The summer was not easy. In Lucy's opinion, that was the understatement of the decade.
She had cried (in private) when they were made to say goodbye to Two-Bit in the middle of July, and she had cried harder when Lilly came to her and cried about missing him right after he told her he might have loved her. Elenore was growing faster than Lucy could reasonably keep up with. Everyday, she wanted more and more to eat, and she was getting worse at sleeping during the night. By August, Elenore was doing what the doctor called "reverse cycling—" nursing in the middle of the night and almost refusing anything to drink during the day. Through that month, Elenore slept all day and was awake all night; accordingly, Lucy was awake all day and into the night. Lucy loved Elenore more than anyone in the world. She had since the moment she was born. But some nights, at three in the morning when Lucy would rather be asleep, she almost prayed for her own death. Of course, she never quite wished for that. She couldn't risk leaving Elenore all alone in the world (read: with Dally, who probably wouldn't have much to say to her even if he did kind of like her, and with Soda, who would undoubtedly find a way to turn ketchup purple and serve that to his goddaughter for dinner in her mother's absence).
In his defense, Dally gave Lucy a break whenever either of them could manage it. Oftentimes, he was at working, bagging groceries for customers he hated and probably ripped off at some point or another, and Lucy didn't even have the option to call him for help. There were also those times when Elenore would scream and yell like a banshee, and the only thing that seemed to soothe her was being rocked by her mother. But sometimes, on an early evening when neither Lucy nor Dally was working on anything, Dally would turn to his wife, tell her to get some sleep, and he'd stay up with Elenore. As she drifted off into sleep, Lucy would watch her husband and her daughter get acquainted with one another. Dally, naturally, was not the warmest parent. He would hold Elenore and balance a book in between himself and the baby; then he would read to her from one of the hundreds of books Lucy had laying around in the apartment and down in the store. He was not warm with the baby, but you couldn't call him cold, either. He was just Dally. It was almost funny, Lucy thought, and then she fell asleep.
One night toward the end of August, when Elenore was finally putting a stop to that whole reverse cycling thing, Dally looked at Lucy and told her (for the umpteenth time since Elenore had been born) that she looked terrible. She rolled her eyes and, once again, called him a true romantic.
"I ain't tryin' to be cute," he said. "Ya look hit."
"And you care?"
Dally didn't say anything. He couldn't make himself admit it, and besides, he didn't even need to. Lucy could see right through him. She nodded a little, wordlessly understanding him. He almost had to smile at her. She looked like she might vomit or pass out or both, and though she did not look at all pretty, there was something almost fun about seeing her that way. It wasn't that it was funny to see her look ugly or in pain, as he wasn't incredibly fond of that. He just liked that she was there and that she was real. It sounded cheesy as hell, and he knew it. Then again, he'd been feeling more and more different everyday since Lucy had Elenore. This was just another one of those moments, he supposed.
"Get some sleep," he said.
"I have to make sure Elenore gets to sleep first. You know this."
"Hey, she's my kid, too, ain't she? You trust me to get her to sleep?"
Lucy nodded. Perhaps it was stupid of her to trust that Dallas Winston could be a decent father, even once Elenore was already four months old. Dally hadn't done anything too reckless or thoughtless since they brought the baby home, and he always seemed to be around unless he was working. It hadn't been like that before Elenore – not even when Lucy was pregnant. She'd seen him hold Elenore and talk to her and act like he liked her, and perhaps not all of it was bull. If it were, she had a feeling he would have left already. After all, Dally didn't do anything unless he wanted to, and for him to do stay for this …
She turned off her thoughts, kissed his cheek (at which he still bristled – it was so soft of her to do that), and muttered that yes, she did trust him to get Elenore to sleep. He told her to go to bed, and he'd take care of it. Perhaps stupidly, she believed him, but not completely. As she convincingly feigned sleep, she watched Dally try to put Elenore to sleep through mostly closed eyes. Now that she was a mother, Lucy knew that no matter what happened and no matter who was with her (even if it was Dally), she wouldn't be able to sleep unless she knew that Elenore was OK.
