Waking Up in Dixie (13 page)

Patti had moved back in with her grandmother and resumed partying with her friends, but at least she answered Elizabeth’s calls, eager for news of her father’s progress, which she’d dubbed “the cussing quotient.”

If it were only the cussing, Elizabeth would have been in better shape. But Howe was like a giant toddler, alternately winsome and frustrating, and she never knew from one minute to
the next which he’d be. And even though he was definitely not the cold, distant man he’d been before the stroke, everything was still all about Howe, just as it had been before. But now, she wasn’t sure how long she could take it anymore.

The whole thing was exhausting.

By the end of each day, she barely had energy to crawl back to the condo and go through the mail, then nuke supper and go to bed, so her dinners with P.J. grew fewer and farther between, and he worried aloud that she was shutting down emotionally.

Maybe she was, but it was the best she could do.

And so the days and weeks rolled by, insulated from their past realities and facing an uncertain—and ironic—future.

Despite Howe’s progress, the pecker problem persisted. The man was well over fifty, but had no more control over the thing than a sixteen-year-old—not his own, charming sixteen-year-old self, but some sex-starved hormonal maniac with no sense of propriety. Sometimes all it took to set him off was saying “Hello.”

Bing, up went the sheet. She could tell it embarrassed him, but regardless, the man was fixated. He hadn’t jumped her bones, but he sure was gropey, and he was always trying to kiss her, even her hand.

Elizabeth had told him she was willing to let bygones be bygones and start over from scratch, and he’d said he understood, but apparently he didn’t because he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. She knew he wasn’t accountable for what he did, but it angered her that he thought he had a right to even touch her, after everything he’d put her through. It made her even
madder that he still had the power to anger her so. But for the children’s sake, she put on a brave and patient face.

She’d tried dressing like a nun, but it didn’t seem to matter.

At the rate they were going after a month, she decided it would be Christmas before she dared let him out in public. But the hospital and insurance company had other ideas. So, six weeks after Howell woke up, he walked out into the blazing July heat under his own steam, and Elizabeth took him home.

Blessedly, Patricia was in the Bahamas on a sorority trip she’d scheduled long before Howe’s release, so they arrived home to find that Augusta had had the place scoured to within an inch of its life and smelling of Pine-Sol, her personal cleaning choice. Augusta had also made a few changes to the arrangement of the furniture and accessories, which was par for the course. She always had and always would consider the house more hers than Elizabeth’s.

Suppressing a surge of anger when she saw the subtle changes, Elizabeth walked over and put her jade lion back where it belonged on the credenza.

Howell plunked down on the velvet bench beside it in the expansive Georgian foyer. “Whew. You wouldn’t think an hour car ride could wear you out, but, d—sorry—” He staunched the cussword and substituted, “
Man
. I’m whipped.” The appended apology had lately become a reflex when he cussed, which Elizabeth took as a good sign. At least he was becoming more aware of it, if only after the fact.

Elizabeth locked the front door and hooked the security chain, not against thieves—she never did that—but against her
mother-in-law. “Would you like to lie down in the den for a while before going upstairs?” she offered, shifting the fresh flowers from the center of the credenza to the side, where she liked it, then moving both candlesticks to the other side where they belonged. “I could bring you some lunch on a tray.”

Howe didn’t respond, scanning the rooms. “Has this place always been like this?” He winced. “I don’t remember disliking it, but it’s so . . .
dark,
and heavy.” Frowning, he sniffed the musty odor of ancient furniture and drapes. “So gloomy.”

“You always said it was elegant,” she told him, agreeing with his new assessment a hundred percent.

“Well, it doesn’t look elegant to me now. It looks like closeout at a bad antiques shop.” He frowned at the Victorian relics and heavy swagged moiré drapes in the parlor. “This was all here when we moved in?”

Elizabeth sat on the other side of the bench. “That, and more. We managed to get rid of some of it when your mother moved to your uncle’s place.” After that, Elizabeth had gradually relegated a few of the more objectionable remaining pieces to the attic, each of which Augusta noticed and asked if she’d sold.

