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“Good morning, Mr. Morris.”
He rubs a hand along his unshaven chin and works hard to smother his playful smirk. “You know my name is Steve. You didn’t come home last night.”
“Didn’t I?” I cross the small lobby and place my hand on the door. “I’m a grown woman, Steve. I can come and go as I please, and last I checked, I haven’t asked my father’s permission to go out in a very long time.”
“You’re a chick in my henhouse now, Ms. Mayet.” He reaches into his cardigan pocket and takes out an ugly, knitted hat. “And you’ll catch a cold if you don’t cover your ears in this weather.”
My heart tumbles just a little. But it’s a toss-up—at least half of me melts with love, but the other half rejects yet another man wanting to take care of me. “Y-you got me a hat?”
“It actually belonged to my late wife.” The old man takes a step closer, his movements making his jowls bounce. “And I’ll tell you what shedidn’tdie of; a head cold.”
Snickering, I reach out with shaking hands and hesitantly accept the gift. “I didn’t know you’d lost your wife.” I never even thought about it, since everyone knows he’s banging Mrs. Mayweather. Or, well… doing to her whatever a couple hundred-year-olds do for passion. “Did she pass a long time ago?”
Steve watches as I turn the hat over. It’s green and black and comes with a pom-pom at the top. It’s uglier than sin and thin enough I doubt it’ll help my ears at all. But the gesture is sweet, and if nothing else, the green matches Archer’s eyes.
“Berta was her name.” He sighs, almost as though thinking back and remembering times gone by. “She died in…” He looks to the ceiling as though to count the years. “Geez. In the summer of eighty-six.”
“Such a long time ago. She died young?” Grief slowly works its way into my blood. “I didn’t… I don’t… I’m sorry.”
“She was only forty-three when she died.”
“That’s awful.” I reach out and take his hands. “You never had kids?”
“Nuh uh.”
He backs up toward the stairs, pulling me along with him, then he sits on the bottom step with a heavy exhalation and tugs me down till our knees touch. “Berta was a mean-muggin’ old bitch who would put Ms. Trunchbull to shame.”
Grinning, when I guess I was expecting tears, Steve takes pleasure in my silence and cocoons my hand in his. “I’m not saying I asked the universe to take care of that godforsaken marriage, Ms. Mayet. But I’m not saying I didn’t, either.”
“You…” Stunned. “What?”
He coughs out a phlegmy cackle. “You were so sad for me! You thought I lost a beloved wife.”
“Yes! I thought— Dammit, Steve!”
He shakes his head and works to catch his breath. “Neither of us wanted to be married. But back then, if you did the nasty before marriage and you happened to make a baby, a woman’s daddy would send you down the aisle with a shotgun pointed at your back.”
“You…” I’m speechless. “She…”
“I stepped up for that baby,” he continues. “I would’ve stayed married for life and made it work.”
“You just said youdidn’thave kids.”
“We didn’t.” He glances across and spies me from under bushy brows. “I grieve the baby that never came to be. But after that, I was careful not to do the same again.”
“You didn’t want kids?”
“I didn’t want kids withher,” he amends on a chuckle. “And because we never did, because she liked me as much as I liked her, she had plenty of spare time to get out of the house.”
He pauses for a moment, then leans closer as though to tell me a secret. “I’m pretty sure she tried to poison me more’n once. But I couldn’t prove it.”
“What the hell Jerry Springer craziness is this?” Forgetting my plans to see Tim, I turn to face my geriatric landlord. “She tried to kill you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs so the fibers of his knitted cardigan stretch and contract, and his aftershave flitters into the air. “Maybe not. Can’t prove it one way or the other. But eventually, she went and found herself another man to keep her busy in bed.”
“No!”
“Speculation,” he snickers. “Can’t prove it. But then the summer of eighty-six came around, and the Boston Celtics beat the Rockets to win the NBA championship.”
