by Amy Brent
I gave her a slow nod. “Six weeks, according to the medical examiner. I’ve been gone for eight.”
“Oh lord, Ben, I had no idea. I swear to God, I didn’t.”
I studied her face for a moment. She was telling me the truth. Emily wasn’t a liar. At least not one who could lie so convincingly. I pushed myself out of the chair and rubbed my eyes for a moment. I moved to the screen door and pushed it open.
“If you can think of anything else, please let me know,” I said. “Right now, I’m going to get my son and go home.”
Chapter Eleven: Lolita
I didn’t tell my mother about the little mutual masturbation session I had with the hunky widower next door. Actually, I can only speculate that he was up there beating his meat while he was watching me diddle myself in the pool. I mean, he is a SEAL, after all, and supposedly SEALs are the horniest guys in the military according to the internet, though I had no idea how they would even gauge such things. It must be all that time they spend underwater. Wow… I bet SEALs could eat pussy without ever coming up for air. Anyway. If he wasn’t up there jacking off his big fat Navy cock he was not the man I expected him to be.
* * *
I was doing my best to act interested as my mother droned on about her shitty day at work, but dirty thoughts kept bouncing around my brain, hampering my ability to focus on anything other than my afternoon of fun in the sun.
Me, naked on the raft with my fingers in my cunt, the hot SEAL peering through the curtain with his cock in his hand, his eyes watching my fingers slide in and out, in and out…
Sigh...
I could still feel the hot juices pooling between my legs sitting there at the table. Thank God I’d put on a pair of fresh panties and cutoff jeans. If I had still been wearing my stinky bikini bottoms mom’s stinky-pussy detector would have been going off like a fire alarm. I squeezed my thighs together and pushed out a heavy sigh.
“So, how was your day,” mom asked as she stuck her fork into the last bite of microwave lasagna on her plate and held it to her mouth. “Did you see anything happening at the neighbor’s house?”
“I never saw him,” I said with a disinterested shrug, like I hadn’t given my neighbor or his dead wife another thought. It was the truth, though. I had felt his presence, but I had never seen him. “His Range Rover was gone when I went out to the pool after lunch. I guess he came back right before you got home because his car was there, but I didn’t see him go inside.”
“I wonder if he has his little boy with him,” mom asked, chewing slowly. She propped her chin on her hand and got a dreamy, faraway look in her eye. “I’m trying to remember what he looks like. Ben Ryder… what a great name… It’s so weird, they’ve lived there for what, three or four years, but I don’t think I’ve ever even met him in person. Have you?”
I chewed the lasagna, which tasted like rubber with tomato sauce soaked into it, and shook my head. “Last time I saw him was like two years ago when I was out front washing the car.”
She arched her eyebrows. “He’s hot, right?”
I giggled. “Yes, mom, he’s hot. Big guy, lots of muscles, dark hair, good looking, nice smile.”
“Hmm, sounds like someone I should get to know.”
“Jesus, mom, his wife just died,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “Give him time to adjust, why don’t you.”
“I don’t mean that I’m going to hop the fence and fuck his brains out tonight,” she said playfully. “I’ll give him a little time to mourn. Trust me, honey, nothing makes a man happier than a nice piece of sympathy pussy.”
“Jesus, you’re terrible,” I said, trying not to grin. She was terrible, but she was also hilarious and outrageous and probably correct. I was sure that Mr. SEAL would feel better after a nice fuck and suck, but it was a little too soon to even think about that. I mean, giving him a show at the pool was one thing, but actually hitting on the guy even before his wife’s body is cold, well, that just seems wrong in so many ways. Besides, mom had plenty of boyfriends and I just had Kevin. If anyone should make the poor widower next door feel better, it should be me.
“Why don’t we take him the rest of this lasagna,” she said, tapping her fork to the aluminum tray that held what was left of the rubbery pasta. I winced at it. I couldn’t believe we were even eating this crap. The truth was, if it wasn’t for our microwave and the Domino’s pizza down the road, we would have probably starved.
