Homefires (11 page)

I felt special. Protected and coddled. Later, in the next decade, when Women’s Libbers shrieked of being suffocated
and buried in the home, I was astonished. Why, at that time, I wouldn’t have traded places with another female on the planet because Kirk’s sentiments flowed from peace and contentment. What more could a woman ask for?

“Thanks, Sis,” Trish gushed and hugged me. She’d come by after school to pick up the package I held for her.

“Now if you need me, let me know. Here’s the calorie chart and here’s Dr. Crane’s instructions.”

“I’ll get right on it. I’m so sick of being fat I could – ”

“Trish,” I stopped her. “I would love and respect you even if you were the
circus fat lady
. But you’ve said so many times you wish you were slim like Callie or Marsha and so – I wrote to the newspaper doctor and got his diet plan. Now, don’t go overboard. It’s the same one I went on when I was thirteen and getting pudgy. Just be careful to not drop your calories too low.”

Trish giggled and hugged me again. “Don’t worry about
that.
” She sobered. “Gosh, I hope I can do it, Sis.”

“Lookee – you can do anything you
want
to do, Trish. Don’t ever forget that
you
control your destiny.” I blinked a couple of times, mentally backtracking. “At least to a certain degree. God does the rest.”

“I know.” She kissed me and left with a new spring in her step.

Kirk worked the graveyard mill shift, came home, slept a few hours and spent afternoons in JOE’S BARBER SHOP, training with Daddy. Soon, his clientele grew and with the salary increase, Kirk planned a weekend excursion to a new gigantic theme park, Six Flags over Georgia. By now, he served as Church Deacon and taught a teen Sunday School class.

During the drive to Six Flags over Georgia, I relaxed to radio music, humming
The Girl from Ipanema
and singing along with the girls to the Beatles’
She Loves You.
I rode the waves of Kirk’s sizzling enthusiasm as he snapped photos and accompanied the girls on daring rides whileI – a self-professed, devout
coward –
sat in the shade, feet up, waving as they screamed to the daredevil fun.

Kirk’s drive always astounded me. While my energy is deep and inward, stirring slowly and thickly, his is everywhere, all over him at once, crackling the air about him. In his presence, one is smote by it. I’ve seen folks drawn to him because of it and discerned their frustration when he evaded closeness. Because, while he is a wonderful husband, father and in-law, Kirk Douglas Crenshaw is an entity unto himself. I’ve seen few dare to enter his fortress. Those who did failed to tarry long. His is not unkindness, rather he simply moves in his own aura, not needing, not seeking enhancement.

In all my years with him, boredom never had time to light because I moved in the momentum of his exciting discoveries.

I alone know the intricacies, darkness, brilliance and complexities that form Kirk’s world. My knowledge is not an easy one. There were times I’d rather not have known it all. I’d rather have remained in my dream world, as he calls it, whose background is marshmallow clouds and willowy lace, where everybody loves everybody and there’re no such things as bias and bitterness.

“You need to get out into the real world just
one
day, Neecy,” he’s often told me, “and have to work under a foul-mouthed supervisor. Then, you wouldn’t be so Pollyanna.”

I rued the day I’d defined
Pollyanna
for him.

At times, my ultra-forgiving spirit seems to slightly annoy, to threaten him in some way. He cannot come to terms that it’s just not my nature to harbor anger. Just as it’s Kirk’s nature to react. He is passionate in both the good and bad. And when he has a run-in with someone and I seek to calm him by showing him another perspective, it’s like pouring gasoline on a smoldering log. That’s when he gives me the “real world” diatribe.

Frustration stalks me because I cannot change my nature and it often casts us on opposite sides. I hate fights and dissension. Kirk is his most magnificent in the heat of battle. I get a knot in my stomach,
craving
his approval while he blissfully goose-steps to his own drum roll.

Yet...Kirk is not immune to my opinions. Following confrontations, he disappears to mull. Despite his autonomous spirit, Kirk will fairly assess matters. His resistance, I know, is sheer reaction, a conditioned thing. Without fail, he returns, either to accept my view or to freely compromise.

I think back on it and realize it was our spiritual walk that balanced the scales in our favor. It tempered Kirk’s volatile drive and helped me sense how tightly it lay coiled inside him. It made us teachable and gave us a deep
giving
love for one another. It allowed me to thrill to my husband’s strengths and complement him by being resilient and easily entreated.

We each basked in the other’s differences.

There was a certain mellowing in him about that time that showed in everything he did. His eyes, those marvelous green pools, spoke eloquently to me. Their fire gave way to such devotion that it took my breath. His passion was no less – just different. His voice, his touch, everything emanating from him spoke of a commitment and protectiveness I’d never felt before. Not the fathering kind. It was a total thing, laced with everything male and powerful and tender.

And I knew in my heart of hearts that his promise to me years earlier stood firm:
I’ll always love you and take care of you, Neecy.

CHAPTER FIVE

 

I had no warning. Not a clue as parishioners spilled out the door of our little village church and onto grassy grounds steeped in June sunlight. Those same warm rays reverberated off Pastor Cheshire’s shiny bald head as he stood just outside to greet each departing parishioner. His was a wide, toothy smile that justified his name and I thought how we’d come to love this round little man, whose English background had initially posed a threat to the unpretentious southern male of his flock. Women, being women, adored his British accent, but the men, Kirk included, took their own good time in warming to him.

