Margaret forced herself to stop. She moved a step sideways, and without speaking gave her student a clear path to his car.
Faith .
Carl seemed to be mulling the word over, though probably not for the first time. This was the moment he must have known was coming. It was time to decide what faith was, what he really believed.
He only nodded and walked across the common, fumbling in his jeans’ pockets for his car keys.
* * *
Connor bit down joyfully on the teething ring, never taking his eyes off his mother. Holly knelt before the baby’s walker, watching his toes bounce up and down, barely reaching the carpet. She could tell he was aching to walk. From the steady stream of drool down his chin it wouldn't be long before the first signs of teeth emerged, too. Then what, she wondered? She would have to wean him off breast milk and onto the bottle. Clay would be the first to agree with that. For some reason, the sight of her nursing irritated him. He'd made her buy infant formula last week, but she hadn’t used it. He didn’t press the point, but it was only a matter of time.
Connor was always, it seemed, a sore spot between them. Clay was distant with the baby, never taking much more than a passing interest in him. Connor often reached up for him as he passed, only to lower his arms in disappointment. Though he had never said as much, Clay assumed the baby wasn't his. Whenever someone commented that Connor looked like his father, Clay grunted a half-hearted acknowledgement and changed the subject. He assumed, as she did, that the child was Brad's. Brad versus Clay, a decision Holly had been forced to make when she learned she was pregnant. At the time, Brad was moving to the Midwest for six months of basic training in the Air Force, and she was afraid to leave Clay, let alone for having gotten pregnant off a one-night fling with a football jock.
She wondered what would have happened if she had confronted Brad with her pregnancy, if he'd have taken her to Oklahoma with him. She wondered that often. She’d never know. Besides, Connor might be Clay's son. Anything was possible. But she didn't believe it, and neither did he, though he never mentioned the other man. Denial was one of the few things Clayton Griffin was good at. So Holly stayed. She had a home, and a boyfriend. Not a husband. It seemed likely that Clay would drag his feet on that matter until the end of time. As long as some doubt remained, he was satisfied with their common-law arrangement. After all, he'd argue, in California you didn't need to make anything “official”. Wait long enough and it happened automatically.
Wait long enough, and you can see if your son looks like you or that guy who used to work at the Ready Gas.
“Play time's over.” Clay was standing behind the walker at the entrance to the kitchen. “The least that baby sitter of yours can do is get supper going before she leaves, since all you ever do when we get home is play googly-eyes with him.”
Holly offered her son a quick smile, as if to say it's okay; Mommy and Daddy are just talking. She looked up. “We pay Dot half of what a day care charges and she doesn't complain. The last thing I'd ask a friend to do is cook for me.”
“Well, then, get moving.” Having said his piece, Clay turned towards the kitchen. Then he paused. His eyes scanned back and forth along the floor as if trying to remember something. Holly’s mouth went dry, but she forced herself to swallow. There was more he was going to say, and when he hesitated like that, it meant the subject was one he'd been thinking about for a while. Holly didn't like it when Clay thought too much.
“What?” she asked quietly, wanting to get it over with. “What's wrong?”
He looked at her sideways, and she was grateful that she was currently out of swinging distance. “You've been talking to the Jesus freaks again.”
She shrugged, hoping to let forced nonchalance mask her apprehension. “Well,” she said, “I guess so.” Then added quickly, “But just for taking orders and stuff. Nothing personal.”
He turned back to face her, filling the entrance to the kitchen. “You trying to tell me they're not asking you to join them?”
“No, just buying stuff.” As soon as she'd said it, she felt heat flush along her neck and saw the change in his expression. She'd blown it.
He took a step towards her. “Lizzie said she heard you talking with that guy from Soledad, the one who's too chicken to use the store in his own town. Said you were asking him questions, not the other way around.”
Holly fought the urge to stand, move away from Connor in case Clay got rough. She stayed put, not wanting to look defiant. “Well, I don't know. It's all kind of weird. I might have asked him some stuff, but I always talk to the customers.”
Two more steps. He loomed over the two of them. His face was red. When he spoke, it was with control that looked out of place on him. Maybe the baby-walker in his path was the cause. She instinctively put a hand to its food tray. The baby reached for her fingers.
“You,” Clay began, “will not talk to those people. You will not talk to them.”
Slowly, carefully, Holly stood up and moved sideways a half step away from Connor. She heard his teething ring fall to the tray with a thud but kept her eyes on the man in front of her.
“Do you believe any of what they're saying?” she asked softly, the voice she used in pre-explosion moments like this. “Isn't it kind of weird there's so many people saying it? Maybe they're not crazy. Maybe -”
“Maybe they're not crazy,” he repeated in a child's taunting manner. Bad sign, she thought. “Maybe, maybe, maybe. You telling me you've had dreams like them, too?”
She shook her head. “Oh, God, no. Not at all.”
“Oh, God no,” again in that voice. “Maybe they're not crazy, but God no, not me. I'm not crazy!”
“Clay, don't - “
He stepped forward until there was only an inch between their faces. “It's a fake. It's all a fake. I know one hundred percent that it is, and you just listen to what I say and do what I say.”
Holly could tell Clay was clenching and unclenching his fists. She felt her muscles tighten, preparing for the inevitable. The baby bobbed up and down in the walker, trying to navigate closer to his mother.
He continued, “Don't be thinking too much about all this, and don't be asking stupid questions. I'll know. I'll know and you know what will happen then, especially if you think you can just saunter over to some psycho town like Greenfield or Lavish and shave your head and chant at the airport selling flowers!”
He wasn't making sense, but neither was he calming down. “I won't, Clay. I promise.”
“Because if you try to leave now, leave me with this kid, or even take him with you, I'll find you and - “
He stopped. Eyes darting back and forth. His words, if you try to leave now, played over in her head. It was a strange way to say it.
“I won't. I promise. I was just curious.”
“Yeah, well, curiosity... well, and all that. Don’t forget I’m your boss, too. If I have to fire you, I will.”
She held her palms up before him. “Clay, please. I already said I won’t. We need both incomes; you know that.”
Her spoken acknowledgement of his power over her, even if most was in his own half-hearted self-ego, released some of the fury he'd been building. He sighed, a lengthy dry expiration that offered hope. Holly dared not relax. Not yet.
“You just remember that. No one in this house is going to be chasing angels around in public. I mean it.” His voice was quieter, the calm after a storm passing overhead but not quite breaking.