Chapter 12

Tina was dressing in jeans, just right fit, and a long-sleeved dark blue cotton shirt that set her hair and face aglow. We pulled into Elise's driveway, got out, and knocked on the door. Brother-in-law Joe met us at the door.

"Damn, Alan, she's a cutie. Hi, Tina, I'm Joe. Elise's husband. Ya'll come in!"

We walked into the house, smelling the wonderful aromas of the foods I'd been raised on. "What's she doin, a pork roast?" I asked.

"Smells like my grandma's," Tina said.

Joe laughed. "Smells like everybody's grandma's. She's gotten good over the years."

Elise stuck her head around the corner. "I heard that!" she said.

"Deb!" Joe yelled. "Come out here! Your Uncle Alan an' yer new aunt are here!" He turned to us. "Deb's here. Haley's at a friend's, but she'll be here in a bit. We tol' 'er to be home for supper."

Sixteen year old Deb popped around the corner, smiling. Her smile broadened when she saw me and Tina. Tina was two inches taller, and Deb's hair was a curious arrangement of brunette and blonde streaks, and they could've been schoolmates.

She bounced up to me and hugged me, kissing me on the cheek, then she turned to Tina. "Hi! I'm Deb. Deborah, actually, but Deb works better." And she hugged Tina. "Mom says you're graduating this year?"

"Uh-huh," Tina said. "You?"

"I'm a sophomore, ' she sighed. "Haley's a senior."

"Let's go sit," Joe said.

"I'm gonna see if Elise needs help," Tina said.

I looked at her and winked.

Tina and Deb went to the kitchen. Joe looked at me. "Wow, bud!" he said. "Elise told me, but I didn't quite believe it. Seventeen?"

"Uh-huh," I said. "Damnedest thing I ever saw. Out of the clear blue." I told him how we met.

The women came back into the living room and Tina sat beside me. "I heard you talking about me, baby," she said.

"I was telling him about the day we met," I said.

She smiled. "Wasn't one of my better days, Mister Joe," she said.

"Please don't call me mister," Joe said.

"Okay, Joe, then," she said. "But Mom an' her boyfriend and I were evacuating from the hurricane, and we stopped for breakfast..." She told the story. "And after the deputies showed up, I didn't have any place to go. And Alan offered..."

"In that trailer of his?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, but you know, he didn't ... he was a perfect gentleman. I was a high school dropout 'cuz of my mom, and he got me back in high school, and got legal responsibility for me so he could do it, and treated me like, well, he never tried anything. Like he told the deputy, he was just my friend."

Joe and Elise looked at me. "I was. Seriously."

"Yes. He was. Got me into school. Bought me a car so I didn't have to ride the bus, and so I could run errands after school while he was still at work. You know, so we'd have an easier time. And I thought I was just gonna be a normal school girl. But the first time I went out, I got shocked back to reality. And I asked myself what a REALLY wanted." She looked at me. "And I decided it was Alan. So here we are."

I tugged her against me. "And we're gonna stay this way."

Deb looked at her mom, eyebrow raised.

Elise snorted, "You go right ahead, little girl. You bring home a guy with a six-figure job, we'll talk about it."

The front door opened and my oldest niece walked in. "Hi, Uncle Alan," she said, hugging me. "An' you gotta be Tina!"

"I am. And you're Haley, right?"

Haley smiled. She was Tina's height, carrying twenty more pounds, her hair shoulder-length, the dark brown that ran in our family. "Mom says you're a senior?"

"Yep. You too, huh?" Tina smiled.

"Oh, god, yes! Finally!" Haley smiled.

"Sit down! Tell me about your plans!" Tina replied.

"Plans? I guess, college, huh Dad?" Haley looked at Joe.

Joe shrugged. "Baby, we've been through this. Do you have any idea what you want to do?"

"Oh, I dunno," Haley said. "I think I'm going in for mass communications. My friend Kayla's doin' that..."

"And you're thinking it's a good idea to spend five figures on 'I'm thinkin' 'cuz this friend of yours is 'doin' that'?"

I surmised that this conversation had been run through before. Haley decided to enlist a new ally: Tina. She turned to Tina, her brown eyes showing hope. "So, Tina, do you, like, have a solid plan?"

Tina perked up. "Yes, I do. I'm hoping for scholarships, but it doesn't matter. In the fall I'm starting on electrical engineering. Four years." She turned and smiled at me. "Like Alan."

Joe smirked. "That's a plan. And she actually KNOWS somebody that's making a living as an engineer. Do you know anyone with a 'mass communications' degree that's not living in their mom's house? I mean, really?"

