Miracle Man

"Yeah right," I said. "I remember your first words to me. They were really nice. They told me just how much you like me. Remember, I don't have time to waste on transients. That must be the new slang for I really like you."

"It is," she said, starting to cry. "It means for the first time in my God damned life I ran into a guy that I didn't want to just leave after the summer. I was so afraid that you'd only be here for a few days and then leave me. So I wanted to make sure that you knew that I didn't care if you stayed or not."

I couldn't tell if she was lying or not.

"Robert, no matter what happens, you and I are going to end up together. Everyone knows it. So we may as well just fuck and get it over with."

"Let's not and say we did," I said. I grabbed a blanket and headed for my other room. She quickly got up and followed me.

"If you're going to be in here, then I'll take the other room," I said. "I'd really rather sleep in there. This is the room that you proved how much you like me by fucking two other guys."

"The boys said that you weren't there for long," she said. Embarrassment and shock were all over her face. "How long were you there?"

"Not long," I said. "I'd been there for maybe about five or ten minutes before I fell."

"So you heard me..." she asked. The embarrassment on her face increased and then she put it behind her. "Good, so you know how I feel about you for real then," she smirked.

"I know you're probably hurt and upset about what you saw, but Robbie, I'm like my mom. Has she ever told you her version of the fairy tale saying? You have to fuck a few frogs before you find your prince. Robbie I've fucked my last frog. But what happened with the boys was probably your fault. Remember when you told Fanny how pretty you think I am? If you'd been like most men and just fucked me when I started following you around we might even be married by now. But you just kept sending me back to my room with my pussy dripping and my panties wet. What was I supposed to do?"

"Exactly what you did," I said. "Go fuck two other guys. So If I go out tomorrow and fuck Fanny's boney ass that would be like me saying that I like you too, right?" I asked.

She just got up and left the bunkhouse, but that wasn't the end. It was barely the beginning. She started dropping what can't even be called hints. At breakfast, she rearranged the chairs so we were sitting next to each to each other and moved her chair so close to mine that we were rubbing elbows. When I tried to work, she showed up wearing the most revealing things she could manage and managed to bend and lean near me every chance she got.

Everything she said had two meanings and one of them was always sexual. Who knows what might've happened if it hadn't been for Grandma.

Grandma changed everything. I remember it so well. Over the time that I'd been there, I'd put my past behind me. I had friends from the surrounding area that came to ask me questions about maintaining machines or vehicles that I'd either fixed or given them advice on. I also had a few that just came to talk. There were even a few women around my age who regularly came out just to smile at me.

I also had a family of sorts in the people who lived and worked on the farm. Some of my most pleasant memories of those early days there were after dinner, sitting on the porch listening to Dan and Betty talk about their early days together. Just seeing the two of them, well into their golden years and still so damn much in love was just addictive. I hoped that someday I could be like them.

Anyway, one morning, in that nasty period between breakfast and lunch, I was so hungry that I decided I couldn't wait for Rosa's massive lunch spread. I thought that maybe just a sandwich or some chips would tide me over so I headed into the house. As I headed for the kitchen, Grandma called me into the living room where she was watching television.

"So what's going on between you and my granddaughter?" she asked me point blank.

"Nothing ma'am," I said quickly.

"I already know that," she said. "What I don't know is why?" I nervously shrugged my shoulders.

"Maybe we aren't each other's type," I said sheepishly.

"Oh you're her type," she said. "You're breathing and you've got a dick. So why isn't she your type? She's pretty. She's got a really nice body. Have you seen her tits?"

"Uhm not up close ma'am," I said, wishing that we were talking about anything else under the sun. The women in this family were direct if anything. Grandma was probably where it all came from. She kept looking at me as if she was reading me like a book.

"What did she do?" she asked. "She must've done something to really turn you off."

"Nothing ma'am," I said.

"Son, you're trying to sell horseshit to a rider," she said. Then she stiffened suddenly. "You pissed off that little bitch Fanny a couple of times on Katie's behalf so you must have liked her at least a little bit at one time. Katie has been following you around like a dog in heat lately and you avoid her like she has syphilis...Oh my..."

