Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 16

Love Untold: Chapter 16

By the time Chrissie and Dolly got into the house, Chrissie was smiling at all the images running through her mind concerning Race and her mother battling it out.  She couldn’t wait!  But then she saw Race -- back in a pair of jeans and a very nice dress shirt -- and Dena sitting close and comfortable on the couch, discussing something in a book, and she lost her smile.

That’s my husband you’re cuddling with! she wanted to scream at her sister, but then she remembered that he wasn’t her husband and she didn’t even like him very much, so why should she care if Dena crossed into her territory?  But she did care, and Chrissie told herself it was because sisters weren’t supposed to scavenge each other’s leftovers.  It was rude.

And of course, her mother opened up her arms wide and exuberantly said, “Race, dear!  Come give your mother a kiss!”

What?!

Chrissie watched, absolutely dumbfounded and gaping like a dazed goldfish, as Race grinned wickedly and gave her mother a big, fat smooch on her cheek.  “Dolly, you’re looking positively stunning!” he told her as he added a squeezing hug to the welcome orgy.  Even Stinker curled his body around her mother's leg, purring happily.

“I do, don’t I?” her mother replied facetiously.  Both Dena and Chrissie rolled their eyes in sync.  This was not how she pictured this reunion to go.  On the whole drive from the airport, all Mom could talk about was how unsuitable Race was as a husband.  

Alright, she didn’t used the word unsuitable, but Chrissie clearly remembered cocky, tenacious and foolish thrown in there a few times.  Then again, she mused quietly in the back of her brain, her mother used a rather indulgent tone when speaking of her son-in-law.  

Dena received a heartfelt greeting from her mother as well, and with the three of them smiling and chatting amiably with each other, Chrissie stood off to the side, feeling very left-out.  And she was quite confident they didn’t notice when she left.  

She didn’t want to be inside that house, watching that cozy family gathering and hearing their laughter and chitchat, but outside on the front porch, she could still feel the warmth that she wasn’t a part of.  So she hightailed it to the backyard and sat on the cedar swing that hung under her oak tree.  Kicking her shoes off, she dug her toes into the thick carpet of grass and stared down at a butterfly flickering along the daylilies that bordered the brick patio below the deck.

Still in the early parts of the summer, the days were warm, but the evenings cooled off with gentle breezes, making this Chrissie’s favorite part of the year.  After growing up on a snow-covered ski mountain outside of Denver, she detested cold weather.  And yet, she’d been ingrained with a dislike of the suffocating, humid temperatures in the peak of the southern summers.  She moved down here after college because she’d been offered a position with an interior design school after a successful internship with its sister company in Albuquerque.    

From the moment, she stepped off the plane, she fell in love with this small metropolis.  The hilly neighborhoods and towering pine trees reminded her of Colorado, and the people here were down-to-earth, kind and proud of their home.  She found an apartment in this intriguing, Soho neighborhood where she could walk two blocks to the nearest coffee shop, and she scrimped and saved every penny she could to buy her first house...her anchor to a new life away from her mother and the mountain and the pain that lived there.

Within a year, Dena was living with her after a huge fight with their mother.  Chrissie had been too happy to shelter her sister.  After all, she practically raised Dena and felt empty without her.  Chrissie encouraged her to go back to school and finish her degree, and Dena started to grow up before her eyes.  

When Dena moved out to shack up with a boyfriend, Chrissie argued against it, but she had to let her go.  Dena needed to make her own mistakes and clean up after them, but Chrissie was always there when Dena eventually got tired of every jerk’s bull-honky.  And Chrissie finally felt like she was right where she belonged.  

Her house was perfect, a one-story Cotswold Cottage with a stone and brick exterior, sloping roof and charming arched doorways.  She spent nearly six months and every cent in her savings to update the kitchen and bathrooms, but it was worth it.  The current value was twice what she bought it for, and the large lot allowed her to go crazy with landscaping, planting flowers and bushes and a plum tree, whereas on Mom’s mountain, none of these plants would last a single winter.  

And she had her sister nearby and her mother far away, and the business she started three years ago was booming, and life was great, perfect, pleasant and very peaceful...until she woke up this morning.  Now, everything had changed.  She couldn’t even look at her beautiful house without seeing the differences that she hadn’t wanted.  She couldn’t be with her family inside that beautiful house without feeling like she didn’t belong there.

