Sincere Apology

He managed to toss me off the bed.

"You crazy bitch!" he shouted, his hands searching out the searing lines of agony I had gouged on his back and his ass.

I grabbed my clothes and ran out the door. I stood outside under the awning, naked to the world, clutching my pants and shirt to me like armor.

"You crazy fucking bitch!" He really had a limited vocabulary for a psychotherapist.

I started to laugh. I couldn't control it and started to laugh so hard I was sobbing. The expert had called me crazy.

It was official.

**********

Mia

I finally got back to what I still called home after walking from the motel to the hospital parking lot. Several cars passed and honked, recognizing me.

That was rich with irony, because I didn't recognize me.

I drove home and waited for Noah to come out. Reliable old Noah asked me where I had been. Asked me as though he really cared.

You should have seen the look on his face when I told him his little wifey had been out getting fucked.

That should do it for us.

I left that house for good and went to stay with my sister.

*********

Betsy

I stood with my mouth open like an imbecile.

"What?"

I could tell it killed Noah to remember and repeat her words, and I felt like a horrible person for asking him. But I could not believe what he had just said.

"Fucking. Because you cannot take a hint. That's exactly what she said."

I still could not believe it. My quiet petite friend Mia, the only truly innocent and good woman I knew? That one?

"Where did she go?"

He made a motion with his head. "Her sister's. June sent me a text that Mia was with her and was safe." He sighed. "Not a peep from Mia."

"You have to go and talk to her, Noah," I said.

"I think she said everything there was to say."

His face crumpled in despair. "She hates me, Betsy. She hates me. Why else would she do this to me?"

I went to him and put my arms around him and he sobbed like a toddler.

I patted his back and wondered if Law ever cried like this for me. And who would be there to put their arms around him?

**********

Lawson

Fuck Einstein. Time passes the same whether you are happy or sad. You can't stop it or slow it down. And no matter how hard you scream and cry, you can't make it go backwards if you've fucked up.

It's been a month since Betsy started her home therapy. She goes to group every week, although Mia has given it up.

Mia is holed up at her sister's house. Her sister June is single and raises two teenagers by herself. It's none of my business, but I always found June to be a level-headed person who didn't seem to be the type to drive a good man away. On the other hand, she moved back here after living in Arizona, where she married and divorced, so I never knew her husband. Maybe he wasn't a good man. I just hope June can provide some stability for Mia. She doesn't seem to be finding it anywhere else.

Noah works the store as usual. I have noticed that he is there every minute of every day that they are open. Mia has quit working there. I guess that means they don't see each other and I doubt that they talk.

Not talking is never good.

**********

Betsy

Mia won't return my calls or texts. I don't know if that means she is hiding from the world or just from me. Maybe I remind her of therapy, which reminds her of what happened to her that she needs therapy.

Speaking of which, she really needs it and is not getting it. I can't help but feel partly responsible.

My personal therapy sessions in the bedroom with my toy are ongoing. The sensations are fantastic. I like to lie in the bath sometimes, finding a space in the few hours not claimed by homework and soccer and baseball and ranch paperwork and housework.

I light candles and just massage myself. With my hands, then with my vibrator. I reach plateaus. I think of Law pushing into me. I think of his hands on me, imagining that my hands were his. I scramble up that hill, and the scrambling is wildly pleasurable.

But I never can get to the peak.

I have started getting into bed naked some nights and making Law take me. I make him by... getting in naked. Men are predictable. I ride him and lick his nipples and beg him to come. He has, the last couple of times.

I was lying on top of him after the last time, just loving the feel of his hard chest against my squished boobs. His softening cock inside me. And the feel of him leaking from between my legs.

"You know, Law, semen has chemicals in it that make women happy."

He grinned. "Are you happy?"

"I could be happier, cowboy" I whispered, flexing my kegels. "Know what I mean?"

**********

Noah

She doesn't come to work. I think I knew she wouldn't. It's not like she won't get paid, after all.

I just wish she would talk to me. Tell me that we are done. End it. If that's what she wants. Just put me out of my misery. They put old horses down when they can't handle the pain. I don't know if horses feel this kind of pain. I hope not.

