by Lila Felix
She reached out a dimpled hand and pulled at my growing beard, “I don’t know.”
“Why? Tell me why.”
“What if she doesn’t want to?”
Oh, my two females and their self worth issues.
“Why wouldn’t she want to?”
She shrugged and hugged my neck, “What if she doesn’t want to be my mommy?”
“Oh Scout,” I squeezed her as tight as I could, “Anyone who doesn’t want to be your mommy is a fool. And Ms. Journey loves you. So, is it okay if I ask her to marry me?”
“I wanna do it!”
“I think that sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.”
We walked back to the room and I figured with Scout’s cuteness, it was ok to wing it. Storey and Journey were crying over something, I supposed Storey had blabbed about once being jealous of her. Whatever it was, it was obviously over with and they had made their amends.
I boosted Scout up onto the bed, making her promise to be very careful. Storey tried to excuse herself but I asked her to stay.
“Hi Scout.” Journey beamed at her.
“Hi. Daddy and I had a talk.”
“Oh, did you?”
She nodded enthusiastically, “Yes. We decided we love you.”
Cue the flood, “I love you both very much, Scout.”
Scout dug in her pockets one by one and my heart plummeted to my stomach thinking that she’d lost the bag somewhere in between the waiting room and Journey’s room.
She pulled it out and opened up the navy blue box. Journey grabbed my hand and then looked back to my daughter.
“Ms. Journey, Daddy and I want to know if you want to marry us.”
With tears chasing each other down her face, Journey said yes and time ceased to exist. I’d always wanted just one girl—the girl with curly red hair, an eternity of freckles and my heart. But somehow, someone had deemed me worthy of two and I’d spend every beat of my heart making sure they stayed.
~~~
The room was packed and this was no sardine can—this was obscene clowns packed into a Mini Cooper cramped.
Everyone was there, except the preacher, the only one we actually needed, save for each other.
“Let me at least get into a wheelchair, Nixon. This is absurd,” she whined from her hospital bed, in a beautiful white sleeveless dress and a cast.
“No,” the whole room answered her at once.
Uncle Chase clapped, “Ok, let’s get started.”
“Um, Uncle Chase, we need the preacher.”
“Yeah, you know that thing called Google?”
“I think I’ve heard of it,” the room chuckled.
“Well, it turns out you can become a certified pastor for the low, low price of twenty five dollars. So, I’ll be running this show today, if that’s ok with the bride and groom.”
Journey and I both nodded. Uncle Chase deserved a medal.
He went through the motions and we repeated and said ‘Yes’ at the appropriate times. I pledged my love to the girl I’d loved all my life and made sure to emphasize my voice in the sickness and health portion of our vows. Journey made her own vows to me and to Scout. I couldn’t pry my eyes from her—it didn’t matter if she was in a hospital bed or a church, she was everything my life was destined for. And I kissed my wife for the first time, surrounded by my family—and Silver.
“Kiss me too!” Scout yelled and she got not only a kiss on her cheek but was passed around the bunch getting sugar from everyone.
We decided to have a reception later, when Journey was better and walking. So after they all filed out, Journey scooted over and patted the bed next to her.
“Some honeymoon, huh?”
“Oh, darlin’ just you wait. When you’re ready, I’m gonna romance the hell out of you. You won’t even remember your name.”
She threaded her fingers through mine and whispered, “Yes, I will. It’s Journey Leigh Black.”
I blew out a breath and touched her gorgeous locks again, my wife’s hair, “It’s about time.”
~~~
Four days later, Journey came home to our house. She continued to fuss over me fussing over her. And I’m sure some people would complain about all the work that went into taking care of someone with a broken leg and a toddler by themselves—but I was in my element.
Scout was completely taken with Journey. And the fact that she was mostly immobile didn’t faze Scout at all. They colored together, Scout mostly colored pictures on Journey’s cast. Journey probably read ten different books to her every day. I made a run to the library every other day almost, picking up new books and new videos. They watched girly movies together and I doted on them hand and foot.
Every night, I’d put Scout to bed and then go back downstairs and carry my wife back up the stairs and put her in our bed.
This went on for six weeks and even after Journey’s cast came off, it was just the beginning for her rehabilitation. She went to physical therapy three times a week. She was always sore and exhausted afterwards and I made sure to make the aftermath worth every second with hot bubble baths.
But we were facing a new problem and though I knew we would get through it, the light was dim at best. We loved each other; that had nothing to do with it. But she hadn’t touched me, touched me, since she got the cast off—plus she’d shrugged me off countless times. And I knew my girl well; she was self-conscious about her scars. She had one which ran from just above her knee to her shin and another that started mid-calf and extended down to her foot. But I could care less. I’d been married to her for going on three months and I’d loved her all my life—what was a scar in my eyes? Nothing—it was nothing.
And it wasn’t about the sex, or the lack of. It didn’t have anything to do with sex. I needed a connection to her again. I wanted to feel the love emanating from my skin and being absorbed into hers. I wanted her hands in my hair. I wanted my face in her hair-her breath on my neck. But again, there was a lesson in selfishness to be learned—but it was hard to learn when I ached every time she looked at me.
