My Heart Can't Tell You No (61 page)

“Can you make it?” Sarah stood close to his chair, holding it steady as he sat down.

“Yeah. I made it. Christ, you and me are about ready for the nursing home, Sarah.”

“Maybe me. But you? I wish I were as
old
as you. You’re still a baby, not even fifty yet.”

“Forty-nine and a half.” He leaned an arm on the handgrip of his crutches, then looked up at Maddie and Joe. “You two? Ain’t yins married yet?”

“Never live to see it,” Joe mumbled as he walked past the man to the living room where he lit a cigarette and sat in the chair Lew had vacated.

“No. Probably won’t. Not at the rate you two are going anyway,” Lew said over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Same thing,” Sarah said as she sat in a chair between Lew and Janet.

“Lew! What happened?! Did you break your leg?” Robby ran from outside, stopping quickly to gaze at the crutches his great-uncle was holding.

“No. I broke my foot. I broke it right off. See?” He pointed to the half of a foot that was left on the end of his leg, still wrapped in Ace bandage.

“Did you?” Robby asked breathlessly as he gazed up at him through huge eyes.

“No, he didn’t,” Jackie laughed, moving to stand next to Lew.

“What happened? Mommy, look! His one foot’s shorter than his other one!”

“Ya know that dragon I said I keep out under the porch?” Lew asked seriously.

“Yeah.”

“Well, Janet forgot to feed him while I was in the hospital last summer. I came home and he bit my foot right off. I was lucky though—he gave half of it back to me.”

“Did he? Come on, Jackie! Let’s go look for him!!” Robby grabbed his older brother’s hand and started to run for the door.

“No,” Jackie laughed again.

“But, Jackie . . .”

“Robby, you didn’t tell Lew about the visitor you’re getting in a few months,” Sarah told her grandson, stopping him as he looked up at her through confused eyes.

“What visitor?” he asked.

“The baby,” Sarah reminded him.

“But she’s gonna live with us. She isn’t going to be a
visitor,
” he told her, then went back to Lew. “Guess what?”

“Your mom’s gonna have a baby boy,” Lew smiled down at him.

“Is she?!” Robby’s eyes grew again, bringing laughter to his uncle.

“I don’t know.
You
said she was gonna have a girl—so I thought I’d even the odds a bit.”

“She’s got a baby in her belly.”

“Well, how did she do that?” Lew looked at the child as if totally confused.

Robby’s smile faded as he looked back at his uncle. “I—I don’t know. Mommy, how’d you put it in there?”

“Thanks, Lew,” Maddie breathed.

“Maybe I can tell ya,” Lew laughed. “Your dad put it in there.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Lew’s laughter rolled. “Because he didn’t have any place else to put it.”

“But how’d he do it? How’d he put a baby in her belly?”

“Simple. He pulled up her shirt and spit it in her bellybutton.”

“
Ewww
! Daddy! Daddy!” Robby ran into the room with Joe. “Did you?!”

“Did I what?” Joe picked the boy up and sat him on his lap.

“Did you spit in Mommy’s bellybutton?!”

“I think Lew’s spinning another one of his tales again.” Joe put out his cigarette then came back to the kitchen with the boy in his arms. “What are you telling my kids, Lew?”

“The same thing I told you—only
you
were ten years old—and you
still
believed it. Maddie says it took another seventeen years before she finally taught ya that it wasn’t
spit
that ya go around sticking in
bellybuttons
.”

“Don’t worry, Joe,” Janet spoke up. “It wasn’t until after our fourth baby that
he
finally realized what kept making me pregnant.”

“Yeah, and once I found out, I decided to try it out two more times just to be sure she was right,” Lew agreed.

“What are you doing here, Meatball?” That fourth baby they had just mentioned came from the living room and stood in the doorway behind Joe.

“He came in to see the dragon under the porch,” Lew told his fourth son, who was now twenty-one years old with a physique that was outstanding.

“You can’t see it unless it comes out to eat,” The young man explained to Robby. “I know—lets take your mom out and let it have her for supper.”

“Mike,” Maddie told him. “why don’t you go out and let it chew on you a while?”

“Nope. I’m staying out here with my company now.” His hands were, as always, much quicker than Maddie’s eyes as they grabbed a leg and he started back across the kitchen with her. Maddie had little choice but to follow, awkwardly hopping on one foot as he continued his walk toward Joe.

“Mike!” His speedy retreat was making her lose her balance as she neared Joe, finally taking her foot so high it was impossible to remain standing. She grabbed onto the closest thing that could hold her weight—Joe’s waist. “You little prick! Let me go!”

“Little?! I’m six inches taller than you,” Mike corrected her.

“And eighty pounds fatter.” Her hands slipped until they held onto the waistband of Joe’s pants.

“That’s not fat. That’s muscle.”

“All right, Mike. That’s enough. She’s pregnant, ya know,” Lew said sternly.

“Pregnant?” Mike looked quickly up at Joe, and upon seeing his slight nod of head, gently put his cousin on the floor.

“Mommy! Go get him!” Robby said from where he clutched Joe around the neck.

“No. Mommy’s going to go sit down a while,” Joe said flatly, inconspicuously moving to stand between Maddie and Mike.

“Well,
I’ll
get him!” Robby threw a punch at the young man behind him. Mike saw it coming and stepped aside.

“Watch it, punk! I’ll take ya in the room and beat the crap outta ya!” Mike teased the boy as he held up his fists.

“You leave Mommy alone!”

“Yeah?! You gonna make me?!”

“Yes.” He threw another punch before Joe stood him on the floor.