"But it's a college degree, Dad," she whined. "What'd'ya think, Uncle Alan?"

"I think it's between you an' your daddy," I waffled. "But I do see his side. Don't you think it would be nice to go after something that makes you employable?"

"But isn't important to LEARN? Isn't that what college is about? Learning?"

"Learning is certainly honorable," I said, "and I've never stopped learning. But I had my eye on paying for my own future when I got out of high school. The wrong college degree just means you're going to have a better chance at being under-employed than somebody with a high school diploma. So you're working for ten bucks an hour after you paid a hundred thousand for the privilege."

She was a bit somber-looking. "uh..."

"No, sweetie, don't be sad. You're at the door to your future, like a few million other eighteen-year-olds are." I drew a breath. "I went right into college and then the army. Your dad went into the navy, then got out and fought a job AND school, and raising a family. It wasn't so easy. He's probably tried to explain, but I know how you are. I was eighteen once too, you know."

"Well, it's hard, Uncle Alan," she said.

"So think about it, baby. And don't just talk to your friends, because most of them are as confused as you are. And remember, a lot of people at the school are in the business of education, and you're getting out of their world into the REAL world."

Elise peered around the corner. "Looks like a funeral in here. I need help setting the table."

The girls jumped up. Joe sat back.

"You didn't go easy on 'er," he said.

"Was I supposed to?" I asked.

"Oh, god, no! She's been talking about it all year. And I've been tryin' to tell 'er, but I'm just poor ol' dumb Dad, you know ... You're her successful uncle. Maybe she'll listen." He sighed. "And do what the hell she wants."

Tina came into the room. "Dinner's ready," she said. "An' it looks GOOD!"

Joe looked into the dining room. "Oh, sure," he picked, "Set the table for your BROTHER. Me, I eat off a TV tray."

Elise caught that comment easily. "Dear husband," she said, dripping sarcasm and humor, "I didn't do it for HIM, either. I did it for Tina, just to show her that I am on a higher plane of existence than the two of you."

We approached the table and Elise handed Joe the carving tools. "See," he said as he sliced up the roast. "She even got meat without bones in it."

"I'm just showin' how successful you are, babe," Elise quipped.

The meal was great, the roast tasty, and dessert was home-made pies. We managed to keep the conversation light and friendly.

After the meal, Joe and I got out of the way and let the dining room and kitchen be cleared out. When the last door closed and the dishwasher started making washer sounds, the family ended up at the table playing Trivial Pursuit.

Elise laughed. "Now, Tina, the only way we let HIM," pointing at me, "play is that he spots everybody two pieces."

I caught Tina's eyes as they flashed at me with a little twinkle that I instantly recognized. "Let the games begin," I said. I wasn't married to a dummy, seventeen or not.

A couple of hours later Tina answered the last question and won and I sat back with my arms crossed, smiling.

Elise said, "Get that grin off your face. You look evil."

"I married 'er for her BRAINS, sis," I laughed.

Tina giggled. "Well, we get to pull that stunt ONCE, huh?"

Haley was propping her chin in her hand. "How do you KNOW that stuff?"

"I read a lot. Alan and I talk about everything under the sun. D'you know I flew us here? Yeah, he's ... I'm learnin' to fly."

"But what'd'ya do for FUN?" Haley asked.

Tina smiled. "I LIVE! Life is fun. Sometimes. And when it's NOT fun, you just do your best, thinking of when it was good, and hoping that it'll be good again. The day Alan rescued me; I thought it might've been my last day on earth. It got better."

Haley hadn't heard the story, or at least much of it. After all, it was about an uncle who was gone most of the time. "So he rescued you?"

"Mom's boyfriend was getting ready to slap the crap out of me in a restaurant, and Alan stepped in. Mister Jeff had me by the shirt and when Alan told him to stop, he dropped me and started to pull his pistol. Alan was faster. Then the sheriff department got there and arrested him an' Mom. And I didn't have a place to go."

"And so you married him?" Haley said.

"Oh, no, it's not like that at all. He just gave me a place to stay, and it took me a while to figure out that he needed me and I needed him and here we are."

"Amazing," Haley said. She looked at me. "Mom always said Uncle Alan was good for some unusual things."

"I'm a 'thing'?" Tina giggled.

"No, that came out wrong," Haley backpedaled. "He just does some curious stuff. D'you know he has a CANNON in his garage?"

Tina looked at me. "Uh, Alan, you never told me THAT!"

"Oh, it's NOT a cannon. It's a bowling ball mortar. Me and a buddy each made one on a project a couple of years ago. It shoots a bowling ball into the air. Not a big deal."

