34.

I get off the helo and the Hummer’s there, right? And out steps Big Man, grinning from ear to ear.

So I go, “Dude! You’re on vacation!”

And he goes, “How am I supposed to enjoy bein’ on vacation when all hell’s broke loose over here?”

We hugged like we hadn’t seen each other since the turn of the century or something. And then he shoved me upside the head.

“Lil mannish boy--knew I shouldna gone in the first place,” he told me.

“I bet your mama’s pissed, in’ she?”

“Oh, I wouldn’ get too close to her New Year’s Eve, me, that’s for sure,” he said, as he walked around to open the car door for me. “But it was too quiet over home for me. All them old biddies sittin’ around talkin’ about the same thing all day long. What hurts, who died…”

I laughed because I had met his mother, aunts and their friends a couple of times. They were old black women who’d seen it all, been through the whole migration and then some. You walked in the door and they all gave you the stink eye for a minute, trying to decide what they needed to set you straight about physically even before you introduced yourself.

“Y’all out early today,” one of them said to my girls. “I din’ think y’all started walkin’ up’n’ down ‘til ‘way late at night—don’t they look like them girls be out there on the corner in them lil bitty skirts?”

Oooooo boy, you can bet I had to cover Aisha’s mouth, because she got that chicken head thing goin’ right quick—and I didn’t get there fast enough to stop her before she hit ‘em with:

“Who the hell this Crypt Keeper lookin’ bitch think she talkin’ to!?”

But I do believe that toned things down a bit. The next few comments were about how “stacked” they were. And Aisha’s “Indian lookin’ hair.” Aisha never did forgive them that first comment, though. She’ll tell Big Man in a minute that she “din appreciate none o’ that shit they was tryin’a put on us.”

And Big Man said the old ladies told everyone they backed off “’cause that Indian lookin’ one mighta went to cuttin’ people” if they hadn’t. Which…was…sort of true. I don’t know about cutting, but Aisha’ll slap a bitch, that’s for sure. Not a real old one, of course, but they didn’t know that.

And of course, all the men were down with the girls big time. Hell, we had damned near every man in the neighborhood cruisin’ by that house day and night, hoping the see a leg or a tit falling out of something. Their wives brought that on themselves, saying how they didn’t hardly wear any clothes. A man’s naturally going to have to go check that out, right?

Big Man looked more rested than he probably wanted to let on he was, though. They spoil him, those women. All he has to do is get up and sit down at the table. Food just flies out of the kitchen and onto the table and his plate. And if he yawns, they damned near carry him over to the old easy chair his dad used to use and tell him to just sit down and rest, “’cause you works yourself half to death for that boy!”

But “that boy” was glad he was back.

“I wanna sit up front with you,” I told him.

But he shoved me, opened the car door and said, “Git your ass in the car, man! I don’t have time for this foolishness!”

I laughed and slid in, and he slammed the door and got right behind the wheel.

And as he pulled off, he said, “Where to right now?”

“I gotta go get my kids, man. I gotta hold my kids—I’m dyin’ here.”

“You ain’t even been home yet! Girls say you haven’t even been shopping—what’d you get for the babies? Anything?”

“Because we don’t have enough stuff,” I said. Being sarcastic, okay? I wasn’t serious.

He laughed and looked back.

“What’s them big old circles under your eyes, playa? New girl got you open all hours, huh?”

“Yeah, and that’s the only thing on my mind these days, too.”

He chuckled again.

“Don’t be cracking wise with me. She’d be the only thing on my mind. She looks ten years younger since last I saw her—you need to bottle some o’ that stuff.”

“Eeeuw.”

That made him laugh. And then he looked at me via the rear view and said, “Why don’t you go on home and get some rest first? The kids’ll be all over you for the next coupla weeks.”

“I’m counting on it. That’s what we should bottle. That’s my fountain of youth right there.”

“Yeah, I missed those little monsters,” he said. “I never liked kids much, but I guess seeing how hard they fought to stay here with us sorta got to me.”

