Pressure

by Jeff Strand

  But she did. She stood by me during the police investigation. She consoled me when I woke up screaming in the middle of the night, babied me when I woke up crying. Melanie didn’t judge me for what I’d been forced to do, not even when Andrea’s parents (who hadn’t seen their daughter in years) tried to slap a wrongful death lawsuit against me.

  The little girl’s father was a lawyer. He got me out of that mess. Her mother made me more chocolate chip cookies than one human being could ever eat.

  Darren’s van was found behind a grocery store. Darren himself was never found. I saw him quite often, even though I knew he wasn’t really there.

  After sitting out the spring semester, I went back to Shadle University in the fall, at Melanie’s insistence. We got an apartment together, which her parents didn’t think was particularly cool but which they allowed to happen, even giving us a nice housewarming basket of fruit.

  Melanie maintained a straight-A average all through college, even during the semester where she helped sustain my mental health. I explained that this proved that she didn’t really need to spend those countless hours studying. She agreed, and continued to spend those countless hours studying.

  We had lots of really great sex.

  I asked her to marry me three times before she graduated. She turned me down. I asked her to marry me again the day she graduated. She told me to ask her again tomorrow. I did, and she accepted.

  My parents offered to pay for the wedding, which weirded me out so severely that I was unable to share the news with Melanie for a week. Her parents took this as a personal insult. I joked that we should get married twice to keep everybody happy. Her parents didn’t think this was very funny. It was later easily resolved by having my parents pay for the honeymoon, which I think was standard operating procedure anyway.

  We honeymooned in Jamaica. We saw so little of Jamaica that we might as well have honeymooned in Peoria.

  Melanie went on to get her master’s degree, but not before getting pregnant. It was not a planned pregnancy, and I quickly discovered that my dear sweet wife was not quite so dear and sweet while with child. She used a great deal of language that she would have to stop using once the baby was born. She made more than one disturbing comment about my testicles. Then she started putting peanut butter on her Froot Loops, which was really uncalled for.

  And when Tracy Anne Fletcher was born, she wept and said that she was the most precious little baby in the world.

  However, now she wasn’t quite so little. “Done with the donkey ride?” I asked.

  “Noooooooooo!”

  “You’re going to snap Daddy’s spinal column.”

  She giggled.

  “Watch out!” I cried. “There’s a low hanging branch on that tree up there! I hope no little girls get caught on it and hang there forever and ever!”

  “Noooooooooo!”

  “Oh my goodness! We’re getting closer! What are we going to do? They’re going to have to name it the Tracy Anne Tree because there’ll always be a Tracy Anne dangling from it! We’re almost there!”

  I let out a theatrical scream and ducked down so that Tracy safely cleared the branch. “Hooray!” she shouted.

  “That was a close one. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d been stuck on that tree. I’d have to pay birds to fly up there and feed you. And you know what birds eat, right?”

  “Worms!”

  “Do you want to eat some worms to practice?”

  “Noooooooooo!”

  “They’re good. Mommy and I eat them for breakfast sometimes. I like them with ranch dressing.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “I’m not weird,” I insisted.

  “You’re weird.”

  “How weird?”

  “All the weird!”

  “That’s pretty weird! Is Mommy weird?”

  “No.”

  “Just Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about Kitty? Kitty’s weird.” Kitty was her favorite stuffed animal and not, technically, a feline.

  “She is not!”

  “She’s the weirdest of them all! She’s so weird that she gives weird lessons to people who want to be weird. If you keep sleeping with her she’ll make you weird, too.”

  “No she won’t!”

  “No she won’t. You know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re already weird!” I smiled at the lady walking her dog. “Wanna buy a weird kid?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got two of my own.”

  “Half price, today only.”

  “Daddy!”

  “We accept coupons from all of our competitors.”

  Tracy began to drum her hands on top of my head.

  “Remember what I said about giving Daddy a concussion, sweetie.” I let her down and took her by the hand. “I think it’s time to head home.”

  “Noooooooooo!”

  “Yeeeeeessss!”

  “Is Mommy there?”

  “She will be when we get back.”

  “Hooray!”

  “Hooray!”

  Tracy was parked on the living room floor, sitting far too close to the television screen. Melanie pushed up her glasses and gave me a kiss.

  “Have fun at the park?” she asked.

  “Of course. Have fun at the gallery?”

  “Of course.” Though she was overwhelmingly busy going for her PhD, she also volunteered two hours a week at the local art gallery. She enjoyed doing it, and it gave Tracy and I some father/daughter alone time. “Tracy, you’re too close to the TV.”

  “Okay,” said Tracy, making no move to rectify the situation.

  “Scoot back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now.”

  Tracy scooted back a distance that might be visible with an electron microscope.

  “You heard your mother,” I said.

  Tracy scooted back a foot.

