Love & Devotion

by Jove Belle

  “What are you up to today, honey?” Her mama stood at the stove stirring a large stockpot, surrounded by sterilized jars, her water-bath canner boiling on the back burner.

  “I came by to talk to you.” She kissed her mama hello on the cheek, then peered into boiling pot. “What are you making?”

  “Strawberry jam. I spent all day yesterday picking berries.”

  “You should have called me. I’m between sessions.” Spring session had ended after finals, and summer had yet to start for her. Picking strawberries wasn’t on her list of favorite things to do, but helping her mama was.

  “You know I don’t like to bother you girls. You have lives of your own to live. Especially you, right now, with Emma leaving soon.”

  “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” KC braced herself for what she needed to say. After Lonnie had ambushed her on Sunday, she’d realized she’d never be able to fully grow beyond that part of her life until she owned up to it. At this point, all the people who really mattered knew about her and Lonnie except her mama and daddy. She could talk to her mama, and her mama would talk to her daddy for her. All of her truly important conversations between her and her daddy took place via her mama. She didn’t see any reason to break with tradition this time around. The tricky part in this case would be telling her mama about her part in the affair without naming Lonnie.

  “Don’t tell me, you’ve decided to stop being stubborn and you’re moving to Austin with Emma.” Her mama spooned a bit of jam out of the pot and held it out. “Here, taste this.”

  She dutifully tried the fruit and nodded. It was delicious, as always. “No, Mama, I’m not moving. Not any time soon, anyway.”

  “Hold on, honey. I need to get this into the jars.” Her mama ladled with unerring precision. She never missed a drop. One year KC had tried to fill the jars in an effort to help. She’d dropped jam on the glass threads, and they’d spent forever cleaning them up so the lids would seal. That was the end of KC pouring the jam.

  She followed behind her mama, spinning the metal flats and rings onto the tops of the jars. When she was done, her mama placed them in the canner and set the timer. “Now then, if you’re not moving, what brought you over here?”

  She’d rehearsed what she wanted to say over and over in her head the night before, and again on the drive that morning. It was important that she tell her mama everything, but even more important that she let her know in a way that wouldn’t destroy her.

  “I need to tell you about the relationship I was in before Emma.” The word relationship was a bit of a stretch. She realized that now. But she wasn’t ready to trot out a term like fuck buddies just yet either. Affair was the most appropriate way to classify what she’d shared with Lonnie, but she needed her mama to hear what she had to say completely before she got caught up in the bad parts.

  Her mama poured them both a glass of iced tea and led her to the breakfast table. “What about it?” She asked the question while looking down into her glass.

  “I just…” She took a deep breath. “I saw her for a year and kept it from you. I know you must have questions and I want to clear some of that up, if I can.”

  “Okay.” Her mama met her gaze and held it.

  “The other day I said I couldn’t tell you who it was because she’s not out, and that’s true. But there’s more to it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, for starters, she’s older than me.” She took a drink of her iced tea and wished for something stronger. If she could get her mama past the age difference, then she’d tell her about the married part.

  “I see. How much older?”

  “Around your age.” Lonnie was two years younger than her mama.

  “I don’t understand. Why in the world would you do that?”

  She shrugged. “She’s beautiful and sexy and I’ve had a crush on her for as long as I can remember.” As much as she hated herself for the affair now, and hated Lonnie for refusing to let go, her feelings about Lonnie at the start hadn’t changed. At forty-six, Lonnie’s age the first time they slept together, Lonnie had been lush and gorgeous and so very eager. She was responsive and pliant to KC’s touch. That part remained throughout their affair. In the beginning, she’d also been timid and unsure, reluctant to reveal the flaws on her body.

  Learning the landscape of Lonnie’s body, while at the same time teaching Lonnie to trust herself about what felt good, had been a revelation. Now that their affair was over and she was ready to move on, it was easy to forget what it had first been like, but at the time she had been drunk on the sweetness of it all. She’d consumed Lonnie like a bottle of cheap wine. However, she didn’t think her mama wanted to hear all that.

  “Well, I don’t know what a woman my age would want with someone half her age. Just the thought exhausts me. But that doesn’t seem like enough for you to have kept it a secret for a year.”

  This was her moment of truth, her chance to come clean. Her voice shook when she said, “She’s married.”

  “Oh, KC.” Her mama shook her head. “What were you thinking?”

  “I know, Mama. It was wrong. I can’t explain why I did it.” All the reasons, the justifications, which had felt tangible enough to touch at the time, fell apart under scrutiny. She’d fucked Lonnie because she wanted to. She was selfish and didn’t consider the very long-reaching effects of that selfishness. There was no other way to describe her behavior and no way to justify it.

  “Why are you telling me this now that it’s over? You have Emma.”

  There were so many reasons she didn’t know how to explain them all. A large part of her needed her mama to hug her and tell her she was going to be okay, that even though she’d made a mistake, the important part was to own it and then do better. But she wasn’t a little girl, and she wasn’t confessing to taking a cookie without permission. Also, it was better to self-identify than to be found out later. Too many people knew about her affair with Lonnie, and she didn’t want one of them to tattle to her mama before she could tell her herself. Most important, though, was what it meant in her relationship with Emma.

