The Marriage Bed (5 page)

He stretched, and the hard-earned muscles that he complained about at the end of a day in the field rippled and drew her attention down his chest again, farther and farther until they seemed to disappear into well-worn drawers that hardly hid what made him a man.
Don't look
, she chided herself.
Think about something else
.

"I think I'll go over to Remy's today and see if he still has my mama's old tin plates," she said. She glued her eyes to the dishes in her hands while Spencer finished buttoning his pants before sitting down across from her and starting in on his eggs.

"Aren't you gonna eat anything?" Spencer asked her.

She looked down at her cold eggs and gave him a smile and a shrug. "I'm not too hungry," she said.

"Aren't you gonna yell at me, then?" he asked. "This Little Miss Sunshine, ain't-everything-grand act is getting on my nerves. Out with it now, Olivia. I downed enough whiskey to rot my insides and those of the men on either side of me. I came home well after the moon was heading down and the sun was thinking about coming up, and I passed out on the porch. This was no Sunday lift-a-few with the men after church. And by church tomorrow there won't be a soul in Maple Stand who hasn't heard about it. No doubt Father Martin will use me in his sermon against evil."

While he waited for her to say something, he ran his hands through the sandy hair that was nearly as gray as it was blond and tried to convince it to stay out of his eyes. The straight locks fell forward at the edges of his forehead, and he sheepishly pushed at them again and then adjusted the round glasses that he needed to wear all the time now.

"If it's any consolation, I feel worse than you do about it. I keep thinking I must have been set upon by some ruffians or attacked by a bear or something in my sleep to account for feeling this bad. But there isn't a bruise on me, so I must've done it all by myself, with a little help from the devil, of course."

"I'm sorry you feel so bad," she said. "Would more coffee help?"

"Maybe it would've last night, but not now. The only thing that would make me feel better now is a shotgun blast between the temples." He knew that kind of talk bothered her, and she waited for the apology. "Sorry," he finally mumbled.

"You aren't going to go out drinking after the children come, are you, Spence?" she asked.

He looked surprised. "Liv," he said with more confidence than he'd shown all morning, "the day you have a kid, I won't touch another drop."

The words stung, and she blinked back a sudden onslaught of tears. Well, they both had their faults, didn't they? He drank too hard and she failed to make babies. But she had always made allowances for him, and he for her, unspoken though they were. She'd bitten her tongue and refused to make an issue of his need to find solace in a bottle. And until now, Spencer had never been cruel about her inability to bear him a child.

"Oh, God. I'm sorry, Olivia. There must still be some booze in my brain. I didn't mean that to sound like . . . It's not as if I drink
because
you haven't . . . I mean, I think if you did . . ." He looked at her so pitifully she wasn't sure whether she felt sorrier for herself or for him. "I'm just making, it worse, aren't I?"

She nodded and rose to clear away the dirty dishes. On the mantel, the clock chimed seven times. An hour. Couldn't he have let her be happy for an hour? Was that so much to ask?

"Well, Miss Lily'll be bursting by now. I best go milk her for you.'' Spencer rose from the table and replaced his chair as silently as possible.

Olivia was by the sink, with her back to him, patting the soil around one of those little plants she tended with such care. Some kind of violet, he thought, but he couldn't remember the kind and didn't suppose it made any difference. It was destined to die whatever it was, so why bother learning to tell one from the other? Maybe once things began to bloom outside he could ask Livvy to get rid of the houseplants altogether. Now somehow didn't seem like the best of times to bring the subject up.

"Well, I'm going now," he said, but didn't leave. Miss Lily could wait a few more minutes. She wasn't producing like she did when she was younger, but then again, who was? "You okay?"

She nodded, her back still to him, and he could tell from the rise in her shoulders that she was sniffing back tears. The back of her hand was pressed to her lips and he was willing to bet that when she lowered it, there would be teeth marks there.

"Gonna do some work in your garden today?" he asked. "I don't want you breaking any new ground without me, Olivia. You just make your markings and I'll do the rest."

