Sunday Morning: A Damaged Novella Read online

16 - Jodi

  I cried like a fucking baby when Kirk told me he was leaving town for a few weeks. The hormones made me weaker than usual, but the idea of him never returning was the real reason for my blubbering.

  I was terrified of giving birth and raising a baby. I still needed to get my GED and learn how to be a mom. All of my plans felt possible with Kirk at my side. Except I would be on my own until he returned.

  “This place is pretty as fuck,” Kirk told me the day before he left.

  We rested in bed while he teased the stretched flesh of my swollen gut. I managed to get through the first half of my pregnancy without puking or nausea. I only wanted to eat all day and hide in the apartment. The hormones made me paranoid, and I was fairly sure the homeless man across the street was working for the CIA.

  “Ellsberg is quiet,” Kirk said, painting a picture of our future home.

  “Chesterfield has quiet parts.”

  “No, it really doesn’t. I live in the nicest part, and it’s a fucking shithole.”

  I thought of the homeless CIA agent and figured Kirk had a point.

  “What if you don’t come back?”

  “I know what I’m doing. I have it planned out up here,” he said, tapping his big, beautiful head.

  “Things can happen.”

  “Things can happen if I’m here too.”

  I only grunted because being alone in Chesterfield for weeks sounded like the worst thing ever.

  “It’s not too far from here. I can visit while I’m putting things together in Ellsberg.”

  “Ellsberg sounds like a loser town,” I said, pouting despite knowing I was making shit harder on Kirk.

  “It has a small college where you can take courses. It’s a nice school too, not like the crappy community college here.”

  I imagined myself on the campus of a real college, and my worries settled slightly.

  “Colleges probably have nice libraries,” I said while putting my pout in neutral.

  “I bet it does.”

  “Do you think the schools will be good enough for our baby?”

  “Way better than here. Safer too.”

  “Can we have a yard?”

  “Hell yeah,” he said, smiling at how I was coming around. “Our boy is going to need space for him and his dogs.”

  “Dogs? Now there’s more than one?”

  “Sure. I always wanted a dog, but I ain’t taking it for a walk like Missus Glibber downstairs. I want a yard for us and our kids.”

  Smiling easier now, I rested my hand on my stomach next to his.

  “I like the idea of our baby growing up somewhere nice, but I like the idea of you staying here with me better.”

  “I’ll call you every night before bed. I’ll visit whenever I have a chance. And Jodi,” he said, pressing his forehead against mine. “I will return to take you and our kid to Ellsberg.”

  “Do you promise you’ll be as vicious as you need to be, so you’ll come back to me?”

  Kirk’s expression shifted, and I saw the killer hidden inside the man I loved.

  “I’ll do whatever I need to do.”

  I believed Kirk. I knew he was on a mission to make something special for us. As much as I trusted him, I had no faith in life not to shit all over our future.

  The day Kirk left for Ellsberg, I did nothing except cry, sleep, and eat. The next day, I considered leaving the apartment but decided against it.

  Before leaving, Kirk bought me a used car so I could get around town. He stashed a ton of cash in hidey-holes in the apartment. If he didn’t come back, I’d be set for a good chunk of time. He’d thought of everything including having someone check on me every few days. I was safe even with him hundreds of miles away.

  Despite all his efforts, I wasn’t happy except when he called. We talked about nothing most days. He couldn’t share what he was doing in Ellsberg. My days were spent in the apartment, watching TV and reading books I bought at the grocery store. Even with nothing to say, he called every night and helped me relax.

  “You’re my woman, and you’re carrying my boy. When you get to feeling like shit, you just remember those two facts, Jodi.”

  By the second week, I only left the apartment to grocery shop. I didn’t want to see anyone. When I was in the apartment, I could hold one of Kirk’s shirts and inhale his scent. I could daydream about us together in a magical place called Ellsberg.

  A month passed. Kirk visited twice in the beginning, but then he couldn’t get away. I swore to myself that I trusted him, yet I felt my panic growing each day.

