by Ford, Mia
“Ok, I think Jodie wants to go home,” Tucker said.
Jodie had finally woke up and was whining softly. But when she saw my face she began to calm down. I’d been hesitant to bring her, but my parents were busy and I really wanted to see Tucker. Plus the weather was so beautiful I thought she’d love being out in the park.
And she did. I could tell. God, I loved her so much. It was true that you never knew how much love you could give until you had a child. Never in my life could I have imagined someone who had puked and peed on me various times, whom I didn’t even get upset with when it happened.
I laughed at the thought. I loved being a mother. I loved my child. And I loved her father.
But I still felt that I was protecting Jodie by keeping things the way they were. I was keeping her safe from heartache. That was the most important thing in the world to me.
* * *
“I don’t get this show,” Tucker said.
“What? It’s pretty simple,” I replied teasing him.
“Funny,” he said. “I mean, I don’t get the appeal. Why is it so popular?”
“I don’t know. I think it just appeals to people and their childhood. The nostalgia of it,” I replied.
We were sitting on the couch after going back to my place. I’d put Jodie down for the night and she was sleeping peacefully. Tucker and I were watching the first season of Stranger Things on Netflix. It was one of my all-time favorite shows. I couldn’t get enough of it. Tucker had only seen one episode, so I felt I had to bring him into the light.
“I get that,” he said as he grabbed some popcorn and slipped it into his mouth. “I just don’t think it’s all that original. It’s like they took the most popular eighties movies and just put them together. I feel like I’ve already seen it and nothing is a surprise.”
I laughed. “Well, I guess it’s not for everybody.”
“But I feel left out that I can’t get the enjoyment others are getting from it. It is really sad,” Tucker said before eating some more popcorn kernels.
“Where did you find popcorn? I wasn’t aware I had any.”
“While you were putting Jodie to bed I got a bit snack hungry so I went scavenging in your pantry. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“I found this package of microwave popcorn way in the back.”
“Did you check the date? I’m pretty sure that is very old.”
“Nah. It is a bit stale, but it’s still decent. That is the magic of popcorn. I don’t think it can ever actually go bad.”
“I’m pretty sure you are wrong.”
“Well, you are the doctor,” he teased.
“That’s right,” I replied feeding into his joke.
“So, today has been pretty amazing,” Tucker said.
“I agree.”
He put his arm around me and I snuggled in close to him. It felt nice to just relax with him there in my home. I felt safe and secure. That was the feeling I’d been looking for—security. And I didn’t have that with Jay.
God, I couldn’t stop thinking about him even when I was enjoying being with Tucker. I was sick and needed help. That was now very obvious to me.
We continued to watch in silence for a while. There was no thinking about any stress in my life, or worrying about anything. We were just able to sit there and enjoy the show together and let the world continue spinning around us.
It was so peaceful and serene.
And then it changed. Why did it always have to change?
We’d just finished an episode and were getting ready to start the next one when Tucker turned towards me.
I looked up at him and our eyes met. His gaze was one of wonder and excitement. He was looking at me as if I were the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid his eyes on. A warmth spread over me like a cozy blanket and added to the safety that I was feeling with him.
“You are perfect, you know that?” Tucker whispered. “I wish I’d had the sense in college to make the right choice.”
“Well, I guess things happen in their own due time,” I replied. “And you are pretty amazing yourself.”
Then Tucker leaned in to me. His lips were almost touching mine when a panic signal went off in my brain. My heart began to beat faster, I felt sweat dripping down my back slowly, and I was filled with the urge to get away.
And it wasn’t because of Tucker. He was a nice, sweet, guy who any woman would have been lucky to be with, including myself. But for some reason I panicked at the thought of kissing him right there and then. It wasn’t the right time. It was too fast.
And it wasn’t the right guy..
I grimaced at the last thought. When would my brain stop playing those kinds of tricks on me? It was maddening. What was I doing?
I suddenly moved away from him and sat up on the couch.
“What? What’s wrong?” Tucker asked. He was very confused and I didn’t blame him one bit.
“I…I… I can’t do this… not right now…” I said.
Tucker looked at me with growing confusion. He sat the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and leaned forward.
“I thought we had a thing here… did I misread something…?” He asked.
“No,” I said. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
“Wow, you’re giving me that?”
I realized how silly that sounded and I tried to take it back.
“No. Look, I’m sorry. I haven’t been with anyone for a while and I’m just feeling… well… to tell you the truth I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“Well, it was just a kiss,” Tucker said. “We’ve been going out for a while. I keep thinking that things are moving along well, but then you suddenly pull back. I don’t get that. We used to have a hot attraction in college and now we’ve rekindled it, but you want to step back. What is holding you back?”
“I…I don’t know…”I said.
“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to tell me?” Tucker asked. He was getting agitated now as he stood up.
