Chapter 5

Valentine’s Day, the second anniversary of NOT being able to lay on my honey, was a lay on my honey day, declared by my honey. She even took a pic, with our heads and faces cut off, naturally, and sent it to Nurse Faerie who had left for California the day before.

We received a note back saying she giggled when she opened it and Harold’s mother asked what the hullabaloo was about. She told us she explained to the woman she had some friends that were working on relationship issues after a horrific personal event, and now, it’s obvious they are on the other side. Wendy said she explained the events of the last few years and Valentine’s Day two years ago, then showed her the picture.

“Good for them. Love conquers all,” the old lady said.

Wendy texted back and told us what she said, and said they both laughed, then she deleted it. Then she sent us another text. “Thank you for sending me that. It means you’re OK and I don’t need to be there for you to smother her, Charlie, but Jessie, love, I still need to be there to kiss you. And him. And for you both to kiss me. I want and need that from both of you. Be well, be true, and remember: one man, one woman, as long as you want me.”

Jessie answered with just a few words. “We want you.” Followed by three heart emoticons.

One more time with feeling. Craig Walker filed another case against us. Against Justine, and in effect Jessica, actually, this time saying that he was entitled to part of Justine’s estate because they shared a child. It seems there is a rule somewhere, in some obscure court case, in Illinois, where he met some shyster. The ruling says under certain circumstances he would be entitled to part of the estate. It actually went to court. In our home state. We were to find out during the process, that his parents knew nothing about it until after it was over with. Had we known how things would go, that would have been obvious to a first-year chemistry student, or history student, let alone a lawyer regardless of how much education they’d achieved.

Jason put a team of lawyers together, including a guy with a four-thousand-dollar suit who hailed from Chicago, and a couple from near home, to look the case over. They penned a response for the inquiry, had a couple of cases cited from around home, and in Federal court, then the fun part started.

They were deposed. Walker, and Jessica. The shyster asked some pretty personal questions about Jessica’s mother and her past. That kind of allowed her some self-granted leeway. As Jessica was telling the story, she mentioned her mother told her that when she arrived in the Walkers’ basement, Craig Walker was sucking Willie Bonner’s cock, so she had to interrupt them to tell Craig she was pregnant with his child. Before Jessie was interrupted, she went on to explain that her mother was a virgin until Craig Walker took her cherry and how her mother told her it hurt like hell that first time. The room came unglued with laughter from the defendants and hollering and screaming from the plaintiffs.

Walker got incensed and said it was a lie, and that since that bitch Justine was dead, what she saw in the basement didn’t really happen. Not to mentions, since all that was proven in the settlement already, out of court, it couldn’t be used either. His shyster lawyer looked at him like he’d been smacked in the mouth. We heard him ask, “Settlement? What fucking settlement? You never told me about any fucking settlement! Craig, you’re a fucking moron.”

The laughing started again. I didn’t know lawyers could laugh that hard, but at twelve hundred bucks an hour, I didn’t care if they laughed or cried, as long as they won.

It was all on tape. All of it. It was all on that paper thing that spits out the top of the recorder’s machine, too. He just couldn’t keep his trap shut.

My lawyers insisted on an injunction to keep Walker away from us and not to bring any more trivial suits against us. It was granted. He was also handed a bill by the District Court Judge’s Clerk for court costs ... AND defense costs. Nineteen thousand, two hundred dollars, just for Jason and his friends. It was only about two grand for the court costs.

In his anger, he’d forgotten, or at least misplaced the memory, that Justine’s parents had won an out of court settlement back in 2005 for three hundred thousand dollars. I was told about it by Justine once, and by Jessica later. It named and confirmed Walker as the absentee noncustodial father, without parental rights, Clarence and Linda as grandparents, should they choose at some point to contact the child, and Justine as Jessica’s only custodial parent. The money was in Jessica Marie Tillotson’s name only and would be provided to her by the court on her twentieth birthday if living apart from her mother, Justine, at the time she turned twenty, or twenty-three if they were residing together. If she preceded the date in death, the next of kin, but not a Walker, would receive the money immediately. Strange stipulation, but there it was.

In any case, just a few months after that incident, my wife came into a bunch of money. I was going to bring up her needing to have her own bank accounts, but she really did have her own when the money was deposited. She just hadn’t gotten around to taking her mom’s name off of them yet. I still remembered the last time it came up and decided to let sleeping dogs lie.

In September, Jessica was three weeks into her third year of college, almost caught up with the other students in her age group, her peers, if you will, taking an extra course, an easy one here and there to catch up. We got a message from our pixie faerie elf asking if there was still room in our hearts and our bed for her. Of course, she got a “YES, YES, YES! PLEASE COME HOME!” From my wife.

I also texted her from my phone. One word. “Always.”

She group texted us. “I’ll be home soon. Harold’s mother passed away yesterday and as soon as they get all of the necessary affairs taken care of, they are putting me on a plane home.”

“NO!” I texted back. “We will come get you. I need to know when and what airport.”

“??? I will let you know? Never mind ... Calling.”

My phone rang. I handed it to the elven princess pixie faerie’s younger and littler lover. “Jessie here. (Pause.) Hey, love. (Pause.) You knew he had an airplane. (Pause.) Yes, you did. He left us alone a couple of times ... Never mind. He has one and he uses it. He wants to come pick you up and bring you home. (Pause.) OK, I’m standing by. (Pause.) Saturday? (Pause.) San Jose? Charlie is nodding and saying that will be fine.”

