Heading Out to Wonderful Read Free Page B

vines, the blooms long gone. The buzz of summer noonday flies; the smell of hot black tar about to bubble. The house was a sturdy building where a family lived out its life, its loves, its sorrows, its small everyday inconsistencies and mundanities. All of it Charlie Beale breathed in as though it were the sweet heavy musk of a night blooming flower.
    Will Haislett opened the door, and Charlie Beale stepped into the dark warm hall. With his first breath, he could tell that everything in the house was clean, clean all the time, the tables dusted, the glasses in the cupboards clear and spotless, the sheets on the beds taut and smelling of bleach and fresh air. It was like nothing he remembered, had nothing to do with his own reckless childhood, but it was somehow as familiar as his own skin, like something he had known was there his whole life but had never tasted or smelled.
    A home, something Charlie didn’t have, shelter and kindness to every living soul who slept there, bonded by blood, and every friend and stranger who passed through its doors. It was in a constant state of readiness, a readiness to welcome.
    In those days, there were no antiques. There were just new things and old things, things brought from the home place, things cared for through the years, through the rough-and-tumble of life, things bought when the marriage was new, things bought for a lifetime.
    The furniture in the sitting room where Will Haislett led Charlie was mostly old, covered now by summer slipcovers of chintz and linen, made by Lula Hall, who knew every piece so well by now she didn’t even have to measure when called on to make covers for the sofa or the big, comfortable chairs.
    Will didn’t offer Charlie a seat, and they stood awkwardly, five-year-old Sam holding on to his father’s leg, the face the same in man and boy, the same blue eyes. Charlie could smell things cooking, good rich fresh things, could sense a bustle going on somewhere in the house, even though everything where they stood was perfectly still.
    “Alma?” Will called softly. “Alma, I’ve brought him home for dinner.”
    And with just the slightest movement of the warm summer air, just a sigh, there she was, as she was every day at fifteen minutes past twelve, and all she said, looking at Will, was “Darling,” and there is no earthly way to tell you the sweetness of it, the soft accent, schooled, not country, the voice breathless with the anticipation of his company.
    She was forty years old, just a year older than Charlie Beale was then, and fourteen years younger than her husband. Her red hair was just beginning to go soft, pale like fall leaves in November, and her pale gray eyes seemed expectant, surprised, as though something wonderful were just about to happen.
    She raised herself on her toes to kiss her husband, then knelt on the floor to kiss her son, who wrapped his arms around her neck, hiding his face in her shoulder.
    She looked up. “Of course,” she said. “Charlie Beale,” as though she had known him all her life, “you’re here.” As though he already held a place in her heart as one of the many good men and women who filled her days. Then she stood up and held out her hand to shake his, and said, “You’re more than welcome in our house.”
    “This is my wife, Alma,” Will said. “She came along and saved my sorry ass from ruin and destruction.”
    She laughed. “Oh, Will, don’t be so dire, darling.” Again that word, darling—Charlie felt it and it filled him completely, as tangible and soft as a kiss good night.
    “ ‘Ruin and destruction.’ Forgive us, Mr. Beale, but around here we spend so much time in church we talk like preachers quoting scripture.”
    She let go of his hand. “Welcome to our house. Those must be our steaks.”
    He handed them shyly to her. “Thanks for inviting me in. I was getting awfully tired of sandwiches out there by the river.” He hadn’t talked to a woman in months. He had forgotten how,