Dust Devil (45 page)

She
nodded wordlessly, biting her lower lip nervously. Because even
though he had said they would go on from here, she still didn’t
know yet where it was that they were going.

The
screen door banged shut behind Renzo. For a long moment, Sarah
watched him as he strode toward the meadow. She imagined herself in
his place and wondered what he was thinking, what he and Alex would
say to each other in the tree house. But she never did know. They
never told her, and she never asked, feeling that it was, perhaps,
only fitting; there was so much she and Alex had shared that Renzo
would never know. She grieved deeply for that now, when it was too
late—when she witnessed the happiness on her son’s face
as he and Renzo at long last walked back from the meadow toward the
house, and she realized it wasn’t just Renzo she had robbed of
so much that could never be replaced. All these years, Alex had been
hungry, desperate for a father. Bubba had been right about that. That
had been a great deal of the problem all along, Sarah thought now,
the cause of all of Alex’s fighting on the school grounds, part
of the reason why he had had trouble learning his schoolwork. She had
always believed that the fact that he had been diagnosed by
psychologists as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder—
Inattentive Type—had never been wholly to blame for his lack of
concentration and effort.

It
would take time, of course. But whatever had been said between them,
father and son had made a good beginning, she reflected as she gazed
through the screen door at them. Renzo’s arm was slung about
Alex’s shoulders; Alex’s own arm was around Renzo’s
waist. The two of them were talking and laughing. Even as Sarah
watched, Alex broke away from his father, yelling gaily and running,
while Renzo bent down and scooped up the boy’s football from
where it lay on the grass. The football flew from Renzo’s
hands—as good a pass, Sarah thought idly, as any Bubba had ever
thrown in his days as a high-school star quarterback—and Alex
jumped up and caught it in midair, beaming with pride.

“
Gee!
That was great, Dad!” he shouted, the name for his father
coming easily and naturally to his lips. “Now, you catch!”
Even as he spoke, Alex threw the football back, not a half-bad pass,
and Renzo plucked it from the air and began to run forward. Joining
wholeheartedly into the game, Alex tackled him, and they both went
down in a tangle of arms and legs, Alex squealing as Renzo, much the
way he had done with Sarah earlier, tickled him unmercifully.
Finally, spying her watching them from the screen door, Renzo rose
and hauled Alex to his feet.

“
I
see two sweaty guys who had better wash up before they come to the
table,” Sarah called through the screen door. “And one
who’d better get a shirt on, too!”

“
Come
on, Dad.” Alex tugged on his father’s hand. “There’s
a pump. I’ll show you.”

A
few minutes later, when father and son stepped, dripping, into the
kitchen, Sarah had two towels and Renzo’s
shirt
waiting. Then the three of them sat down at the kitchen table to eat
the brunch she had prepared.

“
Mom!”
Alex spoke in a rash, bubbling over with excitement and enthusiasm.
“Did you know Dad owns a motorcycle—a
Harley-Davidson!—and a comic-book collection, and that he’s
read all the classics and likes to fish and plays the saxophone,
too?”

“
Yes,
Son, I did.” Her eyes met Renzo’s, and she knew he
understood then that this much at least, she had done for him—she
had encouraged their son in interests Renzo shared, so that if and
when the two of them had ever met, they would find common ground.

Naturally
gregarious, Alex continued to talk all through the meal, his spirits
only briefly dampened when the subject of his attending summer
school, and why, arose and Renzo declared soberly, looking him square
in the eye, “Your grades will have to come up by the end of the
summer, Alex. No, don’t look to your mother to defend you—
because I’m sure she’s told you the same thing. So we
aren’t going to have any debate about it. Your mother and I
will help you if you need it, but the rest is your responsibility,
and I think you know that. So either your grades come up, or
repercussions follow. Is that clear?”

“
Yes,
sir.” Alex swallowed hard, glancing again at Sarah for support.

But
wisely, she held her tongue and kept her own counsel, knowing that to
interfere would be to challenge Renzo’s authority, to drive a
wedge between him and her, which would anger and hurt him, and which
Alex would take clever advantage of and manipulate to his own ends.
Whether he realized it or not, Alex needed Renzo’s firm
but
gentle hand and guidance—and Sarah wanted the boy to have them.

