Chapter 40

A Bright Future

As soon as she hung up I flew out to Cincinnati and rented a car, driving to the friend's house. A rather amused David told me that she had packed up and talked about going out to her parent's old farm. He drew directions on a map, including telling me to turn at the Mason's mailbox, but I eventually made it out to the Palmer. I got to the farm at 5:30 p.m., saw Kenna's Escape and knew I was in the right place. At the front door I was met by a buxom pregnant woman who waddled almost as badly as my wife.

"Hello, I'm Greg House."

"I'm Donna," she said as she walked out the screen to the porch. "You must be looking for Dr. Kenna. She's out back; would you like some ice tea?"

"Actually, that sounds good, but I'd like to see my wife first."

"Sure, she's out back changing the head gasket on the tractor."

"I'm sure she is. Do you make all guests work on your tractors or just heavily pregnant women?"

Donna looked appropriately insulted. "She wanted to work on it."

I had no doubt that Kenna had at the very least, volunteered to help. I signed and nodded. "If I know my crazy, lunatic, wife, she probably begged to do this."

She took me out the back, through the back yard and out to a large building with farm equipment. A man was hunkered over the open hood doing work with a wrench. I saw Kenna's white legs sticking out from under the tractor. Donna announced me as I bent down to take a look. When she looked up she was covered in grease and grinning from ear to ear. I almost started laughing, she looked so happy.

"Greg, help me up," she demanded.

I gave her a hand but over the last four weeks it was always a challenge trying to pull her up on her feet; I never knew how much force to use, especially since she was getting heavier. I pulled on her and she popped up, wiping her hands on her maternity jeans. "Honey, this is Dutch. I see you met Donna. Dutch, this is my husband, Greg House, the guy who got shot."

I'd been introduced using many adjectives and metaphors, but this was not the introduction I was expecting.

She grabbed me and kissed me, getting grease on my face. I wanted to be angry with her, let her know just how upset and indignant I was, but she was so pretty, so pregnant and so sweet standing there, I couldn't. I tried not to laugh at her but I couldn't help it.

She laughed back and informed me, "We have to go milk the cows. Come on, you have to earn your keep. Have you ever milked cows?

""I've had a few cows in my life, but I never had to milk them."

She kissed me again with sheer joy and excitement. We went across the barnyard and into what she said was the milking parlor. She and Dutch were talking and acting on autopilot. Tuning on a pump and vacuum, she took a spot in the middle of a concrete pit while Dutch opened a door to let the cows filter in. The cows came in on two ledges with the three foot deep pit in-between them. Dutch and Kenna each held stainless steel cups in their hands standing on opposite sides of the pit from each other. The cows were elevated on the ledge, making it easier for Dutch and Kenna to reach their teats.

"Greg, this is a strip cup. It has a screen across the top. I take the teats on each of the cows and shoot a stream of their milk into the strip cup. If there's something strange in the teat or milk, the little strainer on the teat cup will catch it and we can examine it. The first milk out of the teat isn't fit for drinking and is fairly high in bacteria, so we strip each teat of the bad milk this way. Then I take this cup of iodine and dip each teat in it to clean it before milking. Now they're ready. I put the milking cups on them and flip the vacuum knob so that the milking cups suck the milk right out through these tubes and into the large tank next door. We'll dip the teats in iodine again before they leave." She gave me a sweet smile and then turned back to the cows she was milking.

When she handed me the strip cup and suggested I milk the cow in front of me, I thought about it. The cow gave me the stink eye, as if she knew I was an amateur. When I approached, I reach under to grab the teat and heard the sound of a hard substance hitting metal. Kenna jerked me back by my sleeve just as the cow's hoof came up a second time. I looked behind me and on the ground the teat cup I had been holding was rolling around. The damn cow had kicked it out of my hand. I was just lucky it didn't connect.

Dutch and Kenna couldn't stop laughing. In between gulps of air, Kenna suggested that she take over and that I stick to terrorizing doctors and patients. The animals came and went and within an hour they were done milking. Kenna wanted me to clean out the cow shit but I wouldn't, so when Kenna started shoveling it I got some pretty strange looks from Dutch who was busy cleaning his side of the milking parlor. He apparently thought it was odd that I let my very pregnant wife shovel shit while I stood and watched, but I figured this was her fantasy vacation, she should do it. Then she slipped and almost fell. I took the shovel from her and began to shovel the shit out of the parlor while I cussed her and her mental breakdown under my breath. We finished and then she and Dutch went back to the tractor to finish up.