  The one saving grace was my boy’s hard kicks. The baby was healthy. After the ultrasound, the doctor gave me a black and white picture that I studied constantly.

  “You were right,” I told Kirk on the phone the night I found out we were having a boy. “I’m sure you’re used to hearing that.”

  Kirk laughed, sounding closer than he had in weeks. “Have you been thinking about names?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have any I like. I guess I was hoping we’d have a Tiara despite your assurances.”

  “You keep going through that baby name book and pick out the best five. When I get home, we’ll haggle over the choices.”

  “You’re coming home soon,” I said, sounding ready to cry.

  “Autumn is fucking gorgeous here, Jodi. You’re going to love it. I’ve been driving around and looking for a place for us to live. Soon, you’ll be driving around with me.”

  I believed his words, but I was lonely. The baby’s kicks weren’t enough to console me when I was left with an empty apartment day in and out.

  The school year began without me. I didn’t miss it. Not when I had books to read at the apartment.

  During my only trip out of the house for the week, I stood at the books and magazines racks at the grocery store. I thought I heard someone say my name, but I ignored it. Sometimes people from the trailer park or school would recognize me. They’d want to make chit chat, but I wasn’t interested. I only wanted to talk to Kirk, and he felt a million miles away.

  “Jodi,” my mother said, suddenly beside me.

  Wearing too much eye shadow and sporting frizzy, blonde hair, Robin looked just like I remembered. She always tried too hard to be young and sexy. In reality, she was her prettiest when she first woke up with a clean face.

  I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t say anything. I only nodded an acknowledgment while she stood in front of me.

  “Didn’t take you long to get knocked up,” she said.

  The hormones made me prone to take everything personally, so her nastiness hit me hard. Only my temper kept me from crying.

  “You might want to lay off all the slutty clothes now that you’re going to be a grandma,” I said.

  “I don’t see a ring on your finger. Has he ditched you yet?”

  “Would you care if he did?”

  Robin twirled her over processed hair. “I don’t want you trying to move back into my place with your bastard.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that, Grandma. If my man leaves me like every man leaves you, I’ll raise my son without your help.”

  “Stuck-up bitch.”

  “Used-up hag.”

  Robin snapped her fingers in my face like some crazed whore from The Jerry Springer Show. “I’ll try not to laugh when you show up on my doorstep after the pervert gets bored of your jailbait pussy.”

  I opened my mouth to unleash a million insults but stopped myself. What was the point of trashing her when she did such a great job of trashing herself? I needed to be smarter. Robin would argue until the end of time. That kind of thinking led her to a miserable end. Instead, I chose to walk away and finish shopping.

  Robin wouldn’t understand about Kirk and me. Most people couldn’t because from the outside he looked too old, and I looked too young. In their minds, we couldn’t work long term, but I knew better. Call it blind faith, but I believed in Kirk and me and the long life we had waiting for us.

/>   17 - Kirk

  Violence never bothered me, but I wasn’t one of those guys that got off on it. Hurting someone was a means to an end. If I needed money, and I had to take it by force, I used force. If someone threatened me, I defended myself. I never giggled about it afterward, but I got the job done.

  With the moonshiners in Ellsberg, the violence wasn’t personal. I wanted their territory. They didn’t want me to have it. I offered them an easy way out. They laughed because they didn’t know how much I wanted the town for my woman and kid. That part was personal. Killing the moonshiners wasn’t, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over their deaths.

  While burying one of the moonshiners, I stumbled upon one of the most fucking beautiful places I’d seen in my life. Standing at the end of gentle drop-off, I drank in the sight of the thick green trees and a lazy river.

  After I was done with the body, I walked around for hours and imagined what I could do with this land. I’d seen a “for sale” sign on the nearby road.

