by Linda Ellen
Vic swallowed, still trying to get his bearings and clear sleep’s fog from his brain.
With Louise sticking to him like glue, he checked under and behind the furniture, bags, and boxes, every muscle on high alert for anything that moved.
Nothing.
Retracing their steps, he searched the bedroom, and then the dining room, the bathroom, and finally the kitchen, every light in the apartment on. He found nothing.
Turning to his quivering wife, he mumbled, “Are you sure you saw a rat? Maybe you were dreamin’…”
“NO, I wasn’t DREAMING! It was a RAT! This big!” she sputtered, holding her hands at least nine inches apart.
Vic ran a hand back through his hair. “Well, it’s gone now. Went back the way it came in, I guess.”
“Yeah, but how did it get in?” Louise whined, her hands wrapped tightly around her arms, eyes darting this way and that, as if she expected the big black rat to jump out from behind something and land on her.
Vic sighed, fatigue settling back in as the surge of adrenalin dissipated. “I don’t know, babe. Let’s go back to bed. We’ll investigate more in the morning.”
Swallowing nervously, Louise clung to Vic’s arm as they made their way back to their room, turning off the lights as they went.
“Turn the living room light off, Tommy, and go back to sleep,” Vic called to the boy. Moments later, the light went off.
Settled back in bed, although Vic’s arms were circled around her tightly, it was a very long time before sleep claimed Louise.
*
The next morning as the family got ready for church, Vic did a little more investigating. By the light of day, he saw what he hadn’t seen the night before – a trail of raisin sized droppings leading to a large black pipe in the corner of the bathroom. The pipe extended from the apartment below, through a hole in the floor and through the ceiling on up to the third floor. The problem, apparently, was that the hole in the floor was too big for the pipe. Upon close inspection, Vic saw that there were scratch marks on the pipe and a dirty substance around the opening.
Louise shivered in disgust when he showed her the discovery.
“That’s how he got in here,” Vic muttered, likewise disgusted.
Louise shivered again, placing a hand against her protruding belly. “Well…plug it with something! I sure don’t want him coming back again tonight!”
Vic nodded, casting around for something that would work. Eyeballing the shape of the hole, he grunted and stood to make his way to the kitchen, soon returning with an empty Coke bottle, which he turned upside down and wedged into the hole.
“There,” he grimaced as he pressed hard to make sure it would stay. “That should mess up his plans. But, I think tomorrow, you should go to the hardware store and get some rat poison…and a trap.”
Louise nodded, a quiver of revulsion reverberating through her body again. You bet I will…
Sure enough, the next morning after she had seen Tommy off to school and Vic to work, Louise grabbed her purse and walked the two blocks to Kader’s Hardware. Inside, Louise hesitantly approached the counter, clearing her throat to get the attention of the cigar-smoking proprietor who was lounging on a stool behind it reading the morning paper.
The largely built, gray-haired man looked up, sending her a half-grin around the cigar and muttered, “Hep ya?”
“Y…yes, I need something to kill a rat…” Louise stammered. “A big rat,” she added, indicating with her hands the huge size of the disgusting rodent. The man chuckled as if he were thinking, Women. They’re so afraid of critters.
“Got a rat problem, huh?”
She nodded vigorously. “We think it came up through a hole around a pipe. I saw it…and I was afraid it would attack my little boy!”
Frowning, the man began to take her more seriously. Folding his paper, he placed it on the counter and motioned for her to follow him to a shelf a few rows away. There, he picked up a green and white container and proceeded to pry the top off. When he did – smoke rose from it! Louise’s eyes widened.
“Now, this is powerful stuff,” the man warned. “Don’t get it on you. What you do is get you a piece of bread, tear it up in little bits, take this,” he reached for a small, flat wooden spreader, “and spread some on the pieces. Put ’em around the hole.” Replacing the top, he walked further down the row and picked up a large hinged trap. “Set this out for good measure, with a nice piece of cheese.”
