LOVER COME BACK_An Unbelievable But True Love Story

by Scott Hildreth

  Without looking up from his Kindle, my father spoke. “When are you going to make your e-books into paperbacks? I’d like to have that book you dedicated to me in paperback before I die. Is that a possibility?”

  “Should be available in days.”

  He grunted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “I’m serious. Jess just finished formatting it.”

  He lowered the Kindle. After glancing at Jessica and me, he picked up his glasses. A thorough look followed.

  “What the fuck’s going on with you two?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Both of you look like guilty idiots. Cats that ate the proverbial canary.”

  I looked at Jess and shrugged. “Nothing going on here.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Anita! Get your ass in here.”

  Wearing her apron and covered in flour, my mother rushed in the living room. “What is it, David?”

  He waved his hand toward us. “Look at these two fools. What in the hell’s wrong with them?”

  “Well,” she said. “They’re not idiots.”

  He forced a sigh. “Look at your son and his respective lover and tell me what in the hell is going on.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron. “Looks like they’re sitting on the couch.”

  He scowled at her, and then scowled at us. “You two know something that I don’t. Lest you forgot, young man, I don’t like being in the dark.”

  I stood. “Mom, Dad, we have an announcement. We’re getting married.”

  My father grabbed his Kindle. “It’s about goddamned time.”

  “This is so exciting,” my mother gasped. “When?”

  “We haven’t decided.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “We haven’t decided that, either.”

  “Sounds like a line of shit, to me,” my father said dryly.

  “We’re getting married, Pop. Seriously.”

  “Don’t see a ring.”

  “We did a fist bump,” Jess said. “At Starbucks.”

  He pulled off his glasses and squinted. “A what?”

  She clenched both her fists and pounded them together. “Fist bump.”

  He shot me a glare. “That’s what you and your cronies do before you go pull each other’s puds, isn’t it? That’s not a way to secure a woman, you idiot.”

  “Works for us,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Congratulations.”

  “David Wilson Hildreth!” my mother shouted. “That sure didn’t sound very sincere.”

  “I’m happy they’re engaged. I’m not happy about how he did it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” my mother said. “What matters is their love for one another.”

  He raised his Kindle. Frantically, his finger flipped across the screen. He turned it to face me. It was clearly a page from a book, but I couldn’t read it.

  “Erik Ead didn’t pound Kelli’s fist,” he said. “He put a ring in a coffee cup.”

  “That’s a book,” I said.

  “A book you wrote,” he complained.

  “Well, we’re engaged. That’s the news of the week.”

  “Who won Scrabble?” Jess asked, hoping to change the subject.

  He laid the Kindle on the end table. “I don’t remember.”

  “What?” my mother asked.

  “Who won the Scrabble game?” Jess shouted.

  “Oh,” she said. “I did. Six sixty-four to six-twenty.”

  “Six-twenty?” Jess asked. “Isn’t that a low score for you?”

  “Bad night,” my father replied, gesturing to me. “Proof that dip-shit here isn’t the only one that can have a brain-fart.”

  We watched bits and pieces of a golf tournament and talked for a few hours about everything except marriage. When it was time to go, my father stood and opened his arms.

  Jess gave him a hug.

  After he broke their embrace, he clenched his fist and extended a shaking arm. “I’ll be honored to have you as an official member of the family.”

  Jess pounded her fist into his. “Thanks, Pop.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I considered myself a damned good cook. My grandmother on my father’s side grew up in the south. Her cooking was a reflection of it. She taught me how to cook as a child. My mother, who learned to cook from my father’s mother and her mother, was a fabulous cook. She, too, taught me to cook.

  Jessica’s cooking put mine to shame. She took pride in everything her hands touched, and the food she prepared was indicative of that trait.

  When asked what we needed to bring for Thanksgiving dinner, my mother replied pecan pies. I was thrilled. Pecan pie was not only my favorite Thanksgiving Day treat, it was also my son Derek’s.

  Jess had already won the heart of my daughter, but the older boys were different. Much different. They were respectful to her, but the love my daughter expressed wasn’t matched by her two younger brothers.

  Jessica’s homemade pies were going to win their hearts, and their stomachs. I was sure of it. On Thanksgiving morning, Jess did her magic. When she removed the pies from the oven, her heart sank.

  “They’re like pie soup,” she said.

  Inexperienced at pie preparation, I stared at the watery concoction. They looked perfect. The consistency, however, was comparable to my mother’s clam chowder.

  I poked a pecan with the tip of my finger and submerged it in the syrup. “I’m sure they’ll be fine when they cool.”

  Holding the pie tin with oven mitts, she shook it from side-to-side. “They’re like Jello.”

  “Maybe cook them a little longer?”

  Jess agreed. She cooked them until they were on the verge of bursting into flames. When she removed them from the oven, the pecans were blackened. Yet. They were still soupy. We dismissed it as a fluke and took them to the dinner, nonetheless.

  “I just wanted to make the boys happy,” she said during the trip.

