Suburban Cyborg

by Gloria Martin

  Bless the gay man’s good heart, but if Jacob wanted to get past him, he would get past him. There was nothing Max could do to stop him. Except maybe shoot him. But a couple of bullets wouldn’t bring Jacob down. He’d been shot before and just kept going, not to mention her ex had about a hundred pounds and five inches on the other man, plus years of deadly training. Oh yes, Jacob would make very short work of Max if provoked. And she never provoked Jacob unnecessarily.

  None of this, however seemed to deter her nanny, whose back was straight with protective determination. He looked like a French Bulldog staring down a Mastiff.

  Her five young children were, of course, over the moon, talking and yelling over each other, none of them caring if anyone was actually listening as they hung off their father in absolute delirium. Not one of them even remembered they had left their friends outside in the yard, their Sunday play-dates were a distant memory. Her three-year-old twins, Dexter and Daniel, were each wrapped around one of Jacob’s legs, and telling their father about some computer game. Sid and Zachary, her middle five- and six-year-old wild children were appropriately clutching the bottom of their father’s shirt, yelling to be heard over each other, and jockeying to oust the twins from their enviable posts around their father’s legs. And Boy, lovingly nicknamed for the fact that Jacob was forever asking “Where’s the boy?” after he was born, stood in the middle of them all, feet spread and arms out, the spitting imagine of Jacob in every possible way, demanding his brothers all shut up and listen.

  She inwardly sighed and wished she had on something a little more … powerful ... than her boyfriend jeans and plain T but she was only now weaning Nella and needed to be comfortable. Gaa. She had envisioned this meeting with Jacob so very differently in her mind for the past six months.

  “It’s okay, Max.” She came up behind her nanny and put her hand on his shoulder. He and Jacob may as well have been alone in the way they simply stared each other down as the boys hollered and raised Hell all around them. Max she understood. He was used to her chaotic pack of children, but Jacob on the other hand was more … focused. Intensely so. And she worried about what that meant. He may have seemed wrapped up in all the goings-on with the boys, but he was doing that eerie thing he did when he closed off everything around him and concentrated on one sole target. Max in this case. Danika swallowed and as casually as she could said, “I can take it from here.”

  Max dragged his eyes from Jacob’s to her. “No, no, no. I can handle him for you. Throw him out?”

  Not likely.

  She plastered on her best plastic smile, the one she used for entertaining, the officer dinner parties and multiple get-togethers, the military functions and semi-state dinners. “Jacob. What are you doing here? How long have you been back?” Well done. She silently congratulated herself at how calm she sounded.

  Jacob looked from where her hand rested on Max’s shoulder. His brown eyes pinned her with a raging heat. Ohhh boy. She lifted her hand from the other man’s body. Jacob was pissed. Way beyond anything she’d even seen before. She could not calmly tell him he had a new baby daughter right now, with some strange man in her house and on the heels of Jacob’s being slapped with a divorce. She had to find out what he knew — before trying to explain. No. This was not the time. She had planned to explain the divorce papers and Daniella separately. Calmly. Maybe in a neutral public place with a lot of people. Definitely not in a scenario like this, when he was about to rain fire and fury down on her home.

  Her heart beat into her throat. What had she been thinking trying to slide all this by him. Jacob was a warrior and when confronted, warriors attacked. He had given her a long leash by his own standards for the past year, and now, by the fact that he was standing in her foyer, barely holding onto his shit, it was clear she was going to have to stand and deliver. Big time. Right now. Come clean about everything.

  “A half hour ago. In time to get your love letter.” He tapped the Manilla envelope she’d sent him over eight months ago on his thigh.

  She looked at the envelope then back to the hard fury in his brown eyes. She should have known his months of silence on the matter was because he didn’t know, not because he had gotten the papers and was used to the idea and agreed. Damn military bureaucracy. Couldn’t they deliver anything on time? Time and distance had lulled her into forgetting exactly who she was dealing with.

