Knox woke up and couldn’t believe that he’d slept all night.He felt horrible for not being there if Elaine had needed him.Taking another shower and getting dressed, he had to admit that he felt better.He’d been running low for the last few days, and it had finally caught up with him.Talking to Locke, he said that he’d left her at midnight when she was sleeping well and came back in the morning to help her with her breakfast.
“I wonder how she can eat so little of this stuff and survive.It’s just soft stuff that looks like baby food.I never realized that when I put someone on a soft diet.”He said that she was on liquids before, so she was glad that she’d been upgraded.“She’s excited to be able to walk around the halls today, but I warned her to be careful that she doesn’t get dizzy.She’s been in bed for a week now, and she might not be very steady on her feet.”
“I’ll remind her of that when I see her.”He told him to take his time, that he had this.“I know, but I miss her.Christ, why didn’t anyone tell me that love was all-consuming?It’s like I can’t breathe without thinking about what she might be doing.”
“I’m so glad that you found someone to love, little brother.It is the best feeling in the world.”He agreed with him.“And to think we all thought that you and Carrie would be an item.I’m glad you were able to find Elaine when you did.It’s nice to be able to add to the family.I wish that Martha were here.Wouldn’t she be getting a kick out of all of us finding someone to love?”
“She’d be as happy as we are for us.”Locke said that he agreed with him and told him how much he missed her daily.“I do as well.I will think of something that I want to tell her, and be sad when I remember that she’s gone.For as little time as we had with her, she certainly made a huge impact on our lives.And I don’t just mean the money, I mean in our actual lives.”
“She was the best.”He had to agree with him about that.Martha had helped shape them into the men that they are today.And she’d loved them.No one had loved them up until they came into her life.If not for a broken-down van that died in front of her house, there was no telling what sort of lives they might have lived.“I can’t believe she’s been gone almost a year now.It doesn’t seem possible.Does it?”
“Not at all.”Knox told his brother how he still goes out to her gravesite and talks to her.“I think that we all do that in some way, talk to her.Like we said, she was a huge part of our lives for so littletime we had with her.Knowing that she was there for us, too, made any decisions we made all that much more important to us.Because she approved of them.”
“She loved us no matter if our decisions were good or bad.Though I don’t think that there were all that many bad decisions we made when we got out of the house that we grew up in.Do you ever think of our father?”He said he did on occasion.“I do as well.Not to dwell on his life, but I was never so happy to get away from him as I was that day.”
They decided to just leave home with the shirts on their backs because had they taken something their father would have accused them of stealing from him and had them arrested.Locke had bought the van second-hand and had kept it hidden away until the day they left.Since he’d been at a friend’s house playing chess, they one by one got into the van until he was ready to leave.To this day, Knox wondered how they’d been able to make such a clean break of things and leave their father.He’d been an abusive bastard to them since they were small children.It was a wonder how they’d been able to survive him all those years.
“Do you suppose he missed us?”He said that he more than likely did miss them because they were the only ones working.“For years after we left, I wanted to go to him and see why he hated us so much.I never did, but I do wonder at times.”Locke shook his head before speaking.
“The only time he was remotely nice to us was when there was someone around, like the police, mostly.It’s a right shame that the police department knew us all by name because of him.I don’t ever want to be compared to him.I never want anything associated with him to come back and bite us in the ass.I don’t think that it will, but I think about that sometimes.”Knox said that he used to think about him finding them when they first moved here.“I think we all did like when we’d have money on us.I’d think that he was going to come out of nowhere and beat us for the cash.But he’s dead now, and nothing we have to worry about.”
“That’s true.”Knox smiled then.“I couldn’t point him out in a line-up if it ever was to have come to that.He is nothing but a blimp in my mind.Someone who means nothing to me and never will again.I’m glad that he sired us, but that’s the extent of anything that I’ve felt for him in a long time.”
“You got that right.”When Locke left him with Elaine, she had to go and have some x-rays done.They were doing them every other day to make sure that she was healing correctly.With tomorrow being her first day of walking around, they wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to harm herself when she did it.He couldn’t wait for her to be up and around.He loved that she was getting better daily.
When Elaine went to sleep, he pulled out his laptop and worked on a few things that he’d been putting off in order to stay with her.There were quite a few emails that he’d had to answer, but he decided that he could put them off for another day.Tomorrow was going to be a big day, and he wanted to be rested.Since he’d been home, they’d brought him in another chair that was actually comfortable, and he decided to keep up with his sleep.Once he was laid back in the chair, he closed his eyes.Like Elaine, he could hear the nurses talking out at the desk but could not make out what they were saying.It was a calming way to get some sleep, and he dozed off quickly.
