Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Oh Noah!” she exclaimed, delighted. “When did you do this?” She had been here earlier to bring her belongings, and the corner had been bare.

  “This afternoon after you left. I’ll have to confess, I hired Josh to go out and find it.”

  “It smells delicious. Can we light the candles?”

  “Of course. But I’d better get some water up here first, just in case.” He set the lantern on the dresser, took the pitcher from the bowl and said, “Be right back.”

  While he was gone, she put her hands to her cheeks and glanced at the bed, trying to be calm.

  Noah returned in minutes with the full pitcher and some matches. He struck one on his heel and touched the wicks of ten miniature candles. The shadows of the pine needles danced on the ceiling and walls. They studied the flames in silence before he turned to look at her and said quietly, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Campbell.”

  She looked into his eyes and replied, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Campbell.” His thumb stroked hers... once, twice... then they prudently returned their gazes to the tree. Already the candles were dripping red wax onto the lower branches, and it was beginning to tick onto the floor.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to blow them out.”

  “They were lovely while they lasted.”

  She blew out all ten flames and stood amidst the scent of smoking wicks. “You made us a beautiful memory, Noah. Thank you.”

  He retreated and she heard movement behind her. She turned to discover he had removed his jacket and was loosening his tie.

  “You’ll need help with your buttons,” he said.

  “Oh... yes.” She turned her heated face away, presenting her back, and he stepped behind her to do the honors.

  “Thank you,” she whispered when the last button was freed.

  He cleared his throat and said, “I have to step out back and put a couple more pieces of wood in the stove.” At the sound of his retreating footsteps she glanced back over her shoulder. He paused in the doorway, said, “The water in the pitcher is warm,” and disappeared without even taking the lantern.

  She was so relieved her breath swooshed from her like a passing gale. He had said he’d visualized taking her dress off and kissing her in ten places, and she’d supposed that’s how this interlude would begin, and in spite of the episode on the rocking chair, when her clothing had remained intact, she had worried that at the last minute she would be terrified and stiffen up and would ruin her wedding night. Instead, he proved himself romantic and considerate beyond her dearest hopes.

  He gave her more time than needed. By the time he returned, her nightgown was buttoned up the front and tied at the throat, her face was washed and she was brushing her hair before the dresser mirror.

  She glanced at the doorway the moment he stopped in it, and tried to hide a smile: he was wearing a red and white striped nightshirt.

  “It’s all right, you can laugh,” he said, lifting his arms and glancing down. “I’ve never worn one of these things before. I thought you might appreciate it, but I feel like a damned sissy.”

  A sudden laugh doubled her forward with the back of the brush against her mouth. In none of her preconceptions had she pictured herself laughing on her wedding night. When she straightened, he was chuckling, too, studying his bare feet and rather skinny ankles.

  “Good God,” he muttered, then stood straight and jabbed a thumb at the bed. “Would you mind getting in there so I can pile in behind you and hide?”

  She scrambled into the bed, still smiling, establishing her place closest to the wall. He did pile in right behind her, leaving the lantern lit and pulling the covers to their waists.

  Settling onto her back, she thought, He’s wonderful. He knows how nervous I am and he’s doing everything he knows to make this easy for me.

  He settled on his side, braced his head on one hand, and immediately found her hand, fit his fingers tightly between hers, closed them hard and kissed her knuckles.

  “I know you’re scared, but there’s no need to be.”

  “But I don’t know what to do.”

  “You don’t need to know. I know.”

  He had ways, oh, he had ways. He used them, one upon the other, gentling her with a first tender kiss, sweet and moist, while finding her bare foot beneath the blankets and covering it with one of his own. His head swayed, and the smooth sole of his foot rubbed the top of hers, then hooked her leg from behind and held it captive. The kiss ended and he nuzzled her jaw, the soft hollow beneath it.

  “How can you smell like roses in the dead of winter?” he asked.

  “I put on some rose water while you were downstairs.”

  “Oh, you did?” He backed up and smiled, only inches from her face, and brushed her cheek with a knuckle.

