Jilted (11 page)

Clyde pulled into the church parking lot on Wednesday evening, wishing Lynda had agreed to come with him. Maybe he had been foolish to push, but he wanted her to enjoy all the things in life that he enjoyed. He had waited twenty years to live, but truth be told, so had she.

He backed his sedan into a parking space, glad he had finally managed to get it repaired, and then he stared across the church lawn with his hand suspended above the gearshift. He froze.

Neil Blaylock was walking toward the front door, coming from the other side of the parking lot with Susan by his side.

She patted his arm and leaned to speak in his ear, but in spite of her prodding, Neil seemed to drag his feet. He almost didn't look like himself because his behavior was so drastically different from usual. His face was red, and he looked like he might be sick at any moment.

Clyde knew that feeling. He had walked up that same sidewalk two years ago, anxious about coming to the little church in his hometown—where he was known for only one thing. It hadn't taken him long to realize he'd be better off at the congregation in Slaton. He had attended there for a while, but in the end he couldn't stay away from Fawn. And the baby. Even JohnScott had become like a son to him.

Clyde cut the ignition and rested his fist on top of the steering wheel, opting to wait a few minutes before going in.

JohnScott's truck pulled past the sedan, and soon he and Fawn were hurrying up the sidewalk. Neither of them noticed Clyde. JohnScott was carrying Nathan, and Fawn was scurrying ahead of them, wielding a purse, a diaper bag, and a stack of construction paper. They surrounded Neil in front of the door, forming a huddle of encouragement.

Fawn tilted her head to the side, and JohnScott slapped Neil on the back. Susan took him by the hand, almost pulling.

Clyde's hand tightened around the gearshift as envy tightened around his heart. He should have been glad Neil was returning to the church. Clyde had begged the Lord's forgiveness for years of bitterness against the man, and he had finally gotten to the point he could let it go. Now here he was feeling the sting of resentment again.

He didn't want Neil to be back at the church. He didn't want him sitting on the pew down at the front. Didn't want Nathan to crawl in his lap during services. Didn't want Fawn to smile at him. He didn't even want him there for Susan.

But when Clyde examined his heart, took a close look, and came away with a verdict, he realized it wasn't that he didn't want those things for Neil. He did. He wanted the best for him, but he also wanted Neil to be the best he could be. The best father, husband, and grandfather that his family needed. No, it wasn't that Clyde didn't want it for Neil.

It was that he didn't believe it.

As he slid down in the seat so as not to be noticed, his memory swept back to his senior year of high school. He and Hoby had been first-team all-district offensive linemen guarding Neil all season, protecting him. Clyde was used to watching Neil. He had watched him back then, he had watched him in his memory for twenty years in prison, and he watched him now on the sidewalk in front of the church. And Clyde knew.

Neil was faking left.

Three running steps, a mock pitch to the left, then straight on to the end zone. Neil only used the trick play once in the entire season, though the Panthers had practiced it all year. The coach—and Neil—wanted to save it till it counted. The state championship. If they had revealed it anytime before that, the play would have been worthless. In the end it ran without a hitch. No team expected Trapp to run a sneak, because Blaylock was a passing quarterback, and when he completed that perfect play in Austin, it landed him first-team all-state, first-team all-American, and a full ride to Texas Christian University.

On the sidewalk in front of the Trapp congregation, Neil's family finally coaxed him through the doors, and Clyde stared at the spot where they had stood moments before. A few latecomers scurried into the building, but Clyde stayed put. Thinking.

Neil had seemed nervous going in, but was it anxiety from returning to the church after eighteen months, or was it fear of something else? Clyde didn't buy the penitent-sinner routine, but he couldn't imagine why Neil would go back to the little congregation if he didn't mean to repent of his ways.

Clyde peered out the side window of the sedan. Charlie Mendoza was on his tractor behind the church building—uncharacteristic for a Wednesday night—and Clyde figured the old guy was dutifully reciting his midweek prayers as he circled the field. Maybe Clyde should worship on his own, just him and God. He could go up to his property on the Caprock, because up there he was always three hundred feet closer to heaven.

His eyelids dropped as though they were weighted with lead.
No.
That wasn't how God wanted it, and that wasn't how Clyde had planned it. Even if the baptized believers were a tangled mess of problems, God wanted Clyde in the middle of them—worshiping, forgiving, tolerating. If he expected them to overlook his faults, he needed to overlook theirs, too. Especially Neil's.

But Clyde wasn't sure he was up to it today.

He opened his eyes just as the glass door swung open and Neil stepped out of the building.

He held the door, speaking to someone just inside, then raised one finger and mouthed the words “Be right back.” Letting the door close behind him, he stepped around the hedges and out of sight of the front windows. He took a deep breath, looked at the sky, and then rubbed the back of his neck as if it were tight.

Then he noticed Clyde. Neil squared his shoulders and crossed his arms, but he only hesitated a moment before he …
laughed
. Instantly all traces of his nervous jitters evaporated, and Neil once again became an arrogant rancher.

