Reconciliation

Finally getting his heart rate under control, he slid out of bed and started stripping the sheets. That was one area where he was not a typical bachelor. He had plenty of spare bedding though he shuddered again at the prospect of using the satin sheets, both for their feel and because they were blue like her dress...his mind shied away from the memory. He found a nice patterned cotton set with a good thread count and dressed the bed in them.

Staggering into this bathroom, he cleaned up, taking care to swab his crotch thoroughly twice. He peered into the mirror at his face. Not good. Sleep was off the menu for now. Instead, he wandered into his living room. Standing alone on the divider of his kitchen nook was a lone bottle of scotch. However, despite the fears of both Sally and his therapist, he didn't bother to look at it. It had no natural allure to him except as a sleep aid. Drinking was something he did when he was trolling for girls at the bar because it was expected. It was not something he did for itself. His father had taught him that lesson over decades.

Instead he wandered over to the corner for one of his more recent acquisitions: a punching bag on a stand. He started wrapping his hands, thankful that he had a first floor corner apartment and that Mrs. McGurty who lived upstairs was almost entirely deaf. Considering his former social schedule, she'd have to be.

Slowly but with increasing speed, he tried to punch the nightmares away...

+

"What's this?" Sally demanded of Reg as he scraped the caulk out from around the cracked window pane. A truck had just pulled up with the name "Dilbert's Heating and Cooling" into Beth's driveway. Reg took the putty knife and pried the two window pane pieces out.

"That is number 12 on the list." Reg said calmly.

"That is YOUR list Reg. I told you that you personally harmed her. You get to personally fix things in her life as much as you're able."

"And what makes you think I have any idea how to fix an oil furnace? People study for months and years to fix those things! I am not about to add three dead bodies from carbon monoxide poisoning to the stuff I've done. So you can let them do their jobs or the deal is off. I'm not about to become a murderer for your principles."

Sally gave him a penetrating look for a short time and finally nodded. "Okay." She acquiesced evenly.

Reg smiled and pressed the new pane of glass into the frame and picked up the putty to secure it in place. His face slackened. "Oh shit!"

Beth's battered Ford Focus pulled into the driveway.

+

"How could you do this to me?" Beth railed at Sally. "HIM...HERE?"

"Calm down. Do you want some chamomile tea? Everything looks better over a cup of tea."

"No thank you. Sally, what is REG doing here?"

"How's your water heater? Water stop coming out brown?" Sally asked, pouring two cups of tea anyway.

"Yes...Reg, Sally. We're talking about Reg." She accepted the cup wordlessly and blew on it before sipping.

"Mmm hmm. Your porch light is working now. Oh...and the drawers on the bathroom vanity are fixed."

"Am I having a solo conversation here?" Beth asked.

"No...oh...hang on." Sally walked to the back door where April was swinging on a lone rope hanging from a tree, her only form of recreation in the yard. Little Jimmy, Beth's son, was standing, tossing a ball up and down in his hands as he stood near Reggie. "Reg...we might as well get her oil change done today. I'll run you down to the store after we finish talking." He just looked at her and nodded.

"Oil change?" Beth had been dreading that little expense. They wanted $50 for an oil change at the Midas. She had been looking around for a coupon, one of the 3,279 things on her personal to-do list, between balancing her checkbook, finding new clothes for Jimmy and buying a vibrator with money she didn't have.

"Reg, for obvious reasons, feels guilty. He wants to make good on the bad stuff he's done. He's been helping out around the house. You've noticed the work, haven't you?"

"Yes." Beth was actually angry at her friends for doing things around the house...but not quite mad enough to actually demand the key back from Sally or say anything. An added dollop of self loathing for her weakness to add to her infidelity. "I didn't know it was him." She spat.

"And if he paid for a contractor, would that make it better? If Jim did it, would that be better?"

"Yes...no...I don't know. I certainly don't want him violating my privacy." Unbidden, her eyes looked outside again.

"I've been monitoring him every second. He's been a perfect gentle...okay, he's Reg but he isn't sneaking or snooping. He comes, he whines, he fixes something. And frankly, he'd RATHER pay someone."

"Why don't you let him then?" Beth pressed.

"He broke it, he bought it. Will money fix what happened to you? You don't help people with money; you help people with sweat. If he just tossed some money at your house, we'd think he was just trying to buy his way back into our good graces. Which do you think he values more, his cash or his time?"