  “Did you put some roses here, too?”

  She blushed brighter. “Do men always tease women when they’re doing this?”

  “I don’t know. This one does. Does it bother you?”

  “It’s unexpected... it’s... I... I’m not used to blushing.”

  “It’s very becoming, though. I think I’ll make you do it often.”

  “Oh Noah...” She dropped her gaze demurely.

  He lifted her chin and kissed her so very lightly his shadow never fully darkened her lips. Then again, to one side of her mouth... and the other... then on her chin... and on her throat.

  “Mmm... I remember this smell. You smelled like this one year ago tonight.”

  “And you smelled like this across the breakfast table at Mrs. Roundtree’s every morning after you’d shaved.”

  He lifted his head, smiling. “I didn’t know you noticed.”

  “I noticed a lot of things about you. I memorized every shirt you owned, and your favorite foods, and a lot of little mannerisms you have. But mostly I noticed your hair... I so love your hair, Noah.”

  He went perfectly still, fixing his gray eyes on her beautiful blue ones, leaning on one elbow, motionless above her.

  “Touch it,” he whispered.

  She raised both hands and threaded them through his thick, lush hair, ruffling it, mussing it, living out a fantasy as his eyelids slid closed and he lowered his face to the eyelet lace between her breasts. While her hands continued moving, his breath warmed her, his mouth opened and he caressed her with it alone, nuzzling the inner swells of her breasts within her lace-trimmed gown.

  Her eyes drifted closed, too, and her fingertips relaxed in his hair, becoming still as he found and covered the fullest part of her breast. “Ohh,” she breathed, surprised by the swift sensation and her response to it. Her hands clasped his skull, drawing him more fully against herself, first one breast, then the other, where he bit her—bit her!—and sent a wondrous recoil clear to her toes.

  Abruptly he rose, rushing up like a swimmer out of the deep, meeting her waiting mouth with his, matching their bodies while everything became urgent. Tangled in two nightgowns, they pressed as close as the folds of cotton would allow.

  Suddenly he broke away, ordering, “Sit up,” doing so himself, drawing her after him, scraping her pretty white nightie up until it caught beneath her hips. “Up again...” And with a shift and lift, she felt the garment swept away. It sailed over her head and landed on the floor, followed immediately by his own, and before the two had become a motionless puddle, his arm took her down with him, onto their sides, and his foot scooped her close once more.

  They fell to the pillows with their eyes wide open, pressed skin to skin, with her left breast caught up high by his wide hand. When he spoke, his voice sounded gruff.

  “If anything hurts, you stop me.”

  She nodded her head twice in rapid succession, wide-eyed and breathless.

  Then he released her breast, and found her hip, and curved his hand behind to hold her while teaching her motion—fluid and rhythmic and altogether tempting. They kissed, all lush and lusty, propelled by the relentlessness only first times can bring. He caught her knee and drew it over his hip,
and touched her intimately for the first time.

  “Oh!” she cried, and “Oh” again, as she twisted her face against the pillow. In time he captured her hand, whispering, “Here... like this.” And all she had thought to be sordid became exalted.

  Wily, wonderful man, he had her welcoming him at the moment of union. And later, crying out aloud with her throat bowed. And later still, gripping his shuddering body with her heels.

  When it was over they lay twined, depleted, breathing the scent of each other’s dampened skins. ‘

  She laughed once in celebration, with her eyes closed and her face at his chest. He took her head in both hands and tipped it to a better angle, rubbed his thumbs near the corners of her eyes and said, smiling, “There, now you know.”

  “All that worry for nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing!” he exclaimed, lifting his head off the pillow until she laughed and he let it back down.

  They rested awhile, replete.

  “Noah?” she said, m time.

  “Hm?”

  “You said ten places. You owe me seven.”

  A chortle started deep in his chest and rumbled its way up his throat. “Ohhhh, Sarah Campbell, I can see I’ve started something.”

  He had. Furthermore, he had to finish it more than one time that night.

