Chapter Two

Chapter Two: September 2017

“Do we have to go?” I whined to Luc as I looked at the boxes piled in our townhouse. I’d done little besides unpack and be nauseated since our move two weeks ago, but there was still plenty to do. And with Luc reporting for duty on Tuesday, that meant I only had his help for another five days.

Luc stood in the kitchen, lips pursed, with a suitcase in one hand. “Yes, hon, we do. I don’t think Sheila checked on the cottage once since Uncle Burt passed away five years ago.” He noticed dread creeping across my face. “It’ll be fun.”

“It smells like camping,” I muttered. Camping made me sick on a non-pregnant day.

“It’s not going to be camping, Lily. It’s a cottage on a mountain. Sheila’d been paying the electric bill and there’s a high enough balance forward that we won’t have to pay anything for probably another year.”

I made a mental note to start speaking under my breath when I had an appointment and needed him to watch the kids because he seemed to have very selective hearing. “I’m sorry, Luc, but it reeks of camping. No one’s been there for five years so you don’t know if the electricity or water even work. And it's going to be nasty. I'm going to be stuck cleaning the place for the entire weekend.”

“Lily, it’ll be fun. Just think of the family bonding time.”

“I’m bonded fine with my family, it’s Jessa that needs the bonding with us, and she’s not here.” Jessa was visiting friends and family in Indiana, Luc’s bribe for her to come live with us. He hadn't told me about his deal with her until two days before I took her to the airport, and it still bothered me. I hoped that she wouldn’t use the opportunity to run away. We’d made good progress with her, but she was still a teenage girl who’d just lost her mother and been forced to move away from all that was familiar to her twice in the past three months. Who would blame her if she did?

Luc gave me The Look: eyes squinty and pointing at me like lasers, nostrils slightly flared, and mouth clenched. I expected him to stamp his feet and charge at me, but he’d never hurt me. Sometimes I steered him close to that cliff of insanity, but never quite to the edge.

I probably shouldn’t have made the bonding comment about Jessa, but it was true. She should be here with us and I felt Luc was foolish for letting her go. I made sure to tell him that every time the opportunity arose, too. I decided I wouldn’t apologize for my comment.

“Lily, come on. Seriously, it’ll be a good time. I haven’t been able to enjoy the outdoors in years. The girls’ll have so much fun and you’re going to love the peace and quiet,” he begged. “I’ll make you a deal. If the cottage doesn’t meet your standards, we’ll stay in a hotel, but you should know I called the Parrishes. They’re coming up after Mike gets off work tomorrow night. It’ll be just like old times in Florida.”

My belly began to dance and I gave it a pat as I considered feigning morning sickness to supply another reason for not going. I looked into Luc’s eyes that begged me to join them. Between being with me and his myriad deployments, Luc’s excursions into the outdoors were practically non-existent. And I really missed Carrie. I’d only seen her once after we returned from Indiana, and that was over two months ago.

I exhaled and said, “Okay, but you’re going to help me unpack the rest of these boxes on Monday night and we’re going into the city next weekend. I want to go to the Mall and to the Smithsonian.”

He lit up like a kid in a candy store and tossed the suitcase aside. He walked over to the table, wrapped his arms around me, and said, “That’s a deal. Thank you, Honey. It means so much to me that you’re coming with us. You won’t regret it” as he twirled me around.

***

The drive to the cottage was a challenge. Between the stop and go traffic of DC, the girls’ constant squabbling, and my need for a bathroom break every fifteen minutes, we drove the estimated six-hour trip in just under nine hours. The final two hours on West Virginia’s untamed roads nearly did me in as each bump and curve poked my nausea with their cursed fingers.

We arrived at ten, the girls sound asleep. I was thankful that I took the time to pack the cooler and a few snacks; groceries would have to wait until tomorrow.

While Luc unlocked the house using his work light to assist him, I stepped out of the car, and shook off the pins and needles that darted up and down my leg. Christening the mountain with the contents of my stomach, I jumped when I felt something brush against my ankle. I hurried back into the car and slammed the door to keep away anything that might have slithered after me.

Because of the darkness, I couldn’t discern much about the house, but I did notice its boarded windows. The house seemed dead in comparison to the frogs and insects humming around it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

My heart pounded as I startled. It was just Luc. I unlocked the door, and he peeked his head inside, saying, “Well, I got the door open. There aren’t any lights though, so we’ll have to make do until we can get to the store and buy some bulbs. At least we have the work light. Do you still have a flashlight in here?”