Because she didn’t belong there.  She didn’t belong here, in this life.  This wasn’t how she planned it.  

How could one man change so much?  How could one person get to her so easily?  She wanted to claw at him and kiss him at the same time.  Never in her life had she kissed a man and felt such rightness in her soul.  He was confusing her brain with her heart.  She looked at him and knew -- knew! -- that she’d never seen him before today, and yet, whenever they touched, the sensation of his hand on hers or his lips on hers, made her feel alive and safe and balanced.

“Hey, you,” Dena called, walking across the grass to sit beside Chrissie.  Chrissie scooted over to the far side of the swing, childishly trying to get as far away as was politely possible.  Dena didn’t seem to catch that.  “We were wondering where you’d gone off to.”

Chrissie didn’t comment.  She stared off across the backyard, hoping her sister would get the hint and leave her alone for a little while longer.  She could just go back inside and cozy up with Race and steal him away and her problem would be solved.  

“Something wrong?” Dena asked, kicking the swing into motion.  Chrissie dug her feet into the grass and stopped it.  “Okaaay...did Mom say something to you?”

The birds and crickets responded, but Chrissie didn’t.

“Are you still upset because Race lied to you to get a massage?”

Chrissie jerked her eyes to her sister.  “He told you about that?”

“Not the details,” Dena said with a smile.  “You want to fill those in for me?”

Chrissie snorted and looked back at the yard.  “Go give him your own massage and find out for yourself.”

Dena stared openly at her, and then she broke out into a giant grin.  “Oh, my God!  You’re jealous!”

“I am not!”

Dena laughed and pointed a finger.  “You are, too!  Look at you!  You’re turning red!”  

Chrissie felt her cheeks burning, but that was from anger.  She had nothing to throw at Dena except her shoes, but she liked those shoes and didn’t want to break the heels on Dena’s hard head.  “Go away, D,” Chrissie said.  “I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen.  I’ve never let you mope a day in your life, so I’m not about to start now.”

“I’m not moping!” Chrissie screeched and Dena grinned more, and Chrissie took in a calming breath.  “I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

“None of your damn business!”

“Now, you’re starting to sound like Race,” she said with another laugh.

“I am nothing like Race,” Chrissie said.

“No,” Dena agreed, “You’re just like Mom.”

“What?!”  Chrissie stood up and faced her sister.  

Dena rolled her eyes, not the least bit fazed by her older sister’s temper.  “Oh, come on.  Everyone sees it.  You’re both meticulous and stubborn and bearing this heartbreaking grief because of Daddy’s death--”

“Daddy died twenty-five years ago,” Chrissie said.  “I was a child!  I barely remember him.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’ve been thumbing your nose at love for all these years, just like Mom, that I’m even surprised you got married.  Of course, now that you don’t remember that marriage and acting just like you used to, that I’m beginning to wonder if you even deserve Race.”

Chrissie sputtered.  Me deserve him?!  If anything, he didn’t deserve me!  And she told him so just a few hours earlier.  She couldn’t find words to tell her sister just what she was thinking.  She howled out some inane, juvenile sound and stamped her feet in the grass.  

“Go on,” Dena urged her, sitting forward to peer serenely at Chrissie.  “Get it out of your system.  If you like, I can get a brick for you to throw at my head.  Would that make things better?  Stomp your feet, punch your fists, wail and cry like a baby.”  Dena’s face lit up sarcastically as she exclaimed, “Oh, I know!  You can hold your breath until you turn blue and pass out!  And then when you wake up, everything will be just the way it was for you.  All alone, living in a museum with a cantankerous cat, vacuuming the carpets within an inch of their life, and minding your P’s and Q’s.”

Chrissie could only stare stupidly at Dena.  Her little sister stood up, got right in her face, and said, “Wish in one hand and spit in the other, sis.  See which one fills up faster.”  And then she pivoted on her heel and walked away.

Chrissie yelled at her, “How dare you say I’m being immature!  You’re the one who never grew up, Dena!”

Dena stopped and faced her sister.  “This is not about me, and you know it.”

