The First Moms Club (S&P)

Then Lori was back in bed. The sedation must have worn off, she thought. Then she realized why she was back from the edge of the tunnel. The room was crowded with her friends, with her daughters, with Father Al, and with all the nurses on the shift. Mike was leading them in singing some of her favorite songs. Lori's eyes shone. Somehow – she didn't know how – she smiled. The breathing tube was impossible to remove, but she reached up with one hand and adjusted it so some of her lips were accessible.

The tunnel returned, much shorter now. Lori wondered if she needed to step into it and cross over. She decided no, the tunnel should come to her. She looked at Danny again. She gestured that she would wait a little while and he nodded his acknowledgment. Then she was back in the room.

More time must have passed than she figured. Father Al and the girls were gone from the room, along with all of the nurses except Sandy. Mike was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. Lori realized Father Al didn't want the girls to watch their mother die.It's all right, she thought,I'm not afraid.

There was one more thing to do. She pulled mightily. It barely translated, but Mike felt it. He leaned very close. With her last bit of strength, Lori inclined her head up and offered what she could of her lips. She closed her eyes as Michael kissed her.

The tunnel was gone. Lori and Danny stood side by side, looking down at the scene. Michael was sobbing uncontrollably.Thank Father Al for not letting the girls see this, Lori thought.

Lori turned to Danny and asked, "Are you the Angel of Death?"

Danny let out a hearty chuckle. "You must have watched too muchTouched by an Angel. No, I'm just me. I came here to welcome you because you were always so nice to me. You were one of the few girls that I got over having the hots for. Your friendship helped me out a lot, more than you know."

"What will happen to Mike? Can you see into the future?"

"Naaaah. It's Dante's rule. FromThe Inferno. Only the souls in Hell have prophetic powers, and even then they forget what they have seen when the events come around. It's their own special brand of torment. Those of us, on this side, only have what we brought with us. We can know from observation and make some pretty good guesses, but that's about it."

Lori looked back at Mike, who had composed himself a little, and at Sandy, who had tears in her eyes as she pulled the sheet over Lori's face. "I don't know Sandy very well. Have you observed her?"

"Sandy's a good lady. I almost met her husband once, when he got burned in that fire. He stopped at the tunnel and resolutely turned back. He must have had a mighty good reason and it wasn't hard to guess what. I don't know if they'll have kids or not, but I have a really good idea that she's going to make a fine doctor."

Lori was looking at Mike. "He won't be happy again – truly happy – until he falls in love again."

"That's a mighty tall order there, Missy. I can't tell you how many times I've heard spouses say they could never love again, not after nursing their loved ones through a long decline. I even saw it onThe Golden Girls once. Blanche's father remarried, and he said that exact thing. The woman he had found had nursed her husband through the same lingering illness at the same time he had cared for his wife. Not many people find that kind of coincidence. Whenever the show's on Lifetime and someone I know is watching it, I stop in for a peek, hoping to catch that episode."

"So we can go wherever we wish? Do whatever we can?"

"Go anywhere, yes. But all that intervention stuff is strictly for TV. Freedom of choice is God's strictest rule. Remember that parable of the rich man in Hell and Lazarus in Heaven? We can't intervene, we can't come back as someone else, any of that. We can root for them, but that's about it."

Lori thought about that qualifier, but decided to let it pass. She had a lot of things to learn. And she was already rooting for Mike and the girls. She could tell Mike would get all the help his friends – and her friends – could give her.

"Come on," Danny said. "I'd like you to meet some of my friends."

**************

Six months later, after Mike had made Corporal and had bought a new house with Lori's insurance money, he met Detective Linda Shannon for the first time. Like Wyatt Earp before him, Mike used his prowess in target shooting – going through the "Hogan's Alley" firing range and dropping the targets with astonishing efficiency and speed – to bolster his reputation on the street. That, combined with his muscular Marine bulk, had made more than one "perp" throw down his gun and give up meekly rather than challenge Mike in a fight, and the word on the street had spread that nobody took on Shannon unless the perp had a death wish for himself.

But that afternoon, he met his match. Mike, a little prone to vanity, had bet Linda dinner she couldn't match his score. She collected promptly and succinctly. Linda hit every target, tying the course record Mike had just set for speed.

