If It Ain't Broke

by Brenda Barrett

  He spun around to face her. "I missed you this morning."

  Pinky gasped. "You did?" Her brown eyes lit up with joy and then she slumped back in the chair. "It's easy to get used to anybody and miss them when they are no longer around."

  Chris grinned. "But Griffin and I agreed that you are just not anybody."

  Pinky smiled. "I am not going to let you turn my head with your compliments, and I'm not going to come back to work for you either. You are too depressed and serious and damaged."

  Chris frowned. "I'm damaged aren't I?" He nodded contemplatively and then looked at her fully. "I don't spy on Kelly Palmer. I spy on my child. I made Theo a promise that I would stay away from his family, and technically I have. But I am not the kind of guy who can forget that he has an offspring in the world. So I have a detective give me a weekly report. I hope you can appreciate that I am not only depressed when I get that report. It also reminds me, once more, that I was weak, I went against all the known principles that I had held, and that I had an affair with a married woman."

  "Have you asked God for forgiveness?" Pinky asked him earnestly. "You are acting as if God can't forgive you this sin and you have to keep reminding yourself about how bad you were. If for one minute you decide to let it go and let God, what do you think will happen? You are going to feel again. You are going to join the land of the living again, but you are afraid."

  "So when are your exams?" Chris asked abruptly.

  "That's it, you are just going to change the topic?" Pinky shook her head exasperatedly. "Next week Monday, I have two on Wednesday and two on Friday. Then I am done. I may go home after, Charles won't be around and I don't have anything to hang around for."

  She glanced at Chris and then looked away. "I expect you'll be busy with your sisters coming and all."

  Chris nodded. "It usually is a blast. Family means everything to the Donahues."

  "My family has a really nice thing too. Charles will only be coming for Christmas Day but my cousin Hal is bringing his friend Lance from Kingston, and they are spending the whole week. I used to have a crush on Lance when I was younger. He was just so..."

  "Stop." Chris shook his head. "Do you want us to keep sampling these dishes or what?"

  "Sample the dishes, of course," Pinky smiled slyly.

  Chris was looking bothered and jittery after he heard about Lance and that was a balm to Pinky’s sore ego.

  Chapter Seven

  "Chris, can you look anymore depressed?" Camille sat beside him with a cup of chocolate in her hand.

  His brother-in-law Kenneth whistled. "I second that."

  Camille looked at her husband contemplatively. "Since he came to pick us up from the airport, three days ago, he's been giving us fake smiles and forced laughter."

  Hyacinth Donahue joined them in the living room with a tray of teacups in her hands. "I don't know what has gotten into him. It's Christmas Eve. Look lively. Your nieces and nephews are here. It's family time." Then a cloud passed over her face. "Sorry Chris."

  Chris looked at all three of them resignedly. "Sorry about what?"

  "Sorry for being so insensitive." Hyacinth sighed. "I forgot that not all the family is here."

  "Oh," Camille said sadly, "he's thinking about Mark. My adorable and totally sweet nephew that is growing up with the wrong name."

  Chris shrugged, "I wasn't thinking about Mark." He heaved himself from the settee that he had dropped into since arriving at his parent's house. His father had taken the rest of the family to a pre-Christmas party; Camille and Kenneth had not wanted to go.

  "I wasn't thinking about anything." He justified his lie inwardly. You couldn't call Pinky an anything.

  He hadn't seen or heard from her in two weeks. He had deliberately not called her during her exams, and when he tried calling after they were finished, she ignored his calls. Though he wanted to deny it, he was missing her dreadfully, more dreadfully than he could account for. On all her exam days he had prayed that she was successful. When her exams were over he found himself wanting to dial her number and ask her out.

  For the first time in years he was fully tied up in his mind with someone other than Kelly. Though the feeling had been frightening, he had gotten used to it this past week. Then he remembered that she had spoken of some guy named Lance who was supposed to be spending all Christmas with her and that she had had a crush on him—then the thought entered his head that he must do something about it.

