“I would recommend a big one, with a big scary growl and long sharp teeth,” said the sheriff.
“Not around the baby,” Sylvia argued. “I'm sure the shelter might have one that will be just right for our family.” It did not go without notice that Sylvia had used the word “family” to describe the state to which they had already arrived.
Sheriff Caywood told them he was going to drive out to Bolling Brook, only five miles from Pevely, and call on Ms. Avery, no matter how late, to ask her some questions. He decided that the visit was long overdue and that he could decipher a lot from her reactions to the picture. He told them, that just as routine police work, he would be sending Detective Harrison out with an evidence kit to search for prints on their doors, windows, and cars. That seemed strange, even a little alarming, to think that someone could have actually been on their property that was involved in all this mess.
“You have Ms. Avery's home address?” Greg asked. “That wasn't on her card.”
“Oh, we have ways,” Sheriff Caywood said half joking. “We have powers at our disposal, he joked, pointing to his iPhone.”
As if on cue, the phone rang, but the person hung up as soon as Sylvia picked up the phone.
“That hardly ever happens,” Greg said. “It must have been a wrong number.”
“The caller ID showed as 'unknown caller',” she said, feeling uneasy. The phone rang again. This time Sylvia answered on the first ring. She heard a raspy voice.
“I told you to stay away. This is your last warning. Stay away or die,” he said, then CLICK, and the dial tone was all Sylvia could hear.
Greg could tell by the fear in Sylvia’s eyes that it must have been their villain. Sylvia’s hands started shaking as she tensed up. He grabbed the phone away from her, but it was, of course, too late. She told him, reluctantly, what the man had said.
“What good is this device if you can't see who's trying to call?” complained Greg, more angry than afraid.
Maybe she was tired, maybe she was beginning to feel the full extent of the mounting danger she faced, or maybe Sylvia just wanted to fall into Greg's arms and cry.
She held him tightly, as the phone rang for a third time, and Greg motioned for her to wait. They waited while the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Finally, after more ringing than they had thought to count, Greg grabbed it, yelling into the receiver, “Who is this?” He heard only the click of the receiver. Was this caller a coward afraid to identify himself—or worse, someone not afraid of them at all—who brazenly dared to warn them that he was there, that he knew where they were staying, and that he badly wanted her dead.
The Hero Horse
After Sheriff Caywood left, the three of them decided that a simple can of tomato soup with some grilled cheese sandwiches was a sufficient supper. It was fast, simple, and filling. Greg helped Pops into bed, his having insisted that he wanted to turn in early—a first for him. One down, one to go, thought Greg as he returned to get little Debbie from the high chair and give her a bath. She showed signs of drowsiness as well. Lately, her schedule had been turned upside-down. Greg had assumed Sylvia was still in the living room poring over papers in the box.
But Sylvia had left to set up Nippy for the night with his correct portion of feed, some hay, and some fresh water. She knew it was probably too soon to tell, but it appeared to her that he was walking with a little more spring in his steps. It could have been wishful thinking, but such thoughts had always proven productive for her in the past. They had begun adding the new medications to his feed, and the injections had been ordered over the Internet and were expected to arrive in the mail soon. Sylvia was spending extra time with him, thinking that he probably missed her the day before when she was gone. Whether horses were able to understand that when you left you were coming back, she did not know. She hoped so.
He lowered his head as she rubbed his flanks and patted him affectionately. He stood still patiently while she rubbed the ointment on his legs. Greg said that he seemed a bit uneasy when he did it while she was away. Not that he gave him any trouble, but his ears twitched nervously, and Greg thought he may have just been upset that his favorite girl wasn't around.
“You're here,” came Greg's voice from the open barn door. “I came down to take care of Nippy, but I see you've already got it covered. I'm sure he'd rather have you take care of him than anyone.”
“That's what I was thinking, too,” she said, closing his stall. “I wanted to let him know I'm still here.”
After a pause, she added, “Maybe now would be a good time to have our little talk. Pops thought you had some things to discuss. I know I do.”
“No matter what,” Greg began. “I am telling you now, I will never change how I feel about you. I will understand though, after we're finished, if you want to reconsider marrying me.”
“Well, that's pretty much what I would say to you, too,” she said seriously.
“Sylvie, even if you told me you had murdered somebody,” he said, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her toward him. “I would be shocked, but I would help you bury the body. That's how much I love you. You just don't love somebody like this, for as long as I have, and just—change.”
“That's the exact same analogy your dad used. Rest assured I haven't killed anyone,” she laughed sadly to hide the tears choked up in her throat. “But, maybe both of you would feel differently if I told you your favorite girl had been a whore, that she danced topless and had sex with the club owner to get the money to go to library school.”
Greg, instead of pushing her away, as she had braced herself to expect, held her tighter and rubbed her back to soothe her. But, she pushed away from him, staring him head-on with eyes intense, though filled with tears.
