BDVFREE

"Excuse me." When I vomit spectacularly into the bag thing, it tastes like alfoil and cleaning products. The exertion on my chest tears at me with pain.

"Out now. Everyone out." Someone barks and I close my eyes as warmth spreads up my arm and gently through me.

When I wake later, it's dark outside and Constance is smiling at me and rubbing my cheek.

"Hi." She smiles at me.

"Hi, yourself."

"How's the pain?"

"Two out of five stars. Would not recommend."

"You sound cheeky. Are you feeling a little better?"

"Relieved. Still hurts a lot to talk."

"You got shot in the lung, silly. It's probably supposed to hurt."

"Your hands?"

"Okay."

"Thanks. We'd probably all be dead-"

"Don't fuss. I just did what you said."

"What?"

"Well, you rescued Mel. Then you rescued me again, so I saddled up my silly pony and rescued you right on back. Besides, no-one fucks with MY family."

"Penny is okay? I was so..."

"She's with Mum and Dad at their motel. The cops are paying for it while they have the house repaired and cleaned. She didn't want to leave. She's been really frightened for you. She said it reminded her of when she found me that time and had to get you to help. Here. She made you this."

She hands me a folded sheet of A4 paper that is made to look like a card. On the front is a little house with a stick figure family drawn on the front. Inside she has written in her best handwriting, "Get well Daddy Shackleton. I love you. From, Penny Shackleton. PS. Can I have a sister please."

"Ha. I'd get right on it, but the nurses would probably..."

"Shh..." She silences me with a kiss. "Rest. Get well. You have a wedding to get to in seven weeks."

~*~

"Nah. No more for the big kid." Terry laughs as Dan tries to fill Connie's glass. Dan looks up to Connie for direction and laughs out loud when Terry says, "A married woman needs to learn to hold her liquor properly... And her licker only has one ear for her to hold on to."

"The Dad joke is strong in this one." Cousin Dan groans. Dan and Sadie were Connie's attendants. Francis and Derek were my groomsmen. Connie and Penny were delivered by Terry in 'Siri-too' and the lawns are speckled with campers and RV's and happy family.

Sadie caught the bouquet and spent the rest of the night dancing with my sister Susan's eldest, Michael who just turned twenty-four. Dan has been doing his best to interest Georgia, but she's far too happily married to Paul who didn't make the trip so that he could stay back home with their teenage kids. Right now, Dan's dancing with Penny who looks devastatingly cute in her little white flower girl dress.

Terry taps Winnie on the shoulder and nods to the dance floor. Winnie giggles like she's still a teen at a country dance. Her blush is beautiful as Terry whispers in her ear.

"No regrets?" My bride asks me gently.

"Er... I miss my cat." I tell her, thinking of old Mr Biggles. "I can't believe the sick bastards killed my cat."

"I got all the pussy you need as soon as we can fuck this mob off." She growls in my ear. "No spots?"

"No. Been clear for days now. I think it was the antibiotics and hospital brought it on."

"Probably just the stress, honey."

It's been seven weeks since I was shot. Eight weeks since we've made love. One week since I was released with strict instructions for physio and so on. Five days, since Connie's flare up finished and forty-eight hours since my own skin healed.

"Probably."

We tuck 'not so little anymore' Penny into her single in our guest room. The little lady is dead to the world with a smile still stretched on her face. She still wears the nametag that she insisted on having made for the day. "Penny Shackleton".

Tomorrow we take a taxi to the airport and board a plane which will ultimately land us in America. Connie's always wanted to visit the southern states. I've always had a thing for good blues and whiskey. Penny wants to see a 'baby crocodile' as she calls alligators. Tonight though...

"Here. Help me a moment hubby." Connie has a plain white sheet and is stretching it over the floor. "Get that paint for me."

"What are you up to?" I ask handing it to her.

"Watch."

She squeezes some bright red acrylic paint into a saucer and then rolls the backs of her hands in it. Then she flips the bird with both hands and presses the painted knuckles and fingers against the white fabric. I laugh at the twin 'fingers' on the sheet and then she paints a smiley face between them.

"Come on. It's customary to hang the bloodied bed sheet out the window." She giggles after washing her hands.

She smiles and beckons me, after proudly draping the graffitied sheet over the veranda rails. "Now come on. Let me wash my hand and then let's go make a proper mess of the other sheet."

No-one has ever held me in this spot. I've fucked a bunch. I've never been this close to someone though. It's probably sappy and romantic but when I'm inside her like this, it's precious. Maybe it's because the Herpes makes this union not quite so spontaneous anymore. Maybe it's because I've finally found that something more than ordinary and let my heart open itself fully.

Maybe it's just because we fuck really good together.

In no time at all she collapses down upon me and leaks messily around me. Our funk fills the room and my senses, and she nips along my chin in breathy little squeaks. "Hey. Hubby."

She squelches off me and fumbles near the bed for a towel.

"Look." She seems a little shy.

"What?" I'm good with auto parts but women are a mystery to me.

"Look, we haven't spoken about it, but I really want another baby."

"Just the one?" I try and sound disappointed.

"So," She kind of frowns, "My periods finished while you were in hospital. It's a bit naughty, but I hoped you'd say yes and well... I didn't start taking the pill again."

"So just now? We could have..."

"Probably not. It will be a week or so before I ovulate." She grins like a cat at a bowl of cream.