  Pinky was a smart and intelligent girl; any man in his right mind would snatch her up. He couldn't afford for this Lance fellow to be acting on her old crush and taking advantage of her. A man had to protect his former housekeeper to the best of his ability.

  Hyacinth came and wrapped her arms around Chris. "Darling, I have been talking to a daughter of an old friend of mine."

  Chris looked down at his mother's upturned face dazedly. "Huh?"

  "About the whole Mark issue," Hyacinth said. "She said that you may be able to get shared custody of Mark, if you really wanted to."

  "What?" Chris finally focused his mind on what his mother was saying. "I could?"

  "Yes." Hyacinth nodded excitedly. "She was explaining all the legal mumbo jumbo but I told her she would have to explain it to you first hand."

  "Is that so?" Camille piped up. "I think you should talk to her, Chris. The arrangement with the Palmers really leaves you out in the cold. It is unfair of them. Why should you have to be the one to lose out on seeing your own flesh and blood just because they dictated it as so?"

  "But," Chris massaged the back of his neck absentmindedly, "I promised Theo I would stay a way. They are happy. I saw them in Cayman the other day at Phoebe's wedding. If I step in now it would cause them extra pain."

  Kenneth who was silent until then, chirped in. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

  "How can you say that?" Camille turned to her husband. "Having your own child is the most precious thing."

  "No it's not," Kenneth said exasperatedly. "This isn’t just about Chris. This is about a family moving on from an infidelity and doing it the best way they know how. For Chris to interfere now would be ungodly."

  "To separate me from my grandson is ungodly," Hyacinth said hotly.

  "And besides they have two others," Camille said turning to Kenneth, "they should be satisfied with that."

  "Lord help you." Kenneth laughed. "Children are not like toys, you can't say because you have two, the third one shouldn't matter. They are human beings who you bond with.

  Now, despite the fact that I think Theo is a saint for taking back Kelly, he has already bonded with the child and if he should have to share custody with another man, the man who knocked up his wife, then that's a whole other ball game. You were thinking of us adopting," Kenneth looked at Camille sharply, "would it be okay if we just sent back whichever kid they gave us because of some problem or the other?"

  Camille shook her head. "No, it wouldn't be, it's just that I have been trying to get pregnant for years. Both of us are okay, we did the tests and everything." She glanced at her mother. " Suppose this is Chris' only chance to have a child. He'll be losing out to Theo."

  "He'll live," Kenneth said looking at Chris contemplatively. "There are plenty of men who don't have kids or can't have any. Your obsession with your situation is clouding the issue. I will live too honey, if we don't have any. Marie and Fiona have enough children between the two of them to satisfy Harlan and Hyacinth."

  He gave Hyacinth a sharp look. "Leave Chris alone with this situation; encouraging him to pursue this matter will only hurt the other family."

  Hyacinth sat daintily. "I think Chris is being unfairly treated and an injustice has to be corrected."

  Kenneth looked at Chris who had walked over to the windows and had his back to them. "Do you have anything to say about this?"

  "It can't hurt to hear what my options are," Chris said shrugging. "I love my son, I get a report on him every Thursday." He slumped his shoulders. "Some Thursdays
I think that the weekly report is not enough."

  Hyacinth smiled in relief. "I'll ask Geraldine to come over and explain the legalities to you dear and then you can make up your mind."

  Chris frowned. "What time is it?"

  Hyacinth glanced at her watch. "Nine o'clock. Why?"

  "I am going to Hanover tomorrow," Chris said determinedly. "I need to go home and catch some shut eye."

  "Tomorrow is Christmas!" Hyacinth said, alarmed. "What business is there to do on Christmas Day?"

  Chris shrugged. "I just have to see if Pinky is fine. Her family lives in Hanover."

  "Pinky?" the three of them looked at him with varying degrees of alarm.

  "My housekeeper," Chris said smiling. "She did her exam last week, I haven't heard from her all week. I need to go check that she's okay."

