by Ray, Marika
I shook my head back and forth real slow. “I swear to you, Lucy, I don’t know her and that’s not my baby.”
Her eyes filled with tears, spilling over and down her cheeks before she spun around and ran back to my bedroom. I followed her, terror shutting down my brain and making me move. I had to make her understand. Make her stay. Make her love me.
When I reached the bedroom, she already had her overnight bag out, shoving clothes and toiletries in it. She stepped into a pair of cutoff denim shorts, tucking the front of my T-shirt into the front waistband.
I blocked the doorway, my only thought to keep her there with me, by force if necessary. She grabbed her bag and pinned me with a look I would never forget. In her eyes, I saw a whole kaleidoscope of reactions: hurt, disappointment, confusion, anger, and finally resignation as her lids dropped and she blocked me out.
The bottom of my world fell out, tumbling me down to rock bottom with it.
Tears left tracks down her cheeks, silent and deadly.
“If you love me at all, let me go. I need to think and I can’t do that here.”
Her words hung there like sharp little weapons, breaking my heart and sweeping away my argument. There was no doubt I loved her and therefore would abide by her request. I shifted to the side and inhaled sharply as she sailed past me and out the front door. The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I grabbed the first thing I saw, a lamp I’d only just taken out of a box a few weeks ago, heaving it as hard as I could. It hit the wall, leaving a dent and sliding down to the floor, as broken as I felt.
I thought I moved to Auburn Hill.
Turns out I moved to Hell.
25
Lucille
The rest of the day passed in a blur. My house, once familiar and safe, became a prison of my own making. I locked all the doors and threw myself onto my bed. I couldn’t get that woman out of my mind, so beautiful and young, or the way Bain treated her so nonchalantly. Yes, he finally acknowledged the baby’s existence, and he claimed the baby wasn’t his, but Addi seemed so confident. So sure Bain was the father.
I should have asked more questions. I should have learned more about his past before he moved to Auburn Hill. I should have trusted my mom and never let him in my heart.
I pulled the covers up over my head, hoping maybe they would work the way they did as a child. Invariably, Mom would be on the phone with a friend or watching television at night, and the bad dreams would come to me all alone in my room. Nothing like a well-sealed comforter around me and over my head to make me invisible to evil monsters.
My phone pinged on the bedside table, several times in a row. I ignored it, thinking it was probably Bain, attempting to convince me everything was fine. The hot tears that wouldn’t stop said something different. My hair stuck to my wet cheeks and sweaty neck. It sure seemed a lot warmer buried under the covers now than when I was a child.
When I couldn’t breathe the hot air any longer in my little bed bubble, I pulled them down below my chin and assessed my room. Pictures of Mom, Lavender, and me on the old wood dresser sat smiling at me where they always were. My clothes from earlier in the week were washed and folded on my chair, ready to be hung in the closet or put away in my drawers. Sun streamed through the big window, cutting through the gauzy drapes and declaring today a bright, sunny day.
Everything was as it normally should be, yet everything had changed.
A lead weight had taken up residence in my stomach. While that would normally be a sad situation indeed, it didn’t compare to the ripping of my heart right out of my chest. The pain was sharp and insistent, taking all of my focus. I breathed in and out, wondering when my lungs would simply give up and I’d die of this pain.
In the back of my head, I knew I was simply being dramatic, but I gave into it anyway. I’d only had one boyfriend in my entire thirty-six years, and the day after I told him I loved him, his ex-whatever-she-was had shown up on the doorstep pregnant. I was allowed to wallow a bit.
When the tears seemed to subside, I sat up a bit straighter, leaning against the headboard and brushing the hair back from my face. My heart and lungs, while severely damaged, continued to function, so I dared to reach over and pick up my phone.
It hadn’t been Bain; it was two missed calls from Mom.
Before I could turn my phone off, she called a third time. As tempted as I was to ignore her again, I knew she wouldn’t quit. Last time I ignored her, she’d come all the way home.