My days are crap. I wake up expecting to find her next to me. I go into the office at work expecting to find her sitting at our desk. I walk around all day expecting to see her, to hear her voice, to feel her hand on my hand.

Today turned especially dark about an hour ago. I can't see in front of me. I can't smell or taste. I only breathe because it doesn't need my permission. I have been hiding out in the back shed with the building materials since I got the call.

I didn't recognize the number or the voice.

"Noah," she said. "This is Dr. Campbell. Are you alone?"

My hackles went up. I actually felt the ridge atop my spine contract. "Not really. Why?"

"Go somewhere private. And don't call me by my name until you do."

I was getting a bad feeling. I walked out the back door.

"Okay."

I could feel her apprehension. "We never had this conversation," she said. "Do you understand?"

"Why?" I practically shouted into the phone. "Is it Mia? What's wrong?"

"Do you understand? I could lose my license over this. I need you to promise that you will never tell anyone we spoke."

I was getting chills. I collapsed onto a stack of cinder blocks.

"Okay. I promise."

She paused as if reconsidering the whole thing.

"Noah, Mia has scheduled herself for a tubal ligation. That's--"

"I know what that is!" I said frantically. "You can't do that!"

"I had nothing to do with it, Noah. Believe me. She's seeing a surgeon in Conner City two weeks from now. I only found out because they requested her medical records. She never spoke to me."

I couldn't form words. I made some sounds like words but they weren't.

After a while, Dr. Campbell said, "I received her records from the therapy sessions. Again, please please please never tell anyone I told you this."

I made an affirmative noise.

"Mia is suffering from post-traumatic stress. She's been going through personality changes, as we know. This affects a lot of women who miscarry. In Mia's case it is particularly severe."

"You have to stop her!"

"I can't do anything, Noah. It's up to you."

**********

Noah

I was hyperventilating. I was dizzy.

In the office I looked up post-traumatic stress and miscarriage. The results were like a report of my life with Mia lately. Stress, depression, anxiety, hypersexuality. Waking up screaming from nightmares she refused to describe. Now I knew.

The guilt took me like a gust of wind that had fetched up gravel and sharp sticks and slammed them into my naked flesh. I had impregnated this woman. She had to bear the changes in her body. The stretching of her internal tissues, the flood of hormones. She had to carry and protect the product of our union. All by herself. I could not help her then. I could not help her now.

I jumped up and ran into the bathroom and threw up my lunch, just barely making it to the toilet.

My life was shit and I felt like shit.

But I knew what to do next.

**********

Betsy

Once a month I gather flowers from our garden. And I stop along the back roads and cut the prettiest wild blossoms from beside the drainage ditches. I take the bunches to the burial grounds and make a fresh arrangement over each grave.

Last night Law stayed up late. He didn't have to. The kids were safe in their rooms when I kissed him with lips that were just chock full of promise.

He kissed me back, told me he loved me. Told me he had to finish a loan application and not to wait up for him.

I feel like I am back to square one. I always wondered what that saying meant. Now I know exactly what it feels like.

I cried myself to sleep.

I had looked at that loan application when he brought it home from the bank. It wasn't due for two weeks.

When I am done with each grave, I speak to the person. Just in case.

"I hope you like these peonies, Grandfather Daniel."

"I found these on Prescott Lane, Emily. I don't know what they are exactly, but aren't they pretty?"

The youngest occupant is Floyd Lee Riley, who departed this world in 1932, aged three years and two months.

"Good morning, Floyd Lee." I looked up from Floyd Lee's old granite stone to the new white cross. "I hope you are looking out for your little--"

I stood there for a long time. Something was not right.

**********

Noah

He lived now in a single wide beside the river in the very northern part of the valley. The road leading to his trailer was two ruts that looked seldom used. His truck and motorcycle were parked under the carport, so I knew he was home.

I stopped the car and waited to let him know I was here.

I knew how many guns he owned.

Bradley Malone had been one of the bright spots. He was smart, he was good-looking, he was strong and fast. He was the quarterback, our star, our leader. I got to know him pretty good in the process of tackling him several hundred times in football practice. He hated to be tackled and was hard to bring down. He was a fighter. Nothing could beat Bradley.

Bradley should have gone to a small college and been a star. He married -- not the head cheerleader, but Leah, one of the baton-twirlers. He should have gotten a job and settled down with her.

