by KT Morrison
But batting against that devious internal worm came flashing images of the love of his life happy, exuberant even, dabbing paint on a canvas while a young man from Italy provoked the finest feelings in her she’d felt for the longest time. He heard imaginary music they listened to while they painted; Bittersweet Symphony and the summer of ’97, the best free summer of his life. There’d been better ones, ones when he was a dad, but when he was a young man in love, ’97 was the biggie. The year they both fell deeper in love with each other and were tested, put on the rack and stretched and pulled. It wasn’t easy, especially for Janie, pregnant at seventeen—but despite the terror of the unknown they’d come through it because they were in love, and now in retrospect, looking back after a lifetime with her where they raised that baby then had another, bought a homestead, and ran a successful business, well, it was a profoundly sweet thought to think of his beloved woman like the last time she’d spent free and young.
He returned to the truck, threw the shovel in the back, and grabbed his thermos—he’d get a fill up with some coffee before he got back on the road. Thermos in hand, he stood in the ‘V’ of the truck’s open door, looking back at the house, snow pelting his face and the heat from the truck washing his neck under his beard. Sheba yawned. On the radio, tuned to the Wolf, they came out of a commercial into a storm update, then Oasis’s ‘D’You Know What I Mean?’ He chuckled. Not Verve but close enough to make his smile broaden. Leave them be, John.
“Alright, Sheebs, let’s plow some snow,” he said, shoving himself into his seat and plopping his thermos into the holder. He’d stop at the Dunkin’ on his way out toward Cheektowaga.
Closed in the cab, drumming along on the steering wheel, he flicked the toggle for the salter, pulled forward and backed up toward the parked vehicles, and then headed down the steep hill tossing salt to keep his driveway safe.
* * *
The cotton clung to her skin with the wet of Maceo’s semen. She’d dressed in a hurry, frantic, but at least the adrenaline chased the tears away. Maceo stepped into the kitchen now, dressed again in shorts and T-shirt—he’d returned naked to the studio to put his clothes back on while she’d gone to the kitchen. Now she stood at the dining room window watching the red cast from John’s tail lights fade from the snow on the tree boughs.
“He’s gone?” Maceo asked.
Arms folded, looking back at the window as her husband headed back on the road for a long overnight, she said, “He is.”
“Close,” Maceo said, then stood watching her and not saying anymore.
She turned and looked at him, his strong, tall body, his handsome face, unsure. She said nothing either, just stared knowing he wouldn’t see any more than her black silhouette against the bright of the snow out the window.
After a long moment, Maceo said, “Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
More staring, more quiet, Maceo shifted his weight to the other foot, rested a hand on the countertop. “What happens now?” he asked.
Tears swelled again, but she kept quiet, mouth working around and sucking on her teeth. “I’m going to bed,” she said.
“It’s early, Janie,” he said, but she was moving, going around the dining room table to the bottom of the stairs. Maceo went through the kitchen clockwise and around the stone chimney to intercept her.
“It’s early, Janie,” he said again and reached for her.
She squeezed herself against the newel post and kept away from his reach. “Do what you want—I’m going to bed,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“Janie…”
She was gone, hustling quietly up the stairs with her arms folded, the steps creaking and groaning. Maceo stayed on the first floor and she closed herself in the master bedroom. She sat on the bed for a long time, head cocked and eyes staring at the clothes hanging on hooks on the wall by the bathroom door. Her mind mostly stayed blank but sometimes lurid images would flash at her and sometimes chilling fear would creep up her back as she considered the distinct possibility Maceo would mount the stairs, open her bedroom door and enter. What would she do? Would she fight him? The guns were in lockers in the storage space.
It wasn’t even like that, Janie. He didn’t do a thing you didn’t want. So, what?—would she lay back and have extramarital sex in the bed she shared with her loving husband? One who also loved her deeply in return?
More than half an hour passed before she heard any sound in the house—the weight of a man coming up the stairs. She went quiet and listened, holding her breath and staring wide but seeing nothing. She heard the familiar sound of Evan’s door opening and then closing. She exhaled with what she would convince herself was relief.
Numb and cottony, she rubbed her thighs, heard no more, so rose and went into the bathroom. She got undressed, her shirt had crusted to her stomach. She balled the clothing and left it by the scale on the bathroom floor and ran a hot shower. Once it was steaming, she stepped in and began an arduous process of sudsing and scrubbing away the evidence of another man on her skin. The soap went slippery over the trails of Maceo’s semen. She scrubbed until her skin squeaked, doing it in the dark, lights off in the bathroom and the bedroom. But the doors were unlocked. That bathroom door could open any second and Maceo would enter, come and join her in the shower…
Her hands found her sex slick still. She explored with her fingers, soaping as she went. She nibbled on the inside of her cheek thinking of the orgasm. It had been a while. Months ago she masturbated in here with the shower wand…
She squeaked the taps off and dried herself with a thick terry towel, blow dried her hair and then dressed in her pajamas. She bundled the stained clothing by the door to the sewing room and sat on the bed listening for any sound from her son’s bedroom.
Mantle
The snow stopped at about three-twenty in the morning but he didn’t return to High Countertop until 6 A.M. The lights were all off except for two porch lights, one on the north as he rose up the hill and the other on the south over the front door. Snow had built up around the cars and the walkway again but he’d shovel it away when he woke and give the driveway another scraping—he didn’t want to disturb anyone’s sleep.