"What?" I asked.

"For a guy your age, you're very polite, you always have been. That was one of the first things we laughed at when you first got here. Around here we kind of lay back and take it easy, we're less formal with everything. It's not like our morals are lax, but until you get married you're just not bound to one person. On the other hand once you're hitched, that's it. You saw Katie with another guy didn't you?"

I tried not to show anything. But that old woman was reading me like a book. "Robbie, Katie has always been a free spirit. Most of what she does around here is just to scratch her itch, if you know what I mean. It's something most healthy young people do. Since you ain't left the farm for more than ten minutes since you got here, you had to have caught her here on the farm so which guy was it? It had to be either Joe or Greg.

"Both," I said. I hadn't meant to say anything but it just slipped out.

"At the same time?" she said. Then she just shook her head. "I'd like to have seen that. How'd they..." Then realizing what she'd said she put her hand over her mouth.

"Honey, you can't let things like that color your whole impression of a person. Right now you're avoiding that girl and it's killing her. She ain't used to having someone she likes just outright dismiss her. And she really likes you. It may even be deeper than like, it's scary. For that girl's whole life I've never seen her this miserable about anything. You have to loosen up some. I can tell you're a good guy. You kind of remind me of him..." She pointed at the screen on her TV. My eyes bugged out and I was filled with a rage that I thought I'd put behind me.

"I have to watch this with the sound turned down because if I listen to him talk, that man will have me sending him my social security checks in a heartbeat," she blathered on. "You're a lot like him. They call him the Miracle Man because he's always doing a lot of miracles in the Lord's name and bringing people to God."

"I'm nothing like that fucker," I said louder than I intended. "He's the reason my life is so messed up now." I was yelling by then. I just turned and ran out of the house.

My head was aching and my heart was pounding. Everything I looked at was covered in a red haze. I headed for the barn, my refuge away from everything. The first thing I noticed was my Mustang. The car had a lot of scratches on it. It really needed a paint job. A set of rims might be nice too, but other than that she was ready to go. I'd driven the car a few times to test it. It was fast and it was loud. I'd never been much of a fan of any particular vehicle. As a mechanic I worked on all of them. Mechanically the similarities between vehicles by far outweighed the differences. But this car was something special.

"Robbie, are you okay?" asked Dan, bringing me out of my reflection. As he came closer to me his face changed. Maybe it was just a reaction to what he saw in me.

"Do you want to talk about it yet?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Robbie, sometimes the best way to get something that's bothering you out is to tell someone about it. I promise you that I'll just listen. I won't judge you and I won't offer an opinion unless you ask for it. But this is really bothering you. Is this about what you were carrying all of that anger around for when I first picked you up?"

I nodded.

"I thought you'd gotten over that, but I guess I was just being hopeful. I think that I was hoping you'd become happy here and had just put all of that behind you," he said.

"It's kind of like when you first got here," I said. "Sometimes you just have to go back and settle things."

"You didn't kill anybody did you?" he asked.

"You really want to hear this don't you?" I laughed.

"Yup," he said. "Whatever you tell me won't leave the barn. I promise."

"Okay," I said. "I'm married...Well not really any more. I married my high-school sweetheart a few days after we turned eighteen. We hadn't really gone very far until we got married. Both of our families were kind of old fashioned. We just didn't believe in having sex before you got married. It's not like we thought it was a crime or something but it just wasn't something WE did. Of course lots of guys went out and met girls and screwed them and just never mentioned it. I guess it's pretty hard to prove that it's not a guy's first time."

"But I wasn't one of those guys. From the very first second that Heather and I met, I knew that she was the one for me. So we waited. I think that's part of the reason why we got married so young. Our hormones were about to rip us in half, morals be damned. So we went to the preacher. Our families were totally against it. Even they were sure that we were just too young. So I got a job and we both saved every penny we could get and we just bought a license and a civil ceremony and ran away together."

"We did after a year or so go back to our parents and let them see that they'd been wrong. We'd been married and survived on our own without their help or their input for a year. I guess it was enough to show them that we loved each other and were mature enough to know what we were doing."

