Disclaimer. The characters of The Mummy are the property of Universal Studios. The title and chapter titles are taken from the song "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Johnny Cash (because what could be more fitting than a Johnny Cash song for the Americans?), originally written by Bob Dylan. The ranch and setting take a heavy cue from the film Giant. As far as I know, Blackbird, Texas is a town of my own invention.
IT AIN'T ME, BABE
i'll only let you down.
Hangman's Creek: Blackbird, Texas, 1932
"Benjamin Hartley Daniels, I baptize thee in the name 'a the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Jemima felt Naomi elbow her in the arm, and let out a sigh. Her sister-in-law leaned close and whispered in her ear, "See. He's baptized now."
Jemima's mouth twitched tersely. "I said I'd never forgive David for not letting me baptize him as a baby, and I never will."
She heard Naomi huff a little breath and turn her attention back to the scene at hand. Jemima's son stood there dripping in the stinking, knee-high waters of Hangman's Creek. A drought had come on in early May, and it was now the dead of July. She was surprised there was any water left to baptize him in. With an impatient sigh, she slipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt and found a handkerchief to dab delicately over her forehead and neck. Her lip wrinkled in disgust at a mosquito buzzing angrily around her face. She gave it a good swat, and was about to tell Naomi that it was much too hot for this sort of nonsense. She would have much rather baptized Benjamin in a church, at a font, when he was tiny and new. Not out here in a creek among the marsh and the flies. This business of waiting until a person was "reborn of the Spirit" before giving them a proper baptism was dreadfully annoying to Jemima. What was the point of bringing her family's beautiful lace baptismal gown all the way from Egypt if David wasn't even going to let her baptize the children when it still fit?
She was so consumed by her own irritation that she turned just a little too fiercely when a gentle hand touched her arm on the other side. The older woman jumped back in surprise, her gaze startled and apologetic.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. Jemima forced a smile and shook her head.
"Oh, no, I'm the one who should be sorry. Excuse me."
The lady offered her a nervous smile. "It's just we was wonderin' - that's your son that was baptized just now."
Jemima nodded. "Yes. That's my Benji."
"We was wonderin' - what's his middle name again?"
"Hartley," she told her. "It's my maiden name. We named him after my uncle, you see - Benjamin Hartley - because he looks so very much like him."
The older woman smiled and nodded her head, and turned back to share this with her friend. Jemima glanced down at her shoes in the dirt, staring dismally at the thin layer of dust coating her cream heels. Her hand twitched longingly next to her purse for a cigarette, but she didn't dare have one. Not at a river baptism among holy rollers. And certainly not out here in a drought.
Jemima did have an Uncle Benjamin Hartley, but the assertion that Benji looked anything like him was dubious at best. It was an easy lie to tell around here; no one knew her family, and conveniently, she didn't have any pictures of her uncle. She hadn't seen her own family since Benjamin was a baby whose chubby features could be credited to practically anyone if she pretended to be convinced enough. People were inclined to agree with new mothers, and Tamsin had shrugged in her retreating way and said, "Yes, I suppose he does. Perhaps he looked more like him when he was newborn, though." And Jemima had emphatically proclaimed that he had.
Benjamin had never looked like anyone except Beni Gabor. He couldn't look more like the man if it was possible for Beni to impregnate himself.
Oh, every now and then he might have an expression or stand in such a way that she saw a glimmer of her father. And one or two times, one of the ladies at church had remarked that he looked like her. But that hadn't happened since Benji was very young. When he was toddler, he went through a brief phase where Jemima thought he might actually start too look a bit like her, but that time passed. He was seven now, and all skinny limbs and round, desperate eyes.
David gave him anything he wanted, and he still had desperate eyes.
He scurried up to her now, dripping in his white robe, swatting at the bugs enticed by his scummy skin. She let out a breath and smiled at him, even though he was a mess.
"Did you see, Ma?"
She nodded her head and pushed the thin, wet hair out of his eyes. He looked about in confusion.
"Where's Dad and Lionel?"
Jemima bit her lip and stood up on the balls of her feet, scanning the crowd for their familiar forms.
"I saw Betsy down at the bank," he added.