Dally picked Elenore up and sat with her in the (less dusty than before) armchair. As he lifted her up, Lucy heard him murmur, "C'mon, kid. Elenore. You gotta sleep sometime, don't ya?" Elenore fussed a little before she recognized that she was with her father. Lucy smiled sleepily. So, it was going to be one of those nights. Thank goodness. She could rest.
She kept watching, though neither Dally nor Elenore could have known that she wasn't quite asleep. Dally was talking quietly to Elenore … quietly enough so that Lucy couldn't hear, but she figured it couldn't have been anything too terrible. At four months old, Elenore already appeared to be an excellent judge of bull. When her grandmother was holding her and asked how old she'd have to be before they were allowed to pierce her ears and make her pretty, Elenore began to wail. Lucy had to hide a grin behind her hand for that one.
Out of Lucy's earshot, Dally was sitting with Elenore, almost rocking her but not quite. He still hadn't figured out how to do that, even though Lucy had gotten on his ass about it.
"It doesn't matter if you don't think rocking the baby is cool or not," she'd said. "It helps her sleep, and when she sleeps, we sleep."
He thought about that every time he was made to hold Elenore (though recently, he'd been volunteering to hold her more frequently), but he still felt pretty silly. It was like he was playing a part – the role of Daddy played terribly by Dallas Winston. He knew he was awful at it, and it scared the hell out of him to be anywhere near the kid when she was really crying. But he wasn't about to leave. As tempting as it was on those nights that Elenore would sob and sob until she tired herself out, he still refused to leave. It was everyone expected, and somewhere down the way, he decided he didn't want to do the thing that people expected out of him. Somewhere down the way, he had grown so tired of being the person everyone else expected him to be. He couldn't explain it, precisely, but he thought it might have something to do with how shocked he still was that Lucy had been arrested for aggravated assault when she was a kid. She'd proven everybody wrong. Maybe he could, too.
He was still out of Lucy's earshot when he held Elenore that night, which he was grateful for. Just because he wasn't going anywhere didn't mean he needed someone to know that he could, on occasion, be almost kind to the kid. Her fussing started up again, and in an attempt to calm her down, Dally spoke to her.
"Hey, you don't gotta do that," he said, being especially careful to keep his voice down. "You don't gotta cry. You're a tough kid."
Elenore let out a little cry, almost like she, at four months old, was trying to prove him wrong. He smirked when he thought of that. Leave it to his and Bennet's kid, he supposed.
"I know ya want your ma," he said. "I want her, too. But we gotta cut her a break if we want her to want us back."
After he said that, Elenore calmed down a little. It was almost like she could understand him. Maybe she could feel how his heart rate kept going up and down every time he held her. In less than a minute, he ranged from cautiously comfortable to utterly terrified. Elenore was a smart kid. She must have known that he didn't know how to love her. At the very least, he didn't know how to show her that he loved her (even if part of him – most of him – wanted to).
The longer he held onto her, the calmer they both became. Suddenly, and without his recognition, it began to feel like he was no longer playing the role of Daddy. He just was one. For the briefest flicker of a moment, it was like he knew exactly what to do, or like he had always planned on becoming a father. In the back of his mind, he knew it was all bullshit, and by the time he woke up in the morning (or the afternoon, depending on how long the kid kept him awake), he'd be uncertain and anxious all over again. In this very fleeting moment, however, he knew he needed to be right there.
He leaned forward a bit and, without thinking (just moving), he instinctively kissed the top of Elenore's head. He'd never done anything like that before, and it would be a long, long time before he did anything like it again. But in that moment, he didn't overthink it. In fact, he hadn't given it any thought at all. To kiss the top of the baby's head – to kiss Elenore – felt more comfortable than breathing and blinking.
Dally didn't know that Lucy hadn't fallen asleep yet. He didn't know that while she'd heard nothing, she'd seen everything. Of course, it was better that way. In that case, there was no way he could call it a performance.
