The Family Room Ch. 12

"You must be happy with how things worked out," she said, staring into the mug. She hunted once more for the R, H and M. "Everything except for the...the..." She didn't have the courage to say baby in her father's presence.

Donald Martin wedged his crutch between the footboard and mattress. He sat on the edge of the bed, close to Julie's covered body. "I would never wish my little girl this kind of pain." He looked at his bandaged hand and offered a grin that more closely resembled a toothy frown. "Not even after she tried to break me in two."

Julie sniffled loudly then hugged him, finding a measure of comfort in her father's arms for the first time in a long time.

"Forgive me for the way I've behaved, sweetheart. The way I treated you and your brother, it..." He covered his face, snuffing a tear.

"It makes me sick to think about what the two of you were doing...what you were doing behind my back. It was such a shock, seeing you...seeing both of you, my two perfect children."

Julie's heart ached; she felt anything but perfect.

"My sweet little girl, always so mature, and my son, the most honest person I've ever met. I used to brag about you both...I never even suspected..."

For the first time Julie felt ashamed of what she had done, ashamed that she was no longer her father's innocent little daughter. She had tasted the forbidden apple and as punishment she would bear her brother's child alone.

Her father peeled the warm blanket from Julie's body. She had changed into a pair of her mother's pajamas, frumpy flannel things that hung limply from her small body, but without the cover she felt cold. He watched her stomach rise and fall with each breath. This early in the pregnancy the changes to her body were not particularly noticeable.

He closed his eyes and reached beneath the baggy flannel top to contact her bare skin, resting his palm over her navel.

He must have felt it, felt the change, because he removed his hand as if it had been burnt.

He cleared his throat. "Rick was the one boy--one man I could always trust. He never lied, never let me down, not once. Look what happened; look what he's done. Goddamn it, Julie, look what he's done!"

Her father clenched his uninjured hand and raised it above his shoulder. Julie braced her body and covered her face, unsure if his target would be her bed, her wall or herself.

His fingers uncurled and drifted down to cover her small, trembling hands. He uncovered her face and delivered a fatherly kiss to her forehead.

"We have to control our temper," he said through gritted teeth. "Short tempers and hard heads are sort of Martin family curses, curses that you and I seem to have inherited the worst of. It can make us do things we regret, things we can't take back.

"When some things get broken, sweetheart, we can't always put them back together." Donald Martin got up. He winced as his injured foot contacted the unforgiving hardwood.

Julie sipped from the warm mug. She watched her father balance on the crutch as he ambled away. The damage done to his body would heal, she assured herself. But would the damage done to her heart ever be so fortunate?

***

My left leg maneuvered over the chain-link fence. Stretching on my toes, to avoid snagging my groin on the rusted steel, I lifted my right leg over the barrier. My foot came down crooked, sending shockwaves of pain from my ankle to my brain. Both legs buckled, compromising my balance. In less than a second my chest slammed into the manicured lawn.

I gasped and sputtered, coaxing bluegrass-scented oxygen back into my lungs. Two houses down, the Crenshaws' little dog heard the disturbance and yapped. I imagined the neighbors peering from every available window, squinting into the darkness to see "that no-good Martin kid" passed out on his parents' back lawn.

Gathering my wits, I brushed flecks of wet grass from my clothes while high-pitched barks pierced my already throbbing skull. I hissed at the obnoxious terrier, begging it to shut it's snout. For the first time since being weaned, the little dog followed a command.

I was directly below Julie's bedroom. Thick, pink curtains hung flaccidly behind the screen and glass of the window. There was not so much as a trace of light behind the curtains. The darkness forced me to remember my words from yesterday. I'd called her stupid, called her worse, all the while having no idea of the burden she carried.

A leafy lilac bush grew beside the house, growing fat and happy in the shade. I reached to the base of the bush, parting the fronds of it's companion ferns and gathered a few pea-sized rocks.

I'm aware that tossing pebbles against the window is the most hackneyed device in the most hackneyed romantic movies but sneaking around my parents' backyard after dark had transformed me into a creature of necessity. A creature who wanted to wake her, and her alone.

