Recap of Previous Chapter: Discharged from the hospital, Sookie gets back on her feet taking care of E.J., her home, and finances; and making sense of Gran's love affair with Fintan. After a visit to the diner brings her up close and personal with Sam, she realizes she is ready to start looking for Eric.

Disclaimer: All SVM characters belong to Charlaine Harris. I'm just taking them on a tour of New England.

Chapter 18: Visiting

As I was making my way out of the diner, Arlene snagged me at the counter. "How's that little guy of yours doing?"

I stopped and took a deep breath. A certain tone in her voice told me that what she was really asking was, "Tell me all the ways that E.J. is making your life miserable."

I could have taken her bait. After all, it would have been easy enough to share a true-life story about how much E.J. was still waking up at night. Or how much he cried. Or how loudly he cried. (Sheez.) She would have listened with great fascination, I'm sure, and then she probably would have softened, sharing a story about how many times Lisa had the croup, or something like that. After that little bit of mom bonding, I could have been on my way.

But, you know, after my, uh…encounter with Sam, I was feeling a little sore and cranky myself.

Also—truth be told—I wanted to brag a little.

From my purse, I pulled an accordion-style display of E.J. photos. They flapped open into a whole yard of good angles and happy times. These were the favored ones I myself would go to when his real face was a color I'd call splotchy-red-purple. These were the ones that helped keep the tough times in check.

I spread them out on the counter in front of us and almost immediately got sucked in. There he was propped up in his bouncy seat, with his perfectly round belly sticking out. And there he was with his fist in his mouth. That one there was the first smile I'd ever caught with a camera. (I swear it was a smile, and not just gas.) And there he was, drooling on my shoulder, posed in a way that showed off his crazy hair. I realized, wistfully, that I didn't have too many of the two of us.

Holly leaned over my shoulder. "Sookie, he's adorable! It's a good thing he's not here or I'd pinch those cheeks."

I grinned for real, and before I knew it, I was gushing too. "Oh! I know! I can't stop myself sometimes!"

Then Holly said something that almost made me swoon. "But it's the hair. He's got the cutest, wildest mop of hair I've ever seen on a baby. Like a fuzzy porcupine."

Maybe even a squeal escaped from me. I was a goner, lost in a surge of female hormones. Before I even knew what was happening, Holly and I were swapping mom stories like old friends.

Jeez, was this what new moms were supposed to do? I needed to get myself some more of this kind of action—get out a little more—'cuz I was a little embarrassed to admit it, but it was kinda fun.

Maybe we went too far commiserating over our double electric breast pumps.

"Stretched my nipples this long!" Holly held up her fingers to demonstrate.

I looked around, suddenly aware that people were cutting a wide swath around us. We hushed, but then burst out laughing again.

"A good dose of formula will make him sleep through the night. Worked like a charm for my two." Arlene, hovering nearby, stepped into the conversation.

"Oh, not for me," Holly countered. "Gave mine such bad gas he was up all night crying. Tried it only once, and that was enough."

I could practically see the red glow in Arlene's eyes. We were starting to get into that dangerous territory of breastfeeding versus formula, fertile grounds for unwarranted nastiness among otherwise grown, mature women. The clean-up crew was long overdue. "I guess it's true what they say about every child being different. It's just a matter of figuring it out." I'd offered it up genuinely, but I could see by the look on Arlene's face that things had gone too far.

"Better watch out, though. If you don't support your girls well enough, before you know it, they'll be grazing your knees. Pilates worked miracles for me too." She patted at her own trim midsection.

"Is that how you toned up so fast, Arlene?" Holly jumped in.

"Mm-hmm." Arlene responded absently. She had picked up the photos and was holding them up and looking back and forth between the pictures and me. "Well, he's got your fair coloring, but his eyes are a little bit lighter than yours. Course that could change. It sometimes does, you know."

Holly looked away and grabbed at a few straw paper bits floating around on the counter. Arlene was clearly treading into who's-the-daddy territory.

"Only time will tell," I countered blithely.

"Of course." She smiled brightly and folded up the photos. "Listen, when you get the go-ahead, I'll give you my Pilates instructor's name. You never know when tall, blonde, and handsome is going to walk in here again."

That gave me pause. I looked at her. Did she mean Eric? Jeez, I knew Arlene could be jealous, but I'd no clue how strong and deep her feelings went if she'd been hanging onto them for so long. Eric hadn't been in here in a year. Surely she didn't mean him. I looked at her quizzically.

"Oh, come on. There's only one man that tall and blonde and handsome who ever strode into this diner. Drives a Corvette. You know who I mean."

