Authors: Marlina Williams
Harper groaned and stood from a stooping position. She massaged a stiff lower back trying to work kinks from unused muscles. She looked at the work they’d accomplished and smiled. In a half day of hard labor Noah and Harper had installed the floor framing atop the large slab. The slab had been poured almost a month ago, and the electrical for lighting ran.
Just after sunrise Noah and Grayson stood on the front porch on the hunt for strawberries for pancakes. Noah invited her to his house for a special recipe after Grayson’s early morning request. Harper happily made the journey to their house for breakfast. A person peeking through a window would have assumed they were a small happy family as laughter and joking punctuated the meal.
After breakfast Noah gave Harper a detailed list of supplies for the gazebo and dropped her off at her house on the way to drop Grayson at pre-school, respecting her decision to make the purchases without help. His ability to relinquish control of the planning process touched a tender chord of respect for the man willing to forego personal pride to boost a woman’s. The trip to the hardware store was intimidating, but she got through it and return home with everything on the list. Noah congratulated her for her determination and proudly exclaimed as each material was checked off a long list. Harper blushed and warmed at the praise. Noah’s reaction was drastically different from what Scott’s would have been.
She remembered a time while still married when Scott and she had purchased an entertainment stand for a newlywed-bare living room. They’d only been married a few months and Harper had never seen the side of Scott she witnessed the day she put the stand together while he was at work.
He’d returned home slamming the door against a cold blast of wind that threatened to rip the door from cold hands. She’d met him at the door with a smile and grabbed his hand to show off her accomplishment. After many hours of struggling and cursing at incomplete crappy instructions she’d finally figured it out. The stand stood in the middle of their living room, waiting to be scooted to its final spot.
Each bolt, dowel, and screw had painstakingly tightened or glued into place. The doors affixed with small magnets, clung to empty openings, waiting to be filled with movies. The cheap wood veneer surface gleamed with a fake oak coating and its large opening cried out to be filled with their heavy TV. Harper beamed with pride as she dragged him forward. His face contorted into a variety of emotions she’d never witnessed on him when he saw her boastful creation.
His eyes narrowed with evil machismo when he looked at her. A shot of fear raced through her tripping heart. Without words he’d made her feel small and insignificant.
“What the hell were you thinking? I told you I’d do this when I got home.” His tone dripped sarcasm and belittlement, each I punctuated as a hard drawn out vowel.
“Well, uh, I thought you’d be proud of me.” Her voice shook and stuttered as she faced an unfamiliar demonic side of her husband.
She watched the realization of his overreaction cross his face and settle into a new attitude.
An apology fell on deaf ears as she fled the room. She slammed the bedroom door and threw herself on the bed. The next morning she left the room after Scott left for work. The entertainment stand had been moved into place and the TV glowered from its designated spot.
For days afterward they did not speak, avoiding each other and tiptoeing around when paths crossed. On the third day Scott returned home with a large bouquet of wildflowers. She forgave him and never attempted to help with what he considered man work again.
Piece by painful piece she worked to slough off her old marriage of lies. Her pride in returning with all the materials and Noah’s excitement over a simple yet complicated accomplishment made Harper’s heart ache. Each day brought new challenges and showed her the reality of the life she lived before, and even at forty she could change into the person she should have been. The lessons she’d learned while married were rubbing away to reveal Scott’s psychotic nature. She never wanted to deal with him again in life and thanked Cara every day for providing her an outlet for shaking off the past and wiping Scott from her mind and habits.
Noah sidled up next to her and placed his warm sweaty arm around her shoulder. “What do you think so far?”
His breath tickled her ear and sent shivers sprinting through her body. She sighed and pretended to faint. “It’s a lot of hard work, but satisfying.”
“Just wait until it’s finished. You will love sitting out here, it’ll be so peaceful. Cara would’ve loved it.”
Harper nodded and turned to face Noah. Her hands reached toward his face before she realized. She stood on tiptoes and pulled him closer before brushing a chaste kiss across his lips. He chuckled, tickling her lips with the vibrations of withheld laughter. He pulled back, breaking from her hands and staring into her eyes.
“No kid around to watch this time.”
He leaned down and tugged her lips into a passion duel. She gasped when the kiss deepened and tongue parted lips giving him full access to her mouth. She gave in to feelings rushing through her body, savoring the tingle his fingers left behind as they traced random patterns on her back.
He pulled back, his breath huffed in and out on shuttering trails of moist air. With a smile, he brushed a thumb across her swollen lips eliciting a new gasp and triggering a fresh rush of sensations to flow through her body. She stood in amazement of such simple gestures turning her into a pile of mush. He held her captivated with a heated gaze.