The first pebble hit the screen, scraping and thumping as it bounced. The second pebble hit higher up, clacking against the glass. Hopefully, she would find my sudden appearance in the middle of the night romantic; that was the best case scenario. Worst case scenario, I didn't want to think about worst case; I had been living worst case long enough.

There was a flash of movement behind the curtains, I could see it, even in the darkened bedroom. A latch clicked and the window groaned open.

Julie's face hovered over me. Paler than I'd ever seen her, she appeared to be the ghost of our relationship. "What do you want?" She attempted to purge all emotion from her voice. It was a poor attempt at dispassion, the sadness that tinged each word was unmistakable.

"I wanted to see you."

She raised her head in profile as if to say, "Here I am. Glut your eyes and your soul on what you have lost."

The romantic speeches that had turned circles in my head were forgotten. "Come home, Julie," I blurted, "home with me, where you belong. I love you."

"You wouldn't have said those things if you loved me." She leaned on the windowsill, letting her green eyes search the sky.

I realized she was afraid of me, a notion that filled me with more self-loathing than I had ever experienced in my life. "You should have told me, Julie. I would never--"

"You would have, no matter what you say. You think I'm too young, and too stupid."

Her words and the tears that slid down her cheeks made my heart ache. Any anger that lingered between us melted away, leaving only hurt.

"No, Julie, no, this has nothing to do with you. You're not stupid and even at nineteen you're more mature than I'll ever be. You'll make a great mom but... This is about me; it always has been. I'm...so..." I felt tears but didn't want to cry. I wanted Julie to see I could be strong; she needed me to be strong.

"What is it Rick? What's the matter?"

"I'm scared, Julie. I am so scared." That was it, my admission, my excuse, whatever you want to call it. I laid myself bare so she could see the true Rick Martin. On the outside I was a man, nearly twenty-five, but on the inside I was a frightened, worthless little child.

Julie smiled, her thumb smeared a warm tear across her cheek. "You don't think I'm scared? I've been here all alone, wondering what I would do without you. I know it's only been a day but it felt like ages."

"You have nothing to worry about, Julie. When you babysat for the neighbors you were so fantastic, their kids practically worshipped you.

"I'm the one who's going to screw everything up. You never saw me teach art class; it was a disaster. I don't know anything about kids or being a parent. What if I can't do it?"

"It's alright if you screw up. We'll both screw up, lots of times. There's no handbook, Rick, no can't fail, one hundred percent guaranteed way to be the perfect parents. Our parents certainly weren't perfect but we still turned out okay."

"Some would argue that point." Our parents would probably be loudest among them.

"Rick Martin, you are the most honest person I know, sometimes to a fault. Your whole life you've put the concerns of the people you love above your own. I think maybe that's why I've always loved you so much. Because, even though you're terrified of the work, the expense and the responsibility of having this baby, you're still standing outside of my window in the middle of the night telling me that you love me.

"That's why I know you'll be a great dad."

I could feel Julie's confidence in me. It coursed through my body like adrenaline, taking away my fears, at least for tonight. "I want to try. I want to try my best but not here, not in Saratoga Spring. Staying here would be too dangerous."

As if to underscore that danger the porch light flashed on next door, illuminating the Feldman's backyard. A sliding glass patio door whooshed open. Lenny Feldman and his wife peeked their wrinkled heads through the opening.

My voice didn't lower, despite the audience. I called to Julie all the louder, all the clearer.

"I love you Julie Martin. I want to take you away, as far away as we can stand to move. We'll go halfway across the country if we have to, someplace where nobody knows us as anything but Rick Martin and his beautiful Mrs. Martin. We'll find someplace safe, where we can raise our children together." Did I just say children, as in more than one?

"For that, I would move halfway across the world," Julie said, smiling as she fought back a sob.

Mr. Feldman gasped and grabbed the sleeve of his wife's bathrobe. They slithered back inside, coughing and choking and clutching at their feeble hearts. It looks like accusations and explanations would be my parting gifts to our parents.

Julie backed away from the window, disappearing into the darkness of her room. A light flashed on and she reappeared at the window, glowing in the gloriously soft lamplight.

"Rick." She sighed. "I used to dream about this night when I was a little girl, the night my dashing prince would call to me from outside the window. He would slay the dragon then whisk me away to a big, gray and black stone castle, just like in a fairy tale."