I just smiled. I knew that. I loved him for hanging in there with me the whole time right after they were torn. He’d check on me in the intensive care unit all day long. Shoved sandwiches and milk shakes and Blizzards under my nose regularly—I love me some DQ.

So that’s how he got me to eat, by just handing me things he knew I wouldn’t set aside. Things I could hold with one hand, usually—you have to spoon up a Blizzard, but that was his way of giving me some kick back time.

I also had to sit up to eat it—that was the other ulterior motive. He kept telling me I was going to be a hunchback by the time they got out of there, from leaning down to stick my arm in those incubators and pet them all the time. My ice cream breaks were therapeutic. Try that on your doctor the next time you get yelled at about your diet.

Anyway, on the way to Bonnie’s we shot the breeze about his mom and what they’d done back there in Sweet Home.

“I bet I gained about fitty pounds,” he said. “All them rib joints and, oooo we found this place that had that Jamaican jerk chicken fallin’ off the bone.”

“Could you stop? You’re makin’ me hungry, man! That’s what I loved about Chicago. That and…well…everything…”

“That’s my boy!”

It was true, though. I loved Chicago better than maybe any city I’d ever been to—even on my world tour with JJ, I never felt so happy as I did there. I’m all about the people, not the architecture and…whatever you’re supposed to judge a city by. I like greasy spoons and pick-up basketball games in the park, stuff like that.

When we went home with Big Man a couple of times, it helped me understand about really old, damned near historic neighborhoods. That thing the big cities back East have where you say the name of it and the whole world sort of knows what it’s famous for. Good and bad.

He grew up in an area that’s dangerous now. People get shot sitting in their living rooms, even. Bullets go through the walls or a window. You don’t even have to be out running the streets to die young there.

But when he was coming up, it wasn’t like that. Even when I was there, it had a black Misterrogers neighborhood vibe. Sort of place where neighbors were like family and the kids all ran in and out of each other’s houses and back yards every day.

He said wherever he was at dinner time is where he ate. People expected that. If he said he had to go home, they’d start trying to tempt him with whatever was on the stove, the ladies. Very competitive—I heard it. Someone’d say, “Ooooo, your boy sure loved that gumbo I made other night.”

And you could see the boy’s mother’s eyes get all squinty. Like she was trying to think of a good come back.

Families were so tight that he got “whuppin’s” from all the adults on his block, too. And then the one that whupped them first would tell his folks what he did and his folks would give him another whupping.

Big Man’s mother liked green “switches.” That’s a new branch off of a tree that feels like a whip. He said his mother would say, “Go get me a switch off that tree over there!” And you had to go do it or she’d pick one that would eat you up.

And you didn’t hear those kids talking about calling CPS or anything, either. First of all, because they didn’t wanna die that young. But also, I guess it was just part of the culture and they didn’t know it was different for other kids.

I got beat with fists and chairs and brooms and whatever else my mother’s men could lay hands on, so I’ll never touch my kids that way. But I’m not as quick to condemn Big Man’s people as some would be. He doesn’t seem messed up in any way to me.

The ones whose parents never raised a hand are the ones that wound up in the most trouble, seems like. So that confuses me, to be honest. It’s sort of a mystery to me, how that stuff works. I just know I can’t hit my kids.

And I know nobody should hit a kid hard enough to leave a mark or break something. A slap on the butt…I can see that. That might even happen with me. To get their attention when they’re, like, about to run out into traffic or something—or just did. Otherwise…I don’t think so.

But all his friends were people I would’ve hung out with, too, if I’d lived there. Real down dudes who’d done well in life, considering the circumstances. They all had jobs. Only two had been to jail at all. One was in prison, but he was one of the ones I just talked about. No father, and a mother who was gone most of the time, too.

And every single weekend there were barbecues and folks invited you to dinner or brought plates for the whole house. Or we’d run around to all the rib joints he was talking about and come back and sit on the porch or patio or whatever, getting all greasy and gabbin’ about the day.

