"Please understand, Christopher . . . I have to say this. I'm a family woman, committed to family. To rob you of having children, who can bring so much joy into your life, seems like an act of selfishness, not of love."
"I told you, Lee . .." He met her eyes and said with unflappable certainty, "I don't want any of my own."
"Everybody wants children of their own."
"You're wrong. You can't judge everybody by your own standards."
She sighed, deep and long, and let her shoulders droop as her gaze drifted beyond the foot of the bed. He rubbed his thumb over hers and said, "Fifty percent of American families aren't traditional anymore, did you know that? Fifty percent. We'd fit right in."
It might be true, but somehow she felt distanced from statistics, and unhumored by his pithy observation. Fifty percent . . .
fifty. Lord, what had happened to this country?
They sat silently for a long time, involved in their private thoughts: he with disappointment creating a new knot in his throat, she with the worry that if she said yes he'd come to regret what he gave up years from now, when she aged before he, and when he wished he'd married someone younger and had children of his own, maybe even when her sexual drive died before his did.
Within the next decade, possibly half a decade, she'd be facing menopause while he would hit the prime of his life saddled with her.
There seemed, upon honest consideration, an actual edge of immorality to the idea of accepting his offer and doing that to him.
"Oh, Christopher," she sighed, "I don't know."
When he spoke, there was a note of appeal in his voice.
"Could we lie down, Lee? Please? Here it is, the first morning we ever wake up together, and you're over there against your pillow, and I'm over here against mine, and I'd rather be holding you while we talk about this."
She gave in to his gentle humoring and let him stack both their pillows. They settled down belly to belly, covered to the shoulder by blankets. They hugged, twining their legs and caressing one another's backs, though the embrace remained reassuring rather than sexual.
"Oh, Christopher," she sighed again, happy to be returned to his long, warm nakedness beneath the covers, but uncertain about their future just the same. "I'm sorry I got angry with you but this is such a hard decision."
"Do you realize," he said, "how fully I've already blended into your life? I do everything a husband would do. I help you buy your Christmas tree. I put it in the stand for you. I fix your hoses and level your washing machine and mow your lawn, and give your kids a talking to when they're sloughing off on their obligations to you. I comfort you when you're sad, and make love to you when you're happy, and sometimes I fill in that man's chair at the end of the table, and you love having me there, don't tell me you don't. I take your son out driving for the first time, and I go to his football games, and I'm the one who comes running when you're scared to death he's dead at midnight.
Now, mind you, I didn't do this on purpose. I didn't mean to inveigle myself into your home life, but the fact remains, it happened. For you to tell me a marriage wouldn't work between us is damned unbelievable, Lee."
"I never said it wouldn't work. I said there are obstacles."
"Life is full of obstacles. They're there to be surmounted."
She digested this piece of wisdom, the kind that usually came from her mouth. His warm palms worked at persuading her. Lord, how good it felt to lie like this with him, to feel him growing aroused against her. How easy it would be to say yes and enjoy this luxury every morning for the rest of her life. She had awakened alone for so many, many years. This was how men and women were meant to be, together.
She imagined telling her mother she was going to marry him, then pushed the idea away because it interfered with the pleasure brought by his hands, his scent, his warmth and the sexuality he was stirring within them both.
"So, tell me something," he said, drawing back, finding her eyes.
"If all the extraneous issues didn't exist--not the age difference, not Janice's crush, not all the public opinion we'll have to stand up to--if it were just you and me, knowing me the way you do now, loving me and knowing I love you . . . would you marry me?"
She looked into his beloved blue eyes and answered the way her heart dictated.
"Yes," she said without pause. "Yes, I would . . . but, Christopher, life isn't that ea--" He laid a finger across her lips.
"There . . . you've said it. Yes, you'd marry me. You want to.
Concentrate on that for a while will you?--instead of examining the negative side of everything?"
They hugged full-length again, her smooth legs between his course-haired ones. "Oh, Christopher," she sighed--how many times had she sighed his name this morning? "I wish I could just say yes and it would be as simple as that."
