By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker Read Free Book Online

it is only a little run. And I’ll put the roses outside the door, and your bath salts are just where they always are, beside the tub. And I will run a bath for you. And here is a dish of black figs, I know how you love them. And can I pour you a little more wine?
    And by now I am completely seduced by the sight of my bedraggled, nearly naked woman, the slip by now wriggled and coaxed down to her knees. And then by my completely naked woman, who, naked, reaches once more for the silver boots, which she’d kicked off in a fit of despair. Puts them on. Looks at herself, looks at me in the mirror across from the bed, looks at the bed. Me. Herself naked in the silver boots.
    I am still fully clothed. I know how fine I look in my suit. Through it all I have not even unloosened (as they say down South) my tie. I know this woman well. To be buck naked while I’m sharply dressed makes her wetter than lying in a fish pond. Bynow, she will be hot to the touch, sweaty. If she comes up to me, twines herself about me, rubs herself against my leg, she will slime me. I shiver at the thought.
    After many years together you learn how to wait. You want the slime to be there. So that when you touch her there you feel as if the sun is shining in your loins.
    What is your name today? she says, coming up to me and studying me carefully.
    Today my name is … I say, looking into her eyes, feeling the sun raising me up, with only a small fear of saying the wrong thing … my name is
husband.
    For just a moment she is completely still. I elaborate: I am Langley’s very lucky husband. I am the man taking care of her. She smiles and moves into my arms, laying her head on my chest. Don’t worry, that is the correct answer, she says softly, exhaling a ragged breath. And my heart breaks around her, oceanic and warm as a kiss.
    I begin very slowly to caress the back of her head, where the naps fairly snap around my fingers. I ease my fingers down the furrow of her back, into the crevice of her backside. I clutch her to me.
    Jocko is gone, she murmurs.
    I kiss her mouth, lightly, a child’s kiss, when she says this. Her bushwoman’s nose. My hands by now cradle her bushwoman’s butt. I linger a long time in her neck. I rub her ears with my own.
    Suddenly, she sniffs. Pulls back. I need a bath, I think, she says. Testing the waters. Okay, I say, not moving. Not letting go of her. She understands. Sighs. Relaxes. Bending, I inhale her, my penis by now an eager puppy against her legs. Over her sloping breasts and erect black nipples I roam, in total time suspension; and when I dip my fingers into the place where life begins I staggerfrom the wetness of life I have found. I love the scent so much I wrap my whole hand in it and smear it on my hair.
    At this, as if stricken in her womb, and literally frowning with desire, she takes my flushed face between her hands and pulls my head to hers. She opens her mouth and sticks her tongue between my teeth. Pressing hard, without pity. Until I nearly lose my breath. She kisses me so hard and for so long I fall backward on the bed, my knees weak. With one hand she cradles the back of my neck, with the other she seems to flick my clothes away. And when she sees how I have risen she promptly sits on me and fucks me, crying. This is for Jocko, she says, with mournful intensity. Still wearing the silver boots, she kicks the sheet away.
    Later, restored, she came merrily back to the bed in which she’d left me. A jug of orange juice under one arm, toast and fried eggs on a blue plate in one hand. As we wolfed down the food—she was on her way to class—she told me about the blue wisteria that was blooming for a second time, just where it left its trellis and arched over our door. She had thought wisteria bloomed only once a year; and now this one was blooming twice. Just after her brother’s death. She blinked a smile at Jocko. Chewed her egg.
    And had I really