"I don't know where they went," she said at last. "I thought they were standing with Mr. Henderson a moment ago..."
Benji frowned thoughtfully, and she touched the top of his wet head. "Go fetch your sister, and we'll find them."
He bobbled his head and snuck off, weaving his way through the crowd. He had a way of quietly creeping everywhere that must have been inherited from his father, because Jemima was certain he had no reason to be such a little sneak. Unlike Beni, Benjamin had never missed a meal in his life, and he'd never had any cause to take anything from anybody, either. She would have thought such things as walking were learned; and certainly, Lionel strutted around in an endearing mimick of David's gait. She supposed Benjamin mimicked David in any number of ways, too. Maybe she just couldn't see it, because every thing the boy did - from laughing and smiling to chewing his food - reminded her of Beni.
She thought she'd forget about him out here in Texas. She thought his face would fade from her memory, and she'd only think about him now and then in passing, when Benji did something particularly like him. She figured between a charming drawl and cowboy boots, Benjamin would take on enough of David's mannerisms that he'd trick her (and everyone else) into "looking" like a Daniels. But that hadn't happened.
She was forced to think of Beni Gabor, in one way or another, every day.
The guilt had subsided to a constant, quiet, dull throb in the back of her head. She couldn't live in a state of crippling regret, after all. And it had been seven years. Everything dulled to an ache after a while. Her guilt was no different. Sometimes it would rise up from somewhere and take hold of her again; clench her in its cruel, cold grip and paralyze her. Sometimes she'd watch a sweet moment between David and Benjamin grow bitter before her very eyes. But most days, she'd come to shoulder the burden of regret like her purse: a light but necessary discomfort she could move around but never leave behind.
"Where'd he go?"
Jemima startled at the sound of her husband's voice. She didn't quite smile at him. She was still upset about the baptism.
"There you are," she said coolly. "He's fetching Betsy."
David nodded his head and pulled off his hat, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. "Phew, it's a hot one."
"We goin' for cake, then?"
Jemima glanced up at Bernard, and gave a little smile to the little boy in his arms. She touched his leg, and he buried his face in Bernard's shoulder.
"Ah, what'chu bein' so shy for, Josiah?" Naomi cooed, combing he fingers through his hair. She glanced at her husband. "He's tired. The heat's got 'im."
"We'll lay 'im down for a nap at Dave's, then."
Naomi frowned. "Oh, honey, they don't got a crib anymore - "
"No?"
"No," she said, a little impatiently. "Tarnation, Bernard, Betsy's six years old!"
He shrugged, staring back at her helplessly. "Well hell, I don't know, honey..."
Naomi shook her head and tsk'ed him, but her eyes were bright and amused. Her dusty braid was gone, and she didn't wear men's trousers anymore. Jemima hadn't seen her wear them in years. She was still little and tough, like a terrier, but her son (long-waited for) had widened her hips and softened her edges. She'd cut her hair and wore make-up and generally presented herself like a Southern belle ought to. The money had done it. She was the wife of a rich man and the sister of a rich man, and the money had done it. Perhaps if her family still made money ranching, such things would be acceptable. But the Daniels were oil people now, and oil people weren't to be confused with fieldhands and sharecroppers.
"Ma."
Jemima glanced up at her son's voice, and saw him there with his sister's hand clutched in his. Betsy was only ten months younger than Benjamin - proper Irish twins - and she was every bit a Daniels. When Jemima took her out shopping with Naomi, everyone assumed she was Naomi's daughter and not hers. Your daughter looks just like you! they heard. All the time, they heard it, and it used to be a point of bitterness for Naomi, during the years and years she was desperate to have a baby and just couldn't. But at last she had Josiah, who looked just as much like David as Betsy looked like her, and she thought it was funny now. Ain't it funny, Dave, how my son looks exactly like you, but your son don't?
Ain't it funny.
Jemima could almost hear that nerve-grating, whiny accent mocking them all, "Ain't" it? "Ain't" it funny, Dave? May I call you Dave?
"Darling, find him a towel so he doesn't ruin the seat," she said as they hurried to the car, anxious to be out of the dust and the heat.