“I just need some more time,” I said. “I’m sorry. You are a great guy, but I want to take things slower. I have a child; I have other things to think about than just myself. We aren’t college kids anymore. Why are you in such a rush?”
Tucker looked at me with his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. He brushed a hand through his hair and started walking towards the door.
“I guess I’d better go,” he said.
Before I had a chance to say anything to him he walked out the door letting it shut loudly behind him.
A moment later Jodie started crying from her crib.
I groaned. She’d heard the noise.
Despite feeling sad and a bit confused myself about what had just happened, I wiped the tears from my eyes and walked into my daughter’s room to comfort her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jay
The canoe worked fantastically.
I’d woke up that Sunday morning feeling a bit down but bored at the same time. I usually took Sunday’s off as a rest day and tried to focus mostly on recreation and relaxation, but I hadn’t slept well and instead of feeling like a zombie when I finally woke up at four-thirty, I decided to go for a long run.
After finishing my five mile jog and a hot shower, I ate a bowl of oatmeal with peanut butter (my favorite) and a few cups of hot coffee. Then I loaded up my truck and the trailer I’d bought for my canoe (I had decided to keep it after all).
Then I drove out to Davlin Lake and started fishing. It was nice and peaceful. By the time I actually got the boat on the water and started fishing the first rays of the sunlight were just beginning to break through the clouds in the distance. It was beautiful and picturesque. I wished that a brilliant photographer or a painter could have been there to paint the scene. I would have loved to have that picture hanging in my office so that I could look upon it fondly and remember it every day.
But my own memory would have to get the job done for now.
<
br /> I fished for a few hours and caught some nice bass, which I planned to throw on the grill for dinner that night. It had been too long since I’d done that. I forgot how much I loved it. There was such a primal nature to it all. A man going out and catching his own food and then taking it home, cleaning it, prepping it, and throwing it on a natural charcoal grill. I hate electric grills. They may be more convenient but they do not give the food that smoky sweet, barbecue flavor that I remember from my childhood.
When I pulled into my driveway I was shocked to see another car parked there. It took me a moment to realize that I recognized the car and as I pulled up to the end of my driveway I recognized the two people sitting on my front porch rocking chairs.
“Mom! Dad!” I called as I exited my truck and walked up to greet them. I hadn’t actually seen my parents in several months. They lived in Northern Ohio, and with my schedule I just didn’t have much chance to get out that way. But I did try to call them at least twice a week. My parents are wonderful people and I’ve always had a wonderful relationship with them.
“Hello, son,” my dad, Henry said giving me a big hug.
“It’s great to see you. What brings you down this way? How come you didn’t tell me you were coming?” I asked.
“Well, we wanted to surprise you. Pinning you down for two seconds is not necessarily an easy thing to do.”
I shook my head. “Well, nowadays it is. I’m more of a homebody than I care to admit anymore.”
“Well, that sounds good. Did that pretty gal of yours come by and civilize you?” My mother asked.
I paused a moment before answering. “You mean Naomi? No, we aren’t really together. We haven’t been for a while.”
I wanted to remind my parents that we weren’t together at all and never had been, but I didn’t. It was easier to just let it be and let them think what they wanted to for now.
I grabbed the fish and prepped them for the grill. I was glad I’d spent the time to catch so many. I threw them all on the grill and then I sat down on my back deck with my folks to catch up.
“So, what are you really doing down this way? You just took the chance that I’d be home and drove down here?” I asked.
“Well, we do have a grandchild now,” my mother, Rose, said.
“So, you are staying for a few days? I can make up the guest bed for you in no time,” I said.
“Yeah, that would be great,” My father replied.
My parents had seen Jodie just once, the week she was born. They’d drove down and spent time with us aweing over her, just like any doting grandparents would.
But as I sat there talking with them I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were there for another reason or that they had something more to tell me, something important. It was all in my dad’s eyes. When I made eye contact with him he would look away slightly as if he was embarrassed to be seen. My dad was one of the toughest men I’d ever known and that was not his style.
Finally, after dinner he and my mother both told me the real reason they’d come down. I could tell it wasn’t easy for them to get it off their chest and that gave weight to how serious this might be.
“Go on,” My mother said to my father after a few seconds of silence.
My father looked at her and then over at me with dread and shame in his eyes.
“Dad, what’s going on?” I asked. “I know you too well. You can’t bullshit me. What is it?”
He waited a moment and then finally began to speak.
“Son, I’m in trouble,” my father said meekly.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked.
“I owe a lot of money to some very bad people,” He said.
“What? How? What happened?”
“Gambling,” mother responded. “Your father has a problem, but he is getting help.”
“That’s right. I haven’t made a bet in weeks. I don’t want to ever again, but I’ve already dug myself into a pretty serious hole.”
