Loving Jessie

by Dallas Schulze

  Not that it was all smooth sailing, of course. There was Jessie’s disgusting habit of not only waking up early but waking up in a good mood, but there were worse things than waking up with his arms full of soft, purring female. And then there was the music problem. His taste ran to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, with a few side trips to Sheryl Crow and old rock and roll. Jessie’s idea of classical music ranged from Hank Williams to the Partridge Family. Integrating their CDs required tact and diplomacy, childish squabbling and a great deal of laughter, and somehow ended with the two of them making love on the floor in front of the empty hearth.

  Though he’d picked up his cameras again, Matt wasn’t sure where his professional life was going to go from here. The only thing he was sure of was that he wasn’t going back to his old job. Let someone else take pictures of the world’s disasters, record the tragedies and the pain. He no longer had the stomach for it. He had enough money put aside to allow him to take his time in deciding where to go from here, and, in the meantime, Jessie was thrilled when he told her he would take the pictures of her grandfather’s book, and it gave him a chance to try his hand at something a little different.

  If he needed something more to occupy his time, Gabe was still willing to take advantage of his free labor, and when he wasn’t pounding nails or hanging wallboard, there was always the old Chevy to offer a distraction. He figured that, at the rate he was going, the restoration would be finished sometime in the next twenty years or so, and that was okay.

  He had a new wife, a new home, a new beginning. Life was good.

  It would have been damn near perfect if it hadn’t been for the fact that the nightmares were back, worse than ever. He’d half started to believe that they were fading, that his mind was healing just as his shoulder had done. He wasn’t sure what had triggered them. Maybe it was picking up the camera again. Maybe it was some sort of cosmic attempt to balance the fact that the rest of his life seemed to be falling into place.

  Whatever the reason, three or four nights a week, he jerked himself awake, a thin film of sweat coating his body, his heart pounding, his mind full of half-remembered images, memory and dream so tangled together that he couldn’t separate the two. He would lie there, staring into the darkness, listening to the gentle rhythm of Jessie’s breathing, feeling the soft curves of her body pressed against his, and remind himself that this was what was real. That other place, the one he saw in his dreams, was gone, a part of the past. He wanted it to stay there.

  Knit one, purl two. Or was it knit two, purl one? Jessie squinted at the soft mass of cream-colored wool in her lap. According to the woman at the yarn shop, you were supposed to be able to tell the difference between knitting and purling just by looking at the stitches, and they did look different. The problem was, she wasn’t sure which was which. Was the knit stitch the sort of outie-looking thing or the kind of innie-looking one? And was she supposed to purl on top of the knit or knit on top of the purl?

  Catching her tongue between her teeth, she edged the tip of the needle into a stitch and looped the yarn over it before sliding it back through. Well, it was a stitch, anyway. She held the work up to the light to contemplate her progress. Was ribbing supposed to have those little holes in it? She poked uncertainly at an empty loop of thread several rows back and tried to remember what she was supposed to do with a dropped stitch.

  She lowered the would-be sweater to her lap, relaxing her cramped fingers around the needles. The woman at Purl’s Knit Shop had sworn that this pattern was simple enough for a rank beginner. Nothing but stockinette stitch and a little ribbing, she’d burbled cheerfully. You could practically knit it with one hand tied behind your back. Maybe she would try it that way, Jessie thought morosely. This was what she got for letting her imagination run away with her. Standing in the yarn shop, surrounded by all those plump skeins of yarn in a rainbow of colors, she’d had a vision of herself sitting by a cozy fire, needles clicking rhythmically away while Matt relaxed with the paper. Never mind that the late-October weather was too warm for a fire or that, when Matt bothered with a paper, he preferred to skim it during breakfast. She’d been seduced by the romantic domesticity of the image and had spent a truly appalling amount of money on yarn for a sweater for Matt. Maybe she could convince him that the little holes were part of the pattern.

