Saving Katie Baker

by H. Mattern

  He didn’t want to wake the child that was still sound asleep on the bed so he decided to throw together a little pallet of blankets in the corner of the room for her to lay on while he checked out Katie’s leg. He didn’t want to take the chance that Katie’s stirring would wake the girl and cause her to panic.

  In that moment his big golden retriever, Montag, came bounding into the room.

  “So now you decide to show up? Where were you hiding? I thought the tornado had whisked you away. We’ve got to be quiet boy. They’ve had a rough day. Hmm, I wonder if you’re the reason she seems so irritated by us? If you had stayed with me yesterday, instead of running over to her house she’d probably like us a little more. Look at the trouble we’re in now.” He told the dog to go lay down and it whimpered, with it’s ears back, going right to a corner spot on the floor, as if knowing he was in some sort of trouble. Blake went searching for scissors.

  “The best way for me to have a look at that wound is to cut open the pant leg. It’s that or trying to take the pants off, and she surely wouldn’t be happy about that,” he said to the dog. Once Blake found the scissors he stood at Katie’s foot contemplating if this was really a good idea or not.

  “I have no other option.” He hoped that when she woke up, she would understand, but he had serious doubts.

  He started at the hem of her pant leg and kept cutting up towards her knee until he found the wound. This was not as easy as he thought it would be. These were some thick jeans and the scissors felt as though they were becoming dull with each snip. After what seemed like forever, he finally succeeded. Her one leg had lots of dried blood on it but he knew from experience that was a good sign. He’d been afraid he’d have to do more stitching, but from what he found, it looked as if she had simply scraped up her shin.

  Blake knew he needed to clean up the area to prevent infection and at least put a bandage on it. She must have fallen on something when she was at the house. Blake put ointment on the scrapes and a bandage. She’s going to be furious in the morning, he thought. He momentarily wished the wound was more significant to better justify his actions, but realized the absurdity of the thought.

  Blake looked at Micah, lying on the pallet of blankets that he had made for her on the floor. Montag had already found her and was sniffing all around, checking out this new creature that lay quietly snoring in his house. Blake watched the dog to ensure the introduction would be gentle; he was glad that the little girl was sleeping soundly. The small nudges from the dog didn’t seem to faze her at all.

  Blake briefly debated climbing into his bed next to Katie; it was a King size after all so he wouldn’t have to even touch her, but he knew this was a bad idea. She would never go for it. The guest bedroom was all the way on the other side of the house, though, so Blake decided that the couch would be his best option. If Katie needed anything she could easily find him just outside her door. Blake grabbed one of the pillows off the master bed and walked back out to the living room couch. He was exhausted; it didn’t take long for his dreams to find him as well.

  Katie fell in and out of sleep all night, but it wasn’t until she rolled over onto her side and instantly felt a sharp knife-piercing pain from her shoulder, that she came fully awake. She shot up in bed to grab at it and was immediately brought back to her present situation. Looking around the room, she realized she wasn’t in her own home but in his, the motorcycle guy’s. All the events from the night before came back to her, she wished that she could just go back to sleep and find it just a dream.

  Katie glanced down at her pants and gasped as she noticed that they had been cut down the center. Her brand new, recently purchased, long sought-after, perfect fitting jeans! How dare he! Does he not realize how hard it is to find jeans that fit perfectly? Does he not have any boundaries? Her anger began to rise until she looked over to find her daughter on the floor, snuggled up next to the huge golden retriever. Then the anger erupted.

  “Are you fucking serious? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Blake could hear Katie screaming profanities in the bedroom. He had a feeling he was about to get a mouthful more from her when she came out to face him.

  Katie stood up, quickly stumbled over to check on Micah who was now happily up and obsessed with petting the dog. She stormed into the living room to find Blake peeking over the back of the couch at her with a small smile on his face, as if innocent.

  “How dare you? Do you even know how much those jeans cost me? And keep your stupid dog away from my daughter, he could hurt her you know.”

  Blake wasn’t going to just sit back and have her continue to berate him with her little tantrum. He decided to stand up for himself and not try to play the nice neighbor anymore. This woman needed to know that there were other people in the world than just her.

  “Look woman, the dog is awesome with kids. If it weren’t for me taking care of that shoulder last night—well, you never know what might have happened. As for the leg: how was I to know that it was only a little scrape? For all I knew, you could have been hiding another big gash like you had on your arm. I could have taken the pants off, by the way, but I didn’t because I’m a gentleman. But do you see that? Nope.” He grabbed his shirt that he had thrown onto the floor last night and fiercely put it on.

  “If I were you, I’d learn how to be a little more thankful because you have another set of eyes watching you. She’s going to learn to be exactly what you model for her, and right now, Katie Baker, you’re modeling a selfish, nagging bitch.”

  Blake realized too late that he had just cursed in front of Micah. His hand went up in front of his mouth and he didn’t know what to say. He stormed out of the house in the hope that some fresh air would do him good and get him away from the female hormones pervading his home.

