Hadley & Grace(81)
Jimmy stops in front of her, while Hadley and Skipper continue inside. He steps toward her, and she steps back.
He stops bouncing Miles, looks down at the ground, looks back at her. “Grace.”
She shakes her head and wraps her arms across her chest, her heart thumping—love and hurt pounding.
He sighs, looks out at the prairie, then at the toes of his boots. “I’m sorry.”
His words tilt the scales, causing blood to race to her face like mercury dipped in a volcano, and he quickly backtracks. “I know that’s the wrong thing to say, but I’ve been trying to think of what else I can say, and I can’t come up with the words. I screwed up. Really screwed up.”
She glares at him, her nose flaring, so much rage and hurt inside her she’s afraid to open her mouth for fear of what might come out.
Miles flails his arms trying to reach Jimmy’s nose, and Jimmy pulls his face out of range, but when Miles protests, wriggling and writhing, Jimmy bends down to let his son grab hold and honk his beak. “Beep, beep,” he says in a duck voice, his imploring eyes still on Grace.
She looks away, tears threatening. He’s right: she doesn’t want to hear his words. They are not enough—his apologies, his promises, his vows worthless as dust particles—meaningless, unsubstantial, empty. Atomic dust particles—hurtful, damaging, unforgiveable.
He straightens and runs his hand through his hair so hard it looks like he is trying to pull it from its roots. “If there was something I could do to prove it,” he says, “show how sorry I am, I would.” He takes another tentative step toward her, and again she backs away. “Grace, please, look at me.”
She shakes her head. Looking at him won’t help. It will only make things worse: the genuine sorrow in his eyes, the fierce promise in his voice as he tells her he won’t do it again, truly believing it, a conviction that has proved false three times before.
Miles squirms and reaches out for Grace.
She takes him, and as she does, their eyes meet. “Grace, I’m going to figure out a way to fix this, to make it right.”
She walks past him and into the restaurant, wanting to believe, but plumb out of faith.
58
HADLEY
Grace sits down first, looking about as downtrodden as Hadley has ever seen her, and a moment later, Jimmy joins them. It looks like he might have been crying, his eyes red rimmed and glassy, deep parentheses etched around his mouth, an expression not well suited for his normally happy-go-lucky handsome face.
He pretends to be fine, but Hadley feels the effort it takes, and it makes her horribly sad. While they wait for the waitress to come to take their order, Jimmy shows Skipper the different pockets on his fatigues and what each is used for.
“How’d you get the money?” Grace says suddenly, interrupting them and causing everything to stop.
His hand still on his left hip pocket, he says, “Figured it was time to get rid of the Harley.”
Grace winces, a visible flinch. “You sold your Harley?”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal, though obviously it is, a great big balloon of big deal now smack in the middle of the table.
“So, this pocket here,” he says, snapping closed the hip pocket and moving his hand to his left chest pocket, “this is the most important pocket.”
Skipper imitates Jimmy, moving his hand to his left chest pocket, his face very serious.
“In this pocket, you don’t just put any old thing,” Jimmy says.
“What do you put there?” Skipper asks, and Hadley finds herself leaning in, curious as well.
“This here is the pocket closest to your heart,” Jimmy says. “So, that’s what you need to keep there, the things closest to you.”
“What do you have in there?” Skipper says.
Hadley leans in a bit more as Jimmy unsnaps the flap.
The first thing he pulls out is a photo of Grace in a hospital bed holding a newborn Miles, a wide toothless grin spread across her face. He sets a folded sheet of paper beside it, then lastly digs out a tiny rust-colored feather and sets it on top of the paper.
Skipper fingers the feather, stroking it gently.
“Saved my brother’s life,” Jimmy says. “The chicken it belonged to, that is. My brother says it was God. I say it was just a chicken. Either way, it was good luck that day when their truck stopped to let the chicken pass and the chicken got blown up by the bomb on the side of the road instead of them. Each soldier in the truck and the one behind them took a feather, and when I enlisted, my brother gave me his.”
Skipper pulls his hand away, staring hard at the mystical token, chickens dying and men being spared concepts that are foreign to him.
Jimmy tucks the feather along with the note and the photo back in his pocket.
Hadley wants to ask what the note says, but she knows by the expression on Grace’s face that it is personal, the parting words from one lover to another who is going off to war.
It is all more than Hadley can stand, and she wants to scream at Grace to forgive him. He screwed up. Everyone screws up. Give the guy another chance.
The waitress appears.
Jimmy orders a cheeseburger, and Skipper, who never orders cheeseburgers, orders the same. Grace orders spaghetti. Hadley orders a salad, no cheese, dressing on the side.