“Go get him, Tiger.” Joe looked down to where Maddie was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with her legs drawn up Indian-style. She was busy watching both her sons chase Mike in the room where they started wrestling with him; then she glanced up to see the odd way Joe was looking at her. She looked down at the area he was staring at so, seeing the smallest of bulges sticking out from beneath her blouse. Since her small gain of weight, she had been unable to fit into her usual pants. The bulge was evident the way she was sitting, pressing the new form against the stretchy material at the front of her maternity pants.

“You going to sit there all day?” He finally said as he extended his hand to her. “Or get up and sit at the table and pretend you’re a somewhat
normal
person.”

She slapped his hand aside, getting up without the use of her own hands or his. “When
your
little mistake here gets too big for me to get up by myself—I’ll let you know.”

She shouldn’t have said that. Mistake or not, she wanted this baby. She loved babies, loved having them; never considering them mistakes anymore, but gifts. It was a reflex comment brought on by what he had said, knowing it wasn’t her actions there today he was referring to. And the truth was, she no sooner had the words out, than her brief spark of anger had passed. But from the way he forced a smile and tilted his head toward her, she knew it hadn’t passed quite so quickly for him.

“Whatever you say.”

“Jackie!” Lew called over his shoulder to the boy as Mike tossed him onto the couch in the living room. “How about a game of checkers?”

“All right.” The boy jumped off the couch.

“Tell Mike to get the game for ya and bring it out here.” Lew looked up at Maddie and Joe. “If you want a seat, brat, ya better grab it before Jackie comes out. You can hold him on your lap—that is if you still have a lap left.”

“I’m not that big yet.” Maddie turned from Joe and smiled at Lew, then moved between the table and wall to take a seat. “C’mon, Jackie. Let’s see if you can beat Uncle Lew.”

Maddie sat silently through the rest of the visit, only speaking when called upon to do so. Her mind didn’t stay long with the games, her eyes straying to the man either leaning against the wall or kneeling near the sink. So much had happened over the past five weeks—and so little.

That first night the boys had spent with Joe, he had put each of them into a single bed, Jackie in Ollie’s and Robby in Felicia’s. By morning though, Robby was snuggled against Joe in his bedroom. Robby had explained it to Maddie by telling her of the nine-foot-long eel coiled beneath Felicia’s bed.

By the following weekend Joe had installed a set of bunk beds in Ollie’s room, along with the single bed. Now all four children could sleep comfortably. Felicia and Ollie took the news of their
brothers
well, but then Maddie suspected that Felicia had known it all along. It was Ollie she wasn’t sure about, but, by the time they returned from their second weekend with their father, Jackie told Maddie that Ollie enjoyed having someone in his room to talk to at night. All the years he had spent at his grandparents’ home he had slept alone.

By the end of the first week, Maddie received forms from Joe’s lawyer for the change of Jackie’s and Robby’s names. By the end of the fourth week she received the request for legal adoption. So, for the past week, Jackie had been constantly complaining about having to sign his name John McNier instead of John Green. “It’s stupid to have
two
capital letters in someone’s name—and why was the
I
before the
E
when the name was pronounced
McNeer
?”

Personally, Joe’s absence was driving her mad. She missed sitting with him in the evenings as they watched the boys before bed. She missed his constant teasing of her brothers. She missed the knowledge that if ever she needed him in an emergency, all she had to do was call out his name—and sometimes, just send him a glance. She missed waking in the middle of the night and finding him there, holding and protecting her from the world, and waking in the mornings to either find him already in the bathroom shaving or still sleeping heavily as his alarm buzzed unheeded. She missed his touch, his kiss, his caress. But the Joe she had come to see during the few glances she’d had of him over the past five weeks gave her little to count on other than the safety of her children while they were with him.

The ride back from Lew’s was even more somber than the ride to his house. Hardly a word was spoken as Robby slept on the seat, leaning against his mother. Jackie seemed equally tired as he gazed sightlessly out of the window. The short trip had taken a toll on her mother, as well, as she barely uttered a word, watching the road in the headlights of the car. Maddie watched Joe from the rear seat, having a freedom the darkness provided, letting her do so without being watched in return. His profile that, partially lit by the dashboard lights, cast her under a mesmerizing spell as she silently watched him.

“You getting out of the car tonight,
Mrs.
Green
?” Joe stood at his door, already assisting Jackie out, now waiting for Robby to be handed to him.

“Robby. We’re home.” Maddie looked down at the dark head lying against her.

“Don’t wake him. I want him asleep.” Joe climbed halfway into the back seat with her as he went about releasing the boy’s seatbelt.

“Shouldn’t you be helping Mom inside?” Maddie asked coolly.

“Jackie’s doing it.” He picked up the boy, then stepped back out of the car, not waiting to help Maddie out this time.

Maddie followed them inside her mother’s house, staying long enough to see that Sarah was seated comfortably in her chair and set for the evening.

“Jackie, you be good.” She reached down and kissed the top of his head, then reached to brush a strand of dark hair back on Robby’s forehead as Joe held him in his arms. “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow, Mom. I’m a little tired—think I’ll go down home a while.”

“All right,” Sarah called after her. “Get some rest.”

“I will,” Maddie smiled as she opened the door and made her way across the porch, the thought of her bed or couch becoming irresistible.

The walk to her house was a chilly and damp one, although the temperature was nearly fifty degrees; unusual for this time of year, today having risen to nearly seventy. Her feet were wet by the time she pushed open her door and kicked her sneakers off, immediately heading for her bedroom to replace her damp socks with warm, dry ones. First came off the jacket, blouse and bra followed by her maternity pants. She grabbed her soft white robe and climbed inside it, draping it around her and appreciating its warmth. She carelessly brushed out her hair, letting it fall free around her shoulders, then went back to the living room where she turned on the televison and curled up on the couch. After a few moments she pulled an afghan over herself and settled down to watch a movie with her head lying on a pillow that she had brought home from her store.