"Are you all right?" Anne asked after a few minutes of silence.
"Um, yes, I'm fine. What time on Sunday?"
"They usually eat around noon, so how about if I pick you up at eleven thirty? Is that too early for you?"
"Oh, no, not at all!" He gave her directions to his home, and then they said good-bye. Humming a happy tune, he returned to his watches.
Anne noted that the address he'd given her was in a lower middle class area of town with modestly priced homes. Louis' dwelling turned out to be a small duplex. It was made of wood and painted white, but the door and window had blue trim, and the front steps, roof, and base were also painted blue. A potted plant was beside the steps, and a folded lawn chair leaned against the front wall.
Anne saw that a red construction paper heart was taped to the window and was curious about the child who'd put it there.
She parked the car, got out, and was walking toward the front steps when she saw Louis emerge from the house, locking the door behind himself. He wore a blue and white checked shirt with navy blue slacks and black shoes. He turned and saw her and beamed.
"I was going to ring your doorbell, but you beat me to it!" she told him. They both laughed.
Anne unlocked the car doors, and as soon as their seat belts clicked into place, she turned the ignition, and the engine roared to life.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?" Louis remarked.
"Gorgeous," Anne agreed.
As they rode along, the houses gradually became larger and nicer, and about twenty minutes after picking Louis up, Anne parked in front of the grandest house of them all. It was two stories high and was yellow trimmed in brown, with a three-story rotunda at one end. The attic had two windows, and the porch, which was also brown, was supported by two pillars.
Louis was too awed to say a thing as they approached the porch. Anne glanced at him, hoping he wasn't contrasting her parents' home with his own humble abode. She didn't think any less of him at all and wished there was a way she could tell him that without being too obvious.
She rang the doorbell, and her mother opened the door. "Hi, Mom," she said. "This is Louis Bourbon."
"Nice to meet you. Please come on in." Liz Boleyn stepped aside so they could enter. Anne saw that her father, George, Jane, Mary, and William were sitting on the sofa, watching Katie and Eric play on the living room floor. Anne made all the introductions.
Louis felt his innards quake as he shook hands with Thomas Boleyn. Although the older man smiled and addressed him courteously, his steely grey eyes seemed to bore right into Louis' brain, examining all his failures and shortcomings.
Soon all the food was on the table, and the family sat down to eat. "Would you like to say the blessing, George?" asked Liz.
Her son said a quick prayer, and then everyone dug in while Louis prepared himself for the inevitable barrage of questions. He didn't have to wait long.
"So what do you do, Louis?" Thomas asked as he settled his napkin in his lap.
It was the question Louis had dreaded most. "I work for a locksmith business."
"Locksmith?" Thomas frowned. "Interesting. What kind of degree does that require?"
"It doesn't require a degree, sir. I only had to complete a two-month apprenticeship." He didn't add that the man who'd trained him had claimed Louis was the fastest learner he'd ever met, as he didn't want to appear to be bragging.
"Is that so." Thomas' frown deepened.
"The world does need locksmiths just like it needs doctors and lawyers," George put in.
"I suppose it's something to fall back on if you can't make it in college," Thomas replied.
"Not everyone wants to go to college, Dad," Anne pointed out.
"If you've got a brain, there's no point in wasting it," said Thomas.
Liz cleared her throat. "So how are things in the Officer's Wives' club?" she asked Mary. Anne shot her mother a grateful look.
The family finished dinner, then retired to the living room. "Pecan pie for dessert would have been nice," Liz remarked. "I wish I'd remembered to pick one up a couple of days ago."
"I'll go get one," Anne offered. "I wanted to show Louis the spot where we used to go fishing, anyway."
"Can I go too? Please, please, please?" begged Katie.
"Of course, if it's OK with Anne and Louis," Mary told her daughter.
"It's fine with us," said Anne. Louis smiled and took the little girl's hand, and she beamed up at him.
Five minutes later, the three of them were on the road. Katie, who was usually quite shy around people she didn't know well, chatted happily with Louis, and the two of them kept up such an animated conversation that Anne even felt a little left out.
She drove to the pond, and the three of them got out of the car and walked around a bit. Then she continued on to the supermarket parking lot, where Katie skipped along happily, holding hands with both Louis and Anne. To the rest of the world, we must look like a perfectly ordinary family, Anne reflected. In her mind's eye, it was Henry who walked beside her, their little girl with pigtails bouncing. She had Henry's red hair and Anne's dark brown eyes.
Elizabeth.
Anne had to swallow a lump in her throat.
Over Anne's protests, Louis insisted on paying for the pie, and they were almost back to the car when Katie, who was running along ahead of the adults, stumbled and fell. Louis was there right away, gently lifting the little girl and comforting her.
"My knee hurts!" Katie sobbed.
"I know it does." Louis' voice was soothing as he cuddled the little girl, whose sobbing quickly diminished. "Let's get it taken care of right now, shall we?"
The three of them returned to the supermarket, where an associate bandaged Katie's skinned knee, and then Louis carried her to the toy aisle and told her to pick out what she wanted. A beaming Katie chose a small doll.
Much later, Anne had driven Louis home and was parked outside the duplex when she told him how much she admired the way he'd handled Katie. "You'd make such a wonderful father." She didn't realize that she'd been thinking out loud until the words were already out of her mouth, but instead of looking peeved, Louis smiled and took his wallet out. He opened it and showed Anne a picture of a little girl of about three or four. She had Louis' hair and eyes and looked remarkably like him.
"She's beautiful!" Anne exclaimed. "Who is she?"
"My daughter, Reese," Louis told her.