Preston's Honor

by Mia Sheridan

  Hudson’s head lay on my shoulder as I filled his bottle with water and shook it to mix in the formula that, even after four months, still felt like a symbol of my failure. I gave him the bottle with a small smile, brushing his dark hair out of his eyes, still damp from his bath. He took it in his chubby hands and began drinking. I leaned in and took a deep breath of the clean little boy smell, letting it fill my lungs and my heart.

  I sat down in a chair and held him in the crook of my arm. He was only wearing a diaper and his warm skin stuck to mine as I rocked him slightly, his luminous eyes gazing up at me.

  He’d never been this serene when I’d nursed him. We’d both struggled, both been distressed. And I’d finally given up. I couldn’t help feeling resentful of the way he grasped the bottle, looking sleepy and half-drunk. My own emotions made me feel guilty and low. I had failed, not the innocent boy in my arms.

  My failure at nursing was the one thing Mrs. Sawyer had been understanding about, the one thing that hadn’t caused her face to screw up with displeasure when it came to how I did things. “I don’t know why you keep trying to force it when it’s obviously causing you both misery,” she’d said. “I didn’t even attempt to nurse my boys, and they were perfectly happy babies.” But then she’d teared up and left the kitchen, and I’d heard her crying in her room over the mention of Cole and I wished so hard I could do something to help her pain. I couldn’t do anything to help anyone. And I’d wanted to nurse Hudson. Preston was single-handedly keeping the farm afloat, and I couldn’t even nourish our son from my own body.

  The house was quiet. Preston was working as usual even though it’d be dark soon and Mrs. Sawyer had gone to a book club at a friend’s house in town and wouldn’t be home for hours. I was glad she was finally getting out, and I was glad to be free of her for the night.

  I ran a hand over Hudson’s head, his eyes half-closed with the drowsiness that came with the late hour and a milk-filled tummy. He blinked up at me, struggling to stay awake so he could fit in a few more minutes of flirting and I smiled down at him. His eyes drifted half-mast again and I had the sudden picture of dropping him and his head hitting the floor with a bone-cracking smack. Fear lashed through me and I clutched him tighter against my body, my heart racing. I wanted to cry, but I held back the tears. What was wrong with me?

  It felt like I swayed between moments of alarm and long periods of a dull hopelessness that wouldn’t lift. Had the depression of this house settled into my bones so deeply that it was now part of who I was? Would I be this way forever? Carrying a sense of listless melancholy all the days of my life? A tremor of fear moved through me at the thought.

  Sometimes I pictured myself picking up the baby and just walking away from this farm—out past the split-rail fence, through the scorched, abandoned farmland where I’d once lost myself in childish fantasy as I picked vibrantly colored wildflowers, wove them into crowns, and pretended I was a fairy.

  Maybe I’d end up back at the small shack where I’d been raised, despite hating living there so much. Despite every effort to stay outside more than inside, I pictured it now as a refuge . . . somewhere quiet where the only reason the walls felt as if they were closing in was because the space itself was so limited, not because it had the ability to crush my heart. I’d still had dreams there. Here . . . here my dreams had died. They had crumbled to ash and that ash was still slogging through my veins, making me feel so very, very hopeless.

  What was wrong with me?

  The back door opened and Preston walked in, shooting me a weak smile, his eyes going to the baby now fast asleep in my arms. He came over and bent to kiss him on his forehead, giving me a kiss on my cheek. He smelled like sweat and soil—the deep, masculine earthiness that had once made my heart race and my blood heat. But now it just elicited a dim recognition and nothing more.

  What was wrong with me?

  He didn’t seem to want me either, though, and the knowledge was an anguish that sat heavily on my heart. He’d never told me he loved me, just that he’d always wanted me. At least I’d had his passion . . . once. Even for just one shining moment in time—he’d wanted me that night. I didn’t doubt it and I’d hoped that it had meant he’d want me again.

  He glanced over his shoulder as he washed his hands. “Want me to put him down?”

  “Sure. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes or so. You must be hungry.”

