The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “Evan came into the office.”

  That’s nothing new. Since he was released, Evan has been at Caldwell Industries every single day. Making sure that everyone knows he’s back and that he’s determined to be part of the operation again. When I spoke to my Aunt Janet the other day, she told me that even though Evan hasn’t actually done anything, he has had the entire place in an uproar, that he seems bent on going to one department after another and stirring the pot. She told me that Jeremy was spending more time soothing ruffled feathers than getting any actual work done.

  “What did he do now?” I ask.

  Blowing out a heavy sigh, Jeremy sits on the couch. I settle next to him, my head automatically falling against his shoulder as Khan lays on the floor by his feet. Sasha turns up her nose at all three of us.

  “I have no idea. He was there before anyone else this morning, and as soon as the accounting department turned on their computers, everything went wrong. They’d been hit by some type of virus that wiped all of their hard drives. Luckily everything was backed up to a cloud server, but no one dares access them until we know what the hell happened to the computers in the first place.”

  Jeremy’s head falls back against the couch and he closes his eyes. “I know damn good and well that Evan’s responsible for the whole disaster. I just don’t know how the hell he did it or why. Until I figure out the answer to those two questions, I’ve asked Ben, my head of security, to keep an even closer eye on him—not that I think it will do much good. Evan seems to have an uncanny ability for disappearing and reappearing in the most unlikely places.”

  “Any word on his wife?” The last time I’d seen Sheila was at our wedding as Evan dragged her from the church. Two days later, Evan let us know that they’d flown to Las Vegas and had gotten married, but that was the last update. I can’t help wondering if she’s okay.

  “I haven’t heard anything, but then I haven’t been asking any questions.”

  For reasons I couldn’t learn, Jeremy, the sweetest, most generous guy I know, had taken a “she’s made her own bed” attitude toward Sheila.

  Since the last thing I want to do is get in an argument with him, I decide to change the subject. “I have some news.”

  He opens one eye. “Excellent. What is it?”

  Biting the inside of my cheek to contain my smile, I reach under the couch and feel around for the item I hid under there earlier. My fingers curl around it and I slide it into view, pushing Kahn’s curious nose out of the way as I do so.

  I hand the plastic wand to Jeremy. “This time, the test is positive. We’re having a baby.”

  87

  Caitlin

  Jeremy's gaze flicks from me to the wand and back to me. He doesn't ask me if I'm serious; he doesn't have to. There's no way to misinterpret the positive sign on the plastic wand. "How long have you known?" he finally says.

  "I've been dealing with some sickness for a few weeks now."

  "Is that why you've been getting up so much earlier than me? I thought you were just an early riser."

  I shrug. "To a certain extent I am, but since just a few days before our wedding, my stomach refuses to let me sleep past five in the morning. And there are some scents at the shop that send me running for the bathroom, scents that have never bothered me before."

  "But you only just took the test today, or have you been keeping it under the couch all this time?"

  "I've been wanting to take the test, and wanting to tell you about it, but I was afraid to get either of our hopes up, especially now that Evan and Sheila are married ..." I let the words trail off. We both know that Evan is going to do everything in his power to make sure that she gets pregnant as soon as possible.

  "Evan is the last thing I want to talk about right now." Jeremy reaches out and gently pushes my hair behind my ear. "I want to hear more about how you learned you were pregnant."

  "I kept meaning to pick up a home test, but I kept chickening out. Today, I finally talked myself into it. I've only known the results for about an hour."

  Jeremy grins and wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his chest for a tight hug. He buries his face in my hair.

  "We're having a baby," he crows.

  “That we are,” I reply, my voice muffled by his shirt.

  “Hang on.” He pushes me away almost as quickly as he hugged me and scrambles off the couch. “I bought something just for this occasion.”

  I twist around and watch as he disappears into the kitchen. “Please God, tell me you didn’t buy cigars to help you celebrate conceiving a child. I hate the way they smell even when I’m not pregnant.” Just thinking about them causes my temperamental stomach to lurch. I press my palm to it, willing it to calm down. “If you’re getting cigars,” I say in my best warning voice, “you’re going to the roof to enjoy them.”

  Jeremy leans across the threshold, waggling his eyebrows. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. Why don’t you get your shoes and grab a couple of folding chairs out of the storage closet in the landing and head on up? I’ll catch up in a few minutes. I just have to get a few things ready.”

  He’s right. It’s a nice night and while this isn’t the tallest building in Denver, it still provides a good view of the mountains.

  Ten minutes later I’m leaning back in my chair, feet propped up on the safety rail that surrounds the perimeter of the building and counting stars when the door finally creaks open. I roll my head to the side, expecting to see Jeremy, but instead of my handsome husband, a scarred-up, lean dog lopes toward me.

  “Hello, Khan.” I gasp as he drops his massive head on my chest. “I’m glad to see you too. It’s been too long since we parted.”

  “He really wanted to help us celebrate.” Jeremy follows the same path Kahn took, but at a much more leisurely pace. A medium-sized picnic basket dangles from his fingertips. “I tried telling him no, that this was an adult-only party, but he looked sad so I caved.”

