First Time, Forever, page 12
“You’ll love it there,” Evan said, nibbling her ear. “It’s exotic, almost like a rain forest in the middle of a desert.”
“What you’re doing is pretty exotic,” she said.
“Innocent. That’s called erotic.”
And by the time they had finished exploring that, another two hours were gone from their honeymoon.
“I think we better go soon,” Evan said, looking at her from one end of the bathtub, mounds of bubbles in between them.
She reached out with her toe and tickled his chin.
“I think we should stay right here.”
“What kind of honeymoon is that?”
“I seem to be enjoying it so far,” she said. “You know what I’d like to do?”
“Again?” he asked, astounded.
“Besides that. Paint the boys’ rooms.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“You might be surprised.”
They spent the rest of the day painting Jesse’s room a lovely sky-blue. Evan was a terrible painter, ending up with more paint on him than on the walls.
“Come here,” he growled at her, when the last wall was done.
“Are you kidding? I’m not touching you.”
He advanced toward her.
“Evan, you’re blue!”
“In sickness and in health,” he reminded her, moving stealthily toward her, blue-smudged hands reaching.
She dodged. “I don’t remember anything about ‘in paint.”’
“I do. In sickness and in health, in red or in blue, I swear I will always chase after you.” He lunged.
She darted away. He came after her. She ran through the house, shrieking, and right out the back door. He came behind her, breathing down her neck.
She knew he could catch her in an instant. She was not in the same kind of physical condition he was in. He was just enjoying the game, as she was. She felt suddenly awed by the course her life had taken.
When Howard had told her—after their long engagement—she was going to have to pick him or pick Mac, she had been devastated. She felt as if she had invested the best years of her life into her relationship with Howard. They had been engaged for several years, but she had been unable to celebrate a wedding with her sister so ill, needing her, so it had been postponed over and over again.
It occurred to her Evan would have married her anyway.
Hadn’t she secretly hoped Howard would insist they marry anyway, that it was the time she most needed support, that he would help her through it, that a large wedding was unnecessary, that it was the vows that mattered and that he would say them to her without fanfare?
But he never had. Looking back, had he actually seemed relieved when the marriage was postponed? And relieved again when she had chosen Mac?
Had he known, somewhere in his heart of hearts, that if they said yes to each other they would miss the opportunity to have exactly what she now had with Evan?
She giggled out loud at the thought, and it slowed her down some.
Because it was really too funny thinking of Howard being passionate. Or playful. What, exactly, had she liked about him?
It had seemed to her he was the most stable of men. Safe.
He was successful at his business, and that had appealed to her, too. In a way her attraction to Howard had been about her own self-esteem, flattered that a man of his stature would even be interested in someone like her.
And in the end, he had not really been safe at all.
As she ran along the well-worn path to the barn, laughter bubbling out of her, it suddenly seemed that that event all those years ago—Howard making her choose—had not been devastating at all, not in light of where it had led her.
That hard choice he had forced her to make had really been a gift from heaven, the very thing that had paved the way to her having the moment she was having now.
She glanced over her shoulder at her husband, still in hot pursuit, then wrenched open the barn door and ran into the cool darkness, up the narrow stairs to the loft, Evan right on her heels.
Finally he took mercy on her and caught her. They tumbled down in loose, sweet-smelling hay, and he put his blue hands all over her until her laughter died in her throat, and she was kissing him with the fever and hunger and passion of a woman making up for lost time.
“I told you you might find painting surprising,” she breathed against his neck.
“I love it,” he agreed, his lips trailing fire down across her breastbone.
“Tomorrow, Mac’s room. Red and black.” It came out in gasps.
“I can hardly wait.”
“He picked the colors himself.”
“I guessed.”
“Evan, this isn’t even comfortable. I have hay poking into me.”
“In sickness and in health, in night and day, in every way and in hay.”
She laughed. “You’re awful.”
“Awful good. Say it, or I’ll tickle you.”
Breathlessly, when his blue hand moved inside her shirt, she said, “Evan, you’re awfully good.”
He wagged a fiendish eyebrow at her, and then covered her lips with his own. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and somehow couldn’t feel that hay poking into her at all anymore, and the last thing on her mind was that her bra had blue handprints all over it.
The next day, while Evan painted Mac’s room, Kathleen painted Mickey Mouse and Pluto and Goofy on Jesse’s walls.
“Hey, you’re good,” Evan said, admiring her paintings, but his eyes came back to her and settled there.
She glanced at him, leaning against the door frame, pretty much covered in red and black paint. “Awfully good,” she said, and shivered at the look in his eyes. “And don’t even think it, until you have that paint off.”
“I bet I could have it off in under three minutes.”
“You’re on,” she whispered, and the light that deepened in his eyes made her feel as if she had never lived before.
As if she had slept away her life, until this knight in shining armor, disguised as a humble cowboy, had come along, and literally kissed her awake.
