by Pamela Morsi
Behind her, Piney eased down farther in the tub and raised his knees, which had the added benefit of helping her fall into his arms. He wrapped her in his embrace and nuzzled her neck. Their communication was on-target and non-verbal as she purred and he growled in mutual fulfillment.
When Jesse felt like speaking again, she apologized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it any slower,” she said.
Piney chuckled. “Not a bad problem to have. A woman who wants me so much she can’t control herself.”
They laughed together.
“You know I haven’t even kissed you yet,” he told her.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, mister, you’d better remedy that immediately!”
He did.
Later, they rinsed each other off with the handheld showerhead. Since they’d already splashed a half bathtub of water on the floor, the rinsing easily devolved into fun and games, followed by slow languorous lovemaking in Piney’s bed.
“I dream about you every night,” he told her. “And all my fantasies are about you. It’s like I’m a sex-obsessed college kid again.”
She smiled at him. “This is all so much better than my college days.”
As the afternoon waned, tired and sated they slept.
33
It was the smell of cooking that awakened him. His belly growled in hungry response. Jesse. The first coherent thought that flittered from his brain. Without opening his eyes, he smiled. Jesse was cooking dinner for him. He imagined her moving about his kitchen, making herself at home. Comfortable, as if she had been there forever. Happy, as if she wanted to be. He pictured her wearing one of his shirts. It would be oversize, but show a lot of leg. What was under the shirt? Had she put those naughty red panties on again? He’d have to get those off of her. Hadn’t she said she might be game for a bend over the kitchen table?
At that moment she moved beside him and his eyes popped open for a blurred view of the bedside clock.
“Oh, shit!” he cursed in a whisper. “It’s eight o’clock.”
Jesse immediately sat up in bed beside him. “Eight o’clock?” she repeated. “They’ll be worried about me up at the cabin.”
Piney put a finger to his lips in warning. “I think my son is in the kitchen,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened.
“It’ll be fine,” he told her, hoping it was true. “Get dressed and gather up your things as quietly as possible. I’ll see if I can distract him enough to get you outside and then I’ll drive you home.”
He thought it was a good plan. She nodded agreement.
Piney quickly donned his clothes and headed to the kitchen. He was wide awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins, but he feigned sleepiness, rubbing the side of his head and faking a yawn when Tree glanced up to see him.
“Thanks for starting supper,” he said. “I guess my afternoon nap ran a little long.”
“I guess so.”
“What are we having?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Oh, great.”
Tree turned to open the cupboard with the plates and then hesitated, turning back with a level gaze at his father.
“Should I set a place for Jesse?”
The bottom fell out of Piney’s stomach. Nothing in his experience in parenthood had prepared him for this particular moment. Tree had said before that he liked Jesse. But there was not an inkling of cheerfulness in his gaze.
“How did you know?” Piney asked.
“I went in to wake you nearly an hour ago,” he answered. “I decided that might not be the best idea.”
“No, probably not.”
The moment lingered between them. Piney had no idea what to say. And Tree’s expression was guarded, accusatory, judgmental.
“So dinner for three or no?” he asked.
“No,” Piney answered. “They’ll be missing her up at the cabin. I’d better drive her home.”
Tree gave the very slightest of nods before turning back to the steaming pots of food on the stove.
Piney returned to the bedroom. Jesse was waiting with her coat on and her backpack on her shoulder.
“I heard,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he answered. “Come on, I’ll take you home.” He wrapped an arm loosely around her shoulder and escorted her. At the doorway he stopped to put on his coat and called out to Tree.
“I’ll be back in an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye, Tree,” Jesse said.
“Bye.”
Piney took her arm as they stepped outside. They walked through the darkness to the truck in the garage.
“I’m really sorry,” Jesse told him. “Neither of us meant for this to happen. I know that it complicates your life.”
He stopped in his tracks and pulled her into his arms to kiss her. “You are the best complication I’ve had in my life in a very, very long time.”
Piney recognized the truth the moment it came out of his mouth. He liked her. He liked being with her. He wasn’t going to be so willing to give her up.
He helped her up into the seat on the passenger side before going around the truck to get behind the wheel.
“I’m hoping the road will be cleared and I can drive you up there,” he said. “Tonight’s probably not the best one for walking a lady home.”
They were in luck. The dozer sat idle on the highway turnoff. They made their way up the approach, oohing and ahhing at the vast improvement. The craggy climb up the mountain was still steep, but it was graded and leveled and eminently drivable. There were two cleared asides where one car could wait for the other to pass. The first was about halfway up, the second directly before the switchback overlook.
That was the boundary of the progress they’d made on the first day. The switchback and beyond was its usual turtle-slow, bumpy, narrow ascent.
When he drove into the clearing at the slope of the farm, he drove around Floyd and Alice Fay’s pickup, allowing for them to pull out first.
“Poor Floyd,” Jesse said. “He puts in a full day’s work and when it’s time to go home, I’m not here to take over.”
“I’m sure it’s not the worst thing that ever happened to him,” Piney said. “And it was an accident. We overslept.”
