Chapter 43

“I REMEMBER. I just forget sometimes.” Will was allowed to be elevated slightly so he was almost sitting upright. He looked curiously at his daughter. It had been a risk to bring Peg to see him, but Dot thought perhaps seeing another familiar face would jog his memory some more. Peg couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t remember her name.

“I’m Peg!” she said a little indignantly.

“Of course you are!” he answered. “My, look at how much you’ve grown, little girl.”

“I’m a big girl now, all grown up,” she said happily.

“You sure are.” He looked up at Dot. “What was your name again?” Dot choked back a tear.

“I’m your wife, Dot,” she said. “Don’t you remember me, Will?”

“Oh, yeah. I remember. There was a farm. I sure love to drive that tractor.” Almost without considering it he turned to Dot. “You sure are pretty. What was your name again?”

“Dot. I’m Dot, Will. You can just call me Honey if you want. I’m still your honey.”

“Honey. That’s sweet. I’ll remember next time. I just forget sometimes. I’m awful tired now. I hope you come back to visit again.” Will closed his eyes and fell asleep. Dot kissed him softly and Peg put a peck on his cheek. Then they left the room hand in hand.

“Daddy is still pretty sick,” Dot explained to her daughter. “We should let him rest. Let’s go home now. It’s been a big day with the basketball game and all the excitement.”

“Swish!” Peg said, skipping and throwing a pretend ball. “It was fun. My sisters won the game.”

“They sure did. We’ll tell Den-Den all about it when we get home. He’ll want to know you saw it.”

“And I saw Daddy.” Peg walked silently next to her mother and got in the car for the ride home. She fastened her seatbelt like she’d always been told to. They rode quietly for a few minutes when Peg said, “He looked like my daddy. I don’t know, though.” She soon became fascinated with a piece of paper on the floor that she kept trying to move with her toe. Dot drove on in silence.

Dennis and Natalie walked into a quiet house. “Mom?” he called. He went to the kitchen door and checked the garage. “Car’s gone. She must not have gotten home yet. I wonder if she stopped to see Dad.”

“That’s possible. But she had Peg with her, didn’t she?” Natalie asked. They went down to his bedroom to put Natalie’s case there and Dennis tossed the bag of uniforms in the laundry room as they walked by.

“She said she’d take Peg to the game. We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. Natalie turned around and wrapped her arms around Dennis. She kissed him sweetly and increasingly passionately. They only stayed standing a couple of minutes. Natalie pulled Dennis back toward the bed and fell across it with him as they kept kissing. “Natalie? We shouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“We’re alone, Dennis. Make love to me.” They continued kissing and before long, Natalie’s shirt was under her armpits and her bra was unfastened. Dennis felt her beautiful sixteen-year-old breasts and bent his lips to worship them. As he flicked her nipple with his tongue, Natalie struggled to get her shirt all the way off. She’d just succeeded when they heard the garage door open.

“Oh, shoot!” Dennis said, pulling away from her.

“Yeah,” Natalie agreed. She pulled her bra closed and Dennis turned her shirt right side out. As she pulled it on, he tucked in his shirt and they went out of the bedroom and ducked into the laundry room when his mom called out.

“Dennis? Are you home?”

“In the laundry room, Mom. Be right there.” He dumped the uniforms out on the floor while Nat finished tucking herself in. They walked out to the living room and Peg hugged each of them. “Just got back a few minutes ago and I was getting ready to start the uniforms,” he explained unnecessarily.

“That’s nice. Oh, hello, Number One. Are you staying with us tonight?”

“Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Enders,” she answered with the standard reply Brenda had taught them all. “I’ll start getting dinner ready. I’m afraid we ate a lot of pizza at the celebration, so I’ll make something light.”

“That sounds lovely, dear. Dennis, come here. Your glasses are all smudged. I don’t expect you can see at all with them so dirty. Come to the kitchen and I’ll use dish detergent on them. How did you even walk with them like this?” She took the glasses off her son and ran hot water while he sat at the kitchen table, unable to see anything. He was pretty sure his glasses got smudged when he was making out with Natalie and probably smeared them against her skin. He clamped his knees together with the memory.

“I saw Daddy,” Peg announced.

“That’s wonderful,” Dennis said, turning toward his sister. “How is he doing?”

“I think it was Daddy, but he didn’t know who I was. I had to tell him. Isn’t that funny?” Peg laughed.

“He was ... um ... probably playing a game with you. Remember playing peek-a-boo?” He put his hands over his eyes. “I can’t see you. Where did you go.” Peg pulled his hands away from his eyes.

