by Brent, Amy
Emily and Hank were deeply religiously and never missed a Sunday morning or Wednesday night service. They’d tried to drag me and Bethany to church for years, but church wasn’t for me and Bethany wouldn’t go without me, which was really just her using me as an excuse because she didn’t really want to go either. Sometimes, they’d pick up Cody and take him along to be with their boys in the children’s service. I didn’t have a problem with it and he seemed to enjoy himself, though he was more impressed by the milk and graham crackers than the lessons about Jesus.
He called him, “Cheeses”.
“Cheeses died on the cross, daddy.”
How fucking cute is that?
I let my eyes drift up and down Emily’s body, not to check her out, but to register how different she was from Bethany, who refused to submit to the soccer mom fashion moirés as Emily did. Emily was wearing a pair of loose mom shorts that hung to her knees and a sleeveless blouse that was white with little flowers on it. Her calves were tanned and toned, though I could see wisps of black hair on her legs. Her ankles tapered nicely into her bare feet, which were usually dirty on the sides and bottoms because she rarely wore shoes. When she sensed me watching her, she turned with a potato in one hand and the peeler in the other. Water dripped down her arms and off her elbow.
“Jesus, Ben, you scared the crap out of me.” She crossed the room quickly and leaned in for a hug with her hands still full. “When did you get here?”
“Just a minute ago,” I said, mustering a smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just, well, you reminded me of Bethany for a moment.”
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” she said with a sympathetic frown. She dropped the potato in the sink, shut off the tap, and picked up a towel to dry her hands. There were tears in her eyes. She dabbed at them with the towel. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.” I walked to the backdoor and stared out the screen at my son, who was laughing and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, totally oblivious to the fact that his mommy was dead. I wanted to call out to him, to scoop him up in my arms and give him a big bear hug, but I hesitated because I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to say to him. How do you tell a four-year-old that his mommy is dead?
“We haven’t said anything to Cody about Bethany,” Emily said, standing behind me with her hand on my shoulder. “I figured you would want to do that.”
“Yeah, I should be the one to tell him,” I said, though in my heart I wished he already knew. Emily would have told him if I had asked her to, but I would never do that to him or her. I was his daddy. Giving him news like this was my responsibility, not his Aunt Emily’s. I was the one who should comfort him and tell him everything was going to be all right. I was the one who should hug him as he cried and explain how his mommy was now in Heaven but still loved him very much. I had to be the one. I’d just have to figure out the best way to do it without breaking down in front of him.
I thought back to when my folks died three months apart from one another when I was twelve-years-old. My mom died first of cervical cancer, a slow, agonizing death that at least I had time to prepare for. My dad died suddenly of a heart attack while he was at work. His boss at the construction company was the one to tell me. He called the house and said, “Ben, bad news. Your dad is dead.” It wasn’t very tactful, but it did the trick, like ripping a Band-Aid quickly off a wound. It hurt like a son of a bitch for a little while, then gradually the pain went away.
“So, what are your plans?” Emily asked as she pulled a glass down from the cupboard and filled it with cold water from the tap. She leaned against the sink and watched me as she took a sip.
“I’m not sure at this point,” I said, shrugging as I sat down at the kitchen table. “Just spend time with my son and get through this, I guess.”
“That’s a good plan,” she said with a sad smile. Emily smiled a lot, even when things were shitty. She always seemed to see the sunny side of life, not that there was a sunny side in this situation. She glanced out the window at the boys climbing on the jungle gym and sniffed back a tear. “I know Cody misses you, Ben. He’ll be glad to have his daddy home for good.”
“Yeah, I know.” I took a deep breath and thought about asking her if she knew who her sister was fucking while I was away, but decided to get the formalities out of the way first. I said, “So, I went by the funeral home. The arrangements are all made. Just a small ceremony with the immediate family on Thursday at 3, then burial in the plot next to your folks, just like you suggested.”
