Her golden hair was pulled up and tied at the back of her head except for strands that hung loosely around her face. She had a smudge of flour on her cheek and her natural beauty shined brightly without a touch of makeup except for a soft color highlighting her lips. She wore an ap.r.o.n over her dress and it also had flour on it. She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n adding more flour to it as she did so. "I"ve been in the kitchen baking. You"ll have to excuse the mess."
Benjamin asked, "What are you baking? It smells great in here." He reached out and gently brushed flour from her face. "A little too much flour where it"s not needed," he said with a chuckle. His fingers tingled from the quick touch to her warm skin.
She took that well and gave a smile. "I just took cookies out of the oven and now have a cake in and cookies ready to go in shortly."
He smiled. "I remember your cookies, especially those mola.s.ses ones."
She returned his smile. "That"s what I"m making. Dark mola.s.ses cookies."
"Hmmm, sounds good."
She laughed. "They will be as soon as they cool. Tell me Benjamin, what brings you here?"
"You."
"What do you mean?"
"I wanted to see how you were now that the trial is finished. You okay?"
"Would you like a cup of coffee," she said, ignoring his question.
"Yes."
"Then sit down and I will get it."
Benjamin now took time to look around her home, their home, and he felt unease knowing he was in James Garrison"s home. How long he would be able to remember he was also with James"s wife, he couldn"t say at the moment. He didn"t want to even think about that. He just wanted to eat up and savor every moment in Lucinda"s presence. That"s all he cared about. When she handed him his cup of coffee he saw her wedding band on her left hand but he decided he did not really see it at all.
His eyes didn"t leave her as she returned to the sideboard to mix flour for another batch of cookies. The kitchen already smelled of mola.s.ses and he watched her pour the thick sweet dark syrup into the bowl and begin to mix it. His mind went back to another time when it was just like this. He at the table drinking a cup of coffee while watching her measure out mola.s.ses for her cookie batter. The only difference then, he admitted, was there had also been a bottle of whiskey sitting alongside the coffee cup on the table, and the coffee had been flavored heavily with the liquor. The mola.s.ses cookies he loved were stale by the time he was again sober. He had gone into a two-day drunk beginning that evening, and he foggily recalled trying to make love to her and failing miserably.
He took a bite of a warm mola.s.ses cookie and tried to forget the events of the past. "Very good, Lucinda. I"d forgotten how much I loved these cookies."
She laughed. "Yes, I remember. You usually ate them faster than I could take them from the oven."
Maybe she forgot that night when he didn"t want cookies, and tried, tried so hard to be a decent lover. Maybe she forgot how many times he had failed her because he was f.u.c.k"n drunk. Forgot? No, don"t be silly. Lucinda remembers every minute of the h.e.l.l he put her through, he knew that. That"s why she never came back to him. Oh G.o.d, how he wished he could change what happened then. It would be so different if he could now take her into his arms and make love to her. How he wanted that.
"Sometimes," he said. He sipped his coffee and was examining what he wanted to say to her next. Did he dare risk it?
He had to. That was why he was here. He had to tell her everything he had held inside for so very long.
"Lucinda, there is a lot I want to say to you."
She cracked an egg over the bowl, stirred slowly as if she was thinking and then looked at him. "What do you mean? There"s nothing more to say about the boy"s death, Benjamin. We just have to forget it."
"I know. I pretty well have. No guilt, Lucinda. I had no other choice."
Her eyes were soft as she looked at him. "I know. And I always want you to remember that."
"But there are other things I do have guilt about and I did have a choice," he added.
She turned from him and checked the cake in the oven. He noticed she was not anxious to hear what he felt guilt about. He supposed she already knew and did not want to go there. But he had to. It was now or never.
"Honey-"
"Benjamin, please don"t call me that."
She was right. He had too often called her that while intoxicated. He tended to call any woman "honey" when he had too much booze.
"Sorry," he said.
He was not going to let this opportunity for clarity go by. So he said, "Lucinda, I was referring to the guilt I have over the way I treated you when we were together. I really ruined it for us."
