by C. L. Donley
“Wow.”
“How do I look?”
“Amazing.”
“My feet are killing me already.”
“Bring the sneakers.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Seriously, you’ll need them.”
She gave him a sly look and bent down to pick up her sneakers near the door.”
“Let’s go, Nurse Hamilton. Before I change my mind.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I’m suddenly in the mood for dessert,” he said as they made their way arm in arm to his car.
“At ease, Marine,” she grinned. She may have taken him up on it, but she wanted to go out too much. “What was your rank again?”
“Specialist,” he answered, opening her car door. “Wanna know what yours is?”
“What?” she wondered, grinning.
“PFC.”
“What does that mean?” she smiled. He got in and turned the ignition before shutting his own door.
“Not telling.”
“It’s naughty?”
He nodded.
“May I guess?”
“Sure.”
When they got to the restaurant she was still guessing, and he was smiling non-stop.
“Perfect for Cunnilingus?” was her latest effort, as she walked through the door he had opened for her, donning his suit jacket over her shoulders.
“That’s pretty good, actually.”
The place was fancy but casual. Elegant dining, but picnic style tables and… bowling?
“Now I understand the shoes.”
“You like it?” he asked.
“Table for two?” a hostess asked as they walked to the podium.
“I have a reservation actually.”
The entire night it felt like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. Kenya didn’t seem to notice.
“So far so good, right?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Talking about ourselves.”
He recalled their conversation in bed the other night. Where he said he was falling in love. Where he promised her he was ready to move on with her and only her. She hadn’t believed him. He couldn’t have known then that Lindsey would show up at his front door. Kevin felt a punch to the gut that lasted a long time. He winced.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just think it’s heartburn. Or gas, I’m not quite sure.”
“Heartburn? You haven’t eaten anything yet, have you?”
“It comes and goes. I had a list of foods to avoid, but now it seems like any and everything.”
“Kevin, that’s not good. You should get it checked out.”
“To a hammer everything’s a nail,” he joked.
“You might be the first person I’ve ever met that wasn’t interested in hearing my professional opinion,” she laughed.
Once they were seated, Kenya ordered for the both of them, excitedly. He smiled, but his divided attention wrecked him. He needed to talk about it with his level-headed friend, who would give him a crazy expression and simply shake her head. Likely have some perfect wise piece of advice.
But he couldn’t. How could he?
“If you found out you were pregnant, what would you do?”
She furrowed her brow and put down her drink.
“I don’t follow.”
“Just hypothetically speaking. If you realized you were pregnant.”
“By… you?”
He stared at her, his breath lodged in his throat like hard food. He recovered with a smile that she returned with an even more confused expression. Where was he going with this? He barely knew.
“By Voldemort.”
“I thought we weren’t talking about them anymore?”
“That’s my point. What if you didn’t have that option anymore, because you had to talk about him. He would be in your life now no matter what. What would you do?”
“He called the other day,” she said, her dark eyes the most unguarded he’d ever seen. She looked like a completely different woman. Gorgeous and girly and fun. More than he bargained for.
She sighed. “I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but since we’re breaking the rules,” she began. The first course interrupted the discussion.
“Artichoke three ways?” the waiter said as though a question.
“Thank you,” Kenya replied.
She came back, just like you said. Pregnant. I have to let you down. I have to let you go, he thought.
The simple sentence rolled round and round his mind, but he couldn’t say it. Not yet. He wasn’t ready.
“Anyway, he called and just… was himself. And I felt so, fucking, free. I wasn’t angry anymore, like… and it’s not just because of you and me. I won’t tell you anything he said, because I don’t want to risk fucking triggering you right now…”
“Thanks.”
“But basically… he’s just fighting the wind. I mean, that’s what it looks like to me. Like, supposedly it was me he was fighting, and when I was with him I believed him, that it was me. But now he’s been gone and I know it’s not me. It can’t be, because now I’m gone and he’s still fighting. It’s the wind. It’s everything. And I can’t stop him from doing that. I never could. No one can. He just wants to be the one that bad things happen to. Like, he wants it. And I don’t. I think that’s fuckin’ insane. Do you find me combative?”
“A little.”
She gave him a “yeah right” look.
“I mean… I don’t think sticking up for yourself, or having a low tolerance for bullshit is necessarily combative.”
“Well imagine the combination. Mr. Victim and Ms. Combative. Like what fuckery was that? I’m sorry, what was your question again?”
“If you were pregnant.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Um… well. I’d feel trapped. No fucking question,” she answered between bites. “I think we’d be able to be friends if we didn’t have to live together. And he’s a cool dude. He’d be a fun dad. I don’t know that he’d be a great dad, but it would be a good decade before a kid realized he was a useless douche.” He chuckled at the insult.
“So you’d still divorce?”
“Absolutely.”
“You wouldn’t want the kid to grow up in a two parent household?
“Well yeah, but I guarantee you Cecil would never do that. And I wouldn’t either. Not at this stage, knowing what we know now.”
Kevin shook his head, lowering his glass to the table as he drank.
“That’s crazy to me.”