"Sorry I ruined your plans."

She rubbed her face, fighting back tears. "You didn't ruin them, Rick. You were my dashing prince all along, the man I wanted to whisk me away. Every dream, every fantasy, it was always you, even before I knew why."

I had nothing to say.

"I'll only take a minute, wait for me."

"Baby, I've waited nineteen years for you." Despite the impatience that crowded my voice, I would have waited another nineteen years if needed. "I'll be in the driveway."

She nodded, smiled, then disappeared into the room. The chain-link fence, once the foreboding barrier of my youth, was nothing more than a hurdle. I found myself pacing in the driveway in no time. Sitting down on the hood of my parent's sedan my right leg danced uncontrollably. I was desperate to hold her and to feel her. Attempting to still my trembling body, I took deep, calming breaths.

***

Julie closed the window, forgetting the latch. She paused in front of the dresser mirror, examining red and puffy eyes, cheeks streaked with makeup, and limp, tangled hair stuck to the side of her scalp.

Rick won't care. She knew he would love her no matter how red and puffy her eyes, how streaky her face or how limp and tangled her hair. And she decided he'll love her no matter how fat his baby makes her. He'll always love her no matter what, as a brother and as a man.

She jerked open the bedroom door, determined to run straight to his arms. In her haste she almost collided with her parents.

Donald and Beth Martin stood in the hallway, like a human wall blocking the way to Rick. They had heard everything; they knew what she and her brother conspired to do.

A defeated smile came not from her mother but from her father. Deep down he must have known that, however wrong it seemed, what the siblings felt for each other was real.

Her mother could only weep so she wept the saddest, happiest tears Julie had ever seen. Julie felt her own tears, the sad tears of a daughter losing her parents and the happy tears of a young woman on the cusp of fulfilling her dreams.

Julie fell against her mom and dad. With her embrace she shared the pain and, she hoped, a portion of her own joy.

Her mom kissed Julie's cheeks repeatedly. She brushed a few stray locks of hair from Julie's face and tried to clean some of the smeared makeup with the pad of her thumb. Once a mom always a mom.

Julie turned to her father. If her mom's face had been a mask of restrained joy, then her dad's was one of tempered pain. Rarely does a father endure losing his little girl twice in a lifetime, let alone twice in little more than a week. To his credit, if Donald Martin felt anger he buried it in a very deep grave.

He pressed his lips to Julie's forehead, all the while holding her close. "Take care of him, Julie," her dad said as tears dripped from his cheeks. "Take care of my son."

Julie looked up at her father and smiled, both inwardly and outwardly. She remembered what he had said the night her relationship with Rick was discovered. He had pronounced their family dead, naming Rick as it's murderer. He was wrong. Their family might have changed a lot over the past summer but a part of it lived on.

She conceded that her family would never be the same again, she even conceded that her love for Rick would never be fully accepted by their parents, but as long as the old wounds continued to heal there remained hope for her once happy family.

In turn the mom and dad each touched the swell at their daughter's stomach. Giving Julie reason to think that maybe, just maybe, within lay the quickest route to reconciliation between her parents and her brother.

Her parents' relaxed their hold, releasing her forever.

She gave Rick no time to react. Before the kitchen door could even squeak in it's hinges, she had him pinned to the hood of the sedan. Julie covered every inch of her brother's face with warm kisses. She climbed on top of him, settling herself over his lap, inviting his long arms to wrap her.

Julie brought her lips close to his ear. "Promise me we won't fight, not ever again."

"Baby, I can't promise that." His arms wrapped snug around her waist. "You know we'll have arguments..." He trailed off. His hands ventured from the small of her back to settle over the swell of her stomach. His mouth curved in a lopsided grin, doing nothing to hide the fact that he was still terrified.

"I won't let you go," he promised, "not ever again."

***

Julie squeaked and squirmed as I gathered her in my arms and carried her over the threshold of our soon-to-be no longer temporary home. Her pretty voice hummed a few chords of the wedding march as I caddied her towards the bedroom.

"It was a beautiful ceremony," she said.

It was beautiful, especially when Julie and I whispered to each other the vows intended for Jerry and his bride, Linda.

