Yep, I'm back. For now. Because when I finished this chapter, after a BIG battle and lots of fits and starts...and the first thing I thought was how weird it was not to be putting it up on Wattpad. I'm motivated without it, but posting to Wattpad also keeps me focused and honest. So, no more pledges. I'll post. Then I might not post for a while. But when I have something I want to post...up it goes.

I'm trying to push through to the end and not to go back and reread because once I do that, I'll get bogged down. So if there are some bits that make you ask, "Hasn't he said that before?" that's what's up. I'll clean up those things on the second run through. Right now...I just have to see it through to the end. And Wattpad helps me do that.

Who'da thunk?

21.

Okay, this chapter is all talk, but it’s good talk, so just…bear with me. I’ll start from when I was talking to Big Man on video chat in the Rover because it’s important.

He said, “It’s some crazy shit goin’ on over there, Lil Daddy.”

He was all fly in his Ray Bans, driving Che to the “heirport.” That’s what some folks call the “executive” terminal where rich folks keep their private jets. Actually, I fit the description more than a lot of people who fly out of there. It’s mostly bored suits. Corporate jets. And boy, do they love to see me and the girls coming.

They ask me a lot of inappropriate questions, but, hey. They also help us pay for our jets and helicopters and whatnot, those guys. I mean, they’re the ones who sit in those fancy hotel rooms rubbing ‘em out for hours watching our movies or role playing with a bunch of equally bored housewives masquerading as hot babes with big old watermelon tits.

Anyway, Che was finally on her way to Vegas. It had taken a long time for her and Big Man to wrap up “negotiations” with the Chihuahua lady. You know, that landlord you met the night of the fire that kept yapping at Wyatt and me.

“Crazy like what?” I asked Big Man.

“Woman got some interesting ideas now that you’re fixed it all up for her.”

“They’re done already?”

“Got the front done pretty quick. And the yard’s almost finished. Had a whole army out there, man. Soon as we got off the phone last night, they started callin’ out the troops.”

Che leaned in—she never likes to sit in the back the way passengers should—and said, “Piece o’ work, Miss Johnny. Call ‘er on her shit, okay?”

“Johnny, huh?”

“Mrs. Johnette Brooks,” Big Man said, in this formal voice. “Sounds like a sistah, right?”

We all laughed. And then Che gave a little snort and said, “Yeah, and once Miz Johnny saw all that work they’d done, she started going all Machiavelli on me.”

“She doesn’t like it?” I asked.

“She likes it too much.”

“Just…do yo’ thang, Daddy,” Big Man said. “Show her who she workin’ wit.”

I smiled the same way he was smiling. He knew how much I love it when someone underestimates me. Happens all the time. “Eighteen?!” they say. And they think they’ve got it made. Right up until I Jedi mind trick them into a deal they can’t get out of.

See, JJ was my Yoda. That man could make a room full of suits roll over and play dead if he wanted. I watched him do it, time and time again. It wasn’t so much what he did as what he made other people do. Or not do. Psychology. And really sharp intuition.

 Wasn’t about the money—he had more money than God. He just loved business the way some people love video games. He could manipulate people like they were connected to a joystick, too, I swear. And he knew just which weapons to use when.

He made it feel like real life Monopoly. Or actually, it was more like poker. With me counting cards like a pro.

Che and I were working on another little deal that day, by the way. We’d been at it for months, really, but Che was getting the big reveal ready for us in Vegas. It was something for Big Man. He knew nothing about it, though. You’ll love it when we get there. For now, just listen to me toy with him a little bit.

I said, “What time’s your flight, big dog?”

“Half hour after hers.”

“Your mom doesn’t suspect anything, right?”

“Nope! I can’t wait to see her face. And boy, when we get on that jet…”

“When’s the last time you went anywhere, man? I’ve been trying to think back.”

“I go all over the damned world.  My job is a vacation.”

“I mean a real vacation. Like this one with your people and all.”

“You my people!”

“Blood kin, dude,” I said. “Like your moms’n’ them.”