Joe laughed. "Unless you're under the bowling ball when it comes down. We had fun with it one afternoon. And Haley's right. Alan has always been different like that."

I patted my wife's hand. "And you're a wonderful part of that."

"Awwww," Elise said.

We returned to the living room and talked until after ten, then it was time to go. We left with plans to meet at a restaurant for a late breakfast.

In the car, Tina pulled as close to me as she could with the console between us. "Well, husband, how'd we do?"

"Good," I said. "You're a curiosity to the girls, though."

"I figured that. I am at school, too, you know ... being married and all that." She sighed. "But they just sort of accept me, don't they? Your family?"

"Our family," I corrected. "And yes, I think they do, sweetie."

The bed at OUR house took another work out, as did the shower, and back in bed, we were in each other's arms, very happy.

Walking out to the car the next morning to go to breakfast, I waved to my neighbor, walked over for a quick chat, introduced Tina to him, and then we met the family at the restaurant. During breakfast, we promised to be back down for Christmas.

They followed us home and I stowed the car back in the garage, made a pass through the place to make sure everything was in the configuration I desired for our extended absence. We collected bags and everybody squeezed into Joe and Elise's big SUV. They drove us to the airport.

Tina gave her two new nieces a tour of our plane while I did the pre-flight inspection, then she slid into the left seat. She waved as we taxied to the runway, and after completing the pre-departure checklist, we lifted off for our return trip to Tennessee.

The next several weeks were a blur of her school, my work, her flight lessons.

Oh, yeah, you know how hard it is for a parent to watch his kid drive off on his own for the first time? Add an order of magnitude one Saturday when I stood on the apron with Charlie as Tina taxied the little plane away for her first solo.

"You knew it had to happen, Alan," Charlie said.

"Yeah, but it's still scary."

"Come on. Let's go get a cup of coffee. She's gonna do a couple touch and goes and then she'll be back here. And I'm gonna sign her off to go take her written, too. She gets that, some practice, a little more dual instruction and she'll get her private license."

"Yeah, I know. But still ... my wife..."

"She's plenty good, Alan. She says you let her fly all the time, and she translates what she does in the 182 to the 152."

"Yeah," I said. "she pretty much pushed me out of the left seat when I told her she should learn." I poured us each a cup of coffee.

In twenty minutes I watched her taxi up. I was walking out when the engine stopped and she bounced out, ran into my arms, and gave me a wonderful hug and a kiss.

"Okay, enough of that, young pilot," Charlie said. "Let's have the shirt-tail!"

Tina's grin was epic as she turned away from Charlie and pulled her shirt out of her jeans. I held her shirt-tail as Charlie made the cut, the tradition for a first solo. The three of us pinned the bit of cloth on the bulletin board in the little office.

Charlie smiled. "It's been a long time since I did one of those," he said.

"Alan, you wanna let her go have an hour to herself? I usually do that after a first solo. Let 'em go play by themselves."

I looked at Tina. She was grinning and her eyes were atwinkle. "Don't get lost," I said.

Off she went. Preflight, crank up, and she was gone, a little white and red speck receding into the distance. Charlie and I piddled around an old aircraft he had open for inspection in the back of his hangar...

In an hour we heard her on the radio over the speaker, notifying the non-existent traffic that she was returning to the field. This time we fueled the little plane up and tied it down on the flight line. Before we left, he laid out the plans for the next lesson.

We got that part behind us, and a week later she went to a testing center to take her written test. As expected, she passed, so now it was just a matter of time.

The rest of life was good, too. We had friends we could visit, and we stayed on the road or in the air on weekends, looking for new things, concerts, festivals, whatever. With four seats available on the Cessna 182, we took Brad and Sandra on one trip with us, and on another we brought Susan.

That was interesting. Don't get me wrong, Susan's a cutie, even if her conversation does come off as a little addled at times. She's very smart, in the same classes as Tina, but sometimes I wonder about her thought patterns.

We flew into a general aviation airport outside St. Louis, picked up a rental car, and checked into a nice hotel where our room had two queen beds.

"Uh, is this gonna be a problem?" Susan asked.

"What kind of problem?" I asked.

"Us all in the same room. I mean, like, you two are MARRIED!"

Tina fielded that one. "Come on, Susan! I spent the night in the same room with Alan the first day we met, and he and I managed to be very proper and chaste."

"Did you ever stay in a hotel with your mom and dad, Susan?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "But that's Mom and Dad. Ewwwww!"

"We'll be okay," Tina said.

"Do I need to go to the lobby for a while, or like, the GYM?"

"WHY?" I asked.

Susan smirked, "So ... You KNOW..."