An Abundant Woman

by Elizabeth Neff Walker

“She's exhausted from it. She's so discouraged and confused that she thinks you're having an affair."

  “An affair!” Cliff roared this so loud I feared someone would rush in to rescue him. “What the devil do you mean? Angel knows I'm not having an affair."

  “No, she doesn't. And basically it's easier for her to think you're having an affair than that you're so selfish you won't take on your share of the responsibility for your family."

  Cliff hadn't gotten past the idea of his wife believing he was having an affair. Discarding his sherry on a side table, he considered in a very physical way, grasping his knees with his powerful hands and lowering his head into a bull-like battering stance. “That's ridiculous. Who would I be having an affair with? You must have put the idea into her head."

  “Hardly. I told her she was wrong."

  “You did? How do you know I'm not?” he asked crossly.

  “Because you're so obviously in love with her that you'd have to be nuts to be seeing someone else. Besides, you don't have the time."

  That made him chuckle. “Damned straight I don't. Who does she think I'm having this affair with?"

  “Claire somebody."

  “Claire?” he asked blankly. It took him almost a minute to drum up a Claire in his life. “Oh, for God's sake! Because of the stupid notebook in the car? Angel couldn't possibly be that absurd. What's gotten into her?"

  “As I said, it's easier for her to believe that than what's really bothering her—that you're not carrying your weight. She has pretty much the whole burden of your son and your household and your restless moodiness."

  “I'm not moody."

  I glared at him. “You're moody and you're selfish and you're taking advantage of your wife."

  Realizing it was useless to deny all these charges, because I wouldn't believe him, he took a different tack. “Amanda, we're here in Wisconsin because Angel wanted to practice family medicine in an underserved area. We have a kid because she wanted to have one right away. We're here because her family is here."

  “You're here, as I understand it, because you wanted to prove that you could compromise."

  He looked flabbergasted. “Angel told you that?"

  “But instead of proving you can compromise,” I said, ignoring his astonishment, “you're using it as a weapon to justify why Angel should carry all the burdens. She's got what she wants, so she should have to pay for it. You're suffering, so you should get special treatment—a house in town where you can lay your head when you're too tired to go home to your wife and son, exclusion from child care duty and arrangements, freedom to conduct your life in the way you did before those obligations descended on you. That's not the way it works, Cliff."

  His face was red. I'd never seen it like that before, and I wasn't sure if it was from anger or embarrassment or just a surfeit of emotion. He seemed literally unable to say anything. Giving him a chance to recover, I sipped my sherry and looked out the side window to the garden. From this level you saw more vines and looked up into the thickly-leaved branches of the trees from underneath.

  After rather a long time Cliff said, “I can't believe she told you that."

  “Well, some of it I merely surmised,” I admitted. “Angel didn't call you selfish or say you got special treatment. I can see that for myself."

  “But the compromise. That's a personal thing, between the two of us. Not something to share with other people."

  I nodded, knowing from my very own personal experience how he felt about this. “That's the stunning thing about personal matters, isn't it, Cliff? If you're not allowed to talk about them with other people, you can't ever really share your disappointment and disillusion, can you? And if you can't share them, then you just have to live with them, don't you?"

  But he hadn't heard me, at least not clearly. Cliff was feeling shocked and betrayed. Oh, hell, I thought, now I've done it. Angel didn't ask me to stomp around in her marriage; she just asked me for some advice. And I'd given it, so I should just have stayed out of the business after that.

  I might have, too, if Cliff hadn't invited me in for a drink and instantly tried to put the blame on me for his problems. And if I hadn't known so intimately how the revelation of personal matters could shake one to one's core.

  * * * *

  Cliff came to dinner, but he said little. Sherri had made a chicken salad which suited the hot weather perfectly. There was an assortment of grainy rolls and muffins, along with trays full of raw vegetables. A very healthy meal, if one ignored the sour cream dip, which of course I didn't.

