No Dark Valley (61 page)

Madison pointed to her place mat again, where she had scribbled several blue circles next to the dog. “Mommy,” she said.

“How pretty,” Kimberly said. “That must be my ankle.”

“If you'd kept it iced like the doctor said, the bruising would—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about it,” Kimberly said. “And elevated, too. If I'd kept it iced and elevated like a good girl, my boo-boo would all be gone. Thank you, Dr. Healey.”

There was a sudden resonant outburst from the nearby table, like the squawk of a very large woodwind instrument. It must have been the old woman, for she had both hands covering her mouth now, and she was shaking with laughter. It must have been something the baby had done, since the other three were all looking at the little girl and smiling. Kimberly turned around and looked behind her, and the old woman must have noticed.

“Oh, beg your pardon over there,” she called out to Kimberly. “I've gone and disturbed your family. Sorry, honey, me and my big mouth. I just get so tickled at my little grandbaby, I can't help it. But I see you got you a little missy of your own there, so you probably know exactly what I mean. It's been so long since Joe Leonard here was a baby that I keep forgettin' how
comical
little folks can be without even tryin'!” She emitted another reedy honk of laughter.

Bruce noticed that the boy tucked his hands under him and sat forward, his head down. He might look different in a lot of ways from the average teenager nowadays, but he evidently felt the same as every other young person down through the ages when an older relative does something embarrassing in public. The younger woman was busy with the baby's mouth now, wetting a napkin in her glass of water and wiping off what looked like chocolate icing.

But the old woman wasn't stopping. “Aren't babies just the limit when it comes to gettin' their dinner all over theirself? Does yours do that like our Rosemary Jean does?” Without pausing for an answer, she went right on. “I keep tellin' Jewel—that's my daughter here settin' by me—that we oughta carry one of them big tin wash buckets around with us so's we can hose her down every time she puts something in her mouth, or
around
her mouth I should say, seein' as how most of it never makes it inside!”

Her daughter patted the old woman's hand and said something, at which time the others appeared to start getting ready to leave. The boy pushed his chair back, though he still sat on his hands. He was smiling, though, Bruce noticed, even though he was still looking down, so at least he must be able to see the humor in it all. The man helped his wife into her coat and then picked up the baby. Right before standing up, the boy reached for his napkin and wiped his mouth in a careful circle, no doubt worried that his grandmother might start a discourse on the state of his mouth, too. Then he pulled out his grandmother's chair and helped her arrange an enormous cape around her shoulders.

As the family filed by Bruce and Kimberly's table, Bruce took a good look at the baby, who, he was pleased to notice, couldn't hold a candle to Madison in the looks department. The old woman, who was bringing up the rear, stopped by their table and said jovially, “Well, I hope you folks enjoy your supper as much as we did. It's my son-in-law's birthday, you see, and we came here to celebrate, even though Jewel was originally plannin' to make him his favorite meal of pork chops and fried onion rings at home, but Willard said no, no, no, he didn't want her slavin' in the hot kitchen, so he brought us all here, and lo and behold, when they found out it was his birthday, why, they brought out the prettiest little chocolate cake you ever did see for all of us to share at the end, so if you ever have you a birthday, be sure and tell 'em, and you'll get you a good meal and some free birthday cake to boot!”

She glanced up toward the front door. “Oh, Jewel's wavin' me to come on, so I better go so's we can get my grandbaby in bed. Little folks shouldn't be up too late, you know.” She cut her eyes over at Madison, who was staring up at her with the fascination she usually reserved for semitrucks and police cars. “You sure are a pretty little missy,” she said. “Why, you're pretty as a china doll!” And she smiled down at Madison, one quick beam of scary intensity, then turned and moved away slowly.

“Thank you,” Bruce managed to say as she lumbered off. He wondered what kind of ratio that was, his two words to her . . . how many? A hundred? Two hundred? His mind, usually so nimble when it came to imagining what kind of girl an older woman had been in her youth, was absolutely paralyzed. He couldn't begin to come up with even an inkling of an idea. Before tonight he had been so sure he had met every kind of woman there was, but here was one in a league of her own.