“Hard to get past his uppity ways,” Daddy’d muttered after Pastor’s first sermon. We ate at our house, Kirk’s and mine, that Sunday.

“Now, Joe,” Anne cut her blue eyes at Daddy reproachfully, “he’s not a bit uppity.”

“He just
talks
that way,” Kirk quipped, winking at Daddy, who missed it while glaring at Anne. Kirk’s eyes glimmered that he enjoyed the
bite
of the conversational turn. By now, I knew Kirk’s dysfunctional family were scrappers who thrived on fights and got high on crisis.

“Pastor can’t help how he talks,” I added gently, hoping Kirk wouldn’t take umbrage that I’d disagreed with him again. I
always,
to his way of thinking, took the view opposite his when it came to criticism. I think partly he felt I set out to de-spiritualize him, which was not the case. I simply could not go along with anything belittling. This time, however, he didn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah,” he agreed, leaning his elbows on the table and sipping coffee. “He’s not such a bad fellow. I dropped by his office this week and visited with him for a spell. Smart guy. Knows the Bible like the back o’ his hand.”

“Hmm,” Daddy looked thoughtful for long moments then shifted decisively in his chair. “I really liked what he said about the Lord’s Prayer getting a reputation for being almost Pharisaical and repetitious. The way he taught us to use it, you
know – elaborating on ‘Our Father,’ using all the names of God and dwelling on each one is – well, a whole new twist.”

I relaxed and released my held breath. “Can’t wait to hear the rest of his series on it.”

Today, more than a year later, on the church steps, our Pastor’s plump black-robed figure inclined itself like a teetering tent to Krissie, our flaxen-haired tot who gazed, enthralled, up at his huge, bared teeth.

“Ahh, Krissie, my girl. You’re still my sweetheart, aren’t you?”

Sky-blues stared fixedly at the white piano-key squares a moment and missed the exaggerated wink.

“Yessir, Pas’r Che’sir.” I watched, horrified, the giggle that rose up in her, threatening to explode. Before I could move, a sharp little elbow poked her in the back, swiveling her small face to address her sibling’s frown of disapproval.

“Heather!” Pastor Cheshire straightened to half-mast and extended a thick hand to my darker haired daughter. Nearly five, Heather emitted a pulsing cynicism that gave Pastor pause before he drew in his lips and inclined his shiny pate in a totally sincere way. “And how are you today, my dear?”

“Fine, thank you.” Her mouth pursed and her gaze sliced down to Krissie’s slack jaws, as if to say,
that’s how you do it. Cool and polite as you please.

“Pastor Cheshire,” Kirk’s big hand grasped the plump one and I watched his face, now elongated into my fantasy of Viking features with sea-green eyes, whose corners crinkled in the sun or upon scrutinizing. They were incapable of evasion or dishonesty. In his gray-blue suit, my husband’s presence whammed my awareness in a way that, after six years of marriage, still took the wind out of me.

His virility stunned and excited me. He never seemed to get enough of me and at bedtime, even when I was tired from diapering, and later, chasing lively toddlers and unable to converse or eat heartily of imaginative meals I set before him, I welcomed his eagerness. Kirk’s lovemaking melted me to liquid and tossed me to the galaxies. Unsullied, we’d learned together ageless mysteries in their purest forms.

“How about it, Honey?” The turquoise eyes swam before me, their crinkles deepening, while the strong mouth twitched slightly at one corner. “Janeece to earth....”

I blinked at the sun-washed Viking and tail-spinned to reality.

“Where were you, Neecy?” Kirk grinned knowingly at me.

“I’m sorry.” I cast Pastor an embarrassed glance and shrugged. “What did I miss?”

“About the children’s registration for Vacation Bible School,” came Pastor’s soft reply.

“Oh, I’ve taken care of it.”

Kirk’s arm slid around my shoulder and the squeeze of his strong fingers on my upper arm pulsed all the way down to my toes as his voice rumbled near my ear, “I figured you had. See you tonight, Pastor.”

We drove a detour home, through the countryside with the windows of our little white Volkswagen open. I slipped off my black pumps and wiggled my cramped toes, allowing balmy breezes to play with them. I inhaled deeply of Tigerlilies and honeysuckle sweeping past.

“Such a pretty day,” I sighed.

“Mama,” Krissie wailed, cherubic face poked between the two bucket seats, her breath ruffling my hair, “Heather
push
me.”

“Did not.” I turned to investigate, finding Heather seated very lady-like in the farthest corner of the backseat.

“Did,
too
.” Krissie craned her little neck to glare from her perch on the edge of center seat, her small patent-leather shoes planted squarely on the risen hump that centered the car floor.

The
hump
battle raged once again.

“Heather, you
know
Krissie fits the space there better, so let her enjoy it, okay? We’ve discussed it before anyway.” I faced the front again, suddenly weary. What was so
darned coveted
about that spot? But I knew – it was to see the passing scenery. Before Krissie came along, it had been Heather’s roost. Now, tiny Krissie perched on the raised center with her little face poked between the seats, giving her full view through the front windshield.

I looked over my shoulder and glimpsed Heather’s plump jaw set into a pout and her stormy gray eyes fixed on the sky
beyond moving landscape. Krissie’s turned-up nose rose a notch higher as she settled with tenacious smugness into her turf. I stifled a grin.

“Janeece.”

Just that, my name tumbling from Kirk’s lips, snared my focus. He’d been silently contemplating during the drive. Now, I
fel
t something happening inside him.