“I enjoyed the message,” I said as Kirk cranked our new blue VW hatchback. “Dr. Bergdorf has a smooth delivery.” It was our first Sunday at the Harborville First Baptist Church; one of many we’d visited in recent months. Each time we entered a different vestibule – weekly – I always hoped it would click with Kirk. We needed a church home. Spiritual continuity.

“It was long,” Dawn said, yawning. It had been.

“I liked it,” Toby declared, and I knew why.

“She was cute,” I said, tossing him a grin over my shoulder.

“Oh, Jane Smith,” he said, blushing pleasantly. “Yeah, she is cute. She goes to my school.”

“Ah.” I settled back, tensing a little at Kirk’s continuing silence.

“Did you really like it?” he asked suddenly.

I looked at him, fighting a niggling annoyance. “The service? Overall, it was nice.”

Kirk looked thoughtful. “I felt he could have been a little more enthusiastic over the beatitudes. And he rambled at times.”

I made myself smile and relax. “Everybody’s not the pulpit dynamo you are, Kirk.”

“Were,” he said quietly. “Past tense.” The muscles in his jaw knotted and his voice dropped to an octave lower whisper. “And I don’t think I’m hot stuff.”

There it was. Resentment. I frowned. “I didn’t say you did. I wasn’t comparing – ”

“It didn’t sound that way.” The quiet words, raw and palpitating, gouged me into fury.

“I can’t believe you said that,” I hissed through my teeth. I wasn’t nearly as successful as Kirk in arguing quietly, but I did try.

Later, alone in our room, we had it out. I didn’t back down an inch. Which made it quite heated because it was not in Kirk’s nature to capitulate. Now, however, he forced himself to do so. The victory was not a thing I relished. I didn’t want to argue to begin with and resented being forced to do so.

“We need church, Kirk,” I said. Dear God, how we need church.

“I agree.” He raked fingers through collar-length hair, whose darkening waves made my fingers itch to tangle in them, even now. A full mustache cast his features more Tom Selleck than I liked. It thrilled and frightened me. Just as his strong sex drive did.

I spun away in frustration, away from his blaring masculine appeal. “You don’t act like you agree. All I hear is this onrunning put-down of each message.”

“Can’t you understand, Neecy?” His hoarse supplication cut to my heart. “I can’t be a spectator. I’m far too emotionally involved to simply sit on a pew and – exist.”

That jostled me. I whirled. “You can’t be a follower, can you, Kirk? You never could. What’s so terrible about taking time out to listen for a while? Is it so beneath you?” My anger far exceeded the subject. I couldn’t even understand it myself, not completely.

Kirk stood at the window, hands shoved in pockets, his back to me. “You don’t understand.” His words were so quiet I wondered if I’d heard right.

“I do understand. You refuse to submit to another man’s ministry.” I knew the oversimplified statement was sharp, but I also knew it to be true. Kirk Crenshaw didn’t trust another man to guide his thoughts and destiny now that he’d experienced pastoral authority. I didn’t know that he ever would. Just as I tried new untested sod, so did Kirk.

He turned slowly, his expression so sad it took my breath. “It’s much, much more than that, Neecy.” He walked past me, on his way to help the kids decide on a restaurant for our Sunday lunch trek. At our bedroom door, he paused, looked over his shoulder and gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I know I deserve what I’m feeling.” His green gaze darkened with pain. “It’s just so hard.” The door closed softly behind him.

Kirk and I pitched ourselves into building our four-chair hair styling business. Two of the chairs we leased to other stylists.

“I don’t want a boss,” I stated flatly when the subject arose. Kirk, sharp looking in his black shirt and slacks – that matched my own outfit – leaned indolently against the trellis entrance to my stylish stall and measured me with shuttered eyes. I knew I forced him to shuffle tactics to integrate me into his business scheme. His was a black and white approach.

“Every business needs a boss,” he declared gently, raising my ire another notch.

“I might not be sharp with numbers,” I sniped, fluffing my platinum blond bob and checking out my new red lipstick in the salon mirror, “but I’m smart enough to make appointments, turn out a great hair style, collect money and make change without major problems. So,” I faced him squarely, “I don’t want a boss.”

When had I begun to welcome confrontations? It had to be a perverse charley horse reaction to anything I sensed in myself as remotely compliant. I detested my old submissive self and would run around the block and back to avoid her. Today, Kirk simply walked away, saying nothing. I marveled again at the man he’d become.

His silence could have baffled me, made me wonder if he conceded to my wishes because he truly respected my intellect or could have made me ponder why, after all these years, his self-confidence had geysered out the top. The latter explanation seemed feasible since he’d always, in the past, had some macho something to prove. Now, he seemed at peace with me as an equal. In my new matter-of-factness, I regarded the current relationship as one long overdue.

It was, to me, one of mutual respect. All I’d ever wanted from my marriage.

Now, when I wanted time to myself, I went shopping. Kirk played golf. I didn’t care that sometimes this stretched into dusk. I loved my solitude. He was the one who complained I read too much or spent too much time writing in my endless journals. Of course, he did it teasingly, distracting me and playfully demanding a kiss or mussing my carefully coifed hair. We’d end up tussling and making love.

Despite occasional tensions, Kirk and I maintained a sense of togetherness for our children, saving serious discussions until Toby hung out with neighborhood teen buddies and Dawn was tucked away with kin. She spent most weekends with Trish, now her cherished ‘Mema.’

“That’s as close to being ‘Mama’ as I dare go.” Trish tweaked the small turned-up nose. “Gene’s satisfied with being ‘Uncle Gene’ and protecting her from monster-Toby.” She leaned and kissed the puckered up lips. “I’m so glad your mama and daddy came to visit our church today.”

Trish looked at me then, concern furrowing her face. “Everything okay?” Because Trish knew Dawn’s time with her was a double blessing for them both: it gave Trish the child she never had and spared Dawn the unpleasantness of homefront skirmishes.

