Harley and the Mole
Part Five
She should have known better. Whenever Jason wasn't home at night, she could never sleep. Despite knowing that a guard was posted outside, that they had a state of the art security system always engaged, and that Jason kept them as safe as he physically could, Elizabeth could never really relax enough to fall asleep unless her husband was beside her in bed. That's why Sonny always had to give Jason a few days off when he returned from extended business trips. While he was gone, she'd run herself ragged, working and taking care of the kids with little to no sleep, so, by the time he got back, he had to hold down the fort while she recuperated. Even though she knew he would be home eventually, that his assignment was not an overnight one, she was already abnormally tired because of the pregnancy, one he, she had to admit, knew nothing of because she was trying to surprise him, but all she wanted was for her husband to come home, wrap his arms around her, and go to sleep next to her so that she could rest as well.
If Jason had known about her pregnancy that morning when he had gotten a call from Sonny, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have turned down the all day long stakeout job, but that was one of the reasons why she hadn't said anything about the baby yet. After all the problems she had with Jake, the premature labor, the ruptured placenta, and then bleeding out and almost dying after surgery, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jason would be beyond protective of her for the next six and half months, even to the point where he hovered, something she hated. Plus, if she waited until she entered her second trimester, the risk of miscarrying decreased greatly, and, since it wouldn't be her first time miscarrying, there was no need to get her husband's hopes up if she was only going to lose the baby. On top of the pragmatic reasons, there was also the fact that, for once, she wanted to be the original gift giver.
Jason was amazing. Long ago in their past, she had told him how unique the gifts were that he gave her, and, since that moment, he seemed to make it a point to continue the pattern. It didn't matter what he got her, what she loved most about his presents was the fact that he put so much thought into them. That's what told her he loved her. She had never understood how other women could equate love with expensive jewelry, fur coats, or even extravagant purchases of art. To her, expensive gifts with little thought meant that the person giving them was simply trying to buy their significant other's affection, but, thankfully, Jason wasn't like that. He showed her he loved her everyday. He showed her how deeply his feelings ran for her by being the best father he knew how to be to the boys; he showed her with the little thing he did for her like going outside in the middle of winter to clean off and start her car for her so she didn't have to do it herself or by simply offering her one of his rare, true, completely content smiles, because he only seemed to give them to her and their children.
But now it was her turn. She wanted to do the same thing for him - give him a gift for Valentine's Day that proved to him just how special and important he was to her. Elizabeth knew that the holiday itself meant little to her husband. She could admit that Valentine's Day was more of a created holiday so that certain industries could make some money to improve their first quarter profit margins, but it was the closest holiday to the three month mark of her pregnancy, so she was running with it. By no means was she trying to make it a competition between them to see who could come up with the most original gift, but, as she climbed out of bed intent upon scrounging up a snack in the kitchen... perhaps some wine cheese and crackers, she smirked to herself. Even though it wasn't a competition, she was so going to kick Jason's ass.
... well her and the little bundle of joy growing rapidly in her abdomen would.
"Isn't that right, little one," she spoke to the baby, rubbing her small, artistic hands over the very slight bulge that was just starting to reveal her pregnancy. It was so slight that Jason hadn't noticed it yet, but, on the other hand, between the kids, their hectic schedules, and life in general, sometimes she believed it was a miracle that they had managed to find time to conceive a child in the first place. It was not surprising that her husband hadn't seen her naked in a few days.
With that in mind, she found herself really hoping that she was hit with the second trimester neediness. "Sorry, baby," she quickly apologized to her stomach. "I know you don't want to hear about this kind of stuff, but you should get used to it, because your Daddy is hot, and sexy, and attractive, and he has these eyes that just make me want to... Anyway, with our third kid on the way, we're going to have to take advantage of all the time we have left before you're born, because, afterwards, it'll just become that much harder to find time alone. You understand, don't you?"
Just as she reached the top of the stairs, the urge to go to the bathroom hit her, and she paused to ponder the situation. It wasn't an immediate emergency. If circumstances went her way, she could go downstairs, grab her bananas and chocolate syrup to eat in bed, and stop by the bathroom on her way back to her room, but, when she was pregnant, things often didn't go her way. She could find some toys in her path and be forced to picked them up because of the nesting instincts she was currently battling, or the drop of room temperature when she temporarily opened the fridge door could send her scrambling for the steps and upstairs where the bathrooms were before she even had a chance to grab her midnight snack. So, with those roadblocks in mind, she huffed, narrowed her eyes in annoyance, and grumbled the whole way back to the master bathroom.