He and Sheba walked the path in the frigid dark. The sky was dawning behind him, changing from black to gunmetal. He went around past the front door to the west side and came in through the mudroom, doffing his coat and boots. The top of the dryer was still warm like Janie had been doing laundry late at night. Sheba trotted to the kitchen looking for a drink of water. Though he was asleep on his feet, his eyes feeling swollen and puffy, he turned left before the pantry and entered the addition.
A dull bed of coals glowed in the wood stove and he added a log. There was a table lamp behind the couch on Janie’s side and he clicked it on. Two paintings rested on the easels. Janie’s struck him. It was the landscape she’d had sitting here for a few days, and now it looked like it was done. It wasn’t like anything she’d painted before and yet he knew it was hers. Maceo’s was fine work, too, very polished and accomplished, two young people sitting together.
Just like the belly of that wood stove when he’d come in here, a bed of fiery coals picked up heat and light in his own stomach as a jealous breeze wafted over their hungry surfaces. His wife had a new companion. A young and handsome one. Talented in the way she appreciated. They had a lot of time together. They’d spent the evening painting, the two of them alone. Heat rose and prickled on the back of his neck. He rubbed it away, still staring at his wife’s painting.
A jingling behind him had him turning; Sheba standing and licking her sated, dripping chops and waiting for him to go up to bed with a restrained impatience.
“I’m coming, Sheebs,” he said.
In the kitchen, he stopped again. His neck burned and his stomach tightened. Something was off, something not right, like a metallic taste where there should be none or an electric crackle in the air. He looked around the kitchen, moved to the sink. No dishes in the rack, nothing clea
ned by hand. He opened the dishwasher. Only a quarter full, still had breakfast dishes and OJ glasses. They didn’t eat dinner? There was something unnerving about that. Like they’d done other things instead. Painting, though. That was obvious. They worked through dinner. But now he could picture them out eating at a restaurant instead. Staying up late and painting and then rushing out to get something to eat together to celebrate. He could see them the way he’d found them earlier this week, a table for two and sharing a whole bottle of wine. That made him check the cupboard, but it looked like they hadn’t partaken.
Sheba was watching him from the bottom of the stairs, back feet on the ground, fronts up on the second step.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered to her and headed up the stairs while she raced ahead.
At the top of the stairs, the dread returned again, and he paused at Evan’s door. It was ajar. There was no sound from within; no snoring or breathing. Sheba waited at the master bedroom, and he resisted the urge to push Evan’s door open and check on Maceo.
“Don’t you scratch at that door, Sheebs, I’m coming,” he said and moved on, letting Sheba in the bedroom ahead of him.
Janie was in their bed and sleeping and Sheba joined her, jumping up at the foot and going around in five circles before curling in a crescent and tucking her face into her hindquarters. Janie didn’t stir at all.
He went in the can and brushed his teeth, looked in his bleary bloodshot eyes, scratched his nails through his thick beard and threw his clothes in the laundry hamper, went to bed in his boxers and T-shirt, slipping under the covers next to Janie. She smelled so clean—soap and shampoo and laundry detergent, and he regretted climbing in wearing the same skivvies he’d put on over twenty-four hours ago.
He groaned, got out of bed and went through his drawers quietly and found sweatpants, put those on and got back into bed shirtless. Janie stirred now, making a soft moan and scooting closer to him, he put out an arm and she curled her fresh smelling body against his. The bare skin of her forearm rustled through his chest hair and it stirred him between his legs quickly and unexpectedly. The softness of her skin, her clean smell—but let’s face it, that new haircut, too. Not just how it accentuated her face but the very fact she had done it. It coincided with Maceo’s arrival and he wasn’t blind. This would only be admitted to himself: they had a farm-stay about six years ago, a smart, quick-witted black girl from Uganda, confident and eighteen-years-old, and she had a light in her eyes that put a spark in him. There was not a single thing between him and that girl, nor did he want there to be (nor did she!), but she had him smiling and doing sit-ups, feeling young and watching what he ate. No one called him on it, he caught himself, cursing, Don’t be so obvious, John, you’ll look foolish! And that’s what Janie was doing, only she hadn’t realized how obvious she was yet. She might be embarrassed once Maceo returned to Italy and he wouldn’t call her on it until then. He remembered that spark and how good it made him feel. It was benign and sweet in its own way—reminding him what it was like when he was eighteen. So he’d let Janie have her thrill. Plus, look at this, Johnny-boy... With his wife in one arm, curled against his big hairy chest like a Conan the Barbarian poster he could see the hump of a bona fide erection, a good one, a real throbber under the blankets. He kissed the top of Janie’s head and squeezed her a little snugger and she made a sweet cooing sound and nuzzled her forehead into his beard.
With his wife in his arm he regarded down the foot of the bed past the humps of his feet under the blanket and Sheeb’s fuzzy back. There, leaning on the wall and sitting on the fireplace mantle was a painting of Janie. Beautiful Janie with a look in her eyes that lightened his heart and made him ache for when they were young. It was painted by a young, tall, handsome man sleeping just across the hall, one who his wife might have the slightest crush on.
But more, and this is where an ache began, he wondered how a young man from so far away, who’d known his wife for not even a week, could capture her so perfectly. How could he know her so well, so apparently deeply? What Maceo had brought to life in that pastel drawing was astounding. And as he lay in bed with the woman he’d loved for so long laying against him sweetly breathing, he looked up at the way another man saw his wife’s beauty, had captured it so raw and pure. His cock throbbed under the bedding and he lay a hand over its belly and squeezed, kissed his wife’s silky blonde head and tried to close his eyes.
Afterword
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