As she continues to stare at the window, she decides that maybe the curtains were open yesterday, and she’s just confused. Another bolt of lightning flashes across the dark sky. She gasps, her eyes widening in terror when she sees a dark shadow dart across the master bedroom window. Dropping the curtain, she stumbles backward, grabbing at her pounding heart.
What was that?
No way could it have been a person because it didn’t have the shape of a human. It was more like a small, dark shadow. Almost like a black mass of some sort, and it was fast. No human could move like that.
She drops down onto her bed, her chest heaving. She’s seen shadows and movement out of the corner of her eyes numerous times, but this was something totally different. She saw something, and she has no idea what it was.
Another loud clap of thunder shakes the house causing her to jerk and almost fall off the bed. She takes in some deep breaths and tries to get her pounding heart to slow. Kicking her shoes off, she climbs under the covers with her clothes still on, and pulls them up to her chin. Her eyes dart to the door when she hears what sounds like Dylan’s heavy boots coming up the stairs, and she wishes so hard that he was coming upstairs to climb into bed with her. She wants his strong arms wrapped around her so badly she can hardly stand it.
She turns on her side, remembering what it felt like to be in his arms, to feel so protected… and she wonders if she’ll ever experience that feeling again.
* * *
“Here’s the bathroom,” Jackie says as she flips the light on for Dylan. “Towels are there. Soap, shampoo and everything else is in the shower if you want to take one. But,” she says as she turns and looks at his chin, curling her lip up, “if you shave, I expect you to clean it up. I don’t want any nasty whiskers in my sink. And don’t just run the water for a second. I want it clean.”
Dylan glares at her and doesn’t respond.
Jackie huffs and pushes past him, walking briskly to a door and opening it. Dylan follows her. “Here’s your bedroom. Myra is in the bedroom next to you down there,” she says as she points down the hall. “Your dad is in this bedroom across the hall from you, and I’m on the other end.”
He nods and steps into the room. “Hey,” Jackie whispers, trying to get his attention. Reluctantly, he turns around to face her. “I want to talk to you for a minute, but I’m going to whisper because I don’t want Myra overhearing us. What happened with you two? Did you do something really stupid again?”
Dylan frowns. She hasn’t told Jackie? “You’ll have to—”
“Shhhh!” Jackie hisses. “You really are stupid. Don’t talk so loud. Do you want her to hear you?”
He lowers his voice, but no way is he fucking whispering like a girl. “You’ll have to talk to her.”
“Well, whatever you did, you need to go apologize to her. Get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. You don’t want to lose her, do you?”
His chest tightens. He doesn’t want to lose her. The thought of losing her makes him physically hurt. “No,” he mumbles.
“Well, she’s really hurting, and you need to fix this. She loves you so much and I hate—”
“What?”
“I hate seeing her—”
“No. You said she… she loves me?” He can barely breathe.
“Yes, you idiot, how did you not know that? Of course she loves you. It’s so obvious. You can see it in everything she does for you. The meals she cooks, how she almost worried herself sick when you slept on the porch last night. The way she sits around moping… just everything. Now hurry up and fix it because even though I really don’t like you, I love Myra and I want her to be happy. If that happens to be with you, I guess I’ll have to accept it. Now, I’m off to bed. Good night.” Dylan’s mouth hangs open as he watches Jackie skip off out the door and down the hallway.
She loves me?
Slowly, he closes the door and leans against it, his legs feeling weak, and his heart pounding. All of his thoughts are consumed by the girl in the room next to him.
* * *
Myra looks at the clock again. She’s been awake for hours. At least the storm didn’t last long and has finally passed. Leaning over, she flips on the light and walks over to Susie’s box. She pulls out the little dresses and socks again, fingering the soft material. She picks up the tiny ballet slippers and smiles. She takes them with her back to the bed and leans against the headboard, pulling her knees up to her chest. She dangles the tiny slippers off of her finger for a moment. Sitting one on each knee, she just stares at them, marveling at how tiny they are.
This is not the way she ever pictured herself becoming a mother. Myra has always been a bit of a traditionalist so she always saw herself having a small church wedding and buying a house with a picket fence. Then after being married for a few years, having a couple of kids, and living happily ever after.
Yet here she sits pregnant and completely alone with an old run-down house that has a ghost in it. She is most definitely not living her happily ever after dream.
How can she be a mother when she barely had a mother of her own? But she decides it doesn’t matter because her experiences don’t figure into the equation. No matter what, she is going to be a mother, and this child deserves the absolute best from her. No matter what happens with Dylan, she will not allow her child to pay for the faults of its parents.
Tucking her fingers inside the slippers, she picks them up, and scoots down on the bed until she’s lying flat. She plays with the little shoes, rubbing her fingers along the tiny rosebuds and feeling the soft satin against her fingertips. For a moment, she closes her eyes and tries to picture a foot that size, so small and tiny with little wriggling toes. Lifting the slippers to her lips, she kisses them softly. Tears slip out of the corners of her closed eyes, but these aren’t sad tears. These are tears that a woman cries for an unborn child that is not yet known but already loved.