"The sex was great. We did and tried everything we could read about or hear about anywhere. After six years we were still, or so I thought madly in love with each other. I knew that we had to struggle to keep food on the table and keep the bills paid, but from what I've heard every young couple goes through that. It didn't bother me much. All of my married guy friends were often telling me about living on soup for months at a time and things had never been that bad for Heather and me."

"Sure we didn't have cable TV or a TV at all for that matter. But shit, we watched all of the TV shows we wanted on Hulu. And we spent a lot of our time talking to each other and playing games together anyway, that is when we weren't in bed. So again, our situation didn't really bother me. But apparently it bothered Heather. I guess she was tired of seeing the women she worked with and all of the nice things a lot of them had and she wanted some of those things for herself. "

"I was just totally blindsided when I caught her screwing her boss. What made it worse was when she got home and we started arguing about it. She somehow expected me to just look the other way. I guess she looked at it like it was some kind of bonus plan. She kept saying stupid things like it had nothing to do with us and she was just doing it to help us get ahead. I didn't see it that way, but it told me a lot. Like maybe our parents had been right all along, because the two of us really didn't feel the same way about each other."

"In my case, I loved her far too much to ever share her with anyone else. Just seeing her boss, sticking his tiny wrinkled dick in her, hurt me. But to her it was less than nothing. I guess in my mind that was the end of things. I just wanted to get away from there and move on. I packed my truck. All I wanted was my clothes and my tools. I left her everything else that we had. I was sure that her boss would pay for a divorce for us so he could fuck her and not have to worry about me. I'd taken some pictures of them with my phone's camera and I guess that bothered him."

"He had three of his security goons pick me up and bring me back to his office. He tried to buy me off. When I said no to that he had them take my phone and erase the pictures. That meant that I had no proof of anything anymore, at least that's what he thought."

"So my mom bugging you about Katie, brought up thoughts of your wife?" he asked. "Let me guess, your wife is a blond too?"

"No," I said. "Katie and my wife are nothing alike. Katie is far prettier than Heather would be on her best day. In fact Katie, covered in horse poop, fresh from mucking out the stables looks better than Heather does dressed up in her best." I thought I heard something behind us after saying that. Both Dan and I looked around and didn't see anything.

"Then what got you so pissed?" he asked.

"When Grandma said I was just like Jimmy Hubbard," I said. "I guess I need to apologize to her."

"Why would saying you're like Jimmy Hubbard piss you off? Are you from a different denomination?" he asked. "Does your church have different beliefs than his?"

"I don't really go to church," I said. "Jimmy Hubbard, the Miracle Man IS my ex-wife's boss."

"Oh shit!" said Dan. "Grandma loves that bastard."

"Well don't tell her any different on my account. I really don't want everyone to know that he worked one of his miracles on my wife," I sneered.

"I won't tell a soul," he said. "But you can't just keep carrying this anger around with you. Maybe you need to talk to someone professional about this."

"I just did," I said. "I spoke to you. But you're right I do need to go back there and take care of my business, just like you did. So I can move forward with my life and stop looking back. Or at least so that looking back can't make me this angry."

"And don't worry," he said. "I won't tell a soul about this conversation, not even Betty."

"Dan you have to tell Betty. It's not good to keep secrets from your wife," I said. He just smiled and nodded his head.

"But I won't tell anyone else," he said.

"Neither will I," said Katie standing up from behind the toolbox she was hiding behind.

* * * * * *

Heather

The saddest day I can remember was the day I loaded up Robbie's truck and left our little house. I had thoroughly ruined so many lives with what I'd done. My life was ruined. My baby's life would probably never be the way it could have been. I had hurt Robbie far more than I'd ever thought possible and even Rhonda, a woman who by all rights should have hated me was forced to tap dance to secure her own future and that of her child.

Jimmy, who, more than anyone except me was responsible for this whole situation, was untouched by it all. That was just unfair. I lost my husband, my job and now my home, while Jimmy was already screwing another woman who was even younger than me. It just seems like some of the shit that splattered on me should have landed on him too.