I gave Jessie some pertinent input and left them to it.

“Oh, he said to tell Harold the civil aviation gate. He said noonish at the main terminal. We gain a couple of hours. (Pause.) See you then, Wendy. (Pause.) We love you, too, baby. Don’t forget that. Ever. (Pause.) Yes. (Pause.) No, it’s not. It’s real. Don’t doubt that, Wendy. He loves you. (Pause.) OK. Bye.” She handed me my phone. “She was afraid it was a crush. A flash in the pan. You don’t work that way. She’ll see. This is so cool. I’ll have my faerie princess back in a few days! Yippee.”

My wife was on cloud nine. She was also on me. Like white on rice again. The slutty little cowgirl was back in town and enjoying the ride. So was the bronco.

We flew into San Jose, were led to the civil side and as we pulled up to the terminal, we saw Wendy there with Mister Harold. She was dressed very nicely in a white blouse, dark skirt, hose, heels, and a prominent black choker with a cameo pendant. She smiled at us meekly. And after hugs and kisses for her from each of us, I turned to Harold where he was standing.

He seemed like a nice guy, and we were a few minutes early, so I went over and introduced my wife and myself to him. I told him I was sorry for his loss and could sympathize since we’d just lost Jessica’s mother recently. I also told him that Wendy really liked his mother, she’d told us as much, and thanked him for bringing our girlfriend out to the airport for us.

After the introductions, Wendy and Jessica started talking and drifted off several yards by themselves.

“Charlie, thank you for picking her up. This side of the airport is tons easier than the other side. I come here once in a while for work. Our firm has a little Citation in that hangar there.” He pointed at a hangar a couple of doors down. “Also, Charlie, thanks for the kind words. Mom had been terminal for seven or eight years and outsmarting death at every corner. She was a good old broad. She loved Wendy with a passion and asked that she be given this.” He handed me an envelope. It was more than just one page of something. “I was going to give it to her at the airport when we put her on the plane but wait ‘til she’s back home, then do it. It might keep the ramp out here from flooding due to the tears. Take care of her Charlie, she’s one in a million.”

“We know, Harold. We know. Thank you.” I put the envelope in my back pocket, shook his hand and after he hugged Wendy again and kissed her forehead, he left, with tears in his eyes.

The refueling team was about done, so I went in the terminal building and when they had the total, they ran my card and off we went. Wendy said she didn’t realize I had my own plane. She said, “I thought when you said you were flying to where ever, it was in someone else’s plane.”

Jessie cracked up. “Thet’s whatcha git fer thankin’ darlin’. Oh, God, Wendy, baby, I’m so glad to see you again. Texting just doesn’t cut it when you want a hug. Thank you for coming home. Can you stay a while?”

“My name’s not in the hat right now. I might take some time off if you two will have me.”

“We’d love to have you for as long as you want to take off. We don’t want you in trouble, but ... We want you home.”

“Done deal,” I added. By this time, I’d done my preflight, seated the copilot, started the engines, and was about to ask Wendy to have a seat and strap her gorgeous little heinie in.

She kissed me on the side of my forehead, then kissed my wife’s temple. “Take me home.” Her smile said it all. She took her seat and we took her home. We were supposed to take her north to see her parents, but they were in Japan on a little vacation with a group of other people. We’d try for that later.

We went out for dinner at a nice place between the airport and our house, and I handed her the envelope, telling her Harold asked me to give it to her. She opened it, read through the few pages, and cried on her bread. She cried on her salad. She calmed, then told us about Harold’s mother. She said, “Good for them,” about us. We remembered that. She was sharp as a tack right up until her body couldn’t take another breath. Wendy was in awe of the woman. Her exploits and her record in the military, her stories of days gone by, the end of the war, flying as a bomber ferry pilot in the Women’s Army Air Corps. All of it. Harold’s mother left her fifty thousand dollars and the deed to a property in the Colorado Rockies, just above Colorado Springs. The property taxes had been paid in advance up until 2045. It was all Wendy’s. Her husband built it back in the sixties and had it renovated a couple of times. Harold had property in the California mountains left to them by his wife’s parents. He couldn’t keep both up the way they needed, so his mother did the only sane thing she could come up with. She gave it to her precious guardian angel, Wendy Ann Williams.

The explanation in the three-page letter from both Mrs. H.J. Jordan, Sr. and Harold Jordan, Junior, brought tears back to Wendy’s eyes. She cried in her dessert then we took her home, undressed her, and put her to bed between us. We just held her and petted her until she cried herself to sleep.

Sunday night she was able to watch a movie with us, then on Monday morning, she helped me fix Jessica some coffee and breakfast, kissing her on the way out the door toward school, and thanking Jessie for keeping her.

We were alone, sitting there looking at each other over the table.

“Wendy, we’re not keeping you. You’re home. I thought we had this discussion.” She looked at me, her bottom lip started quivering, and the next thing I knew, I had an elf in my lap crying and telling me how much she loved us. I had some things I needed to get done in my office, so I picked her up, took her in with me and sat back down in my office chair, with her in my lap.