I chuckle. My little ladies man. I look down at my son and lose some of my scowl. He is forever smiling at me. Once his Mom found out that he had Down syndrome she wanted nothing more to do with him, or me.
When Sarah told me she was pregnant I immediately was elated. Not that I loved her, I didn’t. She was fun for the time, but since she was pregnant with my child I asked her to marry me. I wanted to do right for my child, even if I didn’t love the mother. I figure I could grow to love her, in time. Thankfully she decided to wait until after the baby was born to make it official.
Not my idea.
Sarah didn’t want to look “fat” in her wedding gown. I think a pregnant woman is beautiful, not fat. She didn’t want to hear it, it wasn’t up for discussion. But that was Sarah.
I realized this a little too late, she was all about looks, money, and what my money could buy her. Now that I think about it, I don’t know what I saw in her, she really was not someone I would want to be around, let alone marry. Yeah, she was pretty, but looks fade. Sarah mastered the art of only showing me the side of her that she wanted me to see. When I got a view of the whole picture that was Sarah, uh, not liking it so much. As a matter of fact, I did not like it at all.
We didn’t have the best relationship, but with my child growing in her, I would have done anything to make it work.
During an ultrasound, which then turned into an amniocentesis the doctor confirmed that our son had Down syndrome. That was the day Sarah showed her true colors.
During her crying jag, she told me the truth that she was only with me for convenience, my looks, my money. And that having this child was going to be inconvenient. She wanted an abortion. Thankfully she was too far along for that to be an option.
Then things got worse, much worse than they were, I realized from one too many slip ups during her many temper tantrums that she purposely got pregnant. But it didn’t work out the way she thought it would. She was pregnant with a baby, one she didn’t want.
She informed me that once the baby was born it was mine and she wanted nothing to do with it or me. She called my son an “it”. Heartless bitch. Those three and a half months were the longest months of my life.
I was relieved that she didn’t find a way to abort him. I worried about him every minute, every hour of every day while he was in her stomach. I only prayed she would take care of him until he was born, and then I could take over.
I was in love with him the first time I saw his little heart beat on the screen. Nothing could change that. Long story short, she had Cody, didn’t even want to hold him and checked herself out of the hospital that same day. Never to be seen or heard from again. Good riddance.
Thankfully a friend of mine who is also a lawyer drew up papers for her to sign stating that she wanted nothing to do with us. He recommended me paying her, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I gave her every comfort she could have while pregnant, she was not getting a cent more. She tried to trap me in a relationship by purposely getting pregnant, I don’t need to pay her because her plan backfired. I would need my money to help care for my son.
Thankfully she wasn’t smart enough or should I say dumb enough to try to get anything from me. Or maybe she just realized that I was aware of her nefarious ways. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t worried for awhile that she would come back, but I had the signed legal document stating that she couldn’t. Facts prove she was too much of a bitch to take the back seat to a child who needed attention. She was the biggest mistake of my life, who gave me my biggest miracle.
She stated on numerous occasions that she just wanted to be done with this situation. Her loss. And I mean it. Cody is my world, and if you give him a second of your time, he will light up your world too.
For such a little person, he has so much love to give; he is just an amazing individual. Six and a half years in this world, six and a half years he has filled mine with laughter and love. Don’t get me wrong, it’s difficult, but worth every damn second of it.
The detective in me that never sleeps, and is always trying to figure out answers to even the most mundane things wonders, why does Cody only gravitate towards women?
I like to think he is a ladies man, but the truth is, it makes me wonder. Does he want a mother figure in his life? My Aunt Zoe lives with us on my farm, but I don’t think she’s enough. She loves Cody, but I don’t think it’s the kind of love that a Mother is supposed to give her child. I know my Mom gave me all of her until she passed away ten years ago; unfortunately she never got to meet Cody.