  The land wasn’t cheap, but I talked down the owner. He was looking to retire with the money he made from the sale. The property sat for a long time without any interest, and I figured he would either take my offer or not. I wasn’t going to beg, not even for that view. There were other beautiful places around Ellsberg where I could build a life with Jodi.

  The guy backed down like I suspected he would. He wanted out of Kentucky as much as I was looking to set up roots.

  Despite getting closer to my goals, I missed the shit out of Jodi and hated not spending every day rubbing her belly. Bringing her to Ellsberg couldn’t happen until I had control of the town.

  The moonshiners were gone, but I still needed to scare their customers into doing business with my club. The local cops remained dicey. They seemed willing to play ball as long as we didn’t cause too much trouble. I figured they’d soon enjoy their bribes too much to give them up, and I’d own them.

  Too many damn weeks passed without Jodi. I called her every day, and she sounded as lonely as I felt.

  “What’d you do today?” I asked one night when the baby had cooked for six months.

  “I was so hot today that I walked around naked in the apartment. I read naked. Slept naked. Even ate naked.”

  “Are you naked now?” I asked, grinning.

  “No. I got a little chilly, and now I’m wearing one of your flannel shirts.”

  “Just the flannel?”

  Jodi laughed quietly. “Yeah, baby. I need you to come home.”

  “I will soon. I gotta get our home together here.”

  “I’ll live anywhere as long as I’m with you.”

  Every night, we had the same conversation. I’d be frustrated by the repetition if I didn’t picture her sitting alone in the apartment all day every day. She had nowhere to go. She was alone and hormonal, and I kept telling her to be patient. Jodi was too young to be patient.

  “Once I come for you, we won’t be apart again. I’ll bring you here, and this will be our home. We’ll be new people here. No one will know our secrets except us. Our boy will have anything he wants. The world will be at his fucking feet.”

  Jodi was quiet for nearly a minute before asking in a small voice, “You are coming back, right?”

  I hated how she now asked me this same question every night. At first, she trusted me enough to avoid worrying. Too long apart left her thinking I might ditch her and our baby. I didn’t understand how she believed I could start a new life without her.

  “What did I have before you?” I asked, counting the days before I would drive back to Chesterfield. “I was nothing, and I had nothing. My life didn’t mean shit. Now I have everything. Would I really walk away from everything, Jodi?”

  “No.”

  “Would I want to live in this quiet town if I wasn’t building a life for my family?”

  “No,” she said with more confidence.

  “I love you and our boy. You need to believe everything I do is for you.”

  “I do,” she said, and I heard the smile in her voice. “I know you’re doing what you think is right.”

  “But?” I asked when she stopped speaking for too long.

  “But I need you to come back here or bring me to you. I can’t be alone much longer. I don’t care if you stick me in a dump in Ellsberg until things are in order. I just need to be with you.”

  Logic said I shouldn’t move her until everything was perfect. My heart said otherwise.

  “I’ll come get you this weekend.”

  “Really?” she asked, and her excitement was obvious.

  “I want you happy, and this is what you want.”

  “Is it what you want?”

  “Hell, I’ve wanted to bring you since day one. Now I’ll get what I want.”

  Jodi burst into happy tears. I wasn’t sure why that night I gave into her request rather than the many other evenings. Knowing how much she needed me, I couldn’t keep telling her no.

  In reality, I probably agreed because I couldn’t tolerate life without her anymore. Waking up each day, I reached for her warm body and found the empty side of the bed. I’d been fucking dying to show her everything I saw when I drove around Ellsberg.

  No more playing shit logical, I knew the time had come to make our home a reality.

  18 - Jodi

  My heart hurt without Kirk nearby. I couldn’t deal with anything beyond eating, sleeping, and reading. The only people I talked to most days were Kirk and the baby.

  The longer Kirk was gone, the more emotionally stunted I felt. I grew more paranoid about someone breaking into the apartment. I also thought every thunderstorm would turn into a tornado, and I’d die without seeing Kirk again.

