Bless Her Heart

by Sally Kilpatrick

  “I will take you over my knee and make sure you can’t sit down for a week,” he growled.

  “No, you won’t,” I said calmly, even though my heart beat so loudly that I could feel it in my ears. “I filed a restraining order, and you aren’t to come anywhere near me.”

  And I have a Taser on the way, not that I’m going to let you in on that particular little secret.

  He greeted this information with silence, and I started to hang up the phone. I should hang up the phone. Why couldn’t I? What made me stay on the line with this man?

  Habit. Fear of retribution, possibly, but mainly habit.

  I was about to kick the habit when he spoke, this time with attempted charm even if I could still hear an undertone of anger. “Posey, I understand now that those changes were a lot to make, but you only have yourself to blame. If you had done a better job with those mailers to solicit money, then we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  “I did exactly what you asked me to do about those mailers!” As the words left my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake. He meant to confuse the issue. These are the sorts of arguments we got into early in our marriage. He’d blame me for things I had no control over or tell me I hadn’t done things I knew I’d done. Eventually, it had been easier to cater to his warped sense of reality.

  Gaslighting. That’s what Rain had called it. No sense in arguing with him, even if he explained in a calm, patronizing voice why he was right and I was wrong. I had to ignore all that.

  “Chad, hush,” I said. “Look, I’ll return everything if you will do one thing for me.”

  “What?”

  “Fill out that worksheet and take it to Ben and then sign the paperwork we need to get a divorce.”

  He hung up on me.

  “That’s it, I’m keeping everything,” I announced.

  “Damn straight you are!” Mom yelled.

  “Did you just cuss?”

  “I think I did.”

  “Why are we yelling?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “I think it’s because I feel like a new woman.”

  Mom smiled. When she spoke, her words were much softer. “Me too.”

  chapter 18

  I watched the sun rise Sunday morning while enjoying a very quiet house. None of the stores were open. Mom and Granny had gone to one church and Rain, to another. Henny had trudged in from his warehouse job and fallen face first on the couch into a deep sleep. Antsy because I was having a hard time adjusting to not having church, I picked up and put down each of my books at least three times. The pedagogy didn’t hold my interest. Emotionally, I didn’t want to tackle the book on divorce. And the romance? Well, it was about a blond pirate so all I could do was think about John.

  I did need to take him that LP, maybe some brownies to apologize for being, well, whatever it was I was being. I’d been a bit too forward while drunk. Then he’d caught me off-guard in Au Naturel. The more I thought about how earnestly he’d asked me about dinner with that forced casualness you use when you’re afraid someone’s going to say no, I winced. I wished I could’ve done the whole thing over again. No clue what I’d say, but I wish I could do it again.

  Knowing that he was probably still in church, I went to the kitchen to make the brownies. Of course, I was missing three ingredients and had to go to the store. By the time I got back and finished making the brownies, it was one o’clock, and there was no one to talk sense into me. Mom and Granny said they were going to see the drawings at the Chalkfest after church. Henny snored on the couch. Rain always spent Sunday afternoon with her father and abuelita.

  Three times I picked up the pan of brownies and walked to the car.

  Three times I walked back.

  What was I thinking? I couldn’t drive over to his house and barge in—especially not after turning him down.

  He did say he’d be there if I needed anything. Anything at all.

  With a deep breath I took the brownies and picked up the LP from the table just inside the door.

  * * *

  The old Busbee farmhouse was farther off the road than I’d remembered, with a driveway consisting of only thin gravel ruts that wound between old trees. I rounded a corner and came into a clearing with a neat little white house. The front of the house had been recently painted and another side was ready for a coat, having had all of the old layers of paint scraped off. A huge black dog bounded out to greet the car—or growl at it, I couldn’t tell which yet.

  “Rowdy, come back here!”

  John O’Brien stepped out on the porch, shirtless and barefoot, and I sucked in a breath.

  Posey, you will walk over these brownies and this record, and you will say your piece then you will leave before you do something stupid.

  I had to tell myself this because I was thinking about all kinds of stupid things: What did John mean by anything? What would it be like to kiss him while sober? How would making love to a kind, giving man feel?

  I juggled the brownie pan in one hand and album in the other. John opened the car door for me, and I found myself eye level with his chest. “I, uh, wanted to bring you some brownies and a record that somehow didn’t make it into the box you took.”

  He grinned. “Thank you. Come in, and I’ll make some coffee.”

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to, so I did. The dog walked around me snuffing and wagging his tail. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

  “I didn’t. At least not until last week,” John said as he opened the front door for me.

  Everywhere I looked I saw plants. He also had Liza’s couch, that floral monstrosity that managed to pale in comparison to prayer plants and ferns and spider plants and even African violets. “Whoa.”

  He blushed a little, and I noticed his shoulders were dusted with freckles. “I read somewhere that taking care of plants was a good way to prove personal responsibility. I might’ve overdone it.”

  “No, they look great.” I couldn’t even keep a cactus alive, but John’s house looked like a greenhouse with plants hanging from the ceiling and on a rough bookcase and window sills. I followed him to the kitchen where I found more plants.