Every day she became a little more certain that she had done exactly the right thing, the only thing. She couldn’t touch him enough, look at him enough, be with him enough.
And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he felt the same way about her. Evan glowed with happiness.
And then, abruptly, the honeymoon was over. The boys came home.
And it was like sweet torture curbing all the things she felt for Evan, having to wait until no one was looking to run her hand over the curve of a blue-jeaned backside, to kiss him until they both had to come up for air, to hide her burning desire, to haul him down on the rug or the couch or the floor or the grass.
For as much as she practiced perfect decorum, she knew Mac’s eyes followed her, bewilderment just beneath the anger.
How dare anyone else make his auntie Kathy so happy?
“I hate my bedroom,” Mac announced after his first night in it, pushing his bacon and eggs around on his plate.
“What do you hate about it?” Kathleen asked, helping Jesse up into his chair.
“Red and black are gross. It’s manic.”
“We’ll repaint it,” Kathleen told him. Where on earth did Mac get these expressions from? Manic?
“No, we won’t,” Evan said. “You asked for those colors, you live with them. Great breakfast, Kathleen. Mac and I will cook it tomorrow. What do you say, Mac?”
“I only know how to make cereal,” Mac said sullenly.
“Great,” Evan said. “That’s Jesse’s favorite. Captain Crunch.”
“Could you and I talk for a minute?” Kathleen said to Evan.
She stepped out of the kitchen door and onto the small back porch. She took a deep breath. The air was crisp and clean. In the distance she could hear a calf bawling. “He doesn’t like his room. Why not repaint it?”
“Kathleen, the room isn’t what he doesn’t like. You’re desperate to make him happy and he knows it. He’ll have you repainting that room twice a week.”
She knew Evan might be right, but she was not used to having to discuss her decisions with anyone, and she didn’t like being called wrong, even when she knew she probably was.
“And isn’t it my life?” she said. “I can’t paint his room twice a week if that’s what I want?”
“No.”
She folded her arms over her chest, felt her eyes narrowing. “You’re going to presume to tell me what to do?”
“This isn’t even about you, Kathleen, it’s about him. He thinks this is what he wants, to get us fighting over him. But it isn’t really, and if he succeeds, he’ll feel so sick inside he won’t know what to do with himself. We have to show solidarity.”
“Then you should have agreed it was okay to paint the bedroom, or at least to discuss it with me in private! I didn’t like being vetoed in front of him, as if you make all the decisions in this house and I just sit back and say, ‘Yes, Evan.’”
Looking at him now, she had trouble matching the man he was now with the one who had chased her around the bedroom until the very walls sang with their laughter. He looked hard and stern, and not in the least likely to back down.
“Look, I’m sorry if you didn’t like how I handled it. I’m not exactly accustomed to consulting with people about my decisions, either. I’ll try to do better next time, but for now that room is being repainted over my dead body.”
She saw the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes, and it made him seem like a complete stranger to her. Which he was, really, if she thought about it.
Which maybe she should have done.
“You’re very stubborn,” she said uneasily.
“As a mule.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, as long as we’re pulling together, that’s fine.” He sighed. “Kathleen, if he still hates the bedroom in a month, we’ll get some more paint. But he’ll have to do it himself.”
“I want him to be happy,” she wailed.
“There aren’t any shortcuts to that! You won’t make him happy by painting his room or buying him expensive shoes. I’m not sure that you can make him happy at all, if he’s decided that he’s not going to be.”
“I’m afraid I did the wrong thing,” she whispered.
And when she saw the pain flash through his eyes, she knew she could not have said a worse thing to her new husband if she had worked at it.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” She touched his arm.
But the damage was done. She could see the hurt in his eyes even though he smiled a little bit. “Our first fight, Kathleen. Not counting the day we met. Maybe we did do the wrong thing if we can’t even have words without one of us looking for the exit. Did you think we were never going to disagree about anything?”
“It just seems, after the last few days…” Her voice trailed off.
“What’s the expression? The honeymoon is over?”
But she didn’t want the honeymoon to be over. She wanted it to last forever, and she wanted them to be a perfect family, with everyone happy all the time. She pictured them playing board games together and laughing while they cooked dinners and the whole house filled with a loving glow, the energy of harmony.
“Aw, don’t do that, Kathleen.”
“What?”
He pressed her forehead. “Don’t worry so much. Just don’t expect everything to be perfect without giving it some time. Everybody has a few adjustments to make here.” He kissed her on the cheek.
But she knew by “everybody” he meant Mac.
He moved past her, back into the house. “Come on, Mac, let’s go do those calves.”
“Does my room get painted?” Mac asked, looking between them with satisfaction.
“No,” Evan said. “It doesn’t.”
She came in behind him.
“But I hate it!” Mac was looking at her, his big eyes filling with tears, begging her to help him.
She looked at Evan, squared her shoulders. “If you don’t like it in a month, you can repaint it yourself.”