  “Derek will still eat it. Alec? Probably not. He’s a lot like his father. He’ll see it as being different. He hates change.”

  “I know,” Jess said. “That’s what worries me.”

  We ate Thanksgiving dinner with my father, mother, brother, sister, and their respective spouses. My three older children weren’t in attendance for dinner, as they ate with their mother that year. They did make it for dessert, though.

  Nervous, Jess cut the pies. Kind of. As much as one can cut soup, that is. Derek devoured the pie, claiming that it tasted as good as any he’d ever eaten, despite the consistency. Alec, on the other hand, took one bite and decided he was too full to continue.

  Jess didn’t say it, but I was sure she was devastated.

  She had been accepted by the three worlds in which I lived. She hadn’t, however, been accepted by the three children I fathered prior to meeting her. Until that happened, I felt our lives would be incomplete.

  We sat in the breakfast nook and talked with the three older children about college, graduating high school, and about life. When the evening was over, Erin, Alec and Derek made their rounds, hugging everyone before they left.

  Erin and Derek hugged Jess.

  Alec did not.

  He simply bypassed her.

  I told myself it was unintentional. I didn’t say anything at that moment about it, nor did I mention it later. I hoped Jess didn’t realize it had happened. In a family that passes out hugs the way most families pass the potatoes, I was sure she did, though.

  During the thirty-mile drive home that evening, she gazed out the side window of the Jeep. The rural area was primarily fields of hay or crops of some sort. It certainly wasn’t anything interesting enough to stare at.

  With her eyes fixed on the fields of nothing, she spoke.

  “Alec didn’t hug me.”

  “He didn’t?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

  “No.”

  Alec was six-foot-six. Compared to Jess, who stood five-foot-two,
he was a giant.

  “He probably didn’t see you,” I said jokingly.

  She faced me. “Derek hugged me. He’s almost as tall as Alec.”

  She was right. Derek was almost six-foot-five at the time. “I don’t know, Baby. I’m sure it was an oversight.”

  She tried to smile but couldn’t. Her gaze went back to the fields of grass that filled the northern horizon.

  We never spoke about what she was thinking that evening. We didn’t have to.

  I knew.

  My oldest son was a mirror image of me. No one could tell him what to do. His temper had the ability to place him on the verge of lunacy. He was stubborn. He was set in his ways. He detested change. Lastly, he didn’t trust women.

  At all.

  I hoped in time he’d somehow find a way to trust Jess. When that day came – if it came – I prayed that his acceptance of her soon followed.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Despite Jess’ hatred toward cats, we’d adopted two from the Humane Society, Chuck and Taylor. Chuck’s decision to piss on Jessica every night while we slept earned him a trip back to the shelter.

  Taylor spent her days sleeping in my lap while I worked, often remaining motionless for four or five hours at a time.

  When Christmas came, everything changed.

  “Do cats always act like this?” Jess asked.

  Taylor was mid-tree, slapping at a Christmas ornament.

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “Cats are dumb.”

  It was our first Christmas together as a family. On Christmas morning, when the kids awoke, visions of my childhood promptly returned. Landon and Lily ran to the tree, surprised to see there were more gifts under the tree than the previous night when they went to bed.

  “Santa came!” Landon shouted.

  Lily, as always, agreed in the form of a toothy grin. Like her mother, she spoke very little and wore her emotions on her shirt sleeves.

  Sitting side by side so close that we were touching, Jess and I sat and sipped coffee while the children opened their gifts. Then, we opened ours. The excitement in Jessica’s eyes that came with each present she opened was more rewarding than I ever imagined.

  After the gifts had all been opened, Taylor played with the pieces of wrapping paper while we prepared for the trip to my parent’s house.

  A second Christmas was enjoyed with my family. The joy on my mother and father’s faces as they witnessed Landon and Lily open their gifts was rewarding. I looked around the room. Scattered about, amidst the gifts, my family surrounded me. I’d made great strides in my recovery from incarceration in the past five years, and proof of it surrounded me.

  Alec played with Landon in the back yard, showing him how to properly throw a football. In the past, he hadn’t so much as acknowledged Landon’s presence. Having an older brother meant the world to Landon. Having another younger brother didn’t seem to appeal to Alec at all. At least not until that day.

  I sat alone, watching them play together for a long time. I feared joining my family in the other room would cause the development I was witnessing to cease. Derek soon joined them, and the three boys played catch together as brothers would.

  Alec and Derek were both fabulous athletes. They played football, basketball, and ran in track.

  As a child, I viewed sports as nothing but another means for someone to tell me what to do. I also despised failure. If I was part of a team, and the team failed, I failed. Regardless of my effort or devotion, I would have to accept that failure as mine. Succeeding at everything was my goal. An unrealistic goal, but a goal, nonetheless.

  As a result of these personal beliefs and deficiencies, I never participated in sports.

  Furthermore, I grew up with no desire to watch them on television. Short of the bits and pieces I’d seen by accident while my father watched, I’d never seen a professional football game or basketball game. I had no desire for that to change.

