecelia's face.

She stood beside me, smiling her smile that launches whole fleets. "How is my husband this morning?" she asked.

"I'b god a moudfu," I said with my mouth full.

"Now how many times did your aunt tell you not to speak with your mouth full?" she asked, grinning.

I swallowed the bite of bagel she'd caught me with. "Oh, 'bout 35,576 times, I guess. On the other hand she didn't ask me questions when she could see I was chewing, either."

"But then she wasn't your wife, Darvin, and didn't have those privileges."

I tried to poke her in the ribs, but she avoided it with a twist of her torso. "Privileges my left foot, C – you just take advantage."

"Whenever, however, and wherever I can, my love," she said. "That is, after all, what I'm here for."

I took another bite of bagel, a big one, and looked at her, daring her to ask me to speak. Being smarter than I am, she ignored me and went into the kitchen, and put on water to heat for her coffee. She usually uses her coffee maker – when we met she was still using an old, old coffee pot that pop popped as it percolated, but years of use had finally worn it out – but in the mornings she'll sometimes settle for instant. After she spooned coffee into her cup she reached to the top of the refrigerator and grabbed the box of Earl Grey, and held it up with a questioning expression. I'd kept watching her instead of returning to my book, and I nodded. She took out a bag and put it in another cup. She leaned on the counter, and I now put my face back in the book, while we waited for the water to heat.

After I'd eaten a couple of bagels and finished my cup of tea, I began to think about going to the office, or maybe chasing down some more of the names on the list. I really didn't think any of the other names would be helpful, but I hate to leave something just because I don't think I need to; if there's one rule of investigation, it's that you have to check out everything, even if 99% of it proves irrelevant, because if you don't you'll miss something important.