by Ali Vali
"Hey," said Desi softly when Harry walked in with Jack. She took a mental snapshot of her two favorite people and how good they looked together. Jack was only two weeks old but he seemed to be undergoing constant changes. He was becoming more alert and it amazed Desi that he seemed to know when Harry was around.
And Harry, it was just fun to think about it. Considering how she had acted when Desi was pregnant, she knew that once the baby was born Harry would be a goner. It was nice to be right watching her when she interacted with their son. There would never be a moment, Desi knew, when she would have to ask Harry to play with him or spend time with him. Just like she had done with Rachel so many years before, Harry would make sure Jack knew that he was wanted and loved. That there was one person in the world besides Desi that he could turn to and count on to always be there. Harry had done for Rachel what Clyde had never gone out of his way to do, and it made Desi happy to know that Jack would have the same.
"Jack was just telling me how much he missed you. He totally agrees with me in thinking you are the most wonderful person in the world." Harry laid the baby in the middle of the bed on his back so that they could both look at him. He was dry and content for the moment so she thought they could enjoy a little family time together. Desi wiped away the few tears that had run down her face as Harry sat down and reached out to hold her hand. "What’s the matter baby?"
"Nothing, just happy is all. Really honey, I saw you walk in with him and it made me think how great it is that we finally have our family. That, and how lucky Jack and I are to have you. I know it sounds sappy, but I think I was about fourteen when I first thought about what it would be like to have a baby with you." Desi picked Jack up and cradled him in her arms so that they could both move closer to Harry. She was pulled in by one long arm and kissed on the temple. Jack got a finger to hold so that Harry could admire his tiny fingernails.
"That would have made me fifteen, and I was thinking about how I could kiss you and not have you run screaming into the night. You were starting to fill out in the most wonderful places and it made my heart race whenever you stepped into the room. You know what the greatest thing is?" They both watched Jack blink his eyes and wave one small fist in the air.
"What?" Desi turned a little so she could see Harry’s eyes when she answered.
"You still make my heart race when you walk into a room Desiree. And you know what else?" Harry was whispering the questions into her ear and Desi was feeling a little racing of her own.
"No, what?"
"I want another one of these little guys. Only next time I think we should have a little girl with blonde hair and green eyes. A little girl that will grow up to be as beautiful as her mother. A little girl that I can spoil as much as I plan to spoil this little fellow and you for as long as you will let me."
"I don’t know if you can put in an order for anything that specific baby, but I’ll give it a shot. The fact that you want to have more children makes me happy. Rachel means so much to me that I want to give Jack that gift." Desi looked over her shoulder and kissed Harry. Before they could get any more involved they found out how quickly Jack could go from contented baby to screaming hungry baby.
After he was fed and asleep, Desi joined Harry in bed ready to go to sleep herself. "Good night honey. Get some rest, tomorrow’s a big day."
"What happens tomorrow?"
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"Tomorrow you get to go and see your new doctor."
"When are you coming home Tyrell?" asked Diana. They talked on the phone several times a day, but Diana had yet to see her brother since he had escaped from jail. His friends had been giving him different places to sleep and she could understand his staying away. An unmarked car cruised by her apartment several times a day looking for Tyrell knowing he would show up at his sister’s sooner or later, so he had been smart to stay away. Diana missed him though and wanted to see him.
"Di you know that can’t happen for a while. I want to take care of you before the bastards that are looking for me find me. Dr. Basantes promised me no cops, and I want to believe her. Hell I don’t mind going back if she can help you. I’m going to see you tomorrow at her office. Chick is going to pick you up in his van and drive you over. I’ll meet y’all there." Tyrell was calling from the payphone down the block from his sisters swiveling his head throughout the whole conversation keeping watch for any cop cars that slowed down around him.
"Can you find those two white boys brother?"
"Don’t you mean three?" Diana relayed the story she had watched on the news that afternoon about the oldest Simoneaux that had escaped with Tyrell. The reporter had been standing outside Byron’s old house talking about the action that unfolded the night before leaving two injured police officers and a dead escaped convict. Yellow police tape billowed in the wind like the house had been decorated for some kind of party.
"I knew that old creep was a crazy fuck. After tomorrow, I’ll start looking for the other two with the help of some of my friends. Though I don’t know if this Basantes woman needs my help. Given the chance today, I think she would have beaten the shit out of me with no problem. If she gets her hands on Junior, who she really has something against, I don’t hold out any hope for him. Get some sleep Diana and I’ll see you tomorrow." Tyrell hung up the phone and pulled his jacket collar up against the cold night air. The wind was starting to blow some clouds in that night and he hoped the rain would hold off until his sister was safely in the clinic the next day.
As he crossed the street to one of the abandoned apartments in the development, Tyrell vowed to keep his promise to help find Byron and Mike. He already had some of his old friends looking around the one place in New Orleans easiest to hide. The French Quarter was big, but not to someone that knew it. Only they hadn’t had any luck yet but they vowed to keep looking.
Tyrell ducked down quickly when he saw the police car coming up the street slowly. The guy in the passenger seat had the spotlight on and was shining it in the empty buildings looking for suspicious movement. He held his breath when they past the garbage can he was hiding behind hoping they didn’t direct the beam to the other side of the street.