  Looking at him, she felt her mouth curve in a smile. He was sprawled asleep on the sofa, one bare foot on the floor, the other hanging over the arm of the couch. An open book lay on the back of the sofa, abandoned after-dinner reading. It had been his turn to pick the music, so something classical drifted from the speakers. He’d told her what it was, but she could only remember thinking the name had way too many vowels and sounded vaguely Russian. Though she enjoyed harassing him about his stuffy taste in music, she had to admit that it was growing on her. She wasn’t sure he could say the same about Dwight Yoakam and Collin Raye, but he tolerated them with only an occasional wince.

  His gray T-shirt had ridden up, exposing several inches of flat stomach. For a moment she contemplated the idea of licking her way up the line of dark hair that arrowed across his belly. Or maybe licking her way down. She wondered if she could get his jeans open before he woke.

  Flushing, Jessie pulled her eyes away from her husband’s body and picked up the lumpy little pile of knitting. Even after almost six weeks of marriage, she was still not quite comfortable with this unexpectedly sensual side of herself. It shocked her a little that she could look at Matt and think of all sorts of interesting things she would like to do with that long, lean body. Of course, she’d already done most of them, with his enthusiastic encouragement.

  It was amazing how quickly and completely everything had changed. A year that had started out with her grandfather’s illness and death was ending with a new marriage and the promise of new life. She wasn’t pregnant yet, but she probably would be soon. They were certainly putting plenty of effort into the project, she thought, smiling a little.

  Jessie prodded a reluctant knitting needle through several more stitches and admitted that she hadn’t given much thought to a baby since her marriage. She still wanted a child, but, somewhere along the way, it had become a piece of a bigger picture, a picture that included her and Matt and their marriage, a future she’d never dreamed she could have. A future with Matt, she thought, feeling a funny little shock inside. It still seemed incredible that he’d gone from friend to husband to lover so quickly, so easily. It was hard to remember a time when she hadn’t looked at him and wanted, when she hadn’t known the feel of his hands on her body, the solid warmth of him next to her at night.

  The right-hand needle slipped, and two loops of yarn slid off the tip. Jessie scowled and muttered under her breath as she struggled to pick the stitches up again, hopefully without turning them the wrong direction. Simple enough for a beginner. Right. Simple enough for a beginner with an advanced degree in mechanical engineering, maybe.

  “You know, I’ve seen people disarming land mines who looked like they were having more fun than you are.” Matt’s voice was husky with sleep, warm with humor.

  “The rhythmic click of the needles encourages an almost Zen-like state of relaxation,” she informed him without looking up.

  “Is that why your knuckles are white and your teeth are gritted so hard I can hear them grinding from here?” he asked mildly.

  “It just takes a little practice,” she muttered, forcing the needle under another stitch.

  “And muscle,” he said admiringly.

  Jessie laughed and let her hands drop, giving him a mock glare. “Don’t you have any respect for the creative spirit?”

  “Not when it looks so painful.” He looked drowsy, eyes heavy-lidded with sleep.

  “Knitting just looks so…domestic. So hearth and homey. You know, like something a pioneer woman might have done.”

  “Pioneer women also skinned squirrels for supper,” he pointed out. “You planning on squirrel stew anytime soon?”

&
nbsp; “I think I skipped the squirrel-stew class at Cordon Bleu,” Jessie said, wrinkling her nose. “How many squirrels do you suppose it takes to make a decent pot of stew?”

  “I suppose it depends on how fat the squirrels are.” Matt shifted the pillow under his neck into a more comfortable position and settled a little deeper into the thick cushions.

  “That reminds me, I wanted to talk to you about Thanksgiving. I was thinking I’d like to go with a very traditional menu.”

  “If this is where you tell me that we’re having roast squirrel for dinner, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  Jessie laughed. “No, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the Puritans cooked up a mess of squirrels for the first Thanksgiving.” She pulled the sweater pattern out from where it had been wedged in the seat beside her and tossed it on the table next to the yarn.

