If You Believe

The front door creaked open, then banged shut. Footsteps shuffled through the foyer and came into the kitchen.



Mad Dog turned expectantly.



Jake sauntered into the room, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head hung.



At the threshold, he stumbled to a stop and jerked his head up. "You're cooking?"



Mad Dog shrugged. "Someone had to. I was losing weight."



Jake cocked his head back toward the front door, a worried look on his face. "So's she."



Mad Dog set the wooden spoon aside. Running a hand through his hair, he went to the table and yanked out a chair. The wooden legs screeched along the planked floor. He sat down and stretched his legs out. "Yeah, I know. She looks like a goddamn scarecrow."



Jake pulled out a chair opposite Mad Dog and sat down. "She talk to you at all?"



Mad Dog shook his head. A tired sigh slipped from his mouth. "I don't know what to do, Jake. She's ... wasting away."



"I know. Yesterday I gave her a geranium—it was the only one that made it through the snow. She didn't even take it. Just said thanks in that sad voice and looked away."



"Rowers, huh? I never thought of that."



"Well, it used to work for my mama, but she was a different kind of sad."



Mad Dog frowned. "What do you mean?"



Jake swallowed hard. He seemed to find it difficult to speak. "My mama .. . loved a man who didn't love her back. It made her sad all the time. She cried a lot." He looked away, stared at the wall. "She gave up on him finally, but she never forgot him, and she made sure I didn't either."



"Did she walk around like a silent ghost, like Mariah?"



"No, she was more ... emotional."



"Yeah. Most women are." Mad Dog nodded, staring through the doorway to the darkened foyer. He didn't have to move to know where Mariah was,, what she was doing. She was sitting in the damn porch swing, her back ramrod-straight, her chin tilted high, staring into space. Her eyes were glazed, vacant-looking, her cheeks were sunken and limned in bruising shadows.



He let out his breath in a sharp sigh. Jesus, she looked like one of the dead herself.



The sparkling life in her eyes had gone out, the healthy glow of her skin was gone.



Mad Dog found, to his surprise, that he missed her. Not just her body, either. He didn't even think of her in that way now. He missed the very essence of her, the way she cocked her head when she smiled, the way she shivered when he was near, the way she laughed. He missed her laughter most of all.



He propped his elbow on the table and cradled his stubbly chin in his hand, shaking his head. "Hell, I've never stayed in any one place longer than three days. If a person had a problem, I walked away. I don't know how to help her."



"She feels . .. lost," Jake said quietly, and looked up. "You ever felt like that?"



I feel like that right now. The thought surprised Mad Dog, but he couldn't deny the truth of it. Without her smile, her warmth, her touch, he felt like a boat adrift °n a dead calm sea. Going nowhere.



"Yeah," he said quietly, wetting his lips. "I've felt that way a few times. When my mom died, I ..." He shook his head, trying to find the words to express what he'd never told another living soul. "I guess I wanted to die, too."



Tears glazed Jake's eyes, squeezed past the corners. "Yeah."



Silence stretched between them, thick with memories. Finally Jake managed to find his voice again. "I don't think she hates us or anything. She just . . . doesn't care about anything."



"So, how do we make her care?" He gave a tired little shrug. "I don't know." Mad Dog looked at him across the table. "How did you get yourself out of it when your mom died?"



Something that looked like pain darkened Jake's watery eyes. He looked at Mad Dog steadily, his gaze surprisingly intense. "I focused on something else ... the one thing that still mattered. My father. I went to find him."



"Oh ... shit." Mad Dog sagged. "That won't do us any good."



"No." Jake's voice was subdued, almost disappointed. "I guess not."



Mad Dog chewed on his lower lip and squeezed his eyes shut. Jesus, this was so damned important, and he didn't know what to do. Slowly he opened his eyes, looked at the boy across the table. "Help me, Jake. . .." Jake's head snapped up. He looked up at Mad Dog through wide, surprised eyes. "You want my help?"



"We're in this together, kid.?' He sighed, shaking his head. "Aw, Jesus, I don't know how to get through to her, how to—" Then it came to him. He slammed a hand down on the table and grinned. "I've got it."



"What?"



"You'll see." He shot to his feet. "You try to get her to eat some of this stew. I've got to run to town. I'll be back by nightfall."



Jake stood at the hot stove, carefully ladling stew into a chipped crockery bowl.



The bubbling brown mixture blurred before his eyes, turned into a swirling smear of brown chunks and white china.



We're in this together, kid. Together.



He’d waited all his life to hear those words. They gave lim a giddy sense of hope he hadn't had in years.



Tomorrow, he thought. I'll tell him the truth tomorrow. And for once, the words didn't ring false. Jake actually believed them. Tomorrow he'd tell his father the truth.



Smiling, he set down the metal ladle and held the hot bowl in two hands. Turning, he left the kitchen and went outside.



