Milestones

by Hensley, Alta

  “The air smelled like snow,” she offered, trying to keep her voice from cracking with the emotion she felt.

  Jack nodded his head. “I was cutting wood, right here, and you were sitting on the porch, right like you were a minute ago. You had on jeans and one of my old sweaters, and the sun was just going down over the lake, and it was shining right on you.” His eyes filled and he looked up at the clouds, hoping she hadn’t noticed. “Goddamn, you looked just like an angel. I told you how beautiful you were… and you cried, just like you’re doing now.”

  “Stop it.”

  “We took a blanket and a bottle of single-malt down to the lake…”

  Kate swiped at her eyes.

  “We drank scotch out of the bottle and we watched the sun get low over the mountain. And then I took your clothes off, and then mine, and we jumped into the lake. Remember? And when we got out, we let the scotch and the remaining sunlight warm us…” Jack placed his hand on her shoulder. “And then I made love to you. I made love to you, and nothing else mattered. Nothing.”

  Kate stood and put her hand over her mouth to stop the sobs that threatened to escape. “What happened, Jack, between there and here? At what point did I no longer matter?” She fled toward the house, but he bounded up the steps so fast it shocked her that she was in his arms and couldn’t move.

  “No! You are not running!”

  “I can’t do this!”

  “Yes, you can.” He held her with one arm around her waist and the other hand over her forehead, forcing her backwards into his chest. “Don’t run from me, please!” he whispered into her ear. “Please.” He felt her relax against him and turned her to face him. He wiped a tear from under her eye.

  “Six months later, Jack, I miscarried our first child on the floor of our bathroom. You were working late. I couldn’t reach you.”

  “I know.” He leaned his head against hers. “I know.”

  “You came to the hospital long enough to make sure I was still alive, and then you left.” She pulled away from him then. “Maybe that’s when it all started. I couldn’t hold on to your children, and I couldn’t hold on to you. Maybe that’s when I began not to matter.”

  Kate pulled away and went into the house.

  ****

  Jack stood in the doorway of the bedroom they had once shared. Kate had fallen asleep an hour ago, and she still slept. She lay on her stomach across the bed, a position she had gotten used to, he assumed, now that they weren’t sleeping together anymore. He looked at her another moment, and then he closed the door until just a crack remained, and he went out to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and took out two steaks. He would fix this. He would give it all up if that’s what she wanted.

  He would.

  Kate began drawing at six. By the time she was in high school, she sold her paintings at the pier on weekends. A very special teacher told her she had talent, and she believed him. At some point in art school, Kate became interested in design. Her first internship, with Channing & Ascher Design turned into a full-time job, and then into a position as their lead designer. The nausea began during a design show in New York.

  She thought it was the flu.

  Jack was cutting up vegetables to roast when he heard Kate stirring. He listened at the door, then took a deep breath and entered. She had been in the bathroom, and came out as he entered the room. Her eyes were swollen and red.

  “I don’t have the energy for this, Jack.”

  “That’s tough, lady. Did you think this would be easy? I’m out of energy, too, but I’m here.”

  “No one asked you to come, remember?” She attempted to stalk past him, but he grabbed her upper arms and held them in a vice grip.

  “They were my children, too, Kate! They were mine, too!”

  She blinked rapidly and her lip quivered. “I know that. I know,” she whispered. “But it seems… it seemed as if you couldn’t wait to get away, and I just needed to… to know…”

  He stared into her eyes. “…that I didn’t blame you. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He pulled her into his arms. “Oh, God, Kate. I didn’t… I never blamed you. But I couldn’t be there to prevent it from happening, and once it happened I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix you. So I ran. And when I came back, you shut me out.”

  “Because you ran.”

  Jack nodded and his eyes filled, and so did Kate’s.

  ****

  They ate in silence, the emotions of the last hour leaving them both spent. Kate felt like an onion, the layers exposing more flesh as they were peeled back. She felt tight and sore with what remained. So much remained.

  “Talk to me, babe.”

  “No.”

  Jack sighed. “I said no more running.”

  “I’m not running. I’m sitting right here.”

  He paused, moments shrouded in silence that deafened her. Then, “That felt good. It hurt, but it felt good.” Just like Jack. Once it was out, it was out—and over. It took Kate a bit longer. It always did.

  “I had an affair.” Just like that.

  Jack staggered in his seat. His face turned white. She could hear his heart beating a staccato tune in his chest from three feet away. His eyes bored into her, screaming the words he could not say. She stood, and walked to the bedroom.

  After the third miscarriage, Kate fell into a deep depression. She quit Channing & Ascher to open her own firm, over Jack’s protests. After winning her first high profile client, things seemed to get better. He believed he was getting his wife back. But then the phone would ring, he’d answer, and the person would hang up. He inquired about having the text messages on her cell phone tapped into. Kate changed her cell phone carrier to a company that did not offer that capability. He looked into her emails, and she immediately deleted all her personal documents and correspondences from the home computer and purchased a laptop.

  She stopped calling to tell him she would be late. He stopped working late so he could be home when she got there.

  He was usually asleep by then.