Clyde got the impression Neil was making fun of him for hiding in his car, slumped down in the seat, but Clyde didn't change his position. He continued to watch Neil, wondering at the speed the man's temperament had changed, wondering at the cause behind it. Wondering if the man had ever been what he seemed.

Neil put his hands on his hips, shook his head as though he had just heard a good joke, then walked confidently back into the building.

Coldness crept up Clyde's spine, not because he was afraid of what Neil might be up to, but because he was afraid for Neil himself.

“Thank God you're here, Lyn.”

Clyde pulled me through his front door on Thursday afternoon, holding Nathan awkwardly in one arm. The child had stopped crying long enough to see who was at the door, but now he resumed his wails and viciously rubbed his wet nose against Clyde's shoulder, leaving a moist trail on his T-shirt.

“Why are you babysitting again?” I had intended to rake him over the coals, but when I saw his disheveled state, I changed my mind. It looked as if Nathan had run him through a gauntlet already, even though Clyde had said the boy had only been there forty-five minutes.

“Never mind the why. Fawn said he's teething. What does that even mean? You'd think the kid was dying.”

“He's just getting new teeth is all. It hurts when they're breaking through the gums.”

“She said she'd only be gone a few hours, but …” The skin wrinkled around his eyes. “Can you take him for a while?”

I looked at Nathan. “What would I do?” I'd never been very maternal, even when Ruthie was a baby.

“I don't care.” Clyde shoved him toward me, but Nathan began to howl as though I were a stranger.

As I stumbled into the living room, Clyde shut the front door, but not until he had peered up and down the street as if harboring a crying baby was a crime. While he ran his hands through his hair and took several deep breaths, I bounced Nathan on my hip and tried my hand at baby talk. Ruthie's childhood had passed so quickly, I didn't have time to figure out the difference between diaper rash and diaper cream, and Velma had done most of the mechanics of it anyway.

I patted Nathan's back. Under different circumstances, Clyde would have called my sister to help instead of me, but under different circumstances, Nathan would have been with Velma—his grandmother for all practical purposes—in the first place, not here with the two of us.

“Does he have any of that tooth gel in his bag?”

Clyde's head jerked at the possibility of deliverance. “What's that?” He grabbed the bag and turned it upside down, emptying its contents onto the couch.

Nathan held out his hand and stretched for something, but when I leaned toward the pile of goods so he could show me what he wanted, he only screamed louder and threw his head back.

“There.” I pointed at the small tube. “Squirt some on my finger.”

Clyde's oversize hands gripped the tube, completely covering the end of my finger with reddish gel, but I didn't mind the quantity. I shoved my finger in Nathan's mouth and rubbed all around his gums.

“Is it helping?” Clyde asked. “Why is he still crying?”

“It takes a second.”

Nathan's eyes had gone big when he began to feel the numbing effect of the gel, and he licked his lips, looking slightly confused. He whimpered, but not loudly, then rubbed his forehead against my shoulder.

“Here, let me walk him around a spell.” Clyde gently took the baby, and I noticed his nerves seemed to have calmed right along with Nathan's—just as quickly as mine had deteriorated.

He pressed the baby's chest against his own and stalked from one end of the small trailer to the other, and then he turned and repeated it, over and over, until I thought I might get seasick. With each rotation, Nathan's eyes drooped a little lower—probably unable to keep up with the room spinning around him—and then finally he laid his head against Clyde's collarbone, and his eyes didn't open again.

“He out?” Clyde asked.

“Just. Better give him a few more laps around the bases.”

“Gotcha.”

I leaned back against the couch cushions. “So what's the deal with Fawn bringing him over here again?” I asked quietly. “I understand her not wanting to bother Ansel and Velma, but what's wrong with Neil and Susan?”

“You want the kid to spend more time over there?”

“Not really.” I picked through the diaper-bag items, tossing them into a pile. “But I don't want you to get strapped with the job either.”

“I don't usually mind it.”

“Still, it seems like Susan could take him. Or hire someone to do it for her.”

Clyde sat down in an upholstered chair and rubbed the baby's back. “Aw, Lyn, I like having the little guy around.”

I studied Clyde then. He had left his hair down today, and his blond locks blended with Nathan's black ones, creating a tangled mix of swirling tiger stripes. I laughed softly. Clyde wasn't the same person I knew in high school. He wasn't even the same person I'd known last week. He was different, unusual, interesting. He rocked babies to sleep and enjoyed being a grandpappy. My skin warmed as I watched him.

“What?” he asked.

“You don't look like a grandfather.”

He glanced down at himself, shirtsleeves stretched tight by muscles, with part of his
nine
tattoo showing from under the cotton fabric.

“Guess I don't, do I?” he said.

His gaze slid cautiously from his body to mine, and I spoke quickly. “Why did you punch a hole in the wall over there by the door?”

He peered at the window even though the dusty blinds were shut, and his lips twisted. “Lyn …” He exhaled, and his eyes said everything he couldn't verbalize.

I wished I hadn't asked. “But it's better now?”

He nodded once. “It was bad right after I came back, but I've worked through the worst of it. Now I only get riled if something really, really irks me.”

