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DITW 15-13: The Quiet Shade of Verdant Groves
🕑 Added 2024-09-06 20:20:45 +0000 UTCHe knew her answer before she spoke it. The way she paused, held her tongue for as long as she could—all the familiar traits of his deceptive wife. The stalling was a sign. Betrayal still sung in her choir. But at least he could detect it now. Whatever charm she’d had over him before had waned; he was no longer so eager to lap milk at her feet, to seek equilibrium and acquiesce to insanity in order to establish it. Before she spoke, he smiled.
Kimmy saw his smile, and guilt and shame burned on her cheeks. She lowered her head and closed her eyes. “I never told him so, but he may think it. Yes.”
At last, some dam upstream broke, and floodwaters swelled his riverbanks. He covered his mouth with a hand to stifle...
Stifle what?
Laughter came. Real honest to god laughter. Totally and completely unexpected. And the more he held his hand against its swell the more the laughter’s flux taxed the restraint. He blurted air around his hand and could no longer contain it.
Kimmy showed pure offense. Kimmy showed the expression of an insulted aristocrat. Now he laughed hard enough he bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees.
But as quickly as it came, it subsided; like a quick summer rain swamping runoff over sun-baked earth until the beaten land remembers how to drink it down. He regained his composure and stood upright again, Kimmy still offended but subdued. Colleen woke and babbled, and he wiped his eyes.
Kimmy regarded him, beginning to accept the deserved reaction. Colleen’s babbling became another sound. Laughter. Kimmy said, “At least we know somebody likes your laugh.”
He looked over at his daughter in her crib, awake now and happy, kicking legs and moving arms, making a sort of rolling reedy chuckle in a manner mimicking her father’s. Now he laughed again, but small and quiet; more the sound of someone in awe. He said, “She’s got my laugh.”
“Don’t rub it in,” Kimmy said.
Josh turned again and hefted the little pink-swaddled bundle into his arms. “I guess she doesn’t want to sleep. Is she hungry?”
“No, not now. Maybe just curious. She hears us talking.”
“She’s never heard that before.” He returned to the bed with her in his arms, lively and wriggling, her squirming body surprisingly strong. He bounced at the knees lightly, rocking her in his arms. When he looked up, he saw Kimmy watching them, her eyes wet. She smirked and blinked, looked away and wiped her eyes. It swelled his heart to see the happiness he and his daughter would give her. He twirled with Colleen, and Colleen liked it, squealing and gurgling, and he made baby sounds at her, still rocking and bobbing, then sat with her on the bed beside Kimmy again. He kissed Colleen’s brow.
He said, “You’re going to let that man think something so awful?”
Kimmy said, “Keith believes it’s possible but he’s never asked me outright. He’s afraid of the answer. . . . It benefits me for him to think it.”
“So you let him.”
“So . . . I let him.”
He said, “What about me?”
Her lips slimmed, and she nodded. “I know. She’s yours. You want everyone in the world to know she’s yours.”
He admired his giggling daughter for a while longer. He said, “I don’t know what to do, Kimmy.”
“Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He sighed, and hesitated, knowing it was all so tiresome now, and despite the pain of the past and the promise of the present, the future seemed so unclear; a point of stasis, a point of balance on a beam, where lost footing could produce the pain of the before or the promised hope of the present’s thereafter. He said, “It’s all so small and far away. When I think of him—and I don’t—the lasting image of him isn’t as some asshole jock bully, it’s him on his hands and knees, crawling around on the floor after I hit him with a chair.”
“I’m so glad for that,” Kimmy whispered.
“And Rumble, too. Why did I ever waste my time worrying about any of them? They’re sad. Pathetic. Useless! So far away from who I am or who I want to be. Or anyone I would want to associate.”
“That’s so good you think like that, Josh,” she said, leaning closer like she might touch his hand or his arm, or Colleen.
He said, “It’s you I’m afraid of. You’re the reason I stayed away so long.”
Kimmy retreated with a heft sigh and gathered the satiny fabric around her legs. Her chin turned down, and her brows bowed in glum arrows.
“I’m sorry,” he said. But facts were facts.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t even deserve you being here tonight.” She looked up, eyes wet again, brows still straining to support the weight of her emotion. “I want a chance. That’s all. I want a chance to prove myself to you. I want you to let me try.”