A twinkle appeared as his eyes crinkled with a smile. She could see fine lines near his eyes hinting of years he lived, but telling nothing of his personal pain. He’d loved and lost and willing to take a chance on her and she was open to the possibility of ever after.
She stroked his face, holding still so she could look into his eyes. “Let’s go inside, I know you don’t have much longer before you have to pick Grayson up from your mom’s.”
A look of abject longing crossed his face. “Are you sure?”
With a flick of her hand she indicated he follow. “Honey, I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.” She sashayed her hips with flourish as she led the way. Her muscles protested the exaggerated movements telling her maybe now wasn’t the best timing. When she cried out in pain and clutched her hip after a sharp spasm raced over her back. Noah laughed and hurried to catch up.
“Harper, I will tell you a secret and you can’t tell anyone else.”
“Okay, I’m game.”
“I want to take you in that house, throw you across the bed, and have my way with you, but I’m tired and sore too.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m so glad you said it because I got a little ahead of myself. What I need right now is a hot shower and a several glasses of wine to make me forget how sore I am.”
Noah stopped walking and grew serious as he held her arm to stop her from walking forward. “I have a confession to make.”
The words drove a spear of dread through her heart and mind to conjure many confessions he could be making. Harper became light headed and bile stood at attention burning the back of her throat.
Noah watched the reaction for a moment before responding. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry, you think I’m going to say something bad. That’s not it at all. Really, don’t worry.” He lifted her chin forcing her eyes to meet his.
“I think I’m in love with you. Don’t worry I won’t say those three little words yet and put you on the spot. Before you showed up I had given up on love, then you came here with cracks in your heart so wide even I could see them.”
A warm wash of love flooded her heart and enveloped her being in a comforting embrace. Even the vaguest possibility of Noah loving her, with no strings attached, made her soar into sun warmed clouds holding court over rainbows and untold pots of gold. In her life she’d never been so free to express inner thoughts and desires.
Her arms reached for Grayson and she buried her face in his muscular chest. The absolution of love and security was unlike anything she’d ever before experienced. Twenty years of marriage and not a single experience with true unadulterated love.
His arms held tight as their combined sweat and tears pooled into an unbreakable bond to carry them through life and trials to come. She mumbled into his chest, words indecipherable. Gentle hands pushed her back so he could see her face.
“Come again Miss Harper, your mouth seems to be full of my shirt.”
She smiled and swiped happy tears from her face. “I said, I think I’m falling for you and it scares the crap out of me.”
“Don’t worry babe, I’m here to catch you. Shall we get you to the house so you can take a shower, and I can go pick up Grayson?”
She sighed, but smiled. “So real life intrudes. On a positive note, we have the rest of our lives to figure this out.” Hope shone through her words but doubt tainted her tone, even as she wanted them to be true a small fissure of fear remained.
As though he could read her inner most thoughts he responded. “We do, and I hope someday you’ll say, I do, and become the mother of my son. He already views you as his mom. He set up the strawberry trek this morning. I think he knew we were out, so he asked for them.”
“What a sweet boy, he’s a wily one I should have known.”
Harper watched through parted curtains as Noah’s car turned onto the main road. Last night’s rain had calmed the dust, and she could watch the car the entire way unlike the normal cloudy dust bowl cars were encased in traveling dirt roads. She saw a dark car pass Noah’s truck as he drove over the rutted main road. The car seemed familiar somehow, but she must have been mistaken as it continued down the road and never hesitated as it passed her driveway.
With a shrug she let the curtain fall back in place and walked to the bathroom, her hand massaging her lower back as sore feet trudged. Ziggie followed her to the bathroom and settled on the rug as she tested the water and stepped into a soothing steamy shower.
Scott’s hand thumped the steering wheel in frustration as his phone went on the fritz just as he was nearing the final destination. His body jostled like an out of balance washing machine as tires rumbled over the dirt road from hell.
“Dammit.” He shouted as he jerked the wheel to avoid hitting an idiot in a truck that appeared from nowhere, he flipped the guy off but never slowed. Desperation to reach Harper’s house drove him wild with need as he required her help to calm the screaming baby in the backseat. Boyd’s wailing increased with each bump and rattle of the car. For the last several hours Scott had driven with clenched jaws and a mind-melding headache. Boyd’s screeching cries reaching behind his eyes and picking his brain out piece by piece.