“Hey, Mom.” I pumped as much enthusiasm into my voice as possible. Survival meant acting like everything was fine. Unfortunately, my voice came out as nasally as Fran Drescher.
“Lucille! I’ve been trying to get ahold of you. How are you?”
Heat hit the back of my eyes and I swallowed hard to keep the tears at bay. Clearing my throat, I answered, “Doing great, Mom. How about you?”
She did that clucking noise that used to irritate me as a kid, but now it reminded me of a simpler time. When a man hadn’t broken my heart.
“Lucille,” she said in a low voice. “It’s time to cut the crap. I know you’re dating that warden.”
Time stood still. Absolutely nothing was making sense today.
“I may not be there physically, but I have my ear to the ground. I know you’re head over ass in love with that boy and I couldn’t be happier for you.”
I blinked rapidly, the ache in my chest ramping up at the realization that I finally had her support when it didn’t matter anymore.
“Mom. It doesn’t matter. He and I—”
“Of course it matters! I know I’ve been hard on you, Lucille. I’ve pushed my opinion about men on you since before you were born.” She sniffed. “I think it’s fact more than opinion, but that’s neither here nor there. What I want you to know is that if you’re happy, I’m happy for you.”
It was no use. My face crumpled and I cried silent tears into the phone. This was too much. The day my mother finally understood me was the day I understood her. Men were assholes. She’d been right.
“Lucille? Dear, are you crying?” Mom sounded distressed.
Tears weren’t a normal thing in our household. Tears were for the weak.
“Y-yes. You don’t understand. I think we broke up today,” I wailed, the gate lifted and the water released.
Mom clucked repeatedly, flummoxed beyond words.
“Well, what did you go and do that for?”
I swiped at my cheeks, the phone wedged between my ear and my shoulder. “There’s this girl.”
“Oh, Lord have mercy. I knew it. I’m sorry, dear, but men are assholes driven by their dicks like a homing beacon. All they care about is finding compatible vaginas. Hell, most of the time, they don’t even have to be compatible, just accessible.”
“Mom!” I didn’t want to hear my mom’s theory on dicks and vaginas.
“You’re an adult. I can speak freely now.”
I shook my head to clear it of everything she just said. The only thing I latched on to was “speak freely.” It was about time I did.
“Listen, Mom. I’m in love with Bain. And he says he loves me. But then this woman, Addi, shows up on his doorstep and says she’s pregnant with his baby.”
Mom stays silent.
“Mom? Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I was waiting for you to get to the part about the breakup.”
“Well, I obviously walked out after that. Bain denies it’s his, but of course he would, right?”
“Let me get this straight. You love each other, but at the first sign of possible trouble—not even confirmed trouble—you walked away?”
My shoulders sagged. “You don’t get it.”
“So explain it to me, love,” she said softly.
I kicked off the covers and sat up straight. Time to lay it all out there while Mom was in a receptive mood and my filter had pulled a disappearing act.
“Imagine being the baby of the family with a sibling ten years older and uni
nterested in your life. Imagine growing up believing you weren’t important enough to have your dad stick around to watch you grow. Then imagine growing up, fading into the background with no friends and no life outside of your one parent. I’m thirty-six years old, Mom, crying over my first boyfriend. To say I’m a slow bloomer is under exaggerating in epic proportion.”
“Oh, Lucille…”
I rubbed at the spot on my chest that wouldn’t give me a break. “For one very short period of time, I had a gorgeous man interested in little ol’ me. He liked me, Mom. He chose me over my new, beautiful friends. He wanted me.” My voice hitched and wobbled. “And now this woman is here, staking her claim and stealing my moment. Stealing the time and attention I wanted—no, needed—to feel seen.”
I shook my head, tears dripping off my cheeks and sprinkling my pillow. “I won’t share the spotlight. Not now and not ever again. Not when it comes to the man in my life. I want to be his everything.”
