Chapter 3 #2
Sunlight falls through the paneled windows. Through them is the magnolia grove. They’re young but already blooming. The wind picks up, blowing a few white petals into the sky, taking them away.
I could be like that. I could pick up my heavy skirts and run through the grove, over the hill, just keep going until I’m in a new place where nobody knows me. I close my eyes, leaning on the windowsill.
That sounds like heaven.
“Darling.”
I turn to find my almost-husband standing just inside the door.
He shuts it, coming close. I swallow the lump in my throat.
Leland is handsome, like a movie star—big, broad, with a nice jawline, wavy dark hair, and blue eyes.
He’s got a white smile, a deep, rich voice, and everybody wants to be him or be with him.
Except me, the one person he’s hellbent on getting.
He stops, hands in the pockets of his linen suit. This is his first look at me in my wedding gown. Warmth stirs, confusing me. Maybe I do love him. Maybe love just feels like anxiety and dread. I give him a brave smile, sweet, like the frosting on the wedding cake in the dining room next door.
He holds out his hands. I go to him, placing my palms in his. He leans down, kissing me discreetly so he doesn’t mess up my makeup.
“My wife,” he says. His eyes drop to the silk over my belly. “My son.”
I just smile. I’ve always imagined my heart as a porcelain tea cup, easily breakable, and right now, there’s a fine crack in it.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“We’ll do the ceremony, then pictures in the Magnolia grove.”
Turning my head, I look out at the rows of trees. Again, I see myself running through them. Leland touches my chin, turning me back to face him. He doesn’t like when I give anyone or anything more attention than him. He’s going to hate it when I have a newborn sucking up all my time and energy.
Through the door, I hear a cello playing, my mother’s footfalls in the backroom. She comes through and starts scolding Leland for seeing me early. They laugh, joking with each other as she pushes him back into the living room.
I’m frozen to the ground, my flowers sticky in my hot fingers. If he hadn’t gotten me pregnant, I really would disappear through the back door.
My gut is telling me Leland isn’t safe, not after what he did.
So I don’t run. Instead, I say my vows in the living room, surrounded by Caudills and their friends.
Smile on my face, I dance with him for the first time.
I cut the cake and let him feed me a forkful.
Sugar melts on my tongue. His face is blurry like a bad dream.
I endure all the comments made by his drunk friends as he carries me up the spiral staircase.
And I let him fuck me, still in my wedding dress.
He sleeps. I lay on my side and cry without making a sound.
I barely know this man. We slept together for a few months, I wasn’t even serious about him. Then boom—all my choices went right out the window. All it took was a misunderstanding and a little blue plus sign.
Now I’m his wife.
The next morning, he’s gone at the crack of dawn. Slowly, I push myself up, knowing I have about a second. The sickness hits me, and I’m up, tearing across our enormous bedroom to the marble bathroom. I skid on my knees to the toilet and grip the edge.
Bile and water comes up. My vision wavers, heat and cold rolling over me. Then, it’s over. That’s the least I can say about this pregnancy. Once I throw up the minute my eyes open, the sickness is done.
Slowly, I push myself to my feet and turn on the shower. I smell like Leland, like his musky aftershave with notes of orange. It’s no wonder, he was all over me last night. Stepping into the shower, I lean my head against the wall, and let the water wash him away.
Hunger comes with a new craving every morning.
This time, it’s for home. I want to be back in our trailer at the edge of the woods in the holler, the river glittering at the bottom of the hill.
My heart is sick over never seeing those white-washed walls or curtains made from salvage shop sheets again.
I’ll never wake up to my open bedroom window, paint shards on the sill and wrens peeping in through the shades.
I’ll never walk into the kitchen and smell ham soup simmering on the stove.
My stomach clenches. A powerful craving for that soup, the texture of the beans, the saltiness of the ham, washes over me, all poured over sweet cracklin’ bread.
God, I need some cracklin’ bread right now. I could eat an entire pan of it.
I get out and dry off, putting on a plain white sundress. It’s got thin straps that hang off my shoulders and a little flare at the hips. I wrap my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck. Then, I walk out into the enormous hallway.
I pad barefoot down the hall to the top of the spiral staircase. There’s a maid wiping down the steps. I pause at the top awkwardly.