“I’m right here,” she giggled.

“Oh. I think I need new glasses,” he said, taking off an imaginary pair and blowing on them to wipe. Before he was done with his little mime, his mother put his glasses back on his nose. “Oh! There you are! I thought you were hiding.”

Peg giggled. “Game?” she asked.

“Sure. Bring it here to the table and I’ll play with you while Natalie makes dinner,” he said. Peg skipped out of the room to the game closet. Dennis leaned toward his mother. “Did Dad really not recognize her?” he whispered.

“Oh, Dennis,” Dot whimpered. “I have to remind him who I am every time he looks at me. I don’t know if we’ll ever have him back. His mind ... isn’t working right.”

“Oh, damn,” Dennis breathed. “I want to go see him. Maybe he’ll recognize me.”

“We’ll go in tomorrow morning. Or whenever your girlfriend leaves,” Dot said. Natalie turned to them.

“Why don’t you go and I’ll stay here with Peg. We get along great and I’ll play games or read to her until you get back,” Nat said.

“Number One, you are a wonderful girl. I’m so glad you are Dennis’s girlfriend. We’ll do that,” Dot said. Peg put Chutes and Ladders on the table and they began setting up the board. Dot got up and went to look over Natalie’s shoulder. “What are you making, dear?”

“Oh, it’s just really simple. Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches,” Natalie said. “I was going to prepare some carrot and celery sticks to have with it.”

“Let me do that part and you do the soup and sandwiches. I really need to get back in the practice of cooking and cleaning.” She leaned close to Natalie and whispered, “Are you okay? I know first times can be difficult.” Dot had spoken to Lily at the game and both came to the conclusion that Natalie would spend the night alone with Dennis tonight.

“Um ... we haven’t done it. Yet.”

“Oh. I’m sorry we got home so soon. I should have taken Peg to Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Dot said.

“No. That’s not necessary. We aren’t in a rush or anything. We can wait.” In fact, the tingling in Natalie’s pussy when she even thought about making love to Dennis made her hurry a little. She knew she needed to slow down and remember every moment of this. Dot just nodded wisely.

Half way up the Lone Little Path they met Old Mother West Wind going to her home behind the hill. “Did you find the Best Thing in the World?” asked Old Mother West Wind.

“NO!” shouted Striped Chipmunk and Peter Rabbit and Bobby Coon and Jimmy Skunk and Reddy Fox all together.

“Johnny Chuck has it,” said Old Mother West Wind. “It is being happy with the things you have and not wanting things which someone else has. And it is called Con-tent-ment.”

Dennis closed the book and handed it to Peg who took it to the bookshelf. She came back to kiss her brother, her mother, and even Natalie. “Love you, Peg,” they all said. She ran off down the hall to go to bed.

“She runs everywhere she goes, doesn’t she?” Natalie giggled watching after her.

“She gets very impatient when she has to walk next to me while we’re shopping,” Dot sighed. “She’d run up and down every aisle in the grocery store if she was set loose.”

“The exercise is good for her,” Dennis said. “It’s good for all of us.”

“Don’t feel like you need to stay up late with me,” Dot said. “I’ll just watch TV for a while and then go to bed.” Dennis knew that she’d be asleep in that chair when he got up in the morning. But, still, he didn’t want to appear too eager to get to bed. He led Natalie back to the kitchen.

“How about a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie before bed?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Natalie said nervously. Now that she’d been waiting for three hours, she was looking for other ways to delay things, as well. “That’s a good idea. I’m not really sleepy yet.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Probably just the adrenaline still in us from the game. This will relax us.” He put water in the tea kettle to boil and prepared two mugs with Swiss Miss. He poked his head in the living room. “Would you like a cup of tea, Mom?” he asked.

“Are you making a little something for the two of you?” she said. “I’d take a mug of Sleepytime Tea if you have enough water for it.”

“Of course, Mom.” He prepared her cup as well and waited for the water to boil. He turned to look at Natalie and found her staring at him. They both started giggling. He poured water in the cups and stirred the chocolate. He took his mother the tea. She thanked him and sat staring at the TV with the cup warming her hands.

Dennis spent a minute looking at his mom from the kitchen door. He knew she was still a young woman. He’d gotten past the idea that all adults were old people. She was just thirty-seven and his dad was thirty-eight. But somehow, his mother looked frail. He wondered if she even slept when she was in her chair. Her neatly made bed had not been slept in since the night Natalie’s mother had stayed over. He backed into the kitchen and Natalie wrapped her arms around him.