Brambleman (76 page)

“Minerva nearly fainted when she saw it.”

“Susie nearly fainted when she wrote the
check. She had to go into debt to do it.”

Charlie’s mouth dropped open.

“I told you she’d need your help,” Bradley
Roy said. “Susie hates her momma now that she knows she tried to
have you killed. You actin’ like you want to go on a date with her
is the only thing that cheers her up. Still thinks you’re a crazy
fool.”

Recovering slightly, Charlie said, “Some
things never change.”

“You know what really gets me? That Scuzzier
guy, acting like he’s part of the family, asking about Beck and Ben
like they’re his own kids. The nerve. Charlie. Charlie! Hey, where
you goin’?”

* * *

Dr. Pennywell couldn’t say if Susan would
ever walk again. “Pray for a miracle,” he suggested to Bradley Roy
and Charlie. Susan had just been wheeled out of the operating room
after three hours, and the surgeon declared the procedure a
success, inasmuch as he’d removed the bullet. But by this time,
Charlie was wary of any miracle a person had to pray for, since
they came with all kinds of consequences and strings attached.

Charlie was sitting at her bedside when Susan
woke from the anesthesia. “I’m taking care of Sirius now,” he said,
hoping to establish his new role in the household while she was too
groggy to consider the implications.

“That’s good.” Susan gazed out the window.
“He loves you more than anyone else.”

Charlie saw no point in disagreeing, although
he wasn’t sure that this was true, now that the dog had met
Romy.

* * *

Friday, Susan was transferred to Shepherd
Spinal Center for rehabilitation. Since Bible Camp ended that day,
Charlie left Romy and Wyatt with the sitter and drove in his
brand-new minivan to Sheila’s ranch house near Cumming. Beck and
Ben jumped up and down when he walked in the door.

Phil McRae, still in his orange AutoParts
polo shirt, was home early from the store. It had been two years
since Charlie had seen his brother-in-law. He hugged Phil for the
first time in their lives. Phil gave him a bemused grin when they
broke apart. Charlie noticed that Phil’s neck was crooked and
furrowed his brow in concern.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked.

“Fuckin’ raccoons.”

“Fuckin’ raccoons is right. I don’t even hunt
anymore. Little bastards are dangerous, I tell ya.”

“You have no idea.”

“Oh, I got an idea, all right.” He gave a
lopsided shrug of his shoulders for emphasis.

If Sheila harbored any ill will toward her
brother-in-law, she did an excellent job of hiding it. For the
first time in twenty years, Charlie and Sheila had a decent
conversation, although it involved mostly bad news. She’d already
heard about Romy and Wyatt and didn’t know what to make of this new
development, but she was good-natured about it, as well as
Charlie’s tentative reentry into family life. Charlie suspected
Bradley Roy had laid down some law to her on the subject.

Charlie thanked Sheila profusely for taking
care of Beck and Ben.

“It was like having two of my own for a
while,” she said, sounding wistful.

Charlie kissed her cheek and she hugged him.
They packed up the kids’ stuff and buckled them into the van seats.
Beck and Ben found the new van much preferable to the old one,
since it had a DVD player in it. As he pulled out of the driveway,
Charlie said, “You know Mommy’s hurt, right?”

“Yes. A robber shot her,” Beck said.

Charlie was relieved to hear her put it that
way after having spent time in Forsyth County. Perhaps the curse of
racism had washed away with the fall of the House of Varmint.

“She’s getting better,” he said. “She should
be home by the end of the month.”

“Are you back at the house now?” Beck
asked.

“Yes. I think so,” Charlie said.

“Yay,” said Ben.

“Don’t you know?” Beck asked.

“For now I am. We’ll see.”

They were halfway back to Thornbriar before
Charlie broke the news to them about their new siblings. Fearful of
negative reactions, he was pleased to see that Ben was excited
about the prospect of live-in playmates. “Romy and Wyatt are part
African-American and part white,” Charlie said.

“Which parts?” Ben asked.

“All of them.”

“So they’re mixed up?”

“Not as much as you.”