Turning on her side, she holds tight to the little slippers, snuggling them close to her cheek and closes her eyes, hoping that sleep will hurry and come take her away.
* * *
“Daaaaaaaaad!”
Dylan shoots up in bed, his heart pounding as he hears a blood-curdling scream.
He lunges out of bed, getting caught up in his sheets and trips and falls to his knees. “Goddamn it,” he mumbles as he almost rips the sheets in half to get them off his legs. He hears another scream just as he reaches the door and flings it open. He runs down to the end of the hall and flings Myra’s door open. He squints, temporarily blinded from the light coming from the bedside lamp. Myra’s head is tossing back and forth on the pillow.
“Myra, Myra, wake up,” he says sitting down beside her and gently shaking her shoulders. “It’s just a nightmare. Wake up.”
Her eyes snap open and she sits up. “Dad… Where is he?” she asks breathlessly as she frantically looks around the room.
Dylan swallows hard. “It was just a dream…” he whispers in a soft voice.
“What the hell is going on?” Jackie shouts as she stumbles into the room. “Myra? Are you all right?”
Dennis steps in the door behind her. “What’s wrong?” he asks his voice groggy with sleep.
Myra’s frightened eyes meet Dylan’s for a moment before she buries her face in chest. He wraps his arms around her. “It’s okay,” he calls out to them. “She just had a nightmare.”
“Are you sure?” Jackie asks. “Are you okay, Myra?”
Myra nods as she shivers in his arms. “She’s all right,” Dylan says. “Go back to bed.”
“All right… Well, if you need me, Myra, come get me, okay?”
Jackie and Dennis leave, shutting the door behind them.
Myra shudders in his arms again as he feels the wetness of her tears on his bare chest. He holds her quietly, rubbing her gently on the back. Closing his eyes, he inhales, smelling that sweet fruity scent of hers that he finds so intoxicating. She feels so good like this, in his arms, like she belongs
here. Even though it’s just been a few days, he can’t believe how much he’s missed this, touching her, feeling her; it feels like it’s been a goddamn lifetime.
After a few more minutes, she pushes on his chest gently. Still keeping his arms around her, he looks down into her eyes. They’re wide and full of tears, but still so damn beautiful. He wants to kiss her tears away, kiss her beautiful face and touch her full lips with his. He wants to tell her all the things he feels inside his heart.
“Sorry,” she mumbles as she looks down at his bare chest and starts to wipe the tears off.
Still keeping one arm around her, he grabs her hand to stop her. “It’s all right. I—” He frowns, stopping mid-sentence. He brings her hand up and stares in disbelief at the pink baby shoe dangling from it.
A strange feeling of panic comes over him, almost like the walls of the room are collapsing around him. A tightness forms in his chest, and he feels like he can’t breathe. “I gotta go,” he says in a strained voice as he drops her hand. He stands and exits her bedroom as fast as he can.
Back in his room, he sits in the dark, breathing hard, and trying desperately to not have another panic attack. When he hears a soft knock on the door, he doesn’t open it.
* * *
The next morning Myra’s heart sinks when Dylan doesn’t show up for breakfast. She wants to apologize for the baby shoes and try to explain what happened, but he won’t give her a chance.
“Where’s Jackie?” Dennis asks.
“She had to go into the bookstore early this morning.”
Dennis nods. “I want to apologize for my son’s behavior. I’m really frustrated because I don’t know how to help him. This kind of thing is just beyond me. He needs to talk to a doctor, but he just gets really angry and defensive whenever I mention it.”
Myra nods as her fingers play with a cracker that sits on her plate.
“I’m going back to Boise tonight after we work on your house today. Chad’s going to pick me up. I think we can get quite a bit done before I leave. How long are you going to stay with Jackie?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe a few more nights…?”
Dennis nods. “Have you heard anything from Porter?”
“Yeah, nothing new…”
“Did you get ahold of your insurance agent about your car?”
“Yeah, someone’s coming by this morning. Is my car really that bad?”
Dennis nods a solemn look on his face. “It’s pretty bad. Let me know when he shows up, and I’ll take him out to the garage for you.”
Myra sighs and nods. She’s really thankful for Dennis’s thoughtfulness because she definitely doesn’t want to see it.
“Thanks for fixing this delicious breakfast, Myra. Pack up Dylan’s plate, and I’ll make sure he eats it.”
Myra nods as she stands and picks up Dylan’s plate. She remembers the panicked look on his face last night just before he ran out of her room, and she just hopes and prays those shoes didn’t do the damage that she thinks they did.
* * *
Dylan sits in his truck and smokes until he sees Myra and Dennis leaving Jackie’s house. Myra makes eye contact with him for a moment before they move inside and close the door. He just couldn’t face Myra this morning. He didn’t sleep a wink after he saw that damn baby shoe last night. It’s been fucking with his head ever since. Why did she have that shoe already? They just found out she’s pregnant so where the hell did that shoe come from?
While finishing his cigarette, he pulls out his phone and starts going through his voicemails. His box is full.
He hits play when he sees a message from Elaina. “Dylan, this is Elaina. I haven’t heard from you to reschedule your appointment. I hope everything’s okay. Call me when you get a chance. Take care, mi querido.”