  His eyes half-closed, Matt looked at her through the hazy shield of his lashes. She was wearing a pair of pumpkin-colored leggings and a rust-colored sweater that hit her about midthigh and had a wide neckline that showed a distracting tendency to slip off her shoulder. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders in dark gold waves and her feet bare, she looked like a wood sprite.

  “I’ve already asked Gabe to join us, and Lurene doesn’t have any family out here, so I thought I’d ask her.” She glanced at him, smiling when he nodded his approval. “And I thought I’d ask Reilly and Dana. I think his mother is staying in Sante Fe, so unless they’re going back East to visit Dana’s family, it will be just the two of them, and since they’re practically family—well, Reilly is, anyway—I thought we could have them over here. I know Reilly really misses his parents around the holidays.”

  “Fine with me,” Matt said, refusing to acknowledge the twinge of jealousy he felt at her obvious concern for Reilly. Of course she was concerned. Reilly was her friend. Their friend.

  “I thought I’d go with a mostly traditional menu,” she said again. “Nothing too fancy.” Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she mentally composed her menu. “I’ve got this wonderful recipe for a turkey that you cook in a brown bag and an apple-cider gravy with just a hint of thyme. Or there’s one I’ve never tried where you start with the oven at two hundred degrees and then…”

  Matt let his eyes drift shut. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night—or the night before, for that matter—and he was feeling pleasantly somnolent and lazy, lying there, listening to Jessie’s enthusiasm more than her actual words as she analyzed half a dozen different methods for cooking the turkey before moving on to the stuffing. He made approving noises as she debated the merits of oysters, wild rice, spiced pecans, bread crumbs and shiitake mushrooms in various combinations.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Most years he was out of the country, but even when he was on the right side of the globe, he hadn’t bothered to seek out a traditional meal. Somehow, spending Thanksgiving dining alone in a restaurant had always seemed more depressing than eating a frozen dinner and watching football games on TV alone.

  The last holiday dinner he could remember had been when he was a kid, before his father left. It wasn’t a specific holiday that he remembered, just a gray parade of meals consumed in near silence, one eye on his father, trying to gauge his temper, the other eye on his mother, seeing the vacant smile and glazed eyes that made it clear she’d nipped her way through enough vodka to put herself in a more pleasant place. There had been no laughter, no conversation beyond his father’s requests to be passed one dish or another, just that quiet tension that had pervaded his childhood. He couldn’t even remember what the food had been like, only the need to finish as quickly and quietly as possible so he could escape the table.

  Not exactly the kind of memories to inspire nostalgia.

  Jessie had reached dessert and was debating the merits of adding a touch of bourbon to the pumpkin pie and wondering if she should make a crème brûlée for a second dessert or stick with something more traditional, like apple pie. Matt grunted and hoped she would take it as encouragement or agreement, whichever she preferred.

  He could have told her that he was sure anything she made would be fine, but she was obviously having fun trying out menus. As long as she didn’t expect any intelligent input, he was content to listen. It was pleasant, lying there, listening to her make plans for their first Thanksgiving together. He was halfway between waking and sleeping when he realized Jessie had asked him something.

  “What?” He opened his eyes and tried to look alert.

  “Now I know we’re married,” she said dryly. She’d picked up the knitting again and was carefully unraveling the mangled stitches, winding the yarn back onto the ball. “You’re falling asleep while I’m talking.”

  “Sorry.” Matt smiled sheepishly and sat up, trying to shake off the lingering grogginess. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid night’s sleep, and it was starting to catch up with him. “I was listening to every word. You’re making a turkey basted with bourbon and stuffed with pumpkin pie.”

  Jessie pursed her lips and shot him a look of mock disapproval. “It would serve you right if I did,” she muttered.