I nodded, and retrieved it from the glove compartment, biting my tongue as the trip began to sound more and more like camping with each passing second.

We carried the girls, their sleeping bags, and pillows into the dark house. Stale air greeted us and my stomach clenched as I buried my nose into one of the pillows in my hand. We walked through the living room and down a short hallway to what I assumed was the master bedroom. “Is it okay if the girls sleep in here with us tonight?” Luc asked as he creaked open the door.

The girls would be terrified if they awakened in a strange place to complete darkness, so I unfolded a sheet and tossed it onto the floor where the girls would sleep. Bending down on a knee to smooth it to the best of my ability, I winced with each back-breaking stretch; the ride had been hard on my body. Once the beds were made, I crawled under the covers, sleep’s tendrils grasping for me before my head touched the pillow.

“Mommy!” The scream pierced through my deep slumber. Maggy’s voice.

“What, Maggy?” I replied, half asleep and trying to regain my bearings. I opened my eyes, and blinked them several times to moisten the sharpness of my contacts that I hadn’t removed before I fell asleep. I patted around for the flashlight, and mistakenly tapped Luc’s arm.  Amazed that he could sleep through the noise and the slap and a little unnerved that he considered himself our protector, I continued my search until I found the flashlight and flicked it on to find Maggy’s hazel eyes staring at me.

“I gotta go potty.”

I lifted myself off the bed, grabbed her hand, and searched for the bathroom, which was the first door on the right. I shined the light around the bathroom, noticing the roll of toilet paper that I assumed Luc left on the vanity. An antique clawfoot bathtub took up half the space in the room and I pondered how I would be able to step in and out of it with my awkward physique.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” Maggy whispered as we returned to the bedroom.

After a few tosses, turns, and near-misses with Maggy’s feet, I grabbed the flashlight and dragged myself off the bed, picking up my purse as I left the room. I deposited myself onto a couch that had seen its better days a generation or two ago. Dust rose from the cushions and I coughed; I would spend the next day cleaning five years’ worth of grime from the cottage. Not the way to spend Labor Day Weekend.

I enabled the Internet, checked my email and scrolled through pages of mommy blogs for nearly an hour and a half, my three AM ritual for the past several weeks. My eyes grew heavy and I finally fell asleep and dozed until the morning whoops and hollers of Luc and the girls woke me. I wasn’t one who particularly liked the morning, but I found it impossible to wallow when so much cheer surrounded me.

Luc opened the front door of the cottage, and sunlight kissed the room, revealing a thick coat of dust and scores of dead insects on the floor. Well, mostly dead. I shuddered as a large wolf spider scuttled across the floor and climbed into a crevice in the stone wall. Bug spray was going on the grocery list.

Luc left the door ajar to illuminate the room and walked over to the kitchen to open the refrigerator; it was dark. He scooted the refrigerator and plugged it into the outlet and turned the dial to four, the refrigerator humming in response. “At least we have electricity,” he said as he plugged in the stove, television and any other necessary appliance that he found. “Let’s get ready to go into town.”

Town ended up being an hour and a half away and we were jostled in the car as we hit bump after bump along the road. Luc assured me there was civilization closer to the cottage, but Charlottesville had a much better selection of stores and restaurants to choose from compared to the sparsely populated towns nearer to the cottage.

We went to breakfast at a mom and pop place first, and drove to a home improvement store. Two carts full of cleaning supplies, light bulbs, and grilling supplies later, we left for the grocery store, my shoes tightening with each step.

Luc insisted on two carts, and he grabbed anything that met two criteria: on sale and non-perishable. Annoyed, I shook my head with each carton of canned goods he added to the mountain of groceries already in the cart. “What?” he exclaimed as he threw another two boxes onto the now over-flowing cart. One of the boxes tumbled onto the floor. Luc bent down, picked it up, and handed it to Maggy who sat patiently in the cart.

“Do we really need all those? We’re only going to be here for four days,” I complained. It seemed like he was planning for some sort of Armageddon that might transpire before Jessa’s flight would arrive on Monday afternoon.