They regarded each other for a long moment, their daughter gurgling, making noises like she’d like them all to get that laugh going again if they could because laughing was fun. And, fuck, what Kimmy asked was reasonable. And what she’d done in preparation for the request was noble and honest. And difficult. She’d fought jail, she’d fought Devlin, she’d fought with Keith Stone. Done it until she got her way. Done it until she had everything she wanted. But the ultimate prize was him. And god damn it that was starting to feel really good. He looked around the room again. This could be his bedroom. This baby was his. That wasn’t going to change. But this beautiful woman, as frightening as she may be, could be his, too. If it were up to her, the deal was done. She’d pass him a pen right now and he could sign his name on the bottom line.
This was the place where he should be.
“I don’t want to stay in the garage,” he said. “If I stay.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Why did you offer that first?”
Kimmy considered it, lips moving around, trying to form how she’d phrase it. “I don’t want to be presumptuous. I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to scare you off.”
Josh closed his eyes, trying to conjure in his imagination a bright and happy future. It was easy to grab referential pieces of his past to paint the picture; there’d been the happiest times with Kimmy. But there was the black veil of betrayal deeding the light from those golden memories.
He said, “Uh-oh.”
Kimmy said, “What?”
“I think she might have just pooped. I felt it on my arm.”
Then there was no need for further consideration; the smell revealed the truth.
“Oh, yes, she did,” Kimmy said. “Pass her to me. I’ll go change her.”
Josh withheld Colleen, hesitating, unsure. “Uh, maybe, I could...”
“You want to?”
He said, “I do.”
Kimmy smiled and gestured toward the bedroom door. “Be my guest. Everything you need is in the bathroom, first door on the left, opposite side of the hall.”
Josh admired Colleen, aggravated by whatever had messed up the comfort of her diaper, scrunching up her pretty face and getting ready to complain. Kimmy asked him if he’d like some help and he told her he’d be okay.
“I’ll figure it out.”
#
Josh returned with Colleen, grinning, Colleen babbling softly, wearing a new onesie under her blank. She asked him how it went.
“I wasn’t prepared for that,” he said, returning Colleen to her crib.
She covered her mouth with a hand, watching Josh get their daughter settled. He stood over the crib, hands on hips, still grinning. She said, “It’s surprising sometimes.”
“The diaper?” Josh turned to the bed. “Yeah. It was crazy. I had to bath her a little. Is that going to be a problem?”
“With her sleep? No. She’ll settle.”
They stared at each other again, but this time the barrier that had existed between them softened. Josh’s humiliating laughter had changed something. Once he’d laughed, it looked like it might come a lot easier the second time. And though she’d been angry at first, tension had eased in the time she’d sat in the room alone listening to Josh in the bathroom, hearing the water running, knowing he would take his time and get to know the many moods of Colleen. And like them all.
“I’d like you to stay,” she said. “We can . . . We can talk in the morning. Have some breakfast. You don’t have to take the apartment. We have one more guest room. It has a pullout.” But it would be so much better if you accepted my bed.
Josh’s lips slimmed and he showed a graver expression. “I had Colleen in the bath, and I was thinking...”
“Go on.”
He sat on the bed with her again. “You were worse than him. You know that?”
“I do. Of course.”
You were worse than all of them. You were supposed to be on my side.”
“I know.”
“You’re just like them. You’re no different.”
She exhaled a wounded sound. “I, uh, yeah. But I’m not. I was. I was for a while. But . . . I saw myself in them. I saw myself in them and that’s what broke me. Broke my spell. Shook me awake.” She shook her head and looked around. “Everything here, everything I’ve acquired is all the reason I did it. They’re not things. You know that, right? I don’t mean I did it all for some stuff. I did it to provide. I would do whatever it took. Maybe it was because after we lost our first . . . I would do anything to make a family, like the ultimate lashing out for a nest. I wanted everything Devlin had. He didn’t deserve it. We deserved it. I wanted to take a piece of it. I wanted to take all of it. But I wanted it for us. And for some possibility that’s slowly getting sleepy in her crib.” She looked aside to Colleen, legs still kicking gently, but her babbling gone away.