  “Yeah, I had to get rid of some of them because they were poisonous to ol’ Rowdy here. You should’ve seen the schefflera. It was a tree.”

  I didn’t know a lot about houseplants, but I did remember how Liza would complain about her ferns dying or not being able to get her African violets to bloom. John definitely had a green thumb.

  “Oh, and here’s the record,” I said as he put the brownies down on a counter.

  His eyes widened. “Is that . . . ?”

  I handed him the album, and he took it with reverence as he turned it over and examined it. “This is an original Yellow Submarine.”

  “Sure,” I said with a shrug.

  “An original Beatles album, and not just any Beatles, a Yellow Submarine album.”

  Words were coming out of his mouth, but they weren’t making a lot of sense. “I guess? I found it and the rest of the records in one of the closets when we moved in.”

  “I have been looking for one of these forever,” he said, shaking his head. “I could kiss you!”

  “Why don’t you?” The words came out of my mouth as though my shoulder devil had taken control of my vocal cords. Who knew my shoulder devil could make my voice sound so husky?

  He put down the album and walked toward me. Part of me wanted to back away, but I held my ground. As my reward, his hands cupped my cheeks tenderly, and he brought his lips to mine. My hands went automatically to his chest then wrapped around his neck, and his hands moved lower to press me against him. This was what sex and attraction were supposed to feel like: this feeling that I might pass out or explode, but I didn’t know which and didn’t really care.

  What started out as tender quickly proceeded to hungry, but this time Rain wasn’t there to pull us apart.

  “Remember when you said you’d do anything for me?” I asked while John k
issed along my neck.

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “Show me what love’s really supposed to be like.”

  He paused to look at me, his brow furrowed in surprise as he reasoned out my words.

  My heart had gotten ahead of my head. Now that I’d made the request, I wondered if all sex was the same. Since I’d only had one partner, how would I know? Maybe John would want wigs and clear shoes and bondage. Chad had told me he needed such props because I’d taken all of the joy out of sex with my constant harping for a baby. Then he’d taken all of my joy from sex with his requests that I didn’t feel comfortable accommodating. But accommodate him I did. I did as he asked because he was my husband and because all of the literature suggested I needed to keep sex fresh so trying to conceive wouldn’t become monotonous.

  Not a one of those articles had mentioned what I should do for myself when the going got tough.

  “What do you mean?” John asked. Maybe he couldn’t imagine a world where a man would take his pleasure and leave a woman wanting. I knew the world he couldn’t picture a little too well.

  My face flushed at the thought of trying to explain myself. “I want to know you—biblically.”

  “I get that. But why?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore. Chad told me—”

  “That man knows nothing.”

  Resolved, John swept me up as if I were a waif and carried me to his bedroom.

  He lay me on the mattress and took my hand to kiss it, an old-fashioned sentiment incongruous with what I’d come to know of as sex.

  “How beautiful are your feet in sandals,” he said as he took my shoes.

  “The curves of your thighs are like jewels.” He unbuttoned my perfect pair of jeans and slid them down so he could kiss each leg, pausing to remove my socks and tickle one foot as he climbed over me.

  “John, what are you doing?” I said, partially to hide my automatic uneasiness at having anyone over me.

  “Reciting Song of Solomon while I make love to you properly,” he said before kissing me to the point I couldn’t catch my breath. He pulled me up to a sitting position so he could take my shirt then lay me down so he could kiss my belly button, his long hair tickling the skin around it as he bent over. “Your navel is a rounded goblet.”

  I giggled at the sensation of his hair on my skin and his lips on my navel. “Are you going to quote the Bible the whole time?”

  “You said you wanted to get to know me biblically, right?”

  My heart swelled. He’d made me laugh because he could sense how nervous I was. “John?”

  His index finger lazily traced circles on top of my bra as if he had all of the time in the world. “Yes?”

  “I think we’ve shared enough Bible verses,” I said, arching my back as his finger came to my other breast. “Please make love to me.”

  Slowly, systematically he touched and kissed and teased until the world melted away and only he and I remained. The bright afternoon sun decadently bathed us until we each sneaked a peek at the Promised Land.

  Once we’d been pulled back to earth, he lay on his back beside me. “How fair and pleasant you are, O love, with your delights.”

  I smacked his arm, and he rewarded me with a blindingly handsome grin. Back in eighth grade I had no frame of reference for making love to the tall, lanky boy with the too long hair. I wanted to take his picture in this perfect light, to capture this moment forever. Nothing kinky, just the way the warm light captured the contours of his face. Since I didn’t have my camera, I’d have to hope my memory would do it justice.

  I sighed, and he pushed a strand of hair from my face. “You don’t regret it, do you?”

  “Regret? I could die a happy woman right now.”

  He kissed me gently with chaste affection rather than heat. “Please don’t die on me.”

  “You’re right,” I said as I snuggled up to him. “If I die then we won’t be able to sing the Song of Solomon again.”

  * * *

  That evening we sat on his bed, a mattress and box springs on the floor, while we ate brownies and drank milk. “We’re going to get brownie crumbs in your sheets,” I said.