“We’ll use'em and they’re on sale. I hope to come back here for a long weekend sometime this fall, and it would be nice not having to worry about getting groceries each time we come here,” he replied indignantly as he tossed canned soup into the cart. “I don’t see why it’s an issue.”

“I just don’t think we need all this,” I answered as the cart grew nearly impossible for me to push. Luc’s cart was laden with produce, meat, and foods to get us through the weekend, and he wasn’t thinking about the fact that my cart weighed three or four times than the one he pushed through the store.

“You think of anything else we need or forgot?” Luc asked $436 later, and right before we drove away from the store.

Didn’t we just buy enough food to make people think we were crackpot doomsdayers? “No, I think we have everything.”

Back at the cottage, Luc took care of the lighting situation while the girls and I lugged in the groceries. Sweat beaded over my brow and I was forced to rest for nearly fifteen minutes after the seventh heavy load of groceries. Once everything was in and put away, we took a small break to have some orange juice and started to clean the cottage while Luc worked outside. Two hours later, the cottage had been vacuumed, dusted, and scrubbed when Luc came inside, sweat rolling off his forehead and dripping onto the floor, while cut grass clung to his shorts and dirty t-shirt. “Let’s go for a picnic after I take a shower,” Luc said to Rosabel and Maggy’s squeals.

I packed sandwiches, fresh fruits and vegetables, and cookies into a backpack and placed an old sheet into another section so we could have a picnic lunch. Tired, I plopped myself onto one of the oaken chairs and listened to the girls chant about going on the picnic as we waited for Luc. It wasn’t a long wait.

“Follow me,” Luc said as he slung the backpack over his shoulders and grabbed Maggy by the hand. Rosabel reached for my hand as we trudged uphill through the woods until Luc found an area that he deemed suitable for our picnic, about half a mile from the house. He unfolded the sheet and flung it outwards to the ground. I sat down and exhaled as I stretched out my legs in front of me.

The girls giggled as they chased a squirrel until it scampered up a tree. They climbed the tree in pursuit of the squirrel until a swallowtail fluttered by them and they leapt down from the tree, bounding after the butterfly and dancing among the trees until Rosabel was able to cup her hands over it as it landed on a twig. I watched the two girls romping around the forest and felt the sheet sink a little as Luc kneeled behind me and massaged my back.

He leaned into my ear and whispered, “This is my idea of heaven. I’ve got you and the girls, and we’re here in the peace and quiet. This is perfect. And it’s only going to get better.” He wrapped his arms around me, giving my belly a loving pat on each side before his hands headed due north. “I love you, Lily.”

“Lucien Michael Goodwyn, I love you too, but I would appreciate if you wouldn’t fondle me when your children are twenty feet away.” His hands returned to my swollen belly as he prodded it in search of any kicks the baby might be willing to give.

Luc chuckled. “I thought they were only my kids when they’re being heathens? Good to know they’re also mine when they’re behaving,” he said with a brush of his lips against my earlobe, tingles pulsing throughout my body. A soft moan escaped my lips and betrayed my words as Luc lingered at my ear. His arms kneaded my lower back as we listened to the girls playing with their new friend.

“We’ll call her Princess,” Rosabel said as Maggy nodded in agreement.

“It’s my turn to hold Princess Sofina,” said Maggy as she clasped her hands around Rosabel’s.

“Her name is Princess, Maggy. That’s all. She’s not Princess Sofina.”

“Yes, it is her name! I saw her first so I get to name her!” Maggy pinched her sister’s hands to force them open, and Rosabel wailed, offering up a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination as she tattled that Maggy had hurt her. She flailed her arms, her hands flew open, and Princess soared safely into the sun-crisped leaves overhead.

I told the girls to settle down and called them over to eat as I removed our lunch from the backpack. Maggy stalked over to us, arms folded and bottom lip protruding. “Fine! But I’m not sitting by her,” she caterwauled, stomping her foot as she said it. Halfway through the meal, the entire episode had been forgotten.

As I stuffed the last of my fourth cookie into my mouth, Luc asked if I wanted to hike to the creek where he’d fished during summer visits to the cottage. When Luc mentioned that it was probably a mile away, I shook my head. I’d learned in the past that Luc’s mile was probably double that, and I was already tired this far into the rugged terrain; there was no way Luc could carry the two girls and me.

