Homefires (5 page)

Years later, Anne’s “no” drove home the significance of those genetic ties and echoed the losses of a short life. Why get close to anybody if it only ended in separation and pain? So I distanced myself from Anne, as I did from anyone who seemed not to value me. I decided then and there I would have to work extra hard to be loveable – to be accepted. No longer would it be a natural, flowing result of being loved.

Thanks, Chucky boy,
I thought as I spun on my heel and fled the room,
for stripping away all I had left. You didn’t even hang around to help me pick up the pieces.

I passed the long afternoon hours, while Kirk worked, scrubbing and hunting things to clean, glorying in ironing sheets and pillow cases and at first, even Kirk’s briefs and tee-shirts.

Occasionally, Trish got away to come over to visit. Not often. Because Anne kept her busy baby-sitting Cole and helping in the house. I didn’t, at the time, consider the latter abusive, since the same duties fell to me up till I married. Callie, my pal, however, thought it
most
abusive and often vehemently told me so. I brushed it off because Prima Donna Cal led a princess’ existence with her mother waiting on her hand and foot. What
did
bother me was the fact that mine and Trish’s time together was so restricted. And it wasn’t Daddy this time. It was Anne.

Trish, so soft-spoken and kind-hearted, rarely complained.

Today was different. “I can’t seem to get things right, y’ know? She doesn’t like me, Sis,” she said with infinite sadness, blaming herself, for cryin’ out loud. “She just
doesn’t.
She never has.”

I didn’t want to believe it. Fought against it. “Are you sure, honey? Couldn’t you be – ”

“No,” her head moved firmly from side to side. “Annedoes-not-like-me. I don’t know why. Maybe she’s jealous because Daddy steps in sometimes and reminds her that she’s not really my Mama.”

“Oh no. I’d hoped he’d stopped that.
Doggone!”
Daddy’s way of getting back at her for refusing to let us call her “Mom.”

“Uh hmm.” Trish sighed. “Well, it’s usually when he thinks she oversteps her bounds. You know Daddy. He’s – ”

“Iron-Hand-Houdini.”

Trish chuckled. “That, too. But. …” She grew solemn. “I feel guilty all the time because most of their fights revolve around me. I mean – if I wasn’t in the picture, they wouldn’t fight as much.”

“Hah
! Daddy and Anne will
never
run out of things to fight about. Trust me, Trish. It’s not you. It’s them.” I pondered a moment. “’Course, Daddy is awfully protective over us. Thinks we’re
pitiful
.” I snorted. “
Law,
how I
hate
that idea. We’re
not
pathetic
things.
”

“Yeah.” Trish smiled sadly. “I appreciate his caring – but that only makes things worse for me.” We sat quietly, contemplating Daddy’s role in our lives.

“Remember how Daddy made me and Kirk stop going on our Sunday mountain drives?” I shook my head. “So unfair. ‘Too much time alone,’ he said.” I recalled Daddy’s dissecting gaze stalking Kirk those early courtship days. I laughed suddenly. “Daddy thought if he ignored it –
it
would go away.” I sighed. “But Kirk remained as polite and accommodatin’ as you please.” I chuckled. “Smart. Knew that to get to me, he had to go through Daddy.” I shrugged. “It worked. Daddy thinks Kirk can hang the moon and stars now.”

“To be fair – Daddy really did worry that I needed lots of rest.” I crossed my eyes. “Thinks I’m so
fragiiiile.”

“Yeah,” Trish slanted me a mock-sassy look, “unlike ol’ fatso
me,
you’re a bit frail.”

“You’re not
fatso,”
I said, ignoring her rolled back eyes, “Heck, I only look frail to Daddy ‘cause most of the Whitman women are hefty as oxes.”

“But you
do get
hay fever and bronchitis, Sis,” Trish insisted.

“Yeah,” I conceded. “Many’s a night he woke me spooning that awful whiskey-lemon-sugar crap down my throat.” I shuddered and screwed up my face, then admitted, “But it did stop the cough.”

“And though money’s short,” added Trish, “he always took us to the doctor at the first sign of sickness.” She looked directly at me. “He’s a good Daddy.”

“The best,” I agreed whole-heartedly. “
Despite
his heavy-handedness.” I grinned wickedly. “One battle Anne won – she got pregnant, in spite of Daddy’s objections that he didn’t want more kids to raise. He roared and kicked up a fuss about feeling used like a ‘stud bull.’”

The phone rang, interrupting our belly laughter. It was Anne.

“Neece, is Trish over there?”

“Yeah. She is.” I handed the receiver to Trish, who listened and quietly hung up.

“What did she say?” I dreaded the answer.