Julie had not been among the flock of desperate hens who instigated an impromptu battle royal as the bride tossed her bouquet of paper white daisies. Tradition said whoever escaped the fracas would be next to see a wedding day. Julie shunned the old tradition. She told me she was happily resigned to the fact that she would never be officially married.

Several times during the ceremony and the reception the old guilt, that three months ago almost drove us apart, reared it's unwelcome head. The sight of Linda in her wedding gown as she hugged her own ancient mother severely tested my composure.

That Julie would never experience such a day, the kind of day dreamed about by little girls and grown women alike, devastated me. She caressed my cheeks as if sensing my apprehension.

"Two more weeks until forever," she said.

For us forever consisted of a move to an obscure town off the Oregon coast. A place called Stanley Island.

Stanley Island was a resort town for millionaires who had made their fortunes on the internet, a place that the locals referred to as Key Northwest. The town had attracted us because it was in the heart of a burgeoning area rich with jobs. Even more attractive was the fact that it was about as far from Saratoga Spring as two could get.

"Two more weeks until I finally put that art degree of mine to good use," I said.

A girlish giggle escaped her pretty pink lips, she covered her mouth in embarrassment. "Sorry, but I can't picture my big, handsome brother working for an interior designer."

"It's not like I'll be arranging orchids or Feng Shui-ing anybody. They're paying me to paint."

"Someday your walls and ceilings will hang in museums: latex-based on drywall by Rick Martin."

"Make fun all you want but for every can of Dutch Boy I slap on someone's wall I'll be painting a canvas portrait for a husband and his wife, or a circus mural for their child's bedroom. And far more important than anything I do," I said, "my expecting 'wife' will be provided with free health insurance."

It had been three months since I learned of Julie's pregnancy. At the time she hadn't really shown but now, during the frosty first week of December, her condition was unmistakable.

Despite her increased weight, carrying her to Lance's bedroom, right to the foot of his meticulously arranged bed, was no task at all. The jersey bed sheets were tucked snug, snug enough to bounce a coin. I wondered how well they would bounce a hormonally charged young woman as I deposited her on the springy mattress.

I would always be her big brother, that being the case the impulse to tease was too great to ignore. I arched and rubbed my back, wiping phantom sweat from my brow. "Pretty soon you're going to be too big for me to carry."

Julie's hand went to her stomach; her mouth made a little O. "Rick Martin, just be glad you didn't put twins in me; my poor little body would crack like an over-boiled egg."

The ivory dress she had donned for the wedding complemented her very pregnant body perfectly. I shimmied out of my suit jacket, unable to take my eyes from her beauty. Color flushed her face and neck, leaving no doubt that she wanted me every bit as much as I wanted her.

She reached to the key that promised freedom from her dress, the zipper nestled between the blades of her slim shoulders. Unable to reach, she twisted on the bed as helpless as a box turtle on it's back, an ill-advised analogy to make in the presence of a pregnant woman.

"Need help coming out of your shell?" I asked. The question earned me a puzzled look. I eased behind her and worked the zipper down, slowly uncovering her back.

I fingered the shoulder straps of her bra, a nursing bra worn prematurely. She knew how it affected me; she knew how she affected me.

Julie turned around and peeled open a bra cup, exposing a beautiful, naked breast.

I attached my lips to the dark, swollen nipple. Suckling at her bosom, I imagined the warm milk that would flow after our son was born. I shuddered against her flesh as I pondered how women were capable of creating so many magical things.

She moaned as I mouthed the rubbery nubbin, pulling from her nipple with a moist pop. I massaged her glistening aureole as her body raised an inch from the bed. She created enough distance between her backside and the mattress to slide the crumpled dress over her butt and across her thighs.

Now only the bra and a demure pair of off-white panties stood between me and my Julie.

She unfastened the bra, draping it over the dusty brass headboard, then wriggled out of her panties, flipping the scrap of fragrant cotton to me.

I crushed her most personal article of clothing to my chest, then let it drop as I hastened to remove my own clothing. My trembling, sweating fingers went to work unfastening the belt around my waist. As I undressed, her naked butt ground against the surface of Lance's bed, wrinkling the comforter and creating streaks of moisture wherever the lips of her dewy pussy contacted the beige fabric.