Spring Rain (40 page)

At first she froze. She hadn’t been kissed like
this
by anyone but Will in more than thirty-six years. She hadn’t been kissed like this by anyone at all for over three years.

“Relax,” he whispered against her lips.

Right.

“And put that knife down.”

David’s kiss was strange, wonderful, awkward, and exciting all at the same time. And it was tingly. Parts of her that she thought had died with Will surged to life. Surprised at herself and with a feeling of great daring, she wrapped her arms around his neck and proceeded to kiss him as enthusiastically and ardently as he was kissing her.

Right there in her kitchen with all the kids just steps away in the living room and the lights on for anyone driving by to see!

David pulled back first and took a step away, his hands sliding down her arms to grasp her wrists. She knew his sensitive doctor’s fingers could feel her pulse slamming, but she didn’t care. She knew his pulse rate was as out of control as hers. She’d felt his heart pound as he held her against him.

He just stared at her for a minute, his heart in his eyes. She stared back.

“I think I’ll just get the coffee and sit at the table now.” His voice wasn’t quite steady. “You sit over there.” He pointed across the table as, carafe in hand, he sank into a seat. “On the other side. Where it’s safe.”

She nodded dumbly. “Pie,” she managed and turned to the counter. She was certain her face was as flushed as her heart was overwhelmed. She gripped the edge of the Formica to hold herself erect while she waited for her blood to stop surging and her knees to stop shaking.

She muffled a giggle. She was dangerous! He had to sit across the table where it was safe, where he couldn’t reach her. She studied his reflection in the window as he carefully poured them coffee. He liked vanilla flavoring just like she did, unlike someone else she could mention. In fact, if she could believe David, he liked everything about her.

Well, he wasn’t too bad himself.

With a trembling hand she picked up the knife and cut a really big slice for him. She moved to the microwave and nuked it for a bit.

“Ice cream?” Her voice barely shook.

“One scoop.”

When she felt like she could face him again with a modicum of equanimity, she took a deep breath, turned, and put the pie in front of him. She cut a sliver for herself to keep him company as he ate.

“One sugar, no cream,” he said. “Right?”

At her bemused nod, he put a teaspoon of sugar in her cup and stirred. He pushed it across the table to her.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, studying his Seaside by the Beautiful Sea mug as the cream swirled into his coffee, “I have a hard time remembering what Leslie looked like unless I actually look at a photograph.”

Julia blinked, surprised at his topic of conversation. Here she was, her heart rate not quite returned to normal, and he was talking about his deceased wife. How disappointing. She must not be that dangerous after all.

He lifted his cup and took a tentative sip, testing its temperature. “If my daughter, Mandy, didn’t look so much like her mother, I’d not remember at all.”

Julia nodded. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about Leslie right now or even Mandy. He’d just kissed her, for Pete’s sake, and it had been a kiss with a capital
K.
This wasn’t the time to talk about Leslie. Or was it?

“I definitely don’t remember her voice,” he said. “It used to sadden me terribly.”

“But not now?” Julia asked, knowing she had trouble recalling Will’s voice. Not some of the things he’d said. She remembered many of those, especially the things that were for her ears alone. It was the timbre of his voice, the tone, the actual sound that was gone.

David shook his head. “It doesn’t bother me anymore.” He looked directly at her. “Time moves on. Life moves on. Even love moves on.”

She nodded as she dropped her eyes to the tabletop, unable to deal with the intensity in his eyes and the truth of his words. For he was right. Love did move on, should move on. She knew it. So why did she feel so guilty? So scared? So thrilled? So confused?

When she didn’t respond, David switched the conversation to his new grandson, Mandy’s second. Julia managed to keep focused on the conversation by sheer willpower. She ate her pie as if the kiss hadn’t happened. She had just put the coffee down after pouring him a refill when he reached for her right hand. He held it lightly in his, staring at it, running his thumb back and forth across her palm. Then he began slowly rotating her wedding band.

He looked up at her, his eyes very serious. “I think it’s time you took this off.”

