Looking back, I can’t recall exactly when Kirk’s peaceful surface began to ripple. Certainly, one parallel change was that Kirk stopped wanting to go to church. Oh, occasionally we went, but when we did, Kirk wasn’t really there. His resistance deeply affected my own commitment. Nobody can wordlessly resist as vigorously as Kirk Crenshaw. Perhaps the restiveness had always been there, just on the perimeter of our happiness, but the wonderful love and laughter we shared, and now, little Heather, all had somehow kept it at bay.

Ironically, it was the laughter that began to unearth it, little by little.

Kirk one day dropped a pan of leftover rice on the floor as we cleaned up, then skidded and fell butt first into the heap of it. I leaned to help him up and burst into giggles.

It wasn’t until he shook my hand from his arm as though it were a spider that I realized something was wrong. When I saw his stormy face, I nearly panicked.

“Are you hurt, honey?” I asked, standing awkwardly aside, paralyzed by insecurity.

He didn’t reply, just set his icy gaze straight ahead and, gripping the sink ledge, hoisted himself up onto his feet. I began to brush the seat of his pants, but he elbowed me aside and peeled off his jeans, marched to the bedroom closet and tossed them into the laundry hamper.

“Kirk?” I approached him cautiously, as is my nature in the wake of a storm.

He looked at me then, his green eyes aglitter and fierce. “Don’t ever laugh at me.” This he said in a near whisper.

“But honey – I wasn’t laughing at you. I was – ”

“Just don’t do it again.” His granite face relented not one whit.

I blinked, thinking I was hallucinating looney toons gone tragic. Moments earlier, we’d been laughing over silly things, now we stood squared off, my husband looking as though prepared for mortal combat.

“Kirk, you know I’d never make fun of you. I love – ”

He spun on his heel to tread succinctly away from my declaration of devotion, back straight, gait proud, to our closet for starched, freshly pressed slacks and plaid button-up shirt.

Numb, I watched him briskly dress, then slam through the front screen door to his car and drive away. I slouched down on the couch and fumed for long moments. I’d never, in all my days, seen such offense taken over something so – so piddly.

Sure I had. My brother, Chuck, had erupted with Daddy over things as trivial.

Kirk stayed gone an hour, a bewildered interval, etched in the shimmery terror of abandonment, and I met him at the door, trying to read from his face some sense into the strange episode.

“Kirk?”

He walked past me, hesitated, then turned, looking hollow-eyed and exhausted. “Janeece,” he ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I just – I can’t stand to be laughed at.” He shrugged limply, looking so miserable my heart went out to him. And I knew.

His pain spawned from a darkness unknown to me, where drunkenness and violence and betrayal pilfered anything humane and kind, where one learned to hide hurts and walk through storms alone.

I silently went to him, slid my arms around him and felt his slowly encircle me, then tighten. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though why I felt I should apologize, I wasn’t certain.

He didn’t say a word. Just kissed me and soon, made me forget the weird incident.

From there, things spiraled downward. I called Kirk’s angry lapses “black moods” where nothing I said seemed right. His scrapping experience was eons ahead of my own, which was practically nil. So, mostly, I backed off. I loved peace too, too much, I suppose, because I kept making excuses for my husband’s sharp edginess until that Christmas Eve, when Kirk pushed me too far. He and I had each opened one of our gifts from one another. Mine was Estee Lauder’s Youth Dew cologne, for which I’d shamelessly hinted. I’d spent hours looking for Kirk’s gift before finally making a selection. I was not prepared for his reaction. He was livid.

“You mean you went and bought me a hunting coat when I’d bought one just months ago?” He glared at me as though I had rocks for brains.

“But Kirk, I didn’t know you’d bought – ”

“I told you, Janeece.”

He had? I honestly didn’t remember it. “I do not remember you saying a word.”

He paced to the window and back and braced hands on hips, staring me down. “You don’t listen to me.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the words fizzled. Suddenly, I was so weary I could hardly stand up, much less respond to something so…. So what?

“What, exactly, are you angry about?” My voice seemed to come from far away.

His nose nearly touched mine. “Because my wife can’t even go out and buy me a Christmas present right.” His words were quiet. “I work hard. I deserve more.”

That quiet timber told me how despicable he considered me. Unloveable…unloveable.

I turned, went to the gifts piled underneath the tree and pulled out one.

“Here,” I said numbly, holding it out to him. He seemed ready to refuse but then glumly snatched it from my hand.