“Can I slip by you?” I ask.
She shoots to her feet, folding her hands. “Go right ahead, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” I say, offering her a smile. “What’s your name?”
“Georgie, ma’am,” she says, dipping her head. She’s pretty, with wavy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I wonder where she comes from, the way she speaks reminds me of myself.
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Della,” I say. “Could you point me to the kitchen? I’ve never found it coming from upstairs.”
Her brows knit. “Can I get you anything?”
“Just directions to the kitchen.”
She’s uncomfortable, but she points me down the hall.
I go, in awe of the size of this great house.
The ceilings are so high, they seem like a waste of space.
The walls are off white, and Caudill portraits hang along the wall.
Fresh flowers sit here and there, clean and curated, not like the wildflowers at home.
The kitchen is empty, but I can smell food.
There’s a linen apron over the chair. I grab it, wrapping the strings around my waist. Mouth watering, I start going through the freezer until I find what I’m looking for—a ham bone for broth.
There’s dried beans in the cupboard, along with cornbread mix and, shockingly, cracklings.
I pick through the beans while the water boils, no time to soak them.
My mouth is watering. I need that fucking bread with soup, or I’m going to rip somebody’s head off.
The side door bangs open. I glance up as a pretty woman with wavy brown hair and big eyes swishes inside.
It’s hard to tell, but we look about the same age.
She’s in a skintight mint dress and matching heels.
Her eyes fall on me. She hesitates, then she smiles.
I know her type—upper class Lexington, spray tanned, lots of makeup perfectly contouring her pretty face.
I balk, feeling like I’m about to get judged for my appearance.
“Hey, Della,” she says.
I hesitate.
“I’m Kayleigh,” she says, sitting at the table. “Leland’s cousin.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I manage. “I met so many people yesterday, I’m a bit turned around.”
She gives me the most genuine smile I’ve seen in weeks.
Before she can speak, I hear footsteps coming down the hall.
I know who it is before I see my husband.
Turning my back, I pour the beans in the water and reach for an onion.
The door bursts open, and the footsteps stop short.
I glance sideways for a second, and I swear, I see Kayleigh roll her eyes.
“Della.”
I turn. Leland stands by the table in a dove gray suit. His eyes rake over me. For the first time since I got pregnant, I’m not hiding my growing stomach. He’s looking at it, poking out under the apron, and he’s proud of it, I can tell.
“What are you doing in the kitchen?” he asks.
I blink. “Making food. I have a craving.”
He glances around the room. Kayleigh is eating cookies out of a tin, watching him like she just scraped him off her designer shoe.
“Have the maid cook for you or order something to the house,” he says. “Why are you barefoot?”
I look down. Why do I need shoes? I’m not going anywhere. Kayleigh takes a bite of butter cookie and dusts off her fingers, mint nails flashing.
“How about you shut the fuck up, Leland?” she says. “Nobody asked your opinion, and they probably never will if they know what the fuck is good for them.”
My jaw drops. Instantly, I change my opinion of Kayleigh. She’s got some spice to her, and I like it.
“Why are you even here?” Leland snaps, going red.
“I was dropping some paperwork off,” she says, jumping to her feet. “Paxton sent me. He’s hungover from staying up all night after the reception.”
“Well, show yourself out,” he says.
She tosses her waves, sashaying to the door. Before she disappears, she flips Leland off behind his back and winks at me. I bite my lip so I don’t giggle in front of him. That’s all it takes for me to decide I like Kayleigh a lot.
The door shuts. He comes close, looking over my shoulder. “What are you making?”
I look up, giving him big, pleading eyes. They usually work. “Cracklin’ bread with soup over it.”
He stares down at the beans and bone simmering in the pot, and a crease appears on his forehead. “You’re not supposed to cook. We have people for that. And I expect to see you dressed every morning.”
“I’m dressed,” I say.
“No, dressed up like Kayleigh,” he insists. “I’ll have your stylist come in this week and build you a wardrobe. You need to be pulled together. We have people coming in and out of the house for business most days. You are the matriarch of this family now.”
I feel the emotion behind those words. It hurt him when his mother passed. I’ve got big shoes to fill. Quickly, I dip my head, and he takes my chin, lifting it back up.