  This was Jacob. Navy SEAL. Unyielding. Unapologetic. Protective, territorial, a family man at heart. He told her last year, when he suddenly agreed to the separation, that he would jealously and aggressively protect his family against any threat — including her attempt to break them apart. He was never going to sign those papers, especially after finding out about Daniella.

  “It’s my turn now!” Zachary’s furious shriek rose above all the other yelling.

  Jacob’s eyes did not leave hers. “Boys, go get your shit. We’re going home in T minus ten minutes.”

  “What?” Her eyes widened, “You can’t … do that.” She was about to tell the boys to stay put, but like some kind of magical words were spoken, her wild pack of children were already gone — vanished — into the house, to follow their father’s orders. Even Max looked impressed as he watched the boys round the corner that led to their bedrooms. She blinked dumbly at the empty hallway, then grit her teeth.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jacob growled the words toward Max.

  “I work here.”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention at Jacob’s feral tone. She turned back to the men.

  “Doing what?”

  She stepped in front of Max before he could answer. She needed to take control of this situation immediately. “Jacob, this is Max, Max Avila. Max this is Jacob. Max is our nanny and housekeeper. Jacob is—”

  “Her husband.” Jacob spat the word out so fast they all but landed on the floor between the three of them. Then he held up his ring finger, his big bold solid platinum wedding band glaring at her with sharp accusation across the room. Hers no longer fit after Daniella, so the three-karat princess-cut rock and matching platinum band sat in her jewelry box, along with all the other glittering jewelry Jacob had bought her. As a mother of six, she no longer had time or place to wear them.

  She stared up at Jacob, then purposefully to his hand with the divorce papers.

  He held them up and bent toward her. “Fuck. These.” His eyes glittered down hard at her.

  “Oh,” Max shifted in place behind her. “You never said you had a husband, Miss Danika. Why you never say you have a man.”

  “I’m the boys’ father.” Jacob’s eyes stayed on hers.

  “Yes. She said father but never a husband.” Max stepped past her and held out his hand to Jacob. “I always tell her she needs a man—”

  “Really, Max? That’s what you have to say?”

  “Well ...” Max shrugged and looked back at her, then back at Jacob as if seeing him in a whole different light. “He is your man. A very … big man. You should have said you have such a big man. I would have worried less.”

  Danika closed her eyes and inhaled. “Can you not hear the boys back there?” She put her hands on her hips and nodded toward the growing voices in the boys’ bedrooms. “Go sass them for a bit. Referee whatever is going on.” She widened her eyes and nodded toward Daniella’s room. “Maybe go check on —”

  He frowned at her subtle hint before finally nodding. “Oh yes. I will go see to our little —”

  “Thank you.” She cut him off.

  Max looked back at Jacob. “Good to see you here,” he clapped Jacob’s upper arm and to her horror squeezed the bicep. “The boys have missed their father and she needs a good solid man to—”

  “Max,” she nudged him toward the door, then closed it the second he was through. She inhaled what she hoped was a discrete breath before she turned back to Jacob.

  “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s—”

  “Danika.” Jacob’s jaw was so tightly clamped he
barely opened his mouth to speak. “I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but whatever it is, it stops right now.”

  She held up a hand against the waves of anger that rolled toward her. “Jacob, this is my house and you don’t get to tell me what to do here. Not anymore.”

  “Explain this.” He held up the divorce papers. “What the fuck? I thought we had an agreement.”

  “We did.” She glanced at the envelope then back to him. “Things changed.”

  “Really. Changed?”

  “Yes.” She thought of sleeping Daniella.

  “What the fuck changed? You decided to shack up with some guy? He the reason why you wanted to separate? You’ve been over here bangin’—”

  Danika rammed her finger into Jacob’s chest so hard she was sure she broke it. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

  “Fuck sakes.” He didn’t even acknowledge her finger driven into his chest. “For the past year I went against every instinct I had leaving you alone — not interfering — letting you have your way when all the time you’re over here whoring—”

  She lifted her hand to slap him but he caught her wrist.

