Chapter 9

They don't run to a lot of Christmas lights in Hoffmantown, with so many older people living in the neighborhood, and since it was actually early morning by the time we got home most of them were off anyway. We've never been big on Christmas decorations ourselves – we only bother with a tree about half the time, and in all the years we've been married I don't think we've bothered stringing lights on the house more than half a dozen times. With Darlia on the rez we'd certainly not bothered this year, and so our house was dark when I pulled up in front. I can't park in the driveway – there's this little arrest-me-red Mazda there, Cecelia's car, which she can't put in the garage since it became my study.

Of course I've been parking in front of the house since before we got married. I'd parked there on our first date, when Cecelia made me supper and then sat me down to watch The Wizard of Oz, and I'd parked there the first time I took her to church. Even though I keep my vehicles in good running order – no matter how dirty their appearance – and they don't leak much, since 1995 there's developed a bit of a patch of oil on the road there, and it's my piece of the street.

Cecelia and I got out of the Blazer, grabbing our guns as we did so. Thinking of parking, and first dates and such, had taken me back, and I stood a moment just looking at the house. Cecelia bought it before we ever met, and I just moved in when we got married. It's an undistinguished thing, an ordinary suburban house, though Albuquerque doesn't have much in the way of suburbs and Hoffmantown isn't one, a middle class house with flowerbeds in front – dormant now – and a sidewalk leading up to the door. Though I don't remember it specifically, I know I walked through Hoffmantown before I met Cecelia and I must have passed her house a time or two. Perhaps on some occasion she'd looked out and seen a cowboy looking man going past...

Or perhaps not. There was no way to know – certainly she wasn't keeping a log of pedestrians who went by. I headed up toward the house, not reaching for my keys since I saw that Cecelia had hers in her hand. She'd probably fished 'em out while I was pulling up, since she wasn't working the steering wheel, blinker, and gearshift. She opened the door, and stepped aside to let me in.

The light was on over the stove, our version of a nightlight, which works well since there's nothing between the kitchen and the living room and dining room but some cabinets that hang from the ceiling, and a counter at which you can sit on the dining room side and look into the kitchen. It was nice and warm, not hot, but certainly it would be comfortable in shirtsleeves and bare feet. The living room is on the right and the dining room on the left, the dividing line being where the living room carpet ends and the wood floor of the dining room begins. Straight back there's a little hallway of sorts leading past what we call the utility room – really just an alcove big enough for the washer and dryer – to the back door, with the kitchen on the left. In the dining room sits the heavy table – antique oak I've always thought, though I've never gotten around to asking and Cecelia's never said – where I've been eating for years. On the right a hall leads off the living room to the rest of the house – Cecelia's sewing room and our bedroom on the left, Darlia's bathroom and bedroom on the right, and at the end the door to my study, what used to be the garage.

I took Cecelia's gun from her and headed for the bedroom, while she walked toward the kitchen. I know my wife – however late it was, she'd fix something to eat, even if it was only a snack. I put the guns in our end tables, so that if by some strange chance we needed 'em we could reach 'em without fuss and bother, and while I was there unsnapped my shirt, took it off, and tossed it in the hamper. I got an around-the-house t-shirt from the dresser drawer, admiring the screen print of Kevin Harvick on the front, and slipped it over my head as I turned back toward the living room.

I sat down on the sofa, pried off my boots, and pulled off my socks. The boots went next to the hat rack that stands beside the door – I'd automatically hung my bullrider there when I came in – and the socks I carried back to the hamper. While I was back in the bedroom again I changed out of my out-and-about jeans to a pair that's so worn that I keep 'em for wearing in the house only, and followed my nose to the kitchen.

"Constant Comment," Cecelia said, setting a cup on the counter, and I could smell it. I've come to like that variety of tea as much as Earl Grey, if not more, and the citrus smell was just what I wanted, I realized as I took a whiff of the steam rising from the cup. Cecelia already had a cup by her as she turned back to the stove. She drinks coffee rather than tea, which is one of her few flaws.

"What you makin'?" I asked.

"I am unaware," she said, "of the meaning of 'whachoo.' I do not even recognize the language."

I grinned. "I bet when you was a kid you talked worse'n I do."

"I did. I not only possessed execrable grammar and a slender vocabulary, but my accent was that of an ignorant child. However, I exerted myself to improve. You seemingly exert yourself to perpetually annoy me."

"I can't see your face, C," I told her, "but I know that tone o' voice – you're smilin'."

She turned to me then, and she was indeed smiling. "I find it harder to deceive you as time goes by. Perhaps I have made an error not keeping you at arm's length; it becomes more difficult to defeat you when you know me so well."

"But I do, an' I intend to get to know you better ever' day. You ain't a-gettin' away from me, babe. We gonna be together for another 50 years at least."