Sociopath? (40 page)

“And why would you think any of this would
upset me, Ree?” he asked quizzically. “Men are usually proud of
being able to satisfy their woman, especially if it’s for the first
time.”

“Because, you see, I was such a phony. I
figured you were attracted to Rhiannon, the sophisticated sex
goddess, and here I was just ignorant little Pearl Ann Mosier from
Blister Springs, West Virginia.”

“Come here,” he said, “and sit on my lap.

He drew her close, with her face against his
shoulder, rubbing her back while he talked.

“Did you really think you were fooling me,
Ree? It was easy enough for me to tell you weren’t the worldly
person you were pretending to be. I could sense you working through
it, finding your way. I knew fucking for pleasure and going down on
me because you wanted to, and having the same things done to you,
were new experiences for you, not that you hadn’t done both things
lots of times before, but in the feelings you had about them. I
wondered why you were handling it that way, Ree, and why you
thought you couldn’t confide in me but I figured you had your
reasons and I’d let you tell me when you were ready. I didn’t fall
in love with either Rhiannon or Pearl Ann, Honey, I just fell in
love with you.”

She buried her head in his neck. “I’m ashamed
of myself though, Rafe. I gave you that sermon about trust and made
you let me tie you up and all the time, I didn’t really trust you
because I was so afraid if you knew the truth, you would change
your mind about me.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He kissed her. “So have we
got all this squared away then, Ree?”

“I may as well go all the way while I’ve got
my nerve up. There’s one more thing, Rafe, that I want to ask you
about. Something I want more than anything in the world but only if
you want it too.”

His mind did a quick run-through of
possibilities. Marriage? (Answer: no). A movie? (Answer:
maybe).

“You’re starting to make me nervous, Ree.
Like I’m about to be led down the garden path. What is this thing
you want more than anything in the world?”

“I want to have a baby, Rafe.”

His face went blank. “What did you say?”

“I said I want us to have a baby. Honest,
Rafe, it would hardly change your life at all,” she pleaded, “I’m
not asking you marry me. I don’t want to use it to try to
domesticate you. You don’t have to come anymore often than you
would anyway. You sort of raised a baby once and you did great
except that one thing…”

He grinned, “you mean that one tiny detail
that society calls incest, Ree?”

She brushed him off. “You’d be a great
father, Rafe, you know you would. Your nieces and nephews all adore
you. Please, Rafe? I’d never trick you into it if you said flatly
no but I will be ecstatically happy if you agree. I never even
thought about wanting to have children until I visited you at Heron
Point and saw what real families could be like and then, it just
made me long to have your baby, Rafe, it’s almost all I’ve been
able to think about ever since.”

“Christ, Ree, you’ve totally blindsided me
here. You’re going to have to give me a little time to think about
this.”

“I won’t nag you about it, Rafe. Just let me
know whenever you decide.”

*

He thought about it that night as she lay
curled up beside him sleeping. Sharing her secrets seemed to make a
big difference. Like she’d given up a burden, making her more
relaxed and eager than she’d ever been. He thought it was because
she knew now she didn’t have to perform for him, but just be
herself. With all the pain and insecurity she’d suffered in her
early life though, she was still a work in progress. You just
didn’t give up those kinds of deep-seated traumas overnight. But no
one could be more patient than Rafe and in time, he’d teach her to
offer herself to him as completely and wholeheartedly as Laney did.
It would be an interesting project to bring her to that point.

Ideally, he’d have them both together, one on
either side. He gave himself over to imagining for a few minutes
what it would be like to have blonde hair falling over his face as
Laney kissed him while dark hair tickled his groin as Ree went down
on him, or vice versa, of course - either way.

Well, he may as well give that fantasy up. He
thought both Lane and Rhiannon were too traditional in their
thinking to consider that idea. Ree thought of herself as being
like him and she was closer than anyone else had ever come. What
she’d been through had made her tough and hard and determined when
she needed to be but it was a toughness that had been born of harsh
circumstances while his was innate. And love had softened her rough
edges. So, in reality, it was no contest. He could outdo her in
toughness or hardness or determination with one hand tied behind
his back. He even thought she was starting to realize that as their
power dynamic gradually shifted from equality to one that gave him
the edge.

