“Thanks.” Henry smiled.
“Get what?” Joe asked, when he walked into the living room.
“Henry wants another SUT.”
Joe gave that disbelief look to Henry. “They’re humans, Henry. You do know that.”
“Yeah, Joe, sure.” Henry read his notes. “But I need another one to implant with the chip I’m working on reprogramming.”
“Then we have time.” Joe sat on the couch. “Another year, maybe, for you to do that?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Ye of little faith.”
“No.” Joe pointed at him. “Ye of little time.”
If Frank could have barreled down the steps any louder at that moment, he would have annoyed the people in the next row of houses as well as those in the living room. “Hey,” he spoke upbeat, smacking Robbie on the back of the head as he walked behind him. “What’s up with you yelling at me?”
“What’s up with you hitting me?” Robbie nudged into him.
“Ow!” Frank faked whined and grabbed his shoulder. “Your bones are hard.”
Robbie wanted to lash out again in a fun, fighting mannerism but he stopped when Andrea waltzed into the room. He looked oddly at her and so did Frank.
Andrea smiled, shaking her head. “You boys.”
Robbie mouthed the word ‘boys’ in question to Frank.
Andrea set down a coffee for Joe. “Would any of you like some? No?” She shrugged. “Henry, I brought that planner over for you to look at.” She reached for the notebook he held.
Like a greedy child, Henry protected it. “No. What planner?”
“The wedding planner. It’s on the table by the door. It’s all the details we women have come up with.”
“Swell,” Henry mumbled.
“What was that?” Andrea, with folded arms asked. “Anyhow it’s over there. You’ll like it.” She lifted her arms and raised them with a drop. “Robbie?” she spoke so chipper. “You’ll play for us, won’t you?”
Robbie gave an odd look. “Play what?”
Andrea giggled. “Guitar, silly. And sing. Oh when we were back in the old world, we used to sit on the porch and listen to the boy downstairs play and sing. When you guys were practicing the other night, I thought of that. I enjoyed it. You’ll play, right?”
“Andrea, I’m like old. I’m not twelve. No one cares.”
Andrea tapped him on the cheek. “Sweet. I’m going get some strudel and you can grab your guitar.” She moved to the kitchen. “Oh, and I want to hear that ‘Silly’ song.”
Robbie tossed his hands up. “What is up with her? Is she going through a change of life or something? The ‘Silly’ song. That’s a joke.” Robbie looked at his father. “Dad?”
“Grab your guitar, Robbie.”
“All right.” He pouted. “When I was eleven you used to make me play that stupid song, the only song I knew. What was it?”
“Proud Mary,” Frank answered, sounding so distant.
“Yeah that was it.”
“You sucked,” Frank commented.
“Thanks. Dad, do I have to ...”
“Be nice.” Joe sipped on his coffee giving a ‘blow off’ attitude to Robbie, speaking to him like he indeed was a child. “We have company and we’re doing a family night.”
“Aw,” Robbie started to whine, then stopped. “Shit, I sounded like Henry.” Robbie laughed when he saw Henry’s raised hand extend the middle finger and then Robbie walked over to the closet. As he did he saw Frank staring down at the table. “Frank.” Robbie stood right next to him and he saw his big brother staring, so sadly, down at the planner. “What is it?”
Frank closed his eyes and titled his head. “They’re really gonna do this thing, aren’t they? My best friend is going to marry Ellen.” With a subtle slam of the planner, Frank ran his hand across his short black hair and grabbed the back of his neck. His eyes shifted to Henry.
“Frank, none of this is gonna happen.”
“It looks so real.”
“Yeah, well, my only concern is Ellen getting so wrapped up in it, she may forget it’s not supposed to happen.”
“Yeah ...” Frank nodded slowly. “The details are so ... particular. The whole situation is bothering me. It’s hitting me.”
“The baby, the first fake marriage?”
Frank nodded. “I’ll be back. Tell Dad I had something to take care of.”
“He’s right there, tell him your ...” Robbie didn’t get to finish, Frank had left, “... self.”