I turned and went into the bedroom, pulled out a little overnight bag I’d used for my hospital stay and into which I quickly stuffed underwear and a change of clothes. Then I grabbed seven-month-old Heather’s diaper bag and packed in extra diapers.

She was asleep, but I bundled her and was at the front door when Kirk spoke.

“Where you going?” His voice didn’t sound so certain any more. I didn’t give a tinker’s damn.

“To Dad’s.”

“Why?”

“Because, being so obviously beneath you, I don’t deserve to be under the same roof as you.” To my horror, my eyes puddled. I angrily swished them away. I could just hear him lambasting his mother…. “Mama cried over everything…I never believed the tears were real.”

I turned and dashed out the door. Unloveable…unloveable… unloveable.

“Janeece!” he called. “Don’t do something you’ll be sorry for.”

I didn’t look back.

I had to hand it to Daddy and Anne. They treated my barging in, red-eyed from crying, at ten-twenty on Christmas Eve night, as a common occurrence. They asked no questions, thank the good Lord. Trish took Heather to her bed and soon the baby slept again.

I bedded down on the couch. Through tears, I watched the tree lights twinkle and run.

Why, I wondered, was Kirk so angry? Was I so difficult to love? Still?

Apparently so. I tried to squash down the terrible, terrible gut-crush of rejection. I tossed over and knotted up, staring at the ceiling. Exhaustion won out. I dozed.

At twelve-ten, a rap on the door brought me awake and upright, trembling. I pulled Trish’s yellow robe around me and padded barefoot across the pine floor. “Who is it?” I asked.

Silence. Then, “Kirk.”

I hesitated, then unlocked the door and flipped on the porch light. He looked as miserable as I felt. “Come on in,” I said stiffly and stepped back to let him pass.

I turned from the door and his arms were there, open and without warning, pulling me into their embrace. I stiffened for long moments, still stung from his hateful words, and then I felt him trembling. “Oh, Neecyyy,” he sobbed against my neck. “I can’t live without you.”

Crying? Kirk? I tried to pull back and look, to make sure, but he wouldn’t loosen his grip.

I felt my neck grow wet. “Ah, Kirk,” I whispered and slid my arms around him. “Don’t.”

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured against my shoulder. “I’m sucha – a….”

“Butt,” I flatly finished for him.

He lifted his head, gazed at me, tears dripping and all, and said, “The worst. When I opened that last gift” he stopped for a moment to pull out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes and nose. Then I saw fresh tears and the way he was trying to swallow them and failing. I reached up to touch his cheek.

“I felt like the worst scum on the face of the earth. Please,” he stepped toe to toe with me, “forgive me, honey? It’s not you. Never you. The demons are all mine. God couldn’t have given me a better wife than you.”

In answer, I pulled him to the couch and down beside me. That’s when I heard the crinkle of paper and cardboard from beneath his jacket. He pulled out the still sealed box – my present to him.

Chocolate covered cherries.

BamBamBam.

We’d just finished supper that Saturday evening when the loud banging at our door startled us. Kirk frowned and arose from the table just as the banging recommenced.

“Coming!” boomed Kirk, his brow furrowing as he strode to the door. I washed red spaghetti sauce from Heather’s plump little fingers, removed her bib and lowered her to the floor. Her knees bumpbumpbumped their cadence as she crawled off to explore nooks and crannies from her knee-high angle.

Curious, I keened to hear what transpired between Kirk and the caller. Suddenly, Kirk’s voice projected – and it had that deadly quiet timber. “You’re welcome to come to my home anytime when you’re sober, Dad. But don’t you ever come here again when you’re drunk.”

“Y – you can’t talk li’that to me. I’m your daddy, you little—“

“Shut up, you sorry excuse for a man,” Kirk spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen up good. I lived in that mess all my life. Now, I don’t have to put up with your drunkenness. I won’t have you around my family like this. Do you understand?”

Kirk’s dad sounded like some kind of mewling, evil beast as he cranked up with more foul scorn. Heather had crawled right up to her daddy’s legs, where she now sat, her saucer-eyed gaze bounding back and forth betwixt Kirk and her Grandfather. At Tom’s angry bellowing, her lips began to pucker and her chest to puff soundlessly in and out with panic.

“Heather, baby,” I crooned and rushed to lift her into my arms.