You bought enough for anybody else who might stop by—communal, you know? Partly because they’d all had it so hard when they first came up from the South. If you ate, you made sure your friends ate, too.

But in Chicago even the white folks are like that. The young ones, too—I was surprised by that. He had these white friends who had roof parties during Cubs season. They made the roof look like a patio or something, and they’d grill and feed all their friends up there with the stadium lit up in the back ground. You couldn’t see the game, but sometimes you could hear the crowd roar and that made you feel like you were there almost.

And they had bars where it was like that “everybody knows your name” song from Cheers. Seemed like the whole neighborhood was always going in and out of them—especially on game nights. And they argued and joked and clowned around like it was their living room or something.

I’m not saying they don’t have these things out where I’m from, but it’s more transient in Tucson. You make a few friends and they move a few months later. People are always coming and going.

I think the whole Southwest is weird like that. A lot of people move there to be on their own more. To get away from the “tribe.” It’s getting harder to do that now, because it’s getting all built up and there’s not as much room as there was. But the first few waves, that’s what they were about. Forty acres and ‘way more than a mule. Open land as far as you could see. And sky going on above it forever, too. Nothing to get in the way but birds. The occasional man made flying thing.

So having Aisha with me all those years was unusual in a way. Not so much for barrio and ghetto people, though, I admit. I mean, there are neighborhoods, but…I don’t know. It’s just different--a tumbleweed world.

Sometimes a whole town’ll just…die. A lot of them spring up based on a particular thing like oil or a copper mine or coal or even a new prison or something. Something that can run out or get shut down. So you settle down a while and then roll on to somewhere else when the time runs out. Rinse, repeat.

But here’s the thing--I sort of like it. You have to be resourceful and you have to be flexible. You can’t pick and choose even your friends freely all the time. You take what comes, and make the best of it while it lasts. And sometimes it surprises you, what you find that way. Stuff you would’ve missed if you’d been left to make the choice.

That’s how come I know so many colorful characters. All kinds of wild thangs have passed through my life. One of ‘em was JJ, so of course, I’m partial to that process.

And the thing is, the world is changing in general now. We’re gonna need to know how to bob and weave real good from here on. We’re champs, out here. Hell, we ride fuckin’ bulls out here. Nuff said.

Poor Bonnie wasn’t bobbing or weaving or anything else all that well, by the look of it, though. She was all…beige. Like all the color had washed out of her body. She had on these old sweats and a t-shirt so faded I couldn’t make out the logo on the front, and she just said, “Hey,” real soft and let us in. No conversation, no spark. Just “Hey,” and a few steps back to let us pass.

Even the apartment looked sad. She’d snatched down all the Christmas decorations. I mean literally, she’d yanked them down—Kelli told me that, the day after it happened. She walked into the apartment, saw the twinkly stuff and just started tearing it down and then tearing it up and throwing it all over the rooms.

“That’s what I think o’ all this shit now!” she told Kelli. And then she stomped off into her room and stayed there a couple of days. She would hold the babies but she wouldn’t talk to or do anything with anyone else.

She wouldn’t let Kelli clean any of it up, either. So there were strands of lights just hanging down from the hooks she used to string them around the walls and the fake tree was sort of bent to one side with a few ornaments, broken candy canes and silver garlands clinging to it.

And the bits and pieces of what she’d torn down were scattered all over the floor or lying on top of tables and whatnot where she threw them. It looked like a tornado had gone through the house. Or like Santa’s elves had thrown themselves a serious hissy fit, maybe—silly thought like that ran through my mind for a second. But mostly, it looked like she’d felt that night.

Scared me so bad I went over and just grabbed her and hugged her and held on for a while. And after a minute or so, I felt her fingers grab onto my shirt. And she started to cry real hard, which was fine with me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Do whatever you feel like doin’, Bonnie,” I told her. And I rubbed her back and she looked up and touched my cheek.

And right then, Kelli came out. She’d been our lifeline while Bonnie wasn’t ready to talk hardly at all. And she looked tired, too. Sort of tiny and stoop shouldered.