Where summer, in the heat, the stress, and the loss, had not been easy, the fall was quickly becoming much worse. In September, Sadie was counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday, since on the day after, she'd tell Darry about her plan to quickly marry Johnny and get out of his hair. Katie got a letter from Two-Bit with not one wisecrack in it, which made her so sick that it scared the hell out of everyone else. And Lucy was going back to school full time, which meant that on the days he wasn't working, Dally was left alone with Elenore.
Most days, he managed OK. He'd figured out how to change her, but generally, she kicked up a fit when he tried to feed her out of a bottle. When he considered what the kid was used to, he really couldn't blame her. They settled into a routine pretty quickly. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Lucy was out of the house from nine to two, taking classes in Victorian novels, political philosophy (Dally had tried to read The Republic behind Lucy's back, but it was too boring.), and astronomy, which she was certain she was going to fail. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Lucy was only gone for two hours at a time. Though Dally expected to be less stressed on the days Lucy was gone for shorter periods of time, he couldn't have been more wrong in his assumption. If he was made to stay home with Elenore on a Tuesday or a Thursday, she would cry harder than ever before with no discernible reason other than missing her mother. She would leave the house for much longer on other days, but there was something about a Tuesday or a Thursday that made Elenore tick. Dally didn't have the energy to find out what it was, but he did (in some way) hope that the answer presented itself to him. Then, he remembered that Elenore was five months old, and there was no reason. She was only a baby.
One particular Thursday in October was so awful that Dally was surprised he didn't just jump out the window and end it right there. At the time, he thought the only reason he didn't was because he knew Lucy would try to give him a proper funeral, and even though he wouldn't be there, he hated the thought of a bunch of people gathered together to talk about what a train wreck he'd been.
But Elenore really was too much for him. As soon as she woke up and saw that Lucy wasn't there, she opened her mouth and wailed so loudly that it scared the customers downstairs in the shop. He heard Eddie explain that there was a family upstairs, and you'd have to excuse them – this didn't usually happen during the day since Elenore was such a well-behaved baby. Dally was almost nervous that Eddie would try to kick them out for scaring the customers away, and Lucy would kick Dally out for not keeping Elenore quiet enough. But he stopped thinking about it the minute he happened upon it. He couldn't afford to think about it – not with a screaming infant in his arms.
Elenore made a string of "Mmmmm" sounds, which was either part of her crying or an attempt to cry out for her mom. Weren't all cries just a cry out for somebody's mom? Dally tried harder than ever to rock the kid to sleep, even if it made him look uncool. He didn't care; this was his apartment (his home), and no one could see him, anyway. If he didn't get that baby (Elenore) to shut up (Be quiet), he was sure he'd be without a home in no time flat. Without a home, without a kid, and without a wife. It sounded like everything he thought he'd have (or lack) and everything he thought he should want, but the second he pictured it all falling apart, he needed to save it. He didn't know why. Maybe even he could get comfortable somewhere.
But this wasn't comfortable. This was torture. It didn't matter what he tried to help the kid do. He rocked her; she cried. He fed her; she cried. He changed her; she cried. He read to her; she cried. It drove him crazy to know that there was something wrong with the kid, and she couldn't just open her mouth and tell him in English. It drove him even crazier to know that he was the only person he knew who was a father, and he couldn't ask anybody for help. Darry had looked after Pony and Soda after their folks died, but he wasn't a father. He didn't have to deal with their crying the way Dally had to deal with Elenore. Darry could just talk to his kid brothers when he was responsible for them. What Dally had on his hands was a guessing game, and the only reason he wasn't walking away was an obstinate desire to prove everybody wrong … to finally get the hell over that night in the kitchen when Violet was eight years old. He couldn't be there for his kid sister then. He'd be there for his kid now. He'd be there for her even if that meant swallowing his pride and dialing a number he didn't want to dial. Dialing that number meant admitting to weakness and to defeat. It didn't matter anymore. Dallas Winston was mostly invincible, he figured, but a hysterical baby was a match for anyone.
"Hello?" the voice on the other line answered.
"Hey, man."
"Dally?"
"Yeah."
"Is everything all right over there? Sounds like Elenore's cryin'."
"She is, man. I can't get her to fuckin' stop. Can you … can you come over here an' help me?"