“How deep?” I asked.
“I owe twenty grand to some loan sharks,” he said.
“What? Dad, how could you do that? You know better than that. Hell, you were a cop for twenty-eight years. What were you thinking?”
I tried to hold my temper in, but hearing the kind of trouble that my father was really in was horrifying. Loan sharks were the worst kind of people on earth. They would loan you money at a ridiculous interest rate and if you didn’t pay it they would make you pay, one way or another. They would usually start with beating you up but sometimes they would just kill you as a bigger example to other people who were thinking of not paying, or couldn’t.
“I know that!” My father shouted. “I can’t tell you how disgusted with myself I am. That’s when I finally realized I have a gambling addiction. I’ve sought help and I’m doing better. But son, I need help. They are going to kill me and maybe your mother.”
“Dad,” I said. “I want to help you, but I don’t have that kind of money. You know what I make in the Army. It isn’t great.”
“I’m aware,” he said. “And God, I hate like hell to ask this.” My father was in tears. I’d never seen him cry before, but that was the amount of shame he felt at asking his son to bail him out of a jam he’d created. I hated seeing my father that way, not because of what he did or the mistakes he’d made, but because I couldn’t just easily make it go away and restore his pride.
“Then what do you expect me to do? I want to help any way I can,” I said, “But I’m not sure how I can get that money.”
My father hung his head in shame. “I didn’t want to come here even to ask and I would never dare ask it over the phone. I’m just desperate and thought you might have some ideas, maybe some friends you can reach out to. I don’t know. I’m just spiraling. How did I let this happen? I’m so… I’m so disgusting…”
I wrapped my arms around my dad and held him closely. He laid his head on my shoulder and began crying, sobbing hard. I tried to hold it together but the tears started to flow from my eyes too. I hated seeing how broken my father was. He was the man I’d always looked up to my whole life—he still was—and I wasn’t going to let him rot in despair like this.
“Dad, it’s ok,” I said. “I will find a way to get the money.”
“Son, are you sure?” My mother asked.
I locked eyes with her and nodded.
I knew why they’d asked me for the money, even if they couldn’t bring themselves to say it out loud. They were too ashamed. My parents are great people and they would never have asked their son to do this if their very lives didn’t depend on it.
They couldn’t simply go to the police, no matter how many friends my dad had on the force. The powers that be would hear of it in the underground and they’d be dead before they could blink. That was how high level members of the organized crime syndicates worked.
I knew what I had to do. There was only one way I knew of to get that kind of money fairly quickly. I was going to have to fight.
In my early twenties I had been an up and coming mixed martial arts cage fighter. It was something I loved to do and the Army had been gracious enough to let me train and pursue it whenever I had any free time. They recognized my skill and had always encourage me to keep doing it.
And I loved it. Out there it was just you against the other man and the entire world disappeared.
But no matter how good you are, you will get hit and some of those hits can be damaging. They can add up over time. And that was why I had to quit competing professionally. I’d had three separate concussions and the doctors told me that if I continued down that road I might end up with serious neurological issues later on.
So, I made the decision to dedicate myself to the Army and just focused my life on my other passion.
But that was years ago. I needed to make some real money and this was the way to do it.
No matter what, I was not going to let my parents down.
It was time to get back in the ring.
&nbs
p; Chapter Twenty-Two
Naomi
“Thanks so much for meeting me,” I said as I stirred the sweetener in my iced tea.
“Of course,” Tucker replied.
I’d asked him to meet me for lunch so that we could clear the air and I could explain a few things to him. After the other night I kept thinking about how poorly I’d handled the situation. He’d caught me by surprise and I just overreacted. It was silly and I realized it might have cost me a great guy. And Tucker was that.
I must have stayed up most of that night. After I put Jodie to bed I made some coffee and just sat there reading and watching YouTube videos about relationships and internal struggles. I’d been reading a lot of those self-help books lately. I felt a bit silly about it at first, but after I got into a few of them I was discovering that they really had some keen insights and weren’t just trash.
“No problem,” Tucker said. “I was pleasantly surprised when you called.”
“I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come all the way out here,” I said. It was a bit of a drive for him, but what I had to say was too important to wait until the evening.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I was actually meeting with a client not too far from here, so it worked out fine.”
“Great,” I replied. “Listen, I wanted to apologize about the other night. I flipped out for no reason. I just… I don’t know… I didn’t want you to think that I was some kind of a nutcase.”
I laughed nervously. Was I laying this on a bit much?
Tucker smiled sweetly.
“Not at all,” he said. “It was my fault. I just got caught up in the moment. You are so beautiful. We’d had a fantastic day and I just had the urge to kiss you so I went for it. I guess I was embarrassed and I acted harshly, too.”
“You were fine,” I said. “But I appreciate you being so understanding with me. It hasn’t been easy.”