Chapter 20

I thought about going out and walking again, but I'd been doing enough of that, so I went on home. Cecelia's arrest-me-red Mazda was in the driveway, as I'd expected it would be, but she wasn't anywhere in the house. I went on out to the back yard, across the patio, and into the shed where she and Darlia have their weights. She was doing bench presses, with what weight I made it a point not to ask, and her skin gleamed with sweat. Her sweatshirt that day had no sleeves, and I could see every small muscle in her arms as she pumped the weight up and down.

I sat down on a chair in the corner and watched. Her jaw was clamped and her lips were tight as she forced herself to breath through her nose. That nose is the one part of her face that's not sharp and narrow – it's the full African broad flat nose, the one feature that the white or Indian in her ancestry hasn't affected.

After I'd watched a few repetitions her mouth popped open, and a few repetitions after that she started blowing her breath, heaving it out of her lungs as she heaved the weight up. I've known men who lifted weights but didn't put the sheer concentrated effort into it that Cecelia does, and I could see her arms straining to keep moving the weight. As long as she'd been going I knew she was using lighter weight and more reps, as opposed to getting the maximum weight up just a few times, but either way she was pushing herself.

Finally there came the time when she could only push the weight up part way before it slammed back down. Since she uses machines instead of free weights there was no danger to her, and no need for a spotter, which was why she'd bought the machines before I ever met her. A woman lifting weights with no one in the house needs safety ... a man needs it too, for that matter. She sat up, her chest heaving and sweat running down her face. She nodded at me, but if she'd tried to speak just then it would have suffocated her; she had no oxygen to spare.

Cecelia doesn't like hugs or anything else when she's working out, so I stayed in my chair. She's rail-thin, but there's not an ounce of flab on her. Most skinny women are bones with a little flab over the bones, and no muscle tone at all; they focus on the scale only and never mind being in shape. But as long as I've known her Cecelia has been in phenomenal shape, better shape than I've ever been. As she sat straight to get the maximum air into her lungs, her forearms lay loosely on her thighs, and I could see the hard lumps of muscle in her upper arms and the longer, flatter slabs of muscle lower down. The veins were prominent in her hands and forearms, as though she'd been doing heavy manual labor all her life – which she had, not just working with weights but working in the fields too when she was a girl.

Finally she got her breathing under control, her shoulders and chest moving rather than heaving. "Do you like what you see?" she asked.

"You ask me that all the time," I told her. "Surely you know the answer by now."

She smiled at me, brilliantly enough that I was sure they were launching ships on the other side of the universe. Helen of Troy had nothing on Cecelia. "I do know the answer, but I love to hear you say it."

"You're as needy as I am," I said. "I love what I see. I love the fact that you're in shape, I love the fact that you honestly sweat like an ordinary human being, I love the way you look at me, I love everything about you."

She lifted an arm, and held it out from her side. "Do you even love the fact that it requires three of me to cast a visible shadow?"

"You know what I think of skinny women. But you ain't just another skinny woman, C – you're the woman I love."

"That does make a difference." She got up off the bench and grabbed her towel from one of the other machines, the one where she sits and lifts weights with her legs. As she wiped at her face and neck and arms, she asked, "How did things go with Alison?"

I got off my chair and paced a couple of steps, and then back. "She thinks she needs to forgive that slime."

"I did not hear the tape he made for her. Its content must have been fundamentally important."

"He claims he's a Christian, and that he's genuinely sorry."

"Do you believe that?" It was the same question Al had asked.

"I ain't got nan clue, C, but she seems to. She's talking about forgiving him – after what he did to her."

Cecelia cocked her head, the towel in both hands. "I had expected you to say that no, you do not believe him. What has caused your irresolution?"

"I don't know, C. I know that the guy's a real scumbag, that he raped his own daughter, not once but over and over for two years. I should be able to say, no, of course I don't believe him and I never will. But I can't."

"Is it perhaps that he is being precisely truthful in what he says?"

I sneered – at least my face felt like a sneer looks. "Someone like that, telling the truth? Come on, C!"

She looked at me for a moment, and slung the towel over her shoulder. "Are child molesters outside the grace of God, my husband?"

"You too?" I had the impulse to stomp my foot on the floor, though I've only read about it, not seen it, and it's always women I read about doing it. "The guy's a baby raper!"

"That's right. I repeat the question." I couldn't pinpoint any specific change in Cecelia's face, but somehow it had gotten more determined.

"You can take your question, Cecelia, and stuff it in your left ear." And I turned and stomped out of the shed, slamming the door behind me.

There's nothing fun about fighting with someone you love. You do it because you lose your temper and with the temper goes control over your tongue. I'd lost both, and said stupid things, but I was so mad I wasn't about to go back in the shed and apologize.

Nor did Cecelia come in and seek my apology. I locked myself in my study, and played solitaire on the computer for who knows how long. It's not the same as walking, it doesn't use up energy, but it does pass the time and take your mind off of things, because when you're playing solitaire, if you've been doing it for years as I have, it lets you turn your mind off. I started out using my uncle's Bicycle cards when I was a kid, and by now I see moves without having to think about it. I still prefer actual cards, but to play solitaire that way requires a clear flat surface, and we don't usually have those around. The closest is the counter between the kitchen and the dining room, and at any given time there's liable to be someone eating there, or dishes Cecelia's put there so she can walk around and put them all on the dining room table, or Darlia doing homework, or something.