Detours by Jane Vollbrecht Page B

problem.”
    “Nothing happened? Care to elaborate?”
    “Oh, we took walks, went to movies and concerts and plays, worked together in the yard, gave each other nice presents on our birthdays, almost never fought, shared chores around the house, took turns caring for and playing with Natalie. We looked like the perfect family.”
    “But?”
    Mary chewed on the corner of her lower lip. “But I’d rather have eaten razor blades than go to bed with my husband.”
    “Oh.”
    Mary watched Ellis’s face as the impact of her confession set in and wondered if Ellis would ask for more information.
    “So Natalie…?”
    Mary rubbed her jaw. “I don’t want to say she was a mistake. She wasn’t. I always wanted kids, and I think I got a great one—I won’t even pretend to be humble when it comes to how I feel about her—and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world, but I’m an old-fashioned girl. I think kids do better in a family than as an appendage to a single person.”
    “Half the kids in this country come from broken homes.”
    “Statistics only apply to other people’s children, not mine.”
    “So why didn’t you stay with Nathan?”
    Mary frowned. “Lord knows I wanted to. For that matter, Lord knows Nathan wanted me to stay, too, but he wanted a whole wife.” Mary made a sound between a laugh and a snort. “Let me rephrase that, and forgive me if this sounds crude. Nathan wanted a wife with a hole, and try as I might, I couldn’t convince myself that having sex with him was something I could do—at least not anywhere near as often as he wanted me to.”
    “I see.”
    “On our honeymoon, I kept telling myself I only hated it so much because I was so new at it. I was sure if I got a little practice at it, I’d figure out what made all the dames on the nighttime soap operas fall in the sack with every guy who’d crook his finger at them.”
    Ellis squinted at Mary. “Let me get this straight. You were a virgin on your wedding night, and you got pregnant on your honeymoon?”
    “Right on all three counts. Straight, virgin, honeymoon.” Mary ticked off each word on her fingers as she spoke it. “So right off the bat, I told Nathan ‘no sex while I’m pregnant.’”
    “How did he take that?”
    “Not well, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.” Mary held her arms in an X across her chest. “The store was closed.”
    “And after Natalie arrived?”
    “That kid’s head was the size of a watermelon. It took months for my episiotomy to heal. Then she had colic for her first year. We were exhausted. It was all we could do to even make the bed, let alone think about making love.”
    Ellis murmured sympathetically. “But the incision healed, the baby outgrew her colic, you caught up on your sleep.”
    “And the gods answered my prayers.”
    “How so?”
    “Nathan went to work for Georgia Power as a linesman. Right from the start, he was put on a schedule that had him working four days—and I mean on call twenty-four/seven for those four days—then off for three days. We’d go for days at a time without even seeing each other because he was at work. And if there was a wind storm or an ice storm, he might be gone for a week or more cleaning up downed trees. He could almost always have as much overtime as he was willing to put in.”
    “But what about the days he wasn’t working?”
    “On his off days, he was so weary, he’d sleep eighteen hours a day. Any energy he did have went to playing with Natalie.” Mary wrapped her arms around herself and purred the next words. “Pure heaven.” She smiled ruefully. “For a woman who wanted to avoid having to dodge sexual advances, that is.”
    “Since you’re divorced now, it obviously didn’t work forever.”
    “No, after about three years of having sex maybe twice a year, Nathan started making noises about having an affair.”
    “Him or you?”
    “Both, actually. He accused me of having a lover and threatened to find one