“. . . flights from Norfolk. You were lucky to have gotten right onto a plane,” she finished in an approving tone.
I felt the blush as a heat in my cheeks. Atlanta was only a two-hour drive away, but, like Rachel, Wattie was assuming that Sel Martin was my boyfriend and that he had flown down from Virginia.
That, of course, made zero sense to Sel, who said, “I . . . I . . . I . . .”
I saved him by bulling on through the introductions, putting off the inevitable by way of good manners. “This is Mrs. Wattie Price, our dearest family friend.” He reached out to shake her hand, nodding, silent and solemn. He seemed shy here in a way he hadn’t been at FanCon. Of course, this room was stuffed with my relatives and his unborn kid. “And this is my stepsister, Rachel, and her daughter, Lavender.”
He glanced over at me as he turned to shake with Rachel, and I had forgotten how very dark his eyes were. Out of the sunshine, at this distance, they looked solid black, so that I couldn’t tell his irises from his pupils. It made his expression hard to read. I had a sudden urge to get closer. Very close, so I could peer in and see what he was thinking.
He turned to Lavender, putting out his hand. She took it in both of hers and beamed up at him, so excited she could hardly stand to be in her own skin.
“I’m the one who found you!” she proclaimed.
He blinked, nonplused, and said, “Was I luh . . . luh . . . llll . . .”
Lost, I thought. That was the word that ended his question, but it was stuck in his mouth. I could practically see it jammed up in there. I had a strong urge to say it for him, but I quashed it. It felt intrusive and oddly presumptuous to speak for him.
He closed his mouth, swallowed, and then a different word came out. “Mislaid?”
“You didn’t tell him?” Lav asked me over her shoulder, grinning, and then she said to Batman, “I sent you that frog emoji.”
“What?” he said to her, and his gaze flew to meet mine again.
“What?” Rachel echoed, very, very sharp. And then, to Sel, “I don’t see how you got here so fast from Norfolk.”
“No, he’s from Atlanta,” Lavender corrected, as happy-jittery as a puppy.
“Mm, mm, mm,” said Wattie, almost to herself. “You two children are in a red-hot mess.”
Lav was still explaining. “They met at FanCon, and she lost him, but I found him on Facebook. Well, me and Hugh did.”
She said it as if this were all so damn romantic, as if we were in a scene from one of those old Julia Roberts movies that Rachel liked so much, and I should say, I’m just a pregnant girl, standing in front of a Batman, and soaring violin music would play, and everyone would clap, delighted, watching us kiss.
Rachel, undelighted, said, “FanCon? You told my daughter, my thirteen-year-old daughter, that you picked up a guy at—” Her voice cut out for a half second as something else occurred to her. “My God, Leia, do you even know him?”
Wattie fixed me with a very, very Baptist look. “Well, speaking biblically, we have good reason to think Leia knows Mr. Martin quite well.”
Birchie was the only one who seemed unfazed.
“Good words!” she said, as though a dog named Words were in the room and had brought her slippers. Then her tone changed abruptly, and she asked me, “Are you going introduce us?” in a querulous voice, overloud. “You should have introduced me first. I am your grandmother.”
I started to explain that she had already introduced herself, but Wattie turned to her and talked over me.
“We’re so sorry. That was not well done. Mr. Martin. This is Emily Birch Briggs, Leia’s grandmother.”
To his credit, Sel rolled with this, shaking Birchie’s hand again and smiling. He was a nurse, after all, and I’d told him about Birchie’s Lewy bodies.
He started to ask Birchie a question. It began with a W, and he got stuck on it, hard. It sounded like there was a wind trapped in his mouth. He kept blowing the W out, but the rest of the word would not come with it. He stopped and put a hand briefly over his eyes.
Too many pieces of my family and secrets and wrong assumptions were colliding. Birchie was more off now, before lunch, than she was even at bedtime. Rachel wanted to murder me, and Jake could be back any second, maybe even with Hugh and Jeffrey in tow. The last thing this room needed was a jackass and a few more teenagers.
“Good words!” Birchie barked again, and Wattie turned full profile, whispering directly into Birchie’s ear.
Batman pivoted to me and spread his hands, like he was making an apology.
“I stutter.” It was the first thing he’d said to me directly, and the only thing he’d said so far that had come out clean.
“Okay,” I said, puzzled. He hadn’t stuttered when we played Words with Friends or at FanCon.
His beautiful, quick smile flashed, and he said, as if he’d read my mind, “Beer helps, and it’s wuh-wah . . . it intensifies when I’m under stress. I’m fff-mm . . . stressed now. I’m surprised I’ve muh-managed to say anything.” That all came out with only a few blips, as though his telling me he stuttered had relaxed him enough to make it less true.
Rachel was tucking her hair back behind her ears, embarrassed for him. I knew her so well; she wasn’t sure it was politically correct to continue on with righteous fury now that he’d announced a minor disability. Lavender looked flat dismayed. She’d found him for me, brought him here like he was a present, and already he was turning out to be imperfect.
“Okay,” I said again, and the main thing I was feeling was relief. It came over me in a wave so intense that a foolish grin spread across my face. It was overwide, but I couldn’t help it. He stuttered! That was why he “couldn’t talk” when I told him about Digby. He hadn’t burst into silent hatred, and he hadn’t had female company. He quite literally had not been able to get words out. “This is pretty stressful, for all of us.”
He smiled back, and for a second it was like we were the only two people in the room. “I wanted to show up. I wanted you to know, I will show up.”
It came out perfect, right to me, and this was what we needed. To be the only two people in a room. I dug a twenty from my pocket and held it out to Lavender. “Lav? Run go catch your dad before he gets here. Tell him to take you for ice cream and take any Darians that are headed this way, too.”
“Oh, come on!” Lav protested, but Rachel backed me up.
“That is an excellent idea. Go.” It was spoken in Unbrookable Mother, and Lord, but I would have to learn that language. It was so effective. Lav rolled her eyes, but she took the money.
“Rachel, best if you go with Lavender,” Wattie said, calm and quiet. It wasn’t only to help me, though. Birchie was swaying to some internal rhythm, staring into the dining room. “I think Birchie needs some quiet in the house right now.”
“Do you need help?” Rachel said, refocusing.