by Becky Durfee
“You’re right. It is disgusting. I’m sorry if hearing about it is upsetting to you.”
“It isn’t just since the baby, you know. We didn’t have sex for months before that. It’s like, in your second trimester, you couldn’t get enough, so we had sex all the time. Then, in the third trimester, you wouldn’t even let me touch you. Why do you get to dictate how much sex we have?”
Rubbing her temples, Jenny muttered, “I can’t believe you are upset about sex.”
“Well, it’s important.”
“So is sleep. And food. And showering. And being able to do a single fucking thing without being interrupted by this screaming kid. My entire life has been turned upside down, and you’re upset because you don’t think you’re getting enough sex?”
“This right here,” Zack said as he stood up, pointing a finger at Jenny. “This is why I drank.” He left the kitchen and headed toward the bedroom.
His dirty cereal bowl remained on the table.
Jenny gripped the wheel with both hands, enjoying the moment of freedom and quiet. Steve was asleep in the back seat, and Zack hadn’t come along for the ride. In fact, he hadn’t spoken to her since their argument earlier in the day, and she was glad to be away from him—a notion which she found to be terribly unnerving. She was a newlywed; her mood shouldn’t have become elevated when her husband wasn’t around. This didn’t bode well for the future of her marriage.
She wondered if she was destined for another divorce. At the moment, the thought of a second divorce seemed rather appealing—if she was single again, she’d have the ability to choose more carefully and find a man who would actually help raise the baby. She tried to determine what qualities this man would need to possess. He’d need to be funny like Zack, responsible like Greg, and considerate of her feelings, which seemed to be the one missing piece in both of her marriages. She wasn’t concerned with what he looked like; if the man had a magnetic enough personality, she would inevitably find herself attracted to him, no matter what appeared on the outside. Shame crept up on her as she thought about all of the boys in her honors classes in high school—goofy haircuts, pants a little too short—and wondered if any of them were actually her ideal man, wrapped in a package that made her not even look in their direction. A sigh escaped her; she’d already learned she couldn’t punish herself for decisions she made before age twenty-five. But she had agreed to marry Zack after that, and that wasn’t proving to be the best choice she’d ever made, either.
Back to the new guy. She envisioned this mystery man holding the baby lovingly, telling Jenny to go take a much-needed nap. He’d clean up after himself and make her laugh. He’d vacuum without being asked. Most importantly, he’d be willing to make sacrifices if they would improve the quality of Jenny’s life. Somehow, Jenny managed to marry two different men who didn’t seem to take her happiness into consideration.
However, if her track record was any indication, it wouldn’t have taken long before that new guy would have ticked her off for some reason, too. After all, there was no such thing as the perfect man. This new guy of hers would surely have had some issue that would have made him undesirable: financial irresponsibility, infidelity, uncontrollable gas. Something would have inevitably mucked up the works. If she got rid of every man as soon as they became irritating, she would end up shedding a man every season as if he was last year’s fashion. As appealing as it seemed at the moment, she knew that wasn’t the way she wanted to go through life. At some point, she’d need to just bite the bullet and stick with someone for the long haul, and it might as well have been the father of her child.
If only she had been more selective in determining who that was.
Her stomach began to flutter as the car approached the bridge that Mick called home; she had a mission to accomplish, and she wasn’t too sure about how successful she would be. She was armed with some information this time, however, and she hoped to be able to use it to the fullest extent—if, that is, it didn’t backfire.
She put the car in park, turned the key and sat motionlessly for a moment before gathering her strength with a sigh.
Soon, she had the baby settled into his stroller and was pushing her way toward Mick, who greeted her with a smile. “You’re back.”
“Yup,” she replied, applying the brake on the stroller, “sure am.”
“Were you able to figure out who owned that dark pick-up?”
“Not exactly, but the list has been narrowed down to seven people—and I’m hoping to knock six of them off the list this afternoon.” She reached into the compartment under the stroller and pulled out two seat cushions. Tossing one Mick’s way, she let the other fall near her feet. “The ground is too cold and my butt is too old to sit on the concrete again.” She eased herself down to a seated position.
Mick grabbed his cushion and put it under his bottom. “Ooh, how luxurious.”
“You can keep it,” Jenny replied. “Keep them both, in fact. Double up.”
He let out a little laugh. “So, how exactly do you plan to cross six people off this list?”
“Well, it involves a few photographs, a trip to a convenience store and you.”
“Me.” He said it like a statement as opposed to a question.
“If you’re willing.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Just come with me, that’s all. I want to see who hangs out behind the Stop-n-Go—see if anyone looks familiar.”
Mick cocked an eyebrow. “Looks familiar to you or to me?”
“Neither. I want to see if anyone looks familiar to our killer.” She paused for a moment. “Do you still respect me?”
“What?”
Jenny tapped her temple. “I just heard that in my head; I assume it was Rodriguez.”
The baby started to fuss as Mick hung his head with an undeniable smirk; whatever Rodriguez had been referring to must have been funny. Jenny reached over with her hand and released the brake on the stroller, pushing it back and forth to quiet Steve. It seemed to work for the time being, although she knew that soon he would need to eat again. “So,” she began, turning her attention back toward Mick, “do you still respect him or not?”
