The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel by Jennifer Dwight Page B

you’re just playing with me. I’m quite content on my own.”
    “I can see that. And it’s one of the most attractive things about you.”
    “I’ve learned to judge men by what they
do,
not what they say. Talk is cheap.”
    He pulled her down into the crook of his arm and kissed her, scooping up her long legs and cradling her against him.
    “I don’t want you going out with anyone but me,” he said, “and I don’t want to see anyone but you. You’re an extraordinary woman. You have character, a good mind, and your feet are on the ground.” He waited to see if she would say anything. “Plus I may be falling in love with you. Is that enough clarification?”
    She smiled. “For now.”
    “Good, because I really want a big piece of that chocolate cake.”
    She extracted herself from his embrace, got up to brew coffee, and cut two pieces of the rich cake. They sat opposite each other inthe candlelight. Jack slowly ate the enormous piece she had cut for him, savoring every bite in prayerful silence, worshiping in the temple of chocolate, and before the goddess who made such things possible.
    They moved to the living room. He made himself as comfortable as he could on the small sofa and pulled Mercedes against him. He put his cheek on the top of her head, which leaned against his chest. She put her arm around his deeply satisfied belly. The rumble of his voice reverberated through her as he spoke about his visit to Janine earlier in the day and his trip to the San Francisco flower market, where he had found the irises.
    “So tell me about Germaine’s father,” he said.
    She sat up and faced him, leaning against the side arm of the couch, her feet up on the cushions between them.
    “We met right after I finished college. Eddy was a carpenter working on a framing crew. I was a waitress in a nearby restaurant where the crew would congregate after work. He was good-looking, tan, and funny. I knew nothing about him except what I saw in his circle of friends, and I really didn’t care. I was sick of family interference and just wanted my own life.
    “We had an intense, immediate attraction for each other. His job came to an end and he decided to try his luck in California. He asked me to marry him and go with him. I’d always wanted to live in California and I was desperate to be free of my parents. I was thrilled to do something so bold and reckless. So we eloped.”
    Jack, the professional listener, nodded.
    “Things deteriorated after only a few months. Eddy drank too much and became a control freak. He didn’t like me talking to other people, going places on my own, or having a job, even though we needed the money. He changed careers and went to work in a retail chain, selling computers. I chalked up some of his weirdness to makingso many changes at once. But then I got pregnant, and our marriage went from bad to worse.
    “After Germaine was born and got past the infant stage, I decided to go to night school to become a paralegal. It was a new field and it looked interesting. But Eddy opposed the idea and hated any sign of my independence. I could see the writing on the wall. I went to school so I could support Germaine and me when the time came.”
    Jack reached for her hand.
    “It was a good plan, but then he was killed in a drunk-driving accident.”
    Jack pulled her feet up into his lap and began massaging her soles.
    For the first time with anyone, she spoke about the financial straits in which Eddy’s death had left them—her struggle to find a job, to move, to find the right school for Germaine, to keep her parents at bay, and to make a new life.
    “I’ve always wondered whether his death was an accident or suicide. Either way, the aftermath was not something I ever want to live through again.”
    Jack looked around her impoverished living room with enlightened appreciation.
    “Death has a way of reprioritizing life,” he said. “After my dad died I was a mess. At first I grieved being