“So Kentucky, huh? Is that where you met your husband?” Jared asked her.
They were sitting at her little table eating dinner. Kayla was chatting away while she picked up pieces of her cut-up burger. Shelby knew she was eying the corn on the cob, waiting for when she was told it would be cool enough for her to pick it up with her little plastic holders and munch into it.
“Kind of. He was from Colorado.” She was debating how much to say. Did she really want to admit how she met Ethan? Then again, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was common enough now.
And she liked Jared. A lot. She’d never experienced a crush before in her life. She wondered if this was what one felt like.
“Kind of?” he asked, helping himself to more pasta salad. There was a nice gratifying feeling that she was feeding him and he was devouring it. Helping himself to more. He was eying the extra burger like Kayla was her corn.
She pushed the plate toward him. “Please. Eat it. I can barely get through one of these, but they’re just too yummy to resist.”
He grinned and helped himself. “What’s in the beef? I can’t pick it out, but it tastes so good.”
“Thank you. I like spicing food up. Experimenting. Just some seasonings and some Worcestershire sauce to make them moist.”
Food was pretty plain and simple in her house as a kid, when someone was around to cook it. It usually ended up being her. She found if she didn’t do something with it, the younger ones wouldn’t eat much and it wasn’t worth fighting with them and agitating anyone in the house. Nor did she want them punished. She found a way to protect them as best she could.
“So back to how you met your husband. If you want to answer. If it’s too painful, we can drop it. I don’t mean to be nosy,” he said, pausing, like he just realized he might be overstepping himself.
“It’s not painful at all. I’ve grieved, and I can talk about him.”
She often wondered if she’d grieved enough or not. There were just so many things to focus on when Ethan died. She was seven months pregnant and caring for herself and her unborn daughter, that had to come first.
Survival of the fittest. She knew that well enough. Find a way to survive, that’s why she left way back then the minute she could.
“Okay. I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“You aren’t.” She stopped talking and turned to Kayla, picked up the corn and handed it to her daughter, then watched as she smiled bright and sunk her tiny teeth in. Shelby learned it was best to let Kayla try to gnaw as much of it off as she could until she got frustrated and wanted it cut off. Temper tantrums just weren’t worth some things. “I met Ethan on a dating website.”
He started to cough. Okay, maybe she should feel embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t expect that. You seem pretty young.”
Guess she should explain. “I was eighteen. I was in high school, but had turned eighteen that January.”
“There were no boys in school that you were interested in so you looked online?”
She had to hide it from her father. They weren’t allowed to date. Not to have friends over. Not to do a heck of a lot in the house. They had to be home at a certain time too. Her father was strict. She only got away with it because she had a part-time job and paid for her own pre-paid phone with a data plan that she hid from everyone in the house.
“Not really. It’s a small community. I just wanted to move away. It seemed the best way to find someone out of the area.”
“Was he in the Navy at that point?”
“He was. Twenty-six. Yes, eight years older than me. He knew my age; I didn’t lie to him at all. He had been in group homes and shelters and didn’t have any family. When he turned eighteen, he enlisted.”
“How often did you two get to talk?”
“Not a lot, but enough. I was a friendly face for him. I’d send him cards and letters and packages. Messages when he was out to sea. Things that kept him going.”
She and Ethan filled a void in each other’s lives. A mutual need and it worked for them.
“It can be hard not having anyone. I know when I was away I loved getting letters from home. Calls from my parents and siblings.”
“So you understand.”
“I do. So you are twenty...”
“I turned twenty-three a few months ago. And you?” she asked, angling her head to the side.
“Just turned thirty.”
“Does it bother you that I’m only twenty-three?”
“Not at all. I knew you were younger, just didn’t know how young.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t pull off older and mature if I wanted to.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I happen to like you the way you are.”
She reached her hand over and placed it on his. He turned his palm over and held her hand for a minute. Rough and strong. Feeling like she always thought it should feel. Like she’d always wanted her hand held in life.