Howe shook his head, taking it all in. “Damn—sorry. I vote we redecorate.”

“Really?” Elizabeth had given up on ever getting the chance. Thrilled, she imagined what the tall, graceful windows would look like without the heavy drapes, the dark paper banished by pale green walls, and the heavy woodwork pristine white.

He grinned to see her so happy. “Really. Have at it, Lizzie.” There was that blasted nickname again. “Whatever you want, as
long as it’s not dark and stuffy. We can afford it. Hell—sorry—we’re rolling in money.”

Not as much as before his stint in the center, but there was still plenty. Elizabeth remembered all the times she’d dreamed of renovating and updating the old place. “New kitchen and bathrooms?” They could finally get some decent insulation. “Thermal windows?” She could see it . . .

Then she realized what she was doing, and halted. Did she want to subject them both to a renovation if she was going to leave? P.J. had showed her what life could be like beyond the gossip and pettiness of Whittington. Beyond the reach of her mother-in-law. With someone who not only loved her, but cared what she felt and thought.

How did she know who Howe would end up being? What if he started slipping back into his old self? She couldn’t go back to that, she realized. She couldn’t.

Howe took her hand in both of his. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

“Nothing,” she covered. “Your mother will go ballistic.”

Relief brightened his expression. “Fuck Mama—sorry,” he said. “She’ll get over it.” He squeezed her hand. “You scared me. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of Mama.” He nodded toward the house they’d cohabited for the past thirty years. “You just make this place a home. It’s never really seemed like home for you, has it?”

Seeing that he really cared, she felt a pang of emotion cut through her. “More of a home than the one I grew up in,” she admitted frankly.

“Christ—sorry.” He reacted to her flinch at the offensive profanity. “Sorry,” he repeated with sincerity this time. “I completely forgot what you went through growing up.” He shook his head, perplexed. “How could I forget something like that?” His brows gathered. “I’ve really been selfish, haven’t I?”

Before the stroke, Howe would never have even considered asking such a question.

“Yes,” she answered, unable to put into words the bitter cost of his monumental self-absorption.

“Sometimes, I feel like the old me is somebody else,” he confided. “An evil twin. I have those memories, but I didn’t
feel
anything then.” His eyes lost focus. Clearly, the stroke hadn’t damaged his verbal capacity or his ability to remember the way he’d felt. “Well, ambition, maybe. The fleeting thrill of the deal. And loneliness, but I had nobody to blame but myself for that.”

Elizabeth sat silent. It was the most he had ever spoken to her of his feelings, and it frightened her. Caring about Howe had been far too dangerous for far too long for her to start doing it now.

“And lust,” he went on. “Not love. Just lust, brief, and quickly spent. No entanglements. No demands.” He gripped his chest as if in pain, guilt etched into his handsome features as he faced her. “Why did I throw you away?” She closed her eyes at the callous summary of what he’d done. “Why didn’t you leave me?” he asked her.

“Because I had nowhere to go.” She faced him squarely. “And I refused to shame our children. Every time my father beat my mother or embarrassed us all with his drinking and she forgave
him, I swore I would make a better life for my children, and I have. I swore I would never shame them, and I won’t.”

Even by leaving Howe for P.J.? She couldn’t think about that now. Focusing on Howe, she dismissed the thought.

She didn’t know if her husband possessed the capacity to do what she asked him next, but she asked him anyway. “Howe, please don’t make them ashamed of their father. I know Patricia resents me, but all teenaged girls resent their mothers. I can take it. But she idolizes you. Don’t destroy that by telling her about the hookers.” Elizabeth had thought herself beyond feeling when it came to that endless betrayal, but saying it aloud sent a hot stab of pain through her heart. “Confessing your sins might make you feel better, but it would destroy Patricia, and Charles. It’s past history, and nobody’s business but our own.” And a long line of prostitutes, but if the family was lucky, he’d used an alias. “We have to figure out a way to get through this. Please don’t make things worse by telling them.”