Within an hour they had it buttoned up and running. They walked back to the house where I was sitting on the porch reading. Inside Donna had a huge meal waiting for us-fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, green beans, rolls, and strawberry-rhubarb pie. It was fun watching Kenna tuck in and eat looking like a mechanic and smelling like cow dung.

"Can Greg stay tonight too?" she asked with her mouth full.

Dutch answered with a grin, "Sure the guest room has a full bed. He's welcomed here."

I wanted to go back to Cincinnati and get a real room with nice sheets and an LCD television, but I wasn't going to let my crazy wife out of my sight after her impromptu Mad Max road trip. After dinner, Kenna gave me instructions to dry the dishes while she got a shower. I did as I was told. Donna asked questions about Kenna. She wanted to know how we met, what Princeton was like and if I was looking forward to parenthood. Dutch asked about getting shot.

"Gee Dutch, it was about the most fun anyone can have in one day!"

He gave me a strange look and then chuckled. "Well Greg, I can see why he shot you."

I deserved that, but I couldn't help but look a little miffed. Kenna walked in dressed in a maternity blouse and shorts. I secretly loved seeing her pregnant, it was so out of the ordinary and she looked so young, happy and strangely innocent. I also got a strange boost knowing that at 53 I had knocked up my wife. It was a real ego booster. Especially as most of my hair was gray or had deserted my scalp years ago.

She sat down and watched me dry the rest of the dishes. Then we played a card game called Euchre. After a few rounds which the women won, we went to bed. I spooned her, holding her tightly in the hopes she wouldn't get a wild hair up her butt and go walk-about on me.

I asked her, "What the hell is this all about? What are we doing in the middle of a dairy farm?"

"I needed to come home and connect with my parents. I don't have my Mom around to tell me how to do this-be a Mom and be Kenna. I wish I knew if she ever felt like all the titles were swallowing her up. I thought if I could come here I could somehow feel what she would say. I think it's working because I feel really good right now." She paused, looked me in the eye and said, "You know, you were such a jerk to me, you really need an enema you're so full of it."

"If I'm so full of it, then why am I here? You scared me just taking off like that, not telling me where you went. I had the New Jersey Highway Patrol looking for your car."

"I'm sorry; I needed to get away from it all. Can you just hold me now and forgive me?"

I frowned, "I'll hold you, so you won't get up and start driving again, but I'm not forgiving you that easy. I need at least a couple of days of indignation and righteous wrath." With that I grabbed onto her from behind since it's too hard to hold a pregnant woman from the front and get any sleep.

Later I felt her pull away from me in the dark and I grabbed her back to keep her from getting out of bed.

"Let me go Greg, it's 4:30, time to milk the cows. I'm going to go help Dutch. You stay and get some sleep.

I didn't argue because there was no way I was going to get up at the crack of dawn just to get some bovine stink-eye. I fell asleep again getting up around six-thirty. After I took my shower, I joined them for breakfast. The two pregnant women were cooking and Dutch was drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I sat down and grabbed a section of the paper, growling at Kenna, "Woman, get me some coffee." Both Kenna and Donna stopped, turned around and gave me a look that told me I was enjoying my last hours here on earth. I got up, grabbed a cup and poured myself some coffee, smiled at the women and sat back down."So what time are we leaving? I asked. I need to take the rental car back."

"I'm going to help Dutch bring in the hay and then we can go home tomorrow."

"You are joking, right?"

"No, Donna said she'll follow you down to the rental place in my car and then you can drive back. That way we can take off early tomorrow."

"Are you a moron? You could give birth any day; you could give birth right here in Podunk, Indiana! We need to get to civilization."

"Excuse me? I was born in Podunk, Indiana and I happened to have gotten my doctorate when I was 22. What about you?"

I was properly chastised. "I just want to go home, have my baby at home." I tried pouting, but all it did was piss off the Knudsens.

"I promise to make it home for the delivery...promise," Kenna said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

Donna and I took the rental back and when we returned to the farm. I walked out to where they were baling hay. Dutch was doing the baling and Kenna was driving the tractor with three teenagers throwing the bales up on the flat bed behind her. She was bouncing up and down and having a great time. I wondered what our baby was thinking. Kenna waved for me to come out and so I walked across the half baled was a little step on the side of the tractor that she motioned for me to use to climb up and ride with her. I climbed up behind her on the tractor, her sitting between my legs as we traveled over the field. I watched her maneuver the tractor with the clutch engaged, shifting gears as she drove along.

"Did Donna say when lunch would be ready?" She yelled over the tractor and baling equipment. Kenna was always hungry lately.

"At one." I yelled.

She nodded back.