She looked back at somber Josh, lips plump and misaligned, eyes turned down but still aware of her, staring at her lap. “The depravity I could have sunk to with Devlin was bottomless. What we did might only have been the tip of the iceberg. Maybe, just maybe, your reluctance saved me.”
Josh grunted and looked up, soured by thinking of the awful things he knew she’d done with Devlin Stone. He leaned to the side then, putting his legs out, shifting so his head lay on the pillow. Laying on her bed in jeans and a sweater, his shirt collar disappearing under his beard. He looked up at the ceiling. She lay down beside him, putting her head on a pillow and laying on her side. Her hand crested his woolen shoulder.
“It would be too easy to think that.”
“There’s truth in it,” she said.
Josh closed his eyes. She said, “I saw myself in them—Devlin and Amy—and I hated what I saw. I finally hated myself. That’s why I left. I saw Amy for what she really was. Dumb. Privileged. And all the trimmings amounted to nothing. Shoes, clothes, trips. All the affectation of big business. And the depravity. A whole wardrobe just for depravity, something in every style and color.”
Josh’s eyes stayed closed. He said nothing for a moment, then, “I just want to go to sleep.”
She smiled and her breaths went shaky. Maybe he would stay. Her cheek slipped down the pillow until her chin touched his shoulder; her hand still caressed his arm.
Comments
Mike Monroe
Great work KT...sort of unrelated ..but KT ..does Nia and Geoff exist in same world as Kimmy and Josh... Toronto I know this is KT verse just curious as in between started reading Cherry 🌸 again..my favorite of all of KT Classics.
Bill F Protagoras
Like the Ohana reference in particular... RCH.
Bill F Protagoras
Since she was first introduced I have considered Hyun to be a doppelganger to Kimmy's character, and their fates seem to be linked and doubled in many ways... I briefly flirted with the idea that Devlin might have been the shady cause of her break up with Meyer. But KT soon gave that trivial fancy short shrift. The thematic doubling of the lives of these two 'Asian' spouses is perhaps the reason I feel no indignation towards Hyun, in fact I would be shocked and horrified if Kimmy and Hyun, who in my opinion lives up to her name, had to end their relationship as the 'price' or 'cost' of Josh's return. And I would think less of Josh if he demanded, or condoned such a rupture. I certainly don't see any malicious trace of Devlin in Kimmy's relationship with Hyun (barring the odd wicked fantasy or two)... And as I said some time ago, it's possible to love more than one person at a time, especially when they are worthy of such affection. Polyamory need not be confined to sex or eroticism alone (love is a many-splendoured thing)... I certainly don't expect my beliefs to affect the outcome of this work. However, I do feel that there has been a build up of too much melodrama around Hyun, who is one of the least blameworthy characters in this story. With the exceptions of Sophie and Colleen obviously... One of the things KT does best is give relevant roles aplenty to women and children in her works. Even the men are rarely stereotyped... KT has the touch! Or is it sensitivity? It might even be argued that calm, at times selfless, Hyun coaxed Kimmy away from her worst excesses. Her soothing presence at crucial moments placed inhibitions on Kimmy's bouts of craziness, her unobtrusive support encouraging self-restraint in moments of crisis. And when Kimmy decided to leave Josh 'for his own good' what would have become of her without Hyun and Sophie, linked by extension to Meyer?
Kat
I agree that this book could be mainstream if she made some adjustments. KT creates these worlds with such vivid descriptions they feel real. The sexy stuff is a bonus. Lol It also works, for me, because you feel like you know these characters. This chapter was so descriptive, I felt like I was there.
RCH
Have to agree that this was a wonderful chapter. KT with some editing and sensitization of the sex scenes this could be a mainstream romance or similar.
RCH
I second his Noble nomination! Poopy Diapers, The Horror.
RCH
With Cuckolding!
RCH
Yep!
Chris K
So, an episode of Full House?