“No!  This is about you doing what you’ve always done!  Snatching up every available man you come across.  Just how long have you had your eye on Race?  How long have you planned for something like this to happen so you can take him away from me?  I wouldn’t be surprised if you poisoned me to make me forget so you can have him!”  

As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back.  The look on her sister’s face caused such shame in her soul.  “Dena...I’m sorry...I didn’t mean it.”

Dena didn’t stare, she didn’t glare, she didn’t even narrow her eyes in irritation.  No, she only looked at Chrissie.  A hollow, empty, I-don’t-know-you look.  

“Dena...please, I’m sorry.  I’m just upset and confused and...”

Dena turned and went into the house.  Chrissie squeezed her eyelids shut tightly and wished she was dead.  She’d cause no more pain that way.

Unfortunately, when she opened them, she was still very much alive, and very much infuriated with herself.  

*****

Race stood at the window in the kitchen overlooking the backyard.  Chrissie and Dena were out there talking, and he wished that was him sitting on the swing with his wife.  It should be him out there, but when they discovered Chrissie missing from the house, Dena told him one word, “Patience,” and went in search of her.  Now, he was left entertaining his mother-in-law, who was amusing herself by rummaging through the wine cabinet for “something not domestic.”

“How is it that Chrissie lost her memory?” Dolly asked, popping the cork of a French Grenache that Chrissie was saving for a special occasion.  

“We don’t know yet,” he said over his shoulder, grimacing because now he’d have to replace that bottle before Chrissie found out.  

“When will you know?”

“We have to make an appointment with a neural surgeon.  We can’t do that until tomorrow,” he said, turning back to the sisters in the backyard.  Chrissie had jolted to her feet and started stomping them.  That wasn’t good.

Dolly sipped her wine and said, “Well, that is just not good enough.  You are her husband.  You should have already seen a doctor.”

Race ignored the implication that he wasn’t doing his job to protect his wife.  “We saw a doctor at the emergency room this morning.  All they could tell us was that she wasn’t physically harmed, so that couldn’t be the reason.”  By now, Dena was coming back into the house, clearly as mad as her sister.

Dena slammed the door.  She snatched the wine bottle from her mother and guzzled from it.  Coming up for breath, she grunted, “She’s all yours, Race.  I’m done for tonight.  I’m taking a shower and going to bed.”

Dolly asked, “What about dinner, dear?  I thought we could all go out for a nice, family supper.  Maybe to that new Italian place you told me about last week.  What was it called?  Emilio’s...Amelia’s?”

“Do whatever you want,” Dena said, flipping a hand as she walked out of the kitchen.  “I can’t see my sister right now.  She’s done pissed me off.”

Race turned back to the window.  Chrissie was pacing angrily up and down the yard in her bare feet, muttering to herself and waving her hands in the air like she wanted to uproot the giant oak tree and hurl it like a javelin.

He felt his mother-in-law’s blue eyes searing a spot between his shoulder blades.  “What?” he asked her without turning around.

“Are you just going to stand there?  My husband would never stand around.  He was a man of action.  He would be out there right now, kissing me senseless until I stopped such foolishness, and get down to the business of finally giving me some grandchildren.”

Race turned and smirked.  “How could you have your own grandchildren, Dolly?”

She narrowed her eyes, and for a second, it was like looking at Chrissie twenty years from now.  “Don’t be facetious, Horace Willard.  I have just about given up on Dena ever settling down, so Chrissie is my only chance of getting my arms around a couple of babies.  Six, to be exact.  I want six grandchildren.  Two boys and four girls.”

Race stared at her.  Six grandchildren?  He’d bet his right arm she even had the names picked out for them.

“Don’t give me that look, young man.  Chrissie can have a set of twins, so she doesn’t have to be pregnant throughout her entire 30’s.  But only one set of twins, mind you, and only as the youngest.  Twins are a lot of work for a mother.  We don’t want Chrissie getting herself fixed before I get all six of my babies.”

Race closed his eyes, inhaled slowly, and erased the few choice words for Dolly that skittered across his tongue.  Instead, he calmly replied, “Dolly Hill, you are a remarkable person.”

Dolly flashed him a loving grin.  “Thank you, Race.  I am quite fond of you, too.  I’d be a lot fonder if you get your keister out there and diffuse this situation before my daughter divorces you, and I have to start all over again.”