“Yep.” I smiled lazily from the parsonage’s overstuffed floral sofa. “I love sharing her with you. You should have had five of your own. I’ll never, ever, ever understand God’s reasoning in some things.”

Trish shrugged, kicked off her heels and shuffled in hosedfeet to the adjoining kitchen to check on Sunday lunch heating in the oven. Her weight had slowly crept up through the years, but she was still, to me, beautiful. I could see her from where I lounged, swollen feet propped on her glass-topped coffee table. The long salon hours took their toll, leaving me near collapse by Sunday mornings.

“Need any help?” I asked, rolling my neck to dispel tiredness.

“You just stay where you are, Sis,” Trish insisted, pulling a pan of steaming barbecue chicken from the stove and gingerly peeling back the foil. “You deserve a day of rest.”

“But I feel guilty,” I muttered.

“Don’t.” Her busy hands soon had chicken arranged on a silver platter. Effortlessly, she orchestrated a dining table array of mashed potatoes, coleslaw, whole green beans, yams, buttered rolls and a three-layer chocolate cake that made my sweet tooth gasp.

“You’re so creative, Trish. Such a homemaker.”

“Reg’lar ol’ Julia Child.” She blushed becomingly. “If I’d thought of it in time, I’d have gotten Gene to go fetch Chuck to eat with us.” Trish padded to the refrigerator for her gallon tea jug and filled the iced glasses parked on white counter space.

“How is he, by the way?” I hadn’t seen my brother in so long, I’d lost count of time. I was ashamed my life’s problems had pushed him aside, same as they had MawMaw.

“Teresa finally signed over her power of attorney to Anne and Daddy.”

“Praise be!” I breathed, closing my eyes in relief.

Trish turned to face me, grim. “She’s asked him for a divorce.”

“What?” I gazed at her in disbelief.

“Says she needs to get on with her life and Chuck’s not part of it.”

“Oh Lord – how can anybody be so cruel?” I blinked back tears. “I’ve got to go see him. Soon.”

Trish wiped her own eyes and placed napkins beside her stacked china. “He’s brave, Sis. I know it hurts him like crazy, but he’s putting on that big grin of his so nobody will know. Fact is, if a kidney donor doesn’t turn up soon, our brother will die.”

“Let’s don’t even go there, Trish. Let’s believe for a miracle, huh?”

Trish winked. “I’m game.”

I sat there, thinking how courageous my brother was. In contrast, I was a wimp.

But I had come a long way.

“Let’s eat!” Trish called out the back door, heralding our males to lunch.

And I knew in that moment I still had a ways to go.

The next eighteen months saw me plowing much new, hard terrain. Kirk and I met our nightly Cosmetology School requirements to place us in the upper-income bracket of the business. I found a profound sense of accomplishment in earning wages that, many weeks, exceeded Kirk’s. We were, in every professional sense, a team.

One day, Anne called in tears. “Neecy, sit down.”

“W-what is it, Anne? Is Chuck – ” My voice choked off as my pulse raced away.

“Remember my friend at the nursery, Janice Towery?”

“Uh hm.”

“Well, her brother was in a bad automobile accident three days ago. He was only thirty one years old. The doctors had him on life support. I was there with Janice when they had to make the decision to disconnect him.”

“That’s terrible,” I muttered.

“I heard them say he had an organ donor card and this thought came to me, Neecy. I just came out and said ‘Can you donate his kidneys to anybody you want to?’ And the doctors said they could. I asked them to donate a kidney to Chuck.” She began to weep.

“Oh Anne.” It was like a big fist squeezing my heart. “What did they—“

“They said ‘yes.’” My weeping joined hers for long moments.

“Anne,” I finally managed to croak, “Chuck’s gonna live!” And in that moment, I realized how truly terrified I’d been that he would not.

“He sure is, Neecy. My boy’s gonna make it.”

I called Trish right away and told her the good news.

“God gave us our miracle, Sis,” Trish said. “Anne was used to instigate it, don’t you know? If she hadn’t thought to ask – ”

“Got that right, Trish. A good sermon illustration for Gene. ‘Ask and ye shall receive.’”

Chuck was immediately prepared for surgery. His family was there to lend love and succor in those pain-filled hours. But he came through like a trooper.

His first slurred words after surgery were “See, ya’ll? I tol’ you I was strong as an ox.”

Kirk’s attentiveness never wavered. I didn’t seek it, but it was there. Slowly, it began to affect me. I’d never been immune to Kirk. Never. But the adultery trauma had closed off a part of my gentle, sensitive side. Now, his unceasing gallantry tugged at the binding ropes until, little by little, their knots slipped loose to release feelings I was loathe to acknowledge. They would render me entirely too vulnerable.

Kirk told me so often and so fervently that he adored me and could not live without me that I began to trust it to be truth. Something in his need broke down some of my last defenses. I now felt free to crawl into his lap, as a child would, and ask him for a hug. Or a stroke. Or a word of encouragement. I’d never felt this liberty with another living being.

The dark times still came, but they were fewer and farther between. I thought I could even see a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, especially with Kirk’s support.

Heather came home on weekends and summers. Dawn spent after school hours at the salon with us, doing homework, watching television, coloring and doing crossword puzzles. After a year of private Christian education, we entered Toby and Dawn in public school so Toby could play football and other sports and ready himself for college.

“It’s so-o-o nice being an ordinary person,” Heather exulted one summer afternoon as we lounged around the salon, sipping canned sodas and munching chocolate chip cookies the two of us had baked the night before. “I got so tired of being a PK.”

“Yeah,” Toby echoed. His chocolaty grin belied his gripe. “Everybody watches you like a hawk.”

As the day wore on, I grew more and more silent as clients came and went. Depression, which had hovered for days, dropped and wrapped me like Saran. I didn’t recognize it until I choked and struggled against its invisible force. I felt Kirk’s gaze but didn’t return it. I could not reassure him that I was fine when I wasn’t. My despondency wasn’t flagrant. I’d simply stopped pretending. Kirk never had. Now, he at least put as much effort in diplomacy as I did. I’d always given him space to struggle through low points. That’s all I wanted now. I didn’t want Kirk to feel responsible for my moods. That wasn’t fair to him.