“That stinks.”
“Speaking of stink, let’s get at those calves,” Evan said calmly.
Mac threw down his napkin, gave her a dirty look and stomped out of the house after Evan.
Jesse looked up at her, with his big brown eyes, and smiled. “Like paint my woom.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
He must have sensed her distress, because he added enthusiastically. “Lots!”
She went and picked him up and hugged him close to her. He hugged her back, and whispered “Mommy” in her ear, a word he could not seem to get enough of, and she wondered how she could have thought, even for a second, that she had made a mistake.
Alone that night, in their bedroom, she could still feel it between her and Evan, a wall up where there had not been one before, a subtle tension. She watched from their bed as he stripped off his shirt, felt a familiar heat rising in her.
“Evan, I didn’t mean that. About making a mistake. I just feel so responsible for Mac. I can see he’s unhappy and I want to fix it.”
The rest of his clothes fell in a pool at his feet, and he slid into bed beside her, scooted over to her and gathered her in his arms. “Have you been worrying about that all day?”
“Yes!”
“You’ve been doing it on your own with Mac for a long time. I probably should have let you handle it. I guess I just feel men handle things differently, and I don’t really think Mac needs the gentle approach right now.”
“You think I baby him.”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that you’re so damned anxious not to have a confrontation with him. Confrontations don’t break people, Kathleen. He’s got to know who is the boss in this house, and that it’s not him. He’ll be relieved to know it’s not him.”
“And who is the boss in this house?” she asked, feeling her temper rising again.
“I think both of us can be in charge.”
“Is that what you really think, or are you avoiding a confrontation?”
“I can think of other things I’d rather do with you.” He reached out and touched her hair. Kissed her neck.
She closed her eyes. It seemed like nothing else mattered but this. Nothing. And she felt guilty for feeling that way, and helpless to feel any other.
And by the next morning she did wonder if she worried too much. Mac and Jesse were in Mac’s bedroom howling with laughter, obviously happy, just as she had hoped. When they came out for breakfast the happiness lingered as the pair of them mooed, and made other animal noises through breakfast.
Evan looked at her over his coffee and winked.
On his way out the door, a few minutes after Evan had left, Mac spoiled it all by saying to her, “I know you love him better than me. I know it.”
“Mac, that’s not true. At all. I feel very strongly for Evan. But it’s an entirely different kind of love than what I have for you.”
Mac gave her a disgusted look and went out the door.
That night, after supper, she and Evan walked on the prairies; the boys watched TV.
“Mac told me today he wants to go see his dad,” Evan said.
“What?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Oh, Evan, he doesn’t even know his dad. I don’t even think he knows his name. The man abandoned my sister as soon as he found out she was pregnant.”
Very softly, under his breath, Evan said the word that had recently been removed completely and professionally from the side of his truck. “He made it sound like he knew him. He just had to make a phone call and a ticket would be on the way.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe that’s what he would like to be true. Anything would be better than me, the one who forces him to move manure. And stole a piece of a heart he’s had all to himself for a whole long time.”
“He’s so jealous,” she said, feeling sick and torn.
“Your face will freeze like that,” Evan said tenderly, touching her forehead. But when she looked at him, she could see he was feeling distressed, too.
“What can we do?”
“I don’t think there’s a thing we can do, except be as normal as possible. It would be a mistake to pander to him. I’ll just keep working with him every day. He seems to really like farm work. And you just keep lovin’ him. You have a talent for that.”
“I feel like he’s begging me to love him, but when I try, it’s like he’s got a big glass wall around him that just deflects whatever I send to him. I think the work’s better for him than my TLC. It helps him blow off some of his teenage angst.”
“You know what I feel really awful about? That Mac is so unhappy, and Jesse is just blossoming.”
It was true. Jesse followed her around the house like a little puppy, eagerly climbing onto her lap the moment she sat down, chattering away a mile a minute, loving hugs and kisses and “helping” her with everything. Laundry and making cookies, he had to have his little tasks to do right along side her.
Kathleen even thought she detected changes in the way he said r. She read him lots of stories and would have him repeat the r words after her.
Still, for all his devotion to her, and hers to him, he resisted surrendering his soother and diapers, and his first loyalty, touchingly, was still to his “bwadda” Mac.
The next morning when Kathleen got up, Mac’s room was empty. For a heart-stopping moment she thought he had gone, run away, or in a pathetic search for his father.
Then she saw him outside in the driveway. Right beside Evan’s truck.
A feeling of trepidation grew in her.
Evan came up behind her, put his arms around her, nuzzled her neck.
“What’s Mac doing?”
At that precise moment Mac stepped back from the truck and revealed his handiwork.
The new word was far worse than the first one had been.
“Oh, Evan,” Kathleen breathed when she felt his muscles coil with tension and anger when he saw the word. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Why on earth would you be sorry? Are you out there with a nail?”