* * *

The babysitter took Monday off. Charlie
stayed home with all four kids, who played well together. Ben and
Wyatt celebrated their newfound brotherhood with a wrestling match.
Romy dressed up in an old Halloween costume of Beck’s, a white lace
gown with a fluffy skirt and wings on the back. Once Romy found a
wand, she danced around the house, enchanting everything, taking
extra care to charm Sirius, because he was old and beautiful.

That afternoon, the phone rang right after
Romy “charmed” it. “You need to get down here to the Spinal
Center,” Bradley Roy said. “It’s a miracle. It’s happening! She can
walk, I tell you! It’s with a walker, but she’s walking!”

Tears welled in Charlie’s good eye, and he
wadded up the plans he was drawing for a wheelchair ramp. Shortly
after he hung up, he was enchanted by Romy for the third time that
day.

“Hey, Romy. Enchant the phone again.” Romy
came over and pursed her lips as she touched the cordless receiver
lightly with her wand. It rang immediately. “Hello?” Charlie said
hopefully.

“This is Rachel with cardholder services. You
may be eligible for more credit. Act now—”

Charlie banged the phone down, muttering,
“Doesn’t always work.”

* * *

The next day, Charlie took all the kids to
see Susan, who was still weary from the exertion and excitement of
taking her first steps. She managed a smile for Charlie. “Proud of
me?” she asked.

“You bet,” he said, kissing her on the
forehead.

“Taking advantage of my slow reaction time, I
see,” Susan said, giving him a look that was too severe to take
seriously.

“Always. And I’m still taking care of the
dog.”

“You
are
the dog,” she said.

He smiled, grateful for the promotion.

* * *

Susan stayed at the center for three weeks,
learning how to walk again and building her strength. During this
time, neither she nor Charlie mentioned their relationship. He
tiptoed like a jewel thief around the issue, trying not to draw
attention to his movement toward his goal. Besides taking care of
the kids, he was also busy fending off increasingly hostile
reporters, agents, and editors.

“I was trying to survive,” Charlie explained
to one insistent TV reporter who showed up at this door with a
camera rolling and wanted to know why he hadn’t gone to the police
after the van bombing.
No cops
was such a simple rule, but
so hard to explain.

“But that was nearly a year ago,” the
reporter insisted.

“And I’m still trying to survive,” Charlie
said, closing the door gently in the reporter’s face.

By the time Susan was dismissed from
Shepherd, Charlie’s useless, painful left eye had been removed,
along with two of his molars. He brought her back to Thornbriar in
the minivan. She was still dependent on a walker, so he carried her
up the steps and over the threshold. Sirius bounced around to greet
them. Charlie took Susan into the family room and put her down
gently on the sofa.

“Where are the kids?” she asked. “I thought
the babysitter stayed here.”

“They’re down the street. All of them. Both
sets.”

“Yours and ours,” she said.

He’d had something planned, but suddenly, it
seemed like a bad idea. “I’ll go get them.”

“Go,” she said.

Charlie stepped away from the couch. “Well,
OK, then.”

“Wait,” she said. “I mean—”

She struggled to get up and took a tumble,
managing to brace herself on the sofa arm as she landed on her
knees. He knelt down to help lift her back up. “Wait,” she
said.

“OK.”

“I mean, don’t go.”

“I’m confused.”

“Don’t go away again,” she pleaded. “I
couldn’t stand it.”

“I’m not back yet,” he pointed out. And
suddenly he felt like crying.

“All right. Charlie, please come back. I need
you. God, I need you. Why’d you ever leave?” And then she started
crying.

He was silent for a moment. Tears welled in
his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I left a light on for you for the longest
time,” she said, sobbing. “But it burned out.”

“Me too,” Charlie said.

“I have a confession to make.”

Charlie braced himself. He didn’t want to
hear about Bryan or Harold, and he especially didn’t want to hear
about Scudder. But if she had to clear the air, so be it.

“I prayed,” she said, then licked her lips.
“It was kind of a mean prayer. I prayed … that no other woman would
have you.”

“Well, it worked.”

* * *

They bedded the kids down that night, and
then Charlie helped Susan to the couch. After hemming and hawing
for a minute, he pulled the new engagement ring from the pocket of
his cargo shorts. “I thought we could pretend to start over,” he
said.

