Night Shift
Page 54

“An amazing coincidence,” Olivia agreed seriously.
And with that, Arthur left.
Olivia said, “He was looking good.” She sounded very calm and innocent.
“My guess is that he’s getting married again. He was sure dressed up.” Bobo walked to the front window and looked across the road at Fiji’s cottage.
Sylvester Ravenwing walked by.
“That’s the new guy at the gas station,” Bobo said. “What’s he doing out of the store?”
“Speaking of looking good,” Olivia said. “That guy is completely hot. And my second question would be, why’s he’s going to Manfred’s?”
They moved in unison to watch the new guy cross the lawn to the house next door.
“Huh,” said Bobo. He was curious, too.
“Interesting,” said Olivia.
And then an ancient pickup pulled up out front of Midnight Pawn, and an equally ancient man unloaded a large tin statue of a horse from the back.
“I’ll leave you to all the excitement,” Olivia said. “You better get the door for him.”
“Thanks,” muttered Bobo when she’d gone. After one more longing look across the street at Fiji’s place, he hurried to open the door.
As the old man struggled into Midnight Pawn, Bobo noticed that Ravenwing was knocking at Manfred’s door.
 
 
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Hello?” Manfred said. His brows drew together at seeing a stranger, which did odd things to Manfred’s piercings.
“You haven’t been in the store yet to greet me,” the stranger said.
“Ah, sorry? Who are you?”
“Sylvester Ravenwing.”
“Okay, pleased to meet you. I’m Manfred Bernardo.” He shook Ravenwing’s hand and turned away to return to his desk. But Ravenwing didn’t budge. “Ahhhh . . . did you want to come in?”
“I do. We need to talk.”
Mystified, Manfred took a step back. “Come to the kitchen,” he said. “I have some Coca-Cola. Or tea. Or I can make coffee.”
“Tea is fine.”
Manfred led the way back, and he just knew Sylvester’s eyes were taking in the shabby, comfortable house.
Soon Manfred and his unexpected (and unwanted) guest were ensconced at the kitchen table. Manfred was vaguely aware that if he had been Fiji he could have offered cookies or something, but that was very much not the case. He did brew the tea, and during this process his unexpected visitor did not say a word.
“You were brought up by your grandmother,” Sylvester said, as soon as Manfred had put the tea on the table and pulled out a chair. No other conversational opener could have startled Manfred more.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, then slapped himself mentally.
By the sound of it, Sylvester wasn’t asking a question but stating a familiar fact.
“I knew her,” Sylvester said, and that was another earth-shaker. “Then you probably know that after a certain point my mom couldn’t put up with me so she handed me over to my grandmother,”
Manfred said. “And Xylda and I got along like a house afire. While my mother lived with the regret she had about that, and still does. Though she’s happier now she’s married.” His eyes narrowed, he waited for Sylvester’s next move.
“I knew Xylda when she was very young,” Sylvester said. “How?” Manfred was tired of all this pussy-footing.
“We were together for a while.”
Manfred had three instant and equally violent reactions. He was struck dumb. He also had a hundred things to say. And he wanted to punch Sylvester. These did not blend well, and he began coughing.
He inhaled sharply, held the breath. Then he slowly exhaled. The biggest secrets in his family had been the identity of his mother’s father and the identity of his own. Sometimes Xylda had claimed the man she’d married had been Rain’s father. Sometimes she had just smiled when he’d asked her.
“You don’t look old enough,” Manfred said, and congratulated himself on his even voice.
Sylvester said, “She aged, but I stayed this way.”
“Are you human?” Manfred asked.
“Not completely.” Sylvester’s face impassive, which Manfred simply could not understand. He had to be having an emotion about this— regret, or . . . something? Anything?
“Are you—my grandfather?” Manfred said, almost holding his breath at the enormity of this question. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
“I am,” Sylvester said.
Manfred’s breath whooshed out. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. Mostly, he was terrified. After all these years . . . an answer. At least one. “Okay, a few questions,” he began cautiously.
“How come we don’t look anything alike? I mean, at all.”
“I don’t always look like this,” Sylvester said.
Again, not what Manfred had expected. “Aaaaargh,” he said. “I’ll come back to that later. Did you ever see my grandmother after your, um, fling?”
“I think two years is more than a fling. Yes, I saw Xylda from time to time. But not in her last ten years.”
“So you know she died?” Manfred said slowly.
“Yes. Her light blinked out in my heart.”
“Flowery. But you didn’t come to her deathbed. You didn’t attend her funeral.”
“I was very fond of her, nonetheless.”
“So just to be absolutely clear, my mother is your daughter.”
“She is.”
“But she’s not anything like you. Or me. And she sure as hell can’t change her appearance.”
“No. Everything skipped a generation. That happens sometimes.
Xylda told me that her grandfather was the one who’d had the power before her.”
Manfred dimly recalled Xylda telling him the same thing. “Do we have to do this question by question? Can’t you just tell me the story?” Manfred forced himself to take a sip of tea. His hands were shaking.
“I am not so good at telling histories. But I’ll do my best. I was born to Chickasaws in the area now known as Tennessee. My mother, Squirrel Hands, was a wise woman. Her husband had just died, and she was childless. She wanted a son more than anything. She knew she had the sickness in her belly, the same one that had killed her own mother.