“No, I can see it in your eyes when you think I’m not looking. I’m someone else to you.”
“I don’t believe that time is sequential,” I said. “I believe the world belongs to the dead as well as the unborn. I’ve seen Confederate soldiers in the mist at Spanish Lake. I’ve wanted to join them.”
“Did you just say what I think you did?”
“I think I stole you from another time. I’m sure that’s what Desmond thinks. I fear someone may take revenge on me by hurting you or Clete or Alafair.”
“You’re talking about Desmond? He’s in jail.”
“For breaking and entering. It won’t stick.”
“I can take care of myself. You get these crazy ideas out of your head. You also need to forget about Confederates in the mist.”
“They’re there. I’ve talked with them. I put my hand through a drummer boy’s shoulder. He was killed at Shiloh.”
Her eyes were empty; I wondered if she was deciding whether to ignore me or to disengage from our relationship. She let in Maxwell Gato, then lifted her up and kissed the top of her head and put her in my arms. “The world belongs to the living, Dave. These things you’re telling me have nothing to do with reality. What’s really
on your mind is our relationship. You think you’re too old for me, and you think you’re doing something morally wrong.”
“That’s not true,” I lied.
“You’re in better shape than men who are thirty-five. You’re honest and kind and brave. You think I care about your age?”
“A few years down the road you will.”
“Let me worry about that. What did you mean when you said you stole me out of another time?”
“I think there’re doors in the dimensions.” Maxwell Gato began pushing her back feet into my arm so I would play with her. I gently tugged her tail and bounced her up and down. “I’ve always thought normalcy was overrated.”
Bailey was wearing moccasins. She took Maxwell Gato from me and set her on the floor, then stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the mouth and folded her arms behind my neck. “Do you love me, Dave?”
“Of course.”
“Like a daughter? Because that’s the way you’re talking to me.”
“I love you because you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known, and one of the most beautiful.”
She stood on my shoes and buried her head in my neck, her body shaking.
“Are you all right?” I said.
“I’m always all right. Just hold me.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Hold me. Tighter. Please.”
An hour later, she got up from the bed and showered and came back into the bedroom, a towel wrapped around her, her body damp and warm and glowing. She lay down next to me, then cupped her body into mine and held my hand with both of hers and told me what she said she had never told anyone, at least not in detail.
• • •
AT AGE SEVENTEEN, one year into her widowhood, she had a summer job as a ticket taker for a carnival and rodeo and Wild West show that was headquartered in Louisiana and traveled through the Great American Desert. In the fairgrounds of a small city in Utah rimmed with red cliffs and a green river flanged by cottonwoods, she was tearing tickets at the entrance when she saw three young men sitting on the back of a flatbed truck. They were sweaty and sunbrowned, with physiques as lean as lizards. They wore beat-up black cowboy hats and tight Wranglers and cowboy boots stippled with hay and manure. They grinned as though they knew her; they were drinking soda pop and eating handfuls of pork rinds from a bag. The tallest one pulled a bottle from a cooler and dropped off the flatbed and approached her.
“Want a Coca-Cola, darlin’?” he said. “Ice-cold.”
“No, thank you,” she said.
There was a shine in his eyes. He was shaved, his black hair trimmed, his face fine-boned and tanned and unwrinkled. “Bet you don’t remember me.”