Marty
Something was wrong, really, wrong. I knew it, but she wouldn’t tell me a thing. She’d walked into see the doc sassing and sarcastic. She was quiet when she came out. Too quiet. I intended to find out why.
I drove back to the clinic. The lights were out, but junior’s Jeep sat out back. I let myself in. He had his coat on, ready to make a run for it.
“There are rules. I’m not telling you a thing, so go home, Marty.”
What an attitude. And I helped put the ingrate through school. “Did I ask you to tell me anything?”
I wandered around the office, giving him time to marinate in guilt and gratitude. It usually worked. This time not.
“Look, just tell me that she’s going to be okay.”
“So, who is she to you? Did she apply for a job or something?”
I saw an angle here. “She’s done some work for Smoke in the past. I was going to hire her again, but hell, if she’s sick…” I let my voice trail off. “So, did she pass the physical?”
“What kind of work?” he asked suspiciously. “She won’t be jumping out of airplanes and helicopters that’s for sure.”
“Why not?” Like I would put a woman in that kind of… Well if the right one came in and applied, maybe, but not my dance queen. “She’s a big strong girl. Why not? You turning sexist? Think she can’t handle the equipment?”
“Marty, let it rest. I’m not telling you anything other than if that was a pre-job physical, which we both know it wasn’t, she didn’t pass.”
He walked out of the place with me trailing behind him and I was still whining for answers. I knew better. I didn’t want to bully the kid. But dammit. “Look, Garret. She’s kind of a girlfriend.” The look of horror he gave me let me know she was doomed. I froze. “Jesus. What’s wrong with her? Is it, is it…? God dammit, tell me.”
I was in full panic mode. “The earlier we get her into treatment, the better her chances. Who should we see? Give me a name. A doctor specializing in her condition.”
“Are you saying that you and my patient are a couple?” By this time, we were standing by his Jeep.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Since when? I thought you didn’t date.” The little ass seemed way too interested in my life, suddenly. “Was that Marilyn?”
“Yes. We met, we danced… What the hell difference does that make? We’re a couple. And couples share each other’s troubles. So, what’s wrong with her?” I’d started out reasonably enough, but I didn’t do so well keeping the snarl from my final burst of words. I might have also been standing a little too close to him.
He maneuvered enough to crack his door and exited our close encounter by sliding into the Jeep. He wasn’t intimidated. That was good. But shit, I still didn’t know what was wrong with her and… I glared at him, not sure how much of my concerned boyfriend act had been an act.
There wasn’t enough sun to warrant them, but, pointedly he put on his sunglasses before he rolled down his window. “She’s not sick like Aunt Kit, Marty. I’m not a specialist in…” It was his turn to glare. “You, sneaky bastard.” The window started back up. He threw the last words out the one inch opening he left at the top. “If you want to know what’s wrong with her, ask her.”
I heard the locks click on his door, his final insult before he backed up, barely missing my toes. Then he revved the motor and peeled out of the parking lot.
In the sixth year of our marriage, Kit had decided she wanted us to be parents. I was twenty-three, working alongside Jack. He’d gone out on his own and rounded up enough oil jockeys, and skilled wild men, to call it a crew. We were hustling twenty-four hours a day, trying to stay alive long enough to build the business, and I was away from home a lot.
“Marty, I want a kid but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen for us without a boost. What do you think?”
What I’d thought was shit, damn, fuck, I’m a loser who can’t even give his woman a baby. What I’d said was, “Sure. Whatever you want.” I’d pretty much always said yes to what Kit wanted. I expected us to go through some kind of fertility ritual. Or maybe an adoption process where she’d bring home a baby, preferably a boy, and I’d watch her raise him until he was old enough for me to teach him the business.
It didn’t happen that way. I came home from a job in South America and found Garret living with us. He was eleven. Not an unknown at all since he’d already been hanging at the house a lot. His father, Bud Wilson, lived down the street. Bud was a drunk. Kit decided Garret would do better with us. Nobody objected. The kid moved his stuff into a room, and she bought him some video games. When he got old enough, she enrolled him in college.
Now and then, Bud would come down to check on him. As Garret got older, the situation reversed, and he’d go down and check on Bud. It was good all around. Kit had been like that, seeing need, and reaching out to fix what was broken while others stood on the sidelines.
I’d worked really, really, hard in our marriage to not be needy. I’d wanted Kit to need me. But she’d needed me to give her a baby, and when that didn’t happen, she’d settled for the drunk’s kid from down the block. I stood in the parking lot watching the kid, now all grown up, drive away, knowing in my gut something big had just happened without knowing exactly what.
She’s not sick like Aunt Kit, Marty. My thoughts swung from Kit and Garret to holding Holly as she retched over the toilet bowl.