Nevertheless, I felt the strain of his concern and struggled to ease myself free by staying busy.

“We’re going home, Mom,” Heather called from the door. “Pizza okay for supper?”

“Sure.” I shot her a smile and finished polishing my mirrors. Kirk’s big hand captured mine and he pulled me around to face him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, his green gaze probing mine.

I shook my head, averting my eyes. But he would have none of it.

“Look at me, Neecy.” The command was gentle but firm. “Something’s bothering you. We need to talk.” He took my hand and led me to the waiting area, where he seated me on the plush navy sofa, closed the vertical blinds and locked the door. Then he lowered himself into the almond and navy striped chair facing me. He hooked a tan ankle over his knee and steepled his fingers to his lips, his gaze riveted to my face.

I gazed dully at him, feeling only melancholy. Loss. Anger at myself. At him. At the world. Yet – none of these feelings were as powerful as they’d once been. And they would run their course in a day or two, then dissipate.

His voice sliced through my stupor. “What do you want from me, Neecy?”

I frowned. “What do I want? Kirk, I don’t know of a thing I don’t have that you could give me.”

He stared at me for long moments, as if not seeing me. “Except what you feel I stole from you.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. It was true, in a sense. I sighed. A long, ragged sound. “I wish I could say it doesn’t matter, Kirk. Do you think – if the tables were turned – that you could say that to me?”

A dark shadow flickered across his face. “I can’t say, Neecy. Because I’m not in your place.”

Anger stirred inside me. “You can’t just – imagine?” I asked, knowing full well he could.

“No. I cannot do the hypothetical thing. It’s not me.”

Old denial Kirk. Smooth as an eel. So much for genuine empathy.

“What do you think would help you not feel so – deprived?” he asked evenly.

The question took me off guard. “I’ve never thought of the situation as something to be ‘fixed,’ Kirk. I’m trying to get past it. We’ve come a long way, actually.”

His gaze sliced to me, electrifying in its intensity. “I don’t think so.”

I threw up my hands. “Kirk, you know I’ve worked hard at putting this thing in the past. You’ve been wonderful,” I reminded him that I noticed. “If you hadn’t – I couldn’t have made it this far.”

The green laser pinned me. “Did you know that I’m suicidal?”

“Why?” Dear God in Heaven.

“I’ve lost everything. My ministry, my wife....”

My stomach knotted. I would not succumb to guilt. No way. “Kirk, that’s ridiculous. We’ve got this business and you haven’t lost me.”

Some infinitely sad shadow passed over Kirk. “Where is my sweet little wife? Whose voice was like a soft bubbly brook. And who would have died before speaking sharply to me? Where is that woman?”

The question was a bullet to my heart. Because Kirk knew. Deep down, he knew.

Like a balloon with a tiny prick, I began to leak life.

“You’d better get used to the new me, Kirk,” I said dispiritedly and stood, reaching for my purse. “Because the other woman is dead.”

“Why?” Kirk was on his feet, eye to eye with me. “Why does she have to be dead, Neecy?” he asked in his velvet-husky way.

Forces inside tore me asunder. How could he push me into this corner, demand I return to a place no longer accessible, be the tormented person I’d fled?

How could he dump the whole mess in my lap and insist that it’s all mine? How could he force me to say what I didn’t want to say?

“She’s dead,” I gazed at him through a wet, shimmery haze, “because you killed her, Kirk.”

“Mama!” Toby rushed through the small apartment den, lanky waist wrapped in a bath towel. “Help me,” he moaned as he flopped across my bed in the next room.

I rushed to him. He’d just come in from a neighborhood stroll with a pal and taken a bath.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I leaned over him and smoothed his wheat-colored hair from his cold forehead. “Sick?”

His head began to roll from side to side. “I won’t ever do it again, Mama.”

Alarm shot through me when I saw his pulse jostling him like he was hooked to a gigantic vibrator. “Toby, tell me what’s happened.” I sat down and took his icy fingers in mine. His eyes gazed unseeing at the ceiling.

“That man,” he swallowed and tried again. “That man in a downstairs apartment, he got me and Wayne to puff on a cigarette. Mama, I feel like I’m dying.” He jackknifed and arose in panic, pacing to the door and back, arms clutching midriff, trying to escape the demons tearing him apart.

“Drugs, right here in this building,” I muttered, heart in throat. “Kirk!” I cried.

Kirk rushed from the kitchen where he’d been having coffee and reading the paper. I relayed Toby’s quandary in angry tones as our son sprawled spread-eagled, prostrate on the floor, every hair on his head quivering from his young heart’s exertion.

I quickly called Heather at school, knowing she’d seen drugs’ effects at college parties.

“He’s gotten a laced weed, Mama. He’ll be all right in a few hours. Takes three to four hours to sleep it off.”

“You sure, honey?”

“Yeah. Chill out, Mama. He’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Love you, honey.” We rang off and I sat with Toby, holding his hand until, gradually, his heartbeat wound down from runaway to tranquil. Toby had, I knew, quietly prayed all during his ordeal. It tore at my heart that an adult had talked him, my innocent Toby, into inhaling something so terrible and potent.

“Where you going?” Kirk looked up from his television golf match as I marched through the den on my way out.

“To find that man who gave Toby drugs.”

“Whoa!” Kirk, instantly pale, was on his feet blocking my way before I could say scat. “No, Neecy,” he said gently. “You don’t tangle with drug people.”

“But Toby – ”

“No.” The command was soft but firm. “Toby’s learned his lesson, honey. That’s what’s important.”

The starch went out of me and I plopped onto the sofa. “I think it’s time we started house hunting.”

I inhaled the brisk, late September air as I grabbed my textbook from the car seat and dashed into Harborville Community Tech College. An early afternoon shower had left the world smelling of newly washed earth. Autumn is my favorite time of the year – well, it actually ties with early springtime. The freshness of both presses cerebral buttons that spin me back to courtship days when Kirk and I exulted in each other and in hopes of bright horizons.

