don’t love Spencer. Maybe it’s all been a game and I’m just trying to overcompensate for my father’s and Jamie’s rejections. Yeah, right. I’ve loved Spencer from the start, even if it took a long time to admit it to myself and longer to admit it to him. He would be too hard to get over, harder even than Jamie, because of the way he loves Emmy. And let’s face it, the way he loves me. This I have also known from the start: another reason I’ve kept myself back, except in bed. Airman Hector and I had fun in bed, we were young, he made me laugh, I’d wear his fatigues. But Spencer and I have grown-up fun and we have serious sex and we have pissed-off sex and we have slow, slow lovemaking, during which I dissolve for moments into him. An aware woman should probably never fully render herself, but I can’t help it when it comes to Spencer. I’d let that man do anything he wanted to me in bed. It is he who draws the lines we don’t cross, and I suppose I love him for that as well. I think all along Spencer has sensed my dark secret in the way my body sometimes responds oddly during sex, and it’s kept him intrigued or at least off-kilter. It’s kept him coming back.
He doesn’t slam the apartment door behind him, but for some reason the gentle click sends a shiver through me as if he had.
----
“Emmy,” I say into the phone, “I’m sorry I made you go there.” It’s Sunday morning. I usually call when I know Beth and Matt will be gone at church so we can talk openly. “I’m sorry that I sent you away.” I know better than to add, “Please don’t look for your dad
.”
As for
my
dad, I was almost relieved to hear from Beth that he’d passed away. It would’ve been too confusing for Emmy if her grandfather still didn’t want to meet her.
“It’s okay.” Emmy sounds cheery. “I sort of like it here.”
“What?”
“I like it here.”
She’s been there two weeks. Two long weeks. I thought, or rather hoped by now that she’d be phoning every time Beth and Matt left for church and asking to come home. At least then I’d be sure she didn’t hate me. Albeit Emmy does have more of a knack than I do for making the best of things. I want her to come home early—after the healing, obviously, but before the physical distance between us turns into an emotional abyss. For now, I ask, “Are you bored, honey? Is Beth always witnessing to you?”
“She is, but I don’t really mind. She gave me your old Bible.”
I used to record stuff in my Bible about Jamie, which is probably why I didn’t toss it, but, luckily, only in the margins of books like Zephaniah and Nahum that even the most faithful, or, as I see it, deluded, don’t read. “I wish she hadn’t.”
“She also gave me an old cassette tape of yours—Emmylou Harris.” My daughter’s voice gets less cheery as she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me I was named after a singer?”
“You’re not. Not really. I just liked the name. I still do. I miss you.”
“But Aunt Beth said you listened to the tape all the time while you were pregnant.”
I rebought that exact tape, and I still listen to Emmylou in the car, but only when I’m driving alone and feeling particularly down and in need of sympathy, which Emmylou’s aching voice gives me. The religious nature of her lyrics also comforts me, which I would be ashamed to admit to my daughter. She thinks Bruce Springsteen and Chopin are my favorites. I’d also be embarrassed to admit to Emmy how when I used to take her on drives through the rice fields north of Sac, it was because they reminded me of her dad’s wheat fields and I liked to pretend, for an hour or so, that he’d summoned us at last.
Eager to change the subject, I ask when and where the faith healing is to take place. Her tone turns somber real quickly. She says at a lake in ten days at Dry Falls State Park. Beth showed her on a map.
I’m thankful the ceremony isn’t being held at the mineral lake. I returned
He doesn’t slam the apartment door behind him, but for some reason the gentle click sends a shiver through me as if he had.
----
“Emmy,” I say into the phone, “I’m sorry I made you go there.” It’s Sunday morning. I usually call when I know Beth and Matt will be gone at church so we can talk openly. “I’m sorry that I sent you away.” I know better than to add, “Please don’t look for your dad
.”
As for
my
dad, I was almost relieved to hear from Beth that he’d passed away. It would’ve been too confusing for Emmy if her grandfather still didn’t want to meet her.
“It’s okay.” Emmy sounds cheery. “I sort of like it here.”
“What?”
“I like it here.”
She’s been there two weeks. Two long weeks. I thought, or rather hoped by now that she’d be phoning every time Beth and Matt left for church and asking to come home. At least then I’d be sure she didn’t hate me. Albeit Emmy does have more of a knack than I do for making the best of things. I want her to come home early—after the healing, obviously, but before the physical distance between us turns into an emotional abyss. For now, I ask, “Are you bored, honey? Is Beth always witnessing to you?”
“She is, but I don’t really mind. She gave me your old Bible.”
I used to record stuff in my Bible about Jamie, which is probably why I didn’t toss it, but, luckily, only in the margins of books like Zephaniah and Nahum that even the most faithful, or, as I see it, deluded, don’t read. “I wish she hadn’t.”
“She also gave me an old cassette tape of yours—Emmylou Harris.” My daughter’s voice gets less cheery as she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me I was named after a singer?”
“You’re not. Not really. I just liked the name. I still do. I miss you.”
“But Aunt Beth said you listened to the tape all the time while you were pregnant.”
I rebought that exact tape, and I still listen to Emmylou in the car, but only when I’m driving alone and feeling particularly down and in need of sympathy, which Emmylou’s aching voice gives me. The religious nature of her lyrics also comforts me, which I would be ashamed to admit to my daughter. She thinks Bruce Springsteen and Chopin are my favorites. I’d also be embarrassed to admit to Emmy how when I used to take her on drives through the rice fields north of Sac, it was because they reminded me of her dad’s wheat fields and I liked to pretend, for an hour or so, that he’d summoned us at last.
Eager to change the subject, I ask when and where the faith healing is to take place. Her tone turns somber real quickly. She says at a lake in ten days at Dry Falls State Park. Beth showed her on a map.
I’m thankful the ceremony isn’t being held at the mineral lake. I returned
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