So I decided to be content with where she was—no matter how many cold showers it took.
I brought Scout to Mad and Storey’s that night and went back home.
A myriad of thoughts plagued my brain.
What if she regretted marrying me? What if she only married me because of her love for Scout? What if I turned her off? I’d just have to try harder. I wasn’t going to give up on her that easily.
I went upstairs to check on Journey, but I could hear her in the bathtub so I decided not to disturb her. I flopped on our bed and flipped channels until I got to some show about restoring cars. I clipped my shoes off one by one and settled in.
What would she do if I just busted in the bathroom and got in that steamy, bath with her? Would she tell me to leave?
“Nix,” I heard from the bathroom and I bolted, praying she hadn’t hurt herself.
I opened the door and looked to the ground, no longer feeling like I could look at my wife naked. It was obvious she didn’t want me to, so it felt wrong.
“Are you okay,” I asked her.
“Yeah, I just—wait, why aren’t you looking at me?”
“I don’t know where we are, darlin’. I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t even think straight.”
I took a deep breath and looked at her, her red locks pinned up in one of her many hair contraptions, bubbles up to her neck. I forbid my eyes to look anywhere else, just her face. She didn’t respond to my plea, so maybe I was way off base.
“Did you need something?”
“I need my husband.” I gripped the door frame, I swore that was the first time she’d ever referred to me as her husband. Even if it wasn’t, it was the only time that had counted thus far. It was the only time I’d really heard it.
“What do you need me to do,” I asked, stepping into the bathroom.
“I need you to get in here,”
“I’m in here, darlin’.�
�
She moved a wet strand from her face, “I’m not making myself clear. I need you.”
She stood then, with one hand on the side of the tub for balance and soon after, the bubbles failed to cover her and I’d never been so grateful for the slippery quality of bubbles in all my life. She was as breathtaking now as I’d ever known her—more even. She reached up slowly and plucked that God awful clip from her hair and let all her curls billow around her shoulders and down her back. I could spend hours buried in her hair.
Most people say ‘she was everything I never knew I always wanted,’ but the opposite was true for me. Journey was everything—and I’d always known I wanted her. I wanted her as a teenager, I’d wanted her as a woman, and now, the most demanding want—I wanted to make love to my wife.
“I didn’t know if you’d want me anymore—like this. I still had to get used to my own skin,” She looked down at her leg. “I’m sorry—again. I should’ve known better than that. I should’ve known you still wanted me—loved me. I just doubted it.””
She didn’t know if I wanted her anymore?
I peeled off my shirt, only unlocking my gaze from hers while it passed over my face.
“Darlin’ if you doubted that I wanted you, then I haven’t been doing my job well. But I can set that right tonight.” I took each sock off one by one, dropped the pants and the shorts. I walked over to her and bent down to press a kiss to the scar she hated so much. And then I stepped into that hot bath with her.
She cocked one perfect ginger eyebrow, “You’ve got the rest of our lives, Nixon Black—the rest of our lives.”
Epilogue
Eight Months Later, Sometime in May
Nixon
An arm reached over my shoulder and slammed down on the alarm clock.
“For the love of all that’s holy, it’s Sunday!” Journey nestled herself into the back of my neck but had no intentions of going back to sleep, despite her earlier groaning. Her knee slipped in between my thighs and she began her extremely dangerous morning assault. It wasn’t dangerous because of the activity—but there was always the chance that our little munchkin was already awake.
Her warm lips played at the back of my neck sending welcomed shivers down my back. Her hands roamed everywhere and soon she became aware that in fact, I was awake first—really awake.
“What do you have planned for us today?”
“Nothing, really. It’s just another Sunday. It’s not like I’ve been planning today out for a week—jeez.”
“You’re so grumpy today,” she grouched into the spot between my shoulder blades, “I wonder what I could do to make you happy.”
“I’m gonna go make breakfast. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”
She pouted her lip out. It was all I could do not to have her for my Sunday breakfast. I walked out and Scout was dancing silently at the top of the stairs. We had a plan that Journey never saw coming. We pounced downstairs and went to business, making pancakes, sausage, eggs, and coffee—my wife always had a hankering for coffee. Scout had been working all week on something special for Journey. She’d even insisted on skipping her weekly slumber party with Storey so she could be at our home.
Journey’s mother and father accepted our marriage, but begrudgingly. We’d invited them over several times and even tried to involve them in Scout’s fourth birthday party—but they made excuses.
We plated her breakfast and completed it with coffee and silverware. Scout held a vase full of roses and her poem—it took us almost twenty minutes to get to the top of the stairs, but she insisted on pulling her weight. I was certain our lives would never be the same after this poem.
We tip-toed upstairs and I peeked my head in and Journey was asleep again, gorgeous as always.
I set the tray down by the dresser and a bouncing Scout and sat on the bed beside her. “Good morning again, Darlin’. We brought you breakfast.”
She sat up and opened her arms for an impatient tike, dying to make this day memorable.