Mike was a very gracious loser – in part because he found he REALLY admired Linda's professionalism. After dinner, one thing had led to another, and Mike wound up astonished and delighted when Linda made love to him with the same skill she had shown with a gun, and with a lot more caring and enthusiasm. Before much time had passed, Mike and Linda were putting the guest bedroom to good use – Linda never asked to use the master bedroom, which was next to the girls' room – and Carol and Stephanie were becoming two of Linda's best friends.

"Going voyeur, are we?" Danny said, as he strolled up to Lori shortly after Linda and Mike had disengaged from one session. Lori blushed.

"I have to admit, I was curious. I wanted to know what Mike had learned about lovemaking.I sure learned a lot when we were together. Linda knows a lot too."

"So, Miss Know-It-All, is Mike going to fall in love again?"

"I really doubt it," Lori said. "There's something about Linda. I can't place my finger on it, but I don't think she's in love with him. This is some kind of mutual help society. They are really close friends and I know she's helping him with his grief, but I don't know what's in it for her."

Linda, now fully dressed and not showing any signs of past activity, headed for the girls' room. Linda knocked on the door and was granted admittance. Linda sat down in a rocking chair and both girls clustered around her.

"How did the reading lesson go tonight, Carol?" Linda asked with a twinkle. Carol was now seven and was teaching five-year-old Stephanie how to read.

"Great!" Carol replied, producing a Dr. Seuss Beginner Book. The girls pointed out all the words that Stephanie had recognized. Linda's pleasure was obvious.

"Do you have any more Beginner Books? Dr. Seuss must have written a hundred of them. I learned to read from them, and I think my mom did too."

Carol hopped up, went to the bookshelf, and searched a batch of books with the Cat in the Hat on the cover, finally selecting a story about a goldfish.

"Oh, I remember that one!Mrs. Dr. Seuss wrote that one. I read that when I was a little girl. But I never read it aloud. Would you let me read it aloud to you?" The girls acquiesced happily.

The cover of the book indicated its fantasy tone– a goldfish the size of a dolphin went cascading down the basement stairs, with its little boy riding the wave behind. It was a straight narrative rather than a Seussian rhyme, and Linda stopped before each turn of the page to show the increasingly bigger goldfish being transferred from fishbowl to flower pot to cooking pot to clothes washtub to bathtub, down to the cellar, out the cellar window and into a truck, and finally ending up in a municipal swimming pool – all as a result of eating too much. Finally the pet-store owner leaped into the pool, did something – he never told what – and brought the fish out, back to his normal size. Lori thought, "Boy, that fish was lucky he didn't die from the chlorine in the pool," but that was a minor quibble. Linda seemed to really get a kick out of it.

"She has some kind of love, doesn't she?" Danny again. Lori had almost forgotten he was there. "Do you know much about her?"

"I never saw her before she caught Mike flatfooted on the firing range. But her name is familiar … Linda … Linda Shannon?"

Danny's eyebrows went up. "There was a guy in business school who talked to our class once. His last name was Shannon. Went on to be a banker. Big shot guy, but he went through an ugly divorce over his wife's career."

It was coming back to Lori. "Oh, God bless her! She's buried in her work, has two children she never sees, and not too long ago she lost her best friend." To Danny's quizzical look, Lori explained: "One day when I was looking over my grave, a funeral procession came in. An undercover cop killed on duty. After everyone else left, Linda got a special bouquet from her car and placed it on the mound of earth."

Danny had a smirk on his face. "Yes, I've been following Linda around," Lori snapped. "She has a photo album at home with pictures of her kids, her ex-husband, the divorce decree, and the other officer, and with the other officer it's obvious she's been deeply in love. Mike doesn't knowanything aboutany of it."

"Well,that explains a lot," Danny said. "We have two people, each mourning a loss, they find each other, they obviously bond with each other, and yet neither one is in love with the other because they feel they can't love again?"

"Linda loves those girls," Lori said, softly. "She likes Mike a lot. Mike doesn't seem nearly as downcast now as he used to be. And he's one really good cop. For now, I'm satisfied."

**********

It took five more years before another woman entered Mike's life.