Boyd’s happy nature had fled on the highway somewhere near the Missouri state line and hadn’t returned. Wails of unhappiness had increased to the point of driving Noah insane. Noah had stopped numerous times, unsuccessful in his attempts to figure out what was causing Boyd’s distress. Three fresh diapers and a full bottle of milk had quieted him for moments before he launched back into cranium bleeding tortuous cries.
Scott’s fingernails scratched down his face as he pulled the car to the side of the road. A trail of stinging lines of scratched skin opened along his face. The car settled into the moist dirt and came to rest relieving them of the teeth crunching ride. Boyd’s wails increased in volume, but the tone changed when he sensed they were no longer moving.
The early part of their day had started in a terror filled race to escape consequences.
Throughout the previous night Scott had paced through the house, making circuits past the couch where Isabella lay in a cold pool of her own urine. Her face contorted into a final permanent plea for mercy. Each circuit brought new emotions clouding his mind with a buffet of logic, fear, retribution, justification, and guilt. No emotion took the forefront instead each took a turn at the controls of his disintegrating mind. He went through the motions of caring for Boyd and getting the sleepy baby to bed where Boyd slept in oblivious ignorance of his mom lying dead on the couch.
Scott snuck into Boyd’s bedroom in the darkest part of the night, before dawn, as no streaks of impending day yet showed on the clear horizon. He watched the trails of ocean fish and animals make their nightly trek around the perimeter of the room. The ocean themed spinning nightlight came on each evening and turned off in the morning as the timer ran out. Isabella had purchased the nightlight on one of her spending sprees, dancing around with happiness as she showed it off to Scott and Boyd. Boyd was fascinated by the muted light and pirouetting colors of clown fish, seahorses, and dolphins as it circled the room.
Scott’s hand touched the wall, the scenery bumping over his hand and creating new versions of warty dolphins as they crossed his knuckles and continued their never-ending circular journey. A small cry ripped from his throat as he thought of Isabella’s happiness on the day she brought the nightlight home. He pulled his hand back, clamping down on self-induced grief.
Head hung low he walked to the small closet and pulled a diaper bag from a hanger. With practiced efficiency he packed the bag with multiples of diapers, onesies, wipes, clothes, and receiving blankets. Soon Harper would need all the extra items to take care of their new son.
His mind found comfort as he imagined Harper’s face when she saw Boyd for the first time. She would shout with happiness and take Boyd before cuddling him into her capable arms perfectly suited to caring for an infant. He would snuggle into her bosom and realize he was home, home with the mother he should have had. Boyd would forget the whore in the next room in less time than it would take them to drive to her apartment.
Scott smiled as he packed the final item into the bag. A soft blankie with a stuffed teddy bear on the corner and silk lined edges of the softer than rabbit fur material. He held the blue and brown fabric to his face and rubbed it across his stubbled chin, finding security in the softness of repressed childhood memories.
As he zipped the packed bag Boyd stirred in his crib and mewled a wet diaper cry. Scott pulled him from the crib eliciting a giggle from the wide-awake baby. With an unsoiled diaper and clean clothes Boyd was ready for the next phase of his infanthood, meeting his real mom.
Scott rushed from the house, leaving the breast milk he’d packed in a cooler, sitting on the counter. Isabella’s gun was tucked into the back of his jeans, hidden from sight, but always on his mind. Just as the sun broke the horizon and tinged the landscape in pink Scott spotted Harper’s apartment complex. With a tingle of thrilling fear he pulled into the parking lot and parked near her apartment. Something about not spotting her car niggled at his brain, but he washed over the feeling as he stomped up the steps balancing the baby carrier in one hand while gripping the hand rail with the other.
Scott’s fist pounded the door when the first light knocks didn’t produce movement within the dark apartment. He stopped pounding long enough to listen, a blast of relief warmed his body when he heard movement. The door jiggled and opened as far as the chain would allow. A bear of a man stood on the other side. His hairy chest bare and dark hair mussed and sticking in every direction. Scott scrubbed his eyes with clenched fists, sure he was seeing things.
“What do you want?” The man’s voice was pissed, even in a sleep muffled state.
“Who the hell are you?” Scott demanded.
“I live here idiot, now get the hell away from my door before I call the cops.”
Scott’s mind tried to put the pieces together, but they didn’t fit no matter how he twisted and turned. “Where’s Harper?” Scott hissed out, his voice leaked with a threatening whisper.
“I don’t know who the hell Harper is, or what she has to do with me.” He slammed the door in Scott’s stunned face. The forceful slam echoed throughout the sleeping complex. Several lights popped on as the noise faded.