I’d decided to wade through a self-paced evening math course required for my teacher’s certification. My mind needed more engagement than hairstyling gave it. Kirk’s subtle denouncement of our successful business nudged me to press on for my teaching credentials.

In one predawn moment, I’d faced the fact that my future was no more certain than it had been four years earlier. Kirk’s quicksilver moments of unpredictability kept me ever vigilant.

The class was just beginning when I slipped in and tried to unobtrusively claim a seat, managing to step on the toes of a good-looking dark-haired male student. I apologized profusely and took the seat beside him.

And as the professor divided us into self-help groups, I found myself paired with Johnny Revel, the hunky Stallone lookalike. That his gaze kept alighting on me and he chose the seat next to me rustled a certain excitement in me. Afterward, when he asked me to join him at the Campus Quick Shop for coffee, I decided it was a perfectly innocent thing between friends.

Perfectly innocent.

Another downpour had me sprinting into the house when I arrived home. We’d lived on Oak Street for nearly a year now. The hedge-wrapped, tri-level was roomy – my idea of Heaven after the tiny apartment stint – spread over a big lot with lovely crepe myrtles, dogwoods, azaleas, hostas and every imaginable seasonal blossom.

“Closets,” I’d badgered the realtor because our tiny cramped quarters left me ravenous for storage space. “Lots and lots of closets.” This house had them tucked away in every nook and crevice. I could actually find my out-of-season clothing without crawling into an attic.

“How’d class go,” Kirk called from his La-Z-Boy in the sunken den, his hands tucked behind his head. Was the soft, underlying tension in his voice my imagination?

“Great. Looks like it will be fairly easy, what with the self-paced thing.” I commenced fixing myself a quick ham and cheese sandwich. “You eat yet?” I asked.

“No. I was waiting for you.”

I pulled two more bread slices from the loaf. “Where are the kids?”

“Gone to see a Disney movie.” He stood at my elbow, touching, gazing at me with an adoration that kept bouncing back even after our most vicious conflicts. “They won’t be back for a couple of hours.”

His quiet, simmering suggestion turned me into his embrace and we kissed as if our very survival depended on it. “Oh, Kirk, I love you so.” I wanted to crawl inside him and plaster myself there.

“Me, too,” he murmured. Soon, our sandwiches were things half-made, forgotten....

Christmas came and went and another year began, one that, in retrospect, blurs at times with its erratic emotional roller coaster. Kirk impulsively drove on campus one evening and discovered me having coffee with Johnny at the Quick Shop.

I introduced Kirk to Johnny. Kirk was his most cool self, embarrassing me. Johnny was unruffled, warmly shaking Kirk’s hand. I excused myself and Kirk and I left together.

“How long has this been going on?” he asked as soon as we were outside.

“All semester,” I answered truthfully. “We use that time to study for our weekly math tests. Johnny helps me understand the algebra and trig. You know how dense I am there.”

Later, in bed, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Because – what was the point? Why make an issue of something so – so piddly?”

“Piddly? I don’t think so.” His quiet voice took on an edge.

“Well, I do. Honestly? I didn’t think you’d mind.” The truth.

Kirk’s possessiveness of me, inch by inch, declaration by declaration, had moved me to a pinnacle of confidence that drove back my numbing lapses. Tonight, when he saw me with Johnny and I glimpsed the flash of green fire, it didn’t occur to me Kirk could feel fear. Through the years, Kirk had always been spontaneous with both positive and negative reactions. And if his love for me now encompassed, as he proclaimed, unconditional acceptance, could it not delight in the new honest me? After all, my self-talk insisted, I’d always tolerated his less than perfect philosophies.

Now, in bed, he wanted an explanation of my silence. “Because – I didn’t want you to be concerned about it, that’s all.”

I felt the shuttered gaze pierce the darkness. “Have you seen him off campus?”

The succinct probe stirred old, ingrained annoyances. It was so demanding. So – Kirk. He’d always placated his qualms with blunt forthrightness while denying me the same right. The reminder immediately tied my insides into pretzels.

“Why do you ask?” I turned my head to meet his gaze head-on, letting him know he crowded me. I’d never given him reason to doubt me.

His eyes, jade pools in his shaded, angular face, measured me for long moments. Then he sighed, as though harnessing something runaway. He locked hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Still as death. I remembered how this silent treatment once had sent fear careening through me and how I’d begged Kirk to talk it out, not insist on “sleeping on it,” holding it over my sleepless head until dawn drove back the night and I was so sick I could barely remember what had set him off. I recalled how he’d set all the rules with the cast of his features, the timber of his voice and the cutting off of his emotions.

Most of all, I remembered his sovereign refusal to explain himself, as though I didn’t require clarification. The double standard had peaked with the unfaithfulness. Now, he resented that I might be attractive to another man.

“Do you want to find out how – exciting it is?” he asked flatly.

My head swiveled on my pillow and I stared at his handsome profile, hating that I’d never, before or since his betrayal, looked at him without a jolt of sexual awareness. I knew what he spoke of. In some of our recent heart-to-hearts, when he’d encouraged the “little girl” in me to reveal herself, to tell him exactly how I felt, I’d begun to truly trust him as my friend. So, I told him I’d resented that he’d tasted of different fruit than ours and had wondered if I’d missed something by our exclusivity. The admission had been purely honest, without rancor.

Without prayer.

Tonight, I turned my face to the ceiling. “I only want the pain to go away.”

“Do you think having a fling with someone will help you?”

“I don’t know. All I know is I’ve lost something precious and you haven’t. And I know you can never understand my perspective.”

“No? I’ve lost your trust. You don’t think that hurts?”

I sighed and fidgeted with the bedspread. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just – ” I looked at him. “You know I’ve never slept with another. I know you have. You can compare. The feelings inside me are not any you can imagine. I can’t even explain them except to say that if I could stop grieving for what isn’t, I could get on with life.”