  At midnight they were still awake, too enchanted to waste time on sleep. She was lying in the crook of his arm when she lifted her head sharply and said, “Listen, Noah!” Then, “Open the window!”

  “What?”

  “Open the window... hurry! I think I hear the chimes.”

  He obliged her, turning off the lantern first, then opening the curtains and raising the sash. When the chill air rushed in he scampered back to bed, leaped in and yanked the covers to their necks before curling her against him again.

  “Oh Noah, listen... ‘Adeste Fideles,’ just like last year.”

  He began singing it, softly, at her ear.

  She joined him, so quietly some words were whispered.

  When it ended, they lay content.

  “Funny,” he said, “I never considered ‘Adeste Fideles’ a love song before.”

  “Let’s make sure we sing it every Christmas night, to celebrate our anniversary.”

  “With or without the chimes,” he added.

  They thought about it awhile, about all the Christmases to come, all the years of happiness piling one upon another while they told their children the story of their rocky beginning and their wedding on Christmas Eve, and the sound of the chimes coming in through the window.

  Later, when they’d heard a lot of carols, and the room had grown arctic, and they had closed the window and were trying to warm one another, he fit himself against her like one open page behind another and said, “We’re going to be happy, Sarah.”

  “Mmm... I think so,” she replied sleepily.

  He closed his eyes and sighed against her shoulder blade.

  “I love you,” he murmured.

  “I love you, too,” she mumbled.

  And they slept, delivered.

  If you enjoyed Forgiving,

  you’ll look forward

  to LaVyrle Spencer’s

  sensitive and uplifting novel

  BYGONES

  NOW IN PRINT

  FROM G. P. PUTNAM’S

  SONS.

  The apartment building resembled thousands of others in the suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul area, a long brick rectangle with three floors, a set of steps on each end and rows of bruised doors lining stuffy, windowless halls. It was the kind of dwelling where young people started out with cast-off furniture and bargain-basement draperies, where toddlers rode their tricycles down the halls and could be heard through the floors when they cried. Now, at 6 P.M. on a cold January night, the smell of cooking meat and vegetables sifted under the doors, mingled with the murmur of televisions tuned to the evening news.

  A tall woman walked down the hall. She looked out of place, dressed in a classic winter-white reefer coat bearing the unmistakable cut of a name designer, her accessories—leather gloves, handbag, shoes and scarf—of deep raspberry red. Her clothing was expensive, from the fifty-dollar silk scarf looped casually over her hair to the two-inch high heels combining three textures of leather. She walked with an air of hurried sophistication.

  Pulling the scarf from her head, Bess Curran knocked at the door of number 206.

  Lisa flung it open and exclaimed, “Oh, Mom, hi. Come on in. I knew I could depend on you to be right on time! Listen, everything’s all ready but I forgot the sour cream for the stroganoff, so I have to make a quick run to the store. You don’t mind keeping your eye on the meat, do you?” She dove into a closet and came up with a hip-length jean jacket, which she threw on over her dress.

  “Stroganoff? For just the two of us? And a dress? What’s the occasion?”

  Lisa headed back to the door, digging her keys from her purse. “Just give it a stir, okay?” She opened the door halfway and stopped to call, “Oh! And light the candles and put a tape on, will you? That old Eagles one is there that you always liked.”

  The door slammed and left Bess in a backwash of puzzlement. Stroganoff? Candles? Music? And Lisa in a dress and pumps? Unbuttoning her coat, Bess wandered into the kitchen. Beyond the galley-style work area that divided it from the living room, a table was set for four. She studied it curiously—blue place mats and napkins cinched into white napkin rings; the leftover pieces of her and Michael’s first set of dishes, which she’d given Lisa when she left home; four of her own cast-off stem glasses; and two blue candles in holders she’d never seen before, apparently bought specially for the occasion on Lisa’s limited budget. What in the world was going on here?

  She went to the stove to stir the stroganoff, which smelled so heavenly she couldn’t resist sampling it. Delicious—her own recipe, laced with consomme and onions. As she replaced the cover on the pan, she realized she was famished: she’d done three home consultations today plus two hours in the store before it opened, grabbing a hamburger on the run. She promised herself, as she did every January, to limit the home consultations to two a day.

