Bittersweets_Terry and Alex

by Suzanne Jenkins

  In the dark, she held on to him for dear life, smiling. So happy, so content, she was determined to stay in the moment for as long as she could. Alex rolled off her, and pulled her to his side, his arm around her, while he laid there with his eyes closed, catching his breath.

  When he could finally talk, he got up on his elbow. “My suitcase is in the car, but I’ll bring it in. I wanted to make sure you still wanted me.”

  “And are you satisfied I want you?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry we had the detour to crazy town,” he said.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” she said, kissing him before getting up.

  While she washed up, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, once again surprised how much his presence meant to her. She was in love with Alex, there was no way around it.

  He was till laying on the bed with his pants unzipped, but all his body parts back under cover. “Well, I’m still in love with you,” she said. “I hope the roller coaster is over for a while.”

  “It is. I just need to do it. I’m going to call her tonight. There’s no point in waiting,” he said. “It’s eight. I’ll wait for half an hour so we can get reacquainted.”

  “I thought that’s what we just did,” she said, going into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”

  “Beer if you have it.”

  “I still have your beer from three weeks ago,” she said, taking it to him.

  “Let’s go sit by the tree,” he said. “I’m shocked you have one.”

  “My neighbor brought it over. You’ll meet him soon. Rick. He’s a pianist. He’s become my go to person.”

  “Should I be jealous?” Alex asked.

  “I can’t imagine you jealous of any man,” she said. “But Rick is gay, so don’t be jealous. I was ready to make him my gay husband, but I think he had a date tonight, so if it went well, I’d be the fifth wheel.”

  “You don’t need a gay husband. Let’s get married right away. Or as soon as city hall opens up again.”

  Taking a deep breath, Terry knew at that moment that she had to level with him about the pregnancy. But she wanted him to deal with Jennifer first. Jennifer’s baby was important, too.

  “Go call your ex first and then we can talk about it. I need to talk to you anyway, about a different matter.”

  He looked at her, then drank the rest of his beer. “Okay,” he said. “Let me out and I’ll get my bags and call Jennifer.”

  “Take my key,” she said. “We’ll have to get another tomorrow.”

  “At a locksmith?” he asked, looking at the skeleton key.

  “No, an antique shop,” she said, laughing, pointing down the stairs. “Hurry up.”

  She went into the kitchen with the lights off so she could spy. The lights in the interior of his car popped on when he pointed the fob at the car to unlock the door. First, he got his bags out of the trunk. It appeared that he’d planned on leaving her before he got the call canceling work, because he had several suitcases and boxes again. (Those boxes.)

  Sitting in her chair, she watched him press keys on his phone. He didn’t get into the car to make the call, so maybe it would be fast, like pulling a bandage off a wound. Or maybe he wasn’t really going to call Jennifer. The doubts were disturbing; he’d never been dishonest, so why would she think he’d start now.

  Watching him, he was having an emotional conversation after all, with hand gestures and a few times his voice loud enough that she could hear it, not what he was saying exactly, just that he was angry.

  It only lasted a few moments, a minute at the most. He wiped his face with his hands, then pocketed his phone and grabbed as many bags as he could carry at a time. She heard him at the front door, and then saw him come around back for the boxes. After several trips, she heard him on the stairs.

  “I’ll help you,” she said, standing at the open door.

  “No, you don’t have to. I can’t believe we’re here again. It will be the last time, I promise,” he said.

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” she mumbled, watching him run down the stairs again.

  The final box back in place in the living room, took his coat off again. “I’m in terrible shape,” he said.

  “What can I get you?” she asked.

  “What’s for dinner?” he asked. “It’s almost nine and I haven’t eaten yet. I’m like an irresponsible kid.”

  “No you’re not,” she said. “I have a calzone from lunch today. It’s huge, like a large pizza folded in half. I also have chili and corn bread, leftover Stouffer’s lasagna, and a steak I can cook you.”

  “I’d have the chili, except do you really want to feed me chili before bed?” he burst out laughing. “Maybe just corn bread. Corn bread and tea.”

