“I don’t know. Is it all right if I do?”
“You don’t break any of my rules. You wait in the parlor for him. He knocks on the door, you open the door and sit on the porch and talk to him. That’s not breaking any rule.” She looked at me curiously. “You want to talk to him?”
“I do,” I confessed, “but I don’t know if it’s the best thing. I mean, to talk to him tonight. Maybe I should wait.” I hesitated then asked, “What do you think?”
“Well, I don’t know if you should wait or not. I don’t know what’s going on between you.” When I didn’t say anything, Mrs. Hendersen patted the bed and motioned me to sit beside her. I sat down and she said, “I’ve known this boy Flynn for some time now and he’s got a beautiful way about him. He’s always in good humor, but tonight he obviously was upset. I’ve never heard him upset before. It wasn’t the words he said, mind you, but mainly the tone of them. Now, I don’t know what’s between you except that powerful feeling, and it’s none of my business, but if you want to tell me what this is all about, I’m here to listen.”
“I saw him with another woman tonight and Flynn saw me with John Means.”
Mrs. Hendersen smiled and slowly nodded. “Ahhh . . . that explains it then.”
“You’re smiling, but it’s not funny to me. I want to see Flynn, but then again I don’t.”
Mrs. Hendersen studied me. “Cassie, how strong are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how strong are you in keeping your womanhood to yourself until the time is right for you to give it away?”
I just stared at her.
“Look, child, I’ve been married three times. I know the ways of men and I know how a woman usually is with a man she’s had relations with. If I’m right, just looking at the two of you together, I don’t think you’ve been with him in that way. In fact, I don’t think you’ve had relations with a man before. If you’d had relations with that boy Flynn you’d be moving different around him.”
I was silent at the suggestion.
“That’s all right if you don’t want to say. If you’re a good Christian woman, that’s good. But sometimes forces more powerful than our Christian teachings can change a young woman’s mind about her future. That Flynn is a powerful force. You’ve got to know your own mind before you meet it.” She reached for my hand and held it with both of hers. “Did Flynn tell you how we came to meet?”
I shook my head and she went on.
“Well,” she laughed, “it’s a bit of a story. It was back before the war and I still considered myself somewhat young.” She laughed again. “That was before I was in that wheelchair there. I’d already lost my husband, one who gave me this house, so I was making do for myself. I hadn’t yet started opening up my house to ladies in need, but I had this friend name of Thelma lived right across the street there. Widow lady too. Thelma and me decided we weren’t too old yet to do anything we wanted to do, so one day after we’d gone to the grocery store in my car, we had a flat on the way back, and there we were, two seventy-something-year-old ladies trying to change a tire!”
Mrs. Hendersen laughed heartily. “We didn’t know what we were doing! Neither one of us had changed a tire before. We knew enough to get out the jack, then we tried to figure out how to attach the thing on the car. Somehow we got it set, then we had to jack up the car. Well, we couldn’t get it jacked and that’s when we heard this voice behind us asking if we could use some help. We both looked around and there was this tall young man standing there, this bemused smile across his face. I don’t know how long he’d been standing there watching us fiddle with that jack, but I said, ‘What do you think!’”
This time I laughed with Mrs. Hendersen.
“Yeah, that’s just how we met. Flynn jacked up the car, changed the tire in no time flat. Thelma and me, we offered to pay him for his trouble, but he refused to take any money from us.” Mrs. Hendersen paused, looked away a moment, then back at me. “I lost my only child, my son, to cancer when he was about the age Flynn is now.” She let go of my hand and added softly, “Flynn’s been like a son to me. I truly do love that young man. He’s a good man, Cassie. You wouldn’t go wrong with him.”
“Do you think I’ll look too anxious if I see him tonight?”
“Depends on how you handle yourself.”
I thought about all Mrs. Hendersen had said, and said nothing. Mrs. Hendersen was fine with the silence and said nothing either. Finally, I decided and stood. “I want to see him. I couldn’t sleep anyway. There’s no point in putting it off.”
Mrs. Hendersen nodded. “Good,” she said, giving me an approving smile. “Good.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Still in my robe, I sat in the parlor. It was past eleven o’clock. I read for a while, glancing at the wall clock every few minutes. All I wanted was for Flynn to be at the door. Impatiently I waited, but finally as it neared midnight I slammed down the book, turned off the room lamp, and headed for the hallway. I was furious. There was a knock on the door. I ignored it. There was another knock, then Flynn called softly, “Cassie?”
I took a deep breath, went to the door, and opened it.
“I didn’t know if you would see me,” Flynn said.
“I didn’t know if I would either,” I replied. “I talked to Mrs. Hendersen about it.”
“And what did she say?”
“She said I had to be strong in my own feelings.”
“And are you?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I? What did you want to see me about? You called more than two hours ago. What took you so long to get over here?”
“I had to take the person I was with home.”
“And it took ’til midnight to say good night to her?”
“Cassie, would you please come onto the porch? I want to talk to you about tonight.”
I pushed open the screen door and stepped out. I pulled my robe tighter and crossed my arms. “What about tonight?”
“You saw me with someone and I didn’t want you to put that person between us in your mind.”
“Well, you saw me with someone too. Were you concerned about him being between us in your mind?”
Flynn dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand, and I wasn’t sure how to take that. Maybe I wanted him to be jealous, at least just a bit. I certainly was jealous. “It’s not about him. It’s about how you might be seeing this woman and me. We both know what Justine said to you.” He moved away and leaned against the porch post.