  He nodded and after he’d dried his hands, he walked back over to me and squatted down in front of the chair where I sat. I moved the baby forward in preparation of Preston lifting him from me, but he didn’t move to do so. I glanced at him and he was staring at me intensely, something flickering in his gaze that I wasn’t sure how to read. Was it desire? Did he want me, after all? I stared at him, my muscles tense, waiting for him to say something.

  “Lia—”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you . . . how are you?” His voice was soft, a little bit raspy.

  I opened my mouth to answer him, but I didn’t know why he was asking, what, if anything, he was looking for.

  I don’t know. Help me. I don’t know. “I’m fine.”

  His eyes moved over my face again for a moment and I wanted to cry. But that was the last thing he needed. He was hanging on to the farm by a thumbnail, I knew that, and I couldn’t add to what he was already struggling with.

  He frowned slightly, hesitating. Then he reached up and trailed a finger down my cheek, sighing as his hand dropped away. He took the baby from my arms and stood, walking out of the room with him.

  When he came back down a few minutes later, I was serving up dinner. He sat at the table and we ate in silence. When I looked up, he was staring thoughtfully out of the window. I looked back over my shoulder. “What?”

  “If we get some rain in the next few days we could save one more strawberry crop. Just one more. It would save the farm.”

  My heart fell even lower than it already was. “There’s no rain in the forecast.”

  “I know.” He dug back into his food, and I tried to take a few bites but had no appetite. The dark cloud that followed me around seemed to have stolen all my physical pleasures, too.

  “I stood out there tonight, though,” he started and I looked up, surprised that he was talking so much. His mother was usually here providing the chatter and Preston was generally quiet, even if it was just the two of us, which it rarely was, “and I said a prayer to Cole.” His eyes moved to mine. “I thought if anyone could bring the rain, maybe . . . maybe it was him.”

  I froze, my heart stuttering and then picking up speed. It was the first time he’d mentioned Cole’s name since he’d died. A short huff of breath escaped my mouth, but Preston didn’t seem to hear it.

  His eyes moved away from mine to the window behind me. He looked sad, but he didn’t only look sad and for a moment it shocked me out of the trance I’d been living in for months now. I couldn’t quite discern the other emotions in his eyes but they were there. I waited, holding my breath, wanting him desperately to say more, to clue me in to what was going on in his mind, in his heart.

  “Just for the farm to be okay,” he murmured distantly. “It’s all I want.”

  My heart throbbed, but only with a faraway sort of ache. Want me! my mind screamed. Let me be enough, or at least something. Just anything at all. Give me something to hope for.

  “Preston,” I murmured, just as his chair scooted out, startling me with the sudden noise. Preston came to his feet and the chair clattered to the floor behind him. “What is it?”

  He had raced to the window, looking out at the darkened sky as an incredulous laugh/choking sound burst from his mouth. I stood, too, looking at the window as a fat drop of rain pinged on the glass. I sucked in a sharp breath. “It can’t be.”

  Preston ran to the door and threw it open, leaping down the steps and rushing into the middle of the backyard where he stopped and held his arms up to the sky, laughing wildly. I walked more slowly down the steps and throu
gh the grass toward him.

  The rain, which had started as a smattering of drops, was now coming down steadily, drenching my hair and my clothes with warm wetness. A soaking rain, the kind farmer’s love. A disbelieving laugh bubbled up my throat and I looked up to the sky, too, raising my arms and mimicking Preston. I let my arms fall, but for several long minutes just stood with my face to the sky as it delivered the unbelievable gift of the rain.

  As the rain picked up, I lowered my head, looking at Preston who was staring at me, his hair and his clothes plastered to his body just like mine. I saw the outline of his muscles and the way all the intense labor had hardened him even more than he’d been before. He looked carved from stone standing there—a beautiful god—and he was looking at me with so much intensity, I almost forgot about the miracle of the rain. I only saw him and felt the first flush of desire that I’d felt in so long. I let out a small gasp, pushing my hair out of my face.