To Lori, who had followed Linda's progress through the department, the contrast between the every-inch-a-cop Detective Shannon – the woman who took a new promotion exam every year and aced it, the tough and incredibly skilled police officer who did more than almost anybody to keep the streets safe from drug pushers and other thugs - and the woman who read to her daughters, taught them about going to school, hinted at the facts of life and cheered them on at everything, particularly ballet, was precious. Oh yes, Mike had worked hard to keep Lori's memory alive, and Linda revered Lori from her distant vantage point. But Aunt Linda had been the girls' best friend and confidante, and she could silence their misbehavior with a Lori look.

But that was the point. She wasAunt Linda. Mike and Linda had never been a true couple. They had been bedroom partners, they had had a close and mutually supportive professional relationship, and they had even been personal friends. But the love had never come. It had taken Pat Morrison to win Mike's heart, and he hers. Lori had fretted about that, mostly wondering if Carol and Stephanie would take to Pat as a mother rather than as a stepmother. To Carol and Stephanie, Stephanie in particular, the woman who had given birth to them was more of a memory than anything else. Lori didn't mind that as much as she thought. What she wondered was whether Carol and Stephanie would ever know a real mother. That problem was solved early on, and Lori thought the girls' love had played a major role in Pat's wholehearted acceptance of Mike's marriage proposal.

Mike had never mentioned Linda to Pat, which was very curious to Lori (and in fact to Father Al as well). Was Mike afraid of jealousy between the two women? Although Mike and Linda no longer worked together, and Pat had been a mother figure to the girls almost from day one, both women had proved they could be the most loyal of friends, and from Lori's observation they had a lot in common. She hoped the two women would meet, and soon.

Mike and Pat got married on a beautiful morning. Lori stood just a few feet from Pat and Mike, and within inches of her daughters, during the ceremony. Linda slipped in at the back of the room, and Lori stood beside her for a few minutes, wanting to reassure her but resisting. After the ceremony, Pat and Mike raced through a hail of rice and well-wishers to head for Mike's car and their honeymoon on an island getaway. Lori didn't follow them. She waited until the day they got back into town, to spend one night in the house – for the first time, Pat would sleep in the master bedroom - before taking the girls on a Disney World vacation.

That night, Pat went into the master bedroom early, while Mike sat down with the girls and explained what they might hear and why. It went more smoothly than Mike expected. Carol was an early bloomer and Pat had been careful to talk to her about reproduction, health, and the feelings most adolescents get toward the kids who formerly "had cooties." Carol had been enthralled, and had told Stephanie as much. Still, "Mommy and Daddy are going to make love now" didn't sound quite the same when Mommy wasn't there to help Daddy with his own shyness. But Pat had a different purpose.

Pat had moved her things into the house over the last several weeks, but there were a few personal items remaining to be put in place. She unpacked a suitcase with her nightwear and lingerie, and opened a half of the dresser. Mike had cleaned it out after Lori's death, putting her Marine uniform in mothballs (along with his own), and saving some of the items for hand-me-downs to the girls. So, why would the empty drawer stick?

All police officers have flashlights for patrol duty. Some of them buy spares, the $100 super-powerful kind, and keep them at home, just in case. Pat went to the nightstand and found Mike's right away, along with his Swiss army knife. Then she went to work on the drawer.

That was curious! A folded and taped piece of paper had been wedged in the track, preventing the drawer from opening. Pat could have given it up there, left the paper for the privacy of whoever wrote it, and stuffed her items in the half-open drawer, and that's almost what she did. But then she felt a touch on her shoulder. She spun around guiltily – but there was no one there. The only thing different was she now had a feeling that this was all right.

Using various segments of the knife, Pat got the paper loose. Unfortunately, she had to lean on the drawer to do so, and she wound up in an unceremonious heap on the floor, back against the bedrail, drawer upside down in her lap. That's how she spotted the neatly folded plastic bag taped to the back of the drawer. The note went flying, and fluttered down almost in her face. Using the knife blade, Pat very carefully slit the tape until the note was fully opened. In a trembling hand, it read:

To Mike's new love,

If you are reading this, you must be the right woman for the man I loved for so long and still love today. He must love you with all his heart, and you must love him, perhaps even more than I did.