"You're asking me for help?"
"Don't celebrate it."
"I ain't. I'll be there in half an hour."
Dally hung up the phone and clutched the cord, both because he was beyond annoyed with Elenore's constant wailing and because he couldn't believe he'd gone weak and soft like that. Surely, now, everyone would know that he wasn't the guy he used to be. Surely, now, everyone would know that he was whipped … useless. Of course, at least part of him knew better now. It was better to be whipped by a broad than have no broad at all.
Elenore began to sob louder, and he prayed for that half an hour to fly by.
About half an hour after hanging up the phone, Sodapop Curtis came waltzing in with nothing more than an old 45 of some song Dally was pretty sure he hated. He didn't even seem to make a face at Elenore's crying, which Dally (to his chagrin) found disheartening. Soda wasn't a father, even if he'd been ready to play the part years earlier. He wasn't even a father, and he was more equipped for the job than Dally ever could be. It wasn't surprising, given Soda had had a real daddy when he was a kid, but it was still disappointing. Dally did love Elenore (in his own way), and he was never going to have the tools to give her the kind of love that she kept asking for, regardless of whether she could speak.
That had been his suspicion all day. He just didn't want to confront it. Elenore was probably crying like this because she missed her mama, and she knew she didn't have a good enough daddy. It didn't matter how much he loved the kid or how much he wanted to be there for her. He was always going to be Dally. He was always going to be ill prepared. Maybe he ought to leave the kid with Soda after all.
The thought of Lucy getting pissed at him, even if he didn't have to see it, was enough to make him stay put. He loved it when she was angry – thought that was when she was her most beautiful. He didn't love when she was angry with him. He couldn't explain it, but it was true.
"You got a record player somewhere, don't ya?" Soda asked.
"In the corner, by Lucy's Dickens," Dally said. "What's that gonna do?"
"Well, I'm hopin' it's a distraction."
He put the 45 on, and Elenore was still wailing like a banshee – whatever a banshee was. Dr. Bennet used the word all the time without explaining himself. That was what literature professors did. They used a lot of literary words and then expected you to know all of them. It bugged the hell out of Dally, but at least Lucy was there to give him notes. Lucy was always there to give him notes, and about more things than just the book learning. He wasn't prepared to lose that, but he knew he'd have no choice if he didn't learn how to take care of this baby – take care of Elenore.
The song was every bit as gross as Dally worried it would be – "Goodnight, Irene." Despite the fact that he hated it with every part of him, Elenore's wailing went from a quiet cry to … he peered over into her crib, and about a minute into the song, she was asleep. Dally looked up at Soda, feeling, for the first time in his entire life, baffled. Soda was wearing that shit-eating grin of his. For the first time since they were little kids, Dally didn't even want to smack the grin off Soda's face.
"What the hell, man?" Dally asked. "How'd you know that would work?"
"Ponyboy cried a lot when he was a baby," Soda said.
"Am I supposed to be shocked?"
"Naw, of course not. Mom and Dad tried everything to get him to stop, but nothin' helped. Nothin' but 'Goodnight, Irene.' I figured if it worked for one kid, it might work for another."
Dally looked into the crib again. Elenore looked as fast and as peacefully asleep as she did when she fell out on Lucy's chest. He looked at her more closely to see if she was starting to look more like either one of her folks. Maybe that was his chin. He couldn't just walk out on somebody who had his chin. Then, he'd have to go the rest of his life knowing that there was some girl out there with the same chin as he had, and he wouldn't even know her. Now that he'd seen it, he'd never be able to forget it – never be able to let it go. He'd have to stay with Elenore forever, and the more he thought on it, the less horrible it seemed.
"She gonna start thinkin' her name's Irene or somethin'?" Dally asked.
"Well, Pony didn't," Soda said.
"And if Pony was smart enough to know the difference between himself and Irene, my kid sure as hell is."
