She found Jimmy waiting on her grandmother’s porch, laid out on the swinging seat, his jacket for a blanket. Saint had worked late, taken a call with Harkness and ridden to a burned-out car on old Eastern Avenue, close to where Patch had been taken. Saint had shone her flashlight over the dirt like she could still see his blood seeping in.
She stood there and watched him sleep.
She’d been to see him the day after their missed prom, took a little shit from his mother as she led her into the house where Jimmy’s suit hung, back in its rental bag, a sight that still caught in her throat sometimes.
He was six months older, knew most things about most animals. He voted Republican because his father did, went to church because his mother did, and because he believed in a way that dazzled even her grandmother.
She had sat in his childhood bedroom and noticed laundry neatly folded, the bed sheets freshly made. His mother had knocked on the door with oatmeal cookies. He was the kind of boy who would become the kind of man that needed tending.
“There isn’t another kind of man,” Norma said, one evening as they ate barbecued chicken before a St. Francois sunset.
Patch was another kind, Saint thought, spilling barbecue sauce down her shirt.
“Joseph is different because he did not have a woman to do things for him,” Norma said, reading her mind as she dabbed at her shirt with a napkin. “Just like he does not know how to care. How to conduct a friendship. How to be a man.”
“Women teach men how to be men?” Saint said.
“Of course. How else do you think they learn?”
Jimmy had kissed her, but nothing more. And it was not the open-mouthed type of kiss she had seen Misty and Patch share, the kind of kiss that led to the kind of sex she saw in the movies, the kind that had once made her blush but now made her wonder at the deal she had made with God. Never more so than when she wore a dress, drank two wines, and placed the flat of her hand against Jimmy’s muscled chest, lightly pushing him toward the bed she slept on. His breath had been raggedy as he broke the kiss and stepped outside to take some air.
The next Friday he had taken her to the Palace 7 to watch a movie. The leading man was so handsome in his navy suit that Saint had found herself pawing at Jimmy before he could get through the door. He had sat her down and told her he did not believe in sex before marriage.
“He stopped by last night and asked me for your hand,” Norma said.
Saint took a moment. “But I’m only—”
“You’ve been dating awhile. You know what Jimmy is, how he dotes on you.”
Saint sipped her coffee, her mind on the young streetwalker. “Is sin a real thing?”
Norma sat opposite.
“I saw a girl the other night and she had done things,…and I know he’s not a vengeful God and all, but surely she can’t be judged.”
Norma took a moment. “Is she the girl Joseph is looking for?”
Saint shook her head.
“We’re all reaching, Saint. Some people stand on others. Some people give you a boost when you need it. You know which kind Jimmy is?”
Saint shook her head again.
“Sometimes ordinary is more than enough,” Norma said.
“He wants to live a life like his parents’.”
“They seem happy.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That your hand isn’t mine to give or his to take. Only yours to offer.”
“I’m not sorry I didn’t go to college,” Saint said, a challenge in her eye.
Norma stood behind Saint and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Saint leaned her head to the side and met the warmth of her grandmother’s skin. “What should I do?”
“I’d say follow your heart, but in that way madness lies. Do you believe in fate?”
Saint took a moment and then nodded.
“That day, when you took your grandfather’s gun and headed into the woods—”
Saint still saw the pain on her grandmother’s face. “I’m sorry—”
“If Jimmy hadn’t told Chief Nix where you were going, if he hadn’t cared enough to do that, then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten you back. And Ivy would not have her son back.”
“So I owe him?” Saint said.
Norma shook her head. “No. But I will say that there’s a grand plan for all of us, and Jimmy Walters is part of yours.”
“How do I know if I love him?” Saint said.
“When it comes to marriage, love is merely a visitor over a lifetime. Respect and kindness, they are the true foundations. If I’m honest, I think you should marry him.”
“Jimmy is a good man,” Saint said, swallowing, her eyes filling with tears. “But he’s not—”
“I know.”