He wondered if his life would ever, ever be the same after today.  Dolly gave him a nod of approval as he moved toward the back door.  But instead of going out there and kissing Chrissie senseless, he dropped down onto the steps of the deck and watched her burn a path in the grass.  What did Dena say to her to get her so riled up?  He’d always know the two sisters were the best of friends, but they sometimes fought like two alley cats over the same scrawny rat.  Normally, he’d just hide down in the basement until World War III was over and then go about making Chrissie feel better and laughing and smiling and moaning with intense pleasure as he seduced her within a millimeter of her sanity.

As she finally realized he sat there, she slowed to a stop and fell to her knees.  “I’m a horrible person,” she cried.  “I can’t believe I said those things to my sister.”

Race’s first instinct was to scurry over to her and hold her, but he stayed where he was.  After talking to Dena earlier about patience and balance, he came to the conclusion that this was something Chrissie needed to deal with on her own as much as possible.  He couldn’t do any more until she took the first step toward him and accepted his help.

He patted the decking next to him.  “Come here.”

She blinked between the seat he offered and him, chewing on her lip.  

“I won’t bite,” he said solemnly.  “I just want to talk.”  He patted the deck again.  “Come here, please.”  And he held his breath.

Slowly, she rose to her feet and walked over to him.  She sat down gingerly, two feet away from him and brought her knees up to her chest.  Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I apologize for what I did earlier.  I shouldn’t have lied to you about the cramp, and I shouldn’t have tried to push you into doing something you weren’t ready for.”

She said nothing, so he shifted to lean against a railing post and face her.  “Chris, I’m just going to be honest with you.  Your touch does something to me -- it always has -- and I should have realized what would have happened if you gave me a massage.  I truly was trying save you the embarrassment of knowing...well, knowing how I always react to you.  But I promise you that I won’t ever do anything like that again, until you are ready.  I live here, so we do have to see each other from time-to-time, but I promise that you won’t have to endure my company more than you’re ready for.  I promise that I won’t ever touch you without your permission, and I promise that I won’t make you uncomfortable by telling you that I love you and want you.  In fact, this will be the last time I say it.”

She peeked at him through her eyelashes.  “Thank you...and I’m sorry, too.  I shouldn’t have -- um, grabbed you like that.”  She filled her lungs with the evening air and released it.  “And I don’t hate you.”  She laughed quietly.  “How can I?  I don’t really know you.”

He smiled because he knew she didn’t mean it in a hateful way.  She was only being honest.  Then she turned to him and blurted out, “Are you in love with my sister?”

Not quite sure he heard her correctly, he sat upright.  “I’m sorry?  Did you ask if I’m in love with Dena?”

Her eyes widened and she laughed it off.  “I know!  It’s silly.  I’m stupid.  Never mind I even asked.”  But the question was still in her eyes.

“No, Chrissie.  I’m not in love with Dena.  Half the time I don’t even like her very much,” he answered.  Visible relief softened her expression.

“Oh...okay.”

“Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

She shook her head.  “No, no...I’m fine...um, actually, there is one thing.”

“I’m listening.”

Her blue eyes darkened immensely.  She stared right at him.  “Why did you marry me?”

“Because I lo--”  Crap! He almost said it.  I love you.  But he promised.  He grinned at her.  “Because we were meant for each other.  I feel it whenever we’re together.”

She nodded, accepting his explanation.  Twisting her hands together, she let silence fill the space between them.  After a moment and in a whisper, she said, “I feel it, too.”  

There was hope, after all.  He wanted to hold her forever, but he promised against that, too.  Chrissie’s eyes filled up and overflowed, and he almost broke his promise.  “Race?” she said shakily.

“Yes, Chris?”

She swallowed and glanced away...and scooted a little bit closer.  “I give you permission...just for now.  Will you hold me?”

“Yes, Chris, I will,” he said evenly, though his voice tried to break apart.  She moved an inch closer, and he crawled behind her to wrap her against his chest and bury his head in the top of her head.  They sat that way for a long time, listening to the crickets chirping and watching the butterflies fluttering, and too soon, she stood up away from him and smiled.  

“Thank you.  I needed that,” she said and went inside.