Son of a Preacher Man

by Karen M Cox

  “I’m beginning to believe you,” Lizzie whispered.

  We sat there, holding each other for what seemed like hours. Gradually, exhaustion finally took my body and my mind. I leaned back against the pillows, wincing slightly as I stretched out my legs. That ankle was starting to stiffen up a bit.

  Lizzie nudged me a little and reached up under my shoulders to pull down the blanket. She tucked me in like I was a child and sat down on the edge of the bed, resting a hand on each side of me and studying my face. Her eyes closed, and she leaned down to kiss me. It was a tender kiss, full of soft lips and sweet movements. I felt a stirring low in my body and racing up to my chest, but I lacked the energy to do anything but let it wash over me. She rose up and stroked my hair. “You are something else, Billy Ray Davenport, something special.” Her gaze gentled from a vague amusement to a vulnerable look I’d seen only once or twice. She started to speak and then stopped, snapping her lips shut abruptly.

  “Don’t leave,” I urged her.

  “What?”

  “Stay.”

  She grinned. “That’s not exactly proper.”

  “I won’t make a habit of it,” I replied, yawning. “And we’ll keep our clothes on.”

  “That doesn’t seem to make much of a difference for us, now does it?”

  I couldn’t even work up enough energy for a good embarrassed blush. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  She crawled under the blanket beside me. “Neither do I,” she whispered. “I’ll stay. You go to sleep now.”

  I was already dozing, and in my dreams, I could have sworn I heard the words I longed for fall from her lips.

  “I do love you, Billy Ray.”

  Chapter 15

  I awoke to thin, morning sunlight peeking through the curtains in my room. At first, I was surprised to feel a living, breathing presence beside me. Gradually, I recalled the previous night’s events—only scattered images at first, but then the entire evening cascaded from my memory, ending with the unbelievable intimacy of sleeping next to the girl I loved.

  I eased onto my side, facing her, and a thousand thoughts turned over in my mind as I took in every detail of her face. She slept soundly, her shoulder moving up and down in rhythm with her breath, an occasional twitch or sigh escaping her. I smiled at those subtle, endearing movements, plans spinning in my head as I thought through the next set of necessary steps. It would not be an easy road, but it had to be done, and the sooner, the better. Finally, when I could hold my thoughts in no longer, I gently stroked her cheek and spoke her name.

  “Lizzie, darlin’? Wake up, sweetheart.”

  “Hmm?” She stirred, her eyes blinking at the light streaming through the window.

  “It’s morning,” I murmured in a soft, deep voice.

  She tried to sit up. “What time is it?”

  I glanced over at the clock. “Ten after seven.”

  “Oh!” She bolted upright, running her fingers through her curls and looking around for her shirt and pants. She felt them, checking they were dry before she began stripping out of my gym clothes. I started to look away, but then I forced my gaze back to her. What did it matter if I saw her in her underthings? I’d seen them before—that day I first came back to Orchard Hill two months ago. Besides, soon enough it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  “I’ve got to get home before Mama misses me.” She sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on her shoes.

  “Wait, Lizzie.” I tugged on her hand, pulling her toward me.

  “I don’t have time for no kissin’ right now. Daddy will be back with some news today about Lily.” She started to leave, and I bolted out of bed. Standing in front of the door with my arms blocking her exit, I almost shouted at her in my desperation to get her attention.

  “No! We have to talk about what we’re going to do.”

  “What we’re going to do? I told you. I’m going home to see if there’s any word on Lily. And you have to go to work.”

  “Doc gave me the day off.”

  “Oh, well then I guess you don’t.” She grinned.

  I shook my head to try and clear it. Somehow, I’d started off on a tangent, and we had to make plans. We had a rough day ahead of us. Dad was not going to be pleased. I ran my hand through my hair and began pacing back and forth in front of the door. “Can you just sit down a second and let me think how we’re going to do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell my dad and your parents we’re getting married.”

  That stopped her dead in her tracks. She plopped back down on the bed.

  “Getting married?”

