Disclaimer: "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. The plot is mine, but not the characters. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only. No infringement is intended.
Atomic Number 79
Amanda awoke out of breath and feeling suffocated. She flung the covers off but couldn't shake the feeling and soon found herself loosening the buttons of her cotton gown for relief, but none was found. She wasn't wearing a bra so that couldn't be the culprit. She then reached for the necklace from her boys, the diamond heart on the platinum chain and that's when it hit her what was really causing her discomfort...the chain that lay alongside it...the longer gold one that Lee had given her after he'd brought her home from California a week ago. She gingerly sat up so as not to ruffle the bandages that still covered a portion of her back and chest, roughly yanked the offensive chain over her head and then snapped on the lamp beside her bed.
She glared at the rings as they shone under the soft glow of the light, but still felt no respite from the heavy feeling in her chest as she lightly fingered the gold band and its accompanying diamond engagement ring and thought about what they were supposed to mean...a commitment to spend their lives together...but it was a lie. She then turned her stern expression to the gold chain...a gift she'd at first thought was a sweet, romantic gesture on Lee's part as he'd accompanied it with a smile and a comment that it was so she could keep them close to her heart...but that was a lie too. They both knew it.
As the shimmer of the gold mocked her, she laughed dryly as a memory of Jamie studying the periodic table and excitedly telling her that the atomic number of gold was 79 popped into her head. "79," she muttered softly. "Just about the year my first marriage started to fall apart."
Still glowering at the chain, she thought about how easily her brand new marriage could fall apart for much the same reason...distance. She and Joe fell apart because they were just never together...would the same happen to her and Lee? She already missed him desperately even though he'd been by her side endlessly at the hospital and came to visit at the house as much as he could...but it wasn't the same. He'd had to go back to work...without her...he couldn't exactly beg off when he'd already taken way more time off than the standard two weeks...not without telling them that she was his wife. She knew that if Billy knew, he would gladly give him all the time off that he needed to be with her.
She let out a deep sigh. Would this suffocating feeling never go away? What was it going to take? She thought of her children sound asleep down the hall, how happy they'd been to see her upon her return, how they'd peppered her with questions, how they'd questioned Lee endlessly...and how guilty she'd felt at the first time being face to face with them since everything had happened and not telling them that they had a new stepfather.
That thought stopped her for a moment...was that it? Was it guilt causing her to feel this way? She stared back down at the rings that at the moment she loved and hated at the same time...loved them because she loved Lee and they were a symbol of the love they shared...hated them because she could never wear them in public, never show them to anyone...never share that love with anyone...not even her own family. And the chain...the stupid chain...the chain that kept them, like a chain should, like the chains that would hold the prisoners she and Lee arrested...where they weren't meant to be.
"Enough of this," she stated adamantly as she reached for the phone and quickly punched in Lee's number. When the phone was answered by his sleepy voice, she snapped into the receiver, "This isn't going to work! I need you here with me...forever...like you promised!" then just as quickly hung up the phone.
Once that was done, she slipped the rings from the chain, then onto her finger where they belonged and as hard as her injury would allow her to, flung the chain across the room and breathed a sigh of relief as the suffocating feeling finally began to lift. She switched the lamp off, laid back down pulling the covers back over her again knowing that any moment her husband, as he'd done a couple of times already in the past week, would soon slip in through the back door with the key she'd given him, creep softly past her mother's closed bedroom door and crawl into bed beside her where he belonged. Only this time...this time...she would insist that he stay. She glanced down for a moment at her left hand where gold in her rings glinted off the moonlight from her slightly open bedroom window and whispered with a smile, "Atomic number 79."