Strawberry Wine

by E. Jamie

  Well, there it was, wasn’t it? There was no future for them. He had no desire for one. She was just a chapter in his life that he had to close. Laura looked away and willed herself not to cry, though it felt like the pain was choking her. Damn her, when would she learn to never allow herself to be weak? To hope? To love? All it got her was agonizing pain.

  “You and Mike.” Caleb's voice choked on his brother's name. “I still can’t believe that happened. In the name of God, Laura, why Mike? Of all people? Why him?”

  “Mike loved me. Not under certain conditions. Not some idolized version of me. He just loved me.”

  “Laura, I—”

  “When you asked me to marry you, I didn't think it was possible to be that happy and not burst. To fill up with such an amazing feeling and not just float away. Then I went to see my mother.” Laura wanted to touch his hair, remembered the soft feeling of the dark strands beneath her fingers. She didn’t dare. “And she reminded me of what I was.”

  “Goddamnit, Laura. I told you that woman was full of shit!” he shouted, jumping to his feet.

  “Caleb, please!” Without thinking she reached up and touched his bare thigh to calm him, her fingers coming just up to the hem of his black boxer briefs. For a second she let them linger over the skin. Teenage lankiness had developed into warm steel muscle, and Laura lifted her gaze and remembered biting into Caleb's teenage shoulders, wanting now to bite into Caleb-the-man's shoulders. He closed his eyes while her fingers pressed ever so lightly into his thigh, and Laura quickly dropped her hand.

  She could swear he sighed when he sat back down.

  “She told me I was garbage. That I would never be good enough to be your wife.”

  “Why did you listen—”

  “Damn it, Caleb. You wanted an explanation; I'm giving you one. Now would you please shut your goddamn mouth and let me finish!” Laura demanded, lust and heartache mingling with her anger. “I know you told me not to listen to what she said. I know you didn't want me to go see her in the first place. But I did. And she made me doubt myself. I wanted to believe that she was full of shit. I wanted to believe all that mattered was that I loved you and you loved me. But she got to me. That's why I left, Caleb. Not so much because of what she said, but because she still had the power to get to me. She made me believe that you would somehow eventually see I wasn't worth spit, and then you'd leave. Or that I'd eventually somehow royally screw us up because I didn't know how to do anything else. I was garbage, and someday, you'd know it. Her words kept playing in my head, and I thought, how could I marry you with those words hanging over my head? How could I marry you and take the chance that she was right? I was eighteen, Caleb. What the hell did I know about being a wife? Hell, I knew shit about being Laura Thatcher.”

  Caleb lifted his forefinger hesitantly. “Permission to speak?”

  Laura rolled her eyes. “Granted.”

  “You kinda lost me there. You are Laura Thatcher.”

  “For me to marry you. Be your wife, God help us, have your kids, her words needed to not matter. I needed to make them not true. I needed to be strong. Make myself something I was proud of. Know that I wasn't garbage because I lived a good life and made good decisions and wasn't afraid to love someone because I was worried I’ send it all down the crapper. Be strong enough and proud enough of myself, without needing you to tell me. You saved me from her. You were my little knight on a white horse. I went from being hated by her to being loved by you without a second to grow on my own.”

  “So you tore my heart out and stomped on it so you could go find yourself. That's just great, Laura.”

  “Caleb, please. It may not seem all that important to you, but it was everything to me.”

  “Yeah, well, you were everything to me!” he shot back, glaring at her.

  “And so were you! That was the problem!” While Laura spoke, she realized that underneath the one thing she hadn’t told him yet, there was still a world of truth in her words. “You came from this loving family, even with your dad gone most of the time. Your mother adores you. Mike adored you. You grew up formed by that love. How could I compete with that? I knew nothing but anger, hate, pain before you. Then every step I took became this thing where I was just waiting until I did something to turn you away too. As much as I loved you, what would happen to me if you all of a sudden hated me too? If you turned me away and decided it was over?”

  “Don't compare me with your mother, Laura,” Caleb insisted. “I never treated you like garbage. You were the one who chose to leave. I loved you, damn it. I would have never—”

  “Caleb. The first day we came back into each other’s orbit, you called me a whore,” Laura whispered sadly.

  He was silent, and Laura felt encouraged by the guilt she could see in his eyes. The regret. “I should have never...I'm sorry.”

  Laura throat caught on a sob, and she nodded, eyes glistening. “So I may have ruined things by leaving. And you'll never know how sorry I am for hurting you. But in the end I was right, Caleb.”

  “No, Laura. Jesus, how can you say that? You were wrong. You were dead wrong.” He shook his head.

  “Look how much we hurt each other, Caleb. How vicious and cruel we were. That's not good for either one of us.”

  “That wouldn't have happened if you—”

  “The reason doesn't matter, Caleb. Not to me. Just the fact that we could do that to each other shows me we had no business getting married.” She wiped her damp cheeks. “I don't know if you and I can ever get to a place where we're not trying to hurt each other. Or how long it'll take to fix what's broken between us. But I know I'm stronger now. I have my own life. It's an okay one.”