RCH
While I don't know exactly where this will end at this point... It's a good bit of visual writing I see the scene, smell it and feel the vibe in the room. Josh, as stated has vanquished the demons of his youth and so has Kimmy to a point. Hyun is a potential loose end but... It would be a waist if Josh just walked away. A mature adult would look things over access and IMHO see that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He has more to loose than if he walks away. "Ohana" is a beautiful concept that fits this situation. Simply it means "Family" but in a wider sense too. Its Josh, Kimmy and Colleen at the core. Meyer, Sophi and Hyun too. Kimmy has done wrong and has gone through hell as well as Josh. It's a hell of her own making! But still it's an awakening that was necessary to exorcises her demons as well as Josh's too. Josh has faced defeated his biggest nightmares and survived(almost not). Kimmy had underlying issue that started from losing her mom to the loss of the first baby. Josh thought he was married to a princess but she is flawed. Kimmy has made the transition to move on. She sees the value that Josh is in her future. Josh could do the selfish thing and walk away. It would cripple him if he does and impact Colleen life too. Kimmy values Josh more than she ever could have without Devlin & Amy. We don't see that Amy was Kimmy's bully until late in the story. She traumatized Kimmy in ways only girl can do to other girls. With no mother to go to Kimmy had to face Amy on her own as a adolescent, and again as an damaged adult at the reunion. There is a whole book that could be written analyzing these two! Josh need to finish the final step with his healing and forgive Kimmy(she is repetitive willing to take the punishment). Josh take the woman you love in your arms and love her!
Kat
I really liked this chapter. Josh is finally showing his backbone, telling Kimmy that if he stays he’s staying in the house, and not the garage apartment. All it took was for him to look into Colleen’s beautiful eyes and he’s her dad. I feel like Kimmy watching him with his daughter. Those scenes are beautifully written. Kimmy has changed, too, but in other ways is still the same. She seems to really be trying with Josh. Her omission to Stone Sr. was almost to be expected. A person can’t change that much. Lol I’d love to know what happened with Devlin, but it’s clear that he’s gone from their lives now. Josh’s near death and becoming a mom, seems to have cemented a change in Kimmy. I loved the dialogue between them here, as well as Colleen’s laughter. I could almost picture a toothless baby laughing for no reason. The only thing missing is Kimmy’s confession about Hyun. I almost don’t want anything to happen with that. What purpose would it serve at this point? I think if something happens it might come from Hyun, through her attitude, the way she treats Josh, etc. Maybe something will happen at that breakfast Kimmy offered Josh if he stayed over. Cooking and cleaning for Kimmy was one thing, but cooking and cleaning for both Kimmy and Josh might be too much for Hyun to take, especially when the plan was for Josh to live in the garage
Bill F Protagoras
"Whatever charm she’d had over him before had waned; he was no longer so eager to lap milk at her feet, to seek equilibrium and acquiesce to insanity in order to establish it." A fresh glimpse at the refurbishing of interior Josh. An impressively sensible unwillingness to acquiesce to insanity in order to achieve some equilibrium. From the lapping milk at her feet are we to infer he has envisioned himself as her pet pussy. Kinky!
Bill F Protagoras
"Laughter came. Real honest to god laughter. Totally and completely unexpected. And the more he held his hand against its swell the more the laughter’s flux taxed the restraint." "Kimmy showed pure offense. Kimmy showed the expression of an insulted aristocrat. Now he laughed hard enough he bent at the waist and put his hands on his knees." Here with Joshua's spontaneous blaring laughter we reach a new turning point in the Waters' foundering relationship... "It would be extremely interesting to write the history of laughter. In church, in the palace, on parade, facing the department head, the police officer, the German administrator, nobody laughs. The serfs are deprived of the right to smile in the presence of the landowners. 'Only equals may laugh.' If inferiors are permitted to laugh in front of their superiors, and if they cannot suppress their hilarity, this would mean farewell to respect. To make men (and women!) smile at the god Apis is to deprive him of his sacred rank and to transform him into a common bull." A.I. Herzen; On Art... he also said... "laughter contains something revolutionary... Voltaire's laughter was more destructive (I would say effective rather than destructive) than Rousseau's weeping." NB "Only equals may laugh." Josh subverts the narrative... Mayhap even the walls of a regal stronghold will come tumbling down. Another very carefully structured chapter full of cunning KT subtleties... Josh also proves that with modern nappy technology all that's needed is a willingness to get your hands dirty... care and patience and a constant awareness that babies' mobility and motor skills often develop at an unsettling pace.