At 12:30 p.m. we stopped and walked back to the house and each of us washed up before sitting at the table. The three teenagers came from different farms around the town. They were paid $75 each for a day's work plus meals. The conversation at the table was lively. They brought Kenna up to date on all the gossip in town since she left the farm. We had sandwiches, coleslaw, fruit and cookies for lunch. I don't think I've ever seen people eat so much and so fast in my life.

We headed back to the fields where I helped load the hay with the kids. Kenna wanted me drive the tractor which I did. We took one load of hay to the barn and unloaded it and then headed out for the second load. I forgot to engage the clutch on a little hill and dumped the teenagers and the bales of hay all over the field. Everyone seemed to have a good sense of humor because there was a lot of laughter and no angry insults, just some gentle ribbing. Dutch told me that everyone does it at one time or another. I was actually enjoying myself. It was fun doing something different and being outdoors. Of course, I had to load up on Claritin, but that was okay.

That night after Kenna and Dutch milked the cows and we all took our showers, we went into Harrison and I bought the Knudsens a nice dinner. I think they even started to mellow towards me. The waitress was hot; she had on a little skirt and a tight low cut tank top showing off some nice D cup beauties. Kenna kicked me under the table because I became a little too obvious in my admiration of her assets.

"Hey, they're being displayed so I can admire them, what am I suppose to do, insult her by ignoring them? That would be rude. Besides as long as I just read the 'menu' and don't order we're cool right?"

"You're making your pregnant wife feel fat and ugly," Kenna moaned.

"You are fat, but I wouldn't call you ugly. Maybe round." I got another huge kick under the table. "Owww."

The next morning we ate breakfast after Kenna was done with the milking. Kenna exchanged addresses and phone numbers and then we took off. I drove first while Kenna napped. She put the seat back and grabbed a jacket, bunched it up and used it as a pillow. She looked really pregnant sprawled out in the front seat and it finally sunk in that this woman was going to have a baby soon and it was going to look just like me. Ok, maybe not just like me, but I think every father has that fantasy, right? Anyway, this realization came to me while I was driving the leg between Columbus and Zanesville and listening to the Stones, Waiting for a Friend.

I started to understand what Kenna had been saying. The whole definition of who I am was about to change. I wasn't going to be the horse betting, drunken, whoremonger addict that had defined my life for so long. I was going to have to wrap my head about being a father. A cold chill ran down my spine and I wondered for a moment if I could just open the door and roll Kenna out while the car was moving.

When we got to Zanesville, Ohio, I filled up the tank and went to the bathroom. When I came back she was gone and I have to admit that for a moment I thought she had taken off again and I was both freaked out and frightened. Five minutes later she came back to the car, her hair disheveled and a large indent on her cheek from sleeping on the zipper of the jacket.

"Do you want me to drive?" she asked as she rubbed her tummy with both her hands.

"No, I'm still good. I just needed to stretch." I said. We got back in the car out of the heat and took off down the road.

After several hours of driving we started talking about the baby. Not having decided on a name, I wanted to name him after my favorite fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes but Kenna said absolutely no. She did say that we could name the baby after Sherlock Holmes' smarter brother, Mycroft Holmes. I thought about it, "Works for me. Mycroft House. We'll have to call him Myke or he'll get the crap beat out of him at school. What about a middle name?"

"Easy, Gregory has to be his middle name." she said with no room for discussion.

"I don't know, naming him after me? How do I know he's really mine?"

"I guess if he has brown eyes you can start divorce proceedings. What if it's a girl?"

"We'll name her Bright after Bright, Indiana," I suggested.

She thought about it and shrugged. "We'll see." She turned and got a bottle of water out of the Styrofoam cooler in the back seat.

"Jesus Kenna, your butt is so big now you have more crack than a dope dealer." She turned and looked at me with her mouth wide open and her eyes growing angrier by the second. "Hey, I'm just commenting on the obvious."

"Did you ever think I might be sensitive about how big I am right now?"

I started laughing, "I was just pulling your chain. I think it's hot. You were always too skinny anyway. Now I have something to hang on to."

She opened the water and handed it to me so that I could have a drink. I took a big gulp and then handed it back to her. "Where are we going to pull over so we can switch drivers? She asked.

I nodded and said, "I can drive."

She shrugged and looked off into space as if she was looking into our future.

"What's going on in that fog you call a brain?" I asked.

"I was just thinking that I was going to be forever linked to you by the 24 chromosomes that you donated to this child. I guess it means I'll be washing your boxers for the rest of my life, watching you cut your toenails, floss your teeth, snip your nose hairs, snore, gargle, scratch your nuts, pick your teeth...you know the fun part of being married, not to mention having to put up with your cutting wit, nocturnal piano playing and sex after Baywatch. I guess this is love. Knowing that your life is going to be made up of all these moments and being okay with it."