In all the years since he was seven, he
considered now and then if Miss Dee had been right about him. Was
he really a sociopath? He hadn’t turned out to be a serial killer.
He didn’t even think of himself as being an especially cruel
person, at least, not deliberately, although Professor Barnes had
called him amoral and he might have to own up to that. But he even
loved some people and he thought sociopaths were characterized by
an inability to love. He’d always loved Laney and now he loved Ree.
And he loved Chas and Vic and maybe his Dad, although he wasn’t
sure he loved him so much as looked up to him. But, whatever he
was, he knew it wasn’t exactly average on the scale of human
emotion. So did he want to take a chance on passing whatever was
aberrant in his personality on to a poor, defenseless baby?

In the morning, he awoke early and watched
her as she slept. It was warm. The doors were open to the terrace
and a flower-fragrant breeze ruffled the curtains. She lay on her
back. For all the times she’d been mistreated, she’d emerged
without scar or blemish. His eyes travelled the length of her
creamy body wondering that a malnourished backwoods childhood could
have produced such perfection, from slender delicate feet, up long
golden legs to a flat stomach and those beautiful firm breasts with
their pinkish-tan aureoles and on to a heart-shaped face surrounded
by a mass of sable curls. With her eyes closed, her thick lashes
lay curled against her cheek, her full mouth was parted in a little
half smile, a small beauty mark near her top lip. One arm was
stretched out, her hand lying against his shoulder. He’d noticed
that no matter where she moved in the bed or in what position, she
managed to stay touching some part of him, as if reassuring herself
that he was there.

“What the fuck?” he thought, if all the
billions of other people on the planet concerned themselves with
whether they were fit to reproduce, the species would die out. It
was always a toss of the dice, hoping the positive genes would
dominate.

He woke her up kissing her belly.

“Okay,” he said.

Her eyes opened wide. “Do you mean….?

“Yes, if it’s what you really want.”

She threw herself on top of him. “Oh, I do!
God, Rafe, I love you so much! Thank you! Thank you!” kissing his
forehead and eyebrows and eyes and nose and mouth. “I don’t think I
was ever happy ‘til I met you and now I’m happy all the time!”

“So,” he said, “do you want to try to make
this baby right now?”

*

Later. “Do you hear this sound, Rafe, do you
know what it is?”

“The garbage disposal?”

“Yes, it’s the sound of my birth control
pills being ground up and carried off to the sewage treatment
plant!”

He chuckled, “pop me another bagel in the
toaster, will you, Sweetie and pour me another cup of coffee?”

She brought his coffee and sat down.

“I hope I get pregnant before you leave this
time. I looked it up on the internet and some women get pregnant
almost immediately after they quit taking the pill. I hope I’m like
that. Would you rather have a boy or a girl, Rafe? Do you have any
favorite names?”

“Hold on, Ree. I only just agreed to this an
hour ago. I haven’t even quite adjusted to the idea of being a
father yet and you’ve already got me choosing sexes and names?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been thinking about this so
much and hoping you’d let me do it that I forget I only sprung it
on you last night.”

“Let’s just let it happen in its own time,
Honey.”

*

Their schedules for the next few months were
hectic. She was shooting her next film, partly in Paris. He was
following NASCAR’s schedule. Once they managed to mesh their travel
plans long enough to meet in Atlanta for 24 hours, getting a room
in a generic hotel near the airport, before they both flew off
again in opposite directions.

She hadn’t had a period since his visit to
Los Angeles but she didn’t say anything even though the
over-the-counter pregnancy test came out positive. She wanted to go
to the doctor first to be absolutely sure. He assumed nothing had
happened yet so when she called him, elated, to tell him they were
three months into becoming the parents of twins, he was in
shock.

“Good Lord, Boy, you’ve gone completely pale.
Are you sick?” Chet asked him when he punched the End button on his
cell.