Bill F Protagoras
Well, Tracey, knowing her depths of depravity only made me want to know what deeper deviancy she had on her mind, and made me wonder what new degrees of mundanity might have tickled Dev's routine size and submission oriented fancy...
Tracey52
Having said that Josh still doesn’t know all the depths of depravity that she reached.
Kat
Afraid that she might be his granddaughter, I think. She’d have a claim on his business and his money. And it would mean that she’s Devlin’s, and he cast out his son.
Kat
He does! It’s also me, my sense of humour sways to the inappropriate. Sometimes I’m even too much for my 13 year old son.
JL23
Good point, not so much lying as just letting him think what he wants. She didn't previously describe Keith as someone who'd much care if he had a grandchild, but here says she thinks he's "afraid" of what the truth is. Is he afraid the she isn't his granddaughter, or is it he's afraid she might be?
Bill F Protagoras
“The depravity I could have sunk to with Devlin was bottomless. What we did might only have been the tip of the iceberg. Maybe, just maybe, your reluctance saved me.” After the initial hyperbole of Kimmy's confession of the scary plunging depths her perverted entanglement with Devlin portended... she tactfully concedes to Josh a tentative, modest role in her putative 'salvation'. For once not crediting herself as the prime mover of a 'Vita Nova' as a family... Sharing the limelight with him...
Bill F Protagoras
Yeah, deeding has a Miltonic ring to it but would be a neologism... Not really Josh's style.
KT Morrison
Shoot, that was supposed to say dimming, indeed. Stupid spell checker as i'm writing changed it on me.
Bill F Protagoras
Kimmy is not actually conning her boss so much as taking advantage of his misapprehensions.
Bill F Protagoras
To sign away... perhaps.
JL23
Was going for the laugh, but "bonding through poop" can be a real thing for newborn parents, especially if you're doing it together. And clearly Josh is all in on being a dad. Josh asked Kimmy what she needed him for, what he could give her, and one of those things is this. Full acceptance of Colleen and an eagerness to be a dad. I'd have to imagine that incredibly sexy for Kimmy to see. I also liked that Kimmy actually admitted to him that she probably would have pushed him to extremes, if he hadn't pushed back. It really was him falling in the icy water that poured a bucket of ice water on her as well. If you go back to the night before, her in the apartment with Hyun after being confronted about the money, that was Kimmy at her most maniacally confident. And even so brazen as to try to start something with Hyun with Sophie there. Even the next morning, before Hyun gets the text from Meyer, Kimmy firmly believes she can stay the course and everything will work out in her favor. But everything changed for her when Josh goes in the water. It really did wake her up it seems. And, at least as far as we know, she's stayed sober from that point on. As to the Hyun stuff, man they're SO close and that could ruin everything. But it just feels like we need more there, if not for Josh then for us the readers. We'll see if we get it. I agree, right now it feels like we could be at a point where this can wrap up in a few more chapters, barring a complication.
L_S87
Had me rolling too, Kat. What a way with words, JL! I also like how brutally honest both were here. Especially Josh. Letting Kimmy know *why* this is so hard for him, because he hates all those other assholes, and she, the one he loves, was acting just like them. A dichotomy of love and hate. Hard to overcome. And yet Kimmy did an amazing job swallowing her pride, something she'd *never* have done before this past year, and simply accepted it and promised that she'd do better, that this past year was intended to help towards that goal of earning his acceptance. And I'm sure in time, his trust. Which is why I wonder why Hyun is left out of this. There's a logical explanation in there somewhere. Hopefully we get it. As it stands now, this feels ripe to jump to a final epilogue chapter, but I hope that's not what we get as I'd like a least some closure on the Hyun relationship. Whether that means it's still active and Josh decides to stay away because of that or it's in the past and stays that way, it's been too prominent a point with multiple mentions from Josh where he clearly gets something is there for it to just vanish into nothingness. Here's to hoping Kimmy did the right thing there, even if she couldn't with Keith Stone and Colleen's parentage. Josh's statement on being afraid of her puts Kimmy on clear notice that something like cheating with Hyun would never be tolerated.
Tracey52
Could kt have meant dimming?