  “Whoring?” Heat surged through her body. “I’m a whore? Nine years of marriage. Six kids later and suddenly I’m a whore?” She could not have heard him right. “Let go of me.” She wrenched her hand free. “You are gone — all the time. Months at a time. Out there being the big bad SEAL warrior while I’m left here to raise six kids alone. Birthdays alone. Three AM fevers alone. School trips, doctor’s appointments, hospital emergencies for Zachary’s broken finger — Boy’s broken toe, Dexter’s tonsils, Daniel’s allergies. Alone. When the hell would I even have time to whore? I don’t even have time to masturbate!”

  Jacob’s eyes widened before he frowned. “Six?”

  “— who was here to attend all of your stupid officers’ wives’ club meetings, or to apologize when the boys’ baseballs went through Sargent Jackson’s window? Not you. You’re gone, night after night. Weeks of unreturned phone calls. Having no idea where you are. Alive, dead, out fucking some SEAL groupie to ease the pain of battle meanwhile I’m the whore? Me? With the dildo that wore out ages ago from over use? I can’t even go out to get batteries for the damned thing because it’s the middle of the night and can’t exactly leave my kids alone to run out to the drugstore for—”

  “Danika.” Jacob stepped closer, though she was already in his face, back to digging her fingernail painfully into his chest.

  “Nika.”Jacob grasped her shoulders.

  “You are an ungrateful asshole,” she hissed the last word as she rose to her tiptoes.

  Jacob put his fingers gently over her mouth, and the temptation to bite him was overwhelmingly real. Real.

  “What are you talking about six kids? We have five.”

  “What?” His words barely registered in her boiling hot mind.

  “You said six kids, Danika.”

  “No I didn’t, I —” She fell from her toes, her mind feeling like a bucket of ice water had been thrown on it. “I —” Mentally she forced her mind backward over everything she’d just said. She didn’t say six kids. “I —” Panic chased a wild rush of awful realization through her mind. Damn it. She clamped her mouth shut. Jacob had made her so damned mad she — Dammit. She closed her eyes.

  Jacob’s eyes were steady on hers when she opened them. “Nika,”

  She stepped back, defeated. He knew.

  “You said six, Danika.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “We now have six children.”

  *****

  Auntie growled as Danika and Jacob neared Daniella’s room. “You got a dog?” Jacob offered the back of his hands to Auntie, letting her sniff to get used to him.

  “She’s fine,” Danika patted the protective dog’s head. “She was a rescue.”

  “I’ve had a lot of dogs as a kid. It’s okay, girl.”

  Danika watched them for a moment. He’d told her he loved dogs, but after his last one passed, he didn’t have the heart to get another, and his career also didn’t allow for it. She hadn’t been able to even think about taking on the extra responsibility of a pet with so many young kids. Now she looked at Jacob on his haunches petting and making fast friends of Auntie.

  “Is she’s our sixth?” He stood, but kept his hand on Auntie’s head.

  Danika inhaled. “No. She’s not.” She cracked open Daniella’s door, trying to breathe through the tightness in her throat. “Meet your new daughter.” She stepped aside and looked at Jacob. “I named her Daniella, after your great grandmother.”

  Jacob looked from Danika to the crib. “Daughter?”

  “This is not how I planned to tell you.”

  He looked back to her with complete confusion on his face.

  She looked away. “She looks exactly like the boys at that age, in case you question paternity.”

  “You had another baby. My daughter?” He moved very quietly to the crib.

  “Seven months ago.” She stood on the other side of the crib.

  “H … how?” He stared at her then back to the sleeping Daniella. He went to touch her then looked to Danika first.

  “Go ahead.” Danika breathed. “Just try not to wake her.”

  “But she’s so tiny … So beautiful.” Jacob picked up his new daughter with perfect skill. His big calloused hands, so familiar with weapons and combat, careful.

  Jacob eyes filled with tears. “My God, Nika. She’s so fucking beautiful.”

  A wild rush of tears overflowed from Danika’s eyes.

  “She’s so small.” Jacob tucked her into his body with his palm. “Why’s she so small?”