“No, it’s not that. I just found out I’m
going to be the father of twins.”

“Oh, well, congratulations, I guess. Who’s
the lucky mother?”

He grinned, if a little weakly.
“Rhiannon.”

“Hmmm. I thought maybe having a beautiful
movie star girlfriend would slow your ass down a little, Rafe, as
far as women were concerned, but it didn’t appear to have much
affect. I wonder if being a Dad will make any difference?”

“Why should it?” he asked curiously.

*

The media went nuts when it was finally obvious. She
tried to play it low-key, just telling them that yes, she was
pregnant and yes, Rafe was the father and yes, they’d planned it
and were happy about it. Screaming headlines around the globe
said,

“RHIANNON PREGNANT WITH RAFE’S BABY!”

*

Lane told him she thought he would make a
wonderful father.

“I probably know more you than anyone, Rafe.
I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t loved me
and taken care of me. I remember you getting me dressed and
brushing my hair and how patient you were when you taught me the
alphabet and how you got up in the middle of the night so I didn’t
have to go to class without without cupcakes on Refreshment
Day.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Lane, because
everyone else seems to think imagining me as a father is beyond
their comprehension. I guess they’ve forgotten what it was like for
us. Hell, I was changing shitty diapers when I was just a baby
myself.”

*

His parents suggested Rhiannon come to Heron
Point for the last couple of months. After all, he’d told them she
didn’t have any family in California and that way they could watch
out for her and the babies could come home from the hospital to
Heron Point. She started crying when he told her.

“Jesus, Rafe, my body must be pumping
hormones like a fire hose. I’m a big glob of sloppy sentiment these
days. You won’t mind, will you, if I come out there?”

“Of course, I won’t. I think it’s where you
need to be, Ree, and I like to think of my kids starting their
lives at Heron Point.”

*

He went to Los Angeles for a few days in
September in between Dover (8th) and Kansas (1st). She was 7 months
along by then. She’d worked to keep her weight down but her belly
was definitely swelling.

She showed him the two bedrooms next to hers
(or theirs, he guessed) that she’d turned into a nursery. She’d had
a famous designer come in and do the remodeling. It was all over
pastel walls painted with rainbows and ducks splashing in puddles
and lambs gamboling in meadows and white cribs and dressers, with
drawers filled with small outfits and a closet of diapers and a
little built-in combination bath and kitchen with a sink for
washing the babies and another for washing whatever else and a
microwave for warming bottles and babyfood and a pantry that would
eventually be full of boxes of cereal and minced lamb and blueberry
buckle or whatever the hell it was that babies ate.

And she showed him how she’d had a door cut
between the nursery and the next bedroom so the nurse, (she had
told him she was going to hire a full-time nurse, hadn’t she?)
could leave it open and have instant access. He tried to be
appropriately enthusiastic although he thought he’d probably had
his fill of nurseries, having lived in one himself until he was
almost twelve.

He did have to admit to a small thrill of awe
when he had his hand on her tummy and felt the babies, his babies,
moving around inside.

“Do you think your Dad felt that way about
you?” she asked, having by now romanticized his home and family to
the point of ridiculousness.

He smiled. “Maybe with the first few but by
the time I came along, I think the feeling was probably more like,
‘oh, fuck, no, not another one’.”

*

When she came to Maryland in October, his
mother suggested that maybe it was time to move them into Morgan’s
room. His room, the old nurse’s sitting room, was so small there
was barely room for one cradle, much less two, but he refused.

“No, I don’t want to move, Mom. We’ll be
fine.” Looking to the time when Ree wouldn’t be here but Lane
would.

*

She blossomed in the environment of Heron
Point and the attention of his parents, both of whom had taken her
into their hearts. She felt loved and protected here and for her,
feeling safe and cherished was the most wonderful thing in the
world.

She even looked forward going to church every
Sunday. Attending church services was something she’d never done
before. Church was something he mostly escaped now since the NASCAR
races all took place on the weekend and he was rarely home until
after church on Sunday.