  “I’m sure she’ll look just as good in glasses as you do,” I told Melanie, giving her another kiss. She returned the kiss, but then frowned. “There was a message for you.”

  From the way she said it, I knew exactly who the message was from. “Aw, crap. Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Damn it.”

  I loved my wife. I loved my daughter. I hated my job. I had not ended up in architecture, but rather the corporate world, doing meaningless financial garbage that paid well but chipped away at my soul one meeting at a time. When it had been eight to five, Monday through Friday, I could live with it, but now every other weekend I was being called in to work mandatory overtime.

  “Can’t you just say no?”

  “Yeah, and then not hear the end of it all week. Better to just put in the few hours and be done with it. They say it’s temporary.”

  “They’ve said it’s temporary—”

  “—for the past six months, I know. What can I say? I have a lousy job.” I kissed her. “If I were too blessed, I’d float up into the heavens and it would be really inconvenient to try and get me down.”

  “We wouldn’t want that.”

  “Nope.”

  Tracy giggled hysterically at the television show she was watching. It was a poorly animated, inane program about a family of dishes that went on magical adventures.

  “Does she have to watch that?” I asked.

  “It’s her favorite.”

  “It’s going to make her dumb.”

  “It’s no worse than what we watched when we were kids.”

  “No, actually, it’s much worse. We had cool shows when we were kids. This show is going to make her dumb, I swear.” I noticed that Tracy had moved closer to the television again. “Tracy! Scoot back!”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to shut it off?”

  Tracy scooted back about two inches.

  “On the couch.”

  “I can’t see it on the couch!”

  “Yes, you can. Move back there or I’ll turn it off.�
��

  Tracy stuck out her lower lip in a pout, but slid back along the carpet and leaned against the couch.

  “On the couch.”

  “Mommy didn’t say I had to!”

  “Mommy’s saying it now,” Melanie told her.

  Tracy looked at us with disdain, and then got up on the couch.

  “We’re such mean parents,” Melanie said.

  “The meanest. Tonight you should wear your witch hat.”

  “I think I will.”

  We kissed again, and then joined our daughter on the couch to share in the joy of unspeakably crappy television programs.

  It was a long week at work, as all of them tended to be. Friday was particularly bad because I kept flashing back to a very special, very surprising move Melanie had made in the bedroom the night before. I wanted her to do it again. It sounded much more fun than working on the spreadsheet I had up on my computer screen.

  Being horny at work really sucked.

  Mr. Grove, my boss, walked up to my cubicle. He was short, bald, and quite overweight, though he carried it well. He drummed his fingers along the side of my wall.

  “Gonna need you to put in a few hours tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve got a video conference with Lavin at two.”

  “I can’t do it. Taking care of my daughter.”

  “Can’t your wife do that?”

  I shook my head. “She volunteers at the art gallery.”

  “If it’s volunteer work, she can get out of it, right?”

  “I can’t do Saturdays. I can come in on Sunday if you need me.”

  “How long is your wife there?”

  “One to three.”

  “So you can work until then, right? And then put in a couple of hours after three?”

  “Yeah.”

  Mr. Grove chuckled. “Good thing you’re salaried or you’d blow the hell out of our department’s budget. Nah, I’m just kidding, Alex. I appreciate all you do for us.”

  “Thanks.”

  “See you at seven.”

  “Yeah.”

  I went back to the fun-filled spreadsheet.

  Melanie was not feeling up to doing the special move again that night, but we engaged in some traditional activities that were more than satisfying. I set the alarm for six, grumbling loudly about how unfair it was to lose a wonderful day of sleeping in.

  “You don’t get to sleep in anyway,” Melanie said. “Tracy wakes us up with her cartoons.”

  “Yeah, but someday she’ll be too old for cartoons and we’ll miss it,” I said. “On the other hand, my job will go on forever. A long, dark, empty forever.”

  “So when are you going to look for a new one?”

  “I dunno. When Tracy’s in college, I guess.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I just don’t want to quit this job and find myself in something worse. At least the people I work with are tolerable. I could end up with one of those psycho bosses who throw furniture and breathe fire.”

  “Alex, you’re not happy.”

  “I’m very happy.”

  “But you’re not happy at work.”

  “It makes coming home all that much sweeter.”

  Melanie snuggled more closely against me. “Yeah, well, it would be sweeter to be woken up by cartoons tomorrow instead of the alarm.”

  “I’ll just tell them I’m not doing any more overtime. I’ll march right into Mr. Grove’s office and say, ‘Hey, you son of a bitch, you ask me to do any more overtime and I’ll kick your ass from here to Scandinavia!’”

  “Call me before you do it. I’ll want to see that.”

  “Will do.”

  We kissed and went to sleep.

  It really, really sucked when the alarm went off.

  “Tracy Anne!” I shouted, as the bully kid ran off crying. She’d really gotten him good with that handful of sand. I was pretty sure he’d swallowed at least a few ounces. But, again, though he deserved it, I couldn’t be responsible for raising a sand-flinger.