  “Softy,” I tease even as I rub Kahn’s soft ears. They’re the only part of him that isn’t covered in scars.

  “I know,” Jeremy says easily.

  He sets the basket down between the lawn chairs I’ve set up. He sits down on the second chair and reaches into the picnic basket, withdrawing a battered rubber frog that’s roughly the size of a bowling ball. Kahn takes one look at the frog and dances away from me. He whines and play-bows in front of Jeremy, his eyes pleading while his tail goes a mile a minute.

  “One.”

  The start of the countdown sends Kahn into a frenzy. His tail moves twice as fast and his eyes bug out of his head, while his feet tap and paw at the floor.

  “Two.”

  Jeremy’s voice shakes with laughter as Kahn starts making a strange chortling noise.

  “Three!”

  Jeremy cocks back his arm and lets the rubber frog go sailing toward the far side of the roof.

  With a happy yelp, Kahn gives chase. He turns so fast that his legs slide out from underneath him and he falls, hard, onto his side. Unfazed, he scrambles to his feet and resumes his pursuit of the toy. Jeremy and I shake with laughter as he grabs it and throws it high in the air, repeating the motion half a dozen times before he settles down.

  Jeremy reaches back into the picnic basket. “So, do you think kids will be as much fun as dogs are?”

  I think about it a moment. “I have no idea. Other than swinging by the school for special needs from time to time, I haven’t spent much time with them.”

  “Me either.”

  I stare at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Why would I joke about that? And when would I have time to hang out with kids?” He holds up his hand. “One, I’m president of one of the biggest businesses in the country. Two, I volunteer several hours a week at a local animal shelter.” Each time he rattles off an item, he holds up a finger. “Three, I have my own dog to walk every single day. Four, I have to clean a litter box because my wife refuses to do it and keeps
telling me that it’s my cat. Five, I also have to cook a handful of meals for my wife each week, and six – find time to make sure she’s completely satisfied with her husband.”

  By the time he reaches this point, I’m laughing so hard my sides hurt. “Okay, okay. I get it,” I gasp. “You’re a busy man.”

  “Damn right.”

  As my composure slowly returns, I place a protective hand over my belly and think about the little clusters of cells growing there. Soon (ish) it will be a full-fledged baby and it’s going to be relying on Jeremy and me for everything.

  “This is going to be like the blind leading the blind,” I murmur as I wonder just what the hell we’ve managed to get ourselves into.

  “Maybe it will be.” Jeremy leans over the side of his chair and reaches into the picnic basket.

  I shoot him a side look. “And you’re not worried?”

  “I’m worried about a lot of things.” He pulls out two champagne flutes and hands one to me. “But our lack of experience isn’t one of them. The way I see it, there are lots of parents out there that probably knew even less than we do who are raising great kids. And we have a lot of people in our lives who’ll help out. And if we get into a bind, I’ll hire a nanny.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, we have nothing to worry about.” I force myself to relax against the back of the chair and watch Kahn gnawing on his green toy. Even though Jeremy has made a good point, it doesn’t completely silence the little voice whispering in the back of my mind that keeps hinting we’ve bitten off more than we’re ready to chew.

  Jeremy pulls a heavy, long-necked champagne bottle from the picnic basket. He removes the top, which he obviously loosened while he was still in the kitchen.

  I stare at it. “I can’t drink that. Pregnant, remember. That means no alcohol for me until this kid is born.”

  “Which is why I went out and bought the most expensive sparkling grape juice I could find.” He rotates the bottle, holding it the same way a waiter in an expensive restaurant does, allowing me to read the label. “I found it right after you took that first pregnancy test and hid it away so that we’d have it when we did finally create a child. I also brought up some chocolate covered strawberries.”

  “Well, in that case…” I hold out my glass. “Fill it up and let the party start.”

  88

  Caitlin

  I love spring time. Especially days like this when the breeze blowing down from the mountain tops is cool and crisp and carries the faintest hint of snow, the sun is warm on my face, and everyone is smiling.

  Humming to myself, I tug the fancy basket full of cheerful Gerber daisies that I was hired to design and deliver for one of the teacher’s birthdays off my car’s backseat and use my hip to slam the door shut before walking toward the front door of the Hunt’s School for Special Needs. Halfway across the parking lot, I spot a familiar face and quickly alter my course.

  “Sheila!”

  She looks over her shoulder and quickens her pace. Determined to talk to her, I break into a long-strided trot. “Hey Sheila, hold up a minute.”

  I manage to catch up with her just a few feet from her car. She blows out a resigned sigh and stops walking. She stares down at the faded asphalt, bending her neck so that her hair falls around her face, shielding herself from my gaze.

  “What do you want?” Her voice is so flat and devoid of emotion, it’s almost robotic.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  Why? It seems like an odd question, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get her to talk to me for a few minutes.

  I bite back my instinctive, sarcastic response, and choose one that’s a little friendlier. “Because you’re a friend, someone I’ve always liked and admired, and now you and I are family. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “I’m fine.” Sheila shoves her hands into her pockets.