Louise nodded, paid for the items, and reached for the paper sack, but he held on to it so that she would meet his eyes again. “Remember – that stuff is dangerous – don’t get none on you…and keep your little boy away.”
“I will, thank you,” she murmured, turning to go back to the apartment. It was a long day, however, as she cringed with every stray noise. For the first time since she had quit the cigar factory not long after she got pregnant, she wished she were back at work.
That night, they prepared a welcome for old Mr. Rat. Ten times, Louise warned Tommy to stay away from the bread and not to touch it, for any reason.
Finally, the cheese firmly attached to the trap, the bread slathered with the evil mixture, the little family went to bed. Hours later, the couple were awakened by a very distinctive and echoing, “Snap!”
Louise once again sat up in the bed. “The trap! Oh Vic! The trap went off!”
Scrambling out of bed, they ran together through the dining room and peeked around the doorframe into the bathroom. Sure enough, the trap had been tripped. However, as they creeped into the room to inspect the damage, instead of the dead body of Mr. Rat, all they found held in the strong jaw of the mechanism was one very long whisker.
“Missed ’im,” Vic grumbled, hunching down to examine the apparatus.
It was then that Louise took a good look at the arrangement of the poison slathered bread pieces – and there was one missing!
“Look! He ate one of the pieces!” she exclaimed, pointing excitedly around the pipe.
Vic gazed at them for a moment and then turned to look up at his wife. “Sure did.” Then with a mischievous dimpled grin, he added, “Hope he enjoyed his last meal.”
They never saw Mr. Rat again. Oh – and they plugged the hole.
*
Things settled down after that. Soon, Louise worked arranging and decorating, making the apartment into a comfortable home. Of course, it was an apartment, so they still had to put up with the occasional boisterous neighbor. Plus, noises from the alley sometimes disturbed them in the middle of the night.
A month went by and a small apartment on the first floor across from Sonny and Sara’s large one, became available, and Lilly and twenty-year-old Billy moved in. In many ways, it was enjoyable to have family living close by – close enough to interact easily, but yet separate enough for privacy. It was an ideal situation.
Time passed. Spring came, and then summer. It was a hot, sticky one, and Louise was thankful many times for the window fan Vic had picked up at a second-hand store. Some days, it was all she could do to waddle through a little bit of housework before retreating back to the chair by the window to let the warm breeze from the fan cool her a little, along with a constant supply of cool wet washcloths and glasses of ice water.
The final weeks of her pregnancy made her doubly glad to have family close by – and it brought home to her the difference in her life then versus her life with TJ. His family had treated her like a servant right up to her time. Now, at times Vic, Sonny, and Lilly made her feel like a beloved princess.
On top of that, Vic was so pleased and proud that they were going to have another child. His child – although no one could ever doubt that he loved Tommy with all his heart, and Tommy knew it, and loved his “Chief.” But the months leading up to the birth, Vic became even more possessive of Louise in his off hours from work, at times even to the point that she would tell him to go find something to do, although he never strayed far.
The day finally arrived when Lou
ise woke up feeling a surge of energy and decided she would organize all of the baby’s things and make sure the baby bed they had borrowed from Sonny and Sara was ready for the arrival of Baby Matthews.
Lilly came into the apartment a bit later and glanced into the bedroom, took one look at her daughter bent over scrubbing the rungs of the baby bed’s railing, and nodded knowingly.
“Won’t be long now. I’d say before the night’s up.”
Louise straightened up and pressed one hand to her aching back, dragging the back of the other wrist over her forehead. “What, Mama?”
“You’re nesting. That means it won’t be long. You mark my words.” She announced in her no-nonsense way, adding a piercing stare before she shuffled over and took the cloth from her daughter’s hands. “Try to sit down. You’ll need your strength later.”
Louise bristled at being ordered about in her own home. “Mama! I don’t know what you’re talking about, nesting. And I’m tired of sitting around. I feel like I’m going crazy – and it’s too hard to go up and down those steep steps right now, so I’m stuck in this apartment. It feels like I haven’t seen the outside world in months!”
