by Jamie Knight
Spill I did, all of it flooding out of me like there had been a crack in Hoover Dam. I started with the fact that, like it or not, I was pregnant and Sawyer was the father. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing because I loved him and he had never been anything but kind to me but had also made it clear that he didn't want kids.
“I guess that's his choice,” Sophia said, thinking it over.
“That's what I decided too. Problem is, he's getting one, whether he likes it or not. It doesn't mean I'm going to go after him for child-support or anything. It's not as though we were really in a relationship. Not in the traditional sense.”
“But it must have been the Biblical sense if you are preggers.”
“Well, yeah. It's really complicated.”
“Ah, one of those.”
“Kind of, yeah. I've decided to leave him out of it. It would just hurt him, and he doesn't really deserve that. I was trying to figure out if I should go back to my old job and my old apartment. Mom seems to like having me around but I can't stay here forever. This has pretty much decided for me. I have to do what is best for all of us and that is getting back to my life as it was. As much as is possible anyway. Not matter how much it hurts.”
Sophia reached out and took my hand. I squeezed back, it being some of the only physical human contact I had had since I came back to the city.
“You know I'm here for you, right?”
“Of course I do. Though it's always nice to hear.”
Sophia held me and stroked my back as I cried into her shoulder.
I had no idea what I was going to do but I knew I was happy for her friendship.
Chapter Twenty - Sawyer
One Month Later
Memory is a funny thing. There are things that no matter how you try, you just cannot remember. Even really important things. Especially really important things. Though bad things have a habit of staying with you: the worse the experience, the sharper the memory.
It probably had something to do with our evolution. The modus operandi for our early ancestor was to basically not die and have as many kids as possible to keep the species going. In addition to the whole sex-drive can of bees, our brains were wired to constantly be aware of threats.
The lucid nature of negative memories was to remind us of the things that hurt us, be it a wooly mammoth or an ill kept 18-wheeler in an unmarked construction zone, so we would bloody well know to avoid such dangerous things in the future.
This was the likely cause for many phobias, particularly relating to the dark, heights and particular animals, it not seeming all that irrational if it was actually based on something bad that happened. Once bitten, twice shy, as the saying went.
I couldn't get away from it. Every time I dozed or even let my mind wander a bit, I was back on my vintage Vincent Black Shadow. The motorcycle my dad had brought home from an estate sale and we had spent the summer restoring the year I got my driver's license. The last thing we did together before he died.
Every time I tried to avoid it. Every time it didn't work. The only real mercy was that I didn't actually remember getting hit. I just remembered being blinded by the lights and hearing that damn loud horn.
I remembered flying off my bike and landing underneath it, in a ditch. It was on top of my leg. I remember excruciating pain. Then nothing. Not even darkness, really. Just nothing.
Had I been a believer in the reincarnation, I probably would have thought I had died and come back to life. Instead, I woke up in Jersey. Which was as close to hell as I was ever likely to get.
That was the easiest part to take. I could tell where it ended up. In the rehab center. In court. On the mountain. It was the newest addition to the neurological narrative that made me look at the Mossberg with less than healthy intent.
I lay my head against the smooth wooden wall of the sleeper cabin. The one I had first offered to Anne the day I moved up there. I had been out there working on it. Trying to make it less livable. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I could no longer see the point in keeping cabins that no one was ever going to sleep in.
I had been so reclusive most people I knew before probably didn't know if I was alive or dead and I had even managed to chase Anne away. In my darker moments, I thought about burning it. Just dousing the inside with gasoline, throwing in a match and watching the flames. Except that I had built it really close to the tree line and didn't want to risk causing a forest fire.
I did my best to forget Anne, but it was a memory that, while mostly happy, just wouldn't let go. The part that wasn't happy being enough to burn it into my warning center. Though what exactly it was warning me about, I wasn't sure.
The most obvious lesson I could glean at the time was to not trust people because they just leave in the end. That was something I had already suspected about life in general, and it was difficult not to see Anne’s departure as even more proof of. As though any more proof were needed.
I really wanted her to be happy, and new that there would be advantages to living completely alone again, I just couldn't convince myself that they were better than having her around. I really had come to love her and was more than willing to make an exception to my isolation rule.
I thought I could be happy living alone and it was possible that I could have before Anne came up. I could have gotten over her not coming up at all. But nearly two months of near constant company from someone I loved had spoiled me.
I had told her I didn't know what I would do if something happened to her. I had meant it but left the darker, scarier truth unsaid. I didn't know what I would do without her.
I tried to tell myself that her vomiting in the morning for no apparent reason was just a coincidence. That she was allergic to eggs or just had a jippy tummy or something along those lines. Though my bullshit detector was a bit too well-honed by that point and it kept dinging at me.
The truth was that I knew full well what was happening and why I had acted the way I did. Pretending as though I didn't care if she went to the city without me. Like if she did that then she would ever come back to the mountain, especially knowing that I didn't want kids.