“This crap is gross, mom. I wouldn’t’ feed it to my dog if I had one.”
“It’s not that bad,” she scolded. “Besides, I bet he hasn’t had a good meal in forever.”
“I’m pretty sure this won’t be much better than the crap he eats in the military. In fact, it’s probably worse. This is like the crap they feed those Al Qaida terrorists they have in custody at Guantanamo Bay.”
“Fine, then let’s bake him a cake or make him some cookies.” She leaned back with a big smile on her face and licked the sauce from her lips. She rubbed her hands together and looked around the kitchen like she’d never seen it before. “Let’s see, do we have any cookie making stuff?”
“Mom, leave the poor guy alone,” I said. “At least for a few days.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, pouting. “I wonder when the funeral will be.”
“The funeral home probably has it online,” I said with a shrug. I picked up my phone and launched the Google app, then tapped in “Bethany Ryder funeral Arlington”. Good old Google didn’t disappoint. I held up my phone and read the notice on the funeral home website to mom.
“Funeral services for Bethany Ryder, age 32, will be held Thursday at 3 P.M. at the Arlington Chapel Funeral Home. Mrs. Ryder died over the weekend in a tragic automobile accident. She is survived by her husband, Captain Benjamin Ryder (Navy, retired), age 33, and their son, Cody, age 4. After a private service for family members only, Mrs. Ryder will be laid to rest next to her parents in Arlington Memorial Gardens.” I blinked at the phone. Suddenly, things weren’t so funny anymore.
“Wow, that’s so sad,” I said, brushing a knuckle beneath my eyes. “Poor guy, having to raise that little boy all on his own.”
Mom seemed oblivious to it all. “Fine. The funeral is Thursday, so I’ll stop by the Food King on Friday and pick up a cake or something on the way home. We can take it over and introduce ourselves.”
“I assume you’ll wear something slutty,” I said, rolling my eyes at her.
She just smiled and held out her hands like one of those bimbos on The Price Is Right. “My darling, it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing. Trust me, I can make it look slutty.”
She got up and cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink. I picked up what was left of the lasagna and dropped it into the trashcan.
There was no way I would offer that crap to Mr. SEAL.
Especially when I had something so much more delicious in mind.
Chapter Twelve: Ryder
It was nearly midnight by the time my head hit the pillow. I tugged off my clothes and threw them on the floor and collapsed on the bed with a long, heavy sigh, as if all the air was being squeezed from my lungs like a giant hand squeezing a tube of toothpaste.
I switched off the lamp and closed my eyes. I couldn’t remember ever being more mentally and physically exhausted. There literally was no part of my body that didn’t hurt. And my brain, my heart, and my gut all felt like they’d been through a fucking meat grinder.
After I picked Cody up from Hank and Emily’s, he said he was hungry on the way home so we ran through the McDonald’s drive-thru. I tried to sway him toward the Arby’s because they actually had food for grownups, but Cody was firm: it was either a lovely dinner of Chicken McNuggets and time to play on their indoor playground or the screaming fit to end all screaming fits, my choice. I’d witnessed his screaming fits. It was not a difficult choice to make.
When I turned into the lot, Cody beamed at his triumph over his old man. He started bouncing up and down in
the car seat, clapping his hands in no particular rhythm, and singing, “Mac-Donald’s! Mac-Donald’s! Mac-Donald’s!”
He stretched his arms over his head like he’d just kicked the winning field goal at the Super Bowl and cackled. I smiled as I watched him in the rearview mirror. He made me want to cheer along. Occasional screaming fit aside, he was an adorable fucking kid. He had his mother’s wide smile, pink pudgy cheeks, and big blue eyes. It broke my heart that I hardly knew him. It would break my heart even more if I added up the number of days I’d actually spent in his life. He was four-years-old and I had been home a total of six or seven months since he had been born. I couldn’t recall ever taking him to the park or to a movie or to a play date or to a McDonald’s…
I decided to ditch the drive-thru and eat there, sitting across the table from my son munching on faux chicken and French fries, talking about all the silly little things silly little boys and their silly old dads talked about. I parked the Rover, lifted Cody out of the seat, and took him inside. He bounced excitedly in my arms and clapped the entire way. It was the first time I’d ever been in a fucking McDonald’s with my son. Silly, I know, but it was a sad testament to my true worth as a father.
