Authors: D. T. Jones
“Pregnancy
is making you very unpredictable,” he accused her, his breathing escaping his lips in a soft pant.
“
What can I say; it was a long trip
“That it was my darling,” he
answered, finding the energy to slowly move in and out of her at a much slower rate. Sandra could feel him growing thick and hard again and stared at him with disbelief as he rose up on his elbows above her.
“It was a very, very long trip,” he smiled, and began moving at more energetic pace.
The sun was low in the sky as the rental car pulling into the driveway of her grandparents’ farmhouse. Creighton looked across the seat to her, watching the excited smile cross Sandra’s beautiful face. The old hound dog came hobbling down the wooden steps of the front porch as the screen door opened and Mary and James stepped out. Sandra didn’t wait for her husband to open the door as usual, she flung it open on her own and ran up the three steps to her grandparents’ welcoming embrace.
“We were beginning to worry,” James said, shaking Creighton’s strong hand. “We thought your plane landed over three hours ago?”
“It did,” Creighton said with a smile, accepting the hug Mary gave him.
“But we had to check into the motel.”
“What?” the older woman said, looking at the two with wide eyes. “I thought you’d be staying here?”
“Nana, we don’t want to inconvenience you and we need our own privacy,” Sandra insisted as they walked into the hallway that led to the kitchen.
“I told you Mary, they are newlyweds and would want to be alone,” James scolded, shutting the door behind them.
“Well for heaven’s sake, you can have sex here just like you could at the motel.” Sandra blushed scarlet with her grandmother’s boldness while Creighton cleared his throat.
“Mary Stevens,” James gasped. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“Oh, be serious. Do you think they are the only newlyweds to enjoy each other’s affection? Why, I remember when we were first married, there wasn’t a single place on this farm we didn’t take advantage of. Hell, there are still times when we…”
“Nana, please!” Sandra snapped loudly to discourage her grandmother’s story, placing her hands across her ears. Marriage seemed to bring out a different side of her grandmother’s verbal communication. It was definitely not something Sandra was used to hearing from the church going matriarch.
“Let’s go in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee,” James said with a chuckle. “I think the old bat needs something to divert her tongue.”
“Oh, Sandra, you’re a grown woman now,” Mary scolded as they went into the large old kitchen and sat down at the turn of the century table. “There’s no point in hiding the fact that you enjoy your husband’s attention. Why wouldn’t you, for heaven’s sake, look that the man. I know if I didn’t love your Papa so much, I’d be having a go at him too.”
“Nana!” Sandra shouted in surprise as her grandfather choked on the mouth full of coffee he had just taken and Creighton turned a brilliant shade of red.
Mary turned an innocent eye to the group and smiled, batting her eyes and Creighton realized where Sandra had learned the trick. She turned back to her task of slicing the homemade bread, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
Sandra helped set the table as the conversation quickly steered from the current subject to that of their trip. Creighton’s jet had brought them back home over a week ago and the two men eagerly began to discuss the mechanics and design of the plane. Captain Davies told his employers in passing that the older man wanted to see how the gears worked and he had allowed James to steer the jet for a short time, though he admitted that it was set on auto pilot the entire time.
“Where’s Cathy?” Sandra asked, hoping her tone didn’t sound as nervous about seeing her sister again as she felt.
“She has a date, but you’ll see her tomorrow. The town’s planning a celebration for you two,” Nana said from where she worked at the butcher block style island. “You’ll see all your old friends there.”
“Why is the town celebrating us?” Creighton asked with a frown; this wasn’t what he had been hoping for when they came here. He wanted things simple and laid back, not a big ordeal to contend with.
“Oh, Nelson thought it would be a nice idea to use the town’s money to spring a big picnic and fireworks show to welcome New Hope into Hoisington while celebrating your marriage,” James said. “It’s just his way of telling people he brought you here and was able to make the deal of the century, the old blowhard.”
“There are a lot of people around town who think it’s because of Sandy, that you agreed to bring your plant here after all,” Mary continued, glancing up to her new grandson.
“But that’s not true…is it?” Sandra frowned as she turned to her husband.
“No it’s not,” he insisted firmly. “The plans for the plant were already underway long before you came to France. You had nothing to do with it and I’ll make damn sure the people know that. I will not have anyone thinking you seduced me into building here.”
“People who know Sandy know that would never be the case,” Mary interjected.
“Absolutely not,” James added quickly. “It’s just that damn Nelson; he’s been using our family connection with you as an underline suggestion that it was the only reason you came back here. He’s the worse thing to happen to Hoisington in a hundred years.”
“I’ll make certain he understand his place when I see him tomorrow,” Creighton said with a clenched jaw.
“So I talked to Emma yesterday,” Mary said to distract the direction the conversation had taken. She sat the pot roast on the table then turned and collected the dish with carrots and garden potatoes, while Sandra brought the salad and joined the group. “She said that jackass has been caught.”
“Yes ma’am he has,” Creighton said with an amused smile, falling back into the old Creighton Sandra knew and loved. “He’ll be extradited back to England in a few days and back to jail where he belongs.”
“Good, and let’s hope they lose the key to the cell.”
“So you and Creighton’s mother have been talking?” Sandra asked eager to change yet another subject.
“Yes we have and thanks to this young man’s gifts, it’s easy and cheap.” Mary took the plates one at a time and began dishing up the delicious smelling meat and vegetables.
“Gifts?” Sandra asked with a frown as she passed the salad around the table.