I scowl at the lady who ripped her hand out of my son’s grasp when she noticed that he was different, I begin to wonder about women. I can’t believe she would do that. Seriously, does she think he’s contagious? I continue to smile down at Cody but can’t stop noticing the woman leaning on her truck.
She’s crying. She’s trying to be discreet, but I can tell she’s watching us. She can’t be this upset because my son touched her. Can she?
The logical part of my mind tells me no, the detective in me say’s something else is wrong, the Dad in me tells me to let it go and only worry about my son.
I feel compelled to stop and see what’s wrong. I notice her still trying to discretely look at us from the corner of her eyes.
If I wasn’t so pissed at her I would admit that she is beautiful. Long auburn hair pulled into a ponytail shows the delicate line of her neck. She has nice legs, not too short, not too tall. I would guess her to be five foot five. She possesses the curves a man longs to feel, not the boney stick figure most women think we want.
She’s definitely not from around here and her New York plates verify that for me. There seemed to be a depth to the sadness in the lady’s eyes. Beautiful green eyes that I only caught a glimpse of through my fury.
I need to get back to my ranch and not think about anything else. The new tenant for the cottage is going to be showing up any minute and I can’t expect my Aunt to be there to show her around. Aunt Zoe is almost eighty and has a hard time getting around in this May heat.
Hell she has a hard time getting around in no heat. I think the very molecules in the air give her a hard time walking. I wish I didn’t depend on her to help me with Cody; thankfully he can sit there and watch TV with her, or play cards. Zoe’s friends live in an assisted living community that I have to figure out a way to convince her to move to. She insists on staying to help me with Cody, and I appreciate that from her. But it’s time she thinks about herself.
I turn to look towards the woman again, deciding that I need to know that she is ok. She is in her beat up truck and about to reverse out of her spot.
I buckle Cody into his seat. He looks at me with all the love in the world, “Daddy, what wrong?”
Always, always the observant one. “Nothing buddy, just have to get home, remember I told you someone rented out the cottage. Well we have to be there when they arrive. So let’s go my man.”
“Ok Daddy. Let go my man.”
I smile at my son. I don’t remember him ever having a bad day. Even when there were bad days. Through physical therapy, speech therapy, dark times where I felt like we weren’t getting anywhere. He always has a light to him. A sparkle that can bring light to the darkest of moments. I am damn lucky to have him. He goes to John Jay Elementary school where he was accepted into regular classes immediately.
I am lucky that Cody is a highly functioning child. Although late to talk and smile, he makes up for it now. I read everything there was to know about Down syndrome once my son was diagnosed. Cody had early intervention starting when he was just a few months old, I feel this helped him, yet he still needs and receives some extra help with his lessons.
Soon he will be graduating from kindergarten moving up into first grade. He has amazing teachers and I am grateful for the loving hands he has looking out for him there.
Just another reason why I live in this small town. Pleasantville, Texas. My home, where I was born, where I want to die. Like Bruce Springsteen says
while singing, “This is my home town.”
The reason for the stop at the mini mart was to get Cody a bottle of water. Which I now regret letting him drink the whole thing when I hear…
“Dad, I really, really have to go bathroom.”
“Seriously buddy? Can you hold it for ten minutes until we get home?”
“Uh, no way, no can do.” Cody replies while smiling.
“OK, Ill pull into the diner, you can go there.”
“Okey Dokey Daddy.”
Chapter Three
Seriously?
You have got to be kidding me. I can’t believe it. I pull up to park next to the cottage that I will be renting for the unforeseeable future.
It is beautiful.
One can say almost majestic. Like it was stolen from a storybook. It’s free standing with a small front porch. Wooden shingles, white stucco exterior walls. Adorable.
Grace and Ellie would have loved it.
I love it. I feel like squealing. The old me would have squealed, done a little happy dance and smiled. The new me, only allows myself to feel like this place could work. I let myself acknowledge that this cottage is nice (even though it is awe inspiring amazing!)
I park my truck and get out. I am supposed to meet my landlord here. I look down at my boots and kick at the ground, realizing that even the dirt is dry here.