“Well,” he drawled, “I can tell you that having sex with someone outside your marriage is not exciting. It’s hell. It leaves you feeling like pond slime. The whole experience made me realize what I have in you. Can’t you understand that?” The appeal in his voice only stirred my resistance to his one-way view.

“In a sense, I can. It’s just – I wish I didn’t feel this desperation about the whole thing. I need a purging.”

“At one time, you would have prayed and been rid of it.”

“Yeah.” I gave a sad little laugh. “Every other situation on earth, I could have prayed away. This – this has sapped the part of me that reached out to God.” I shook my head. “I don’t think God even wants to have anything to do with me now. I’ve pushed Him so far away. ...”

In reality, prayers stuck in my throat, undelivered. Something in my post-trauma psyche remained locked against the old Janeece and her ways, something turbulent and implacable.

Kirk turned to face me, his eyes glimmering in the silvery dusk. “If you need to have a fling, Neecy. Do it. I want you to get over this.”

I gazed at him, shocked at his words. “Kirk, I’ve never wanted a man on this earth other than you. Johnny Revel included.”

“Thanks, honey,” he whispered. Then he took my cold hand in his. “I’m serious as I’ve ever been. If a fling is what it takes to get you past this – do it. But I can assure you of one thing: it won’t be what you think.”

“Why, Kirk Crenshaw,” I gasped, horrified, “You’d never forgive me if I slept with another man.”

“I would,” he said softly, reverently, stroking my cheek. “Because I know you’ll not find what you’re looking for there.”

I stared inanely at him. “Where is God in all this, Kirk?”

I saw the shadow of his lips curve into an incredibly sad smile. “I haven’t known where God is for a long, long time.”

I don’t know for sure when I first whiffed the foreign smell on Kirk’s breath. We’d begun going out to dance on Saturday nights when Toby and Dawn were at Trish’s. I consoled myself that at least they were in church. Toby, after the drug incident, had not missed a service, had taken to going either with Trish and Gene or Daddy and Anne. He’d latched onto the Almighty with a tenacity I’d once had.

I felt badly that Kirk and I slept in entirely too many Sunday mornings. Yet, when we did attend, Kirk’s attitude nettled me to the bone. Why couldn’t he simply let me glean what I could from the messages without sullying them with his negative comments?

“What’s that smell?” I sniffed when Kirk kissed me on the drive home from Thursdays, a local disco. His arm draped my midriff and his fingers ran titillatingly over my hipbone.

“I had a drink.”

“When?” I gaped at his profile. Something went off inside me like tiny fireworks, shooting icy sparks out my fingers and toes.

He shrugged as though it were of no consequence. “On my way to the men’s room. It was just one mixed drink.”

“Oh, Kirk,” I moaned.

“Hey.” Kirk smiled down at me, his eyes glimmering reassurance. “Just one, honey. I’m not a drinker. I’ve already gotten a headache from it.”

“But I thought we agreed not to drink.” My stomach had fallen to my toes, having been replaced by my dully thudding heart. “We were just going to have a little fun. Date.”

“We are,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, darling. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

I sighed and gazed ahead into the night, keenly aware that he already had.

The episode pummeled me into knots during that next week. Kirk was so solicitous I felt almost guilty about the funk I was in. Almost. He insisted the drinking lapse was but a tiny thing. All the same, it was, to me, a significant one. He’d already begun smoking when the kids weren’t around. That had upset me, but he’d laughed and teased my fears away, insisting he could lay them down any time he chose. The two things, together, gave me pause to consider where, exactly, we were headed.

I tried to pray. Please God, make Kirk stop fooling around with alcohol and tobacco. It was such a triumph, spiritual and physical, when he’d denounced them years ago. Where would his latest capitulation lead us?

Months passed and still, Kirk dabbled in the forbidden pleasures. My silent fear was that by catering to these appetites, he could easily slide into a lust mode. Too, I knew all too well that no matter how strong Kirk’s declaration of love, I still had no influence over his urges.

The realizations affected my appetite and sleep. My quandary drove me to insulate myself by reading and writing more. I tried to talk with Kirk about my fears, but he smoothly sidestepped them by promising not to do either again.

“We need to begin to take time apart – have some breathing space,” he suggested one day as I wiped my salon station clean at the day’s end.

“Oh?” I organized my brushes without looking at him, a sense of dread washing over me.

“We’re together all the time. No husband and wife should spend every waking hour together like this.” He spoke casually, shoulder resting against the trellis, hands shoved into neatly creased slack’s pocket, ankles crossed. “I want you to go to the beach to rest next weekend. You need that.”

I looked at him then, searching for a hidden motive. He looked levelly at me, concern marking his good looks. “I’m worried about you, Neecy. You barely eat and you’re too quiet.”

“Why don’t we go to the beach together?” I asked, propped against my work backstand, my arms crossed.

“Because you need time to just rest. I want it to be your birthday present from me.” He moved to take me into his arms. My stiffness soon dissolved when he began to kiss me and murmur his love against my neck, turning my joints to liquid. “Do it for me, huh?” he whispered.

“Hmm?” I’d already forgotten the question.

Kirk put the last of my suitcases in the car trunk and slammed it shut. We’d only a couple of hours earlier dropped Dawn off at Trish and Gene’s. Heather and Toby were spending the weekend at Dad and Anne’s. Grandma was elated and planned a virtual feast for Sunday lunch. I didn’t even deal with the fact that my family, by now, knew I was going to Myrtle Beach, alone, and being the conservative souls they were, would wonder why?

“So,” I said, turning to face my husband, “when can I reach you tonight? The hair show will be over by nine, won’t it?”

He looked at me almost vacantly for a long moment, then – as though programmed, the thought flashed meanly through my mind – smiled and hugged me. “I’ll be home late. I’ll have a sandwich, then drive over to the Hilton for the hair show. I’m not sure when we’ll break up. Now,” he hiked up his watch, peered at it and pointedly assisted me into the car, “you’d better get started so you won’t be too late getting in. I don’t like the idea of you driving after dark.”

