need to get back in bed. Go on, scoot. And take the dog with you.” She swatted the boy lightly on the backside as he zipped past.
“Night!” he hollered, thumping from one side of the narrow hallway to the other on the way back to his room, prompting Faith to say with a sigh, “Well, the others were asleep.”
“You know,” Darryl said, “one of these days we seriously need to think about letting the dog sleep outside.”
His wife gave him one of her don’t-talk-crazy looks, then crossed her arms over her wrinkled satin pajamas and open fuzzy robe, both in some light color that might have been either blue or green, at one time. She frowned at him in the mirror. “You plannin’ on standing there all night staring at your boo-boo, or do you need help?”
“I can’t use my other arm to change the dressing.”
“I can see that. Sit down.”
“It’s pretty gross.”
“I can see that, too. Sit. And get that cast elevated.”
Darryl lowered himself onto the toilet seat, his arm on the sink, which put him eye level with his wife’s breasts. Something resembling interest stirred. At least in his head. Other places seemed to be having a little trouble getting with the program, probably on account of these damn pills. Although there was something to be said for the who-gives-a-rat’s-behind? buzz they produced.
Faith ripped open a clean gauze pad and soaked it in hydrogen peroxide. Darryl carefully shook his head. “Already did that.”
“Could’ve fooled me. Quit squirming,” she said when he flinched before she even made contact. “Honestly,” she said, grabbing his chin, her breath wicking away the dampness on his forehead as she gently dabbed at the stitches. “You’re worse than the kids.” She’d already put on the lotion she wore to bed every night; she smelled so good his mouth watered. Hers pulled tight as she wet the other end of the gauze. “That ER doc did a good job. Looks to me like you might not even have a scar.”
“Too bad. A scar might add a certain bubba appeal, don’tcha think?”
She almost smiled.
He lowered his eyes and watched her nipples shifting restlessly against the satin, like kittens playing underneath a sheet. “Sorry about earlier. At your folks, I mean.”
She glanced down at him for a second, then went back to her dabbing. “’Sokay. We’re both pretty stressed out, I guess. You take your pain pills?”
So much for talking things over. Not that Darryl really wanted to talk, especially not tonight. Half the time, talking only made him confused. Or mad. If not both. But he wasn’t so clueless as to not know that Faith’s not wanting to talk was a bad sign. “Just one, a couple minutes ago. Gonna try to go without tomorrow, though. Last thing I need is to get addicted to the things.”
“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. What are you staring at so hard?”
“Give you one guess.”
She shook her head; Darryl went back to staring. “Heard your father say Olive Pritchard’s askin’ after you again, wondering when you’re coming back.”
“And if I told her once, I told her a million times… Sorry,” she said softly when the wince popped out. “Long as the kids are still little, there’s no sense me bein’ in the choir. Shoot, I’m doing well to get us to church on time as it is, let alone early for practice… Darryl, for heaven’s sake!” she yelped when he reached underneath her pajama top to cup one breast. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she said in a frenzied whisper.
“I think it’s called living in the moment.” An odd sense of well-being came over him, as all his troubles seemed to fade…away… He rubbed her nipple with his thumb, grinning when it snapped to attention. Grinning even harder when other things did. “When was the last time we lived in the moment, Faithie?”
“At least four kids ago,” she said with kind of a sad look on her face. “But this is not the night to rekindle those memories.”
“Why not? Seems to me we could both use the tension release, don’t you think?”
“That’s the meds talking, Darryl, not you. Besides, Heather’s still awake. Honestly!” Faith said in a gasp when he pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Cut it out! I’m tryin’ to get you dressed!”
“And I’m tryin’ to get you undressed. And yeah, you can grit your teeth all you want, but those little dots of color in your cheeks give you away every time.” He leaned close enough to tongue her nipple through the satin, and she made that gurgly noise in her throat that still got him, even after more than a dozen years.
“Mama? Daddy?”
Darryl yanked his hand down so fast he smacked his own knee, a move his banged-up ribs had definite issues with, even with the pain meds. Fortunately, since Faith’s back had been to the bathroom door, Heather hadn’t gotten an eyeful. But that didn’t stop a blush from racing up Faith’s neck and across her cheeks like a brush fire. It was kind of cute, actually. Like they were teenagers again, fooling around in the storeroom in old man Prickett’s pharmacy that summer Faith had worked the soda fountain.
Except she’d never looked mad when they’d fooled around in Prickett’s.
She yanked her robe closed, nearly strangling her waist with the belt as Darryl said to his daughter, “We’ll be out in a minute, sugar. Soon as Mama finishes patching me up, okay?”
“’Kay. C’n I wait on your bed?”
“Sure, honey,” Faith said, finishing up the bandage with a stone-faced expression that gave no clue to how turned on she’d been not thirty seconds before. “There,” she said, tucking everything neatly back into the first aid kit, which she set on the shelf over the toilet. “Let me go check on the little ones and I’ll be back in a minute—”
He grabbed her hand. “Later?”
“Oh, right.” Her expression was wry. “With a doped up man held together with tape, plaster and…whatever the heck they use for stitches these days. Darryl, for goodness’ sake—be real.”
After she left, Darryl stood, checking out his reflection. The new bandage was half the size of the one they’d put on in the hospital, he noted. Neat and efficient, just like everything Faith did.
She hadn’t always been so efficient. So predictable. When they’d first gotten married, she never went to the grocery store that she didn’t have to turn right back around and go get the five things she’d forgotten. She’d put in a load of laundry and not get around to drying it for two days, or start a pan of eggs to boil and not give them another thought. But if their first years of married life had been filled with the occasional blackened pan or slightly mildewed clothes or not being able to make a sandwich because they’d run out of bread, Darryl also fondly remembered unplanned camping trips and parties for no particular reason and—his personal favorite—surprise intimate encounters in the shower or the kitchen or the laundry room.
He missed that. Even more to the point, he missed the Faith who used to do those things. And if he could only shake the feeling that her changing was somehow his fault…
“Daddy?