“Crazy?”
“It’s so selfish to do that.”
She shrugged.
“In a past life I would argue about that with you, but. Now, I’d much rather bask in the relief that that’s not something I will ever, ever, ever have to wrestle with. Ever.”
He sat, stewing. He couldn’t say the same. And he couldn’t be honest with her. Not yet.
“A kid needs his father,” he insisted instead. “I cried myself to sleep at night for years. Wondering what my dad had in his life that was more exciting, more important than us. I’ll never put my child through that.”
“That’s interesting,” she said, stirring with her straw. “I grew up wondering if my dad couldn’t find a single other thing in the world to do than come home, since he seemed to hate us so much.” She took a drink. He was still silent when she was done, so she spoke again. “His decision to leave was as uneventful as his decision to stay.”
He sat, eyeing his plate, his appetite waning.
“Would you remarry?”
“Dude, this is sooo depressing.”
“Sorry,” he replied. “I agree.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No,” he lied. “I’m sorry I broke the rule.”
“I can tell. It took a lot out of you,” she replied, feeling a bit cheated. It was only the first course and their Voldemorts were continuing to steal her shine.
; “Forget it,“ he said. “Tell me everything about you that I don’t already know.”
He kept his eyes on her as she talked. He stored her up. Stored her up for later, for forever, as he slowly realized he couldn’t have her.
They rode back to her house in silence. He pulled into the driveway, car still running.
“I think… I’m just gonna drop you off tonight. I’m feeling tired.”
“You look tired.”
“I am tired,” he rubbed his eyes.
“I wish you would tell me what’s wrong.”
He didn’t deny she was right.
“I will. But not now.”
“Listen. I know we have different beliefs when it comes to family. I can tell you didn’t agree about the whole co-parenting thing.”
He sighed and closed his eyes, the invisible gag invading his mouth. She continued.
“Like I said, we don’t know each other as well as we think we do. There’s still time to bail if you want,” she warned. She played it cool, but they were too far in. He could feel her panic.
“I don’t want,” he replied.
When he thought of what he had to tell her, he thought he’d rather be in combat, wounded, inside enemy lines and waiting for evac, than to have to do this.
“Then you owe me a fuck,” she muttered, chastising him. He chuckled a little.
“I do,” he conceded.
“I straightened my hair for you, bro.”
“I know, and you look… fuckable.”
“God, so do you.”
“Yeah?” he smirked.
She nodded and licked her lips, giving him an alluring stare, but he just gazed at her as though she were behind glass.
“I wish you would just fucking tell me,” she gave a worried reply.
He grabbed her hand and softly kissed.
“I will. Soon. I promise.”
12
Chapter 12
The next week he met Lindsey at her doctor’s appointment.
Wordlessly Kevin waited until her name was called and they entered beyond the lobby into the exam room.
“Let’s see if we can find that heartbeat,” the doctor enthusiastically suggested.
Lindsey lifted her shirt and exposed her slightly distended belly, her skin only beginning to stretch. He felt an unnameable affection, both for the life growing in the dark of her womb and for the owner of the womb herself. The doctor put warm jelly on her stomach and placed a device over it, moving it until the faint rhythm became loud, strong and undeniable. Kevin put a large hand over his mouth, his eyes reddened as he welled up in awe and disbelief.
Finally, he was a dad.
Lindsey couldn’t help but get emotional watching him. Lindsey grabbed his hand and squeezed.
“Everything looks good, we’ll see you in three weeks,” the doctor cheerily said, discarding his gloves as he went on to the next exam room.
Kevin sat in the exam room chair, looking down as Lindsey dressed herself. Suddenly she spoke.
“Kevin… thanks, again. For this.” she said shyly.
“No trouble at all,” he replied.
“I just want you to know I’ve been thinking and… I think I want to come home,” she began, looking down at her blouse buttons. Kevin stayed quiet.
“Of course not now. Take all the time you need,” she seemed to say in response to his non-response. “But let me prove it to you. Let me earn your trust back. I know I can do it. Please.”
A part of Kevin was pissed. The part of him that was coming back, a new part of him that he was growing into because of Kenya. He could hear her voice now in fact.
Come ‘home’? Where’s that at? Didn’t you supposedly ruin this bitch’s life or whatever?
But he couldn’t ignore the fact that this was big.
He and Lindsey had the opportunity to be on the same page. It was quite the 180 from just a week ago.
Perhaps she’d thrown her tantrum, and now was facing reality. Maybe she was maturing. Should he turn down the chance to have his marriage grow back stronger, just because she made a mistake?
Maybe Kenya made him realize he was suffocating his wife with all his expectations. Perhaps he was maturing as well. Was he drawing this second chance into his life because of it?
“Kev?” Lindsey crashed into his thoughts. “Say something please, I’m dying.”
“That’s… a big ask, Lindsey,” he began, level-headed. “You have to promise me that you’re serious about us. I mean… if I agree to this, it’s going to be a long road ahead.”
She nodded, biting the inside of her jaw, fending off tears. It was a gesture that used to gut him. But he couldn’t erase the image of her walking out of their house with another man. It was too recent. He sighed.
