Homefires (65 page)

“Why didn’t he come with you, Janeece?” The question was soft. “If you were my wife, I’d never send you off alone.”

I shrugged and nearly lost my balance. Why was the room moving? “He’s doin’ somethin’, Chris. I don’ know
what.
He’s drinkin’ – oops.” I covered my mouth. “Not s’posed to say that.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so good. “I need to go, Chris,” I mumbled and began to rise. He caught me before I hit the floor. “Jus’ tangled my foot on my purse string is all,” I muttered, trying to shake loose of the shoulder strap. Chris’s strong arms hoisted me into upright position and he somehow managed to walk me the length of the room and into the corridor as though it were an ordinary thing for the two of us.

“Christ,” I heard him mutter.

“Don’ take the name of the Lord in vain, Chris,” I scolded, then smiled at him.

I thought I saw tears in his eyes but just as quickly forgot about it. “Give me your key,” he said, then checked my room number on it. On the elevator going up, I began to feel bad in earnest.

“I don’t feel so good, Chris,” I groaned and burrowed my head against his shoulder.

“Hang in there, Janeece. We’ll have you in your room before you know it.”

Another corridor – ten miles long and Chris propped me between his shoulder and the wall before I heard the key inserted into the lock. He caught me as I toppled.

I felt myself lifted then lowered onto a bed that moved. He turned on a lamp.

“Chris,” I lolled my head over to look at him through a red haze. “I’m dying.”

“No, Janeece. You’re not dying. You just lie there and – ”

“Get the waste basket. Hurry – ”

He grabbed it from beside the dresser and had it under my head as I began throwing up. I have to hand it to him – Chris not only had guts, he had a strong stomach. Pregnancy nausea was Minnie Mouse compared to my purging that evening. When it subsided, Chris washed my face with a warm soapy wash cloth. He slipped my shoes off and tucked me in.

“Don’t leave me,” I moaned, clutching at his shirt. “I really
am
dying.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Janeece.” He gently pried my fingers loose. “Try to go to sleep.” I heard him slip off his shoes
and lie down on the sofa across the room from me, but I was already spinning back into the Netherland of nightmarish twilight.

“God is punishing me, Chris,” I groaned.

“Shhh.”

“He is.”

“Go to sleep.”

I lapsed into the awful twilight. Sometime later, I curled over on my side, fighting down another tidal wave of nausea. “Chris – the waste basket. I might....” I swallowed several times as I felt the weight of Chris’s athletic frame lower onto the side of my bed.

“Here,” he said gently, holding the basket near me.

“Just – set it there on the floor.” I swallowed some more and moaned. Presently, I felt the wet cloth wipe my face again. It began to soothe and settle the quandary inside me. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I felt his weight lift from the mattress and heard him resettle himself on the sofa. I realized he’d emptied and washed out the small trash can whenI –

“Chris,” I croaked, “I owe you. Big time. You cleaned up that mess and – ”

“Janeece, you don’t owe me a thing. I’m glad I was here to help you. It’s the least I can do considering it’s all my fault, you being sick.” He shook his head woefully, “
Dang!
You told me it made you sick. It’s all my fault.”

“No. It’s not. Nobody made me drink.” My voice was whispery weak, my guilt and remorse overwhelming. I knew better than to ingest alcohol. I’d found that out when trying to sip a little wine for insomnia. It did not agree with me at all. Besides, I had no business drinking. I’d never seen its purpose, at least not in my life and not in those close to me. I’d only seen its bad results.

I heard a scraping noise and raised my head. “What was that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” Chris came back to the bed and looked down at me. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Janeece.” He looked utterly miserable. “I – I shouldn’t have tempted you.”

“Don’t blame yourself. It was me.”

“My, my,” came a voice out of the night. A dry, sarcastic
familiar voice.
“Whose fault was it? Who tempted who?”

“Kirk!” I lifted my head and squinted at the shadowy figure standing just inside my door. “What are you doing here?” I moaned as nausea rose up in me again.

Chris spun around. “Kirk?” he said, moving toward my husband. “It’s a good thing you came. Janeece is – ”

Through the red mist, I saw Chris hit the floor. Kirk towered over him, fists clenching and unclenching. “That’ll teach you to tempt
my wife.”

