I didn’t answer. I continued.
“And my aunt. Dad’s sister.”
His arm tightened reflexively, curling me into his front, and his head shot up, his eyes scanning again. He’d seen her but never met her and I knew when he caught sight of her because his jaw got hard.
“Mr. Reece?” the hostess called.
A muscle jumped in his cheek and he looked back down at me.
“Fuck ’em, this is our night.”
“Ham—”
His arm tightened further. “Fuck ’em, cookie, this is our night. I want this, a nice place, good food, you lookin’ fuckin’ amazing sittin’ across from me, me sharin’ important shit you gotta understand. They don’t exist. The room is meltin’ away. It’s just you and me, good food, and me givin’ you all of me. This is our night. You with me?”
Ham giving me all of him.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“There she is,” he whispered back. “Easy.”
He dipped his head to touch his mouth to mine and I tried not to think of Greg, seeing that only seven months after our divorce was final and my aunt seeing it, since my father hated Ham nearly as much as Ham hated my father. Dad had thought Ham was too rough, too old, too coarse and he shared that with me, Ham, and, undoubtedly, my aunt.
Ham curled me away from his body, nodded to the hostess, guided me to one side of our booth, and, when I’d settled, slid into the other one.
The hostess waited until I’d stowed my purse and shrugged off my coat before she handed us menus and swept away.
A waitress wearing a white shirt, black trousers, long slim black tie, and a long white apron hit our table approximately half a second after our hostess left.
“Two Coors, draft,” Ham ordered before she opened her mouth to speak.
“Certainly, would you like to hear the specials?” she asked.
“Later,” he answered. “Beer first.”
She nodded and floated away.
I only half heard this. Mostly, I was trying to make the room melt away and praying our waitress didn’t dillydally with the beers.
“Babe,” Ham called.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled in answer, my focus on smoothing my napkin in my lap.
“Cookie, baby, come back to me,” he urged gently.
My eyes went to him.
“This is our beginning. Don’t let them fuck it up.”
This was our beginning.
I reached a hand across the table to him.
Ham caught it.
“Okay,” I replied.
He gave my hand a squeeze and let me go.
“Decide what you want. We’ll get into the deep shit when we won’t have interruptions.”
I nodded, picked up my menu, and read.
The beers came. We both ordered steaks. And loaded baked potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and appetizers.
Ham ended this session by tipping his head to his beer and stating, “These get low, don’t ask. Bring more.”
“Of course,” she muttered and took off.
I stared at him with some unease.
“Am I going to need to be drunk?” I asked.
“No. How Rachel fucked me was a long time ago and it was me she fucked,” he answered.
“I, uh… Rachel?” I prompted when he didn’t continue.
“The bitch who aborted my babies.”
My mouth went dry, my hand resting on the table twitched, and I stared.
Did he say
“What?” I breathed.
“Woman’s right to choose, I’m down with that. It wasn’t that, seein’ as we were married, planning a family, worked toward it, she got pregnant, I was fuckin’ beside myself, and she hauled off and ended it without one word to me.”
My throat was moving convulsively. It took effort to get it under control and when I did, I asked, “You were married?”
“Yeah. Got hitched when we were both twenty-one. Young, but I loved her, thought she loved me. It was all good.”
“I, uh… thought you said you’d never had a roommate except, well… me,” I reminded him and his head tipped to the side.
“A wife’s not a roommate, babe. She’s a partner.”
This was true.
It was time for the tough stuff.
“Why did she… she… end the pregnancy?” I queried.
“Said she didn’t know what she wanted,” Ham answered immediately. “Said I pressured her into it. Said a baby was a big deal and she should be sure.”
This was all true, except the part where he said they’d planned and worked toward it.
“I—” I began.
“Thing is,” Ham spoke over me, “she shoulda said that
Yes, she sure as fuck shouldn’t have done that.
“I don’t believe this,” I whispered.
“It was twenty years ago and, still, I don’t believe it either.”
I held his eyes. I knew mine were soft and I told him, “Ham, darlin’, I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothin’ to say,” he replied. “That started years of serious sick shit, which I participated in, bein’ stupid, young, in love, addicted to her pussy, and, again, fuckin’ stupid,” he went on. “I left. She coaxed me back, promises of together forever and family. We’d get down to talkin’ about tryin’ again. She’d be all for it and then I’d find her birth control pills.”
This just got worse.
Ham wasn’t done.
“I’d confront her. She’d twist shit, convince me that I was layin’ it heavy on her. I’d back off, same shit would happen. I’d leave, she’d coax me back. Fuckin’ stupid. Whacked. Now, for a long time, it’s over.”
“Man, oh man, I… Ham, I… I’m at a loss,” I stammered.
“Yeah. Took a while for me to get old enough and smart enough to see things as they were. She was a selfish, spoiled bitch who wanted what she wanted how and when she wanted it and would do anything to get it. But the problem was, she wasn’t all-fired sure of what that was and she dragged me through that shit. Or it could be I didn’t get old enough and smart enough, just angry enough after she aborted my second baby.”
There it was. Babies. Plural.
I closed my eyes.
“Lost my fuckin’ mind, left her, divorced her ass, found I had a type,” Ham continued and I opened my eyes. “I didn’t give up. I tried. Got tangled in other relationships. Got jacked around, not as bad, but not good, by the woman after her and the woman after her. The first one took money out of my wallet without askin’, like I wouldn’t miss it, and went shoppin’ all the time, hidin’ the shit she bought from me, like I wouldn’t notice it when she eventually wore it. This was also somehow my fault because I didn’t take her anywhere nice, but more, I