"That was over a year ago. April Fools' Day."

Her face turned positively delighted. "A year ago?" She chuckled. "No, ma'am. He came in here when you were in the hospital. The second time."

I waited. Arlene would spill this story and relish every moment, without any prompting from me. I worked hard to turn my face impassive, but I'm sure my surprise was leaking out.

"Amelia talked to him. I'm surprised she didn't give you the message." She picked up a stack of menus and slid them into a pocket by the cash register. "And I'm guessing by the look on your face that he never found you."

"Then it's a good thing I wasn't holding my breath," I snapped.

I turned away from her and strode out of the diner, not sure who to be sore at most: Arlene, Amelia, or Eric. As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, the thought that popped into my mind was that while Sam and I were pawing all over each other, I'd forgotten to ask him about how I was going to manage a pumping schedule during my work hours at the diner. Now there was a truly complicated quandary.

Amelia came breezing in right before dinner, when E.J. was fussing and I was trying to cook. Octavia and I had played pass-the-cranky-baby while we took turns chopping salads until she finally gave up and took him outside for a change of scenery, away from "the goods." Amelia pitched in to help. I chopped faster.

I didn't know if this was the best time or not, but with a baby, you take whatever you can get whenever.

"Why didn't you give me the message that Eric stopped by at the diner asking for me?"

Amelia looked a little frightened, and then immediately her eyes filled. "I'm sorry. I got myself in a jam, and then I didn't know what to do."

"For starters, you could have said, 'Sookie, Eric came into the diner looking for you.'"

"I might have blurted out a little more than I should have to him."

I stopped chopping.

"I said that you were still in the hospital, but you were okay…"

"Mm-hmm…" I waved my hand impatiently because I could hear the tenor of E.J.'s crying change for the worse. I was still holding a knife.

Her words poured out so fast I could barely understand her. "And I said something about the baby being okay too. He looked so surprised that I realized I had said too much. I was only trying to help."

Did she just say what I thought she just said? "Hold on there. Did you tell Eric about the baby?"

She cringed visibly.

There was only one possible look coming out of my eyes right then, and it was a glare.

"It just blurted out. I wasn't thinking."

"Yeah, you could say that," blurted right out of my mouth.

Amelia looked like she was about to say something else, but abruptly clammed up.

I sat down to think, only that wasn't going to do me any good. So then I stood up and moved back to the counter to gather all of the vegetable scraps into a bowl to take out to the composter. Then I got out a stack of plates and handed them to Amelia wordlessly. She got busy setting the table while I wiped at the counter. And when I was done with that, I wiped at a spot of dried milk that had crusted on my shirt.

I had never told Amelia directly that Eric is E.J.'s father, though I'm sure she'd guessed it. I tried to put myself in her shoes. If Eric had come into the diner looking for Amelia, would I have said anything about a baby? Nope. Definitely not, but I could see how that sort of thing would have blurted out of Amelia's mouth. I probably would have said something like, "I'll be sure to let her know that you stopped by." Even better would have been something like, "Could I get your contact info so she can get in touch with you?" That would have been a real gem. And then, for sure, I would have passed on the message.

Yes, that was the real issue here. She didn't tell me. Four or five weeks ago.

The urge to slam something was coming over pretty hard. I did all that I could to keep from exploding. "I'm feeling angry that you didn't tell me."

"You stopped talking about him."

"Excuse me?"

"You stopped talking about him."

I took a deep breath. "What's that got to do with anything? I've had a thousand things on my plate." Plus it wasn't her business.

"Right! I know! And after a while, it got harder and harder to tell you, 'cuz it looked like he hadn't shown up…and you had so many other things to worry about. And then I wondered whether maybe he did show up and it didn't work out…and the longer I waited, the harder it got to talk about it with you."

I swiped some more at the dried milk stain that wasn't going away. How could someone's actions be so misguided?

"Honest, I didn't know what to do, Sookie."

I realized I was in a position of not knowing again. I groaned out loud. "This makes things really complicated for me now." Did Eric try to reach me at the hospital, only to be turned away, or did he make a run for it once he'd heard the word 'baby' come out of Amelia's mouth?

"I'm really sorry. To tell you the truth, I feel responsible for the entire mess."

"What?"

"I was the one who gave him your phone number."

"When?"

"You know, the practical joke about the fake fender bender, asking him to call Larry."

"That was you?"

"Mm-hmm."

Wait a minute. There was something else that was bugging me. Whole entire mess. Had she actually called it a whole entire mess? That's when it hit me. Amelia didn't approve. She'd played matchmaker, and then when it looked to her like things weren't working out, in her opinion, she played unmatchmaker.