Then why are you sending me off alone? I ground my teeth together, flashed a dry smile and waved as I drove off. For the next five hours, I had that off-kilter feeling that something was not quite right. Was it me? Was it Kirk’s determination to rid himself of me? Was it a combination of everything, the smoking, drinking and his subtly taking control again now that he felt secure that I loved him as blindly as ever?

I thought dryly that the homefires I now tended were ones I could do without.

For some reason, MawMaw flashed through my mind. I need you now, Neecy. You’uns will have to stand by me now Papa’s gone....

Dear Lord. I couldn’t even hold MawMaw’s hand when she needed it, after all the affection she’d shown me all my life. We’d driven to Asheville at Christmas time and brought her down to stay a week with us. She’d been weak but happy being with us. She and Dawn spent the days together at home while Kirk and I worked at the salon. Each evening, we took her to a different restaurant to eat and she felt like Queen for a Day. Afterward, she and Dawn would demonstrate new little dance steps Dawn had taught her during the day and we’d laugh ‘til tears at her little rotund shape jiggling about.

Only thing was, behind the scenes, Kirk and I locked horns. I was so afraid MawMaw’s sensitive nose would pick up on the foreign scents of alcohol and tobacco, but Kirk refused to back off. I also feared she would overhear our arguments, which were becoming increasingly more heated, as Kirk’s golf times stretched longer and longer and his afternoon treks on unnamed errands, during my scheduled appointments, increased.

Helpless fury almost paralyzed me as his personality became more and more erratic. The last day of MawMaw’s visit was a scene from Hell. While she sat in our sunken den, I tried to reason with Kirk to stop drinking and disappearing all the time, which, I figured out by now, were connected.

“You stink like a stale ashtray,” I hissed at him in our upstairs bedroom, where he sprawled on the bed, grinning like an idiot, “not to mention the beer. Kirk, you were a preacher, for God’s sake. Don’t you even care what your image is?”

His slumberous eyes blinked slowly. “Can’t say as I do, Neecy.”

“Neecy?” MawMaw called from downstairs. “Honey, why don’t you come down and sit with me for a while before I have to go? I’m getting kinda lonesome.”

Her quavery appeal pierced me to the core. I’d shot Kirk a disgusted look and left, quietly closing the door behind me.

Tonight, rain rivuleted my windshield and I remembered driving MawMaw home that day, alone, because Kirk was in no condition to be around her. I knew, someday, he’d be ashamed. But not now. He’d won his mission to conquer me. He’d made me love him to distraction again and now, he’d become bored with the whole thing and had turned to drinking and God only knew what else.

I turned the windshield wipers on, barely able to see the highway ahead. Rain and tears blended in a melancholy symphony of grief and pain.

Grief for something vital and pure within the hallowed walls of marriage. Gone. Something inside me knew, felt the slimy spirit of betrayal.

Pain from my indomitable inner-self, who refused to accept its demise.

“Bloody rain.” I leaned forward, wiping the foggy windshield with damp wadded tissue, focusing my teary-blurred gaze on the road ahead. I slowed the VW down to a more tranquil forty-five mph.

I checked into the Landmark and settled in, tired and hungry. It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time I finished a sandwich from room service, a splurge I felt I deserved after the long drive. I called my home number. No answer.

I watched television for the next couple of hours. Then tried to begin a Fern Michaels novel but couldn’t concentrate. I tried again to reach Kirk. No answer. I looked at the ornate wall clock. One-ten am.

Only then did I give in to the tears that had threatened since I walked into the lavish setting surrounding me. I cried until I hiccupped and was out of breath. I pulled on my housecoat and went out onto the private balcony to fold myself into a lounge chair, where I watched the dark ocean until dawn turned it silver and the sun climbed up to paint its horizon golden and banish my nightmares. I went inside, closed the drapes and pulled the covers over my head and slept.

I gathered my writing paraphernalia, shoved sunglasses on my face and walked to the elevator down the hall. Inside, alone, I stared at my reflection in mirrored walls. I didn’t look as skinny in the turquoise swim suit. Just – thin. The two-piece was not bikini, but when I tied the string on each hip, the result was modest yet chic. I took off the shades and my eyes, though huge and sunken in my near-gaunt face didn’t look as feverish as I’d imagined. Fact was shadow and liner camouflaged fear’s glassy earmark, presenting instead a gaze shimmery and selfassured. Aloof.

Didn’t matter what I felt inside. Nobody was the wiser.

Anything was better than revealing fear.

Detached, I tilted my head and studied the total me. I looked sort of like a petite version of your high fashion model. The emaciated, mannequin kind, hat-rack hipbones and shoulders, while bright slashes of color marked drooping lids and mouth.

My little dry laugh didn’t reach my flat eyes. Fact was, I didn’t care doodly about how I looked at that moment. I’d not reached Kirk on the phone until just before I came outside. He’d been at the salon.

“Oh, honey,” he said, “It was a great hair show. There was a reception thing afterward so I stayed and chatted with folks and lost track of time. When I came in around midnight, I was so tired I fell asleep on the den sofa. I didn’t hear the phone.”

I let it go, too dispirited to do otherwise. Truth was I didn’t think I could handle the details. “I’m going to get some sun,” I told him.

“Miss you, honey,” he said huskily.

“Me, too,” I replied quite honestly, even though still miffed at him for pushing me into coming alone. And though I could manage sequestration, forced aloneness had never truly been my thing. Only during writing was I happy in it.

I exited the elevator and moved to the pool deck, searching for an empty lounge chair. I spotted the only remaining vacancy, next to a huddle of college age males, and made my way to it. I stretched out on the webbed seat, pulled out a pad and pen and began a poetry exercise, which usually got me going.

Within moments, I abandoned that and worked on a romance novel. But the sounds of fun coming from the young men made my despondency more pronounced. I replaced the pad in my beach bag and shifted myself to lie flat, hoping to doze off.

