Parents, Chapter 3 ~ If Only You Knew

Liseli shook out the umbrella on the stoop as Russ pushed open the door.  He stood inside the tiny mudroom uncertainly, staring in at the living room with its clean tan carpeting.

Liseli left the umbrella outside and kicked her shoes off on the mat, brushing past him with her head down as she went to the kitchen.  She began to open and shut cupboard doors, slamming them, staring bleakly at the empty or sparsely stocked shelves.  There was nothing but baking supplies like flour and sugar, not enough of anything else to make something, though, and nothing ready to eat.  Then she found a forlorn box of Cap’n Crunch cereal and yanked it out onto the counter.  A half-eaten package of Oreo cookies was revealed in the back of the cupboard, and she grabbed that too.

“What are you doing?”

Russ followed her in, and was standing in his socks by the table, dripping onto the floor as he pushed wet hair from his eyes and sniffed.  He left the windbreaker on the mudroom floor but his t-shirt stuck to him like paste.

“There’s nothing to eat,” she said, angry at the empty cupboards and the cupboard doors and the counter top.  “Nothing for dinner or breakfast or anything.  But this—” she picked up the cereal box and thumped it against the Formica.

He blinked.  “We don’t have milk.”

“Of course not!”  She threw up her hands, then realized they were shaking and squeezed them together in front of her.  “Of course we don’t have anything to eat because I just can’t do anything right!”

Russ opened his mouth but shut it without saying anything, frowning as he gave her his “I’m trying desperately to figure you out” look.

She sighed, then snapped, “You’re soaking wet.  Take off those clothes and hang them on the rack in the laundry room.”

“Alright,” he said, but didn’t move.

“What are you waiting for?”

He cocked his head to the side and shrugged one shoulder.  “I can’t figure out if you’re still mad at me or not.”

She shook her head wearily, slumping against the counter.  “Why, because you were right about Casey?  Yes I can say it; you were right and I was wrong.  I was so very wrong to think that he actually respected me as a fellow student, when all he really saw me in me was an easy catch; a lonely, pathetic, vulnerable little—”  She broke off, seeing Russ fight a smile.  “Well you don’t have to gloat about it!”

He quickly sobered.  “I’m not gloating.  Casey’s the one who was wrong.”

“Uh-huh.”  She gripped the counter edge on either side of her.  “Isn’t that what you were trying to tell me, before?  That Casey couldn’t possibly just want to be friends, because who would want to be friends with me if there wasn’t any sex to make it bearable?”

“Casey’s a jerk.”

“But you knew before you even met him that this is what was going to happen!”  She kicked the cupboard door in frustration.

“Well, duh,” he shook his head, the grin breaking out.  “All guys have one track minds, my naïve little English major.  We’re all jerks.  If some geek says that he’s not interested in you I know he’s lying.  Easy.”  He shrugged.

“If you’re all the same—” Liseli shook her head and sighed “—then why am I home with you while Casey’s in the gutter?”

“Because—” Russ dripped across the floor to pull her away from the counter “—I love you and I’ve never pretended that I’m not a jerk.”  He nuzzled her neck, tickling her with his eyelashes.

“You silly.”  She shook her head, but smiled.  “That’s not—” she stopped as he swallowed her words with a kiss.  She shivered at the touch of his wet clothes, but shut her eyes and embraced him as he pressed her into the cupboard doors.  Rainwater soaked through her clothes to her skin, but it warmed between them.  He pulled back slightly, lifting her shirt and tracing her bra with his fingertips before unhooking it in back.  She sighed, kissing his neck as his hands glided over her body.  She suddenly felt a dizzying desire to make love out on the grass in the pouring rain, letting the cold drops run between them and steam.

Instead they slid to the kitchen floor, fumbling with each other’s clothes. He pulled her sweater up all the way, tossing it aside.  She peeled off his shirt, and he shook out his hair as he lowered his arms around her again.  Little droplets of water splashed around them.  The vinyl was warm and sticky under her legs as she sat down with her skirt pushed up around her waist.  He started tugging her panties down, and she went down with them, lying on her back with the top of her head against the cupboard doors.  Russ loomed above her, kneeling as he unzipped his jeans.  She smiled beatifically, lifting her hands above her head and pushing herself away from the cupboard.  It had been one month, two weeks, and five days since the last time they’d had sex.  Liseli welcomed him home, wrapping her arms and legs around him as he sighed her name, kissing her forehead.  She tangled her fingers in his wet hair, rising to meet him.