Lilly merely pursed her lips and nodded as she set to finishing the job Louise had started. “Mmm hmm.” She said no more, but she was thinking plenty – namely that her daughter had forgotten the symptoms of the last few hours before giving birth.
In exasperation, Louise placed her hands where her waist used to be and huffed out a frustrated breath before turning on her heel to waddle out to the kitchen and find something to do.
Of course, Lilly was right. Six hours after that conversation, Vic and Sonny were assisting a moaning Louise down the stairs, one step at a time, with Vic repeatedly saying he wanted to pick her up and carry her. Finally, half way down as she doubled over with a strong contraction, he and Sonny made a seat by locking their hands on one another’s arms, and carried Louise the rest of the way down. In minutes the couple was ensconced in Vic’s Buick and speeding on their way to the Old Baptist Hospital, with Louise yelling, moaning, and squeezing her husband’s arm so hard he thought she would reach bone.
It was one of the longest trips of his life, followed by several agonizing hours in the waiting room, pacing and fretting, and checking with the nurse’s desk every five minutes.
Then finally, they came to get him and allowed him to go to his wife. When the nurse placed his son in his arms for the first time, and he saw those big dark eyes trying to focus on his face, his heart melted right down to his toes. Somehow he knew that no matter what else happened in his life, nothing would feel more important than that moment. Fatherhood may well be the Bold Venture he had been longing for his entire adult life.
Later, in Louise’s hospital room, she lay in the bed still a bit woozy and watched with a soft smile as her husband rocked, cooed at, and held their new little boy. She was sure no father had ever been more proud and ecstatic over the birth of his first-born son. There had been a steady stream of people in and out – Doc and his wife, Irene and Betty, Sonny and Sara, Earl and Ruth, Alec and Fleet, and now Vic’s brother Al and his wife Goldie were there, having driven from Evansville to help celebrate the birth. Jack and Liz had even sent a potted flower in congratulations.
Looking her way, Vic grinned and asked, “Hey babe…do you realize what day this is?”
Her brow furrowed and she shook her head slightly.
His smile broadened. “It’s ten years to the day from when you won that singin’ contest at the K.C. This time around, the prize is worth a lot more, huh?”
She smiled softly; love for the man she married and for the blessing of their perfect and beautiful baby boy washed over her so strongly, tears filled her eyes and trickled down her temples. She couldn’t get the words out to even answer his question. All she could do was watch him slowly pacing around the small space, whispering secrets to the new little special person in his life.
The nurse came in then and checked how Louise was doing, and administered something for the pain. As the medicine began to take effect, she heard Vic’s brother Al ask what they were going to name the child.
Her husband responded, his voice clear and strong, “What do you think? Victor Herbert Matthews, Jr. – of course!”
Before she drifted off to sleep, with a drowsy smile adorning her face, she mused; Sometimes life really does turn out like it does in the movies…
‡
CHAPTER 27
Louise Learns to Drive
June 1947
“Tommy, bring me a clean diaper from that pile over there, will you, sweetie?” Louise called to her older child as she clamped a diaper pin in her teeth and made a silly face at her nine-month-old son, who giggled at her and kicked his feet happily. With large dark brown eyes exactly like Vic’s and hair the color and texture of Louise’s, Vic’s brow and chin, and Louise’s nose, the baby was the perfect blend of the two of them, and of their love. The proud parents were absolutely sure that no cuter baby had ever been born.
Life was good for the Matthews. For the most part, they were living the American Dream. The days and weeks flowed happily along.
Tommy brought the diaper and hovered at his mother’s elbow watching the proceedings. “I’m glad I’m not the only kid around here anymore…but I wish Buddy was big enough to play outside with me…”
Louise glanced at him, smiling at his use of Vic Jr.’s nickname. She paused for a moment, remembering the day, a few weeks after they were home from the hospital, when their across-the-hall neighbor, Mrs. Tabor, came over with a pot of stew for the family and a baby gift, a blue rattle decorated with a clown face.