“She would like that,” she said, sitting down at the table across from me. She held the glass between her hands and rolled it around the wooden table top that was scuffed and scratched and stained with permanent marker and God only knows what else. She had tears in her eyes, but mustered a sad smile for my benefit. “Bethany never was one for big crowds.”
I smiled back. “Yeah. She hated crowds. You couldn’t get her near a mall at Christmas time.”
She chuckled. “That’s true. If she couldn’t buy it online, she said she didn’t need it.” Our heads bobbed in unison. Emily stared into her water glass and I stared at her.
“Em, I have to ask, do you have any idea why she was out so late in a rainstorm?” I held out my hands as if the answer might appear between them. “I mean, she must have said something when she dropped Cody off here, right?”
Her shoulders went up and down. Her hands tightened around the glass. “No, not really.”
I braced my elbows on the table and leaned in. I laced my fingers together and calmly said, “So, take me through it then.”
She glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean take me through the last time you saw her,” I said, trying to keep the tension out of my voice because I knew it would only make things worse. Emily wasn’t the enemy here. She had lost her only sister. She was upset and mourning, probably more than I was because they were so much closer than Bethany and me, sad to say. Emily wasn’t the bad guy here. If anything, that role was being played by me.
I said, “Sunday, what time did she drop Cody off here? Did she call first? Was it already arranged?”
She wiped a knuckle under her nose and sniffed back the tears. She glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. “She called around four, I guess. She asked if Cody could spend the night. I said sure, bring him on. He’s always welcome here.”
“Why did she want Cody to spend the night?”
She blinked at me as if she didn’t understand the question. “What?”
“Why did she want Cody to spend the night?”
“Oh, um, she said she was meeting some friends and would be out late. Her baby sitter had canceled last minute, so she called me.”
“Friends or friend?” I asked.
Emily frowned at me again. “What?”
“Did she say she was meeting friends, plural? Or meeting a friend, singular?”
“Jesus, Ben, I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head at me. Her voice took on an irritated edge. “What difference does that make?”
I took a deep breath to suck down the frustration and anger that were bubbling in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. I leaned in and spread out my hands. “It makes a big difference, Em. I’m trying to figure out why my wife was driving in a rainstorm on a Sunday night rather than being home safe and sound with our son where she belonged. There’s a reason why she was out there. I want to know what that reason is.”
“You make it sound like she was doing something wrong,” she said defensively, as if I was accusing Bethany of a crime. Her untrimmed eyebrows knitted at the center above her brown eyes. “What are you insinuating, Ben? What do you think she was doing?”
“I’m not insinuating anything, Em” I said calmly, leaning back in a less defensive posture to try to put her at ease, even though I knew my words were going to have the opposite effect. “I’m telling you straight up, Bethany was seeing another man.
”
“No, you’re wrong,” she said, her head shaking.
“I’m not wrong, Em. I have proof.”
“I don’t believe it,” she huffed. “Bethany would not do that.”
“Yet, she did.”
She picked up the glass and brought it to her mouth, but didn’t take a drink because the glass was shaking in her hand. She pushed herself out of the chair and went to set the glass in the sink. She picked up the potato peeler and shook it at me with her teeth gritted.
“This is your fault, Ben Ryder. All of it.”
“My fault? How do you figure that?”
“You drove her away.”
“I drove her away?”
“Yes, you drove her away. You pushed her away. You lost my sister a long time ago. And because of you, she’s dead.”
She turned toward the sink and picked up another potato and went at it with the peeler, hacking into it with the gusto of a lumberjack chopping wood, sending little shards of potato and peel flying into the sink. I sat quietly at the table and let her stew for a minute. She was right. I had driven Bethany away. I would cop to that. But I needed to know who I had driven her to. She was sleeping with another man. She was pregnant with his child. I had to know the truth, for my own peace of mind.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know how much you loved your sister.”