He deletes it. Even though his back has been fucking killing him lately from working on Myra’s house and all the stress he’s under, he won’t be leaving Myra for any reason.
He has numerous messages from people wanting work done on their houses. He deletes every one of them without even listening to them. There are several from his mom and Natalie, which he also immediately deletes. He stops and listens to one from Chad. “Bro, answer your goddamn phone. Don’t pull this avoidance shit on us like you used to do. Call me back and I promise I won’t talk about what a douche you are. We’ll talk about happy shit like Gears of War or something. And if you don’t call me back, I promise you that I’ll make a little visit to Nyssa and put your douchey ass in a headlock.”
As Dylan hits delete, he can’t help the small smirk that creeps up on his face. He’ll call Chad back later because he knows his brother will keep his promise and show up and kick his ass.
Once he gets his voicemail cleaned out and finishes his cigarette, he tucks his phone back in his pocket and gets out of his truck, stretching his back. He walks up to Myra’s door and lets himself in, locking the door behind him.
“Dylan?” Myra softly calls his name.
He stops and shoves his hands in his pockets and turns to look at her sitting on the couch. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she asks.
“Not now,” he grunts. “I’ve got shit to do.”
“Please? It’ll only take a minute. It’s about last night…”
“I don’t have time,” he snaps before he stomps off towards the kitchen.
* * *
“Did you make a doctor’s appointment yet?” Susie asks before she makes loud crunching noises in Myra’s ear.
“What are you eating?” Myra asks.
“Why? Do I sound like a pig in a trough?” Susie retorts before snorting loudly. “I feel like one. I’m at that Mexican restaurant we used to go to by work. I needed to shove my face in some nachos today. I’m having such a pissy day. Lori was supposed to come with me, but she canceled. And I don’t want to hear anything about my diet. I’ve fallen off the chuck wagon again. No, I’ve not fallen off; I’m actually eating the chuck wagon right now. God, I hate myself. Now quit distracting me and answer my question.”
“Yes, I made the appointment. They can fit me in next week. Natalie called me yesterday and asked me about it, too.”
“I’m really starting to like this Natalie chick. She sounds pretty awesome. Oh, blasted hairy monkey balls,” she mumbles. “Hang on.” Myra hears a lot of commotion and more mumbled curses before Susie finally comes back on the line. “Damn guacamole. I just dropped a humongous chunk of it. I think I did that the last time we ate together. Ugh! It bounced off my tit and landed with a splat on my lap. I do this every single time I each nachos. I now have a big green blob where my nipple should be. Stupid green goop,” she growls, causing Myra to giggle.
“See? This is how my entire day has been. It started last night in the middle of the night. I got up to go pee and walked into the bathroom in the dark, feeling my way around. I plopped down on the toilet, did my business and reached for the toilet paper, and guess what? Of course there was nothing there but the empty roll. Jeff, that ignorant idiot, was the last one in the bathroom last night, and he didn’t bother to change the roll or tell me about it. So I reached in the bottom of the cabinet, and of course there was no more toilet paper.
“So I just sat there in the dark, half asleep, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Then I remembered I had a box of pads under the sink so I reached over to pull them out, and the box was empty. So the only option I had left was to use my hand towel, which I absolutely refused to do because I love those towels. They’re the purple ones with the gold trim, do you remember?” she asks but doesn’t give Myra a chance to answer. “Anyway, I then considered yelling at Jeff to get his sorry no good ass up to get me some toilet paper because this was his fault to begin with, but I knew if I did that, he’d never go back to sleep, and then he’d want to have sex and no way was I having sex with that moron after he put me in that position in the first place so I just said screw it all.
“So I decided to just sit there and drip dry. I re
sted my head against my hands and dozed off, and my head bobbed, and I jerked so hard that I swear to god, I almost fell off the damn toilet. It would’ve scared the peediddle out of me but I’d already peediddled. So I just gave up and took the toilet paper roll off and used that to wipe with. It hurt my lady parts something fierce, let me tell you.”
Myra laughs so hard she can barely breathe.
“It’s not that funny,” Susie growls as she starts crunching chips loudly again.
“Wait,” Myra says as she tries to get her giggling under control. “Why didn’t you just use your underwear to wipe with?”
“My underwear…?” Susie asks in a confused voice. She’s quiet for a minute. “Oh my god... I was half asleep, Myra. Half of my brain wasn’t working because it was off counting sheep. I’m so stupid. I didn’t even think about using my underwear. I’m a complete idiot.”
Myra wipes tears from her eyes. “That was hilarious. I really needed to laugh. Thank you.”
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself. My whole day has just been one fiasco after the next. So, how’s giant dickhead douche brain doing? He’s been demoted from sweet dick after everything you told me he did last night and this morning. Any change? Is he still not talking to you?”
“No. I made him and his dad lunch a few hours ago, but he wouldn’t even look at me. I’m at a loss as to what to do.”
“I know what you should do. You should go book a plane ticket to come visit me and put some distance between the two of you. Distance worked for him last time. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him again.”
“No, I’m not going to run away. I have to stay here and face this. It’s only been a few days, and he needs time to—”
Color of Forgiveness Page 30