Homefires by Emily Sue Harvey Read Free Book Online Page B

glimpse a Winston to start the violent heaving, not always making it to the bathroom in time.
    Kirk was considerate and loving but terribly addicted to nicotine and had to justify why he didn’t just lay them aside. So, it goes to reason that he decided a part of the nausea was in my head, especially since, at that unenlightened time, some doctors propagated the theory that the nausea was at least partly psychosomatic

    “How come you get sick just looking at a cigarette, even before smelling it?” he asked in his most guilty moments, wiping my brow with a damp cloth as I sprawled noodle-limp on the sofa.
    I could have argued it wasn’t only the sight of his cigarettes that set off fierce puking but thoughts of sweet pickles, onions and even innocent golden iced tea, but I was simply too depleted to react.
    “Huh?” he’d persist, trying to shift his features from guilty to imposing by furrowing his brow.
    “I don’t know.” I took the cloth from him and washed my lips. “It just happens.”
    “Ahh, honey,” his expression swung to undiluted anguish. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this.” A furious hand swiped through his hair. “It’s not fair.”
    “Sure it is,” I whispered, cupping his rigid, frustrated face in my palm. “For whatever reason, that’s the way God planned it.” I smiled weakly. “I’ll be okay. Just give me a few minutes.”
    He grew quiet after that – throbbing with a guilt I could not assuage. I knew he would quit smoking if he could. When he could. And I knew that just as he wasn’t perfect, neither was I. I knew by now there was no Knight in shining armor.
    But I knew, beyond a doubt, that above anything on earth, Kirk loved me. And quite suddenly, he was as cow-eyed as me over little gurgling, cooing babies.

    The day Heather was born, Kirk threw away his cigarettes. “I don’t ever want my children to see me smoke,” he said in his mind-made-up way, then kissed me like Rhett Butler did Scarlett .
    Anne told me that during my final labor, Kirk wedged his face into the crack of the Delivery Room door to watch Dr. Woodruff and his team scurry about while two patients delivered at once.
    Kirk was as proud a Dad as a man can be. “I love you a thousand times more than before,” he told me in his velvetgruff voice. “Thank you, Sweetheart.”
    In those words, he handed me the world.

    The next day, leaving the hospital, Kirk won a good-natured tug-of-war with Anne over who’d carry Heather to the car. My stepmother stayed with me for a week, caring for me and the baby, cooking delicious meals and keeping the house tidy for company who paraded through to see the new little Crenshaw.
    Motherhood was the most marvelous thing and I reveled in it, loving my child – mine and Kirk’s creation – with a passion that surpassed anything I’d ever felt. Within weeks, Heather’s round solidness filled my arms and heart with delicious pleasure. Her apple cheeks glowed with perpetual pinch-pink rosiness and, from the beginning, she moved and held herself erect with amazing strength. “Just look at that,” Kirk crowed, rounding his chest like Charles Atlas.
    Her Aunt Trish, at twelve, was quite good at tending the baby, who could be a tad demanding at times. Daddy, still youthful, did Papa with aplomb and beamed when folks declared, “but you’re too young to be a grandpa.”
    Sometime during those days, Daddy took Kirk under his wing and began parenting him, giving him the respect missed in younger years and boasting to anybody who’d listen about his great son-in-law and what a hard worker he was.
    My heart nearly burst with happiness seeing the two men most dear to me loving one another.

    When Heather was six weeks old, Kirk drove us to Asheville to see MawMaw and Papa and they made over the baby as if she were a one-of-a-kind edition. I rocked her on the front porch of their little white, five-room cottage and looked across the vast mountain range and saw a golden