Separate Beds (30 page)

“I'm not—” she tried again, but choked to a halt.

“No, you're not, you're not. Believe me. Say it, Catherine. You're not what?”

It came out in a rush, tumblewords finding voice at last as she covered her face with both hands.

“I'm not bad I'm not a slut I'm not a whore I'm not I'm not I'm not!”

He enfolded her protectively against him, pinching his eyes shut while she flung her arms around his neck and clung. He felt a shudder possess her body and spoke into her hair.

“No, you never were, no matter how many times he said it. You never were any of those things.”

“Then why did he say them, Clay, why?”

“I don't know . . . Shh . . . The important thing is that you don't believe him, that you don't let him hurt you anymore.”

They rested at last against each other, exhausted, silent. Before she slept, Catherine again pictured her mother and realized she herself had just escaped becoming the same kind of self-contained, undemonstrative being.

And for the first time ever, she felt she had beaten Herb Anderson instead of the other way around.

Ada opened her eye. It looked like a soft-poached egg. Her mouth tried to wince but couldn't.

“Mom?” Cathy whispered.

“Caffy?” Ada's lips were still grotesquely swollen.

“You've been asleep a long time.”

“Have I?”

“Shh, don't move. Try to rest. You have a cracked rib and if you move it'll hurt.”

“I'm so tired,” the old woman breathed, succumbing, letting her eye slide shut again. But even in her bleary state she'd observed something that startled her eye open again.

“You've veen crying.” She couldn't pronounce her
b
's.

“A little. Don't worry about me, just worry about—” But tears stung her eyes again, burning the swollen lids. Ada saw and fluttered a hand. Catherine took it, feeling the small sparrow-bones and how little strength her mother had. The same helplessness which Clay had felt the night before, now assaulted Catherine.

“I ain't seen you cry since you was a little girl,” Ada whispered, trying her hardest to squeeze her daughter's hand.

“I gave it up long ago, Mom, or I would've been doing it all the time.”

“It ain't a good fing to give up.”

“No—no it isn't.” Catherine swallowed. “Mom, you don't have to talk.”

“Funny fing, you sayin' I don't hafta talk, me sayin' you don't hafta cry—least not for each other. Vut I guess we gotta do it for ourselves.”

“Why don't you wait till you're feeling stronger.”

“Veen waiting nineteen years to get stronger.”

“Mom, please . . .”

A gentle pressure on Catherine's hand silenced her. Ada spoke with an effort.

“Time it was said. Just listen. I'm a weak woman, always have veen, vut mayve now I faid my dues. Got to tell you. Herv, he was good to me once, when I was first married to him. When Steve was a vavy you shoulda seen Herv with Steve, why you wouldn'ta known him.” She closed her eyes, rested momentarily before continuing. “And then all that vusiness started in the Gulf of Tonkin and Herv, he was in the reserves. When his unit got called to active duty, I figured he'd ve vack in no time. Vut it was worse'n we thought, and he was gone two years. He saw a mighty lot in them two years. He saw so much that he come home liking the liquor too much. The drinking he mighta got over, but what he never got over was findin' me expectin' a vavy when he got home.”

Catherine wondered if she had understood Ada's distorted words correctly.

“A—a baby?”

The room was still. Ada's single, open eye stared at the ceiling.

“Yes, a vavy. That was you, o' course.”

“Me?”

“I told you I was a weak woman.” Ada's eye teared.

“I'm not his?”

The bruised head moved back and forth weakly on the pillow while a rippling sense of freedom seeped into Catherine.

“So you see, it wasn't all his fault, Caffy. I done that to him, and he could never forgive me, nor you either.”

“I never understood till now.”

“I was always so scared to tell you.”

“But, why didn't you?” Catherine leaned nearer so her mother could see her face better. “Mom, please, I'm not blaming you, I just need to know, that's all. Why didn't you ever stand up for me? I thought you didn't—” Catherine stopped, her eyes flickered away from her mother's.

“Love you? I know that's what you was gonna say. It's no excuse at all, vut Herv, he was just waiting for me to show you some favoritism. Why, he'd use any excuse to vlow up. I was scared of him, Caffy, I was always scared after that.”

“Then why didn't you leave him?”

“I figured I owed him to stay. Vesides, where would I go?”

“Where are you going to go now? Surely you aren't going to go back to him?”

“No, I don't need to now that you know. Vesides, it's different now. You and Steve all grown up, all I have to worry avout is myself. Steve, he's made a good life for himself in the service and you got Clay. I don't need to worry avout you no more.”

A prickle of guilt traced through Catherine's veins. She rubbed the back of her mother's hand absently, then sat forward to study Ada's face.

