Local Hero

for as long as I wanted. See, I’m making the plans for a space station. This is the engine room. And over here and here are the living quarters. It’s going to have a greenhouse, sort of like the one they had in this movie Mitch let me watch. Mitch showed me how to draw things to scale with these squares.”
    “I see.” Pride in her son overshadowed any tension as she crouched down for a better look. “You catch on fast, Rad. This is wonderful. I wonder if NASA has an opening.”
    He chuckled, facedown, as he did when he was both pleased and embarrassed. “Maybe I could be an engineer.”
    “You can be anything you want.” She pressed a kiss to his temple. “If you keep drawing like this, I’m going to need an interpreter to know what you’re doing. All these tools.” She picked up a square. “I guess you know what they’re for.”
    “Mitch told me. He uses them sometimes when he draws.”
    “Oh?” She turned the square over in her hand. It looked so—professional.
    “Even comic art needs a certain discipline,” Mitch said from the doorway. He held a large glass of orange juice, which was already half gone. Hester rose. He looked—virile, she realized.
    There was a faint vee of dampness down the center of his shirt. His hair had been combed through with no more than his fingers, and not for the first time, he hadn’t bothered to shave off the night’s growth of beard. Beside her, her son was happily remodeling his blueprint.
    Virile, dangerous, nerve-wracking he might be, but a kinder man she’d never met. Concentrating on that, Hester stepped forward. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
    “Rad already has.”
    She nodded, then laid a hand on Radley’s shoulder.
    “You finish that up, Rad. I’ll be in the other room with Mitch.”
    Hester walked into the living room. It was, as she’d come to expect, cluttered and chaotic. Taz nosed around the carpet looking for cookie crumbs. “I thought I knew Rad inside and out,” Hester began. “But I didn’t know a drawing board would mean so much to him. I guess I would have thought him too young to appreciate it.”
    “I told you once he had a natural talent.”
    “I know.” She gnawed on her lip. She wished she had accepted the offer of coffee so that she’d have something to do with her hands. “Rad told me that you were giving him some art lessons. You’ve done more for him than I ever could have expected. Certainly much more than you’re obligated to.”
    He gave her a long, searching look. “It hasn’t got anything to do with obligation. Why don’t you sit down?”
    “No.” She linked her hands together, then pulled them apart again. “No, that’s all right.”
    “Would you rather pace?”
    It was the ease of his smile that had her unbending another notch. “Maybe later. I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am. Rad’s never had . . .” A father. The words had nearly come out before Hester had swallowed them in a kind of horror. She hadn’t meant that, she assured herself. “He’s never had anyone to give him so much attention—besides me.” She let out a little breath. That was what she’d meant to say. Of course it was. “The drawing board was very generous. Rad said it was yours.”
    “My father had it made for me when I was about Rad’s age. He’d hoped I’d stop sketching monsters and start doing something productive.” He said it without bitterness, but with a trace of amusement. Mitch had long since stopped resenting his parents’ lack of understanding.
    “It must mean a great deal to you for you to have kept it all this time. I know Rad loves it, but shouldn’t you keep it for your own children?”
    Mitch took a sip of juice and glanced around the apartment. “I don’t seem to have any around at the moment.”
    “But still—”
    “Hester, I wouldn’t have given it to him if I hadn’t wanted him to have it. It’s been in storage for years, gathering dust. It gives me a kick to see Rad putting it to use.” He finished off the juice, then set the glass down before he crossed to her. “The present’s for Rad, with no strings attached to his mother.”
    “I know that. I didn’t mean—”
    “No, I don’t think you did, exactly.” He was watching her now, unsmiling, with that quiet intensity he drew out at unexpected moments. “I doubt if it was even in the front of your mind, but it was milling around in there somewhere.”
    “I don’t think you’re using Radley to get to