I froze inside at the violence I sensed, heard in him. Heather began to bawl. And to think – he sired Kirk. My Kirk. Heather’s father. Kirk didn’t deserve this. He looked around and saw Heather’s distress and clenched his fists as he whirled on his father.

“How dare you come here and upset my baby. Get out!” Kirk hissed. “And don’t come back unless you’re sober. Go on.” He gestured to the road. “Git!”

He slammed the door in his father’s snarling face and Kirk – who rarely swore – cursed soundly.

I hugged Heather to me, cooing and calming her, fighting my own disgust and anger at the man. Dear Lord, please make him leave quietly. I knew God heard me when Tom turned on his heel, staggered to his car and spun away without another word.

Kirk’s shame was palpable as he plopped down onto the sofa. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his palms for long minutes. I quietly left the room and changed Heather’s diaper, put on her nightgown and lay her in her crib. I wound up her musical crib-angels that circled overhead to Lullaby, before I tiptoed from her room.

Only thing that’d shifted about Kirk was now he sat sprawled on the sofa, head thrown back like a dead man. Eyes sealed shut, nothing moved about him except when his body vibrated with each heartbeat. I stared fascinated at his hair quivering rhythmically, his shirt, his fingers – everything. Like a dead man, I thought, except for that volcano roiling inside him that threatened to blow him to bits.

“Kirk? You okay, honey?” I asked softly, lowering myself beside him.

Long moments later, he muttered. “Yeah,” still like one comatose. But his voice was strong. I took heart at that.

“Want some coffee?” I asked, needing to do something – anything to draw him from that dark place he now inhabited.

“Huh uh.”

I felt helpless, wanting to console him but not knowing how. I’d learned by now that what comforted ninety-nine point seventy five per cent of the population did not placate Kirk Crenshaw. I had yet to find that particular formula.

“Well,” I said, shrugging limply. I stood, and turned to leave. “I’ll turn in, honey.” Give you time to execute your own healing.

“It’s a terrible thing, Neecy.” The words floated out so softly I barely caught them. I turned to look at him. His eyes slowly opened, staring into a void somewhere.

“What’s terrible, sweetheart?” I asked.

He looked at me then, his eyes so desolate my breath hitched.

“Wishing my father dead.”

The next morning, Kirk was already dressed for church by the time I gave Heather a bath. I quickly stacked breakfast dishes in the sink then dressed myself and the baby. Kirk liked to get to church early. A true Type A clock watcher.

As we took our seats in the sanctuary, I noted Daddy and Anne’s absence. Again. Daddy had recently taken up smoking again. For Daddy, not a good spiritual sign. Anne was not, at that time, a particularly spiritual being anyway, so playing hookey wasn’t difficult. Trish, however, came in late and sat with us for the opening hymns. Then she whisked Heather away to the nursery.

The service was ordinary. Adult Sunday School Class. After that, three hymns, the offertory and sermon. Only difference was, today Kirk was there. Seemed to hang onto every word of the message about how we shouldn’t just be just pew-warmers.

Preacher Hart, short and squat, yet peculiarly imposing, had really worked himself up by the time he read from the third book of Revelation, in verses fifteen and sixteen where John wrote to the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans. His face was red as he paced, holding his bible aloft, and his deep voice raised the hair on my neck: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth!”

He halted dramatically, pulling his handkerchief out and wiping his entire face while catching his breath. “Do you want God to spew you out of his mouth on that day?”

I felt Kirk shift beside me and resettle stiffly as the altar call was issued. Mrs. Tilley, her round hefty bottom nearly hanging over the ends of the piano bench, played and led the congregation in Just As I Am for the invitational. Standing now, I glimpsed Kirk’s hands gripping the pew in front of us, his knuckles white as chalk.

Why, he’s fighting conviction. The realization shot through me like a bullet. He’d been adamant about attending church, even if sporadically, but he’d never in his life had a conversion experience. Me, I’d absorbed it all along, from the age of five when I’d knelt at this same altar.

The music ended. I heard, felt, Kirk’s relief that he was off the hook. For now.

As we drove home, Kirk’s mood grew blacker. I tried to ignore the thickening air and overcast emotions.

Ignoring Kirk’s darkness is like trying to walk through a hailstorm without blinking.

Finally, I could stand the roiling silence no longer. “What’s wrong, Kirk?” I blurted.

He was quiet for long moments. Then, angrily, “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“I’ll not sit and listen to a preacher who preaches at me. Calling me a pew-warmer.” He huffed a grim laugh. “That entire message was aimed directly at me.”

