Slice

BUCKHEAD SPRINGS

“I like that. I do.” He wasn't doing anything. Just holding her very close with his face pressed into the hollow of her throat. “I like it a lot. Don't stop for a thousand years."

“Ain't doin’ nothin',” he said into her neck.

“Don't care. I like it,” she told him. “I know what I like and I like it."

“Mmmmrfk it too."

“Yeah?"

“Mmmrf mmm."

“I know just what you mean. I feel the same way. Roof-moot."

“What I said was we fit good."

“I know that. I heard you loud and clear.” They kissed. Again. Again.

“You know something?"

“Eh?"

“I love you so much."

“I'm glad,” he said. “You know something? Aw, never mind."

“Tell me."

“I will—but not now.” And his tongue touched hers. They made love and he tried for the longest time to be as gentle as he could. That was the idea. To show her how much she meant to him. That she was porcelain dolls fine china breakable heirloom vases treasured satsuma capo di monte royal doulton steuben all the stuff that goes crunch the fine stemmed goblets and the fluted this and the delicate that and the nouveau lamps with shades like wafer-thin eisenglass and the thing is though she wouldn't break and she'd told him a couple dozen times she wasn't fragile and as gentle as he started out to be the heat of her warmed him inflamed him made the old volcano rumble and molten stuff in there start to flow and then it got a little wild and then he made up for it by kissing all the places where he'd made her body hot, kissing those sweet spots maybe ten thousand times just to show her ... just to let her know. Gentle kisses from head to toe, covering her in as much love as he could bestow, but she didn't want him down there smooching on the sides of her knees and she told him so, to which he replied, “But don't you see, woman, I adore your knees."

“And they adore you, sweetheart, but I want you up here where I can look at you. “She sort of pulled him up, body weight notwithstanding, kissing the parts of him she could reach, first a hand and then the top of his head and then his face. “I wish I could have your child,” she said out of nowhere.

“I'm glad you feel that way.” It was enough for both of them and more and they went to sleep like that. Holding each other, not in the fitted curves of tummy and hand and stomach against back and groin to butt, which is the way they so often fell asleep, but in each other's arms, with their faces almost touching, pillows pressed together, as close as they could get.

He'd known since Dallas that Donna couldn't have kids. It meant next to nothing to him when they'd first married. It was only after she'd told him a few times that she wished she could bear his child that he even allowed himself to think about it. He had never fathered a child nor had he felt the usual, normal fatherly urge to propagate. In fact, with the abrogation of his first marriage he'd assumed that his age and profession and life-style would preclude children. It was only later, growing close to a child—Lee Anne Lynch—and letting his heart fill with the joy a child could bring a man, that he allowed himself even the luxury of an occasional thought, wondering, as a man will, what it might be like—fatherhood.

It was clearly something Donna wanted but neither of them had talked about the possibility of adoption. To Eichord it was as remote as a faraway planet.

But when she said it this time, told him how she wished she could have his child, told him with such intensity of feeling and longing and regret, it stayed with him. And he supposed it was kicking around up in the old brain wrinkles when the thing happened at work, and maybe it was one of those surrogate things. Whatever. In any event, a couple of nights later he was in the garage talking to himself.

“I'll never leave you again,” he was saying. “No. I promise. Never. You'll never be alone again.” Nobody else was with him. He was talking into a box.

He went in and found her, and he took her hand and led Donna back into the bedroom the way she'd taken his hand and led him through his birthday treats, and she looked at him with a quizzical smile as he positioned her on the bed.

“What?” she said, sensing something.

“Well,” he said as he handed her his homemade card, “just a little something.” She stretched out on the bed in her slightly décolleté top, French jeans, and heels, looking good enough to jump right there, he thought, and she read the card aloud as he had hers, “Dearest wife,” penned in a carefully drawn heart, “when I look at you I never fully believe my luck. I love you so much it makes me laugh out loud when I think I'll be able to come home and find you here waiting for me. You give more than you could ever take. You're the best woman I've ever known.” She looked up at him with eyes that looked moist and beautiful and he had her close them.

“Keep them closed for sixty seconds. Just lie there please,” he whispered. She didn't hear him leave the carpeted bedroom until she heard the steps going down the hall, but she stayed where he'd put her and kept her eyes closed wondering what was cooking. She heard him open the door to the garage and then close it and he heard her voice down the hall. “I'm getting awfully curious back here all alone in this big bedroom.” And she could hear him say almost like he was talking to a baby.

“Well, we won't be alone in that ole bedroom anymore, eh? No. Not anymore. Nosiree. No way.” And saying to her from the hallway, “Are those eyes firmly closed?"

“Yes, Officer."

“Just keep ‘em that way, lady, I'll instruct you when to open them.” And she heard something, a kind of skittering noise against cardboard or paper, and felt something moving, touching her.

“OH!” she opened her eyes and saw what was standing on her. A little gray kitten. Very young. A baby one. Standing, or doing its best to stand there, head cocked at her. It weighed nothing. A ball of gray fluff.

“His name is Tuffy,” Eichord told her.

“Tuffy,” she whispered softly, and the cat liked it so well he spun in a circle and fell off her stomach in a tumbling kind of somersault and then did a few acrobatics on the bed. “Guess what?” she said to the kitten. “I LOVE YOU!” It was a whispered rush of adoration, to which she added, “BOTH of you,” and Eichord smiled.

“We feel the same way, my sweet."

“Oh, thank you,” she said in her softest tones, smiling at this fluffball attacking her leg. “Oh!” She laughed. “I don't know what to say. I just adore you, Tuffy. I think you're great."

To which the little gray cat responded by opening his mouth wider than she'd have thought possible and yawning a great yawn, and showing a mouth that was shocking pink like the inside of a seashell, and Donna laughed with glee.

“What a guy,” she said.

And Eichord smiled like he'd knocked one out of the park.