Please go ahead and open the plastic bag. It contains some items that are very dear to us both. I have a few other trinkets scattered around the house, but there's also a note in the bag, which will tell you how to find them. But, if you love Mike, please take the items in the bag and use them right now, tonight. I can't explain why in words, but he'll know and then you'll know.

The First Mom,

Lori

Inside the bag were the camisole, the bra and the panties from that first night.

Pat tore off every stitch of her clothing in a matter of moments and put on the lingerie items. None of them fit properly – the camisole was too short, the bra too small, the panties too large – but it didn't matter.

Mike knocked on the door just after Pat had loaded her stuff into the drawer and put it back into place. The plastic bag and its note were under the bed. Pat let Mike hold up for a moment, arranged herself on the bed, and called out, "Come in, Lieutenant-to-be Gibson."

Mike came in the door so turned on that for a moment he didn't notice what Pat was wearing. But only for a moment. His knees went weak and he sat down on the bed beside her.

"Where … where did you find those?"

Pat thought of telling him the whole story, but then she felt something again. All she said was: "Lori gave them to me."

Mike couldn't understand. Pat gave him the note. He read it and burst into tears.

"Lori wore that ensemble for me the first time we made love … the first timeeither of us made love. I hadn't seen it since before she got sick. I never saw anyone more beautiful than her in that outfit – until I met you." He jumped off the bed, knelt, mumbled a very quick prayer and crossed himself.

Then he was back, and with a hunger he hadn't felt since that first night with Lori. And Pat matched it. They embraced so hard they tumbled off the bed and onto the floor. Mike went straight for Pat's neck, kissing and sucking on it like a wild man, while he palmed her breasts thought the camisole. To Pat's delight, she loved the neck kissing and earlobe-sucking. She ripped his shirt out of his pants and clutched his bare back as he kissed all the way down her front, including a big juicy one on the crotch of the panties, then down her legs and back up again.

When he arrived back at Pat's face, she grabbed him, plunged her tongue into his mouth, and ripped every button off his shirt. Then she kissed all the way downhis front, tearing the button from his pants loose and yanking out his belt so fast he thought he heard a whip crack. When she got his pants unzipped and his erection in reach, she swung around on top of him, grinding her front into his front, the crotch of the panties in his face. He shoved his face in deep and licked every piece of flesh he could find, occasionally using his fingers and nose to get at more. She screamed her first orgasm within minutes. Pat was doing a great job touching, licking and sucking his hard-on, but she flung herself off, landed on her back in a splayed position, and said, "Lori won't mind anymore! TAKE ME!"

Mike grabbed the panties at the waistband and tore them right down the middle. He plunged his face to her chest and face for a minute, licking and sucking and tearing the bra to pieces. Then he posed himself at her entrance and slammed in so hard thatboth of them saw stars, courtesy of the headboard. Mike dragged Pat down to the bottom edge of the bed and plunged again. And again. And again. Meanwhile, Pat was gripping his hands, sucking on his nipples (surprise, he liked it!), and kissing everything she could. He blasted off so deep and hard that he was surprised he didn't hit her Fallopian tubes.

Pat grabbed Mike by the shoulders and kissed him as hard as she could. Then she asked: “Did you ever try anal sex?”

The look on Mike’s face told the whole story. Pat pulled out from underneath him, flipped over and wiggled her bottom at him. Over her shoulder she cooed: “I don’t always get off on it myself. But if you’re still a virgin that way, or think you are, then I want to takeyour cherry.”

Mike thought his hard-on would have deflated after an orgasm like the previous one. He looked down at his shaft and got a lesson in how desire overcomes physiology. But there was still one question to ask. “But you’re not lubed up. How could you take me back there without breaking the mood?”

Pat squeezed her vaginal muscles together and released them. Mike’s eyebrows widened. She said: “Use your imagination.”

By the time Lori exited the room, Mike had gripped the sides of the camisole so hard that the seams had torn almost their entire lengths. Mike had come three times to Pat’s four.

Lori wondered how the girls had taken the sounds of lovemaking, and ventured into their room. The minute she saw them, she knew Patricia was an official mom to them. They were almost asleep, smiles of little-girl pleasure on their faces which divulged their feelings about Dad’s new happiness. Lori touched them, the way she had touched Pat a while earlier. She kissed each of them on the forehead and left.