Why had I said what I had on that day?
I was so fucking stupid.
The turmoil I must have put her through.
Maybe I deserved a life of solitude to make up for the one that Anne might now have to live.
Just as my thoughts changed to a distinctly darker hue, drifting back over the main house and the Mossberg resting quietly in the closet, it happened. He awoke. The man inside of me that had been lurking there all along, sometimes showing part of himself, but just waiting to come out in full force.
The Inventor.
The Woodsman.
The Man My Father Raised Me To Be.
And he damn well knocked some sense into me, actually slamming my head into the wooden wall of the cabin, hoping to knock something loose.
I stumbled back and hit the cabin floor with such force that the window shook, making a quite alarming noise.
I looked at the hand I had been using to hold the assaulted portion of my forehead.
No blood.
Good.
I didn't have time to bleed.
There was something that I had to do and I was damn well going to do it, even if it ended me.
Heading out of the cabin, I made my way over to the lab.
It was time to take Asimov for a test-drive.
Chapter Twenty-One - Anne
One Week Later
I was sitting up front with my mom like we always did. It was the first year without my The church was the same as when I was a kid. It didn't even look like it had been repainted in the past fifteen years, which was something I found oddly comforting.
I was sitting up front with my mom like we always did. It was the first year without my dad. He always loved the Easter Sunday service. A fact that was mentioned again and again at his funeral.
He loved it
so much he always found a way to do a reading. I couldn't remember a year when this hadn't been the case and, according to my mom, the tradition had been going on long before I was even born. Even as a kid, he would always ask to do a reading.
I didn't really get it for a long time. I liked Easter as much as anyone, but dad would act as though it was Christmas or something. Though that was the thing.
The Christmas tradition was about birth and beginnings. Easter was about rebirth and second chances.
I only knew a bit. Dribs and drabs that had come out here and there over the years. Though it was enough to make me understand why dad would appreciate second chances.
The church was full of calla lilies. My mom and I had supplied a lot of them. My dad had always loved to see them at the Easter service, which is why he always delivered them on my birthdays, and why we had had them at her funeral service as well.
The service was already in full swing, Mom and I holding hands, comforting each other through what very much felt like a second funeral, both of us, I think, feelings dad's absence even more than we had before.
The back doors opened just then, and a late attendee slipped in, somehow making it to where we were without the ushers quietly and politely asking him to leave. The latecomer sat down right beside me, bold as brass.
I didn't look.
I had other things to think about than my annoyance about the interloper.
Then I smelled it.
A scent I had come to know as well as any other.
Woodsmoke.
As the priest said a prayer for our family to be able to find comfort and peace in the face of tragic death, putting even more gumption into it than he usually did, Sawyer took my hand and I lay my head on his shoulder, doing my best not to cry.
The service ended and the organist played us out. Without a word, mom let go of my hand and gave me an encouraging push towards Sawyer, who was getting ready to go.
I followed him out into the hallway, my head spinning with questions, many of them of the 'what if' variety.
“Explain,” was all I could think to say, when I finally got the chance.
By way of response, he got down on one knee, moving a lot more smoothly than I had ever seen him do before, and took a small black box out the side pocket of his cargo pants.
“A while ago, I said that I didn't know what I would do if anything happened to you,” he said. “I meant that but what I didn't say was that I also don't know what I would do without you. I'm sorry I wasn't able to open up before, but I am here now.”
I tried my best not to cry, but I failed.
He took a deep breath before saying the next part.
“I love you, Anne, and I don't want to live without you a second longer. I want us to make a fresh start over Easter, which is what it is all about, after all,” he opened the box, revealing the most beautiful ring I had ever seen, and asked, “will you marry me?”
“Yes. Of course. But also. How did you know I'd be here?”
“It's the Easter Sunday service, and you're always here. It's a family tradition, right? I was paying attention at your dad's funeral. And I’m so glad you want to marry me because I would love nothing better than to never be apart from you again.”
“Do you really mean it?” I asked, the tears flowing even more now.
“With all my heart.”
“Good, because I'm pregnant.”
It was my turn to take a deep breath, not knowing what he would say.
But he didn’t look very surprised.
“I figured but I can't really express how happy I am. Scared but also happy. I know I said I didn’t want kids. But a big part of that was lack of confidence in my own abilities to be a good dad, and now I just know I can be. I guess it is different when the kids are real, or at least forthcoming. I can't think of anything I want more than to be a parent with you. We'll make it work somehow.”
“Well, you'd better give me that ring then,” I said.
Taking the ring from the box, he slid it onto my finger, gently kissing me on the back of the hand when he was done.
“Now get up here and kiss me.”
He stood up so fast I barely saw it and then he had me in his arms and his lips pressed to mine, just the way I liked it.
“Is Asimov working now?” I asked, finally able to pull myself away from him.