I stifled a giggle. What an ego, I thought, gazing at him in amazement, knowing the futility of trying to convince him otherwise. I faced the front and crossed my arms. Let him stew in his own juices.

I knew what was coming next. He did not disappoint me.

“I’ll never,” he snarled, “ever darken the door of that church again.”

We visited Dad and Anne that afternoon, to get out of the house. Kirk seemed especially restless. We’d spent our last two dollars Saturday afternoon on banana splits at the Dairy Queen so walking to see my family was all there was left to do. Lordy, those splits were good. Heather had smacked her lips ecstatically on the gooey rich treat and bawled when I said, “enough.”

We all sat around in the den talking, while in the background, the television, a new nineteen-inch, played an old forties flick starring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The Sons of the Pioneers sang Tumbling Tumbleweeds and I spent a nostalgic moment listening, remembering singing that song around MawMaw’s piano as her little fingers flew over the keys, with Papa, Gabe, Daddy and Mama playing guitars and harmonizing….

Then, Mama died. I gulped back melancholy and quickly pushed the thought away.

“Where’s Trish?” I asked, gazing about, turning Heather loose to toddle around, dimpled fingers latched onto the furniture.

“Cleaning out the storage closet,” Anne replied. “She was supposed to’ve done it last week and didn’t.”

I remembered that Trish had been nearly down with a cold. “Wasn’t she sick?”

“Not enough to stay home from school.” Anne replied a bit edgy. “Trish felt like doing everything she wanted to do.”

I wondered what, exactly, Anne referred to but buttoned my lip. After all, I wasn’t around to know everything first hand. I hesitated to challenge Anne on disciplining Trish because, number one, she dealt fairly and lovingly with me. Number two, Trish said that would only make things worse for her. I still wondered at the where and why of the subtle cold war between those two.

“Well, I guess I’m just an old transplanted Baptist,” Daddy’s rising voice splintered my mulling. I noted his Walter Matthau candor – with the word “Baptist” tacked on.

Being of the Methodist camp, knowing what I knew of Daddy’s recent decline into former vices, the entire thing reeked of spiritual rebellion. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms against what I knew was coming: Daddy’s straddle-thefence, balance-act, with one leg hanging in the Methodist camp, the other dangling in the Baptist. He wanted the best of both worlds.

His justification was that he grew up a Baptist and only switched to Methodism when he married Mama. So, dredging up his old Calvinism doctrine assured him of his eternal security – regardless of his slide back into the cigarette habit and an occasional cuss word. And his stance on “once saved, always saved” as opposed to being “a lost backslider” directly related to how willing he was to give up his smokes.

“Why,” he continued testily, “there’s not a thing in the Bible about cigarettes.”

“There is about cussin’,” I mumbled under my breath as I arose and headed for the bathroom. Me? I believed doctrinal truth lay somewhere between the extremes of Calvinism and Arminianism. I relieved myself and on impulse headed for the closet used for storage, off the kitchen.

I found her sitting on the floor inside the dim chamber with one hanging light bulb, her back to me, surrounded by out-of-season boxed clothing, Christmas and seasonal decorations, magazines and books, an old end table, chairs with broken legs and endless paraphernalia usually labeled “junk.”

“Hey, Trish,” I said softly, warmed to be with her.

She didn’t move. Then I noticed her legs were drawn up and she hugged her knees.

“Trish?” I moved around her and gazed down into her face. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Nothing moved but her eyes, those huge soulful, bottomless pools of sadness, raining tears. They clutched at my heart. “Honey,” I dropped down beside her and slid my arm around her. “What’s wrong?”

Her head slowly moved from side to side. “I-I d-don’t know,” she whispered, holding back sobs, blinking with confusion. “I-I j-just can’t seem to get anything d-done.”

I looked about us at the clutter and my stomach knotted. My aversion to clutter was and is classic. In fact, Trish usually – the rare times I charmed Anne into allowing it – helped bail me out when things piled up, finishing the job in no time flat. No, today’s paralysis was emotional.

“Trish,” I gathered her to me, “I had these – spells, too, after Mama died, you know, when Daddy kept us away from MawMaw and Papa? It’s just nerves – frustration.” I rolled my eyes. “Just is not a word to put in front of nerves. It’s a tough thing to handle, Trish, but I’m here for you. And Daddy is.” The silence stretched out. I sighed heavily. “Would you like for me to talk to Anne?”