  “I’m not proud of it.” She shook her head. “Emma knows and it upsets her. For a while I wasn’t sure she’d be able to get past it, but she’s trying, and I think that’s because she sees that I’ve changed. I want to be better. I want to be the kind of person who deserves someone like Emma.”

  “Does Emma think you will be unfaithful to her?”

  “Mama, I would never cheat. Ever.” This wasn’t about Emma; it was about her and the core of her character. She didn’t have it in her to step out on someone.

  Her mama shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if you would or not. You disrespected someone else’s wedding vows. Those are sacred. Emma has to be questioning if you would honor your own.”

  “I haven’t asked. I hope she doesn’t feel that way.” She had promised to be monogamous, but she’d been afraid to ask Emma if she believed her. She couldn’t bear the thought of hearing Emma say flat out that she didn’t trust her. “Emma and I agreed to be exclusive, and I wouldn’t promise her that unless I intended to honor my words.”

  “Good intentions aren’t always enough, KC.”

  “I know.” She wanted to be able to wipe the slate clean, to move back in time and erase the affair completely. Since that wasn’t possible, all she could do was hope Emma would stick with her long enough for her to be able to prove she was good for her word.

  “Is this why you’re not moving?”

  “It’s not what you think. Emma asked me to go with her, but I said no. For now.” She had used the excuse that her family needed her. She’d believed it at the time, but with every day that passed, Trina proved more and more that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She’d put up with Jackson for too long and wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. KC was proud of her.

  “Does she understand?”

  “I think so.” She smiled. “I hope so. I
told her I needed to stay for Trina, but I also need to make sure I’m ready for what comes next. Emma isn’t the kind of girl I can string along. If I move in with her, I need to be prepared to stay forever.”

  “And you don’t think you can do that?”

  “I’d like to think so, but it wasn’t very long ago that I was seeing a married woman and thought that was perfectly okay.” She hated saying those words, laying it out that clearly. She’d rather her mama not know all her bad secrets.

  “I don’t believe that. You may have done it, but some part of you knew it was wrong.”

  “I suppose. But Mama, that’s why I can’t go with Emma yet. Even if I was willing to admit it was wrong, I wasn’t willing to stop. I wanted Lo—her. And I didn’t care about anything else.” She choked on her near slipup with Lonnie’s name. The only thing saving her was that her mama wasn’t likely to ever think of her calling Mrs. Truvall by her first name. She chided herself about being more careful. Her need to talk things through with her mama didn’t mean she was allowed to selfishly destroy other lives.

  That’s exactly what would happen if her mama found out the woman she’d been talking about was Lonnie. Her mama would be lost without her friend. And while Lonnie and Glen might survive any number of infidelities on both their parts, that didn’t mean Glen could overlook his wife having a lesbian affair with a woman half their age.

  “KC, do I know this other woman? The one you had the affair with?”

  KC swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Mama.” Maybe her mama picked up on more than she realized.

  “Is it a friend of mine?”

  That was the twenty-thousand-dollar question. If KC asked Kendall, the answer, without hesitation, would be no. If she asked Lonnie, she’d say yes just as quickly. KC thought about what her mama would say and realized the answer would probably change if she knew the whole truth.

  “Yes, ma’am.” There was no getting around the fact that, regardless of possible future changes, Lonnie was her mama’s friend before she was KC’s lover.

  “And you won’t tell me who it is?”

  “It would do more harm than good for me to do that.” To her ears it sounded like the coward’s way out. She remembered Kendall telling her that she wasn’t allowed to be selfish any more, that revealing Lonnie’s name to her mama would be pointless and painful. She bit her lip and hoped the answer would suffice.

  “I understand.” Her mama stood. “I need to get the next batch started. Help me.”

  KC pushed away from the table, uncertain that she’d said all she needed to. The topic felt much larger in her head. Surely she needed more words to fully discuss it. She met her mama at the counter and measured out white sugar into the pot of strawberries. Her mama added the pectin, stirred, then put the mixture on the burner.

  She touched her mama’s arm. “Are we okay?”

  “Of course we are.” Her mama smoothed her hair away from her face. “KC, I may not like it, or even understand it. But I do know this conversation was hard for you, and I’m proud of you for telling me.” She pulled KC into a hug. “Just promise me one thing.”

  She sucked in a breath through her tears. She hadn’t realized how much keeping this a secret from her mama had been pressing on her. The knowledge that she was still loved, possibly on the way to forgiven, meant everything to her. “Anything.”

  “Promise you won’t ever do anything like this again. Life is too short for secrets this big and harmful.”

  “I promise.” KC felt relief and dread in equal measure. Her mama still loved her, forgave her for being selfish, but expected her to learn from her mistakes and not repeat them. Making the promise was easy. Now all she had to do was keep it. She didn’t have the best track record, but God help her, she was going to try her damnedest.