As she stared at him openmouthed, he released her hand, took a quick swallow of coffee, then stood. “And I think it’s time I took myself off.”

She watched him leave and felt the emptiness left by his going. She automatically cleaned the kitchen, aware she was moving in slow motion, stopping again and again to relive that kiss. That wonderful, glorious, guilt-inducing kiss. She felt sixteen years old.

When she finally finished her cleanup, she stopped to check on the living room gang and was surprised to find them watching John Wayne as McClintock trying to win back Maureen O’Hara as his wife Katherine. What had happened to
The Princess Bride?
Had that much time really passed while she daydreamed? Standing in the doorway, Julia watched the wonderful fight in the mud, smiling in spite of herself as the glorious O’Hara slid down the hill into the muck.

But she didn’t feel like joining the family. She wanted to be alone, needed to be alone, so she climbed the stairs and got ready for bed. She washed her face, creaming it carefully to keep the wrinkles at bay—futile hope that was—and brushed her teeth. She did not floss; she hated to floss. Her antifloss stance was one of her small rebellions, and so far she hadn’t suffered anything terrible like gingivitis as a result. Those successful mutinies were the ones she appreciated.

She settled against her pillows and read for an hour, the novel keeping her mind occupied.

Then she turned off the light.

At 3
A.M.
she finally gave up and turned the light back on. The bed was a mass of twisted sheets and blankets, mute testimony to her restlessness. She sat up and shook everything straight, plumping the pillows behind her.

Oh, Lord! Will or David?

She didn’t know how to articulate her teeming thoughts beyond that one plea. She stared at her wedding band, twisting it much as David had done. She felt his fingers turn it, saw his eyes as he looked at her, felt his kiss.

She climbed out of bed and went to her jewelry box. She opened the top drawer. Will’s wedding band lay there, and she
lifted it out, feeling it cool against her skin. It was gold, worn, with
WCW & JTW Ps. 34:3
inscribed inside. William Clayton Wharton and Julia Therese Windsor.
O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
The same verse was engraved inside her band, the same initials, only in reversed order.

She had met Will in their freshman English class at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, when they had been assigned seats next to each other. Wharton, Windsor.

“Have you got a pen or pencil I can borrow?” he’d whispered when everyone was finally seated that first day.

She’d looked at him, frowning slightly, to see what type of student forgot a writing implement the first day of classes, only to find him grinning at her. She had fallen for the tall, skinny, premed student from New Jersey immediately and had loved him with her whole heart from that moment on.

But now Will was gone, and there was David.

Oh, Lord!

She laid Will’s ring on the dresser and slid her own wedding band to her first knuckle. She knew she wouldn’t be able to pull it off without the aid of soap. She was a bit heavier than she had been that day in June thirty-six years ago. Will had put it on her finger after the best man—what was his name?—had retrieved it from under the pulpit chair where it had rolled when he had tried to pass it to Will.

Somehow the necessity of soap—or maybe hand cream—to ease the removal of the ring made the decision to take it off seem more irreversible, more absolute. It wasn’t a matter of just pulling it off; it was rather a definite choice, the putting away of Will and the putting on of David, or at least the possibility of David.

She squirted hand cream on her right palm and began working it around her third finger. She took hold of the ring and pulled. It caught momentarily on the knuckle and then slid free.

She stood with the ring in her hand. It was the first time since Will had given her a preengagement ring the Christmas of her junior year that her hands were free of a ring from him.

Oh, Lord! I don’t know if I can do this! I don’t know if I should do it. Help me, Lord! Help me to know.

It’s just a ring
, she told herself, not quite believing her own thoughts.
It’s just a ring. I’m not married anymore. I haven’t been
married for more than three long years.

Right. So why do I feel like an adulteress, standing here in my own bedroom with a high-necked, long-sleeved nightgown on and the only men on the premises my sons?