I could hear Mom breathing through the phone, but she didn’t say anything for long moments, for which I was grateful. Those moments were necessary to get my tears under control. The pain in my chest was still there, but the weight in my stomach was lessened, simply from the sharing of my heartache.
“I’m sorry.” Mom’s voice wobbled, the first time I’d heard it less than confident and below twenty decibels. “I’m sorry you weren’t happy. I’m sorry for the part I played in your childhood that left you feeling unseen. I see you, my child. For a while there, you and Lavender were all I could see. You two are the reason I made that club. I wanted to show you that unlike your gullible mother, you didn’t need a man to feel whole and complete.”
I hung my head, wondering how we’d gotten so off track when we just wanted the best for each other.
“I know you did. But your refusal to tell me about my biological father makes me feel like you don’t trust me. And the man-hating has convinced me you don’t want me to have a man in my life either.”
“I don’t tell you about your father because knowing would only hurt you and hurt everyone in this town. All of that’s better left buried and I just ask that you trust me to know best.” She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “I’ll say it again: if you’re happy, I’m happy. If that includes a man in your life, I’ll find a way to be okay with it.”
I sighed. All this truthfulness, and while she approved of Bain, or someone like Bain, she still wouldn’t spill the beans about my dad.
“Thanks, Mom.”
My phone dinged and I pulled it from my ear to check the screen.
Lenora: Hey, girl. Everything okay?
“Hey, Mom, I gotta go. My friends are texting me and just like you they won’t stop until I let them know I’m okay.”
“I approve of that too, in case you wondered. I’m glad you have some good friends. Call me tomorrow. Chin up, daughter of mine. You’re a fierce warrior woman with superior intellect. This situation has nothing on you, you hear me?”
“Preach it, Mom,” I answered halfheartedly, for once in my life happy to listen to her motivational feminism talk.
After we hung up, the texts kept coming in a flurry.
Amelia: Super worried over here…
Hazel: We can all be there in a matter of minutes to take that bitch down. Just say the word.
Lenora: Totally! But wait, who is this girl? And why are we fighting her?
Amelia: Does it matter? Bitch stirs up trouble for a Hell Raiser, we activate.
Lenora: You scare me sometimes…
I cracked a smile, surprised my face still knew how to do it.
Lucille: Ladies! Thank you. Really. But I just need some time to think.
Amelia: Time to think? What happened??
Hazel: Yeah, what the hell did she do?
Hazel: Lucille?
I ignored them, too raw to get into it just then. I needed to process and I did my best thinking alone. I did my best everything alone. I threw back the covers and stood, the room swaying a bit. I needed some food in my stomach first. Then would come the thinking. On the way to the kitchen, my phone buzzed again.
Lenora: We’re outside. Let us in and we’ll face whatever this is together.
My hand started to shake and then the tears blurred my vision so badly I couldn’t text back. My friends had come. I had people. I wasn’t alone.
I threw open the door, not caring I was still in frayed shorts and Bain’s old T-shirt, my face tear-stained. My three friends stood huddled on my doorstep, rushing forward at once to envelop me in a group hug with murmurs of support.
They finally pulled back and someone shut the door.
“I brought tequila and In-n-Out,” Amelia stated.
I snorted.
I wasn’t doing great, but I’d be okay.
* * *
Monday arrived all too soon and with a killer headache to match my heartache. I grabbed my head and rolled my tongue around, hoping to find some spit somewhere in my mouth so I could swallow.
“I am never having tequila again,” I announced to my room and then promptly groaned at the icepick digging into my skull from speaking.
I got ready at a sloth’s pace, finally pulling into the parking lot of the clinic a good thirty minutes late. I barely recognized the woman reflected in the windows, stepping out of her convertible in jeans, Vans, and a cotton tank top. Hangovers, casual Mondays, and heartache over a handsome man were hardly the hallmarks of Lucille Eureka 1.0. Despite the pain, I was satisfied to see her dead and gone.