As they walked toward the cabin, the door opened. Alice Fay stepped out in a shaft of light and hollered at them.
“DuJess? Is that you?”
“Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry.”
“Thank God,” the woman replied. “I was worried sick.”
“I am so, so sorry,” she repeated again and again.
As they stepped up to the porch, Alice Fay peered into the darkness. “Is that you, Piney?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “I…uh, I gave Jesse a lift home.”
“Well, it’s good you did.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” the woman answered. “Aunt Will was great all day. In top spirits and clear as a bell. Then this evening, she’s kind of lost it. She doesn’t seem to know who we are. And…and she thinks…she thinks she’s pregnant.”
She mouthed the last word, as if it were one too coarse to be spoken aloud.
Piney followed her and Jesse inside.
“There you are, DuJess,” Aunt Will greeted them. “These folks were about to send a posse after you. I told ’em that you weren’t no way lost, merely stow up somewhere out of the way and a-frolicking with that Baxley boy.”
Floyd nearly choked and covered it with a cough. Piney shot a glance at Jesse who was slack-jawed with shock. Immediately he walked over to Aunt Will’s rocker and knelt down beside her. He took both her hands in his own.
“Well, hey there, fella,” she said.
“Aunt Will, it’s me, Piney. Do you remember me?”
The smile on the old woman’s face faded and her eyes narrowed as she looked into his face.
“Piney? Yeah,” she answered uncertainly.
“R
emember when I told you how your mind might get foggy?”
“Yeah,” she answered, but she still sounded unsure.
“I think we need to get you to bed, Aunt Will,” he said. “It’ll help your brain work better.”
Her brow was furrowed with concern. “Well, if you think so,” she said.
He helped her to her feet and she leaned on him all the way to her bed. With Jesse’s help, they got her into her nightgown and prone on the bed. Piney examined her as efficiently as he could. She was more swollen than last time he’d seen her. And her jaundice was becoming more pronounced.
“So I’m not sitting on the nest, am I?” she asked.
“No,” he answered, patiently. “This is fluid buildup from your liver. You’re not having a baby.”
“Just as well,” she answered. “Can you imagine how confounded they all would be about who’s the father?”
He looked over at Jesse then and gave her a brave smile. “Why don’t you sit here with Aunt Will until she goes to sleep,” he said. “I’ll go out and face Floyd and Alice Fay.”
The gratitude in her eyes was worth all the awkwardness and discomfort the next room could bring.
Floyd and Alice Fay were waiting, standing not sitting. Piney made no explanation whatsoever about why Jesse was so late. Instead he concentrated on reassuring them about Aunt Will.
He explained about the gases created by the malfunctioning liver and how they traveled to the brain. “It’s temporary, though it may become more frequent. When she lays down, gravity helps distribute the ammonia more evenly throughout her body. So this is more likely to occur in the evenings when she’s been sitting up for a while.”
Alice Fay looked stricken. “I let her nap sitting up in that rocker with the dog at her feet,” she said. “She’s so unsteady, I thought it might be better than trying to get to the bedroom.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Piney reassured her. “You had no idea. And, so far, it’s been rare. Jesse and I have only seen it a couple of times.”
“She was having such a good day,” Alice Fay said. “She really enjoyed talking about old times and all the people that are long dead.”
“It was wonderful that you gave her that,” Piney said. “She’ll be better next time you see her. And she’ll probably be embarrassed by what she said tonight.”
Floyd chuckled. “When she told us she was carrying a babe,” he said, “I nearly dropped my teeth. And that idea about you and DuJess off in a shenanigans like a couple of teenagers. It was plum embarrassing.”
It was. And Piney could feel the blush stealing up the back of his neck. Deliberately he changed the subject.
“I know it’s been a long day for both of you,” he said. “But the work you fellows did on the approach is a miracle. It’s so much better and you got so much done.”
Floyd nodded. “We put the word out for volunteers. We expected a half dozen. Thirty-two men showed up with shovels and rakes. And there was a chainsaw and a brush hog in every pickup.”
“That many men can make short work of a big task,” Piney said.
“We’re hoping to finish up tomorrow,” Floyd told him. “But if I’m going to put in a full day’s work, I’d best get myself home to bed.”
Piney nodded.
Alice Fay showed concern. “Should we wait to say good-night to DuJess? I don’t want her to think that we were standing on one foot and then the other to get out of here.”
Piney smiled at her. “Jesse’s going to sit with Aunt Will until she’s asleep. I’ll tell her you said goodbye. You two get home and get some rest. You’ve both been a godsend to Aunt Will.”
It took them only a couple more moments to gather up their things and hustle out. After they left, Piney found himself pacing. He wondered if Floyd and Alice Fay would repeat what Aunt Will had said about him and Jesse. It was very likely that they would. They’d consider it a public service to do so. The community wanted to know any and all details of Aunt Will’s condition. And of course, they’d feel that it was not spreading gossip if they chose to share it only with close friends and family. And those they told would do the same, which meant virtually every human in a twenty-mile radius would be able to recite details of the incident in three days or less. He rolled his eyes and managed, just barely, not to groan aloud.
