A recent law-school graduate conceals his identity and rents a room in the back of a young college professor’s house to uncover and thwart her intentions to break up his family.
Bill had made up his mind to tell her tonight who his uncle was, but he had some things he needed to say first—because afterwards she wouldn’t be listening. He picked up his glass and swirled the amber liquid around in the ice. “I didn’t tell you how my dad died. He was in the Army and was killed in a routine drill on the base, by a rifle that was not supposed to be loaded.”
He watched her expression for any indication this sounded familiar to her, but all he saw was compassion.
“After the funeral, my mom didn’t get up for days. My uncle kept telling me she was brokenhearted. That my dad got hurt bad and had gone to a better place where people go when they’re hurt bad. When you’re a five-year-old kid, you take things like that literally. And it looked to me like my mom, with her broken heart, was hurt pretty bad, and I was terrified that she was going to that better place, too. One day, I woke up, and she’s standing in the bathroom brushing her hair and putting on lipstick, and I swear to God, I just bawled. She hugged me and said she was never going to leave me again.”
“But she did,” Nora said.
Bill took a drink of his scotch. “You know what rubber dust is?” he asked.
She lifted her shoulders.
“Comes off tires. It builds up on the roads during dry spells. When it rains, the rubber dust mixes with oil and turns into a slick paste. After a good downpour, the roads are washed clean, but during that first light rain, when the road’s just barely wet, that’s when it’ll get you. You don’t even think about it—it’s just a few drops of water.” He took another drink of his scotch. “It had just started to rain when Mom had to go back to work, six blocks away, to pick something up. She was three blocks from home when a pickup slid through a red light. Hit her broadside.”
Nora squeezed her eyes closed. He felt the scotch enter his bloodstream, relaxing his limbs and numbing the familiar pain. The singer of the band blew into the microphone and muttered a greeting to his sparse audience.
“My uncle was on his honeymoon in Europe. But he came right home. Took care of everything and took me home with them.” He paused, took another drink. “He saved my life.”
“And you’re grateful, of course.”
“Yes, ma’am, and I would do just about anything to keep from losing him.”
“Understandable,” she said.
He looked her straight in the eyes, her lovely, trusting, jade-green eyes. And he wondered just how understanding she was going to be when he told her what he had done. To her.
“It changes you—that much loss,” he went on. “You get cautious. Maybe a little… obsessive. You don’t expect people to stop at red lights, you never assume the gun’s not loaded, and you sure as hell don’t believe things work out if you just let them be.”
“Tough way to live.”
“I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me, I just want you to understand where my head was when I showed up on your porch a month ago.” Behind them, the band had finished warming up and launched into the opening chords of Always on My Mind.
“But you can’t be at all the red lights, Bill. You can’t keep everyone safe.”
“Doesn’t stop me from trying,” he said and leaned forward, rested his arms on the table. She put her hand on his arm, and that’s when he knew he wasn’t going to tell her who his uncle was. He took her hand. “Let’s dance.”
Janet Wheaton 