“Do you have a primary, or an OB we can send the ultrasound results to?”
I sigh. “I…I have a primary. Dr. Pritchard in Clayton. But no, no OB. I, um—I wasn’t expecting this, so I haven’t seen my OB since my last routine checkup.”
“Well, I’d get with her and get started on prenatal care vitamins and all that.”
I nod, another automatic response—I’m shell-shocked right now and operating on autopilot. “Yeah, yes. Of course.”
“Do you have any questions for me?” He smirks. “Aside from ‘how did this happen,’ I mean. I trust you’re aware of that, regardless of your obvious shock.”
I just nod again, and then blink. “Um. No, no questions. I just want to go home and try to process this.”
“Well, you’re free to go. You were never admitted, so there’s no discharge papers.” He eyes Jamie. “You’re driving?”
Jamie nods, as shell-shocked as I am. “Yes.”
“Good. Because she’s in no shape to be driving anywhere.”
“I’ve got her.”
The doctor’s smile is sympathetic. “Are you okay yourself?”
Jamie nods, stands up, visibly shaking off and putting aside his shock. “Yes. I’m okay. Thank you, Doctor.” He holds out his hand to me. “Ready, Elyse?”
Without thinking, I nod and take his hand, let him help me to my feet. His hand stays in mine as we exit the room and wind through the hallways to the checkout desk, where I pay my co-pay and then let Jamie lead me out to the waiting room.
“Stay here,” he says, pausing by the exit. “I’ll grab the truck and bring it around.”
I settle gratefully down onto the bench. “Okay.”
In less than a minute, his truck squeals to a stop under the ER awning and he’s in front of me, taking both of my hands and helping me outside, and up into his truck. He even leans across me to buckle me in. Shock has worn away to numbness, and a little voice in the back of my head warns it is only temporary.
More tense, resounding silence as we exit the hospital parking lot; but within a couple of minutes we’re leaving Hanover, going from a wide, relatively suburban four-lane thoroughfare onto the narrow, quiet, dark, tree-lined rural two-lane highway that is the more direct route between Hanover and Clayton.
The only sound is the crunch of Jamie’s truck tires on the road, and the occasional frog croak or cricket chirp through the open windows.
A Jason Aldean song murmurs low on the radio, and Jamie hums along.
He drives with his left hand, his right wrist hanging over the column-mounted gear shifter, fingers twitching to the beat now and then. His brow is wrinkled, the corners of his eyes tightened—his telltale sign of stress, I’m learning.
He glances at me. “What?”
I frown. “Huh? What, what?”
“You’re staring at me.”
I sigh. “Oh. Sorry.” I look away, out the window; we’re passing the quarry on the left, thumping over the train tracks and then the highway is dark and quiet once more.
“Just wondering what you’re thinking, is all.” Jamie lowers his window a bit more and hangs his hand out; the early fall air is cool and pleasant.
I can’t help a laugh. “I’m trying to figure that out myself.”
“Same.”
Silence for miles, nothing but trees and guard rails and blacktop.
A small, quiet, tightly controlled sob escapes me. “I’m scared, Jamie.” I breathe through it, and tamp the sobs down. “Scared and confused.”
He doesn’t answer for a while. “Elyse, I…” He shakes his head. “I have so much in my head right now, and I just…I don’t know how to—”
“Can you just…just turn up the radio? I’m not sure I can handle conversation, yet.”
“Shit, me neither,” he says, relieved, and turns up the volume on “Would You Go With Me” by Josh Turner.
Country music serves to cover our nerves and the raw, anxious, thick silence between us. The trees give way to farmland, and farmland to large rural home plots, and then those get smaller and closer together, and there’s the occasional neighborhood, and then the prefab and single-wides. The front yards get smaller and smaller, and then we’re slowing to enter the traffic circle at the center of town—home.
Jamie glances at me as he trundles slowly around the circle. “I…um. Am I taking you home? Or are we getting Aiden from your folks? What do you want to do?”
I can’t think. I can only shrug and try to hold back the tears. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know.”
He angles away from the traffic circle and pulls to a stop in a parking spot outside the general store. “Can I see your phone?”