I couldn’t tell you the last time I had fast food of any kind, much less the greasy burger and fry variety. The have fast food restaurants (is that an oxymoron?) in Mosul, but you never knew if you were eating a genuine hamburger made of ground-up beef or what was left of a camel or horse the owner butchered out back a few weeks ago. Most of the time I ate on-base or in the hotel restaurant, which served up a decent burger if you didn’t mind the occasional crunch of gristle.
Standing in line with Cody in my arms (I didn’t want to set him down) I realized I was starving. I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten anything, but couldn’t. I could hear my stomach growling. Cody heard it too. It made him laugh. Which made me smile.
Cody scarfed down a couple of nuggets and a few French fries before announcing that he was done and running off to play inside the indoor playground. I sat and watched him as I ate a Big Mac and a large fry, which tasted incredibly good given my point of hunger. I finished off Cody’s meal and washed it all down with a twenty-ounce Coke. Less than a minute after swallowing the last bite, my stomach started churning like a cement mixer. Christ, I have eaten some rank shit in my day (see the aforementioned camel reference), but the grease from that McDonald’s burger and fries worked its way through my system like shit through a goose. I barely had time to grab Cody from the playground, stick on his shoes, jump in the car, and make it home before my stomach literally exploded out my ass.
I sat on the toilet generating all manner of noises and smells while Cody stood in the doorway pinching his little nose and waving his free hand at the aroma that was building in the air like a heavy fog rolling in from a sea of sewage. Every time I’d blow a fart, he’d point at me and giggle.
“Ooooh, daddy fotted! Daddy fotted!” He covered his face with his hands and grinned devilishly through his fingers. “You stink, daddy! You stink!”
“Oh yeah? Well listen to this one!”
As father and son moments go, it was an odd one, but I sure loved the sound of that little boy’s laugh.
As a SEAL, my body, mind, and spirit were tested daily, but that fucking McDonald’s grease-fest almost did me in. Okay, it wasn’t just the McDonald’s, though the bathroom did end up smelling like a grease fire from all the candles I lit to try and kill the stench—a trick I learned from Bethany, who always burned these giant potpourri and flowery scented candles when she took a shit, like she didn’t want me to know that she defecated like every other human on the planet or that her shit stank. I always told her it just smelled like she had shit in a flower bed. Again, funny what passes for good memories in my mind...
No, my exploding stomach was just the last symptom of a virus that had been eating at me ever since I learned that Bethany had died. It was my body reacting to all the shit life that had sent my way over the past couple of days. I was usually pretty good at handling stress, but I’d never faced anything as frightening as this. My wife died carrying another man’s baby. Fine, I could handle that. With everything that had happened between us it really wasn’t that surprising. The thing that was scaring the shit out of me and tying my stomach into knots and blowing them out of my ass was the thing I should have been embracing the most.
Could I raise this little boy all on my own, without his mother to show me the way? Honestly, I had no fucking idea.
I also had no idea how many motherfuckers I had maimed or killed over my career as a SEAL, or how many had tried to maim or kill me. I’d slept on the frozen ground in the winter time, in muddy ditches during the summer, in trees, in caves and in bombed-out buildings. I’d crawled over dead bodies and jumped out of airplanes into total darkness without knowing what waited for me on the ground below and trudged through swamps with murky water up to my eyeballs. None of that shit ever phased me, not even close. But the past two days had kicked my ass: lock, stock and barrel.
And the worst of it came just a few hours ago when I did the one thing I never thought I would ever have to do: I told my young son that his mommy was dead.
“Mommy’s in Heaven,” I said, sitting in my old recliner with an exhausted Cody in my lap, his head resting against my chest, his little fingers twisting in the collar of my t-shirt. “She’s not coming home.”
