Men in Her Life Ch. 05

Marva moves away from him, as Charles rolls over into his most comfortable sleeping position. She trembles at the intensity of the words he used, wondering what is in store for her in the coming months. Should she move back into the small apartment, to live with Karen? Or, will Karen be so happy with Cynthia that she will not have room, time, or emotion, for her younger sister? What will Thomas Rowe do when he learns his dependable right-hand helper is pregnant and facing weeks of maternity leave? If she stays in her present position, she will eventually have a full career and may even be paid well enough to support herself and a child. But that day is some years away and the child will be here long before then. Her hands and shoulders shaking and her head swimming, Marva falls asleep, dreaming of things being taken away from her, snatched from her hands, and being pushed aside as other people race past her, while she falls farther and farther behind, her leg aching from the strain of trying to keep up with the rest of the crowd.

- - -

Marva sleeps late, waking to the sound of men's voices. She dresses slowly, her movements awkward, her head aching as she brushes her teeth and looks at the brown pills in the pill pack on the bathroom shelf. When she walks out of the bedroom, the mattress and box springs of a bed are leaning against the wall in the hall, the headboard and footboard leaning against them.

"Good morning, Baby," Charles greets her happily, as he turns on the vacuum cleaner, moving it over the big square of carpet where the bed has been for several years, as men on the other side of the room, open boxes and begin to pull metal parts out of them. Rather than be in the way, she isn't strong enough to help them anyway, she goes to the kitchen and drinks the last cup of coffee.

Charles walks up behind her, puts his arms around her and kisses her on the nape of the neck as he opens a kitchen drawer and removes a screwdriver then whistles as he returns to the bedroom. She stirs the chopped onion browning in the bottom of her largest pot as she continues to cut up the large lean roast, adding the flour dusted chunks of meat to the onions and starts peeling potatoes, cutting them up and leaving the chunks on the cabinet in a bowl full of water and then does another of carrots. By the time the meat is browned and slowly simmering, Charles is calling her so the men from the sports equipment store can show her how to operate her treadmill. It is a huge machine, because Charles says he can use it too, he has gained almost ten pounds since Marva started cooking his meals and he never takes the time to use his health club membership any more.

As the men begin to collect the boxes and packing, Charles convinces them to help him carry the bed parts to the storage room at the side of the garage and they manage to use the plastic wrapping from the treadmill boxes to wrap around the mattress and box springs. After closing the front door, Charles asks if she needs to stay in the kitchen to watch her stew or can she spare him some time with things he needs to discuss with her and he would prefer to do it in the study.

- - -

"You are not going to like some of what I want to do, but bear with me for a little while. It's taken me three months to put all of this together."

Marva sits across the desk from Charles, listening to him, not sure what he is trying to tell her. But, she will listen. He is talking in his business voice. She opens her mouth, to ask him a question and he holds up his hand, as if he wants her to wait, so she leans back against the chair, puts her hands in her lap, and sits quietly.

"Can you keep your job for three or four months? I think your health insurance can be converted to a private policy that will cover you until I can get you and the baby on the company policy." Unsure exactly what he wants her to do, she nods, agreeing that she will keep her job for three or four months. She wonders how much more expensive it is for her to live with him. Occasionally she will say something to him about giving him her paycheck and he always tells her to put it in the bank until she finds something special she wants to do with the money.

"This big job we are working on now is finished. But there may be another month or two of punch list stuff, but the final payment will come in, within three months, at the latest. I'll be able to fund the last of Uncle Horace's annuity and that won't bleed any more from Tester Constructors." He makes this statement as if he thinks she can read between the lines of all the complicated financial arrangements he has made to protect his uncle and aunt's future and wonders how much the Blevins family costs the company. Supporting a whole family for so many years cannot have been easy, with one person working and supporting so many people. "It will eventually be income for Aunt Polly, but not an inheritance for Elizabeth or Callie. They will be on their own and the annuity can be converted to a college or retirement fund."

Marva looks at him, not sure what he is saying, but he tells her that after the injury, his uncle agreed to sell his share of Blevins & Tester Constructors in exchange for a lifetime income. Although it's been tight a few times, it's been much easier than both he and his uncle needing to discuss and make every business decision. A small amount of this information she is aware of, from working for Thomas Rowe, but not to this extent.

