Waking Up in Dixie by Haywood Smith Page A

something deeper in her husband’s explanation for moving out, and it chilled her blood. “It’s okay to stay. I can look after you.” She hated to beg, but she didn’t want to lose what little they still had together.
    She knew about the hookers in town. She’d found some of the charge receipts, and traced down their origins. But they were merely sex objects. She refused to let them break up their marriage. Her children needed a father, a respectable home.
    “We’ll both sleep better this way,” Howe said. “I know how my watching
The Tonight Show
bothers you. And I have to confess, your snoring bothers me.”
    That wasn’t what this was about, and they both knew it! “Howe, please don’t do this,” she pleaded quietly. “We can work it out. Get help. Counseling . . .”
    His expression steeled. “Elizabeth, you’re always overreacting. My parents had separate rooms for as long as I can remember, but they were still close.”
    As opposite goalposts on a football field! “I was hoping our marriage would be better than theirs. Howe, I do love you.” She stared into his eyes. “Do you love me anymore, at all?” There. After all the months of getting the cold shoulder, she’d come out and asked.
    He regarded her as if she were one of the children. “Of course. You’re making entirely too much of this, and you’re tired. Go to bed, Elizabeth. You’ll feel better in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. We both will.”
    Elizabeth just sat there, wanting to hold on to their marriage the way it had been before Patricia was born. Howe had loved Charles, then. He’d laughed and played with him. He’d even laughed and made love to Elizabeth occasionally. But now he looked at her as only the mother of his children, and it broke her heart.
    Separate bedrooms. Was that how it always ended up with people like the Whittingtons?
    She’d known from the beginning that she shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. Now she was paying the price. Elizabeth held her tears, determined to maintain some shred of dignity.
    “Then I’ll say good night.” Slowly, she rose and went upstairs to her empty bed.
    She cried a lot into her pillow that night. And in the nights to come. But eventually, she reconciled herself to the loss. And as the years passed, she came to see her room as her own private sanctuary. But she never lost the longing for the man she’d loved—a man who no longer existed.

Chapter 8
     
    The present
     
    Patricia burst into tears and threw herself into her father’s arms. “Oh, Daddy. I was afraid it wasn’t real, that you weren’t really awake, but it’s you. It’s really you. I’ve missed you so much. I was so afraid.”
    Tears streaming, Howe stroked her long, expensively blonded hair. “It’s me, baby girl,” he choked out. “It’s me. And I’m not going anywhere.”
    Patricia reared back to regard him with a mixture of surprise and dismay. “Daddy. You’re crying.”
    Swiping at his reddened eyes, Howe exhaled a shuddering breath. “I seem to be doing a lot of that,” he observed, wry. “And other things. But I’m still your dad, and I sure am glad to see you.”
    She laid her head gingerly back against his chest. “Not half as glad as I am to see you. I couldn’t live without you and Gamma.”
    “Yes you could,” he told her, “but you won’t have to.”
    “No I couldn’t.” Now that Patricia knew things were going tobe all right, she put on the pouty face Elizabeth recognized all too well. “I’ve been so worried about you, I failed half my classes.”
    Ah, yes. Despite this miracle, Patricia was still Patricia. Elizabeth tucked her chin.
    “You’re not going to let Mama take my car away for that, are you?” the little opportunist wheedled.
    Elizabeth braced herself for being undermined one more time, but Howe’s response wasn’t what she expected.
    “Let’s don’t talk about any of that now,” he said. “Let’s just thank God that I’m here, and