  In a rush of movement, he was in front of me, and I let out another gust of sound that was swallowed up by the rain. I felt the heat of him. I heard him saying my name as his hands wove through my saturated hair and he tipped my head back, his mouth claiming mine with a force so hard I cried out at the impact.

  Oh, God.

  I gripped him tightly to me as we kissed, a feeling of desperate need overcoming me. Oh God, oh yes, I wanted, I needed the physical touch so badly. So very, very badly. If he hadn’t been holding on to me, I would have fallen over.

  I pulled at his shirt and he let go of me as he slipped it over his head. I cried out, feeling suddenly so cold and bereft, tears sprung to my eyes. I couldn’t . . . oh please, don’t pull away. To have him and then to be cast away . . . I couldn’t, I couldn’t. But mere seconds later, he had his arms around me again and he was murmuring my name, his breath hot on my neck, his hands going up the back of my shirt so he could glide his hands over my bare skin.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  The rain continued to fall, picking up in tempo, drumming on the ground all around us, a sudden torrent, as lightning sliced across the sky and a few seconds later, thunder rumbled. Preston scooped me up in his arms and started walking hurriedly toward the house, his lips never leaving mine.

  He shouldered his way through the back door, and suddenly we were back under the bright lights of the kitchen. I slid down his body as he let go of my legs and my feet hit the floor. Our raspy breath echoed through the room, the soft masculine groans coming from Preston making me feel weak.

  Preston walked me backward toward the foyer and I thought distantly that our second sexual encounter wasn’t going to be on the hard surface of a tabletop, but in a bed, thank goodness.

  When we got to the foyer, though, he backed me up against the wall and in one fluid move, pulled my shirt over my head. I cried out softly, wanting to cross my arms over my breasts even though I was wearing a bra. It was a nursing bra and wasn’t very attractive and my own insecurity caused the foggy passion to fade.

  Preston had only seen my naked body once, but it had been in much the same way as he was seeing it now—in a darkened room as our clothes were being madly torn off. I almost asked him to stop, to slow down so I could get my bearings, but I was so afraid he’d stop touching me altogether, and I was so very desperate to be touched. Part of me didn’t care how or why, just that he was.

  “Lia, Lia, oh God, Lia,” he was murmuring as he fumbled with the button on my pants, pushing them down and then pulling at his own jeans and letting them drop to the floor.

  For a moment I was afraid he’d see the stretch marks on my belly and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. He’d put them there, but what if he found them unattractive? What if he spotted them and backed away?

  I used my hands to cup his face and brought his lips back to mine, making sure he didn’t look down as he lifted me with one arm and used his other hand to guide his hard length into me, impaling me against the wall in one swift motion and causing me to break away from his mouth on a loud, gasping cry.

  He stilled. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes,” I panted. “I’m fine. Please.”

  Please love me.

  Please help me.

  Please don’t stop touching me.

  I need you.

  I need you.

  “Please,” I repeated.

  He began moving, moaning with so much desperation I wasn’t sure if he was feeling pleasure or pain.

  I felt slightly dry and was surprised that even after having a baby, I still felt stretched and full as he moved inside me. I clutched at his shoulders, watching the reflection of his bared backside in the glass of the front door as his muscles clenched and relaxed as he thrust and withdrew. The sight caused a surge of wet heat and a throb of pleasure in my core and I moaned, adjusting myself so Preston’s pelvis was rubbing mine with his movements.

  I reached for the wild tumble of pleasure I knew existed from the first time we’d had sex, but I couldn’t quite get there, not in that position. But just being close—having him inside me—was so wonderful I didn’t really care.

  After only a minute or so, he let out a deep groan and pressed me into the wall, stilling and circling his hips as he panted against my neck. He throbbed inside me and I rested against him, my arms around his neck, feeling slightly disappointed, but also enjoying the closeness, the calm after the storm.

  His lips moved against my throat, as soft as butterfly wings, and his breath tickled my skin. I closed my eyes, a small smile on my lips as I wove my fingers through his hair. Outside the glass of the front door, I could see that the rain was letting up, now just a gentle pitter-patter against the roof. Had it been enough?

