Authors: Robert Van Dusen
Lacey’s fork clattered to his plate. “Wait, what?” he asked
as he shot a puzzled and mildly hurt look at the young woman across the table from him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Frays wiped her mouth with her
napkin and shrugged as she accepted a dish from her brother “Didn’t seem that important. We were driving to Fort Devins at the time.” Amy took a couple squares of cornbread and spread butter on them before devouring one of the golden brown pieces of bread. “Besides, I’m here with my folks, everybody’s safe and doing pretty well. What more could I ask for, right?”
“How old are you now?” asked Becca. She was excited by the possibility of a birthday party, even if it was one for a grown up. Laura looked at her daughter with a lit
tle grin and shushed the girl.
“It’s not polite to ask a lady her age.” Laura said in a low voice as she scooped a little of the macaroni salad onto the children’s plates. Becca looked at the whitish stuff on her plate with distaste, but decided to try it anyway.
Amy hid a little smile behind her napkin as she pretended to wipe her mouth again. “I’m twenty one.” she said once she had her mirth under control. Frays took a generous helping of the greens after Carl passed the dish to her and dug in with relish. The salad was fresh from Mom’s garden in the little patch of tilled earth on a terrace under the deck on the waterfront side of the house, a rare treat after so many weeks of eating out of cans or MRE packets.
After dinner Amy helped her mother with the dishes. Rodriguez was resting comfortably in the living room leafing through one of
George’s Louie L’amour cowboy books in the late afternoon sunlight while George, Carl and the rest sat around the dining room table playing a game of Spades. Frays looked at her mother and frowned at the soapy water in the sink. Jessica could sense that there was something weighing on her daughter’s mind but knew better than to push. She was stubborn just like her father and pressing the issue would either make her clam up or start an argument.
Besides, she had seen the bloodstains on her daughter’s uniforms before s
he put them in the wash and the pink baby skin that would turn into scars on her cheek. She had thought she heard Amy crying while she was in the shower… Her poor little baby was so thin too… Jessica put an arm around her daughter’s waist and gave her a quick sort of half hug.
After they finished the dishes Amy and her mother joined the game for a little while. Jessica and George exchanged uneasy glances, paying close attention to the way their daughter and Lacey interacted.
In fact, between the Frays clan and his wife Lacey could not help but feel like a bug in a jar as the game progressed. He was a little relieved when the game started to break up not long after sundown.
The children went to sleep in their ‘fort’
while the Laceys and Amy’s parents went to their bedrooms. Carl slept on a cot in the dining room which he set up after Amy helped him move the table out of the middle of the room. Rodriguez occasionally snorted or muttered in her sleep on the recliner while Frays lay sprawled and snoring like a motorcycle with the muffler missing on the bed that folded out of the couch.
Paul woke in the middle of the night, the last vestiges of a nightmare fleeing from the little boy’s mind.
There were the Bad People chasing him and the ditch full of bloody people looking up with flies on their faces… He wanted his Mommy and Daddy but knew they might be mad if he woke them up, especially because Daddy had been away so long. He left his sister in their fort and stood in the living room, looking at Daddy’s friends sleeping in the moonlight flooding in through the windows.
The boy
frowned at Amy, still kind of unsure of what exactly to make of her. She seemed nice enough and he remembered that she had called him handsome in the car before Daddy went back to work. As he was only four he had little idea what that word meant, but Daddy smiled when Mommy called him that so it must have been something good. On the other hand, she had taken Daddy away for a really long time which made Mommy cry when she was alone.
He crept into the living room and went to Daddy’s other friend who was sleeping on the c
hair. He thought she was pretty but a different kind of pretty from his Mommy or Amy, who he thought was pretty too but he was kind of mad at her. Paul had a hazy memory of going to the zoo with his parents last spring and watching the lions for hours. Frannie kind of reminded the boy of the mommy lion for some reason, but he could not quite figure out why. Maybe it was because of the scars on her face?
Paul frowned at the woman as she shifted and muttered in her sleep. The boy felt bad for her because out of everybody here she did not have a mommy or daddy or anybody.
Frannie was nice too and all alone and it made him sad for her. He mustered all of his courage and touched her hand, making Frannie’s head snap up with a snort and look around. She looked scared for a second before she recognized him. “Hey, Paulie.” she said quietly and groaned as she sat up a little bit. Rodriguez rubbed her eyes and smiled at the boy. “What’s up, buddy?”
