The Baby Gift

You’ve got your job, bullyboy. I’ve got mine. Step aside before I want to break your self-satisfied face. Josh kept his expression impassive. “I’m due to meet Nealie. She’s expecting me. Have you had your say?”

Larry stepped more squarely in front of him. “I hear you made my sister cry last night.”

Oh, hell, Josh thought in exasperation. “She didn’t tell you that.”

“No.” Larry crossed his big arms. “My pop went over there last night to make sure she was all right. He said she’d been crying. You’ve got no right to make her do that.”

The blood banged in Josh’s temples. What could he say to this man that wouldn’t widen the breach between them, make everything harder than it already was? Once again, he tried to push anger aside. “I would never willingly hurt your sister. I would cut off my right arm before I’d knowingly cause her pain.”

“You wouldn’t have to cut it off,” Larry said. “Because I’d tear it off. I mean that. You ever hurt that girl again and you’ll answer to me.”

He put out his ungloved hand and pushed Josh’s chest. It was a slight touch, but full of warning. He brought his face closer. “Understand?”

When Josh was growing up in Detroit, if anybody had been foolish enough to push him, the guy would have gotten a mouthful of shattered teeth. Josh was smaller than Larry, but he knew he could flatten him.

What he did was harder. He held up his hands as in a sign of peace. “I understand,” he said. “And I don’t want trouble with you. You’re Briana’s brother and Nealie’s uncle.”

“You remember that,” Larry said. But he stepped aside.

LARRY’S VAN was faster than Briana’s old truck. He beat Josh to the farm by five minutes. When he walked in the door of his house, his wife gave him a disapproving look.

“Well,” she said. “Did you find him?”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “I found him, all right.”

Larry had gone hunting for Josh Morris with a sense of righteousness. He had convinced himself the man was a threat to his sister’s happiness, his father’s health and his family honor.

His father had phoned last night, upset that Briana had been crying. Leo had fretted and dithered and worked himself into a state.

Larry loved his father, but he knew Leo was not a confrontational man. He would never be able to face down somebody like Josh Morris. Larry considered himself the real man of the family, and it was his duty to protect his father and his sister. If he didn’t, it was a blot on his manhood and a blow to his tender self-esteem.

This morning he had risen early. He had watched Briana’s house, waiting for the lights to go on. When Nealie was awake, she would want her father to come, so as soon as Larry saw her bedroom light flicker into life, he’d gone to meet Morris one-on-one.

Glenda crossed her arms over her softly swelling stomach. She was a lovely blond woman, but lately she looked worn. He supposed it was just her pregnancy, some woman thing like that.

“Well?” She said it with a peculiar edge of aggression in her voice.

“Well what?” Larry asked, hanging his jacket on its hall peg.

“What did you say to him?”

Larry turned to face her, feeling smug, the top dog. “I told him never to make my sister cry again. That if he hurt her again, I’d rip his arm off.”

She looked pained. “You didn’t really say that.”

“Yes, I did,” said Larry. “Where are the boys? I’m ready for breakfast.”

“I let them sleep late. I wanted to talk to you.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “So? Talk.”

“I told you last night what I thought. You didn’t pay any attention. I laid awake a long time thinking about it. You should stay out of your sister’s business. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

Larry bristled. “It’s got everything to do with me. It’s family, dammit. He made her cry.”

“You don’t know why she cried,” Glenda argued.

“Because he hurts her feelings,” Larry said. “He gets her all upset.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s what Pop thinks. And you know Briana. She’s not the crybaby type. She fell out of a tree once when we were kids and broke her arm. She didn’t even sniffle.”

Glenda thrust out her delicate little jaw. “Maybe she’s crying because she still loves him. She still cares for him, you know. You can see it—if you’d look.”

“She shouldn’t care. He’s no good. He went off and left her once.”

“He’s not a bad man, Larry. He loves his child, and I think he still loves Briana.”

“He’s not one of us,” Larry returned.

“That means he’s different. It doesn’t mean he’s bad.”

“She’s my sister. I’ll decide what I think is good or bad for her.”

Glenda crossed her arms more tightly. “Let them make their own decisions. In short, Larry, you should butt out.”

He blinked. This was unlike Glenda, who was usually so adoring, so compliant. “Hey,” he said. “Whose side are you on, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m starting to think it isn’t yours.”

She turned her back and walked away.

“Hey!” he said again. “What is this? And where’s breakfast? Haven’t you even got coffee made?”

“Make it yourself,” she said and walked out of the room.

He stared at her, his mouth open in stupefaction.

NEALIE FINISHED her breakfast because her daddy told her to. Briana sat at the table across from Josh, her chin resting in her hand. He was good with the child, so good.

He looked weary but, to her, still handsome. He had shaved off his beard, and it made him look younger, but his sideburns were tipped with silver that hadn’t been there when he’d visited last.

“And now,” Josh said, “if you’ll promise to eat a breakfast like that every day, I’ll give you a present.”

Nealie’s expression was excited, yet tinged with conflict. “But, Daddy, sometimes my tummy feels funny. And I’m not hungry.”

“I know,” he said. “But you could try. You could remember your promise and try, couldn’t you?”