I dig it out of my purse and hand it to him without thinking.
“Passcode?”
“One-zero-two-one-one-zero,” I say. “Aiden’s birthday.”
“October twenty-first, twenty-ten, huh?” he muses. “Mine’s the thirtieth.”
I glance at him, a faint hint of amusement whizzing through me. “Devil’s Night?”
He laughs. “Yup.”
“That must’ve kept your childhood interesting.”
He chuckles. “Nope. Totally boring. Never got into any trouble on my birthday. I was a boring, innocent child completely devoid of any mischievousness whatsoever.”
I laugh. “I bet.”
“I definitely did not ever get arrested for vagrancy and trespassing. Nor for climbing the water tower, or stealing Old Man McClary’s tractor.”
“I thought you grew up in Nashua?”
“On a farm outside it, actually. We only moved into the city itself after my dad passed when I was fourteen. Mom couldn’t handle the farm by herself, so we sold it and moved into the city. Just me, her, and our Schnauzer Border Collie mix, Hurley.”
I smirk. “And you got into all that trouble before you were fourteen?”
He laughs. “And then some. Most kids who lose a parent get into trouble afterward as a way of lashing out at life. I actually stopped getting into trouble. Mom needed me, so I put my focus into being there for her. Which kept me out of trouble. Otherwise, I’d probably be fixing cars in a highway-side auto body garage in the middle of nowhere in the New Hampshire countryside. I’d have long greasy hair, a scraggly goatee, and prison tattoos.”
I laugh and frown at the same time. “I can’t picture that.”
He chuckles. “I just described my uncle Stu. I idolized that guy growing up. Dad was always busy running the farm, so I spent all my time with Uncle Stu. Who, looking back, wasn’t the best influence.” He wiggles his phone. “I’m going to call your parents. I think you need some time alone to rest. I’m sure Aiden will be fine there overnight.”
I can only nod.
But a word keeps tolling in my head: alone…alone…alone.
It takes all I have to keep the horror at bay. I absolutely cannot be alone right now, but I don’t know how to say that. I can’t bear to face Mom or Dad, or even Cora. Not now. Not yet.
I hear Jamie talking: “…Shaken up, needs to rest…check on her…”
I’m spacing out—my head is buzzing, heart palpitating; it’s hard to breathe, my ears hum, my hands shake and my fingertips tingle. I feel the truck moving again but I’m not sure where we’re going. Things are blurry, and I’m not sure if I’m dizzy or if there’s fog in the air.
We stop.
A door thunks.
“Elyse?”
I twist and see Jamie; he’s concerned, worried—I can see that much even through the haze. “Hmmm?”
“Let’s go in.”
I blink, look past him. We’re at my house. Lights off—everything’s dark and lonely.
He unbuckles me and helps me out. I follow him across the driveway to the side door by the garage; still operating on blind instinct, I unlock it, and let Jamie go in first. He flicks on lights as he heads into the kitchen. I stop in the middle of the kitchen, staring without seeing.
“Elyse?” His warm
voice is close.
“Hmmm?” I don’t see him. I feel faint.
“Do you want some tea?”
“Sure.”
I hear him rummaging around the kitchen. He finds my electric kettle, fills it, turns it on. I’m still standing in the middle of the kitchen, purse on my shoulder. I feel…blank. Not numb, not panicked, just…strangely, eerily blank.
He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I flinch at the unexpected contact. His eyes are deep and brown and worried. “Do you want to change?”
“Change?”
He waits for me to respond further, but that’s all I’ve got. “Yeah, change. pj’s? Something more comfortable?”
I glance down at my nice jeans, form-fitting top, and my best sweater duster. “I was supposed to take Aiden on a date. We were going to dinner and to see the new superhero movie.”
“You can reschedule. He’ll understand.”
“He didn’t know. It was going to be a surprise.”
“Then he won’t miss what he wasn’t expecting. For right now, you just need to relax.”
“Relax.” The word comes out dripping with sarcasm.
I still can’t move. My legs and arms won’t cooperate. I don’t even know what to do, how to be me. Right now, I’m just a hole in the world shaped like Elyse.
