Part 31 (1/2)

'Kyra Devore!' Mattie called, sounding both amused and irritated. 'You'll knock him down!'

I turned, dropped the grease-spotted McDonald's bag I had been carrying, and lifted the kid up. It felt natural, and it felt wonderful. You don't realize the weight of a healthy child until you hold one, nor do you fully comprehend the life that runs through them like a bright wire. I didn't get choked up ('Don't go all corny on me, Mike,' Siddy would sometimes whisper when we were kids at the movies and I got wet-eyed at a sad part), but I thought of Jo, yes. And the child she had been carrying when she fell down in that stupid parking lot, yes to that, too.

Ki was squealing and laughing, her arms outspread and her hair hanging down in two amusing clumps accented by Raggedy Ann and Andy barrettes.

'Don't tackle your own quarterback!' I yelled, grinning, and to my delight she yelled it right back at me: 'Don't taggle yer own quartermack! Don't taggle yer own quartermack!'

I set her on her feet, both of us laughing. Ki took a step backward, tripped herself, and sat down on the gra.s.s, laughing harder than ever. I had a mean thought, then, brief but oh so clear: if only the old lizard could see how much he was missed. How sad we were at his pa.s.sing.

Mattie walked over, and tonight she looked as I'd half-imagined her when I first met her - like one of those lovely children of privilege you see at the country club, either goofing with their friends or sitting seriously at dinner with their parents. She was in a white sleeveless dress and low heels, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, a touch of lipstick on her mouth. Her eyes had a brilliance in them that hadn't been there before. When she hugged me I could smell her perfume and feel the press of her firm little b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I kissed her cheek; she kissed me high up on the jaw, making a smack in my ear that I felt all the way down my back. 'Say things are going to be better now,' she whispered, still holding me.

'Lots better now,' I said, and she hugged me again, tight. Then she stepped away 'You better have brought plenty food, big boy, because we plenty hungry womens. Right, Kyra?'

'I taggled my own quartermack,' Ki said, then leaned back on her elbows, giggling deliciously at the bright and hazy sky.

'Come on,' I said, and grabbed her by the middle I toted her that way to a nearby picnic table, Ki kicking her legs and waving her arms and laughing I set her down on the bench; she slid off it and beneath the table, boneless as an eel and still laughing.

'All right, Kyra Elizabeth,' Mattie said. 'Sit up and show the other side'

'Good girl, good girl,' she said, clambering up beside me. 'That's the other side to me, Mike'

'I'm sure,' I said. Inside the bag there were Big Macs and fries for Mattie and me. For Ki there was a colorful box upon which Ronald McDonald and his unindicted co-conspirators capered.

'Mattie, I got a Happy Meal! Mike got me a Happy Meal! They have toys!'

'Well see what yours is.'

Kyra opened the box, poked around, then smiled It lit up her whole face She brought out something that I at first thought was a big dust-ball For one horrible second I was back in my dream, the one of Jo under the bed with the book over her face Give me that Give me that, she had snarled It's my dust-catcher It's my dust-catcher. And something else, too - some other a.s.sociation, perhaps from some other dream I couldn't get hold of it.

'Mike?' Mattie asked. Curiosity in her voice, and maybe borderline concern.

'It's a doggy!' Ki said 'I won a doggy in my Happy Meal!'

Yes; of course A dog. A little stuffed dog. And it was gray, not black . . . although why I'd care about the color either way I didn't know.

'That's a pretty good prize,' I said, taking it. It was soft, which was good, and it was gray, which was better Being gray made it all right, somehow Crazy but true I handed it back to her and smiled.

'What's his name?' Ki asked, jumping the little dog back and forth across her Happy Meal box. 'What doggy's name, Mike?'

And, without thinking, I said, 'Strickland.'

I thought she'd look puzzled, but she didn't. She looked delighted. 'Stricken!' she said, bouncing the dog back and forth in ever-higher leaps over the box. 'Stricken! Stricken! My dog Stricken!'

'Who's this guy Strickland?' Mattie asked, smiling a little. She had begun to unwrap her hamburger.

'A character in a book I read once,' I said, watching Ki play with the little puffball dog. 'No one real.'

'My grampa died,' she said five minutes later.

We were still at the picnic table but the food was mostly gone. Strickland the stuffed puffball had been set to guard the remaining french fries. I had been scanning the ebb and flow of people, wondering who was here from the TR observing our tryst and simply burning to carry the news back home. I saw no one I knew, but that didn't mean a whole tot, considering how long I'd been away from this part of the world.

Mattie put down her burger and looked at Ki with some anxiety, but I thought the kid was okay - she had been giving news, not expressing grief.

'I know he did,' I said.

'Grampa was awful old.' Ki pinched a couple of french fries between her pudgy little fingers. They rose to her mouth, then gloop, all gone. 'He's with Lord Jesus now. We had all about Lord Jesus in VBS.'

Yes, Ki Yes, Ki, I thought, right now Grampy's probably teaching Lord Jesus how to use Pixel Easel and asking if there might be a wh.o.r.e handy right now Grampy's probably teaching Lord Jesus how to use Pixel Easel and asking if there might be a wh.o.r.e handy.

'Lord Jesus walked on water and also changed the wine into macaroni.'

'Yes, something like that,' I said. 'It's sad when people die, isn't it?'

'It would be sad if Mattie died, and it would be sad if you died, but Grampy was was old.' She said it as though I hadn't quite grasped this concept the first time. 'In heaven he'll get all fixed up.' old.' She said it as though I hadn't quite grasped this concept the first time. 'In heaven he'll get all fixed up.'

'That's a good way to look at it, hon,' I said.

Mattie did maintenance on Ki's drooping barrettes, working carefully and with a kind of absent love. I thought she glowed in the summer light, her skin in smooth, tanned contrast to the white dress she had probably bought at one of the discount stores, and I understood that I loved her. Maybe that was all right.

'I miss the white nana, though,' Ki said, and this time she did look sad. She picked up the stuffed dog, tried to feed him a french fry, then put him down again. Her small, pretty face looked pensive now, and I could see a whisper of her grandfather in it. It was far back but it was there, perceptible, another ghost. 'Mom says white nana went back to California with Grampy's early remains.'

'Earthly remains, Ki-bird,' Mattie said. 'That means his body.' remains, Ki-bird,' Mattie said. 'That means his body.'

'Will white nana come back and see me, Mike?'

'I don't know.'

'We had a game. It was all rhymes.' She looked more pensive than ever.

'Your mom told me about that game,' I said.

'She won't be back,' Ki said, answering her own question. One very large tear rolled down her right cheek. She picked up 'Stricken,' stood him on his back legs for a second, then put him back on guard-duty. Mattie slipped an arm around her, but Ki didn't seem to notice. 'White nana didn't really like me. She was just pretending to like me. That was her job job.'

Mattie and I exchanged a glance.

'What makes you say that?' I asked.

'Don't know,' Ki said. Over by where the kid was playing the guitar, a juggler in whiteface had started up, working with half a dozen colored b.a.l.l.s. Kyra brightened a little. 'Mommy-bommy, may I go watch that funny white man?'

'Are you done eating?'

'Yeah, I'm full.'

'Thank Mike.'

'Don't taggle yer own quartermack,' she said, then laughed kindly to show she was just pulling my leg. 'Thanks, Mike.'