Lucille 2.0 was badass despite the onslaught of emotions battering her on all sides. This Lucille wasn’t afraid to be hurt or to put herself out there. This Lucille had the Hell Raisers to back her up and knock a knocked-up bitch down if she gave the signal.
A seagull swooped right over my head with a loud chirp. I yelped and ducked out of the way, my car keys flying out of my hand and skidding to a stop on the sidewalk outside the clinic door.
Well, shit on a gold nugget. Lucille 2.0 was still afraid of seagulls.
“Good morning, Lucille!” Keva beamed at me from her desk, ignoring the fact I was late yet again.
I smiled, the pain in my head dulled to the point I could function.
“Morning, Keva. Do you mind taking over the patient appointments today while I work in the sample room? I’m not feeling well and don’t want to get our patients sick.” Apparently Lucille 2.0 lied quite a bit too.
She nodded happily and started grabbing charts. “I’ve been hoping to help you out, but I’m so sorry it’s because you’re sick. Want me to grab chicken soup from Forty-Diner for lunch?”
Well, crap. I nearly cringed with guilt. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you, though.”
I hustled to put my things down in my office and then get busy in the sample room. I figured being busy was the key to getting through the day. That and not seeing patients who might ask me about how Bain and I were doing.
The first two batches of samples were packed and ready to ship to the lab. It was while I was getting the third batch together that I opened the refrigerator where Bain’s sample was stored. I told myself not to even look at the bottom shelf, but my gaze darted there anyway. I really needed better eyeball control.
I stepped back in shock, seeing the empty space I just now remembered from the day the inmates had robbed my clinic. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. There were now four empty spaces where sperm samples should have been, including the spot that had held Bain’s.
We had a serial sperm robber.
I grabbed my phone and punched in the chief’s number.
“Y’ello,” he answered right away.
“Chief, it’s Lucille. We have a problem at the clinic.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, another inmate with a gun?” I heard his truck fire up and knew he was on the way.
I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut. “No gun, just stolen sperm samples.”
The chief sighed, but promised he’d be right over.
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While I waited, I tapped my foot and stared at the open refrigerator, still not believing my eyes. This was my fault. I completely forgot about the missing sample when that robbery went down. It had been missing for weeks now and they must have come back to steal several more.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled.
I slapped my forehead and groaned. Bain’s sample was gone too. Could that be why Addi Townsend had shown up pregnant on Bain’s doorstep when he claimed he didn’t know her? Maybe she didn’t hook up with him right before he moved to Hell. Maybe she was lying because she’d actually stolen his sample and gotten herself pregnant that way. It was weird and off timeline-wise and a little insane, but then again, I’d witnessed my life change because of a magical goat.
“Lucille?”
That didn’t sound like the chief. I slammed the refrigerator closed and hustled down the hall. Poppy and Yedda stood shoulder to shoulder inside the lobby, set lines on their faces and arms crossed over their chests. Which was unfortunate because I just didn’t have the time for an inquisition today.
“We know about Addi Townsend and we want answers, missy.” Poppy stomped her rubber-soled sneaker, the sound more a cute squeak on the linoleum than a firm kick to impart how serious she was.
“What we mean is we’re here to help you, doll,” soothed Yedda. “You and that handsome boy are meant for each other, so let’s figure this thing out.”
Ethel twined between my legs and then sat down to eye Yedda. I hadn’t had the heart to give her back, so she was officially the clinic’s mascot. I nearly barked out a laugh at the idea of Bain and me being meant for each other. Right then I was certain of no such thing.
I needed to stop this gossip freight train before my emotions got the better of me and the waterworks started again. Crying to my mom and my best friends was one thing. Crying in public was not something Lucille 2.0 intended to do.
The door flew open and the chief barreled in, nearly bumping into Yedda and Poppy before coming to a halt surprisingly fast for someone so large. His poor hair was askew and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a mustard stain on the front of his uniform shirt.