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"Man that was close."
"I’m telling you we have to get out of here. First that woman was looking out the window at us and now the cops are cruising around here like crazy. They probably have orders to shoot us on sight if they find us. Let’s go back to the Quarter and look for daddy." Mike’s heart was about to beat out of his chest after the spotlight from the police car scanned the top of the shrubs they were hiding in. After they had jumped down from the wall surrounding Harry and Desi’s house, he and Mike had started to dig through garbage cans looking for something to eat. I didn’t think it could suck any more than this to be me, thought Mike as he pressed his face to the dirt.
"She didn’t see shit you little pussy, so calm down. First off, forget about the old man, he’s gone. There is no way in hell we are going to find him now; he’s on his own. Crazy bastard probably went and got himself caught by now. And secondly, we have to find a way into that house. I didn’t come all this way to leave without Desi now." Byron looked up to find the cruiser about a block away. He sat up and started eating one of the pizza pieces they had found in the can at one of the houses along side Harry’s. A smile broke across his face as he chewed slowly thinking about the woman that had taken Desi away from him. This time it would be different. This time he wasn’t leaving until that tall unnatural bitch was dead.
"The next time you call me that, you are on your own Byron. I’m tired, hungry and stupid for thinking that you could keep me out of jail. The facts are we are going to get caught, and when we do, we ain’t ever getting out. Desi’s big friend in there is going to make sure that will be our reality. I’m thinking the best thing we can do is just turn ourselves in and hope for the best.
" Oh God, is that a big wad of hair? Mike gagged when he looked at the piece of pizza he was eating.
"Stop being so sensitive Mikey. After I’m finished dealing with my wife, I promise we’ll get out of New Orleans and start over. We’ll go someplace small. Hell, we are great mechanics, how hard can it be? You just have to understand that I can’t leave here without setting things right. Desi was mine Mike, and that bitch took her away from me." Byron had softened his voice trying to get his brother to see reason. If the opportunity came up he would need Mike’s help to carry it out. If the last time he had gone against Harry had taught him anything, it had taught him that he couldn’t do it alone.
"Byron, you lost her because you broke her leg with a fucking bat. Has that little bit of information escaped your warped little mind? Fuck, you are as bad as daddy when it comes to self-denial. I was never any Romeo, but I’m thinking women don’t appreciate when you do shit like that."
"You don’t understand shit Mike. How would you like coming home after a hard day and find your woman crying over some bitch she knew in high school? There’s a limit to what a man has to put up with in his own house. I could have made her happy if she had given me the chance." Byron threw the crust in his hand behind him and moved away from his brother. His anger grew as he thought about all the times he caught Desi crying, how she never responded to his touch, never moved when he made love to her. She had never given them the chance to work because she was too busy thinking about someone who had moved on and never looked back.
"Byron, you should have realized that she wasn’t going to love you like a wife should, when the wedding and relationship were worked out by daddy and Clyde. She didn’t have a choice and now I know why. Clyde just didn’t want to deal with the humiliation of having Desi go off with that doctor." Convincing Byron to walk down the aisle with Desi hadn’t been a hard sell for the two fathers. Desi had been a beautiful girl that the Simoneaux boy had wanted to possess from the first time he had seen her. He knew she didn’t love him, but that would come later. His father had managed it in his own marriage and so would he. "It’s not your fault, so let’s just go." Mike spoke softly hoping to reach Byron. There had to be a little bit of reason left in his mind. If it came down to it, he would leave on his own and do what Byron had said. Start over somewhere where people didn’t know him and had never heard the name Simoneaux.
They sat in silence after that in a stalemate. They had been sitting under the bushes for hours and both of them were fighting sleep. In what seemed like a few minutes after closing his eyes, Mike woke up first hearing the rumble of the garbage truck coming down the street. Ah, here comes breakfast. He rubbed his hands over his face trying to ignore how grimy the skin felt under his hands. He looked both ways down the quiet street then shook Byron roughly to get him moving. "Come on it’s time to go. The sun’s coming up."
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"And you are just now waking up? You are going to be one of those kids everyone is envious of, aren’t you my boy?" Harry talked to the wide-awake Jack as she changed his diaper. She had forgotten to close the shutters in their room the night before and the sunlight had woken her up just past six in the morning. They had gotten up a couple of times in the night with Jack’s feedings, but he had lasted from his two o’clock feeding until Harry found him lying quietly in the bassinet when she untangled herself from Desi. He looked up at her with his fist in his mouth as she put on the new diaper trying to be tolerant as big fingers tried dealing with the small snaps of his sleeper.
The one-sided conversation continued as Harry carried him downstairs to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. The only good thing about having to go back to work was that she didn’t have any surgeries scheduled for the next two days. She would only have to make it through clinic hours at the Mercy facility then she could come home. The one interesting appointment Harry did have on tap was Tyrell Lagrie’s sister. There had been no further news on any of the escaped men after the media coverage of Byron Simoneaux’s death at his old house. Mona came into the room and patted the baby’s back as Harry stood watching the dark liquid drip into the carafe.