I thought about what she said and had to admit that I had similar thoughts. "I know; I watched you use twenty tissues the other day when your allergies flared and I thought I better buy stock in tissue paper. I can't believe that any one person needs fifty lotions or a hundred tubes of lipstick, all of which look like the same color to me. I watch you brush your teeth and your tongue and I want to gag for you. And the fact that under my bathroom sink are three types of feminine hygiene-tampons, napkins and panty liners-makes me shudder. Not to mention, why does any woman need four different hair brushes?" I looked at her and she was laughing. Reaching over, I took her little boney hand in mine. "You know though, I still look forward to coming home and seeing you in the library or family room or scrounging through the refrigerator. I enjoy watching you sleep or feeling you naked, even pregnant, against my body. I love the smell of you, and not the smell when you get out of the shower, but the smell after you've had a long day and the odor is all you. I love when you bite your lip when you're trying to figure something out and how I can feel you up anywhere and you just ignore me most of the time."

She looked at me with the funniest expression.

"What?" I asked.

"Greg, we need to get a room," she said, grinning.

"Ok, we'll get one when we get to Pittsburgh."

"I'm not going to last that long."

"Why, are you having contractions?"

"No, I mean, I want you right now...I have this incredible urge to screw you. I don't want to wait until Pittsburgh. Let's just get a room for a few hours, take a nap and then we can keep going."

"Kenna, you want to pull over so we can have sex?"

"Yes, yes, yes. I want to have sex because you just said some of the sexiest things in the world to me and because in a few days we won't be having sex for months."

I thought about it and she was right. "You are really one strange woman."

"I've always loved having sex with you. You were my first and you'll be my last and you'll be the best. Pull over damn it."

I found a Holiday Express and we rented a room. I didn't bother taking anything out of the car but our toiletries. She barely got in the room and she started taking her clothes off. Now, I love Kenna, but she's really, really pregnant and there's only one way to make love to her comfortably and that's doggy style. However, she doesn't want it that way; she wants to be on top. Unfortunately, it's just not that conducive for me feeling frisky. When I see her big round belly, it reminds me that my baby is sitting right there. We were lying on the bed and I was about to tell her to turn over but she started kissing me and then she slipped her hand in my boxers, using that little feather touch she has followed by full on stroking. It's hard to describe how delicious it is except to say that I get turned on just thinking about it. She then licked and sucked and rubbed until I didn't care if she was sitting on me, holding our baby in her lap or breathing fire, I would have given it to her any way she wanted it. What she can do with her mouth is probably illegal in twenty states, it's so addictive. After I came –hard-she took a kleenex and cleaned up a little. I caught my breath and spread her legs, going down on her. I spent several minutes getting her worked up and then she grabbed my hair and pulled me up.

"I need you in me now," she demanded.

"Kenna, I can't do it from this angle, you'll have to turn over honey."

She screamed, "No! Lay back."

I wasn't so sure that this would work. I laid back and she climbed on me, but she sat backwards so that it was her back I saw. She mounted me and rode up and down squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing, until I was thrusting hard and fast.

She started screaming, "Yes, that's it, oh yeah, ahhhhhhh."

She came, I came and after that, there was no way I could drive for awhile. We collapsed and took a nap. There are a few times in your life when you know you're really happy and one of mine was in a Holiday Express just west of Pittsburgh, PA. Three hours later we got up, showered and she demanded that we stay the night; she didn't feel like sitting in a car. We went to the movies and found a nice steak house where we talked about her current research-which was mind boggling- and she asked me about my parents. At first I gave her flippant answers but after awhile I told her some of the crap from my childhood that had defined who I was. She was silent and thoughtful.

"Greg, I wonder what happened to your Dad that he thought he was being a good father by doing that?"

"Oh, Grandpa was hard on him; they didn't have an easy relationship. My Dad mellowed quite a bit as I got older, even tried to apologize, but I'm not good on forgiveness. Kenna, I worry about Myke, do you think I'll..." I couldn't finish it.

"Unlike your mother, I'll kick your ass to the curb if you ever physically or psychologically try to damage our child. Don't worry, I love you and I won't let you do anything to screw up our kid. Well, every parent does something to screw up their kid, but I mean major screwing. We have to give our baby an excuse to blame us for something."

I love her. I knew that she'd protect our child like a Tigress. Kenna had a mind of her own and knew when to fight and when to run. I knew that she wouldn't let me or my mouth hurt the baby.

Dear Readers: Tomorrow is our last chapter. I hope you've enjoyed the story and I really appreciate the reviews. Thanks! Kim (Gorblimey2)