He gave me one of his big bass chuckles and said, “You know I’ll be worryin’ about you the whole time. Cause y’all some crazy mutha fukkas.”

“We can handle it for a few days,” I told him. “Maybe.”

“Just keep an eye on that damned cop. And his little sidekick,” he said. “That little talk y’all had doesn’t sit right with me for some reason. You can’t never tell with them two.”

“Oh, I hear you. And I’m gonna have to get with Sergei’n’ those guys, too. Cause I know Friendly’s out there braggin’ about the new job I supposedly offered ‘im.”

“In his dreams.”

“To him it’s real. He’s a sick puppy, that guy.”

“Gotta sign off now. We just pulled in.”

“Enjoy, okay? It’s all about Mom Bea, man--best Christmas she ever had, right?”

“No doubt!” he said, flashing that grin the women love so much.

“Miss you much—see you in Vegas!”

He said, “Peace!” The way the rappers bark it out, just to tease me. You know how he feels about rappers, remember?

I clicked the button on the steering wheel to end the call. Wyatt smiled over at me. Her smiles were different now. After what I’d showed her out there in the woods. I could tell she felt a little closer to me. And also, that it might’ve been a little scary, too. But the smiles were sweet. Softer.

“A well-oiled machine,” she said.

“How do you mean?”

“Your…organization. Corporation?”

“Privately owned still.”

She laughed and said, “By you.”

“Me and a few others. Mostly me, though, yeah. I’ve got, like…85%. The girls get five each.”

“Is that a fair share?”

I smiled and said, “Lemme put it to you like JJ did when I asked him that. What’s five percent of a billion?”

“English teacher,” she said. “For a reason.”

That really made me laugh. And I did the math for her.

“It’s fifty million.”

Her jaw actually dropped.

“They get $50 million dollars a year?”

“Well…a few times a year. More like…a month, most of the time.”

She had to turn her face away and just stare for a moment.

“Mind blown, huh?” I said. “It used to freak us out, too—you got a Christmas tree?”

She didn’t answer me at first. She just kept staring into space for a few seconds—I don’t even think she heard me ask about the tree.

I was asking because there was a big tent full of Christmas trees up ahead on the side of the road. And I pulled over, even though she hadn’t answered. I was in the mood for a little holiday cheer, to take the edge off that remembrance of Christmases past. Or…that one particular one, that had just yanked my guts out and left me zombie-ing around for months. Well, years, really. I’m still a mess in some ways. Gums up the works sometimes when I least expect it.

There were all kinds of people in there trying to find a tree at the last minute. So I was sort of worried there wouldn’t be anything good left for her. And I wanted her to have something that might make her feel at least a little bit like celebrating. Don’t know why. I just did.

“You wanna take a look?” I asked her.

She sort of woke up. Looked over at the trees.

And said, “Kill a tree for Christmas…” in this little sarcastic voice.

“Boy, you are just a bundle o’ joy, huh?”

“It’s such a waste, though. Isn’t it?”

“Aw, c’mon, man! We’ll get you one o’ those ones you can plant, since we’re fixin’ up the yard. Only I don’t know if they’d take here in the desert. We could take it up to Mt. Lemmon, maybe. It’s like Flagstaff up there. It’ll feel right at home and you won’t feel like a murderer.”

She laughed and said, “You do think of everything, don’t you?”

I got out and opened her door for her. And she sighed and got out, with this little smirky smile on her face. I ran a finger down her nose.

“The Grinch lives,” I said.

“I’m just not…Well, a Christian for one thing.”

“Me, neither. Pisses Aisha off no end. But I’m down with Jesus as a person, though. I think he was on to it.”

“On to what?”

“The little bit he said, I’m down with. If he said it. I mean, that’s the problem for me. You got a King James Version and all these other versions, but are any of ‘em real?”

I offered her my arm and she took it. I could feel she was a little bit skittish about it, though. But I figured they’d think she was my mother, probably. I walked us in all confident, anyway. They could think whatever they wanted to think.

And she said, “I think there must be a scroll or two out there. I’ve read the Dead Sea ones. Some others.”

