Chapter 7

Clean and warm and dry Paul and Andi sat on the couch gazing at the fire the same way they did 24 hours ago, just over the hiss and pop of the fire in the stove Christmas carols played on a piano emitted from Paul’s blue tooth speaker and occasionally they could hear Wonka grunt in his sleep upstairs in the loft.

“We’re getting married! Now what do we do?” asked Andi, as she closed her laptop. She just sent a reply to an email from The Staff and Management of the University Hospital, Pulmonology Dept. It was just three words; “He said yes.”

A sudden despair overwhelmed her. “You won’t like it there, and I can’t move here, I have too much in Denver,” she leaned on Paul’s shoulder. “Maybe it won’t stop snowing and we can stay here forever. Won’t that be nice daddy?”

“Don’t stress yourself over the details baby,” answered Paul, who tangled his finger in Andi’s hair. “We have the rest of our lives to figure it out.”

“Nana will understand, maybe. But Mother ... and Frank, he’ll be angry, he’ll come after me...”

“What about your dad?” Paul asked.

“Father?” she shook her head and frowned. “I call him that only because mother insists. He’s just some random guy with money she married years ago. My real dad died in Iraq serving his country. What about your folks?”

“Dead and gone. They came from nothing and built a thriving business that allowed them to leave John and me a couple of properties; one in West Palm Beach and the other in Jupiter Florida. The house in West Palm is a rental, so that is going to make us some money that we will share with John and Macy, but the house in Jupiter we keep. My brother and I use it as a vacation place. I was planning to head down to Jupiter after the New Year, or maybe for the New Year. You would look so good on a sailboat.”

Andi thought again of sunning on a sailboat, this time topless, the twins running up and down the deck in oversized life jackets, Paul at the tiller, and before she knew what she was doing she said “Yes, let’s do it.” Then she thought of Frank. “No no no no ... We can’t, it’s just ... Frank will..., “she gulped for air. “Just forget about it. Mother and father are one thing, but Frank will raise a stink about the twins, he might do something to me, and them.”

Paul stopped her with a finger to the lips, which he then kissed. He was bothered by the way she called her parents ‘Father’ and ‘Mother,’ it was creepy. It should be “mom” and “dad.” But to be living in fear of the man who abused you so much so many years after he was out of the picture is wrong. “Frank is a jamoke, he’s the least of your problems. Now me, I’m planning to retire, you’ll have me on your hands twenty-four seven. I plan on home schooling the girls and teaching them right good American English. And I might have a lesson or two for that jamoke.”

Andi smiled behind her tears. “Define ‘jamoke.”

“A clumsy loser who is incapable of performing normal human tasks.”

“That’s Frank,” sighed Andi. Why was she so elated a few minutes ago and so down now? Orgasmic bi-polar? Bliss hangover? She wondered.

“Look doll, dis is Noo Yawk, we have a way of dealing wit jamokes that is best left unseen and even better left unspoken. We also have a way of honoring our veterans, one of which happens to be me, and the people who help our veterans, one of which happens to be you. And if honoring a veteran entails re-educating a jamoke, so be it.” His tough guy Damon Runyon accent made Andi laugh despite her fears.

Suddenly, Paul grabbed Andi’s cell phone and started looking through it. “Give me that, what are you doing?” she tried to grab her phone out of his hands, but his arms were too long. They tussled and laughed as he held the phone out at arm’s length and searched the phone while she clawed, climbed, and tried to get it back.

“I’m just looking for your porn stash,” he grinned and kept the phone out of her reach.

“That’s on my laptop,” she laughed and tried to grab the phone.

He pressed the send button, and a ringing started signaling a video call. “This call should help you some,” he said. He held the phone up high so that the person who answered the phone would be looking down on the two of them tussling on the couch. Suddenly, a bleary looking woman answered the phone. “Good evening Miss Elinore, thank you for answering,” said Paul to the sleepy-looking woman on the FaceTime call.

“What in the...? Little One, what have you gotten yourself in to now?”

“Nana?” cried Andi, and she grabbed Paul’s arm. “Oh Nana, you won’t believe what happened!”

“Some nice fella just called me on your phone and it looks like you’re in a wrestling match. I think you may need a talk with Nana. Tell me all about it Andi,” the sweet old woman on the phone advised.

Paul released the phone to Andi who held it so her Nana could see her better and she told her about it, about the sudden snowstorm, about getting lost, and sliding off the road, and calling 911, and this weird old guy on a tractor who rescued her and her babies and kept them warm and safe and dry in his cabin, who loved her girls and cooked like a chef and had a dozen degrees and who made her feel so loved that she is now going to marry him after knowing him only 40 hours. “His name is Doctor Paul Jarecki, he’s a cardiologist and a retired Air Force colonel, and he knows Uff Da!”