"Maybe when I get back from Remy's," she said, turning and trying, as she always did, to give him a bright face.

"Remy's? Why are you going to Remy's on a Saturday? Something wrong with the kids?" He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. There were a million reasons Olivia could be going to her brother's. The boys didn't have to be sick.

"I told you," she said. "I want to see if he still has Mama's old dishes."

He tried to remember her mentioning that, but couldn't. All he knew was that he hated it when she went over to her brother's when the boys were out of school. Seeing all those kids just made her wanting that much stronger, which in turn whipped up his guilt like so much cream until it hardened and they could both become stuck in it and drown.

Besides, he liked the dishes they had. They had been given to him and Kirsten on their wedding day by Kirsten's mother. He'd be damned if he'd get rid of yet another piece of Kirsten from his life. "What would you want her old dishes for? What's the matter with these?" He came up beside her and picked up one of the fancy dishes from the drying rack.

"Nothing's wrong with these," she said. "I just don't want to see them get broken when the children come."

"The children?" It began to come back to him. The discussion yesterday, the nieces, the nephew. Eggs and bacon raced each other up his throat.

"Marion's children, Spence. You said we could . . . Spence, you haven't changed your mind, have you?"

The plate in his hands clattered to the floor and shattered.

And then he pushed her aside and lost his breakfast in the sink.

The birthday cake she'd baked remained untouched, each day sinking a little further into itself until she'd been forced to throw it out and replace it with a small hazelnut torte, which Spencer chose to pass on, as well. He'd eat her meals eagerly enough, as if he understood the need for sustenance, but the desserts he refused until the torte, too, had to be discarded. Livvy baked a plum pie with fruit she'd canned last summer, and hoped.

But hoping never got the cows milked or the chickens fed, her mother always said, and it didn't seem to make the husband happy, either. Day after day one thing after another seemed to go wrong. Curly George picked up a stone in his shoe and couldn't plow for the better part of a week. When he was well, it rained so hard that Spencer had to spend the day tending to leaks in the barn.

Then, when the skies finally cleared and things appeared to be looking up, some sort of strap on the plow broke. It was the last straw and Spencer put away Curly George and came in early, chilled to the bone.

After a warm dinner that Olivia thought was truly one of her best but about which Spencer had no comment, he went into his little room and came out with his account books. He wore a grimmer than usual face and his sigh blew the dandruff off the last of the pussy willows that had gone to seed in the vase on the kitchen table.

Three groans and a crumpled sheet of paper later, she couldn't hold her tongue. "I could help you with that," she said as he swore again at the columns of numbers in front of him. It was after nine and he'd grunted and groaned as if every muscle in his body were trying to tell him it was time to pack it in and go to bed. All evening she'd bustled around him trying to make his work lighter, throwing a shoulder shawl around him, bringing the lantern closer to his book. She even made him some cocoa with a touch of vanilla in it, just the way he liked.

And she'd gotten a smile out of him, once or maybe twice, a genuine smile that went straight to her heart and made her so warm she had to loosen her dressing gown belt a little. "Really," she said, flipping out of her way the braid that had fallen over her shoulder. "Won't you let me help?"

"Seems to me one of the people in this room was always flunking arithmetic and having her little bottom tanned by her papa for not studying hard enough.'' There was just the bud of a smile around his lips. Could she coax it into blooming? "And that person's offering to help me with my numbers?"

"Well, I remember one time my big brother's friend tried to help me with my homework and I wound up with two whoppings—one for cheating and one for still getting all the answers wrong!"

"I don't remember it happening quite like that," he said, but the smile was blossoming, all the same.

"Don't you remember telling me it was a good thing I had so much padding?'' She touched a hand to her bottom and watched the color come into his face.

"I shouldn't have said that," he said quietly, his mood shifting so quickly Olivia wasn't sure whether it was a genuine change or if he was going to tease her some more, tell her that the padding she had then was nothing compared to what she carried behind her now. But he said nothing. He just sat, pencil dangling, from his fingers, and stared at her, his gaze roaming from her messy hair to the toes of her slippers.