He peered at her intensely. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Up till now, no,” she said. “But you were my husband, and I made a promise to our children. Whether they know it or not doesn’t matter. All that matters is what we do now.”

He sagged against the dark wainscoting. “I
feel
everything now, times ten, and that includes regret. And anger at the man I was. And grief for what I’ve done to you and everyone else in my life. It’s horrible. Horrible. How do people live with feelings like this? How did I live with this?”

Elizabeth didn’t have the energy for any more angst. “Don’t go all morbid on me.” She stood. “Come on.” She pulled his hand
to help him up. Howe needed something to distract him from himself. Maybe they should do the place over, after all. “Come to the kitchen, and I’ll tell you how I want to redo it.”

He did another of his lightning about-faces. “Okay. It’s the least I can do.”

“We’ll see how you feel about that when everything’s torn up and the bills start coming in.” She scanned the rooms and smiled with satisfaction. “I mean to gut this place, room by room, and bring it into the twenty-first century.”

“Do we have any sauerkraut?” he asked cheerfully as they entered the kitchen. “I sure could use some hot dogs and sauerkraut.”

“I’ll see.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Why you don’t weigh a thousand pounds, eating the way you do, is beyond me.”

Howe dazzled her with a smile. “Beats me. But I sure do like my food. And beer. Do we have any beer? Suddenly, I’ve got a taste for Heinekens.”

An hour, a feast that would do a German proud, and eighteen mood changes later, Elizabeth followed Howe’s labored progress onto the second-floor landing. Halfway across it, he stopped, frowning.

“What’s the matter?”

He looked left to his master suite, then right to hers.

“Yours is over there,” she reminded him. “Do you need any help?”

“I don’t want to sleep by myself anymore,” he declared.

Whoa, Nellie! Elizabeth stiffened.

“Especially not in there,” he said, thumbing toward his rooms. “The place is like a cave, and there’s no bathtub. I like baths,
now.” Registering her reaction, he hurried to qualify, “I’m not talking about sex or anything. I understand about your wanting to wait at least six months for the other AIDS test to clear before we even consider that, but I don’t want to be alone.” He was so earnest, so ingenuous. “Please. I promise not to hog the covers or squeeze the toothpaste in the middle.”

But it was
her
room, and
her
bed!
Her
private retreat.

Seeing her resistance, he offered, “If you don’t like it, I’ll call the painters and have them redo the man-hole in there, but could we at least try it? I have these really bad dreams about the way I was before, and I hate waking up alone.”

Too much information! He was playing on her sympathy. But since the stroke, she had to admit, the man couldn’t seem to lie.

“I swear,” he said, “I’ll behave myself. One false move, and I’m out.”

Elizabeth stiffened. Howe was the one who’d moved out of their bed, and it had broken her heart. Asking to move back now, because he was the lonely one, seemed bitterly ironic. Her room had become her sanctuary, and now he wanted to invade it.

She’d prayed so hard for Howe to come back to her, all those long, lonely years ago. But not like this.

Still, she had to be certain her marriage was really over to think of leaving. That meant giving Howe a chance.

“All right,” she said, prompting elation from him. “We can try it. But there have to be some ground rules.” She pointed at him. “No groping, or you’re out. No touching of any kind, without permission. One infraction, and you’re out. No warnings. No second chances. Do I make myself clear?”

Howe nodded, undaunted. “Crystal.” He lifted his palms to her. “No touching without permission.” He shot her a brief leer. “No matter how much I want to.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She gave him one hour, and he’d be out. “And no farting,” she added.

Howe looked stricken. “Lizzie! I don’t do it on purpose.”

“Don’t call me ‘Lizzie.’ ” She
hated
that name. “Gas-X,” she ordered, pointing to her pristine white bathroom. “In the medicine cabinet. And no more sauerkraut. Or onion rings.”