“You mean mommy’s with Cheeses?” he asked, so innocent and naïve.
I smiled with big tears in my eyes. “Yes, Cody, mommy is with Cheeses.”
“Cheeses will take care of mommy,” he said, sitting up and turning to face me. He put his little hands on my cheeks and gave them a pat. “Don’t worry, daddy. I will take care you.”
“I know you will, buddy,” I said, pulling him close so he couldn’t see the tears streaming down my cheeks. “I know you will.”
It was at that moment that I knew eventually, everything would be okay.
The four-year-old mind was an amazingly resilient thing. It absorbed life like a sponge, wrung out the excess knowledge and emotions it didn’t understand or didn’t need, stored away what mattered in its memory banks until it knew what to do with it, and then quickly moved on. Fast and efficient handling of emotions was the key. That’s why you often see a toddler pitching a fit one minute, then perfectly calm the next. So unlike the adult mind, which had the tendency to dwell on the least little thing until it drove its owner and everyone around them fucking mad.
Cody cried for a few minutes, then got still in my lap and fell asleep against me. I wrapped my arms around him and rested my cheek on the top of his head. I closed my eyes and listened to him breath. I knew there would be lots of “I miss mommy moments!!” in the months and years ahead, but thank God, he wouldn’t have to fully process his grief now because he couldn’t fully comprehend the truth. And time would lessen the blow of losing his mommy. Unfortunately, time would also fade her memory from his young mind, but that was the tradeoff. He wouldn’t remember much about her, but he also wouldn’t remember the pain and grief he felt as a young child. They say God only gives you what you can handle. Most four year olds couldn’t handle losing their mommy if they were fully aware like adults, so it was better that they don’t fully grasp what was going on.
Mommy was with Cheeses.
That’s all he needed to know for it to be okay.
I put Cody to bed and sat in his room in the dark for nearly an hour, just watching him sleep, listening to him breath, holding a blue teddy bear that Bethany always said was his favorite. Teddy Blue, was its name. I had no idea when Cody got Teddy Blue, why it was his favorite, or even where it had come from. Like most things in this house, my wife and son included, Teddy Blue was a mystery to me.
What a fuck I was for missing all these years with my son. I couldn’t help but wonder how different all our lives might have turned out if I had been a better husband to Bethany and father to Cody. It was too easy to b
lame it on the SEALs and say the time apart caused the rift between us. That was bullshit and I knew it. I knew lots of SEALS that had strong marriages and happy homes.
“It’s not the time away from home that matters, son,” an older SEAL named Sandusky once told me as we sat on a hilltop overlooking a stretch of dusty highway, waiting to ambush an Al Qaida convoy that was supposed to come by. “It’s what you do with the time you have at home that matters.”
The issues between Bethany and I might have been acerbated by my extended absences, but they certainly were not the cause of our marriage breaking up. That was on me. All on me.
I dozed off for a few minutes. When I woke up I was curled into a ball on the floor, clutching Teddy Blue to my chest, a line of drool running down my cheek. I pushed myself up off the floor, checked on Cody, who had not moved a muscle since I put him down, then set Teddy Blue on the bed and quietly left the room.
I didn’t bother with the lights when I went into the bathroom to make sure the Big Mac was through doing its damage. I sat for a moment without assaulting the poor toilet any further, then took a leak and got up to wash my hands. I dried my hands on a clean towel that was hanging over the rack. I held the towel to my nose for a moment and inhaled deeply. It just smelled like detergent with no trace of my dead wife’s scent. I draped the towel over the rack and started out of the room when a thought hit me.
I couldn’t resist taking a quick peek out the window at the neighbor’s pool. It was nearly midnight, but she might be down there, I thought, taking a midnight swim in the nude, all hot and bothered, heating up the water with her flowing juices, waiting for me to pull back the curtains to watch her playing with herself in the moonlight. The blue lights of the pool shone bright in the dark night, but the girl wasn’t there. It was probably a good thing. I was literally too pooped to pop. How fucking pathetic was that?