“You read that?”

“Well, I was curious. When they started to find all the new texts.”

“You don’t believe any of it, though, right?”

“I believe…the basic tenets, yes. They’re fairly universal. Every culture follows them. No matter who they think they got them from. I can respect that, if not the divinity of Christ or…anyone else.”

“No fairy tales for you, huh?”

“I compared the fairy tales. And found the similarities.”

“Joseph Campbell.”

“Oh, my God—how do you know Joseph Campbell?”

“JJ told me about Star Wars. How it’s based on that. So I read him—he was dope, too. Talk about a man with a plan. He ran it all down.”

This was her kind of conversation, I could tell. She looked totally awake. “Engaged,” I guess would be her word.

“I need to know more about this JJ,” she said. I took that as a really good sign, too. And of course, I was happy to oblige.

I took out my cell and went right to all the JJ pictures. And then I stopped to show her one of the funny ones with me making “horns” behind his head. We’re on one of his “boats.” And by boat I mean a yacht so big and tricked out it would make P. Diddy cry.

And I said, “I’ve got almost as many pictures of JJ as the kids.”

“Well, he’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?” she said. “Very debonair.”

“Who says ‘debonair’ in this day and age? You’re an English teacher down to your corpuscles and all, aren’t you?”

“This from a young man who just said ‘corpuscles’ with a straight face!”

“I have to use those SAT words somewhere, don’t I? And I’m with a woman who’ll know what they mean.”

She liked that, too. She got all tickled. And playful.

“Words are my gift,” she said. “Of course, I was never officially labeled like some people I know.”

She took the cell from me and looked at JJ for a moment.

And said, “You could be his son. There’s a resemblance.”

“No there’s not!”

“No one ever told you that before?”

“He’s just so…continental—is that close? Those SAT practice tests were a long time ago.”

“Very accurate. Very…Peter O’Toole. That era. Which I’m sure you also know about.”

“He knew people like that. Peter O’Toole and…Anthony Hopkins—Brits with beautiful voices. You know that guy who was the voice for Scar in The Lion King?”

That made her jaw drop, too.

So I said, “You like him, right? Women love that guy.”

“Jeremy Irons? He’s done a lot more than The Lion King.”

“I know, but if you ask someone my age that’s the only way they know him,” I said. “Did you know he bought his wife a castle? For her birthday or…anniversary or something.”

“Is that where all this gallantry comes from? Fixing houses…buying trees…”

“Actually, I think rich people buying big grandiose things like that just to have them is sort of fucked up.”

“It was a present for someone he loved.”

I shrugged and said, “I know it’s sort of cool to do something romantic like that, but I…I don’t know. I always think about what they could of done with all that money.”

“Maybe he does some of those things. More quietly than most—maybe they were going to tear it down. Or ruin it somehow. It happens.”

“I’m not saying he’s a bad person. I liked him. I just…there was a point where I realized that I didn’t want to live in that world. JJ wanted me to be comfortable when I had to move in those circles for business or whatever. But he’s got people who do love to schmooze, you know? They can do that part and report back.”

“You said that to JJ?”

“I did. I was always honest with him. Brutally, as you would say. So did he. He liked me because I would say things right out. Things that other people were afraid to say to him.”

“What did he say to that?”

“What? That I didn’t wanna hang out with rich Brits?”

“That you didn’t care for that world in general.”

“He said he was a lucky man indeed,” I told her.

“That sounds like something he would say. Given what you’ve said about him.”

I smiled at another picture of him and me on the boat. He was really getting sick by then. You could see it around his eyes. And he looked thin and sort of…caved in, in the chest. But he was still a really good looking old codger—he called himself that. An “old codger.”

I said, “Lookit that guy! I mean, he’s out there with a bunch of people walkin’ around damned near nude almost—little bitty bikinis and whatnot. Big old rowdy party. And he’s all…ensembled out like that. Jeans, but…who do you know who looks like that all the time?”

I slid another one onto the screen and it sort of sighed. I could remember the moment I’d taken it. I’d caught him nodding out in his favorite deck chair. And he gave me the most loving smile.