  Blake went to find his generator; he hadn’t used it since his last track day and, since this was his first time using it on the house, was hoping it would be just as simple to figure out. It ended up taking him a lot longer than he had anticipated, but because he embraced the distance from his houseguests, he didn’t mind.

  Once he had succeeded in getting the generator up and running, he went to turn on a few essentials: the refrigerator, the coffee maker, and the lights. Blake decided to make some coffee. No wonder this morning started out so difficult, he thought to himself. Nobody should ever have to attempt life without coffee. It’s just dangerous. He began to brew the coffee while calming down a bit and wondered how to face Katie again. He vaguely thought he could hear quiet weeping in the room.

  Blake set his coffee cup down and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he said under his breath. He walked back into the room where Katie sat. Upon seeing her, the guilt over his intense reaction started to gnaw at him.

  “Look, I’m sorry. There’s no reason that I should ever talk to you like that. Will you forgive me? I’m not used to having women around.”

  Katie looked up at him, her legs dangling off the side of the bed. “No. You’re right. I know it. I know that I have some issues to work through, I just don’t know how. I can’t seem to get a grasp on this crazy life I’m living. I can’t see an end to this dark tunnel that I’m in. I do appreciate all that you’ve done for us. I’m sorry to be so difficult and complicated. I’ll get out of your hair as quickly as I can, I promise. I’m the one who should be asking for your forgiveness here, not you.”

  Blake sat next to her, put his arm around her good shoulder. “Let’s just put it behind us okay. What’s past is past. How’s your shoulder feeling this morning?”

  “Honestly, I don’t really feel it all that much, except for the occasional bumping against things when I forget that it’s there—like rolling over on it this morning—so you must have done a pretty good job,” she said.

  “Actually, that concerns me a little bit, you should be feeling a lot more pain than that. It’s prett
y red.”

  Her head down low she responded, “I guess you could call the death of my husband a painkiller. Death has its perks, huh.”

  The way she spoke, void of any feeling, cut deep into Blake. He hurt for her. He felt wounded at the thought of his new roommates with such loss in their past and so much loss of hope in their future.

  “Listen, we need to keep changing the bandage, so when you notice it feeling dry, like the ointment has already soaked in, we should put more on. Luckily I have a ton of the stuff so we can keep putting it on and bandaging it. Hopefully in doing so, we can get it to heal quickly. There might be a scar though, I tried my best to prevent it by stitching it up as neatly as possible, but I can’t make any promises.”

  “Thanks Blake, I’m sorry to have interrupted your life like this. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible.”

  It was obvious to Blake she was done fighting and had switched to polite mode. What a riddle she was to him.

  “You and Micah are welcome to stay here as long as you need.” He walked away trying to make sense of this woman.

  Katie wanted to feel. She wanted to feel something—something other than hatred for this man. He did save her and her daughter, regardless of his past murder. She wanted to feel thankfulness for him, or even physical pain from the injury, but all she felt was emptiness at the loss he left her with. Empty yet wounded.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Katie could hear Blake working to clean up the kitchen. The storm had somehow thrown the cabinets off kilter and made a mess of the items that were sitting on the counter.

  Glasses and plates that had been shattered ended up in the garbage pile to be thrown away. It could be worse, though, she told herself as she finished getting ready to join him. It could always be worse.

  As she walked into the kitchen, Katie noticed that each place setting had a paper towel folded in half and topped with a fork, knife, and spoon. Blake had also put out matching jelly jars to use as juice cups, full of what she guessed was grapefruit juice due to its pinkish-red tint. She thought of her daughter and anticipated the look that Micah would give after taking her first gulp of the tart liquid: it brought a smile to Katie’s lips.

  All of the sudden Katie was brought back to the reality of their situation. It was as if she had woken up from her daydreaming. It didn’t seem right to Katie that they were here, walking around his house, dining with him at his table, with her very own place setting. This was not her home. No, her home no longer existed. This wasn’t right. This was all wrong. How could she sit down to a breakfast here, while her life was being turned upside down, literally? How could the smell of eggs and bacon, which usually comforted her, make her stomach churn? She began to feel nauseous, and she hoped this time she’d actually be able to purge.

  Perhaps it would make everything less painful. Perhaps it would relieve the taste of anger and years of painful memories that lingered like a gulp of that sour grapefruit juice in her mouth. Although the anticipation was there, the vomit never actually came up to the surface.

  Katie saw Blake pause when she approached the table and glance up at her with a surprised look on his face.

  “I hope you don’t mind, I took you up on the shirt suggestion, the other started to stick to the wound and pinch.”

  Katie had picked out a shirt from Blake’s closet that seemed simple to her. The letters WERA were written across the fabric over her left breast.

  “Yeah. No problem. You look way better in that motorcycle race shirt than I do.” Blake said with a wink.

  “This is a motorcycle shirt?”