  “That sounds like a meal for an invalid,” she said, sitting on his lap.

  “Boy, you feel good,” he said, rubbing her back. “I really missed you.”

  “Let me get your tea and corn bread and then I have to tell you something,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  She handed him the remote, forgetting the cable was out. “Oops,” she said. “Sorry.”

  With nothing to distract him, he started putting his books back in the barrister cases.

  “After you left the first time, I started to put my books in there. Then when I got the call, I packed all the stuff up and shipped it back to the office.” She placed his tea on the table next to his winged back chair. “Here’s your corn bread.”

  He sat in his chair and picked up the cup. “I missed having tea at night,” he said. “I tried it, but it wasn’t the same without you.”

  She sat on his ottoman, holding something in her hand.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “I want to show you, but you can’t touch it because it’s gross,” she said, holding it up. “Look in that box.”

  She pointed to the window on her pregnancy test with two pink lines. “Give it to me,” he said grabbing it and jerking it out of her hand. Getting up, he used her shoulder as a support to get out of the chair. Smiling, she watched him go to the light switch and flick it on, flooding the room with bright light.

  “Everyone can see in here now,” she complained.

  He held the stick up to the light and saw the lines. Back and forth, he looked to her and then back again to the test.

  “You’re going to have my baby?” he said, his voice high, disbelieving.

  Unexpectedly, he plunked down on the couch and started to cry, his hands over his face with the pee stick awfully close to his eyes. “Give me that, will you?” she demanded, hopping off the ottoman. “It’s got pee on it.”

  “I don’t care!”

  He yanked it away from her, pulling her down on his lap, holding her so tightly; there was no mistake that he was overwhelmed. Either joyfully, or not, but either way, he wasn’t letting her loose.

  “I know that’s a lot coming at you,” she said. “You’ll have two babies in…well when’s Jennifer due?”

  “April 1st,” he said, sniffing. “Can I blow my nose on your shirt?”

  Laughing, she leaned over and grabbed a tissue. “Blow. Two babies in five months. That’s a lot.” She struggled to get out of his grasp. “I’m going to fix dinner, because now I’m hungry. Calzone again. Give me the stick, it’s going in his baby book, and you wash your hands please.”

  “His? Who says? It’s too early to tell the gender, isn’t it?”

  “My friend Rick, the guy I told you about. He took me to the drug store in the storm so I could get this test. He said it’s a boy.”

  “I guess I owe Rich a big one for taking care of you,” Alex said.

  “What are we going to do?” Terry said, suddenly scared to death.

  “We’re getting married right away,” he said. “As soon as city hall opens, we’ll be there for our license.”

  “In Philadelphia we have to wait for three days, but we know the judges so that might be waived
.”

  “Tomorrow is Thursday. I’ll call first thing,” he said. “I don’t want to wait a second more than we have to.”

  “Can I invite my dad?” she asked.

  “Of course you can. I’m going to have to apologize to Harry, I guess,” Alex said, looking worried.

  “He’ll appreciate it. He only wants me to be happy. Then we get to tell Vince! Yippee!”

  “I’ll leave this time,” Alex said, chuckling. “I don’t like working with Margery.”

  “You can’t,” she replied. “You’ve got too much going on. Margery is so benign, why don’t you like working with her?”

  “She smells like moth balls, and her wig slips in the middle of her closing arguments. The jury will laugh.”

  “You should be doing the closing arguments by this time,” she said. “If you’re working with Margery, I’m sure she’d love a break. Besides, in her defense, have you lost a case yet?”

  “No, but that’s irrelevant,” he said, grabbing at Terry. “She smells.”

  “Men,” Terry said, jumping away from him. “I’ll heat up dinner, you wash your peepee hands.”

  As easy as that, they returned to long weekends of love, sex and romance, and now, family planning.

  ***

  Two days after Christmas, on Friday, City Hall opened for licenses only. Terry and Alex were on the train by nine, and by ten, a judge Terry knew from her days in circuit court waived the three day waiting period and married them.