Charles's largest financial burden has always been his mother and there is nothing he can do about that, but with the next big building project, which is already beginning, he will have her financial future secured. It may not be all that she wants, but it is at least what she has now and she will just have to live with it. "She is old enough to start drawing her Social Security and that, plus her income from Tester Constructors, will see her as comfortable as I am willing to do for her. She lives in a senior assisted living condominium and I'm not going to pay for any more lavish lifestyle than that. It's better than she ever had when Dad was alive anyway, and she knows it. She cannot drive and she has full time help anytime she needs it, which is becoming more necessary each year."

Marva is startled about what he pays for his mother's living expenses. Living in a condominium and having a full-time caretaker must be a horrendous expense. Although she has only seen his mother the one time, when she was walking into the expensive hotel, she was wearing very expensive clothes, plus carrying a designer handbag.

His next financial disclosure has Marva standing and backing across the room. "I'll pay for any kind of wedding you want, but don't make me go through all this rigamaroll Elizabeth is foisting off on the rest of us. It's an agony I don't think I can endure."

"NOT ON YOUR LIFE BUSTER," she screams at him and runs from the room, getting several steps down the hall before the pain in her leg has her doubled over groaning.

Charles catches her before she hits the floor, picking her up and carrying her down the hall, yelling at her to stop struggling or he will drop her. "BE STILL!" he yells, dumping her in the middle of the bed, breathing from the exertion of carrying her and trying to keep her from falling. "WHAT IS WITH YOU?"

All she can think to say quickly is, "I AM NOT GOING TO MARRY A MAN, JUST BECAUSE I LET HIM KNOCK ME UP." She screams, and then glares at him. He reaches a hand out to her, intending to brush the hair from her face and she slaps his hand away.

"Knock you up? What the hell are you talking about? That's my baby, too, you loony broad. Are your hormones out of whack or something?"

"My hormones? Why you ... YOU STIFF DICK. Your hormones have just as much to do with what's inside me, as mine do." She stands, and he puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME. I'm going to stir my stew," she bats his hand away as she limps across the room.

Charles is two steps behind her, "You WILL marry me Marva. I am not going to allow my child to grow up without a father."

Not stopping her limping gait toward the kitchen, she informs him, speaking over her shoulder. "Well, think about it for one minute, Mister Tester. This baby is inside Marva Preston and that's the name that goes on the birth certificate, whether you are there or not." She bumps her shoulder on the door facing when she turns the corner into the kitchen and stops for a moment, straightens her back and walks to the stove, carefully lifts the lid, and stirs her stew meat, limps to pick up the bowl of water and potatoes and dumps it, and then the carrots into the pot. Then she walks to sit in the kitchen chair and glares at him as he sits in the chair he usually occupies when they eat.

He looks at her a moment and tries to speak calmly, "Marva, tell me what you want. And don't say, "Nothing," I hate it when women complain, but won't say what it's about. Men don't read minds very well."

Taking a deep breath, Marva says, "Well, I'm beginning to think woman don't read minds very well either. You want to tell me what all of that was about?" she asks, pointing across the house toward his study.

"Well, hell, a man can't get married until he knows he can support a wife and family." He points to himself, "At least, this man can't."

"Well, I'm not going to get married just because I'm pregnant," she tells him, just as adamant with her opinion, as he is with his.

"I agree with you. Marriage is too important. It's a lifetime commitment and a horrible thing to do to a child. I lived there too many years to know what is does to a child. Children need parents who will stay together and take care of their children."

She leans toward him and says, "That's why I told Richard I wasn't interested. REMEMBER? You do remember Richard, don't you?"

He stands and says, "Hell yes, I remember Richard, but that's not Richard's child. It's mine and I intend to see that he has a good life."

"Well, SHE just might not turn out to have such a good life if all her mother and father do is, YELL AT EACH OTHER."

Deflated, Charles sits down, "Marva, please. Okay? Please, just have a civil conversation with me."

She folds her arms across her chest and says, "I'm being as civil as I can, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES," she glares at him and would stand and walk out of the room if her leg didn't hurt so much.

Charles looks up at the ceiling and says, very quietly. "If this is a girl, I hope she has at least one-half the spirit her mother has, but please make her just a little more reasonable."

