“Thank you.”
Her pallid face lit up and her straight, thin lips curved into a radiant smile when she accepted a glass of white wine from Junior, who had poured it without being asked. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
He bent down and kissed his mother’s smooth, proffered cheek. “Did your headache go away?”
“Not entirely, but my nap helped it. Thank you for inquiring.” She reached up to stroke his cheek. Her hand, Alex noted, was milky white and looked as fragile as a flower ravaged by a storm. Addressing her husband, she said, “Must you bring talk of breeding into the living room, instead of keeping it in the stable, where it belongs?”
“In my own house, I’ll talk about anything I goddamn well please,” Angus answered, though he didn’t seem angry at her.
Junior, apparently accustomed to their bantering, laughed and circled Sarah Jo’s chair to sit on the arm of Alex’s. “We weren’t talking about breeding, per se, Mother. Dad was just lamenting my inability to keep a wife long enough to produce an heir.”
“You’ll have children with the right woman when the time comes.” She spoke to Angus as much as to Junior. Then, turning to Alex, she asked, “Did I overhear you say you’d never been married, Miss Gaither?”
“That’s right.”
“Strange.” Sarah Jo sipped her wine. “Your mother certainly never lacked for male companionship.”
“Alex didn’t say she lacked for male companionship,” Junior corrected. “She’s just choosy.”
“Yes, I chose a career over marriage and having a family. For the time being, anyway.” Her brow beetled as an original idea occurred to her. “Did my mother ever express any interest in having a career?”
“Not that I ever heard her mention,” Junior said, “though I guess all the girls in our class went through that stage of wanting to be Warren Beatty’s leading lady.”
“She had me so early,” Alex said with a trace of regret. “Maybe an early marriage and a baby prevented her from pursuing a career.”
Junior placed his finger beneath her chin and rais
ed it, until she was looking at him. “Celina made her own choices.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
He dropped his hand. “I never heard her say she wanted to be anything other than a wife and mother. I remember the day we talked about it specifically. You should, too, Dad. It was summertime, and so hot you told Reede to take the day off after he’d mucked out the stables. The three of us decided to take a picnic out to that old stock pond, remember?”
“No.” Angus left his chair in pursuit of another beer.
“I do,” Junior said dreamily, “like it was yesterday. We spread a quilt under the mesquite trees. Lupe had packed us some homemade tamales to take with us. After we’d eaten them we stretched out on our backs, Celina between Reede and me, and stared up at the sky through the branches of those mesquites. They hardly cast a shade. The sun and our full bellies made us drowsy.
“We watched buzzards circling something and talked about chasing them down to find out what had died, but we were too lazy. We just lay there, talking, you know, about what we were going to be once we grew up. I said I wanted to be an international playboy. Reede said that if I did, he was gonna buy stock in a company that made condoms and get rich. He didn’t care what he turned out to be, so long as he was rich. All Celina wanted to be was a wife.” He paused a moment and looked down at his hands. “Reede’s wife.”
Alex started.
“Speaking of Reede,” Angus said, “I think I hear his voice.”
Chapter 8
Lupe, the Mintons’ housekeeper, showed Reede in. Alex turned in time to see him come through the doorway. Junior’s startling revelation had left her dazed.
From Grandma Graham, she’d heard that Reede and Celina had been high school sweethearts. The photograph of him crowning her homecoming queen bore that out. But Alex hadn’t known that her mother had wanted to marry him. She knew her expression must reflect her shock.
He took in the room at a glance. “Well, isn’t this a cozy little scene.”
“Hey, Reede,” Junior said from his position near Alex, which suddenly seemed all too close and familiar, for a reason she couldn’t explain. “What brings you out? Drink?”
“Come on in.” Angus signaled him into the room. Sarah Jo ignored him as though he was invisible. That mystified Alex, since he had once lived with them like a member of the family.
He laid his coat and hat in a chair and moved toward the bar to accept the drink that Angus had poured for him. “I came to check on my mare. How is she?”
“Fine,” Angus told him.