Instead, he joined the Marines. His father had been a Marine, and his grandfather had been a Marine. It was just something the Malones did.

Bradley expected to serve and then come home and finish his dream life.

Never happened.

Things went sideways in the desert. He came back intact. No visible wounds.

But he started to drink. He had never been a drinker. Two beers had been his maximum at illicit parties after our games. He started to fight. He had always been a gentle, reflective guy, the calming influence on our more rowdy friends.

He and his wife had two daughters. They had a nice big house in Conner City, where Bradley had gotten a job running an auto parts store.

One day he left them and moved back to the valley. Into this ratty old trailer.

He told me one day, just after he arrived. He had ordered some corrugated tin sheets. I saw his name on the screen and drove them out myself.

He looked good. Lean and muscular. Neat and groomed.

It was his eyes that disturbed me. They never rested on any one spot for long.

He gave me a Coke. He had stopped drinking. He had been diagnosed with PTSD, and after some incident which he did not share then, he decided his young family was better off with him out of their house.

Today he came out of the trailer onto his unpainted wood steps and raised a hand. He was in jeans, a black T-shirt and red Crocs. Clean shaven, hair short and neat.

I got out of the car and took my offering from the trunk.

"Cherry Coke," he said, accepting the case from me. "Thanks."

"Nice shoes," I said.

He moved the soda aside so he could look down. "If your feet aren't comfortable, your soul isn't comfortable."

I laughed.

"No joke," he said. "You must stand in the store all day. You got inserts?"

I shook my head.

"Well, go to a podiatrist and get some. They will change your life."

"Podiatrist?"

"Yeah. I see mine once a year. And the dermatologist. And I got my first colonoscopy last month. I also check my blood pressure in the morning. Teeth cleaned twice a year. Any other questions?"

He had a patio set up under a canopy -- three folding webbed chairs, an old grill, and a wooden wire spool table. He went inside and came out with two tumblers. We sat down and poured our drinks over ice.

"To continue," he said as we touched glasses. "Mani-pedi twice a month. Deep tissue massage four times a year."

"I am in awe," I said.

"People see me getting a manicure and I get that look. You know? When I was in high school, I would have done anything in the world to avoid getting that look. When I was in the Marines, we would bust our asses keeping up the macho bullshit you project so nobody ever will dare to give you that look. Now I don't give a fuck what anyone else thinks. I do what is best for me."

I pointedly did not ask the next question.

He sighed and answered it anyway. "I am doing okay. One of the reasons I try to take good care of my body is -- I feel like that's one thing I can control. Whereas my brain? Totally off the reservation."

"Therapy?"

"Yeah. Twice a month, once with the wife, once alone. Why -- you want to join in too?"

I paused. "Maybe."

He finally focused on me. One thing he had told me before - this evil that had seized him made him less aware of his surroundings and at the very same time acutely aware. It made him feel there were two different entities in his skull fighting for dominance.

"What's going on?" he said. "You didn't come all the way out here to drink Cherry Coke."

I told him the whole story. He kept saying "Fuck!" and "Fuck?" and some flat "Fuuuuck"s. He also said, "Mia?" and then "That Mia? Our Mia?" followed by some more "Fuck?"s

When I finished, he opened another soda and replenished our glasses.

"You came because it's--" He pointed a thumb at his head.

I shrugged. "Sorry."

"Ah. Don't be. I would help you if I could."

"You can't?"

"I take that back," he said. "I will try to help you, but from what I have seen and read, everyone responds differently to this thing. Mia may be on the other side of my planet. You know?"

I nodded. "But what would you do?"

"You mean what do I wish Leah had known?"

"I guess so."

"I wish she had known just to stand back. That it didn't have anything to do with her or my love for her. I wish she had been able to stay outside of it instead of letting me drag her into my pool of crap. But it's hard not to take it personally, you know?"

"I do," I said. Because I did.

"I said some things to her that came from somewhere outside my mind. I wish she had known that. Maybe they wouldn't have hurt so much. Probably still would have hurt, but...." He held up his glass and looked at the setting sun through a cube. "The last time I was at home I woke up in the middle of the night with my hands around her throat."

The sagebrush crickets had started their nightly chorus. Shrill and frantic.