So I went over and hugged her, too. And said, “Bet you’re glad to see me, huh? Little break for you both.”

She smiled and said, “They will be glad to see you!”

That was good to hear. I’d had to lay low for a few days, and it was eating at me inside. So I trotted back to the big bedroom we’d made out of two bedrooms for their nursery. They were surrounded by this pet fence thing we found, because they don’t even make playpens anymore for babies.

And Tyler pulled himself up, sticking his hands in the little holes in the “walls” of the thing. And said, for the first time that I knew of, “Dada-dada-dada,” over and over, with this big smile on his face.

I fell to my knees, I swear to God. Right in front of him. And I kissed him through one of the holes and then Taylor came over and wanted a kiss, too and got one. I couldn’t get them into my arms fast enough, so I just put my hands through two of the holes and sort of crushed them up against the little walls of the fence—not hard. I didn’t want to scare or hurt them, obviously.

And Kelli came in and saw me all smashed up against the pen and said, “O-kay! I’ll just…go get their things in the car.”

And I climbed in there with the kids and just did whatever they wanted to do. Soaking them up through my pores, almost. Just immersed in them, entirely.

I love just feeling those little fingers poking me—they want to touch all over your face and put their fingers in your mouth and up your nose even. I “bit” their fingers to hear them squeal. And then I laid on the blankets on the floor and hoisted them up in the air and did all kinds of crazy things with them up there to make them laugh.

“You are their favorite ride,” Kelli told me.

“Yeah, they think I’m the craziest thing ever,” I told her.

And I sat up and just watched them for a minute. They were getting bigger and a lot stronger. They could pull themselves up if you let them hang onto your hand or even just a finger. Tyler was slower about that, but Taylor was definitely ready to walk. I hoped if she started it’d be over the holidays so I could see.

I climbed out and started loading them into the Snuglis I sling around me to keep them right up against my body. I use two—you sling them over both shoulders and the kids hang down there right against you—we have a “Weego,” too, that has two really padded pockets you can use. Problem being that they can’t stick their legs out of that one. And they were at that age where they wanted to kick around a lot. Exercising those muscles for all the walking to come.

And as soon as I’d gotten them in the thing, Big Man came and took them out of it, so he could carry them around a while. He looks like one of those gigantic Buddhas with the little bitty babies crawling all over him when he does that. And the kids climb him like a mountain, too. They can feel how big and solid he is, so they just start grabbing onto things and moving all around—it’s hilarious.

I went into Bonnie’s room while he was goofing off with them. She looked up and let out a stream of cigarette smoke as if to let me know she wasn’t going to hear anything I had to say about smoking around the babies that day.

“I’ve been worried about you,” I told her. I sat down next to her and looked into those dead eyes.

“I just…I couldn’t face it all anymore,” she said. She had that same stare that Wyatt got sometimes. Only for Bonnie I was afraid it was going to be permanent.

“I know,” I said. And I started stroking her back. To comfort her or wake her up…whatever.

“So tell me about this…shit they’re slingin’ at you,” she said. I noticed that the skin on her face was sort of sagging. She’s always looked real young but she looked older than she really was now. Like she was melting.

And she asked, “Well, you know they come by here askin’ me all kinda stupid questions, right?”

“Cops?”

“No, that…case worker woman. I told ‘em there was a whole lotta crack heads and crack hos in this neighborhood still had their kids. Drug dealers and…who knows what all—they don’t come’n’ start diggin’ in their dirty laundry!”

“Go Bonnie!”

I kissed her on the cheek, but she wasn’t feeling me. She was scared. I could tell.

So I said, “Look, whatever happens, they’ll be cared for. So will you.”

Her chin started to quiver. Which was the end for me, man. As you well know. But then she grabbed both my hands and tore me up worse.

“I lost my baby girl’n’ now they’re after the closest thing to a son I ever had!” she said. And her whole soul was talking to me that time. Her eyes were so wide open I just sort of fell into the depths with her. And it was really scary down there.