  I refused to buy maternity clothes even though my belly was huge by six months along. Spending money on stuff I couldn’t wear for long seemed stupid. Though Kirk left me plenty of cash to buy what I needed, I’d been broke for too long to feel comfortable.

  Instead, I bought a few sweatpants and shorts and wore Kirk’s shirts when mine got too small. I looked like a mess, but no one was around to care. Hell, I didn’t even brush my hair most days, leaving it wild.

  Once Kirk decided to return to Chesterfield to get me, I cleaned myself up. Brushed my hair, found one decent fitting outfit, and even shaved my legs. I was ready to see my man again.

  For an hour, I waited in front of the apartment building before I saw Kirk appear down the road. Bouncing on my heels, I was nearly crying in excitement. Kirk didn’t cry or squeal the way I did. No, he was too fucking manly for that shit. After he got off his Harley, he only casually hugged and kissed me.

  Once we were in the apartment, Kirk dropped the act. He smothered me with kisses, leaving me breathless. Then he dropped to his knees and kissed my belly.

  My fingers slid into his sweaty hair as he stared up at me.

  “I saw a little white church near the Kentucky border,” he said and kissed my belly again. “I got it in my head that we need to stop there and get married on our way to Ellsberg.”

  I couldn’t respond. So desperate for him to be home, I hadn’t imagined anything beyond our reunion. Now I was beginning to realize how Kirk was a man with plans. He hadn’t acted on his big ideas until meeting me. Once I got him started, he couldn’t stop.

  “It won’t be legal,” he said when I only stared at him. “Not unless we get a license or some shit, but I don’t care about the law. You’re my woman already.”

  “I just want you,” were the only words I managed.

  Kirk studied me with his dark eyes, and I felt all of my fears disappear.

  “I missed you,” he said, standing and lifting me into his arms. “Let me show you.”

  Kirk and I remained locked in the apartment for the entire weekend. We ordered pizza and packed his belongings, not that he had many. Between us, we didn’t fill up my car with boxes.

  “Jodi Johansson sounds really sexy,” Kirk said on our last evening in the apartment.

  Ni
bbling on cold pizza crust, I leaned against Kirk’s chest. “I can’t decide on a name for our son.”

  His fingers teased my back, and I felt him thinking again.

  “The day I ran off like a bitch, I stopped in a little town. I had wanted to keep going, but I saw the sign and suddenly felt exhausted and needed to stop. The next day, I knew I had to come back even if I was still feeling like a bitch.”

  No doubt Kirk worried I wouldn’t like the name he had in mind. I worried too, but I was thoroughly stuck in my search for the right name.

  “Coopertown was the town. It’s stuck in my head, and I was thinking about Cooper for our boy’s name.”

  The name didn’t sing to me immediately. Something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what I didn’t like until I stood in the little white church with Kirk.

  Staring up at him, I asked, “What if people make fun of him and turn his name into Pooper?”

  Kirk cupped my face and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs.

  “No one would dare mock our boy like that.”

  “Because he’ll be tough like his daddy.”

  Kirk kissed me softly. All of those months without him, I often forget how tender he could be. I only imagined him hurting people in Ellsberg and claiming what he wanted. I never thought of him being gentle.

  As we stood in the church, Kirk revealed the kind of tenderness I dreamed he would show me for the rest of our years together.

  19 - Kirk

  I never worried Jodi wouldn’t like Ellsberg. This was a woman who could find something good about Chesterfield. Our new home was going to blow her mind.

  We arrived at the rental house around three in the afternoon. Jodi parked the car behind my Harley in the driveway and then climbed out. I knew from her expression that she was dazed by all of the changes. Her wide eyes focused on me, and she gave me a smile that made me feel like a fucking man. I’d done right for my family, and deep inside that was the best accomplishment I could hope for.

  “A dishwasher,” Jodi said twenty minutes after we arrived.

  Her tone cut me deep, and I feel primal. Caveman shit where I needed to mark my woman.