Clyde wasn’t sure how he had gotten himself in this fix. When Fawn called and asked if he could babysit Nathan, he had thought she was joking. Now he stood in his living room looking down at the little guy, who watched him with suspicious eyes. It seemed to Clyde that the child had heard all the rumors in town and was contemplating whether or not they were true.
After lowering himself to the edge of the couch, Clyde leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and waited for Nathan to do something. The toddler sat on his bottom in the middle of the rug, waiting as well. It was a standoff.
“Well,” Clyde said too loudly, “what do you usually do to pass the time?”
Nathan giggled.
“You think that’s funny?”
The baby clapped his chubby hands.
“Have you heard the one about the convict who caught the measles? … He broke out.”
Nathan’s laughter came from deep in his chest, and Clyde chuckled.
“Okay, how about this one? A murderer, a rapist, and a drug dealer are in the same car. Who’s driving?” Clyde paused for effect, but Nathan had become mesmerized by the lamp on the end table. He held his palms in the air as if he were about to push against a brick wall, then slammed them against the rug and took off crawling.
Clyde laughed at Nathan’s determination, then mumbled, “A cop, that’s who.” But when the child used the table leg to pull himself into a standing position, Clyde wasn’t prepared.
Just before Nathan jerked the lamp cord, he squealed happily as though he were telling a joke of his own. When the lamp toppled with a crash, Nathan stared wide-eyed at the exposed lightbulb. “Uh-oh.” His voice tremored like a startled doorbell, and then he whimpered.
Clyde reached for the lamp but hesitated, wondering if he should pick up the baby first. The dilemma momentarily paralyzed him in the middle of the floor until his gaze met Nathan’s. The child’s eyes begged for deliverance while the electrical cord still dangled from his tightly closed fist.
“Aw, now. It ain’t that bad.”
Nathan’s chin quivered as Clyde put one palm on the baby’s stomach and another on his rump and lifted him into a sitting position with his back hugged firmly against Clyde’s chest.
“Come on up here. Things are always better at a high altitude.”
Nathan’s head bumped Clyde’s shoulder as he turned to peer at him.
“It’ll be all right now.” Clyde walked to the back window, thinking Fawn was crazy to trust him with her baby. Even though she had been to his trailer house several times before, this morning her gaze had skimmed across the tattered furniture and lingered on the hole in the wall by the front door.
“It’ll only be for an hour or so,” she had said. “Mother can pick him up when she gets out of her meeting.”
But her words hadn’t eased Clyde’s concern. Instead, his insides tightened at the thought of Susan coming to his house. They hadn’t been alone together since before Clyde went to prison, and he sure as heck didn’t want to be alone with her now.
His gaze lingered on Nathan’s black curls, and he shook his head. Even without the worry of Susan, Clyde clearly wasn’t fit for the task of babysitting. For crying out loud, the lamp almost landed on the kid’s head.
An outdated phone hung on the wall by the dinky kitchen table, and it jangled loudly, causing Nathan to startle. Clyde shifted until his wide palm covered Nathan’s stomach, and he held the child firmly while Nathan gently kicked his feet.
Clyde raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”
“How’s he doing?” It was Fawn, checking up on him. She hadn’t been gone thirty minutes.
“Not too bad.”
The baby closed his palm around the corkscrew phone cord and shoved it in his mouth. He frowned at the taste, pulled the cord out to inspect it, and then jerked his arm, sending the cord into frenzied arcs. “Mama!”
“I hear him. What’s he doing?”
Clyde looked down at Nathan to see the child’s face change from pink to dark red. The baby’s lips pressed together as if he were choking on a softball, and panic shot through Clyde like a dose of adrenalin, but just as quickly his fear evaporated.
“He might be filling his britches at the moment.”
“Bless your heart. Mother should be there in fifteen minutes. Save it for her.”
An image of Susan Blaylock changing a crappy diaper in her high heels flitted across Clyde’s mind.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Fawn said, “but you’d be surprised what that woman can do under pressure.”
“If you say so.”
“Thanks again for watching him. I made it to class with time to spare, but I better go. The exam is starting soon. Oh, and …”—the hesitation in her voice caused Clyde to press the phone tighter against his ear—“Dad may be with Mother when she comes by.”
“Right.” Clyde supposed he should have muttered more than one word, but he laid the phone on its cradle and cautiously returned his palm to Nathan’s bottom.
There was no love lost between Neil and Clyde, but the fact that the man didn’t trust his wife—or Clyde—for something as harmless as babysitting duties made him grit his teeth.
