Page 25 of Splintered Security
He sets sautéed chicken and mushrooms over a minced onion risotto next to my boring side salad and takes the seat next to me.
“You’re spoiling me,” I offer after a couple of bites of dinner. “My husband can cook.” I keep my voice light as I compliment him, trying out his new title aloud to see how it fits.
“If all I have to do to spoil you is cook, you’re too easy, Wife.”
I turn at his new nickname for me and give him a wide smile. “I’m not hard to spoil, Ren. I know shit. So when I have good, I recognize it and value it.”
“You going to tell me about the shit part?”
I nod, but drop my eyes. So much of everything is the shit part when it comes down to it. That’s the thing. “Yeah. But after dinner. It’s too good to ruin with talk of all that.”
He seems to accept that, and we eat in peace. I ask him about his time in the Army. He glosses over his tour in the Middle East, but talks almost fondly of his time in Vincenza, Italy while stationed at Camp Ederle.
“I told you I learned to cook while in the Army.”
“You said the basics. I assumed you were talking about package tacos and macaroni and cheese out of a box. Not the basics of Italian cuisine while in Italy.”
“Cooking is cooking. Ingredients are the same wherever you go. Have you not noticed how similar Indian staples are to Mexican ones? The seasonings vary and the methods and styles are different, but cooking is cooking. Rice is rice.” He points the tines of his fork at his risotto.
“‘Rice is rice,’ he says,” I mutter at my bowl, my smile evident in my tone. “He whips up risotto and says ‘rice is rice’.” I’m relieved at how easy it is to talk to him—and I need that—but more so how easy it is to be myself with him. That’s a gift.
“I’ll show you if you want. Or I can keep spoiling you with my cooking.”
“I’ll take what’s behind door number two.” I look over at him. “But I can bake. A little.”
“Deal. Tell me about your mom. When did she move to Colorado Springs?”
I sigh out all the air in my lungs, but accept my fate. “Okay, but I need more wine. Or Everclear. Have any moonshine?”
“That bad?”
“That bad.”
His face is grim, but he rounds the bar and grabs the wine from the fridge and the bottle of bourbon. He lifts both. “Pick your poison.”
I lift my glass. “Wine. Bourbon isn’t my thing no matter how many ways I try it.”
He walks into the living room, still carrying both bottles, lifting one to the sofa in invitation. “After you.”
I plop in the corner and twist my feet underneath me. I expect Ren to take the other corner and stretch out his long legs in between us. I should’ve known better. He sits next to me, twisting enough that he faces me, but not in an aggressive way.
“Mom moved within a couple of years of when we lost August. It was rough in Pueblo. Not just the gang activity, but the spots he would hang out, the “friends” who never showed up after… even for the funeral. He was gone, and so were they. You know it’s too small to not drive by our old haunts, the high school, or the restaurants we went to as kids. Jalisco’s is still there.” I look up into his face. “They have the best beans and rice ever. The salsa is still served warm.”
He gives me a small smile, but it doesn’t touch his eyes.
“Anyway, she tried. But she just became less and less… I don’t know… herself, maybe? She wasn’t what I’d call healthy and whole to start. You know that.”
I take a big swig of my wine, and the chill cools my insides, bringing goosebumps to my skin. Ren takes that opportunity to pull a blanket from the back of the sofa and stretch it out over me.
I burrow into it, needing the warmth and security I can take from it. “There was just no light. I wasn’t around much. Aug was gone. His friends had bailed. Her job was crap and living in our old house was just memory lane hours upon hours a day. I suggested she find some new scenery. It was a double-edged sword, you know? She was leaving the place that took him from us, but she was also leaving the last place he was alive.”
I take another big sip. This time the shiver that runs through me isn’t because the wine is crisp and cold.
Ren’s warm palm lands on my knee. He hasn’t shied away from touching me in the last two days, but there’s been nothing as familiar as this either. Except when we’re sleeping.
“And you? Why didn’t you go with her?” He takes a pull of his bourbon.
I look everywhere but at him. I really don’t want to confess why I didn’t go when she did. Taking a deep inhale, I drop my eyes to my hand as I let it out. My wedding band through the wine looks warped, but still shiny and brilliant. I rush out the words, knowing once they’re out there, I won’t be able to take them back. Ren will never unhear what I say.