Jamie sighs. “Come on.”
He tugs me by the hand toward my room. I’m too blank to even care that it’s a disaster—dirty clothes hanging out of the hamper, bras hanging four deep off the closet doorknob, clean clothes in another basket, rifled through. Makeup and beauty products cluttering the bathroom sink, curler plugged in but off, a towel rumpled on the towel rack.
He lets go of me once I’m in my room, but I still can’t find the brainpower to function beyond following him. Once he lets go, I just stop.
“Elyse?”
I blink at him. “Huh?”
“You need to change.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how.” I sniffle; sobs lurk behind the numb, blank wall of shock. “I’m in shock. I can’t function.”
He frowns. “Do you need help?”
I nod.
“Okay.” He tries to meet my eyes. “I’m going to help you get changed, okay?”
I nod. “Okay.”
There is absolutely nothing erotic whatsoever about the way he helps me undress. He removes my sweater and tosses it into the hamper. Kneels and helps me out of my shoes, then my socks. He lifts the hem of my shirt, and I hold my arms over my head. He keeps space between us—a fact I notice absently—as he helps me out of my tight jeans. I step free of them and stand shivering in my underwear, a mismatched bra and briefs, not at all sexy or cute.
“Where are your pajamas?” he asks, turning away from me slightly.
I point at the top left drawer of my bureau. He pulls out a thick pair of fleece sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. I step into the pants, and he ties the drawstring loosely, just enough that the ends don’t dangle. He starts to help me into the shirt, but I mumble a negative.
“What?” he asks. “Not this shirt?”
I’m frustrated by own inability to formulate words, but the numbness is wearing off and I’m scared of the impending breakdown. “Bra.”
His expression tightens, and his jaw sets. “Ah. Um…yeah, okay.”
He goes around behind me and unhooks my bra. I let it flop to the floor and stand topless, waiting for him to put the shirt on me. He does so while standing behind me, tugging the neck hole over my head and gently helping me find the sleeves with my arms, all without touching me any more than necessary.
Once I’m clad in pajamas, he moves back around in front of me. “Do you want to sleep, now? Or…I don’t know. Watch a movie or something? I can get you some tea and leave you be.”
That slices through my blank haze of numbness. “No! Don’t—please. Don’t leave.”
“You don’t want me to go?” He seems surprised.
“I…I can’t be alone right now,” I whisper. “I’m going to freak out soon. And I—I…I’m going to need you.”
“Elyse, I…” He sighs. “Yeah. I’m here.”
I hear the hesitation in his voice, but handling it is beyond my capabilities right now. I shuffle to my bed, using the last of my energy to climb under the covers and sit upright against the headboard.
I stare unseeing across the room—holding off the breakdown requires every ounce of focus I have.
Jamie leaves, and I hear him moving around the kitchen. Water pouring into a tea mug. The toaster rattling. He returns with an English muffin slathered with a liberal amount of peanut butter, and two mugs of tea.
“You have, like, three packages of these muffins, which I took to mean they’re a favorite around here,” Jamie says, handing the muffin halves to me on a strip of paper towel.
“Comfort food,” I mumble. “Thank you.”
I hand him one of the halves, and he takes it; we munch in silence. The tea steeps, steaming, on the table next to my bed.
Once the snack is gone, I glance at Jamie. “My iPad is in the drawer there,” I say. “Maybe we could watch something funny.”
He leans over and opens a drawer. I don’t have time to freak out when he opens the wrong one; I meant the top one where I keep my iPad, a second charger cord for my phone, and general random items. The bottom drawer has my…errr, helpers. A large, knobbed, purple dildo, a small but powerful clitoral stimulator, and a Hitachi wand with various attachments.
He opens the second drawer, stares into it for a split second, and then slams it closed. “I, um. Sorry. Wrong drawer.”
“I should’ve specified,” I say, choking on my embarrassment. “Top drawer. The iPad is in the top drawer.”
Silence, acute and awkward. Jamie withdraws my iPad, opens the red leather case, and props the device on his knees. I tap in my code, bring up Netflix, select a comedy special, and the introduction begins.