  “You need to be nice to people,” I told her, lifting her out of the sandbox.

  “He was mean.”

  “Yes, he was. But if you’re nice to people like that it drives them crazy.”

  “I want to swing.”

  “Then swing you shall.”

  I carried her over and gently placed her on one of the swings. “Do you want a great big push or a tiny little push?”

  “I can do it myself.”

  “You don’t want Daddy to help?”

  “Nope. See?” She began to pump her legs. Very little happened. “Start me.”

  I gave her a push. She quickly got into the rhythm and began swinging herself. “See? I can do it!”

  “Yep, you sure can!” Well, that was disappointing. I walked to one of the benches to watch the show. Only four years old (next week) and she no longer required my swinging assistance. Pretty soon she’d only need me for cosigning loans. Damn.

  I watched her swing. She looked a lot like Melanie. The same blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and an almost identical smile. Not as much of a klutz, though, which made Melanie happy.

  Something struck me in the back of the head.

  I cursed and then automatically apologized for cursing. There was definitely going to be a lump there. I looked around and saw that I’d been hit with a baseball. A couple of kids, probably fifth or sixth graders, hurried over to collect it.

  “Be more careful next time,” I told them.

  “Screw you.”

  I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Screw you, old man.”

  Okay, I did not need elementary school kids saying “screw you” to me, and I most certainly didn’t need to be called an old man at twenty-six years of age. “Excuse me, but you hit me with your baseball. You could really hurt somebody. There are little kids playing around here, so you need to be more careful.”

  “Gimme the ball back, bitch.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t going to let this mouthy little punk talk to me like that. “Where are your parents?”

  “Smoking crack with yours.”

  The kids laughed and high-fived each other for such a deliciously clever retort. I wanted to hit them in the back of the head with the baseball, but somehow I didn’t think that would be mature behavior.

  “You know what, get out of here,” I told them.

  “I said, give the ball back, bitch.”

  “It’s mine now.”

  “Give it!”

  “I’ll tell you what. Get your parents to come ask me for it. We’ll have a little chat.”

  The kid gave me the finger.

  “Get out of here before I kick your butt.”

  “Ooooh, we should call the cops! He threatened us!”

  “Here,” I said, tossing the ball as far as I could manage. “Go get your ball, you little creeps.”

  “You throw like a bitch.”

  I glanced around to see if anybody else was hearing this. My God, if Tracy Anne ever started to behave like this, I was going to blister her little—

  She was no longer on the swing set.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Tracy Anne!” I shouted. “Come back here, honey!”

  It was okay. She had a short attention span and she’d gotten bored with the swings and wandered off, that was all. She was fine.

  “Tracy Anne!”

  I turned back to the kids. “Did you see where my daughter went? She was on the swings. She had a pink dress.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Come on, this is important, did you see where she went?”

  The kid gave me the finger again. I hurried across the park, calling out for my daughter. She couldn’t have gotten far. I’d only been distracted for a minute.

  Sometimes a minute is all it takes…

  No! I wasn’t going to be one of those parents who had their children snatched away from right under their noses. She’d just wandered off, that’s all.

  I frantic
ally ran around the park. No sign of her. “Tracy Anne!”

  Oh, Christ. Where was she?

  Five minutes later, I pulled out my cell phone. She could be in some stranger’s car, miles away by now. How could I let those kids keep my attention away from her for so long? How could I ever tell Melanie what I’d—?

  “Sir?”

  A woman, the same woman who I saw walking her dog through the park on a regular basis, waved at me. She was holding Tracy by the hand.

  “Oh, thank God!” I ran over to them, crouched down next to my daughter, and hugged her tightly. “Don’t ever do that again, sweetheart! You had Daddy scared out of his wits!” I looked up at the woman. “Thank you so much!”

  “She was behind the trees over there,” said the woman, pointing.

  “I owe you a million. I’ll walk your dog anytime you want. Or I’ll clean up after it when you walk it. Anything.”

  “I’ll have a pooper-scooper specially made for you,” the woman said. She ruffled Tracy’s hair. “You stay by your daddy from now on, okay?”

  Tracy nodded. The woman left.

  “Promise me you’ll never do that again,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know you didn’t mean to, but you have to always stay where I can see you. I can’t see you when you’re behind the trees.”

  “The man took me there.”

  The impact of her words was like a kick to the gut. “What man?”

  Tracy sniffled. “The scary man.”

  “Did he hurt you? What did he do to you?” I realized that I was frightening her even more and forced myself to calm down. “Did the man do anything to you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He said happy birthday.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And he gave me a present.”

  And then I realized that my daughter was holding an object with a small bow on it. A very familiar dark red pocketknife.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, we will get him,” Officer Bradley Reitz assured me. “Your daughter’s description should be a big help. She’s a smart kid, that one.”