"Have a good night?" Mona decided on that question since she figured asking to hold the baby on Harry’s first day going back to work was going to be futile. She started taking things out of the refrigerator and putting them on the counter for breakfast trying to decide if she should tease Harry about the night before or not.
"Yes I did, and so did Desi, so don’t tease her about it." Mona looked up with an innocent look on her face and pointed to her chest. "Yes you, don’t stand there like flies won’t land on you Miss Mona. I know you better than that. It’s hard enough having both sets of our parents here without you giving her a hard time too." Harry walked over and kissed the older woman on the head handing Jack over for her to hold for a minute. At the rate he was going with the number of adults in the house, Harry figured Jack would learn to walk when he was twelve.
"Good morning my baby," Mona cooed to Jack. She laughed when he turned his big green eyes on her and sucked on his hand harder. "Harry this little boy is going to be a big wad of trouble just like you."
"Oh yeah, how do you figure?" Harry reached up and took two mugs down from the cabinet over the coffee pot. The steaming cup of tea she had made for Desi was already sitting on the counter cooling off.
"I can remember coming to work for your mama and having you look at me with the same eyes this boy’s giving me now. You could have broken every window in the house, but that wide-eyed innocent look never changed. I can see that in a few years my boy Jack is going to be in here hiding from you and Desi after causing all kinds of hell, looking for protection just like you did when Maria was on the warpath about something." Mona finally looked up from the sweet face when Harry walked over and put down a full mug of coffee the way Mona liked it on the counter.
"He couldn’t have found a better friend than you Mona, I know I never did. I don’t think I could have become a doctor if I had gotten all the spankings I had coming to me."
"Harry, I know I tease you all the time but I love you, and you have made me very proud with the way you turned out. Look at you all grown up with a son of your own, and a woman up there that loves you. I guess what I’m saying is that I owe you for giving me a home and making me feel like part of your family. When I lost my Joseph, my kids wanted me to come and live with them, but I felt better here with you. We helped each other through some rough patches and I’m glad we get to enjoy the good times now." Mona handed Jack back to his mother and tried to hide the tears that had formed in her eyes.
"Thank you Mona, hearing that from you means a lot to me." Mona waved her hand in Harry’s direction trying to get her to be quiet, but Harry kept going. "No, let me finish. The best things in my life are Desi and Jack, but what makes that picture complete is that you are here too, to look after them and protect them, like you did me. This is your home Mona. It’s your home because you are an important part of my family. You are all the grandparents I never had all rolled up into one, and it thrills me that my son will have you too."
"Get out of here, and bring that baby back to his mother Harry, he looks hungry. Then get in the shower and get dressed, you have to go to work today," answered Mona making shooing motions with her hands. Harry leaned over and kissed her forehead one more time before taking her two mugs and her son and going back upstairs.
"Hey baby," Harry whispered when she sat on the bed. Desi sat up and leaned against her taking sips from the mug Harry was holding to her lips trying to become coherent. Her partner handed her the baby when her eyes finally opened and helped Jack find his own breakfast treat.
"I love you." Desi yawned before leaning back for her good morning kiss. The coffee Harry was drinking smelled good but she was going to have to stick to decaffeinated beverages until they had weaned Jack off of breast milk. Desi was already worried about Harry having to go to work with so little sle
ep; they didn’t need to add to the problem.
"I love you too sweetheart."
"Where have you two been?" Desi looked up at Harry after making sure Jack was all right.
"In the kitchen with Granny Mona. She was telling me how proud of me she was for bringing the two of you home. I’m pretty proud of that fact myself," said Harry tightening her hold on her family. "It’s going to be a hell of a long day away from you two."
"You are the best thing that ever happened to us honey, Mona’s right. I know what you mean about being a long day. Jack and I are going to miss you, but we’ll call you a lot today to check on you." They sat together watching Jack eat then put him down when he fell asleep again. While Harry was in the shower Desi went down to help Mona get breakfast together. They hadn’t talked about it, but Desi was getting nervous about Harry seeing Tyrell and his sister. Serena had told her that the man had beaten a man to death and Harry would be alone with him. Desi figured it was her right to worry even though Harry had been truly alone with him the day before, and had taken care of him.
After breakfast, Harry said goodbye to Desi and Jack before opening the back door. The weather was starting to get windy and cloudy, dropping the temperature drastically from the day before. The rest of their houseguests were starting to stream into the kitchen but left the little family alone for a moment. Harry kissed the baby’s head and then Desi’s lips before greeting the four new adults in the room. "You all keep an eye on my two favorite people here, and I’ll see you this afternoon." To the baby she said, "Be good for your mommy little buddy, and don’t let all these guys give you a hard time."
Desi laughed at her partner’s warning knowing that as soon as she walked out the door the two sets of grandparents would be lining up for holding duty. She started them off early handing Jack to the closest one, and Maria happily complied. With her arms empty she walked back to Harry and put her hands on the sides of Harry’s face and pulled her down. When the kiss ended Harry looked like work was the last thing on her mind. "Have a good day honey, don’t work too hard and I love you."