Ginny

My phone rings again. For the freaking tenth time today and I silence it with a shriek and the urge to toss it against the wall with all the anger I’ve felt for two months.

Two fucking months. Oh yeah, I swear now, to mama’s horror and it’s all that rat bastard’s fault because he broke me so bad I don’t even care that I have to talk to Father O’Leary every Friday for my language.

At this point he’s just so fed up he reads his book while we pretend to talk just to get mama off both our backs. The first time he tried to counsel me about forgiveness and love I told him to fuck the hell off.

What the hell does he even know about having your heart ripped out by a selfish asshole with mommy issues? What does he know about finding out that your boyfriend’s mom is not who you and everyone else thought she was? And what does he know about sitting in an apartment for three weeks crying and waiting for the man that you love to come back?

Nothing. Not a thing.

And that’s what I did you know, to my eternal shame. I waited for him even when Gray finally called and told me Blay had split. I waited and when he didn’t show by day five, I cried.

By day ten I heard from Char that he was alive and in France of all places, getting drunk off his ass. I still waited though, convince that he just needed a break and he’d come back. Until the day he finally answered his phone, drunk, laughing and obnoxious with the sound of a giggling woman in the background.

That’s the day I learned that I really am Lizzie Egan’s daughter and not adopted. I got so mad I trashed his stuff. No I mean I burned his clothes until the fire department showed up because the alarms went off. They’d have arrested me for sure but I was crying so hard and telling anyone who’d listen what had gone down they felt sorry for me and called mama.

She showed up with the girls and we all smashed the hell out of his fancy watches before they packed me up and took me home.

Jack and my grandbabies still look at me like I’m loco and papa and the boys steer clear of me when my mood turns dark. At least I still have my job because my boss is a boss guy and wouldn’t hear of firing me even though I didn’t go to work for three weeks at that stage.

The worst day though was when mama figured out I was carrying Blay’s illegitimate love child. Talk about a scene. And I’m not even talking about mama. Nuhuh. I went ugly crazy until it hit me that I’m gonna have a baby and went all happy gooey.

Mama was so thrilled-I know, I actually fainted from shock-she baked me my own cake and wouldn’t stop telling people that she’s going to be a grandma.

She threatened to knife one of her church cronies, a woman who was not very approving of my loose ways and papa had to go get her from the jail when the woman pressed charges.

Seems papa is right. Mama really is a handful.

And now he’s back and won’t stop calling me. He calls all day. Day and night. And I think that while mama isn’t happy with him for the tears I shed, she’s not happy with me because I refuse to so much as see him or hear him out.

I don’t care. It hurts me that I gave him my all and when shit got hard he took off and left me. Oh I don’t believe he screwed another woman, I just don’t. But he left me.

That was worse than anything else he could have done because it makes me think that he doesn’t need me the way I need him. I need him to need me. Is that too much to ask because if he doesn’t then I will always wonder why he wants me. I hate this. It hurts. I don’t want to hurt. I want love and happiness and everything he promised me. I want him.

And I don’t want to want him.

Cece came to see me the day I moved back to mama and papa’s and told me her whole sordid tale, crying with no expression which is scary people. She looked like that weird silver guy on Star Trek. I had nightmares for two whole naps.

So here goes. You know her husband took up with the woman carrying his baby and that they screwed Cece over with the whole legal thing. What she also confessed was that he was going to leave her for his baby mama but that she was so desperate she threatened to take everything in the divorce. See, he blew through all his money a long time before Blay came around and it was the money her father left her that carried them. He got his rich boy life style while playing a doddering college professor and Cece got her child.

Only she didn’t really get her child because the mistress was so bitter about the whole thing, about not getting her man and the money, she refused to let Cece win it all. They hadn’t really wanted Blay, that was all Cece and the two were only agreeable because it kept Cece in line and handing out money. In the end it seems that the only person who really loved Blay was Cece. Good old dad didn’t care, the mistress is a cold hearted bitch who didn’t know what she wanted besides her man and the lifestyle and Cece was forbidden to let Blay love her or she’d have lost him.

She didn’t tell me everything, said that was between her and the asshat she married, but I know that she loves him. She really does or she’d have tossed him out a long time ago and that after. After she dried herself out-she went through a bad patch at one time thanks to depression-she just let Blay hate her because it was easier. It was easier to have him in the only way they’d allow or not at all.

And now here we are. She kicked her husband’s ass out after I gave her some advice and mama cracked a bottle of cheap red and shoved him at the mistress, who soon realized she wouldn’t have a cash cow anymore and he was no longer her type. Heh, serves him right. Eddie boy came crawling back and now lives in the garden cottage because like Cece says, she’s a fool and she really enjoys seeing him grovel. Good for her.

Back to Blay. He came back, realized I’d bounced and that I was pregnant after Ing and the girls paid him a visit and kicked his ass, and hasn’t stopped harassing me.

“Ginny answer your Goddamn phone! He’s still on the porch and it’s cold as balls out there. He’ll freeze to death.”

“Leave me alone!” I yell at Abe, my temper flaring. “If you like him so much why don’t you go talk to him?”

“He cries, Ginny. It’s not pretty,” Davey mutters where he’s playing a video game on the couch, his stinking feet reeking so much it makes my stomach turn.

