'I'm real sorry about Grace,' he said.
'Yes, well. We sorted it out. I mean, if it's okay with you, she can ride Pilgrim when you get back from Wyoming.'
'Sure.'
'Thank you. Robert won't get to see it but, you know, to have got this far and then not—'
'No problem.' He paused. 'Grace told me about you quitting your job.'
'That's one way of putting it.'
'She said you weren't too cut up about it.'
'No. I feel good about it.'
'That's good.'
Annie smiled and swallowed some more wine, hoping to diffuse the silence that now fell between them. She glanced toward the fire and Tom followed her look. Left to himself, Robert was giving the meat his undivided attention. It would be done, Annie knew, to perfection.
'He's a top hand with a steak, that husband of yours.'
'Oh yes. Yes. He enjoys it.'
'He's a great guy.'
'Yes. He is.'
'I was trying to work out who was the luckier.' Annie looked at him. He was still looking at Robert. The sun was full on Tom's face. He looked at her and smiled. 'You for having him, or him for having you.'
They sat and ate, the children at one table and the adults at the other. The sound of their laughter filled the space among the cotton-woods. The sun went down and between the silhouetted trees Annie watched the molten surface of the creek take on the pinks and reds and golds of the dimming sky. When it was dark enough, they lit candles in tall glass sleeves to shield them from a breeze that never came and watched the perilous fluttering of moths above them.
Grace seemed happy again, now that her hopes of riding Pilgrim were restored. After everyone had finished eating, she told Joe to show Robert the match trick and the children gathered around the adults' table to watch.
When the match jumped the first time, everyone roared. Robert was intrigued. He got Joe to do it again, and then again more slowly. He was sitting across the table from Annie, between Diane and Tom. She watched the candlelight dance on his face while he concentrated, scrutinizing every move of Joe's fingers, searching as he always did for the rational solution. Annie found herself hoping, almost praying, that he wouldn't find it or that if he did, he wouldn't let on.
He had a couple of attempts himself and failed. Joe was giving him the whole spiel about static electricity and was doing it well. He was about to get him to put his hand in water to 'boost the charge' when Annie saw Robert smile and knew he had it. Don't spoil it, she said to herself. Please don't spoil it.
'I get it,' he said. 'You flick it with your nail. Is that right? Here, let me have another go.'
He rubbed the match in his hair and drew it slowly up his palm toward the second one. When they touched, the second one jumped away with a crack. The children cheered. Robert grinned, like a boy who'd caught the biggest fish. Joe was trying not to look disappointed.
'Too darn smart these lawyers,' Frank said.
'What about Tom's trick!' Grace called. 'Mom? Have you still got that piece of string?'
'Of course,' Annie said. She'd kept it in her pocket ever since Tom gave it to her. She treasured it. It was the only piece of him she had. Without thinking, she took it out and handed it to Grace. Immediately she regretted it. She had a sudden, fearful premonition, so strong she almost cried out. She knew that if she let him, Robert would demystify this too. And if he did, something precious beyond all reason would be lost.
Grace handed the cord to Joe who told Robert to hold his finger up. Everyone was watching. Except for Tom. He was sitting back a little, watching Annie over the candle. She knew he could read what she was thinking. Joe now had the cord looped over Robert's finger.
'Don't,' Annie said suddenly.
Everyone looked at her, startled to silence by the anxious note in her voice. She felt the heat rising to her cheeks. She smiled desperately, seeking help among the faces in her embarrassment. But the floor was still hers.
'I - I just wanted to figure it out myself first.'
Joe hesitated a moment to see if she was serious. Then he lifted the loop from Robert's finger and handed it back to her. Annie thought she saw in the boy's eyes that he, like Tom, understood. It was Frank who came to the rescue.
'Good for you, Annie,' he said. 'Don't you go showing no lawyers till you've got yourself a contract.'
Everyone laughed, even Robert. Though when their eyes met she could see he was puzzled and perhaps even hurt. Later, when the talk had moved safely on, it was only Tom who saw her quietly coil the cord and slip it back into her pocket.
Chapter Thirty-one
Late Sunday night, Tom did a final check on the horses then came inside to pack. Scott was in his pajamas on the landing getting a final warning from Diane who wasn't buying his story that he couldn't sleep. Their flight was at seven in the morning and the boys had been put to bed hours ago.
'If you don't cut it out, you don't come, okay?'
'You'd leave me here on my own?'
'You betcha.'
'You wouldn't do that.'
'Try me.'
Tom came up the stairs and saw the jumble of clothes and half-filled suitcases. He winked at Diane and steered Scott off to the twins' room without a word. Craig was already asleep and Tom sat on Scott's bed and they whispered about Disneyland and which order they'd do the rides, until the boy's eyelids grew heavy and he slept.
On his way to his own room, Tom walked past Frank and Diane's and she saw him and thanked him and said good-night. Tom packed all he needed for the week, which wasn't much, then tried to read awhile. But he couldn't concentrate.
While he was out with the horses, he'd seen Annie arrive back in the Lariat from taking her husband and Grace to the airport. He walked to the window now and looked up toward the creek house. The yellow blinds of her bedroom were lit and he waited a few moments, hoping he'd see her shadow cross, but it didn't.
He washed, undressed and got into bed and tried reading again with no greater success. He turned off the light and lay on his back with his hands tucked behind his head, picturing her up there in the house all alone, as she would be all week.
He'd have to leave for Sheridan around nine and would go up and say goodbye before he left. He sighed and turned over and forced himself at last into a sleep that brought no peace.
Annie woke around five and lay for a while watching the luminescent yellow of the blinds. The house contained a silence so delicate she felt it might shatter with but the slightest shift of her body. She must then have dozed off, for she woke again at the distant sound of a car and knew it must be the Bookers leaving for their flight. She wondered if he'd got up with them to see them off. He must have. She got out of bed and opened the blinds. But the car had gone and there was no one outside the ranch house.
She went downstairs in her T-shirt and made herself a coffee. She stood cradling the cup in her hands by the living-room window. There was mist along the creek and in the hollows of the valley's far slope beyond. Maybe he was already out with the horses, checking them one more time before he went. She could go for a run and just happen to find him. But then what if he came here to say goodbye, as he'd said he would, when she was out?
She went upstairs and ran herself a bath. Without Grace, the house seemed so empty and its silence oppressive. She found some bearable music on Grace's little radio and lay in the hot water without much hope that it might calm her.
An hour later she was dressed. She'd taken much of that time deciding what to wear, trying one thing then another and in the end getting so cross with herself for being such an idiot that she punished herself by pulling on the same old jeans and T-shirt. What the hell did it matter, for Christsake? He was only coming to say goodbye.