“Who was he, Mom?” she asked wistfully.

A contorted smile tried to find its way through the swollen lips.

“It don't matter who, just what. He was a fine man. He was the vest thing that ever happened to me. I'd go through all the years of hell with Herv again if I could live those days once more with your father.”

“Then you loved him?”

“I did . . . oh, how I did.”

“Then why didn't you leave Da—Herb, and marry him?”

“He was already married.”

Hearing all this, Catherine realized that within her mother dwelled an Ada she would never know, except for the glint of remembrance in the bloodshot eye.

“Is he still alive?” Catherine asked, suddenly wanting to know everything about him.

“Lives right here in the city. That's why it's best if I don't tell you who he is.”

“Will you tell me someday?”

“I can't make that fromise. See, he went flaces. He's
some
thing now. You'd never have to ve ashamed of having a father like him. My—my mouth is a little dry. Do you think I could have some water?”

Catherine helped her mother drink, listened to her weary sigh as she sank back again.

“Mom, I have a confession to make too.”

“You, Caffy?” The surprised way her mother said it made Catherine wonder if Ada might not have always thought her above wrong, only she herself had been too busy looking for outward shows of affection to see the deeper, intrinsic feeling.

“Mom, I did it on purpose—got pregnant, I mean. At least, I think I did. I wanted to get even with Herb for all the times he'd called me names, and I wanted to get away from both of you, from that house where there was never anything but fighting and his drunkenness. I guess subconsciously I believed a baby would get me out and provide me with love. I didn't think he'd take it out on you, but I feel somehow it is part of the reason he beat you, wasn't it?”

“No, no, don't vlame yourself, Caffy. It was a long time coming. He said I shoulda been at his trial, and that it was my fault he never got no money outa Clay. Vut the real reason was because you wasn't his. I don't kid myself that's the real reason, and I don't want you to go vlaming yourself.”

“But I've made such a mess of things.”

“No, honey. Now you just get that out of your head. You got Clay, and the vavy coming, and with a father like Clay, why, that vavy's vound to ve somevody too.”

“Mom, Clay and I—” But Catherine could not tell her mother the truth about her future with Clay.

“What?”

“We were wondering if when the baby is born, if you're strong enough then, you'd come and stay with us and help out for a couple days.”

The pathetic excuse for a smile tore at Catherine's heartstrings as her mother sighed contentedly and closed her eye.

It was the day after Clay and Catherine had shared the same bed, but he'd left her asleep that morning. Returning home in the late afternoon, he was eager to see her.

She heard the door slam and her hands grew idle, the water splattering unheeded over the paring knife and the rib of celery she'd been washing. He came up the stairs, across the kitchen behind her, and laid a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“How was she today?”

A warmth seeped through her blouse at his touch, going beyond skin, beyond muscle, to the core of her. She wanted to turn, take his palm, kiss it and place it on her breast and say, How were you today? How was I? Were we happier for what passed between us last night?

“She hurt a lot, but they gave her painkillers whenever she asked for them. It was very hard for her to talk with her mouth that way.”

Clay squeezed her shoulder, waiting for her to turn around, to need him again as she had last night. He could smell her hair, fresh, flower-scented. He watched her hands as water splashed over them and she peeled green, stringy fibers from the celery.

Why doesn't she turn around, he wondered. Can't she read my touch? She must know that I, too, am afraid.

Catherine began to clean another rib of celery she didn't need. She longed to look into his eyes and ask, “What do I mean to you, Clay?” But if he loved her, surely he would have said so by now.

Last night they had been bound together by her vast need for comfort, and by the accident of her pregnancy. At the time that had been justification for the swift siege of intimacy. But he had not said he loved her. Never, during all their months together had he even hinted that he loved her.

Their senses pounded with awareness of each other. Clay saw Catherine's hands fall still. He moved his fingers to the bare skin of her neck, slipping them behind her collar, his thumb brushing her earlobe. The water ran uselessly now, but Catherine's eyes were closed, her wrists dangling against the edge of the sink.

“Catherine . . .” His voice was thick.

“Clay, last night never should have happened,” she got out.

Disappointments assaulted him. “Why?” He took the paring knife from her fingers, dropped it into the sink and turned off the water. When he'd forced her to face him he asked again, quietly, “Why?”

“Because we did it for the wrong reasons. It wasn't enough—just my mother's problems and the fact that this baby is yours. Don't you see?”

“But we need each other, Catherine. We're married, I want—”

Suddenly she put her wet hands on his cheeks, interrupting. “Cool off, Clay. It's the easiest way, because we are not going to have a repeat performance of last night.”