Beth got up and got some more hot water, refilling both their cups and bringing over the cream and sugar. "So I'm some kind of punishment? Take away Reg's free time? This isn't some stupid plan to hook me up with Reg now that...now that...Wes is gone?"

Sally looked at her appraisingly for a while. "I wasn't around then, but from what Jim told me, you and Reg used to be quite an item in high school and college. What happened? Everyone was surprised that the two of you didn't get married."

Beth bit her lip and looked at the table. "I went off to school and he stayed here. We...were sort of on a break. When I got back, he seemed to be running around with every slut in town. Who wants to date someone like that?" Her hands twisted a dishtowel on the table.

Sally analyzed that statement. "I guess all the girls who went out with him." She sipped at her tea. "So...a break?"

"JIMMY...APRIL! Get inside and wash up!" Beth shouted. Sally glanced at the clock. It was just past 4:00. "Thank you for coming over and your intentions. I need to start making dinner for the kids. Please keep him away from here."

Sally shrugged. "Suit yourself." She stood and went to the screened in back porch. She grabbed the frame through one of the tears in the screening to push open the door. "Reg! No oil change today. Let's go to my place for dinner..."

Reg forlornly entered the back porch. "Lasagna?"

"Of course!" Sally gushed. "I'm trying a new recipe just for you. It's vegetarian." Reg's jaw rippled.

Someone tramped up the basement steps in the kitchen to Beth's surprise. She had forgotten the HVAC van in her yard after the shock of seeing Reg in her house. "Okay...we finished up vacuuming out the vents, cleaning the filters, we replaced one of the burners and adjusted the mix ratio. When's the last time that thing was cleaned?" the workman asked. His tone indicated that rounding it to the decade would suffice. The furnace worker held out an invoice. Beth took it and blanched. It was far more than her weekly salary.

Wordlessly, Reg handed the man a credit card and the worker started to fill out the information. "What is this about no oil change?" He knew why. Some masochistic impulse made Reg want to verify the reason.

"She doesn't want our help anymore." Sally shrugged. Reg carefully kept his face neutral. He didn't look at Beth's face. For her part, Beth stared into her cup of tea.

Finally, she flushed with embarrassment and turned back to the back porch, looking out back for her kids to vent some of her feelings. "JIMMY...AP..." she stopped. The kids were at the back of the 'garage' and were pointing and jumping up and down excitedly. "What's going on?" she looked at Sally and Reg.

+

The boxes of the unassembled swing set sat there, the kids excitedly pulling on her arms, thanking her. "This is SO unfair..." Beth said wretchedly.

"Number 15 on the list. And I didn't make the list, so don't blame me." Reg said with a little heat. "I'll just borrow a truck from work and cart it out of here." he offered.

She shot him daggers then glanced at the rolls of screening and pipes lying next to the swing set. She did some mental calculus about handyman fees and quality of life vs. personal emotional discomfort. "Just make sure you stay outside and keep away from my kids..." she said resignedly. She had failed her marriage. She wouldn't fail her kids if it was in her power. But she still fought a surge of shame at giving in to this impulse.

+

Man makes plans and God laughs. Actually, at this point, Reggie wanted to start screaming at these man made plans! He had bought an Eastern Jungle Gym Fantasy Swing Set 3. The house Beth lived in had absolutely NOTHING as far as the eye could see around these little houses for the kids to play on and memories of days gone by had caused him to splurge a bit more than he anticipated in the swing set department. Okay...a LOT more!

It was a swing set. He had almost laughed at the salesman when he strongly suggested that they get an installer...and Reg had been shocked at the price they were asking for installation. How hard could it be? He found out.

It was 'two slides ,a spiral slide, two club houses, a rock wall, a tire swing, a gliding horse, monkey bars, two towers and a set of rings' hard. The installation manual looked like a phone book. He had never had a swing set like this when he was a kid...and now he was in the unenviable position of putting one together. Sally's diktats and his own mulish stubborn pride both conspired to assure that he was facing this dragon alone. He was tired of not having control of his life. This swing was his bitch! Though if he was honest with himself, he would probably have had a better shot at the furnace.

He used his ratchet set to fix one side of crossbar AA62431#@%&^ muther fucker on one end of the frame. Finally tightening it down solidly, he went over to attach the other side.