  Jack suggested we take a long walk after our meal, and when I went upstairs to put on walking shoes, the phone rang. It was Angel, naturally, and I cringed when I heard her voice. But she pooh-poohed my worries about interfering.

  “Don't think a thing of it. I know how Cliff is, and it hasn't done him any harm to realize that we've talked about the marriage.” Her sigh drifted over the line. “He's acting as if I've betrayed some sacred trust. Really, I wish he could hear himself. As though the way he's been behaving isn't a betrayal of our arrangement! Please, Amanda, don't give it another thought."

  Though her reassurances relieved me, I was still mulling over their problems when I returned downstairs to find Jack. He'd wandered outside, leaving the front door open for me. A breath of cooler air wafted along the hallway. My gray slacks and yellow oxford cloth shirt would still be plenty comfortable without a sweater. Jack wore jeans and a University T-shirt, looking energetic as usual.

  “How did it go today?” I asked as I fell in beside him.

  “No change in the paralysis. His parents are still hopeful, though, which makes it almost unendurable to talk with them."

  “They'll come to accept. They almost always do."

  He ran a hand through his hair. “No matter how many times you stress the things that can go wrong, parents are only really hearing what they want to hear—that their son is going to be well. Sometimes, when I'm afraid they're in Never-never land, I make them repeat the possible catastrophes. And I always insist that they look at the rehabilitation center before we do anything. Maybe I shouldn't, but I want them to understand from the start what comes after the surgery."

  We turned the corner past a large red brick house, but I was picturing the rehab ward. “I don't think you can really do less if you want fully informed consent. But it must be upsetting for them."

  Jack nodded. “I send our nurse practitioner along. She knows most of the patients, and she can make those desperately handicapped kids become real people to the new parents. They're always impressed with the drive those kids have to get better. Rehab scares them, but it makes them realize their child could end up there, too."

  We had come to an architecturally distinctive wooden house, the second story cantilevered out over the first, with intriguing details and unusual rows of windows. “Frank Lloyd Wright?” I asked.

  “I don't think so, but he did buildings in Madison. Taliesin is in Spring Green, not far from here. We'll drive over there one day."

  As tour guide or friend, I liked Jack's way of assuming that the two of us would do things together. His suggestions weren't just throw-away ideas, either. He'd remember them and leave a note suggesting we go to Baraboo or Cave of the Mounds. We'd been to the Madison zoo and the Milwaukee Public Museum. As friends, of course. Buddies.

  “I'd love to see Taliesin,” I said, turning away from the house and matching my pace to his.

  “I can't do it this weekend, or next. I'm taking the kids to Colorado for the whole week. They wanted to go whitewater rafting on the Colorado and this is the only week we could all manage to get away."

  “Is it dangerous, whitewater rafting?"

  He touched the tip of my nose with a teasing finger. “Will you worry about me?"

  “That depends on how hazardous it is. And it can't be too difficult if you're taking the kids."

  “Little you know. My kids are daredevils. Well, half the time they are. The other half they c
an be stuffy little prigs,” he admitted, laughing.

  I loved the way he seemed to see his kids so clearly, and to accept all their qualities. “Lucky you get to take them when they're being daredevils."

  “Very true. Karen takes them to New York and Chicago for special musical events.” He wrinkled his nose. “I used to fall asleep. My background, Karen says. I'm culturally deprived."

  “Poor Jack."

  For some time we walked along the sidewalks in silence, passing charming midwestern homes with graceful trees shading their windows. After London, everything seemed rather spread out to me. The house on Netherhall Gardens had a tight little garden and the look of being barely squeezed onto its lot. Of course, where I'd grown up there weren't any other houses at all, in that distant past. Those summer days had seemed idyllic, with their freedom to roam as I wished and very little parental supervision. The world had seemed a safer place then. It probably had been.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Jack said.