“Dammit, I don't understand you!” he said angrily, pulling her hands from his face, holding her by the forearms.

“You don't love me, Clay,” she said with quiet dignity. “Now do you understand me?”

His eyes pierced hers, steely gray into dusky blue, and he wished he could deny her words. He could easily drown in her tempting eyes, in her smooth skin and beautiful features with which he'd grown so familiar. He could look at her across a room and want to fill his hands with her breasts, lower his mouth to hers, to know the taste and touch of her. But could he say he loved her?

Deliberately now he reached to cup both of her breasts, as if to prove this was all that was necessary. Through the smock and her bra he could tell her nipples were drawn tight. Her breath was heavy and fast.

“You want it too,” he said, knowing it was true, for he felt the truth beneath the thumbs that stroked the crests of her breasts.

“You're confusing lust and love.”

“I thought last night you finally agreed with me that it's a healthy thing to be touched, to touch back.”

“Is this healthy now?”

“You're damn right. Can't you feel what's happening to you?”

Stoically she allowed his hands their freedom, and though she could not prevent her body from responding, she would not give him the satisfaction of moving willfully in any way suggesting acquiescence. “I can feel it. Oh, I can feel it, all right. Does it make you feel macho, knowing what it does to me?”

He dropped his hands suddenly. “Catherine, I can't exist with this coldness of yours. I need more than you put into this relationship.”

“And I cannot put more into this relationship without love. And so it's a vicious circle, isn't it, Clay?” She looked straight at his face still glistening with water. She respected him if for nothing more than not lying. “Clay, I'm only being realistic to protect myself. It would have been so easy all these months with you to delude myself every time you turned your eyes on me with that certain look that makes me go all liquid, that you loved me. But I know it's not true.”

“To be loved you have to be lovable, Catherine. Don't you understand that? You never try in the least. You carry yourself like you're wearing armor. You don't know how to return a smile or a touch or—”

“Clay, I never learned!” She defended herself. “Do you think things like that come naturally? Do you think it's something you're born with, like you were born with your father's gray eyes and your mother's blond hair? Well, it's not. Love is a learned thing. It's been taught to you since you were in knee pants whether you know it or not. You were one of the lucky ones who had it happening around him all the time. You never questioned it but you always expected it, didn't you? If you fell and got hurt, you were kissed and coddled. If you were gone, then came back, you were hugged and welcomed. If you tried and failed, you were told it didn't matter, they were proud anyway, right? If you misbehaved and were punished, they made you understand it hurt them as badly as it hurt you. None of those lessons were taught to me. Instead, I had the other kind, and I learned to exist without your kind. You take all signs of affection too lightly; you set too little store by them. It's different for me. I can't . . . I can't be—oh, I don't know how to make you understand. When something's in short supply its value goes up. And it's like that with me, Clay. I've never had anyone treat me nice before, so every gesture, every touch, every overture you make toward me is of far greater value to me than it is to you. And I know perfectly well that if I learn to accept them, learn to accept you, I'll be hurt far more than you will when it's time for us to separate. And so I've promised myself I will not grow dependent on you—not emotionally anyway.”

“What you're really saying is that we're back where we started, before last night.”

“Not exactly.” Catherine looked down at her hands; they were fidgeting.

“What's different?”

She looked up, met his gaze directly, then squared her shoulders almost imperceptibly. “My mother told me today that Herb is not my real father. That frees me from him—really frees me—at last. It also gives me even better insight into what happens when people stay in a loveless marriage for all the wrong reasons. I'm never going to end up like her. Never.”

During the weeks that followed, Clay mulled over what Catherine had said about love being taught. He had never before dissected the many ways in which his parents had shown him affection. But Catherine was right about one thing: he'd always taken it for granted. He had been so secure in their approval, so certain of their love, he'd never questioned their tactics. He admitted she was right, also, about his placing less value than she upon physical contact. He began to evaluate outward signs of affection by looking at them from Catherine's viewpoint and admitted that he'd taken them too lightly. He began to understand her awful need to remain free of him emotionally, to understand that the idea of loving him loomed like a threat, in light of their agreement to divorce soon after the baby arrived. He analyzed his feelings for her only to find that he honestly did not believe he loved her. He found her physically desirable, but because she had never been demonstrative toward him, it was difficult to imagine he ever would love her. What he wanted was a woman who was capable of impulsively lifting her arms and seeking his kiss. One who would close her eyes against his cheek and make him feel utterly wanted and wanting. He doubted that he could ever achieve with Catherine the kind of free-wheeling spontaneity he needed in a wife.