"Do you hate me?"

I had to admit, the feelings were pretty strong. The desire to slap her made my fingers twitch. Calling her a meddling bitch sounded pretty good too. But what sounded best of all was her rental income. Otherwise, I'd have no hope of paying for Octavia.

So I did what I was used to doing: pretending everything was shiny and good outside a tarnished interior. "No, I don't hate you."

She at least had the decency to look visibly relieved. "How can I make it up to you?"

I considered what my next step would be. There was really no use analyzing this whole situation any more. I wasn't about to drive myself nuts by asking her all kinds of stupid questions like, "What kind of face did he make when you told him I was in the hospital?" and, "Did he say where he was going when he left Merlotte's?" and "What was he wearing?" like some kind of lovesick fool.

The fact was, the burden of getting in touch was on me, and I had to assume the ball was back in my court. Exactly what to do next was another matter.

In all likelihood, Eric had come to the diner after receiving the message from Pam. At least I thought that was a safe enough assumption, though I'd certainly been surprised enough lately to have my confidence rattled about anything I thought I knew. Pam had also given me that cloaked message that had uncovered Lorena Ball. Though I didn't know how much more she'd spill for me, I could probably count her a "friend." Of sorts.

Still, I didn't think I'd relish another trip to her office, and I had a couple of other ideas, going by the names of Russell and Bart. A trip to P-town would only get more difficult once I returned to work in a few days, and it seemed to me that it would be a good idea to spread my sources around a little. Who knew what else I'd dredge up. And on top of that, I had another kind of business I'd need to do there.

"Are you up for a little road trip, Amelia?"

She hesitated for the slightest moment, probably surprised by my request. "Sure. I've got some time tomorrow."

And so it was settled.

The next day, P-town was in a quiet, sedate kind of mood unlike anything I'd ever seen there. Off season. During the day. Quiet and kind of wholesome. Maybe even a little bland. I was sad to see that Bart's store was closed for the day.

It took us a little while in the maze of side streets and alleyways to find the bait-and-tackle shop. Amelia made off with E.J. while I stepped inside, where I was relieved to find Russell.

He appraised me carefully. "I know you. You've been here before, haven't you?"

"I'm Sookie…"

He interrupted me as I was saying my name. "…The sapphire sunburst."

He knew me by my jewel. "That's right."

"That was a special piece. I hope you're enjoying it."

"Yes. I am." But now cold hard cash is an even more beautiful thing. "Only, I regret that I need to return it. If you'll take it, that is."

"You want me to buy it back?"

I flushed. I started babbling now, afraid he'd be insulted by my return. "I could take it to a pawn shop, but I never trust them. And it seemed too special of a piece to put in anybody's hands. I thought I'd bring it to you first. You made it right?"

Shoving aside a spare diaper and bib, I pulled a soft pouch out of my purse. The brooch slipped out of the pocket and practically pressed itself right into my hands. I imagined the indentations it would make in the mold of my palm.

"What a shame. I think it was meant for you."

"Yes. I hate to part with it." I refused to get attached to this object, especially since it could help keep a roof over our heads, but I wasn't about to insult the man who'd made it.

I pushed it toward him. It released from my fingers, scritching and scratching across the glass countertop like a crab scuttling across the sand. My hands pulled away.

Russell had turned to pull a file out of a drawer. He rifled through some papers before pulling out a yellow slip. "Okay. Here's the record."

He picked up the pin, looking at me, not at it. I squirmed, willed the tears back, and pulled a puppet master kind of smile. He had the same intense kind of look that Eric did, which was not helping me hold it together at the moment. Finally, after what seemed like the most concentrated silence ever, he pulled out a check book and started scribbling. "I think you'll find this a fair amount, yes?" He tore off a check and held it up.

$5300. "Are you sure?" I almost blurted out. "Yes. Of course. Thank you." I think a gasp might have escaped along the way.

"Ms. Stackhouse…"

"…How do you know my name?"

He paused briefly. "I never forget an unusual name like Sookie. Plus it's here in my files."

I looked down at the check. Sure enough, my full name had been written on it.

"I'm sorry. I don't know your full name."

"Russell Edgington."

"Mr. Edgington, do you know the man who gave me this pin? Eric Northman?"

"Why do you ask?"

I sighed. I was tired of the game-playing surrounding everyone whom I asked about Eric. Sophie-Anne. Pamela. And now Russell. I decided to be blunt and straightforward with him. "It's very important that I get in touch with him. He might have tried to reach me already, but we missed each other. Please tell him I'm still at the diner and the same home address. He knows where it is."