  “Yes, we spent the night together. Now we have to do the right thing.”

  “That’s a joke, right? If so, it isn’t very funny. Why on earth would we get married?”

  I frowned at her. She was going to make me admit how wrong I’d acted. Well, so be it; I was man enough to admit when I made a mistake. “Because we’ve been…you know”—I gestured back and forth between us—“intimate, in a way that husbands and wives are. And we slept in the same bed. I want to do the right thing by you.”

  “Well, lordy, lordy,” she replied with a heavy dose of sarcasm in her voice. “If I’d known this was all I had to do to get married…” She folded her arms across her chest. “Hey, if I remember right, you were the one who asked me to stay.”

  I looked down in embarrassment. “I know, and I’m sorry. I was weak and—”

  “You’re sorry! Well, isn’t that reassuring? Don’t worry about it, Billy Ray. I wasn’t after no marriage proposal. Now let me by. I have to get home.” She stood up again.

  “Dad may be upset at first, but he’ll see reason once I tell him why we have to do this.”

  Her eyes got round as saucers. “You will not tell him anything of the sort! He can hardly look at me now. Just imagine how he’ll feel about me if he thinks I Delilah’ed Sampson right out of his virtue!”

  We stared at each other a full minute, before she let out an incredulous, humorless chuckle. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  I couldn’t believe she asked me that—of course I was serious—but I nodded anyway.

  “Billy Ray, I can’t marry you. You’re going away to medical school in a few days. You can’t have a wife lashed to your side!”

  “There’s university housing for married students. We’ll get an apartment, and I can get a job of some kind. You might have to find work too, at first.”

  She put her fingers over her eyes in frustration. “We’re not getting married.”

  “We have to get married.”

  “You’ve never even said you love me.”

  Well, it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to say it, and more than once, but every time I worked up the nerve, she stopped me. “But I-I do.”

  She snorted. “Oh, that sounded sincere. Don’t get yourself all in a self-righteous tizzy. It’s not like I could be pregnant or anything.”

  I stared at her, deeply offended. “I have an obligation to you and to God.”

  “As much as it would thrill me to have a man marry me with a spiritual gun to his head, I think I have to say, ‘No thanks.’”

  It took a minute for me to hear what she was saying, and then it felt like all the air was sucked out of the room. As impossible as it was to believe, she was turning me down.

  She shook her head. “I know you believe in this obligation of yours, but you needn’t worry. I release you from it if that will make it easier.”

  I felt anger rising up—fury and humiliation so intense I couldn’t speak.

  Lizzie closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she pinned me with a sad look. “You have to be realistic here. You are going to medical school. That’s going to take all your time, all your attention, all your money. There will be nothing left over for a wife. And what if a baby comes along?” She shook her head. “No, I won’t do that to you. You’ll end up hating me.”

  I found my voice, but it sounded bitter as it came out of my mout
h. “Any normal girl would jump at the chance to be a doctor’s wife.”

  Her eyes flashed in immediate anger, and their heat stirred my emotions and aroused my body. I wanted to grab her and shake her, and then kiss her—hard. I even moved toward her before she spoke, throwing words that stopped me in my tracks.

  “Normal? You mean if I wanted to be one of those twits like Marlene Miller who tries to sink her claws into a guy and lead him around on a string? If that’s what normal is, then I’m perfectly happy being abnormal. You think that’s what I want? To be a doctor’s wife? Sit around the house and make meals that my husband may or may not be home to eat? Have babies and raise ’em by myself? Sit around at the coffee klatch and talk about fifty ways to roast a chicken?” She shook her head, deep inside her own thoughts. “Oh no, I seen that scenario all my life. Man saddles a woman with a house and some babies, and twenty years later she realizes she’s living with someone she don’t even know and nothing to talk to him about. I swore I’d never be the wife who turns around one day and sees her man toss hungry looks at some other woman, the way I seen Doc cast them longing glances at Mrs. G!”

  The room went deathly quiet. Reeling from the shock of that last statement, I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Doc was unfaithful? With Mrs. Gardener? How could Lizzie talk about them like that? Doc was a good man—I’d heard her say it herself. And she almost worshipped Mrs. G.