What’s wrong with her? Jesus God, I couldn’t go through that again. That being sickness and death. Though I judged myself a coward, part of me wanted to go back to my office, bury myself in the paperwork Elaine had stacked on my desk, and forget I’d ever met Holly Smith.
But damn, I couldn’t do that. I only knew one way to find out what was wrong with Holly. I was sorry for the way I’d discovered her address, but glad I’d been smart enough to get my ride to the clinic in time to take her home.
I knew where she lived, I’d take Garret’s advice. I’d ask her what was wrong with her. One way or another, I’d get it out of her. And then we’d figure out what to do next. I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about my being part of her get-well team.
That wasn’t true. I was sure she’d tell me to fuck off. She didn’t take orders well. Maybe bribes would work. Breakfast seemed a good way to start.
I stopped for coffee, bought some donuts to go along with it, debated over sugared or filled, and finally drove to her house. And then remembered she’d puked her guts out the night before. The coffee and donuts suddenly seemed like a poor idea. The entire ludicrous conversation running in my head had been masking the anxiety pounding in my veins. It came back full force.
I didn’t question any of my actions until I pulled into her driveway and shut down my ride. It was eight thirty in the morning. She ought to have been up. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d be a late sleeper. Maybe she’s still sick. She could be in there unconscious.
I was still in my vehicle, trying to decide if I would be justified in breaking in to check on her, when she came walking down the street. She looked fine. Brisk walk, long stride, no obvious health issues or pain on display. She spied me sitting in her drive and scowled. I relaxed. She was better.
I grabbed the box of donuts and scooped up the coffee. Breakfast time.
Holly
There are times I enjoy getting out for exercise. I’m not a jogger. Too much work. But, I love to walk in early morning when there’s little traffic and no people cluttering the world. Well usually I do. This morning not so much. I had an unpleasant creepy feeling making me secure the packages in my arms and hurry.
As I approached my place I spotted a vehicle parked in my drive. I lengthened my stride, replacing one anxiety with another.
Did I miss something? I tried to remember if I’d paid all the utility bills. I’d forgotten once, they’d shut off the water on a Friday, and I’d had to go without for a weekend. I groaned in relief and exasperation when I recognized my visitor.
“And there he is, again.” Good God, Marty Jones was sitting in his monster truck in my driveway. Gah. I shifted my bag of groceries to my left side and fumbled for my key.
As soon as I’d gotten home earlier, I’d retreated to my closet to have a panic attack. I could pretty much take root in any dark closed space and not come out until I got my mind back. I’d been using this method of dealing with stress for a long time. The possibility that I might be pregnant seemed like a good enough reason to make like a mushroom.
But, as soon as I’d gotten comfortable on the floor, most of my thoughts had centered on disbelief rather than panic. I’m not sure how long I mumbled to myself in my therapy cubicle, but when I came out, I felt better. And I had a plan of action.
First, the doctor said he could be wrong. I agreed. He was probably wrong. He told me to see a specialist. I agreed with that, too. I needed to know what was what before I gave up on my fancy faucets and invested in a crib.
I couldn’t afford doctors any better at seven o’clock in the morning than I could three hours before. So, I decided to visit another kind of specialist. Someplace close that sold pregnancy tests.
I’d been hungry when I came out of the closet. So, after I’d showered, pulled on some sweats, and shrugged into my coat, I’d walked to the 24/7 grocery that had a pharmacy as well.
Breakfast food had looked good to me—all of it. I carried bacon, eggs, bread, milk, and a frozen box of hash browns in my arms.
I’d also picked up three Home Pregnancy Kits. Feeling surprisingly good for a chick who’d barfed her brains out the night before, I’d headed home. That changed when I saw my unwelcome guest.
No doubt, planning to head me off before I could get inside and call the cops, Marty stepped out of his huge, gas guzzling, environmentally shocking, albeit comfortable, vehicle, and watched my approach.
“You are like a frigging bad headache that goes away then reappears with no warning. What is it about ‘get lost’ you don’t understand?” Maybe I could rude him into leaving.
“Thought you might want breakfast.” He held up his box of donuts, my favorite kind. My stomach rumbled. I knew he heard it because his frigging eyebrow went up, and he grinned. What was I supposed to do?
“All right. Bring the donuts, and come in.” As a matter of fact, I was about to do eggs, hash browns, bacon, and toast. The donuts would be dessert. To say I was hungry would be an understatement.
As I have a right to be. After all, my last meal of chili and peanut butter sandwiches hadn’t stayed down long enough to digest. Of course, I was famished.
I went straight through the miniscule foyer, passed the couch in the living room through the opening to the kitchen. He followed.
“Nice place.”