"There was a spell a while back--we didn't talk about it, but I know what you were thinking. That maybe you had turned to me out of nothing more than desperation, just trying to get over losing Greg. I hope that's gone by now."
"It is . . . and I'm sorry I get those spells."
"Quit reading those books," he said. "They put ideas into your head.
We're together because we love each other, not because we're leaning on each other out of desperation, right?"
She drew back to see his face. "Right," she whispered, "because we love each other."
He said it again, straight out, holding her face in both hands.
"Marry me, Lee."
She closed her eyes and kissed him to give herself time to reason, but when she was under his naked influence, reason came with much more difficulty. He was fully aroused now, their legs were dovetailed tightly, and every sense within her responded to him.
"No fair," she whispered against his lips, "asking me when we're in a state like this."
"Marry me." They carried on this dialog between plucking kisses.
"May I have some time to think about it?"
"How much?"
"A day, a week, maybe just long enough to get rid of this enormous lump of morning insistence beneath the covers. I don't know how long, Christopher. I wish I did, but I don't."
"But do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Will you keep thinking about that while you're deciding?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to talk to anybody about it?"
"Probably not." , "Good, because I know a few of them who would try to talk you out of it."
"So do I." Giving up the playfulness, rolling her full length beneath him, he declared with true passion, "Oh, God, I love you. Please say yes."
" love you, too, and I'll try."
Chapter 17.
NEAR eight o'clock that morning they arose and showered. Lee used the bathroom first, got dressed and was looking into his refrigerator when he came out into the kitchen toweling his hair, wearing gray sweatpants that hung low on his belly.
"I want to cook you breakfast to celebrate our first night together, but there's nothing in here to cook."
He stood beside her searching the refrigerator, smelling like fresh shampoo and soap.
"Sorry, babe. I usually go out."
"Want to go to my house and eat? I've got lots of good things to put in an omelette. Joey won't be home yet, so it should be safe for you to take me home."
"Your house it is," he agreed, and went off to get dressed.
They drove separate cars and arrived at her house shortly before 9 A.M. When Lee pulled into the driveway her blood took a leap to her face:Janice's car was parked in front of the garage. Lee sat staring at it, gripping the steering wheel, holding her breath, then letting it gush out in resignation. Christopher parked behind her and walked past her window on his way to the garage. He raised the door and, when she'd driven inside, was waiting to open her car door. They stood in the cold garage gazing first at Janice's car, then at each other.
"Well, this is it, I guess," he said.
"I had no idea she was coming home."
"She didn't call and tell you?"
"No."
: "So what are you going to tell her?"
"We could tell her we've been to church."
"In our blue jeans?"
"You're right. Besides, I always go to the ten o'clock service. I wonder when she got here."
"Judging from the frost on her windshield she's been here all night."
"I hope nothing's wrong. I'd better get inside and see."
When she turned away, he grabbed her arm. "Lee, I want to go in with you."
"She's going to be very angry."
"I can handle that."
"Embarrassed, too."
"I want us to face her together. Anything you're guilty of, I'm guilty o Besides, if she's up she probably saw us both drive in, and I don't want it to look like I'm slinking off and leaving you to explain."
, They went in together through the front door. Janice was standing by the kitchen table holding an ice pack on her jaw, glaring at them.
"Janice, what's wrong?" Lee moved straight toward her without stopping to remove her jacket.
"Nothing!" Janice snapped, her mouth cinching tight.
"What's wrong with your jaw?"
"A wisdom tooth. Where have you been, as if it isn't obvious!"
Lee removed her jacket and hung it on a chair. "At Chris's."
"All night? Mother, how could you?" Janice's face was flaming.
She refused to look at Christopher.
"I'm sorry you found out this way."
"Where's Joey?"
"He spent the night at the Holiday Inn with the Whitmans."
"Does he know about what's been going on?"
"No."
"Oh my God, I can't believe this." Janice covered her face with one hand and turned away.