At the top of her voice, she tells him, "I AM NOT BEING UNREASONABLE."

"THEN TELL ME WHY YOU WON'T MARRY ME."

"BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T ASKED."

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO?"

"Oh," she says, startled at how the information surprises her.

"Oh? That's all you can say, "Oh"?"

"Well, yes. Oh." And then because she really is curious, she asks, "Why?"

"Why? Damn, Marva, because you're pregnant, that's why."

"That's not enough of a reason," she tells him, her voice beginning to grow in strength.

He can see the storm building and in an effort to forestall another eruption, he adds, "Because I want to marry you?" But perhaps, he should not have allowed that to come out as a question. "Yes, because I want to marry you," he feels a little better about that statement. In fact he feels good enough to smile.

"Charles, you're crazy. You are absolutely nuts. You still don't know what you want, do you?"

"O-O-O-Oh yes, I know what I want," he nods. "I've just always told you that I know what I don't want, which is also true."

"Alright, then tell me what you want," she pleads, finally leaning back in her chair, but the stubborn look on her face does not soften.

He takes a deep breath, tries to speak calmly, cups his hands together, and holds them out to her, "You see this? It's empty. It never was very much, but it was all I had. It was my love. I'd been holding it for so long it was compacted into a tiny little core that you could hardly see. I gave it to you that morning you asked me to make love to you. I told you I wanted it too much. That was, and is, the absolute truth. I just did not know it at the time. I was scared to death. I let you leave me that day, but the next time I saw you, I was so frightened I had to take you away from here, just to make sure you didn't hurt it. I watched you care for it for three whole days and three whole nights. When I brought you back to town, I was so frightened when I had to let you leave me. But I had to take a chance. I let you go. I even let you take it with you when you went to see another man. That was pretty brave of me, wasn't it?"

By now, tears are running down Marva face, unimpeded. She does nothing to stop them, but she is smiling. Charles is on his knees in front of her, holding her hands, "I didn't know I was in love with you. I thought I was still being your fuck buddy. I thought I was not the kind of man you needed. I think I figured it out when you asked me if I would still have you if you were married to another man. I was so brutally honest with you. I told you the extremes I would go to, just to spend a couple of hours with you. That day you called me and told me you wanted me, is the first day I could breathe without shaking. It took me three months to get everything ready so I could ask you to marry me. That leg of yours just hit me about a month before I was ready for it. I knew you had two more packs of pills and I was just barely going to make it. I was going to ask you to marry me and stop taking those damn pills. I want my wife at home, taking care of our children. I want her to know I love her enough to make sure she is happy. I do not want the mother of our children to leave our home because she thinks she has to help us have a good life. If I can't do that, and take care of my responsibilities, I'm not much of a man."

Through her tears and wonder, Marva asks him, "Charles, why didn't you say anything. All this time I thought ... well, I don't know what I thought, or maybe I didn't think. Yeah, I didn't think, I didn't dare think. I was too afraid it would end or that I would wake up."

"Baby, men are simple people. When they have a job to do, they make their plans and then go do the job. I have a job to do. My job is to take care of you and our baby. When a man wants something he asks for it. He doesn't think about reasons or explanations. He just asks. Are you going to marry me?"

"Of course I am. I have to." She smiles at him, bends her head to rest on his shoulder, puts both of her hands on her belly, and adds "This little girl is going to need a good man for her father." Sitting up straight in her chair, she looks off to the side, so she need not see how her question will be received, Marva asks, "Charles, would you mind, I mean will it bother you if ... I don't want to tell...."

"You want to keep this private for a while?" When she nods, he asks, "Tell me why, before I answer your question."

"It's my brother's wedding. You know, in a few weeks. I don't want to ... and Elizabeth ... she needs a splash ... she's ah ... she needs to be the center ... I mean of attention. And this is our ... it's special, I mean. I don't want to add our ... I'm happy, about ... it ... I don't want ...."

"Marva, are you talking about the baby or getting married?"

"Yes," she nods. Her answer is so faint, her smile so tremulous, he wonders how he ever thought he could share something so precious with another man.

"Okay, for now," he grins, but gives her his agreement. "I will not speak of it, not even to you, if that's what you want."