“You cannot accept that,” she practically shouted. “Don't tell me you can accept it. A good man like you, he would want to get as far away from me as possible.” He reached for her hand, and bringing it to his face, he kissed it.
“I'm not happy about it, but knowing you, I can't imagine that you would have just done such a thing without reason. I'd like you to tell me the reasons, but if you don't want to talk about it, I won't force you. I still love you and want to marry you.”
“How? How could you feel this way, Greg?” she gasped, crying hard. “I don't get it. “
“You said you needed money to go to library school,” he continued, ignoring her protests. “How could that be—with the kind of money your family had?” he asked, confused. “What about his business, and surely there would have been insurance policies, too.”
“My father died in 1995. Between then and 1999, when I graduated from high school, my mother had lost all the money. She wanted to take over everything and run it herself, only she didn't know anything about the meat business and made some very stupid mistakes. My four years of high school at an exclusive private boarding school were all paid for from the beginning of my freshman year. My mother did not need to be bothered with a teenage girl back then because she needed to devote herself to learning the ropes, as she put it—for me.
“So, she took on two brothers as partners—brothers that convinced her to invest heavily, take out loans, and then when the business was forced into bankruptcy, she was left with all the debt and not enough assets to break even. Of course, she didn't know what was happening until it was too late. Her plans had been to expand the business as a chain, perhaps even go international. She thought she was going to become a billionaire.”
“Your mother was a big thinker, all right,” added Greg. “Some people talked about her as if she were the brains behind your father's business. Apparently, that was wrong—just gossip.”
“I remember just before my high school graduation,” continued Sylvia, “she came out to the school early so we could spend some time together. She explained all of it to me, and she looked terrible, Greg. I never saw my mother look so bedraggled. Her eyes were loose, sagging sockets. Her skin looked almost gray. I felt, even then, that she l
ooked like a dead woman. Little did I know that she wouldn't even make it to the ceremony. I had to make funeral arrangements, and get my personal belongings out of our house before the bank foreclosure. It was a very hard time. The meager insurance policy that was left barely covered the expense of burying her. She had cashed in everything frantically, first trying to keep the business afloat then trying to pay off debts.”
Greg pulled her more tightly toward him, squeezing her body into his. He could feel the softness of her breasts against his hard chest. She moved into the firmness of his body against her thighs, pressing herself into him. This was not the cold response she had expected. Sylvia exhaled finally, relaxing in his embrace, feeling okay for the first time in many years.
“Sylvie, you have done nothing that could possibly change my mind about you,” he said firmly. “It is amazing that you came through all of it so well. You achieved your degree, made a career for yourself, and still stayed a good person with your integrity intact. I love you, if anything, more than ever.”
She shivered with emotions released from deep inside her being. It was all over—the truth she feared so horribly had been exposed and even transposed into a reality that appeared entirely different that the way she had always thought it was.
“Greg, you understand it. You are the only one who understood the way it was. You have made me understand myself and even actually forgive myself, as I never dreamed I could. This has been a burden on my conscience that caused nightmares even till this day. I have struggled with an agonizing guilt for years, and you are the only one who really saw my position in this—the only one.”
They embraced passionately, kissing, as their burning passion took over their flesh. Suddenly, she pushed him back, squarely grabbing his forearms to view him frontally with her words.
“It is your turn now, Greg,” she said softly. “You must tell me your secret, so that I can show you how much I love you, too.”
He moved back a pace or two, seating himself on a nearby bale of hay. It was as if he wanted to get a good view of her as he told her his story. He needed to see her honest reaction.
“I was married to Rita a lot longer than you realize,” he said.
“Yes, Pops told me something about that, but no details or explanations,” she admitted. “I have been confused about it.”
“I married her in 1997, when I was barely twenty years old, Sylvie. She was only eighteen. We were kids, and I was her first experience with a man—altogether. It's so shameful to say it now, but I didn't love her, not then. And, I never loved her the way she deserved—not ever. That place in my heart was for you, Sylvie.”
“Oh, Greg,” Sylvia said, reaching out for him. “I'm so sorry. You stuck by her in the end, though. I'm sure she felt cared for and loved when she was so sick. She got to see and hold her baby and know that she would be raised in love. Surely, that is a blessing for which she was grateful.”
He raised his hand to prevent her approach. More was coming. He needed to tell her more.
“For the first few years, we fought a lot. She would cry; I would leave. It looked like typical newlywed problems to most people, I guess. But, I began drinking—just on weekends so that my job would not be affected, although I'm sure it was somewhat. That was when we started having sex—almost obsessively—when I was drinking heavily. And she got pregnant. She lost that baby early on. It happened three times, and she couldn't take it anymore. Somehow she thought it was my fault because of the drinking, but my dad, the doctor—all of us—tried to explain to her that it didn't work that way. I think she just couldn't understand why all these bad things were happening to her, and she wanted to blame someone or something.