Nathan kicked Clyde in the hip, and Clyde realized he had been standing motionless at the back door. He moved numbly into the living room and laid the toddler on the couch. “You and me need to talk.” Clyde sat and pulled the diaper bag toward him. “Why’d you go and poop your pants?”
“Poo.” Nathan’s lips formed a circle around two tiny teeth, and then he scrunched his nose and giggled.
“I don’t see the fun in it, kid.” Clyde fumbled with the bag, unzipping and zipping compartments. He had seen Fawn do this enough to know that the wipes were in the white plastic box.
A light tap on the front door set off a chain reaction of mixed emotions, and Clyde stood. Apparently the Blaylocks had hurried. No problem. They just needed the baby. They hadn’t come to deliver a sentence or dredge up the past or cause problems. Besides, now he wouldn’t have to change the diaper. He should be glad.
He pulled Nathan into a sitting position on the low couch before he opened the door.
Susan stood in front of him in a sequined blouse with her smile pulled so widely across her face that her teeth reminded Clyde of a denture commercial. His nerves ricocheted up and down his spine like red sand in a dust devil because he realized she didn’t want to be standing in front of his house any more than he wanted her there.
“Hey, Susan.”
“Clyde.”
Neil stood behind her with his cell phone pressed against his cheek and his elbow stuck out. His other hand rested at his waist with his thumb behind his shiny belt buckle. He didn’t look at Clyde or even acknowledge the door had been opened. “Where are they now, Hector?” Neil grunted in disgust. “Are you at least keeping the things locked up somewhere?”
Clyde held the door open and motioned them inside. “I’ll get his bag.” He offered no other comment, and Susan offered nothing in return.
Nathan, joyously oblivious to the tension that snapped like distant firecrackers on a clear night, appeared to be doing the wave at a Panther football game.
Susan took a cautious step into the house, but her husband turned his back as he continued his phone conversation. “I’m no investigator,” Neil said, “but if the bones have no DNA left on them anyway, why would you keep up the search? Seems like a waste of time and money.”
Susan’s lips pressed against each other, forming a thin, hard crack. “On the phone with the sheriff.”
Clyde bent to retrieve the items he had pulled from the bag—a thermometer, a blanket, and a small bottle of baby shampoo—and he shoved them into the diaper bag. When he turned to bid Susan a speedy exit, her head was cocked to the side as she inspected the fallen lamp, still shining brightly.
“Everything go all right?” she asked.
“Just a little mishap.” Clyde righted the lamp. “No harm done.”
“And what happened here?” She pointed to the hole in the wall.
“That was already there. The little tyke didn’t damage the house yet.”
Her sigh held traces of a laugh, but then she glanced over her shoulder at Neil just as he dropped his phone in his shirt pocket.
“Thanks for tending to our little man.” Neil leaned against the doorframe and smiled as broadly—and artificially—as Susan had, but then he dropped his voice. “We should get out of the man’s way, Susan. I’m sure he has plenty to keep him busy.” He strolled toward the street, leaving Susan to carry Nathan and all his equipment.
“Kid’s muddy,” Clyde admitted to her. “I didn’t change him.”
Her gaze bounced from her grandson to the curb. “I’ll change him at the house.” She pulled the diaper bag over one shoulder and bent to pick up Nathan, who was cruising around the room, using furniture to keep his balance.
“Aw …” Clyde didn’t know how to finish his thought. Neil and Susan’s ranch was thirty minutes from town, and even though Clyde didn’t know a lot about diapers, he was fairly certain half an hour was too long to leave the kid in a nasty one.
Susan said nothing else, and Clyde shut the door as soon as her heels cleared the threshold.
He shivered. The memories flooding his brain were as unwanted as they were haunting. Susan reminded him of his mistakes and regrets, but he figured he could ignore the memories and steer clear of his past. Their past.
He peeked out the front window to watch as she stuffed the kid into a car seat, and he expected Neil to greet Nathan with the syrupy smile he reserved for his grandson, but he hardly looked at the child. The rancher crouched in the driver’s seat of his fancy pickup, and for a second, Clyde thought Neil was biting his fingernails. But that couldn’t be. Neil Blaylock didn’t bite his nails. He didn’t crouch in his truck. He didn’t ignore his grandson.
Clyde wished he had spoken to him. To both of them. He let the curtain flutter back down, then bent to retrieve a toy car from the floor. He should have said something to clear the air, to make all the awkwardness go away, to erase the pain he had caused for two decades. Once again, guilt washed over him like moonlight, and he reminded himself for the thousandth time that he had an obligation to the Blaylocks.
He owed them an apology.