Mick just smiled.
“Okay, you realize you have to share this with me now...”
The smirk remained on his face as he began, “It’s when we were stateside, living in barracks.”
“Barracks…Is that a long room with a lot of bunk beds?”
Mick shook his head. “That’s a squad bay. Barracks are more like dorm rooms, and Rodriguez was my roommate. We’d gone out drinking one night—and by drinking, I mean drinking. It was hideous; I don’t remember anything past ten o’clock. Anyway, in the morning, there was this loud bang that woke me up, and I could tell that someone was in the bed with me, back to back. At first I thought I’d hooked up with a girl the night before, but then I remembered there’s a strict curfew—women aren’t allowed in the barracks past a certain hour. I had no idea who the hell was in the bed with me.” Another huge smile splayed across Mick’s face, and he bit his lip to keep from laughing. “So I looked over my shoulder, just in time to see Rodriguez looking over his shoulder. Our eyes met, and he asked, ‘Do you still respect me?’ God, that was funny.”
With a smile, Jenny asked, “You were in bed with Rodriguez? How did that happen?”
“Honestly, I had no idea. The entire night before was a giant blur. But Rodriguez told me that he had gone to bed before I did, and when I came in, I walked over to him in his bed and told him to move over. He did, and I got into bed with him.” Mick couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t know what’s funnier—the fact that I told him to move over, or that he did it. He should have told me to get in my own damn bed, but he just slid to the side and let me get in with him.”
“Oh, the wonders of alcohol.”
“You can say that again.”
As Jenny had predicted, simply pushing the stroller back and forth was no longer enough to ke
ep Steve from crying. “Uh-oh. Somebody’s hungry,” she announced as she stood up. Pushing the blankets to the side, she unclipped Steve from his car-seat-turned-stroller, lifting him carefully up and bundling him with blankets again.
“Can I see him?” Mick asked.
“Sure.” Jenny scooted her cushion closer to Mick. Taking a seat, she cleared the blankets away from the baby’s face and tilted him toward Mick.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy. His name is Steve.”
She glanced over at Mick, who was smiling. “He’s cute…and he’s so little. How old is he?”
“He’ll be two weeks soon.” She put a knuckle into the baby’s mouth to keep him momentarily satisfied.
“Two weeks. My God.”
“Yup. He’s a little guy still—a little guy who needs to eat…I can go back to my car and feed him, or I can nurse him here if that won’t bother you. I’ll be discreet, I promise.”
“You don’t have to go to your car,” Mick replied. “I won’t look.”
“It doesn’t matter; I’ve got a blanket.” She covered her upper body as she unzipped her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt, exposing just enough of herself to get the baby what he needed. Although Mick couldn’t see anything even if he tried, he turned away anyway. “You can look,” Jenny said as Steve started to nurse—remarkably without pain. “There’s nothing to see.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Mick began as he turned back around, “but why do you keep bringing such a young baby out here. This isn’t exactly the best place in the world for a newborn.”
“Well, I can’t leave him with my husband,” she explained, bitterness obvious from her tone. “He would never agree to it. It turns out he doesn’t do newborns.”
“Isn’t there anyone else could leave him with? Family or something?”
Jenny looked at the ground. She did not like the idea of someone else sharing Zack’s sentiments—that would have implied that he was right and she was wrong. “My mom lives close by, but I’m nursing. She can’t exactly feed him.”
“She could give him formula.”
“But breast milk is better for the baby.”
“Somehow I think getting a bottle from his grandmother in a nice, warm house would be better than giving him breast milk under a bridge in the shittiest part of Oakton.”
How was this happening? How was she the one under scrutiny? She was there to help him, not the other way around. “I don’t want to burden her. She did her time already...she raised four of us.”
“Okay, asking a grandmother to give a bottle to her infant grandson is not burdening her, I guarantee it. I remember when my brother and his wife had my nephew, Lucas…you couldn’t pry that baby out of my mother’s arms. She didn’t mind changing his diapers or when he cried…she even found it charming that he spit up on her. She made some kind of comment like, ‘oh, I haven’t had spit-up on me in such a long time,’ like it was awesome or something.”
Jenny said nothing in return. There was nothing to say.
“And as far as your husband not doing the newborn thing, give him time. I didn’t want to hold Lucas when he was that age, either. But when that kid started walking, man, look out. He was Uncle Jeff’s little buddy.”
She could envision Zack crawling around on his hands and knees, wrestling with a toddling Steve. She hung her head slightly lower.
“Wait,” she said, “Uncle Jeff?”
He smiled at her slyly. “Yes, Jeff…my real name, remember?”
She scrunched her face. “Oh yeah. I forgot Mick was short for McDonald. Don’t mind me; I think I pushed out a bunch of IQ points when I delivered the baby.” In an attempt to turn the lens back on him, she asked, “So, how old is Lucas now?”