“Not my problem. I hope he cries and cries and then a hobo eats him!”

Illogical I know but I’m running on fumes here. It’s been weeks now and the fool is still harassing me, following me and calling me. Gray calls and begs. Char calls and begs. Ed calls and begs. Even Mari called and begged because Gray won’t leave her alone and he ‘whines’ about how unhappy Blay is. Serves him right.

Eventually it’s time to leave for work and I gird my loins for the inevitable as I pull the front door open and step out, ignoring the idiot making moon eyes at me.

“Tink.”

I walk off without acknowledging him and keep going even when he tries to put his coat around my shoulders. Like I need his warm nice smelling coat!

I look fly in a pink jean and bomber combo with my yellow boots and green headband hiding the fact that my hair is so knotty it isn’t even necessary to wear a hair tie.

“Please, Tink. Please just listen to me and if you still hate me I swear I’ll leave you alone,” he pleads, coming up in front of me to block my path.

I look up despite my better judgement and hate what I see immediately. He looks terrible, worse than I do and his beautiful hair is just as wild as mine is. I don’t think he’s shaved at all and it’s so nasty I feel my lips curl.

“You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit, Tink. I am shit. I am a no good piece of shit who ran away when things got tough and I don’t deserve you but I love you so much I can’t sleep or eat or live without you. Please. Christ please don’t do this. I can’t do any of this without you. I miss you so much. You and those ugly dogs and your clothes all over the house. And the sleep eating. And. And I miss you.”

Darn it.

“I had to move back in with my mother! My mama, Blay! Do you have any idea how terrible she is? She reads my diary and makes me wear matching colours unless I threaten to kill her in her sleep. She bought me a white dress. White! And Abe walks around in tightywhities, and Davey doesn’t flush the toilet after a number two!” I wail, my emotions so spent I can’t stop from crying.

Blay pulls me into his arms, ignoring my protests and I feel my body sag in exhaustion and defeat when the smell I search for in my sleep seeps into my pores and calms the bleeding in my chest.

“You suck so much.”

“I know Tink and I am so sorry. I love you. I love you, Tink, and I need you to come back and forgive me because I can’t not have you. You’re my fairy. My baby.” he whispers into my hair.

I want to laugh when his fingers get stuck after he tries to stroke me and I do laugh when he curses and pulls his hand away finally, coming away with a lifesaver that I have no idea where it came from.

I really should wash my hair now that I’m gonna be having sex again huh.

“Don’t do it again. I was sad and I hate being sad. Papa cries when I’m sad,” I say, my eyes fierce.

“Oh, Tink. I swear, never again. Just, I went a little nuts when she told me all that shit and then when I went to talk to dad and he wasn’t even sorry it just…I wanted to come back after the second day but I was ashamed and then I started drinking and well…I was scared you’d kill me,” he admits, making me giggle.

Because it’s true, I would have.

“I’m going to have a baby and we have one kid already and those others.”

Blay grins and closes one eye.

“I sorta conned mom into taking Sniffer and Char wants Cueball and Ty asked if he could have Stinker because Rox likes him and he has a monumental crush on her.”

I sigh and nod, wondering if I can con anyone else into taking some. I love them but I have a queasy stomach now that I’m nocked up, well queasier and they poop. A lot.

“Fine. But we’re keeping Muffy the hamper layer. I like him, he bites the church ladies and reminds me of Jack when he was little.”

Blay snorts.

“He looks nothing like Jack. He has actual hair.”

I will never tell a soul that Jack only ended up that way because I shaved him once and used hair removal cream to keep things smooth. He had an allergic reaction, the vet threatened to report me and when his hair finally came out again he looked like a science experiment gone wrong.

I felt guilty for a while but I cut myself slack because come on, I hate hair and I still learned to love Jack.

“You’re being mean. Now shut up and freaking kiss me already, George, you have a lot of orgasms to make up for. Pregnancy makes my hormones whack and I can’t masturbate in mama’s house or I’ll go to hell.”

Blay kisses me. Laughing into my mouth the whole time and I kiss him back, planning my revenge even as I enjoy the taste of his lips and the feel of his hairless wrists where I’m holding onto them.

When he takes me home after a long talk with papa and mama’s teary hairy eyeball-well she relented eventually and gave him a hug that was all boob in his poor face-I almost cringe, almost when I notice the entire place is refurnished and he’d even replaced the clothes I’d torched.

“Welcome home Tink. You gonna marry me some time before your mama puts a hit out on me?”

I laugh all the way to the bed, while he kisses me breathless and only stop when he finally slides into me and makes me come so much I can’t say anything but yes.

I know what you’re thinking, why forgive so easily. I’ll tell you. Father O’Leary may be my worst enemy and he may be as sexless as a lump of dough but the man is a poet to the core and you know what he told me?

Pull the stick out of your ass you little heathen and face the facts, you’re weird, you wear weird clothes and your family is all bound for hell. The boy loves you and you’ll only find that kind of crazy once in a lifetime.

And he was right.

I’m crazy about Blay George, warts and all, and if he’s crazy enough to love me with all the crazy I have going on, I guess I’ll have to just be crazy enough to take a chance and believe in magic.