Joe immediately spun around at the close of his door. “Did Frank leave? Where did he go?”
“Um.” Robbie scratched his head. “He went to the Social Hall to get the tambourine. He doesn’t want to feel left out.”
“Good.” Joe stood up. “I’ll go help Andrea with that strudel.”
“Good?” Robbie chuckled. “I bet he didn’t even hear what I said.” Shaking his head he walked to the couch. “Henry? You have to go after Frank.”
“No.” Henry closed his notebook. “I’m not playing tambourine, Robbie. I’m not Tracy Partridge.”
“Sure you are, Henry. You have the long hair.” Robbie held up his hand when he saw Henry’s facial muscles clench. “Seriously, go after Frank. He’s upset and I’m afraid he’ll drink. I’d go after him myself but I’ll flip on him and you’re the one who needs to talk to him.”
“Me?” Henry asked. “Why me?”
“Seems my brother got a reality check.” Robbie pointed back with his thumb. “He was looking at that wedding planner and he got upset. Not so much about the wedding plans, but everything ... everything.”
“Shit.” Henry nearly stomped. “Thanks, Robbie. I’ll find him.” He tucked his notebook under his arm.
“Henry, what are you going to tell him? What can you tell him?”
“I don’t know, Robbie” Henry opened the door. “But I can’t let him feel bad about it. I just can’t. I knew this would happen. Shit.”
With a raise of his eyebrows, Robbie watched Henry leave. Then it hit him, the kids were upstairs. His Dad and Andrea were doing the strudel thing in the kitchen. Robbie could make his escape. Just as his hand reached for the door he knew that was an impossibility.
“Robert,” Joe called out sternly, walking into the living room with Andrea who held her strudel. “Wrong door for that guitar.”
“Right.” Robbie shook his head and faced the closet. He opened it and pulled out his acoustic. “Got it.”
“Good.” Joe sat down with Andrea on the couch.
Really wanting to let go and whine and pout like Henry, Robbie thought of one better. He placed on his guitar and walked before Joe and Andrea. He’d let them hear him play. As best as he could, he would play and sing loudly the most annoying songs he knew. And he’d start with the Brady Bunch collection.
<><><><>
“Point two five percent,” Ellen spoke softly, raising her eyes above the clipboard then watching as Dean held a dropper in his hand and held it over a beaker. “Good. Next, acid content. One percent.” She watched him pick up the next dropper and add the ingredient. “Hydration. Forty percent.” Ellen, with her eyes peered to Dean, stopped walking. “No.” She hurried over to him grabbing his hand. “Wrong one.” Trying to remain calm, she lowered her eyes just to read, and she heard the thunderous crashing of breaking glass. She lifted her head to see Dean’s arm in a final sweep of the counter. “What are you doing?”
“Not this!” Dean stood pushing his hands at the counter.
“Sit back down.”
“I’m screwing up.”
“So what? It’s a cough formula, big deal. That’s why you’re learning.”
“I can’t do this, El.”
“It’ll take practice.”
“No! Now is not the time to be practicing and you know it,” Dean argued strongly. “How can I be trusted to mix medication that people will ingest into their bodies?”
“That’s why we’re ...”
“El!” His hand shot in
the air. He turned to try to face her. “I can’t even see where you are, and I’m supposed to see what I am mixing into a medication? And to think I am being counted on to cure a virus. I’m useless.”
“You’re not useless, Dean.” Ellen walked over to him trying to be comforting ...
“Useless, El. I’ll never be able to be left alone without a babysitter in my own lab. Do you know how that makes me feel? I can’t take it.”
“Dean, that’s not true. Come here.” Ellen reached for his jacket that not only was wet, but had blood that dripped from his hand. “Take this off. And your hand is bleeding, let me ...”
“No!” Dean moved back. “Stop treating me like a child. You have me up here treating me and teaching me like a three-year-old. Talking down to me, scolding me when I make a mistake. I can’t help it, El. I just lost my sight. You don’t seem to comprehend what that is doing to me.”
“I do, Dean.” Ellen’s voice stayed soothing.