Soda wanted to ask Dally why he'd called him. All those times Soda pulled him aside and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, he was pretty sure Dally was bound to hate him more than he already hated everything that crossed his path. Then again, he knew he hadn't forced Dally into doing anything. He apologized to Lucy for missing her graduation because he wanted to; he went back into the hospital to meet and hold Elenore because he wanted to. The same answer went for that day. He called Soda to help with Elenore's crying because he wanted to. It was important to him, and he wanted to.
The thought was still bewildering – Dally sticking around to be somebody's husband and somebody's daddy – but admittedly, it was getting more and more believable each day. Soda saw the way he looked at Elenore in her crib. It wasn't like his cold, cold heart had melted over or anything, but it was like Elenore meant something to him. Like now that he had her, he couldn't let her go. Soda had to admit it was impressive. Even Dally could let himself love somebody else.
"Things are all right up here?" Soda asked. "You an' Lucy? You an' Elenore?"
Dally nodded. He wasn't going to give Soda a play-by-play, if that was what he wanted. He knew he did. He just nodded and hoped that Elenore would stay asleep. Lucy would be home in about half an hour, and he didn't want her to be the one who had to deal with all the crying. She had plenty of work to do. It was his job to take care of the baby – of Elenore – when Lucy was studying, and he was OK with that. He was OK with anything that meant …
He stopped. Sometimes, even though he knew how much he loved his wife, it was still too much for him to think, even quietly.
"I ain't packin' my bags, if that's what you mean," Dally finally said.
"It wasn't," Soda said, "but I'm glad."
"Can't really pack my bags when I …"
He wasn't sure if he would have finished that thought, but it didn't matter. In that moment, Lucy unlocked the door and walked inside, half an hour earlier than she usually did. Dally couldn't have been gladder to see her if he tried. It wasn't even just because he knew that Elenore always cried less when her mama was in the room. It was that for him, everything was better when Lucy was there. She was cool, and that was saying the least. Then again, he was cool, and part of being cool was always saying the least.
"You ain't supposed to be home yet," Dally said.
"Good eye," Lucy said. "And it's lovely to see you, too."
Her eyes flickered toward Soda as she asked him what he was doing there.
"Came to help Dally out with a little baby problem," he said. Dally made a note to pound the sand out of him later, when his girls – his girls? – weren't looking. He should have known better than to tell Lucy, the toughest broad he'd ever known, that he was having a problem with Elenore. She was bound to castigate him for not being a good enough daddy, just like they'd talked about a few months before Elenore was born. On second thought, however, he knew that Soda knew better. He knew much better, and that was why he'd said something. Dally had to give it up to the kid. He was much smarter than everybody gave him credit.
Lucy didn't look upset. She turned to Dally with some concern in her eyes, but she didn't look like she was going to yell at him. He was, much to his own surprise, relieved.
"Is she OK?" Lucy asked.
"I think so," Dally answered; careful not to make eye contact with the toughest broad he'd ever known. He didn't feel like taking a tongue lashing, and he could feel Lucy gearing up for one.
"She was just a little sad today," Soda said. "Ya know, babies get nervous, too."
Nervous? Because she'd been left at home alone with her daddy? Soda was really in for it now. It'd be a wonder if he could walk by the time Dally was through with him. Did either of them really expect Lucy to stick around after hearing that Elenore was nervous to spend the day with her own daddy? Was he so inept that even a five-month-old infant could smell it on him? He moved toward the closet, ready to dismiss himself before Lucy could beat him to the punch.
But Lucy still wasn't mad. She stood over Elenore's crib and watched her with a look of kindness and sympathy on her pretty face. For the second time in his life (and all on the same day), Dally found himself baffled.
"She's just getting used to her new schedule," Lucy said. "I think it just dawned on her that things are different now. Mama's around less."
She looked at Dally and shot him a tired smile, which still puzzled him. Why wasn't she screaming? Why wasn't she telling him that he wasn't good enough?
"At least she got to be home with her daddy today," Lucy said. "And Uncle Soda came by? She's a lucky baby."
If Dally had been a different kind of guy, he would have asked Lucy why she was being so cool about hearing that he had failed to take care of Elenore, just like he'd failed to take care of Violet when she was a little girl. It didn't make any sense. It made less sense when she pressed up in her shoes and kissed his cheek as though she were rewarding him for doing a terrible job. If he had been a different kind of guy, he would have asked her what the hell that was about.