“Not a hair out of place,” I said. “And that shirt stayed white like that, too. It’s like in the Middle East when you see those guys in the white robes running around and you wonder how the hell they stay perfect like that.”

“He took you to the Middle East?”

“He took me around the world.”

“On the boat?”

“All kinds of ways. Took us almost a whole year. But he wanted to go while he was feeling okay.”

“He was ill?”

“AIDS. Which wasn’t responding right anymore. To anything. So he came up to my room one night and said, ‘We leave tomorrow! Ask me where we’re going!’ And when I told him I didn’t need to know where we were going as long as he was going, too, he started crying, right? Jeezus, that guy…”

She looked sad. And looked at some more pictures—chuckled at the goofy ones. But her eyes glittered, when she saw how he looked at me, even in those ones.

After staring at one of the sweetest ones, she looked up at me and said, “I’m going to ask you a very impertinent question.”

“And the answer is ‘No. Never. Not even once, not even as a joke, not even when I told him I’d try if it would make him happy.’”

She squinted at me. And then laughed.

“Yes, that was the question.”

“And I answered it. Let’s look at some trees now. Humor me.”

She sighed as I offered my arm again. And she handed the cell back.

And said, “What a day it’s been for you!”

“It’s all good. It’s what I do over the holidays. Think about people I loved. Love—there they are! Over on that side.”

There was a little section that had live trees in it. And there were quite a few because people don’t go for them much. Probably thinking what I thought, about the desert and all.

“What will they do with them if no one buys them?” she asked me.

“Not sure.”

“I hope they take them back or something. To where they were grown.”

“I kinda doubt that. They’d have to pay someone to pick them up and take them all the way back wherever.”

She sighed and said, “So they’re as good as dead, too.”

“Jeez, how your mind works! I’ll ask. And if you don’t like the answer—“

“You will not buy them all.”

“How come? The church people’d come up with something. Maybe they’d take a buncha kids up to Mt. Lemmon to plant ‘em. I could ask Aisha to take the choir up, actually. Lotta those kids have never even been up there. Not a lotta interest in skiing where they live.”

“I actually like that idea.”

“Oh, my God—careful! You like one Christmasy thing, you’ll start liking a few more’n’ a few more’n’ we can’t have that, now, can we?”

She shot me a little look just as one of the guys running the tree lot came over. I asked him about the live ones, and they already had a deal for them. A couple of charities always took them and planted them somewhere on Christmas Day—environmental groups. They went around to all the lots in town, almost, he said. They helped recycle the other ones, too.

“You feel better now?” I asked her.

She gave me another one of her little looks. So I told the guy we’d keep looking for a minute to give him a chance to help a few dead tree lovers. What a buzz kill, right? When you think of it that way.

“Did he like the girls? JJ?” she asked me.

I shrugged, and hunkered down to really look at this one really good looking tree. They were littler, the ones in the containers. I guess because they were meant to be planted and to grow into the big old things you see out in the forest. I was starting to want to grab them all up and plant them myself. Maybe have a big to do with friends somewhere, just for that purpose.

“He was nuts about the girls. They were more his speed than me, actually. And he knew them first. He’d heard of them from the Net stuff I’d done already.”

“You’d done?”

“Yeah, I’d set up a site for them. After they took off on YouTube—mad hits for just some videos of them pole dancing and whatnot.”

“So this Fun House idea was yours?”

“That came from the street, actually. People thought all we did was screw, you know? So their place was the Fun House and so I made them the Fun House Girlz—girlz with a ‘z.’”

“Very clever.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was pretty primitive at first. But I was goofin’ around with Mike’s Mac one day and I saw these sites designed for adult content—I wanted to monetize the thing. To get them down off the pole, if I could.”

“That’s a sophisticated thought process for a young boy.”