“Not yet, no—hugs—yet.” she whined.
And then Journey got it. I bent down to fill her in just in case she’d missed the magnitude of this day.
“It’s Mother’s Day. She wanted to surprise you. We wanted to surprise you.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. We had always known that Journey was more than willing to be Scout’s mother figure and I’d joked with her incessantly about being the wicked step-mother. But Scout had never actually made the step to calling her mom—and we never pushed her.
I brought breakfast over and placed it on the table beside her. I’d gotten her a card of my own. She smelled the roses and in true Journey fashion, broke out in tears.
“Can I say it now?” Scout complained and asked simultaneously.
“Yes, say it now.”
She popped her fists up on her hips, “I’m too short!”
I bit my lips to stop the impending smile and grabbed her and her poem up, propping her up on the foot of our bed.
“Daddy, go sit over there,” she pointed to my side of the bed and I followed her directions.
“Ready?” We both nodded and Journey scooted over to get comfortable under my arm. Scout situated her pajamas and smoothed back nonexistent knots in her hair. Then she cleared her throat. It was when she started the process over again that I intervened, “Get on with it Jane Austen.”
“Cool your jets, Daddy.” She went through the ritual again, and then she began:
Today is Mother’s Day.
I don’t know what to say.
I’d like to give you honey,
But I don’t have any money.
If you see a roach, don’t stab it.
When am I getting my bunny rabbit?
You are nice to me and help me read.
A donkey is a mule, not a steed.
There’s a boy in my class named Tom.
Would it be okay if I called you Mom?
A second sob broke free of Journey and she peeled across the bed and grabbed Scout into one of those back and forth half embracing, half dancing hugs.
She said something to Scout, I was completely confident in what it was. And Scout threw her arms right back around Journey’s neck.
Soon after, Scout’s attention was turned to something on her TV. Her job was done for the day.
“You never told me why you call her Button.” Journey played with a thread on our comforter.
“Easy. When I had come undone, she pulled me back together—like a button. Snap or zipper didn’t have the same ring.” She laughed at my explanation.
“Did you know she was gonna ask me that?”
I nodded, “Yeah, I knew.”
“But you don’t know everything.”
Sounded like a challenge to me, “Oh yeah, what don’t I know?”
“You don’t know what I bought Sylvia for Mother’s Day, just for example.”
“True.”
“You don’t know what I did yesterday when I said I was going to the doctor.”
“You didn’t go to the doctor?”
“Well, I did. But you don’t know which doctor.”
“You’re driving me nuts, woman. What doctor?”
She got on her knees on the bed next to me, took my hand and pressed it to her stomach. “The one who told me I’m pregnant.”
I couldn’t speak. The last time someone told me they were pregnant, I couldn’t enjoy the feeling. It panicked me and sent me into a spiral—transformed my life forever.
“You’re upset. It’s too soon,” she deflated before me.
“Journey, I’ve only been happier two other times in my life—once when Scout was born and the other when you married me. I love you so much. You’ve made me whole again. I’m so damned lucky to have you, darlin’.”
I kissed her stomach and intended to do much more but she interrupted me with the worst question in the world.
“Nixon, when are we getting Scout a rabbit? It was in her poem. It’s lik
e non negotiable now.”
I fell back on the bed and let out a groan. But then laughter erupted from me. If a rabbit was my greatest nemesis, then we were doing all right.
I was overjoyed to be caught in this jam.
The End
Chapter 1
False Start
Rex Heathcliff Macon
I must be the weirdo.
They’re all whipped—every damned one of them. They dote and fawn all over their women to no end. I just can’t do it. My mother was at my father’s beckon call all of her life—and what did it get her? She died, broken, sick and tired—she spent her whole life as his caretaker, never receiving any of the love she gave so freely.
That wouldn’t be me. Screw the lovey dovey bullshit.
Not that anyone was clamoring for my affections anyway.
I felt like shit for not being able to help Storey the day Simon attacked her. But school was all I had—and I certainly didn’t know that an extra long lab was going to endanger her life. How would I ever be able to love someone else—I can’t even protect a friend.
Sure, I had acquaintances at school and I had Maddox, but I wouldn’t let anyone get close. But if I’d just finished my lab faster I could’ve been there to help her. I loved that little squirt like she was my own sister and hadn’t been able to face her since.
I lived in Falcon’s apartment for free, which was really perfect. It let me save most of my paychecks. One day I’d have to get a place of my own and with Falcon’s help I’d acquired a pretty decent savings account. I worked for him part time after school and on Saturdays just filing and copying—running errands. He paid me well.
But my former life plagued me.
I still could hear my father calling my mother in the middle of the night. Her whimpers crawled up the walls and infiltrated my ears while I tried to sleep. And I still checked the locks on the door and windows every five minutes, making sure he couldn’t get out, even though he’d been gone for years. The need to care for him battered me into someone I didn’t want to be.
I’d pretended not to have my eye on her since I’d gone to my first bout. I’d heard her speak once. It was more of a smooth whisper than a voice but I felt bereft after not hearing it again.