  “Me too. Actually, I’m better than fine, I’m loving married life. It’s so much more interesting than I ever thought it would be!” I inject a ridiculous amount of cheer into my voice. “And how’s your—” I try to remember the name of her child. I know I’ve heard it a few times, but I draw a blank, “—son coping with the change?”

  “He’s staying with his father.”

  “While I have you here, Jeremy and I are planning a dinner party next Thursday, about sevenish. We’d love it if you and Evan would come. And your son too, of course. Jeremy and I have a cat and dog that I bet he’ll love playing with.”

  It’s an impulsive comment, designed to help bring her out from behind the wall she’s thrown up between us and to use sentences that are more than one or two words long. I’m not planning any dinner party, and when Jeremy finds out I invited Evan, the top of his head is going to blow off.

  “We can’t.”

  “Is the date bad for you, or the time? ‘Cause if that’s the problem, I’m happy to work with you, come up with something that fits into your schedule.”

  “Evan doesn’t like dealing with people. He says he needs his space.”

  I shift my grip on the basket of flowers and nod. “I can see that. The privacy probably feels really good after so many years without any. But you don’t have to bring him, if he doesn’t want to come. Come by yourself.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sheila mumbles.

  “Oh, come on. I promise it’ll be fun.” Tired of talking to her mostly hidden profile, I leap into action, putting myself between Sheila and her car. One look at her face and the words dry up in my throat.

  She’s tried covering the damage with makeup, but if anything the heavily applied foundation actually draws attention to her bruised and swollen left cheek and the deep split bisecting her lower lip. Another bruise, this one somewhat less swollen and looking just a bit older, adorns her left eye.

  Bile burns my stomach lining. “Sheila. Did Evan hit you?”

  89

  Caitlin

  “And she didn’t say a word. She just ran around me and jumped into her car.” I pace from one side of Jeremy’s office to the other, pivoting and reversing the process whenever I reach a wall. I can’t get the image of Sheila’s bruises, and her shattered expression, out of my mind.

  Jeremy braces this elbows on the top of his desk and tracks my movements. “Caitlin, you have to calm down. Getting this upset isn’t good for you or the baby.”

  “Calm down?” Anger, dark and forceful, swells inside of me. “You think I should calm down?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just told you that your brother has hit his wife, and your response is to sit there like some kind of useless bump on a log, and try to order me around?”

  “Caitlin, we don’t know that Evan hit her. There are lots of different ways she could have been hurt.”

  “Really,” I snap. “Like what?”

  “She could have slipped and fallen. A patient could have hurt her. Or even her own son. Haven’t there been reports of children, particularly special needs children, lashing out at their parents and doing some serious damage?”

  He makes a good point, but even as I consider those possibilities, I reject them.

  “No. If it was as simple as that, she would have said something, but she didn’t. She was ashamed and afraid, and that tells me this is your brother’s fault.”

  Jeremy closes his eyes. “Even if you’re right, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  His words cause something to snap inside of me. If he’d driven a knife beneath my ribs, it wouldn’t hurt as much as his words.

  I stop pacing and stare at him. Tears burn the back of my eyelids. I came straight to his office after my parking lot encounter with Sheila because I thought he’d support me, help me decide what to do about the situation. It didn’t occur to me that he’d take a passive role. I thought he’d be as angry as me.

  “The hell with that,” I hiss.

  Jeremy’s eyes pop open. “What?”

  “You might not car
e that your asshole of a brother is hitting his wife, that she’s suffering because of him, but I do. And I’ll be damned if I sit around and just let it happen.”

  I spin on my heel and charge out of the office, ignoring the sound of Jeremy calling my name, insisting I come back and calm down.

  90

  Caitlin

  The address I got from Evelyn leads to a pretty, two-story house in an upper lower-class section of Denver. The home’s dark brown siding looks like it’s just a couple of years old. The window boxes hanging from the first-floor windows are full of plants which make my florist’s heart sink.

  A ten-speed bike covered with stickers lies, forgotten, in the front yard on grass that should have been mowed a few weeks ago. The entire place has the vibe of being somewhere that was once well cared for, but that no one has had the time for in the past several months. Kind of like a house does when its occupants go away on an extended vacation and don’t arrange for anyone to take care of things while they’re gone.

  I turn my car into the short, paved driveway and park beside the same maroon mini-van Sheila got into at the school. It’s the only car. Good, Evan is probably at Caldwell Industries, trying new ways to pit the employees against one another – and undermine all the work Jeremy has put in repairing things over the past few years.

  Right now, I’m still so angry with my husband, I almost hope that Evan does something really horrible that will cause Jeremy all sorts of problems.

  I think about the different things I’ll say to Sheila as I park my car and walk toward her front door, trying to come up with the exact combination of words that will convince Sheila that she needs to remove herself from this situation.

  I pound on the door. My foot taps impatiently against the ground as I wait for it to open.

  When it finally does, Sheila pokes her face around the edge of it. She’s still wearing the same thick makeup, though it’s now smudged, giving her face an odd, off kilter appearance, like half of it is starting to melt.