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

and clumped in wads around the room as she held her clothing, Grandma’s dress, pressed against her body earlier. The top of his chest of drawers was different from everything else, almost bare; it was the neatest place in his house. A framed picture of an older woman stood in its center. She looked like Cletus, tall, slender, fair-haired and fair-skinned. To the side was another photo, a younger woman with a boy on her lap.
    “Who are these people?” Lana had edged toward the chest of drawers, keeping her dress between herself and his eyes as he lay in bed watching her. She knew what she was supposed to do, she knew husbands and wives saw each other without their clothing, but she wasn’t ready yet. She was still thinking about everything Jeanie’d described.
    “My mother,” he grunted. His eyes flickered across the photos and then back to Lana.
    She peered at the picture of the younger woman. “So that’s your mother when you were a boy?”
    He didn’t respond, so she turned. He was staring at the ceiling, a thin blanket molded over his long form. She looked back at the photos, and the other items he had arranged around them. Medals, war medals, were lined up precisely, the same way he wanted his plate and silverware aligned at the table.
    “You fought in the war?”
    “I did. Then I came back.”
    “But you must have been a hero.”
    “I survived. Sometimes living’s heroic enough.” He looked at her then. He looked tired, and older than she’d thought when she first saw him. “I built roads and bridges after I got back. Then I bought this farm, and I do welding in town.” He paused, his face looking almost mummified. “And now I’ve taken a new wife.”
    “A new wife?” She glanced back at the young woman in the photo, then at Cletus. “Are you sure? I mean, no one told me…”
    “You ask a lot of questions. Guess I should expect that from someone your age.” He ran a hand over his face. “Kind of wanted someone uncomplicated. That’s why I picked someone so young, someone who’d just do what a wife’s supposed to do, keep the house and give me sons.”
    Lana was young, still a child herself, and she felt like one compared to him and compared to the woman in the photo. She should apologize for acting like one, curious and full of questions, pesky, like Grandma always said she was. But no one had told her there’d been a wife before her. A real woman, not a child, like she was, standing here in Cletus’ bedroom, hiding her shapeless body behind Grandma’s dress. She pulled the dress tighter against her, ashamed she looked and acted so young, wishing she were fuller, the way Jeanie said she should be.
    “Don’t worry. You’ll do, and you’ll get used to things.” He nodded toward the picture. “It was fever,” he said. “I buried the two of them together.”
    “A boy,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
    “Son.” His brows pinched together. “Not just a boy. Sons matter. They’ll work the land, help with the welding, and pass on what I build. What a father leaves a son is important. My father died and left us with nothing.”
    “Fathers want sons…I’m not your first wife…”
    Cletus ignored her. He stared at the picture of his wife and his son. “I want a son again. For a long time I only wanted him back. Would’ve gone to him if I could. Got the medals to prove it.” He leaned back against the headboard and looked at her. “You need to know that nothing scares me anymore. Nothing can hurt me worse than I’ve already hurt. And there’s nothing I want except a son. I’ll have one—I’ll have dozens of them. And I’ll do right by them.”
    Lana tried to shake away her shock as she stared at the determination on her husband’s face. A chill ran over her nearly naked body as she grasped what he’d said. Make babies. Mothers don’t matter. Daughters didn’t either. Cletus only kept his first wife’s picture because she was holding his son.
    “My dad only had