  Preston let go of my legs and slipped out of me, and I made a small gasping sound of surprise. I hated that part—the sudden emptiness. But I didn’t let go of Preston. I didn’t want this to end. He didn’t pull away from me either, though, and he seemed to be enjoying the aftermath, too.

  “Sometimes,” he said against my ear, “I think you must have the devil in you. No one else makes me feel so out of control.” He smiled against my skin . . .

  . . . as everything inside me went cold . . .

  A faraway anguish washed through me, and I pushed at him gently, pulling my pants up quickly as he, too, pulled his up.

  Devil eyes.

  I grabbed my shirt from the floor as he stood staring at me. His skin was almost as dark as mine from all the time he spent in the sun, only with more of a golden cast, his muscles lean and strong. He was so beautiful, and I loved him so much. But it didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Devil girl.

  I wasn’t enough.

  And in that moment, I felt my heart crack in two. Because it clicked. I loved him, but he only lusted for me, and felt some kind of miserable guilt every time he even gave in to that. Why had I thought differently? He hadn’t ever touched me in love, with gentleness and adoration. He’d given in to his attraction again, and that was all. I’d even thought that would be enough, but it wasn’t. It hurt, it just hurt. I couldn’t stay. It would kill me. I already felt half dead. “Lia?” Whatever was on my face must have confused him. I heard it in his voice and saw it in his eyes.

  I backed up, my shirt pressed to my breasts with one hand while I held the bottom of it over my belly to hide my stretch marks. I felt exposed and heavy with grief and aching disappointment, and I just wanted to get away.

  “Lia,” he said again, stepping toward me and holding out his hand. “Will you sleep in my room tonight?”

  Oh no. I couldn’t. That would only make things worse. It would only make it harder to do what I needed to do. “No . . . I . . . I’m tired, Preston. I just want to go to bed.”

  “Okay.” He put his hands in his pockets, opening his mouth once as if to say something and then closing it.

  I turned and walked swiftly up the stairs to my room and shut the door. I thought I might cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. I felt a dull emptiness inside, with
my back pressed against the hard wood of the door and Preston’s semen a puddle of damp stickiness between my legs. At least I was on birth control this time. At least I knew I wouldn’t find out I was pregnant later, alone in my bathroom as my shaking hands held up a positive pregnancy test, telling me what I already knew—what my body had been telling me for months. I wrapped my arms around myself at the memory of that lonely, terror-filled moment. Underneath that, though, there had been the warm rush of joy. I couldn’t feel it now, but I remembered it had been there. Now only the loneliness lingered.

  I couldn’t stay here. I had to leave—back to my mama’s apartment. I needed to get away, to try to get out from under the foggy sadness of this house, of my constant, unrealistic dream that I could be a good mama to Hudson, that I could ever win Mrs. Sawyer’s affection, and my equally unattainable dream that Preston might come to love me.

  I lay down on my bed—the guest bed in a house where I’d only ever be a guest in name only—and closed my eyes. I must have slept because when I heard the house creak as it settled, my eyes opened but I had to pull myself from the murky depths of dreams I couldn’t recall.

  I sat up, still groggy, and listened to the quiet. Preston would be sleeping now. It would be the best time to leave—no confrontation, he wouldn’t even have to muster the will to ask me to stay when he had to know as well as I that this wasn’t working.

  Slowly I packed my suitcase, a lump in my throat forming as I thought of the day I’d unpacked, the day I’d still cautiously had a secret flame of hope burning in my heart.

  I made my way to Hudson’s room and was surprised to see the door cracked open slightly. Peeking through, I saw Preston in the upholstered rocking chair, Hudson on his chest. They were both asleep. Hudson must have woken while I was sleeping, and Preston had gotten up rather than wake me. I was surprised because he’d never woken to the baby before.

  For a moment I just watched them, my chest tightening until it became difficult to breathe. Oh, I’d dreamed of this. Preston holding our precious baby while he rocked him on his chest. But in my dreams, I’d been looking on with love and joy, not grief and heartache. I put my hand over my mouth, so Preston wouldn’t hear the sound of my muffled cries.