Soon, the slightly uncomfortable pinch of the lounge’s wicker weave told me the beach towel had slipped beneath me. I rose to adjust the towel and only when I lay back down and shifted my sunglasses did I notice the three college guys staring openly at me.

Dully unimpressed, I flipped over on my stomach and closed my eyes. But each time I neared drowsing, a wave of memory hit me...Kirk drinking, his personality doing its chameleon thing, slithering from sweet to indifference, a mode that numbed him to everything around him, including me. Sleep danced around, eluding, seducing me and then taunting me to wakefulness.

Finally, I adjusted my seat into an upright position and noticed that only one young man remained in a nearby chair. He still stared at me but his was an openness – an innocence I likened to Toby’s.

“Hi.” I found myself smiling at him.

His face brightened. “Hi.”

I had not, until that moment, realized just how lonely I was. The realization made me hang onto that moment of human contact for just a little longer. “Where are you guys from?”

“Canada.”

“Wow. A long way from home.”

“Yeah. We go to college together. What were you writing?”

I hesitated briefly, then, “would you believe, romantic fiction?”

“Really?” He looked impressed.

“Um hmm.”

His name was Chris and he was twenty-two years old, a clean-cut, not unattractive young man. His questions, about my writing, were impressive, intelligent ones.

“What sort of hero do you usually come up with?” His blue eyes twinkled teasingly. “I mean...what does he look like?”

“Ohh,” I laughed, a little self-consciously, “I’m partial to green eyes and coppery brown hair.”

“Like mine?” he flirted charmingly.

“You could say that,” I went along with his good-natured teasing. “But sometimes, I do a complete flip-flop and create a dark, Latin hero.”

“Oh.” His demeanor did a comical collapse.

I gurgled with genuine laughter at his transparency. “Romance writers can’t be too predictable, you know.”

Our chat continued a while longer, until I felt a burning sensation creep over my skin – the side exposed to the afternoon sun.

“I really must be going inside.” I started to rise.

“Janeece,” he said so imploringly I remained seated, “you were telling me about the good live band at the Coquina Room?”

I nodded. I’d gone there for a few minutes the night before, during my restlessness, and enjoyed the music. “The band is pretty good.”

“Well...my friends will be going to another club. ButI – well,” I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, “would you come with me to the Coquina Room tonight?”

I stared at him. Careful, girl, don’t hurt him. I paused long moments before replying.

“Chris – I really feel flattered. But you don’t have to invite me out.” Did he see through to my dreadful loneliness?

“But you don’t understand, Janeece.” He leaned intently and scooted to the edge of his seat. “I want to take you out.”

My head moved from side to side. “That’s probably – not a good idea.” He looked so hurt, I hastily added, “I mean – not as a date.”

His shoulders slumped. “If you don’t like me, just say so.”

“Oh, it’s not that.” I felt compelled to spare him from a brush-off. In light of my own rejection experience, my sympathy crescendoed. “I truly like you.”

His countenance lifted. “You’re such a beautiful woman, Janeece. I’d be proud to take you out.”

“Look,” I said gently, “If you want to come along to the Coquina Room as a sort of – escort, then do so. But only on the condition that you dance with other girls and have fun.”

“But I want to be with you,” he insisted, a sun-bleached curl falling over his forehead, “If I go, I want to sit with you, dance with you. I can’t imagine another female being more attractive than you.”

I sighed tiredly and stared at the ocean, hands dangling between tanned knees. I’d already traded one set of problems for another. The sting of my exposed skin prompted me to my feet. “I simply must get out of the sun, Chris.” I reached for my carryall bag and briefcase.

“I’ll carry that for you.” He rose quickly, picked up my briefcase and scooped up his small ice chest and hurried to keep up with me. He was, I realized, at least a trim six feet tall. Toby’s height.

“I’m really not very good company,” I said flatly.

“I don’t see why.” He threw back broad shoulders in challenge.

I pressed the open button on the elevator. “I’m married.” From beneath lowered lashes, I saw his expression shift, then settle again.

“So? If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.” I felt his gaze rake me again as I closed the elevator doors. “You really are a beautiful woman.” His voice was edged with awe – uneducated in flattery for flattery’s sake and I felt a warmth envelope me, the striking of a chord somewhere deep within that drove back the iciness of rejection. He followed me off the elevator, so close I could hear him breathe.

Watch yourself, Janeece Crenshaw! He’s only a boy. And you’re a prime target for rebound stuff right now. I unlocked the door to my room and the cool air-conditioning hit me deliciously in the face. “Set that over there, please.” I motioned to a corner. Chris unloaded both case and ice chest.

“Do you mind if I have a drink from my bottle?” he asked politely.

“Go ahead.” I remembered all the alcohol Kirk had imbibed, always somewhere else – away from me. I quickly pushed the troubling thoughts aside, hoping Chris would soon leave. Another part of me was glad for the company. I wasn’t alone. With him here, I wouldn’t think on all the damaging things.

“Would you like a drink?” He held the bottle out.

“Uh – no, thanks. I’ll have some diet soda.”

He looked disappointed. “Are you sure?”

“Certain. I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t agree with me. But you go ahead.”

Live and let live, I thought dryly. After all, what influence had my misgivings had on Kirk’s drinking? None. He failed to consider, for one moment, what effect his indulgence had on me.

There I go again. Stop it! I scooped ice into my glass then poured Diet Coke over it.

I turned on the television and went to sit on the bed since the room’s two chairs were not very comfortable. I drew my legs up, propped against the headboard and tried to get interested in the game show. Chris lowered himself very gentlemanly onto the foot of the bed, sipping his drink and casting half-shy glances my way.

“Wanna talk?” he asked, grinning.

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

Our topics ranged from cars to college curriculum. Chris lived with his divorced mother and majored in business administration. The conversation was so warm and flowed so spontaneously I barely noticed he refilled his glass several times.