“Nah, I’ll just stay right here until you come back. You won’t be long, right?” I could always walk back to the cabin if he took too long.

“I’m guessing forty-five minutes to an hour,” Luc answered. “Don’t wander off. I don’t want you getting lost in the woods.”

I looked at him indignantly and pointed towards the way we came. “I could get back to the cabin. It’s just about half a mile that way.”

Luc chuckled. “No, that way will eventually get you back to Florida. The cabin is this way.” He pointed in the opposite direction. “Please, Lily. Stay put or come with us. If you get lost out here, it could be days before someone found you. And last I checked, you were as city slicker as they come.” He gave me a peck on the cheek and told the girls they were going to his old fishing hole. As they walked away, Rosabel’s chants about going fishing were interspersed with Maggy’s objections to touching a worm.

Soon the sounds of twigs snapping and girls squealing were replaced with a quietude occasionally interrupted by the breeze rustling leaves in harmony to the melodic chirruping and buzzing of the woods’ insects. The haunting call of the whippoorwill punctuated Mother Nature’s opus. Tired from what had already been a long day, I was quickly lulled to sleep.

The rural backdrop gave way to a classroom setting. Lecturing in front of the room full of students was Professor Jack Weaver. The bespectacled man looked more the part of movie star than sociology professor with his dark, wavy hair, aquamarine eyes, and bronzed skin.  The students in the class, myself included, hung on every word uttered by the professor; we were enthralled by the man. Beside him, a marionette danced on the table, her vibrant red curls bouncing as the professor manipulated her across a table to the right of his podium while he speculated about man’s inherent good or evil and how it related to the common good is determined by our leaders.

“We are inherently good.”

The professor turned his head and met my eyes, piercing to my soul. Or maybe it was me realizing that I’d earned his attention by thinking aloud and interrupting his speech. He delivered me a stare-down perfected by verbose professors after a rude disruption.  “Please stand up. Now, what’s your name, Miss?” he asked.

“Umm, Lily. Lily Clay,” I replied, my voice shaking in anticipation of a scolding as 400 pairs of eyes trained on me.

Professor Weaver sized me up—I’d never felt so much like a kindergartener amongst giants--for another second or two until he set the puppet onto the table and diverted his attention to some papers on the podium. He hastily jotted something onto those papers and my cheeks deepened their red with each passing second. I was certain that by now they matched the crimson in the Indiana University sweatshirt I was wearing. Several seconds later, the professor recapped his pen and said, “Well, Lily Clay. You think that man is inherently good, is that right?” I nodded, a bead of sweat rolling down my forehead. “Prove it to me.” The marionette danced on the table as he waited for my response.

I collected my thoughts before I answered. “You can look at any tragedy and see man helping others. Hurricanes, terrorism, or even a house burning down—people are always willing to lend a hand. Although there is much evil to be found in this world, it is my belief that we will do right by one another when push comes to shove.”

“And what about those people who would take advantage of the victims of those tragedies you just mentioned: the looters, terrorists, and others who seek to profit from tragedy? Would you say they are inherently good? Would you say that the world leader who is consumed by greed is inherently good?"

He motioned for me to sit down, but the puppet remained dancing to the drone of his voice. “That is food for thought, Lily. But let’s take this to another level and talk about the greater good. World leaders make decisions regarding the greater good for all of humanity on a daily basis. Sometimes what is good for a population is blatantly obvious. But other times, the greater good can be construed as evil, especially by those on the receiving end of attacks, bombs, economic sanctions, etc. that are placed into effect by well-intentioned politicians. Are you confident that man is inherently good, when politics, greed, religion, and power are factored into the equation? Or might those things lead to humanity’s damnation?” As he asked the question, the puppet’s strings unwound from their dowels and the marionette fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. A shiver went down my spine as the professor looked down at the puppet but carried on with the lecture as though she was merely punctuation for his sentences.

Something cold pressed against my temple as the professor took on a southern drawl and chastised me for the interruption. “You hear me, Miss?”

It hadn’t happened like that in class. I panicked as I realized that the sounds of wood breaking and the clack of the puppet were anything but that. But the cold metal pressing against my head was quite real.

Control, Lily. Control. I slowed my breathing to calm myself.

Another click of the revolver made my heart skip a beat, yet I maintained my composure and feigned sleep for a few moments more.