“No!” This almost vehemently. Then she said more softly, “No, Sis. It won’t help.”

I silently cursed the genes that conduct and spawn these danged cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof nervous systems that pick up on the tiniest nuances of sentiments as a threat, that blast one’s adrenaline level to kingdom come, that take a look or a phrase and blow it up to wide-screen, 3-D horror, that suck away at self-esteem ‘til one’s time is consumed with just surviving each moment, that make victims of good, otherwise strong people.

“I’m okay,” she awkwardly arose and commenced to attack the task. “I’m just tired. This old cold seems to be hanging on longer than usual.” She looked pale and beneath her eyes looked as if shaded by a dark crayon.

“Has Anne – ?”

“No.” Trish looked me in the eye. “It’s not anything she’s done. Honest. It’s just me.”

“Promise me you’ll come to me if I can help you.”

“Okay, Sis.” She turned from me and began shuffling things around.

Back in the den, things were still hopping. “I know he was preaching right at me,” Kirk divulged to a militantly sympathetic Daddy.

“Yep.” Daddy’s recliner tipped back and his chin rose another notch. “Know whatcha mean. Last time I was at church, he preached on smoking and I know, by golly, he was aiming it right smack between my eyes.” His nostrils flared regally, a precise measure of Daddy’s indignation.

“Now, Joe,” Anne scolded, “Pastor Hart didn’t ever come out and say ‘cigarettes.’”

“That’s cause ‘cigarettes’ ain’t in the Bible.” Daddy’s hand slapped the chair arm. “Dangit all. Preachers shouldn’t oughta meddle.” Law me, I thought, he’s gaining steam.

“Trish doesn’t look like she feels well,” I said to Anne, not able to hold my tongue.

“It’s that old cold.” Anne’s face had, like, no expression, like shuttered.

“Kirk, can we go now? Heather’s getting sleepy and I need to put her down for a nap.”

“Bye, darlin’ face,” Anne hugged Heather and kissed her soundly on her plump cheek. I felt so torn. I knew beyond doubt that Anne’s love for me and my family was genuine.

What about Trish?

Our walk home was silent, except for Heather’s Dada and Mamama jabber, which usually perked Kirk up. Today, I knew my usual teasing him about dada’s little girl would be pointless, futile. So I left him be. I’d known, since the Christmas Eve incident, that his deep funks had nothing to do with me. My thoughts kept ricocheting back to Trish, my little sis.

Please…help Trish. And Anne. Somehow, Lord, make things better.

Kirk’s walk, I noticed, lacked its usual peppy cadence. It actually sloughed.

And while you’re at it, fix Kirk up, too.

Kirk rolled over in bed later that night. “You awake?” he asked softly.

I roused from the doze closing in on me. “Mm hmm.” I turned over to face him, anticipation fluttering like scattered butterflies through me because my husband seldom wasted words, especially at bedtime when he usually – after we made love – promptly fell asleep with me spooned back against him, his arm firmly draped around my midriff. And when he wanted to talk, it heralded something significant.

Suddenly, I was fully awake…and I remembered his present angst.

Was tonight different? I knew a moment’s apprehension.

“Remember when I said I wanted us to go to church and all – that day at the lunch table at Chapowee High?”

I did and had wondered many times if he remembered. “Yes.”

He shifted onto his back and folded one arm under his head. “Well, I want us to.”

“To – what? We go to church every – well, most Sundays, anyway.”

“I know. But not to be just pew-warmers.”

Bingo. I suppressed a grin.

“I mean – I want us to be born again.” He turned his head to gaze at me through nighttime’s sooty veil, silvered by outside streetlight filtering through venetian blinds. There was, in his statement – because that was what it was, a statement – a resoluteness that was Kirk’s when his mind was made up.

“Okay.” I gazed back, knowing his decision was right. He did nothing lightly and when he was convinced, so was I. Though I’d found Christ at five, kneeled at the church altar, I sensed Kirk’s awe of this newly unearthed reverence. Too, I’d drifted in recent years. It was time.

And so we slid from bed onto our knees and prayed together and went to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms – and a new peace.

I shall never forget arising the following morning and seeing the sun, already warm and golden in a sky bluer than I’d ever remembered, and thinking how brilliant the world looked with dew-soaked verdant grass. Colors shimmered and danced and twirled as they had when I was a child.