  “Oh, just thinking of England and where I grew up. There weren't many other kids around. I could loll away a whole afternoon just lying on some hill, chewing on a blade of grass and thinking about what I was going to do when I grew up."

  “You mean, being a doctor?"

  “Well, I had rather a romantic idea of what a doctor did,” I admitted with a grin. “I thought they were all surgeons and rushed about saving people's lives."

  “Don't they?” he teased.

  “That's how I was going to be. I had a rather old-fashioned picture of how I'd practice, from a surgery in my house. And people would rush their dying children and injured old women to me. Naturally I saved them, right there, in the nick of time, and everyone congratulated me and brought me chocolate cakes and trifles. I had a sweet tooth even then."

  He surprised me by saying, “You have a sweet mouth now,” and bent to brush my lips with his. No more. As though it were a mere gesture of friendship.

  But it didn't feel like friendship to my body. For weeks I'd protected against erotic feelings for Jack by stoutly reminding myself that I was married, that he had called for a soul-searching by me that I couldn't quite do, and that having an affair was a “common” thing for us aristocrats to do. I wasn't going to let the touch of his lips ruin all my hard work.

  We had strayed rather far afield and I said, “Maybe we should head back toward Mayfield House. I have a few cases I have to read up on for tomorrow. Hager has loosened the reins somewhat, but I'd hate to have her watching if I stumbled."

  “You aren't going to stumble, Mandy. Don't let her rattle you."

  What rattled me was the way Jack was looking at me. There was hunger in his eyes, and need. The sorrow had been pushed back to a mere shadow in the deep blue depths.

  “Um, and you probably need some time alone,” I said.

  “Yes."

  But he didn't look like he wanted time alone. His hand came to clasp mine, his fingers twining tightly against my flesh. “All right, Jack. Let's talk about this."

  “I want you."

  “All of a sudden? Just like that?"

  “Hardly,” he said with a snort. “As though I've forgotten our weekend at Oconomowoc. But I've said I wouldn't use you to comfort me, and I won't. So we'll forget it."

  “I don't remember agreeing to that."

  He cocked his head at me and pursed his lips. “No, you didn't. And it's not exactly comfort I want tonight, is it? Still, there were other reasons we weren't going to make love."

  A shiver rippled through me. I had told him more than I'd meant to the other night. Please don't bring it up, I begged him silently. He was watching me very closely, ready to say more, but he closed his lips and waited.

  “I'm a grown up,” I said. “I know what I want, and what I can handle. Making love with you won't destroy me with guilt. As far as the other stuff goes, believe me, I'm working on it. It's not going to be resolved tomorrow, and I'm ready to make love with you today. Besides, I started taking birth control pills after that weekend in Oconomowoc."

  He laughed. “I bought some condoms of my own—and had a talk with Luke."

  “So it would be all right, wouldn't it? Neither of us would be breaking our own code, unless you suddenly decided you needed sexual comfort. It was a rather rapid shift you made from conversation to desire."

  “It was that image of you lying on a hill, chewing on a blade of grass. I could see you there, and then I could see me there. We were young and hesitant. Maybe neither of us had made love before. We were just lying in the sun, naked and touching each other, exploring. It was a very erotic image."

  Tell me. There is something extremely titillating about the discovery of one's body by the opposite sex. I could feel the sensations his hands would have evoked in me, cupping my young breasts, tentatively tasting my newly adult nipples with his tongue.

  He would be aroused and a little concerned about my reaction to his erection. Would it frighten me away? Would I be brave enough to touch him? Oh, God, please let her touch me! he'd pray.

  And I would be both curious and slightly worried about that swollen penis bumping against my crotch. I wouldn't be familiar with young men's penises, either slack or erect. This would be the first time we'd touched without heavy clothing in the way, open to each other's critical view. He would be golden from working alongside his father in the fields, or pale from a winter of rain and snow, newly released from school to sunlight and me.