“Your husband bought your grandmother, Cathy and I cell phones so we can stay in touch with you without selling the farm to do it.”
“I tell you, that new-fangled contraption is going to be the death of me,” Mary complained, walking back to the fridge to retrieve the container of milk.
“There are more buttons on that danged thing, then that stupid microwave your sister bought us for Christmas. Don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it, other than heating up cold coffee.” Sandra smiled, glancing to her husband who looked at the small black box sitting on the counter next to the stove. He seemed as relaxed here as he did with his own parents and she couldn’t help but admire him.
“Technology can be very daunting,” he said, taking a bite of his supper.
“This is very good Nana,” Sandra said, practically shoveling the carrots into her mouth. She couldn’t believe how famished she felt.
“Thank you honey, but you best slow down or you’ll get colic.”
“I’m not a baby Nana, I’m just starving. It was a long flight out here and I’ve eaten enough pasta the past few weeks to feed a small Italian island. I needed some real food.”
“I thought you liked pasta?” Creighton frowned.
“I do,” she said with a shocked expression. She hadn’t realized she was complaining until she saw the hurt look on his face. “I love it, I just like my grandmother’s cooking better.” Creighton didn’t say anything else but turned back to his dinner in front of him. She knew she had hurt his feelings; he had been doing what he thought she wanted, and to be honest she did want everything he had done, but she couldn’t explain or excuse away her words now that they were spoken.
“So tell me about your plans?” James asked, diverting the tension from the room.
The conversation took the safer path of the ideas and plans Creighton’s engineers and designers had come up with and the timeframe in which they hoped to get the plant up and running. Sandra was thankful for her grandfather’s tack, but knew she would have to addres
s the subject back at the motel; at least for now, things were calm.
“Please don’t be angry,” Sandra
said as they drove back to the motel. The car ride, though short, was filled with a tense silence that seemed stifling and unbearable.
“I’m not angry Sandra, I’m disappointed,” he said. “I would have thought better of you.
I have told you a hundred times, if you don’t like something I’m doing, you need to tell me or I can’t change it.”
“But I do like pasta, it’s my favorite dish. It’s just that we’ve eaten so much of it lately, I’m getting rather tired of looking at it.”
“Do you think I like to eat the same thing all the time?” he snapped, glancing across the small interior to her. “I usually don’t eat much and I rarely eat that many carbs. I’ve been doing it because I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“I’m sorry for getting you so upset over this.
It’s a stupid slip of the tongue; just forget I even mentioned it.”
“No,
I won’t forget it. We need to have some sort of an agreement to discuss things. You have to be open with me if we’re going to make any of this work out.”
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings or make you feel bad. You’ve gone out of your way to make things perfect for me and I didn’t want to complain.
Besides, I didn’t know I was getting tired of eating all that rich food until I smelled Nana’s cooking.”
“So
it’s not just the pasta, it’s everything you’ve eaten? What else are you going to tell me you don’t like? I need to be able to prepare myself for the next time we’re around your grandparents, just so I know how to defend myself?”
“I’m sorry,” she shouted, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry I said anything, I didn’t mean to wound your ego.”
“That’s not what this is about,” he insisted, drawing a deep sigh as he pulled into the nearly vacant parking lot of the motel. “I just want you to be open with me and tell me when I’ve gone overboard.”
“Fine, you want me to
talk to you, well listen to this. You’re a pompous jackass who thinks the only way to get my attention is to screw me or buy me expensive gifts, like some common street tramp. You never gave me a choice whether I wanted to work or not, you just assumed I would want to spend the rest of adult life barefoot and pregnant. You think the world is yours for the taking, to do with as you pleased and I’ll just keep my mouth shut and go along for the ride. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted something different for myself? Maybe I’m not ready to have kids, maybe I want a career that doesn’t involve diapers and binkies, but I was never given the option to decide, you did it for me. There, you wanted open, how’s that for open?”
She
got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, storming up to the motel room without waiting for him to join her. She opened the door with the spare key and nearly shut it in his face, catching him in mid step.
Without another words, she went into the bathroom, slammed
that door shut as well and screamed at the wooden barrier before kicking it with her foot. She had never felt so angry and it was all over a stupid comment she made about food! The whole thing was ridiculous and she knew it, but there was such a rush of…something she couldn’t even name boiling inside her, that she just lost all control of her temper. She felt like a lunatic, but she didn’t care. She was so angry she could easily have ripped the ugly green and yellow stripped wallpaper off the bathroom walls without the slightest thought.
She paced the floor for several long minutes until she
decided on a bath and realized she didn’t have anything for it; everything was still in the bedroom portion of the room. She flung open the door and stomped out to find Creighton sitting on the end of the bed, his phone in his hand as he listened to his voice messages. He glanced up to her, but she barely noticed as she took her shampoo, conditioner and makeup remover from the top of the dresser and returned to the bathroom, again slamming the door closed.
She quickly removed her makeup and tossed her clothes carelessly to the floor before stepping into the tub
and pulling the plastic curtain shut. The water was hotter than normal and Sandra found herself having to ease into it slowly. She sat there alone, tears brimming her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest until she realized her tension was melting away and she drew a deep breath. She heard the front door of their room close she found the pent up emotion burst forward and began crying.
What was wrong with her?
She asked herself, covering her eyes with the wet wash cloth. She had acting like some kind of stark raving maniac, screaming at the man who had turned her life upside down, but in the best possible manner. She loved him and she needed him in her life; without him she was barely alive, so why did she just rip him apart?