“Honestly, I don’t know if we can talk about being a couple again at all, until after the baby is born. Do you think you can handle that?”
Lindsey turned to face him once she was fully dressed. She shifted her weight before she shrugged.
“I don’t have a choice. I want this for us. For all three of us,” she answered, resolute.
“We’ll talk about it,” he said, putting the conversation off for the sake of his melting brain.
She nodded. Lindsey put her hand on his arm and squeezed.
“Thanks for showing up today,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
First apologies and now gratitude. His head was spinning.
“I knew I could depend on you. One day, I’m going to make you happy again. I promise,” she added.
As Kevin walked Lindsey out of the exam room, she turned at the door to rest her head on his shoulder. He took a whiff of her strawberry orchard shampoo as he softly kissed her pillowy blond hair.
* * *
“If you do this to Kenya, you don’t deserve her,” Scott told his brother Kevin, plain and simple.
“I don’t deserve her regardless.”
The sound of a gunshot went off through Kevin’s muffled earphones and he startled.
“Dude, the jumping is back. We can’t put off going to the range so long.”
“Scott, I heard the heartbeat,” Kevin said. “I gotta take care of this kid. What kind of man would I be?”
“Okay. Why can’t you just… co-parent?”
“Out of the question.”
“Kev, we turned out just fine,” Scott sighed, knowing the root of his objection.
“Easy for you to say. You’re doing it right.”
“You don’t think it gets hard? You don’t think I wanna bail sometimes?” he asked rhetorically. “And I love Shelly. She’s the fucking best. Lindsey’s already a carbon copy of her mother. ”
“If you’d heard her talking the other day, it would’ve spun your head like the exorcist.”
“Why, what’d she say?”
“She apologized. She said she regretted what she did and now she knows how it must feel. She said thank you. Like, five times.”
Scott raised a skeptic’s eyebrows, fishing for an explanation but finding none.
“I’m not saying Lindsey’s incapable of changing… I’m just saying it’s highly unlikely.”
“Look at your son,” Kevin argued, “Toby is better adjusted than we ever were. And he’s six.”
“Look, don’t divorce, just do like an open marriage thing,” Scott shrugged.
“You’re talking completely crazy right now.”
“Hear me out,” he began, reloading his weapon. “Just make Lindsey think you love her, that you’d die without her, and she’ll bolt again like she did before. You get Kenya, Lindsey gets… I don’t know, another Marine. Or she can switch branches, have the whole fucking Navy if she wants,” he continued between shots. “She can go to all the balls, be the veteran’s wife, get salutes for no reason. Hell, keep the kid with you full time, hang out with Kenya, and just pretend cry every time she calls.”
“What would be the point of all that?”
“No child
support,” Scott replied as if it were obvious. He pushed the button as his target practice paper came down the line, respectably decorated. It was Kevin’s turn to shoot.
“That sounds like… purgatory. Worse than purgatory.”
“All I’m saying is, you were bitching and moaning about how hard it is to start over, and this sexy hot nurse basically fell into your lap. That can’t mean nothing.”
“She didn’t ‘fall into my lap.’ It was collateral damage.”
“I can’t believe what I’m fucking hearing right now,” Scott shook his head, annoyed as he watched Kevin load his rifle. “She’s the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to you. She beats Lindsey by a mile.”
“Dude, you’ve never even met her.”
“I don’t have to meet her. You had one weekend with her and you fucking came in to work, swinging your dick like a clock pendulum, fucking drawing up new business.”
“Maybe Lindsey had a reason to hate me,” Kevin mused, aiming his weapon. “I was moping around like a fucking twat when I was with her, begging for her to… anything me,” he said. He squeezed the trigger three solid times, the sound ringing.
“Holy shit, this is an AK?”
“Nope,” his brother shook his head grinning.
“Get the fuck outta here,” Kevin examined the mods more closely. “Where’d you get it?”
“Denver. Accutech. They don’t advertise.”
“It’s fucking sexy,” Kevin remarked, taking aim again. “Anyway, when she came over the other night, I was kind of rude to her.”
“And she loved it.”
“No, but… I don’t know. It got her attention. She really looked at me. Like she didn’t know there was a side to me like that. That could be mean. In the past, I would’ve never talked to her like that. I would’ve been too scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Of hurting her feelings, of making her hate me,” he said, littering the floor with shells. “Remember how she would lock herself in bathrooms when we were out drinking?”
Scott shook his head, rolling his eyes.
“But now she’s into it?”
“I think… now she knows she can go too far with me.”
“Or maybe this dude found out she was pregnant by her husband, dropped her like a hot potato and she realizes she’s fucked.”
Kevin sat down, not even bothering to look at his target practice paper. It sometimes put a chill through Scott to see it come down the line full of killshots. When they were younger, it was hella cool. He couldn’t believe it took the Marines as long as it did to recognize his talent. But when Kevin came home this last time, the pride in it was gone. And Scott instinctively knew he’d graduated from paper targets, though they never talked about it.