The boy’s face scrunched up uncomfortably. He was supposed to be a big boy now and not afraid of anything, just like Daddy. “I…had a nightmare.” Paul admitted quietly as he frowned at the woman.
Frannie chuckled and held her hands out to the boy. “Awww!” she whispered as she helped Paul climb up into the chair with her. She bit back a yelp when his knee ground against her wounded thigh as she helped him get comfortable under the blanket with her. “Comfy, little man?”
Paul nodded, already starting to fall asleep again.
Frannie could not help but find herself a little envious of not just Lacey but Frays as well, depending on what the pregnancy test said. Sure it would be difficult if Amy was pregnant, but in the end she would have a perfect little daughter or son… Frays would make an awesome mother. Rodriguez sighed and rested her unscarred cheek against the top of the boy’s head as he snuggled against her chest. Whenever the boy exhaled his breath tickled the soft skin of her neck.
Frannie rubbed Paul’s back in small, slow circles
as she contemplated their situation. Somehow she just sort of knew that Frays really was pregnant. She got the feeling that Amy’s dad more than her mom would be the big problem and of course Lacey’s wife would be pretty pissed off, not that she could blame either one of them. If her daughter had been away for months and come back with a strange man she would certainly have a few things to say about it, let alone if she had come back with a bun in the oven. Frannie shifted around a little more, trying to find a position that let the boy remain comfortable but allowed the blood to reach her arm. She smiled sleepily at the boy and held him tight. A couple minutes later she dropped off to sleep again.
Amy rolled onto her side and looked at her friend and the little boy curled up together across the room and smiled a little in the semi dark.
The young woman could not help but hope that she was looking at herself in a couple years… She sighed and flopped onto her back, trying to get comfortable again as she stared at the ceiling. Frays lay there listening to the sounds of everyone sleeping throughout the house: the smaller, quieter breathing of the children, her father’s snoring in the other room, Carl muttering in his sleep in the dining room.
Her hands came to rest on her stomach. Frays lifted her head and looked at her belly as she sighed and slowly traced the topography of her abdominal muscles through her
undershirt. Try as she might, she could never get much definition but she could always score one hundred percent on the sit up portion of the PT test and to the male standard not the easier female one no less. Frays grumbled under her breath then shifted around on the mattress again as she folded her hands behind her head.
She
tossed and turned for a few more minutes then pulled the plastic stick out of her pocket and looked at the window on it for a long time. A worried look came to her face then she frowned drowsily. They were all safe (at least for now), with full bellies, comfortable places to sleep and even freshly laundered clothes. She made a mental note to see that they get Rodriguez into a proper bed tomorrow morning so she could continue recuperating.
Things are starting to look up
she thought as she started to drift off to sleep. A brief shiver of shame and guilt rippled through her mind just before her eyes slipped shut and fell into a deep and peaceful sleep a few seconds later.
Adam and Laura had ripped each other’s clothes off and screwed
each other’s brains out about five seconds after she had closed the door behind them. He dozed fitfully for about an hour before waking momentarily. It took Lacey a moment to realize where he was and squeezed his wife to his chest. He smiled and brushed a strand of hair off of her face.
God, she’s so beautiful
he thought as Laura snorted and opened her eyes. When she lifted her face he noticed a small pool of saliva on his chest.
“Aw, ew!” Laura whispered as she wiped her drool off of her husband with the blanket. “I’m sorry, honey. That’s so gross!” The woman chuckled and snuggled up to Adam’s chest. “God, I can’t believe you’re really back. I love you.”
He kissed her and smiled so widely that it made his cheeks burn. “I love you, too.” Adam whispered and held her tight. His stomach started getting upset as acidic waves started sloshing back and forth in his belly. Lacey let his hand move up and down his wife’s back as he tried to will the feeling away.
Laura frowned at her husband. “What’s wrong, hon?” she asked as she squirmed forward and kissed him on the cheek. Her dark blue eyes searched his face in the dark. He simply squeezed her tight and stayed quiet. “Hon?”
He frowned for a second. “Nothing, baby.” Lacey said quietly and shuddered, suddenly blinking back tears. “Go back to sleep, sweetie.” Laura sighed and shook her head before curling up against him. He lay awake listening to her breathing, unable to get back to sleep…