Passing Through Midnight (3 page)

"We will," he said, watching her turn slowly toward the
front door, dismissing him. "Look, I'm not sure what to do here." He
took two hurried steps to address her face-to-face. "It's obvious you
don't want to be disturbed, and I can keep Baxter away from you for the
most part, but he's… curious about you, I guess. He's a
friendly kid and… well, what would you like me to tell him?
I'd hate to tell him to just stay away. He's not used to being snubbed
and—"

"Snubbed?" she asked. "Is that what my wanting some
privacy seems like to you?"

"No," he said, picking up the anger in her voice and
returning it automatically. "Whatever you're doing here is your own
business and, frankly, I couldn't care less. But my kid cares, and I
want to prepare him for whatever you're going to do if he happens to
run into you."

"I won't bite him, if that's what you're asking."

"Good," he said, taking a step back, satisfied. "I'll warn
him to stay out of your way, but just in case…"

"Mr. Howlett," she said wearily, too weak to maintain her
anger, too tired to be uncivil. "You don't need to warn your son about
anything. I'm not looking to hurt anyone. Especially your little boy.
I'm just not feeling very social. I'm sorry if I've been rude or if
you've felt snubbed. That wasn't my intention. I simply want to be
alone."

His hostility vanished with hers, and he went back to the
probing study of her features. She felt safe behind her dark glasses
because she could see that they irritated him.

"I understand," he said, though the tone of his voice said
he didn't at all, and given half an opportunity he would have jumped
into her life, boots first, demanding to know all the whys and
wherefores of her self-exile. "And I'll make my boys understand. We
won't bother you. But we are your closest neighbors and…
well, would you like our number in case you need anything?"

"Is it an unlisted number?" she asked, opening both doors
before turning to look through the screen at him.

"No."

"Then I have a phone book and I'll call if I need to.
Thank you." He nodded and looked as if he wanted to say more, maybe ask
a few questions, prolong the conversation somehow. But his presence on
her porch was making her anxious and edgy, and she was eager to be away
from him. "Tell him I liked his map, will you?"

"Sure."

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

She closed the door in his face and sighed when she
finally heard his footsteps moving away toward the truck. She leaned
against the door and looked down at her hands. They were trembling
uncontrollably.

She bunched them into fists, digging trimmed nails into
her palms as she chanted, "His name is Gil Howlett. He's a Kansas
farmer. He has two sons. He doesn't want to hurt me."

Late that night, long after the boys and Matthew had gone
to bed, Gil Howlett stood at his bedroom window, staring at a small
grouping of lights almost a mile away. The view from the window was as
familiar to him as the face in the mirror every morning. He knew every
dark curve and crest in the night as well as he knew every ripple in
the land by day. The distant lights couldn't be coming from anywhere
other than the old Averback farmhouse.

Didn't the woman ever sleep? he wondered. For weeks the
lights had burned until dawn. Or was there some reason for her to sleep
with the lights on all night?

He'd heard the rumors about her. He'd seen the Illinois
license plates on the forest-green Porsche parked in the garage, and
he'd been told she was from Chicago. Frank Schulman was apparently the
only one to get a good look at her the morning she wandered into his
real estate office in town asking about a house to rent by the month. A
somewhat unusual request from a stranger, from anyone really, as most
of the souls in Colby were either passing through briefly or they were
staying for the long haul.

Still, Frank had told her there were a few places to rent
in town. But she'd insisted on something out of town, narrowing the
choices even further. Frank said he'd tried not to stare or appear
shocked when she removed her dark glasses to look at his rental book.
But the plain fact was he couldn't help himself. He'd told Gil her face
looked like the White Sox had used it for batting practice.

Lowering his gaze from the isolated lights, he sighed and
tossed his pants over the arm of his grandmother's rocking chair, as he
had nearly every night of his adult life.