“Those middle years, from 2000 to 2005, our marriage was at a standstill. She no longer went into rages; I no longer drank. We learned to get through day-to-day life and even developed a kind of respect for each other. Eventually, we even liked each other. We played backgammon when I came home from work, laughing over who won or lost the games. We had sex then, but it was mechanical. We tried techniques from books and had a lot of pleasurable good times, but I don't think either one of us felt it was real love. I know I didn't—something was missing. But life was okay, back then. I did not really want children, and she had given up on it, not wanting the pain of losing any more. She was on the pill.
“Then in 2006, something really bad happened. Her younger brother was shot and killed in a hunting accident. He was her parents only other child. They pressured her to try again, so that they could have a grandchild. Years had passed. To her, the pain of the miscarriages faded and seemed less intense than the desire to have a child. We went to doctors, a lot of doctors. They did some little surgical procedure having to do with her uterus not closing properly, and she was fixed. Just like that. All they had to do was undo the little drawstring apparatus when it was time to give birth. Only now, I had the problem.”
Greg took a deep breath to brace for what was to be the most difficult part for him to reveal.
“We tried and tried for two years, and no pregnancy. I had become sterile. No more sperm count whatsoever. The doctors think it may have been due to the heavy bouts of drinking when I was younger. Nobody really knows.”
Sylvia sat next to him on the bale of hay, but did not try to hold him because he motioned to her that he was not finished. She needed to sit down anyway. Her mind was completely confused.
“Where are Rita's parents? I have wondered about that. And if they wanted a grandchild so badly, why are they not in her life now?” Sylvia asked.
“A head-on collision right outside of town,” replied Greg. “They were killed tragically, but fortunately they went together and they died painlessly and instantly as the crash occurred. They didn't even know that Debbie had been conceived, which I still need to explain.”
“I felt guilty, and I felt completely sorry for her. I would have done anything to help her have a child, and I did. We drove to St. Louis one weekend—Pops is the only one who knows about this—and we went to a fertility clinic where Rita received donor sperm. She conceived on the very first try, and I actually was happy about it. That's why I prayed the child would look like her mother. It wasn't only because I'd been a freaky-looking kid. I didn't want her paternity to be questioned. We were all happy until in the middle of the second trimester, Rita started being sick all the time, and weak. Her gynecologist had suspicions it was serious and sent us to an oncologist in St. Louis. You know the rest of the story.”
“That's quite shocking news, all right” said Sylvia, “but, I don't see why I should not love you or marry you.”
“Sylvia, first of all,” Greg pointed out using his fingers. “I was a creep, completely unlike the man you think me to be, and secondly, I cannot have children with you—something I know you always wanted from when you used to play with all those dolls in secret.”
“First of all,” she said counting on her fingers, “did you not hear me say that I may not be able to have children, and secondly, how do you know about my dolls?” She was smiling now, and moving her arms forward to embrace him.
“May not,” he said, “doesn't mean much to me. That means you may, just as easily as you may not. You don't even know anything for sure about your condition. We do know mine. You don't want a marriage where no children are possible.”
“We already have a child, Greg,” she said softly. “If you will permit me to marry you and be her mother.”
No longer could he resist her offer of warmth, affection, and lifelong commitment before God and family. He gestured with open arms, permitting her to fall against him finally, holding her firmly against his chest. Their bodies, including their souls, meshed into an expression of love that felt as though it came from a power greater than themselves. She fell back onto the hay, unzipping her pants, removing them, as well as her shirt and bra. Then, with outstretched beckoning arms, she summoned her lover as he sat on the bale of hay transfixed by the vision before him. He quickly tore off h
is own clothes and moved over her, filling her embrace with all of his sturdy, naked, waiting manhood. They kissed as Greg moved rhythmically against her body, tempting her deepest parts to pull him more into her very being. They moved into every possible angle, rolled in every possible position and tried to feel every possible feeling that their flesh could find in each other.
Sylvia felt as if parts of her had awakened that had never been before. Her skin tingled at his every touch. She longed to see and feel every inch of Greg, never having known sex as a loving act before. She longed to touch him, to taste him, to examine every throbbing bit of him, and to hear him moan into her ears softly, “I love you”.
Her own sounds became much stronger and louder. Nothing could have enabled her to contain the force of the screams that emerged from so deep within her being. He had to hold her firmly or she would have fallen, her body having become a collapsed rag doll at his disposal. And then, with even one more touch of his hand, in places he knew that she had never known were there, he could cause her to stir into a writhing form all over again.
Greg's body was strong from his very physical lifestyle; hers was healthy and smooth from conscientious attention and inheriting good genes. She reveled in the pleasurable sensations he showed her with his gentle hands and lips and tongue. He delighted in exploring her every response to his touch, having dreamed of touching that body for most of the time he had been living.
Indian Foot Lake Love Story Page 12