"Jem, I don't think we brought a towel - "
"We did so. I packed it up in the trunk - "
"Well it ain't here."
"It is so. It's red. It's bright red."
"Honey, I'm tellin' you I don't see no goddamn - Oh. There it is. I see it now."
She let out an amused snort and slipped into the car on the passenger side. She heard Benji's feet squishing in their shoes as he settled himself on the towel.
"Benjamin, darling, you didn't wear your shoes in the water, did you?"
He nervously scratched the back of his neck, and Lionel snickered. "I forgot..."
Jemima sighed, glancing disapprovingly into the backseat. "Really, we just bought those shoes last week - "
"Ah, hell, Jem," David said with an emphatic slam of the door. "Boy's got more shoes'n God. Who gives a damn he ruins a pair?"
She shot him a little look out of the corner of her eye, but didn't say anything. He glanced up in irritation and heaved a sigh, and then started the car. Jemima crossed her arms over her chest. After a moment of bumping along the trail that let onto the main road, she said:
"You know, a lot of people have fallen on hard times lately. We shouldn't waste what we've been given."
David's hands flexed on the steering wheel, and he let out a kind of growling groan. "Christ, Jem. He's seven years old. He was excited to be baptized. Let 'im be."
Jemima raised her eyebrows, but decided she might as well keep her mouth shut. There was no arguing with David Daniels. She'd learned that lesson a hundred times over, especially when it came to the children.
"We don't got a crib anymore?" he asked all the sudden.
Jemima shook her head. "I lent it to the Hutchins'."
"Josiah can't sleep on our bed or somethin'?"
She shrugged. "I think your sister's afraid he'll roll off."
David let out a little sigh, his mouth twisting thoughtfully. He stared at the road, squinting in the bright morning sunlight.
"We oughtta keep a crib," he said quietly.
Jemima pressed her lips together and glanced at her hands. "Why?"
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but didn't say anything.
When Jemima had come out of the ether after Betsy was born, she'd been surprised to find the doctor and her husband in the room with her. She'd frowned in confusion and asked if the baby was alright, and they'd assured her she was. She was. But you nearly died, Mrs. Daniels. You see, there was a complication...A complication. And it was unlikely she'd ever get pregnant again. It was unlikely she'd ever give birth to a live child if she did happen to get pregnant again.
The baby was fine. David held her in his arms but gazed at Jemima with wide, wet eyes. She's as beautiful as you, Jem. She was a beautiful baby, but not like Jemima. Still, he was so very shaken, and so very grateful both of them were alive and well and beautiful. And he caved with no argument at all to naming her Elisabeth. With the S, darling. It's so much more stylish with the S, don't you think? Z's are so dreadfully harsh.
Whatever you want, Jem. Anything at all you want.
He'd bought her an enormous opal brooch because Betsy had been an October baby. Which was a terrible shame, really. Jemima detested opals.
"Just...you never know," he muttered.
Jemima sighed. So far the doctor's prediction had been accurate. She hadn't gotten pregnant in six years, which she was secretly grateful for. She would hate to get pregnant with a child who was almost certain to die. And anyway, being pregnant was horrid. It was a young girl's game, and Jemima didn't think she had the energy for it anymore. She would just die if she got pregnant after thirty. Just die.
They pulled into the drive in front of the ranch house. Gabriel Henderson's car was already parked out front; he was still technically a bachelor, though Jemima suspected Lila Fay would solve that before the year was through. And he didn't have the bother of shepherding children about.
Lionel, Benjamin and Betsy piled out of the car, and Jemima sharply instructed Benjamin to bathe before getting dressed.
"No one wants to smell the creek while they're trying to enjoy cake," she told him. "Be sure to use soap."
David scoffed. "He knows to use soap."
Jemima lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, you think so?"
He chuckled and shook his head, holding open the door for her. She was grateful to be out of the heat and under the relief of the fans. Gradually she'd transformed the parlor over the years, and it no longer resembled the cowboy's lair it had been when she arrived. The walls had been brightened to a dove gray, and the massive leather furniture replaced with cheery chintz sofas. She'd made David burn that horrible cow's hide rug and exchanged it for an emerald green berber, soft and bright as bluegrass. She'd replaced the cowboy paintings with one massive Picasso, which had been perhaps the most heated argument the Daniels household had ever seen. She'd won out eventually, though, and David had conceded on the condition that he could keep the paintings. They hung in his den now, out of Jemima's sight.
