Unable to sleep, Jeanne decided her desire was worse than her grief. Kevin made her desperate, and that wasn’t even considering the complication of him being married. He smiled and she… Jeanne rose to get her headphones in the living room. She had downloaded a Billie Holiday song last year.
“…Don’t smile or I’ll be lost beyond recall…”
Too bad she couldn’t sing. And even if she could, she couldn’t just start singing about: “The kiss in your eyes and touch of your hand…” Her need seemed psychotic.
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
Saturday morning, Jeanne set up the sprinkler for Colette. In her new bathing suit Colette jumped through the lazy wave of sprinkling drops.
“Come on, Mommy.” She pulled Jeanne’s hand, getting her out of the hammock. They stayed in the spray until Jeanne’s hair and gauzy white sundress were drenched.
A hundred degrees, the sun searing, Jeanne coaxed Colette back into their air-conditioned rooms with two new Dora the Explorer DVDs. She phoned Patti who was in Denver. David had accepted the job and was in Eudora loading a U-Haul.
“Jeanne, good-bye. The decorator’s here.”
“You bought a place, already?”
Patti hung up. What did Jeanne expect? She was crying, though, a burst of tears she couldn’t hide from Colette, who climbed into her lap.
“Are you hurt, Mommy?”
“Just sad, honey, but I’ll get over it.”
“When I’m sad,” Colette said, patting her mother’s back, “I get over it, too.”
Colette watched the DVDs, followed by cartoons, while Jeanne struggled with regret, longing, loneliness, and guilt. She shouldn’t have taken off without bringing their things. She didn’t have a picture of Colette as a baby. She didn’t have a picture of Paul.
Without enough sleep, everything looked threatening. Except Jeanne was used to not sleeping. And starting Monday, she would work nights at a 911 center. Kevin had assured her the Police Chief and the 911 supervisor had the job waiting for her. But she was afraid of Kevin. And afraid of herself.
Patrice O’Meara, Kevin’s wife, phoned later that afternoon, interrupting Jeanne’s fretful pacing. “Annabelle’s been stuck in the house because it was too hot even to enjoy the pool. So now that it’s cooler, I thought we might meet for a picnic dinner. Let Colette get to know Annabelle before she starts preschool on Monday.”
“Thank you,” Jeanne said. “That sounds wonderful.”
“Kevin suggested we take a picnic to that park a few blocks from you. He said you probably haven’t discovered it yet.”
“That’s true. We haven’t. Is Kevin—” Jeanne paused with dread, “Is he joining us?”
“No. He’s playing tennis with a dentist he knows from high school. The playground’s in the middle of a tangle of little side streets. Best if we just walk from your place.”
Patrice and Annabelle O’Meara knocked on the door twenty minutes later. Colette said “hi” to Annabelle and raced her new friend to her new bedroom. Jeanne and Patrice peeked in. The little girls giggled, jumping on Colette’s new bed.
“I hear they share the same birthday,” Patrice said. She was darker than Kevin, a few inches shorter than Jeanne, with almond shaped, gleaming eyes. She wore her hair pinned in a tight knot on her head like the dancer she was.
“Emphasis,” Patrice laughed, “on the was. In real life, I teach and run a pre-school but Kevin always says I’m a dancer. He’s never seen me dance. I guess he likes the idea.”
“Patrice, do you want a glass of lemonade before we leave? Or white wine?”
“A little white wine right now sounds inspired.”
(Click here to read the next episode)