“Kirk!” I groaned. It was the last thing I could say before grabbing the bucket for another upheaval.

He hovered above me, gaping. “You’ve been drinking,” he said in amazement. “All that nagging at me and look at you.” He didn’t lift a finger to help me.

I tried to glower at him but failed when my head collapsed back on the pillow. “Don’t you think you’d better check Chris’s pulse?”

“Why?” He was in my face, his anger a whispery
hiss.
“Does it matter?”

“Yes,” I tried to match his belligerence but my voice came out like a sick woodwind instrument. “It does. He’s only tried to help me. He’s only a boy – ”

“That makes it even worse.”

Get out of this one, Janeece Crenshaw.
Even in my near-death state, I knew I was in deep dung. Any leverage I had with Kirk – gone. In the best of times, Kirk was a skeptic. I didn’t have a prayer of him believing in the goodness of Chris. Nor in anything good in me, for that matter, considering the scene he walked into.

Chris, poor Chris, had most effectively served as my executioner.

When he didn’t come to right away, Kirk began to grow concerned. Oh, not about Chris but about his own skin. “If he’s dead,” Kirk said quite unemotionally, “I’ll either fry or rot in prison.” So, Kirk commenced splashing water in Chris’s gray face. Lordy was he pale. “I don’t really relish the idea of being punished over
Lover Boy
,” he said through gnashing teeth as he
hoisted his foe onto the sofa, propped him up and began to briskly smack his cheeks and call his name.

“Do you have to slap him so
hard
?” I turned my face to the wall, wishing myself anywhere else on the planet. “How did you get in my room?”

“I showed my ID at the desk, told them I wanted to surprise my wife.” He gave a tight bitter laugh. “And just look who got surprised.”

When Chris groaned and began to respond, I let out a long breath of thanks. I’d been doing a lot of praying since Kirk’s untimely arrival. More than in the months leading up to tonight. When Chris spoke, one of those prayers was answered.

“What did you hit me for?” he asked Kirk, rubbing his jaw and flexing his neck.

Kirk, having paced to the window, spun and peered at him as though he’d grown toes on his chin. “You have to ask? I find you in my wife’s bedroom and you have the gall to ask that?” Kirk advanced on him again with those clenched fists that looked big as boxing gloves.

“Whoa, man!” Chris raised a trembling hand. “You’ve already done that. Okay? Chill.”

“Kirk,” I croaked. “Listen to reason. It’s not – ”

He advanced on me then, so swift I shrank back into the covers and though I didn’t think he would strike me, his white-hot gaze and furious words were just as lethal. “Reason? Listen to
reason?”
His laugh was mirthless. “Send Lover Boy away and we’ll reason.”

“Chris,” I said, knowing it was a control thing with Kirk, to insist I say the words, “You’d better leave.”

“No joke,” my friend rose to his six-foot height and moved unsteadily to the door. There, he turned to Kirk. “I just want you to know, Kirk – you really should count your bless – ”

“Get out.” Kirk’s order was so quiet it roared. He didn’t move a muscle, stood rooted to that floor like a mighty oak, his green gaze sparkling with fury. Chris slid me one parting, sympathetic glance – or was it pity I saw? – then quietly closed the door behind him.

It was the pity that made me lash out at Kirk. “Why are you standing there, so
all righteous
, spewing hatred at me?” I
spat at him, surprised I’d regained the strength to raise up on a trembling elbow and glare at him.

He glared back. “I sent you here in good faith. I thought if you could just rest and – ”

“
Aha!”
I pointed a trembling, accusing finger so fast his features emptied with surprise. My gaze narrowed on him as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, holding on as the room moved. “You
set me up
. I didn’t even want to come. All that talk about how I should have an affair and you’d forgive me...manipulating me into doing something you could hold over my head and get me back under your almighty control.”

His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?
Control
. I’ve treated you like a queen for years now. Seems you’re the one in control. And I’m tired of it.” He pointed a finger and gazed slit-eyed down it like it was the barrel of a gun. “Things are going to change.”