"All right."

I noticed right away that he didn't say, "I'll see that he gets it," or "If I happen to run into him, I'll pass it along," or even, "I doubt I'll see him any time soon." It was just an "All right."

Russell's eyes held mine with a look that was both empty and resolute. He wasn't budging, and he wasn't used to anyone even trying. All righty then. I had no other business to conduct with him. No bait to buy. No additional pieces of jewelry to sell back. No fish story to share. (You shoulda seen the one that got away…Oh, right, you know the one who got away.) I wondered what kind of business Russell was involved in, given that his bait shop wasn't exactly convenient to the water. There were no other businesses nearby. No permanent residents. Only a bunch of people coming and going.

Like me. I snapped to. I held a check for $5300 in my hands that was begging to be cashed. Quickly. My business was done here. I didn't even bother with a "Say hello to Bart," though I would have liked to have seen him. With a "thank you" and a "good day," I was on my way out of the store.

Only now I wondered how much the pin was really worth. If he was willing to so easily write a check for an amount that seemed extremely high to me, it might be worth even more. Unless…well, now my brain was spinning silly stories. I'd been bamboozled by too many men these days to trust any of them.

I caught up with Amelia and E.J. a few blocks away. She excused herself for a few minutes while I spent some time browsing in an overpriced children's store, wondering who would pay $29.95 for an infant's t-shirt.

There was one more thing I wanted to do today. On the way home, I asked Amelia if she would stop by a particular beach. I directed her toward the parking lot, which was completely empty today. "Do you mind waiting here for a few minutes?"

"Sure." She knew better than to ask why, but her surprise leaked out on her face when she saw me pull E.J. out of his carrier. I grabbed an extra blanket, anticipating a cool breeze down by the water.

As I reached the top of the dunes, I could see right away that there was nothing of the horror I had witnessed here last summer. All evidence of what had happened here a year ago had been wiped clean. There was simply the reassuring detritus typical of these kinds of beaches not frequented by many people—the scattered bits of driftwood and broken shells and clumps of seaweed and bird tracks in the sand.

I walked with E.J. right down to the water's edge. Had the water been quite a bit warmer, or had I not been holding E.J., I would have waded in a little, but this would work all right here, where the water stopped just shy of kissing my toes. This view was my favorite in the whole world. I liked it even more than the one from my own home, comforting and familiar, but filled with buoys and boats and floating docks and a sandbar that came and went with the tide. Here, the vast, unbroken open space—a giant blank canvas—empty of clutter but loaded with possibility, made me shiver, exhilarated and frightened all at once. It took only a moment or two of focusing outward to feel the land disappear and grant me ungrounded weightlessness, with absolutely nothing to shove off from. I could get lost here, overtaken by that lovely feeling that all of my cares and concerns in this world amounted to an insignificant speck. I held E.J. up against me, face out, and wondered how much he could see. Maybe one day he'd feel it too.

I hoped he would.

I didn't want to take too long there. Before he started to fuss, I headed to Amelia's car with him, thinking about my day. I was $5300 closer to keeping our heads above the water, I'd passed along another message to Eric, and I'd freshened up my view of the world. All in all, a good day, I'd say.

"Thank you," I offered simply to Amelia when she looked at me quizzically.

"All set?" she asked.

"Yes. Let's go."

"Where do you want to go?" I could see from Eric's tense posture that he was ready to do something.

"Let's go see that finback whale that washed ashore yesterday."

"Really? You want to go see a dead whale?"

"Yeah. I've never gotten that close to one."

"You've never been on a whale watch?" Around here, you couldn't escape childhood without going on at least a few.

"Sure. But that's different. You never get to see the whole thing when they're in the water, even when they breach."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, but they're alive."

His eyes narrowed. "You think I'm joking."

That gave me pause. I'd insulted him. "Oh, no. I can see how serious you are."

"Don't you think it would be interesting?"

"Well…" I hesitated. Interesting, I'd concede. I just couldn't say it had ever been on my top-ten list of things to do on a date.

"Come on," he offered, "We'll stop for ice cream afterwards." He was back in the game.

"Well, now I'm sold for sure." I poked at his rib cage. "Dead whale followed by ice cream. Ima lucky girl." I poked him again for good measure.

He retaliated as I knew he would, pulling me in close and nuzzling my neck, making me squirm in a good way. There would be a third act too.

"Which beach?" I consented.

"I forget the name, but I think I know where it is. It's one of the smaller ones."

It took a little trial and error until we found it. From the parking area, it was about a fifty-yard walk to the beach path. Eric, clearly excited, strode ahead.

