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“It’s pity.”
He opened her door and went around to the other side, unbuttoning his shirt front as he did so and took off the wet shirt, stripping down to his undershirt.
Cat sat there with her hands folded in her lap, like a prim schoolteacher instead of the fiery throaty-voiced nightclub singer he knew.
“You acting like you seeing something new.” Mike gripped the wheel. Couldn’t a man even take off his shirt.
“Why are you talking to me this way?”
“I’m not talking to you in any way, Cat. I just. Listen. You never said anything about what I said back there.”
“About?”
Have mercy. “I was talking about marriage back there.”
She faced him, seeming ready to pounce. “You were talking to my mother. You never said anything to me.”
“A man has to ask the parents now, right? That’s what I was trying to do.”
“Then the man had better come and ask me.”
She rolled down the window on her side and he did as well. Just sitting there in the front part of the van, crammed full of her things, he supposed things were getting a bit close in there.
Why didn’t she talk? Say what he wanted to hear.
She saw your leg. She don’t want you.
There it was. The thing he had feared. Well, it was what he deserved. He left her on that train platform, crying. Never thought to write back to her, and he got injured. The oldest story of all time. And he understood from jump how her Mama was. She would never want him.
Now there was something different at stake though. Their little girl. He wasn’t about to let anyone, not even Cat, treat that child as if she couldn’t succeed. He said nothing and just started up the van and drove it slowly back to the Home.
“Do you need help?”
“Woman, if I needed your help, I would ask for it. Go inside where it is nice and cool, check on Andie and I’ll take care of this here.”
A hurt look crossed her face, but she stormed off into the inside, and went to wrangle with Sarah he supposed, before she went up to the room.
Mr. O came wandering out with his sleeves rolled up. “I’ve come to help, Mike.”
“I know you got other things to do, now.”
“Hey. A word of advice. Don’t ever turn down help moving anything. There’s a few fellows from the hotel next door who said they would help too.”
“Why would anyone want to help us?”
“They know we’re vets. We all have to help each other right?” Mr. O clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
In a few minutes, Mr. O and the three hotel workers he brought with him had filled the shed with Cat’s furniture and things instead of polio equipment. Soon, he hoped, the shed would be filled with polio equipment so that the children would be free of the terrible disease and Cat’s furniture would be in a house of her own.
He would still be living here. Better than being homeless. Still, the thought of Cat living somewhere he wasn’t made his stomach swirl. He promised he would take care of her. What was wrong?
You, you are what’s wrong.
He wanted to hate Mama Bennett with everything that was in him, but that seemed foolish. As much of a fool as that woman was, she was a part of Cat and Andie. So, he couldn’t hate her. No. Better to feel sorry for her. Because Mama Bennett was a fool.
So was he though. So, they had that in common, as much as she thought him an outcast.
He went to his room to get a new shirt and to let Cat know they were done unloading the van. He wanted to see if they could squeeze in some time to visit the real estate office in the Hill. They might not be able to look at anything today but at least they could let the agency know they were in the market for a home. Or he was. For her.