“Aw, c’mon. Starting with puberty, that’s all a guy thinks about 24/7. Sex. And I was living with three very sexy ladies. Alls I had to do was put all my sick little fantasies to work for us. And they were game. It was better than grinding on a buncha sweaty old pervs, right? They got into it from jump. Great ideas. And pretty soon the clubs were fighting over them. They were a huge draw, once the sites took off. We had merch, too. I linked to one of those sites that let you put your logo and pictures on damned near everything you can think of. And we made posters…prints…”

“And JJ saw them?”

“It was his business—one part of his business--to know what was out there. He had people who were always keeping tabs on that. So he got in touch with them and flew in to see them a few times.”

“The time you helped him—that was a visit, right?”

“First time, yeah. We were going to meet up and have some dinner and talk some business. Usually, I laid low. I was underage, anyway, so I couldn’t exactly hang out in the clubs with them or anything.”

“Was he absolutely flabbergasted?”

I laughed and said, “He was at first. But then he listened to me for a while and started asking me questions. He could see that there was this huge…untapped resource, lots of untapped resources that his suits couldn’t get to. Kids were ‘way ahead of them. Even how we thought about sex was different.”

“Which leads me to that other impertinent question. About the girls this time.”

I saw that one coming, too.

“That answer’s more complicated. Let’s walk some more—you like this little fat one here?”

She gave in and looked over the tree I was talking about. There were some people watching us by then, obviously trying to figure out what the deal was. I think most of them settled on the “mother and son” scenario. But some of them picked up on the other vibe.

When she looked up and saw a couple of women her age really staring, she shook back that hair and put a little extra strut in her step. As if to say, “You wanna make something of it?”

I loved that. I love women with attitude--I live in a house full of attitude. Spices things up.

“I like this one, too,” she said.

I laughed and said, “No, you don’t! You’re barely looking at any of them.”

“I do. I like that one and the one next to it, too. They look healthy.”

“You know healthy from unhealthy?”

She shrugged and said, “They’re very green. And there are no…gaps between the branches. I don’t want a Charlie Brown tree. I want a beautiful tree.”

That really made me laugh. So I walked over to another one a few rows down.

“I like this one, too.”

“I only need one,” she said.

“What if I want one? Or two? Big building, we live in.”

She folded her arms and did that thing women do with the one leg—how they throw that one leg out when they’re really laying down the law.

“What did I say to you a few minutes ago?” she asked me.

“Okay, these three, then. Is that okay with you, tough guy?”

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue when I called the tree lot guy away from some of the dead tree lovers to haggle a little. She seemed sort of happy, even, when they hauled them out to the Rover.

I opened her door and she climbed in a lot easier than some women do. She was very agile. I’d say “for a woman her age,” but these days women her age are younger than they used to be, physically. I think they are, anyway. You can’t even tell how old they are.

You definitely couldn’t tell how old she was. Not just by looking. She carried herself like a woman full grown, though. That you couldn’t deny. Even the times when she seemed almost childlike, the woman was still very much there.

I think that’s why it moved me, when she showed me her innocent side. I loved that she still had that. I loved that a woman could make it through all that women go through and still have that. And that she let me see it—trusted me that much. I just got the feeling that somebody had abused that privilege once. She guarded it like a mama lion now. I’d seen that, too.

So to reward her for giving in to me a little on the trees, I said, “We were talking about the girls, right?”

“We don’t have to.”

“Yes, we do. We have to talk about a lot of things.”

“We have to talk about a lot of things?”

“Okay, we should talk about a lot of things. So you don’t get blindsided.”

She sat back and nodded.

“The girls, then. Since it’s so complicated.”

“It is. I mean, I guess they’re like…the closest things I had to parents. And they took it seriously--hands on, full time. That’s why it took them so long to start the club and all. Their baby had to grow up first.”

“Not exactly the motherly type, though, are they?”

“For me, they are,” I said. I looked back at the trees right quick after I hit the ignition, too. They put this burlap stuff around the root balls and set them in these containers they’d sit up in, when we got home. There were instruction sheets in the containers, too. And it smelled like a pine forest in the Rover. Loved that.