  "That girl is not a proper housekeeper," Hyacinth said in disgust, "she's too brash and sure of herself. Why don't you just call her?"

  Camille laughed. "Welcome to the land of the living, Christopher Donahue. Go and make sure that Pinky is fine. When can I meet her? I don't care how brash and sure of herself she is, I love her already."

  "Well," Chris said shrugging on his jacket, "she's not my housekeeper anymore, I sort of fired her last time we had a quarrel."

  "Good," Hyacinth said, "she dresses outrageously and dyes her hair platinum blonde. Not presentable at all. I'll find you a nice housekeeper, dear."

  Kenneth cleared his throat. "Mother, I think that Chris is fine with this particular housekeeper." He winked at Chris. "Now we know the reason for the bad mood."

  Chris grimaced. "It's not like that at all."

  "Denial, denial." Camille shook her head. "We'll miss you tomorrow but we are going to be here for three more weeks, so no biggie."

  "Okay, later guys." Chris left the house and Hyacinth sat there puzzled.

  "Are you telling me that that creature who looks like she could be the centerfold of a dirty magazine is who my son is interested in?"

  Camille nodded delightfully. "Yes, I can't wait to meet her."

  Chapter Eight

  It was drizzling slightly when Chris set out for Hanover. He had called Charles in the night and Charles had reluctantly given him directions. Chris had no idea why he was even going to what sounded like the most rural part of Jamaica on Christmas Day.

  Pinky was not answering her phone and there was that niggling feeling that she was planning to flirt with this Lance fellow who she had a crush on in the past.

  His irrational possessiveness toward Pinky was bordering on the ridiculous, but he couldn't help it. He turned on the car radio but there were just too many Christmas carols—station after station—he wasn't feeling particularly festive and he was not in the mood to hear them.

  He pushed a CD into the player without looking at it and the first song that came on was Ordinary People by John Legend. He slowed down the car considerably and instantly he thought about Kelly. This was their mutually loved song.

  Usually when he heard it, he got into a depression so severe he had to wonder if he would survive it, but today was different. He couldn't place what it was. Since seeing her in person in Cayman, the intensity that he felt for her wasn't there anymore.

  Perversely, that had made him depressed, the feeling that he had for Kelly was something that he had carried around for so long that he felt as if it was a part of him. Now it was just a shadow of what it was. There were times when he actually found himself struggling to remember the intensity of it.

  He rehashed his memories of her, but the tinge of pain that he usually felt was absent; like the first moment they actually spoke, he had felt unusually shy around her. He wasn't a shy person but he could recall her sitting in her parents' sofa, her brown eyes bright and inquisitive listening to him speak.

  Lola, her mother, had approached him about her wayward daughter who needed a bit of nudging to come to church. He didn't know what to expect, but when he went to speak to who he believed would be a rebellious child, he found an attractive and intelligent woman who was quite open to visiting church.

  He had left her house that day determined to see more of her, and he had. He dated her for close to six months before they kissed. They had been on a rafting tour on the blue Lagoon, it was a cloudless night with the lights from the surrounding villas reflecting off the water and creating a romantic ambience. There was a gentle breeze, and he had leaned into her and kissed her.

  He had never forgotten how that kiss felt. It had cemented his feelings for her. He had made up his mind that she was the one, the only woman for him. He had an elaborate proposal destination picked out; he had even bought an expensive property on Bluffs Head where they could build their house together.

  He had thoroughly planned their life together, not realizing that Kelly had been torn in her emotions. He had been so confident in their mutual compatibility that he had actually treated her outings with the pastor as non-threatening.

  After all, Theo was poor competition for him. Theo had just started his career in the clergy, whilst he had been working in his family property development business for a few years and had become an established wheeler and dealer by then. Chris’ certainty that Kelly would see him as a good catch made him blasé about her regular outings with the pastor.