  We would be worried that someone might discover us there, out in view of only the valley below and the hill opposite. What if someone should come along? This was not the place to be, lying on the rough grass and the lichened stones. But the feelings were too good for us to be willing to stop. And that touch of danger added spice to the already chaotic maelstrom inside each body.

  “God, Jack,” I said, trying to shut down the racing tape in my mind. “If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer continuing this discussion back in my room."

  “Or mine,” he suggested. “My bed's bigger."

  “Now how do you know that? Was there someone interesting living in my unit before me?"

  “A literature assistant professor with an Edgar Allan Poe complex,” he informed me succinctly. “No, it's because I was moving in from the start and Cliff promised me a king size bed. You'll like it."

  His eyes were so delightfully warm and tempting that I could feel my body's arousal rising another notch. “I'm sure I will,” I said primly, casting my eyes down in mock shyness. “So long as I can wear my old flannel nightgown."

  “Well,” he drawled, “I wouldn't mind at all having to remove it, but I'd be just as happy to dispense with this shirt you have on now."

  We were making rather good progress in the direction of Mayfield House. Though I wanted very much to keep holding his hand, I now withdrew mine. No sense in letting someone from the house see us and put two and two together. This was a matter between just the two of us.

  But when we came hurriedly through the front door, Cliff pounced on me immediately. “I need to talk to you, Amanda,” he said.

  “Not now, Cliff. I have something I have to do."

  “But this is important. Urgent."

  Not as urgent as my business, I very nearly informed him. “Tomorrow, Cliff. I simply can't do it right now."

  “Why not?"

  Jack caught his eye and said, “She really can't talk with you now, Cliff.” Whether his firm words or his determined expression convinced Cliff, I don't know. Cliff frowned, said, “Oh, all right,” and watched with a puzzled look in his eyes until we'd disappeared upstairs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Like a spy Jack narrowed his eyes and surveyed the area, cocking his head to listen for intruders. Then he motioned me toward his room with one imperative hand, with the other placing his finger on his lips to silence me. He looked so provocatively playful that I only managed to resist giggling until we got inside his door. My laughter felt like bubbles of champagne. Suddenly I was as
light as air, as free as a woman with no past at all. I might very well have newly invented myself from that girl lying on the hill.

  Jack pulled me close to him, holding me tight. “I love to hear you laugh. You have the most erotic laugh in the whole world."

  “There is no such thing as an erotic laugh,” I insisted, kissing his nose and laughing.

  “Oh, yes, there is. Listen to that throaty undertone, and the dancing higher notes. That's a sensuous laugh, a provocative laugh. Only people licensed to seduce should be allowed to laugh a laugh like that."

  “And are you giving me a license to seduce?” I asked, my finger running from his chin down his neck to the hollow beneath.

  “God, yes."

  “Very well then. I think we should see this king size bed of yours."

  Jack led me into his bedroom, where the bed took up a fair amount of the floor space. There were clever touches, presumably arranged by Cliff's sister, which attempted to make the room look more spacious—a rocking chair instead of an upholstered armchair, a tall, narrow chest of drawers, window curtains pulled all the way back to the wall. But the most prominent feature in the room was, without doubt, the king size bed, made up with an antique quilt and cream-colored linen.

  “Very attractive,” I said. “Is it comfortable?"

  “You'll have to judge that for yourself.” He walked around me and turned down the quilt and sheet. “This is our very best model, marked down because it's a floor sample. If you were to decide on it today, I could give you a very special deal on it."

  I moistened my lips suggestively. “What kind of a deal?"

  He patted the left side of the bed. “Sit here, ma'am, and I'll take off your shoes so you can test it. What charming feet you have, so small and delicate. Sometimes it's a good idea to massage one's toes before lying down at night. Did you know that?"

  “I had no idea. Imagine. That feels ... quite nice. I'm not at all sure I could manage to do that for myself. The bottoms of my feet are usually ticklish! Well, perhaps not when they're stroked in that very ... appealing way. Oh, are you finished?"