  “Posey, don’t ruin the moment.”

  I giggled. Nothing could ruin the moment.

  Rowdy whined from the other side of the door, so unhappy we weren’t letting him participate in whatever we were doing on the other side of the door.

  “I suppose I should let him out,” John said. “Just in case.”

  He stepped into a pair of boxers.

  Lust.

  Lust was my absolute favorite.

  I sighed and fell back on the mattress, never wanting to leave the moment and certainly never wanting to leave John. Logically, I knew no human being could ever be perfect. Emotionally, I felt John had to be pretty damned close. I didn’t care about the dirty clothes and stacks of books on the floor. I could learn to love the greenhouse aesthetic he had going on. Why would I ever have to leave this moment?

  Posey, you can’t stay. You’re married to someone else.

  “Shoulder angel, you are such a buzzkill.”

  “What?” John asked as he came back in and slipped down beside me.

  “Just talking to myself.”

  “I, um, I’m sorry about the accommodations,” he said, waving a broad hand over the bed. “I haven’t found a bed frame that I like.”

  “As long as it’s not four-poster,” I muttered.

  He studied me but must’ve decided against asking why I’d make such an outburst since he added, “I was thinking more of an antique sleigh bed, but it’s hard to find one that’s long enough for me.”

  “Those are pretty.”

  “Not as pretty as you,” he said, leaning in to kiss me, a light kiss that held neither demands nor obligations. Just a kiss.

  “When you say it, I almost believe you.”

  “You should believe me. I have it on good authority that my eyesight is excellent. Twenty-twenty, doc says.” He put the pan of brownies on the floor. Then he took my glass of milk. “Maybe you need more convincing.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “If I were to kiss every square inch of you, do you think that would prove my point?”

  My pulse raced again. Outside, the sky had darkened, but the gray light of the room only added to the otherworldliness of what we were doing, as if it were a dream, and we could both wake up tomorrow and go about our lives with a mysterious smile on our faces. “I don’t know. I’m awfully hard to convince.”

  “I think I’m up to the challenge,” he said with a grin that allowed me to finally touch each dimple. Then he lay me down and made good on his promise.

  chapter 19

  Humming, I entered the back door, my cheeks once again aching from a smile I couldn’t shake.

  “Where have you been?” my mother asked from where she sat at the table.

  “I went to take John some brownies and to give him a record that he missed,” I said.

  I also had the most glorious sex of my entire human experience, not that you need to know that.

  “Next time, could you please answer your calls?”

  “Of course. I guess I’m just not used to having a phone that actually works,” I said, some of my mellow harshed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your grandmother wandered off this afternoon. It took us an hour to find her,” Mom said. “I could’ve used your help.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She ran her fingers through her short blond hair, her elbows resting on the table. Finally, she looked up. “You’re right. I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was my fault for turning my back on her for even a second.”

  I took a seat across from my mother at the table. “What happened?”

  “They had a chalk art festival down on Front Street, and your granny wanted a funnel cake. I made her promise to sit on a nearby bench and thought I was keeping an eye on her but, as too often happened with you children, I got distr
acted. The credit card machine had a problem so they had to run my card twice. Next thing I know, I have a funnel cake, but your granny has wandered off.”

  I grabbed Mom’s hand and squeezed it.

  “I don’t know how much longer Granny can stay with us,” Mom said. “She’s completely in her own world now.”

  I swallowed hard. On a superficial level, I’d known that Granny’s dementia had worsened. As long as she asked for Tom Brokaw for Christmas and could still solve Liza’s problem of a baby who wouldn’t sleep through the night, wasn’t she okay to stay with us, though? She’d never learned to drive, so we didn’t have to take the keys from her, as Liza had had to do with her grandfather. “Mom, it may be time.”

  “I know.” A tear trickled down my mother’s cheek. It was the first tear I’d seen her shed. “But she’s just now stopped arguing with me.”

  “Mom, please.”

  “Of course she argues with me about what to wear or why couldn’t I make a pot roast for once, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying she’s forgotten how much of a disappointment I was because she’s forgotten who I am.”

  “You’re not a disappointment!”

  This time she leveled me with a glance. “Posey.”

  “Okay, fine. Yes, I was disappointed that you didn’t do more with me when I was younger. Yes, I was jealous of Henny and especially jealous of Rain because we were finally starting to have a mother-daughter relationship when you hauled off and got pregnant again. And, yes, I find your new devotion to Christianity irritating because I’m questioning a lot of things right now, but you took me in when I had no place to go. You could’ve said I told you so, but you didn’t. You’re my mother, and I’m proud of what you’ve done with the studio and your shop. I’m proud of how you’ve taken care of Granny this long. I’m proud of how well Rain’s turned out and how you keep trying with Henny. You aren’t a disappointment.”

  Mom smiled. “You’re a better daughter than I deserve.”

  Now would be a good time to ask about your father.

  “Want me to make some tea?” I said quickly so I didn’t bring my shoulder devil into the conversation and ruin what had been a lovely mother-daughter moment thirty-two years in the making.