  *

  Trina fed bullets into the cylinder of her revolver one by one. Her ear protection circled her neck, ready for use when the range master signaled the start of the next round. “Emma, did you find a place yet?”

  Emma and Trina had teamed up together and dragged KC along for an afternoon at the firing range. Their daddy had taught them all to shoot when they were little, so she was expected to enjoy blasting up tiny paper targets, but it held little appeal. She could think of at least a hundred other things she’d rather do with her Saturday than play with guns.

  She had given in to Emma’s request when she asked for the third time. Her willingness to participate came about as a combination of a desire to please Emma and an even stronger desire to be pleased by Emma. Emma had been kissing her neck at the time, and somehow her answer got messed around from no to yes. Earlier in the week Emma had discovered the perfect spot low on KC’s neck that turned her brain into applesauce. It was a weapon she feared would be used against her during future negotiations in their relationship.

  She pulled Emma’s ear protection away from her ears and said, “Trina wants to know if you found an apartment yet.”

  Emma took the earmuffs from her and dropped them around her neck. “Yeah. I signed the lease yesterday.” She’d completed the paperwork via fax.

  “Did you settle for one of the places you and KC looked at?” Trina asked.

  “No. I found a place online that’s close to work, is in my price range, and only has a six-month lease.”

  “How do you know you’ll like it?” Trina finished loading her gun and snapped the cylinder into place.

  Emma snorted. “I don’t expect to. I hate apartments, but I can’t afford to buy yet.”

  “What about you, KC?” Trina asked.

  “What?”

  “Can’t you afford a house?” Trina jumped in the middle of a topic that KC and Emma had been studiously avoiding for the past week.

  “Probably.” Suddenly she wished she’d brought her nine-millimeter along. When she’d realized what she’d agreed to, she’d purposefully left her own firearm at home in protest. Shooting was not on her list of favorite things, but if she’d brought it, she’d have something to focus her attention on besides the conversation.

  Trina had all the reason in the world to refamiliarize herself with her revolver. She needed to trust herself, trust her aim and her ability to pull the trigger, just in case the need ever arose. Jackson hadn’t been back to their house, but today was his first official visit with Buddy. That had to be playing hell with Trina’s nerves. But Emma’s interest baffled her. Handguns were less common in Austin. It wasn’t like she intended to carry one as her personal form of self-defense when she moved to the city.

  “Mmm.” Trina didn’t pursue the question any further. She lined up her sights on the target and mimed shooting through her six bullets. “Jackson and I used to go shooting before Buddy was born.” She set the revolver on the ledge, barrel facing out, and rested her hands on her belly. She was nearing her third trimester.

  “Why’d did you stop?” Emma asked.

  Trina laughed. “They wouldn’t let me bring the baby here, and I couldn’t bear to be away from him.”

  “Think you’ll come after this baby gets here?”

  “Probably. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I’d kept coming.” Trina’s thoughts were far from their conversation. She stared into the distance over KC’s shoulder.

  KC wished Trina wouldn’t play what-if. “Could you use that gun if you needed to?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Doubt it. But easier now than then, that’s for sure.”

  The light changed, indicating the next round was about to begin, and they all moved their protection back to their ears. When they received the go-ahead signal, Trina emptied her cylinder, six shots in rapid succession, nice and easy with no hesitation. When she pulled the target home, it showed a cluster of six holes in the center.

  They pulled their hearing protection off at the end of the round.

  “Sure you don’t want a turn, KC?”

  “No, thanks. Emma’s next.” They’d reserved only the one lane to sp
lit between them. It was cheaper than two or three separate lanes. “Who are you picturing when you pull the trigger?” KC expected Trina to say Jackson and probably shouldn’t have asked the question, but curiosity got the better of her.

  Trina smiled wryly. “Me a month ago. I never want to go back to being that person.” She folded the target and slipped it in her back pocket. “I’m done whenever you are, Emma.”

  Before the next round started, KC asked, “Have you had a chance to talk to Leann?” Things had been so hectic between them, KC had almost forgot about Lonnie’s daughter.

  Emma nodded. “We’ve met for coffee a couple of times. She’s really angry about some things, but she seems to understand that it gets better from here. It’s tough being a gay teen in Texas, but it’s not permanent.” She grinned.

  “Did you tell Mr. Truvall?” KC knew she couldn’t put herself in the middle of that conversation again but didn’t want him to worry unnecessarily.

  “Leann promised she would.”

  “Good.” It felt like inadequate closure for an awkward chapter in KC’s life, but it was the best she was going to get.

  “Let me empty this clip and we can go,” Emma said.

  Emma popped off her ten plus one at a slower pace than Trina. She reset herself between bursts and squeezed through the trigger gently. When she pulled her target back, her shots were all over the paper. KC didn’t take time to count, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if one or two had missed altogether. She was thankful Emma didn’t have the same motivation for accuracy that Trina had.

  “Looks like I need to keep practicing.” Emma counted the holes but didn’t comment on the number.