“Oooh. I like to pretend,” Susan said when
she saw the diamond.

“So, will you stay married to me?”

She smiled. “I will.”

“I should kiss you, I suppose.”

“I suppose you should.’

Due to lack of practice—at least on his
part—they embraced awkwardly and pecked each other on the lips.
When they separated, Susan said, “You didn’t have to do this, but
I’m glad you thought you did.” She slipped the ring on her finger.
It was a perfect fit.

“I remember Betty Richards came over to me at
the bank in Macon and told me your check to the jewelry store was
non-sufficient funds. She said, ‘Your fiancé got some money
problems, hon.’ I thought, God, what am I getting into?”

“Well, at least this time, you know.”

“I’m still not sure. I don’t think I ever
will be, with you.”

* * *

When Susan woke up the next morning, she
scolded Charlie for sleeping on the couch. After that, they slept
together. Just snoring, no sex. In the days that followed, Charlie
and Susan were kind and civil to each other, but they remained
somewhat wary, and reconciliation was not complete.

Life went on. Susan resigned her position
from TransNationBank and started taking care of the kids full time
(with Charlie’s help), which was what she’d always wanted to do. In
late August, she traded in the walker for a cane. By then, Romy had
turned four and was enrolled in pre-K, so all the kids attended
Gresham Elementary. Susan called Romy “my little angel.” Charlie
said, “Don’t. It will only encourage her.” Being a wise one for her
age, Romy understood the need to use her special powers discreetly.
Susan joined the PTA board and became the Room Mom in Beck’s class.
Unfortunately, Charlie’s fearsome visage often frightened small
children—at least until they saw that his scar was a rose, complete
with thorns (when he didn’t shave). Charlie returned to writing
with his one good eye and improved vision.

One evening in early September, after Wyatt
and Ben had finished wrestling for the day and all the kids were
tucked away in their bunk beds, Charlie was revising a chapter on
one of his novels when he heard music playing. He got up to
investigate, suspecting that Beck was breaking curfew. He found
Susan in the family room, enthusiastically moving to a techno beat,
holding her cane over her head like a tap dancer’s prop. Charlie
stood in front of her, hands on hips, marveling at her
recovery.

“Romy enchanted me when I put her to bed, so
I thought I’d check it out. Guess what? I’m healed!” she said,
stumbling into his arms. “More or less. Dance with me, you
fool!”

As he twirled her around, she said, “I want
to love you forever, starting”— she kissed
him—“right”—kiss—“now.”

And so they made love for the first time in
more than two years—he gently, she with her eyes closed. When they
were finished, Susan said, “I want to adopt Romy and Wyatt. And I
want to run in the Peachtree Road Race. And make love to you again.
Soon. I want us to be happy.”

“I’m glad,” Charlie said.

* * *

After Susan gave a deposition for the
plaintiff in the discrimination suit, TransNationBank offered to
settle the case and change its personnel policy. Then Charlie
helped Susan write an opinion piece about the bank’s lending
practices that got the attention of (who else?) Tyrus
Bannister.

Charlie hadn’t bothered to cancel the credit
card Tawny had stolen, but when the October statement came in, he
saw that the charges had stopped. The last one had been made on the
day Susan and he first made love again. It was for tuition at a
community college in California.

In October, Susan, with the help of Sandra
Hughes, legally adopted Wyatt and Romy. Wyatt struggled to cope
sometimes, but every day was better than the day before. As for
Romy, she was, even at her tender age, a little bit beyond
day-to-day struggles. Susan had worried about how her family would
react to her two new kids, but by this time, only the opinions of
her father and sister mattered, and they were happy for her.
Bradley Roy insisted on taking his reconstituted family to the
Forsyth County Fair. He carried Wyatt piggyback, and Charlie
snapped a picture of Bradley Roy with the boy the old man now
called, “my little man” underneath the Forsyth County banner.
Bradley Roy introduced Romy and Wyatt to one of his old friends, a
grandnephew of a 1912 lyncher, by Charlie’s reckoning. The man
bought all the kids cotton candy and marveled at how the world had
changed, then joked that Charlie Sherman was “the only person I
know of in danger of getting run out of town these days.”