I slowed. An insinuating odor was drifting around me, hinting at something so very wrong. I thought about turning back then. I really did. I even thought about what I'd do in Eric's Jeep while he did his thing, whatever that was, with a dead whale. Surely I had a spare nail file and buffer tucked in the bottom of my purse. I'd sit and shape and shine up my nails, all the while considering ice cream choices. Maybe I'd go for something new, like ginger snap molasses or Mexican chocolate or strawberry rhubarb or…

A bank of stench hit me hard and fast, immediately ruining my appetite, possibly for good. My stomach lurched in that way that was not unfamiliar to me those days. Up ahead, Eric crested the dune, calling out, "Christ! Look at it!" and "What the fuck is that?"

I thought again about hightailing it out of there, but I'd already gone too far to turn back, and although I'd been avoiding it, I also needed to breathe again. My mouth aimed to take in a little gasp to spare my nose, only the air had its own plans, shoving its thick, oily, rancid mass right down my throat. I gagged as it coated my insides.

It wasn't long before I reached the top of the dune and saw for myself that dead whale, long and massive, flopped on the beach. No matter how many times I'd seen a whale—live—its size and magnificence always amazed me. I hoped I'd never lose that sense of wonder, but at that moment, it made my sadness and horror feel even worse.

The finback is not the largest kind of whale, but this one had an enormous, billowing protrusion from its mouth end. It ballooned outward and upward, far, far above and beyond the mass of the body. From a distance, I might have been able to convince myself that it was playing with an oversized beach ball. As I walked closer, though, it became more and more difficult to think that was the case.

Eric's head was bent down, scrutinizing its gaping mouth. He called out excitedly to me, "I think that's the fucking tongue."

I looked at the mouth too.

"Can you believe it? That's the tongue!"

No, in fact, I couldn't. I looked right at it and still couldn't fathom how a tongue could swell to such a grotesque and misshapen form. I looked away. Somehow I felt as though I were stealing this animal's dignity, if that were possible.

There had to be something. There had to be something positive I could remember about this whale so that it wouldn't just be left to rot. Once a fishmonger had told me that the way to tell a fresh fish is to look for an eye that looks right at you. Though I was frightened, I could do that. I could look him in the eye. The way his body was twisted, his eye looked out right above my eye level. But when I looked at his dull, lifeless eye, I could scarcely believe it had ever seen anything. I swallowed back a sob and caught the taste of spoiled sea in my mouth.

The flesh wasn't any better. Though still shiny and glossy, it looked like nothing more than an inner tube thrown in someone's backyard pool. I imagined if I touched it, it would feel much the same—cold and artificial.

Eric had moved down toward the tail end.

"According to the radio report I heard, they say it's a juvenile male." He circled, probably looking for anatomical evidence. "How do you think you tell?"

I shrugged. I didn't want to open my mouth again, but even if I knew, I wasn't about to betray this whale's confidence.

"And they say that so far, they haven't found any trauma to the body, or anything that would suggest it was struck by a boat propeller."

I guessed I felt a little better knowing that humans hadn't caused this death. Still, the end result was the same. One way or another, through human fault or Mother Nature, this whale had been ejected from the sea, unceremoniously kicked out and left to rot.

I tried imagining what this whale looked like swimming underwater. Finbacks are known as the Greyhound of the sea, for their sleekness and speed, but looking at this mass of flaccid flesh, I gained a new understanding of the expression dead weight.

Eric was moving again, measuring the distance from end to end by his stride. "That's about fifteen yards, not including the tongue." He was back to the tongue. "That fucking tongue could explode."

So could I. The tears came hard and fast, boosted by my stupid, stupid hormones.

He didn't notice, still caught up in the gory sight. "How do you think they'll get it out of here? They might have to cut it up right here. How else would they haul it out?"

No, I decided, this wasn't really about hormones. This whole scene wasn't okay with me, and wouldn't ever be—not in any way. I couldn't hold it in any longer. Right there I hunched over and retched into the sand.

I stood up, and with nothing else available, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Eric had wandered closer, but held his distance, and for once I was glad he didn't reach for me. I wrapped my arms around myself.

At that point, I knew three things. First, I was done there. I turned to walk away, knowing that whenever Eric was ready, he'd follow.

Second, if my suspicions about being pregnant were right, I'd already made my decision about keeping the baby.

And third, I felt no compunction about making it on my own.

It was my decision. In fact, I guessed I'd call it one whale of a decision.

~Thanks for reading!~

And thanks, makesmyheadspin & peppermintyrose!