  Caleb started, as if jerked from a dream, and he ran his hand over his face, exhausted.

  “Can you forgive me?” Laura asked him, holding her breath while she looked at him, now close enough to feel his breath on her face.

  “I don't know,” he replied honestly, and her heart broke just that little bit more.

  “God, I'm tired, Laura. So damn tired of all of this.”

  “All I can ask is that maybe you and I can put the past behind us and move on from right now, where our lives are right now. I've changed, Caleb. Honest. Can we live our lives, maybe even be…I don’t know, friends, and just let go of all of the angry crap?”

  “You are different,” Caleb said, reaching to cup her face, but he must have changed his mind because he dropped his hand. “You're...stronger, I guess. I don't know if 'let go' is in our vocabulary, Thatcher. But I'm tired of being miserable all the time. So...maybe. Maybe we can move past this.”

  Laura shivered, excited hope in her heart, mingled with relief at the knowledge that maybe it didn’t matter now that she hadn’t told him everything, that perhaps it was better if she didn’t because what good would it do? She’d explained one of the reasons she’d left. That had been truth. To tell him the rest would just hurt him, and hadn’t they just agreed that they would stop causing each other pain?

  Chapter Seven

  Two lines...two damned lines! Laura sat on the bathroom floor, ignoring the cold against her bare legs. She shook the stick and prayed for one of the lines to disappear. She wasn’t picky, either line would do. Eyes clenched tight, she risked opening one eye to see if her prayers had been answered. Nope. “Oh God,” she groaned. “How did this happen?” She placed an elbow on the seat of the toilet and cradled her head in the free hand that did not hold the white plastic stick with the small, unassuming window. Well, she knew HOW it happened; she just doesn't know how this particular outcome had happened. She and Caleb were always so careful. She was allergic to the pill, but he never forgot a condom. Ever. He even went so far as to check the boxes they kept in his room, hers and the glove compartment in his car to make sure they weren’t running low. When the damn things weren’t even half-empty, he’d buy new boxes!

  Ninety-seven percent effective, my ass, Laura thought. They should have a disclaimer for especially
diligent, over achieving McKinney-sperm! “Shit, shit, shit!” Laura had just been getting used to the idea of becoming a wife, and now this!

  A memory teased the edges of her mind, and Laura bit her thumb. The night she’d found the ring. “Noooohhhh,” she whimpered as the memory came back to her. She'd been so afraid. So desperate, and all she wanted was for Caleb to make it all right again. All she wanted was that sweet oblivion that came with him buried hot inside of her. Be careful what you wish for. She didn’t remember them using a condom that night, but she had been so upset that she couldn’t be sure... Of course they did. Of course!

  Uh uh. The little white stick taunted her, and Laura threw it across the room. What the hell was she gonna do now? They had the police academy this year and a wedding to plan. When she dared to picture herself with a child, it was someday far in the future! So far, she couldn’t even really see it at all. Sure as hell NOT in nine months! She got to her feet and paced around the bathroom. She could just see the look on Caleb's face. His beady blue eyes were going to grow huge, he would go very pale, he would open and close his mouth a few times like a gasping fish. Then he would clench his jaw very hard. Laura had never seen him faint, but Caroline ha told her he had passed out a few times when he was a toddler and became overly excited or agitated. Unplanned early fatherhood would certainly fit that criteria. For a moment she thought it'd be kind of entertaining to see him drop like a stone at her feet.

  Laura suddenly stopped. Right at this second, there was another human being inside of her. The size of a pin, sure, but still. A baby. A little Caleb McKinney.

  Could she dare to hope that maybe this was a sign from God that she was doing the right thing? Now that she'd decided to let herself be happy and fight past all her fear. Past that voice in her mind that sounded like her mother and told her Laura didn’t deserve a baby, didn’t deserve Caleb. Maybe God was being generous to Laura Thatcher for the first time in her life. Her chest constricted, and her stomach warmed. A baby.

  Her mouth hurt, and Laura realized with a jolt that it was because she'd been smiling the whole time. Then her nerves played catch-up, and she threw up in the toilet bowl.

  ****

  “Ask me why you love me?” a voice came through on Caleb’s speaker phone, and Laura cocked an eyebrow at him at the unmistakable male voice.

  Caleb rolled his eyes and spoke into the small gadget. “Give me good news.”

  “Just hacked the adoption agency’s computer, and hear that lovely music in the background? That’s the sound of the records being printed as we speak.”

  “Roger, have I ever told you you’re my favorite computer hacker in the whole wide world?” Caleb asked, making Laura smile in the seat next to him.

  “Not nearly enough, but it’s always nice to hear. You on your way?”

  “Be there in five.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon going over the addresses of the supposed ‘adoptive parents.’