“Yep,” he said, pulling up his pant leg to show me his new leg.
“It's perfect,” I said, in a mild state of awe.
“As close as I could get,” Sawyer said, his modesty the farthest thing from false.
“Come on,” I said, taking his hand, “let's go tell mom the good news.”
“Okay,” Sawyer said, not sounding at all averse to the idea.
“Ten buck says she hugs you and starts calling you 'son',” I joked.
“I would be, I suppose,” he said, always being practical about everything.
I was half right. Mom hugged him, though she didn't quite go so far as claiming him as her own. That wouldn't be until she got to know him better.
It was mom’s idea that we all go out for Sunday brunch. It was something we usually did but I wasn't sure if she would be up for it that year.
“You should come with us, Sawyer,” she said, lightly touching his arm.
“Are you sure,” Sawyer asked, seeming to understand what it would mean.
“Of course! We are going to be family, we should get to know each other.”
I couldn't help but smile, putting my arm around him as far as it would go, as though saying “mine!”
The restaurant was packed on account of it being Easter Sunday. Mom and I both looked to Sawyer to see what he thought, the general consensus between us seeming to be “oh crap.” Sawyer remained his usual, placid self, going over to sit in the waiting area.
We followed suit, not sure what else to do. No sooner did we sit down than the manager of the restaurant came running out from the back.
“Sawyer!”
“Oh, hi, Sara, it’s been a long time,” Sawyer said, as though greeting a friend on the street.
“We have a table for you. Please, come right this way.”
“You called ahead?” I asked as we were led to the table.
“Nope, I didn't know you would talk to me, let alone that we would all be going out for brunch. I just come to this restaurant a lot. Or at least I used to. It was my favorite in the City, back in the day.”
“I'll be back shortly to take your drink orders,” Sara said, putting the menus down on the table.
“Thank you,” Sawyer said gently.
“What the heck was that all about?” mom asked.
“What?” Sawyer asked.
“You know the manager?” I asked, translating.
“I didn't know she was the manager now, but I do know the manger, yes. We've been friends for years. Met at a support group for orphans when I was in high school. It’s part of why I love this restaurant. She started working here as a hostess. Glad to see she’s worked her way up to manager. I’ve been out of touch with her, and most of my other friends and acquaintances, since becoming a mountain hermit.”
“You're an orphan?” I asked.
“Since high school?” mom elaborated.
“Yeah,” Sawyer said shyly.
“What the heck happened?” mom asked, being a lot more blunt than I ever was.
“A sentence of misfortune punctuated by tragedy,” Sawyer said, after thinking about it for a while.
I took his hand, Sawyer gently squeezing back.
I suddenly understood him a bit better.
His quiet, gentle nature.
His drive to help others.
He had seen tragedy and felt nearly all the pain the world could throw at him without actually killing him. I understood that he didn't want anyone to ever have to feel the way he did ever again.
It was an impossible goal of course, but one he seemed headset on striving for. I could feel
a tear rolling down my cheek, my heart swelling with hope and pride.
“What's wrong, sweetheart?” Sawyer asked.
I just grabbed him and kissed him, unable to keep my feelings in anymore. I loved him so fucking much!
“Have we decided?” Sara asked, coming back.
“Chocolate milk, please,” Sawyer said.
“Orange juice,” I said, managing to pry myself way from Sawyer.
“Just water for me, please,” mom said, smiling warmly at the two of us.
I got the feeling that she was feeling a similar way about Sawyer's revelation. She had just chosen a less embarrassing way of expressing it. Story of my life.
I wished I could be as strong as my mom. But I was working on it, and with Sawyer’s help and love, I knew I one day would be.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Sawyer
Sara wouldn't let us pay for anything. I tried to insist, having more than enough money to buy the entire restaurant, but she held firm. Said she still owed me for what I had done for her back when we were kids.
I couldn't remember that I had done that much. Just listened to her when she spoke and held her when she cried. Which happened often in the early days. Most of my tears were already gone.
Not that I was desensitized. I still missed my parents terribly. It was just that you could only go through so much tragedy before it really stopped having much of an effect. Once I had gotten over my own grief, my focus became helping other people with theirs until their wounds could heal as well. It seemed to mean a lot to Sara, though, who had been like a sister to me ever since.
“It was lovely to see you again,” Anne's mom said, hugging me goodbye.
“Likewise,” I said, returning her embrace.
“Bye, Mom,” Anne said, getting her own hug.
Going our separate ways, Anne and I went to my car, Anne having come with her mom. I knew where the restaurant was, of course, and was able to meet them there.
“Where to?” I asked, doing up my seatbelt.
“My place,” she said, “I wanna fuck like rabbits.”
Her apartment was only about twenty minutes away, which was good because I had a raging boner by the time we got there. I could hardly wait to be with her again and planned to give her a thorough going over in every one of her sweet little holes.
