“I love my husband,” Vivi Ann said. To her, that was answer enough. She loved her husband and she trusted him. So what if he let off a little steam drinking and playing poker once a week at Cat’s? The small-minded gossip meant nothing to her. She knew her husband too well to be jealous.
“I love my dog,” Myrtle said crisply, “but I keep him chained up when the bitch across the street is in heat.”
Vivi Ann couldn’t help laughing at that. “Thanks for the heads-up, Myrtle. I’ll keep a closer eye on my husband.”
“You do that.”
Still smiling, Vivi Ann left the barn and went up the hill to their cabin. In the past year, Dallas had added on a big wraparound porch as well as about eight hundred square feet of space, which they’d turned into a new kitchen, nursery, and bathroom. New French doors ran the length of the living room, framing the majestic Canal view and leading the way out onto the white porch.
In the back bedroom, decorated with horses and cowboy hats, she changed Noah’s diaper, put him into his dinosaur pj’s, and lay him down in his crib. “Goodnight, little pumpkin.”
Out in the living room, she found Zorro standing beside her new sofa. He stepped sideways and turned on the stereo. His cheap black polyester cape caught on something and he pulled it free with a muttered curse.
She smiled. “You said you never dressed up for Halloween.”
“I said there was no Halloween when I was a kid. That’s different.”
He came so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, smell the whiskey he’d drunk. He brought up one gloved hand, let his finger trail down her exposed throat, down to the valley between her breasts.
“Myrtle Michaelian says you’re being a very bad boy lately. She saw you up to no good with Cat.”
“The gossip never stops in Mayberry. What did you tell her?”
“I told her I like bad boys.”
He picked her up and carried her to their bed, kicking the door shut behind him. “Trick or treat, Mrs. Raintree?”
She laughed when he dropped her onto their bed. Moonlight came through their window and illuminated half of his sharp face, turned half of his hair blue. “I think I’ll take a treat, Mr. Raintree. If you’re up to it.”
On Christmas Eve morning, Vivi Ann rose well before dawn and began making cookies. At some point Noah woke up and she brought him into the kitchen with her. He laughed and played with his plastic dinosaurs in a mound of sugar cookie dough. When he realized how good the dough tasted, he giggled and threw the toys aside and started eating.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Wiping her floury hands on her apron, she scooped him up and held him on her hip while she cleaned up the kitchen. It was like carrying a seizing cat; he kept reaching and twisting and crying, “Mo’, Mama, mo’.”
She carried him into their newly expanded bedroom. Sunlight poured in checkerboard beams through the French doors, landed in streaks on the wide pine floorboards, which glowed like streaks of fresh honey. “Get up, sleepyhead,” she said to Dallas. “Your son needs changing.” She dropped Noah alongside Dallas, who mumbled something and rolled over.
“Look, Noah, Daddy’s playing hide-and-seek.”
Noah giggled and clambered over Dallas, falling like a slinky on the other side of him. “Dada?”
Dallas’s arm came out from under the covers and coiled around the little boy. Noah immediately settled down, as he always did around his dad, and snuggled in close, resting his cheek on his father’s tattooed bicep. Closing his eyes, he started sucking his thumb and fell quiet.
Vivi Ann stood there a moment, drinking in the sight of them. From birth they’d been a pair; when Noah got hurt, it was Dallas he wanted, and when he woke in the middle of the night, crying over a bad dream, it was Dallas who calmed him. Oh, Noah loved Vivi Ann, followed her around like a puppy dog and kissed her good morning and fell asleep in her arms, but he was a daddy’s boy and everyone knew it.
Smiling, she went into the bathroom and took a shower. By eleven, she’d boxed up the cookies, wrapped up the fudge, and dressed for church.
“Dallas,” she said, trying to waken him. “You were supposed to get Noah ready.”
He rolled over onto his back. With Noah tucked protectively in the curl of his arm, he came awake slowly. “I don’t feel good.”
She sat down beside him, noticing how dull and glassy his eyes were. A few beads of sweat dotted his hairline. She reached down, pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“It’s that stupid play group. Every time I drop Noah off there, I get sick. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll get you some aspirin.”
When she came back, he was asleep again. She jostled him awake, made him take two aspirin and drink a glass of water.
“I was so excited about today,” she said.