Chapter 14: Mémère's Kitchen Table

He kissed me, and it had five years in it.

His hands stayed at his sides for the first second.

Then they didn't.

He pulled me against him on my grandmother's porch, and the whole front of his body was hard and warm against mine.

I opened my mouth under his and heard myself make a sound I hadn't made since Mobile.

He tasted like coffee and the mill.

His beard scraped my chin.

I climbed him with my fists in his shirt until he turned and put my back against the porch post.

My feet barely touched the boards.

"Mama?"

It came through the screen door, small and sleep-thick.

We both froze.

His forehead dropped against mine, and his chest heaved.

"Mama, I had a dream."

"Coming, baby," I called.

I pushed him back an inch.

"Tuesday," I said, low. "The girl across the road asked her for a sleepover. I'd already said yes."

"Tuesday."

"Don't be early."

"I'm going to be early," Gabe said.

I went in, still shaking, and lay down with my daughter in her bed until she slept again.

On Tuesday night I walked Lou across the road with her toothbrush and her stuffed alligator.

The neighbor's granddaughter pulled her inside by the sleeve.

I walked back to the house alone.

It was dark and cold, and the porch light was on.

He was already in the kitchen.

He stood by the sink with his hat in his hand, in the lamp light.

I locked the back door behind me and turned the key.

"You're early," I said.

"I said I would be."

I crossed the floor.

He didn't move, and I understood that he wouldn't, not until I'd done it.

I took the hat out of his hand and set it on the counter, and I unbuttoned his shirt from the top.

I took my time.

I wanted to see every inch of him.

He had changed.

He was heavier in the shoulders now, and a long white scar ran across his ribs that I had never seen.

"What's that?"

"A gate. Two summers ago."

I put my mouth on it.

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