So I hugged her and held her there again. To keep her sad soul from swallowing us both up.

“I don’t say I was the best mother in the world—far from it,” she said.

And then she pulled back to look me in the eyes and say, “But I loved ‘er. Didn’t she know that I loved her?”

“Bonnie, you get hooked on that mess and it’s like…the dope’s your mother. And father and sister and brother and lover--what it says goes.”

She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. And then she reached over and got this blue file folder that looked like it’d gotten wet a couple of times. It was all ripply on one side, and on the flap it said: SCHOOL PITURES, written in crayon.

She opened it to the first “piture” and I felt like somebody had shot cold water in my veins. It was a tiny little girl, a kindergarten picture—Maddie, with damned near white hair, the biggest blue eyes I ever saw and a grin that made you laugh and feel as happy as she must’ve that day. Her first school “piture.” And she looked like a little angel baby.

Bonnie turned that one over and then the next and then the next. It went all the way to about 10th grade and you could see all these details that told me things I loved and other things I wished I hadn’t noticed. The hope went out of the eyes around 7th grade. The smile was like the photographer had told her to say one of those things they tell you to say to get your mouth to at least look like it’s smiling.

And she was already wearing a lot of makeup in 8th grade. Freshman year of high school, she had all these highlights she put in herself that didn’t look natural at all. And there was something panicky in the eyes. Like…someone she didn’t like or was afraid of was staring at her off camera somewhere.

Sophomore year was okay. More natural. But…dull. Like she’d given in. Given up. Sat down, sighed and got it over with. She was beautiful in all of them. That face the camera loved so much—killer lips. Full on the bottom, shapely at the top. With the peak and all—the kids had her mouth. I was glad.

I wasn’t glad Bonnie had kept this by her bed. Because I knew it was the kind of thing parents do at times like this. And you look at a picture of a real young version of whoever died or did you wrong…it eats you up. That baby there, the kindergarten one, she was full of all kinds of promise and hope.

And of course you want all of it to happen for her, for her to fulfill all that and some. You look at those little faces when they’re tiny and you want God to promise you nothing bad will ever touch them. That they’ll smile like that ‘til they day they die. Die smiling, for that matter. Like BJ.

Bonnie shut the folder and shrugged. Her daughter died calling for her. And me. And knowing how bad she’d fucked up at that last minute. What a fucking nightmare that had to be for a mother. I took hold of her wrist and held it. Like…if I didn’t she’d slip away somewhere. Get totally lost in all that anger and grief.

“To me it feels like I didn’t show her I cared or…I didn’t teach her to care about herself. A girl doesn’t do the things she did if she loves herself. Allat…strippin’ and porn shit she got into—I know it was them men turnt her head when she was young. My men, I mean. There was too many around all the time—I know that. I was young’n’ stupid myself. And lookin’ for comfort—that was my drug. But I shoulda protected her better. I shoulda showed ‘er how to act as a woman. Kids do what you do. And I didn’t do nothin’ but what I wanted to do. I didn’t think about what it would do to her.”

I couldn’t let her get away with that. Even if it was partly true.

So I said, “Look, Bonnie, there’s kids living in houses without parents at all. Kids get molested by their own parents, kids that get beat up by their own parents, turned out by their own parents, and they go on to be, like…CEOS and lawyers and doctors and writers. You can’t put all that on yourself.”

She started to tremble and the tears came again.

And she said, “Well, she’s gone! So somethin’ was wrong!”

“I think…we come here with an expiration date already on us,” I told her. “And some important thing we’re meant to do, even if it’s just this wee little thing, you know? Something the world hardly even notices but it matters ‘way more than anyone can tell at first. She brought those babies into the world—maybe one o’ them’ll do something big. Something real important. And she had some fine times, too. Lived the high life for a good while. And then it was time to go. Just was. You couldna stopped it, I couldna stopped it…”

“You believe that?” she asked me. Like if I did she might.

