We're a Wonderful Wife Ch. 14

"She's in the bedroom recovering with the other you. She's never had anything close to the show you guys put on tonight," grinned Future Karole.

"God! When you two started sucking on her tits, I could feel it! I started expressing milk all over the bed!" said Karole.

"What about when you and Trung decided to try anal?" grinned the Future Karole.

"That was payback," Karole said with a sneer.

"Don't forget I am you," said Future Karole, "so is the purple haired kid upstairs on the love seat who is pretending to be mortally wounded. You never EVER considered anal in your life until..."

"No," interrupted Karole, "I always wanted to try anal, I was waiting for a man I could trust."

"No, you didn't, you never considered the idea. You gave yourself that idea tonight when your past self was invited to give it a try." Future Karole glared at Karole and said, "think about it, you never considered it before that loser you first fucked because your past self who gave it a try tonight came from after that loser."

Future Karole was right, Karole never considered anal but suddenly when she was about 19 with purple tipped hair the idea came to mind, and it sounded sexy, but only with the right man. Tonight, with the spirits of her past self and her future self here to show Karole of three years ago how great life could be if she did the right thing, the carrot after the stick, she gave her ass to the man she loves if only to piss them off. She butt fucked her past and future self with Trung's dick.

The thought of an idea that crazy coming to her after she gave it to herself of ten years ago just a few minutes ago, then have the idea come rattling back across the decade to meet her tonight where she gave it to herself blew her mind. "Who the hell was that loser anyhow," Karole muttered.

"Ah fergit," muttered Future Karole. They both rubbed their chins in concentration then at the same moment said "Mickey Fields!"

"Worst quarterback in Folkston High history."

"Old three and out Mickey."

"In more ways than one." They laughed and then paused, then Future Karole said, "The residual memory of tonight is why we dumped near every man we ever met, we knew that there was better, and the status perk from dating the starting quarterback didn't begin to scratch the itch we put in our psyche tonight."

"Ol' Needle Dick the Bug Fucker, I haven't thought of him in ages," Karole sighed. "What's he doing now?"

"Politician in DC, what else?" As Karole took another bite of the carrot Future Karole grinned. "You like them carrots, don't 'cha?"

"I love the carrots, but God Dawg I hated that stick. I still have nightmares over that stick."

"Good," Future Karole said with a self-satisfied smug that Karole wanted to wipe off her face with a well swung cutting board. "Those nightmares will keep us out of trouble. You notice that we never have more than one glass of wine anymore, right?"

"Oh, hell no, not after watching me chug an entire bottle of schnapps." Karole almost pukes at the memory of that possible future. "No more sticks?" Karole begged.

"Maybe an occasional little one," she smiled.

"At least I saved him," Karole sighed.

"Hmm? Saved who?"

"Don, it was Don you said I had to save."

"No, we never said Don. I said you have to save a very, very important life, and you did. Believe me, it was all worth it, all twelve tries, but I didn't say Don. No matter whether you saved him or not, he still would have died a year after Lanh. I told you that, remember? If you had saved him, you would have buried Lanh back by the pond and Don would have overdosed and died back there on Christmas Eve a year later. If you didn't save him, Ralph would have buried both of them back there."

"Then it was me I saved," Karole said.

"Hardly." Future Karole shook her head sadly. "We would have ended up a bag lady in Denver, not a great future, but it was a future. We lived to a ripe-ish old age, for a bag-lady, and were found frozen to death in an alley at the age of 69."

"That wasn't me in the urn? All this time I thought it was me. You let me freak out in front of everyone when I saw Lanh's urn. Were you even in the area?" Karole was getting pissed.

"Don't forget, we never got to that point before, I was freaking out too," said Future Karole. "I was on the floor freaking out right next to you!"

Karole felt nauseous. "Did I save anyone?" Future Karole simply nodded. "Who did I save?" Karole demanded.

Just then Krissy, half asleep, walked into the kitchen, her little bare feet slapping on the tile floor followed by the click-click-click of Barkley's nails. Krissy put her Paw Puppy cup to the water dispenser on the fridge and half-filled it then took a sip. "Who are you talking to mommy?"

"I'm talking to myself baby, now get back to bed or Santa won't come."

Krissy looked at Future Karole then shrugged. "She looks like you," and Little Blondie wandered back to bed.

Both Karoles looked at the doorway Krissy walked through in shock; could she see Karole's spirit? Future Karole shrugged and said, "I got nothing."

Pressing right along Karole finally asked, "So who did I save?"

Future Karole simply nodded her head in the direction Krissy took as she headed back to her room.

"Krissy?"

Future Karole nodded and gave Karole a sad smile. "Yeah, remember the future when she was fifteen and ran off with that junkie? About four days after she left with that greasy piece of shit, he sold her to a pimp in Los Angeles."

Karole's jaw dropped in shock but Future Karole continued, "she never made it there; she was found dead in Denver with a needle in her arm and the greasy piece of shit was found dead with a bullet in the back of the head. The cops blamed his murder on Krissy just to close the book on the case, then ruled her death a suicide. What really happened was that when Krissy found out about being sold, she tried to escape, but her boyfriend, that greasy piece of shit beat the ever-loving crap out of her, so she took his heroin and died of an overdose. She was a pretty skilled addict at that point, so she knew she was killing herself.