A mystery woman in Colby, Kansas, was news indeed, but it
wasn't going to be the first time he'd disappointed his neighbors with
his lack of information regarding the only woman within eight square
miles of him. As far as he was concerned all women were mysteries. He'd
been married twice and hadn't known either woman any better than he
knew the one across the way.

He turned out the light and nestled down between the
blankets. The sheets were cold, and he missed having a woman beside him
to keep him warm. He missed whispering in the dark and the way a woman
smelled during sex. He missed thinking he was sharing something
important with someone who cared about him. He missed the sounds women
make when they're happy and contented. He missed…

He punched his pillow twice to get it into the right shape
for sleeping. Thinking about women never did him any good. He could go
on for days with all the things he missed about a woman, but there
wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of him taking another one into his
bed… at least not until he met one he could understand.

April showers were sure to bring May flowers, if they
didn't drown everything first. That week of rain in Kansas was like
forty days and forty nights of rain anywhere else. Day after day was
dark and gloomy and wet, and though the radio weatherman didn't sound
too alarmed, Dorie spent one entire morning drawing plans for an ark.

It was amazing the things she found to occupy her time.

Still not ready to face life beyond the walls of the old
Averback farmhouse, and extremely tired of limping, she started
climbing the stairs to the second floor five and six times a day,
turning around and coming back down again.

With no inclination toward making plans for a future and a
healthy aversion to housekeeping, she'd left most of the furniture in
the house under dustcovers. But on occasion, she would uncover a desk
or a trunk or an old toy box and explore the contents.

The Averbacks had had three children—two sons
and a daughter—and were avid hunters. The boys played high
school sports, and one later joined the service. The daughter went to
college at KSU. One of the children had produced a grandchild according
to the old pictures in the attic. Then suddenly, about seven or eight
years ago, everyone moved away.

Overall, Dorie decided they were a pretty nice family.

Gil Howlett must have liked them too. She found many
pictures labeled "Mike and Henry with Gil" or "Henry and Gil Howlett"
or "Prom night, Beth and Gil Howlett".

With slightly more than a mild interest she'd studied the
pictures. In some of them Gil looked much like his older son did now.
Tall, gangly, awkward. In all of them he had the same broad smile and
bright—sometimes happy, sometimes mischievous, sometimes
pondering—eyes he'd had on the front porch that day. It was
stunning to think that Gil Howlett had spent his whole life exactly
where he was now.

Of course, Dorie's favorite pastime was waiting for the
Howletts' daily visits. She and Baxter played
hide-and-seek—she standing a foot or more behind the old lace
curtains, watching him walk backward to the barn or the field, scanning
each window for some sign of her. He took to leaving her pictures of
his family marked, "Me, Uncle Matthew, Fletcher, and Dad" and his dog
"Emily", his cat "Emily", and Fletcher's hamsters "Emily and Elmo." She
in turn took to leaving him cookies in a freezer bag or a coffee can on
the bottom step of the front porch.

For two weeks this arrangement worked pretty well despite
the hesitation in Gil when Baxter would bound up on the porch to leave
or receive a gift; or the way he would pause with indecision, study the
second-floor windows, then join the boys in the truck and drive away.

Pretending she wasn't locked up in the house alone was
hard for him. She sensed he would have been content to simply wave at
her once or twice a day. But seeing hide nor hair of her for days on
end—save a bag or two of cookies—seemed to disturb
him a great deal.

She'd known people like him before. People whose parenting
skills were second nature to them and were applied to everyone in their
lives—whether they needed to be parented or not. People who
thought everyone was a friend until their friendship was betrayed.
People who trusted first and paid later. She knew people like that.
She'd been one once.

It was Fletcher, however, who drew Dorie out of the house
first.

Still early spring, too early in the afternoon for the
Howletts' second visit, she heard heavy-booted footsteps on her front
porch. Cautious as ever, she went from window to window looking for the
intruder. She found him seated on the porch swing with his back to her.

