Chapter 28 A of a Man
A Shell of a Man
Hearing words isn’t necessarily the same as understanding them, or believing them.
Bitsy, feeling bewildered and strangely numb, asked King to repeat himself. Instead, he laid his hat down on the bed and took
a step toward her.
“I’m sorry, li’l bit. I know you weren’t expecting this.”
No, she wasn’t. That wasn’t the point. Bitsy took two steps back, avoiding his embrace.
“Say it again,” she demanded.
King stuffed his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans and hung his head.
“I’m leaving you, Bitsy. I’m sorry, honey. But I . . . I just don’t have a choice.”
Bitsy blinked her eyes. Her bewilderment eased but only slightly. He was serious. This wasn’t a joke. King lifted his head.
The look on his face made her think he might cry.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “Nothing to do with you. I know we’ve had our differences, but you couldn’t have tried any harder
to make this work.”
No, she couldn’t have. Bitsy had bent over backward and turned herself inside out to make this marriage work, bitten her tongue and sublimated her own desires, convinced that if she did, the grit of their personalities would be smoothed over with the passage of time, producing a pearl, a work well done, a family and life they would one day look upon with pride.
She was wrong. She had been from day one.
King was an imposter, a shell of the man she’d believed him to be.
“When I came home that day,” he said, referring to the aftermath of his disappearance, “and told you how sorry I was and swore
it would never happen again, I meant every word.” King lifted his hand as if taking an oath. “But when you asked me where
I’d gone and what I’d been doing, I . . .” He faltered. “Well, I didn’t tell you the whole truth.
“I did go off to think things over, to try and figure out if we had a future. But I ended up doing my thinking in a bar. There
was this waitress, Sally Ann. And she . . .”
He hung his head again for a moment, then gave Bitsy a side-eye, as if hoping she’d feel sorry for him. She didn’t.
“It was getting late, and I was a little worse for wear,” he continued. “When the time came for last call, Sally Ann asked
if I wanted to come over to her place to get some coffee and sober up. Well . . . one thing led to another, and I ended up
staying with her. When I got my head screwed on straight, decided to come home and forgive you—”
Bitsy’s eyes went wide at this last statement, but King didn’t seem to notice.
“I figured that was the end of it. That we’d pick up where we left off and forget the whole thing. But Sally Ann got in touch
with me today, and it seems . . .”
He paused, sniffed, pressed his lips together momentarily.
“Well, it seems she’s going to have a baby. My baby.”
He fisted his hands more deeply into his pockets, drooped his shoulders, and ducked his head—a posture of contrition belied
by the tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Congratulations,” Bitsy said.
King’s head popped up, his eyes bright and smiling for the briefest of moments, as if he actually thought she was sincere. Then he saw the look on her face.
“I don’t blame you for being mad, Bits. But you know it hasn’t been good with us for a long time. And . . . there’s a baby
coming.” He shrugged. “I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
Bitsy’s eyes bulged. The right thing? Was he serious? He’d had an opportunity to do the right thing some months ago but galloped
right past it and into some floozy’s bed. Honestly, could he hear himself?
King opened the closet, pulled a battered brown suitcase from the shelf, and started piling his clothes into it. Apparently,
when he said he was leaving, he meant immediately.
“Doesn’t make sense to drag things out,” he said, glancing up as if feeling the heat of her gaze. “And Sally Ann needs me.
She’s had a rough time of it, terrible morning sickness.”
“Has she now? The poor thing.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, Bits. You’re going to be fine. You’re still young, and pretty as all get-out,” he said, smiling in
a way that suggested he expected she’d relish the compliment. “You’ll find somebody else in no time. Even if it takes a while,
the practice is pretty well established now, so I can afford to be generous. Well, within reason.
“It’ll be a whole lot easier on everybody if we just try to act like adults here. You can stay here for now, get yourself
sorted out before we sell the place. There’s no rush. And no point in spending a bunch of money on divorce lawyers if we can
avoid it, am I right?”
The doorbell rang. King, who had been piling underwear into his suitcase, looked toward the sound, frowning and clutching
a pair of Fruit of the Looms in his hand.
“Who’s ringing the bell at this time of night?”
“The Bettys,” Bitsy said. “It’s book club night.”
“Book club night? Well, you’d better go and let them know it’s canceled. Make an excuse. Tell them you’ve got a headache.”
King dropped the briefs into the suitcase, then grabbed a half dozen pairs of black socks from the dresser. Bitsy stood there for a moment, watching him pack. The bell rang again. King looked up with an expression that suggested he was surprised she hadn’t moved.
“You know . . . I don’t think so. I’m going to go let my friends in. This is my house now.” She started to walk away, then
hesitated and turned to face him.
“By the way, the days when you get to tell me what to do? They’re over.”