***
Leif was furious with Lynne. He walked out of the department store, tears stinging his blonde lashes. The root of his tears was frustration with Lynne. He stormed across the parking lot of the open-air mall, looking or a kiosk to find a bar.
He just didn't get it. Lynne got off on him babying her, and protecting her! She loved him to baby her, read her stories, sit in his lap, playfully feed her, hell he even bathed her! She confided in him about her shitty childhood and how she had huge aching gaping holes in her heart that she felt that their love was covering over. So naturally she should understand if his role was sometimes confused in his mind, and he ended up erring to far on the side of babying her and not enough on the side of treating her like a grown woman.
Damn it, she couldn't have it both ways!
Damn it, he was trying to do what was best for her!
Damn it, whenever she talked to them, they ended up hurting her, so he headed it off at the pass so that there would be no hurt because there was no contact, and now he was the fucking bad guy, and even more than that, she was using the money that his parents gave them as a wedding present to buy a souvenir from their honeymoon for those wicked motherfuckers who constantly chose the church over her? And her father practically verbally abused Lynne right in Leif's face and it was only respect for Lynne that kept him from making Mr. Miller a new jaw.
He found the bar that was advertised on the kiosk. He knew there was a bar because he'd planned on taking Lynne earlier before any of this blew up for beers, and now he wished more than anything that he understood what he was supposed to do for his woman to support her!
He'd already tried treating her like a grown woman the first time they split up, right after he'd met her parents for the first time, and then when the true story of her background came out, he learned that she needed much more care than he'd give an ordinary woman. This was fine with him, he loved Lynne so intensely.
Now he called himself protecting Lynne from things he knew had hurt her before, at least for the honeymoon and once again he was a bad guy. He was so angry! He ordered a gin and tonic, his favorite drink when he was distressed about Lynne.
He loved the bitter burn at his throat and the sour taste. He found it metaphoric. He hoped Lynne knew to call him or text him when she was done with all the bags and the damn music box. He certainly didn't want to see Lynne buying anything for that old bag Gladys.
Maybe he was wrong screening her calls. Maybe he'd been overzealous, but he knew one thing, he was confused by the parameters of their relationship, and when they reconnected during this shopping trip he was going to ask her to provide the clarity. She couldn't just be addicted to him babying her and nurturing her, and then turn around and snap at him and get angry at him for not treating her grown up enough when it suited her.
Did she want his nurturing, and support and their slightly unconventional relationship? Yes, he'd made a decision for her that he probably should have let her make for herself but he saw this decision as part of his unique role as a husband nurturing a delicate wife with a painful past. Yes, sometimes he treated her like his little girl.
If she didn't want that, it was fine, but she needed to learn to grow up more in all aspects of their life. Babying her one minute, womaning her up the next, he was confused as hell, and she was too.
He turned the glass around. He didn't want to have too many. He knew Lynne didn't like when he overdrank because it reminded her of her father, and his drinking problems before he found religion. Leif had no plans to take it overboard, but he didn't want Lynne confused about his drinking habits when she finally called him or stumbled into this bar.
*** Lynne played the music box on the display counter. It made her teary eyed. Made her think of the times she spent with her mother growing up. Mostly the time she spent alone in the house with her mother before her father came home from the taxi cab company or the church.
The times that she spent at the piano, on in her mother's bedroom while she would brush her hair and play her favorite music box, the one that her gran from New Orleans had given her. True, most of her childhood had been less than desirable, but it hadn't all been bad. Not every moment.
And most of the times that were good involved some memory with her mother. Her mother just was not as wrapped up in the nonsense as her father was. She was hoping that her mother could be moved to understand that she was in love with the man of her dreams, and she'd chosen to love Leif.
Yes she wasn't her church girl anymore, but she was still her daughter, and if her mother was willing she wanted to have a relationship with her, share her amazing wedding pictures and let her hug her grandkids when they came along.
She was surprised at Leif. Because he seemed full of hate, and that wasn't a quality of his that she was familiar with. The Leif she loved, the Leif she'd married was gentle, and had a heart of gold even if he was gruff sometimes. But one thing he was not, was a man ruled by his emotions and hatred. That was a trait that Lynne saw in her father.
She didn't like seeing the hatred trait in Leif! They were partners. She was not his child! His parents, and actually all the wedding guests had given them that money to spend as they wished on their wedding. Lynne saw no harm in getting the music box for herself, or perhaps her mother.
She thought this would soften the way for Lynne to remind her of the good times they'd shared, alone and independent of her father. And she was furious with Leif. How dare he screen her calls!
She loved that Leif took care of her the way she'd never been taken care of in her whole life, but screening her phone calls was fucking controlling! How could he do that to her? And here she was wondering why her mother was so lousy she didn't even care that Lynne had just had the biggest day of her life and gotten married.
But she did care. She had tried to call.
And now Lynne wondered what Leif had said to her, since he'd kept it hidden from her. Lynne decided to buy the music box.
After she bought it, she asked for it to be gift-wrapped. She then had a sales associate help her pack the car. She was shocked that Leif, as big a gentleman as he was, told her to go ahead and pay a sales associate so he didn't have to pack the car. It wasn't so much the packing by someone else that she objected to, but his hands off attitude. This was a man who didn't even want her to lift a heavy grocery sack, so his hands off attitude was because of spite.
After they packed her trunk, Lynne contemplated calling her mother. She was going to get to the bottom of the phone calls screening and see what her mother had to say before she ran off to find Leif in whatever Bar he'd gone off to.