Bending down over the crib, the sweet elderly woman had taken one look at their new baby and had exclaimed, “Oh, now there’s a Buddy-boy if I’ve ever seen one! Just look at that sweet face! And those dark, intelligent eyes. Yes, yes. He’s a Buddy-boy alright.” And they had begun calling him Buddy from that moment on.
Little did they know, he would love the nickname and call himself that for the rest of his life.
“Oh, it’ll be some time yet before he’s big enough to play with you,” Louise responded, “but he’ll get there eventually. In the meantime, you can teach him things, watch over him to make sure he doesn’t get hurt, and love him. Being a big brother is a very important job.” She grinned at her blue-eyed son as he enthusiastically nodded.
A few minutes later, Lilly opened the door to the apartment and called inside before venturing in. Vic was sitting at the dining room table finishing up his breakfast before heading out to work, and he stifled a smile, remembering back to that morning years before when his mother-in-law had entered the apartment unannounced and received the surprise of her life. She had never entered silently again.
“Vic,” Lilly acknowledged, carrying an armful of diapers and baby clothes that she had laundered for Louise.
Vic wiped his mouth on a napkin and stood up, inclining his head and murmuring, “Lilly.” Eying the items in her grasp, he added, “That boy ’a mine sure goes through a lotta those, huh.” He said it, however, with a fond glint in his eyes.
“He does,” she agreed. “But no more than any baby.” Then pausing before she entered the bedroom, she looked back at him and added, “He’s a fine boy. The kind any man would be proud of…”
Vic couldn’t agree more. “No worry there.”
The two met eyes and held their gazes. Over the years, Vic and Lilly had more than once been at odds with one another, and after the debacle of his arrest, it had taken her years before she allowed herself to treat him with loving kindness rather than aloof politeness. But…Buddy’s birth had somehow been the bridge to facilitate a mutual admiration – he for what good care she took of his wife and new baby, and she for what a steadfast husband and provider he had turned out to be, once his employment situation had leveled out. Not to mention, Lilly was fully aware that Vic adored her daughter and truly intended to work his fingers to the bone, if need be, to pr
ovide for her and the children, and to give Louise the desires of her heart.
Now, mother-in-law and son-in-law smiled at one another, knowing they shared three things that they loved and were of the utmost importance – Louise, Tommy, and little Buddy.
On impulse, Vic walked over and bent to place a warm kiss on his mother-in-law’s smooth cheek. Then he gave her a fond smile and politely nudged past her to enter the bedroom.
“Gotta run. Hap wants me to open today,” he reminded his wife as he drew her into his arms.
“But…it’s Saturday…” Louise began to argue, but he stopped her words with his lips.
“I know, but he relies on me. He told me yesterday he don’t trust nobody else to be there when he’s gone. Said the other guys steal from him.” Thinking of the conversation he’d had with his boss the day before, he remembered how good it felt to be needed and trusted by a man he admired. “But we’re only open half a day today. I’ll see ya later,” he gave her another kiss for good measure, longer than the first.
Turning then and lifting his son out of the crib, Vic held him up, smiling up at his angelic little face as he bid him goodbye for the day. Little Buddy responded with a wide grin, sporting six white baby teeth, hands reaching for his father’s face. Vic chuckled and drew the baby close to blow raspberries on his belly, eliciting peels of sweet giggles. Then handing him to Louise, Vic drew Tommy against his side for a moment, adjuring, “Be good for your mom today.”
“Okay, Chief,” Tommy smiled up at him, the adoration on his face revealing his feelings, that he wanted to grow up to be just like his handsome stepfather. Vic grinned down at him and ruffled his hair. Moments later, he was out the door to work.
Louise smiled at her mother as she entered the room carrying the armload of laundry. “Thanks, Mama,” she murmured as she took the items and set about putting them away.
“You’re welcome. Gives me something to do…that apartment downstairs is so small, I can clean the whole thing in thirty minutes. Then what’s left to do all day? Listen to the radio serials?” Lilly returned, grimacing in disgust. “Can’t stand those soap operas.”