Christopher stood behind Lee's shoulder without touching her.
"Your mom and I discussed whether or not to tell you but she decided she needed a little longer to sort out her feelings."
"Her feelings! Hers!" She spun on him. "What about mine? What about Joey's? This is disgusting!"
"Why?" he asked calmly.
"I'm not ignorant!" Janice snapped. "A woman doesn't stay out all night at a man's apartment without sex being involved. It is, isn't it?"
Lee snapped, "Janice, you're being rude."
Christopher remained calm. "Your mother and I have been seeing each other a lot since last June."
"Since my brother died! Say it the way it is! That's what started all this, isn't it? The classic mourning woman turns to the younger man for sympathy."
"I turned to her, too."
"Well, you could have told me! You could have . . . have said something before I . . . before I . .." Mortified, she escaped to the working part of the kitchen, turning her back on them once more.
Christopher brushed around Lee's shoulder and took Janice's arm to gently turn her around.
"Things were complicated, Janice," he said quietly. She averted her burning face, refusing to look at him. "You know why." He released her arm.
She said to the floor, "I must have looked like a fool, giving you those tickets for Christmas, saying the stuff I did."
"No. I was the one in the wrong. I should have told you long before that, that I had feelings for your mom."
She glared up at him. "Then why didn't you?"
"Because we were no different than anyone else when we started dating.
We didn't know what it would lead to."
Too embarrassed to stand so close to him, Janice shouldered around both him and Lee and stood defiantly at the opening where the hall led toward the bedrooms.
"Mother, he's thirty years old, for heaven's sake! What are people going to say?"
. "Exactly what you are, I suppose. That he's too young for me.
So should I give him up because I'll upset people?"
"You should give him up because you'll look like a fool!"
Lee felt herself begin to grow angry. "Do you think so, Janice?
' Why?
Janice glared from her mother to Christopher and back again, her mouth clamped tightly shut.
"Why will I look like a fool, Janice? Because this is a sexual relationship?" Christopher opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand. "No, it's all right, Christopher. She's twenty-three years old, she's old enough to hear the truth. You're angry with me right now, Janice, well, I'm angry with you, too, because you're implying that because there's fifteen years difference between Christopher and me, he's using me. Do I have that correct?"
Janice blushed brighter and looked at the floor.
"Is that the kind of person you think Christopher is?"
Janice was too mortified to speak.
"You might as well know that it's been a big issue between us, one that we've talked about. Only it isn't only whether or not Christopher is using me, but whether I'm using him to get over Greg's death. I'm not.
I love him. I'm sorry if that doesn't fit into your image of how a mother should act, but I do have feelings, I do have needs and I do get lonely. I even think about my future. I'm not old, Janice, I'm only older than Christopher, but who's to say how old is too old? Must I get permission from my family before I date a man?"
Janice looked up miserably. Tears shimmered on her eyelids. "But, Mother, he's Greg's friend. He's . . . he's more like your son."
. "No. That's your viewpoint, not mine. Our relationship has totally changed in the last eight months. You might be interested to know that we became very, very good friends first before our relationship became intimate."
A hint of challenge came into Janice's voice when she asked, "What's Grandma going to say?"
Lee resisted the urge to look to Christopher for help. "Grandma will be very outspoken, and it won't be pleasant, but Grandma doesn't tun my life. I do."
"Well, I can see that nothing I say is going to make you change your mind, so I'm going to bed. I've been up half the night waiting for you and my tooth hurts like the devil."
"Why didn't you call? I think you knew I'd be over at Christopher's.
I would have come home."
"Because I wanted to know for sure. Now I do."
She spun on the ball of her foot and marched to her bedroom. When her door slammed, Lee and Christopher stood in the vacuum left by her anger, their emotions in chaos. The faucet was dripping. Lee went over and tried to turn it off, but the steady, monotonous sound continued. Finally Christopher moved up behind her and curved his hands over her shoulders. Wordlessly he turned her around and took her in his arms.