"Forget morning sickness," Elizabeth remarked sarcastically. "This is the worst part of being pregnant. Unlike morning sickness, it never goes away; it just gets worse the farther along you go in your pregnancy. And, speaking of morning sickness," she realized, tilting her head in thought, "I haven't really been sick that much so far... not that it's a bad thing, mind you, but, with the boys, I was sick every afternoon. Weird." After finishing in the bathroom and washing her hands, she started back on her way again towards the stairs that would take her downstairs where the Jell-O cups the boys liked so much and cans of chilled black olives were waiting for her. That's when another realization hit. "Oh!" Eyes dropping in frustration, she halted and leaned back against the wall, hitting her head against the painted drywall several times. "Jake is going to have a fit."
There was no more time to ponder her younger son's response to the baby news, especially if her sudden suspicions of the sex proved to be true, because, at that moment, Harley appeared out of nowhere, rubbing against her leg and startling the mother to be. "You can't do that, Harley," she admonished the cat, bending over to pick the chubby pet up. "No more almost tripping me when I get up in the middle of the night. It's one thing if I fall when I'm not pregnant, but, if you make me fall now, not only could the baby get hurt, but you can bet your last whisker that Jason would skin you alive and make himself a cat-skinned hat to remind all your fellow feline friends what would happen if they got in my way. So, you need to stay in Jake's room at night. Get your litter box business done before you go to bed, and no more startling me. Besides," the soon-to-be mother of three sighed, "who knows what's going to happen to you. Babies and kitties tend to not mix well. You might have to be temporarily relocated until the baby is old enough for you to come back home, but we'll cross that bridge when they get there. For now, you're going back to bed with Jake, and I'm going downstairs to make myself some breaded mushrooms. Doesn't that sound good?"
Harley purred in response... probably more so because Elizabeth was paying attention to her, talking to and petting her, but she liked to think it was the cat's way of showing her approval for the desired snack of choice. After depositing the family pet under the covers of her younger son's bed, she went back towards the steps but only made it half way there when she noticed that she was cold. Although she had fallen asleep during the ten o'clock news, she had flipped to the weather channel to check on the night's forecasted temperatures. Apparently, the weatherman had been wrong - shocking! - because, if he had been right, her flannel pajamas and socks would have been warm enough to wander around the house in at five minutes to midnight. Quickly deciding to change, she slipped on the one piece, footed pajamas that her Gram had given her for Christmas. If nothing else guaranteed her sleep, they would. Jason found them quite humorous but not sexy at all. She didn't really blame him, but they were extremely warm and comfortable.
Before leaving her bedroom, she paused long enough to go over a short mental check list to make sure that there would be no further interruptions to her mission. Her stomach needed satisfied, the baby wanted fed, and her mouth was simply watering for some canned tuna dipped in ranch dressing. Chuckling to herself, Elizabeth mused that it was a good thing she shut Jake's door, because, otherwise, Harley would have been attacking her hands for the chance to participate in her late night snack.
Cresting the top of the stairs and out of the ear shots of her sleeping children, she started talking to her little baby bump again. "You know, maybe I shouldn't have a snack. They recommend that people eat six to eight small meals a day if they want to lose weight, so, since I'm supposed to gain it, does that mean that I get to eat twelve to sixteen meals a day, and, if so, I fell sufficiently behind on the count today." Reaching the landing, the pregnant mother of two, kept talking. "Besides, it's been almost six hours since I last ate anything substantial. That means a fourth of the day has passed by without me giving you anything nutritious to nibble on; 1/1,120th of my pregnancy has gone past without me taking proper care of you. For those math skills alone, I think we deserve some celery... with peanut butter... and raisons... and chocolate chips... and butterscotch sauce... and whipped cream. Giggling, she made it to the doorway in the living room which led to the back of the house where the kitchen and, more importantly, the fridge and food pantry were located. Without second thought, she rushed through the door and proceeded on her way, never once bothering with turning on a light.
"And a bowl of wedding soup with oyster crackers."
Licking her lips at the thought, another popped into Elizabeth's mind. "And sherbert, raspberry, of course, for dessert."
By the time her feet touched down on the cool tile of the kitchen floor, she was practically skipping around the room to reach her stomach directed target. Pulling the fridge doors open, she just started reaching for various things, removing them and holding them in her arms. Once everything was selected and accumulated on the island counter top, she would figure out exactly what she wanted to eat, and, if Jason was home by then, she would use the excuse that she was up to make him something to eat and then he'd help her. Was it sneaky? Was it slightly underhanded considering the fact that taking care of her husband wasn't the first concern on her mind? Yes, of course it was, but, if she played her cards right, she could blame her less than stellar behavior on the pregnancy. If she had to carry another person inside of her for nine long months and swell up to the size of a allergic bee-stung blue whale, then she'd reap as many of the benefits as possible; behavioral allowances was just one of them.