When they were apart again, lying side by side on the floor, Liseli whispered in his ear, “I missed you.”  He turned to kiss her mouth lazily.  He wore a benign grin of utter contentment, like the boy who broke into the pantry and ate all the candy.  He always looked that way after they had sex.  He closed his eyes, sighing as he slid his hand down her side from armpit to thigh.

“But you’re wrong.”  She placed her hand over his.

His eyes opened.  “About what?”

“About why I’m with you.”

“Mm.”

“Do you want to know?”

He kissed her throat under her jaw for a moment before answering.  “No,” he said, to her surprise.  “I’m just glad you’re with me.”

She didn’t say anything.  He sat up.  “Damn this floor is hard,” he said inanely, rubbing his neck.

Liseli sat up too, staring wonderingly at him.  Why doesn’t he want to know?  Why wouldn’t anyone want to know just why they’re loved?  She shook her head, embarrassed.  “I’m hungry,” she realized, getting to her feet.  But then she picked up all their clothes, and arranged them on the rack in the laundry room.  Russ wasn’t in the kitchen when she returned, and she bit her lip, wondering what had gotten into him.  She sighed, wondering if she was really that frightening to talk to.

She gathered up the Oreo cookies and Cap’n Crunch cereal, flicking off the kitchen light.

Liseli slipped a nightshirt over her head and got comfortable on her side of the bed with the food.  Russ came out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair.  It stuck up at every angle, comically, as it always did when he rubbed it dry or she mussed it up.  He dropped the towel on the bed and climbed in next to her, reaching over to grab a cookie as he snuggled up against her.  “How old are these?” he asked around a stale mouthful.

“Old enough,” Liseli replied, nibbling hers clockwise around the circumference.

He picked the package up and twisted around to lie on his back with his head in her lap.  He balanced the cookies on his chest and took another one out, idly twisting it apart.  “You know, when you do this, you just make the cookie even drier,” he commented, before licking the cream out.

Liseli shrugged.  “I like it dry.  The cream tastes like corn starch anyway.”

“Here,” he offered her the cookie halves.  “Enjoy.”

They went through the rest of the package like that, Russ licking the cream off and Liseli nibbling the cookies down like a spiral.  Then Russ sat up and licked Liseli, starting at her shoulder and going up her neck slowly till he nibbled on her ear.

“Russ,” she said softly as he lay on top of her, pressing her into the pillows.

“Mm?”

“Why didn’t you want me to tell you why I’m here, with you?”

He stopped, lifting his head and propping himself up on his elbows to look at her.  “Is it good or bad?”

“Bad?  How could it be bad?”  She touched his chest.

“I don’t know.”  He rolled to the side and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.  But then he admitted, “It’s just that we were thrown together in a crazy situation, and maybe if that wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t still be with me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”  She wrinkled her forehead, sitting up.  “If I didn’t want to be with you I wouldn’t be with you.  Simple as that.  We’ve been through so much together, that no one else can ever understand, that’s true.  But I love you.”  She touched the side of his face.  “I love the way you’re gentle and sweet but you’ll do something like beat the living shit out of Casey, for me.  All sorts of reasons like that; your smile and your frown and every little thing you do that makes me happy or angry or sad or . . . just everything that makes me feel something.”

He kept looking at the ceiling as she talked, redness creeping over his face, but she took his chin and turned his face toward her.

“I feel half alive without you.  I can’t eat.  I can’t sleep.  I can’t even cry when I’m so lonely for you that I sleep with your clothes and talk to your pictures.  Don’t tell me if that’s a bad thing or a good thing.  It doesn’t matter to me.”

“What?”  He sat up.  “Why haven’t you told me this before?  About missing me, I mean.”

“I thought it was obvious.”  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms once, feeling cold.