While looking around I notice a ways’ down the long driveway is a bigger house. It is beautiful. Made of logs and looks like it should be featured in a magazine.
Behind my cottage and as far as I can see there is a beautiful stream, it flows all the way past my cottage. I squint and look all the way down the lane towards the big log house. I can just about make out a huge barn. What I can see running around are horses.
They are galloping and are absolutely beautiful. I have never been on a horse before, and don’t plan on ever going on one. How does one get on an animal willingly that could throw you from its back and then stomp on you if they so desire?
Not me.
With my luck, that would absolutely happen to me. But then again, I would likely just lose the ability to walk and lose the use my hands. I would drag my broken body into the cottage and barely make in the foyer. I have nobody to take care of me. Slowly I would wither and die. The owner of the cottage would come in to find my crinkled old dried out body on the floor and think, what the hell is that? Medical examiners would come in to try to figure out what I once was. My wrinkled dried out carcass will be photographed and put in the newspapers as “unidentified object found in cottage.”
What a way to go.
I lean on my truck, and burn my elbow on the hot metal while waiting for the owner to show up.
Ouch.
I look down at my elbow, I was about to lean my ass on the truck and decide against it. I am wearing my favorite pair of jeans that fit me just right. My pink sleeveless shirt is barely keeping me cool. Even with my hair pulled back, I’m hot. I hope the cottage has air conditioning. Or I may melt.
Seriously.
It’s that hot.
I’m on time, actually now that I look at my watch, which used to be my sisters, one of the only items I keep close to me, I notice I am ten minutes late.
I hope I didn’t miss the owner. Not a great way to make a good first impression. I’ll give it another fifteen minutes and then I will go to the main house to see if I missed meeting him here. Good thing I didn’t get a chance to buy the milk. But I do have ice cream.
A few minutes later a familiar truck pulls into the drive. My luck can not be this bad, can it?
The answer is of course, yes. It most definitely can. I know this to be fact when Mr. Hot Cowboy get’s out of his big black Ford F-150; he reaches in the back to help out his son. I can’t help but stare at his ass as he’s leaning in his truck. I think I may spontaneously combust.
I hang my head. This can’t be happening. I contemplate getting in my jalopy of a truck and high tailing it out of here. But I don’t know where else to go.
I don’t have anywhere else to go.
OK, pep talk number three hundred sixty three of the day… “Suck it up Laura. Get the keys, and be done with it.”
I look up at Mr. Tall Dark and holey smokes handsome. Yes, definitely tingling. I begin to wonder as I take in all that is him if everything is bigger in Texas. I don’t know where that thought came from. Oh, it could be my two and a half year dry spell.
Remember your pact, remember your pact!
Well technically it’s not a dry spell since it was intentional. Or is it still considered a dry spell? The fact still remains that I have sworn off all men. I had the occasional hook up, but it didn’t do anything for me, hence the pact.
All that comes from relationships is hurt. Mental and physical. Look at my Dad. Look at where my sister and niece are now. Not here, definitely no, absolutely in Heaven. Taken way too soon, and when I say that I mean, way too soon. Billy Joel was absolutely correct when singing “Only the Good Die Young.”
It makes me feel better to think that they are looking down on me, probably rolling their eyes and wanting to smack me in the head. Mr. Hot Cowboy looks at me questionably. I look back down to my feet (which is a safer place to gaze) I rub at the scar on my forehead. An old habit when I am nervous, anxious, or just thinking. So, basically all the time. He approaches holding his sons hand.
Cody is smiling at me and screams, “Hi.”
Thankfully his jovial ways snaps me out of my cowboy daze and I can’t help but look at Cody and smile. “Hi, back at ya.” I tell Cody.
“I’m Cody, this going to be you cottage, I drank bottle of water by myself.” This is said to me from this little ray of sunshine. And it’s said just as loud as his ‘hi’, as if he knows I listen to my music in the truck too loud and may be deaf. I have avoided all contact with kids because it hurts too much, but I can’t ignore Cody. Yet as adorable as he is, it still hurts.