But she’d asked me a question so I had to focus on that instead of the pine forest thing. It’s hard for me to focus on anything very long—I think I’m probably ADD or something. But I think a lot of people are. Some of the most important people in history probably were, but they put all that energy into inventing things or winning wars or running empires. If they’d had Ridalin and those other drugs all along, I bet we’d still be in the Dark Ages. No kidding, I believe that.

“Even when Aisha and I were little kids, she stood in for Gracie, pretty much,” I said. “I mean, I was good at taking care of my little brothers and sisters, but she’s the one who had my back. And the other two, when she met them…I don’t know, they just followed her lead, I guess. Of course, I also took care of them in any way I could, too, but I didn’t have to be responsible for everything. They had their own money, their own place. And they wanted me off the streets and back in school. So they set the rules—enforced ‘em, too. I couldn’t get away with anything in that house!”

She gave me this really skeptical little stare and said, “I’m sorry but you’d be a handful for a biological mother! How on earth did they manage to keep you in check?”

“Well, I was so grateful to them, all they had to do was look at me hard and I’d feel like shit. But they were fierce. Cat was particularly hard on me because she’s the eldest and she doesn’t take any shit on principle. I’m still a kid to her. Doesn’t matter how smart I think I am or how tall or buff I get. And Aisha was a tough little Mama. Old School. The guys used to love it when I didn’t show up for dinner or something. She’d come struttin’ down the street after me. And of course, they’d fall in behind her just to get a look at that ass, right?”

She got a good laugh out of that. And I eased us out of the lot and into the traffic—it was a back road that wasn’t usually busy. But people used it a lot during the holidays, to avoid the Christmas traffic jams all over the city.

Tucson’s still playing catch up with population growth. The streets aren’t designed to move traffic all that well yet in a lot of places. And there’s a part of me that likes that—the small town mentality we still have. I’m not a total Luddite. I just don’t like big, honkin’ cities.

“Were you in on any of the…entertainment aspects of this relationship?”

“You mean did I fuck them on camera.”

She laughed and said, “I guess that’s the gist of it yes.”

“Well, I knew that was coming. Everybody always asks.”

“All right, let’s be honest. They’re very exotic creatures, your girls. Almost a different species. So while I understand they may have been more like little mothers to you…well…as you said, you’re a teenager. A male one with…all the usual hormonal issues.”

That really cracked me up. A different species—I could see why she said that, too. They were different from other women. Not just the way they were built, either—that’s the part no one picked up on but us. The part that answered the question, actually.

The way they thought, the way they saw the world was different, too. The money freed them up. There was no glass ceiling in our world. They could have their cake and eat it, too. With a cherry on top.

It added fierce on top of fierce. So they weren’t about to jeopardize everything we’d built by putting up sex tapes of them and this little piece of jailbait they were also living with. For most of our early years online, nobody knew I existed. Not on the sex sites. So when the news broke that I’d masterminded the whole thing—JJ’s idea—it just blew up like you wouldn’t believe.

We had this whole PR story ready about how I’d created sites I couldn’t even enter, except as an administrator. And how I couldn’t go see the girls at the clubs or anything, even after I’d created their personas and whatnot—it was true, actually. We didn’t really need to make anything up. And pretty soon they were calling me the Prince of Porn. And I was all over the news media for a while.

But that wasn’t what she was asking about. I told her what she really wanted to know.

“It wasn’t on like Donkey Kong day and night, if that’s what you mean. But I had the best introduction to the so-called sins of the flesh a kid could have, that’s for sure. Which was actually a conscious decision.”

“Oh, really? I’d love to have been there for that little family meeting.”

“Oh, c’mon, man—it wasn’t like that. We didn’t set up a schedule or put it on the calendar or something. Just…when they felt like I was ready, they—“

“No, no, no! Stop! Stop,” she said.

And then she wrung her hands and shivered.

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” she admitted.

“Nobody does. But it was natural as can be. Hard to believe, but it was. And think about what that means, too. The first women I was with were women I loved more than life. And I wanted to make them happy—I asked them to teach me how to make them happy. I hate that it isn’t like that for most of the women I meet. It makes me sad when I have to fight all that bad history to get them to let me do what the others should’ve done.”