  Returning to the front closet, she hung up her coat and straightened a pile of shoes so she could close the bifold door. She found matches and lit the candles on the dinner table and two others in clear, stubby pots on the living-room coffee table. Beside these a plate from her old dinnerware held a cheeseball waiting to be gouged and spread on Ritz crackers.

  The match burned low.

  She flinched and flapped it out, then stood staring at the cheeseball. What the devil? She glanced around the room and realized the place was clean for a change. Her old brass-and-glass tables had been freshly dusted and the cushions plumped on the hand-me-down family sofa. The tapes were stacked neatly, and the junk on the bookshelves had been neatened. The jet-black Kawaii piano Lisa’s father had given her for high-school graduation hadn’t a speck of dust on it. Instead, the key cover was neatly closed, and on top of the piano a picture of Lisa’s current boyfriend, Mark, shared the space with a struggling philodendron plant and five Stephen King books in a pair of brass bookends Lisa had received from her Grandma Stella for Christmas.

  The piano was the only valuable thing in the room. When Michael had given it to Lisa, Bess had accused him of foolish indulgence. It made no sense at all—a girl without a college education or a decent car or furniture owning a five-thousand-dollar piano that would have to be moved professionally—to the tune of about a hundred dollars per move— how many times before she was finally settled down permanently?

  Lisa had said, “But, Mom, it’s something I’ll always keep, and that’s what a graduation present should be.”

  Bess had argued, “Who’ll pay when you have to have it moved?”

  “I will.”

  “On a clerk-typist’s salary?”

  “I’m waitressing, too.”

  “You should be going on to school, Lisa.”

  �
�Dad says there’s plenty of time for that.”

  “Well, your dad could be wrong, you know! If you don’t go on to school right away, chances are you never will.”

  “You did,” Lisa had argued.

  “Yes, I did but it was damned hard, and look what it cost me. Your father should have more sense than to give you advice like that.”

  “Mother, just once I wish the two of you would stop haggling and at least pretend to get along, for us kids’ sake. We’re so sick of this cold war!”

  “Well, it’s a stupid gift,” Bess had gone away grumbling. “Five thousand dollars for a piano that could finance a whole year of college.”

  The piano had remained a sore spot. Whenever Bess came to Lisa’s apartment unannounced, the piano held a film of dust on its gleaming jet finish and seemed to be used merely as the depository for books, scarves, hair bows and all the other flotsam of Lisa’s busy two-job life. It was all Bess could do to keep from sniping, “See, I told you!”

  Tonight, however, the piano had been dusted and on the music rack was the sheet music for Michael’s favorite song, “The Homecoming.” In years past, whenever Lisa sat down to play, Michael would say, “Play that one I like,” and Lisa would oblige with the beautiful old television-movie theme song.

  Bess turned away from the memory of those happier times and put on the Eagles Greatest Hits tape. While it played she used Lisa’s bathroom, noting that it, too, had been cleaned for the occasion. Washing her hands, she saw that the fixtures were shining, the towels fluffy and freshly laundered. On the corner of the vanity was the apothecary jar of potpourri she’d given Lisa for Christmas.

  Bess hung up the towel and glanced in the mirror at her disheveled streaky-blond hair, give it a pluck or two: after the day she’d put in she looked undone. She’d been in and out of the wind, the shop, her car, and hadn’t taken time since morning to pause for cosmetic repairs. Her forehead looked oily, her lipstick was gone and her brown eyes looked stark with the eyeshadow and mascara worn away. There were lap creases across the skirt of her winter-white wool crepe suit, and a small grease spot stood out prominently on the jabot of her raspberry-colored blouse. She frowned at the spot, wet a corner of a washcloth and made it worse. She cursed softly, then found a lifter-comb in Lisa’s vanity drawer. Just as she raised her arms to use it, a knock sounded at the opposite end of the apartment.