Henderson was fixing himself a drink at the bar, and Lila Fay had perched herself on one of the couches, sipping happily at a steaming cup of coffee. Lila Fay was a pretty redhead with dazzling green eyes and a girlish face. A smattering of freckles and long hair kept up her illusion of teenaged charm, but she was actually twenty-four years old.
"I hope you don't mind, I started the coffee," she said.
"Not at all," Jemima said. "Though I can hardly believe you want a cup of coffee in this boiling heat."
Lila Fay giggled. "Honey, I was raised on coffee in the boilin' heat. If I had to wait for a cool day to have a cup, I'd have less coffee than Christmases."
Jemima smiled, glancing across the room at Lila Fay's beau. "Did you find the bourbon alright, Mr. Henderson?"
He smirked, giving her a chiding but amused look. "Don't you go givin' me a hard time, Jem."
David let out a snort, striding across the room and joining Henderson at the bar.
"She can't give a hard time to nobody about havin' a drink," he said, setting a couple of old-fashioned glasses on the table top and reaching for the bottle of whiskey.
"Actually, darling," Jemima said all the sudden, "make mine a vodka."
David frowned, puzzled. "We got vodka?"
"Of course we do. It's in the cupboard beneath."
"Hell do you want that shit for?"
Jemima huffed a little sigh, and put her hands on her hips. "Can't I have a vodka if I'm in the mood?"
"Give that woman what she want, Dave!" Lila Fay put in with a giggle.
He shrugged, raising his hands in defeat. " 'Course you can, honey. You just never do." He let out a sigh, bending over and rifling through the forgotten bottles in the cupboard beneath. A half-used bottle of tequila. A barely-tasted bottle of absynthe. An unopened bottle of ouzo. Any and everything that wasn't whiskey or bourbon or brandy. So many liquors that had tasted so fine on their many vacations here or there in the world. So many liquors they'd simply had to take back for their friends to try. It's called curacao, darling. Look at how blue it is! None of it ever tasted right when they were home again. Tastes like cough syrup to me. Fix me up an old fashioned instead.
"I don't even know what you do with vodka," David muttered to himself, staring suspiciously at the clear bottle in his hand.
"Just put it on ice, darling," Jemima called.
"Is that how you have it?"
She sighed. "Well, of course. It's Russian, darling. You simply must drink it cold."
He snorted, piling a few sweating cubes of ice into her glass and splashing it full of vodka. He held it up and looked at her obviously. "This is what you want?"
Jemima nodded her head, and he brought it over. Cautiously, she took the first little sip. It bit her tongue, sharp and cruel and vivid. She could feel him there beside her again, sipping greedily at his own glass of vodka. She stared hard into transparent depths of her glass. Your son's been baptized today. Congratulations, darling. Beni had been baptized more times than he could remember, he'd told her with a clever and sacrilegious little glint in his eye. I have been washed clean of all of my sins, he said, more times than I can remember.
The door swung on its hinges, and Naomi's cheery, breathless voice pulled her back into the parlor.
"Sorry we're late!" she said. "Decided to drop Josiah off with Charlene so's he'd get a good nap."
"Ah, but I was hopin' to see 'im!" Lila Fay said.
Naomi smiled and pulled her hat off her head. "I'll send Bernard for him after a bit."
Just then Burns tripped in after her. "You'll send me for what now?"
"For who, honey. For Josiah. Lila Fay wants to see 'im."
He blinked in confusion. "But we just dropped 'im off a second ago - "
"I mean after a while," Naomi told him. "Give it a couple hours, then go get him."
Burns let out a sigh and dropped into the nearest chair. "Alright, honey. Alright."
Naomi stretched her arms over her head and sat down next to him. She eyed her brother at the bar playfully. "You fixin' drinks, Dave?"