She said, “Okay. Wow,” and fanned herself for a minute.

Which made me laugh. And she laughed and said, “Tough act to follow.”

I smiled. That was what she was really worried about. I’d missed a step.

“You’d think so, maybe. But…there’s all kinds of different ways you can love someone—JJ taught me that. Or being around him did. Even with the girls. How I love Mike is ‘way different from how I love Cat or Aisha. Every person is different. Brings something different to your life.”

“What could I possibly have that they don’t?”

“What do I have for you, is what you should ask. It’s not all about me.”

“Why must you…give me something? I know that’s not exactly what you mean, but you do seem to feel this…uncontrollable need to offer yourself up to almost everyone you meet—you’ve gotten Lurleen a lawyer!  And poor Lakesha will never recover from that helicopter ride, bless her heart.”

“Better than a castle. Maybe. I don’t know. I just wanted her to have a story to tell or something. I just…do stuff like that sometimes.”

“Well, it’s life changing. I totally understand. Except…hasn’t anyone ever abused it? Or tried to?”

“What could they do? I have it to give. You should think about that. Whatever it was you didn’t get to do or didn’t think you could do because you didn’t have the money or something, you can do it now.”

She sighed real loud and said, “Colton, you mustn’t…I appreciate it, but…it feels…”

“Like?”

“Well, things like the carnival and…the tree planting idea—that’s wonderful. You’re the safety net so many people need and haven’t had lately. I’m humbled by that.”

“That’s my job. I mean, I used to tell JJ what I’d do for people if I had his money. So he gave it to me.”

“Then God bless that man.”

“Yeah, well, like I told you, me and God…we’ve gotta come to a better understanding, I guess. That whole giveth and taketh away part—I didn’t mention this, but I feel like God took my whole family from me and then gave me JJ trying to make up for it. Or maybe it was a test to make me stronger or--I don’t know! But it’s not fair that they’re not here to benefit from any of it. That’s the part that haunts me—the most important thing I coulda done for them, I didn’t do. Because I wasn’t even there.”

She reached over and put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t ever think that. It’s what you did for them, what you tried to do, that made you the man for the job.”

I teared up again—that “gummed up works” thing in full effect. But I managed to come up with, “She scores!” to lighten up a little.

And we laughed, but I could tell she had something big on her mind, still. She was staring at me. Really staring--so hard that I was actually uncomfortable.

And then she said, “Was Grace beautiful? She must’ve been. Or your father may have been, but somehow I think it’s her I see when I look at you.”

That was sweet. And she was right. There was a lot of Grace in my face.

So I said, “Other worldly beautiful, yeah. She had…these eyes—not green line mine. Angel eyes, I called ‘em. Just this…pure, clear, crystal blue--broke your heart. But they couldn’t see anything, you know? Not…past things. Into things. They believed everything they saw. Like her mind believed everything you told her. But it’s such a rush to be looked at like that. Like…you’re the most wonderful thing in the whole world. Like you’re the only thing in the world that matters.”

“She taught you that?”

I looked over at her. And she laughed.

“And there she is,” she said.

“You’re killin’ me here!”

“But that’s what JJ saw.  My God, a dying man, lonely as only the dying can be, looking into those eyes—you saved his life.”

“And vice versa,” I said. I don’t know how I said it, because I was all choked up.

“Yes, that’s true. But he gave you that money because of what he saw in those eyes. So, it’s really gift from Grace, in a way, isn’t it? She taught you how to love that way.” 

I did that blinking thing you do trying not to let on you’re breaking up. And she squeezed my shoulder and rubbed my arm a few times.

And then sat she just smiled and back and looked out of the window to give me time to let it all sink in. She also knew that we’d gotten to the real reason for the whole damned conversation and there wasn’t any more to say.

But I pulled over and said, “C’mere you.”

And when she turned to me, I grabbed her and kissed her and hugged her. And that’s when I found out she’d made herself cry, too.

 [CD1]Make sure she knows he was dying, or change to “an old man, in the last years of his iife…