A jetliner banked over Freeport, Bahamas. Bob and Jill, holding hands as newlyweds do, looked out of its window at sparkling beaches, a golden sunset and turquoise sea. Jill put her hand on Bob’s shoulder.
“Isn’t it beautiful? I always wanted to have my honeymoon in the Bahamas.”
“It is beautiful.”
“Where did you always want a honeymoon? I hope this is it.”
“Of course it is.” He kissed her. “I’m with you.”
“No, I mean the place.”
“This is wonderful. I wanted to go wherever made you happy because that’s what makes me happy.”
“But?”
“I hate to tell you where my favorite place is.” Bob smiled like a little boy and looked away.
“Oh good grief. If you say DisneyWorld I’ll throw up.”
“No.” He laughed and relaxed. He liked the way Jill could make him forget to be tense. Looking at her he opened his defenses. “Gatlinburg.”
“That’s not silly.”
“Many people don’t like Gatlinburg. They say it’s too gaudy, too commercial and too common. It’s an affront to nature, motels cut into sides of mountains. But if you look at it with your heart, Gatlinburg is the warmest place in the world.”
“I love the way you talk.” She snuggled into his arms.
“I remember a time when we were supposed to go on a family outing to Gatlinburg,” he said. “Dad was going to take a few days off and we’d spend a night or two looking at the shops and hiking in the Smoky Mountains.”
“But your father had other plans,” Jill said with sympathy.
“I awoke the morning of the trip to find dad already had gone to work.”
“What did your mother say?”
“She said she believed I was daydreaming, and she was agreeing with me only as part of the game. She hadn’t even approached dad about it.”
“I’m sorry, dear.” She stroked his arm. “If your mother believed that, she was dumb.”
“Evidently my disappointment touched her, because she called my father for permission to check a hundred dollars out of the bank to take me for an overnight stay.”
“That makes up for it a bit,” she said. “I’m sure a hundred dollars was a lot for them.”
“You got that right,” Bob said. “She lectured me, ‘Now just because I have a hundred dollars doesn’t mean we’re going to spend it all.’” He shook his head thinking of the incident. “She said, ‘Here you are, half-grown, and still expecting things like a baby.’”
“She knew how to extract her pound of flesh, didn’t she?”
“She continued, ‘To think of the things I could have bought for the house with this money makes me want to cry.’”
Jill moaned.
“Then she said, ‘Very many more trips like this, and we won’t have anything left in the world, but you won’t care. You’ve had your way.”
“Please, I can’t take any more.”
“I couldn’t either. I told her to pull over. I said if she didn’t want to take me to Gatlinburg I didn’t want to go.”
“So she said good, and turned the car around and went back to Clinton.”
“That’s what I thought would happen too,” Bob said. “Suddenly her soft warm lips touched my cheek, and the car started again, in the direction of Gatlinburg. She said nothing—that she stopped her railing was a loud statement in itself—but on her face was a look I only saw late Christmas eve after my father had fallen asleep in front of the television, a special gentleness. We slipped into our living room lit only by twinkling tree lights and exchanged gifts. It was something special just between the two of us.”
“Had you ever seen the Smokies before?”
“No. I was twelve years old and had never been east of Knoxville.”
“What did you think when you saw them?”
“Awe. The rolling hills around home couldn’t match them. And the motels were modern architecture.” He laughed.
“Where did you stay?”
“A small motel on the main street and in the cheapest room, which turned out to be an old log cabin behind the newer units. It had no television, and its fireplace was boarded up, but it was the most exciting place I’d ever been.”
“I bet it was fun.”
“You know, my excitement melted my mother’s attitude of martyrdom.”
“Good.”
“Exact names and places were a blur,” Bob continued, hating the memories but needing to share with his new wife. “Sensory perceptions filled my mind: the candy kitchen’s aroma of taffy and milk chocolate, the candle shop’s scent of crayons, the dusty smell of dried wildflowers, the sparkly colors of carnival glass and the smooth feel of hand-carved wooden toys.”
“I always loved the smell of wood chips in grandpa’s shop.” She smiled. “I hope you went in grandpa’s shop. That possibility makes me happy.”
“Of course, we didn’t buy anything. If I lingered too long over any one item my mother reminded me she wasn’t Art Linkletter.”
“Okay, now you’ve lost me.” Jill pulled away and looked at him. “Art Linkletter?”
“Remember him? He had a daytime variety show on TV during the fifties,” Bob explained. “He was mom’s ideal millionaire.”
“She was easily impressed.” She laughed.
“I never pressed for anything because I didn’t want to be chided for being a greedy little boy. So I contented myself with collecting all the memories my brain could hold. My restraint must have impressed her, because the next morning before we left town mom allowed me to have a dollar to go into a souvenir store to buy something.”
“That was nice.”
“I thought so too until my stomach sickened, in anticipation of her judgment of what I’d buy.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I bought a toy, I’d have been too silly. If I bought candy, I’d been shortsighted. So I searched carefully and decided on a key chain with a rubber grizzly bear hanging from it.”
“She couldn’t complain about that.”
“I thought so too, but I was wrong. She said, ‘What took you so long? I got a headache waiting for you in this hot car.’”
“Can’t win for losing.”
“I’d forgotten chastisement for dawdling. I always took too long, no matter what I did. Then she said, ‘Well, let me see what you got.’ She sighed, expecting more foolishness.”
“When you showed her the key chain, what did she say?”
“She smiled a little. ‘How nice. Except you don’t have any keys to put on it.’ Then I told her, ‘It’s for you.’”
“You’re so sweet.”
“Again I felt her tender, warm lips and heard the loud praise of mother’s silence all the way home.”
“Do you know what I’m looking forward to?”
“No. What?”