  Both in tears, holding each other, laughing, wiping each other’s faces, onlookers were smitten, tearing up, offering congratulations.

  “We need to get right over to your father’s place to tell him,” Alex said. “He needs to know the whole story, as painful as it is. I don’t want any lies.”

  “Harry doesn’t need to know about the baby. Not yet, anyway. We can wait a few weeks. Then it can look less suspicious, you know, shotgun.”

  “He’d be the one holding the shotgun,” Alex said, laughing. “Anyway, let’s get back on the damn train.”

  “It’s better than driving in this mess. And the forecast said more snow tonight. We might not be going anywhere on Monday, either.”

  They left for Harry’s with a white cake in a bakery box, and a large pizza, their wedding dinner. “You’d better call him,” Alex warned.

  “I just talked to him this morning to see if they had power yet,” she said. “I said we might drop in.”

  “Let him know we’re here, please?” Alex said, nervous.

  “Relax. We’re already married! I can’t believe it!” she kissed him.

  They ran up to the door, loaded down with food. Harry happened to glance up from watching the news when he saw the tops of their heads.

  “It’s my daughter,” he told Anna. “She said they might stop by but I thought she’d call first.”

  “Just relax Harry, it’ll be fine. She’s a nice young woman and you said yourself she was happy we were seeing each other.”

  “Surprise!” Terry cried, flinging her arms around Harry’s neck.

  “I thought you were history,” Harry said to Alex.

  “Sir, my apologies for causing any problems for Terry,” Alex said.

  “This is Anna,” Harry said, ignoring Alex’s apology, but looking carefully at him, sure the boy was up to something.

  “You have power, I see,” Terry said, pointing to the lit up Christmas tree, Harry’s concern growing; his daughter was dewy eyed, like she was carrying a forbidden secret. “We brought dinner and a surprise because we have a surprise.”

  She held out her hand with the wedding band. “We got married this morning!”

  Anna rushed over and embraced Terry and Alex, keeping one hand on Harry, sensing he was confused, shocked even, but biting his tongue.

  Then, unbelievably, Terry burst into tears. Harry hadn’t seen Terry cry since she was seven and their dog died, and this was so phenomenal, he reached behind, and dropped into the couch, his mouth agape.

  “Dad! Are you okay? Oh my God, is he having a stroke?” Terry cried, but he was okay, struggling to stand up, grabbing his daughter to hug, grimacing to Anna and shrugging his shoulders. What was going on?

  Shaking his head, Harry Kovac didn’t want to see Terry is such despair. The girl was almost thirty years old. She was a partner in a big criminal defense law firm in Philadelphia. They used Terry when they needed a pretty face for their ads. So what if she married someone who’d left her ostensibly after a whirlwind weekend because his ex-wife was pregnant. So what if Terry lost her job because of it. It appeared all things had worked together for good for Terry; she got her job back and the missing man returned with a marriage proposal.

  “Okay, calm down,” he finally said, patting her back. “Nothing is that bad. Calm down Terry, before you make yourself sick.”

  “Come on honey,” Anna said. “Let’s everyone come into the kitchen. I’ll make coffee and we can have pizza and bakery stuff for a late lunch.”

  “It’s a wedding cake,” Alex said.

  “Oh, well isn’t that nice,” Anna replied, cutting the string with a knife.

  Between Alex looking devastated, and Harry whispering to Terry, Anna did a good job of keeping a running dialogue going, even though no one appeared to be listening to her. She later said she had the desire to burst into song at one point, just to get their attention.

  “I’m okay,” Terry said. “I have to talk to Alex for a minute.”

  She took his hand and led him out of the small kitchen, a perfect example of 1950’s post war architecture, into her girlhood bedroom.

  “Are you kidding?” Alex said. “Look at this room! It’s a throwback.”

  “Are you okay if I tell my dad about the baby?” she whispered.

  “Terry, of course. I think he’d be angry if we waited to tell him,” he said.

