Asked For by Colleen L. Donnelly Read Free Book Online Page A

husband was ready to eat. It was her job to feed him. She turned her focus back to the kitchen. She could do this, and she would.
    The smoked pork she’d heated was just the right temperature, the gravy perfect and without any lumps. Lana hurried the last dish to the table, boiled potatoes, already soft with age even before she’d cooked them. The wood oven had warmed the house considerably, but Cletus didn’t seem to mind. She chose one of the two remaining chairs and sat near him, realizing there were no plates or utensils on the table.
    “I’m sorry, I forgot.” She rose and peered through the increasing gloom of the room, wondering where Cletus kept his dishes.
    “Over there.” He nodded toward a bureau alongside the door they’d come through from the back porch.
    She hurried and grabbed what they’d need. She glanced over the plates and silverware, making sure they were clean, then placed one set in front of him and the other where she was to sit. “I hope you like what I fixed.” She smiled, took her seat, and dug a serving spoon into the boiled potatoes. His fingers, long fingers, appeared over her hand. She stopped, amazed at their size, and how rough his skin felt as it brushed against hers. “I’m sorry, you want to pray first? We always prayed at home, me and Grandma. I guess I forgot.”
    He shook his head. “I’m only religious about eating on time,” he said. “But I do have a certain way I like things done when I eat.” He aligned the plate and silver she’d slid in front of him, everything symmetrical, each item in its place. She watched, looked down at her own scattered utensils, and aligned them as he had his. “And you should always pass the dishes to me first.” He nodded at the dish of boiled potatoes near her hands.
    She slid the potatoes his direction. She reached for the platter of meat and the bowl of gravy, sliding both in front of him also. He said nothing as he filled his plate. She watched, the aroma of what she’d cooked filling the air. Everything looked good, it smelled good, and she could tell he was satisfied as he took his first bite. She settled into her chair and watched him eat.
    “I’m not really very hungry,” she said.
    “You the nervous type?” he asked. “Been a big day,” he said without waiting for her to answer.
    He continued to eat, his head bent over his food, his big hands raking his spoon and fork across his plate. She really wasn’t the nervous type. Grandma always said Lana ate like a farmhand, often giving Lana her own small portions, claiming she was old and didn’t need that much anyway. Maybe Cletus was right. It had been a big day. She’d married him and stopped being a child, was all on her own. She’d left Grandma and her friends behind, left the only place her parents knew where to find her. But her father would figure it out. He and her mother would come see the new her, the grown up her, the one who was going to make them proud by being a good wife.
    ****
    Lana lay in the dark, colors drifting through her mind. Bright colors, like tinted clouds pierced by brilliant rainbows, the muted paleness of her wedding dress accented by the yellow of her belt. Fanciful parts of childhood—school, friends, the parents she’d dreamed of. She watched them drift, and she let them. Reality was a bit of a shock, but Grandma had warned her. She accepted the shock and the little bit of pain that came with it. She was a wife now, and both would eventually go away.
    Cletus had set an old wooden box in the corner of the bedroom for her few clothes to go in. He’d said she could use it as a dresser. She and Grandma had shared an old two-drawer dresser, each of them folding their day clothes and draping them across the top for the night. Cletus saw no point in draping clothing across a dresser or a box. His clothes were in piles, some hanging out of an old chest of drawers he used for himself. She’d glanced at his clothing, snaking out of open drawers