“
I
told Alex the TV and Nintendo set would come out of his room for the
entire year if he has to repeat the sixth grade,” she explained
to Renzo, wanting him to know she had already set the terms of the
consequences herself.

“
Fine,”
he replied, nodding his approval. “Then that’s what’ll
happen, Alex, should you fail to start the seventh grade, come fall.”

Their
son was silent for a little while after that. It was a new experience
for him, Sarah thought—doing her best to repress the smile that
tugged at her lips—to have
two
parents
laying down the law. Plainly, he had not previously considered this
aspect of the situation.

Finished
eating, Renzo pushed away his plate and lit a cigarette, drawing on
it deeply, then sipping his coffee. A faint smile played about the
corners of his mouth, too, although his eyes were shadowed and
uncertain as he wondered if he should have tried to be Alex’s
friend before becoming his father.

“
You
see, Alex, even though you might not have realized it until just now,
there
are
some
disadvantages to having a father around,” Renzo observed
lightly.

“
Yeah,
so I see.” The boy sighed. “Are you always going to be
just as strict as Mom?”

“
Stricter,”
Renzo insisted, grinning to take the sting from the word. Crushing
his cigarette out in a saucer, since there wasn’t an ashtray
handy, he stood, picking up his plate and cup to carry them to the
counter. “Come on, big guy. Let’s help your mother clear
away these dishes and get them scraped off in the sink.”

“
When
Bubba ate here, he never helped with the cleaning up afterward,”
Alex announced blithely, plainly bemused by his father’s
action. “He said dishes were women’s work.”

“
Uh-huh,”
Renzo drawled in the way that made Sarah think strangely of Papa Nick
and sent a shiver down her spine. “Well, number one, when a
woman holds down a full-time job outside of the home, the way your
mother does, the dishes are everybody’s work. And number two, I
am
not
Bubba
Holbrooke!”

“
Thank
heavens for that!” Alex exclaimed with obviously heartfelt
gratitude, causing Renzo to burst into laughter. At that, the boy
regained his equilibrium, joining in his father’s mirth. “I
take it you don’t much like big, bad Bubba, either, do you,
Dad?”

“
No.”
Renzo shook his head, still smiling. “I don’t. And I’ve
already told your mother she’s to tell
him
to
hit the road, Jack, and not to come back no more, no more.”

“
Good.”
Alex’s eyes danced with mischievous delight at this.

“
Now,
who’s the one outnumbered here?” Sarah inquired archly.
“Is this what’s referred to as a ‘male
conspiracy’—or just a ‘guy thing’?”

“
Both.”
Renzo kissed her lightly on the mouth as she rose to begin loading
the dishwasher. “I’m going to put my socks and boots on,
stroll down the road and fix your Jeep, then drive it back here for
you. Where are your car keys,
cara
?”

“
In
my purse. I’ll get them.”

“
Dad,
you are going to come back, aren’t you?” Alex asked
anxiously as he and Sarah accompanied Renzo to the front door.

“
Oh,
Son, of course I am.” The man reached out tentatively to ruffle
the boy’s hair tenderly. “You help your mother finish
wiping down the kitchen table, and I’ll be back here before you
know it, I promise.”

But
after he had walked out the front door and disappeared down the
gravel drive, Renzo didn’t return. And presently, it became
clear to Sarah and Alex that he wasn’t going to, either.

Youth
on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;

Regardless
of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,

That,
hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

The
Bard

—
Thomas
Gray

The
terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,

Telling
the battle was on once more.

Sheridan’s
Ride

—
Thomas
Buchanan Read

A
Small Town, The Midwest, The Present

“
Dad’
s not coming back, is he, Mom?” Alex asked dully after more
than two hours had passed and, still, Renzo hadn’t returned.
Tears started in the boy’s eyes. Angrily, he dashed them away.
“He lied, didn’t he? Everything he said was a lie—and
I hate him! I
hate
him!
I hope he never comes back here! I hope he’s dead on the road
someplace, run over by a Mack truck and squashed as flat as a
possum!” Opossums, which came out at night, were always being
struck and killed by cars on the country
roads,
along with rabbits, squirrels and the occasional raccoon, coyote, and
deer.