He stared past her at the picture frames on the nightstand, photos of the two of them together, or just him.  She glanced over her shoulder, though she knew the images by heart.  There was one of them kissing, the angle crooked and the focus blurred because she had held the camera out to the side and snapped the shot.  There were a couple of him sleeping, mouth open and faced pressed into his pillow, hair askew.  There were shots of them standing together that she had gotten strangers to take, and one that her sister Leona had snapped when she’d first brought Russ home to the surprise and confusion of her family.  They both looked drawn and haunted in that picture, sitting close together on the porch swing, Liseli’s head on his shoulder and their eyes staring off unfocused at ghosts no one else could see.  Liseli couldn’t even remember Leona taking the picture, because for days all she’d wanted was to disappear into Russ and hide from the world, from all the worlds.  At the back of the stand, behind all the other pictures, was a photograph of the Mill against a sunny, cloud speckled blue sky.  Russ had taken that one, because she had never gone back.

She turned back to Russ, who seemed to just now understand why she kept such a collection of pictures right by her side of the bed.  “But why did you run out with Casey tonight if you missed me so much?” he asked helplessly.

“Because I was mad at you!”  She laughed suddenly, shaking her head.  “I wanted you to miss me, to be left home alone, wondering why I’d left you and what could be so much more important than you that I had to go.”

He was silent.

“Casey’s right about me, you know.”  She looked at him levelly.  “I was lonely, and pathetic, and vulnerable, sitting here at home dreaming about my phantom boyfriend.  I wasn’t really naïve enough to believe he was as disinterested as he said, but I didn’t care, as long as he kept his ‘respectful’ distance.”  She shook her head again.  “I just didn’t want to be alone all the time.  But sometimes I was afraid.  Really afraid that I might be tempted.  I’m sorry, Russ.  But you of all people should know how much I hate sleeping alone.  The nightmares.  They never go away.  I don’t think they ever will.”

He gulped, looking pale.  “But we talked about it and agreed that we’d do this until you’re done with college, and then we’ll get married and be together all the time.”

“Russ, I’m almost done with college!” she cried, “if you can’t give it up now, how will you give it up ever?”

“You want me to give it up?  Why did you tell me to go do it in the first place?”

“Because!  You think I like being like this?”  She put her hands to her chest.  “The weak, sniveling little coward?  Do you think I like being your ball and chain?”

“You’re not.”  He reached over and pulled her to his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head.  “You’re not any of those things.  I’m glad that you need me for something.  Honestly.  And I won’t leave you ever again.  I promise.  I’ll be damned if I ever leave you alone with only assholes like Casey Duncan to keep you company.  Alright?”

“But you love it,” she murmured into his chest.

“I can live without it,” he said.  “Anyway.  Without you it’s not the same.”

“You know I can’t come with you.”

“I know,” he sighed.  “But I can stay with you.”

She squeezed him.  “I love you,” she whispered, and he echoed her.

---

In the morning they finished off the box of Cap’n Crunch, agreeing that it could really use some milk.  They showered together, running the water until it was lukewarm, and then went to the grocery store, filling an entire cart with food.  Liseli went to her one class for the day, English Lit.  Casey was conspicuously absent.  She found herself humming “My Boyfriend’s Back” with a smile as she walked to work.  At work Mindy looked at her sideways, but didn’t seem able to work up the nerve to ask what all the commotion had been about last night.  Liseli figured that she must have gotten most of the pertinent information from her and Casey’s conversation, anyway.

When she went home, Russ was making dinner.  The kitchen was a complete mess, and Russ explained sheepishly that he’d been trying to recreate an ethnic dish of the Vahtaran people, but it hadn’t turned out well.  So now he was making grilled cheese sandwiches.  She kissed him, licking what tasted like mustard off the corner of his mouth. They didn’t end up on the kitchen floor, but it appeared that a few other things had already; flour, water, minced ginger, and splatters of what may or may not have been tomato sauce.

Later, after eating grilled cheese sandwiches and cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom, they went to bed.

“Shut your eyes,” Russ said as he climbed in.

“What?”

“Eyes.  Shut.”  He grinned, and she wondered what he was up to. But she shrugged and shut her eyes.  He kissed her under her jaw and picked up her hand, and she realized what he was doing.

“Russ,” she opened her eyes, saw the ring in his hand.  “What on earth . . . ?”

“You weren’t supposed to look,” he said, disappointment filling his hazel eyes.  He slipped it onto her finger anyway, saying, “There you go.  I realized that I never asked you to marry me.  Sorry.  Marry me?”