  “Who?” He stared at the table, not looking up at her.

  She spun on him. “Who? Is that really what you’d like to know… who? Not why, or when, or how?” When he didn’t answer, she walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

  “I already know the answers,” he said to an empty room.

  Kate stood at the bathroom sink and stared at the image in the mirror. “Who the hell are you?” She looked down into the sink, wondering when she became this person. Despite her anger, that had been a terrible thing to say to Jack. What was she trying to accomplish? While she thought about it some more, the bedroom door crashed in, and he stalked into the bathroom. He grabbed her and spun her around to face him. He seethed.

  “I’ve had enough.”

  Kate squealed as he hauled her by the arm into the living room. “What are you doing?” she screeched.

  “You’re going to get it. I’ll come up with a reason later.” Jack sat on the arm of the couch and yanked Kate over his knee.

  “Jack! Don’t you dare!” she yelled as he positioned her so that her hips rested on his right thigh. Her worn jeans stretched tight across her backside as she was bent and pulled tight against his hard body.

  “This has been a long time coming. There. That’s your reason.” His hand fell hard once, twice, three times.

  “Stop it, Jack, dammit,” she gasped.

  He brought his hand down hard again. “Then talk to me.”

  “Ugh! Oh!” she yelled when his hand connected again. “All right! Fuck!”

  Jack’s hand stilled. “Excuse me?”

  “Uh…”

  Jack’s hand beat a steady tune on Kate’s upturned bottom leaving her breathless.

  “I’m…ugh! S—sorry! Shit, Jack!”

  “Do I need to take these pants down?”

  “Oh! You wouldn’t…! No…shit! Please Jack!” Kate begged as Jack turned her slightly and began
unfastening her jeans.

  “That word will earn you a bare bottom spanking from now on, do you hear me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good.” Jack resumed the spanking, leaving her pants intact, for now. Kate’s protestations were now in synch with each connection of his hand to the seat of her tight jeans.

  “Jaaaack!”

  “Now, as I was saying…” He relayed a volley of whacks to the lower portion of Kate’s right cheek amidst squeals of protest. “You tell me you had an affair…” He punctuated that with three more whacks to the other side. “…and then you walk out?” he finished.

  “Oh, you son-of-a-bitch!” she howled, and threw her hand over her bottom for protection. He moved her hand out of the way and replaced it with his own.

  “Now, we can either discuss this sitting comfortably, or I can continue and you can stand for the discussion. Either way…” He delivered five more quality slaps to the lower portion of both sides of Kate’s bottom before finishing with, “…we are having it, Kathryn! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, you shit! Oooooohhh! I will kill you.”

  “Not ready yet, I see.” He tucked her in, and spanked her soundly. “I can go all day, but my hand is beginning to hurt, so what’s it going to be?” he asked after applying a dozen more to her lower cheeks. “Do I take your pants down and continue, or are you ready to talk?”

  “Don’t, Jack, please!”

  “You ready?”

  “Yes, dammit! Yes!”

  Jack stood and dumped her to the floor. Kate stared up at him, rubbing her sore posterior. They were silent for a long while, each coming to terms with what just happened. Jack walked out of the room, then came stomping back in.

  “Dammit, Kate!”

  She stared up at him from her position on the floor. “That wasn’t very gallant,” she said, wincing when she rubbed at a particularly worked-over spot.

  He rested his hands on his hips and loomed over her. “You’ll get used to it. I won’t put up with that anymore. You’re going to work at this, because guess what, lady? I’m not letting you go. No divorce. It is off the table.” He threw his hand up as if he were wiping the idea away. “And if I have to spank that gorgeous ass of yours every day for the next month, I will do it.” He raised his finger like an orator. “You love me.”

  “Not at the moment.” Kate sat on the floor at his feet, stunned into bemused silence. He struck her. He spanked her like a child. She knew she should be furious. She knew that the right thing to do would be to get up and, after slapping his face right off his shoulders, call the authorities. Yes, he’d get disbarred; yes, he’d go to jail; yes, the divorce would go through, and she’d probably get the law firm and all that came with it, including Candy. But all of that was of no consideration at the moment.

  “An affair? An affair!” Jack was fuming. “Get your sore little ass up off that floor while I decide if more spanking is what you need.”

  Kate slapped him on the calf. It hurt her hand. “I’m less angry about this than I should be, Barrington, but don’t push it.” Her bottom stung, but not half as much as her pride. “And I didn’t have an affair, you ass.”

  He placed his hand over hers. “He doesn’t know how lucky he is. He has no idea what he’s got.” She pulled her hand out from under his.

  “Thank you for the ear… and the shoulder,” she said, taking her purse and getting up from the table.

  “I want to give you more, Kate… so much more,” he said, his eyes pleading.

  “I wish I could,” she said, her soft touch on his shoulder her only goodbye. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “I know that, and I’m this close to putting you right back over my knee. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Help me up.”

  Jack grabbed her hand and hauled her up, then pulled her hard against his chest. He also gave her bottom another crack.

  “Owwww. Stop it now.”

