Love, Lucy
It had been two days. Two long days since that dinner fiasco. The couch hadn't been very pleasant to sleep on, although that was where Eric Camden was sleeping for the last couple of nights. Needless to say, Annie still hadn't forgiven him.
There was much tension in the house, and everyone could feel it. Even Lucy and Kevin who didn't even sleep in the house knew something was wrong and were smart to stay out of Annie's way.
Eric had been doing everything possible to get Annie back on speaking terms with him. Obviously, he hadn't been very successful. Not only was Annie not speaking to him, she had become very annoyed with his lame attempts to get in good with her. She wouldn't speak a word to him. Not one little word.
All that aside, it was another painful day for Eric, as he stood in the kitchen next to Annie and helped her clean up the dishes that remained in the sink. He had been pointing out to her over and over how sorry he was. Her silence had been consistent.
It was horrible to have to listen to the empty air that hung around the house. No one to talk to but his own children, who weren't even around very often to hear whatever it was he had to say. He didn't think it could get any worse than this Of course, he was wrong.
"Were you not at that dinner?" Annie asked him. Her voice was hard, but her eyes, her stare, was harder. It was painful to look at her.
Eric scratched a spot at the back of his neck before replying meekly, "Well, yeah, but I didn't noticed anything wrong with Tom."
Annie scoffed and shook her head at him. One of her sarcastic smiled appeared on her face. Eric hated when she did that. It always told him, "don't play games with me, mister."
Eric hadn't said anything, was afraid to say anything, but finally cracked. "What?! Tom's a nice guy. What was he doing wrong?" Eric asked, sincerely not knowing the answer.
"How can you be so naive?" Annie slapped the dishtowel that she had been holding, down onto the tiled countertop. "What 'nice guy' stares at his friend's daughter like she some kind of- of- of sex toy?!"
Eric's eyes grew wide. "Sex toy?! Annie, come on! He wasn't watching Lucy like she was some kind of sex toy," Eric said defensively.
"Maybe you just can't remember because you were too busy picking at your food to notice," Annie brushed past Eric and rounded the corner.
Ouch.
Eric shook his head and took a breath, trying to calm himself down. He had to get out. He needed some male energy. Or maybe he just needed to get out and be alone. He grabbed his worn, tan coat from the rack and slammed the back door behind him.
Ruthie, who had come down from the stairs soon enough to hear her parents' argument, stepped the rest of the war off of the last step. Her parents hardly ever fought like that. It had been almost three days already, and they still hadn't made up.
Ruthie shook off her parents for a moment and decided to go and get the mail. Bills. Bills. Junk. Bills. Something for Lucy. Bi---Wait. She had been scanning the envelopes and stopped at this particular one. There was something that gave her a weird feeling about this one. It didn't have a return address on it. Anyone who mailed something to Lucy put return addresses on it. Maybe they just didn't want to be replied to. Maybe they didn't want to be found out.
Not bothering to go through
any of the other mail, Ruthie headed inside, setting the remaining envelopes
on the round, oak, table. She took the envelope addressed to Lucy upstairs
to her room to investigate.
~
"Honey, I'm home," Kevin greeted his wife as he stepped into the small garage apartment, taking off his smoking jacket.
Lucy turned in her chair. She had been hunched over a pile of books with passages that had been highlighted in a bright yellow.
"Hey," she said, smiling. Lucy got up, walked over to him, and kissed him lightly on the lips.
"Studying?" Kevin asked, sitting on the bed, laying his jacket beside him.
Lucy glanced at the table and sighed. "Yeah, but I was thinking..."
Kevin stopped untying his boots for a moment and looked up at her. "Thinking about what?"
"I was thinking--if you don't mind--about having dinner with Roxanne," Lucy got her almost-in-pain-but-not-quite look on her face.
Kevin chuckled and kissed her on the cheek. "Relax, it's fine. Have fun."
Lucy smiled. Kevin loved when she did that. Actually, he loved everything that she did. He loved that woman.
"I love you," Lucy said.
Kevin sat upright and smiled at her. "I love you, too."
She kissed him once more. Then she got up off the bed, grabbed her jacket and keys, and blew him a kiss good-bye.
He returned it, and she was gone.
Man, he loved that woman. She
was his life.
~
He was in the bushes, following her. Staying in the shadows. She must have gotten the letter by now and was leaving. Leaving to come to him. To be with him. Together forever.
She was getting in the car. She was about to pull out of the drive, when someone stopped her.
Damn it.
It was a girl. Her sister. The little one. What was her name? Renee or Rudy, or something. He knew it, it just wasn't coming to mind at the moment. She was holding something. Something on a white piece of paper. Then he knew. It was his letter. The letter. Damn it!
But wait. Lucy was waving her off. She was in a hurry. He was far away, but close enough to catch a few words.
"...when I...back..." Lucy was saying, and now she was driving off.
The sister just stood there, watching her.
He jumped out of the bushes and instantly put his hand over her mouth. He dragged her off to a dark place around the house. She put up a hell of a struggle, but in the end, he won.
Her eyes were wide and frightened. He couldn't take the chance of taking his hand off her mouth and let her scream for help.
He pushed her up against the house and looked her in the eye.
He grabbed the paper out of his hand and asked her, "This isn't yours."
The girl shook her head with difficulty, scraping it against the rough outside of the house.
"Didn't your parents ever teach you not to read other people's mail?"
She didn't move this time, just stared at him.
"When you break the rules, you have to deal with the consequences."
He pulled her head away from the wall, then shoved it back towards it. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, the whites of her eyes showing. He picked her up and dragged her off. The letter fell out of the girl's limp grasp halfway down the driveway. He didn't bother picking it up. Maybe this way Lucy would find it. If not, she would get a rude awakening when her baby sister was missing.
This was cruel, he knew it.
But sometimes, you just have to be cruel to get what you want.