But he wasn't a different kind of guy. He was still Dallas Winston. He still shrugged his shoulders and played it cool, like he wouldn't have cared either way about what Lucy had to say. It didn't make a difference, anyway. She knew he cared. She knew he cared, but she wasn't going to force him to admit it. That was the coolest thing about Lucy. She knew how to play.
"I'm gonna go grab you a Coke," he said. She was about done nursing Elenore, and the best part about that, for Lucy, was the chance to drink Coke again. By offering to grab one for her, Dally was practically asking her to marry him this time.
"Thanks," was about all Lucy could manage.
He gave her a curt nod, and then took off. She turned to Soda, who was looking at Elenore as she slept. He'd loved a lot of people before, but that was nothing compared to having a goddaughter. He wasn't even her kin (not really); yet, he knew he would have taken a bullet for her if he had to.
"I better go," he said. "When Elenore wakes up, tell her Uncle Soda loves her, and he'll see her soon, OK?"
"Wait," Lucy said. "Before you go, there's something I want to ask you about."
"I'm listenin'."
After making a series of jokes about not believing it, and how Dally must have been replaced with Bizarro Dally back in '65, Sadie and Johnny agreed to babysit Elenore on Lucy and Dally's second anniversary. Lucy figured that if they really were going to be next, they better get used to having a real-life baby around. Johnny looked like he'd seen a ghost when Lucy brought that up. She figured it was a talk she and Sadie would need to have another time.
On the night of their anniversary, Lucy and Dally lay in bed together, making intermittent jokes about how stupid they'd been to get married when they were eighteen – to get married at all. Lucy joked that she only married him so she'd get more access to his body. Dally said he knew that, and he didn't blame her. He was a ride he thought she wouldn't survive.
"And yet, I have," Lucy said. "What do you make of that?"
"It'll kill you one of these days."
"Hmm. And you're looking forward to that day, or…?"
"Shuddup."
Lucy grabbed Dally's hand and asked him the question that seared in her brain. It was the question she should have known better than to ask, but she couldn't help but ask it. She was always doing the stupid thing, anyway. What difference did it make?
"How come you never left?"
Dally rolled over further onto his back, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. Just when he thought she'd never make him talk about it. Lucy might have been a tough broad, but she was privileged enough to have a little softness, a little sentimentality. He didn't know if he could handle it.
"You know why," he said.
"Not really."
"Yeah, you do. You're just tryin' to get me to say it out loud. I ain't …"
He stopped. The truth was, he wasn't so sure anymore. He knew he loved her. There was no taking that back. He knew he loved Elenore, too. But he wasn't sure he'd have to keep quiet about it forever. Lucy had done enough to make him almost sure that it didn't matter if he wasn't always rough around her. He wasn't all the way there yet, and he knew he wouldn't be for a long time. A long time, however, no longer translated into never.
"What if I dared you?"
Dally rolled back over to face Lucy. She was smirking, almost like she had one up on him. Most of the time, she did. He was man enough to admit it. This time, he'd have one up on her.
"I'll take your dare," he said. "But you didn't say I had to do it now."
"I'll revise."
"Too late, Bennet. I take your dare, but I take my time. You gotta live with that."
Then, Lucy rolled out of bed, leaving a mess of sheets and blankets on the bed. She was rifling through her drawer – the one that was mostly underwear, a few books, and Dally's blade. He sat up, watching her.
"What're you doin'?" he asked. "It looks dangerous."
"Since when do you care about dangerous?"
"Since right now."
Lucy grabbed a black box out of the drawer and slammed it shut. She got back into bed and threw the box on his lap.
"Happy anniversary, I guess."
He picked up the box and looked at it as if it were a bomb.
"What's this?"
"Well, generally, when someone gives you an unidentified box on a special occasion, you open it and find out that way."
He rolled his eyes and pulled the lid off. If it had been a different day, he probably would have given her hell for assuming he'd received many gifts in his life, but he didn't. He was too … stunned … by what he found in that box.
