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“Sorry.”
It had been nearly a year since James had attempted to touch me intimately except for the other night in bed when I returned from Hell. He was tired or busy. I was tired or busy. Now I simply didn’t care or want his touch.
We had just completed the clean-up duties when a knock on the back door startled me. Littie and Virgil were outside with pumpkin pie for dessert. They had finished the evening with us for the last five years. Virgil got along well with James. Virgil could get along with anyone. Littie and Virgil didn’t like Belle or James but they loved Kat and me.
“There’s my girl and look at her hair,” Littie said holding Kat’s hands in her own. “How are you sweetie? You look simply beautiful.”
“I was telling Gabrielle that earlier,” Belle interrupted entering the kitchen with her coffee cup and saucer.
She hadn’t exactly said Kat looked beautiful.
“Thanks Littie. I want to surprise Nana when we go there next week,” Kat said ignoring Belle. “I think my dad will be surprised too.”
I turned around startled at the admission. Kerry was the real reason she had colored her hair, I thought. Keegan’s hair color now matched her father’s hair color. Kat looked a great deal like Kerry I noticed glancing over her beautiful soft features something I had denied over the last seventeen years of her life because it was too painful to think of Kerry McCoy.
“We brought the dessert.” She handed the warm pie to me.
“I don’t think that I need any dessert,” Belle interjected again. “We have to watch our waistlines, don’t we Gabrielle?”
Was I gaining weight? I didn’t think so. If anything I needed to gain five or ten pounds. My mother-in-law was petite so next to her I probably looked large with my height but knew that I really wasn’t.
“On Thanksgiving…I watch nothing,” I finally told Belle taking the pie to the island where I retrieved a knife from the drawer all the while thinking that I might just have two pieces of pie to spite my mother-in-law.
While I cut the pieces Belle returned to the living room, where James was sitting alone reading a magazine.
“That woman is a bitch,” Littie declared angrily.
“Littie,” Virgil scolded his wife. “You promised to behave yourself this year.”
Virgil was two heads taller than his petite wife. He was a tall blond blue-eyed giant of a man with broad shoulders muscled from working on the farm. He looked fit and trim and younger than his wife even though he was three years older. They looked mismatched but their love and marriage was strong.
They had their difficult times like every married couple but they were committed to each other. They had what I longed for in a marriage. They had what my parents had. They had respect for one another and from that respect they had a great love and more importantly they liked each other too.
Littie and Virgil had two sons who lived in opposite ends of Michigan. One was living in Ann Arbor and the other in Petoskey. They both had attended the University of Michigan and both of them were married with three children each. With each new picture of the grandchildren I learned more about them. They were good parents and they had taught their sons to be good fathers. I found myself feeling envious of the normalcy that existed in their lives. Normalcy I longed for in my own life.
“Whatever,” Littie replied flippantly to her husband. “Let’s get this party rolling.”
The feathers almost flew that night from the moment that Littie said hello to James.
“James you don’t look well,” Littie said. “Is your blood pressure high?”
“No Littie it’s just fine,” James replied attempting to ignore her baiting him.
“Oh. Your face appears a little red. Were you yelling at Keegan again?” Littie asked with insincere concern.
Belle coughed discreetly behind her dainty hand to disguise the anger that had crossed her features for a second. I nearly laughed out loud. Keegan shook her head and rolled her eyes then she took a seat near the fire that James had started holding her pie plate in her hand.
“Since when do we not eat at the dining room table?” James asked not noticing that everyone had a plate but him and his mother.
“Since you have company,” Littie replied. “James you need to get that stick out of your ass. I think you would enjoy life more.”
Virgil glared at his petite wife. She smiled back at him sweetly.
James was speechless. Virgil just managed to control his wife while James tried to keep control over his mother. Kat and I just sat back and laughed while everyone ate their pie. When the pie was gone Keegan took the plates to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher for me.
“She’s such a good girl. Don’t you think?” Littie asked Belle.
“Of course,” Belle agreed reluctantly.