"No, I want you to tell me ... about how you ... how you feel ... I ... I need it .... But, this is ours, just ours."

"I just have one more question. Do you want a ring?"

"Oh," surprised, she does not know how to answer. "Ah ... not yet, anyway."

He considers telling her that his mother has already been alerted to bring him "The Ring," but fears what Marva will think, if she knows he has told someone he has been planning a marriage, even before he mentioned it to the intended bride. But with enough other things playing on her emotions, he will wait until a calmer time.

- - -

As the date of the wedding nears, the frenzy of the bride increases and her agitated nerves affect anyone near her. The mother-of-the-bride, Polly Blevins, seems to be the only one not additionally nervous, or is such a nervous woman to begin with, that the additional stress does not make her appear any more shaken than normal. The father-of-the-bride, Horace Blevins, continues to assure his daughter that he can handle the walk down the isle, even if he has to ask his doctor for additional pain medication, just for that day.

Marva has known the Blevins family since she was a young girl, Callie being first her neighbor, then her classmate, and then her best friend. In fact, she recalls the injury that disabled Callie's father. Perhaps her memory is that of a child, without specific details of how the injury occurred, but she does recall the man could walk well, before his injury. Now he spends much of his time in a wheelchair, not because he cannot walk, but because it is painful to do so.

However, Elizabeth was always the older sister, which to young girls, is often a person of wonder or worship. That heroine now has clay feet and Marva wonders why she ever thought such a self-indulgent person could have ever been seen as someone to emulate. And, try as hard as she can, Marva cannot ever recall meeting Callie's Aunt Grace. Although Callie tries to assure Marva that she should have seen or met the woman, at least once. Marva cannot bring herself to admit, to Callie, that she has some kind of fear of this woman.

Bryan begins to look tired, often appearing at work in the morning with dark circles under his eyes, so says Karen's now permanent roommate, Cynthia. He does not loose his sense of humor, he just looks tired. He does not loose patience with all that Elizabeth asks of him, but he does have his limits and she seems to have learned the line he will not cross. On more than one occasion, Marva has seen Elizabeth demanding something from someone, and upon looking at Bryan, Elizabeth's demands are tempered to a more pleasant request. Charles has even noticed this change in Elizabeth and repeated his personal opinion that had his own father used some of Bryan's skill in handling his "woman," Grace Tester would have been a happier person, and perhaps even a more attentive mother, instead of such a selfish, manipulative person.

Callie continues her Wednesday luncheon and the Friday after-work Happy Hour gatherings. For some reason, she seems to thrive on the wedding plans and activities, almost acting as if she is directing a stage production, telling people what to do and where to go and always having the answer someone is seeking. Richard is often by her side, frequently with his arm around her, or she stands close enough to him, to touch her hip to his, without being too obvious. If anyone looks at her close enough, they will see her eyes seek his and turn warm as a small smile spreads across her face. Almost every time Richard says something to Marva, he adds a thank you for introducing him to such a fascinating person, as Callie Blevins. It takes no imagination to see that the two have a very special relationship. Marva teases Charles that as soon as Elizabeth's wedding is over he will have to do it all over again because Richard is going to propose marriage to Callie, if he hasn't already done so.

David Wells appears at a pre-wedding function with a different date almost every time, many of the women are known by Bryan, Elizabeth, Callie or Marva. For several weeks he tried to attract one of the other bridesmaids but was not successful, her boyfriend was usually nearby. As the second of the tallest male attendants, he will be standing beside Charles during the ceremony. David usually attends Callie's Friday Happy Hour, often leaving with a different date. Twice he has approached Marva, at one of the pre-wedding events, but only to say a few pleasant words, and returns to the other side of the room, either because of the look on Charles face, or because Marva barely speaks to him, and does not smile. It has taken Marva all of the months, since Bryan's birthday party, to the week before the wedding, to agree with Charles that what she experienced the morning after the birthday party, was rape. It took at least until Marva moved in with Charles for her to completely describe how David held her arms down and shoved his cock into her mouth, preventing her from breathing or calling for help. However, she continues to tell Charles that she did nothing to discourage David's attention, and Charles continues to say the man is a predator, perhaps even a dangerous one, who will take what he can from any woman who does not fight him.