The old woman's son-in-law was standing by the door waiting to receive her, a patient smile on his round face.

“She walks kind of like you do these days,” Bruce said to Kimberly. “She's got the waddle down pat—just needs to work a little on the limp.”

“Thank you very much,” Kimberly said. “At least you didn't say she
talks
like me. Then I'd really be mad.” Madison was still staring at the woman's back. It made Bruce think of the time they had gone to a circus in Greenville and Madison had seen a real elephant up close.

All of a sudden the waitress was there again, placing their drinks on the table. She was sixty if she was a day, with hair that was unnaturally black, lips too carefully outlined with red, and dark penciled eyebrows. Along with her black uniform and sheer white frilly apron, she had on a little cap like nurses wore and squeaky rubber-soled shoes. The clothes didn't match the face—she looked like somebody who had come to a costume party as a waitress. One look at her face and Bruce could see this woman had led a hard life.

He glanced back to the door and saw that the old woman was finally exiting. Right before the door swung shut behind her, she looked back into the restaurant and gave a gracious little nod, as if leaving a stage amid wild applause.

Bruce gave his head a single brisk shake. He briefly considered the possibility that the woman could have been putting on. Maybe she liked to act that way to see what kind of response she would get from people. The whole family could be in on it. Well, if that was the case, they had gotten about as much response from him and Kimberly as from a couple of tree stumps. Maybe they were all laughing about it right now in the car on their way home.

He heard Kimberly giving her order to the waitress and tried to turn his attention to the menu. But all he could think of was the old woman. What had she been
wearing
under that cape? Was it something big and purple? Or was he getting her mixed up with the calliope over by the wall? She did have on big red earrings, he remembered that, so surely she hadn't been wearing a purple dress. And her shoes—they had squeaked, hadn't they? Or was he thinking of the waitress's shoes?

Suddenly he sensed a long pause and felt Kimberly nudge his foot under the table. “You'll have to excuse him,” she said to the waitress. “He turned forty today. I think he's having trouble accepting it.”

Well, he wasn't about to let any over-the-hill waitress think he was brooding over turning forty. “I'll take the sirloin,” he said, looking up with a smile. “Medium rare,” he added, and as he started to say, “baked potato with butter and sour cream,” he remembered all of a sudden exactly where he had seen the old woman's son-in-law before.

It was at the library—the Derby Public Library. The man worked there. Maybe he was even the one in charge. Bruce did remember now that the man—Willard, the old lady had called him—had ordered a new collection of children's plays for him two years ago when he first started the after-school drama club at Berea Middle School.

The waitress cleared her throat. “Baked potato, fries, or rice, sir?”

“Yes,” he said.

Kimberly laughed. “Sure, bring him all three. The birthday boy can have whatever he wants.”

“Just kidding,” Bruce said. “I want a baked potato with butter and sour cream.” And then before the waitress could ask, he added, “And honey mustard dressing on my salad. On the side, please.” She gathered up the menus, a little smirk of a smile on her face as she looked Bruce right in the eye, as if to say, “I know your type, sweetheart, all tensed up and preoccupied. I'd sure like to help loosen you up.”

Well, Bruce knew her type, too—he could tell her more about herself than she could. And he knew exactly what she had been like as a girl, too—the kind with a reputation among all the football players. He wondered if she had told her name while he had been daydreaming. No doubt it ended with an
i
—Tawni or Nikki or Brandi. He closed his eyes briefly and scolded himself. He used to be so proud of the fact that he never stereotyped people, especially women.

The waitress left, and Kimberly unwrapped two crackers for Madison. “Hey, you're okay, aren't you, Bruce?” she said slowly. “You're not back into drugs again, are you?” She laughed. She sometimes poked fun at Bruce, but usually kindly, about his new standards of behavior since he'd “turned religious,” as she called it. “You're sure not the wild big brother I used to have,” she had said more than once. She stopped laughing now and grew serious. “No, I mean, really—you're not worried about anything, are you, Bruce?”