  “She came early. At seven months.” Danika slumped. “The doctor said it was … stress. My body couldn’t … handle it.” She looked away. She couldn’t risk Jacob’s censure. She had enough of her own. She had fallen apart the last time he left. She had just found out she was four months along when Jacob had come early to the house for his time with the boys. She was still in shock from the news so hadn’t told him. They had used protection for the past year, and for the past few months she hardly saw him. Since the twins’ birth she was determined she was not having any more children. Three boys were busy, but the twins had her losing her mind. She didn’t get any sleep — half the time she couldn’t think — days blended into weeks before she realized she’d been in a freefall downward spiral toward some kind of late postpartum depression. When Jacob announced he was on call for deployment, she snapped. Told him she wanted to separate.

  He completely lost his shit, but after a week of bitter fighting he’d come up to their bedroom, after sleeping in the basement for two weeks. He was leaving on deployment and she couldn’t say no. She never could to Jacob. Clearly seeing they had five — no six children. But that night when she woke up to him crawling over her body, sliding up her nightgown and taking her clit between his lips, she was sighing and moaning his name before she ever thought to say no. It was like it used to be, they were in that special bubble. He was her husband and she wanted him and he was leaving. Deployment could mean not coming back. It only took a few pulls of his strong lips on her body and she was holding his head and writhing beneath his mouth. It wasn’t until the test result that she realized they didn’t use anything. She supposed she just pushed the thought to the back of her mind, at least until the doctor told her.

  After that he left, and they only saw each other in passing. Until today.

  Danika briefly looked up at Jacob who was completely absorbed with his daughter, then her eyes went to the bedroom door. “I know I screwed up. I couldn’t take the pressure. I let everything get to me and … broke down. Not very good for a SEAL’s wife.” The old feelings of shame and guilt sneaked up on her again. Shame for not being strong enough. Guilt for breaking down when her boys needed her to be strong. Embarrassment for the days she just stayed in bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. Heavy and immobile. Pregnant and tired. The boys goi
ng wild in the next room. She’d been too proud to ask for help, too tired to even try to find her cell phone. Boy told her that Zachary had dropped it in the toilet to see what people sounded like when they were under water over the phone. She turned away in shame from the other SEAL wives. She could not turn to her parents. She was an only child with career-driven parents who did not have the time or patience for a daughter who married early and had a passel of kids right after college instead of starting a career. They hadn’t put her through her school for her end up a jobless housewife.

  “Is that why you’re trying to divorce me?” Jacob’s voice was strained and rough.

  She paused at the door. “I tried to tell you, back with the twins, that I was … falling apart.” She closed her eyes against the sense of failure struggling to resurface. Depression was such an ugly beast. She stared out the door again.

  Jacob’s low voice stopped her. “We are not divorcing, Danika. I’ll never agree. Never.” He looked down at Daniella, then back to her, his eyes sharpening to that intense, focused concentration that told her he wasn’t going to move on the subject. “We are going to work this shit out.”

  Hours later, Danika had no choice but to go into the nursery again. She’d looked in on Jacob and Daniella several times throughout the day, and most times, when she looked in, Jacob was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, with Daniella in his lap either playing or sleeping. The boys came and went, wanting their father’s attention but somehow knowing they’d have to wait until he was done with their sister. The last time Danika looked in, it was time to nurse and she couldn’t delay it any longer.

  Jacob stayed on the floor beside the crib while she sat down in the same chair she’d used to nurse all the boys over the years. Daniella easily latched on and nursed under Jacob’s watchful eyes, which stayed on her like he expected her to suddenly flee. Neither of them said anything while their daughter nursed, but she knew Jacob had plenty to say. He was just waiting, doing recon, gathering up all his thoughts and facts before he said anything. Did anything. Occasionally, she’d look up to meet his unwavering eyes, his expression unreadable. Sometimes he’d look out the big floor to ceiling window that overlooked her small backyard, sometimes he’d stare out the door, his eyes tracking something in the house, most likely the boys as they passed by, until finally she looked again to him with his head leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.