"Well, didn't mean to be no bartender - "
"Hush. Won't kill you to make your beloved sister a drink," she said. "I'll have..." She glanced around the room thoughtfully, and frowned at the glass in Jemima's hand. "You havin' water, Jem?"
"Vodka."
"Ah. Fixin' to say..." She glanced back at her brother. "Fix me one 'a them vodkas then."
David raised his eyebrows. "Really? You ever had vodka?"
"No, but today's a new day and I want one."
David let out a snort, turning his gaze to Lila Fay. "You want a vodka now? Seems to be the drink do-jer 'round here."
"No thank you."
"Du jour."
"What?"
"It's du jour, darling. 'The drink du jour.'"
"That's what I said, ain't it?"
She smiled and shook her head. "Nevermind."
David let out a perplexed sigh and glanced at Burns. "What you want, Bernard? Since apparently my face turned black and I look like a waiter now."
Burns shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Bourbon's fine."
"Thank you," David said. " 'Bout time somebody had somethin' that made sense."
Naomi huffed a sigh. "Dave, what gol-darned difference it make to you what anybody else drinks?"
He waved off her comment with a dismissive hand and muttered to himself as he fixed their drinks. "Don't make no difference," he said to himself. "Don't make no damn difference to me."
"Hey, there he is!"
Jemima glanced up from her drink at Henderson's sudden exclamation, and saw Benji scurrying down the stairs. His clothes were dry but his hair was wet, and his face looked surprised and guilty when he looked and saw the crowd of adults waiting for him. He caught his mother's gaze, and she smiled.
"Come on and sit with me for a moment, Benji."
His mouth twitched, but he hurried across the room with his head down, anyway, and leaned up against the sofa beside her. He glanced nervously about the room and then tugged on her arm and whispered in her ear, "Are we havin' cake soon?"
She nodded her head, tugging playfully on one of his ears. He swatted her hand away.
"Where's your brother and sister?" she asked.
He shrugged his skinny shoulders.
"Well go on and find them, then," she said with a little sigh. He glanced around with a conflicted expression, and she laughed. "Darling, no one's going to eat your baptismal cake without you. Run along, now."
He hurried past David just as he was passing off drinks to his sister and brother-in-law, and David caught him by the shoulder and touseled his hair. He slipped out of his grasp in a flash and ran outside, the door banging closed behind him. David scowled for a moment, and strode across the room, threw open the door, and shouted:
"Hey! This ain't a barn! Don't slam the door!"
And promptly slammed it shut. Jemima could feel Naomi's amused eyes on her face, and glanced up to see her lips pressed into a tight line against the want to smile.
David grumbled something and dropped onto the couch next to Jemima. He slung an arm over her shoulders and took a gulp of his whiskey.
"I don't care what ya'll say," Henderson said with a chuckle. "I think they handed you the wrong one at the hospital."
"Oh, hush," Lila Fay said, tossing a throw pillow at him.
David rolled his eyes, but Jemima said with a sarcasm that was almost too precise, "Oh, darling, don't you know? He was dropped off by the Gypsies. That's where babies come from, after all."
Burns chuckled into his drink. But Henderson shook his head.
"The older he gets, the more I don't see nobody in him."
"Please," Lila Fay said. "You don't see nobody in nobody." She glanced around the room with her bright, sparkling eyes. "Ya'll know Doughertys live 'cross from the creek?"
"Sure," Naomi said.
"You know they got that little one Sharon, with all the curls and the really dark eyes?"
Naomi's face brightened. "Oh, yes! Spittin' image 'a her ma."
Lila Fay pointed at Henderson smugly. "Didn't I tell you? I told you!" She turned animatedly back to Naomi. "I told him! I says, 'Honey, you know whose that is from a mile away.' And he says to me, 'Whose is she?'"
All of them laughed, and Naomi stared at Henderson in incredulous amusement. "Gabe, you gotta be kiddin'! Wasn't her ma in your class?"
"Who's her ma?"
They started laughing again.
"Honey, you a mess," Lila Fay told him with an affectionate grin.
"Abigail Andersen. She was in your class, I know she was."
"She was," David agreed. He turned and looked at Henderson. "You don't remember Abigail Andersen?"