The first thing he noticed was the steady creak-creak-creak of the porch swing. His good mood fled, pushed aside by the sadness of seeing Mariah. Beside her, on a small, rickety table, a candle burned, sputtered. Its acrid scent filled the tiny porch, and banished the shadows of the night.



He stepped onto the porch and quietly shut the door behind him. "Mariah? I've brought you something to eat."



Sh« didn't move, just kept rocking, staring into the night. Creak-creak-creak.



He moved closer, peered around the arm of the swing. "Marian?"



She waved a wan, pale hand. "I'm not hungry." "You have to eat something . .. you know, keep your strength up." That sounded good, he thought. A grown-up thing to say.



She laughed bitterly but said nothing. Jake set the bowl down on the top step and moved into her line of vision. Crouching down, he stared at her, seeing the network of lines that drew down her mouth, the sadness that glazed her eyes.



"My mama died last year," he said softly, resting his palms on his bent knees.



She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed tiredly. "I'm sorry, Jake."



Jake felt a surge of hope. It was the biggest reaction he'd gotten from her in days.



"You saved my life," he said quietly, "you and Rass."



She looked at him then, and he almost wished she hadn't. Her eyes were dulled by immeasurable pain, her mouth was a sad, downward curve. He felt like he'd been punched in the stomach just looking at her. "Please." The plea sounded torn from her throat. "Don't do this to me. . . ."



Jake didn't know what to do. Uncertainty flooded him. He wished Mad Dog were here to tell him what to say. "I—"



She turned away from him, stared unblinkingly ahead. "Just go. Please."



Confused, Jake pushed to his feet. "You said once that I always had a home here.



Did you mean it?" She waited a long time, then slowly nodded.



He stared at her, tried to will her to look at him, but she didn't move, stared past him into the falling night. "I ... I love you, Mariah," he said quietly.



She winced, then stiffened. A tear beaded in the corner of her eye, caught the candlelight like a diamond, but didn't fall.



It was the only indication that she'd heard him.



Mariah was still sitting on the swing when Mad Dog returned from town.



He ran across the shadowy yard and bounded up the sagging wooden steps. The whole porch rattled and shook at the suddenness of his arrival.



He walked the length of the porch and stopped directly in front of her. Grinning, he slammed a dark brown bottle on the railing. "I'm back."



Mariah didn't even spare him a glance. She just sat there, stiff as a nail, saying nothing.



His labored breathing scored the quiet. He sat on the wide porch rail and studied her, his long fingers curled around the bottle beside him. "Enough is enough, Mariah." '



She pushed slowly to her feet. "I think I'll go to my room now." Stiff-backed, staring at the floor, she started to edge past him.



He brought his foot up, slammed a cowboy boot down on the left side of the porch swing. The chain-links clattered together; the slatted seat tilted sideways. She was trapped between his leg and the porch, rail. There was no exit except past him—and he had no intention of letting her go.



She lurched to a stop, staring down at his dusty boot as if it were a two-headed snake. In the flickering, uncertain light of the candle, her profile was waxen and hard.



"Please move your foot."



Slowly he brought the other foot up, crossed it over the first. "No."



She turned, fixing dull brown eyes on his face. "I don't feel like talking now . .. yet.



So if you don't mind .. ."



A wave of empathy moved through him at the sight of her pale, ashen face. She looked young and achingly vulnerable; a woman in need of a friend. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be a friend to someone. Not a drinking buddy or a casual acquaintance, but an honest-to-God friend. He'd never seen anyone who needed one more. But first he had to get through to her, break past her wall of pain.



"But I do mind," he said, infusing a dark steel into his voice. "I'm sick of your little-girl theatrics and your poor-me whining."



She gasped, and if possible, her skin paled another shade. She brought a trembling hand to her midsection and pressed hard. "I lost my father last week."



"That's life. It's no excuse for acting like a child." He paused for effect, then said the meanest thing he could think of. "Your father would be disappointed in you right now."



She made a horrible, gasping sound of grief. "Why are you doing this to me?"



He drew back, tried to will her to look at him, but she didn't. She just stared down at his crossed legs as if it took too much energy to lift her head. "It needs doing," he answered softly.



She stiffened. "You have no idea what I need. Now, move your feet and let me pass. I'm tired and I want to go to bed."



"But you don't sleep, do you? I've seen you, sitting out on this damn swing for hours at night."



"That's my business," she said, but there was no sting in her voice, only a quiet sadness.



"I'm making it my business."



"You can't do that."



"Watch me."



She sighed and shoved a hand through the tangled mass of her unbound hair. "What do you want from me, Mad Dog?"



"I want your smile back. I miss it." His voice lowered, thickened with emotion. "I miss you."



Her eyes squeezed shut. She bowed her head. A curtain of snarled brown hair fell across her face. "Oh, Mad Dog .. ."



He reached out, touched her cold chin with his forefinger. Gently he forced her to look at him. Their eyes met, held. "Matt," he said quietly.