  “That’s over thirty-five,” Laura said, hanging up the phone an staring in disbelief at the pages in her hand. Thirty-five dummy addresses from people who have never even heard of the Guiding Light Adoption Agency.”

  “Two hundred adoptions confirmed. They wave these under social services’ nose, and S.S. isn’t going to probe any further to come across those thirty-five,” Caleb said, pulling the fax paper from the machine.

  “There’s gotta be more, right?” Laura asked, stretching her feet out on the couch. “And where is he getting these older kids from if they’re not being adopted but sent off to Thailand or wherever—”

  “Orphanages,” Caleb suggested.

  They visited the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady Orphanage the next day. The nuns confirmed that they worked with the adoption agency to place many of their children.

  “Unfortunately, many of our infants come from women who work in prostitution, but we do get the occasional older child who’s been taken away by social services and placed with us if they can’t find a foster home for them,” Sister Madeline explained.

  Laura felt bile rise in her throat when she asked the next question. “But isn’t it harder to find homes for the older kids?”

  “The Guiding Light has been a godsend in that way. They seemed to have a special knack for placing the older kids.”

  “Right. Could you give me some idea of how old we’re talking about?” Caleb asked.

  The middle-aged nun spooned some sugar into her tea and moved the porcelain sugar bowl across the coffee table to Laura. Sadness clouded her brown eyes, and she sighed. “Well, parents often prefer infants. Once they become over two years of age or so, they’re a little harder to place. Thank the good Lord we’ve had much luck with the Guiding Light. The parents who approach them seem to actually prefer the older children.”

  Laura choked on her coffee, and Caleb patted her back while she coughed.

  “You mentioned some of the women who come to you are prostitutes?” he asked.

  “Yes. We’re very careful not to judge the women who come to us, and we don’t believe in throwing stones. We are all God’s children after all, and who among us hasn’t made mistakes? These women know that they cannot take care of their children, so when they find themselves in the family way, we’re grateful that we can provide an alternative to the other choice they have. I only wish more women made the choice to come to us.”

  “So do they come to you directly?” Laura asked when she could speak again.

  The nun nodded and leaned back on her white velvet chair, cupping her mug. “Some do. Sometimes their babies are brought to us via their…er…employers.”

  “Their pimps?” Caleb asked, surprised.

  Sister Madeline swallowed, obviously uncomfortable with the word, and her cheeks reddened but she nodded. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any of their names.”

  “But you could tell us perhaps where they usually come from?” Laura pressed. “Here in the Bronx?”

  “Oh yes, we’ve had a few from here.”

  “Do you get any strip…er…exotic dancers that come to you?” Caleb asked, and Laura moved forward on the white couch. The trail was beginning to lead them to the man they wanted, and she waited, anxious to hear if that final link would fall into place.

  “Yes. We’ve received a few of our older children from those women. They’re in dire straits, you understand, and take up that method of employment when they can barely make ends meet for themselves, never mind their poor children, so we do what we can for them.”

  Laura saw Caleb go rigid beside her and could almost feel him crackle with electricity when the final piece of the puzzle clicked.

  Caleb waited until they left the convent to slam his hand down on the roof of his car and give a shout of victory. “I knew it. I goddamn knew this would all lead us back to that son of a bitch Mankell.”

  “I’d say we’ve got enough to get a warrant and pay him a little visit, don’t you?” Laura asked.

  “Indeed we do,” he said, grinning, looking so boyishly handsome in that instant that her breath caught and she had to look away to resist the urge to wrap her arms around him and kiss him.

  Max Mankell was the son of Norwegian immigrants who’d moved to New York after the end of the Second World War. Despite being a bright student, he had no patience or interest in school and learned in a very short time that the less savory or honest pursuits would garner him the success and power he craved much faster than going the academic route. His intelligence and cold determination brought him up the ranks of organized crime with lightning speed, and he now ran the underbelly of much of the city with an iron bloody fist in collusion with his fellow crime bosses.

  One thing set him apart, however. He had a sexual appetite for children, particularly young boys, and this brought him in contact with other pedophiles and the child sex industry, allowing him to network with traffickers all over the world, so he could indulge his appetite and line his pockets with millions of dollars.

  Now, if the
y could just get the solid proof that would put the final nail in Mankell’s coffin.

  “I’m heading over to your dad’s tomorrow to check in with him,” Laura informed Caleb while they sat on the couch watching television and eating dinner in, until then, companionable silence. She was loath to bring up his father after she and Caleb seemed to be getting along.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him clench his jaw. He focused on his plate and brought another forkful of rice to his mouth.

  “I’m…uh, just bringing it up because, well, you can either let me go alone or you have to come with me.”

  “Mmm,” he replied noncommittally.

  She studied him for a while and then stood up and went to his television set, where a packet of cards rested on top. “I know. Poker. I win, you come with me to see your dad tomorrow. You win, you don’t.” She dropped back down onto the couch.