I continue to ignore Mr. Scowling Cowboy and smile back at Cody. I don’t offer my name or any pleasantries because I am holding it together with a piece of scotch tape that’s losing its stick and at this point I know my voice will waver. Totally giving myself away.
I am beginning to wonder if Cody’s Dad is going to say anything. His narrow gaze is taking in all that is me. I take a breath, feel the tears sting my nose and try to swallow them down.
I feel like he is reading every secret I have ever told the way he is studying me. I have never been scrutinized this closely before.
I feel as if any moment he is about to yell at me for lying to my mom when I was eleven for telling her I didn’t brake her vase (when I most certainly did), and when I was fifteen and went out with Scott Gilman and let him put his hand up my shirt. When I swore to my mom that I was at Amy’s house studying. I feel my face inflame under the intense scrutiny.
I mentally slap myself and pull it together. I bravely look up into Mr. Cowboy’s eyes, and hold his stare. He pulls his hand through his thick black hair. Hair that is slightly highlighted by the sun shining behind him.
As he is studying me, I get the chance to take in all of him. Wow. Not only is he everything I thought he was when I saw him at the mini mart, he’s even better up close and without being on the verge of a panic attack (well, one is looming, but I think it’s just the reawakening of my hormones that may attack…..him).
The scruff lining his face would be considered a five o’clock shadow, no on closer inspection, and I can attest to closer inspection, it’s more like a ten o’clock shadow, and he is working it, no strike that, he owns it. I would love to feel that scruff on certain parts of my body. Just thinking about it may have given me a mini orgasm. Is that possible?
As I pull myself out of my post orgasmic state, I am able to see something working behind his dark blue eyes, and he must come to some inevitable conclusion because he sighs and then introduces himself to me.
“I’m Logan Thompson, this is my son Cody, who I think you already met at
the mini mart.” (He scowls at me after he says this. Even scowling he is hot. Actually I think the scowl adds to his allure.) “I guess that makes you Laura Gennings.” This was stated as a fact not a question, so I just nod staying rooted in one spot.
My head going up and down like a nodding fool and for some stupid reason I keep nodding. God, you can just pick me up and stick me on the dashboard of a car and call me a bobble head at this point.
I try to pull myself together thinking to myself, say something, anything (another pep talk). This guy already thinks you’re a wack-o. Speak already.
Logan look’s at Cody and gives him a loving nudge in the direction of his house, “Go tell Auntie Zoe that we’re back and that I will be there in a few minutes, Ok son.”
“Okey dokey Daddy.” With that Cody’s smiling face turns to me as he yells, “Bye” at the top of his lungs.
That was too cute; I think Cody’s cuteness finally jogs my brain into function mode. It’s understandable that my brain went into freeze mode standing too close to all that is Logan Thompson. I feel my mouth try to form words as I watch Cody run to his house. Finally yes (finally) I reply, “Laura Gennings, yup that’s me.”
No! Did I just say that?
And now it seems my mouth ran out of things to say. My sister would definitely be rolling her eyes at me now. OK, pull yourself together. Great, now I am having internal dialogue while this man is staring at me like he is one second from kicking me off his property. Which looking now (or gawking) at his biceps, he can probably just pick me up like a javelin and throw me down the long drive. Thankfully Logan takes the lead, again.
“Got your check for first month’s rent and security deposit. I had it cleaned yesterday, everything should be in order for you. Like I told you, it’s furnished, hopefully you will be comfortable, but feel free to rearrange or change anything. Now let me grab your bags so I can help you bring them into the house.”
Ok, obviously Logan Thompson is trying to move this along. I mentally slap myself in the head.
“Uh, yeah thanks for the offer, but I can handle them. There are only some boxes and a few suitcases.” I make a brushing motion with my hands while shaking my head and looking away.
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