***
“Thank you,” she said.
Her small hand fit into his just right. It might look delicate, but there was a strength behind it. A strength in her gaze and her stature. Nothing about her looked weak at all to him. Something he probably needed in his life. A strong woman to tell him to get his shit together.
If he was going to put himself out there right now, try to find something, a strong woman was what he’d need. Not someone he had to hold together. He couldn’t do it right now and didn’t even want it.
“This is what I tried to do the other day when you slapped me five.”
She laughed and the sound of it hit him square in the chest, making him almost have to catch his breath. “You’re supposed to pretend I wasn’t some silly hick that did that.”
“You’re far from a silly hick,” he said, shocked.
“Now. So, how about you? Where are you from?”
He saw the brief change in her eyes and decided to let it go for now. “New Hampshire. My family is still there.”
“Your parents?” she asked.
“Yep. An older sister and younger brother.”
“Do they live there too?”
He watched as she reached over and took the corn off of Kayla’s plate that she’d put down in a pout. No words were spoken, but Shelby had taken a knife and shaved the kernels off, then watched as Kayla put them on her spoon and gobbled them up.
“Not the same city, but close by. Everyone is married now. My sister, Carol, has two kids. She’s a teacher. Jeremy, my brother, just got married last year.”
Jared was healed enough to stand up as the best man, but he didn’t feel much joy that day. Not when everyone was coming up to him rather than paying attention to the bride and groom.
“What about your parents? Still in Kentucky? Any siblings?”
She glanced away, picked up a napkin and wiped Kayla’s face. He liked how the two of them had their own rhythm, like Shelby knew what to do without Kayla needing to ask. “My parents are, yes. I’ve got a lot of siblings. All younger. Most are still home.”
“How many is a lot?” he asked.
“Five. I’m the oldest. Next is Billy, he’s twenty and on his own with his girlfriend. Then Carolyn is eighteen and still home. Rodney is sixteen, Dolly is fourteen and Gretchen is ten.”
“That had to be a loud household to grow up in,” he said laughing, remembering how it was with his siblings, and there were only three of them. Having six had to be like a zoo.
“You’d think, but no. My father was very strict. You followed the rules.”
He felt the unspoken words she didn’t say. He wanted to ask more but decided not to. There was more going on, and it wasn’t the time. He was already prying more than he probably should have about how she met her husband.
“I know a lot about rules. Plenty of them in the Navy.”
“Rules are a good thing, if they’re reasonable,” she said, standing up. “I’ve found that rules provide structure in life, but they can be stifling too.”
Definitely not a conversation to have right now. “Very true. So I was wondering if I could treat you ladies to ice cream after dinner.”
She was reaching into the fridge for the pitcher to fill her glass and he was hoping she didn’t answer him and he wouldn’t be able to hear her. Already twice now that’d happened. Even sitting down at the table, he didn’t wait to see where she normally sat, but sat so that Kayla was on his left and Shelby his right so he’d hear her more.
He was thinking that everyone ended up in their normal seat since Shelby was right handed and would want Kayla on her right anyway. Probably just lucked out, but he wasn’t taking any chances either.
“Ice cream!” Kayla shouted. She was loud enough he heard it. The room was small and there weren’t any other distracting noises.
“I guess I shouldn’t have said that out loud,” Jared said, grimacing.
Shelby sat back down. “It’s okay. Kayla loves ice cream. She’d like that a lot.”
“Yay,” Kayla said, clapping her hands. She reached over and picked Jared’s hand up, startling him, and he hoped he didn’t show that. His peripheral vision was gone in his left eye and he had no clue she was reaching for his hand. All she did was clap her little one on his though.
If Shelby noticed his reaction, she didn’t say, just continued to smile.
It was enough for now. But it made him wonder how long he’d be able to hide it from her. And wondered why he was.
Why he couldn’t accept the fact that he wasn’t the person he was before and that he’d never be again.