“No, you don’t. All day long I have to listen to you and Henry make bad reference jokes trying to cheer me up. It’s wrong. You have me driving. Wrong. You have me mixing chemicals that could inadvertently kill someone. How can I try to save a life, if I can’t even shave my own face? A face that is so itchy!” Dean ran his hand harshly across his chin. “It’s driving me nuts! I shouldn’t be here.”
“You have every right to be here. This is your research.” Ellen laid her hand on his back.
Dean’s hands reached out for the counter and he felt his way into it. “I feel horrible.”
“I know.”
“I just feel so lost. So lost.” His head dropped down.
“Dean.” Ellen moved closer to him. “Let’s call it a night. Let’s just go home. Let me take you home.” Dean didn’t answer her. “Dean?” She placed her face closer to his. “I’ll even drive.” She watched his head sway from her with his eyes closed. “Dean, please.” Ellen listened as Dean let out a long breath of sadness and frustration then covered his face with his hands, so unresponsive to her.
Leaving the lab was what they had to do. Taking a break and going home was for the best. Dean had worked so hard, but he just didn’t know that. The giant steps he was taking on this day would have seemed to him years earlier like baby steps and that made things worse for Dean ... knowing what he had the capabilities to do and feeling so powerless in expending them. But Ellen knew that before they slid backwards in any progress, she had to get Dean to care enough to take further steps to go on. And right then, she couldn’t even get him to care enough to take that first step from the lab and go home.
<><><><>
Henry spotted him, just where Robbie said he would be, doing exactly what Robbie said he would be doing. Frank stood against the bar, leaning into it, a drink in his hand. “Frank?” Henry walked up to behind him. “You didn’t stay for strudel.”
Frank brought his drink to his mouth, dumping some of the liquor in.
“Robbie is singing.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re drinking, Frank.”
“I don’t care.”
Henry held back his frustration. “Go back to your dad’s with the kids.”
“Where are you gonna be?”
“Me? I’m uh ... I was going home unless you want me to go to Joe’s with you.”
“No.” Frank finished off his drink and reached over the bar for the bottle.
“Frank, you said you weren’t gonna ...”
“Henry.” Frank slammed the bottle. “Leave. Right now, I don’t want to be around you.”
“Tough, Frank, I’m here.” Henry moved closer beside him. “Robbie told me you got upset.”
“Yeah I did.”
“Why? Why all of a sudden are you getting upset?”
“Sudden, Henry? You really think this is sudden?” Frank asked with an edge. “Let me tell you where I am and what I see. I see a wedding planner. Now real or not, it is a wedding plan for you and Ellen. I love her with everything I am and if there was gonna be a wedding why not be ours. I’ll tell you, because we broke up and you two snuck off to get married. Whether it was legit or not the intention was there.”
“We discussed this already.”
“Yeah, and I keep going back to it. I’m the bad guy most of the time and Ellen views you as the fucking saint. Are you a saint, Henry?”
Henry lowered his head. “No, Frank, I’m not.”
“Then why do you have it all?”
“I don’t have it all.”
“Bullshit. What you did, was wrong. I gave you an understanding. You said you didn’t sleep with Ellen. Yet, there’s a baby. I gave you the understanding and when I wasn’t primary, you just raced off and married her. And you know what …” Frank brought his face closer to Henry. “You still want to marry her. Even though all you did was underhanded and wrong. You have the chance or had the chance to make it up to me and you still choose not to?”
“How can you say that?” Henry asked. “I am going through this wedding plan so Ellen can get close to Jenny. I let you take control of Nick. I support you and Ellen being together one hundred percent. We got married, Frank, because you and Dean were always at each other’s throats. It was a way to end it.”
“Are you being honest?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t marry her for any other reason, not because you were in love with her, wanted or, any reason but to stop our stupid triangle.”
“That’s it.”
“As primary, Henry, who were you going to give the understanding to?” Frank asked. “You know since you and Ellen took it upon yourselves to end me and Dean’s fighting over her.”
“Robbie.”
“My own brother.” Frank took another drink. “What about now.”