She laid her ring on the dresser beside Will’s, noticing as she did so that her hand was shaking. She rubbed the hand cream until it was absorbed. Then she picked up the pair of rings and began nervously fiddling with them, sliding hers through his, laying them in her palm, sticking them both on her thumb. She pulled them off, panicking a moment as Will’s caught on the knuckle. Relief flooded her when it popped off. She slid hers crossways into but not through Will’s. They made a three-dimensional circle, a golden sphere with four ribs.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied the rings, and she began to smile. She opened her jewelry box again and pulled out a gold chain with a pearl hanging from it, a gift from Will when the twins were born.

“I wish it could be diamonds,” he had told her as he sat by her bed. “But medical students buy the loves of their lives pearls. Well, one pearl and not a very good one at that. At least this medical student does.” And he’d kissed her and told her how much he loved her and how proud he was of her and his new family.

She held the chain up to the circle of rings, the pearl hanging inside the golden sphere.

For the first time in hours she felt her shoulders relax. She didn’t need to put Will away forever, hidden in a jewelry box, feeling guilty about denying thirty-three wonderful years. Their rings could be joined to symbolize the wonder that had been their marriage, and the pearl that represented their sons could hang in its center.

Thank You, Lord. Thank You. On Monday I’ll go to the jeweler’s and get him to make the necklace.
She smiled.
And, Lord, maybe someday soon I can give it to Leigh when she marries our Clay.

She laid the rings on the bureau beside the chain and pearl and climbed back in bed. The light was barely out before she fell into a deep if much too short sleep.

David was waiting for her in the church narthex the next morning, Easter Sunday. Oh, he might be talking quietly with the
Robinsons, but he was waiting for her. She knew it because she had been waiting to see him.

He seemed to sense when she entered because he immediately looked up from Lisa Robinson. His eyes met hers, and he smiled. Maybe it was the dimple that appeared in his left cheek. Maybe it was the way his dark eyes crinkled when he smiled. Maybe it was the love she saw there. Whatever the reason, the smile warmed her and made her heart beat faster.

He turned to Lisa and Ron and excused himself. He made unerringly for her.

This is ridiculous
, she thought.
I’m fifty-seven. I shouldn’t have to tell myself something outlandish like, “Be still my heart.”

But she did. Without a second thought she left Clay and Ted, Leigh and Bill and met David halfway. She smiled up at him as he stood close to her, purposely invading her personal space. He lifted a hand and ran a gentle finger under her eye.

“It looks like you didn’t sleep well last night.”

She smiled. “You should see the circles without makeup.” She studied his face. “You look a little sleep deprived too.”

“I spent the night worrying and praying,” he confessed. “I don’t usually have the nerve to be as forthright as I was last evening.”

She nodded. “But you were right. I needed to make choices.”

He looked at her, his heart in his eyes. “And did you?” He reached for her right hand.

She watched him as he studied her unadorned finger, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the indentation left from the ring. When he finally looked up, he had that wonderful smile.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “The service is about to begin.” He took her hand and held it as he led her into the sanctuary.

L
EIGH WATCHED JULIA
walk off with David and smiled to herself. That romance was clearly speeding down the freeway of life with both participants sitting in the same car and delighted to be driving in the same direction. It must be nice, knowing where you stood—or where you were going, if she held to the same allusion.

She couldn’t help but glance at Clay, and she swallowed a smile at his frown in the direction of the door Julia and David had vanished through.

Almost as soon as they disappeared, they reappeared, hands firmly clasped.

“Come on,” Julia said, holding out her free hand to Ted. Her cheeks were rosy, her faint blush the only evidence that she had almost forgotten her family in the joy of being with David. Ted took her outstretched hand, and they all trailed after her, Ted, Bill, Leigh, and a grumpy Clay bringing up the rear. As they slid into a pew, Leigh was aware of the interest they provoked. Julia and David holding hands. Ted well enough to attend the service. She and Bill and Clay. Her mouth twisted wryly.

Lord, I hope they can concentrate on the miracle we’ve come to commemorate!

The sanctuary was crowded with worshipers, the regulars and the
CE
attenders, those who showed on
Christmas and Easter. They listened attentively as Pastor Paul proclaimed, “He is not here. He is risen as He said!”