Scott glanced around as he noticed people stirring. A desperation to find the answer drove him to knock again, any good judgement fled on the back of his need to control. He heard the chain drop against the door before it fully opened exposing the man’s intimidating size and revealing the laser focused eyes out for blood. Scott took a step back as the man stepped forward.
“Listen you inconsiderate son of a bitch, my sick wife’s asleep in the next room and if it weren’t for that I’d have already called the cops to come pick up your sorry ass.” The man’s anger trailed off when he saw Boyd staring up from the baby carrier. “Aw, hell, I didn’t know you had a baby out here. Just leave, won’t you. I don’t know who you or this Harper person is but she sure as heck doesn’t live here. We’ve only been here about a month and a half, so maybe she moved out before we got here.”
Realization dawned with a slow steady pounding, like the tide returning to wash over dry sands. Harper had moved and didn’t tell him. He turned and slunk back down the stairs. Scott’s mind spun with possibilities as disintegrating plans floated away like detritus. An idea nibbled at the back of his mind as he tried to ferret out the meaning.
Cara’s name hammered into his head, screaming through frazzled nerves until it popped with clarity. That must be where Harper went. He’d heard the news about a girl named Cara dying and something about dash cam video, but it hadn’t registered that it was Harper’s Cara that had died.
Scott’s cell shook in his hands as his sweaty fingers typed in the tiny search box. He poked enter and waited with impatience for the results to pop up. Slow cell towers hampered his need for speed, but eventually spit out the information he’d requested. With a new force of determination he started the car and hit another road toward his and Boyd’s future.
They were two hours into their drive when Boyd began fussing. Scott pulled into a gas station and rummaged through the diaper bag, cursing when he realized Boyd’s milk sat on the kitchen counter in the home hours behind them. He tabulated what to do, running possibilities through his head. Driving all the way back wasn’t an option, so he went with the next best case scenario.
Scott pushed the cart through Wal-Mart, conveniently next to the gas station where he’d stopped. When he found the baby section his senses overwhelmed with formula options. He had no experience with deciding on a formula since Boyd had been on breast milk since birth. Eyes wandered over each description Lactose Free, Easy on the Tummy, Soy, Fortified, Gentle, Most like Breastmilk. He scanned further then came back to rest on the last one. Most like Breastmilk had to be the right choice. With an impulsive swipe he grabbed the largest container along with a gallon of nursery water and a bottle that looked like the ones he used at home and tossed the items in the cart.
Boyd greedily sucked down a full bottle, choking a few times as the thin milk poured down his throat. Scott tapped Boyd’s back until he let out a raucous burp and spit up most of the formula he’d ingested. Scott’s aggravation of being covered in baby puke tempered by Boyd’s happy smile at being full. “All right little man, let’s get back on the road and to your new mommy.”
The ride from there had been uneventful with Boyd sleeping most of the way until he’d woken up a few hours ago. From the time his eyes popped open he bawled, varying from heart wrenching screams to shuddering whimpers. No matter what Scott did he’d been unable to soothe the unhappy baby.
Scott pounded the steering wheel again as he waited for his cell to reboot. The screaming drilled through his head as his mind took a fast track journey to insanity. Thoughts of homicide pounded along with the headache ripping through his head. Bolts of pain so bright and perfect they could have been created in a torture lab.
Boyd took a deep breath to prepare for the next scream before silence engulfed the previously deafening tones reverberating through the small space. Scott’s stomach dropped as the fussiness plummeted to deafening silence. He unbuckled and scrambled from the car falling to his knees and tearing his jeans as a sharp rock ripped through the fabric faster than a chef’s knife through a tomato. The back door flung open, he jumped inside to find a red-faced baby solemnly sucking a pacifier. Scott stared in shocked silence before the stench of dirty diaper slammed into his senses with a prizefighter’s fist.
He sucked in a deep breath from outside the car then removed the diaper heavy with upset tummy discarded from unfamiliar formula. Scott slapped himself upside the head for not realizing sooner why Boyd had been upset. He rummaged through the diaper bag in search of the formula carton. In his rush to get out of the store he’d grabbed the soy formula which must have disagreed with Boyd’s immature digestive system.
“Well, dude looks like we need to find a store before we meet your new mommy.”
Boyd’s legs kicked, his diaper shifting under his blue onesie and snap up corduroys. A grin formed and his dimple appeared. Scott leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.
Once back in the front seat he picked up his phone and searched for local stores that might carry formula. He pulled onto the road and made a careful U-turn, he never knew he passed right by Harper’s house as he drove down the main road.