There were two rings – kind of silvery in color, one much smaller than the other. Dally furrowed his brow at them before turning the box around to face Lucy, who was watching him with clear nerves on her face.
"I'm gonna ask you one more time," he said. "What's this?"
"What's it look like? They're rings."
"I can see that. I wanna know why you gave 'em to me."
Lucy sighed. She was hoping she wouldn't have to put words to it. She was hoping he would just know. Then again, he probably did know. This was just his way of tricking her into saying what she needed to say for the both of them. She had to admire his cleverness. It was the reason why she'd wanted to screw with him in the first place.
"We've been married for two years," she said. "We have Elenore. And I figured after two years of being married to Dallas Winston without him going anywhere, I should probably put some sort of metaphor to it."
"Where'd you get 'em?"
"Soda knows how to make them. They say 'jack of all trades, master of none,' but I think he might actually be master of all."
Dally almost laughed. He pulled the smaller ring out of the box and looked at it.
"I don't s'pose this one's mine," he said.
"Not with that attitude, it's not."
"Come here."
He grabbed Lucy's hand and put the ring on for her. She picked up her hand, looking between the ring and him.
"How come you're not running now?" she asked.
Dally shrugged. He knew exactly why he wasn't running, but he was going to find a different way to say it if it was the last thing he did. That was the only thing he was good at – double talk.
"I don't know," he said. "Guess it's kinda nice you still got such high expectations for me. Guess it's nice that anyone gives a damn."
Lucy crawled over to him, straddled him over the blanket, and kissed him like only someone who gave a damn could ever kiss him. He wasn't going to tell her up front, but he appreciated it – the kissing and the giving a damn.
"I give more than one damn," she said. "Think I always have."
She looked down at the box. His ring was still in there, and it gave her a bit of pause to see it there. Maybe he didn't want to put it on?
"You gonna put that ring on yourself, or do you want me to do it for you?" she asked.
Dally reached over to the box and presented it to Lucy. He was smirking, and if he was smirking, it meant she wasn't in hot water.
"You better do it for me," he said. "You know, in case I fuck up or somethin'."
Lucy pulled the ring out of the box and took her husband's hand, which he willingly gave to her. It was still odd that he could do stuff like that because he wanted to, but she hoped he'd keep on wanting to. It was better that way – for everybody. She slid the ring on his finger and kissed him one more time.
"Now, speaking of fucking up," she said.
"Don't be cute."
But Lucy could be as cute she wanted. It didn't matter. Dally wasn't going anywhere. He thought, now, that he cared enough about himself to stay put. He thought, now, that he cared enough about somebody else to stay put for her … for both of them. Better to get his head blown off at home with Lucy than somewhere else. At least Lucy gave a damn. If she could spare a few damns for him, he could do it for her. After all, he knew how to play.
By the end of March, Dally was still around. He still hadn't thought about leaving. He hadn't even so much as swiped anything from the store where he still worked. As it turned out, being Elenore's father was an even bigger distraction than being Lucy's husband. Any time he wanted to go out, it turned out that Elenore would rather him stay in. It got to the point that any time she'd see him throw on his jacket, she'd cry and cry until he took it off and sat back down. Lucy had to take her into the bathroom and hide for a few minutes any time Dally had to go to work so she wouldn't see and keep him from going. She was a smart kid, that Elenore.
Lucy was, somehow, still on track to graduate in 1970. She hadn't failed astronomy during that fall semester of her second year, but when she brought home a B minus, she'd convinced herself that she was a failure. Elenore had seen her crying, but instead of crying right along with her (like babies were supposed to do), she smiled at her mama. Dally said that it was proof she was his kid – laughing at somebody else's pain. Lucy shook her head and said it was proof that she was paying attention to Sadie and Soda when they babysat her – knowing exactly how to cheer somebody up when they were feeling low.
