Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

pushed her over. Her eyes flickered open.
    “What?” She stared at her husband.
    Alex stepped back from the bed and lowered the lamp to her face. He scanned the light down to her feet. The glare blinded her and kept her from reading his eyes to see what could have possibly prompted him to offer help for the first time since their baby di…She pushed that thought back into its rightful hiding place.
    “How long you been layin’ here? It’s ’bout midnight, and you still got your clothes on.” The sound of concern in her husband’s voice woke up her worry over him, and she hated the bother.
    Eula raised herself against the headboard, a pillow at her back. She reached to move the light aside. As Alex set the lamp on the bureau next to their bed, she caught a glimpse of his face. His mouth drawn down in weariness, his cheeks sunken in, he looked as though he had lost the battle with a swarm of tobacco locust.
    “I’m a little tired, is all. But, you…uh…didn’t the plantin’ go well?”
    She readied herself for his quick burst of annoyance and then his silence. It was not as if anything she ever did could warrant true anger, or any other real feelings from the man. Whatever outbursts he had were over in less than a minute.
    “Plantin’ went just fine. Could do as well as last year. You sure you all right?” He walked around to his side of the bed, unbuttoning the straps of his overalls as he moved.
    Eula mustered a shake of her head. Thoughts of missing money and missing nights rammed back into her mind. She watched Alex as he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his boots. The light from the kerosene lamp cast his face in half shadows. She hadn’t noticed before that his eyes looked quite so haggard.
    “You feelin’ a little warm?” Alex placed the back of his hand against her forehead.
    “I’m mmm.” If she dared, her hand would have been the one to reach up and check Alex for fever. Her husband was not in the habit of checking on her health.
    “Let’s get you under the covers.” Dropping his overalls, he scooted onto the bed.
    Alex reached behind her neck to unbutton the apron she had put on fresh this morning. Before she could reach out a hand to stop him, he pulled the garment away, the untied strings dangling, as he dropped the muslin to the floor. What was he doing? Alex tugged her shirtwaist free from her skirt. When his hands reached for the buttons, Eula slapped her hand over his before she could get her mind clear.
    “No. I mean…I’m not sick. I’m just tired. I can do it myself.” Her hands fumbled with the buttons before she remembered that she had never taken off her clothes with him looking straight at her.
    If he did happen to walk in when she was changing, she just stepped behind the chifforobe door, turned her back, stepped out of her petticoat, and pulled her nightdress over her head, all before he could notice. Eula’s shaking hand stalled at the button over the center of her chest. Alex finished the job. She held her breath as he pushed the shirtwaist back from her shoulders. In her confusion, she moved to stop him before she remembered. She only wore an everyday chemise. Was Alex checking to see if she was properly dressed?
    “My corset, too tight. I need…”
    “I reckon I haven’t always given you what you need. If you need a new corset, I’ll make a way…” He slipped her skirt over her feet as he looked at her face.
    What she needed? Make a way? Did Alex have some money worry that a good wife should have seen and sorted out?
    “You already give me everything I need.” She stumbled out the words as the dwindling numbers in her journal and the missing supplies in her storeroom flashed into her head. Did the missing food and five hundred dollars go to pay some debt he hadn’t bothered her with? Had Ben Roy gambled her husband out of some money?
    Alex slipped his hands to the bottom of her chemise and began sliding it up her chest.
    Eula laid a hand at her bodice and scrunched up the loose fabric, her fingers squeezed so tight, they hurt. Alex hadn’t seen her naked in full kerosene light in years. He pulled her back when she reached out an arm to turn down the wick. Had she paid more mind than she ought to her mean-spirited sister-in-law? Was the real answer gambling?
    “No, I ain’t given you everythin’ you need. I ain’t never told you how much it means to me how well you run this place.”
    The quick intake of her own breath sent a charge