“Me? Worried?” He shook his head. “Naah, I'm just hungry is all. It is almost seven, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” She started playing with the cellophane wrapper from the crackers. They both watched Madison for a little while, bent over her place mat and coloring furiously, changing crayons frequently and pausing every now and then to enlighten them as to what she was drawing right on top of all the other already-printed pictures: “Unca Buce,” “titty tat,” “bunny wabbit,” and so forth. Bruce thought it must be a sign of intelligence and creativity that she preferred drawing her own pictures, such as they were, instead of wasting her time coloring somebody else's.

When she pointed to a red squiggle and said, “Dack,” he glanced at Kimberly and they smiled. “Dack” was the jack-o'-lantern Bruce had made for her. It was sad, Bruce thought, that it wasn't until after the jack-o'-lantern that she thought to add “Daddy” to her place mat. He wondered how Matt would like it if he knew he came in after a pumpkin in order of importance in his daughter's life.

As the waitress came back with their salads and a dish of applesauce for Madison, Bruce realized again how they must look—the three of them sitting at the table together like the well-adjusted all-American family: daddy, mommy, baby, and another one on the way. He was suddenly filled with an unspeakable sadness that he was sitting here instead of Matt, that it was Kimberly instead of somebody else who was with him—not that he had any specific names, but just somebody else, somebody who was his wife, not his sister. And Madison, beautiful funny smart little Madison, would always be only his niece, never his own daughter.

He thought back to the family who had left a minute ago. How was it that a tub of a man like Willard whatever-his-name-was could get married and have a kid and look absolutely pleased with life, while he, Bruce Healey, who had always had his pick of girls, was still single and not getting any younger? How had it happened that he had been alive forty whole years already and was living in his sister's basement, eating pathetic meals every night and watching movies on his VCR to make up for the life he didn't have? He looked down at his tossed salad and wondered how he could get through the next couple of hours until bedtime.

“Happy birthday to you; happy birthday to you,” Kimberly started singing before the waitress had even taken two steps away from their table. Madison lifted her head and looked back and forth between Kimberly and him, a yellow crayon poised in midair. “Happy birthday, dear Brucie; happy birthday to you!” Kimberly finished.

Madison dropped the crayon and clapped her hands. “Birfday!” she said.

Bruce looked at his sister's bright face. He saw Madison's dark eyes sparkling and thought of the hymn they had sung at church on Promotion Sunday back in September when all the children came forward and stood up front to be officially assigned to their new Sunday school classes. “When he cometh, when he cometh to make up his jewels,” the song started. “All his jewels, precious jewels, his loved and his own.” Jewel—wasn't that what the old woman had called her daughter? What a nice name for a woman.

They hadn't sung the song before, nor since, but it had stuck with Bruce. Little children—it would be hard to think of them as “precious jewels” if you only mingled with middle schoolers all day every day. But he had Madison to remind him of how they started out—sweet and innocent and trusting. So full of awe at anything new, which was almost everything. Soaking up your love like little sponges, then pouring it back to you so generously. Madison was smiling at him now, laughing actually, her little white teeth all lined up like beads on a bracelet.

Okay, you can do this, Bruce told himself. You can rise above yourself and act happy for their sake. He smiled and bobbed his head several times, as if to a whole roomful of well-wishers. “You're really wanting to make sure they bring us one of those free cakes, aren't you?” he said to Kimberly.

The waitress heard him, for she said, “I've already told 'em in the back we got another birthday.” She jerked her head in the direction of the table where the old woman and her family had sat. “People over
there
had one, too.” She gave a little sigh, as if the people over there had worn her out.

Though he wasn't sure why he asked it, Bruce said, “Do you know how old the guy was?”

The waitress narrowed her eyes and appeared to be thinking hard. “Nope,” she said, shaking her head, “but I'd say several years older than you, for sure.” She raised her dark eyebrows and winked at him before leaving again.