  “And I’d eat every bite,” he swore, pleased when she grinned. “Now, what did you ask me?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you wanted to invite your mother to join us for the holiday.” Her attention on the yarn in her lap, Jessie didn’t see Matt’s smile vanish, leaving his eyes cold and hard. “There wasn’t time to invite her for the wedding, and I know you said it didn’t matter, but I can’t help but feel a little bad about it. And since we haven’t heard from her, I thought maybe she was hurt that we got married without her, so maybe inviting her for Thanksgiving would—”

  “No.”

  The stark negative brought Jessie’s eyes to his face. “No…what?”

  “No, I don’t want to invite her here for the holiday. Or for anything else. Ever.”

  Jessie blinked, her hands falling idle in her lap. She knew his father had abandoned the family when Matt was in his teens, and she’d guessed that Matt wasn’t particularly close to his mother. If he had been, he wouldn’t have brushed off her suggestion that they postpone the wedding until she could make the trip from Florida. Since Jessie had spent a lifetime missing the mother she’d lost, she’d found his indifference difficult to understand, but what she saw in his face now was a long way from indifference.

  “I know you’re not…close to her, but she is your mother, and you haven’t seen her in a long time, so maybe it’s time to let bygones be bygones and reach—”

  Matt came to his feet with a lunge that held coiled violence, and Jessie caught her breath in a startled little gasp.

  “Leave it alone, Jessie.” He rammed his fingers into his pockets and turned away from her, struggling to contain the anger that was suddenly boiling in his gut. God, where was this coming from? He’d made his peace with his parents a long time ago. Hadn’t he? But there was something about having Jessie sitting there, her big brown eyes full of understanding… She couldn’t even begin to understand.

  She couldn’t possibly understand.

  He drew a deep breath and turned to look at her. “Just let it go, Jessie.” He kept his voice calm, his words even. “I don’t want to invite my mother here. Understood?”

  “No,” she admitted. “I don’t understand.” She tossed the abused knitting onto the coffee table and rose to face him, her eyes searching his. “I know what it’s like to lose your parents, Matt. To spend your whole life without being able to talk to the people who brought you into the world. I don’t know what happened between you and your mother, but you still have a chance to—”

  “I don’t want a chance,” he snapped, feeling the leash on his temper slipping through his fingers. It was lack of sleep, he thought, making a desperate grab for his control. Waking every night, hearing gunshots and screams, knowing he was too late. Forever too late. It wasn’t Jessie’s fault.
r />   “Everyone wants a chance,” Jessie said softly. “Maybe you should—”

  “Maybe you should mind your own goddamned business.” He saw her eyes widen in shock, but he couldn’t snatch the words back, couldn’t stop more words from spilling out. “I don’t want to talk to my mother. I don’t want to talk about her. And I sure as hell don’t want her here. And I don’t want a lecture from you or anyone else about the importance of family ties. This is real life, Jessie, not a fucking episode of ‘The Brady Bunch.’ Everyone doesn’t join hands at the end and sing ‘We Are the World.”’

  He stared at her, breathing too quickly, seeing shock and a trace of fear in her eyes. It was the fear that cut through his anger, made him hear his own raised voice. For an instant he flashed on himself as a child, saw his father’s face flushed red with booze and temper, his voice raised in anger.

  Matt stared at Jessie, appalled by his own loss of control. He started to reach toward her, stared at his own outstretched hand for a moment and then let it drop without touching her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to—” He broke off and stared at her blankly.

  “Matt—” Jessie moved as if to touch him, and he stepped back.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, neither sure where to go from here, what to say. Matt moved first, taking another step back from her.

  “I need to… I’ll be back in a little while.” He didn’t wait for a response before turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

  Jessie stayed where she was, hearing the faint jangle of his keys as he picked them up off the table in the entryway, then the quiet snick of the front door closing behind him. She didn’t move until the sound of the Jeep’s engine had faded into the night. Only then did she sink slowly down on the edge of the sofa.

  What the hell had just happened?