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“Because you said you loved me. I feel like kissing is part of that.”
“I feel like you might be right.”
But maybe that wasn’t the way to go about it. “I think I’m wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe, maybe it should be both of us. Not just you. Not just me. Both of us.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I have a feeling something like kissing is better done together.”
They were both smiling as his head lowered, and she closed her eyes, feeling like an eternity slipped by between each second as his arms tightened around her and she waited for his lips to touch hers.
Her fingers fisted at the back of his neck as their lips met, and the boy of her dreams became the man in front of her, kissing her, holding her, loving her.
Chapter 17
“Thanks so much for coming. See you guys on Friday,” Ellen said as she used a towel to dry her arms and looked at the ladies who were still in the pool.
Agathe knew she needed to get out. Her husband, Jim, would be waiting at home. Whether he was waiting for her or for someone that he knew only in his mind, she wasn’t sure. In other words, she didn’t know whether he would be having a good day, and remember her, or a bad day, and have no idea who she was, getting upset when she went in the kitchen and started to make him breakfast.
So far, he hadn’t gotten violent with her, but a couple of times, he scared her.
His decline had been slow and heartbreaking.
“All right, ladies. I’ve given you more time than I originally expected and I warned you a couple weeks ago that we were going to take a vote. Today is the day. Are you going to be in the group?” Bernadine spoke with authority from the corner of the pool where she treaded water.
Agathe moved over to the ladder, one hand on it, her feet firmly on the floor. The last thing she needed was to have some kind of accident. Who would take care of her husband if she was laid up? Who would take care of her?
“I wish I could,” she said, making her voice sound as American as possible. The French from her childhood was always on the tip of her tongue, although it had been many years since she had stopped dreaming in French and English had become the language of her thoughts and dreams. Rightfully so, since America was her adopted country, although sometimes she longed for her homeland with an ache she couldn’t describe. An ache Jim wouldn’t understand, as patriotic as he felt about America.
“But I just can’t. My husband needs me right now.”
She pressed her lips together, while Bernadine looked at her.
“You are a special exception. I understand, your husband comes first. There will always be a spot on our team for you.”
Bernadine sometimes forgot that she wasn’t speaking to a classroom full of thirteen-year-olds anymore. She’d done it for so long that she had a tendency to treat everyone the way she would a junior-high child.
Agathe just nodded. “Thanks. I really would love to have the time to reach out more and do more for other people.” It wasn’t that she lived a life only for herself, but just getting out of the house right now felt like a major victory. She could only come early in the morning, since she couldn’t chance leaving later and having Jim wander off.
Soon, she figured sooner than she wished, she would no longer be able to skip out of the house at all.
“Agathe?” Bernadine said in her no-nonsense voice.
“Yes?” she asked as she put one foot on the ladder and began to climb out of the pool.
“You’ll let us know if you need help, okay?”
“Of course,” she said, but she wouldn’t. How could she ask her friends to come and see the decline of her husband? He wouldn’t want them to, and she... As much as she would love to have help, she felt like it was her responsibility to take care of him. She’d pledged her life to him, left her country for him, bore his children, and helped him bury his parents and two siblings. She couldn’t desert him now. It was her job to take care of him.
She held off while listening to Bernadine talk to the other ladies and decide on a name for their group.
It was a neat name, and it made Agathe smile. Smile and wish that she were a part of it, but knowing that she just couldn’t.
She didn’t want to resent Jim. He’d been good to her through the years, although regardless of whether he’d been good or not, her first duty was to her husband. She wasn’t confused about that.
Although sometimes, when he didn’t even remember who she was, she wondered how much longer she could continue to do this on her own.
