Blindside

my steppapa.”
    “Yeah, and Katie would be my stepmama. That’s weird.”
    “We could fight and stuff and no one could say anything about it.” Keely punched his arm, gave him a huge grin, then settled her head on his shoulder.
    They were sitting in Minna’s porch swing. Since Sam’s legs weren’t long enough to reach the porch, he’d taken a walking stick out of the umbrella stand that had belonged to Keely’s grandfather. Every few minutes, he shoved the stick against the wooden floor to make the swing go back and forth.
    “I don’t want you to go away, Sam.”
    “I know and I’ve been thinking, Keely. Papa isn’t stupid. He’ll marry your mom.”
    Keely said, “You’re six years old. You don’t know if your dad’s stupid or not. My mama says this is the most beautiful place in the world. Even if your dad was stupid, he could be happy here. I know, tell him we’ll take him rafting on the Big Pigeon River. That’s in the Smokies.”
    “Papa’s been rafting before. I’ll tell him, but you know, Keely, he’s got that big helicopter business in Virginia. Since those bad men took me he hasn’t gotten much work done.”
    Keely pondered this for a while. “I know, tell him thatMama is the best rafter in Tennessee and she’ll teach him. Oh, and tell him that Sam Houston taught in a log schoolhouse when he was eighteen. I’ll bet your dad will be impressed. Tell him we’ll take him there. Tell him he can e-mail to his business.”
    “Keely, if my papa and your mama got married, what would your name be?”
    Keely didn’t have an answer to that. Sam shoved the walking stick against the porch floor and the swing swung out widely. They laughed and hung on.
    Children’s laughter, Katie thought, there was nothing like it. She and Miles were standing just inside the screened door. Neither said a word and they didn’t look at each other. So this was why her mom suggested they take a look at the beautiful hazy fog that was climbing the sides of the mountains.
    Miles said quietly as he stepped back, “They look like a Norman Rockwell painting.”
    It was true, with their heads pressed together, the swing gently going back and forth, but any words Katie would have said stuck in her throat. She nodded and looked toward the mountains, blurred and softened by the fog, like fine smoke. Her mom had told her that looking at the mountains on a morning like this was like reading without reading glasses.
    “Even in the winter, when it’s so cold your toes are curling under and the mountains look weighted down with snow, they’re still so beautiful it makes you want to cry just looking at them. And down at Gatlinburg—”
    “Katie, what the kids were talking about . . .”
    She turned to face him then. The emergency room doctor hadn’t stitched Miles’s face, just pressed the skin together using Steri-strips. She’d told him to rub on vitamin E and there wouldn’t be a scar on his handsome face, unless he wanted to look dangerous, and she’d waggled hereyebrows at him. Katie said, “I guess this means you don’t want me to tell you about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”
    “Not right this minute, no.”
    “Okay. You mean us getting married?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Maybe we should give it some thought.”
    Katie had firmly believed, up until, say, just four minutes ago, that she’d rather be incontinent than get married again. But now?
    “Katie? Miles? I brought some cinnamon nut bread for the kids.”
    Her mother had excellent timing, Katie thought. She always had, particularly when there’d been horny boys around during high school. She’d given them enough time to overhear the kids talking, enough time to think about it, even say it out loud. They were both smiling when they turned to see Minna coming with a platter that smelled delicious from twenty feet away.
    “I’m starving,” Miles said, surprised. “I hadn’t realized.”
    “Glad I had some clothes for you, Miles. Katie’s dad was tall like you, so at least your ankles aren’t showing. Sweetie, those jeans are nearly white they’ve been washed so many times, but you look just fine. Now, I’m going to take these goodies to the kids. They’re having a hard time, you know.”
    “Can we have some first, Mom?”
    “Sure. Take as many slices as you want. You two just go into the living room and I’ll take care of the kids.”
    Minna waltzed back into the living room a few minutes later, and announced, “Sam and