“Is that a question?”
“No. An observation.” When Remington said nothing, she asked, “Why do you suppose Ellie and Thaddeus never married?”
Remington was standing again, this time on one leg, as he shucked his trousers. He gave them a toss toward the peg, but they missed and slid down the wall. “I used to think they were married,” he said, retrieving the trousers and hanging them up. He dropped his drawers, hooked them on a peg, and walked to the tub with no concern for modesty. He tested the water with his hand before he stepped in it. “She was the housekeeper before my mother died, and she helped us, my father and me, just by being there. I don’t recall that she ever said much.” He shrugged a little, helpless to explain it better, and lowered himself into the water.
“She did all the things my mother did, at least as I understood it then. She cooked and cleaned and washed and mended. She tended the garden. She ate with us, went to church with us, and attended social functions with us. Ben came along. We were family. We still are.” He rested his spine against the back slope of the tub and closed his eyes. “Mostly,” he said quietly. “Differently.”
Phoebe ran the comb through her hair twice more and then plaited it. When she was done, she sat on the stool he had occupied. “How did you come to realize that they weren’t married?”
Remington gave a small start when Phoebe spoke. He hadn’t heard her approach or known she was sitting next to him. He settled back when she touched his shoulder with her fingertips. She said nothing to encourage him to speak; it was in the caress, in the finger sweep that was both casual and deliberate.
“It was the lack of affection, I suppose.” He thought about that, tried to recall what he had seen as a young boy, and shook his head. “That’s not quite right. There was affection, but they did not touch the way my parents did. I never witnessed a hug or a kiss. No fanny pats when one of them slipped past the other. They didn’t share a bedroom, but back then I didn’t fully appreciate why that would have been important. I guess I eventually figured it out because I don’t remember ever asking my father or anyone else. I don’t know what Ben thought when he was growing up; he never said a word, so I imagine he came around to understanding it, too.”
“Did you ever wish Ellie was your mother?”
“She was. Is. It seems an unimportant detail that she is not my father’s wife.”
Phoebe nodded. “Of course.”
“But I think you want to know something else. I think you want to know if I ever wished they had married.”
“And?”
Remington watched her out of the corner of his eye. “Do you really want me to answer the question you couldn’t bring yourself to ask?”
Phoebe’s smiled thinly, regretfully. “You just have. It must have crossed your mind after Thaddeus returned to Twin Star with Fiona.”
Remington reached for Phoebe’s hand resting on his shoulder. He took it, folded it in his palm, and raised it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles. “It crossed my mind,” he told her. “I didn’t dwell on it. There’s a difference.” He gave her back her hand, put the floating bar of soap in it, and gave her a hopeful look.
“You are shameless,” she said. “Lean forward.”
He did. He almost sighed when she began to soap hisback. He did close his eyes again. “Is there some reason you’re thinking about this now?”
“I’m only asking about it now. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”
“You have?”
“Mm. Sometimes I put myself in Ellie’s shoes. Sometimes in Fiona’s.” She cupped a handful of water and sluiced his back. “I can tell you, I prefer my own. I have some sense of place, of belonging. I’m not so certain that either of them does any longer.” She laughed a bit unsteadily, tapped him on the shoulder with the bar of soap. “This is what happens when you leave me soaking in a tub. My waterlogged mind wanders. I can hardly be held responsible.”
Remington recognized Phoebe’s retreat. He let her go. It was easy to do when she manipulated the soap with a magician’s sleight of hand, touching him unexpectedly on the knee, running it up the inside of his upper thigh. She drained some of the water when it cooled and added hot from the tap as he had done for her. He could have slept there, but she had other ideas, and she made them clear when she abandoned the soap and cupped his balls in her slippery palm.
She laughed, low and wicked. “I have your full attention, I think.”
“Maybe,” he said. “And maybe it’s that I have yours.”
She released him, but only after she scored the length of his penis with her thumbnail. “It’s very bold, isn’t it?” she said when it practically jumped out of her hand.
His wry smile mocked her. “I know I’ve referenced the one about the pot and the kettle before, but I’m not certain you understand the gist of it.”
Phoebe’s arm dipped deep into the water near his knee and came up with a washcloth. She tossed it at him, and when he was distracted by the pitch, she planted a bold kiss on his perfect mouth and danced out of his reach before he could pull her in to join him.
She paused at the door, gave him a come-hither glance over one bare shoulder, and simultaneously warned him, “Not ahintof that perfume.” And then she was gone.
Amused, entranced, Remington stared at the door she closed behind her for all of three seconds before he got busy. He scoured with a purpose, dunking his head and lathering his hair, taking the precaution to wash behind his ears in the event there was an inspection, and scrubbing his chest where he thought the generous fragrance of Junior’s tipsy wife might have leaked through his clothes.
When he was finished, he pulled the plug, hoisted himself out of the tub, and searched for a towel. He found two, one he used mostly to dry and then slung around his neck; the other he hitched around his hips. His erection was no longer at a full stand, but neither was he hiding what was behind the curtain. He finger-combed his damp hair without glancing at the mirror and rinsed his mouth with warm water and baking soda paste that Phoebe had left on the basin top. It had to be good enough, he thought, because he could not wait any longer.
• • •
