The Day's Heat Page 31

  She dozed and then startled awake as though from a bad dream. She would have to tell Charles something tomorrow evening. Tomorrow would be like today and the day before it and the day after it, whether Charles was there or not. And he would be different, she knew, at least for a little while. And she did need him.

  She slept, woke again, felt herself weak and thirsty and got up. The black dog, invisible in the dark, followed her back down the hall and into the kitchen. On the way past the table, by the street light, she could see the wilted altheas, dropped leaves and flowers in a circle around the jar. She’d have to clean that off in the morning before breakfast. Already, he made work for her.

  Without turning on a light, she drank from the tap, cupping her hand to catch the tepid water, and went back to the bedroom arguing both sides. He wants to come home because he’s not as comfortable at the Bettlemains’ as he remembered. His mother loves her grandchildren more than she wants her baby boy back. But most of all, he wants another chance, another try with me. And he could have stopped the sale of the Teflers’ house if he’d wanted, could still keep her from deeding the house to Willie Mae. Lee didn’t know how, but was sure Basila could figure out some legal maneuver. But Charles had not gone along with the lawyer. Whatever he was, Charles was not completely on the men’s side.

  She sat on the edge of the bed in the dark. “Make up your mind,” she ordered out into the thick air, banded by lights from the street, “or you’ll never get back to sleep.” Furlough pawed at her hands, and she patted the wide, heavy head without thinking.

  The decision came, not in a flash of revelation but more like a long negotiated argument with herself, something she’d been groping toward without even being aware: Charles could not come back, at least not for now. He couldn’t because what he wanted was his old life back, and that is exactly what she didn’t want. Charles was what he was and he would always be the children’s father. In that sense he was family, Lee thought without bitterness, like a brother you couldn’t and didn’t want to be rid of, no matter how much trouble.

  She looked out the side window. The moon, like a shiny white dime, was high above the two houses—her old life and her new.

  If I could pray now, I would, she thought, but the rote words left over from childhood and school would not come to her lips. Instead came the realization that whatever was at work in the universe already knew, and more than that, knew why, exactly as she knew herself, except that where she had thought loving David was a sin and evil, it wasn’t; it was only a way of coming to this point. Like Father Kennedy said: “The devil forced to work for the Lord.”

  And what of more practical concerns: what if the sewing slacked off with Willie Mae moving next door? Lee knew she would just have to find another way. And Charles would have to help because it was the right thing to do, and not because she was his wife. He could have the children on weekends and Claire would love that. Those were her terms—no need for lawyers—a separate maintenance for a while, just between them.

  She lay down, the sheets cool under her legs. She pulled them up around her neck and slid her legs out across the space that had once been Charles’s and now was hers alone. It would be better this way until she knew for sure what she wanted, what she was—like Charles and David seemed to know what they wanted and who they were. There would always be that young girl inside who had loved Charles and had been so hurt by his being what he was, and who still loved him because he was, in his own way, a good man, a good father, but could no longer love him as a husband, at least not for now. And she knew she had loved David out of need, hoping he would change her life. Now, she loved him in silence and tears, but without that illusion. She had changed her own life and did not need to find a fairy-tale prince to do it for her. And if ever again, she could find someone, what he would know of her … what? She couldn’t imagine, but she knew she would have to wait to find out, and it would be hard, probably harder than she could imagine.

  And then, in the midst of her speculations, she fell asleep.

  About this Book

  Set in the early sixties against the backdrop of impending national integration, The Day’s Heat follows Lee James, a dark-skinned, Catholic, Lebanese girl who comes to a small south Georgia town. Lee has already seen the partiality shown her younger, fairer sister Ray, and experienced prejudice even in the Catholic church that she dutifully attends with her two daughters, who both have their father’s blonde hair and blue eyes. She must confront the prejudices of her husband’s family and the community toward her nationality and religion, at a time when there were no birth control pills, no internet, no mobile phones, and when a woman’s place was in the home. Lee struggles with her own growth as a wife, mother, and an individual in an unfavourable place and time.

  About the Author

  Roberta George was born in Bisbee, Arizona, and also lived in California and Texas. Almost every summer of her life, she spent with her German grandmother on a 20-acre farm in the South, which left her with an overwhelming desire to pick blackberries every spring and make wine. She has seven children and lives with a third-generation Lebanese husband in Valdosta, Georgia.

  Copyright

  First published 2018

  by Impress Books Ltd

  Innovation Centre, Rennes Drive,

  University of Exeter Campus, Exeter EX4 4RN

  © Roberta George

  The right of the author to be identified as the originator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 13: 978–1–911293–29–3 (pbk)

  ISBN 13: 978–1–911293–30–9 (ebk)

  Typeset in Plantin

  by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon

  Printed and bound in England

  by ImprintDigital.net