Trish looked bleakly at me. “Said to come home. I had no right to sneak off like that.” Tears sprang to her stricken eyes. “
Why
, Sis? Why can’t I spend time with you? It’s not
fair.”

“No,” I said quickly and hugged her at the door. “No, it’s not. But I’ll tell you like MawMaw told me. When you get old enough, you can come see me when you dadgum well please.”

I sent her off with a smile. When I closed the door, I cried.

“Hey, sweetheart, I’m home!” was Kirk’s nightly greeting when he burst through the door near midnight, carrying his empty lunch box and coffee thermos. I always said if Kirk couldn’t get to coffee, it would be apocalypse. Having cut his baby teeth on a coffee cup, he is novocained to caffeine’s effects. I always met him at the door with a kiss and had food on the table.

“Any pickles?” he asked as he munched into a ham and cheese sandwich. I went to the fridge and pulled out a dill to slice in two for us to share. This nightly snack ended our day on a sweet, mellow note.

In bed, Kirk and I grew more adventuresome, exploring new erogenous anatomy. Recently, my mammary glands in particular, fascinated him. Then
me. Wow!

“Gosh, honey,” he murmured one night while driving me mad, “If only I’d known about this while we dated.” He lifted his head and peered dazedly at me. “I could’ve gotten
anything from you I wanted.”

“True. We probably would’ve had a shotgun wedding,” I gasped, pulling him back for more.

“Yeah,” he rasped, burying his face in my bosom, “Good thing I was so innocent.”

That Kirk’s weekly Chapowee Mill paycheck was fifty-two dollars and our expenses were fifty, failed to dampen our sense of adventure. I shopped frugally for foods that stretched, like hamburger at thirty-nine cents a pound. Five pounds served three to four meals, ranging from spaghetti to grilled hamburgers cooked over open grills at Spartanburg’s Cleveland Park, where we’d use our two extra dollars for gas to take us on our one weekend outing.

Heck, we had it all worked out. Kirk handled the money, the little we had, which pleased me because overseeing finances
was infinitely foreign to me, and I managed the food purchasing with my ten-to-fifteen dollars allowance.

Laughter propelled us through the days and titillating discoveries through the nights. How
abandoned
we were to each other and to the sheer joy of
being.
Kirk’s blundering quest for cooking skills gave me hilarious tidbits to jot down in my writing tablet and many a laugh to share.

How I embraced that period of sterling trust and openness.

“You look so pretty, Callie.” I buttoned her red silk blouse up the back and turned her around for a hug. “But you always
do.
”

Late afternoon sunlight painted Chapowee First Baptist Church’s Sunday School room walls golden and shimmered across heartland pine floor, where Mollie Pleasant, Cal’s mom, devoutly attended, tugging at and praying for Cal and her Dad

Callie’s folks, like mine, worked the mill’s second-shift, only difference being I had baby-sat Trish while Cal, an only child, had been virtually unaccountable for her time. That gal could lie with the purest face among saints and Mollie and Ed Pleasant, seemingly intelligent folk, took everything she said as gospel.

I’d always espied Cal’s mastery with a blend of awe and horror because
me
, I couldn’t even carry off a half-truth because Daddy’s all-seeing gray eyes could arrest and x-ray me without him uttering a sound and he always
knew.
Oh, yes, he knew. His wordless condemnation made my insides squirm like a stuck caterpillar, my eyes unable to hold his gaze, and his discipline, usually a rumbling baritone diatribe of disappointment, reduced me to a shredded, smoldering heap of shame.

Here I am
, I thought,
still
having to remind myself I’m married. Out from under Daddy’s rule. The abrupt transition still, at times, made my head reel.

As though reading my mind, Callie murmured, “C’mon, now, aren’t you glad to get away from your bossy Dad? Don’t know how you ever stood being
watched
all the time.
Ssshsuzzzz
.” She shuddered hugely.

I laughed and ignored the question. She knew I adored Daddy.

Callie and Rog’s wedding ceremony had ended more than an hour and a half ago.

Outside, friends and buddies bedecked the getaway car while the bride dressed for a honeymoon trek to the mountains. Callie slid stockinged feet into black pumps. “Was the wedding – you know, really
nice?
” Large amber eyes implored me for reassurance.

“Beautiful.” It had been. “Pigeon Forge will be great, Cal. Cool nights but,” I wiggled my brows wickedly, “
hot
between the sheets.”

“You ol’
hussy
, you.” A lusty belly laugh tumbled from her throat. “One week from now and I’ll be leavin’ this place.”

I folded the white veil and placed it carefully between tissue padding in the box. “Sure gonna miss you, Cal.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“We’ll have to write often. You
will
keep in touch, won’t you?”

“’Course I will.” We bear-hugged for long moments. “Gotta take off. Rog sure looked handsome, didn’t he?”