"I really did learn my numbers, finally," she said when the silence became unbearable.

"Oh, did you? When was that?"

When I figured out how many days until I would lose you forever to Kirsten. And every month when I add by sevens until I count four weeks . . .
"When you and Remy grew up and there wasn't anything for me to do but my lessons."

Spencer studied her with a faraway look on his face. Finally he put the pencil into his account book to hold his place and then closed the ledger. "You turned out real nice, Livvy. I ever tell you that?'' he asked as he rose to his feet and stretched.

She swallowed hard. Those were some of the nicest words he had ever said to her. "No, Spence. You never did."

He picked up his empty cocoa mug and was headed for the stove when he stopped just inches from her. With just the pads of his callused fingers he gently stroked her cheek and shook his head sadly. "So damn soft," he muttered.

She reached up, hoping to capture his hand and stay it, but she wasn't fast enough. "I'll get you some more," she offered, following him to the stove and hovering as he helped himself. "There's still some pie left from the other day. Want some?''

"Pie?" he asked, as if he were trying to remember what that was. "I thought it was a cake of some sort."

"You mean my birthday genoise? With the coconut frosting? I couldn't even feed it to the chickens by the end of last week. So I made . . . well, it really doesn't matter. There's plum pie, from the fruit I canned from the new trees at the back of Bess's yard. You know, the ones that I planted when we got married." At least they were bearing fruit, she thought bitterly before wiping the thought away and continuing. "Just another few weeks and we should be having rhubarb. I checked the plants today and they're looking good for so early in the season. Of course, I'll have to be careful about the weeding. Last year . . . "

"There's no call to be nervous," he said in response to her babbling. "I've got no intention of making your life miserable over those children, Olivia."

"Oh, Spencer! I just know we're doing the right thing. We're going to be so happy, the five of us. . . ."

Spencer put his finger to her lips to silence her and shook his head. "I want you to be happy, Olivia. I really do. But like I told you last night, don't include me in this little happy family of yours. They can live under my roof, they can eat the food I put on the table, but they're not my flesh and blood and they never will be. They're coming here for you, not for me,. Don't ever forget that. I'll tolerate them, Liv, for your sake. I owe you that."

Oh, how she wished she could tell him that he didn't owe her anything. How she wanted to tell him he needn't do her any favors, that if he didn't want the children, well, then fine—the children needn't come. But she couldn't get her mouth to form the words because whether he owed her or not, whether it was what he wanted or not, she needed those children more than the crops needed the rain to grow, more than she needed the air to breathe. And she would endure whatever Spencer dished out to her, whatever guilt he placed on her plate, and she would consume it greedily and ask for more, if only he didn't change his mind.

"It's getting late, Spencer. Don't you want some pie?"

"If I wanted the damn pie, I'd take it." His voice was gruff and she had to blink back the tears that came unbidden into her eyes, turning quickly so that he wouldn't see them.

Gently he gave her a nudge in the direction of their bedroom. "Sorry," he said more softly. "You go ahead to bed. You must be tired, too."

"Spencer," she said very quietly, obviously embarrassed to bring up a delicate subject. "Tonight's a good night to—that is, Widow Grillot says that sometimes, right before a woman's time—well, I—I was just wondering when you were coming to bed."

"You and Widow Grillot have a good talk about what goes on in our marriage bed, did you?" Spencer asked her, returning to the table and opening up the account book as though he was asking her about the weather. "Discuss how long it takes or what goes where?'' He raised his gaze without lifting his head and looked over his glasses at her, waiting for her to answer.

"Of course not. People,
women
, are just eager to help. They know I've got a problem and they just want to—"

"They just want to butt their, in the case of Widow Grillot, very long noses into our private business. Maybe we should invite them all over and they could give us pointers. What do you think? We could move the chairs into the bedroom and turn up the lamps and old Widow Grillot, who probably hasn't ever shown so much as an ankle never mind her nether regions—which probably shriveled up and disappeared from lack of use—could tell us what we're doing wrong." His voice was so steady and calm that she couldn't even yell at him in return.