Bill F Protagoras
The warm presence of Colleen and the description of her dreamy infantile flourishes permeate and console adult distress. The tiny stirring creature with frail gestures capitalises on her parents' dormant strengths... quickens them into affable solicitude...
Bill F Protagoras
"Kimmy retreated with a heft sigh and gathered the satiny fabric around her legs." In modern English to heft is to lift or carry something heavy. The heft is usually the weight, or wieldiness of something hand held... frequently a weighty weapon or tool. Where I come from the adjective 'hefty' is a colloquialism for heavy... so a 'hefty' sigh... or 'packs a hefty punch'. Heft sounds obsolete, and according to the Complete Oxford Dictionary is. Still it IS in the dictionary as a past participle which would fit the case! A sigh that was heaved (heft). After all language is by its nature mutable...
Bill F Protagoras
"Josh closed his eyes. She said, “I saw myself in them—Devlin and Amy—and I hated what I saw. I finally hated myself. That’s why I left. I saw Amy for what she really was. Dumb. Privileged. And all the trimmings amounted to nothing. Shoes, clothes, trips. All the affectation of big business. And the depravity. A whole wardrobe just for depravity, something in every style and color.” Love it... surely she must realise she is still enfolded in it herself... Even, in the worst of cases, hoisted by her own petard... But this remembered flash of insight bodes well.
L_S87
This, for me, was the best chapter of this book. I absolutely loved it, KT. Thank you. The only bit of tarnish, if there really is any, is Josh avoiding the subject of Hyun. But, we still have more chapters for that and I can easily see him not wanting to broach that subject given the weighty matters they were discussing. They're still quite broken, but there's a new bond there, shared around Colleen. One that's allowing them both to be more truthful without yelling or anger, simply discussing what is and what may be. I *love* the fact that Josh put it out there that the apartment was a no go. Either this was his house and they were in it together or they're done. No in between. I feel like the only shadow hanging over this is the massive elephant in the room that is Kimmy and Hyun and the status of their relationship. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds.
JL23
Deeding: to cede or sign over property. I read as those bad thoughts cause him to sign over the rights to remember any of the good times fondly.
Kat
I loved the Kimmy and Josh dialogue, and we’re getting a little more Kimmy POV. I loved the Josh, Colleen and Kimmy time, too. And I laughed at the end when Josh told Kimmy he just wanted to sleep. I wonder what else Keith Stone knows. Did Kimmy tell him about Devlin, or maybe used the tapes she made against Devlin? It doesn’t matter. Devlin doesn’t seem to hold sway against either of them anymore. I’m glad that Josh was honest with Kimmy on how he feels about her, though. She seemed to be semi honest with him. Lol She told him she viewed herself in Amy and Devlin and it made her sick, but left out where she had this revelation.
Kat
“Bonded by fecal matter,” 😆😆😆😆😆😆
Bill F Protagoras
"But there was the black veil of betrayal deeding the light from those golden memories." What does 'deeding' mean in this sentence?
Bill F Protagoras
"Or anyone I would want to associate.” Or anyone I would want to associate with... phrasal verb.
JL23
Who would have thought all it took was a hearty laugh over his wife conning her boss to stay out of trouble, and some poop, for Josh to start turning it around. As always, none of us thought Kimmy was going to answer that Keith might think that about Colleen, so that means it definitely would be the case. But I can see why that makes sense, and why Kimmy would have an interest in letting Keith think that. Again, this felt an honest and true conversation but...there is still the Hyun stuff. This chapter made me go back to thinking it's not going to be addressed. But I also think there's an opening here for Kimmy, if nothing has happened with Hyun in the last year, to explain it as another way she pulled herself back from the brink. Or maybe Kimmy is going to get 98% of the way to what she wants, only for Josh to ask about Hyun and for it all to be ruined. Doesn't feel like it though. And it was nice to see Colleen, Josh and Kimmy together like that. Bonded through fecal matter...or something like that.
Tracey52
I think they are making progress but it’s a rocky road. Letting Keith Stone think Colleen could be Devlin’s reeks of deception and risks that he’ll eventually expect Devlin to claim what’s his. On another note and from experience, if Josh managed to handle his first pooey diaper on his own and without instructions, he deserves the noble prize