Kirk’s transformation was instant. It was as though his soul had passed through a spiritual dialysis machine where most of the junk filtered out. Not all – but certainly most. Heather’s unconditional, adoring love had already boosted my self-esteem. Now, as Kirk viewed me through different eyes, my old feeling of unloveableness began to recede.

In the weeks and months to come, that aura of rightness grew and burgeoned and when I learned I was pregnant again, Kirk and I considered it a holy seal on our new start.

As it turned out, both Anne and I were pregnant. Anne, whose only symptoms were sleepiness and an increase in appetite, didn’t know for weeks that she’d conceived. Her delivery date was four months prior to mine. Anne seemed mellower, somehow. Her eyes, the ice-blue of a clear-day sky, cut through Daddy’s nonsense with scalpel perception but would – amazingly – turn incredibly warm and teary by something touching. Pregnancy seemed to agree with her on all levels. I convinced myself things between her and Trish were improving. At least, I prayed they were.

This time, I weathered the nausea stage a bit more stoically and the months passed swiftly. Kirk now served as deacon and Sunday School teacher and took seriously his duties. But he always had time to cuddle and romp with Heather, who adored her daddy.

Trish spliced her duties between me and Anne, who gave birth to Dale in February.

“He’s not a pretty baby, Neecy,” Anne stated matter-of-factly of the little red-faced bawling brother who added to Daddy’s straining quiver. “But he’s a sweetie-pie.”

“He’s cute as a button,” I insisted, kissing and nuzzling his sweet-smelling neck. I was thrilled that my family kept growing and growing and growing.

It helped offset, to some degree, my loss of Mama’s folks. As time passed, Anne and I bonded more closely and though I’d learned to love her family clan, the belong-thing evaded me. Unlike me, young Trish synthesized with the Knight kids. Looking back, I believe they loved me. They could not have been nicer. I simply missed the affectionate spontaneity that came so naturally from MawMaw and Papa. The Knights were great people with a strong sense of family. But was I, to them, family? Was Grandma Whitman right? Was blood thicker than water?

Maybe, I decided. Chuck – well, Chuck didn’t even concern himself with blood-ties, much less with step-status. “What is, is,” was his cynical commentary before he fled home.

I conceded that perhaps, in this instance, Chuck was right. What is, is.

Just minutes before midnight, on Heather’s second birthday, Kristabelle – Krissie – came into the world with the serenity of cherubs in religious paintings. Tiny and doll-like, she seldom cried. Rosebud lips yawned and minute limbs stretched and arched like a kitten’s. I never thought I could adore another baby as I did Heather, but from the beginning, I felt love equally as intense for this wee one. Kirk’s devotion to our girls matched my own, swelling him to giant proportions in my eyes and laced even tighter the love bonds connecting us.

Gentle Krissie flowed with everything, from traveling to nursing. She was a wise little grown-up in an infant’s body, whose big soulful blue eyes said she’d simply not feed if it was a bother to me. Months later, I would lay her in her crib during busy times, then get sidetracked with laundry or dishes or whatever and an hour later, remember.

Krissie. Gripped by guilt, I’d bolt to the nursery and peer in, to find her lying contentedly, cooing at the crib’s bunny rabbit decal or gumming a rattle. The blond curly head would swivel to seek me out and sunshine would burst over her face. How I loved her. As the months passed, my two girls became inseparable playmates. Heather, a natural leader, was always Mama in their play-likes and Krissie, Baby.

Mymymy, how revealing to hear Heather’s Mama-dialogue. “If you do that again, I’ll spank you, young lady,” delivered in just the right touch of steely authority and then the steady, climbing, shrill, “Stop that! Stop that this instant. Just you wait until your Daddy gets home!” always stopped me dead in my tracks, eyes wide with disbelief. Yet on some level, I recognized the wording, voice inflection,and note of frenzy as me.

That piece fell into the incomplete Who Am I? puzzle. Neecy, the Role Model.

Like it or not, what I said in haste and impatience would come back to haunt me.

Kirk was, I discovered, a mathematical genius. Against my lackluster math background, Kirk shone brilliantly. By the time I scurried for a pencil to write down the numbers, figures raced through his head, calculated and spouted out his mouth like a slot machine.

Eventually, I asked him to do equations for me to save time and quite honestly, face. My ineptness embarrassed me. The upside was that my praise and deference to his skills pleased him, as did my being home with the children and having a delicious table set for his homecoming. “I don’t want my wife working,” he’d say in that “it’s settled” voice.

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.