Page 34 of Bounced!

I heard her sit, and the whole tenor of the call shifted again. Grandbabies were forgotten. The bloodhound had scented the fox.

“Who is he?”

“There’s no he.”

“What’s his name?”

“There’s no name because there’s no he.”

“Is he nice? Is he tall? You like ’em tall. Don’t lie to me. You’ve always liked a big—”

“Mama, I have to walk the dog.”

“You already walked that dog. I heard you walk that dog all the way up here in Atlanta. Don’t you dog me, Dante Pierce. I’ve been trying to get one straight answer out of you since you were a toddler, and you’ve given a ‘no’ with a hat on it—”

“I love you, Mama. I’ll call you Wednesday.”

“You’ll call me before Wednesday and you’ll tell me his name—”

I hung up.

Gently.

The way you’d set down something that was still talking, because I was sure she was.

I sat there in my quiet kitchen, and I laughed, out loud, alone. I did that maybe four times a year, and always because of her. Then the laugh ran out, the way they always did, and left the quiet behind it. In the quiet were two things she’d handed me before she hung up.

One was a fact I’d nearly given her by accident, the quarter second, the hat on the “no.” She’d heard it before I’d let myself hear it. That was the trouble with Vernell. She read me the way I read a room, faster than I could hide. She’d caught the fact I’d been holding at arm’s length since a truck ride two nights before. She’d held it up to the light, and named it a “he” before I’d agreed there was a “he” to name.

The other was her arms.

“Still my baby. No matter what.”

I sat with that one longer. Rather, it sat with me.

Dostoyevsky sighed and rearranged himself against my foot, warm, boneless, and trusting.

I glanced at the photograph by the door, my mother mid-laugh, and thought about how she wanted a name. I didn’t have one to give her, not really.

Well, not yet.

For the moment, “he” was just a curb I’d parked at too long, a plate of toast I’d carried to a booth, a Turgenev I’d spoken truth into, because the man across from me had been too hungover to hear what I was actually saying.

I got up and rinsed my cup.

I had a shift in a few hours, a door to stand at, a room to keep comfortable, a family to protect . . . and a big, gray-bearded man to not look at the way I’d started looking at him.

“Come on,” I told the dog. “It’s time for a long walk. I’ve got things to not think about.”

He unfolded himself, joint by joint, and gave me the mournful look that meant he’d rather die than move. I scratched behind his ear, his eternal “on” switch, and he followed me out into the Sunday.

I’d let the morning stay simple for one more hour, then I’d go be careful again.

Chapter 12

Mark

Reina made a sound at 4 p.m. that stopped my heart.