Birthday Dinner Page 3

Chapter 3

  That night in their rented small house in what could most generously be called a “transitional” neighborhood—an abandoned house to one side, an empty lot with an overgrown foundation to the other, seven occupied houses out of sixteen lots on the dead-end street—over a dinner of homemade three-bean salad and biscuits baked that morning, Becca told Zach about her meeting with Mrs. Brackett and Jonah. “Zach, there’s something about him,” she concluded.

  “What?”

  She thought about that—what was it that had captured something more than her eye, more than her heart even, had captured a piece of her soul? “A stillness at the core,” she said finally.

  Zach laughed. “I’m supposed to be the writer.”

  “And I’m the social worker and I’m telling you this kid is special. He can’t be left where he is.”

  Zach stared at her across the narrow butcher-block table he’d brought with him from his old apartment. In nearly a year of knowing her, he’d never seen Becca quite so passionate about anything, even him and their relationship. “So how are you going to help?”

  “I don’t know; I don’t know. Can you meet me at her house tomorrow morning? Maybe we can start by helping his great-grandmother and work outward from there.”

  Once settled in her job, Becca had quickly roped Zach into doing volunteer repairs to the homes of some of her contacts. He still had one more year of school, but it was summer break, and he did yard work for several faculty members in the afternoons while writing in the mornings. He’d assembled a modest collection of handyman tools that he kept in his carryall truck, and Becca regularly sent him out to repair a dripping faucet, a rotten step, or a kicked in front door at the properties of those she struggled to help. (Most of her contacts lived in rented slums or on the streets, where Zach’s free assistance was either not allowed or useless.) “What time?”

  “I told her ten. Is that O.K.?” She knew it was in the middle of his writing time.

  Zach gazed at her in wonder—this unfamiliar determination, this unprecedented passion. “For you?” he said and paused.

  She tilted her head to one side in genuine concern.

  He loved her all the more for that lack of presumption, that ever present vulnerability. “Of course.”

  She leaned across the narrow table and kissed him. “Thank you. You know I wouldn’t pinch your writing time if it weren’t important.”

  He nodded. “I know that.”

  She started to collect their dishes.

  He grabbed her near hand. “Don’t put your heart out there where it’s going to get run over.”

  She smiled and said, “Too late,” then turned toward the sink with her arms loaded with their plates.

  It was only later that Zach wondered if she thought he’d meant Jonah or him.

  It was only much later, on toward dawn, that he was roused in their double bed by her licking the side of his face and his neck and, hiking up his T-shirt, down over his chest and stomach to where he was naked from the waist down. He left her to labor on there, under the covers, till all parts of him were fully awake, then drew her face up to his and rolled atop her, and began to labor in his own manner—above her and slowly at first, then in ever quickening pace till they both offered forth sighs of release and contentment and settled back to the earth that was their simple foam mattress, their humble bed in humble shack in a tough part of town.

  By then, pre-dawn light cast the room in a promising pale silver glow that seemed to have a texture and weight to it, a substance they could feed on as well as breathe. “I wonder if he’s been tested for aptitude?” Becca said.

  “Who?”

  “Jonah.”

  Zach was silent, momentarily caught between where they’d just been and where she was taking them.

  “If he’s been tested, and the scores are high (which I’m sure they would be), we might get him transferred into a gifted program—not only get him out of the public schools but get him watched more closely.”

  “I wish I’d had you on my side when I was growing up.”

  She laughed. “You turned out O.K.”

  “Yes, but it would’ve been more fun.”

  “Well, you have me on your side now.”

  He reached under her. “Let’s try you on top.” He rolled her atop him under the sheets. All parts of them fit together just fine.

  She smiled down at him through the grainy air. “That’s nice,” she said. She wiggled herself gently against his groin.

  He reached up and brushed her hair pulled behind her head in a ponytail, its fringe already aglow in the dim light. “I’m with you on this, Bec. That way when you get hurt, we’ll get hurt together.”

  She pressed her face against the side of his, kissed his ear, and whispered, “Thank you”—her gift to them both.