After a breakfast of pureed foods, she wanted to get up and get around.It took the staff three times to get her out of bed.She was dizzy and was glad that Locke had warned them of that.Once she was up, she held onto the bed and walked around the room for a little while before she became tired and needed to rest.Taking it easy was the advice of the doctor who had seen her, and he was happy with her first day getting around.Tomorrow, he promised them it would be better.
Elaine was disappointed.She imagined herself walking the halls by now.He was sort of happy that she wasn’t.If she’d fallen while walking, there was no telling what more damage she would have done to herself.It was scary to think that she’d only been in bed for a week and was so weak.He was going to make sure that she rested a great deal so that she’d not fall.
“I guess I should be happy with what I was able to do.”He said that he was.“I don’t know what I was thinking.I guess that I’d get out of bed and walk.I did a lot of walking before being hurt.I think that I thought I’d be in good enough shape to do it again.”
“I’m just glad that you didn’t fall.You could have.”She told him that she thought that she might have too, that she’d been so dizzy and weak that she was glad for something to hold onto while up.“Tomorrow, they said they’d get you a walker.I’d use it if I were you.Just so you have something to hang onto while up and about.”
“I’d feel so old.”He laughed, and she stuck her tongue out at him.“Well, first of all, I guess since I can’t see, that it’ll be fine, but it still bothers me that I’m not as strong as I thought that I might be.”
“Remember too that you’ve not been eating all that much either.There can’t be that many calories in what you’re consuming.”She said that she’d never thought of that.“When you get stronger, I’m betting that your doctor will allow you more food that isn’t as mushy as the stuff you’ve been eating.I know you can taste how bland it is.”
“It’s not all that good, but it’s something to put in my belly.”He smiled, and she could almost feel his approval.“I want an apple so bad.Not applesauce.But an honest-to-goodness apple that I can bite into.I like applesauce all right, but it’s not the same.This time of year, I make myself a can of caramel and have that with apples as a snack.Have you ever made your own caramel?It’s super easy.”
“No, I don’t think that I have.”She told him how to do it.“That does sound very easy.Just simmer a can of sweetened condensed milk for four hours, and that makes caramel?That sounds too easy.”
“You have to make sure that the can is covered in water all the time.If you don’t, then it could explode.I’ve heard of the mess hot caramel can make of a kitchen if you allow the can to get uncovered.”Knox said he was going to make some when he got home.“Good.Maybe by next week, I’ll be able to eat something more than just mushy food.You’re going to love it.I know that I do.”
They talked about the different kinds of foods that they liked.He loved food that was spicy, and she didn’t care for it.While she told him that she could eat Mexican food every day, he said that his favorite was Chinese.They were teasing each other about the kinds of foods they both liked and were having a good time.The nurse came in with her dinner tray just as she was saying how hungry she was.He went to the cafeteria to get himself something to eat so as not to tempt her with something that he got.After all the talk about food, he was nearly starving when he finally decided to have the special for the day, roast beef and noodles with sour cream.It was really good, but not like he got at home, but he was fine.It filled his belly, and that was the best part.
Chapter 7
David didn’t understand why he was the only one in jail.Elaine had beat on him as well.Of course, he’d not been put in the hospital, but that didn’t seem fair to him.He didn’t much care for being in jail at all.It was going to mess up his chances of keeping his job.
He didn’t care for being a principal at an elementary school.He didn’t want to have to work at all, but there wasn’t any way that he could afford his new house and his wife if he didn’t work.She told him that she was going to be a stay-at-home mom, and that was final.
He wouldn’t mind that job at all.Just hanging around the house all day doing nothing was something that he could get into.His wife told him that it wasn’t as easy as he thought it was, but he knew better.She barely had to do anything all day but take care of their kids, and that wasn’t all that hard.They never bothered him when he got home from work.
Elaine would have made a near-perfect mistress.She was a bit mouthy, but he could take care of that.A few hits to the mouth and she’d quit that stuff right now.He thought about the fact that she’d hit him back and wondered if that was going to be a habit with her.He didn’t care for his mistress being mean to him.That shit just wasn’t right.
He’d never had one before, a mistress.He’d read about them in all kinds of stories.The man would be pampered and catered to when he was with her, and he’d be a better husband to his wife.Of course, he thought he was god to his wife now.Never telling her how to do her job at home.All he expected was for dinner to be on the table when he was ready for it and to keep the house neat.Since it was forever neat anyway, he just figured that she’d be able to skip over that part of being pissed off at her and let her slide.For all he knew, she had someone come in and clean up after them.She was to be able to do the bills, too.David didn’t want to mess with bills when he wanted to relax when he got home from work.