Apart from her own folks, Sadie was Elenore's favorite person in the whole world. Sadie was the first person to let Elenore try ice cream, and from then on, they were thick as thieves. On that day – the last day in March of 1968 – Lucy and Dally would have had Sadie look after Elenore, but she was otherwise occupied, having gotten married earlier that day. So, Lucy and Dally took Elenore to the Curtis place because if there was one thing Elenore liked almost as much as spending the day with Aunt Sadie, it was spending the day with Uncle Soda.
Elenore was nearly a year old now, and she could say a few words, including the most important ones: Mama, Daddy, Sadie, and Soda. They were the four words she said most often, though she knew who each of them were, respectively. She never got them confused. There was nothing quite as happy as when Elenore would look at one of her parents or her godparents and chirp out their name. Even Dally almost smiled when she called him Daddy. After nearly a year, it almost felt like he'd earned the name.
So, when Lucy and Dally knocked on the Curtises' front porch, and Elenore greeted Soda with his own name in her sweet little voice, he knew he was little more than a poor sucker.
"Hey, baby girl," he said. He looked up at her folks. "What's up?"
"Elenore's been saying your name over and over since city hall," Lucy said. "We figured she wanted to see you a little bit more, if that's OK?"
Soda smiled at Elenore one more time, then looked suspiciously at her folks again.
"You just really wanna be alone, don't ya?"
"It's been a week and a half," Lucy said.
"Dammit, Lucy, you don't gotta tell him that."
"Well, when it's been a week and a half, it's almost worth bragging about."
"You sure bragging's the right word?"
Soda chuckled to himself and grabbed Elenore out of Lucy's arms. She was all too happy to go with him. At eleven months old, she knew that if Soda was babysitting, she got to have chocolate. That was worth being away from Mama for a little while.
"Thanks," Lucy said. "We really shouldn't be too long."
"You're just tryin' to make me look like some sorta wimp, ain't you?"
Lucy ignored Dally, waved goodbye to Elenore, and then took the same hand to walk back down the street with her husband. Soda laughed again, closing the door behind them and putting Elenore down on the couch.
"You sure got some funny folks, baby girl," he said. "You love 'em, though, don't ya?"
"Yes!"
He smiled. A couple months earlier, Elenore had figured out that people often responded to questions with the word yes. This was all too fun for her aunts and uncles, who asked her things like, "Do ya want a beer?" and "Do ya got a blade, Elenore?" Katie Mathews got a letter from Two-Bit asking Katie to ask Elenore if she ever shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Dally rolled his eyes and wondered who was making Two-Bit listen to country music over there. Elenore, of course, said yes. Two-Bit would be back in a few months, which Soda was glad about. He hated to think of him over there.
"Yeah, kid," Soda said. "I love 'em too. Just don't tell your daddy I said so, OK? He'd skin me alive."
"Yes!"
Soda laughed one more time. He'd known it since Lucy asked him to be Elenore's godfather, but every minute he spent with her, the truer it became. If somebody asked him to, he'd take a bullet for that kid. Maybe she and Lucy weren't his kin, but they were as good as. He had Sadie to thank for that – maybe Dally, too, when he thought about it.
He heard a clinking noise from the front porch. Then, there were footsteps. It would have had him on edge if it hadn't been the right time of day. Soda picked up Elenore and took her to the door with him.
"Mail's here."
And that was 'Impatience and Impulsivity.' Sorry about that ending!
I had no idea this was going to be the last chapter, but after Elenore was born, I figured I'd resolved most things narratively. And, as I've mentioned, there will be plenty of companion pieces that fill in the narrative and chronological gaps of this one. 'Impatience and Impulsivity' is the how of things – how Elenore was born, how Dally chose to stay, and how Soda fits into my Core Four.
I'm (ideally) going to be focusing on some articles of my own throughout the month of May, but that doesn't mean I'll go completely inactive. I've got some stuff in the works, including the third multi-chap fic in the 'Arrogance and Aggression' universe. I won't drop the title yet, but it CAN be found somewhere in this story. Sometimes, I like to be vague.
Hinton owns The Outsiders. "Goodnight, Irene" is a song from 1950, popularly recorded by Gordon Jenkins and His Orchestra. It is exactly the kind of song that could put Dallas Winston's daughter to sleep.