  “You think you were going to get back at me? Saying something like that… It’s beneath you, Kate.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth because she couldn’t stop it from coming. Her eyes got wide with the shock of what was happening. Then she tried closing her eyes, hoping it would stop, but it wouldn’t. She rubbed her bottom absently.

  “You’re laughing? You’re laughing?”

  “No! No, I… Oh, God, Jack. I’m so sorry. That was awful.”

  Jack raked his hand through his hair. “Yes, it was.”

  And then she gasped, as if it all came suddenly to her in a flash, and not in the fits and spurts that it actually came. “You hit me. You bastard, you spanked me.”

  “You’re damn right I did, and at the risk of sounding trite, Kathryn, I’ll do it again, anytime I feel you need it.” He glared at her. “Please tell me that’s what you find so amusing, because if it is…!”

  She did laugh, then, unable to contain it any longer. Jack tried to look angry, but soon, he, too, could not contain the smile that came to his lips. He shook his head and looked to the sky for guidance he was sure would never come as long as this woman was in his life. When he looked back at her, she still laughed, but was trying to control herself. She had no idea what brought on such a fit of giggles, except that the whole scene was so surreal, that she couldn’t actually believe she was in it.

  “You all done?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she answered. And then she giggled some more.

  “A little dose of reality might do you some good. I should have done this years ago!” he railed. This caused her to peel off into gales of uncontrollable laughter. Kate had no idea where this came from, but she couldn’t stop.

  He chuckled, too, enjoying her laughter. “Stop,” he ordered.

  “All right…” and she gasped, trying to regain control.

  “You won’t think this is funny in a minute,” he said sternly.

  “Oh, I hope you’re right.” She guffawed, then quickly caught herself and straightened up.

  “Kathryn, I’m warning you!” he bit out.

  “Okay…” she howled, trying to stop.

  “Kate…”

  “Oh, God, Jack, just shut up a minute… please.” She put her hand over her mouth and leaned her head against his chest.

  Jack smiled and laced his fingers into her auburn hair. “If this is how you react to a spanking, I’ll do it every day.”

  “I think you may have knocked something loose,” she said, finally able to speak without laughing.

  He laughed again. “Maybe I did.” He pushed her away and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Tentative at first, Kate managed to wind her arms around his waist, and they stood in front of the fire, their warmth spilling into each other. When she pulled away, she managed a contrite smile.

  “What I said was hurtful, and I meant it to be. I apologize.”

  Jack nodded and guided her down onto the hearth. He took the chair. His intent was not lost on Kate, and she shot him a withering look and winced as her bottom made contact with the hard surface.

  “There was someone, Kate.”

  “He was a friend who wanted more. He thought he could make me happy, but an affair wouldn’t have made me happy, Jack. You must know that.”

  “I do.”

  “He was someone to talk to, that’s all. I’m flawed, but I could never do that to you.”

  “I know that. What kills me is that you felt you had to go to someone else.”

  “He was there and you weren’t.”

  “I’m starting to get that picture.”

  “It was a betrayal, nevertheless.”

  “And I betrayed you, too.”

  She looked into his eyes. “How stupid are we?”

  Chapter 5

  “I just finished Clooney’s house in Malibu. I think he might marry this one.” Kate held Jack’s hand as they walked around the lake, keeping to the narr
ow trail, now covered in damp leaves still bright with the fall colors she loved.

  “Should I worry that you spent so much time with this… Clooney? And I am thinking of the right Clooney, yes?”

  “Yes, and he wasn’t there for most of it, but she was.” Kate paused. “Nice woman.”

  “Good for him, then.”

  “And now I’m getting samples together for a famous baseball player, whom I really cannot reveal.”

  “Restraint. I’m impressed.” Jack lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Sounds like things are going well. You really could make all that money you offered me back in a year.”

  “I wasn’t joking.”

  “Make sure the next time you offer to buy me out, or otherwise make me financially comfortable, you have your tongue in your cheek, lady.” He paused. “I didn’t care for that.”

  “I know. But I would have followed through had you agreed to give up the long hours and just take it easy. Even if I couldn’t be by your side to benefit from it.”

  “You cared that much, huh?”

  “Yes. I care that much.”

  Jack sat on the flat of a tree stump and pulled Kate onto his lap. “I love to work. I need to work. Tell me what to do to make that part easier on you.”

  Kate shook her head. “I shouldn’t have to.”

  “Why? I’m your husband, and for some time now I haven’t been meeting your needs. I’ve been meeting plenty of my own, which I want to continue to do. But I’m not a mind reader, Katie. Tell me where it went bad, so I can fix it.”

  Kate thought for a moment, and the thinking made her mad. She didn’t want to have to tell him. She wanted him to just… know—like the heroes in romance novels who instinctively knew what to do: the ones who dropped everything to make their beloveds happy. That was fantasy, and not a mature way to think, or behave. And did she want a man like that, anyway?

  “Do you love it more than me?” It was out before she could think the absurdity of that question through.

  “The work? No. Not even close.” He answered that question without mirth or sarcasm or hubris. He answered simply, honestly and unequivocally.