She didn't recognize him or what he was doing at first,
but it wasn't long before she saw a cookie go unbroken into his mouth.
A cookie meant for Baxter, for a picture of the ugliest pink pig she'd
ever seen.

She opened the front door and stepped out on the porch. He
stood up quickly, with one arm circling the cookie can and the other
brushing crumbs from his fingers to his pants. His expression was
clear, direct, curious, much like his father's—and,
amazingly, without a trace of guilt.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

"Why aren't you in school today?"

"Conference day."

"The parent-teacher kind?" she asked, letting the screen
door close softly behind her. She wasn't sure if it was his open,
unpretentious interest in the scars and discolorations on her face or
the fact that he was a cookie thief, caught red-handed, who still had
the nerve to pop another cookie into his mouth right under her nose
that appealed to her. But there was something about Fletcher Howlett
that she innately liked. "The kind where your algebra teacher tells
your dad that you're doing your best, or that you're not living up to
your potential? The kind that makes or breaks a driver's license? That
kind of conference day?"

He didn't look as surprised to hear her talking about his
algebra grades as he was suspiciously interested in the source of her
knowledge.

"Did my dad tell you about that?"

"No. I heard it on the radio." She got the startled
response she was hoping for and was pleased. "Or maybe it was an
early-morning broadcast under my bedroom window. I can't remember," she
said, walking past him to sit on the swing and gather some heat from
the sunshine. There was a bicycle leaning against the other end of the
porch, near the steps. She smiled inwardly at his present mode of
transportation. "You're eating Baxter's cookies," she pointed out
calmly.

"Yeah, I know." He sat down beside her, then tipped the
can in her direction, offering her one. "At home we have to get his
permission to eat one."

She wanted to smile, even chuckle, but instead she hummed
her understanding. "I have a younger brother too. Seems as if I spent
most of my youth teaching him some very good lessons about life."

"Mine's a pain in the"—he glanced at her and
grinned—"neck. And they let him get away with murder," he
said, speaking of his father and uncle.

"Mine too. In fact, I'm convinced that if it weren't for
me, my brother would be a no-account bum today. My mother was so busy
riding me about golden rules and standing up straight and being a good
girl… well, I had to teach him everything."

"I know that one," he said, nodding sagely, as if wise
beyond his years.

"However," she said pointedly. "Those are Baxter's
cookies. You haven't drawn me any pictures."

"You really want me to?" He grinned, a challenge in his
eyes.

"Can you do better than stick people?"

"No."

"Then I'd rather have you wash my car."

His eyes lit up. "Nice car. Seventy-one, nine-eleven E,
two-point-two liter, fuel-injected, five-speed. It's really nice."

The boy knew his cars. "I bought it secondhand when I was
still in college. It's not worth what a Carrera that same year would
be, but someday, who knows…"

"You really want me to wash it?"

"If you want to."

"I'm not five years old. I don't work for cookies, you
know."

"I'll bake you a cake."

"I'd rather have a pie."

"Cherry or apple?"

"Pecan."

She sucked air through her teeth. "You drive a hard
bargain," she said, holding out her hand to make the deal.

"I know," he said, smiling. He took her hand and shook it
briefly.

For a teenager to talk confidently, even joke with an
adult, was a treat for Dorie. Most teens of her experience were
resentful and distrusting of adults, foul tempered and mean. It was a
huge relief to know that not all her basic instincts about people had
been destroyed.

They sat quietly for a minute or two. She was about to get
up and take her leave when she felt him looking at her.

"It's not polite to stare," she said quietly, resisting
the urge to ride her face from him.

"Sorry," he said, looking away. But then he looked back
and admitted, "I thought you'd look worse."

He opened and closed his mouth as if he were trying to
gobble them back in, but the words were out. He frowned, looked away,
and muttered another apology.

"Actually, I did look worse," she said, taking pity on
him. "I looked like a blue raccoon with a mouth full of nuts a couple
of months ago."

"Who did it to you?" he asked, his eyes softening with
concern.