"Maybe we should practice a bit, so we get it right when that happens."

We lie together huffing in the afterglow, slowly knowing our dreams coalescing around us. We've dreamed of a moment of peace, a future, an escape from the storm of her history with Roger. And here we are. The clouds are parting. The rainbow is forming. Her prayer's to be DV free are manifesting. I'm still not a massive fan of God but he seems to be pulling his weight a bit more lately.

"Thank you." I kiss her happy lips. "I don't know if we should hang these sheets out. We've made a mess of them alright. I wasn't a virgin, but that was the first time I've ever given someone my whole future."

"Me too." She kisses me back. "You sappy wanker."

~*~

Penelope Priscilla Shackleton turned eighteen last month. Her sister Sarah Louise turned ten the month before and little Erny, Ernest Winston will tell you proudly that he is seven and don't forget the half. We're out at Terry and Winnie's place as we usually are for any big family occasions.

It's Christmas 2025, but lingering Covid outbreaks, means some of the usual relations are stuck with border lockdowns. Cousin Sadie and Michael for example are living in Victoria now with their couple of kids and despite the fact that they live quite rurally, away from a recent hot spot, our Queensland borders are still closed to them. We're hoping for an Easter catch up. Sadie is due in February.

It's with an odd mix of pride and fatherly concern, that I watch Penny's boyfriend Steven walk with her amid our family. He's a nice enough kid. He's tall. A good inch or so taller than me. He plays football for the local club. There are stories that he can be a little bit wild and a bit of a lady's man, but he seems to be good to Penny. She is smitten in any case so objecting to him would just push them closer together. Connie tells me often, to relax; that Penny's a big girl and can look after herself.

Winnie openly hates the young man. She knows the boy's grandfather and contests that apples don't fall far from trees and won't elaborate. Winnie is scowling beside Connie and I, and mumbles something about 'eye's like a wolf'.

"Oh hush, Mum. She's in love. Let her be."

"He'll show his true colours soon enough. Mark my words, Constance Catherine Bol- umm, Shackleton. Ha, I was trying to be all stern then too. We've all kissed our share of frogs before we found our prince, I suppose."

"In any case, she's a big girl. She's on the pill. I wish I'd been as world wise as her at that age." My lovely wife tells her.

"Haha. You were ever the romantic. Always saw the best in people and gave them too many chances."

"Where do think they're heading?" Connie asks me, smirking with a raised eyebrow.

Penny is pulling Steven along by the hand toward the hay shed. They disappear behind the visitor's cars which traditionally park nearby it. Moments later a flushed looking Steven runs back towards us.

"Quickly, some man is bothering Penny. She said to come and get you, Blue."

I take off at a run, followed by Connie and Terry. At the cars, I instantly recognise Roger. He's fatter, but still the angry looking arsehole he always was.

"Hoy! Leave her the fuck alone. What the fuck are you doing here anyway? Shouldn't you be sucking dick in a cell?" It's a bit rude, but I'm a little upset.

"Fuck you. I was her father. Is it too much to ask at Christmas to be able to see her?"

"You were never my father." Penny screams in his face.

"You called me Dad. I was like a father to you for most of your life. You never had a real one."

"Like a father?" She is so angry. We worked hard with her when she was little to help her get her frustration out, perhaps a little too well. "You were like a father but never actually a father. You were like a father who put my mother in hospital, like a father who made me hide in my room out of fear. Like a father who broke her ribs when she enrolled me as a Boland. You were like a father who almost fucking killed her, you fucking arsehole. You want to know what? I don't know who my real father is, but I sure as shit have a real fucking Dad now."

"Come on Penny, I just wanted to say Happy Christmas and apologise to your Mum. I only got out a few weeks ago. Fuck... This isn't what I wanted. I've done so much counselling... What about a little Christmas spirit?"

"Christmas spirit? Here, how's this for Christmas spirit." Beside me, Connie bursts into laughter that imitates my own guffaws as we watch Penny deliver a perfect snap kick to his testicles and shout, "Jingle Bells, Arsehole!"

Roger crumples to the grass clutching his nuts and rolling.

"Aw, good on him." Terry says, "Watering the lawn for me. That's definitely a little Christmas spirit. How about you help me get him into his sleigh, Son?"

Terry and I drag the paralysed man to his beat-up commodore and dump him in the front seat.

Constance leans in the passenger side window and tells her very ex-husband. "I'll have a new order on you by the end of tomorrow. If you bother any of us ever again, I'll show you some of the moves I've learned. Now kindly fuck off out of my life forever, you waste of fucking DNA."

As we stand and watch him drive back down the driveway toward the gate, Penny puts her arm around her mother's shoulders and says, "Ooh... Damn, that felt good. I'm... Oh damn..."

"Ahuh." My lovely wife growls. "You got the guest room. I got the hayshed. Not as far to walk."

"Oh lordy, come on kids." Winnie laughs and tells Erny and Sarah, "Ice-cream and jelly time, come on."

~*~

Thanks.

If you have made it this far and wish to vote or comment, please hate strongly. Hate every perpetrator that brings violence where there should only be love. Leave Connie a few stars though please, she deserves them even if my telling of her story doesn't quite do her bravery justice.

Be kind to one another. You never know, you might just be the light in someone's darkness.

Happy holidays.

Rollinbones.