She stopped hacking at the potato and looked out the window over the sink into the backyard. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not my place and Bethany’s death wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “She was your sister and you’re protective of her. And I know I wasn’t the best husband. Trust me, Bethany reminded me of that fact all the time.”
“Every marriage is different,” Emily said, her palms braced on the sink, still facing the window. “Even me and Hank have our troubles sometimes. But we get through them with the good Lord’s help.”
“I wish Bethany and I had what you and Hank have,” I said honestly. “But we didn’t. And that was probably my fault. I should have been a better husband and father. It’s just that, well, with my job… Regardless of that, I should have done more to make things work. Period. Hopefully I can still become a good dad, like Hank is to your kids. Bethany was always saying that I should be more like Hank. And she was right…”
“Hank has his faults,” she said quietly, staring at the potato clutched in her left hand. “We all do.”
“That’s true.”
She turned to face me again. She wrapped her arms around herself and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know who she was seeing, Ben. Honestly, if I did, I would tell you.”
“So, you knew she was seeing someone?”
“I had a feeling. I didn’t agree with what she was doing. God doesn’t condone adultery. It wasn’t right. I encouraged her to wait and try to work things out when you got home, but she didn’t listen. It’s like she just… changed into someone I didn’t even know anymore. She started dressing differently and going to the gym and wearing makeup and dropping Cody off here all the time. I’m not stupid. I knew what was going on. You’d have to be a fool to miss it.”
“Do you know how long she’d been seeing him?”
She shrugged. “Couple of months, I guess. She started asking me to look after Cody more after you left this last time. He was here most weekends, from Friday night to Sunday.”
I felt the muscles in my jaws tense. They got so tight my teeth started to hurt. I put my hands under the table and balled them into fists in my lap so Emily couldn’t see my hands shaking.
“So, she never mentioned a name or said where they met?”
“No.”
“Never said where she was going? Or maybe the names of friends she was going to meet?”
“No, nothing. And trust me, Ben, it wasn’t because I didn’t ask. I asked a lot of questions, but she just put me off. Said she was hanging out with friends, but nobody in particular. Honestly, other than me, I didn’t know she had other friends. Did you?”
“No, I didn’t.” I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Did you know she was pregnant?”
Emily’s eyes grew as round as saucers. She covered her cheeks with her hands and gave me a horrified look. “Oh, my god, no…”
I gave her a slow nod. “Six weeks, according to the medical examiner. I’ve been gone for eight.”
“Oh lord, Ben, I had no idea. I swear to God, I didn’t.”
I studied her face for a moment. She was telling me the truth. Emily wasn’t a liar. At least not one who could lie so convincingly. I pushed myself out of the chair and rubbed my eyes for a moment. I moved to the screen door and pushed it open.
“If you can think of anything else, please let me know,” I said. “Right now, I’m going to get my son and go home.”
Lolita
I didn’t tell my mother about the little mutual masturbation session I had with the hunky widower next door. Actually, I can only speculate that he was up there beating his meat while he was watching me diddle myself in the pool. I mean, he is a SEAL, after all, and supposedly SEALs are the horniest guys in the military according to the internet, though I had no idea how they would even gauge such things. It must be all that time they spend underwater. Wow… I bet SEALs could eat pussy without ever coming up for air. Anyway. If he wasn’t up there jacking off his big fat Navy cock he was not the man I expected him to be.
* * *
I was doing my best to act interested as my mother droned on about her shitty day at work, but dirty thoughts kept bouncing around my brain, hampering my ability to focus on anything other than my afternoon of fun in the sun.
Me, naked on the raft with my fingers in my cunt, the hot SEAL peering through the curtain with his cock in his hand, his eyes watching my fingers slide in and out, in and out…
Sigh...
I could still feel the hot juices pooling between my legs sitting there at the table. Thank God I’d put on a pair of fresh panties and cutoff jeans. If I had still been wearing my stinky bikini bottoms mom’s stinky-pussy detector would have been going off like a fire alarm. I squeezed my thighs together and pushed out a heavy sigh.