“I told you, Frank. I want you and Ellen back together. I told you this the other night.”
“Make it official.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Henry asked.
“Make me the understanding.”
“Frank, you are. In my mind and my heart you are. You’re the only one.”
“Make it official.”
“I can’t do that, I’m …”
“Ellen’s primary relationship. To everyone in this community, you are the primary. Make it official. Make me the understanding. The official understanding.”
“Will that stop this?” Henry questioned. “Stop this up and down behavior?”
“Yes.
“Then consider it done.”
“What about Ellen?” Frank asked.
“Ellen is fine with it. She loves you. She’s fine with it. She knows.” Henry paused. “She knows already.”
“Good.” Frank poured, yet, another drink.
“Frank.” Henry reached for the glass. “Why don’t you slow down.”
“I will. After tonight. After I know, Ellen is back in my life. Then I will. Until then …” Frank downed it. “I’m in a mood to drink until I forget. Ever have one of those nights?”
Henry swallowed and didn’t answer.
“One of those nights, where you just don’t remember.” Frank sat down his glass. “But maybe darts first. Wanna play?”
“No, Frank … I think I’ll just head home.”
“Suit yourself.” Frank looked around the bar.
Henry stepped back. As he did, he saw Forrest approach Frank. “Ah, Frunk,” Forrest said. “You uh a loon? Wooed mund de comb-pa-nee?”
“Huh?”
“De comb-pa-nee? Ma Uh john you?”
“Um sure. Hey, Forrest. You feel like playing darts?” Frank smiled.
“I woo love to plea dots.”
“Great.” Frank clapped his hands together. “Let’s go. I have to warn you, Forrest, I’m still a beginner. Don’t kick my ass,” Frank said sarcastically as he stepped toward the dart machine.
“Uh woo try newt to. Ma-bay Uh con hep you. I wuss de Iowa stat mun’s da-vison-nil chum-peon for sex years strut.”
“Fuck.”
Forrest chuckled. “Uh um ruddy, Frunk.” Forrest grabbed his darts.
“Great.” Frank huffed and shook his head.
Henry saw that Frank was occupied and took that as his sign to leave.
He thought about going back to Joe’s, but then as he stepped outside, he thought about something else.
Everything Frank said.
Not really everything, but a few things stuck out strong in his mind.
He stood there, outside the Social Hall, and Frank’s words raced through him.
“Are you a saint, Henry?” Frank had asked.
Henry answered ‘no’, but the truth was, he was far from a saint. Henry portrayed himself to be the good guy and he thought he was. But lately, Henry had been seeing what he was.
He wasn’t a good friend. Not at all. He was a selfish friend.
What he did to Frank was wrong, because Frank was his best friend. And right there and then, outside the Social Hall, Henry wanted to make it right.
He had to. He had to make up for marrying Ellen. He had to make up for that night.
That night.
It was right after Frank found out about Ellen and Dean’s affair. They fought, he was mean, Ellen ran away. She ran outside of Beginnings and camped out. Henry found her.
She had been drinking heavily and wasn’t ready to return to Beginnings. Joe was sick. Under the Salicain. So Henry stayed with her. They drank, they talked, they laughed, they kissed.
Then kissed some more.
He could still feel the inner turmoil of that night. Guilt for kissing his best friend’s wife. Guilt for needing the touch of a woman and forgetting it was Ellen.
Guilt … for letting it happen when Ellen was far too intoxicated.
The night, beyond the wall, flashed in his mind.
The kiss. The touch. The laugh and leading her to the blanket.
When did Ellen black out? By the time Henry realized Ellen was ‘out of it’, it was too late.
A sickening and sinking feeling grappled at Henry’s gut and he snapped his mind out of the thoughts of that evening.
Moments before Frank asked him, “I’m in a mood to drink until I forget. Ever have one of those nights where you just don’t remember.”
Henry didn’t answer. Had he replied, he could have said ‘no’. He never had an evening where he drank so much he didn’t remember. But, he could say for certainty, on one such occasion, Ellen did.
Blink of an Eye: Beginnings Series Book 8 Page 4