Marta Perry - The Guardian's Honor

“Hey. I’m Jamie.”

“Hey, Jamie.” Bodine’s response was all right, but his expression wasn’t.

Anger welled in her. How dare he look at her child with shock and pity in his eyes? She pulled Jamie a little closer, her arms cradling him.

“You heard my grandfather, Mr. Bodine. It’s time for you to leave.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then, without another word, he backed out the door and walked quickly away.

“Was he a bad man, Mama?” Jamie snuggled against his pillows after his good-night prayers, looking up at Cathy with wide, innocent eyes.

Cathy smoothed his blond cowlick with her palm, love tugging at her heart. “No, I’m sure he’s not.” How to explain to her son something that she didn’t understand herself? “He wanted to find out something about a…a friend of his, but Grandpa couldn’t help him.”

Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t? Her grandfather’s reactions to the Bodine man had been odd, to say the least.

After Bodine left, Grandpa had stalked to his bedroom and slammed the door. He hadn’t come out until she was putting Jamie in the tub, and then he’d ignored the subject of their visitor as if the man didn’t exist, instead talking to Jamie about his boat and promising to have it finished by bath time the next day.

“But Grandpa would’ve helped the man if he could’ve, right, Mama? ’Cause that’s what Jesus would want him to do.”

“I’m sure he would,” she said, though her heart wasn’t at all sure.

How difficult it was to teach her son about faith when her own was as weak as a willow twig. She smoothed the sheet over him and bent to kiss his soft cheek.

“Good night, little man. I love you great big bunches.”

His arms squeezed her tightly. “I love you great big bunches, too, Mama.”

She dropped another light kiss on his nose and went out, leaving the door ajar. She followed the sound of the refrigerator door opening to the kitchen.

Grandpa was pouring himself a glass of sweet tea. He lifted the pitcher toward her and raised his eyebrows in a question. Taking that as a peace offering, she nodded.

“Some tea sounds good about now. September’s turning out near as hot as August, seems like.”

He brought the glasses to the table and sank into his usual chair. “Too dry. We’d better not spare any more water for those tomato plants, I reckon, if we want the well to hold out.”

It was the sort of conversation that passed for normal now between them. Since she’d come back to the house where she was raised, destitute and with a disabled child in tow, she and Grandpa had existed in a kind of neutral zone, as if they were simply roommates.

Grandpa had been that way with Jamie at first, too, but it hadn’t taken long for love to blossom between them. She found joy every day that Jamie now had the father figure who’d been absent from his life.

She had to be content with that and not expect anything for herself. Once Grandpa had made up his mind about someone, he wouldn’t turn back.

So she had nothing to lose by pushing him a little about that odd visit. She moved her cold glass, making wet circles on the scrubbed pine tabletop. “What did you make of Adam Bodine?”

His face tightened. “Fellow was just barkin’ up the wrong tree, that’s all. Maybe he was pulling some kind of scam.”

That hadn’t occurred to her. She considered it for a moment, and then set it aside.

“He could have been mistaken, maybe, but not a con artist. The man radiated integrity, it seemed to me.”

“You’re not exactly a great judge of men, now, are you?”

She’d heard that so often that it no longer had the power to hurt. Maybe she was too easily taken in, as Grandpa believed, but she didn’t think she was wrong about Adam Bodine.

She also wasn’t wrong about her grandfather’s reaction to the Bodine name. And their visitor had seemed convinced that he had the right man. But how could Grandpa have a past identity that she knew nothing about?

“Bodine,” she said casually, as if it meant nothing at all. “Did you ever hear anything about that family?”

“Nothing,” he snapped, but his hand tensed on the glass. “You that anxious to find yourself a new family? Is that it?”

“No, of course not, Grandpa.” She reached out to pat his arm, but he pulled it away, nursing his grievance.

Not a new family. No. She’d just like to have back the family she’d once had. There’d been a time when she and Grandpa and Grandma were everything to each other, but that was gone forever. Now Jamie was the only one who loved her unconditionally.

Thinking of him made her glance at the calendar. “Jamie’s appointment with Dr. Greener is Thursday. Do you want to go along to town with us?”

“Greener.” Grandpa snorted. “Man’s no good at all. You oughta take the boy up to Atlanta or someplace where they can fix him.”

If it was possible. The spina bifida Jamie had been born with had necessitated what seemed like an endless series of visits to doctors, specialists, surgeons. After the last surgery, the doctor had been optimistic. Maybe another operation would do it. Maybe Jamie could get rid of the braces for good. But that took money—money she didn’t have and didn’t see any prospect of getting.

“I wish I could.” Her throat had tightened so much that the words came out in a whisper.

“Maybe if I sold the house…”

“Then where would we live?” They’d been over this so many times, and the answer always came out the same. She patted his hand quickly, before he could draw away. “Dr. Greener does his best. We’ll be all right.” She stood. “I’d better make sure Jamie’s not in there playing with his cars instead of sleeping.”

She went quickly back to Jamie’s bedroom, thankful that the old house had enough rooms to sleep all of them on the first floor, so she could be within easy reach of Grandpa and Jamie if they needed her in the night. She eased the door open and crossed to the bed.

Jamie slept curled up on his side, one hand still wrapped around the old metal car Grandpa had found for him in the attic. His long eyelashes made crescents against the delicate shadows under his eyes.

Did Jamie run in his dreams? Did he splash in the creek and chase fireflies in the dusk?

Such small things to be able to give a child, but she couldn’t even manage that much.

But if Grandpa was hiding the truth, if he really was one of the Charleston Bodines, what then? Hope hurt, coming at her unexpectedly. If the Bodines really were family, if they cared enough to search out a long-lost relative, maybe they’d be people who wanted to help a child like Jamie if they knew he was kin.

Or maybe there was an inheritance owed to Grandpa all these years. You heard about such things sometimes, folks coming into money they hadn’t expected.

It was a possibility she couldn’t let slip away. Adam Bodine hadn’t looked like a man who’d give up easily. She’d have to hope she was right about that.

Adam lingered in the coffee shop at the motel the morning after his encounter with the Hawkins family. It was a good thirty miles from their house, but the closest he could find. Frowning, he stared at the cooling coffee in front of him.

What was his next step? His gut instinct said he was right about this. Theodore Hawkins was Ned Bodine. He had to be, or why had he reacted the way he had?

But it went beyond that. He couldn’t explain it, but when he’d seen the man, he’d known. Maybe it was true that blood called out to blood. The Bodine strain ran strong. He’d looked in that man’s eyes, and he’d seen his grandfather there.

But if Ned Bodine refused to be found…