Chapter 10

Gene's children knew well that they would be going home again soon, so they were not particularly upset when their parents told them it would be the next day. Their cousins were probably more disappointed, because they'd begun making friendships and hadn't really thought about the Baltimore family going back to Baltimore. Gene's children were a little reserved when told they would go to the gravesite the next day, but Nick's boys perked them up.

"It's really nice."

"Dad and Uncle Heath and Uncle Jarrod always tell us neat stories about Grandfather and Grandmother."

"And we knew Grandmother too. She was really something. Wait to you hear about the time she jumped out of a wheelchair and beat up on a man who was trying to hurt Aunt Audra."

"All right, all right," Gene said. "We'll have lots of stories to tell tomorrow, but tonight we all better get some rest. It's gonna be a long trip back to Baltimore."

"Did you ever see what Colorado looks like?" Gene's middle son Jonathan said to his cousins. "Wow!"

"All right, all right," Emily said. "Tomorrow will be the day for a lot of stories. Now is the time to get ready for bed."

"And for us to go home," Heath's wife Sarah said. "We'll be back over here tomorrow – about nine all right?"

"Sounds good," Nick said.

Heath and his wife ushered their clan out the door. Audra and Carl took their boy home too, and Nick, Nancy, Gene, Emily and Mrs. Brooks herded all the remaining children upstairs. That left Jarrod in an empty living room, quiet and tired and a little broken-hearted that it was so empty now. He enjoyed the chatter and the noise.

He wondered if he would still enjoy it if they stayed, and if he stayed here. He was not at all used to the pandemonium or even just the presence of a lot of other people at the end of the day. He was used to this solitary time. It was his chance to get over a busy, often argumentative and angry day.

"Shall I clean up, Mr. Jarrod?"

Silas's voice caught his attention. Jarrod looked around quickly. There were some used glasses, some still partially full, but that was about it. "Yes, Silas, thank you. Do you need any help?"

"No, sir," Silas said. "Miss Nancy helped me clean up after dinner. These glasses are all that's left."

Jarrod got up. "I'll get out of your way. I could do a couple things in the library, so if you need me, look there."

Jarrod went to the library, where he immediately fetched a cigar and idly rolled a ball around on the pool table for a moment. He took time to stand at the French door and look out at the night. The moon was just past full and a glow to the east behind the mountains said it would be rising soon.

He finished his cigar and went toward the desk, but stopped at the bookcase first. He looked over those old lawbooks – a lot of them out of date now, since he hadn't kept the library here up since moving to San Francisco, and the law never stood still. He thumbed them a little and wondered if he should choose one to send home with Gene Jr. He was going to miss that boy.

Then he suddenly came across a book that was not a law book. It wasn't even an adult book. It was a book he had known as a child, when he was only a little older that Gene Jr. was now. His mother had given it to him. He hadn't seen it since he was a boy and didn't even know it was here in this bookcase. Keeping it all these years had clearly been his mother's idea.

He took it down, smiling. It was about geography, about places across the country he had never seen when she gave him the book. It was old and didn't have any photographs in it, but it did have drawings of waterfalls and buildings in New York City and Washington, and eastern mountains Jarrod himself remembered seeing when he had gone east as a younger man.

He found a picture of a big waterfall and laughed. When he was a boy, he was inclined to draw his own pictures and add to ones that were already there. He'd drawn a picture of a little man jumping over the waterfall in the drawing, and he remembered he'd added a few more to this book. He added big birds flying over the mountains and a giant stomping on a building in Washington.

"Uncle Jarrod?"

Jarrod looked up. Gene Jr. was at the door. Jarrod smiled. "Shouldn't you be in bed, young man?"

"Mama said it was all right to come say good night to you," Gene Jr. said.

"Oh, thank you, that was very thoughtful of you," Jarrod said.

"What's that book?" Gene Jr. asked.

Jarrod grinned and put an arm around the boy. "Come on over here and sit down with me. You're gonna like this."

They sat down together on the sofa, and Jarrod spread the book open on Gene Jr.'s lap. He explained how his mother had given him the book when he was a boy, how it showed the geography of the country, and he he'd added a few details to the drawings in it. It wasn't long before they were both laughing at a stick-figure man on a stick-figure horse riding across the Potomac River.

"I'd like to draw pictures in my books too sometimes," Gene Jr. confessed, "but Mama says it's not good to draw in the books other children will use someday."

"Well, this book was mine and just mine, so your grandmother just laughed when she saw my drawings." Jarrod suddenly realized what he wanted to do. He closed the book, he reached for Gene Jr.'s hand and put it on top of the book in his lap. "Tell you what. This is your book now, if you want it. And you can add a few pictures yourself and maybe someday pass it on to your son who will add more."

"Don't you want to give it to your son?"

That stung a little. Jarrod said, "I don't have a son, Gene. I might not ever have one – I'm a lot older than your father, you know. I'd like you to have this one." He winked at him. "I'll tell your mother it's a book I'd like you to keep drawing in if you want to."

"She already knows," came the soft feminine voice from the door.

Jarrod and Gene Jr. looked up as Emily came in. Both Barkley men looked a little guilty.

Emily said, "I said a quick good-night was all right. It's past your bedtime, young man."

"My fault," Jarrod said as he and Gene Jr. stood up. "We were just looking at some of the antics I engaged in when I was his age."

"I see," Emily said.

"Uncle Jarrod says I can have this book and draw in it," Gene Jr. said.

"I heard," Emily said, and smiled. "And if that's a present he wants to give you, that's fine with me. Take it upstairs and pack it in your bag, and go to bed."

"Thanks, Uncle Jarrod!" Gene Jr. said and ran out the door with the book.

"I just found that book," Jarrod explained to Emily. "I didn't even know it was still around here. Thank you for letting him keep it."

"Thank you for giving it to him," Emily said. "I'm sure he'll add some drawings of his own, and that'll keep him from adding them to books he shouldn't add them to."

Jarrod chuckled. "That's probably why my mother gave it to me."

"He's taken quite a shine to you, Jarrod."

"I've taken a shine to him too," Jarrod said.

"I'm just sorry it took your mother's death to bring us together."

Jarrod nodded. "So am I, but when you're a family who's spread across an entire continent, that's what it can take. I think Mother would be pleased to know she brought us together again."

"If you come east again, you must come see us," Emily said.

"I will," Jarrod said.

"And you'd better get some sleep yourself. Tomorrow's going to be a long day, and you'll be heading back to San Francisco a day or two after that yourself."

"Yes," Jarrod said. "We all have to get back to our regular lives. But it's been nice, being an uncle for a while to a boy who's actually got something of me in him."

"You should marry again, Jarrod, and have sons of your own," Emily said. Then shook herself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have intruded like that."

"No, it's all right," Jarrod said. "A very wise woman said that to me not long ago."

Emily smiled. "I know you're older, but it's not too late."

Jarrod chuckled, if a little teary-eyed. "She said exactly that to me, too."

Emily reached for his hand. She squeezed it, said good-night, and left to go back upstairs.

Jarrod stood there smiling to himself, hearing his mother's voice, seeing her face in his mind's eye. Not as an older woman sick and dying, but as the young mother who had given him that book.

Then suddenly, Beth was in his mind's eye, smiling, laughing. He wasn't sure how that happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, but it didn't hurt like it often did. Beth's smile grew when he thought that. Jarrod thought he understood why.