Jamie is restless. “Elyse,” he says, turning to look at me.
Emotion bubbles up inside me—thick, hot, potent. I shake my head, biting my lip hard enough that I taste blood. “Not—not yet, Jamie. Please. Not yet.”
He looks at me, staring at my face. He sees the emotion I’m desperately fighting back. “Elyse, you don’t have to…” He struggles for words. “You can let it out. I’m here.”
“That’s part of it,” I whisper. “That you’re here.”
He fiddles with the corner of the iPad case. “But you don’t want me to leave.”
I shake my head. “I’m more afraid of being alone than I am of being around you.”
“Why are you afraid to be around me in the first place?” he asks.
I just shake my head. Putting it into words is impossible in my current emotional state. Jamie sighs, clearly frustrated and wanting to talk about…everything, but I’m just not ready. I can’t.
The comic is onstage, setting up a joke about a priest. I focus on him, and even though he’s very funny, I can’t seem to laugh.
Jamie lets the silence linger and hang, but he’s not laughing either.
“Mr. Nubbins, Mr. Tippy Tickles, and Thundera,” I blurt.
He glances at me, confused. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
I blush, gesture at the drawer he’d mistakenly opened. “That’s, um. The…the names of the—things—in the drawer.”
Jamie holds a straight face for a moment, and then snickers. Snorts. “Uh…wow. Okay.”
I cover my face with both hands, giggling hysterically. “I don’t know why I said that.”
He’s trying gamely to suppress his laughter. “Mister…Tippy Tickles?”
I hide my face in my hands. “Cora and I got drunk here one night and gave them all stupid names, and I’ve just always thought of them by those dumb names.” I tip my head back and steady my breathing. “I seriously have no idea why I told you that. I must be delirious.”
“But…Mr. Tippy Tickles?”
“That’s the…” I hesitate ov
er the name. “The clit stimulator.”
“Ah, because it tickles your—um…”
“Yeah.”
“And Mr. Nubbins is pretty obvious,” he says. “But…Thundera?”
My blush deepens, until I’m certain my face is literally scarlet. “The wand. The big thing. It plugs in, because it’s so powerful it requires an actual outlet. It’s…um…it feels kind of like being hit by a thunderbolt.”
He seems vaguely uncomfortable with this, somehow. “I see.”
As weird and bizarrely personal as it is, I welcome the conversation, because it’s a distraction. I frown at him inquisitively. “What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Does the thought of me using sex toys weird you out, Jamie?”
He frowns back. “No.”
“Then what?”
“I just…” but he trails off.
“What? And don’t say nothing.”
He sighs. “It’s a personal thing.”
I laugh. “Um…I just told you the names of my sex toys, Jamie. Not sure how much more personal you can get.”
“It’s about my ex.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “Okay?”
He sighs again. “I think I told you the primary reason for our divorce was me wanting this job.”
I nod. “Yeah. But…I guess that doesn’t seem like enough of a reason to get divorced.”
He shakes his head. “No. We’d been having issues before that. Um…she was raised very, very conservative. Like, women weren’t allowed to wear anything but skirts and dresses, nothing exposed above the elbow or knee, hair worn long, church twice a week. That kind of background.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah. Part of a background like that is extreme sexual conservatism. She, um—she was a virgin when we got married. I wasn’t, but she was.” He pauses, scratches his jaw, sips tea. “So, she’d grown up being taught that sexuality is a sin.”
I frowned. “All sexuality?”
He rolls a shoulder. “Um? Sort of. Within the context of marriage, sex is acceptable, but not really…celebrated, or talked about. Sex is basically procreation to make children, and that’s all.”
I grimace. “Wow. Sounds…really restrictive.”
He nods. “I mean, it’s what they believe, and people are welcome to their beliefs, and I’m not going to try to judge people for their beliefs. I personally think it’s kind of closed-minded at best, if not actively harmful psychologically. But that’s not the point. The point is, masturbation is a sin, and therefore she grew up a virgin in every way. We kissed for the first time when the pastor told me to kiss the bride.”