“Like a crying baby?”

Clyde grunted. “Naw, things like that don't set me off. It's more like when a bully kicks a puppy. That sort of thing.” He curled a lock of Nathan's hair around his finger. “Last week a teenager cut in front of Algerita Parker at the red light. Her reactions are a little slow, you know. And she had to slam on her brakes so she wouldn't hit him.” Clyde's eyebrows pulled together as he remembered the incident. “I've never seen her scared before, but I reckon she was shook up pretty bad, because she pulled over to the curb for a while.”

“And you got mad about that?”

“Not mad enough to punch a hole in a wall, but sure, I got a little ticked at the kid.”

I looked back at the hole.
Who was the puppy that got kicked that day?
Clyde was already avoiding my gaze, so I didn't ask.

“Fawn and JohnScott seem happy.” It wasn't the type of thing I would say, and Clyde knew it. His eyes met mine, and he laughed without laughing.

“Before you go changing the subject, let me get this out.” He crossed an ankle over his knee. “You told me the other day that Neil used to pick on you when nobody else could see or hear.”

“So?”

“Two years ago when I found out what he'd been putting you through …”—he stared at me intently—“let's just say that really, really irked me.”

Without thinking I glanced at the hole, then away quickly. Clyde found out about Neil a few months after he came back to Trapp. A lot of people found out then. When Neil left the church, the story spread all over town faster than a stout case of chicken pox.

“He's making you sweat.” I motioned to Nathan. “Why don't you lay him on the couch?”

“How? Won't he wake up?”

“It's worth a try.”

Clyde slowly got to his feet, crept to the couch, and bent down, hovering a foot above the plaid tweed. When he shifted Nathan, it took both of us to lay him gently on the cushions, but he didn't wake up.

Easing off the couch, I followed Clyde into the kitchen. It was open to the living room, and we were both afraid of waking the baby. We ended up sitting on the floor and leaning against the cabinets so a few layers of imitation wood would block the sound of our voices.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I let my gaze fall on his tattoo. The number
nine
, like the tail end of a Nazi prison brand. Surely they didn't still do that. “What's your tattoo?” I pointed, snapping the words quickly before I lost the nerve.

“What, this?” He pulled his sleeve to expose the rest of the ink—
Joshua 1:9
—stenciled in script across the curving bulge of his arm.

I looked away. “A Bible verse?”

“What'd you think it was?” He laughed softly.

“Did you get that in prison?”

“Yep.” I felt him looking at me then. “Gave us something to do, you know?”

“Oh?”

“I stopped with five,” he said, “but some guys were covered by the time they got out.”

I tried to inspect his body without turning my head. Clyde always wore jeans and a T-shirt … but now I wondered.

“Fawn says I shouldn't get any more, and I reckon she's right …” His voice trailed off, but then he mumbled, “You think Fawn needs anything?” He bent one leg and picked at the seam of his jeans. “I want to help her somehow.”

“What could she possibly need? They've got a comfortable living, and as long as JohnScott keeps winning games, his job security is good.”

Clyde's shoulders sagged.

I thought back over the past months and years. Clyde had helped Fawn before she married JohnScott by letting her stay in his run-down house on the Caprock. I was never sure that was a blessing to the girl, since the house was in such bad shape, but he had been able to help her then because Neil wouldn't.

My heart hurt for him. Didn't he know there were other ways to show he cared? Like babysitting her teething toddler?

I poked his shoulder with the tip of my finger. “You know you can never outgive him.”

He raised his eyebrows and for a moment attempted to feign ignorance, but he knew good and well what I meant. Neil was the richest man in Garza County, and Clyde was one of the poorest.

“That girl doesn't need stuff,” I said. “She just needs you. You've got tons more to give her than he ever will.”

Clyde tilted his head back and peered at the overhead light far above our heads. “Neil came back to church last night.”

“Holy cow,” I whispered. “What happened?”

“I don't know. I didn't go in.”

“Why not?”
Clyde wasn't a coward.

“I thought it would make it harder for him, if I was there. He needed the worship service more than I did.”

“So he didn't see you?”

Clyde straightened both legs and crossed his ankles. “He did. In the parking lot.”

“He talk to you?”

“Didn't have to.”

I shivered as if the air conditioner had kicked up a notch. “And to think you wanted me to go with you.”

“It wouldn't have been so bad, would it?” His eyebrows lifted in the middle until they almost touched each other.

“Neil Blaylock and Lynda Turner showing up at worship on the same night?” I snickered, and it sounded evil to my ears. “I'd say that would have been pretty bad.”

The way Clyde's jaw clenched and unclenched told me he wasn't happy with what I'd said, and I realized I didn't want him to be upset with me. He was staring at the space between the refrigerator and the cabinet when I slid my hand over his and squeezed his thumb—a silent apology.

He looked down at our intertwined hands, seeming to study them for an endless time. Then his lips curled into a smile, and he pulled me gently toward him.

When my head nestled against his shoulder, I felt as though I had just lain down to rest after running a mile. As though Clyde could ease my worries and help me be a better person. As though I was home.