Chapter 15

I saw him parking. He was back sooner than I thought he would be. That said, it was early but I was already on my second cup of coffee. So at least he didn’t wake me up. I thought that considerate of him.

I wheeled over to the door and let him in. I nodded to the kitchen as I took a sip of my coffee. He knew what I meant and went to get him some.

Back, he sat down across from me. “I can tell from your look that the news is bad, bad for me,” I said.

“Yes, I guess so,” he said. “She says any visitation you want is a done deal but not residency.”

“Thank you for your straight up honesty; it is appreciated; I mean really,” I said. He nodded, and we just sipped our coffees and waited for one of us to say something else. He went first.

“Any wiggle room?” he said.

“No, and I’ve thought about it since last night. Just tell her for me that I will hate her till I die; but that she will not have to deal even with visitation anymore. I am cutting myself off from the Hardy clan permanently. And henceforth, really, any friend of the Hardys’ will be an enemy of mine, not matter who it is.

“I will say, and this is kind of odd, or seems so even to me, that I do very much appreciate your forthrightness,” I said. “And again, I do thank you for that.” He nodded, downed the last of his coffee— well, it was Maxwell House—and walked out.

The man drove slowly toward his home in Scottsdale. His woman was most probably hoping for a different if not better outcome than she’d more or less mandated the night before. If so, he thought, she was about to be majorly disappointed. Another week and a half and it would be the Fourth of July, but the fireworks were already going off emotionally regardless.

Grant Hardy pulled into the drive of his four-bedroom place and parked. He waited some short moments before exiting and going inside. His wife would be waiting to hear the details of the meet up with her ex.

He didn’t even wait for her to ask any questions. “Don’t be making or trying to make friends with any of his friends. He made it plain that any friends of ours would immediately become enemies of his. And Penelope, he was not kidding,” he said. “I hope that answers all of your questions. Because I am just sick about it, all of it.”

“Oh, my God. I had hoped, hoped against hope, that you’d be able to soften his position on the big thing if nothing else. But no dice, I guess,” she said, seeming to talk mostly to herself.

“No, no softening, no wiggle room, no hope,” he said. She nodded.

“So now I guess we just get on with living our lives. If he comes to us, we’ll do something, but he will have to do the coming,” she said.

“Whatever you say, dear,” he said, but he was clearly not real happy with the situation, not happy at all.

It was a good week after the Fourth of July. And, thoughts about dealing with the stubborn double amputee were about to be relegated to the back burner. Oh yeah, that was a for sure thing.

She was waiting for him to get home from his shift in the burn ward. He spent a lot of his time anymore helping the worst off of the patients there. Plastic surgeons didn’t just do nose jobs for ego driven rich people.

She heard the door close at the back of the service porch. He noticed the strange look she was giving him and sat down across from her at the table.

“News?” he said.

“Hmm, I guess you could say that,” she said.

“About him?” he said.

“Lee? No, no, not about Lee. No,” she said. Her emphatic negativity said something, but what, he wondered.

“Okay,” said Grant.

“Only that I’m pregnant,” she said. He stared at her for a long moment. Brow wrinkled, mouth open, breath kinda in suspension:;he spoke.

“Really?” he said.

“Yes, really Mister Hardy,” she said.

“Oh, my God! That’s wonderful,” he said, suddenly coming to life.

“Do you know?” he said.

“Next January,” she said, “and no, but it feels like a boy. But no way to know quite yet.”

“Oh, my God,” he said repeating himself.

The conversation went on for some time. Then they went to bed. The sex would be good, he was sure, and it had been a few days.

And the sex was good, and then the talking and the nonsense, and all that was on the verbal agenda.

I had to smile thinking about my situation. I likely didn’t make as much geld as Mister Hardy did; I was sure of that, but I was doing good. I’d just been working, and drinking beer with Lance and Milt, well, when I wasn’t too exhausted to do anything including going out to the Pasture at the end of the work day.

One somewhat odd thing was the fact that Costley and Michaels offices were near where it all started, my life’s adventures that is: near Harmon T. Solis school.

Since my last meet up with the man who stole my family, that with the connivance of my now ex-wife, had been in late June. It was now September: the beginning of the school year. I’d liked school back in the day. But now, I was just getting along. No family, no real purpose in my life, but I was giving the firm my best efforts and they did appreciate me.

The truck that Milt had gotten me was running good, and I was just now passing the school when I saw it. The crazy ass driver of some four-door sedan, and he was speeding. It looked like an older man maybe, probably trying to get to work just like me.

It was the 5th and the first day of school the paper had said: It was a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day ‘95. What I also saw were some kids, young ones, and a couple parents herding them along. The guy in the car was talking on a car phone. He was going to hit the group crossing in front of him. I sped up hard core. I rammed him just as he was about to kill five or six people. My head bounced off the windshield of my truck. Jesus it hurt! I saw that the car that I’d hit had ripped a hydrant clean out of the ground. And then I wasn’t seeing anything.

It was dark. Had to be night. I heard the beeping. Shit I was in the hospital. It was all coming back to me. I’d hit a car, with my truck. Fuck!

I was awake and some guys were looking at me, staring at me. Uniforms. Cops.

“Mister Wyatt? The shorter of the two said.

“Yes,” I kinda squeaked. The man smiled. Okay good; I wasn’t being arrested.

“Glad you could make it, sir,” he said. I could actually feel my brow wrinkle.

“Wha...” I said.

“You’re kind of a hero, I guess,” he said.

“Huh?” I said.

“You apparently saved a half dozen folks from being killed. The cruiser that’s stationed by the school in the morning saw everything. Saw you speed up to knock the sedan away from the folks in the crosswalk. Oh, and apart from the drunk driving charge; there’s the matter of the fire hydrant he took out; well, that the side his car took out, but you do get credit for some of that!” he said, and he was still smiling.