  He had found her hiking trip to the Blue Mountains to be a cute little outing that he was too busy to attend. He had never really understood her fascination with nature walks and hiking. He should have gotten it because that was the one thing that sealed his doom.

  He turned the car into a dusty, narrow track that was full of ruts. There were trees overhanging the path and he could hear some of them scraping the top of his SUV. What if Charles had given him wrong directions? He had certainly sounded grumpy on the phone earlier, like he was half annoyed or half asleep.

  At least he hadn't asked why Chris was interested in learning where his parents lived so late in the night.

  Chris’ mind wandered back to Kelly and his heartbreak. She had called him when he was in the middle of a meeting, sounding unusually subdued and announced that she was getting married to Theo Palmer, the junior pastor at the church. He had thought she was joking and he had told her that the joke was in poor taste. She had gone silent on the phone and then sighed. His heart had raced, a sharp jump that had him clutching his chest. He had slumped on the wall, the cell phone clutched to his ear.

  He didn't remember a word that she had said after that. Apparently his father had found him crouched on the floor outside the conference room and called a doctor. He had never really told Kelly how she had given him the shock of his life.

  The pain after that had come in fits and spurts. Some days he was all right and some days he felt so broken inside that he couldn't get out of bed. He hadn't realized how invested in Kelly he had been.

  He had thrown the invitation to their wedding in his waste paper basket then carried the basket outside and lit the whole thing on fire. He had also developed some bad habits, like driving like a crazy man, hoping that someone would hit him.

  Then he had gradually gotten over Kelly. Bit by bit, the pain had subsided. Then he could look at her in church, even when she was pregnant with Theo’s children and not feel a thing.

  When she started working for him, she had looked unhappy and he had offered her a listening ear, and then one day talking had turned into touching and then full on sex. He had found himself in the unenviable position of being the other man.

  He winced inwardly. He hadn't been comfortable facing Theo during a board meeting at church, knowing that he was having sex with his wife. He had even started rationalizing it, thinking that he should be the one that she was married to, and not Theo—so all was well with the world. And then, once more Kelly had chosen Theo. Except this time she had been pregnant with his child.

  He pulled up near a house at the end of the track and suddenly realized what he had done. He had come all the way to Hanover to see Pinky Black on a family h
oliday, when he should have been with his family.

  He looked over at the modest house painted in white and surrounded by flowers and then on the dashboard clock. It was six-thirty in the morning. There was no sign of life at the house.

  If he drove back to St. Ann now he could reach his parent's house by eight-thirty. He sat back in his seat and thought about just turning back. He was acting strange even to himself. There was no rhyme or reason why he should be here at this time.

  He looked behind when he heard a car pull up behind his. It was Charles Black.

  He stretched and came over to the side of Chris' vehicle. "Don't tell me you reached here before me."

  Chris wound down his window. "It seems as if I did."

  "Well come on in, then," Charles said. "They should have been up a long time ago. These are late hours for country people, you know."

  Charles started bellowing. "Moms, Pops."

  The front door cracked open and Pinky came out.

  "You made it Charlie Charles." She was in a skimpy pair of khaki shorts, showing off her perfect legs and an orange tube top with a sliver of her belly showing. She had her hair in fine blonde braids, which hung to her hips. Chris slowly ran his eyes over her and then his eyes collided with her shocked ones.

  "What are you doing here?" Pinky asked, wiping her eyes.

  She looked at Charles who was grinning beside her. "Do you see Chris Donahue over there, or did the Chemistry exam scramble my brain?"

  "He's over there," Charles said grinning. "I guess this whole love thing isn't as one-sided as you reported."

  Pinky snorted. "It is. Trust me."

  "Hello Mr. Donahue." She slowly walked up to where Chris was standing with uncertainty in every step. He was in a navy blue shirt and blue jeans, he had his hands thrust in his pocket and he had a puzzled look on his face.

  "Hello, Miss Black," he answered gruffly. "How many bedrooms are in this house?"

  "Three," Pinky said slowly, looking at him curiously.