The 'other side' was hanging 4 inches short of the other brace. He'd used the wrong part...AGAIN!

He threw his ratchet on the ground and started kicking at the cardboard box, cursing. A girlish giggle stopped him.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw April watching him. "You said a bad word, Uncle...I mean Mr. Reggie. Mommy says 'm not supposed to call you Uncle any more."

"Hi April. That's okay. You aren't supposed to be outside when I'm working?" He made the sentence a bit of a question. "Where's Jimmy?"

"It's okay. Mommy is cleaning up the house." Her face split into a huge grin. "Daddy is coming home...I mean here! We're going to the zoo!" Her face GLOWED at the prospect. Her nose scrunched into girlish disgust. "Jimmy is playing his stupid video games."

"Wes is coming here?" Reg's eyes bugged out. He looked around the yard. There was a quarter built swing, but nothing that said 'Reg'. He needed to get out of here! 'Shi....eeez!" Another giggle. He started gathering up his tools quickly. "Honey, you need to go inside real quick and draw a picture or something for your dad while I get things cleaned up and put away. Okay?"

"Yay! Picture!" She ran across the grass to the newly repaired screened in back porch.

Reg lifted up his tool box and put it in the tiny trunk of his Mustang. He felt the wind shift back and forth. He looked at the storm clouds on the horizon with a sense of foreboding. The day didn't look good for the zoo already...

+

"No Wes! You can't do this!" Beth wanted to scream into the phone, but she tried valiantly to keep her voice low.

Reg entered her house. He needed to use the toilet before he left and he caught the tail end of the conversation.

"One day! Just one day! I don't care how far behind you are on your work. I...just shut up a minute...they've been looking forward to this for the last three days! What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to tell them? My boss has overtime scheduled for me too! Tell him you have a family emergency."

Beth saw Reg standing there, gave him a glare and wandered into her bedroom and slammed the door. "Don't you put this on me! This isn't a trap to have you served. They are your CHILDREN." Came muffled through the door.

The living room was only three steps into the house. The atmosphere in the house felt like a morgue. Jimmy sat there, a video zombie, the only thing moving were his fingers. The screen showed an armored character jump into action...and die. "Darn it." Jimmy whispered. Once again he restarted the game...and died in 5 seconds. "Darn it." His face was a blank mask. His eyes were stridently focused on the screen, trying desperately to ignore all outside stimuli, particularly the conversation his mom was having.

April sat at the low coffee table. There was a crayon drawing in front of her with a lawn, some smiling oval figures in a line next to some long necked yellow blob. She picked up her red crayon and started to make a round circle in the sky...then she grabbed the crayon in her fist and started angrily making long lines across the people on the page past the edges onto the coffee table as well, her face intent and scrunched up, a far cry from what it had looked like when she told Reg about the zoo trip.

"Reg..." Mr. Perry sat on the sofa next to his son, who was obsessively focused on the television in front of him, the NES controller gripped tightly. Mr. Perry frowned slightly. "Give the game a rest. I got something important to tell you."

Heaving a deep sigh, Reggie allowed Simon Belmont's whip to stop flashing and allowed the ghosts to kill him. The NES system was his birthday bribe this year. So he didn't ask his dad questions. So he believed the lies.

"Son...your mother called...she can't make it again this year for Christmas, but she said she'd send you a couple of presents. She's sorry but she couldn't get away. It's her overseas job..." His father looked at him intently, gauging his reaction.

Reg fought his inner desires. He wanted to scream at his father. He wanted to curse at him for his weakness and his lies. He didn't know how to deal with this though at this age. Last year, he'd gotten a Transformer 'from mom'. But one block over, Wayne Hannigan's trash had an empty Transformer box...and Wayne didn't get a Transformer that Christmas. He would sooner believe that Santa gave him a present than his long absent mother. Plus there were all those half heard conversations where 'run off' and 'abandonment' figured prominently at the family picnics when they thought he couldn't hear.

Instead he said in monotone "That's good to know. Thanks Dad." They sat looking at each other several more seconds. "I hope..." Reg had to pause and take a breath "I hope she's doing well wherever she is. Maybe next time she can talk to me on the phone."

His father winced not foreseeing this obvious request. "Well...you know how expensive overseas calls are...and with the time changes, your busy schedule... she never knows when you're around. She...she still cares about you. She's just..." he trailed off.