Jesse came out of the bedroom and walked right into Piney’s arms. They held each other tightly, as if they feared they might never again. Piney didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to plan. He didn’t want to leave. But he knew he had to do all three.
“I’ve got to get home and straighten out things with Tree,” he said.
Jesse pulled away from him, nodding. “I know.”
“I’ll be back in the morning.”
“The road will be closed.”
“I’ll hike.”
She smiled at him for a moment before her humor faltered. “Everybody is going to know, aren’t they?”
“Everybody is going to suspect,” he clarified.
“And Tree, who is the one person that really shouldn’t suspect, is going to know for sure.”
“Yeah,” Piney agreed with a sigh. It was a mess and there was no use pretending it wasn’t.
On the drive home Piney tried to plan what he was going to say to his son. Harkening back to the old Ozark proverb that “a poor excuse is better than none,” Piney tried to come up with an explanation of his actions. He was a single adult male. He’d never taken any vows of celibacy. He should be allowed to pursue unattached women and date whomever he pleased.
But he hadn’t been caught dating—he’d been caught in bed with a woman he’d never actually dated in the home that he shared with his teenage son. The same teenage son who had, for several years now, endured unending moral lectures on the evils of casual sex.
He was a hypocrite and there was really no defense for that. Except maybe a stodgy “Don’t do as I do, do as I say.” Piney was fairly certain Tree wouldn’t be impressed with that adage.
His son, struggling within the storm of hormones that was teenage life, had broken up with his girl rather than let his father down. Piney, on the other hand, hadn’t given a thought to his son when embarking upon a hot and heavy, friends-with-benefits plan.
What he needed was a justification for his actions, an excuse that would exempt him from the principles of conduct he’d always promoted. He wasn’t sure that he actually had one. He could go authoritarian.
I’m your father and you have no right to question me!
Some men were better at pulling off that kind of thing. It didn’t reflect the kind of relationship that Piney had with his son. He’d always been better at turning regrettable situations into teachable moments.
Never be alone with a woman you’re attracted to, because this is the kind of thing that happens in the heat of the moment.
That was about as self-serving a statement as any ever spoken on earth. Piney could never get away with being so disingenuous. He probably wouldn’t even be able to keep a straight face. If he did, Tree was sure to recognize it as pure mendacity.
In the end, he hadn’t needed a strategy. Tree did most of the talking. He’d waited up on the sofa, clear-eyed and stern. He looked his father straight in the eye and questioned his judgment.
“I like DuJess,” he said. “I don’t know her very well, but she seems like a good person, a nice lady. I don’t think I like the idea that she’s being treated like some skank that you screw in secret but refuse to acknowledge to your friends and family.”
“Watch your language,” Piney cautioned.
“My language is descriptive,” Tree answered, his tones clipped. “I’m telling you exactly what I see. And what other people will see and think if they were to find out.”
“Nobody will find out if you don’t tell them,” Piney said.
“Oh, great, encourage your son to help you keep a house of secrets.”
“There’s a difference between secrecy and privacy.”
“Oh, I’m all for privacy,” Tree shot back. “Jeez, Dad, get a room for pity’s sake.”
Piney had no rejoinder for that.
“Has this been going on for a while? With all the pressure of Aunt Will’s illness, I really would hate to think that you took advantage of a woman’s weakness at an emotional time.”
“No, of course not,” Piney answered quickly. “It’s…well, it’s not been going on that long. But it started before she was aware of Aunt Will’s illness. And I would never… Well, maybe she might have been a little vulnerable about her breakup and all that. But it was a…a mutual attraction.”
“So why have you kept it some secret hookup? There are more than a few people around here, including me, who’d be happy to see you finally get involved with someone.”
“Well…we, uh…we’re not really getting ‘involved,’ so to speak. We’re not planning on a long-term relationship.”
“You’re not?”
“No, we…she is…she was going back to Tulsa and I am staying here. We were both lonely and…uh…attracted to each other. We didn’t really see any potential for a future together. We were having an affair. Not a love affair, more a…a physical one.”
Tree continued to eye him incredulously. “Fuck buddies?”
“Hey! No f-bombs when you talk to your father.”
“I didn’t invent the term, Dad. It’s in common use.”
“Not common enough for under this roof.”
Tree raised an eyebrow, his tone sarcastic. “So, let me see if I’ve got this rule straight. It’s okay for you to do this kind of thing, but not okay for me to call it what it is.”
Piney felt he was in no position to fight the swearword battle. He didn’t attempt to defend himself.
“Jesse is a… She’s gorgeous and funny and I like being with her. The sexual stuff…it kind of came out of nowhere. But it was meant as more of a quickie, fly-by-night liaison. If it’s not over already, it probably will be soon. I don’t recommend this sort of thing. Please don’t use my behavior as an excuse to start having sex with Camryn.”
Tree made a huffing sound that was pure incredulity. “No, Dad. If I choose to sleep with my girlfriend it won’t be so I can show you up. I’ve got my head on straighter than that.”