“I do. I really do. I knew people whose dying changed us all in some big way. That sounds pretty messed up, I know, being born to die for other people—“

“Jesus did it.”

“Well, I’m not a big believer or anything but yeah. You could look at it that way.”

“I don’t believe in nothin’ now,” she admitted, heaving this big sigh. “Except to keep on breathin’. Keep on…puttin’ one foot in front of the other ‘til you can’t. That’s all I’m doin’.”

I hugged her to me again and said, “You come on with us for Christmas. That CPS bitch can get all mad if she wants. You can kick back out on the ranch--you love horses, right? You got ‘em all over the house, those little figurines and whatnot.”

She let go of me and wiped at her eyes. She was smiling finally. Relieved, it felt like.

“I love horses from a distance,” she said, sort of laughing. “Mean, I love the little knick knacks on my mantelpiece an’ all, but I ain’t never rode no horses.”

“Don’t have to ride ‘em. Some just like you to pet them.”

She nodded like she was thinking about something. And said, “You know, that uncle o’ yours, he was a big deal. Google’d ‘im one time.”

I liked that she was trying so hard to change the subject.

So I said, “Oh, you did, did you?”

“That’s a big place he had, too. Where was he when you all was out there on the streets?”

She walked over to her dresser and got a couple of tissues. Dabbed at her face.

And I said, “He didn’t even know us, Tuff. He left home when he was 14 and never looked back, really. I only found out about all he’d done from one of his kids, when they were about to lose the land and all. Said he’d mentioned we were related. I don’t know why he never got in touch, though. I think maybe he just didn’t wanna be reminded. Of the family, I mean.”

It was my Uncle Tuff she was talking about. And that’s his real name: Tuff James. Rodeo star, stock contractor. Probably the only person in our family who ever amounted to much back in the day. He was in the Rodeo Hall Of Fame somewhere and he’d had a truly remarkable life.

But he’d rattled his brain around so much bucking broncs and bulls that he sustained the same injuries boxers and football players get. So he started to get trembly and forgetful. They said he started to shuffle when he walked, even.

So as the medical bills and other bills piled up, his kids had to give up on the ranch. And they couldn’t seem to sell it for what it was really worth.

I mean, it was almost 9000 beautiful acres, but it was ‘way out in the middle of nowhere and mostly raw land that hadn’t had anything done to it. Which I commend him for. He thought like me. He was saving the land a few acres at a time—that’s how he bought it. He’d win a few championships and come back and buy a little more. Then he’d win a few more and buy a little more. His aim was to have that 10000 before he died. So I did that for him.

But while he was alive, there were just a couple of little ugly houses. And a maze of little wheel rut roads that turned into wet clay during monsoon season and damned near sucked the shoes or wheels off everything that tried to go down them. Gets really sloppy up there—it’s north of the Mogollon rim, where they actually have seasons. So come winter they were damned near marooned for a few months.

We put in solar and wind power, serious indoor plumbing, paved roads and guest houses and some guard stations and whatnot. Better fencing. Some serious stables—climate controlled. A barn to match, for the rodeo steers—we breed horses and cattle now. That’s where the money is. Stick o’ good sperm’s like gold in that world—sounds crazy, but that’s the truth. And we’ve got a few champions, so we get top dollar.

It’s the business he always wanted it to be, that’s the main thing. He had the right idea. He just didn’t have the money or the man power to make it work before he got so messed up.

I also gave some of it to the Mexicans who had lived and worked on it forever. The Cortez and Gutierrez families went back to even before the ranch—before Arizona was a state, even. And I gave Tuff credit for letting them stay on. It was their whole world, that land.

I mean, they were almost like a tribe, actually. A bunch of families, all related, living in all these old houses ‘way out away from the main part of the ranch. They had their own world and all these old traditions.

Like when we got there Christmas morning, they would have literally killed that fatted calf for us and for all the other families. The men throw all this meat in the ground or on their big old oil drum smokers. And the women make enough tamales to feed half of Mexico and decorate the place with all kinds of Christmas stuff they’ve been making and putting up the same way since time began, nearly.