"Well, sure I remember - "
"Only had the biggest crush on you a body ever had," Naomi said.
Lila Fay's jaw dropped in delight. "No! Abigail Andersen! You mean to tell me that little curly-headed dumplin' could 'a been yours if you'd a' played your cards right, and you can't even tell that's her ma?"
"Ah, hell," David said with a dismissive snort. "He didn't notice Abigail Andersen was sweet on him. He didn't notice nobody 'less they had a pigskin."
Lila Fay smiled brightly, giving Henderson a wink. "My big football man."
Naomi grinned and lifted her glass to her lips. "You mighty lucky Gabe didn't start noticin' girls til he was well out 'a high school."
She took her first sip of vodka, and her face contorted in disgust. She glanced up at Jemima incredulously. "You mean to tell me you drink this?"
"No, she don't," David said testily.
Jemima rolled her eyes. "I do, too. Every now and again I do."
Naomi shook her head and put the glass on the coffee table between them. "I cannot abide that." She nudged Bernard. "You get me some 'a that English scotch they brung back couple months ago."
Bernard nodded his head and got up complacently to do as she asked.
"Can't believe you drinkin' that stuff," she said, shaking her head at Jemima's glass.
Her sister-in-law shrugged. "I suppose it's a matter of nostalgia for me."
Jemima felt her husband's thoughtful gaze on her face, but she didn't look up. She took another sip of vodka and leaned back into the sofa.
"Nostalgia for what?" he demanded after a moment.
She raised her eyebrows at his suspicious expression. "Why, for my torrid affair with a Russian, of course," she told him dryly.
David snorted and rolled his eyes while his friends and sister chuckled.
"Come on, Jem..."
She let out a dismissive and impatient sigh. "Well why on earth do you ask about it like that? Like I'm hiding some sort of passionate secret? I just like vodka now and then. That's all."
David grumbled a sigh and looked plaintively at the other men. "She's just sore about this baptism business still."
Jemima sighed loudly.
"Seven years, she's kept a grudge about this gol-darn baptism."
She turned and glared at him tersely. "Well he's baptized now, isn't he?"
His eyes widened in irritation. "That's what I said, ain't it? That's what I been sayin'..."
Naomi shook her head. "And they think blacks and whites can marry each other? Lord above, a Baptist and a Anglican can barely keep it together."
David scoffed, his arm tightening around Jemima's shoulders. "Hey," he told his sister defensively, "we're more than just keepin' it together."
Naomi's brow furrowed at his bristling tone. "Honey, it was just a joke - "
"Well I don't like it," he snapped back. "You and Bernard fight. Lila Fay and what's-his-name over there fight. Everybody fights. Don't mean we ain't happy." He gave his wife a nudge. "Right, honey?"
Jemima strained a little smile and nodded her head. "We're perfectly happy."
She touched the side of his face, and pulled his ear to her mouth. And she whispered an apology for being so cross at him. She whispered at apology and kissed his temple, and he nodded his head and took a sip from his drink.
"Hey, Dave."
He glanced up and met Henderson's little smirk.
"Name's Gabe Henderson."
David snorted, finding a throw pillow behind his back and tossing it at him. "I know your name, you stupid som'bitch."
Jemima let out a little sigh, and sat up in her seat. She patted David's leg. "I'm going to go see about getting the cake ready."
"Oh!" Naomi exclaimed, turning quickly to Bernard. "Honey, you gotta go get Josiah."
He stared back at her dismally. "Honey, it's so damn hot, and it's ten minutes both ways - kids'll be done eatin' 'fore I get back - "
Her eyes widened. "Honey, you know how he loves cake." She turned and looked about the room emphatically. "He just loves cake."
Henderson let out a snort. "Who doesn't?"
But Naomi wasn't paying any attention to him. "Bernard - "
"I'll wrap up a bit of cake for him," Jemima spoke up diplomatically. "You've barely been here an hour. He hasn't gotten a proper nap yet."
They ate cake there in the parlor with their liquor, and the children ate theirs kneeling at the coffee table with glasses brimming full of milk. Jemima watched her children with her blue eye and her brown eye. She watched them eating happily away at the sweet, fluffy cake, and shook her head in amusement.