  “Girl, all my shirts have something to do with motorcycles. Or basketball. But yeah, mostly motorcycles.”

  Katie’s stomach churned even more. She had to remind herself to breathe; this was their only option at the moment. They’d be gone as soon as a door opened and never have to be around those death traps again.

  Katie glanced down at her pants, which were still the same cut up jeans from the night before. She had tried to brainstorm for other options that morning but came up nil.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Blake suggested, “If you’d like, you can borrow a pair of my basketball shorts. They’re in the drawer under the bed.”

  Ha, she thought, I don’t want any more of Blake’s clothing touching me than I can help.

  “No, that’s okay. Like I said, I like how these jeans fit,” Katie said as she walked over to the place setting that he had ready and waiting for them.

  Katie admired the craftsmanship of the mahogany table as she sat down. She had always wanted a wooden country table like this one; it was so beautiful, even with its newly added imperfections. “Nice table.”

  Blake looked surprised at the compliment. “Thanks, it was my last project.”

  “You made this?” Katie said as Blake began setting the plates of food on the table.

  “Yup, when I get bored and don’t have a pretty girl to stitch up or a motorcycle to work on, I make stuff. I have a hard time being alone in this quiet house, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, what with all the parties.” He grinned. Katie frowned slightly.

  “So what exactly do you do? You know, as a day job?” Katie asked.

  “I’m a jack of many trades,” he said as he took a little bow, when Katie wasn’t amused he continued, “I’m a contractor. I build houses.”

  Katie still didn’t appear satisfied. Blake tried to explain further: “Look, I’m weird, I know. I’d rather be around people so when I don’t have company, I keep busy with little projects. I guess you could say I make my own ‘honey-do’ lists but without the honey.”

  Katie realized, although not surprised, that Blake and she were complete opposites. She loved alone time and could care less about being around other people. He, on the other hand . . . based on everything she knew about him, the dude liked to party. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy the company of other people; she just preferred the silence. Constantly surrounding oneself with people sounded like pure torture to her.

  Katie remembered the last party she attended with her husband. It was a New Years Eve event at one of his friend’s house. All the women were dressed up in sparkling gowns, like a scene that came straight out of Sex and the City. There she was in her jeans and a t-shirt, feeling and looking very out of place. She attempted to ignore it, to try not to think about the fact that those girls were surely gossiping about her clothing choice. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the negativity out of her mind. If only I could snap my fingers and become a wallflower, she remembered thinking.

  Blake interrupted her thoughts, for which she was grateful, “I hope you like eggs. I wasn’t sure what your diet was like, so I just threw together what I had on hand. It seems like so many people are gluten free or dairy free or whatever free these days, I never know what to expect when having guests over. Usually I get a chance to ask what foods people prefer, but, well, I obviously didn’t get to properly plan for this.” Blake continued to ramble on, apologizing for the food that nobody had even begun to eat yet.

  “We don’t have any allergies,” said Katie and slowly lowered Micah onto the wooden bench next to her. “I guess it’s time for you to learn how to eat like a big girl,” she told the little one. So much was going to be changing for her daughter. So much was going to be changing for her, too.

  She hadn’t really thought much about potty training but as she dressed Micah just moments before breakfast the realization hit her that she only had two diapers left. She sighed, only two diapers. It looked like potty training was going to be forced just like eating in a real chair, and sleeping outside of the crib. Their world was definitely changing.

  “Oh Mea,” cried Micah when Blake placed a small plate of eggs and bacon in front of her. The little girl shoved the plate away and climbed off of the c
hair and over to play with the dog.

  “Micah, no ma’am, you don’t get down from the table without asking to be excused, and you haven’t eaten your breakfast yet.” Katie went after her daughter, picked her up, and sat her back on the bench. “Mr. Blake fixed us a nice breakfast, we need to eat it so that we can have energy to run and play.”

  Katie was trying to be positive but she knew that a full-blown fit was more than likely about to erupt at any moment. This was how it usually began before it escalated, I guess there’s no time better than now for Blake to see just exactly what he’s gotten himself into by inviting us to stay here.

  Micah began to demand again, “Oh Mea!”

  “Not oatmeal. We are having eggs and bacon. Now stop whining and eat your food.” Katie dug her fork into the eggs and went to put it in Micah’s mouth. She should have known this wouldn’t work. This had never worked in the past, so why would it work now. A parental mistake: thinking that this time it would be different. Micah spit the eggs right back out at her mother, just as she had done before, many times.

  Blake sat across from the two and simply watched. Katie grew uncomfortable as he looked on, frozen and waiting, as if someone should say grace before the meal.

  “I have no problem fixing some oatmeal for her,” he said in the hopes that the argument and evident will-battle would come to an end.

  Katie rolled her eyes as if seriously irritated by his words. “No. She needs to learn to eat what’s put in front of her.” She turned to Micah who once again demanded oatmeal in her two-year-old, high-pitched, almost whimsical voice.