Gracie had fallen asleep in the flimsy stroller that Becky wheeled over to the backstop. “Somebody needs her diaper changed,” she said. “Do you want to walk home with us?”
“What do you think I want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the reason I’m here. I came back as soon as I got your letter.”
“Yeah, okay.”
She pushed the stroller toward the nearest pavement, and he followed her. “I’m glad to see you’re still wearing that jacket.”
“That’s right,” she said, “it was yours. I’ve had it so long, I forgot.”
Reaching the pavement, she crouched and inspected her baby.
“She’s beautiful,” he offered.
“Thank you. I love her like you wouldn’t believe.”
She was right in front of him, the person he loved best, still matching his mental image of her, but his own sudden apparition was apparently unremarkable to her. As she proceeded out of the park with the stroller, peering down at her baby, he feared that he’d made another bad mistake; that he should have stayed in Tres Fuentes for the potato harvest.
“Becky,” he said finally.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry I tried to tell you what to do.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you.”
“I don’t want to interfere in your life. I’m just asking for a chance to be a part of it again.”
She didn’t seem to hear him, didn’t speak again until they were cross ing Highland Street. He could see the taller of the parsonage oak trees in the distance. He didn’t feel especially forgiven.
“Have you been home yet?” she said.
“No. I wanted to see you first.”
She acknowledged this tribute with a nod. “Mom showed up at my door the other day. She didn’t call, she just showed up. She wanted us to come to dinner tomorrow. She tried to lay a guilt trip on me, how it’s Dad’s last Easter in New Prospect.”
“Well. She’s right about that.”
“I already invited Tanner’s parents to our place. It’s Gracie’s first Easter. I bought a ham.”
Clem could feel that he was being tested—being dared to point out that, unlike his parents, a one-year-old couldn’t tell Easter Sunday from Guy Fawkes Day.
“So, uh. Why not invite Mom and Dad?”
“Because that means bringing Perry, which doesn’t sound like a holiday to me. He uses up all the air in the room, even when he’s just sitting there. If you start talking about something that isn’t him, he’ll make some remark about how shitty he feels, or something completely random, whatever it takes to get the attention back on him, and they fall for it every time.”
“He’s sick, Becky.”
“Yeah, obviously. I get why they have to take care of him. But it isn’t fair to Tanner’s parents to have his sickness be their whole evening.”
“Mom and Dad have to live with it every night of the week.”
“I know. I’m sure it’s really hard for them. But he’s their son, not mine, and I already made my contribution as a sibling. I think I’m entitled to not deal with it on a holiday.”
Clem suppressed an impulse to say more. Obeying her first rule, respecting her feelings about their parents, was going to be a struggle. At least there was no rule against being kind to them himself.
As if she’d sensed his thought, she stopped on the sidewalk and turned to him.
“So,” she said. “Will you have dinner with us?”
“Tonight?”
“No, tomorrow. Easter. I’m inviting you.”
His heart leaped at the invitation; it couldn’t help itself. But it had leaped into a trap. He’d been away for so long, it would be cruel to leave his parents alone on Easter, and Becky knew it.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She looked away with an expression of not caring. All he’d asked for was a chance with her, and she was offering him that chance. Whether she genuinely wanted him in her life or was simply testing his loyalties, he couldn’t yet tell. But it was clear that, in his absence, far from having diminished herself, as he’d supposed, she’d become a dominating force. She had the grandchild, she had the absolutely loyal husband, she had her charisma and her popularity, and she needed nothing from him or their parents. The terms were hers to set.
“Let me think about it,” he said, although he already knew what he would do.