  “What are you saying? Doc wouldn’t—”

  She put her hands over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said… Oh! You infuriating man! You got me all riled up and loosed my tongue!” She paced back and forth wringing her hands. “Look, I know he’d never act on it. I’m sure he’s fond of Mrs. Miller in his own way. And Mrs. G would never consent to adultery anyway, no matter what.”

  “Did Mrs. Gardener tell you this about Doc?”

  “No.” She sighed in resignation. “If she knows, she don’t let on.” The anger in her voice returned. “I wish I’d never seen it, and I sure as shootin’ wish I’d never told you. Talk about hurting people with gossip. Dear Lord!”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Lizzie was on a roll now. “I can’t figure out what men and women expect from each other anyway! The Millers seem like two strangers living in the same house. I don’t ever want to live like that. I’d rather have no man at all than live with one who doesn’t want me anymore. I couldn’t turn a blind eye and not see it.”

  “Wait a minute—this is what you think of me? You think I’d feel that way? That I’d commit adultery, even in my heart? That I’d put you aside for someone else?”

  “Well, you’re a man, aren’t ya? They all do it eventually,” she said in exasperation.

  That’s when I remembered my father’s words from earlier in the summer, and I felt the wounded creature in front of me bite the hand that wanted to feed her, to heal her, to care for her, and keep her safe till the end of her days. I winced as my heart burned and bled—as Lizzie Quinlan tore it to shreds. I hardly knew what I was saying as I nearly choked on my frenzied temper. “I should have expected this from a girl like you. I suppose sharing a bed with a man means nothing at all, as long as we didn’t have—”

  “Yeah, you tell yourself that, Billy Ray, if it helps you sleep at night. You narrowly escaped being hog-tied to a girl like me. Thank your lucky stars.”

  “All I wanted was to do the right thing. How am I supposed to live with myself after this?”

  “Well now, that’s your problem, isn’t it?”

  She pushed past me and went out the door, slamming it behind her. It probably woke everybody in the boarding house, but at that moment, I didn’t care what they thought.

  Lizzie was gone.

  I paced for a full ten minutes, throwing books and clothes and banging drawers. I was desperate to get out of that room and walk around the town to clear my head, but my ankle had stiffened up and hurt pretty bad, so long walks weren’t an option. About eight thirty, Dad came by to get me for breakfast and have Doc take another look at my ankle. I wasn’t in a mood for company, so I begged off supper at the Millers and asked Dad to take me back to the boarding house, pretending I wanted to take a nap. If he saw my misery, he didn’t call any attention to it.

  When I got back to the room, I discovered a fat envelope with my name on it just inside the threshold, like it had been slid under the door.

  Lizzie, I thought. Anger filled my heart and I seriously considered ripping the letter to shreds, but then curiosity got the better of me. I ran my letter opener across the top of the envelope and pulled out a stack of pages that held the promise of a good long explanation of Lizzie’s inexplicable behavior that morning. I sat on the bed, propped my leg up, and began to read.

  Billy Ray,

  First of all, don’t worry. I’m not going to use this letter to lash out at you. I know I said some awful things to you this morning, but you said some pretty mean words yourself. I also know I deserve some of what you dished out. But I have to say, you’ve got some strange notions about women in general and about me in particular. I can understand that you wouldn’t understand much about girls, growing up without your mama around. Plus, if you’ve ever had a ten-minute conversation with Marlene Miller, I’m sure you know every rumor that’s ever been told about me. I can only imagine what you must think.

  After you and I became friends, I never wanted to taint your view of me with the truth. That’s my pride, I guess—thinking you saw something in me that I wanted to see in myself. But what you saw isn’t the real Lizzie and believing in it is hurting you. So now I suppose I don’t have any choice but to tell you why this town treats me like they do. I remember once you asked me about it, and I said maybe someday I could tell you. I guess that day is today. I cautioned you not to put me on a pedestal—now you’re about to find out why.