“Thank you.” I set my groceries on the counter and watched him pull out a kitchen chair and sit down. After I unloaded the breakfast supplies, I left the pregnancy detectors in the sack, and pushed it to the back of the counter. I’d take it up to the master bathroom and use it after Marty was gone. “Make yourself at home.”
He grinned, not missing my sarcasm.
I wondered why I found him attractive. Marty wasn’t cute, or handsome in a conventional way. He was big, but more than just being size extra-extra-large, his personality filled the room even when he kept his mouth shut. His gaze lingered on my chest and without looking down, I knew my nipples were puckered nubs tenting the thin material of my tee.
“How you feeling?” His grin got down right wolfish.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. “Did you come to check on my health or fool around?”
“Is option two on the table?” he growled.
“The only fooling around I’m doing is making myself breakfast. Drink your coffee. Have a donut. I’ll eat one, too. Then you can leave.”
“Seriously, how do you feel?”
“I feel like breakfast.” I pulled a skillet from my oven. With sawdust swirling around and half the doors off the cupboards, it was currently the best place to store my cooking tools.
“Nice kitchen. Beautiful wood.” He clearly knew how to romance me. The solid cherry I’d uncovered gave me incentive to continue sanding but it was a lot of work. Marty’s spontaneous admiration made me smile. While I set out my ingredients, preparing to cook, he got off the chair and inspected my cabinets.
“Some dumb ass painted them white. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
“Would I be sanding the paint off, if I’d slapped it on?”
“Tedious work,” he grunted, then picked up a tack rag and began wiping down the upper cupboards. From where I was standing, facing the stove, I could see him from the corner of my eye.
Like me, he had on gray sweats. The drawstring pants rested on his hips, and when he reached high, the gesture hiked up his sweatshirt, displaying a line of black hair, arrowing down his stomach, a road map to what lay below. And what went below, suddenly went up.
I will not laugh, I will not laugh, I will not… I focused on the stove and pretended interest in frying the hash browns. Once they were crispy and golden brown, I broke a dozen eggs in the skillet and scrambled them, sprinkled grated cheese across the top to melt, while I nuked a pound of bacon, and toasted half a loaf of bread. Like I said, I was hungry, and my hulking visitor didn’t look like he was leaving before he at least got some food.
“Eat up. Then you can leave.” My manners seemed to have deteriorated in direct proportion to my lust as if I tried to drive him away because I wanted him. Okay, I’m nuts.
After I laid cutlery on the table, I handed him a plate and served myself eggs and hash browns from the skillet, added a couple of slices of bacon, stacked two pieces of toast on the side, poured myself a glass of milk, and slid into my chair at the table.
He set a coffee in front of me, kept the other for himself, and sat facing me across his own loaded plate. Very loaded, falling off the edges, loaded. At my round-eyed blink, he said gruffly, “I’m a man with a big appetite.”
He gave me a knowing look and smirked, making me blush, and that pissed me off. But my face got red just the same. I pushed the coffee in its carry cup back across the table at him.
“You don’t like coffee?”
“Not in the mood,” I answered.
“You drank milk last night.”
“Yes, I did. And?”
“You have an ulcer?”
“No ulcer and I don’t think milk is a cure for ulcers anyway,” I said and began making my way through the food on my own plate. Then embarrassed at my own churlishness, I added, “Help yourself. I’ve got all I want.”
I ignored him and ate.
He took me at my word, plowed through the first plate, then finished off the eggs, the hash browns, and wrapped the last piece of bacon into the last piece of toast before he stood and began clearing the table. “Great breakfast. Got a dishwasher?”
“Soon. Sink for now.”
“You own this place?”
“Me and the bank,” I told him.
“Mind if I look around out back?”
Whether I cared or not, he piled the breakfast dishes in the sink and used the door off the mudroom to get to my backyard.
I smiled to myself while I did the dishes and watched him wander around the yard. It was my version of paradise. My grandma had been a gardener. She’d passed away before I was born. Grandpa Bob had kept the bushes trimmed and didn’t bother the flowers that returned every year. After I’d reclaimed the house, I’d been identifying the flowers from the weeds, by carrying my laptop out back and making comparisons between cyber pictures and what was growing in the neglected jungle.
Last fall I’d bought a package of gladiola bulbs and planted them. I was looking forward to seeing if my grandma had passed down her green thumb.
That thought startled me. I found myself staring at my stomach, my wet hands splayed protectively over my belly. Oh, my gosh. I needed to go sit in my closet again. And dunderhead was still out back.
Breathe in, breathe out… I gripped the edge of the sink and focused my gaze out the window on Marty, now gently rocking back and forth in my backyard swing. He looked relaxed. I calmed down a little.
My gaze switched from him to the grocery sack and its contents. While Marty was otherwise occupied, I’d just get it over with.
“Ready or not, here I come,” I muttered and grabbed up the bag, carrying it to the bathroom.