She nodded, "Yes, you could say that."
"I know and I wish I could go back and change it. I wish I had the power of magic to take away all the bad times and replace them with the beauty and joy of our good times together. If I could, I would." His voice became more pa.s.sionate and heavy as he continued, "I would take away the bottle that stood between us. I would break it into smithereens and let the f.u.c.k"n booze fill some river that flowed away from us, to the other side of the continent. I would get down on my knees and ask you to marry me, right then and there. I would have asked you not to leave me. I would have begged you to stay with every sober beat of my heart-"
She was crying. "Please Benjamin, no more. Stop. Don"t do this to me!"
He got up from the table and moved to her. She gave no resistance as he pulled her into his arms and held her tight. "I am so sorry. So sorry, Lucinda," he whispered huskily. He held her tight for several minutes and then as he leaned back to wipe away the tears falling down her face, he realized his own face was wet, also.
Chapter Twenty-nine: Cannons.
Denny had been quiet during the dinner table conversation with his mother and grandparents. Elizabeth Jane glanced at her son and noticed he seemed to be caught up in his own reverie, and was absently tapping his fork on the table beside his gla.s.s.
"Denny, please don"t do that," she said.
He looked up at her puzzled. "Don"t do what, Mama?"
"Tap your fork."
"Oh, sorry," he said, shyly looking around. His eyes stopped on his great-grandfather and he starred a moment and then said, "Pap, what do you mean Daddy will be changed when he comes home?"
Elizabeth Jane, aware of the worry in her young son"s voice, quickly glanced at Alexander trusting he would say the right thing.
"Well, Denny, your Daddy is out there fighting a war, fighting the wrongs of others. It is hard work, harder than the work he did here on his farm."
"That hard?" Denny asked.
"Yep, I"m afraid so. Hard work and sometimes little rest."
"He doesn"t have a bed out there, does he?" Denny asked. "He has to sleep in tents and on the ground sometimes?"
"Yeah, or on the boat sometimes."
"And lots of shooting?"
"Sometimes."
"But why will he be different? Mama said we are all different. I don"t feel different. Maybe he won"t like us anymore."
That brought chuckles but everyone immediately realized Denny was serious about that.
His mother spoke up, "No, honey, I did not mean that. I just meant we all have grown while he"s been gone. Look at you, you"re taller now, and you see how your little sister, Katrina is growing."
Denny shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, but I want Daddy to be the same."
Alexander spoke up again. "Denny, he will love you as he always has. What I mean by him being different is while he is fighting the war he is learning about other people, and he is learning about his own strength, and probably learning to do things. Things maybe he"s not done before."
"Like what things, Pap."
"Hmm, maybe how to drive a boat."
"And shoot a cannon?" Denny said.
Alexander did not particularly want to discuss weaponry with his young great=grandson, but he knew he could not skip the reality of it. So he said, "It would be my guess your Daddy is very good at shooting a cannon."
That brought a smile to Denny. "He is," he said. "What about the Negroes? Do they shoot cannons? Is Daddy shooting at them?"
"Oh, no. The Negroes are with us. They are Union soldiers, too."
"They are? I thought they were bad."
This time Catherine spoke up. "No Denny, the Negroes are not bad," she said. "They"ve been treated bad, but they are good."
"Your Grandma is right, Denny," Alexander added. "The Negroes aren"t bad and some of them are fighting the war with the Union."
"But how did we make a Union? Daddy is a Union?"
Alexander laughed, and so did the others. Michael spoke up, "Now explain to my grandson, Pap."
Alexander kept it straightforward as he explained the United States, the States that left the Union, and reasons for the war in the simplest terms he could for a young mind. His explanation seemed to satisfy Denny, and soon Denny asked if he could leave the supper table to play outside. Much to everyone"s relief.
Elizabeth Jane began to clear the table of dishes and as she picked up Alexander"s bowl, she said to him, "Thanks for handling his inquisitive mind, Pap. Sometimes he thinks too much for a little one."