  Short of their school games, I avoided sports entirely.

  In retrospect, I believed my lack of interest disappointed my sons. They never said so, but they really didn’t have to. To love something as much as they did, and not have their father share that love would be difficult.

  As I watched them play, I filled with resentment for not being more flexible in my beliefs. As that bitterness came to a head, I opened the sliding glass door and walked outside.

  “Dad,” Landon shouted. “Are you going to play?”

  Landon and Lily had been calling me dad for some time. I wondered how Alec and Derek would accept it. I mentally cringed as I walked to their side.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll play.”

  My mother didn’t get her white Christmas that year. The weather was unseasonably warm that day, setting an all-time record high. As we tossed the ball back and forth in the warm Christmas sun, I decided that God wanted to give the gift of sunshine that year.

  Eventually, we agreed to go in and have another helping of Christmas dinner. Landon and Derek walked side by side, tossing the ball back and forth.

  Alec sauntered toward the door at my side.

  “The kids never really had a dad, did they?” he asked.

  “No. Not really. He was a turd. He’s got half a dozen with three or four different women. Doesn’t care about any of them.”

  “You going to adopt them?” he asked.

  Jess and I had discussed it. We’d talked to an attorney and were getting our things in order, so I could do just that. Surprised, that he asked, I looked at him.

  “I’m planning on it.”

  He nodded and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Good.”

  Alec was a man of very few words. What he did say, he meant with all his heart.

  “I think it’ll be good for all of us,” I said.

  I realized, after I spoke, that all of us included him. I took a few hesitant steps and waited for him to respond.

  “Having another brother and sister is kinda cool,” he said.

  He didn’t say it would be cool, he said it was.

  Fighting back tears, I acknowledged his statement. “I love you, Son.”

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Love you, Pop.”

  We stayed that day until the older kids had to go. Before they left, we announced that a decision had been made regarding our marriage.

  In complete contrast to Jessica’s mother suggesting that we get married on December thirteenth, we opted to choose February fourteenth as our wedding day. Her mother believed marrying on 12-13-14 would be cute.

  I never believed much in gimmicks and wanted our relationship to succeed based on love, not a quirky date. We couldn’t think of any other day that commemorated love more than Valentine’s Day, so that day was chosen.

  We also decided to do it alone. In Las Vegas.

  With my arm around Jess, I made the announcement. “We’re getting married on February fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. And, we’re doing it in Vegas.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” my father spat.

  “David Wilson Hildreth!” my mother shouted.

  “That’s great,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve decided on a date. It’ll be easy to remember your anniversary.”

  “You going to have Elvis do it?” my father asked.

  “No,” Jessica said. “We’ve got it scheduled at a church.”

  “You’re actually going to a church?” my father asked, his tone reflecting slight interest.

  “Yeah, kind of. It’s a church in the casino,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes.

  The older kids congratulated us, and then made their rounds, hugging everyone goodbye. Alec, once again, missed Jessica somehow.

  I had to acknowledge his expressed acceptance of the children, and I did so. Mentally. His lack of acceptance of Jessica, willing or not, was crushing me.

  The look in Jessica’s eyes as they drove away confirmed it was crushing her, too.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Jessica’s s
alon was having a late Christmas party. I doubted I’d have much fun attending a gathering with twenty people I didn’t really know. Hoping to extend the love and warmth of the Holiday season for one more week beyond New Year, I reluctantly agreed to go.

  “Why did they postpone it for two weeks?” I asked.

  “She had to. All the bars were scheduled out with Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve stuff until the second week of January,” she said. “She forgot to schedule it until mid-December.”

  I’d known about the party for a month and had dreaded its arrival. “You’re sure it’s okay that I dress like this?”

  “She’s having everyone dress down this year. She thinks it’ll let everyone cut loose or whatever.”

  I pulled on my Chucks. “Suits me.”

  After the babysitter arrived, we walked across the street to the bar where the party was to be held. It was Saturday night. As always on the weekends, the bar was packed. The establishment, The Pump House, was an old gas station that had been converted to a bar.

  Our MC often met there, and it was one of the few places I felt comfortable going. Crowds of people I didn’t know had always made me anxious. If I was in a place where I felt comfortable, however, I could somehow manage to relax.

  Pleased that the party was being held in a familiar location, I opened the door and guided Jessica inside. After she passed through the door, she paused.

  She took position at my left side, gripped my arm in her hand, and smiled. “Let’s go.”

  The bar’s entrance gave no view to the inside of the establishment. A short corridor hid the patrons entirely. As we walked down the hallway, I imagined a night of Jessica drinking with her co-workers while I repeatedly told them why I chose to refrain from partaking in liquor.

  The scene would be slightly uncomfortable for me. Not terrible, but I’d be uneasy. I was sure of it. While the sound of R.L. Burnside’s Someday Baby blared over the sound system, I clenched my jaw and stepped around the corner.

  A hundred feet in the distance, I saw Teddy.