After a little math, he replied, “I guess he’s nine.” He seemed saddened by that information, which actually made Jenny feel relieved. She was much more comfortable being the source of support rather than the focus of it.
“I’m guessing it’s been a while since you’ve seen him.”
“Yeah…it’s been a long time.”
“Did you see him a lot when you were living with your parents?”
“At first I did. When I got back from Iraq, my brother brought Lucas over quite a bit. But then when my drinking started to get out of hand, he stopped bringing Lucas by. I can’t say I blame him, really. What was Lucas, seven at the time? I can hear it now. ‘Dad, why was Uncle Jeff acting so funny?’ ‘Well, son, it’s called alcohol. It turns out your Uncle Jeff is a drunk.’” He shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t have let him see me like that, either.”
“Sounds like you were close when he was younger, though.”
“For a while there, we were.”
A long moment of silence ensued, broken up by Mick asking, “Speaking of close, just how close does your mother live?”
The focus was back on Jenny again, and she didn’t like it…especially when she had to confess, “She lives downstairs.”
“Downstairs? Your mother lives downstairs and you didn’t ask her to watch the baby while you came out here?”
“You’re making me feel like a bad mother.”
“I don’t mean to. Actually, I don’t think that’s the problem. I think the real problem is that you are too good of a mother.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, skepticism apparent on her face.
“You don’t have to have the baby with you every minute of every day, you know.”
“Well, I don’t have much of a choice when my husband refuses to do anything.” Her voice sounded more resentful than she’d wanted it to.
“But you do have a choice. You have a mother that lives right downstairs. You’re just being stubborn.”
Although she didn’t like this conversation, Jenny stayed, despite her desire to run back to her car and stick her head in the sand. “The way I see it, I’m being considerate of my mother’s feelings.”
“Have you ever asked her if she wants to take care of the baby?”
Jenny looked down. “No.”
“Then you don’t know if you’re being considerate of her feelings or not. Maybe her feelings are hurt because you haven’t let her watch the baby.”
Tears started to fill Jenny’s eyes, although she wasn’t sure what emotion was causing them—exhaustion, damaged pride, despair…Either way, she blinked them away and pretended that this conversation wasn’t making her feel like an exposed nerve. “I still feel like that’s giving my husband a free pass. It’s not fair that my mother and I do all the parenting while he walks around like a bachelor.”
“Does he work?” Mick added. “That’s probably what he’s thinking…that he provides for the baby that way.”
“He works with me,” Jenny replied. “We are partners in my psychic business…and he makes precisely zero dollars.”
Mick got a playful look on his face. “Maybe he’s pissed because you don’t pay him.”
Jenny let out a laugh. “That’s not how this works. My first client was Elanor Whitby, the founder of Choices magazine. I was able to use my psychic ability to figure out what had happened to her boyfriend back when she was young, and she was so grateful that she left me the majority of her estate, which was—well—huge. Her only requirement was that I use the money to help people, and that’s what we’ve been doing ever since.”
Mick shook his head rapidly. “Okay, so you’re telling me that you’ve got a shitload of money.”
“Yes. An official shitload.”
“Then why don’t you hire a babysitter if you feel like you’d be burdening your mother?”
“I’m not sure I’d trust a babysitter.”
“You apparently trust me.”
“That’s because Rodriguez tells me to.” The words came out before she had a chance to even think about them. She softened her tone before adding, “From the first time I saw you, I knew you were a good guy.”
He remained quiet for a moment. “R
odriguez really told you that?”
Jenny shrugged. “Not in words, but with a feeling. I knew when I approached you that I was in the presence of someone kind, not somebody dangerous.”
This time it was Mick’s turn to remain quiet.
“He’s at peace, you know,” she added without looking at Mick. “I can feel it.” She tilted her head in his direction. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all of this, it’s that there’s something wonderful on the other side. Besides, the way I see it, Rodriguez has been focusing on the good times you two had…not the bad stuff. In all of the contacts I’ve had from him, I haven’t had one single image from the war. It’s all been about the funny things, like that Australian girl.”
He shifted his position, demonstrating his discomfort with the topic.
“I also found something out,” Jenny added softly, “and I’m not sure you know about it.”
“What’s that?”
“Last year, Rodriguez was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.”
Mick looked up at Jenny, his sky-blue eyes becoming shiny with tears. “He was?”
She nodded. “His parents met the president and everything.”
He went back to looking straight ahead, at nothing.
“I know how he died,” she said in a near whisper. “It was in a write-up about him.”
No response.
“Were you there, Mick? Did you see it?”
From his profile, she could see his eyes close and a tear fall down to the ground. She took that as a yes.
“I got a message from him yesterday; he said he wants you to live. And by that, I mean really live. Not this.” She gestured around to the dirty area he called home. “Rodriguez didn’t give his life so you could spend the rest of your days under a bridge.”
Mick started to tremble. “That’s all good and well, but I can’t function in the real world. I tried, and it didn’t work.”
“I know. And you shouldn’t be expected to…not without help. But I’m willing to get you that help, Mick. I would like to do what it takes to get you back on your feet.”
“You’re not even willing to help yourself.”