“So, how was your day,” mom asked as she stuck her fork into the last bite of microwave lasagna on her plate and held it to her mouth. “Did you see anything happening at the neighbor’s house?”
“I never saw him,” I said with a disinterested shrug, like I hadn’t given my neighbor or his dead wife another thought. It was the truth, though. I had felt his presence, but I had never seen him. “His Range Rover was gone when I went out to the pool after lunch. I guess he came back right before you got home because his car was there, but I didn’t see him go inside.”
“I wonder if he has his little boy with him,” mom asked, chewing slowly. She propped her chin on her hand and got a dreamy, faraway look in her eye. “I’m trying to remember what he looks like. Ben Ryder… what a great name… It’s so weird, they’ve lived there for what, three or four years, but I don’t think I’ve ever even met him in person. Have you?”
I chewed the lasagna, which tasted like rubber with tomato sauce soaked into it, and shook my head. “Last time I saw him was like two years ago when I was out front washing the car.”
She arched her eyebrows. “He’s hot, right?”
I giggled. “Yes, mom, he’s hot. Big guy, lots of muscles, dark hair, good looking, nice smile.”
“Hmm, sounds like someone I should get to know.”
“Jesus, mom, his wife just died,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “Give him time to adjust, why don’t you.”
“I don’t mean that I’m going to hop the fence and fuck his brains out tonight,” she said playfully. “I’ll give him a little time to mourn. Trust me, honey, nothing makes a man happier than a nice piece of sympathy pussy.”
“Jesus, you’re terrible,” I said, trying not to grin. She was terrible, but she was also hil
arious and outrageous and probably correct. I was sure that Mr. SEAL would feel better after a nice fuck and suck, but it was a little too soon to even think about that. I mean, giving him a show at the pool was one thing, but actually hitting on the guy even before his wife’s body is cold, well, that just seems wrong in so many ways. Besides, mom had plenty of boyfriends and I just had Kevin. If anyone should make the poor widower next door feel better it should be me.
“Why don’t we take him the rest of this lasagna,” she said, tapping her fork to the aluminum tray that held what was left of the rubbery pasta. I winced at it. I couldn’t believe we were even eating this crap. The truth was, if it wasn’t for our microwave and the Domino’s pizza down the road, we would have probably starved.
“This crap is gross, mom. I wouldn’t’ feed it to my dog if I had one.”
“It’s not that bad,” she scolded. “Besides, I bet he hasn’t had a good meal in forever.”
“I’m pretty sure this won’t be much better than the crap he eats in the military. In fact, it’s probably worse. This is like the crap they feed those Al Qaida terrorists they have in custody at Guantanamo Bay.”
“Fine, then let’s bake him a cake or make him some cookies.” She leaned back with a big smile on her face and licked the sauce from her lips. She rubbed her hands together and looked around the kitchen like she’d never seen it before. “Let’s see, do we have any cookie making stuff?”
“Mom, leave the poor guy alone,” I said. “At least for a few days.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, pouting. “I wonder when the funeral will be.”
“The funeral home probably has it online,” I said with a shrug. I picked up my phone and launched the Google app, then tapped in “Bethany Ryder funeral Arlington”. Good old Google didn’t disappoint. I held up my phone and read the notice on the funeral home website to mom.
“Funeral services for Bethany Ryder, age 32, will be held Thursday at 3 P.M. at the Arlington Chapel Funeral Home. Mrs. Ryder died over the weekend in a tragic automobile accident. She is survived by her husband, Captain Benjamin Ryder (Navy, retired), age 33, and their son, Cody, age 4. After a private service for family members only, Mrs. Ryder will be laid to rest next to her parents in Arlington Memorial Gardens.” I blinked at the phone. Suddenly, things weren’t so funny anymore.
