Considering Kate
Page 29

As she stepped in, her shoe stuck to the floor, then released with a little sucking sound.
"We just had a little accident with Kool-Aid," Brody explained when she glanced down. "I guess I missed a couple spots on the cleanup."
"Hi, Kate." Jack looked up and bounced. "I'm making dinosaurs."
"So I see. And what kind is this?"
"It's a Stag-e-o-saurous. See? Here he is in the book. Me and Dad, we don't draw very good."
"But you color really well," she said, admiring the bright green head on his current drawing.
"You gotta stay inside the lines. That's why we drew them really thick."
"Very sensible." She rested her chin on the top of his head and studied the poster. She saw the light pencil marks where Brody had drawn straight lines for the lettering of the header. Jack had titled his piece A Parade Of Dinosaurs. She found it apt, as his drawings marched over the poster in a long squiggly dance.
"You're doing such a good job, I don't think you're going to need the tool I brought along for you."
"Is it a hammer?"
"Afraid not." She reached into her bag, pulled it out. "It's a deadly predator."
"It's a T-Rex! Look, Dad. They ate everybody."
"Very scary," Brody agreed and laid a hand on his son's shoulder.
"Can I take it into school? 'Cause look, its arms and legs move and everything. His mouth goes chomp. Can I?"
"I think it'd be a good visual aid to your project, don't you, Dad? And there's this little booklet here that talks about how he lived, and when, and how he ate everybody."
"Couldn't hurt. Jack, aren't you going to thank Kate?"
"Thanks, Kate." Jack marched the dinosaur across the poster. "Thanks a lot. He's really good."
"You're welcome a lot. How about a kiss?"
He grinned and covered his face with his hands. "Nuh-uh."
"Okay, I'll just kiss your dad." She turned her head before Brody could react and closed her mouth firmly over his.
He avoided kissing her, touching her, when Jack was around. That, Kate decided, deliberately sliding her arms around Brody's waist, would have to change.
Jack made gagging noises behind his hands. But he was watching carefully, and there was a funny fluttering in his stomach.
"A woman's got to take her kisses where she finds them," Kate stated, easing back while Brody stood flustered. "Now, my work is done, I have to go."
"Aw, can't you stay? You can help draw the dinosaurs. We're going to have sloppy burgers for dinner."
"As delightful as that is, I can't. I have an appointment in town." Which was true. But she thought the ambush—the drop-by, she corrected—would be more effective if she kept it brief and casual. "Maybe, this weekend if you're not busy, we can go to the movies again."
"All right!"
"I'll see you tomorrow, Brody. No, no," she said when he turned. "I know the way out. Get back to your dinosaurs."
"Thanks for coming by," he said, and said nothing else, not even when he heard her close the front door.
"Dad?"
"Hmm."
"Do you like kissing Kate?"
"Yeah. I mean…" Okay, Brody thought, here we go. Because Jack was watching him carefully, he sat.
"It's kind of hard to explain, but when you get older… Most guys like kissing girls."
"Just the pretty ones?"
"No, well, no. But girls you like."
"And we like Kate, right?"
"Sure we do." Brody breathed a sigh of relief that the discussion hadn't deepened into some stickier area of sex education. Not yet, he thought. Not quite yet.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"Are you going to marry Kate?"
"Am I—" His shock was no less than if Jack had suddenly kicked his chair out from under him. "Jeez, Jack, where did that come from?"
"'Cause you like her, and you like kissing her, and you don't have a wife. Rod's mom and dad, sometimes they kiss each other in the kitchen, too."
"Not everybody… people kiss without getting married." Oh, man. "Marriage is a really important thing. You should know somebody really well, and understand them, and like them."
"You know Kate, and you like her."
Brody distinctly felt a single line of sweat dribble down his spine. "Sure I do. Yeah. But I know a lot of people, Jacks." Feeling trapped, Brody pushed away from the table and got down two clean glasses. "I don't marry them. You need to love someone to marry them."
"Don't you love Kate?"
He opened his mouth, closed it again. Funny, he thought, how much tougher it was to lie to your son than it was to lie to yourself. The simplest answer was that he didn't know. He wasn't sure what was building inside him when it came to Kate Kimball.
"It's complicated, Jack."
"How come?"
Questions about sex, Brody decided, would have been easier after all. He set the glasses down, came back to sit. "I loved your mother. You know that, right?"
"Uh-huh. She was pretty, too. And you took care of each other and me until she had to go to heaven. I wish she didn't have to go."
"I know. Me, too. The thing is, Jack, after she had to go, it was really good for me to just concentrate on loving you. That worked really well for me. And we've done all right, haven't we?"
"Yeah. We're a team."
"You bet we are." Brody held out his hand so Jack could give him a high five. "Now let's see what this team can do with dinosaurs."
"Okay." Jack picked up his crayon. His eyes darted up to his father's face once. He liked that they were a team. But he liked to pretend that maybe Kate was part of the team, too. Chapter Eight
Brody set the first base cabinet in place, checked his level. He could hear, if he paid attention, the whirl of the drill from downstairs as one of his crew finished up the punch-out work on the main level. Up here there was thewhoosh andthunk of nail guns and the whirl of saws, as other men worked in the bedroom of Kate's apartment.
It was going to be a hell of a nice space, Brody thought. The perfect apartment for a single, or a couple without children. It was a little too tight to offer a family a comfortable fit, he thought as he crouched to adjust his level.