So, she grabbed a carton of grapes, the caramel ice cream sundae topping, a box of Velveeta cheese, a bottle of ginger ale, some spicy mustard, a tube of frosting, and, for good measure, a fresh clove of garlic. Tossing the supplies on the counter, she turned back to the freezer, but, because there was no light in the colder section of the fridge, Elizabeth quickly scampered across the room, flipped the light switch and, then, went, immediately, back to work.
From the freezer, she removed a box of toaster strudels, mozzarella sticks, some of the fruity popsicles the boys liked so much, the ones in the plastic tubes, a frozen package of bratwurst, and a soft pretzel making kit. By the time she was finished, the soon-to-be mother of three was grateful that she had changed her pajamas. The house had been chilly enough thanks to the frigid New York winter without the aid of an open freezer, but, with the added drop in temperature, the thick, fleece, one piece figurative form of birth control she was wearing suddenly became one of the best presents she had ever received. Obviously, she laughed to herself, rolling her eyes, the baby she was carrying had been conceived before Christmas.
Armed with enough food to get her started, she pivoted around to the island and dropped the items currently attempting to give her hands frostbite onto the counter, but, before she could even open one thing, before she could take a single bite of her midnight snack, she saw it.
And she screamed.
It wasn't a meek, girly, I broke a nail scream; it was a blood curdling, nightmare inducing, straight from a classic horror movie scream, one that was loud enough to send the guard from outside running in, one that woke up Cameron, Jake, and Harley, one that Jason could hear from outside the house where he was parking his bike after finally getting home from the stakeout. But Elizabeth didn't care how loud she was or how much the scream scared the rest of her family. All she knew was that there was a mouse... no a rat in her kitchen, and the damned thing had killed her wonderful, friendly cravings.
Without wasting time, she jumped up on the counter, scooted across from it to the other side, and then used the counter to stand on so she could be as far away from the rodent as possible. If it bit her, she could get rabies, and, even when she wasn't pregnant, rabies would be bad, very, very bad, but, with a baby growing inside of her, she didn't even want to think about the consequences of picking up some contagious, filthy disease. Generally, Elizabeth liked to consider herself a strong, resilient, even tough woman, but sometimes...
She could deal with gaping gunshot wounds and stab victims who were bleeding out in front of her very eyes. She could clean up vomit without getting sick to her own stomach, give grown, unresponsive men sponge baths and clean them up after they soiled themselves without batting an eye, and she could even watch those ridiculous cable nature shows where wild beasts attacked each other and fought to the death, but there was one thing that could stop her in her tracks and make her panic, and that very thing was sitting on her kitchen floor, sniffing and scampering around as if it didn't have a care in the world, and all she wanted was for a man to come in and smash it for her.
If nothing else, it was proof that evolution had not advanced far enough to the point where men were unneeded. True, women could take care of themselves, they could provide themselves with all their basic needs, they could entertain themselves with the aid of a small machine instead of an actual man, and they could even have babies on their own thanks to sperm clinics that were stocked with so much male DNA, the male species could all be eliminated the next day and life could continue on probably indefinitely... all except for one little problem. Women, like her, needed men to deal with mice, with rats.
Milo was the first to arrive. "What is it, Elizabeth? What's wrong? Did you hurt yourself? Did someone get past the security system and break into the house? Did someone attack you and then flee when you screamed?" When all she did was stare at him with wide eyes, he pressed, "you have to tell me what happened, or I can't fix it." Instead of saying a word, though, she simply pointed and refused to look in the direction of the rodent.
Cam was next. "Mom, are you okay?" She could tell that her oldest son was worried, that he was concerned, that he was trying to remain calm and in control because he wanted to take care of her, and it only made her love him that much more. But then there was Jake who was already crying and clutching a withering and impatient Harley in his tiny little three and half year old arms, and, despite the fact that it was the opposite reaction to Cameron's, Jake's tears made her love him even more, too.
Jason was the last to arrive on the scene, and, by the time he stepped through the back door, chaos was ensuing, but he quickly reigned it in and captured everyone's attention. "What the hell is going on around here?"
Milo avoided his boss' gaze, knowing full well he was in for a lecture, Cameron wrinkled his brow in thought, Jake giggled at the fact that his Daddy swore and would be getting in trouble (he hoped his Mommy washed his mouth out with soap, because that's what she did to him when he said something he wasn't supposed to), and Elizabeth, once again, pointed towards the snack interrupting, mood ruining, generally displeasing rodent, her full bottom lip trembling with what she knew to be pent up, hormonal emotions.
Finally, she answered her husband, "there's a rat in the kitchen."
And, in that moment, all hell broke loose when Harley managed to escape Jake's tight grasp and ran straight for the wild animal currently causing so much turmoil in the Morgan household. Things, suddenly, had gone from bad to worse... and all because she had wanted a simple midnight snack of wine cheese and crackers.