  My curiosity spiked, temporarily overshadowing my anger. Finally, I would have some real answers about Lizzie Quinlan, straight from the source.

  I know I told you about Marlene’s boyfriend dumping her and asking me out. That was two summers ago. What you don’t know was that Seth Corbett was just about the baddest guy around these parts. Marlene’s parents had forbidden her to see him, but you know Marlene. She does what she wants, regardless of the consequences or who suffers for it.

  Well, after she’d been seeing him on the sly for a while, he got tired of her. Maybe he realized he’d never get what he wanted. Maybe he decided he didn’t really want it after all. Anyhow, he then turned his eye on me, and, God help me, I was flattered. He was a handsome guy, a real smooth-talker. I had blossomed the year before and started getting looks from the boys at school. But I was still a backward girl from the sticks, a dumpy-looking kid in my hand-me-down clothes. So, nothing ever came of those looks.

  Seth changed all that. I thought he could see through the tattered dresses to someone worth loving, that he saw something Marlene didn’t have. It made him even more appealing. I’d been chafing under her scorn ever since we moved here. Now, finally, I’d have a chance to one-up the girl who I thought had everything—to steal what she wanted, as it were.

  Well, that sure explained Marlene’s animosity toward Lizzie.

  So, yeah, going steady with Seth was a spiteful, childish decision on my part, a decision that I’ve paid for ever since and will pay for the rest of my life. I know that decision cost me any chance with a man like you. It’s sad when the choices made when you don’t know any better affect you forever, but that’s the hard truth, Billy Ray. Sometimes, they do just that.

  Anyway, my parents didn’t forbid me from seeing Seth. I’m not even sure they knew. He never drove his motorcycle up to our house. Never took me for a walk by the creek like you did. Just took me over to that redneck honky-tonk he liked to frequent and to his apartment above the garage where he worked. I’m sure you know what happened there.

  I felt my stomach begin a vicious roll, twisting and writhing as I was forced to face what I hadn’t permitted myself t
o imagine.

  Seth charmed me, and I trusted him. He told me he loved me, so he could talk me into going all the way with him—which I did, and more than once. After the first time, I even enjoyed it some. Are you shocked yet, Billy Ray? Are you disgusted with me?

  No! I couldn’t reconcile that girl with the Lizzie I knew, the Lizzie who cared about her sisters, who sat quiet as a mouse in church, who laughed in a way that sent joyful music through the air.

  But Seth lied to me, like he probably did to all the girls, at least the ones who didn’t have vigilant parents like Marlene Miller. Or maybe Marlene was actually smart this time, smarter than me at any rate. It’s an old, old story. He seduced me and then left town. I begged him not to go, even threatened to tell everyone he ruined me, but he just laughed. He said he’d told enough of his friends in Orchard Hill about me, and no one would believe he was the only guy I’d been with. Then he abandoned me, moved on to some other place, some other gal.

  The writhing in my stomach turned into red-hot anger; its flames shooting high enough to singe the back of my throat.

  After he was gone, I started thinking about what I’d done and what it meant. I remembered what happened to Mama when Jeremiah was born, and the possibility I might be pregnant terrified me. I was ashamed to tell Doc, and I remembered what Mrs. Gardener had done for my mother, so I went to the house on Adalia Street—threw up three times on the way over there, I was so nervous. I thought maybe Mrs. G knew something that would get a baby out of me if there was one in there. I was so stupid.

  My heart broke for that terrified girl, adding pain to the raging inferno of anger, and pushing me closer to hatred than I had ever been. All I could think was someone should make that Corbett guy pay for what he’d done to her!

  You know how kind and good Mrs. Gardener is—she let me in, sat me down, and held my hand while I told her the whole story. She asked me some questions and insisted I let her make me an appointment with Doc. She even went to his office with me. I cried during the whole examination. She and Doc talked in hushed voices for a long while, and I was too distraught to even remember what all they said. He took some blood and patted my hand while he explained all he needed to do. He was so calm and patient, Billy Ray, so kind. I will love him forever for that. And he never told a soul.