"And here I am, telling you what to do."

"You haven't told me," I said.

His eyes were moist.

"Just love her. Protect her. Even from herself. Mostly from herself."

**********

Lawson

Betsy found me trying to clear a blockage from an irrigation pipe. She jumped from the truck and gave me an icy bottle of water. She took a folded-up piece of paper from a pocket.

"Take a look at this list," she said. Her eyes were hard on mine. Some passion had stirred her.

I unfolded the paper.

Oh.

**********

Noah

June answered my knock, looking a little scared.

"Noah, she doesn't--"

I pushed past her. Mia was in the kitchen stirring a pot on the range. She looked up, confused, and dropped the spoon. Before she could say anything, I swept my arm around her butt and lifted her over my shoulder.

"Noah! Stop! Goddamn it! Put me down!" She started hammering on me with her fists and trying to kick me but she was tiny and had no angle.

"See you, June," I said as I went out.

"Noah!" June said in alarm, but I turned to her and smiled. She nodded and held the door.

"We're going home," I said to the world.

**********

Mia

Fucking Noah just barged in and kidnapped me. He tossed me into the car and grabbed the collar of my shirt to keep me in the seat. I tried to hit him but he has long strong arms and I couldn't get to him.

"Let me go, asshole!" I yelled.

"Nope."

"I'm calling the cops!"

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am. Let me go!"

And so on until we got back to the house, where he dragged me inside and practically threw me onto the couch.

"I hate you!" I screamed.

I was so fucking wet.

He was panting from throwing me around. I was panting from anger and... being the most aroused I had ever been in my life.

I ripped my pants off and threw my panties at his head.

He caught them and growled at me.

I was about to cum.

He picked me back up and dropped me on the floor, pulled down his jeans and mounted me.

I saw stars. I heard machine guns and trumpets. I shook and shook, contracting and writhing.

Where had this fucking guy come from? Where had this Noah been hiding?

He hammered me. He made noises like an angry bear and unloaded into my cunt. It was so much that his cock forced it out around itself while he kept pistoning and hot liquid sprayed down my thighs.

I came again from the sensation.

**********

Lawson

They poured a small pad of concrete, maybe 18 inches on a side, and leveled the bottom slab of granite onto the mud. It cured for a while, then they smoothed the mix and made it look all even.

Betsy had fixed lunch for us all, and the two of them came across the drive to our table. After an hour or so of eating and small talk, they thought it was ready for the last step.

Just then we got a text that a cow was delivering and the calf was breeched and stuck. The guys were going to pull it out, never an easy operation.

Betsy read the message and whispered to me, "Go ahead."

I hesitated, and she put a hand on my shoulder. "It's okay."

**********

Betsy

I watched the rest of the installation. The bottom granite rectangle had a hole in it. Into this hole they put a short steel rod fastened with a sharp-smelling epoxy, which they also smeared onto the bottom stone. Then they carefully lifted the top stone, which had a corresponding hole drilled into its base, onto the rod. They smoothed out the excess epoxy, gathered up their tools, murmured condolences, shook my hand, and drove away.

I fell to the ground in front of the new addition to the Riley plot.

River Lee Riley

We will love you forever

"River Lee," I said, "I will never forget you. I am sorry I never got to hold you and feed you on my breast. I am sorry I will never know you. Please forgive me for not being strong enough to finish carrying you."

I put my head in my hands and sobbed.

"I want to give you more brothers and sisters, River Lee. I want to. Please help me. Please let me go. I will remember you to them always. Won't you please let me...."

I sat there a long time. Law drove up and hurried over to me. He stopped at the stone and read the inscription, then he put his fingers to his lips and put his fingers to the name.

He dropped down beside me and held me and started to cry like a child.

**********

Mia

This was just insane. Noah never went to the store anymore. He stayed in the house with me. In the same room with me. When I went to the bathroom he stood outside. The window was nailed shut. He had done it himself, to the windows in both bathrooms.

He was never more than six feet away from me. We slept together, but didn't have sex after that one glorious time. He kept one hand on me while we slept, or rather when I slept. I never caught him asleep. Funny, he used to be a deep sleeper. Now it was like he couldn't relax at all. He was starting to look ten years older.