More than anything else, though, this situation had changed my beliefs. There had to be some kind of power controlling us. I honestly believed that now. Too many random events had to line up just right to ruin my life. My car had to break down or none of this would have happened. During the time that my car was in the shop, the garage had to be out of the parts needed to fix it or nothing would have happened. Robbie had to finish a repair early and his boss had to decide to let him go home early or nothing would have happened.

I also had to forget to lock the door or Robbie couldn't have just walked in. There were also hundreds of other insignificant details that all had to line up just right in order to ruin my life. And because of all of those seemingly unrelated small details, I lost the love of the only man I'd ever loved and my baby would probably grow up without ever knowing its father.

I'd tried calling home and talking to my mother. That had gone terribly wrong. My parents are very old fashioned. I'd asked her if I could come home to live for a while and the first thing she asked me was what Robbie had done. "Did he beat you?" she asked. "Or is he drinking?"

"Mom Robbie didn't do anything?" I told her.

"Put him on the phone right now," she said.

"Mom he isn't here and he didn't do anything wrong," I said. I told her I was pregnant.

"Then you're fine," she said. "Most pregnant women hate their husbands at one time or another. You should have heard some of the things I said about your father when I was pregnant with you. Just remember that if you didn't love him, none of this would have happened."

"But mom, I'm really in trouble," I said.

"What kind of trouble?" she asked. I just told her the whole story. I figured that sooner or later it was going to come out anyway. So I told her about the way that Robbie and I struggled and she laughed about it. She told me that when she and my dad were first married, they were older than Robbie and I are now and they had to live in her dad's basement until they could afford a house. She told me that Robbie and I were doing better than a lot of couples and to stop wishing for things that my neighbors had and to be glad of the things that I had.

Then I told her about what I'd been doing with Jimmy and how hurt and upset Robbie had gotten and how he left me. I told her that more than anything else I wished I could find Robbie and tell him about the baby but I had no idea of where to even look. I also told her that I hadn't seen Robbie since Jimmy's security men came and took him so Jimmy could talk Robbie into not telling anyone what we'd been doing. I wasn't even sure now that they hadn't just killed Robbie. Robbie wouldn't have just ran off and left his truck and all of his clothes behind. It just seemed fishy. Then I noticed that my mom had hung up the phone on me. I tried calling her back and my dad answered the phone.

He asked who I was. I laughed and said that I was his daughter. He told me they didn't have a daughter anymore. My mom did send me a message through friends. She just said that she couldn't believe the fruit of her loins would lead a man of the cloth down the wrong path but she'd pray for me.

That went a long way towards teaching me about love. I doubted that love really existed. I mean it can't if you look at my situation. I was sure in my heart that I love Robbie, yet I'd cheated on him and had sex with another man for a few conveniences. Robbie supposedly loved me, but he'd left me because apparently the thought of me having meaningless sex with someone else hurt him. Maybe he could say that he loved me too much to share me. But if he loved me so damned much, why couldn't he forgive me. Where is all of that bullshit about how he'd do anything for me? Apparently anything doesn't include forgiving me for making what I can clearly see is a mistake. Jimmy told me he loved me several times. I knew that he was lying though. He only said it while we were fucking.

Then there's the love of a parent for their child. Apparently that runs out when the child does something that runs afoul of the parent's beliefs and morals. Anyway, I'm alone now. I have no idea what I'm going to next. In a way it still felt like Robbie was out there looking out for us. The only way I'd made it this far was by selling his tools. I was sure that he wouldn't have minded. If it meant making me and his baby comfortable he'd probably have done it himself. If there really was something up there or out there looking out for us I hoped that it would somehow bring Robbie back to me.

As I got into the truck and pulled out of the driveway, it almost ended right there. I'd taken one last look back at my little house, it was so hard to just drive away from it after all of the improvements and things that Jimmy and I had done to it over the past six years, but I couldn't pay the mortgage and they were foreclosing on us. I suppose I could have waited and hoped against hope that Robbie would come back. But with no electricity, no running water and me pregnant, it just didn't seem like a good thing to do.