“Understand, darling?” he asks.
I nod, sniffing. “Sorry. I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’ve been throwing up, and this is the only thing I wanted to eat.”
He sighs. “Let me take you out instead.”
Fuming, I snap off the stove and shove the half-cooked pans in the fridge. He doesn’t understand. I don’t just want the bread and soup. I want the particular way my family makes it, the memories that come along with it. But I just nod, blinking hard.
He takes me to an upscale restaurant in Lexington.
I sit at his side while he talks to everybody who walks by.
The Caudills are Kentucky’s number one family, fast pushing out other competing empires.
Leland can’t go out in the city without having a bottle sent to his table.
I don’t eat much. The food is dull. There’s no life cooked into it.
That night, after he’s in bed, I go back downstairs and make the cracklin’ bread and soup. It takes a long time, but it’s worth it the minute I take the first bite.
I close my eyes, savoring that taste. Deep inside, my son kicks.
I smile. He likes it.
That becomes my routine for my pregnancy.
In the morning, I wear what he wants and go out for breakfast in the city.
People stare at my stomach and shake Leland’s hand, like he did something extraordinary by knocking me up.
Sometimes, we have dinner too, at places where nobody can ever get a reservation.
After Leland’s in bed, I cook in peace down in the kitchen. My son is active during those times. I hum all the songs I know from memory to him. And he always kicks when I eat, especially the summer foods—spoonbread, salted tomato and corn, biscuits cooked in cast-iron with sausage gravy.
I leave a shopping list on the fridge. The next week, every item is in the cupboard. Georgie smiles at me, and I smile back at her. It’s a small victory to have women in this house I can call allies.
I eat so damn much, but I burn it all off in my Leland-mandated maternity fitness classes the next day. He’s very concerned that the baby comes out big and healthy. He even gets a doctor to give me a strict diet to follow.
That doesn’t stop me. I’m starving every minute of the day, so I eat what I want at night. That includes making a mason jar of apple butter and eating the entire thing over pancakes and licking the jar clean. He doesn’t understand how much work my body is putting in.
Or how homesick my heart is.
Kayleigh finds me late one night, and she joins in.
I like her. She’s different from me, but she’s witty and kind.
She doesn’t give a shit what anybody in her family says.
She does whatever she wants and spits fire if they criticize her for it.
We bitch about Leland together. I cook her recipes from my family, and she eats them and asks for more.
She teaches me how to be a Caudill woman, although I’m not brave like her.
Everything comes to a screeching halt when I go into labor.
Traditionally, the Caudill women give birth at home with a doctor attending.
I get my first wave of contractions around midnight, and fifteen hours later, I’m still writhing on the bed in agony, trying to push out Leland’s eleven pound baby with no progress.
Kayleigh is there because I insisted. I don’t want my mother around—she’s not good under pressure.
Kayleigh is white as a sheet, begging Leland to call an ambulance by hour ten.
It’s not until the doctor tells him there's a risk to the baby that he orders a helicopter to the backyard. I remember none of it, but they end up doing a c-section while I’m passed out.
My son is called Leland Landis Caudill, named for two of his paternal great grandfathers.
I don’t have a say because I’m unconscious.
By the time I’m stitched back up and able to reach for my son, the ink is dried, and he’ll never have my daddy’s name.
Kayleigh brings him to me, placing him in my arms, and I burst into tears at the first look.
He looks just like Leland.
I can’t be calmed down. Kayleigh takes Landis, which is how he’ll be known until he’s grown, to the nursery.
I sob, exhausted and scared. Every nerve in my body quivers.
Leland asks me what’s wrong. He’s overjoyed.
When I don’t answer, he gets annoyed and orders me to stop. Finally, he leaves me to cry alone.
I can’t do this.
I thought I could, but I can’t.
This is over. I won’t stay with Leland. There’s something about laboring for fifteen hours with nothing but a Tylenol, only for him to name our son without asking my opinion, that wakes me the hell up.
I won’t raise another Caudill man to do this to some poor woman again.
I’m done with being good and taking his dick and his fucking opinions without complaint.
I’m leaving him.
And I’ll take my son with me.