“Wow!” he laughed suddenly, flopped on his back, stretching out across the bed, then propped on his elbow facing me. “I can’t believe this.” He slowly shook his head, grinning like a little boy.

“Can’t believe what?” I sipped my watery Coke, curious.

“That I’m doing this...me, Chris Jenkins in a woman’s bedroom. I’m really a shy guy, Janeece. The guys tease me all the time.”

“This is a suite, Chris, not – ”

“I don’t have much luck with girls.” He laughed again, oblivious to my narrowed gaze as he sat up again, shaking his head.

I sighed. “I can’t imagine why,” I said tactfully.

“Too shy.” He shrugged. “Sure you won’t have a drink?” He gestured toward the bottle.

“Absolutely sure.”

“Here.” He inched closer, his courage growing. “Have a taste.” He held the glass out to me.

I shook my head. “No. Remember? It doesn’t agree with me.”

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot.” He grinned and stretched to set the glass on the floor. “I still can’t believe it! “ He flopped backward, laughing. “Me. Here.”

I tried drawing my leg up, but his shoulder pinned my ankle to the spread. Too late, the effects of his drinking became all too apparent to me as he lay on his back and swiveled his head to gaze at me. “With a beautiful woman.”

“Old enough to be your mother,” I said flatly.

His grin dissolved. “If my mom would’ve been in a situation like this with a young guy like me, she’d have already been teaching him the ropes.”

“Chris – ” I wiggled my foot from beneath his shoulder and shifted my position.

A mistake. His gaze dropped to openly study my anatomy. A bald, unblinking sweep.

“Chris. Listen to me.” He seemed hypnotized, his features slack. “Chris. Do you know how old I am?”

“Probably somewhere in your early thirties. It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m forty-two years old.”

He got very still.

“How does that grab you?” His gaze slid downward again to my tanned skin. Suddenly, I felt absolutely naked in the bathing suit. Why hadn’t I pulled on my beach jacket?

“It doesn’t matter.” His eyes leveled with mine. “Just look at you – ” His hand arced through the air. “Your body is gorgeous.”

My heart thudded to my heels. “Chris, I have a son nearly as old as you.”

“I don’t care.” His hand had tentatively inched until it now caressed my thigh in feathery little strokes.

“Don’t, Chris.” I shifted, but he was so close it didn’t help. “I told you I’m having marital problems. You don’t need to be here.” I exhaled on a long shaky breath. “My life is a mess. I’m a mess.” Such a mess I allowed loneliness to sucker me into this stupid predicament.

His glazed gaze moved up to my face and he smiled lazily. “You don’t look a mess to me.” His features sobered. “God, Janeece – you’re beautiful.”

Then in one swift movement, his arms slid fluidly around my hips and his face pressed against my exposed midriff. It took me so by surprise I gasped. I raised my hands away from him, horrified that I’d let this happen.

“Janeece,” he moaned against my flesh as he began to lose control, his hands and face climbing upward.

Dear Lord, help me. I froze – I was getting aroused. “Stop, Chris – ” My words had no more effect than a fly swat against a smart gnat.

I heard a moan as his hand moved down over my abdomen. The sound had come from me. I slithered from beneath him and was on my feet, frantically adjusting my top into place. “You’ve got to leave, Chris.”

He was on his knees on the bed, his features bewildered. “Why?”

“Because,” irritation seized me, “You just do.” I turned away and began to pick up things scattered over my room – instinctively trying to restore some measure of order.

But I suddenly felt his arms slide around me from behind – his lips moved over my neck and shoulders.

My knees turned to water. “Chris – ” I whispered, “stop.” I felt myself turned by strong hands and pulled up against the long length of this young man, revealing my effect on him. “Please – ” but his mouth moved over mine in hungry exploration. I fought against a wild urge to respond.

God, please help me! I pulled away from his kiss only to have his hand slide into my hair and press my face to his neck.

“Oh, Janeece,” he cried out, “I want you.”

“No.” I pulled back and felt his soft cheek brush against mine.

His soft cheek. A boy’s cheek. That was, for me, the bottom line.

And I realized that, perhaps even subconsciously, I’d fostered the idea of retaliating against Kirk’s cruel betrayal. But this young man could be my son.

“No.” My voice, this time, was more firm as I pushed him away. “No, Chris!” I stepped away.

His glazed eyes turned tormented. “You can’t do this to me, Janeece!”

I felt only a niggle of guilt. For only a moment.

“Why, Janeece?” He reached out to me imploringly.

“Because,” I snapped, annoyed with him, with myself, with the whole thing. “Just – because. I can’t.”

“Oh, Janeece.” He fell backward across the bed. “I want you so bad....” He rolled into fetal position. I struggled against the sympathy rising in me.

“You’ve had too much to drink, Chris. Get your things and go. I’m going into the bathroom and taking a bath. When I come out, I want you gone.”

“Let me take a bath with you, Janeece.” His voice was husky.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “Oh God.” I slammed the door and quickly locked it.

“Janeece!” He hammered on the door as I filled the tub.

“Go away!” I slipped into the water and lay back.

“Janeece? Please let me in. Open the door.” More hammering. “Let me take a bath with you.”

“No!” My sympathy evaporated. I felt like shaking him as I would a petulant child.

“Janeece? Please...” he whined.

“Chris?”

“What?”

“You’re being an imbecile.”

Silence.

I finished my bath and dried off.

“I’m leaving, Janeece. I’m getting my things.”

“Goodbye, Chris.”

“I’ll bet you won’t even talk to me tomorrow. I know I’ve been an imbecile.”

I wrapped the thick white towel around me.

“Janeece?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

“Will you talk to me tomorrow?”

I stifled a laugh. “Yes, Chris. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” It was my fault – the situation.

“Bye, Janeece.”

I heard the door open and close softly. I emerged from the bathroom and gazed about to make sure it was empty. I released my breath on a long sigh, then pulled on a short teddy and slipped between cool sheets.

“Oh Kirk,” I moaned, his beloved angular features my last vision before sleep came.