Her genes, it would appear, were virtually impotent.
Most people thought Lionel looked like her, but that was only because his hair and eyes and complexion were so much lighter than his siblings. He had blond hair that curled at the nape of his neck, and narrow, sky-colored eyes, and the hot Texas sun had freckled him like it would any proper Englishman. But his features were purely Oliver's, and seeing old Ollie reborn on a child made her smile to herself in a way that Benjamin's features never did. Ollie was a good man. And he was a handsome man, when he was young. Before Jemima knew him. She felt as if she was getting to see him now, watching Lionel grow up. She was going to see Ollie at his absolute best, a part of his life she'd missed because she was so much younger than him. Lionel was good; so very good, like his father, and peaceful.
Lionel knew his real father was dead, and that David wasn't the man responsible for him. But he called David "dad" anyway. He knew his father was a good man and that he would have liked to have known him, but he also knew that David was the man who loved him and raised him and called him his own. He talked like David and dressed like David and walked like David. He was peaceful. He knew where he came from, and he knew where he was. He was eight-years-old, and he knew that.
But Benjamin was a restless, nervous little thing. He weighed ten pounds when he was born, David liked to joke, and can you believe? He's already doubled his weight in only seven years! Restless and nervous, like some unknown little part of him was aware his situation wasn't quite right. He was scared of David's big booming voice and quick temper. He was scared of him even though David spoiled him terribly, and usually took his side against Jemima. He glanced at David all the time curiously, as if he was searching for something...
But perhaps that was just Jemima's imagination. He was only seven. He couldn't possibly have any such doubts. Goodness, if he could believe in Santa Claus, he certainly couldn't doubt that David Daniels was his father. No one had ever told him any different. No one had ever suggested any different.
It was only her guilt, she decided. It was only her guilt, pressing uncomfortably there in the back of her mind. The boy didn't know any different. Not any different. Children were creatures of faith. Hadn't the boy just been baptized, blindly accepting his new place in the kingdom of God as promised? Hadn't he?
She took another little sip of her vodka. She sipped at it until she was numb, and the afternoon passed before her eyes in a haze of laughter and fried chicken and I don't know, go ask your father. When at last the darkness of night stained the sky, and their guests had gone, and the children were in bed, Jemima washed her face. She washed her face with gentle fingers, because she didn't want to wake herself up from the pleasant numbness. She slipped out of her clothes and into her nightgown, and pulled back the covers of the bed. The pillows and blankets were so very soft, and she let out a delicious sigh. Sleep - ahh - she'd sleep Beni Gabor and his blessed vodka away.
"Hey, Jem?"
She heard her husband's voice somewhere beyond the darkness of her eyelids.
"Yes, darling?" she murmured.
"You don't think we're just 'gettin' by,' do you?"
Her face contorted in a drunken, exaggerated frown, but she didn't open her eyes. "Of course not, darling. Of course not."
"You're...ya know...happy, ain't ya?"
She wanted to giggle at the stiff discomfort of his voice, but she dared not. She bit back her smile as best she could in her current state.
"Darling, I'm positively ecstatic."
She heard him let out a little scoff, and then heard the mattress creak as he settled himself next to her. She heard the snap of the light as he turned it off. And then she felt his arms around her and his body next to her, and his breath hot against her ear. She felt his lips against her jaw and her neck. His hands traveled down her body, and she let out a blissful moan.
"Why don'tcha get that crib back from the Hutchins."
She frowned, reluctantly opening her eyes in the darkness as he shifted on top of her. She found his gaze close to hers in the black room and stared back at him, puzzled.
"Darling, it isn't any use..."
His hand found hers and squeezed it enthusiastically. "You don't know that."
She shook her head. "Darling, the doctor said - "
"Well doctors don't know everything."
The corner of her mouth smiled at his quick tone. "No, I suppose they don't know everything. But they do tend to know medical business..."
She heard him take a little breath, and she thought his face looked almost desperate in the dark. "Just get the crib back."
She forced a little smile, and nodded her head. "Alright, darling. If it makes you happy."