  “Okay, but be prepared, you saw him fall out when I announced the marriage,” she said.

  “This is why we’re having more than one kid,” he said.

  “Well, you’re having more than one kid already. Maybe Jennifer will let me borrow him so ours doesn’t get too spoiled.”

  “Can we do it now? I’m ready for food,” Alex said.

  Terry took his hand again and led him back into the kitchen, while she sniffed the air.

  “Oh, coffee. I’d kill for a cup of coffee,” she said.

  “Sit down,” Harry said, making a sweeping motion with his hand indicating the chairs.

  “Dad, Anna, I’m pregnant,” she said.

  Anna was ready to jump up in the air, but she restrained herself. It wasn’t her grandchild, yet. Harry took the shock like a man. He’d gone through the a tour of duty in Vietnam. The love of his life practically died in his arms after he’d taken care of her non-stop for a year.

  It was good news, by some standards. This young, successful couple was so attracted to each other that they rushed into romance without thinking. Alex loved Terry so much that he left his pregnant wife, ex-wife, for Terry.

  “Just to be clear, I came back to Terry not knowing about the baby. On Christmas night, she sprung it on me.”

  “I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again,” she said, defending herself. “I had just found out myself.”

  “On Christmas?” Harry asked.

  “Yep, I looked at the calendar, if you get my drift, confirming my suspicions, and in the horrible storm, Rick took me to the drug store in Chestnut Hill in his big truck. I was going to let Alex know when I was no longer able to hide it at work. But he called and came to see me and said he still loved me, so I didn’t have to wait after all. And that’s the story.”

  “Oh, what a beautiful Christmas story!” Anna cried, wiping her eyes with a napkin. “Just like Jesus.”

  “Don’t get carried away,” Harry said, frowning at her.

  “What! You’re Jewish,” she said. “Trust me, it’s just like Jesus.”

  “Let’s cut the cake! And then I’m not eati
ng sweets until he’s born,” Terry said, self-assured with the knife poised in the air.

  “What he?” Harry asked. “It could be a girl.”

  “Er sir, ixnay,” Alex mumbled, moving his finger across his throat in a slicing motion. “This Rick fellow said it’s a boy, and evidently, that means it’s a boy.”

  “We’re having a boy,” Anna said, staring sidelong at Harry, finally giving into to passion and clapping her hands. “A boy baby! You’re going to be a grandfather Harry!”

  “Well, I guess I am,” he said, finally smiling. “Terry, congratulations to us!”

  ***

  Chapter 18

  New Year’s Day

  Wednesday, January 1st

  Moaning coming from their bedroom meant Alex was awake.

  “Are you alive?” Terry asked, standing in the doorway sipping a cup of coffee.

  “I wish I was dead,” he whined. “My head is killing me.”

  “Get in the shower and I’ll have a nice cup of coffee ready for you,” Terry said. “After you eat toast you can take aspirin.”

  Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, groaning with each movement. He saw he was naked. “Did we do it last night?” he asked.

  “Did we do it? What didn’t we do!” she said, laughing.

  “Oh, watch it, please. My head,” he said, cradling it in his hands.

  “This is how I felt the first time we were together. I still don’t remember a thing about that night.”

  “Well I don’t remember a thing about last night, so we’re even. I hoped we waited until we were alone,” he said, looking up at her for confirmation.

  “Oh, we were alone alright. But another couple, a special couple, I should say, almost gave us a show.”

  “Who?” he asked. “Or maybe I don’t want to know.”

  “Brenda and Larry. I’m telling you, for being married, they are one sexy couple.”

  “What happened?” Alex asked.

  “They were making out on our couch, and Larry pushed her back and started to undo his pants.”

  ***

  Everyone was there for the Hawthorne’s first annual New Year’s Eve Party. Even Arvin came with his new girlfriend, Tina Halevy, a lovely Israeli neurologist he’d met at work. As soon as Arvin arrived, having been invited without knowledge of all the excitement in Terry’s life, she sat him and Tina down and made her announcement.