"The LA pimp demanded his money back, but her junkie had used it to buy the heroin that Krissy killed herself with, so the pimp tortured the greasy piece of shit for uhmmm, I think it was three days before he died. Pretty gruesome stuff too. He didn't get the bullet until after he was dead, and the bullet was just the pimp's way of saying goodbye."

"Oh my god," all Karole could do was gasp, the carrot fell from her fingers and bounced on the floor to be snagged up by Krissy's pug Barkley. "My baby... I let that happen to her..."

Future Karole took her past iteration in her arms and held the trembling woman, Karole was one wrong word away from a long, extended, window rattling screech that would have been impossible to explain in a way that would have kept her out of the psych ward. "Shh... shh... shh... it's over now. When you married Trung you guarantied Krissy's safe, happy future. He was the best, most perfect thing you could have done, and you're going to love being a grandmother..."

"B-b-but how did this happen? How did you get here?" the trembling new mother asked Future Karole.

But Future Karole didn't answer, instead Karole heard a familiar voice saying, "Now y'know why ah did all-a this. Ah couldn't lose mah favorite pupil."

Karole whirled around and there, in her kitchen, was Grandma Noah. "Grandma!" she hugged Grandma Noah for the first time in decades and was shocked at how skinny the ancient woman was under her frock. Karole now understood what "skin and bones" really meant, Grandma Noah felt like a sack full of wire hangars. "How? Why?"

"That image of you dun tol' you why," said Grandma Noah, "an ah'll tell ya how when you're ready."

"When will that be?"

"You will know. Someday when the grandchildren strike out on their own, you're going to tire of winter an' come home." Grandma Noah gave Karole that all knowing smile and said, "Every swamp must have its witch, it just ain't right any other way." then she and Future Karole faded and were gone. As they disappeared from sight, Barkley raced into the kitchen sniffled around the floor then wuffled his pride at scaring off the intruders and trotted back to the bedroom to curl up with Krissy, satisfied with a job well done.

The shriek of the kettle startled Karole and she shook, she felt as if she was waking from one of those deep, all-encompassing dreams. With shaking hands, Karole poured boiling water over the teabags, placed a few Christmas cookies that she and Lanh made on the tray and with a touch of sorrow knowing that she (and Lanh) would never see Lanh's angels again, headed back to the master bedroom. When she got there, she was greeted by the sight of daddy Trung holding Reggie who sleepily slurped at a bottle of formula. "Awww," she crooned, her heart swelling with love for her guys. She put the tray down and took out her phone and took a photo wishing she had a mother to send it too. It's a shame that Grandma Noah didn't have a smartphone.

"Merry Christmas darling," said Trung without looking up from his child. "He was hungry, so, I grabbed a bottle from the fridge and warmed it with the particle accelerator." The nursery has a small fridge perfect for keeping formula for Reggie and juice boxes for big sister Krissy. There's also a bottle warmer that Trung calls the "Particle Accelerator" because it works so quickly on the small bottles.

Karole chuckled softly and slipped into bed next to Trung and kissed him with a passion that she hopes never fades. She needs to talk to someone but Trung doesn't know about Grandma Noah, it would take too long to tell him the whole story. Some day she will tell him.

~~~*~~~

The sound of Karole Ann's squeaky little cry woke Lanh early on Christmas morning. Even Don and Kim-ly getting up for morning milking didn't wake her. They were up late last night at Karole's house throwing her and Trung a wedding anniversary party and baby shower for Little Ralph. She changed Karole Ann's soaked diaper (how can a baby convert three ounces of formula into six ounces of piddle?) then wrapped up Don's newest darling in a receiving blanket and headed off to the kitchen where Kim-ly was putting breakfast together. "Did we wake you?" asked Kim-ly as Lanh put the hungry baby to her breast.

"No, I really didn't notice," said Lanh. "Squeaky woke me though."

Kim-ly leaned over and kissed Karole Ann's head. "I didn't hear her. Oh, by the way, there's a surprise for you on the couch in the living room."

"Surprise?" The greatest surprise she ever had was still snoozing away in the nursery. Sue Lin is a terrific sleeper as is her Irish twin Donny Duce in the other crib. Yes, it's difficult having three children under two in a house full of cripples, but Lanh and Don gladly suffer every ache and pain because they madly love the babies, each other, and Kim-ly.

What could the surprise be? It was in fact her very best friend in the world, the woman that saved her life which in turn saved Sue Lin, Karole Ann, and Little Don, her next farm neighbor and sister-in-law Karole Nguyen. "Hey!" she cried softly, "what's up neighbor?" and she eased herself down into the couch next to Karole who was holding a sleeping Little Ralph... Reggie. The little tyke has a different nickname depending on where he is, he's also known as Duong at Grandma and Grandpa Nguyen's house.

"Ah see y'all are doin' whut Reggie an ah spent the mornin' doin'."

"They're hungry, hungry babies," said Lanh. "So, you're just joining us for breakfast?"

"That and..." Karole looked around furtively for any hints of Lanh's angels. "Have I got a story for you!"

~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for joining me in this adventure, it's been an amazing journey that started on a dairy farm, traveled around the world and returned home. This is not the end of Don, Lanh, and Kim-ly; I plan to write more about Nisi Arcadia and Andi's Dream and maybe send Don, Lanh, and Kim-ly to Buffalo to visit Andi, Paul, Josh, and Veronica, and as always I am open to suggestions from readers. As a matter of fact, everything from chapter eight to this point is all from reader suggestion. But this is the end of the story that brought them to the here and now, if you have any requests I'm open to anything.