“Giving you all new wonderful memories that will squeeze out the old bad ones.”
“I’m looking forward to that too.”
They took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, a sleek pink and azure confection on the beach, and laughed all the way to their room. He picked her up and carried her in and kicked the door shut with his foot, lightly putting her down. They threw themselves into each other’s arms and tried to suck the breath from each other’s mouths. After a few moments they parted, gasping.
“Let me change,” she said.
“Oh no, don’t change too much,” he said, nibbling on her ear. “I love you just the way you are.”
She laughed and took her bag to the bathroom. Bob removed his clothes and slipped between the covers of the king-sized bed. He smiled in anticipation until he was taken up in a sudden horrible remembrance of that night when he pulled away from his mother in the hospital room, thinking how Jill could love him if she knew he had done such a craven, despicable thing. He did not hear her come through the bathroom door.
“Oh,” she said.
“You are so beautiful,” Bob said, quickly smiling and reaching across the bed to her.
“You had the saddest look on your face I have ever seen,” she said with concern.
“I was sad because you were taking so long to put on that night gown.” He eyed her with lust. “Nice. Black. Hardly anything to it.”
“I didn’t take that long.” She crinkled her brow. “What’s wrong, darling?”
“Nothing that taking that nightgown off you won’t solve.” He smiled and pulled her down on the bed, his hand roaming all over her body.
“You’re doing it again.” Jill sat up and turned her back to him.
“Now that’s a view I didn’t want to see.” Bob scooted close to kiss her neck.
“I’ve seen that look before. It’s like—well, you’re someplace else and you really don’t like it there.”
Only for a moment did he consider lying and saying it was all in her imagination, but he loved her too much to deny the truth.
“I try not to stay gone too long.” He turned her around and smiled. “See, you brought me right back.”
“I understand something every now and then takes you away. I don’t expect it not to happen. I just want to know what it is. And maybe some day I can go with you and keep you from being so sad.”
“You don’t want to go there.” He kissed on the lips. “It’s too scary.”
“No, not yet.” She put her hand to his lips. “I want to finish talking about this.”
“I’d rather do something else.”
“Me too.” She smiled with mischief. “It’s just—I grew up with this. A chance remark would send dad staring out the window or mom chirping about how good a daiquiri would taste about now. And when I’d ask what was wrong, what did I say wrong, they’d smile and say ‘nothing,’ but I’d know very well it was something. Then the deportation mess broke loose over grandpa, and I knew I wasn’t crazy. You don’t know what a relief it was to have it confirmed, what my senses told me all my life were right and everyone had something to hide. Please don’t put me through that again.” She took his hands and kissed them.
“You’re right. There’s something.”
“Then tell me.”
Bob looked deep into her eyes, deciding he had to tell her or lose her for keeping the secret that he feared would send her away. She was so beautiful. He loved her so much. He ached to hold her in his arms and kiss her. He leaned in, kissing her neck and whispered:
“I want to make love to you first.”
“Bribery?”
“Yes.” His hands went to her breasts. “I promise you’ll know all my dark, awful secrets before midnight. But right now all I can think about is you.”
“Okay.” Jill smiled and kissed him with passion on his lips. “I can wait, just as long as you’re honest with me. Don’t make me feel stupid.”
“But you are a little stupid.”
“What?”
“Anyone who’d fall in love with me has to be a little stupid.”
“No, you’re stupid for saying that.” She pushed him back on the bed and began kissing his neck.
They kept repeating their insincere accusations until they became unintelligible between kisses and passionate moans.
Later that evening they dressed and took a carriage ride about town and lingered over a light supper. They sat on a pristine beach to hear waves’ crashing in the darkness and ambled back to the hotel, looking into store windows at clothes and antiques. Out of the darkness a scrawny boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen, ran up behind them and grabbed Jill’s purse.
“Hey!” she screamed.
“Stop!” Bob yelled as he started to chase the boy down a shadowy cobblestone street.
The boy, wearing torn shorts and shirt, swung around and flashed a knife.
“Think you can stop me, man?”
Before Bob could respond, Jill grabbed his arm and stood in front of him.
“Let it go. All I had in it was some change, bread sticks from dinner and a couple of tampons I didn’t need last month. It’s not worth it.”
“Come on, man, show me how tough you are.” The punk brandished his knife in Bob’s face, taunting him.
“If we’re lucky he’ll eat my tampons along with the breadsticks,” she whispered.
“Yeah man! Hide behind that skirt,” the boy said.
“Get out of here!” Jill ordered.
Laughing, the punk danced down the road and into darkness. Bob started to run after him when Jill jerked him back with all her strength.
“What are you doing?”
“He’s got your purse,” he said in mechanical tone that did not even sound like him.
“I told you it wasn’t important,” she said. “Grandma gave it to me. She got it a flea market. I don’t want to become a widow on my honeymoon.”
“I can’t even protect you.” He shook his head.
“Protect me?” Jill forced Bob to meet her gaze. “What do you mean?”
“I could have gotten it back.”
“He had a knife.” Her face was filled with incredulity.
“I just let him taunt me.”
“You really mean that, don’t you?” Her eyes narrowed.
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“If I told you,” he said, turning away, “you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“Oh. It’s that again.” She sighed with annoyance. “It’s almost midnight. So spill it, bozo.”
Perhaps this was the best place to tell her, Bob decided, on a dark street where he could not see disgust in her eyes. With apprehension he began, telling his entire story from that night his mother died in the hospital, his fear, his clumsiness causing her to bleed and be in even more pain right before her death, and his judgment against himself. When he finished he expected the worst but received a tight hug and a long kiss on his lips.
“I love you so much,” she whispered. “No child should have to endure that. No one should live with guilt that they don’t deserve.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled, returning her kisses. “I love you so much.”