But not for me.
I was Evelyn and Frank Kinney’s only daughter-in-law. Though my reception into the family had been chilly when James and I were dating and through our engagement, once I became a Kinney, I was treated like a Kinney. Evelyn and Frank had taken me into the bosom of the Kinney clan, and like quicksand, once I was so enfolded there was little I could do to escape.
We all got along well enough, for the most part. James’s sisters Margaret and Molly were several years older than us, both married with children. I didn’t have much in common with them aside from our gender, and though they were careful to include me in every “girls’ night” party they had with their mother, we weren’t close. It didn’t seem to matter.
Typically, James didn’t notice the superficiality of my relationship with his mother and sisters, and that was fine with me. It was all fine with me, that veneer. The shiny reflection that kept anyone from seeing what was underneath, the eddies and currents and depths of the truth. It was, after all, what I was used to.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Mrs. Kinney had … expectations.
Where we were going. What we were doing. How we were doing it and how much it cost. She wanted to know it all and was not contented with the knowing. She always had to know more.
It took me a few months of frigid phone calls to figure out that if James wasn’t going to divulge the details, I would have to. Since she was the one who’d raised him to believe the world revolved around him, I thought she’d have figured out it was her own fault he didn’t realize it revolved around her. James didn’t seem to mind displeasing his mother, but I did. James shrugged off his mother’s frequent fits of martyrdom, but I couldn’t stand the forced silences or the thinly veiled comments about respect or the comparisons to Molly and Margaret, who didn’t sneeze without holding out the tissue for Mrs. Kinney to see the color of the snot. James didn’t care, but I did, so meeting Mrs. Kinney’s expectations became one more peace for me to keep.
“I wish your mother would stop asking me when I’m going to give ‘the gang’ someone new to play with.” I said this in a perfectly calm voice that could have shattered glass.
James glanced at me before fixing his attention back at the road, where late spring rain had made the roads slick. “When did she say that?”
Of course he hadn’t noticed. James had long ago perfected the art of tuning out his mother. She talked, he nodded. She was satisfied. He was oblivious.
“When doesn’t she say it?” I crossed my arms over my chest, staring ahead through the rivulets of water turning the windshield into a piece of abstract art.
He was silent as we drove, an admirable talent of his. Knowing when to be silent. It was something his mother could have learned, I thought vehemently. Tears pricked the back of my throat, but I swallowed them down.
“She doesn’t mean anything by it,” he said finally as he pulled into our drive. The wind had gotten stronger as we neared the lake, and the pine trees in our yard whipped angry branches.
“She does mean something by it, that’s the problem. She knows exactly what she’s saying and she plays it off with that little simpering laugh, like she’s making a joke, but she’s not.”
“Anne …” James sighed and turned to me as he keyed off the ignition. The headlights went dark and I blinked, eyes adjusting. The patter of rain on the roof seemed much louder with darkness surrounding it. “Don’t get so upset.”
I turned in my seat to face him. “She always asks, James. Every time we’re together. It’s getting a little old, that’s all.”
His hand caressed my shoulder and tugged down the length of my braid. “She wants us to have kids—what’s wrong with that?”
I said nothing. James took his hand back. I could see him now, a faint silhouette, the flash of his eyes in the hint of light from across the water. Cedar Point Amusement Park still glimmered despite the rain and the line of cars streaming off the causeway.
“Chill, Anne. Don’t make such a big deal—”
I cut him off by opening my door. The cold rain felt good on my heated cheeks. I tipped my face to the sky, closing my eyes, pretending the wetness on my cheeks was only rain. James got out of the car. His heat embraced me before his arm went around my shoulder.
“Come inside. You’re getting soaked.”
I let him lead me inside, but I didn’t talk to him. I went straight to our bathroom and turned on the hot water of the shower. I left my clothes in a pile and when the room had filled with steam I stepped into the tub and beneath the water that substituted for the rain outside.
That’s where he found me, my head bent to let the hot water stream over my neck and back, working on the tension. I’d untied the braid, and my hair hung down over my breasts in kinked strands.
My eyes were closed, but the brief chill as he opened the glass door told me he was there seconds before I felt his arms around me. James held me against his chest. It took seconds for his skin to heat beneath the water. I pressed my face to his skin, hot and wet, and let him hold me.
We said nothing for a while as the shower caressed us both. His fingers traced my spine, up and down, the way he sometimes traced his scar. Water pooled in the space between my cheek and his chest, burning my eye. I had to move away to let it drain.
“Hey.” James waited until I’d looked up. “Don’t be upset. I can’t stand it when you get so upset.”
I wanted to explain to him that being upset once in a while wasn’t such a bad thing, but I didn’t. That a smile could be as painful as a scream. “She makes me so angry.”
“I know.”
His hand stroked my hair. He didn’t know, not really. I’m not sure a man can ever understand the complicated matter of feminine relationships. He didn’t want to understand it. James preferred the surface, too.
“She never asks you.” I tilted my face to look at him. Water splashed, making me blink.
“That’s because she knows I won’t have an answer.” He traced my eyebrow with one fingertip. “She knows you’re the one in charge.”
“Why am I the one in charge?” I demanded, but I already knew the answer.
It was easy for him, being blameless. “Because you’re so good at it.”
I frowned and pushed away from him to reach for the shampoo. “I just wish she’d lay off.”
“So tell her.”
I sighed and turned. “Yeah. Right. That goes over so well with your mother, James. She’s so open to suggestion.”
He shrugged and held out his hand for a handful of shampoo, too. “So she’ll get a little pissy.”
What I wanted was him to be the one to tell his mother to back off, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. He, the son who could do no wrong, didn’t care if he made his parents angry. It wasn’t his issue. So, impotent and knowing it was my own fault, I swallowed my anger and concentrated on washing my hair. “We’re going to run out of hot water.”
The stream was already becoming tepid. We washed quickly, sharing the body sponge and the shower gel, our fingers tickling and doing more than just cleaning. James reached to pull the lever, shutting off the water, and I grabbed two thick towels from the stack in the closet next to the shower. I handed him one, but before I could use my own, he’d grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward him.
“C’mere, baby. Don’t be upset.”
It was hard to stay mad at him. James might be perfectly content in the knowledge he could do no wrong, but that allowed him to be all the more generous with his affections. He dried me carefully, squeezing the extra wetness from the length of my hair and patting my body. His towel-covered hands stroked my