Suddenly, for Gabriel, the air in the diner was too close. He nudged the boys toward the cash register, but they wanted to linger with Olivia. She’d won them over already, which was a good sign they’d settle into school. If the memory of his own schoolboy crush on one pretty second-grade teacher rang true, his sons would be head over heels in love with doe-eyed Ms. Marshall before next week was out.
He wasn’t certain he wanted the boys to form that great an attachment to anyone or anything in Hennings. The diner job was fine for starters. Knowing the difficulty of getting and retaining good cooks, Marmaduke paid well. Wanting to distance himself from fast-food places, he served traditional comfort food, but he was open to new ideas. Experimentation. Although he wouldn’t change his long-established menu, he’d promised Gabriel the daily specials would be his to play with. Even so, Gabriel planned on using his off time to use the public library’s Internet hookup to find a better position. Most likely an out-of-town position. And that would mean a commute. Or a move.
As he stood in line to pay for his lunch, he watched his boys with Olivia. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d approve of him uprooting the twins again. She seemed like the quintessential kindergarten teacher—sweet, traditional and rooted. But he firmly believed he and his sons could make it anywhere—hadn’t they already?—as long as they were together.
When his turn at the cash register arrived, Marmaduke refused to let him pay. Gabriel fought the urge to insist, but his new boss matter-of-factly told him all employees got one full meal per shift. He should consider today a signing bonus. Finding it almost impossible to regard the act as a handout, Gabriel switched his attention to Jared and Justin. “Ready to shop for turkey day?”
“Grampa says we need more PasgettiOs,” Justin said, waving goodbye to Olivia.
“Oh, I think my leftovers will replace the Grampa Walter special for a few days. Then we’ll think about buying more O’s.”
“I like SpaghettiOs,” Olivia said from her stool as Gabriel opened the diner door.
“Heaven help us,” he muttered, stepping out into the cold.
“When are we gonna see snow?” Justin asked, trudging alongside his father as the three made their way the few blocks back to Walter’s house and their car.
“Any day now. And if it snows enough, I’ll take you sledding on Packard Hill.”
The boys, who’d spent their short lives in a climate that didn’t require winter gear of any sort, gave him puzzled looks.
“Trust me,” Gabriel said, opening their car door so the boys could pile in, “you’re going to love it.” Hey, that was the first positive thing he’d said about the return to Hennings. Maybe Ms. Olivia Marshall’s quiet optimism was contagious.
At Wegmans, they made an “I spy” game out of shopping for their Thanksgiving groceries. The boys were wide eyed at the hustle and bustle, the colors, the choices, the piped-in music and the employees stationed throughout the store, handing out food samples.
For his part, Gabriel was glad to finally feel anonymous. Sure, he was a hometown boy, and a couple of people recognized him. But as far as being a Katrina evacuee, he didn’t register on anyone’s radar.
When the national media and the public at large had reached saturation point with the devastation and the hard-luck images, they’d moved on to the next breaking story, and Katrina—the good, the bad and the ugly—became a continuing reality only for New Orleans and the cities that had taken in the majority of those who’d had to flee. The lack of interest elsewhere was a curse, but at this particular moment in Hennings, it was also a strange blessing.
Back at 793 Chestnut, Walter met them at the door. “I got a surprise for you boys.” The old man looked like the proverbial cat with a canary in its craw.
Gabriel suddenly felt uneasy, but as Justin and Jared dashed up the porch steps, he began to unload the bags of groceries from the car. By the time he made it through the front door, the twins were on the living-room floor, playing with a fleet of Tonka trucks. Brand-new construction equipment. Shiny yellow dump trucks, bulldozers, cement mixers, cherry pickers, earthmovers. You name it, Walter had bought it.
“The set you and Daniel had,” Walter explained, all puffed up and looking proud of himself, “was metal. Pretty dinged up and rusted. Tetanus shots in the making. These are the same brand, but they’re plastic. They’re safer, plus they’ll last longer.”
Gabriel knew he should be thankful Walter was warming to this new role of grandfather, but…“Would you get the rest of the bags from the car?” he said. “I have stuff here that needs to go in the freezer.”
Walter narrowed his eyes, paused a fraction of a second and then headed outside.
When the two men came together in the kitchen, Gabriel had curbed his initial negative reaction. “It’s great you wanted Justin and Jared to feel at home,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully. “But let’s not go overboard with the toys. The boys are going to get bombarded with advertising between now and Christmas, and they’ve had so little these past two years, I don’t want them to have unrealistic expectations.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been buying a truck here and there for the past four years. Ever since I knew I had grandsons. Four years I’ve been waiting to meet them. There might be eight trucks out there. One a piece, for each birthday I’ve missed. So don’t give me any crap now about overloading them with gifts.”
Gabriel had no answer for that. In a tense silence, the two put away the groceries.
“Did you register the boys at school?” Walter asked at last.
“I did.”
“Who’s their teacher?”
“Olivia Marshall.”
“That’s good. She was an orphan—she’ll understand the boys.”
Gabriel felt the anger rise, hot and wild. Trying to keep his words from reaching the twins, he felt his voice come out thin and strained, like steam under pressure. “What are you talking about? My boys are not orphans.”
“Their mother abandoned them.”
“She brought them to me. Their father.”
Only four years ago Gabriel had found out he was a father. Morgana, a woman with whom he’d had a brief affair, had shown up in New Orleans out of the blue and deposited one-year-olds Justin and Jared on his doorstep.
She’d been an exotic dancer when he’d first known her. When she arrived in New Orleans, she was an exotic dancer with a drug problem. But at least she’d had her head on straight enough to realize she couldn’t continue to take care of the twins. His sons, she’d claimed. She’d even put his name on the birth certificates. So he’d taken a paternity test, and the boys were clearly his. As soon as the test results were in, Morgana had disappeared.
“Let’s get this straight,” Gabriel growled. “I’ve done some things I’m not all that proud of. You can beat up on me, but you are not to judge Justin and Jared for anything their father’s done. Understood?”
“I understand you’ve got a burr in your boxers. Always have. And I’ll be damned if I know why. But where your sons—my grandsons—are concerned, I was just stating a fact. Those two youngsters have had hard times to last four lifetimes. But they’re home now. Me, I’m just glad they’ll have a teacher who’ll show them some kindness. Don’t read any more into what I said than that.”
His speech ended, Walter stomped out of the kitchen. Gabriel could hear the La-Z-Boy creak as the television came on.
Maybe he did have a burr in his boxers. After seventeen years of being on his own, of supporting himself,