"Yeah...'just'... Can I go back to my game, Dad?" Reg was desperate for the zen emptiness that video games brought him. Where things were bright and shiny and clearly defined. Where mothers never left. They might die, but they didn't leave.

Thankful for the reprieve, his Dad nodded briskly. "Sure Reg." He got up to go to the garage and his stashed bottle that he didn't know Reg knew about. He never got drunk...but sometimes he needed to soften the world a bit and this topic of conversation was always stressful to him.

Reg waited until he was gone and restarted his game. He shouldn't have bothered. He played one of the worst sessions he ever had on Castlevania. It would have helped if he didn't need to wipe his eyes every few seconds or so.

Reg pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead and breathed deeply as he fought memories of the past. He took three steps to her bedroom door and knocked. He heard "Hi...Gloria? Is Mr. Benchly in? Okay...I'll hold..." Without waiting for a response, he opened the door. Beth was on the phone looking at him as he came in.

"So he isn't making it?" Reg asked.

"Shhh!" She hissed at him.

"They're kids, they're not stupid. And besides, when he doesn't show up, they'll know then. Is he making it?" he asked again pointedly.

She hesitated and shook her head. "I have to get off work..."

Reg turned his head. "Kids! How would you guys like to go to COSI? You can get ice cream." He knew there was no way she'd agree to letting her kids go so he decided to deny her the choice.

"What? No! They can't go with YOU. Their father..."

"Is gone! He's not here. Please..." a note of pleading entered his voice. "You can't leave them here to stew on this. You need to...distract them. Otherwise, they'll just...it will hurt them all day. Longer. I know...I REALLY KNOW what they're going through. It's better if they can forget. You can't miss work and you probably can't get a babysitter quickly. Just this one time. I'm not going to hurt them. You can't...please let me do this!"

Jimmy walked in, his face still closed and intent. "Daddy isn't making it, is he?" At the shake of his mom's head, he sighed. "I'd like to go to COSI."

"What's COSI?" April asked, her finger stuck in her mouth, a habit that Beth had thought they had already conquered.

"It's this cool science museum. They have electrical stuff, and a car on a teeter totter that you can lift by yourself and rats that play basketball..." as he started recounting some of the things he'd heard from his friends, Jimmy's voice started to take on a bit of enthusiasm

Anguish crossed Beth's face. "They can go." There was a moderate cheer from the kids. Reg turned to go. "Wait." She waited with the phone pressed to her ear. "Hi...Mr. Benchly...did you want me to bring in some bagels or doughnuts for the group? Okay...see you in a few." She hung up and started studiously digging into her purse. She withdrew a couple of twenties, money she could ill afford and pressed it into his hand. He opened his mouth, but shut it at her glare and accepted the money.

He was withdrawing his hand when she suddenly grabbed it, the first physical contact between the two of them since That Night. She looked him in the eye. "Reg...don't bond with them. They aren't yours."

He surprisingly looked right back. "They should have been."

+

COSI was a success.

+

Reg finished running the rope around the stakes he had put into the perimeter of the yard. Walking carefully, he stepped gently on the sod as he ran a hose out to the middle of the yard, setting up the sprinkler carefully. New sod took some time to set properly according to the internet. He had manured and rototilled the soil underneath to give the sod a chance to put down some deep roots. The rope was to remind Jimmy and April not to run on it while it was still in a fragile state. He'd get the back done with his next paycheck. He found he was whistling.

Taking a large knife, he started carving the remaining squares of sod to fit into the curves of the walk. Occasionally, the breeze pushed some droplets from the cascading water onto his back. He looked with a sense of accomplishment at the two new trees in the front. He'd have to remember later to disconnect the hose and water their root balls deeply so they flourished.

He heard the slam of the screen door as the spring on the ancient assembly yanked it back closed and looked over his shoulder. Off handedly, he thought it was time to try and price a new door. He wasn't sure if he'd get better service at Roush or one of the big box stores.

Beth was there with a guarded expression on her face. She walked to the edge of the step and squatted in her sundress, watching him. He flashed her a smile and carved another clump of grass off the square and set it firmly in place. He was feeling good enough today to try another crack at that goddamn swing set again. The kids had continued to bug him about it and even Beth had made a joke once.