Those words,
things are going to change,
smote me, caused something in me to plunge and spiral down, down, down until everything drained from my head and heart, until I’d gone limp and all I felt was the room doing a slow, slushy spin.

I fell backward and when the room grew still, rolled over into a fetal knot.

“Come on, Neecy,” Kirk’s voice, right at my ear, taunted me. He was hot for battle. “Let’s
reason.”

Then I did what Kirk had done for years. I went to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The coming days merged into a psychedelic strobe-lit procession of happenings. The morning after Kirk flattened Chris on my hotel suite floor, I awoke to find my husband sitting in a chair he’d dragged up next to my bed, ankle hooked over knee, hands steepled to lips, watching me with grim detachment.

All sleep fled me. I sat up, disoriented and apprehensive, trying to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. After a wobbly trip to the bathroom to relieve myself and wash my face, I returned to curl against the head of the bed, facing Kirk. He hadn’t moved. Not an eyelash. His stillness threatened to finish off what of my nerves had survived the prior night.

I have to say that I’ve never known anyone else whose
still quietness
shrills and invades like Kirk’s. To me, it’s like screaming sirens, freight train whistles and a squad of jack-hammers bursting loose all over me at once. And the fact that I know this is exactly the effect he desires does not make it less so.

O
kay.
I squared my shoulders to face the ambush head on, to get past
it.

It
is nearly always something about which I haven’t a clue. This morning, I did. But I hadn’t a clue as to how to defuse my simmering spouse. The suspense, as usual, was my undoing. And the guilt – not of wrongdoing but a reaction to what Kirk
thought
he’d seen.

“Kirk – say something.”

No blink. Nothing. Only those green lasers riveting me to the headboard. I rose abruptly, suddenly angry, and snatched my suitcase from a corner. I began stuffing my belongings inside until it bulged. All during this time, I felt Kirk’s gaze probe, poke and assault me. I whirled and glared at him.

“Spit it out, Kirk. You might as well be beating me as the way you’re watching me like I’m some germ under a microscope.” I plopped down limply on the bed, drew my legs up and hugged my knees. I felt incredibly sad and tried to keep my gaze steady with Kirk’s.

I couldn’t. My eyes watered from the strain and I shrugged, looked away and thought, It’s not worth the effort. He always
could out-mean me. No contest. That didn’t mean I had to be his punching bag.

That thought ricocheted my gaze back to his. “What are you thinking?” I asked sharply.

I nearly jumped when he spoke. “There’s nothing left,” he said, his voice a near whisper. His eyes never wavered. How in God’s name did he not blink for so long?

“What do you mean?” I sniped, inordinately irritated. “Nothing left?” I gave a derisive sound in the back of my throat. “We’ve got everythi – ”

“It’s all gone,” he continued as though I’d not spoken. I hated it when he crawled out onto his isolated berg, alone with his calculations of what
is
, regardless of what my perception might render. It’s like talking to somebody on a television screen and they’re off somewhere else entirely. At those times, I hated his drive, one that propelled both the good and bad in Kirk.

“Kirk,” I said sharply, “If you’re talking about the situation you walked into last night, it was
not
what you think. Chris and I didn’t – ”

“I’ve lost everything. My wife. My – ”

“Will you listen to me – you’ve not lost me, Kirk!”

“ – ministry. I’m a man without a country.” His voice droned on, his gaze fixed hypnotically on me. “I guess you know I’ll most likely go blow my brains out, Neecy.”

“Kirk!” I scooted upright and swung my legs to the floor, recognizing the sheer possibility of his words. “That’s foolishness, you – ”

“No.” His eyes suddenly turned dark. “That’s not foolishness. Foolishness is what I’ve been doing for the past years, catering to your every whim and – ”

“Oh,” I threw my hands wide, “so
that’s
it. You’ve – ”

“ – treating you like the Queen of Sheba, giving you everything – ”

“I didn’t ask you to.” Anger boiled out my fingertips and toes. “You chose to do that. And as far as your ministry, I didn’t require you to leave.”

“You said you were leaving.”

“I would have. But you didn’t have to. I had a choice. You had a choice. You chose to stay with me. It’s not my fault you left it behind.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” His voice and scrutiny grated my already raw nerves.