Chapter 7

For supper Cecelia made chili and hominy, about the only thing I've ever taught her about cooking. Tony, my uncle, had come up with the combination one day when he wanted chili mac but there was no macaroni in the house. I'd introduced Cecelia to it, and she'd taken note of how I like my chili – a la Wolf Brand – and then improved on it. For the trip, though, we had the canned stuff, which would last a whole lot longer than homemade in Tupperware.

I'd recently made an innovation in how I ate my chili. I spread a layer of tortilla chips across the bottom of the bowl, spooned chili on top, then added another layer of chips, with more chili to top it off. It's even better than the original chili and hominy, and Cecelia and Darlia both like it too.

Dusk was beginning to fall as we finished up, and rather than try to wash the dishes by the light of the moon or the Coleman lantern, Cecelia put them into a plastic tote, carried them to a nearby gully, and scrubbed everything with sand. She brought the tote back and put it in the shed until morning.

Meanwhile I'd checked the batteries on the boom box we'd brought. We would mostly be out and about with no need or desire for music, but for an evening camped out it was fine. And since I can't play a guitar, or a harmonica, or a pipe organ, or a kazoo, or a clarinet, or anything else besides the radio, we make do with CDs.

I put on a Willie Nelson CD, and when Cecelia returned from her errand Darlia and I were singing along to "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground." Willie sang it about his dead son, but I sang it about Cecelia, looking at her in the waning light, the closest thing I'd ever seen to an angel. She was thin and strong and steady, muscular in body and spirit, and as she sat down beside me her narrow face glowed with the love she returned me. I put my arm around her thin shoulders and squeezed her, and held her tight. She leaned against me, where we sat on the bench of the picnic table, and one hand reached across and clenched the fabric of my shirt, the old gesture letting me know just how much she craved being close to me.

I moved a little, and lifted her, and she felt what I was doing and came willingly. I sat her in my lap, turned so that one of her arms went around my back and the other kept its grip in the front of my shirt. She leaned her head against my shoulder and murmured something inaudible, almost like a cat purring.

I bent down and kissed the top of her head, marveling at how a woman who's only an inch shorter than I am could suddenly seem so tiny. "You know I love you," I said.

"I know it well, my husband. And you know that I love you as fervently as you love me."

I nodded, my chin rubbing her kinky hair. "Let me take that rubber band out," I said, and she nodded in her turn. I reached up with my left hand, to the base of her skull, and carefully rolled the rubber band down until it fell into my hand, and her hair expanded into a sort of mini-Afro. "I love your hair that way."

"I know you do, and there are times I regret not indulging your fancy. Yet I am not comfortable with my hair unfettered as I go about my daily activities, and I appreciate the way you indulge my need to control it."

"I'll indulge you in just about anything, C."

"I suppose you would qualify that in the same way as did your favorite fictional female – 'in all that is right.' And I do not demur; that qualification ought to be part of everything we agree to between us. Neither of us ought to support the other, if that support would concur in immorality. But I do not fear, Darvin – you would never permit me to commit evil, even if I were so inclined."

"You're about as inclined to evil as I am," I said. "But then we both know the Biblical position on that, don't we." I chuckled lightly, barely hearing it myself over the CD and Darlia's raspy voice still singing along. "Still, I'm not likely to let you do anything wrong ... assuming that anyone on earth lets you do anything."

Now Cecelia chuckled, a thing I felt as much as heard. "I am conspicuous in my independence, am I not? You have granted me considerable autonomy in our marriage, an autonomy I have not been backward about accepting. You have correctly assessed my character, and given me room in which to grow ... or sufficient rope with which to hang myself, perhaps." I could tell by her voice that she was smiling, though I couldn't see it. "Yet if there is any person on earth who could, simply by giving an order, prevent me from doing a thing, or constrain me to do a thing, it's you. You do not compel me to anything, and therefore my submission to your authority is all the more free and willing and without reservation. Command me, my husband, and I will obey ... in all that is right."

I definitely heard her chuckle that time, as she took a most serious commitment and gave it a mocking qualification which I knew she still meant. "I think," I told her, "that I'll command you to sit in my lap and love me forever."

"That I can do without difficulty; it is a most natural position and action for me."

My arms tightened around her momentarily. "Yeah, it is. I've had you on my lap so often over the years, and I've never had to force you there either."

"Nor shall you ever; I find that here is as perfect a seat as I am likely to find in this world."

I kissed her hair again, and would have said something else romantic if Darlia hadn't spoken up first. "Are you guys going to make kissy-kissy all night?"

Cecelia let out one of her rare laughs. "Oh, certainly, Darlia – your father and I intend to embarrass you so thoroughly that you will never be able to go back to school again."

"Then I'm going to bed." Darlia stood up and hit the power button on the boom box. "I hope that when I wake up you guys are normal again." And she stalked off to her shed while Cecelia and I giggled uncontrollably. And then at the door she turned around and called, her voice full of laughter, "I love you guys."