Part 10 (1/2)

The sandals walked away, thank G.o.d for small favors.

But then the sandals came back. And she saw that the yard guy was carrying one of those metal detectors that people used on the beach to find lost jewelry and coins. ”Please, allow me.”

Mary Lou extracted herself from the garden, moving back to sit on the lawn. As she brushed dirt from her knees, he turned on the doohickey, and about four seconds later, he turned it back off, then reached carefully down among the pink flowers and pulled out her keys.

Thank G.o.d.

Instead of handing them to her, he sat down, cross-legged, beside her.

”Are you absolutely sure you want these back?” he said in a slightly British English-as-a-second-language accent.

With him sitting next to her, Mary Lou could look at hima” really look at his face and into his eyes. When he'd first started working next door, she'd complained to her sister about it. It wasn't that she was prejudiced against foreigners. She was the first to admit he made the Robinsons' yard look great. But really, after 9/11, who wanted strange Arabs prowling around their neighborhood?

He was older than she'd thought from watching him from her kitchen window as he'd worked next door. Up close, she could see lines around his eyes and mouth. He wore a full beard that, although it was neatly trimmed, made his already dark face seem even darker.

From a distance, he'd always appeared to be scowling, but she saw now that that wasn't true. His craggy features and thick eyebrows only made it seem as if he were perpetually angry. In fact, up close, she saw that his default expression was a gentle smile.

And right now she saw nothing but kindness in his dark brown eyes.

He held her keys loosely in his big, work-hardened hand. She could have reached out, taken them, thanked him, and walked away and that would have been that.

But then he said, ”I've seen you at some of the local meetings. I also go almost every night.”

The lawn guy went to Alcoholics Anonymous, too. She stared at him.

”You're often there with your baby,” he continued. ”She is so beautiful, always smiling. You must be so very proud.”

”I am,” Mary Lou said.

He nodded. ”I don't think you really want to go to the Ladybug Lounge today, do you?”

She started to cry. It was absurda”she was sure she'd cried herself out, over on her driveway and then inside the house as well. She'd sat in her kitchen, expressing her breast milk like some kind of human cow as she'd cried and cried and cried. But here she was, melting down again, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The lawn guy just sat there. He didn't reach for her, but he didn't run away, either. He just sat quietly beside her and let her cry.

”I'm sorry,” she finally managed to say.

”Your sponsor is not home to talk to?”

”No.”

He nodded. ”Too bad. But that was very good thinking,” he told her. ”Throwing away your keys. Very smart.”

Mary Lou looked up at him, wiping her eyes. ”You think so?”

He gave her an even wider but no less gentle smile. ”I know it to be so. You're here and you're still sober, and maybe that very bad moment has pa.s.sed.”

She wasn't so sure about that. This entire night was going to sucka”picturing Sam with Alyssa... Oh, Lord, don't think about that.

”How long have you been sober?” she asked him. ”I mean, if you don't mind my asking.”

”Just over four years.”

”Wow.”

”And you?”

”Eighteen months,” she told him.

He gave her another of those smiles. ”That's excellent.”

”Not as good as you. Dear Lord, four years...”

Out on the street, a car slowly drove past. It wasn't one of the neighborsa”at least not one she recognized. What they would think, seeing them sitting here like this, she couldn't imagine.

”The trick lies in not thinking about it as one large block of time,” he told her. ”It's impossible for anyone to not drink for four whole years. But to choose not to drink for today? That's still difficult, but not quite as impossible. I should have answered your question by saying I have chosen to be sober today for four years' worth of days in a row.”

”I thought Arabs weren't allowed to drink,” Mary Lou said.

”Muslims have laws in which drinking alcohol is forbidden, yes,” he corrected her. ”But many still do. Christians aren't supposed to take the Lord's name in vain, is that not true? Jews shouldn't eat ham or pork. And Catholics have certain rules about procreation that they tend to ignore. Just as with every religion, there are those Muslims who follow the exact rule of the law, and those who practice less strenuouslya” to varying degrees. I myself grew up in a household where my parents and their friends chose to embrace the ways of the West and to serve and drink alcohol. And yet we observed Ramadan and practiced our faith in other ways.”

”Where are you from?” she asked.

He smiled. ”Anaheim.”

”I meanta””

”Saudi Arabia,” he said. ”My parents had an opportunity to leave when I was sixteen. We moved first to Beverly Hills, and then to Anaheim.” He smiled at her again. ”Where are you from?”

Nowhere. ”We moved around a lot when I was a kid,” she told him. ”Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana. If the town had a bar, we lived there. See, I'm a second-generation drunk. I come by it naturally.”

”But you don't drag your daughter from town to town, bar to bar,” he pointed out.

”Yeah, I just want to.”

”But you don't,” he said again, in his gentle voice.

Mary Lou hugged her knees tightly to her chest. ”My husband's girlfriend's in town. I'm pretty sure he's going to see her tonight.”

The lawn guy was silent, and Mary Lou glanced at him. He was watching her, his expression finally somber, his eyes sad. ”And this is why you wish to punish yourself... ?”

”No,” she said. ”This is why I wish to get s.h.i.+t-faced drunka”so I don't have to think about him f.u.c.king her.”

He blinked at her foul language, but that was the extent of his reaction. He was just too G.o.dd.a.m.n relentlessly serene, and for a moment, Mary Lou hated him for that. She hated everything, everyone.

Except Haley.