She had been staring at the ring, a band of gold and silver intertwined, with small red stones all around it.  She looked up, smiling, but asked with a tone of irony, “Russ . . . what would you do if I said no?”

He paused, looking for a moment as if he feared she was really about to reject him.  Then he relaxed, and shrugged.  “I’d have to find Casey and kill him, I guess.”

She laughed, slipping her arms around his neck and kissing him tenderly.  “Have you had this?” she asked, returning to the ring.  “Or did you just get it?”

“Mmmmm,” he said noncommittally.

“What?”

“It’s yours now, if you say yes.”

“Yes.  Of course.”

He smiled, kissing her, and she didn’t ask again where he’d gotten the ring.

---

Liseli saw very little of Casey after that.  He returned to class, bruised and battered looking, but would say nothing about it to anyone.  She only spoke to him once, briefly, but for the most part he crossed the hall when he saw her coming, as if he half expected Russ to pop out of the woodwork at any moment.  She didn’t pursue any further contact with him, though she still had a few things niggling at her conscience.  After all, she’d known and expected that Russ would be jealous.  She hadn’t known it would turn out quite like that, but still, she felt as if she’d used Casey as bait.  But then again, he hadn’t been able to take no for an answer when it was good for him.

She wore the ring and began referring to Russ as her fiancé.  They planned to get married right after she graduated in June, when her family would be there.

In late October Liseli was walking home from St. Somewhere’s, down a residential street adjacent to the one she and Russ lived on.  She was a little tired, looking forward to home, and Russ, but she walked slowly, admiring the autumn coloring.  The trees were shedding in abundance, and the fall leaves were mostly coating people’s yards or swept into the gutters.  But some remained on the trees.  The air was cool and crisp; the sun just setting and the light tending toward dusk.

Liseli shivered, pulling her jacket more closely around her.  She watched her breath escape as a breeze whipped her hair around.  She walked past a yard with a swing dangling from a giant old maple tree, glancing at it briefly before looking at the other side of the street.

Then she stopped, feeling a sudden pain in her abdomen.  Liseli winced, her breath caught, and she looked over her shoulder.  The world had gone gray.

She was sitting on the swing, motionless.  Her auburn hair hung down still as death even though the wind swirled the leaves about her.  The hazel eyes, large and limpid, regarded Liseli from the small face. She blinked; resigned, calm, but sad.

“You’ve replaced me, Mommy, haven’t you?”

Liseli turned and ran down the street, not looking back.

She arrived home breathless and stumbled into the house.  Russ was sleeping in front of the television; he had been home for a month and had just gotten a job at the grocery store.  It wasn’t much, but they didn’t have a car and the grocery store was nearby.

He woke with a start, sensing something bad as soon as she opened the door.  “What’s the matter?” he asked, standing as she dropped her purse.  She went to him and hugged him first, closing her eyes.  He hesitated before wrapping his arms around her.  “What is it?”

Liseli took a deep breath.  “Can we get married now?  I mean, soon anyway.”

“Um . . . sure, I guess?”  He tilted her chin up to look at him.  “What about your family and the graduation?”

“I’m going to have a baby,” she said bluntly.  “In June I’ll probably be nine months pregnant.”

His mouth formed a silent “oh.”  He thought about it for a moment.  A smile worked its way onto his face, faded, then returned uncertainly to one corner of his mouth.  “What about the, uh, wedding?”

“I’ve been to seven of my mother’s eight weddings,” said Liseli, shaking her head.  “I’d just like to be married.  You don’t mind, do you?”

“No.  But . . . .”

“But what?”

“Nothing, I guess.”  His eyes searched her face.  “So you’re pregnant.  Big change . . . coming up . . . .”  He looked around the room.  “We’ll need more money . . . .”

“Yeah.  Let’s not think about that right now, though.”  She buried her face in his chest.

He brushed his fingers through her hair.  “Okay.”  Then she could hear the lopsided grin in his voice as he said, “I’m going to be a father.  Huh.”

She nodded, swallowing down the fear, the memory, the voices and the soundless tears.  If only you knew, she thought, but remained silent.  It may never stop for her, but she would not give her nightmares to him.