holding her hand during the car ride home.
“What time should I come over tomorrow?” she asked.
Hegbert’s eyebrow raised just a little.
“I’ll come over to get you. Is five o’clock okay?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Daddy, would you mind if I visited with Landon and
his parents tomorrow?”
Hegbert brought his hand to his eyes and started rubbing them. He sighed.
“If it’s important to you, you can,” he said.
Not the most stirring vote of confidence I’d ever heard, but it was good enough for
me.
“What should I bring?” she asked. In the South it was tradition to always ask that
question.
“You don’t need to bring anything,” I answered. “I’ll pick you up at a quarter to
five.”
We stood there for a moment without saying anything else, and I could tell Hegbert
was growing a little impatient. He hadn’t turned a page of the book since we’d been
standing there.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said finally.
“Okay,” I said.
She glanced down at her feet for a moment, then back up at me. “Thank you for
driving me home,” she said.
With that, she turned around and walked inside. I could barely see the slight smile
playing gently across her lips as she peeked around the door, just as it was about to close.
The next day I picked her up right on schedule and was pleased to see that her hair
was down once more. She was wearing the sweater I’d given her, just like she’d promised.
Both my mom and dad were a little surprised when I’d asked if it would be all right if
Jamie came by for dinner. It wasn’t a big deal—whenever my dad was around, my mom
would have Helen, our cook, make enough food for a small army.
I guess I didn’t mention that earlier, about the cook, I mean. In our house we had a
maid and a cook, not only because my family could afford them, but also because my
mom wasn’t the greatest homemaker in the world. She was all right at making sandwiches
for my lunch now and then, but there’d been times when the mustard would stain her
nails, and it would take her at least three or four days to get over it. Without Helen I would
have grown up eating burned mashed potatoes and crunchy steak. My father, luckily, had
realized this as soon as they married, and both the cook and the maid had been with us
since before I was born.
Though our house was larger than most, it wasn’t a palace or anything, and neither