About 20 years ago they’d turned a whole box car into a place to butcher, dry, smoke and barbecue meat. Sold it, now, the stuff they made, from sausages to whole slabs and briskets and all that. Some of the younger ones had food trucks that went to all the fairs and pow wows and rodeos and whatnot.

And we let them use the ranch name, too—Howlin’ Wolf, Tuff named it. After that blues dude. The brand for his ranch is a howling wolf. No kidding. Cool as all hell. He was a cool guy, by all accounts. Fearless and loud and funny.

They said when his dementia was really kicking in he would stand up all of a sudden and then he’d look all lost. And when you asked him what he got up for, he would laugh and say, “Damned if I know!”

If I have to go that way, and many in my family did, I hope I have a sense of humor about it, too.

To answer Bonnie’s question, I said, “Well, he lit outta Marana after his father stole all the money he’d earned rodeoing one summer. Took it and went on a bender of epic proportions, they say. Wound up crashed in a big ditch somewhere—he’d bought some kinda old beater, too, and smashed it to pieces when ‘e went off the road.”

“Oh, Lord,” Bonnie said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, well, to me it just sounded like he saw how his life would be if he hung around. And ‘e was smart enough to know if ‘e ever went back there’d be all these no account hillbillies with their palms stuck out, wanting money from ‘im. So see, it’s like I told you. Tuff’s daddy’s job was to show ‘im what a damned fool a man could be. And Tuff ran off to keep from following in his footsteps.”

 “Well, your ship come in,” Bonnie said. “Daddy or no—you go back ever? To Marana?”

“Well, you know, there’s nobody up there anymore. The ones that cleared out just disappeared like Tuff did. We never did hear from them again. And the old people died. Never got all that old, actually. Drank themselves to death, a lot of ‘em. Liver problems, kidney problems…”

“So it all goes to my babies, then,” she said. Her eyes shined when she said that.

“Every penny.”

She lit up another cigarette because the other one had burned down to the filter. But it gave her a coughing fit, so I slapped her on the back just sort of to make her maybe laugh herself out of it.

And she said, “I guess you’re lovin’ this, huh?”

And then she gave my face another pat and said, “Yeah, I need to quit these cancer sticks--lemme pack now. Can you swing by on your way up?”

I laughed and kissed her cheek.

“Take your time! We’ll get you when you’re ready.”

“Well, I want to go,” Kelli said from the doorway.

“Well go pack, then! Jeez!” I said. But she knew I was just teasing.

And when I got back in the nursery, Big Man was laying in the middle of that pet thing, laughing, bobbing the babies up and down, one riding on each shin. The babies, of course, were squealing like happy little pigs.

I swear, that is a picture I’ll carry to the grave with me, in my mind. That big man playing with those little bitty kids in the middle of that pen of theirs.

But I also got this horrible pain, deep down, as I watched and realized the danger they were in. It damned near doubled me over. But I put on some kind of smile and went over there to rescue Big Man. Who swatted me away, right?

“You play with ‘em all the time,” he said.

“Yeah, but I hadda lay off a few days.”

“Well, now you got ‘em for two weeks. Let somebody else have a minute!”

But right about then, they both started up with the “Dada” thing, stretching out their arms and opening and closing their little “gimme, gimme, gimme” fists.

And as I hauled each one up onto a hip, Big Man said, “Well, damn! Makes a man feel used!”

And as he was hauling himself up off the floor, Kelli and Bonnie walked in. And it cracked them up worse than it did me, seeing him in that pen. And it was the first time I’d seen Bonnie look so happy in days and days.

Those are the Christmas presents I like. Silly moments like that.

But I knew the girls were ready to ring up some serious sales. And there were boutiques and whatnot who banked on us coming in.

So I said, “We’re gonna go burn a hole in my Black Card—I’ll call you when we’re headed your way.”

“You have that?!” Kelli asked.

I whipped the sucker out so she could hold it and everything. And I think I became her favorite person on that planet from that moment on.