Read Online Curled in the Bed of Love by Catherine Brady - Free Book Online Page B

readily accepted excuses and pretexts.
    â€œI was expecting you,” Jay says. “I let Hannah wait up for you till nine-thirty.”
    I feel guilty as charged. Why do I not come home right away?Why do I stay up at night, my eyes shutting against my will, staring at the cards on the green background of the solitaire screen? Why can’t I say no to Walter when he leads me up the stairs to his apartment, badgers me inside with his darting hands?
    When I offer no excuse, Jay says quietly, “I wish you’d be home with us more, that’s all.”
    â€œHoney, I’m tired,” I say. “Can we hash this over some other time?”
    He gets up from the table and kisses me. “Come to bed then.”
    I’m amazed at how easily he yields. Grateful. We’re both spared the alternative, the truncated binary series that stops at
no,
at confrontation. I can hardly be homesick for that, can I? I got my fill of it growing up, my whole childhood choked in the vise of my mother’s misery and anger. But still, Jay’s too easy, makes me feel I’ll tumble forever through his transparent
yes.
    I tell Jay that I’m going to read for a while. “I need to wind down a little before I can sleep.”
    He sighs but doesn’t protest. “Well, look in on Hannah. I promised you’d go in and kiss her even if she fell asleep.”
    I sneak into Hannah’s room. I envy her for being able to sleep so open to the world, her arms spread wide. When I lean down to kiss her, her eyes fly open for a moment, and she murmurs “Mommy” and puts her arms up automatically.
    â€œGood night, Peanut,” I say, holding her limp body for a moment, knowing that she isn’t really awake, that I’ve crossed the permeable barrier into her dreams, that my touch will be woven into them. I will never be so close to anyone, not even her own older self, as I am to her now, at this moment, when she has yet to outgrow the passionate possessiveness of her love for me. Nathan has already ordered me not to call him Little Guy anymore. One by one their nicknames will be crossed off each of their lists. I hold her for a moment longer to stave off the letting go that awaits us. Maybe that future already infuses the present, just as the past,when I could have lost my children or hurt them because of my addiction, compacts joy from the other direction.
    I sit on the sofa reading long after Jay goes to bed. But I can’t concentrate. Tonight Walter begged me to stay until he fell asleep. He took my hand, led me to the lumpily made bed. He said, “Please, just sit,” but he was forcing me, in the same way he makes it impossible for me to say no to coming up to his apartment. He crawled under the covers in his clothes, held me there with a hard hand I could believe he raised against his wife, making a fist the way his tense body made a fist in the rumpled sheets. I could smell his unwashed hair, the stinging echo of gasoline fumes, and some mysterious sweetness I couldn’t name. That vapor held me where I was, even though every muscle in my body tensed against the intimate closeness of his, the slithering commotion of his limbs beneath the blankets. I couldn’t yank my hand from his or refuse when he asked me to lie down for just a minute, unfold my body from its determined resistance.
    Now I’m filled with craving. Not for a drink. For something that there’s always going to be more of. It cycles inside me like a piston, this want that has no object.
    Walter calls me at school, claiming it’s an emergency so the receptionist will fetch me from the classroom to take the phone. I don’t even register what it is he wants, only know the compulsion to stave off the next demand by answering yes to this one. I make an excuse to the receptionist about a sick child and drive over to his apartment.
    When Walter opens the door, dressed only in sweatpants, I see that he’s