"That"s the way he learns, Janie. He"s a smart kid," Alexander replied.
She nodded. "Maybe it is my fault he thought the Negroes were bad. He doesn"t ever miss much in what is being said around here. I guess I have been guilty of that. But you know, lately I"ve changed my thinking. And the trip to Peoria and listening to the speeches made a big difference."
"You really enjoyed that, didn"t you?" Catherine commented.
"I did, Mama. I came home thinking I would like to help the Underground Railroad. It"s too bad I was not more on the route to safety for them."
Her father Daniel spoke up. "You would do that?"
Elizabeth Jane laughed. "You surprised?"
"Yes, I am," he said.
"If I could help, I would," she said. "I suppose I never thought I"d be feeling that way. I think my views on the war are changing, too. Not that I like it, but I do support the Union."
Alexander spoke up. "Of course you do. We all do."
Daniel said, "Yeah, but we don"t have to like it."
"None of us like it," Catherine added.
Rachel said, "Amen."
Chapter Thirty: Mola.s.ses and Sticky Things.
The confusion of emotions swirled around her. His tears, her tears-wet tears and sensuality, sadness and joy, all mixing together and hitting Lucinda in her heart, in her very soul. At this moment, she wanted Benjamin, wanted to surrender to him, wanted to be in his arms and to experience his hot flesh against her own naked body. Memories. She could feel again what once had been between them; the smell of his body tight against hers, the rhythm of their lovemaking, the incredible o.r.g.a.s.mic delight that put her out of her mind and into a sacred place far away. Just the two of them. Oh G.o.d, she thought, I want him. I want him, what do I do?!
At that moment of near surrender a loud clap of thunder directly over the house startled them both. And with that startle it seemed to bring them both back to the reality of the moment and what was about to happen.
And then she remembered. "Oh, the cake. It"s going to burn!" She moved away from Benjamin and went quickly to the oven, grabbed two towels and took the cake from the oven and placed it on a rack. The blast of hot air from the oven made her hotter than she already was. She dropped one towel onto the sideboard and used the other one to pat her face and remove the moisture.
Benjamin was silent as he watched, and then he turned and sat again at the table.
She was sure he knew. Yes, he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He had no idea though how often she had wanted him to come to Philadelphia and take her back to Chicago. She had dreamt about it. And the day she stepped onto the train to leave him, her heart ached. As the train pulled out of the station she had visions in her mind of him chasing after the train, jumping on board, and declaring he wanted her to stay with him. But it never happened.
It"s funny, she thought. Somehow you ask for something and at the time you don"t get it. And then at some other time when the timing may not be right, your prayer is answered. You have the man of your dreams in your sights and you can"t go there because it is wrong, and yet, so right. So what do you do? Benjamin had declared his love, his apology for all that happened, and d.a.m.n, it hurt to hear it now. Now, too late.
She needed to break this awkward silence. "Would you like your coffee warmed?"
"Uh, yes, I guess so, thanks," he replied.
She poured hot coffee and as she leaned on the table Benjamin reached out and put his hand over her free hand and said, softly, "Lucinda, just know that I love you more than life. I always will, G.o.d knows that."
She wanted to yell at him, No, No. Don"t say that. I don"t want to know that! Instead she said in almost a whisper, "Thank you."
She moved away from the table and hoped the tears would not return. Or the strong s.e.xual feeling he had evoked in her. She tried to put all that aside as she went back to mola.s.ses cookie making.
And that night she cried herself to sleep but not before wondering how she could love two men at once. Not only did thoughts of James invade her dreams that night but so did Benjamin, and when she awakened the following morning to the sound of heavy rain hitting the gla.s.s panes of her bedroom window, Benjamin and the loud thunder of the day before immediately came to mind. And as she rolled over in bed, reluctant to face the new day, she said aloud, "Dammit Benjamin, you"re driving me crazy."
And she wondered how "crazy" she would get before giving into her feelings for him.